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diff --git a/old/clovs10.txt b/old/clovs10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7eeb8f4 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/clovs10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6854 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Chronicles of Clovis, by Saki [H. H. Munro + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + +*It must legally be the first thing seen when opening the book.* +In fact, our legal advisors said we can't even change margins. + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.06/12/01*END* +[Portions of this header are copyright (C) 2001 by Michael S. Hart +and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] +[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales +of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or +software or any other related product without express permission.] + + + + + +Etext prepared for Gutenberg by Richard E Henrich Jr +< rhenrich@erols.com > + + + + + +THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVIS + +by "SAKI" (H. H. MUNRO) + +with an Introduction by A. A. MILNE + + + + + TO THE LYNX KITTEN, +WITH HIS RELUCTANTLY GIVEN CONSENT, + THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY + DEDICATED + +H. H. M. + +August, 1911 + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + + +There are good things which we want to share with the world and +good things which we want to keep to ourselves. The secret of our +favourite restaurant, to take a case, is guarded jealously from +all but a few intimates; the secret, to take a contrary case, of +our infallible remedy for seasickness is thrust upon every +traveller we meet, even if he be no more than a casual +acquaintance about to cross the Serpentine. So with our books. +There are dearly loved books of which we babble to a neighbour at +dinner, insisting that she shall share our delight in them; and +there are books, equally dear to us, of which we say nothing, +fearing lest the praise of others should cheapen the glory of our +discovery. The books of "Saki" were, for me at least, in the +second class. + +It was in the WESTMINSTER GAZETTE that I discovered him (I like to +remember now) almost as soon as he was discoverable. Let us spare +a moment, and a tear, for those golden days in the early nineteen +hundreds, when there were five leisurely papers of an evening in +which the free-lance might graduate, and he could speak of his +Alma Mater, whether the GLOBE or the PALL MALL, with as much pride +as, he never doubted, the GLOBE or the PALL MALL would speak one +day of him. Myself but lately down from ST. JAMES', I was not too +proud to take some slight but pitying interest in men of other +colleges. The unusual name of a freshman up at WESTMINSTER +attracted my attention; I read what he had to say; and it was only +by reciting rapidly with closed eyes the names of our own famous +alumni, beginning confidently with Barrie and ending, now very +doubtfully, with myself, that I was able to preserve my +equanimity. Later one heard that this undergraduate from overseas +had gone up at an age more advanced than customary; and just as +Cambridge men have been known to complain of the maturity of +Oxford Rhodes scholars, so one felt that this WESTMINSTER free- +lance in the thirties was no fit competitor for the youth of other +colleges. Indeed, it could not compete. + +Well, I discovered him, but only to the few, the favoured, did I +speak of him. It may have been my uncertainty (which still +persists) whether he called himself Sayki, Sahki or Sakki which +made me thus ungenerous of his name, or it may have been the +feeling that the others were not worthy of him; but how refreshing +it was when some intellectually blown-up stranger said "Do you +ever read Saki?" to reply, with the same pronunciation and even +greater condescension: "Saki! He has been my favourite author for +years!" + +A strange exotic creature, this Saki, to us many others who were +trying to do it too. For we were so domestic, he so terrifyingly +cosmopolitan. While we were being funny, as planned, with collar- +studs and hot-water bottles, he was being much funnier with +werwolves and tigers. Our little dialogues were between John and +Mary; his, and how much better, between Bertie van Tahn and the +Baroness. Even the most casual intruder into one of his sketches, +as it might be our Tomkins, had to be called Belturbet or de Ropp, +and for his hero, weary man-of-the-world at seventeen, nothing +less thrilling than Clovis Sangrail would do. In our envy we may +have wondered sometimes if it were not much easier to be funny +with tigers than with collar-studs; if Saki's careless cruelty, +that strange boyish insensitiveness of his, did not give him an +unfair start in the pursuit of laughter. It may have been so; +but, fortunately, our efforts to be funny in the Saki manner have +not survived to prove it. + +What is Saki's manner, what his magic talisman? Like every artist +worth consideration, he had no recipe. If his exotic choice of +subject was often his strength, it was often his weakness; if his +insensitiveness carried him through, at times, to victory, it +brought him, at times, to defeat. I do not think that he has that +"mastery of the CONTE"--in this book at least--which some have +claimed for him. Such mastery infers a passion for tidiness which +was not in the boyish Saki's equipment. He leaves loose ends +everywhere. Nor in his dialogue, delightful as it often is, funny +as it nearly always is, is he the supreme master; too much does it +become monologue judiciously fed, one character giving and the +other taking. But in comment, in reference, in description, in +every development of his story, he has a choice of words, a "way +of putting things" which is as inevitably his own vintage as, once +tasted, it becomes the private vintage of the connoisseur. + +Let us take a sample or two of "Saki, 1911." + +"The earlier stages of the dinner had worn off. The wine lists +had been consulted, by some with the blank embarrassment of a +schoolboy suddenly called upon to locate a Minor Prophet in the +tangled hinterland of the Old Testament, by others with the severe +scrutiny which suggests that they have visited most of the higher- +priced wines in their own homes and probed their family +weaknesses." + +"Locate" is the pleasant word here. Still more satisfying, in the +story of the man who was tattooed "from collar-bone to waist-line +with a glowing representation of the Fall of Icarus," is the word +"privilege": + +"The design when finally developed was a slight disappointment to +Monsieur Deplis, who had suspected Icarus of being a fortress +taken by Wallenstein in the Thirty Years' War, but he was more +than satisfied with the execution of the work, which was acclaimed +by all who had the privilege of seeing it as Pincini's +masterpiece." + +This story, THE BACKGROUND, and MRS PACKLETIDE'S TIGER seem to me +to be the masterpieces of this book. In both of them Clovis +exercises, needlessly, his titular right of entry, but he can be +removed without damage, leaving Saki at his best and most +characteristic, save that he shows here, in addition to his own +shining qualities, a compactness and a finish which he did not +always achieve. With these I introduce you to him, confident that +ten minutes of his conversation, more surely than any words of +mine, will have given him the freedom of your house. + +A. A. MILNE. + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +ESMÉ +THE MATCH-MAKER +TOBERMORY +MRS. PACKLETIDE'S TIGER +THE STAMPEDING OF LADY BASTABLE +THE BACKGROUND +HERMANN THE IRASCIBLE--A STORY OF THE GREAT WEEP +THE UNREST-CURE +THE JESTING OF ARLINGTON STRINGHAM +SREDNI VASHTAR +ADRIAN +THE CHAPLET +THE QUEST +WRATISLAV +THE EASTER EGG +FILBOID STUDGE, THE STORY OF A MOUSE THAT HELPED +THE MUSIC ON THE HILL +THE STORY OF ST. VESPALUUS +THE WAY TO THE DAIRY +THE PEACE OFFERING +THE PEACE OF MOWSLE BARTON +THE TALKING-OUT OF TARRINGTON +THE HOUNDS OF FATE +THE RECESSIONAL +A MATTER OF SENTIMENT +THE SECRET SIX OF SEPTIMUS BROPE +"MINISTERS OF GRACE" +THE REMOULDING OF GROBY LINGTON +ACKNOWLEDGMENT + + + + +ESMÉ + + + +"All hunting stories are the same," said Clovis; "just as all Turf +stories are the same, and all--" + +"My hunting story isn't a bit like any you've ever heard," said +the Baroness. "It happened quite a while ago, when I was about +twenty-three. I wasn't living apart from my husband then; you +see, neither of us could afford to make the other a separate +allowance. In spite of everything that proverbs may say, poverty +keeps together more homes than it breaks up. But we always hunted +with different packs. All this has nothing to do with the story." + +"We haven't arrived at the meet yet. I suppose there was a meet," +said Clovis. + +"Of course there was a meet," said the Baroness; all the usual +crowd were there, especially Constance Broddle. Constance is one +of those strapping florid girls that go so well with autumn +scenery or Christmas decorations in church. 'I feel a +presentiment that something dreadful is going to happen,' she said +to me; 'am I looking pale?' + +"She was looking about as pale as a beetroot that has suddenly +heard bad news. + +"'You're looking nicer than usual,' I said, 'but that's so easy +for you.' Before she had got the right bearings of this remark we +had settled down to business; hounds had found a fox lying out in +some gorse-bushes." + +"I knew it," said Clovis, "in every fox-hunting story that I've +ever heard there's been a fox and some gorse-bushes." + +"Constance and I were well mounted," continued the Baroness +serenely, "and we had no difficulty in keeping ourselves in the +first flight, though it was a fairly stiff run. Towards the +finish, however, we must have held rather too independent a line, +for we lost the hounds, and found ourselves plodding aimlessly +along miles away from anywhere. It was fairly exasperating, and +my temper was beginning to let itself go by inches, when on +pushing our way through an accommodating hedge we were gladdened +by the sight of hounds in full cry in a hollow just beneath us. + +"'There they go,' cried Constance, and then added in a gasp, 'In +Heaven's name, what are they hunting?' + +"It was certainly no mortal fox. It stood more than twice as +high, had a short, ugly head, and an enormous thick neck. + +"'It's a hyaena,' I cried; 'it must have escaped from Lord +Pabham's Park.' + +"At that moment the hunted beast turned and faced its pursuers, +and the hounds (there were only about six couple of them) stood +round in a half-circle and looked foolish. Evidently they had +broken away from the rest of the pack on the trail of this alien +scent, and were not quite sure how to treat their quarry now they +had got him. + +"The hyaena hailed our approach with unmistakable relief and +demonstrations of friendliness. It had probably been accustomed +to uniform kindness from humans, while its first experience of a +pack of hounds had left a bad impression. The hounds looked more +than ever embarrassed as their quarry paraded its sudden intimacy +with us, and the faint toot of a horn in the distance was seized +on as a welcome signal for unobtrusive departure. Constance and I +and the hyaena were left alone in the gathering twilight + +"'What are we to do?' asked Constance. + +"'What a person you are for questions,' I said. + +"'Well, we can't stay here all night with a hyaena,' she retorted. + +"'I don't know what your ideas of comfort are,' I said; 'but I +shouldn't think of staying here all night even without a hyaena. +My home may be an unhappy one, but at least it has hot and cold +water laid on, and domestic service, and other conveniences which +we shouldn't find here. We had better make for that ridge of +trees to the right; I imagine the Crowley road is just beyond.' + +"We trotted off slowly along a faintly marked cart-track, with the +beast following cheerfully at our heels. + +"'What on earth are we to do with the hyaena?' came the inevitable +question. + +"'What does one generally do with hyaenas?' I asked crossly. + +"'I've never had anything to do with one before,' said Constance. + +"'Well, neither have I. If we even knew its sex we might give it +a name. Perhaps we might call it Esmé. That would do in either +case.' + +"There was still sufficient daylight for us to distinguish wayside +objects, and our listless spirits gave an upward perk as we came +upon a small half-naked gipsy brat picking blackberries from a +low-growing bush. The sudden apparition of two horsewomen and a +hyaena set it off crying, and in any case we should scarcely have +gleaned any useful geographical information from that source; but +there was a probability that we might strike a gipsy encampment +somewhere along our route. We rode on hopefully but uneventfully +for another mile or so. + +"'I wonder what that child was doing there,' said Constance +presently. + +"'Picking blackberries. Obviously.' + +"'I don't like the way it cried,' pursued Constance; 'somehow its +wail keeps ringing in my ears.' + +"I did not chide Constance for her morbid fancies; as a matter of +fact the same sensation, of being pursued by a persistent fretful +wail, had been forcing itself on my rather over-tired nerves. For +company's sake I hulloed to Esmé, who had lagged somewhat behind. +With a few springy bounds he drew up level, and then shot past us. + +"The wailing accompaniment was explained. The gipsy child was +firmly, and I expect painfully, held in his jaws. + +"'Merciful Heaven screamed Constance, 'what on earth shall we do? +What are we to do?' + +"I am perfectly certain that at the Last Judgment Constance will +ask more questions than any of the examining Seraphs. + +"'Can't we do something?' she persisted tearfully, as Esmé +cantered easily along in front of our tired horses. + +"Personally I was doing everything that occurred to me at the +moment. I stormed and scolded and coaxed in English and French +and gamekeeper language; I made absurd, ineffectual cuts in the +air with my thongless hunting-crop; I hurled my sandwich case at +the brute; in fact, I really don't know what more I could have +done. And still we lumbered on through the deepening dusk, with +that dark uncouth shape lumbering ahead of us, and a drone of +lugubrious music floating in our ears. Suddenly Esmé bounded +aside into some thick bushes, where we could not follow; the wail +rose to a shriek and then stopped altogether. This part of the +story I always hurry over, because it is really rather horrible. +When the beast joined us again, after an absence of a few minutes, +there was an air of patient understanding about him, as though he +knew that he had done something of which we disapproved, but which +he felt to be thoroughly justifiable. + +"'How can you let that ravening beast trot by your side?' asked +Constance. She was looking more than ever like an albino +beetroot. + +"'In the first place, I can't prevent it,' I said; 'and in the +second place, whatever else he may be, I doubt if he's ravening at +the present moment.' + +"Constance shuddered. 'Do you think the poor little thing +suffered much?' came another of her futile questions. + +"'The indications were all that way,' I said; 'on the other hand, +of course, it may have been crying from sheer temper. Children +sometimes do.' + +"It was nearly pitch-dark when we emerged suddenly into the +highroad. A flash of lights and the whir of a motor went past us +at the same moment at uncomfortably close quarters. A thud and a +sharp screeching yell followed a second later. The car drew up, +and when I had ridden back to the spot I found a young man bending +over a dark motionless mass lying by the roadside. + +"'You have killed my Esmé I exclaimed bitterly. + +"'I'm so awfully sorry,' said the young man; I keep dogs myself, +so I know what you must feel about it I'll do anything I can in +reparation.' + +"'Please bury him at once,' I said; that much I think I may ask of +you.' + +"'Bring the spade, William,' he called to the chauffeur. +Evidently hasty roadside interments were contingencies that had +been provided against. + +"The digging of a sufficiently large grave took some little time. +'I say, what a magnificent fellow,' said the motorist as the +corpse was rolled over into the trench. 'I'm afraid he must have +been rather a valuable animal.' + +"'He took second in the puppy class at Birmingham last year,' I +said resolutely. + +"Constance snorted loudly. + +"'Don't cry, dear,' I said brokenly; 'it was all over in a, +moment. He couldn't have suffered much.' + +"'Look here,' said the young fellow desperately, 'you simply must +let me do something by way of reparation.' + +"I refused sweetly, but as he persisted I let him have my address. + +"Of course, we kept our own counsel as to the earlier episodes of +the evening. Lord Pabham never advertised the loss of his hyaena; +when a strictly fruit-eating animal strayed from his park a year +or two previously he was called upon to give compensation in +eleven cases of sheep-worrying and practically to re-stock his +neighbours' poultry-yards, and an escaped hyaena would have +mounted up to something on the scale of a Government grant. The +gipsies were equally unobtrusive over their missing offspring; I +don't suppose in large encampments they really know to a child or +two how many they've got." + +The Baroness paused reflectively, and then continued: + +"There was a sequel to the adventure, though. I got through the +post a charming little diamond brooch, with the name Esmé set in a +sprig of rosemary. Incidentally, too, I lost the friendship of +Constance Broddle. You see, when I sold the brooch I quite +properly refused to give her any share of the proceeds. I pointed +out that the Esmé part of the affair was my own invention, and the +hyaena part of it belonged to Lord Pabham, if it really was his +hyaena, of which, of course, I've no proof." + + + + +THE MATCH-MAKER + + + +The grill-room clock struck eleven with the respectful +unobtrusiveness of one whose mission in life is to be ignored. +When the flight of time should really have rendered abstinence and +migration imperative the lighting apparatus would signal the fact +in the usual way. + +Six minutes later Clovis approached the supper-table, in the +blessed expectancy of one who has dined sketchily and long ago. + +"I'm starving," he announced, making an effort to sit down +gracefully and read the menu at the same time. + +"So I gathered;" said his host, "from the fact that you were +nearly punctual. I ought to have told you that I'm a Food +Reformer. I've ordered two bowls of bread-and-milk and some +health biscuits. I hope you don't mind." + +Clovis pretended afterwards that he didn't go white above the +collar-line for the fraction of a second. + +"All the same," he said, "you ought not to joke about such things. +There really are such people. I've known people who've met them. +To think of all the adorable things there are to eat in the world, +and then to go through life munching sawdust and being proud of +it." + +"They're like the Flagellants of the Middle Ages, who went about +mortifying themselves." + +"They had some excuse," said Clovis. "They did it to save their +immortal souls, didn't they? You needn't tell me that a man who +doesn't love oysters and asparagus and good wines has got a soul, +or a stomach either. He's simply got the instinct for being +unhappy highly developed." + +Clovis relapsed for a few golden moments into tender intimacies +with a succession of rapidly disappearing oysters. + +"I think oysters are more beautiful than any religion," he resumed +presently. "They not only forgive our unkindness to them; they +justify it, they incite us to go on being perfectly horrid to +them. Once they arrive at the supper-table they seem to enter +thoroughly into the spirit of the thing. There's nothing in +Christianity or Buddhism that quite matches the sympathetic +unselfishness of an oyster. Do you like my new waistcoat? I'm +wearing it for the first time to-night." + +"It looks like a great many others you've had lately, only worse. +New dinner waistcoats are becoming a habit with you." + +"They say one always pays for the excesses of one's youth; +mercifully that isn't true about one's clothes. My mother is +thinking of getting married." + +"Again!" + +"It's the first time." + +"Of course, you ought to know. I was under the impression that +she'd been married once or twice at least." + +"Three times, to be mathematically exact. I meant that it was the +first time she'd thought about getting married; the other times +she did it without thinking. As a matter of fact, it's really I +who am doing the thinking for her in this case. You see, it's +quite two years since her last husband died." + +"You evidently think that brevity is the soul of widowhood." + +"Well, it struck me that she was getting moped, and beginning to +settle down, which wouldn't suit her a bit. The first symptom +that I noticed was when she began to complain that we were living +beyond our income. All decent people live beyond their incomes +nowadays, and those who aren't respectable live beyond other +peoples. A few gifted individuals manage to do both." + +"It's hardly so much a gift as an industry." + +"The crisis came," returned Clovis, "when she suddenly started the +theory that late hours were bad for one, and wanted me to be in by +one o'clock every night. Imagine that sort of thing for me, who +was eighteen on my last birthday." + +"On your last two birthdays, to be mathematically exact." + +"Oh, well, that's not my fault. I'm not going to arrive at +nineteen as long as my mother remains at thirty-seven. One must +have some regard for appearances." + +"Perhaps your mother would age a little in the process of settling +down." + +"That's the last thing she'd think of. Feminine reformations +always start in on the failings of other people. That's why I was +so keen on the husband idea." + +"Did you go as far as to select the gentleman, or did you merely +throw out a general idea, and trust to the force of suggestion?" + +"If one wants a thing done in a hurry one must see to it oneself. +I found a military Johnny hanging round on a loose end at the +club, and took him home to lunch once or twice. He'd spent most +of his life on the Indian frontier, building roads, and relieving +famines and minimizing earthquakes, and all that sort of thing +that one does do on frontiers. He could talk sense to a peevish +cobra in fifteen native languages, and probably knew what to do if +you found a rogue elephant on your croquet-lawn; but he was shy +and diffident with women. I told my mother privately that he was +an absolute woman-hater; so, of course, she laid herself out to +flirt all she knew, which isn't a little." + +"And was the gentleman responsive?" + +"I hear he told some one at the club that he was looking out for a +Colonial job, with plenty of hard work, for a young friend of his, +so I gather that he has some idea of marrying into the family." + +"You seem destined to be the victim of the reformation, after +all." + +Claws wiped the trace of Turkish coffee and the beginnings of a +smile from his lips, and slowly lowered his dexter eyelid. Which, +being interpreted, probably meant, "I DON'T think!" + + + + +TOBERMORY + + + +It was a chill, rain-washed afternoon of a late August day, that +indefinite season when partridges are still in security or cold +storage, and there is nothing to hunt--unless one is bounded on +the north by the Bristol Channel, in which case one may lawfully +gallop after fat red stags. Lady Blemley's house-party was not +bounded on the north by the Bristol Channel, hence there was a +full gathering of her guests round the tea-table on this +particular afternoon. And, in spite of the blankness of the +season and the triteness of the occasion, there was no trace in +the company of that fatigued restlessness which means a dread of +the pianola and a subdued hankering for auction bridge. The +undisguised openmouthed attention of the entire party was fixed on +the homely negative personality of Mr. Cornelius Appin. Of all +her guests, he was the one who had come to Lady Blemley with the +vaguest reputation. Some one had said he was "clever," and he had +got his invitation in the moderate expectation, on the part of his +hostess, that some portion at least of his cleverness would be +contributed to the general entertainment. Until tea-time that day +she had been unable to discover in what direction, if any, his +cleverness lay. He was neither a wit nor a croquet champion, a +hypnotic force nor a begetter of amateur theatricals. Neither did +his exterior suggest the sort of man in whom women are willing to +pardon a generous measure of mental deficiency. He had subsided +into mere Mr. Appin, and the Cornelius seemed a piece of +transparent baptismal bluff. And now he was claiming to have +launched on the world a discovery beside which the invention of +gunpowder, of the printing-press, and of steam locomotion were +inconsiderable trifles. Science had made bewildering strides in +many directions during recent decades, but this thing seemed to +belong to the domain of miracle rather than to scientific +achievement. + +"And do you really ask us to believe," Sir Wilfrid was saying, +"that you have discovered a means for instructing animals in the +art of human speech, and that dear old Tobermory has proved your +first successful pupil?" + +"It is a problem at which I have worked for the last seventeen +years," said Mr. Appin, " but only during the last eight or nine +months have I been rewarded with glimmerings of success. Of +course I have experimented with thousands of animals, but latterly +only with cats, those wonderful creatures which have assimilated +themselves so marvellously with our civilization while retaining +all their highly developed feral instincts. Here and there among +cats one comes across an outstanding superior intellect, just as +one does among the ruck of human beings, and when I made the +acquaintance of Tobermory a week ago I saw at once that I was in +contact with a 'Beyond-cat' of extraordinary intelligence. I had +gone far along the road to success in recent experiments; with +Tobermory, as you call him, I have reached the goal." + +Mr. Appin concluded his remarkable statement in a voice which he +strove to divest of a triumphant inflection. No one said "Rats," +though Clovis's lips moved in a monosyllabic contortion which +probably invoked those rodents of disbelief. + +"And do you mean to say," asked Miss Resker, after a slight pause, +"that you have taught Tobermory to say and understand easy +sentences of one syllable?" + +"My dear Miss Resker," said the wonderworker patiently, "one +teaches little children and savages and backward adults in that +piecemeal fashion; when one has once solved the problem of making +a beginning with an animal of highly developed intelligence one +has no need for those halting methods. Tobermory can speak our +language with perfect correctness." + +This time Clovis very distinctly said, " Beyond-rats!" Sir +Wilfrid was more polite, but equally sceptical. + +"Hadn't we better have the cat in and judge for ourselves?" +suggested Lady Blemley. + +Sir Wilfrid went in search of the animal, and the company settled +themselves down to the languid expectation of witnessing some more +or less adroit drawing-room ventriloquism. + +In a minute Sir Wilfrid was back in the room, his face white +beneath its tan and his eyes dilated with excitement. + +"By Gad, it's true!" + +His agitation was unmistakably genuine, and his hearers started +forward in a thrill of awakened interest. + +Collapsing into an armchair he continued breathlessly: "I found +him dozing in the smoking-room, and called out to him to come for +his tea. He blinked at me in his usual way, and I said, 'Come on, +Toby; don't keep us waiting;' and, by Gad! he drawled out in a +most horribly natural voice that he'd come when he dashed well +pleased! I nearly jumped out of my skin!" + +Appin had preached to absolutely incredulous hearers; Sir +Wilfrid's statement carried instant conviction. A Babel-like +chorus of startled exclamation arose, amid which the scientist sat +mutely enjoying the first fruit of his stupendous discovery. + +In tile midst of the clamour Tobermory entered the room and made +his way with velvet tread and studied unconcern across to the +group seated round the tea-table. + +A sudden hush of awkwardness and constraint fell on the company. +Somehow there seemed an element of embarrassment in addressing on +equal terms a domestic cat of acknowledged dental ability. + +"Will you have some milk, Tobermory?" asked Lady Blemley in a +rather strained voice. + +"I don't mind if I do," was the response, couched in a tone of +even indifference. A shiver of suppressed excitement went through +the listeners, and Lady Blemley might be excused for pouring out +the saucerful of milk rather unsteadily. + +"I'm afraid I've spilt a good deal of it," she said +apologetically. + +"After all, it's not my Axminster," was Tobermory's rejoinder. + +Another silence fell on the group, and then Miss Resker, in her +best district-visitor manner, asked if the human language had been +difficult to learn. Tobermory looked squarely at her for a moment +and then fixed his gaze serenely on the middle distance. It was +obvious that boring questions lay outside his scheme of life. + +"What do you think of human intelligence?" asked Mavis Pellington +lamely. + +"Of whose intelligence in particular?" asked Tobermory coldly. + +"Oh, well, mine for instance," said Mavis, with a feeble laugh. + +"You put me in an embarrassing position," said Tobermory, whose +tone and attitude certainly did not suggest a shred of +embarrassment. "When your inclusion in this house-party was +suggested Sir Wilfrid protested that you were the most brainless +woman of his acquaintance, and that there was a wide distinction +between hospitality and the care of the feeble-minded. Lady +Blemley replied that your lack of brain-power was the precise +quality which had earned you your invitation, as you were the only +person she could think of who might be idiotic enough to buy their +old car. You know, the one they call 'The Envy of Sisyphus,' +because it goes quite nicely up-hill if you push it." + +Lady Blemley's protestations would have had greater effect if she +had not casually suggested to Mavis only that morning that the car +in question would be just the thing for her down at her Devonshire +home. + +Major Barfield plunged in heavily to effect a diversion. + +"How about your carryings-on with the tortoiseshell puss up at the +stables, eh?" + +The moment he had said it every one realized the blunder. + +"One does not usually discuss these matters in public," said +Tobermory frigidly. "From a slight observation of your ways since +you've been in this house I should imagine you'd find it +inconvenient if I were to shift the conversation on to your own +little affairs." + +The panic which ensued was not confined to the Major. + +"Would you like to go and see if cook has got your dinner ready?" +suggested Lady Blemley hurriedly, affecting to ignore the fact +that it wanted at least two hours to Tobermory's dinner-time. + +"Thanks," said Tobermory, "not quite so soon after my tea. I +don't want to die of indigestion." + +"Cats have nine lives, you know," said Sir Wilfrid heartily. + +"Possibly," answered Tobermory; "but only one liver." + +"Adelaide!" said Mrs. Cornett, "do you mean to encourage that cat +to go out and gossip about us in the servants' hall?" + +The panic had indeed become general. A narrow ornamental +balustrade ran in front of most of the bedroom windows at the +Towers, and it was recalled with dismay that this had formed a +favourite promenade for Tobermory at all hours, whence he could +watch the pigeons--and heaven knew what else besides. If he +intended to become reminiscent in his present outspoken strain the +effect would be something more than disconcerting. Mrs. Cornett, +who spent much time at her toilet table, and whose complexion was +reputed to be of a nomadic though punctual disposition, looked as +ill at ease as the Major. Miss Scrawen, who wrote fiercely +sensuous poetry and led a blameless life, merely displayed +irritation; if you are methodical and virtuous in private you +don't necessarily want every one to know it. Bertie van Tahn, who +was so depraved at seventeen that he had long ago given up trying +to be any worse, turned a dull shade of gardenia white, but he did +not commit the error of dashing out of the room like Odo +Finsberry, a young gentleman who was understood to be reading for +the Church and who was possibly disturbed at the thought of +scandals he might hear concerning other people. Clovis had the +presence of mind to maintain a composed exterior; privately he was +calculating how long it would take to procure a box of fancy mice +through the agency of the EXCHANGE AND MART as a species of hush- +money. + +Even in a delicate situation like the present, Agnes Resker could +not endure to remain too long in the-background. + +"Why did I ever come down here she asked dramatically. + +Tobermory immediately accepted the opening. + +"Judging by what you said to Mrs. Cornett on the croquet-lawn +yesterday, you were out for food. You described the Blemleys as +the dullest people to stay with that you knew, but said they were +clever enough to employ a first-rate cook; otherwise they'd find +it difficult to get anyone to come down a second time." + +"There's not a word of truth in it! I appeal to Mrs. Cornett--" +exclaimed the discomfited Agnes. + +"Mrs. Cornett repeated your remark afterwards to Bertie van Tahn," +continued Tobermory, "and said, 'That woman is a regular Hunger +Marcher; she'd go anywhere for four square meals a day,' and +Bertie van Tahn said--" + +At this point the chronicle mercifully ceased. Tobermory had +caught a glimpse of the big yellow Tom from the Rectory working +his way through the shrubbery towards the stable wing. In a flash +he had vanished through the open French window. + +With the disappearance of his too brilliant pupil Cornelius Appin +found himself beset by a hurricane of bitter upbraiding, anxious +inquiry, and frightened entreaty. The responsibility for the +situation lay with him, and he must prevent matters from becoming +worse. Could Tobermory impart his dangerous gift to other cats? +was the first question he had to answer. It was possible, he +replied, that he might have initiated his intimate friend the +stable puss into his new accomplishment, but it was unlikely that +his teaching could have taken a wider range as yet. + +"Then," said Mrs. Cornett, "Tobermory may be a valuable cat and a +great pet; but I'm sure you'll agree, Adelaide, that both he and +the stable cat must be done away with without delay." + +"You don't suppose I've enjoyed the last quarter of an hour, do +you?" said Lady Blemley bitterly. "My husband and I are very fond +of Tobermory--at least, we were before this horrible +accomplishment was infused into him; but now, of course, the only +thing is to have him destroyed as soon as possible." + +"We can put some strychnine in the scraps he always gets at +dinner-time," said Sir Wilfrid, "and I will go and drown the +stable cat myself. The coachman will be very sore at losing his +pet, but I'll say a very catching form of mange has broken out in +both cats and we're afraid of it spreading to the kennels." + +"But my great discovery!" expostulated Mr. Appin; "after all my +years of research and experiment--" + +"You can go and experiment on the shorthorns at the farm, who are +under proper control," said Mrs. Cornett, "or the elephants at the +Zoological Gardens. They're said to be highly intelligent, and +they have this recommendation, that they don't come creeping about +our bedrooms and under chairs, and so forth." + +An archangel ecstatically proclaiming the Millennium, and then +finding that it clashed unpardonably with Henley and would have to +be indefinitely postponed, could hardly have felt more crestfallen +than Cornelius Appin at the reception of his wonderful +achievement. Public opinion, however, was against him--in fact, +had the general voice been consulted on the subject it is probable +that a strong minority vote would have been in favour of including +him in the strychnine diet. + +Defective train arrangements and a nervous desire to see matters +brought to a finish prevented an immediate dispersal of the party, +but dinner that evening was not a social success. Sir Wilfrid had +had rather a trying time with the stable cat and subsequently with +the coachman. Agnes Resker ostentatiously limited her repast to a +morsel of dry toast, which she bit as though it were a personal +enemy; while Mavis Pellington maintained a vindictive silence +throughout the meal. Lady Blemley kept up a flow of what she +hoped was conversation, but her attention was fixed on the +doorway. A plateful of carefully dosed fish scraps was in +readiness on the sideboard, but sweets and savoury and dessert +went their way, and no Tobermory appeared either in the dining- +room or kitchen. + +The sepulchral dinner was cheerful compared with the subsequent +vigil in the smoking-room. Eating and drinking had at least +supplied a distraction and cloak to the prevailing embarrassment. +Bridge was out of the question in the general tension of nerves +and tempers, and after Odo Finsberry had given a lugubrious +rendering of "Melisande in the Wood" to a frigid audience, music +was tacitly avoided. At eleven the servants went to bed, +announcing that the small window in the pantry had been left open +as usual for Tobermory's private use. The guests read steadily +through the current batch of magazines, and fell back gradually, +on the "Badminton Library " and bound volumes of PUNCH. Lady +Blemley made periodic visits to the pantry, returning each time +with an expression of listless depression which forestalled +questioning. + +At two o'clock Clovis broke the dominating silence. + +"He won't turn up to-night. He's probably in the local newspaper +office at the present moment, dictating the first instalment of +his reminiscences. Lady What's-her-name's book won't be in it. +It will be the event of the day." + +Having made this contribution to the general cheerfulness, Clovis +went to bed. At long intervals the various members of the house- +party followed his example. + +The servants taking round the early tea made a uniform +announcement in reply to a uniform question. Tobermory had not +returned. + +Breakfast was, if anything, a more unpleasant function than dinner +had been, but before its conclusion the situation was relieved. +Tobermory's corpse was brought in from the shrubbery, where a +gardener had just discovered it. From the bites on his throat and +the yellow fur which coated his claws it was evident that he had +fallen in unequal combat with the big Tom from the Rectory. + +By midday most of the guests had quitted the Towers, and after +lunch Lady Blemley had sufficiently recovered her spirits to write +an extremely nasty letter to the Rectory about the loss of her +valuable pet. + +Tobermory had been Appin's one successful pupil, and he was +destined to have no successor. A few weeks later an elephant in +the Dresden Zoological Garden, which had shown no previous signs +of irritability, broke loose and killed an Englishman who had +apparently been teasing it. The victim's name was variously +reported in the papers as Oppin and Eppelin, but his front name +was faithfully rendered Cornelius. + +"If he was trying German irregular verbs on the poor beast," said +Clovis, "he deserved all he got." + + + + +MRS. PACKLETIDE'S TIGER + + + +It was Mrs. Packletide's pleasure and intention that she should +shoot a tiger. Not that the lust to kill had suddenly descended +on her, or that she felt that she would leave India safer and more +wholesome than she had found it, with one fraction less of wild +beast per million of inhabitants. The compelling motive for her +sudden deviation towards the footsteps of Nimrod was the fact that +Loona Bimberton had recently been carried eleven miles in an +aeroplane by an Algerian aviator, and talked of nothing else; only +a personally procured tiger-skin and a heavy harvest of Press +photographs could successfully counter that sort of thing. Mrs. +Packletide had already arranged in her mind the lunch she would +give at her house in Curzon Street, ostensibly in Loona +Bimberton's honour, with a tiger-skin rug occupying most of the +foreground and all of the conversation. She had also already +designed in her mind the tiger-claw brooch that she was going to +give Loona Bimberton on her next birthday. In a world that is +supposed to be chiefly swayed by hunger and by love Mrs. +Packletide was an exception; her movements and motives were +largely governed by dislike of Loona Bimberton. + +Circumstances proved propitious. Mrs. Packletide had offered a +thousand rupees for the opportunity of shooting a tiger without +overmuch risk or exertion, and it so happened that a neighbouring +village could boast of being the favoured rendezvous of an animal +of respectable antecedents, which had been driven by the +increasing infirmities of age to abandon game-killing and confine +its appetite to the smaller domestic animals. The prospect of +earning the thousand rupees had stimulated the sporting and +commercial instinct of the villagers; children were posted night +and day on the outskirts of the local jungle to head the tiger +back in the unlikely event of his attempting to roam away to fresh +hunting-grounds, and the cheaper kinds of goats were left about +with elaborate carelessness to keep him satisfied with his present +quarters. The one great anxiety was lest he should die of old age +before the date appointed for the memsahib's shoot. Mothers +carrying their babies home through the jungle after the day's work +in the fields hushed their singing lest they might curtail the +restful sleep of the venerable herd-robber. + +The great night duly arrived, moonlit and cloudless. A platform +had been constructed in a comfortable and conveniently placed +tree, and thereon crouched Mrs. Packletide and her paid companion, +Miss Mebbin. A goat, gifted with a particularly persistent bleat, +such as even a partially deaf tiger might be reasonably expected +to hear on a still night, was tethered at the correct distance. +With an accurately sighted rifle and a thumbnail pack of patience +cards the sportswoman awaited the coming of the quarry. + +"I suppose we are in some danger?" said Miss Mebbin. + +She was not actually nervous about the wild beast, but she had a +morbid dread of performing an atom more service than she had been +paid for. + +"Nonsense," said Mrs. Packletide; "it's a very old tiger. It +couldn't spring up here even if it wanted to." + +"If it's an old tiger I think you ought to get it cheaper. A +thousand rupees is a lot of money." + +Louisa Mebbin adopted a protective elder-sister attitude towards +money in general, irrespective of nationality or denomination. +Her energetic intervention had saved many a rouble from +dissipating itself in tips in some Moscow hotel, and francs and +centimes clung to her instinctively under circumstances which +would have driven them headlong from less sympathetic hands. Her +speculations as to the market depreciation of tiger remnants were +cut short by the appearance on the scene of the animal itself. As +soon as it caught sight of the tethered goat it lay flat on the +earth, seemingly less from a desire to take advantage of all +available cover than for the purpose of snatching a short rest +before commencing the grand attack. + +"I believe it's ill," said Louisa Mebbin, loudly in Hindustani, +for the benefit of the village headman, who was in ambush in a +neighbouring tree. + +"Hush!" said Mrs. Packletide, and at that moment the tiger +commenced ambling towards his victim. + +"Now, now!" urged Miss Mebbin with some excitement; "if he doesn't +touch the goat we needn't pay for it." (The bait was an extra.) + +The rifle flashed out with a loud report, and the great tawny +beast sprang to one side and then rolled over in the stillness of +death. In a moment a crowd of excited natives had swarmed on to +the scene, and their shouting speedily carried the glad news to +the village, where a thumping of tom-toms took up the chorus of +triumph. And their triumph and rejoicing found a ready echo in +the heart of Mrs. Packletide; already that luncheon-party in +Curzon Street seemed immeasurably nearer. + +It was Louisa Mebbin who drew attention to the fact that the goat +was in death-throes from a mortal bullet-wound, while no trace of +the rifle's deadly work could be found on the tiger. Evidently +the wrong animal had been hit, and the beast of prey had succumbed +to heart-failure, caused by the sudden report of the rifle, +accelerated by senile decay. Mrs. Packletide was pardonably +annoyed at the discovery; but, at any rate, she was the possessor +of a dead tiger, and the villagers, anxious for their thousand +rupees, gladly connived at the fiction that she had shot the +beast. And Miss Mebbin was a paid companion. Therefore did Mrs. +Packletide face the cameras with a light heart, and her pictured +fame reached from the pages of the TEXAS WEEKLY SNAPSHOT to the +illustrated Monday supplement of the NOVOE VREMYA. As for Loona +Bimberton, she refused to look at an illustrated paper for weeks, +and her letter of thanks for the gift of a tiger-claw brooch was a +model of repressed emotions. The luncheon-party she declined; +there are limits beyond which repressed emotions become dangerous. + +From Curzon Street the tiger-skin rug travelled down to the Manor +House, and was duly inspected and admired by the county, and it +seemed a fitting and appropriate thing when Mrs. Packletide went +to the County Costume Ball in the character of Diana. She refused +to fall in, however, with Clovis's tempting suggestion of a +primeval dance party, at which every one should wear the skins of +beasts they had recently slain. "I should be in rather a Baby +Bunting condition," confessed Clovis, "with a miserable rabbit- +skin or two to wrap up in, but then," he added, with a rather +malicious glance at Diana's proportions, "my figure is quite as +good as that Russian dancing boy's." + +"How amused every one would be if they knew what really happened," +said Louisa Mebbin a few days after the ball. + +"What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Packletide quickly. + +"How you shot the goat and frightened the tiger to death," said +Miss Mebbin, with her disagreeably pleasant laugh. + +"No one would believe it," said Mrs. Packletide, her face changing +colour as rapidly as though it were going through a book of +patterns before post-time. + +"Loona Bimberton would," said Miss Mebbin. Mrs. Packletide's face +settled on an unbecoming shade of greenish white. + +"You surely wouldn't give me away?" she asked. + +"I've seen a week-end cottage near Dorking that I should rather +like to buy," said Miss Mebbin with seeming irrelevance. "Six +hundred and eighty, freehold. Quite a bargain, only I don't +happen to have the money." + + . . . . . . . . . + +Louisa Mebbin's pretty week-end cottage, christened by her "Les +Fauves," and gay in summertime with its garden borders of tiger- +lilies, is the wonder and admiration of her friends. + +"It is a marvel how Louisa manages to do it," is the general +verdict. + +Mrs. Packletide indulges in no more big-game shooting. + +"The incidental expenses are so heavy," she confides to inquiring +friends. + + + + +THE STAMPEDING OF LADY BASTABLE + + + +"It would be rather nice if you would put Clovis up for another +six days while I go up north to the MacGregors'," said Mrs. +Sangrail sleepily across the breakfast-table. It was her +invariable plan to speak in a sleepy, comfortable voice whenever +she was unusually keen about anything; it put people off their +guard, and they frequently fell in with her wishes before they had +realized that she was really asking for anything. Lady Bastable, +however, was not so easily taken unawares; possibly she knew that +voice and what it betokened--at any rate, she knew Clovis. + +She frowned at a piece of toast and ate it very slowly, as though +she wished to convey the impression that the process hurt her more +than it hurt the toast; but no extension of hospitality on +Clovis's behalf rose to her lips. + +"It would be a great convenience to me," pursued Mrs. Sangrail, +abandoning the careless tone. "I particularly don't want to take +him to the MacGregors', and it will only be for six days." + +It will seem longer," said Lady Bastable dismally. + +"The last time he stayed here for a week--" + +"I know," interrupted the other hastily, "but that was nearly two +years ago. He was younger then." + +"But he hasn't improved," said her hostess; "it's no use growing +older if you only learn new ways of misbehaving yourself." + +Mrs. Sangrail was unable to argue the point; since Clovis had +reached the age of seventeen she had never ceased to bewail his +irrepressible waywardness to all her circle of acquaintances, and +a polite scepticism would have greeted the slightest hint at a +prospective reformation. She discarded the fruitless effort at +cajolery and resorted to undisguised bribery. + +"If you'll have him here for these six days I'll cancel that +outstanding bridge account." + +It was only for forty-nine shillings, but Lady Bastable loved +shillings with a great, strong love. To lose money at bridge and +not to have to pay it was one of those rare experiences which gave +the card-table a glamour in her eyes which it could never +otherwise have possessed. Mrs. Sangrail was almost equally +devoted to her card winnings, but the prospect of conveniently +warehousing her offspring for six days, and incidentally saving +his railway fare to the north, reconciled her to the sacrifice; +when Clovis made a belated appearance at the breakfast-table the +bargain had been struck. + +"Just think," said Mrs. Sangrail sleepily; Lady Bastable has very +kindly asked you to stay on here while I go to the MacGregors'." + +Clovis said suitable things in a highly unsuitable manner, and +proceeded to make punitive expeditions among the breakfast dishes +with a scowl on his face that would have driven the purr out of a +peace conference. The arrangement that had been concluded behind +his back was doubly distasteful to him. In the first place, he +particularly wanted to teach the MacGregor boys, who could well +afford the knowledge, how to play poker-patience; secondly, the +Bastable catering was of the kind that is classified as a rude +plenty, which Clovis translated as a plenty that gives rise to +rude remarks. Watching him from behind ostentatiously sleepy +lids, his mother realized, in the light of long experience, that +any rejoicing over the success of her manoeuvre would be +distinctly premature. It was one thing to fit Clovis into a +convenient niche of the domestic jig-saw puzzle; it was quite +another matter to get him to stay there. + +Lady Bastable was wont to retire in state to the morning-room +immediately after breakfast and spend a quiet hour in skimming +through the papers; they were there, so she might as well get +their money's worth out of them. Politics did not greatly +interest her, but she was obsessed with a favourite foreboding +that one of these days there would be a great social upheaval, in +which everybody would be killed by everybody else. "It will come +sooner than we think," she would observe darkly; a mathematical +expert of exceptionally high powers would have been puzzled to +work out the approximate date from the slender and confusing +groundwork which this assertion afforded. + +On this particular morning the sight of Lady Bastable enthroned +among her papers gave Clovis the hint towards which his mind had +been groping all breakfast time. His mother had gone upstairs to +supervise packing operations, and he was alone on the ground-floor +with his hostess--and the servants. The latter were the key to +the situation. Bursting wildly into the kitchen quarters, Clovis +screamed a frantic though strictly non-committal summons: "Poor +Lady Bastable! In the morning-room! Oh, quick!" The next moment +the butler, cook, page-boy, two or three maids, and a gardener who +had happened to be in one of the outer kitchens were following in +a hot scurry after Clovis as he headed back for the morning-room. +Lady Bastable was roused from the world of newspaper lore by +hearing a Japanese screen in the hall go down with a crash. Then +the door leading from the hall flew open and her young guest tore +madly through the room, shrieked at her in passing, "The +jacquerie! They're on us!" and dashed like an escaping hawk out +through the French window. The scared mob of servants burst in on +his heels, the gardener still clutching the sickle with which he +had been trimming hedges, and the impetus of their headlong haste +carried them, slipping and sliding, over the smooth parquet +flooring towards the chair where their mistress sat in panic- +stricken amazement. If she had had a moment granted her for +reflection she would have behaved, as she afterwards explained, +with considerable dignity. It was probably the sickle which +decided her, but anyway she followed the lead that Clovis had +given her through the French window, and ran well and far across +the lawn before the eyes of her astonished retainers. + + . . . . . . . . . + +Lost dignity is not a possession which can be restored at a +moment's notice, and both Lady Bastable and the butler found the +process of returning to normal conditions almost as painful as a +slow recovery from drowning. A jacquerie, even if carried out +with the most respectful of intentions, cannot fail to leave some +traces of embarrassment behind it. By lunch-time, however, +decorum had reasserted itself with enhanced rigour as a natural +rebound from its recent overthrow, and the meal was served in a +frigid stateliness that might have been framed on a Byzantine +model. Halfway through its duration Mrs. Sangrail was solemnly +presented with an envelope lying on a silver salver. It contained +a cheque for forty-nine shillings. + +The MacGregor boys learned how to play poker-patience; after all, +they could afford to. + + + + +THE BACKGROUND + + + +"That woman's art-jargon tires me," said Clovis to his journalist +friend. "She's so fond of talking of certain pictures as 'growing +on one,' as though they were a sort of fungus." + +"That reminds me," said the journalist, "of the story of Henri +Deplis. Have I ever told it you?" + +Clovis shook his head. + +"Henri Deplis was by birth a native of the Grand Duchy of +Luxemburg. On maturer reflection he became a commercial +traveller. His business activities frequently took him beyond the +limits of the Grand Duchy, and he was stopping in a small town of +Northern Italy when news reached him from home that a legacy from +a distant and deceased relative had fallen to his share. + +"It was not a large legacy, even from the modest standpoint of +Henri Deplis, but it impelled him towards some seemingly harmless +extravagances. In particular it led him to patronize local art as +represented by the tattoo-needles of Signor Andreas Pincini. +Signor Pincini was, perhaps, the most brilliant master of tattoo +craft that Italy had ever known, but his circumstances were +decidedly impoverished, and for the sum of six hundred francs he +gladly undertook to cover his client's back, from the collar-bone +down to the waistline, with a glowing representation of the Fall +of Icarus. The design, when finally developed, was a slight +disappointment to Monsieur Deplis, who had suspected Icarus of +being a fortress taken by Wallenstein in the Thirty Years' War, +but he was more than satisfied with the execution of the work, +which was acclaimed by all who had the privilege of seeing it as +Pincini's masterpiece. + +"It was his greatest effort, and his last. Without even waiting +to he paid, the illustrious craftsman departed this life, and was +buried under an ornate tombstone, whose winged cherubs would have +afforded singularly little scope for the exercise of his favourite +art. There remained, however, the widow Pincini, to whom the six +hundred francs were due. And thereupon arose the great crisis in +the life of Henri Deplis, traveller of commerce. The legacy, +under the stress of numerous little calls on its substance, had +dwindled to very insignificant proportions, and when a pressing +wine bill and sundry other current accounts had been paid, there +remained little more than 430 francs to offer to the widow. The +lady was properly indignant, not wholly, as she volubly explained, +on account of the suggested writing-off of 170 francs, but also at +the attempt to depreciate the value of her late husband's +acknowledged masterpiece. In a week's time Deplis was obliged to +reduce his offer to 405 francs, which circumstance fanned the +widow's indignation into a fury. She cancelled the sale of the +work of art, and a few days later Deplis learned with a sense, of +consternation that she had presented it to the municipality of +Bergamo, which had gratefully accepted it. He left the +neighbourhood as unobtrusively as possible, and was genuinely +relieved when his business commands took him to Rome, where he +hoped his identity and that of the famous picture might be lost +sight of. + +"But he bore on his back the burden of the dead man's genius. On +presenting himself one day in the steaming corridor of a vapour +bath, he was at once hustled back into his clothes by the +proprietor, who was a North Italian, and who emphatically refused +to allow the celebrated Fall of Icarus to be publicly on view +without the permission of the municipality of Bergamo. Public +interest and official vigilance increased as the matter became +more widely known, and Deplis was unable to take a simple dip in +the sea or river on the hottest afternoon unless clothed up to the +collarbone in a substantial bathing garment. Later on the +authorities of Bergamo, conceived the idea that salt water might +be injurious to the masterpiece, and a perpetual injunction was +obtained which debarred the muchly harassed commercial traveller +from sea bathing under any circumstances. Altogether, he was +fervently thankful when his firm of employers found him a new +range of activities in the neighbourhood of Bordeaux. His +thankfulness, however, ceased abruptly at the Franco-Italian +frontier. An imposing array of official force barred his +departure, and he was sternly reminded of the stringent law which +forbids the exportation of Italian works of art. + +"A diplomatic parley ensued between the Luxemburgian and Italian +Governments, and at one time the European situation became +overcast with the possibilities of trouble. But the Italian +Government stood firm; it declined to concern itself in the least +with the fortunes or even the existence of Henri Deplis, +commercial traveller, but was immovable in its decision that the +Fall of Icarus (by the late Pincini, Andreas) at present the +property of the municipality of Bergamo, should not leave the +country. + +"The excitement died down in time, but the unfortunate Deplis, who +was of a constitutionally retiring disposition, found himself a +few months later, once more the storm-centre of a furious +controversy. A certain German art expert, who had obtained from +the municipality of Bergamo permission to inspect the famous +masterpiece, declared it to be a spurious Pincini, probably the +work of some pupil whom he had employed in his declining years. +The evidence of Deplis on the subject was obviously worthless, as +he had been under the influence of the customary narcotics during +the long process of pricking in the design. The editor of an +Italian art journal refuted the contentions of the German expert +and undertook to prove that his private life did not conform to +any modern standard of decency. The whole of Italy and Germany +were drawn into the dispute, and the rest of Europe was soon +involved in the quarrel. There were stormy scenes in the Spanish +Parliament, and the University of Copenhagen bestowed a gold medal +on the German expert (afterwards sending a commission to examine +his proofs on the spot), while two Polish schoolboys in Paris +committed suicide to show what THEY thought of the matter. + +"Meanwhile, the unhappy human background fared no better than +before, and it was not surprising that he drifted into the ranks +of Italian anarchists. Four times at least he was escorted to the +frontier as a dangerous and undesirable foreigner, but he was +always brought back as the Fall of Icarus (attributed to Pincini, +Andreas, early Twentieth Century). And then one day, at an +anarchist congress at Genoa, a fellow-worker, in the heat of +debate, broke a phial full of corrosive liquid over his back. The +red shirt that he was wearing mitigated the effects, but the +Icarus was ruined beyond recognition. His assailant was severly +reprimanded for assaulting a fellow-anarchist and received seven +years' imprisonment for defacing a national art treasure. As soon +as he was able to leave the hospital Henri Deplis was put across +the frontier as an undesirable alien. + +"In the quieter streets of Paris, especially in the neighbourhood +of the Ministry of Fine Arts, you may sometimes meet a depressed, +anxious-looking man, who, if you pass him the time of day, will +answer you with a slight Luxemburgian accent. He nurses the +illusion that he is one of the lost arms of the Venus de Milo, and +hopes that the French Government may be persuaded to buy him. On +all other subjects I believe he is tolerably sane." + + + + +HERMANN THE IRASCIBLE--A STORY OF THE GREAT WEEP + + + +It was in the second decade of the twentieth century, after the +Great Plague had devastated England, that Hermann the Irascible, +nicknamed also the Wise, sat on the British throne. The Mortal +Sickness had swept away the entire Royal Family, unto the third +and fourth generations, and thus it came to pass that Hermann the +Fourteenth of Saxe-Drachsen-Wachtelstein, who had stood thirtieth +in the order of succession, found himself one day ruler of the +British dominions within and beyond the seas. He was one of the +unexpected things that happen in politics, and he happened with +great thoroughness. In many ways he was the most progressive +monarch who had sat on an important throne; before people knew +where they were, they were somewhere else. Even his Ministers, +progressive though they were by tradition, found it difficult to +keep pace with his legislative suggestions. + +"As a matter of fact," admitted the Prime Minister, "we are +hampered by these votes-for-women creatures; they disturb our +meetings throughout the country, and they try to turn Downing +Street into a sort of political picnic-ground." + +"They must be dealt with," said Hermann. + +"Dealt with," said the Prime Minister; "exactly, just so; but +how?" + +"I will draft you a Bill," said the King, sitting down at his +typewriting machine, "enacting that women shall vote at all future +elections. Shall vote, you observe; or, to put it plainer, must. +Voting will remain optional, as before, for male electors; but +every woman between the ages of twenty-one and seventy will be +obliged to vote, not only at elections for Parliament, county +councils, district boards, parish councils, and municipalities, +but for coroners, school inspectors, churchwardens, curators of +museums, sanitary authorities, police-court interpreters, +swimming-bath instructors, contractors, choir-masters, market +superintendents, art-school teachers, cathedral vergers, and other +local functionaries whose names I will add as they occur to me. +All these offices will become elective, and failure to vote at any +election falling within her area of residence will involve the +female elector in a penalty of £10. Absence, unsupported by an +adequate medical certificate, will not be accepted as an excuse. +Pass this Bill through the two Houses of Parliament and bring it +to me for signature the day after to-morrow." + +From the very outset the Compulsory Female Franchise produced +little or no elation even in circles which had been loudest in +demanding the vote. The bulk of the women of the country had been +indifferent or hostile to the franchise agitation, and the most +fanatical Suffragettes began to wonder what they had found so +attractive in the prospect of putting ballot-papers into a box. +In the country districts the task of carrying out the provisions +of the new Act was irksome enough; in the towns and cities it +became an incubus. There seemed no end to the elections. +Laundresses and seamstresses had to hurry away from their work to +vote, often for a candidate whose name they hadn't heard before, +and whom they selected at haphazard; female clerks and waitresses +got up extra early to get their voting done before starting off to +their places of business. Society women found their arrangements +impeded and upset by the continual necessity for attending the +polling stations, and week-end parties and summer holidays became +gradually a masculine luxury. As for Cairo and the Riviera, they +were possible only for genuine invalids or people of enormous +wealth, for the accumulation of o10 fines during a prolonged +absence was a contingency that even ordinarily wealthy folk could +hardly afford to risk. + +It was not wonderful that the female disfranchisement agitation +became a formidable movement. The No-Votes-for-Women League +numbered its feminine adherents by the million; its colours, +citron and old Dutch-madder, were flaunted everywhere, and its +battle hymn, "We don't want to Vote," became a popular refrain. +As the Government showed no signs of being impressed by peaceful +persuasion, more violent methods came into vogue. Meetings were +disturbed, Ministers were mobbed, policemen were bitten, and +ordinary prison fare rejected, and on the eve of the anniversary +of Trafalgar women bound themselves in tiers up the entire length +of the Nelson column so that its customary floral decoration had +to be abandoned. Still the Government obstinately adhered to its +conviction that women ought to have the vote. + +Then, as a last resort, some woman wit hit upon an expedient which +it was strange that no one had thought of before. The Great Weep +was organized. Relays of women, ten thousand at a time, wept +continuously in the public places of the Metropolis. They wept in +railway stations, in tubes and omnibuses, in the National Gallery, +at the Army and Navy Stores, in St. James's Park, at ballad +concerts, at Prince's and in the Burlington Arcade. The hitherto +unbroken success of the brilliant farcical comedy "Henry's Rabbit" +was imperilled by the presence of drearily weeping women in stalls +and circle and gallery, and one of the brightest divorce cases +that had been tried for many years was robbed of much of its +sparkle by the lachrymose behaviour of a section of the audience. + +"What are we to do?" asked the Prime Minister, whose cook had wept +into all the breakfast dishes and whose nursemaid had gone out, +crying quietly and miserably, to take the children for a walk in +the Park. + +"There is a time for everything," said the King; "there is a time +to yield. Pass a measure through the two Houses depriving women +of the right to vote, and bring it to me for the Royal assent the +day after to-morrow." + +As the Minister withdrew, Hermann the Irascible, who was also +nicknamed the Wise, gave a profound chuckle. + +"There are more ways of killing a cat than by choking it with +cream," he quoted, "but I'm not sure," he added, "that it's not +the best way." + + + + +THE UNREST-CURE + + + +0n the rack in the railway carriage immediately opposite Clovis +was a solidly wrought travelling-bag, with a carefully written +label, on which was inscribed, "J. P. Huddle, The Warren, +Tilfield, near Slowborough." Immediately below the rack sit the +human embodiment of the label, a solid, sedate individual, +sedately dressed, sedately conversational. Even without his +conversation (which was addressed to a friend seated by his side, +and touched chiefly on such topics as the backwardness of Roman +hyacinths and the prevalence of measles at the Rectory), one could +have gauged fairly accurately the temperament and mental outlook +of the travelling bag's owner. But he seemed unwilling to leave +anything to the imagination of a casual observer, and his talk +grew presently personal and introspective. + +"I don't know how it is," he told his friend, "I'm not much over +forty, but I seem to have settled down into a deep groove of +elderly middle-age. My sister shows the same tendency. We like +everything to be exactly in its accustomed place; we like things +to happen exactly at their appointed times; we like everything to +be usual, orderly, punctual, methodical, to a hair's breadth, to a +minute. It distresses and upsets us if it is not so. For +instance, to take a very trifling matter, a thrush has built its +nest year after year in the catkin-tree on the lawn; this year, +for no obvious reason, it is building in the ivy on the garden +wall. We have said very little about it, but I think we both feel +that the change is unnecessary, and just a little irritating." + +"Perhaps," said the friend, "it is a different thrush." + +"We have suspected that," said J. P. Huddle, "and I think it gives +us even more cause for annoyance. We don't feel that we want a +change of thrush at our time of life; and yet, as I have said, we +have scarcely reached an age when these things should make +themselves seriously felt." + +"What you want," said the friend, "is an Unrest-cure." + +"An Unrest-cure? I've never heard of such a thing." + +"You've heard of Rest-cures for people who've broken down under +stress of too much worry and strenuous living; well, you're +suffering from overmuch repose and placidity, and you need the +opposite kind of treatment." + +"But where would one go for such a thing?" + +"Well, you might stand as an Orange candidate for Kilkenny, or do +a course of district visiting in one of the Apache quarters of +Paris, or give lectures in Berlin to prove that most of Wagner's +music was written by Gambetta; and there's always the interior of +Morocco to travel in. But, to be really effective, the Unrest- +cure ought to be tried in the home. How you would do it I haven't +the faintest idea." + +It was at this point in the conversation that Clovis became +galvanized into alert attention. After all, his two days' visit +to an elderly relative at Slowborough did not promise much +excitement. Before the train had stopped he had decorated his +sinister shirt-cuff with the inscription, "J. P. Huddle, The +Warren, Tilfield, near Slowborough." + + . . . . . . . . . + +Two mornings later Mr. Huddle broke in on his sister's privacy as +she sat reading Country Life in the morning room. It was her day +and hour and place for reading Country Life, and the intrusion was +absolutely irregular; but he bore in his hand a telegram, and in +that household telegrams were recognized as happening by the hand +of God. This particular telegram partook of the nature of a +thunderbolt. "Bishop examining confirmation class in +neighbourhood unable stay rectory on account measles invokes your +hospitality sending secretary arrange." + +"I scarcely know the Bishop; I've only spoken to him once," +exclaimed J. P. Huddle, with the exculpating air of one who +realizes too late the indiscretion of speaking to strange Bishops. +Miss Huddle was the first to rally; she disliked thunderbolts as +fervently as her brother did, but the womanly instinct in her told +her that thunderbolts must be fed. + +"We can curry the cold duck," she said. It was not the appointed +day for curry, but the little orange envelope involved a certain +departure from rule and custom. Her brother said nothing, but his +eyes thanked her for being brave. + +"A young gentleman to see you," announced the parlour-maid. + +"The secretary!" murmured the Huddles in unison; they instantly +stiffened into a demeanour which proclaimed that, though they held +all strangers to be guilty, they were willing to hear anything +they might have to say in their defence. The young gentleman, who +came into the room with a certain elegant haughtiness, was not at +all Huddle's idea of a bishop's secretary; he had not supposed +that the episcopal establishment could have afforded such an +expensively upholstered article when there were so many other +claims on its resources. The face was fleetingly familiar; if he +had bestowed more attention on the fellow-traveller sitting +opposite him in the railway carriage two days before he might have +recognized Clovis in his present visitor. + +"You are the Bishop's secretary?" asked Huddle, becoming +consciously deferential. + +"His confidential secretary," answered Clovis. You may call me +Stanislaus; my other name doesn't matter. The Bishop and Colonel +Alberti may be here to lunch. I shall be here in any case." + +It sounded rather like the programme of a Royal visit. + +"The Bishop is examining a confirmation class in the +neighbourhood, isn't he?" asked Miss Huddle. + +"Ostensibly," was the dark reply, followed by a request for a +large-scale map of the locality. + +Clovis was still immersed in a seemingly profound study of the map +when another telegram arrived. It was addressed to "Prince +Stanislaus, care of Huddle, The Warren, etc." Clovis glanced at +the contents and announced: "The Bishop and Alberti won't be here +till late in the afternoon." Then he returned to his scrutiny of +the map. + +The luncheon was not a very festive function. The princely +secretary ate and drank with fair appetite, but severely +discouraged conversation. At the finish of the meal he broke +suddenly into a radiant smile, thanked his hostess for a charming +repast, and kissed her hand with deferential rapture. + +Miss Huddle was unable to decide in her mind whether the action +savoured of Louis Quatorzian courtliness or the reprehensible +Roman attitude towards the Sabine women. It was not her day for +having a headache, but she felt that the circumstances excused +her, and retired to her room to have as much headache as was +possible before the Bishop's arrival. Clovis, having asked the +way to the nearest telegraph office, disappeared presently down +the carriage drive. Mr. Huddle met him in the hall some two hours +later, and asked when the Bishop would arrive. + +"He is in the library with Alberti," was the reply. + +"But why wasn't I told? I never knew he had come!" exclaimed +Huddle. + +"No one knows he is here," said Clovis; "the quieter we can keep +matters the better. And on no account disturb him in the library. +Those are his orders." + +"But what is all this mystery about? And who is Alberti? And +isn't the Bishop going to have tea?" + +"The Bishop is out for blood, not tea." + +"Blood!" gasped Huddle, who did not find that the thunderbolt +improved on acquaintance. + +"To-night is going to be a great night in the history of +Christendom," said Clovis. "We are going to massacre every Jew in +the neighbourhood." + +"To massacre the Jews!" said Huddle indignantly. "Do you mean to +tell me there's a general rising against them?" + +"No, it's the Bishop's own idea. He's in there arranging all the +details now." + +"But--the Bishop is such a tolerant, humane man." + +"That is precisely what will heighten the effect of his action. +The sensation will be enormous." + +That at least Huddle could believe. + +"He will be hanged!" he exclaimed with conviction. + +"A motor is waiting to carry him to the coast, where a steam yacht +is in readiness." + +"But there aren't thirty Jews in the whole neighbourhood," +protested Huddle, whose brain, under the repeated shocks of the +day, was operating with the uncertainty of a telegraph wire during +earthquake disturbances. + +"We have twenty-six on our list," said Clovis, referring to a +bundle of notes. "We shall be able to deal with them all the more +thoroughly." + +"Do you mean to tell me that you are meditating violence against a +man like Sir Leon Birberry," stammered Huddle; "he's one of the +most respected men in the country." + +"He's down on our list," said Clovis carelessly; "after all, we've +got men we can trust to do our job, so we shan't have to rely on +local assistance. And we've got some Boy-scouts helping us as +auxiliaries." + +"Boy-scouts!" + +"Yes; when they understood there was real killing to be done they +were even keener than the men." + +"This thing will be a blot on the Twentieth Century!" + +"And your house will be the blotting-pad. Have you realized that +half the papers of Europe and the United States will publish +pictures of it? By the way, I've sent some photographs of you and +your sister, that I found in the library, to the MATIN and DIE +WOCHE; I hope you don't mind. Also a sketch of the staircase; +most of the killing will probably be done on the staircase." + +The emotions that were surging in J. P. Huddle's brain were almost +too intense to be disclosed in speech, but he managed to gasp out: +"There aren't any Jews in this house." + +"Not at present," said Clovis. + +"I shall go to the police," shouted Huddle with sudden energy. + +"In the shrubbery," said Clovis, "are posted ten men who have +orders to fire on anyone who leaves the house without my signal of +permission. Another armed picquet is in ambush near the front +gate. The Boy-scouts watch the back premises." + +At this moment the cheerful hoot of a motor-horn was heard from +the drive. Huddle rushed to the hall door with the feeling of a +man half awakened from a nightmare, and beheld Sir Leon Birberry, +who had driven himself over in his car. "I got your telegram," he +said what's up?" + +Telegram? It seemed to be a day of telegrams. + +"Come here at once. Urgent. James Huddle," was the purport of +the message displayed before Huddle's bewildered eyes. + +"I see it all!" he exclaimed suddenly in a voice shaken with +agitation, and with a look of agony in the direction of the +shrubbery he hauled the astonished Birberry into the house. Tea +had just been laid in the hall, but the now thoroughly panic- +stricken Huddle dragged his protesting guest upstairs, and in a +few minutes' time the entire household had been summoned to that +region of momentary safety. Clovis alone graced the tea-table +with his presence; the fanatics in the library were evidently too +immersed in their monstrous machinations to dally with the solace +of teacup and hot toast. Once the youth rose, in answer to the +summons of the front-door bell, and admitted Mr. Paul Isaacs, +shoemaker and parish councillor, who had also received a pressing +invitation to The Warren. With an atrocious assumption of +courtesy, which a Borgia could hardly have outdone, the secretary +escorted this new captive of his net to the head of the stairway, +where his involuntary host awaited him. + +And then ensued a long ghastly vigil of watching and waiting. +Once or twice Clovis left the house to stroll across to the +shrubbery, returning always to the library, for the purpose +evidently of making a brief report. Once he took in the letters +from the evening postman, and brought them to the top of the +stairs with punctilious politeness. After his next absence he +came half-way up the stairs to make an announcement. + +"The Boy-scouts mistook my signal, and have killed the postman. +I've had very little practice in this sort of thing, you see. +Another time I shall do better." + +The housemaid, who was engaged to be married to the evening +postman, gave way to clamorous grief. + +"Remember that your mistress has a headache," said J. P. Huddle. +(Miss Huddle's headache was worse.) + +Clovis hastened downstairs, and after a short visit to the library +returned with another message: + +"The Bishop is sorry to hear that Miss Huddle has a headache. He +is issuing orders that as far as possible no firearms shall be +used near the house; any killing that is necessary on the premises +will be done with cold steel. The Bishop does not see why a man +should not be a gentleman as well as a Christian." + +That was the last they saw of Clovis; it was nearly seven o'clock, +and his elderly relative liked him to dress for dinner. But, +though he had left them for ever, the lurking suggestion of his +presence haunted the lower regions of the house during the long +hours of the wakeful night, and every creak of the stairway, every +rustle of wind through the shrubbery, was fraught with horrible +meaning. At about seven next morning the gardener's boy and the +early postman finally convinced the watchers that the Twentieth +Century was still unblotted. + +"I don't suppose," mused Clovis, as an early train bore him +townwards, "that they will be in the least grateful for the +Unrest-cure." + + + + +THE JESTING OF ARLINGTON STRINGHAM + + + +Arlington Stringham made a joke in the House of Commons. It was a +thin House, and a very thin joke; something about the Anglo-Saxon +race having a great many angles. It is possible that it was +unintentional, but a fellow-member, who did not wish it to be +supposed that he was asleep because his eyes were shut, laughed. +One or two of the papers noted "a laugh" in brackets, and another, +which was notorious for the carelessness of its political news, +mentioned "laughter." Things often begin in that way. + +"Arlington made a joke in the House last night," said Eleanor +Stringham to her mother; "in all the years we've been married +neither of us has made jokes, and I don't like it now. I'm afraid +it's the beginning of the rift in the lute." + +"What lute?" said her mother. + +"It's a quotation," said Eleanor. + +To say that anything was a quotation was an excellent method, in +Eleanor's eyes, for withdrawing it from discussion, just as you +could always defend indifferent lamb late in the season by saying +"It's mutton." + +And, of course, Arlington Stringham continued to tread the thorny +path of conscious humour into which Fate had beckoned him. + +"The country's looking very green, but, after all, that's what +it's there for," he remarked to his wife two days later. + +"That's very modern, and I dare say very clever, but I'm afraid +it's wasted on me," she observed coldly. If she had known how +much effort it had cost him to make the remark she might have +greeted it in a kinder spirit. It is the tragedy of human +endeavour that it works so often unseen and unguessed. + +Arlington said nothing, not from injured pride, but because he was +thinking hard for something to say. Eleanor mistook his silence +for an assumption of tolerant superiority, and her anger prompted +her to a further gibe. + +"You had better tell it to Lady Isobel. I've no doubt she would +appreciate it." + +Lady Isobel was seen everywhere with a fawn coloured collie at a +time when every one else kept nothing but Pekinese, and she had +once eaten four green apples at an afternoon tea in the Botanical +Gardens, so she was widely credited with a rather unpleasant wit. +The censorious said she slept in a hammock and understood Yeats's +poems, but her family denied both stories. + +"The rift is widening to an abyss," said Eleanor to her mother +that afternoon. + +"I should not tell that to anyone," remarked her mother, after +long reflection. + +"Naturally, I should not talk about it very much?" said Eleanor, +"but why shouldn't I mention it to anyone?" + +"Because you can't have an abyss in a lute. There isn't room." + +Eleanor's outlook on life did not improve as the afternoon wore +on. The page-boy had brought from the library BY MERE AND WOLD +instead of BY MERE CHANCE, the book which every one denied having +read. The unwelcome substitute appeared to be a collection of +nature notes contributed by the author to the pages of some +Northern weekly, and when one had been prepared to plunge with +disapproving mind into a regrettable chronicle of ill-spent lives +it was intensely irritating to read "the dainty yellow-hammers are +now with us and flaunt their jaundiced livery from every bush and +hillock." Besides, the thing was so obviously untrue; either +there must be hardly any bushes or hillocks in those parts or the +country must be fearfully overstocked with yellow-hammers. The +thing scarcely seemed worth telling such a lie about. And the +page-boy stood there, with his sleekly brushed and parted hair, +and his air of chaste and callous indifference to the desires and +passions of the world. Eleanor hated boys, and she would have +liked to have whipped this one long and often. It was perhaps the +yearning of a woman who had no children of her own. + +She turned at random to another paragraph. "Lie quietly concealed +in the fern and bramble in the gap by the old rowan tree, and you +may see, almost every evening during early summer, a pair of +lesser whitethroats creeping up and down the nettles and hedge- +growth that mask their nesting-place." + +The insufferable monotony of the proposed recreation! Eleanor +would not have watched the most brilliant performance at His +Majesty's Theatre for a single evening under such uncomfortable +circumstances, and to be asked to watch lesser whitethroats +creeping up and down a nettle "almost every evening" during the +height of the season struck her as an imputation on her +intelligence that was positively offensive. Impatiently she +transferred her attention to the dinner menu, which the boy had +thoughtfully brought in as an alternative to the more solid +literary fare. "Rabbit curry," met her eye, and the lines of +disapproval deepened on her already puckered brow. The cook was a +great believer in the influence of environment, and nourished an +obstinate conviction that if you brought rabbit and curry-powder +together in one dish a rabbit curry would be the result. And +Clovis and the odious Bertie van Tahn were coming to dinner. +Surely, thought Eleanor, if Arlington knew how much she had had +that day to try her, he would refrain from joke-making. + +At dinner that night it was Eleanor herself who mentioned the name +of a certain statesman, who may be decently covered under the +disguise of X. + +"X," said Arlington Stringham, "has the soul of a meringue." + +It was a useful remark to have on hand, because it applied equally +well to four prominent statesmen of the day, which quadrupled the +opportunities for using it. + +"Meringues haven't got souls," said Eleanor's mother. + +"It's a mercy that they haven't," said Clovis; "they would be +always losing them, and people like my aunt would get up missions +to meringues, and say it was wonderful how much one could teach +them and how much more one could learn from them." + +"What could you learn from a meringue?" asked Eleanor's mother. + +"My aunt has been known to learn humility from an ex-Viceroy," +said Clovis. + +"I wish cook would learn to make curry, or have the sense to leave +it alone," said Arlington, suddenly and savagely. + +Eleanor's face softened. It was like one of his old remarks in +the days when there was no abyss between them. + +It was during the debate on the Foreign Office vote that Stringham +made his great remark that "the people of Crete unfortunately make +more history than they can consume locally." It was not +brilliant, but it came in the middle of a dull speech, and the +House was quite pleased with it. Old gentlemen with bad memories +said it reminded them of Disraeli. + +It was Eleanor's friend, Gertrude Ilpton, who drew her attention +to Arlington's newest outbreak. Eleanor in these days avoided the +morning papers. + +"It's very modern, and I suppose very clever," she observed. + +"Of course it's clever," said Gertrude; "all Lady Isobel's sayings +are clever, and luckily they bear repeating." + +"Are you sure it's one of her sayings?" asked Eleanor. + +"My dear, I've heard her say it dozens of times." + +"So that is where he gets his humour," said Eleanor slowly, and +the hard lines deepened round her mouth. + +The death of Eleanor Stringham from an overdose of chloral, +occurring at the end of a rather uneventful season, excited a +certain amount of unobtrusive speculation. Clovis, who perhaps +exaggerated the importance of curry in the home, hinted at +domestic sorrow. + +And of course Arlington never knew. It was the tragedy of his +life that he should miss the fullest effect of his jesting. + + + + +SREDNI VASHTAR + + + +Conradin was ten years old, and the doctor had pronounced his +professional opinion that the boy would not live another five +years. The doctor was silky and effete, and counted for little, +but his opinion was endorsed by Mrs. de Ropp, who counted for +nearly everything. Mrs. De Ropp was Conradin's cousin and +guardian, and in his eyes she represented those three-fifths of +the world that are necessary and disagreeable and real; the other +two-fifths, in perpetual antagonism to the foregoing, were summed +up in himself and his imagination. One of these days Conradin +supposed he would succumb to the mastering pressure of wearisome +necessary things---such as illnesses and coddling restrictions and +drawn-out dullness. Without his imagination, which was rampant +under the spur of loneliness, he would have succumbed long ago. + +Mrs. de Ropp would never, in her honestest moments, have confessed +to herself that she disliked Conradin, though she might have been +dimly aware that thwarting him "for his good" was a duty which she +did not find particularly irksome. Conradin hated her with a +desperate sincerity which he was perfectly able to mask. Such few +pleasures as he could contrive for himself gained an added relish +from the likelihood that they would be displeasing to his +guardian, and from the realm of his imagination she was locked +out--an unclean thing, which should find no entrance. + +In the dull, cheerless garden, overlooked by so many windows that +were ready to open with a message not to do this or that, or a +reminder that medicines were due, he found little attraction. The +few fruit-trees that it contained were set jealously apart from +his plucking, as though they were rare specimens of their kind +blooming in an arid waste; it would probably have been difficult +to find a market-gardener who would have offered ten shillings for +their entire yearly produce. In a forgotten corner, however, +almost hidden behind a dismal shrubbery, was a disused tool-shed +of respectable proportions, and within its walls Conradin found a +haven, something that took on the varying aspects of a playroom +and a cathedral. He had peopled it with a legion of familiar +phantoms, evoked partly from fragments of history and partly from +his own brain, but it also boasted two inmates of flesh and blood. +In one corner lived a ragged-plumaged Houdan hen, on which the boy +lavished an affection that had scarcely another outlet. Further +back in the gloom stood a large hutch, divided into two +compartments, one of which was fronted with close iron bars. This +was the abode of a large polecat-ferret, which a friendly butcher- +boy had once smuggled, cage and all, into its present quarters, in +exchange for a long-secreted hoard of small silver. Conradin was +dreadfully afraid of the lithe, sharp-fanged beast, but it was his +most treasured possession. Its very presence in the tool-shed was +a secret and fearful joy, to be kept scrupulously from the +knowledge of the Woman, as he privately dubbed his cousin. And +one day, out of Heaven knows what material, he spun the beast a +wonderful name, and from that moment it grew into a god and a +religion. The Woman indulged in religion once a week at a church +near by, and took Conradin with her, but to him the church service +was an alien rite in the House of Rimmon. Every Thursday, in the +dim and musty silence of the tool-shed, he worshipped with mystic +and elaborate ceremonial before the wooden hutch where dwelt +Sredni Vashtar, the great ferret. Red flowers in their season and +scarlet berries in the winter-time were offered at his shrine, for +he was a god who laid some special stress on the fierce impatient +side of things, as opposed to the Woman's religion, which, as far +as Conradin could observe, went to great lengths in the contrary +direction. And on great festivals powdered nutmeg was strewn in +front of his hutch, an important feature of the offering being +that the nutmeg had to be stolen. These festivals were of +irregular occurrence, and were chiefly appointed to celebrate some +passing event. On one occasion, when Mrs. de Ropp suffered from +acute toothache for three days, Conradin kept up the festival +during the entire three days, and almost succeeded in persuading +himself that Sredni Vashtar was personally responsible for the +toothache. If the malady had lasted for another day the supply of +nutmeg would have given out. + +The Houdan hen was never drawn into the cult of Sredni Vashtar. +Conradin had long ago settled that she was an Anabaptist. He did +not pretend to have the remotest knowledge as to what an +Anabaptist was, but he privately hoped that it was dashing and not +very respectable. Mrs. de Ropp was the ground plan on which he +based and detested all respectability. + +After a while Conradin's absorption in the tool-shed began to +attract the notice of his guardian. "It is not good for him to be +pottering down there in all weathers," she promptly decided, and +at breakfast one morning she announced that the Houdan hen had +been sold and taken away overnight. With her short-sighted eyes +she peered at Conradin, waiting for an outbreak of rage and +sorrow, which she was ready to rebuke with a flow of excellent +precepts and reasoning. But Conradin said nothing: there was +nothing to be said. Something perhaps in his white set face gave +her a momentary qualm, for at tea that afternoon there was toast +on the table, a delicacy which she usually banned on the ground +that it was bad for him; also because the making of it "gave +trouble," a deadly offence in the middle-class feminine eye. + +"I thought you liked toast," she exclaimed, with an injured air, +observing that he did not touch it. + +"Sometimes," said Conradin. + +In the shed that evening there was an innovation in the worship of +the hutch-god. Conradin had been wont to chant his praises, to- +night he asked a boon. + +"Do one thing for me, Sredni Vashtar." + +The thing was not specified. As Sredni Vashtar was a god he must +be supposed to know. And choking back a sob as he looked at that +other empty corner, Conradin went back to the world he so hated. + +And every night, in the welcome darkness of his bedroom, and every +evening in the dusk of the tool-shed, Conradin's bitter litany +went up: "Do one thing for me, Sredni Vashtar." + +Mrs. de Ropp noticed that the visits to the shed did not cease, +and one day she made a further journey of inspection. + +"What are you keeping in that locked hutch?" she asked. "I +believe it's guinea-pigs. I'll have them all cleared away." + +Conradin shut his lips tight, but the Woman ransacked his bedroom +till she found the carefully hidden key, and forthwith marched +down to the shed to complete her discovery. It was a cold +afternoon, and Conradin had been bidden to keep to the house. +From the furthest window of the dining-room the door of the shed +could just be seen beyond the corner of the shrubbery, and there +Conradin stationed himself. He saw the Woman enter, and then he +imagined her opening the door of the sacred hutch and peering down +with her short-sighted eyes into the thick straw bed where his god +lay hidden. Perhaps she would prod at the straw in her clumsy +impatience. And Conradin fervently breathed his prayer for the +last time. But he knew as he prayed that he did not believe. He +knew that the Woman would come out presently with that pursed +smile he loathed so well on her face, and that in an hour or two +the gardener would carry away his wonderful god, a god no longer, +but a simple brown ferret in a hutch. And he knew that the Woman, +would triumph always as she triumphed now, and that he would grow +ever more sickly under her pestering and domineering and superior +wisdom, till one day nothing would matter much more with him, and +the doctor would be proved right. And in the sting and misery of +his defeat, he began to chant loudly and defiantly the hymn of his +threatened idol: + + Sredni Vashtar went forth, + His thoughts were red thoughts and his teeth were white. + His enemies called for peace, but he brought them death. + Sredni Vashtar the Beautiful. + +And then of a sudden he stopped his chanting and drew closer to +the window-pane. The door of the shed still stood ajar as it had +been left, and the minutes were slipping by. They were long +minutes, but they slipped by nevertheless. He watched the +starlings running and flying in little parties across the lawn; he +counted them over and over again, with one eye always on that +swinging door. A sour-faced maid came in to lay the table for +tea, and still Conradin stood and waited and watched. Hope had +crept by inches into his heart, and now a look of triumph began to +blaze in his eyes that had only known the wistful patience of +defeat. Under his breath, with a furtive exultation, he began +once again the paean of victory and devastation. And presently +his eyes were rewarded: out through that doorway came a long, low, +yellow-and-brown beast, with eyes a-blink at the waning daylight, +and dark wet stains around the fur of jaws and throat. Conradin +dropped on his knees. The great polecat-ferret made its way down +to a small brook at the foot of the garden, drank for a moment, +then crossed a little plank bridge and was lost to sight in the +bushes. Such was the passing of Sredni Vashtar. + +"Tea is ready," said the sour-faced maid; "where is the mistress?" + +"She went down to the shed some time ago," said Conradin. + +And while the maid went to summon her mistress to tea, Conradin +fished a toasting-fork out of the sideboard drawer and proceeded +to toast himself a piece of bread. And during the toasting of it +and the buttering of it with much butter and the slow enjoyment of +eating it, Conradin listened to the noises and silences which fell +in quick spasms beyond the dining-room door. The loud foolish +screaming of the maid, the answering chorus of wondering +ejaculations from the kitchen region, the scuttering footsteps and +hurried embassies for outside help, and then, after a lull, the +scared sobbings and the shuffling tread of those who bore a heavy +burden into the house. + +"Whoever will break it to the poor child? I couldn't for the life +of me!" exclaimed a shrill voice. And while they debated the +matter among themselves, Conradin made himself another piece of +toast. + + + + +ADRIAN + +A CHAPTER IN ACCLIMATIZATION + + + +His baptismal register spoke of him pessimistically as John Henry, +but he had left that behind with the other maladies of infancy, +and his friends knew him under the front-name of Adrian. His +mother lived in Bethnal Green, which was not altogether his fault; +one can discourage too much history in one's family, but one +cannot always prevent geography. And, after all, the Bethnal +Green habit has this virtue--that it is seldom transmitted to the +next generation. Adrian lived in a roomlet which came under the +auspicious constellation of W. + +How he lived was to a great extent a mystery even to himself; his +struggle for existence probably coincided in many material details +with the rather dramatic accounts he gave of it to sympathetic +acquaintances. All that is definitely known is that he now and +then emerged from the struggle to dine at the Ritz or Carlton, +correctly garbed and with a correctly critical appetite. On these +occasions he was usually the guest of Lucas Croyden, an amiable +worldling, who had three thousand a year and a taste for +introducing impossible people to irreproachable cookery. Like +most men who combine three thousand a year with an uncertain +digestion, Lucas was a Socialist, and he argued that you cannot +hope to elevate the masses until you have brought plovers' eggs +into their lives and taught them to appreciate the difference +between coupe Jacques and Macédoine de fruits. His friends +pointed out that it was a doubtful kindness to initiate a boy from +behind a drapery counter into the blessedness of the higher +catering, to which Lucas invariably replied that all kindnesses +were doubtful. Which was perhaps true. + +It was after one of his Adrian evenings that Lucas met his aunt, +Mrs. Mebberley, at a fashionable tea shop, where the lamp of +family life is still kept burning and you meet relatives who might +otherwise have slipped your memory. + +"Who was that good-looking boy who was dining with you last +night?" she asked. "He looked much too nice to be thrown away +upon you." + +Susan Mebberley was a charming woman, but she was also an aunt. + +"Who are his people?" she continued, when the protégé's name +(revised version) had been given her. + +"His mother lives at Beth--" + +Lucas checked himself on the threshold of what was perhaps a +social indiscretion. + +"Beth? Where is it? It sounds like Asia, Minor. Is she mixed up +with Consular people?" + +"Oh, no. Her work lies among the poor." + +This was a side-slip into truth. The mother of Adrian was +employed in a laundry. + +"I see," said Mrs. Mebberley, "mission work of some sort. And +meanwhile the boy has no one to look after him. It's obviously my +duty to see that he doesn't come to harm. Bring him to call on +me." + +"My dear Aunt Susan," expostulated Lucas, "I really know very +little about him. He may not be at all nice, you know, on further +acquaintance." + +"He has delightful hair and a weak mouth. I shall take him with +me to Homburg or Cairo." + +"It's the maddest thing I ever heard of," said Lucas angrily. + +"Well, there is a strong strain of madness in our family. If you +haven't noticed it yourself all your friends must have." + +"One is so dreadfully under everybody's eyes at Homburg. At least +you might give him a preliminary trial at Etretat." + +"And be surrounded by Americans trying to talk French? No, thank +you. I love Americans, but not when they try to talk French. +What a blessing it is that they never try to talk English. To- +morrow at five you can bring your young friend to call on me."' + +And Lucas, realizing that Susan Mebberley was a woman as well as +an aunt, saw that she would have to be allowed to have her own +way. + +Adrian was duly carried abroad under the Mebberley wing; but as a +reluctant concession to sanity Homburg and other inconveniently +fashionable resorts were given a wide berth, and the Mebberley +establishment planted itself down in the best hotel at Dohledorf, +an Alpine townlet somewhere at the back of the Engadine. It was +the usual kind of resort, with the usual type of visitors, that +one finds over the greater part of Switzerland during the summer +season, but to Adrian it was all unusual. The mountain air, the +certainty of regular and abundant meals, and in particular the +social atmosphere, affected him much as the indiscriminating +fervour of a forcing-house might affect a weed that had strayed +within its limits. He had been brought up in a world where +breakages were regarded as crimes and expiated as such; it was +something new and altogether exhilarating to find that you were +considered rather amusing if you smashed things in the right +manner and at the recognized hours. Susan Mebberley had expressed +the intention of showing Adrian a bit of the world; the particular +bit of the world represented by Dohledorf began to be shown a good +deal of Adrian. + +Lucas got occasional glimpses of the Alpine sojourn, not from his +aunt or Adrian, but from the industrious pen of Clovis, who was +also moving as a satellite in the Mebberley constellation. + +"The entertainment which Susan got up last night ended in +disaster. I thought it would. The Grobmayer child, a +particularly loathsome five-year-old, had appeared as 'Bubbles' +during the early part of the evening, and been put to bed during +the interval. Adrian watched his opportunity and kidnapped it +when the nurse was downstairs, and introduced it during the second +half of the entertainment, thinly disguised as a performing pig. +It certainly LOOKED very like a pig, and grunted and slobbered +just like the real article; no one knew exactly what it was, but +every one said it was awfully clever, especially the Grobmayers. +At the third curtain Adrian pinched it too hard, and it yelled +'Marmar'! I am supposed to be good at descriptions, but don't ask +me to describe the sayings and doings of the Grobmayers at that +moment; it was like one of the angrier Psalms set to Strauss's +music. We have moved to an hotel higher up the valley." + +Clovis's next letter arrived five days later, and was written from +the Hotel Steinbock. + +"We left the Hotel Victoria this morning. It was fairly +comfortable and quiet--at least there was an air of repose about +it when we arrived. Before we had been in residence twenty-four +hours most of the repose had vanished 'like a dutiful bream,' as +Adrian expressed it. However, nothing unduly outrageous happened +till last night, when Adrian had a fit of insomnia and amused +himself by unscrewing and transposing all the bedroom numbers on +his floor. He transferred the bathroom label to the adjoining +bedroom door, which happened to be that of Frau Hoftath Schilling, +and this morning from seven o'clock onwards the old lady had a +stream of involuntary visitors; she was too horrified and +scandalized it seems to get up and lock her door. The would-be +bathers flew back in confusion to their rooms, and, of course, the +change of numbers led them astray again, and the corridor +gradually filled with panic-stricken, scantily robed humans, +dashing wildly about like rabbits in a ferret-infested warren. It +took nearly an hour before the guests were all sorted into their +respective rooms, and the Frau Hofrath's condition was still +causing some anxiety when we left. Susan is beginning to look a +little worried. She can't very well turn the boy adrift, as he +hasn't got any money, and she can't send him to his people as she +doesn't know where they are. Adrian says his mother moves about a +good deal and he's lost her address. Probably, if he truth were +known, he's had a row at home. So many boys nowadays seem to +think that quarrelling with one's family is a recognized +occupation." + +Lucas's next communication from the travellers took the form of a +telegram from Mrs. Mebberley herself. It was sent "reply +prepaid," and consisted of a single sentence: "In Heaven's name, +where is Beth?" + + + + +THE CHAPLET + + + +A strange stillness hung over the restaurant; it was one of those +rare moments when the orchestra was not discoursing the strains of +the Ice-cream Sailor waltz. + +"Did I ever tell you," asked Clovis of his friend, "the tragedy of +music at mealtimes? + +"It was a gala evening at the Grand Sybaris Hotel, and a special +dinner was being served in the Amethyst dining-hall. The Amethyst +dining-hall had almost a European reputation, especially with that +section of Europe which is historically identified with the Jordan +Valley. Its cooking was beyond reproach, and its orchestra was +sufficiently highly salaried to be above criticism. Thither came +in shoals the intensely musical and the almost intensely musical, +who are very many, and in still greater numbers the merely +musical, who know how Tchaikowsky's name is pronounced and can +recognize several of Chopin's nocturnes if you give them due +warning; these eat in the nervous, detached manner of roebuck +feeding in the open, and keep anxious ears cocked towards the +orchestra for the first hint of a recognizable melody. + +"'Ah, yes, Pagliacci,' they murmur, as the opening strains follow +hot upon the soup, and if no contradiction is forthcoming from any +better-informed quarter they break forth into subdued humming by +way of supplementing the efforts of the musicians. Sometimes the +melody starts on level terms with the soup, in which case the +banqueters contrive somehow to hum between the spoonfuls; the +facial expression of enthusiasts who are punctuating potage St. +Germain with Pagliacci is not beautiful, but it should be seen by +those who are bent on observing all sides of life. One cannot +discount the unpleasant things of this world merely by looking the +other way. + +"In addition to the aforementioned types the restaurant was +patronized by a fair sprinkling of the absolutely nonmusical; +their presence in the dining-hall could only be explained on the +supposition that they had come there to dine. + +"The earlier stages of the dinner had worn off. The wine lists +had been consulted, by some with the blank embarrassment of a +schoolboy suddenly called on to locate a Minor Prophet in the +tangled hinterland of the Old Testament, by others with the severe +scrutiny which suggests that they have visited most of the higher- +priced wines in their own homes and probed their family +weaknesses. The diners who chose their wine in the latter fashion +always gave their orders in a penetrating voice, with a plentiful +garnishing of stage directions. By insisting on having your +bottle pointing to the north when the cork is being drawn, and +calling the waiter Max, you may induce an impression on your +guests which hours of laboured boasting might be powerless to +achieve. For this purpose, however, the guests must be chosen as +carefully as the wine. + +"Standing aside from the revellers in the shadow of a massive +pillar was an interested spectator who was assuredly of the feast, +and yet not in it. Monsieur Aristide Saucourt was the CHEF of the +Grand Sybaris Hotel, and if he had an equal in his profession he +had never acknowledged the fact. In his own domain he was a +potentate, hedged around, with the cold brutality that Genius +expects rather than excuses in her children; he never forgave, and +those who served him were careful that there should be little to +forgive. In the outer world, the world which devoured his +creations, he was an influence; how profound or how shallow an +influence he never attempted to guess. It is the penalty and the +safeguard of genius that it computes itself by troy weight in a +world that measures by vulgar hundredweights. + +"Once in a way the great man would be seized with a desire to +watch the effect of his master-efforts, just as the guiding brain +of Krupp's might wish at a supreme moment to intrude into the +firing line of an artillery duel. And such an occasion was the +present. For the first time in the history of the Grand Sybaris +Hotel, he was presenting to its guests the dish which he had +brought to that pitch of perfection which almost amounts to +scandal. Canetons à la mode d'Amblève. In thin gilt lettering on +the creamy white of the menu how little those words conveyed to +the bulk of the imperfectly educated diners. And yet how much +specialized effort had been lavished, how much carefully treasured +lore had been ungarnered, before those six words could be written. +In the Department of Deux-Sèvres ducklings had lived peculiar and +beautiful lives and died in the odour of satiety to furnish the +main theme of the dish; champignons, which even a purist for Saxon +English would have hesitated to address as mushrooms, had +contributed their languorous atrophied bodies to the garnishing, +and a sauce devised in the twilight reign of the Fifteenth Louis +had been summoned back from the imperishable past to take its part +in the wonderful confection. Thus far had human effort laboured +to achieve the desired result; the rest had been left to human +genius--the genius of Aristide Saucourt. + +"And now the moment had arrived for the serving of the great dish, +the dish which world-weary Grand Dukes and market-obsessed money +magnates counted among their happiest memories. And at the same +moment something else happened. The leader of the highly salaried +orchestra placed his violin caressingly against his chin, lowered +his eyelids, and floated into a sea of melody. + +"'Hark!' said most of the diners, 'he is playing "The Chaplet."' + +"They knew it was 'The Chaplet' because they had heard it played +at luncheon and afternoon tea, and at supper the night before, and +had not had time to forget. + +"'Yes, he is playing "The Chaplet,"' they reassured one another. +The general voice was unanimous on the subject. The orchestra had +already played it eleven times that day, four times by desire and +seven times from force of habit, but the familiar strains were +greeted with the rapture due to a revelation. A murmur of much +humming rose from half the tables in the room, and some of the +more overwrought listeners laid down knife and fork in order to be +able to burst in with loud clappings at the earliest permissible +moment. + +"And the Canetons à la mode d'Amblève? In stupefied, sickened +wonder Aristide watched them grow cold in total neglect, or suffer +the almost worse indignity of perfunctory pecking and listless +munching while the banqueters lavished their approval and applause +on the music-makers. Calves' liver and bacon, with parsley sauce, +could hardly have figured more ignominiously in the evening's +entertainment. And while the master of culinary art leaned back +against the sheltering pillar, choking with a horrible brain- +searing rage that could find no outlet for its agony, the +orchestra leader was bowing his acknowledgments of the hand- +clappings that rose in a storm around him. Turning to his +colleagues he nodded the signal for an encore. But before the +violin had been lifted anew into position there came from the +shadow of the pillar an explosive negative. + +"'Noh! Noh! You do not play thot again!' + +"The musician turned in furious astonishment. Had he taken +warning from the look in the other man's eyes he might have acted +differently. But the admiring plaudits were ringing in his ears, +and he snarled out sharply, 'That is for me to decide.' + +"'Noh! You play thot never again,' shouted the CHEF, and the next +moment he had flung himself violently upon the loathed being who +had supplanted him in the world's esteem. A large metal tureen, +filled to the brim with steaming soup, had just been placed on a +side table in readiness for a late party of diners; before the +waiting staff or the guests had time to realize what was +happening, Aristide had dragged his struggling victim up to the +table and plunged his head deep down into the almost boiling +contents of the tureen. At the further end of the room the diners +were still spasmodically applauding in view of an encore. + +"Whether the leader of the orchestra died from drowning by soup, +or from the shock to his professional vanity, or was scalded to +death, the doctors were never wholly able to agree. Monsieur +Aristide Saucourt, who now lives in complete retirement, always +inclined to the drowning theory." + + + + +THE QUEST + + + +An unwonted peace hung over the Villa Elsinore, broken, however, +at frequent intervals, by clamorous lamentations suggestive of +bewildered bereavement. The Momebys had lost their infant child; +hence the peace which its absence entailed; they were looking for +it in wild, undisciplined fashion, giving tongue the whole time, +which accounted for the outcry which swept through house and +garden whenever they returned to try the home coverts anew. +Clovis, who was temporarily and unwillingly a paying guest at the +villa, had been dozing in a hammock at the far end of the garden +when Mrs. Momeby had broken the news to him. + +"We've lost Baby," she screamed. + +"Do you mean that it's dead, or stampeded, or that you staked it +at cards and lost it that way?" asked Clovis lazily. + +"He was toddling about quite happily on the lawn," said Mrs. +Momeby tearfully, "and Arnold had just come in, and I was asking +him what sort of sauce he would like with the asparagus--" + +"I hope he said hollandaise," interrupted Clovis, with a show of +quickened interest, "because if there's anything I hate--" + +"And all of a sudden I missed Baby," continued Mrs. Momeby in a +shriller tone. "We've hunted high and low, in house and garden +and outside the gates, and he's nowhere to be seen." + +"Is he anywhere to he heard?" asked Clovis; "if not, he must be at +least two miles away." + +"But where? And how?" asked the distracted mother. + +"Perhaps an eagle or a wild beast has carried him off," suggested +Clovis. + +"There aren't eagles and wild beasts in Surrey," said Mrs. Momeby, +but a note of horror had crept into her voice. + +"They escape now and then from travelling shows. Sometimes I +think they let them get loose for the sake of the advertisement. +Think what a sensational headline it would make in the local +papers: ' Infant son of prominent Nonconformist devoured by +spotted hyaena.' Your husband isn't a prominent Nonconformist, +but his mother came of Wesleyan stock, and you must allow the +newspapers some latitude." + +"But we should have found his remains," sobbed Mrs. Momeby. + +"If the hyaena was really hungry and not merely toying with his +food there wouldn't be much in the way of remains. It would be +like the small-boy-and-apple story--there ain't going to be no +core." + +Mrs. Momeby turned away hastily to seek comfort and counsel in +some other direction. With the selfish absorption of young +motherhood she entirely disregarded Clovis's obvious anxiety about +the asparagus sauce. Before she had gone a yard, however, the +click of the side gate caused her to pull up sharp. Miss Gilpet, +from the Villa Peterhof, had come over to hear details of the +bereavement. Clovis was already rather bored with the story, but +Mrs. Momeby was equipped with that merciless faculty which finds +as much joy in the ninetieth time of telling as in the first. + +"Arnold had just come in; he was complaining of rheumatism--" + +"There are so many things to complain of in this household that it +would never have occurred to me to complain of rheumatism," +murmured Clovis. + +"He was complaining of rheumatism," continued Mrs. Momeby, trying +to throw a chilling inflection into a voice that was already doing +a good deal of sobbing and talking at high pressure as well. + +She was again interrupted. + +"There is no such thing as rheumatism," said Miss Gilpet. She +said it with the conscious air of defiance that a waiter adopts in +announcing that the cheapest-priced claret in the wine-list is no +more. She did not proceed, however, to offer the alternative of +some more expensive malady, but denied the existence of them all. + +Mrs. Momeby's temper began to shine out through her grief. + +"I suppose you'll say next that Baby hasn't really disappeared." + +"He has disappeared," conceded Miss Gilpet, "but only because you +haven't sufficient faith to find him. It's only lack of faith on +your part that prevents him from being restored to you safe and +well." + +"But if he's been eaten in the meantime by a hyaena and partly +digested," said Clovis, who clung affectionately to his wild beast +theory, "surely some ill-effects would be noticeable?" + +Miss Gilpet was rather staggered by this complication of the +question. + +"I feel sure that a hyaena has not eaten him," she said lamely. + +"The hyaena may be equally certain that it has. You see, it may +have just as much faith as you have, and more special knowledge as +to the present whereabouts of the baby." + +Mrs. Momeby was in tears again. "If you have faith," she sobbed, +struck by a happy inspiration, "won't you find our little Erik for +us? I am sure you have powers that are denied to us." + +Rose-Marie Gilpet was thoroughly sincere in her adherence to +Christian Science principles; whether she understood or correctly +expounded them the learned in such matters may best decide. In +the present case she was undoubtedly confronted with a great +opportunity, and as she started forth on her vague search she +strenuously summoned to her aid every scrap of faith that she +possessed. She passed out into the bare and open high road, +followed by Mrs. Momeby's warning, "It's no use going there, we've +searched there a dozen times." But Rose-Marie's ears were already +deaf to all things save self-congratulation; for sitting in the +middle of the highway, playing contentedly with the dust and some +faded buttercups, was a white-pinafored baby with a mop of tow- +coloured hair tied over one temple with a pale-blue ribbon. +Taking first the usual feminine precaution of looking to see that +no motor-car was on the distant horizon, Rose-Marie dashed at the +child and bore it, despite its vigorous opposition, in through the +portals of Elsinore. The child's furious screams had already +announced the fact of its discovery, and the almost hysterical +parents raced down the lawn to meet their restored offspring. The +aesthetic value of the scene was marred in some degree by Rose- +Marie's difficulty in holding the struggling infant, which was +borne wrong-end foremost towards the agitated bosom of its family. +"Our own little Erik come back to us," cried the Momebys in +unison; as the child had rammed its fists tightly into its eye- +sockets and nothing could be seen of its face but a widely gaping +mouth, the recognition was in itself almost an act of faith. + +"Is he glad to get back to Daddy and Mummy again?" crooned Mrs. +Momeby; the preference which the child was showing for its dust +and buttercup distractions was so marked that the question struck +Clovis as being unnecessarily tactless. + +"Give him a ride on the roly-poly," suggested the father +brilliantly, as the howls continued with no sign of early +abatement. In a moment the child had been placed astride the big +garden roller and a preliminary tug was given to set it in motion. +From the hollow depths of the cylinder came an earsplitting roar, +drowning even the vocal efforts of the squalling baby, and +immediately afterwards there crept forth a white-pinafored infant +with a mop of tow-coloured hair tied over one temple with a pale +blue ribbon. There was no mistaking either the features or the +lung-power of the new arrival. + +"Our own little Erik," screamed Mrs. Momeby, pouncing on him and +nearly smothering him with kisses; "did he hide in the roly-poly +to give us all a big fright?" + +This was the obvious explanation of the child's sudden +disappearance and equally abrupt discovery. There remained, +however, the problem of the interloping baby, which now sat +whimpering on the lawn in a disfavour as chilling as its previous +popularity had been unwelcome. The Momebys glared at it as though +it had wormed its way into their short-lived affections by +heartless and unworthy pretences. Miss Gilpet's face took on an +ashen tinge as she stared helplessly at the bunched-up figure that +had been such a gladsome sight to her eyes a few moments ago. + +"When love is over, how little of love even the lover +understands," quoted Clovis to himself. + +Rose-Marie was the first to break the silence. + +"If that is Erik you have in your arms, who is--that?" + +"That, I think, is for you to explain," said Mrs. Momeby stiffly. + +"Obviously," said Clovis, "it's a duplicate Erik that your powers +of faith called into being. The question is: What are you going +to do with him?" + +The ashen pallor deepened in Rose-Marie's cheeks. Mrs. Momeby +clutched the genuine Erik closer to her side, as though she feared +that her uncanny neighbour might out of sheer pique turn him into +a bowl of gold-fish. + +"I found him sitting in the middle of the road," said Rose-Marie +weakly. + +"You can't take him back and leave him there," said Clovis; "the +highway is meant for traffic, not to be used as a lumber-room for +disused miracles." + +Rose-Marie wept. The proverb "Weep and you weep alone," broke +down as badly on application as most of its kind. Both babies +were wailing lugubriously, and the parent Momebys had scarcely +recovered from their earlier lachrymose condition. Clovis alone +maintained an unruffled cheerfulness. + +"Must I keep him always?" asked Rose-Marie dolefully. + +"Not always," said Clovis consolingly; "he can go into the Navy +when he's thirteen." Rose-Marie wept afresh. + +"Of course," added Clovis, "there may be no end of a bother about +his birth certificate. You'll have to explain matters to the +Admiralty, and they're dreadfully hidebound." + +It was rather a relief when a breathless nursemaid from the Villa +Charlottenburg over the way came running across the lawn to claim +little Percy, who had slipped out of the front gate and +disappeared like a twinkling from the high road. + +And even then Clovis found it necessary to go in person to the +kitchen to make sure about the asparagus sauce. + + + + +WRATISLAV + + + +The Gräfin's two elder sons had made deplorable marriages. It +was, observed Clovis, a family habit. The youngest boy, +Wratislav, who was the black sheep of a rather greyish family, had +as yet made no marriage at all. + +"There is certainly this much to be said for viciousness," said +the Gräfin, "it keeps boys out of mischief." + +"Does it?" asked the Baroness Sophie, not by way of questioning +the statement, but with a painstaking effort to talk +intelligently. It was the one matter in which she attempted to +override the decrees of Providence, which had obviously never +intended that she should talk otherwise than inanely. + +"I don't know why I shouldn't talk cleverly," she would complain; +"my mother was considered a brilliant conversationalist." + +"These things have a way of skipping one generation," said the +Gräfin. + +"That seems so unjust," said Sophie; "one doesn't object to one's +mother having outshone one as a clever talker, but I must admit +that I should be rather annoyed if my daughters talked +brilliantly." + +"Well, none of them do," said the Gräfin consolingly. + +"I don't know about that," said the Baroness, promptly veering +round in defence of her offspring. "Elsa said something quite +clever on Thursday about the Triple Alliance. Something about it +being like a paper umbrella, that was all right as long as you +didn't take it out in the rain. It's not every one who could say +that." + +"Every one has said it; at least every one that I know. But then +I know very few people." + +"I don't think you're particularly agreeable to-day." + +"I never am. Haven't you noticed that women with a really perfect +profile like mine are seldom even moderately agreeable?" + +"I don't think your profile is so perfect as all that," said the +Baroness. + +"It would be surprising if it wasn't. My mother was one of the +most noted classical beauties of her day." + +"These things sometimes skip a generation, you know," put in the +Baroness, with the breathless haste of one to whom repartee comes +as rarely as the finding of a gold-handled umbrella. + +"My dear Sophie," said the Gräfin sweetly, "that isn't in the +least bit clever; but you do try so hard that I suppose I oughtn't +to discourage you. Tell me something: has it ever occurred to you +that Elsa would do very well for Wratislav? It's time he married +somebody, and why not Elsa?" + +"Elsa marry that dreadful boy!" gasped the Baroness. + +"Beggars can't be choosers," observed the Gräfin. + +"Elsa isn't a beggar!" + +"Not financially, or I shouldn't have suggested the match. But +she's getting on, you know, and has no pretensions to brains or +looks or anything of that sort." + +"You seem to forget that she's my daughter." + +"That shows my generosity. But, seriously, I don't see what there +is against Wratislav. He has no debts--at least, nothing worth +speaking about." + +"But think of his reputation! If half the things they say about +him are true--" + +"Probably three-quarters of them are. But what of it? You don't +want an archangel for a son-in-law." + +"I don't want Wratislav. My poor Elsa would be miserable with +him." + +"A little misery wouldn't matter very much with her; it would go +so well with the way she does her hair, and if she couldn't get on +with Wratislav she could always go and do good among the poor." + +The Baroness picked up a framed photograph from the table. + +"He certainly is very handsome," she said doubtfully; adding even +more doubtfully, "I dare say dear Elsa might reform him." + +The Gräfin had the presence of mind to laugh in the right key. + + . . . . . . . . . + +Three weeks later the Gräfin bore down upon the Baroness Sophie in +a foreign bookseller's shop in the Graben, where she was, +possibly, buying books of devotion, though it was the wrong +counter for them. + +"I've just left the dear children at the Rodenstahls'," was the +Gräfin's greeting. + +"Were they looking very happy?" asked the Baroness. + +"Wratislav was wearing some new English clothes, so, of course, he +was quite happy. I overheard him telling Toni a rather amusing +story about a nun and a mousetrap, which won't bear repetition. +Elsa was telling every one else a witticism about the Triple +Alliance being like a paper umbrella--which seems to bear +repetition with Christian fortitude." + +"Did they seem much wrapped up in each other?" + +"To be candid, Elsa looked as if she were wrapped up in a horse- +rug. And why let her wear saffron colour?" + +"I always think it goes with her complexion." + +"Unfortunately it doesn't. It stays with it. Ugh. Don't forget, +you're lunching with me on Thursday." + +The Baroness was late for her luncheon engagement the following +Thursday. + +"Imagine what has happened!" she screamed as she burst into the +room. + +"Something remarkable, to make you late for a meal," said the +Gräfin. + +"Elsa has run away with the Rodenstahls' chauffeur!" + +"Kolossal!" + +"Such a thing as that no one in our family has ever done," gasped +the Baroness. + +"Perhaps he didn't appeal to them in the same way," suggested the +Gräfin judicially. + +The Baroness began to feel that she was not getting the +astonishment and sympathy to which her catastrophe entitled her. + +"At any rate," she snapped, "now she can't marry Wratislav." + +"She couldn't in any case," said the Gräfin; he left suddenly for +abroad last night." + +"For abroad! Where?" + +"For Mexico, I believe." + +"Mexico! But what for? Why Mexico?" + +"The English have a proverb, 'Conscience makes cowboys of us +all.'" + +"I didn't know Wratislav had a conscience." + +"My dear Sophie, he hasn't. It's other people's consciences that +send one abroad in a hurry. Let's go and eat." + + + + +THE EASTER EGG + + + +It was distinctly hard lines for Lady Barbara, who came of good +fighting stock, and was one of the bravest women of her +generation, that her son should be so undisguisedly a coward. +Whatever good qualities Lester Slaggby may have possessed, and he +was in some respects charming, courage could certainly never he +imputed to him. As a child he had suffered from childish +timidity, as a boy from unboyish funk, and as a youth he had +exchanged unreasoning fears for others which were more formidable +from the fact of having a carefully thought-out basis. He was +frankly afraid of animals, nervous with firearms, and never +crossed the Channel without mentally comparing the numerical +proportion of lifebelts to passengers. On horseback he seemed to +require as many hands as a Hindu god, at least four for clutching +the reins, and two more for patting the horse soothingly on the +neck. Lady Barbara no longer pretended not to see her son's +prevailing weakness, with her usual courage she faced the +knowledge of it squarely, and, mother-like, loved him none the +less. + +Continental travel, anywhere away from the great tourist tracks, +was a favoured hobby with Lady Barbara, and Lester joined her as +often as possible. Eastertide usually found her at Knobaltheim, +an upland township in one of those small princedoms that make +inconspicuous freckles on the map of Central Europe. + +A long-standing acquaintanceship with the reigning family made her +a personage of due importance in the eyes of her old friend the +Burgomaster, and she was anxiously consulted by that worthy on the +momentous occasion when the Prince made known his intention of +coming in person to open a sanatorium outside the town. All the +usual items in a programme of welcome, some of them fatuous and +commonplace, others quaint and charming, had been arranged for, +but the Burgomaster hoped that the resourceful English lady might +have something new and tasteful to suggest in the way of loyal +greeting. The Prince was known to the outside world, if at all, +as an old-fashioned reactionary, combating modern progress, as it +were, with a wooden sword; to his own people he was known as a +kindly old gentleman with a certain endearing stateliness which +had nothing of standoffishness about it. Knobaltheim was anxious +to do its best. Lady Barbara discussed the matter with Lester and +one or two acquaintances in her little hotel, but ideas were +difficult to come by. + +"Might I suggest something to the Gnädige Frau?" asked a sallow +high-cheek-boned lady to whom the Englishwoman had spoken once or +twice, and whom she had set down in her mind as probably a +Southern Slav. + +"Might I suggest something for the Reception Fest?" she went on, +with a certain shy eagerness. "Our little child here, our baby, +we will dress him in little white coat, with small wings, as an +Easter angel, and he will carry a large white Easter egg, and +inside shall be a basket of plover eggs, of which the Prince is so +fond, and he shall give it to his Highness as Easter offering. It +is so pretty an idea we have seen it done once in Styria." + +Lady Barbara looked dubiously at the proposed Easter angel, a +fair, wooden-faced child of about four years old. She had noticed +it the day before in the hotel, and wondered rather how such a +towheaded child could belong to such a dark-visaged couple as the +woman and her husband; probably, she thought, an adopted baby, +especially as the couple were not young. + +"Of course Gnädige Frau will escort the little child up to the +Prince," pursued the woman; but he will be quite good, and do as +he is told." + +"We haf some pluffers' eggs shall come fresh from Wien," said the +husband. + +The small child and Lady Barbara seemed equally unenthusiastic +about the pretty idea; Lester was openly discouraging, but when +the Burgomaster heard of it he was enchanted. The combination of +sentiment and plovers' eggs appealed strongly to his Teutonic +mind. + +On the eventful day the Easter angel, really quite prettily and +quaintly dressed, was a centre of kindly interest to the gala +crowd marshalled to receive his Highness. The mother was +unobtrusive and less fussy than most parents would have been under +the circumstances, merely stipulating that she should place the +Easter egg herself in the arms that had been carefully schooled +how to hold the precious burden. Then Lady Barbara moved forward, +the child marching stolidly and with grim determination at her +side. It had been promised cakes and sweeties galore if it gave +the egg well and truly to the kind old gentleman who was waiting +to receive it. Lester had tried to convey to it privately that +horrible smackings would attend any failure in its share of the +proceedings, but it is doubtful if his German caused more than an +immediate distress. Lady Barbara had thoughtfully provided +herself with an emergency supply of chocolate sweetmeats; children +may sometimes be time-servers, but they do not encourage long +accounts. As they approached nearer to the princely daïs Lady +Barbara stood discreetly aside, and the stolid-faced infant walked +forward alone, with staggering but steadfast gait, encouraged by a +murmur of elderly approval. Lester, standing in the front row of +the onlookers, turned to scan the crowd for the beaming faces of +the happy parents. In a side-road which led to the railway +station he saw a cab; entering the cab with every appearance of +furtive haste were the dark-visaged couple who had been so +plausibly eager for the "pretty idea." The sharpened instinct of +cowardice lit up the situation to him in one swift flash. The +blood roared and surged to his head as though thousands of +floodgates had been opened in his veins and arteries, and his +brain was the common sluice in which all the torrents met. He saw +nothing but a blur around him. Then the blood ebbed away in quick +waves, till his very heart seemed drained and empty, and he stood +nervelessly, helplessly, dumbly watching the child, bearing its +accursed burden with slow, relentless steps nearer and nearer to +the group that waited sheep-like to receive him. A fascinated +curiosity compelled Lester to turn his head towards the fugitives; +the cab had started at hot pace in the direction of the station. + +The next moment Lester was running, running faster than any of +those present had ever seen a man run, and--he was not running +away. For that stray fraction of his life some unwonted impulse +beset him, some hint of the stock he came from, and he ran +unflinchingly towards danger. He stooped and clutched at the +Easter egg as one tries to scoop up the ball in Rugby football. +What he meant to do with it he had not considered, the thing was +to get it. But the child had been promised cakes and sweetmeats +if it safely gave the egg into the hands of the kindly old +gentleman; it uttered no scream, but it held to its charge with +limpet grip. Lester sank to his knees, tugging savagely at the +tightly clasped burden, and angry cries rose from the scandalized +onlookers. A questioning, threatening ring formed round him, then +shrank back in recoil as he shrieked out one hideous word. Lady +Barbara heard the word and saw the crowd race away like scattered +sheep, saw the Prince forcibly hustled away by his attendants; +also she saw her son lying prone in an agony of overmastering +terror, his spasm of daring shattered by the child's unexpected +resistance, still clutching frantically, as though for safety, at +that white-satin gew-gaw, unable to crawl even from its deadly +neighbourhood, able only to scream and scream and scream. In her +brain she was dimly conscious of balancing, or striving to +balance, the abject shame which had him now in thrall against the +one compelling act of courage which had flung him grandly and +madly on to the point of danger. It was only for the fraction of +a minute that she stood watching the two entangled figures, the +infant with its woodenly obstinate face and body tense with dogged +resistance, and the boy limp and already nearly dead with a terror +that almost stifled his screams; and over them the long gala +streamers flapping gaily in the sunshine. She never forgot the +scene; but then, it was the last she ever saw. + +Lady Barbara carries her scarred face with its sightless eyes as +bravely as ever in the world, but at Eastertide her friends are +careful to keep from her ears any mention of the children's Easter +symbol. + + + + +FILBOID STUDGE, THE STORY OF A MOUSE THAT HELPED + + + +"I want to marry your daughter," said Mark Spayley with faltering +eagerness. "I am only an artist with an income of two hundred a +year, and she is the daughter of an enormously wealthy man, so I +suppose you will think my offer a piece of presumption." + +Duncan Dullamy, the great company inflator, showed no outward sign +of displeasure. As a matter of fact, he was secretly relieved at +the prospect of finding even a two-hundred-a-year husband for his +daughter Leonore. A crisis was rapidly rushing upon him, from +which he knew he would emerge with neither money nor credit; all +his recent ventures had fallen flat, and flattest of all had gone +the wonderful new breakfast food, Pipenta, on the advertisement of +which he had sunk such huge sums. It could scarcely be called a +drug in the market; people bought drugs, but no one bought +Pipenta. + +"Would you marry Leonore if she were a poor man's daughter?" asked +the man of phantom wealth. + +"Yes," said Mark, wisely avoiding the error of over-protestation. +And to his astonishment Leonore's father not only gave his +consent, but suggested a fairly early date for the wedding. + +"I wish I could show my gratitude in some way," said Mark with +genuine emotion. "I'm afraid it's rather like the mouse proposing +to help the lion." + +"Get people to buy that beastly muck," said Dullamy, nodding +savagely at a poster of the despised Pipenta, "and you'll have +done more than any of my agents have been able to accomplish." + +"It wants a better name," said Mark reflectively, "and something +distinctive in the poster line. Anyway, I'll have a shot at it." + +Three weeks later the world was advised of the coming of a new +breakfast food, heralded under the resounding name of "Filboid +Studge." Spayley put forth no pictures of massive babies +springing up with fungus-like rapidity under its forcing +influence, or of representatives of the leading nations of the +world scrambling with fatuous eagerness for its possession. One +huge sombre poster depicted the Damned in Hell suffering a new +torment from their inability to get at the Filboid Studge which +elegant young fiends held in transparent bowls just beyond their +reach. The scene was rendered even more gruesome by a subtle +suggestion of the features of leading men and women of the day in +the portrayal of the Lost Souls; prominent individuals of both +political parties, Society hostesses, well-known dramatic authors +and novelists, and distinguished aeroplanists were dimly +recognizable in that doomed throng; noted lights of the musical- +comedy stage flickered wanly in the shades of the Inferno, smiling +still from force of habit, but with the fearsome smiling rage of +baffled effort. The poster bore no fulsome allusions to the +merits of the new breakfast food, but a single grim statement ran +in bold letters along its base: "They cannot buy it now." + +Spayley had grasped, the fact that people will do things from a +sense of duty which they would never attempt as a pleasure. There +are thousands of respectable middle-class men who, if you found +them unexpectedly in a Turkish bath, would explain in all +sincerity that a doctor had ordered them to take Turkish baths; if +you told them in return that you went there because you liked it, +they would stare in pained wonder at the frivolity of your motive. +In the same way, whenever a massacre of Armenians is reported from +Asia Minor, every one assumes that it has been carried out "under +orders " from somewhere or another, no one seems to think that +there are people who might LIKE to kill their neighbours now and +then. + +And so it was with the new breakfast food. No one would have +eaten Filboid Studge as a pleasure, but the grim austerity of its +advertisement drove housewives in shoals to the grocers' shops to +clamour for an immediate supply. In small kitchens solemn pig- +tailed daughters helped depressed mothers to perform the primitive +ritual of its preparation. On the breakfast-tables of cheerless +parlours it was partaken of in silence. Once the womenfolk +discovered that it was thoroughly unpalatable, their zeal in +forcing it on their households knew no bounds. "You haven't eaten +your Filboid Studge!" would be screamed at the appetiteless clerk +as he hurried weariedly from the breakfast-table, and his evening +meal would be prefaced by a warmed-up mess which would be +explained as "your Filboid Studge that you didn't eat this +morning." Those strange fanatics who ostentatiously mortify +themselves, inwardly and outwardly, with health biscuits and +health garments, battened aggressively on the new food. Earnest +spectacled young then devoured it on the steps of the National +Liberal Club. A bishop who did not believe in a future state +preached against the poster, and a peer's daughter died from +eating too much of the compound. A further advertisement was +obtained when an infantry regiment mutinied and shot its officers +rather than eat the nauseous mess; fortunately, Lord Birrell of +Blatherstone, who was War Minister at the moment, saved the +situation by his happy epigram, that "Discipline to be effective +must be optional." + +Filboid Studge had become a household word, but Dullamy wisely +realized that it was not necessarily the last word in breakfast +dietary; its supremacy would be challenged as soon as some yet +more unpalatable food should be put on the market. There might +even be a reaction in favour of something tasty and appetizing, +and the Puritan austerity of the moment might be banished from +domestic cookery. At an opportune moment, therefore, he sold out +his interests in the article which had brought him in colossal +wealth at a critical juncture, and placed his financial reputation +beyond the reach of cavil. As for Leonore, who was now an heiress +on a far greater scale than ever before, he naturally found her +something a vast deal higher in the husband market than a two- +hundred-a-year poster designer. Mark Spayley, the brainmouse who +had helped the financial lion with such untoward effect, was left +to curse the day he produced the wonder-working poster. + +"After all," said Clovis, meeting him shortly afterwards at his +club, "you have this doubtful consolation, that 'tis not in +mortals to countermand success." + + + + +THE MUSIC ON THE HILL + + + +Sylvia Seltoun ate her breakfast in the morning-room at Yessney +with a pleasant sense of ultimate victory, such as a fervent +Ironside might have permitted himself on the morrow of Worcester +fight. She was scarcely pugnacious by temperament, but belonged +to that more successful class of fighters who are pugnacious by +circumstance. Fate had willed that her life should be occupied +with a series of small struggles, usually with the odds slightly +against her, and usually she had just managed to come through +winning. And now she felt that she had brought her hardest and +certainly her most important struggle to a successful issue. To +have married Mortimer Seltoun, "Dead Mortimer" as his more +intimate enemies called him, in the teeth of the cold hostility of +his family, and in spite of his unaffected indifference to women, +was indeed an achievement that had needed some determination and +adroitness to carry through; yesterday she had brought her victory +to its concluding stage by wrenching her husband away from Town +and its group of satellite watering-places and "settling him +down," in the vocabulary of her kind, in this remote wood-girt +manor farm which was his country house. + +"You will never get Mortimer to go," his mother had said +carpingly, "but if he once goes he'll stay; Yessney throws almost +as much a spell over him as Town does. One can understand what +holds him to Town, but Yessney--" and the dowager had shrugged her +shoulders. + +There was a sombre almost savage wildness about Yessney that was +certainly not likely to appeal to town-bred tastes, and Sylvia, +notwithstanding her name, was accustomed to nothing much more +sylvan than "leafy Kensington." She looked on the country as +something excellent and wholesome in its way, which was apt to +become, troublesome if you encouraged it overmuch. Distrust of +town-life had been a new thing with her, born of her marriage with +Mortimer, and she had watched with satisfaction the gradual fading +of what she called "the Jermyn-street-look" in his eyes as the +woods and heather of Yessney had closed in on them yesternight. +Her will-power and strategy had prevailed; Mortimer would stay. + +Outside the morning-room windows was a triangular slope of turf, +which the indulgent might call a lawn, and beyond its low hedge of +neglected fuchsia bushes a steeper slope of heather and bracken +dropped down into cavernous combes overgrown with oak and yew. In +its wild open savagery there seemed a stealthy linking of the joy +of life with the terror of unseen things. Sylvia smiled +complacently as she gazed with a School-of-Art appreciation at the +landscape, and then of a sudden she almost shuddered. + +"It is very wild," she said to Mortimer, who had joined her; "one +could almost think that in such a place the worship of Pan had +never quite died out." + +"The worship of Pan never has died out," said Mortimer. "Other +newer gods have drawn aside his votaries from time to time, but he +is the Nature-God to whom all must come back at last. He has been +called the Father of all the Gods, but most of his children have +been stillborn." + +Sylvia was religious in an honest vaguely devotional kind of way, +and did not like to hear her beliefs spoken of as mere +aftergrowths, but it was at least something new and hopeful to +hear Dead Mortimer speak with such energy and conviction on any +subject. + +"You don't really believe in Pan?" she asked incredulously. + +"I've been a fool in most things," said Mortimer quietly, "but I'm +not such a fool as not to believe in Pan when I'm down here. And +if you're wise you won't disbelieve in him too boastfully while +you're in his country." + +It was not till a week later, when Sylvia had exhausted the +attractions of the woodland walks round Yessney, that she ventured +on a tour of inspection of the farm buildings. A farmyard +suggested in her mind a scene of cheerful bustle, with churns and +flails and smiling dairymaids, and teams of horses drinking knee- +deep in duck-crowded ponds. As she wandered among the gaunt grey +buildings of Yessney manor farm her first impression was one of +crushing stillness and desolation, as though she had happened on +some lone deserted homestead long given over to owls and cobwebs; +then came a sense of furtive watchful hostility, the same shadow +of unseen things that seemed to lurk in the wooded combes and +coppices. From behind heavy doors and shuttered windows came the +restless stamp of hoof or rasp of chain halter, and at times a +muffled bellow from some stalled beast. From a distant corner a +shaggy dog watched her with intent unfriendly eyes; as she drew +near it slipped quietly into its kennel, and slipped out again as +noiselessly when she had passed by. A few hens, questing for food +under a rick, stole away under a gate at her approach. Sylvia +felt that if she had come across any human beings in this +wilderness of barn and byre they would have fled wraith-like from +her gaze. At last, turning a corner quickly, she came upon a +living thing that did not fly from her. Astretch in a pool of mud +was an enormous sow, gigantic beyond the town-woman's wildest +computation of swine-flesh, and speedily alert to resent and if +necessary repel the unwonted intrusion. It was Sylvia's turn to +make an unobtrusive retreat. As she threaded her way past +rickyards and cowsheds and long blank walls, she started suddenly +at a strange sound--the echo of a boy's laughter, golden and +equivocal. Jan, the only boy employed on the farm, a towheaded, +wizen-faced yokel, was visibly at work on a potato clearing half- +way up the nearest hill-side, and Mortimer, when questioned, knew +of no other probable or possible begetter of the hidden mockery +that had ambushed Sylvia's retreat. The memory of that +untraceable echo was added to her other impressions of a furtive +sinister "something " that hung around Yessney. + +Of Mortimer she saw very little; farm and woods and trout-streams +seemed to swallow him up from dawn till dusk. Once, following the +direction she had seen him take in the morning, she came to an +open space in a nut copse, further shut in by huge yew trees, in +the centre of which stood a stone pedestal surmounted by a small +bronze figure of a youthful Pan. It was a beautiful piece of +workmanship, but her attention was chiefly held by the fact that a +newly cut bunch of grapes had been placed as an offering at its +feet. Grapes were none too plentiful at the manor house, and +Sylvia snatched the bunch angrily from the pedestal. Contemptuous +annoyance dominated her thoughts as she strolled slowly homeward, +and then gave way to a sharp feeling of something that was very +near fright; across a thick tangle of undergrowth a boy's face was +scowling at her, brown and beautiful, with unutterably evil eyes. +It was a lonely pathway, all pathways round Yessney were lonely +for the matter of that, and she sped forward without waiting to +give a closer scrutiny to this sudden apparition. It was not till +she had reached the house that she discovered that she had dropped +the bunch of grapes in her flight. + +"I saw a youth in the wood to-day," she told Mortimer that +evening, "brown-faced and rather handsome, but a scoundrel to look +at. A gipsy lad, I suppose." + +"A reasonable theory," said Mortimer, "only there aren't any +gipsies in these parts at present." + +"Then who was he?" asked Sylvia, and as Mortimer appeared to have +no theory of his own, she passed on to recount her finding of the +votive offering. + +"I suppose it was your doing," she observed; "it's a harmless +piece of lunacy, but people would think you dreadfully silly if +they knew of it." + +"Did you meddle with it in any way?" asked Mortimer. + +"I--I threw the grapes away. It seemed so silly," said Sylvia, +watching Mortimer's impassive face for a sign of annoyance. + +"I don't think you were wise to do that," he said reflectively. +"I've heard it said that the Wood Gods are rather horrible to +those who molest them." + +"Horrible perhaps to those that believe in them, but you see I +don't," retorted Sylvia. + +"All the same," said Mortimer in his even, dispassionate tone, "I +should avoid the woods and orchards if I were you, and give a wide +berth to the horned beasts on the farm." + +It was all nonsense, of course, but in that lonely wood-girt spot +nonsense seemed able to rear a bastard brood of uneasiness. + +"Mortimer," said Sylvia suddenly, "I think we will go back to Town +some time soon." + +Her victory had not been so complete as she had supposed; it had +carried her on to ground that she was already anxious to quit. + +"I don't think you will ever go back to Town," said Mortimer. He +seemed to be paraphrasing his mother's prediction as to himself. + +Sylvia noted with dissatisfaction and some self-contempt that the +course of her next afternoon's ramble took her instinctively clear +of the network of woods. As to the horned cattle, Mortimer's +warning was scarcely needed, for she had always regarded them as +of doubtful neutrality at the best: her imagination unsexed the +most matronly dairy cows and turned them into bulls liable to "see +red" at any moment. The ram who fed in the narrow paddock below +the orchards she had adjudged, after ample and cautious probation, +to be of docile temper; to-day, however, she decided to leave his +docility untested, for the usually tranquil beast was roaming with +every sign of restlessness from corner to corner of his meadow. A +low, fitful piping, as of some reedy flute, was coming from the +depth of a neighbouring copse, and there seemed to be some subtle +connection between the animal's restless pacing and the wild music +from the wood. Sylvia turned her steps in an upward direction and +climbed the heather-clad slopes that stretched in rolling +shoulders high above Yessney. She had left the piping notes +behind her, but across the wooded combes at her feet the wind +brought her another kind of music, the straining bay of hounds in +full chase. Yessney was just on the outskirts of the Devon-and- +Somerset country, and the hunted deer sometimes came that way. +Sylvia could presently see a dark body, breasting hill after hill, +and sinking again and again out of sight as he crossed the combes, +while behind him steadily swelled that relentless chorus, and she +grew tense with the excited sympathy that one feels for any hunted +thing in whose capture one is not directly interested. And at +last he broke through the outermost line of oak scrub and fern and +stood panting in the open, a fat September stag carrying a well- +furnished head. His obvious course was to drop down to the brown +pools of Undercombe, and thence make his way towards the red +deer's favoured sanctuary, the sea. To Sylvia's surprise, +however, he turned his head to the upland slope and came lumbering +resolutely onward over the heather. "It will be dreadful," she +thought, "the hounds will pull him down under my very eyes." But +the music of the pack seemed to have died away for a moment, and +in its place she heard again that wild piping, which rose now on +this side, now on that, as though urging the failing stag to a +final effort. Sylvia stood well aside from his path, half hidden +in a thick growth of whortle bushes, and watched him swing stiffly +upward, his flanks dark with sweat, the coarse hair on his neck +showing light by contrast. The pipe music shrilled suddenly +around her, seeming to come from the bushes at her very feet, and +at the same moment the great beast slewed round and bore directly +down upon her. In an instant her pity for the hunted animal was +changed to wild terror at her own danger; the thick heather roots +mocked her scrambling efforts at flight, and she looked +frantically downward for a glimpse of oncoming hounds. The huge +antler spikes were within a few yards of her, and in a flash of +numbing fear she remembered Mortimer's warning, to beware of homed +beasts on the farm. And then with a quick throb of joy she saw +that she was not alone; a human figure stood a few paces aside, +knee-deep in the whortle bushes. + +"Drive it off she shrieked. But the figure made no answering +movement. + +The antlers drove straight at her breast, the acrid smell of the +hunted animal was in her nostrils, but her eyes were filled with +the horror of something she saw other than her oncoming death. +And in her ears rang the echo of a boy's laughter, golden and +equivocal. + + + + +THE STORY OF ST. VESPALUUS + + + +"Tell me a story," said the Baroness, staring out despairingly at +the rain; it was that light, apologetic sort of rain that looks as +if it was going to leave off every minute and goes on for the +greater part of the afternoon. + +"What sort of story?" asked Clovis, giving his croquet mallet a +valedictory shove into retirement. + +"One just true enough to be interesting and not true enough to be +tiresome," said the Baroness. + +Clovis rearranged several cushions to his personal solace and +satisfaction; he knew that the Baroness liked her guests to he +comfortable, and he thought it right to respect her wishes in that +particular. + +"Have I ever told you the story of Saint Vespaluus?" he asked. + +"You've told me stories about grand-dukes and lion-tamers and +financiers' widows and a postmaster in Herzegovina," said the +Baroness, "and about an Italian jockey and an amateur governess +who went to Warsaw, and several about your mother, but certainly +never anything about a saint." + +"This story happened a long while ago," he said, "in those +uncomfortable piebald times when a third of the people were Pagan, +and a third Christian, and the biggest third of all just followed +whichever religion the Court happened to profess. There was a +certain king called Hkrikros, who had a fearful temper and no +immediate successor in his own family; his married sister, +however, had provided him with a large stock of nephews from which +to select his heir. And the most eligible and royally-approved of +all these nephews was the sixteen-year-old Vespaluus. He was the +best looking, and the best horseman and javelin-thrower, and had +that priceless princely gift of being able to walk past a +supplicant with an air of not having seen him, but would certainly +have given something if he had. My mother has that gift to a +certain extent; she can go smilingly and financially unscathed +through a charity bazaar, and meet the organizers next day with a +solicitous 'had I but known you were in need of funds' air that is +really rather a triumph in audacity. Now Hkrikros was a Pagan of +the first water, and kept the worship of the sacred serpents, who +lived in a hallowed grove on a hill near the royal palace, up to a +high pitch of enthusiasm. The common people were allowed to +please themselves, within certain discreet limits, in the matter +of private religion, but any official in the service of the Court +who went over to the new cult was looked down on, literally as +well as metaphorically, the looking down being done from the +gallery that ran round the royal bear-pit. Consequently there was +considerable scandal and consternation when the youthful Vespaluus +appeared one day at a Court function with a rosary tucked into his +belt, and announced in reply to angry questionings that he had +decided to adopt Christianity, or at any rate to give it a trial. +If it had been any of the other nephews the king would possibly +have ordered something drastic in the way of scourging and +banishment, but in the case of the favoured Vespaluus he +determined to look on the whole thing much as a modern father +might regard the announced intention of his son to adopt the stage +as a profession. He sent accordingly for the Royal Librarian. +The royal library in those days was not a very extensive affair, +and the keeper of the king's books had a great deal of leisure on +his hands. Consequently he was in frequent demand for the +settlement of other people's affairs when these strayed beyond +normal limits and got temporarily unmanageable. + +"'You must reason with Prince Vespaluus,' said the king, 'and +impress on him the error of his ways. We cannot have the heir to +the throne setting such a dangerous example.' + +"'But where shall I find the necessary arguments?' asked the +Librarian. + +"'I give you free leave to pick and choose your arguments in the +royal woods and coppices,' said the king; 'if you cannot get +together some cutting observations and stinging retorts suitable +to the occasion you are a person of very poor resource.' + +"So the Librarian went into the woods and gathered a goodly +selection of highly argumentative rods and switches, and then +proceeded to reason with Vespaluus on the folly and iniquity and +above all the unseemliness of his conduct. His reasoning left a +deep impression on the young prince, an impression which lasted +for many weeks, during which time nothing more was heard about the +unfortunate lapse into Christianity. Then a further scandal of +the same nature agitated the Court. At a time when he should have +been engaged in audibly invoking the gracious protection and +patronage of the holy serpents, Vespaluus was heard singing a +chant in honour of St. Odilo of Cluny. The king was furious at +this new outbreak, and began to take a gloomy view of the +situation; Vespaluus was evidently going to show a dangerous +obstinacy in persisting in his heresy. And yet there was nothing +in his appearance to justify such perverseness; he had not the +pale eye of the fanatic or the mystic look of the dreamer. On the +contrary, he was quite the best-looking boy at Court; he had an +elegant, well-knit figure, a healthy complexion, eyes the colour +of very ripe mulberries, and dark hair, smooth and very well cared +for." + +"It sounds like a description of what you imagine yourself to have +been like at the age of sixteen," said the Baroness. + +"My mother has probably been showing you some of my early +photographs," said Clovis. Having turned the sarcasm into a +compliment, he resumed his story. + +"The king had Vespaluus shut up in a dark tower for three days, +with nothing but bread and water to live on, the squealing and +fluttering of bats to listen to, and drifting clouds to watch +through one little window slit. The anti-Pagan section of the +community began to talk portentously of the boy-martyr. The +martyrdom was mitigated, as far as the food was concerned, by the +carelessness of the tower warden, who once or twice left a portion +of his own supper of broiled meat and fruit and wine by mistake in +the prince's cell. After the punishment was over, Vespaluus was +closely watched for any further symptom of religious perversity, +for the king was determined to stand no more opposition on so +important a matter, even from a favourite nephew. If there was +any more of this nonsense, he said, the succession to the throne +would have to be altered. + +"For a time all went well; the festival of summer sports was +approaching, and the young Vespaluus was too engrossed in +wrestling and foot-running and javelin-throwing competitions to +bother himself with the strife of conflicting religious systems. +Then, however, came the great culminating feature of the summer +festival, the ceremonial dance round the grove of the sacred +serpents, and Vespaluus, as we should say, 'sat it out.' The +affront to the State religion was too public and ostentatious to +be overlooked, even if the king had been so minded, and he was not +in the least so minded. For a day and a half he sat apart and +brooded, and every one thought he was debating within himself the +question of the young prince's death or pardon; as a matter of +fact he was merely thinking out the manner of the boy's death. As +the thing had to be done, and was bound to attract an enormous +amount of public attention in any case, it was as well to make it +as spectacular and impressive as possible. + +"'Apart from his unfortunate taste in religions;' said the king, +'and his obstinacy in adhering to it, he is a sweet and pleasant +youth, therefore it is meet and fitting that he should be done to +death by the winged envoys of sweetness.' + +"'Your Majesty means--?' said the Royal Librarian. + +"'I mean,' said the king, 'that he shall be stung to death by +bees. By the royal bees, of course.' + +"'A most elegant death,' said the Librarian. + +"'Elegant and spectacular, and decidedly painful,' said the king; +'it fulfils all the conditions that could be wished for.' + +"The king himself thought out all the details of the execution +ceremony. Vespaluus was to be stripped of his clothes, his hands +were to he bound behind him, and he was then to be slung in a +recumbent position immediately above three of the largest of the +royal beehives, so that the least movement of his body would bring +him in jarring contact with them. The rest could be safely left +to the bees. The death throes, the king computed, might last +anything from fifteen to forty minutes, though there was division +of opinion and considerable wagering among the other nephews as to +whether death might not be almost instantaneous, or, on the other +hand, whether it might not be deferred for a couple of hours. +Anyway, they all agreed, it was vastly preferable to being thrown +down into an evil smelling bear-pit and being clawed and mauled to +death by imperfectly carnivorous animals. + +"It so happened, however, that the keeper of the royal hives had +leanings towards Christianity himself, and moreover, like most of +the Court officials, he was very much attached to Vespaluus. On +the eve of the execution, therefore, he busied himself with +removing the stings from all the royal bees; it was a long and +delicate operation, but he was an expert bee-master, and by +working hard nearly all night he succeeded in disarming all, or +almost all, of the hive inmates." + +"I didn't know you could take the sting from a live bee," said the +Baroness incredulously. + +"Every profession, has its secrets," replied Clovis; "if it hadn't +it wouldn't be a profession. Well, the moment for the execution +arrived; the king and Court took their places, and accommodation +was found for as many of the populace as wished to witness the +unusual spectacle. Fortunately the royal bee-yard was of +considerable dimensions, and was commanded, moreover, by the +terraces that ran round the royal gardens; with a little squeezing +and the erection of a few platforms room was found for everybody. +Vespaluus was carried into the open space in front of the hives, +blushing and slightly embarrassed, but not at all displeased at +the attention which was being centred on him." + +"He seems to have resembled you in more things than in +appearance," said the Baroness. + +"Don't interrupt at a critical point in the story," said Clovis. +"As soon as he had been carefully adjusted in the prescribed +position over the hives, and almost before the gaolers had time to +retire to a safe distance, Vespaluus gave a lusty and well-aimed +kick, which sent all three hives toppling one over another. The +next moment he was wrapped from head to foot in bees; each +individual insect nursed the dreadful and humiliating knowledge +that in this supreme hour of catastrophe it could not sting, but +each felt that it ought to pretend to. Vespaluus squealed and +wriggled with laughter, for he was being tickled nearly to death, +and now and again he gave a furious kick and used a bad word as +one of the few bees that had escaped disarmament got its protest +home. But the spectators saw with amazement that he showed no +signs of approaching death agony, and as the bees dropped wearily +away in clusters from his body his flesh was seen to be as white +and smooth as before the ordeal, with a shiny glaze from the +honey-smear of innumerable bee-feet, and here and there a small +red spot where one of the rare stings had left its mark. It was +obvious that a miracle had been performed in his favour, and one +loud murmur, of astonishment or exultation, rose from the +onlooking crowd. The king gave orders for Vespaluus to be taken +down to await further orders, and stalked silently back to his +midday meal, at which he was careful to eat heartily and drink +copiously as though nothing unusual had happened. After dinner he +sent for the Royal Librarian. + +"'What is the meaning of this fiasco?' he demanded. + +"'Your Majesty,' said that official, 'either there is something +radically wrong with the bees--' + +"'There is nothing wrong with my bees,' said the king haughtily, +'they are the best bees.' + +"'Or else,' said the Librarian, 'there is something irremediably +right about Prince Vespaluus.' + +"'If Vespaluus is right I must be wrong,' said the king. + +"The Librarian was silent for a moment. Hasty speech has been the +downfall of many; ill-considered silence was the undoing of the +luckless Court functionary. + +"Forgetting the restraint due to his dignity, and the golden rule +which imposes repose of mind and body after a heavy meal, the king +rushed upon the keeper of the royal books and hit him repeatedly +and promiscuously over the head with an ivory chessboard, a pewter +wine-flagon, and a brass candlestick; he knocked him violently and +often against an iron torch sconce, and kicked him thrice round +the banqueting chamber with rapid, energetic kicks. Finally, he +dragged him down a long passage by the hair of his head and flung +him out of a window into the courtyard below." + +"Was he much hurt?" asked the Baroness. + +"More hurt than surprised," said Clovis. You see, the king was +notorious for his violent temper. However, this was the first +time he had let himself go so unrestrainedly on the top of a heavy +meal. The Librarian lingered for many days--in fact, for all I +know, he may have ultimately recovered, but Hkrikros died that +same evening. Vespaluus had hardly finished getting the honey +stains off his body before a hurried deputation came to put the +coronation oil on his head. And what with the publicly-witnessed +miracle and the accession of a Christian sovereign, it was not +surprising that there was a general scramble of converts to the +new religion. A hastily consecrated bishop was overworked with a +rush of baptisms in the hastily improvised Cathedral of St. Odilo. +And the boy-martyr-that-might-have-been was transposed in the +popular imagination into a royal boy-saint, whose fame attracted +throngs of curious and devout sightseers to the capital. +Vespaluus, who was busily engaged in organizing the games and +athletic contests that were to mark the commencement of his reign, +had no time to give heed to the religious fervour which was +effervescing round his personality; the first indication he had of +the existing state of affairs was when the Court Chamberlain (a +recent and very ardent addition to the Christian community) +brought for his approval the outlines of a projected ceremonial +cutting-down of the idolatrous serpent-grove. + +"'Your Majesty will be graciously pleased to cut down the first +tree with a specially consecrated axe,' said the obsequious +official. + +"'I'll cut off your head first, with any axe that comes handy,' +said Vespaluus indignantly; 'do you suppose that I'm going to +begin my reign by mortally affronting the sacred serpents? It +would be most unlucky.' + +"'But your Majesty's Christian principles?' exclaimed the +bewildered Chamberlain. + +"'I never had, any,' said Vespaluus; ' I used to pretend to he a +Christian convert just to annoy Hkrikros. He used to fly into +such delicious tempers. And it was rather fun being whipped and +scolded and shut up in a tower all for nothing. But as to turning +Christian in real earnest, like you people seem to do, I couldn't +think of such a thing. And the holy and esteemed serpents have +always helped me when I've prayed to them for success in my +running and wrestling and hunting, and it was through their +distinguished intercession that the bees were not able to hurt me +with their stings. It would he black ingratitude, to turn against +their worship at the very outset of my reign. I hate you for +suggesting it.' + +"The Chamberlain wrung his hands despairingly. + +"'But, your Majesty,' he wailed, 'the people are reverencing you +as a saint, and the nobles are being Christianized in batches, and +neighbouring potentates of that Faith are sending special envoys +to welcome you as a brother. There is some talk of making you the +patron saint of beehives, and a certain shade of honey-yellow has +been christened Vespaluusian gold at the Emperor's Court. You +can't surely go back on all this.' + +"'I don't mind being reverenced and greeted and honoured,' said +Vespaluus; 'I don't even mind being sainted in moderation, as long +as I'm not expected to be saintly as well. But I wish you clearly +and finally to understand that I will NOT give up the worship of +the august and auspicious serpents.' + +"There was a world of unspoken bear-pit in the way he uttered +those last words, and the mulberry-dark eyes flashed dangerously. + +"'A new reign,' said the Chamberlain to himself, 'but the same old +temper.' + +"Finally, as a State necessity, the matter of the religions was +compromised. At stated intervals the king appeared before his +subjects in the national cathedral in the character of St. +Vespaluus, and the idolatrous grove was gradually pruned and +lopped away till nothing remained of it. But the sacred and +esteemed serpents were removed to a private shrubbery in the royal +gardens, where Vespaluus the Pagan and certain members of his +household devoutly and decently worshipped them. That possibly is +the reason why the boy-king's success in sports and hunting never +deserted him to the end of his days, and that is also the reason +why, in spite of the popular veneration for his sanctity, he never +received official canonization." + +"It has stopped raining," said the Baroness. + + + + +THE WAY TO THE DAIRY + + + +The Baroness and Clovis sat in a much-frequented corner of the +Park exchanging biographical confidences about the long succession +of passers-by. + +"Who are those depressed-looking young women who have just gone +by?" asked the Baroness; "they have the air of people who have +bowed to destiny and are not quite sure whether the salute will be +returned." + +"Those," said Clovis, "are the Brimley Bomefields. I dare say you +would look depressed if you had been through their experiences." + +"I'm always having depressing experiences;" said the Baroness, " +but I never give them outward expression. It's as bad as looking +one's age. Tell me about the Brimley Bomefields." + +"Well," said Clovis, "the beginning of their tragedy was that they +found an aunt. The aunt had been there all the time, but they had +very nearly forgotten her existence until a distant relative +refreshed their memory by remembering her very distinctly in his +will; it is wonderful what the force of example will accomplish. +The aunt, who had been unobtrusively poor, became quite pleasantly +rich, and the Brimley Bomefields grew suddenly concerned at the +loneliness of her life and took her under their collective wings. +She had as many wings around her at this time as one of those +beast-things in Revelation." + +"So far I don't see any tragedy from the Brimley Bomefields' point +of view," said the Baroness. + +"We haven't got to it yet," said Clovis. "The aunt had been used +to living very simply, and had seen next to nothing of what we +should consider life, and her nieces didn't encourage her to do +much in the way of making a splash with her money. Quite a good +deal of it would come to them at her death, and she was a fairly +old woman, but there was one circumstance which cast a shadow of +gloom over the satisfaction they felt in the discovery and +acquisition of this desirable aunt: she openly acknowledged that a +comfortable slice of her little fortune would go to a nephew on +the other side of her family. He was rather a deplorable thing in +rotters, and quite hopelessly top-hole in the way of getting +through money, but he had been more or less decent to the old lady +in her unremembered days, and she wouldn't hear anything against +him. At least, she wouldn't pay any attention to what she did +hear, but her nieces took care that she should have to listen to a +good deal in that line. It seemed such a pity, they said among +themselves, that good money should fall into such worthless hands. +They habitually spoke of their aunt's money as 'good money,' as +though other people's aunts dabbled for the most part in spurious +currency. + +"Regularly after the Derby, St. Leger, and other notable racing +events they indulged in audible speculations as to how much money +Roger had squandered in unfortunate betting transactions. + +"'His travelling expenses must come to a big sum,' said the eldest +Brimley Bomefield one day; 'they say he attends every race-meeting +in England, besides others abroad. I shouldn't wonder if he went +all the way to India to see the race for the Calcutta Sweepstake +that one hears so much about.' + +"'Travel enlarges the mind, my dear Christine,' said her aunt. + +"'Yes, dear aunt, travel undertaken in the right spirit,' agreed +Christine; 'but travel pursued merely as a means towards gambling +and extravagant living is more likely to contract the purse than +to enlarge the mind. However, as long as Roger enjoys himself, I +suppose he doesn't care how fast or unprofitably the money goes, +or where he is to find more. It seems a pity, that's all.' + +"The aunt by that time had begun to talk of something else, and it +was doubtful if Christine's moralizing had been even accorded a +hearing. It was her remark, however--the aunt's remark, I mean-- +about travel enlarging the mind, that gave the youngest Brimley +Bomefield her great idea for the showing-up of Roger. + +"'If aunt could only be taken somewhere to see him gambling and +throwing away money,' she said, 'it would open her eyes to his +character more effectually than anything we can say.' + +"'My dear Veronique,' said her sisters, 'we, can't go following +him to race-meetings.' + +"'Certainly not to race-meetings,' said Veronique, 'but we might +go to some place where one can look on at gambling without taking +part in it.' + +"'Do you mean Monte Carlo?' they asked her, beginning to jump +rather at the idea. + +"'Monte Carlo is a long way off, and has a dreadful reputation,' +said Veronique; 'I shouldn't like to tell our-friends that we were +going to Monte Carlo. But I believe Roger usually goes to Dieppe +about this time of year, and some quite respectable English people +go there, and the journey wouldn't be expensive. If aunt could +stand the Channel crossing the change of scene might do her a lot +of good.' + +"And that was how the fateful idea came to the Brimley Bomefields. + +"From the very first set-off disaster hung over the expedition, as +they afterwards remembered. To begin with, all the Brimley +Bomefields were extremely unwell during the crossing, while the +aunt enjoyed the sea air and made friends with all manner of +strange travelling companions. Then, although it was many years +since she had been on the Continent, she had served a very +practical apprenticeship there as a paid companion, and her +knowledge of colloquial French beat theirs to a standstill. It +became increasingly difficult to keep under their collective wings +a person who knew what she wanted and was able to ask for it and +to see that she got it. Also, as far as Roger was concerned, they +drew Dieppe blank; it turned out that he was staying at Pourville, +a little watering-place a mile or two further west. The Brimley +Bomefields discovered that Dieppe was too crowded and frivolous, +and persuaded the old lady to migrate to the comparative seclusion +of Pourville. + +"'You won't find it dull, you know,' they assured her; 'there is a +little casino attached to the hotel, and you can watch the people +dancing and throwing away their money at PETITS CHEVAUX.' + +"It was just before PETITS CHEVAUX had been supplanted by BOULE. + +"Roger was not staying in the same hotel, but they knew that the +casino would be certain of his patronage on most afternoons and +evenings. + +"On the first evening of their visit they wandered into the casino +after a fairly early dinner, and hovered near the tables. Bertie +van Tahn was staying there at the time, and he described the whole +incident to me. The Brimley Bomefields kept a furtive watch on +the doors as though they were expecting some one to turn up, and +the aunt got more and more amused and interested watching the +little horses whirl round and round the board. + +"'Do you know, poor little number eight hasn't won for the last +thirty-two times,' she said to Christine; 'I've been keeping +count. I shall really have to put five francs on him to encourage +him.' + +"'Come and watch the dancing, dear,' said Christine nervously. It +was scarcely a part of their strategy that Roger should come in +and find the old lady backing her fancy at the PETITS CHEVAUX +table. + +"'Just wait while I put five francs on number eight,' said the +aunt, and in another moment her money was lying on the table. The +horses commenced to move round, it was a slow race this time, and +number eight crept up at the finish like some crafty demon and +placed his nose just a fraction in front of number three, who had +seemed to be winning easily. Recourse had to be had to +measurement, and the number eight was proclaimed the winner. The +aunt picked up thirty-five francs. After that the Brimley +Bomefields would have had to have used concerted force to get her +away from the tables. When Roger appeared on the scene she was +fifty-two francs to the good; her nieces were hovering forlornly +in the background, like chickens that have been hatched out by a +duck and are despairingly watching their parent disporting herself +in a dangerous and uncongenial element. The supper-party which +Roger insisted on standing that night in honour of his aunt and +the three Miss Brimley Bomefields was remarkable for the +unrestrained gaiety of two of the participants and the funereal +mirthlessness of the remaining guests. + +"'I do not think;' Christine confided afterwards to a friend, who +re-confided it to Bertie van Tahn, 'that I shall ever be able to +touch PATÉ DE FOIE GRAS again. It would bring back memories of +that awful evening.' + +"For the next two or three days the nieces made plans for +returning to England or moving on to some other resort where there +was no casino. The aunt was busy making a system for winning at +PETITS CHEVAUX. Number eight, her first love, had been running +rather unkindly for her, and a series of plunges on number five +had turned out even worse. + +"'Do you know, I dropped over seven hundred francs at the tables +this afternoon,' she announced cheerfully at dinner on the fourth +evening of their visit. + +"'Aunt! Twenty-eight pounds! And you were losing last night +too.' + +"'Oh, I shall get it all back,' she said optimistically; 'but not +here. These silly little horses are no good. I shall go +somewhere where one can play comfortably at roulette. You needn't +look so shocked. I've always felt that, given the opportunity, I +should be an inveterate gambler, and now you darlings have put the +opportunity in my way. I must drink your very good healths. +Waiter, a bottle of PONTET CANET. Ah, it's number seven on the +wine list; I shall plunge on number seven to-night. It won four +times running this afternoon when I was backing that silly number +five.' + +"Number seven was not in a winning mood that evening. The Brimley +Bomefields, tired of watching disaster from a distance, drew near +to the table where their aunt was now an honoured habituée, and +gazed mournfully at the successive victories of one and five and +eight and four, which swept 'good money' out of the purse of +seven's obstinate backer. The day's losses totalled something +very near two thousand francs. + +"'You incorrigible gamblers,' said Roger chaffingly to them, when +he found them at the tables. + +"'We are not gambling,' said Christine freezingly; 'we are looking +on.' + +"'I DON'T think,' said Roger knowingly; 'of course you're a +syndicate and aunt is putting the stakes on for all of you. +Anyone can tell by your looks when the wrong horse wins that +you've got a stake on.' + +"Aunt and nephew had supper alone that night, or at least they +would have if Bertie hadn't joined them; all the Brimley +Bomefields had headaches. + +"The aunt carried them all off to Dieppe the next day and set +cheerily about the task of winning back some of her losses. Her +luck was variable; in fact, she had some fair streaks of good +fortune, just enough to keep her thoroughly amused with her new +distraction; but on the whole she was a loser. The Brimley +Bomefields had a collective attack of nervous prostration on the +day when she sold out a quantity of shares in Argentine rails. +'Nothing will ever bring that money back,' they remarked +lugubriously to one another. + +"'Veronique at last could bear it no longer, and went home; you +see, it had been her idea to bring the aunt on this disastrous +expedition, and though the others did not cast the fact verbally +in her face, there was a certain lurking reproach in their eyes +which was harder to meet than actual upbraidings. The other two +remained behind, forlornly mounting guard over their aunt until +such time as the waning of the Dieppe season should at last turn +her in the direction of home and safety. They made anxious +calculations as to how little 'good money' might, with reasonable +luck, be squandered in the meantime. Here, however, their +reckoning went far astray; the close of the Dieppe season merely +turned their aunt's thoughts in search of some other convenient +gambling resort. 'Show a cat the way to the dairy--' I forget how +the proverb goes on, but it summed up the situation as far as the +Brimley Bomefields' aunt was concerned. She had been introduced +to unexplored pleasures, and found them greatly to her liking, and +she was in no hurry to forgo the fruits of her newly acquired +knowledge. You see, for the first time in her life the old thing +was thoroughly enjoying herself; she was losing money, but she had +plenty of fun and excitement over the process, and she had enough +left to do very comfortably on. Indeed, she was only just +learning to understand the art of doing oneself well. She was a +popular hostess, and in return her fellow-gamblers were always +ready to entertain her to dinners and suppers when their luck was +in. Her nieces, who still remained in attendance on her, with the +pathetic unwillingness of a crew to leave a foundering treasure +ship which might yet be steered into port, found little pleasure +in these Bohemian festivities; to see 'good money' lavished on +good living for the entertainment of a nondescript circle of +acquaintances who were not likely to be in any way socially useful +to them, did not attune them to a spirit of revelry. They +contrived, whenever possible, to excuse themselves from +participation in their aunt's deplored gaieties; the Brimley +Bomefield headaches became famous. + +"And one day the nieces came to the conclusion that, as they would +have expressed it, 'no useful purpose would be served' by their +continued attendance on a relative who had so thoroughly +emancipated herself from the sheltering protection of their wings. +The aunt bore the announcement of their departure with a +cheerfulness that was almost disconcerting. + +"'It's time you went home and had those headaches seen to by a +specialist,' was her comment on the situation. + +"The homeward journey of the Brimley Bomefields was a veritable +retreat from Moscow, and what made it the more bitter was the fact +that the Moscow, in this case, was not overwhelmed with fire and +ashes, but merely extravagantly over-illuminated. + +"From mutual friends and acquaintances they sometimes get glimpses +of their prodigal relative, who has settled down into a confirmed +gambling maniac, living on such salvage of income as obliging +moneylenders have left at her disposal. + +"So you need not be surprised," concluded Clovis, "if they do wear +a depressed look in public." + +"Which is Veronique?" asked the Baroness. + +"The most depressed-looking of the three," said Clovis. + + + + +THE PEACE OFFERING + + + +"I want you to help me in getting up a dramatic entertainment of +some sort," said the Baroness to Clovis. "You see, there's been +an election petition down here, and a member unseated and no end +of bitterness and ill-feeling, and the County is socially divided +against itself. I thought a play of some kind would be an +excellent opportunity for bringing people together again, and +giving them something to think of besides tiresome political +squabbles." + +The Baroness was evidently ambitious of reproducing beneath her +own roof the pacifying effects traditionally ascribed to the +celebrated Reel of Tullochgorum. + +"We might do something on the lines of Greek tragedy," said +Clovis, after due reflection; "the Return of Agamemnon, for +instance." + +The Baroness frowned. + +"It sounds rather reminiscent of an election result, doesn't it?" + +"It wasn't that sort of return;" explained Clovis it was a home- +coming." + +"I thought you said it was a tragedy." + +"Well, it was. He was killed in his bathroom, you know." + +"Oh, now I know the story, of course. Do you want me to take the +part of Charlotte Corday?" + +"That's a different story and a different century," said Clovis; +"the dramatic unities forbid one to lay a scene in more than one +century at a time. The killing in this case has to be done by +Clytemnestra." + +"Rather a pretty name. I'll do that part. I suppose you want to +be Aga--whatever his name is?" + +"Dear no. Agamemnon was the father of grown-up children, and +probably wore a beard and looked prematurely aged. I shall be his +charioteer or bath-attendant, or something decorative of that +kind. We must do everything in the Sumurun manner, you know." + +"I don't know," said the Baroness; "at least, I should know better +if you would explain exactly what you mean by the Sumurun manner." + +Clovis obliged: "Weird music, and exotic skippings and flying +leaps, and lots of drapery and undrapery. Particularly +undrapery." + +"I think I told you the County are coming. The County won't stand +anything very Greek." + +"You can get over any objection by calling it Hygiene, or limb- +culture, or something of that sort. After all, every one exposes +their insides to the public gaze and sympathy nowadays, so why not +one's outside?" + +"My dear boy, I can ask the County to a Greek play, or to a +costume play, but to a Greek-costume play, never. It doesn't do +to let the dramatic instinct carry one too far; one must consider +one's environment. When one lives among greyhounds one should +avoid giving life-like imitations of a rabbit, unless one want's +one's head snapped off. Remember, I've got this place on a seven +years' lease. And then," continued the Baroness, "as to skippings +and flying leaps; I must ask Emily Dushford to take a part. She's +a dear good thing, and will do anything she's told, or try to; but +can you imagine her doing a flying leap under any circumstances?" + +"She can be Cassandra, and she need only take flying leaps into +the future, in a metaphorical sense." + +"Cassandra; rather a pretty name. What kind of character is she?" + +"She was a sort of advance-agent for calamities. To know her was +to know the worst. Fortunately for the gaiety of the age she +lived in, no one took her very seriously. Still, it must have +been fairly galling to have her turning up after every catastrophe +with a conscious air of 'perhaps another time you'll believe what +I say.'" + +"I should have wanted to kill her." + +"As Clytemnestra I believe you gratify that very natural wish." + +"Then it has a happy ending, in spite of it being a tragedy?" + +"Well, hardly," said Clovis; "you see, the satisfaction of putting +a violent end to Cassandra must have been considerably damped by +the fact that she had foretold what was going to happen to her. +She probably dies with an intensely irritating 'what-did-I-tell- +you' smile on her lips. By the way, of course all the killing +will be done in the Sumurun manner." + +"Please explain again," said the Baroness, taking out a notebook +and pencil. + +"Little and often, you know, instead of one sweeping blow. You +see, you are at your own home, so there's no need to hurry over +the murdering as though it were some disagreeable but necessary +duty." + +"And what sort of end do I have? I mean, what curtain do I get?" + +"I suppose you rush into your lover's arms. That is where one of +the flying leaps will come in." + +The getting-up and rehearsing of the play seemed likely to cause, +in a restricted area, nearly as much heart-burning and ill-feeling +as the election petition. Clovis, as adapter and stage-manager, +insisted, as far as he was able, on the charioteer being quite the +most prominent character in the play, and his panther-skin tunic +caused almost as much trouble and discussion as Clytemnestra's +spasmodic succession of lovers, who broke down on probation with +alarming uniformity. When the cast was at length fixed beyond +hope of reprieve matters went scarcely more smoothly. Clovis and +the Baroness rather overdid the Sumurun manner, while the rest of +the company could hardly be said to attempt it at all. As for +Cassandra, who was expected to improvise her own prophecies, she +appeared to be as incapable of taking flying leaps into futurity +as of executing more than a severely plantigrade walk across the +stage. + +"Woe! Trojans, woe to Troy!" was the most inspired remark she +could produce after several hours of conscientious study of all +the available authorities. + +"It's no earthly use foretelling the fall of Troy," expostulated +Clovis, "because Troy has fallen before the action of the play +begins. And you mustn't say too much about your own impending +doom either, because that will give things away too much to the +audience." + +After several minutes of painful brain-searching, Cassandra smiled +reassuringly. + +"I know. I'll predict a long and happy reign for George the +Fifth." + +"My dear girl," protested Clovis, "have you reflected that +Cassandra specialized in foretelling calamities?" + +There was another prolonged pause and another triumphant issue. + +"I know. I'll foretell a most disastrous season for the +foxhounds." + +"On no account," entreated Clovis; "do remember that all +Cassandra's predictions came true. The M.F.H. and the Hunt +Secretary are both awfully superstitious, and they are both going +to be present." + +Cassandra retreated hastily to her bedroom to, bathe her eyes +before appearing at tea. + +The Baroness and Clovis were by this time scarcely on speaking +terms. Each sincerely wished their respective rôle to be the +pivot round which the entire production should revolve, and each +lost no opportunity for furthering the cause they had at heart. +As fast as Clovis introduced some effective bit of business for +the charioteer (and he introduced a great many), the Baroness +would remorselessly cut it out, or more often dovetail it into her +own part, while Clovis retaliated in a similar fashion whenever +possible. The climax came when Clytemnestra annexed some highly +complimentary lines, which were to have been addressed to the +charioteer by a bevy of admiring Greek damsels, and put them into +the mouth of her lover. Clovis stood by in apparent unconcern +while the words: + +"Oh, lovely stripling, radiant as the dawn," were transposed into: + +"Oh, Clytemnestra, radiant as the dawn," but there was a dangerous +glitter in his eye that might have given the Baroness warning. He +had composed the verse himself, inspired and thoroughly carried +away by his subject; he suffered, therefore, a double pang in +beholding his tribute deflected from its destined object, and his +words mutilated and twisted into what became an extravagant +panegyric on the Baroness's personal charms. It was from this +moment that he became gentle and assiduous in his private coaching +of Cassandra. + +The County, forgetting its dissensions, mustered in full strength +to witness the much-talked-of production. The protective +Providence that looks after little children and amateur +theatricals made good its traditional promise that everything +should be right on the night. The Baroness and Clovis seemed to +have sunk their mutual differences, and between them dominated the +scene to the partial eclipse of all the other characters, who, for +the most part, seemed well content to remain in the shadow. Even +Agamemnon, with ten years of strenuous life around Troy standing +to his credit, appeared to be an unobtrusive personality compared +with his flamboyant charioteer. But the moment came for Cassandra +(who had been excused from any very definite outpourings during +rehearsals) to support her rôle by delivering herself of a few +well-chosen anticipations of pending misfortune. The musicians +obliged with appropriately lugubrious wailings and thumpings, and +the Baroness seized the opportunity to make a dash to the +dressing-room to effect certain repairs in her make-up. +Cassandra, nervous but resolute, came down to the footlights and, +like one repeating a carefully learned lesson, flung her remarks +straight at the audience: + +"I see woe for this fair country if the brood of corrupt, self- +seeking, unscrupulous, unprincipled politicians " (here she named +one of the two rival parties in the State) "continue to infest and +poison our local councils and undermine our Parliamentary +representation; if they continue to snatch votes by nefarious and +discreditable means--" + +A humming as of a great hive of bewildered and affronted bees +drowned her further remarks and wore down the droning of the +musicians. The Baroness, who should have been greeted on her +return to the stage with the pleasing invocation, "Oh, +Clytemnestra, radiant as the dawn," heard instead the imperious +voice of Lady Thistledale ordering her carriage, and something +like a storm of open discord going on at the back of the room. + + . . . . . . . . . + +The social divisions in the County healed themselves after their +own fashion; both parties found common ground in condemning the +Baroness's outrageously bad taste and tactlessness. + +She has been fortunate in sub-letting for the greater part of her +seven years' lease. + + + + +THE PEACE OF MOWSLE BARTON + + + +Crefton Lockyer sat at his ease, an ease alike of body and soul, +in the little patch of ground, half-orchard and half-garden, that +abutted on the farmyard at Mowsle Barton. After the stress and +noise of long years of city life, the repose and peace of the +hill-begirt homestead struck on his senses with an almost dramatic +intensity. Time and space seemed to lose their meaning and their +abruptness; the minutes slid away into hours, and the meadows and +fallows sloped away into middle distance, softly and +imperceptibly. Wild weeds of the hedgerow straggled into the +flower-garden, and wallflowers and garden bushes made counter- +raids into farmyard and lane. Sleepy-looking hens and solemn +preoccupied ducks were equally at home in yard, orchard, or +roadway; nothing seemed to belong definitely to anywhere; even the +gates were not necessarily to be found on their hinges. And over +the whole scene brooded the sense of a peace that had almost a +quality of magic in it. In the afternoon you felt that it had +always been afternoon, and must always remain afternoon; in the +twilight you knew that it could never have been anything else but +twilight. Crefton Lockyer sat at his ease in the rustic seat +beneath an old medlar tree, and decided that here was the life- +anchorage that his mind had so fondly pictured and that latterly +his tired and jarred senses had so often pined for. He would make +a permanent lodging-place among these simple friendly people, +gradually increasing the modest comforts with which he would like +to surround himself, but falling in as much as possible with their +manner of living. + +As he slowly matured this resolution in his mind an elderly woman +came hobbling with uncertain gait through the orchard. He +recognized her as a member of the farm household, the mother or +possibly the mother-in-law of Mrs. Spurfield, his present +landlady, and hastily formulated some pleasant remark to make to +her. She forestalled him. + +"There's a bit of writing chalked up on the door over yonder. +What is it?" + +She spoke in a dull impersonal manner, as though the question had +been on her lips for years and had best be got rid of. Her eyes, +however, looked impatiently over Crefton's head at the door of a +small barn which formed the outpost of a straggling line of farm +buildings. + +"Martha Pillamon is an old witch " was the announcement that met +Crefton's inquiring scrutiny, and he hesitated a moment before +giving the statement wider publicity. For all he knew to the +contrary, it might be Martha herself to whom he was speaking. It +was possible that Mrs. Spurfield's maiden name had been Pillamon. +And the gaunt, withered old dame at his side might certainly +fulfil local conditions as to the outward aspect of a witch. + +"It's something about some one called Martha Pillamon," he +explained cautiously. + +"What does it say?" + +"It's very disrespectful," said Crefton; "it says she's a witch. +Such things ought not to be written up." + +"It's true, every word of it," said his listener with considerable +satisfaction, adding as a special descriptive note of her own, +"the old toad." + +And as she hobbled away through the farmyard she shrilled out in +her cracked voice, "Martha Pillamon is an old witch!" + +"Did you hear what she said?" mumbled a weak, angry voice +somewhere behind Crefton's shoulder. Turning hastily, he beheld +another old crone, thin and yellow and wrinkled, and evidently in +a high state of displeasure. Obviously this was Martha Pillamon +in person. The orchard seemed to be a favourite promenade for the +aged women of the neighbourhood. + +"'Tis lies, 'tis sinful lies," the weak voice went on. "'Tis +Betsy Croot is the old witch. She an' her daughter, the dirty +rat. I'll put a spell on 'em, the old nuisances." + +As she limped slowly away her eye caught the chalk inscription on +the barn door. + +"What's written up there?" she demanded, wheeling round on +Crefton. + +"Vote for Soarker," he responded, with the craven boldness of the +practised peacemaker. + +The old woman grunted, and her mutterings and her faded red shawl +lost themselves gradually among the tree-trunks. Crefton rose +presently and made his way towards the farm-house. Somehow a good +deal of the peace seemed to have slipped out of the atmosphere. + +The cheery bustle of tea-time in the old farm kitchen, which +Crefton had found so agreeable on previous afternoons, seemed to +have soured to-day into a certain uneasy melancholy. There was a +dull, dragging silence around the board, and the tea itself, when +Crefton came to taste it, was a flat, lukewarm concoction that +would have driven the spirit of revelry out of a carnival. + +"It's no use complaining of the tea," said Mrs. Spurfield hastily, +as her guest stared with an air of polite inquiry at his cup. +"The kettle won't boil, that's the truth of it." + +Crefton turned to the hearth, where an unusually fierce fire was +banked up under a big black kettle, which sent a thin wreath of +steam from its spout, but seemed otherwise to ignore the action of +the roaring blaze beneath it. + +"It's been there more than an hour, an' boil it won't," said Mrs. +Spurfield, adding, by way of complete explanation, "we're +bewitched." + +"It's Martha Pillamon as has done it," chimed in the old mother; +"I'll be even with the old toad. I'll put a spell on her." + +"It must boil in time," protested Crefton, ignoring the +suggestions of foul influences. "Perhaps the coal is damp." + +"It won't boil in time for supper, nor for breakfast to-morrow +morning, not if you was to keep the fire a-going all night for +it," said Mrs. Spurfield. And it didn't. The household subsisted +on fried and baked dishes, and a neighbour obligingly brewed tea +and sent it across in a moderately warm condition. + +"I suppose you'll be leaving us, now that things has turned up +uncomfortable," Mrs. Spurfield observed at breakfast; "there are +folks as deserts one as soon as trouble comes." + +Crefton hurriedly disclaimed any immediate change of plans; he +observed, however, to himself that the earlier heartiness of +manner had in a large measure deserted the household. Suspicious +looks, sulky silences, or sharp speeches had become the order of +the day. As for the old mother, she sat about the kitchen or the +garden all day, murmuring threats and spells against Martha +Pillamon. There was something alike terrifying and piteous in the +spectacle of these frail old morsels of humanity consecrating +their last flickering energies to the task of making each other +wretched. Hatred seemed to be the one faculty which had survived +in undiminished vigour and intensity where all else was dropping +into ordered and symmetrical decay. And the uncanny part of it +was that some horrid unwholesome power seemed to be distilled from +their spite and their cursings. No amount of sceptical +explanation could remove the undoubted fact that neither kettle +nor saucepan would come to boiling-point over the hottest fire. +Crefton clung as long as possible to the theory of some defect in +the coals, but a wood fire gave the same result, and when a small +spirit-lamp kettle, which he ordered out by carrier, showed the +same obstinate refusal to allow its contents to boil he felt that +he had come suddenly into contact with some unguessed-at and very +evil aspect of hidden forces. Miles away, down through an opening +in the hills, he could catch glimpses of a road where motor-cars +sometimes passed, and yet here, so little removed from the +arteries of the latest civilization, was a bat-haunted old +homestead, where something unmistakably like witchcraft seemed to +hold a very practical sway. + +Passing out through the farm garden on his way to the lanes +beyond, where he hoped to recapture the comfortable sense of +peacefulness that was so lacking around house and hearth-- +especially hearth--Crefton came across the old mother, sitting +mumbling to herself in the seat beneath the medlar tree. "Let un +sink as swims, let un sink as swims," she was, repeating over and +over again, as a child repeats a half-learned lesson. And now and +then she would break off into a shrill laugh, with a note of +malice in it that was not pleasant to hear. Crefton was glad when +he found himself out of earshot, in the quiet and seclusion of the +deep overgrown lanes that seemed to lead away to nowhere; one, +narrower and deeper than the rest, attracted his footsteps, and he +was almost annoyed when he found that it really did act as a +miniature roadway to a human dwelling. A forlorn-looking cottage +with a scrap of ill-tended cabbage garden and a few aged apple +trees stood at an angle where a swift flowing stream widened out +for a space into a decent sized pond before hurrying away again +through the willows that had checked its course. Crefton leaned +against a tree-trunk and looked across the swirling eddies of the +pond at the humble little homestead opposite him; the only sign of +life came from a small procession of dingy-looking ducks that +marched in single file down to the water's edge. There is always +something rather taking in the way a duck changes itself in an +instant from a slow, clumsy waddler of the earth to a graceful, +buoyant swimmer of the waters, and Crefton waited with a certain +arrested attention to watch the leader of the file launch itself +on to the surface of the pond. He was aware at the same time of a +curious warning instinct that something strange and unpleasant was +about to happen. The duck flung itself confidently forward into +the water, and rolled immediately under the surface. Its head +appeared for a moment and went under again, leaving a train of +bubbles in its wake, while wings and legs churned the water in a +helpless swirl of flapping and kicking. The bird was obviously +drowning. Crefton thought at first that it had caught itself in +some weeds, or was being attacked from below by a pike or water- +rat. But no blood floated to the surface, and the wildly bobbing +body made the circuit of the pond current without hindrance from +any entanglement. A second duck had by this time launched itself +into the pond, and a second struggling body rolled and twisted +under the surface. There was something peculiarly piteous in the +sight of the gasping beaks that showed now and again above the +water, as though in terrified protest at this treachery of a +trusted and familiar element. Crefton gazed with something like +horror as a third duck poised itself on the bank and splashed in, +to share the fate of the other two. He felt almost relieved when +the remainder of the flock, taking tardy alarm from the commotion +of the slowly drowning bodies, drew themselves up with tense +outstretched necks, and sidled away from the scene of danger, +quacking a deep note of disquietude as they went. At the same +moment Crefton became aware that he was not the only human witness +of the scene; a bent and withered old woman, whom he recognized at +once as Martha Pillamon, of sinister reputation, had limped down +the cottage path to the water's edge, and was gazing fixedly at +the gruesome whirligig of dying birds that went in horrible +procession round the pool. Presently her voice rang out in a +shrill note of quavering rage: + +"'Tis Betsy Croot adone it, the old rat I'll put a spell on her, +see if I don't." + +Crefton slipped quietly away, uncertain whether or no the old +woman had noticed his presence. Even before she had proclaimed +the guiltiness of Betsy Croot, the latter's muttered incantation +"Let un sink as swims " had flashed uncomfortably across his mind. +But it was the final threat of a retaliatory spell which crowded +his mind with misgiving to the exclusion of all other thoughts or +fancies. His reasoning powers could no longer afford to dismiss +these old-wives' threats as empty bickerings. The household at +Mowsle Barton lay under the displeasure of a vindictive old woman +who seemed able to materialize her personal spites in a very +practical fashion, and there was no saying what form her revenge +for three drowned ducks might not take. As a member of the +household Crefton might find himself involved in some general and +highly disagreeable visitation of Martha Pillamon's wrath. Of +course he knew that he was giving way to absurd fancies, but the +behaviour of the spirit-lamp kettle and the subsequent scene at +the pond had considerably unnerved him. And the vagueness of his +alarm added to its terrors; when once you have taken the +Impossible into your calculations its possibilities become +practically limitless. + +Crefton rose at his usual early hour the next morning, after one +of the least restful nights he had spent at the farm. His +sharpened senses quickly detected that subtle atmosphere of +things-being-not-altogether well that hangs over a stricken +household. The cows had been milked, but they stood huddled about +in the yard, waiting impatiently to be driven out afield, and the +poultry kept up an importunate querulous reminder of deferred +feeding-time; the yard pump, which usually made discordant music +at frequent intervals during the early morning, was to-day +ominously silent. In the house itself there was a coming and +going of scuttering footsteps, a rushing and dying away of hurried +voices, and long, uneasy stillnesses. Crefton finished his +dressing and made his way to the head of a narrow staircase. He +could hear a dull, complaining voice, a voice into which an awed +hush had crept, and recognized the speaker as Mrs. Spurfield. + +"He'll go away, for sure," the voice was saying; "there are those +as runs away from one as soon as real misfortune shows itself." + +Crefton felt that he probably was one of "those," and that there +were moments when it was advisable to be true to type. + +He crept back to his room, collected and packed his few +belongings, placed the money due for his lodgings on a table, and +made his way out by a back door into the yard. A mob of poultry +surged expectantly towards him; shaking off their interested +attentions he hurried along under cover of cowstall, piggery, and +hayricks till he reached the lane at the back of the farm. A few +minutes' walk, which only the burden of his portmanteaux +restrained from developing into an undisguised run, brought him to +a main road, where the early carrier soon overtook him and sped +him onward to the neighbouring town. At a bend of the road he +caught a last glimpse of the farm; the old gabled roofs and +thatched barns, the straggling orchard, and the medlar tree, with +its wooden seat, stood out with an almost spectral clearness in +the early morning light, and over it all brooded that air of magic +possession which Crefton had once mistaken for peace. + +The bustle and roar of Paddington Station smote on his ears with a +welcome protective greeting. + +"Very bad for our nerves, all this rush and hurry," said a fellow- +traveller; "give me the peace and quiet of the country." + +Crefton mentally surrendered his share of the desired commodity. +A crowded, brilliantly over-lighted music-hall, where an exuberant +rendering of "1812" was being given by a strenuous orchestra, came +nearest to his ideal of a nerve sedative. + + + + +THE TALKING-OUT OF TARRINGTON + + + +"Heavens!" exclaimed the aunt of Clovis, "here's some one I know +bearing down on us. I can't remember his name, but he lunched +with us once in Town. Tarrington--yes, that's it. He's heard of +the picnic I'm giving for the Princess, and he'll cling to me like +a lifebelt till I give him an invitation; then he'll ask if he may +bring all his wives and mothers and sisters with him. That's the +worst of these small watering-places; one can't escape from +anybody." + +"I'll fight a rearguard action for you if you like to do a bolt +now," volunteered Clovis; "you've a clear ten yards start if you +don't lose time." + +The aunt of Clovis responded gamely to the suggestion, and churned +away like a Nile steamer, with a long brown ripple of Pekingese +spaniel trailing in her wake. + +"Pretend you don't know him," was her parting advice, tinged with +the reckless courage of the non-combatant. + +The next moment the overtures of an affably disposed gentleman +were being received by Clovis with a "silent-upon-a-peak-in- +Darien" stare which denoted an absence of all previous +acquaintance with the object scrutinized. + +"I expect you don't know me with my moustache," said the new- +comer; "I've only grown it during the last two months." + +"On the contrary," said Clovis, "the moustache is the only thing +about you that seemed familiar to me. I felt certain that I had +met it somewhere before." + +"My name is Tarrington," resumed the candidate for recognition. + +"A very useful kind of name," said Clovis; "with a name of that +sort no one would blame you if you did nothing in particular +heroic or remarkable, would they? And yet if you were to raise a +troop of light horse in a moment of national emergency, +'Tarrington's Light Horse' would sound quite appropriate and +pulse-quickening; whereas if you were called Spoopin, for +instance, the thing would be out of the question. No one, even in +a moment of national emergency, could possibly belong to Spoopin's +Horse." + +The new-comer smiled weakly, as one who is not to be put off by +mere flippancy, and began again with patient persistence: + +"I think you ought to remember my name--" + +"I shall," said Clovis, with an air of immense sincerity. "My +aunt was asking me only this morning to suggest names for four +young owls she's just had sent her as pets. I shall call them all +Tarrington; then if one or two of them die or fly away, or leave +us in any of the ways that pet owls are prone to, there will be +always one or two left to carry on your name. And my aunt won't +LET me forget it; she will always be asking 'Have the Tarringtons +had their mice?' and questions of that sort. She says if you keep +wild creatures in captivity you ought to see after their wants, +and of course she's quite right there." + +"I met you at luncheon at your aunt's house once--" broke in Mr. +Tarrington, pale but still resolute. + +"My aunt never lunches," said Clovis; "she belongs to the National +Anti-Luncheon League, which is doing quite a lot of good work in a +quiet, unobtrusive way. A subscription of half a crown per +quarter entitles you to go without ninety-two luncheons." + +"This must be something new," exclaimed Tarrington. + +"It's the same aunt that I've always had," said Clovis coldly. + +"I perfectly well remember meeting you at a luncheon-party given +by your aunt," persisted Tarrington, who was beginning to flush an +unhealthy shade of mottled pink. + +"What was there for lunch?" asked Clovis. + +"Oh, well, I don't remember that--" + +"How nice of you to remember my aunt when you can no longer recall +the names of the things you ate. Now my memory works quite +differently. I can remember a menu long after I've forgotten the +hostess that accompanied it. When I was seven years old I +recollect being given a peach at a garden-party by some Duchess or +other; I can't remember a thing about her, except that I imagine +our acquaintance must have been of the slightest, as she called me +a 'nice little boy,' but I have unfading memories of that peach. +It was one of those exuberant peaches that meet you halfway, so to +speak, and are all over you in a moment. It was a beautiful +unspoiled product of a hothouse, and yet it managed quite +successfully to give itself the airs of a compote. You had to +bite it and imbibe it at the same time. To me there has always +been something charming and mystic in the thought of that delicate +velvet globe of fruit, slowly ripening and warming to perfection +through the long summer days and perfumed nights, and then coming +suddenly athwart my life in the supreme moment of its existence. +I can never forget it, even if I wished to. And when I had +devoured all that was edible of it, there still remained the +stone, which a heedless, thoughtless child would doubtless have +thrown away; I put it down the neck of a young friend who was +wearing a very DÉCOLLETÉ sailor suit. I told him it was a +scorpion, and from the way he wriggled and screamed he evidently +believed it, though where the silly kid imagined I could procure a +live scorpion at a garden-party I don't know. Altogether, that +peach is for me an unfading and happy memory--" + +The defeated Tarrington had by this time retreated out of ear- +shot, comforting himself as best he might with the reflection that +a picnic which included the presence of Clovis might prove a +doubtfully agreeable experience. + +"I shall certainly go in for a Parliamentary career," said Clovis +to himself as he turned complacently to rejoin his aunt. "As a +talker-out of inconvenient bills I should be invaluable." + + + + +THE HOUNDS OF FATE + + + +In the fading light of a close dull autumn afternoon Martin Stoner +plodded his way along muddy lanes and rut-seamed cart tracks that +led he knew not exactly whither. Somewhere in front of him, he +fancied, lay the sea, and towards the sea his footsteps seemed +persistently turning; why he was struggling wearily forward to +that goal he could scarcely have explained, unless he was +possessed by the same instinct that turns a hard-pressed stag +cliffward in its last extremity. In his case the hounds of Fate +were certainly pressing him with unrelenting insistence; hunger, +fatigue, and despairing hopelessness had numbed his brain, and he +could scarcely summon sufficient energy to wonder what underlying +impulse was driving him onward. Stoner was one of those +unfortunate individuals who seem to have tried everything; a +natural slothfulness and improvidence had always intervened to +blight any chance of even moderate success, and now he was at the +end of his tether, and there was nothing more to try. Desperation +had not awakened in him any dormant reserve of energy; on the +contrary, a mental torpor grew up round the crisis of his +fortunes. With the clothes he stood up in, a halfpenny in his +pocket, and no single friend or acquaintance to turn to, with no +prospect either of a bed for the night or a meal for the morrow, +Martin Stoner trudged stolidly forward, between moist hedgerows +and beneath dripping trees, his mind almost a blank, except that +he was subconsciously aware that somewhere in front of him lay the +sea. Another consciousness obtruded itself now and then--the +knowledge that he was miserably hungry. Presently he came to a +halt by an open gateway that led into a spacious and rather +neglected farm-garden; there was little sign of life about, and +the farm-house at the further end of the garden looked chill and +inhospitable. A drizzling rain, however, was setting in, and +Stoner thought that here perhaps he might obtain a few minutes' +shelter and buy a glass of milk with his last remaining coin. He +turned slowly and wearily into the garden and followed a narrow, +flagged path up to a side door. Before he had time to knock the +door opened and a bent, withered-looking old man stood aside in +the doorway as though to let him pass in. + +"Could I come in out of the rain?" Stoner began, but the old man +interrupted him. + +"Come in, Master Tom. I knew you would come back one of these +days." + +Stoner lurched across the threshold and stood staring +uncomprehendingly at the other. + +"Sit down while I put you out a bit of supper," said the old man +with quavering eagerness. Stoner's legs gave way from very +weariness, and he sank inertly into the arm-chair that had been +pushed up to him. In another minute he was devouring the cold +meat, cheese, and bread, that had been placed on the table at his +side. + +"You'm little changed these four years," went on the old man, in a +voice that sounded to Stoner as something in a dream, far away and +inconsequent; "but you'll find us a deal changed, you will. +There's no one about the place same as when you left; nought but +me and your old Aunt. I'll go and tell her that you'm come; she +won't be seeing you, but she'll let you stay right enough. She +always did say if you was to come back you should stay, but she'd +never set eyes on you or speak to you again." + +The old man placed a mug of beer on the table in front of Stoner +and then hobbled away down a long passage. The drizzle of rain +had changed to a furious lashing downpour, which beat violently +against door and windows. The wanderer thought with a shudder of +what the sea-shore must look like under this drenching rainfall, +with night beating down on all sides. He finished the food and +beer and sat numbly waiting for the return of his strange host. +As the minutes ticked by on the grandfather clock in the corner a +new hope began to flicker and grow in the young man's mind; it was +merely the expansion of his former craving for food and a few +minutes' rest into a longing to find a night's shelter under this +seemingly hospitable roof. A clattering of footsteps down the +passage heralded the old farm servant's return. + +"The old missus won't see you, Master Tom, but she says you are to +stay. 'Tis right enough, seeing the farm will be yours when she +be put under earth. I've had a fire lit in your room, Master Tom, +and the maids has put fresh sheets on to the bed. You'll find +nought changed up there. Maybe you'm tired and would like to go +there now." + +Without a word Martin Stoner rose heavily to his feet and followed +his ministering angel along a passage, up a short creaking stair, +along another passage, and into a large room lit with a cheerfully +blazing fire. There was but little furniture, plain, old- +fashioned, and good of its kind; a stuffed squirrel in a case and +a wall-calendar of four years ago were about the only symptoms of +decoration. But Stoner had eyes for little else than the bed, and +could scarce wait to tear his clothes off him before rolling in a +luxury of weariness into its comfortable depths. The hounds of +Fate seemed to have checked for a brief moment. + +In the cold light of morning Stoner laughed mirthlessly as he +slowly realized the position in which he found himself. Perhaps +he might snatch a bit of breakfast on the strength of his likeness +to this other missing ne'er-do-well, and get safely away before +anyone discovered the fraud that had been thrust on him. In the +room downstairs he found the bent old man ready with a dish of +bacon and fried eggs for "Master Tom's" breakfast, while a hard- +faced elderly maid brought in a teapot and poured him out a cup of +tea. As he sat at the table a small spaniel came up and made +friendly advances. + +"'Tis old Bowker's pup," explained the old man, whom the hard- +faced maid had addressed as George. "She was main fond of you; +never seemed the same after you went away to Australee. She died +'bout a year agone. 'Tis her pup." + +Stoner found it difficult to regret her decease; as a witness for +identification she would have left something to be desired. + +"You'll go for a ride, Master Tom?" was the next startling +proposition that came from the old man. "We've a nice little roan +cob that goes well in saddle. Old Biddy is getting a bit up in +years, though 'er goes well still, but I'll have the little roan +saddled and brought round to door." + +"I've got no riding things," stammered the castaway, almost +laughing as he looked down at his one suit of well-worn clothes. + +"Master Tom," said the old man earnestly, almost with an offended +air, "all your things is just as you left them. A bit of airing +before the fire an' they'll be all right. 'Twill be a bit of a +distraction like, a little riding and wild-fowling now and agen. +You'll find the folk around here has hard and bitter minds towards +you. They hasn't forgotten nor forgiven. No one'll come nigh +you, so you'd best get what distraction you can with horse and +dog. They'm good company, too." + +Old George hobbled away to give his orders, and Stoner, feeling +more than ever like one in a dream, went upstairs to inspect +"Master Tom's" wardrobe. A ride was one of the pleasures dearest +to his heart, and there was some protection against immediate +discovery of his imposture in the thought that none of Tom's +aforetime companions were likely to favour him with a close +inspection. As the interloper thrust himself into some tolerably +well-fitting riding cords he wondered vaguely what manner of +misdeed the genuine Tom had committed to set the whole countryside +against him. The thud of quick, eager hoofs on damp earth cut +short his speculations. The roan cob had been brought up to the +side door. + +"Talk of beggars on horseback," thought Stoner to himself, as he +trotted rapidly along the muddy lanes where he had tramped +yesterday as a down-at-heel outcast; and then he flung reflection +indolently aside and gave himself up to the pleasure of a smart +canter along the turf-grown side of a level stretch of road. At +an open gateway he checked his pace to allow two carts to turn +into a field. The lads driving the carts found time to give him a +prolonged stare, and as he passed on he heard an excited voice +call out, "'Tis Tom Prike! I knowed him at once; showing hisself +here agen, is he?" + +Evidently the likeness which had imposed at close quarters on a +doddering old man was good enough to mislead younger eyes at a +short distance. + +In the course of his ride he met with ample evidence to confirm +the statement that local folk had neither forgotten nor forgiven +the bygone crime which had come to him as a legacy from the absent +Tom. Scowling looks, mutterings, and nudgings greeted him +whenever he chanced upon human beings; "Bowker's pup," trotting +placidly by his side, seemed the one element of friendliness in a +hostile world. + +As he dismounted at the side door he caught a fleeting glimpse of +a gaunt, elderly woman peering at him from behind the curtain of +an upper window. Evidently this was his aunt by adoption. + +Over the ample midday meal that stood in readiness for him Stoner +was able to review the possibilities of his extraordinary +situation. The real Tom, after four years of absence, might +suddenly turn up at the farm, or a letter might come from him at +any moment. Again, in the character of heir to the farm, the +false Tom might be called on to sign documents, which would be an +embarrassing predicament. Or a relative might arrive who would +not imitate the aunt's attitude of aloofness. All these things +would mean ignominious exposure. On the other hand, the +alternative was the open sky and the muddy lanes that led down to +the sea. The farm offered him, at any rate, a temporary refuge +from destitution; farming was one of the many things he had +"tried," and he would be able to do a certain amount of work in +return for the hospitality to which he was so little entitled. + +"Will you have cold pork for your supper," asked the hard-faded +maid, as she cleared the table, "or will you have it hotted up?" + +"Hot, with onions," said Stoner. It was the only time in his life +that he had made a rapid decision. And as he gave the order he +knew that he meant to stay. + +Stoner kept rigidly to those portions of the house which seemed to +have been allotted to him by a tacit treaty of delimitation. When +he took part in the farm-work it was as one who worked under +orders and never initiated them. Old George, the roan cob, and +Bowker's pup were his sole companions in a world that was +otherwise frostily silent and hostile. Of the mistress of the +farm he saw nothing. Once, when he knew she had gone forth to +church, he made a furtive visit to the farm parlour in an +endeavour to glean some fragmentary knowledge of the young man +whose place he had usurped, and whose ill-repute he had fastened +on himself. There were many photographs hung on the walls, or +stuck in prim frames, but the likeness he sought for was not among +them. At last, in an album thrust out of sight, he came across +what he wanted. There was a whole series, labelled "Tom," a podgy +child of three, in a fantastic frock, an awkward boy of about +twelve, holding a cricket bat as though he loathed it, a rather +good-looking youth of eighteen with very smooth, evenly parted +hair, and, finally, a young man with a somewhat surly dare-devil +expression. At this last portrait Stoner looked with particular +interest; the likeness to himself was unmistakable. + +From the lips of old George, who was garrulous enough on most +subjects, he tried again and again to learn something of the +nature of the offence which shut him off as a creature to be +shunned and hated by his fellow-men. + +"What do the folk around here say about me?" he asked one day as +they were walking home from an outlying field. + +The old man shook his head. + +"They be bitter agen you, mortal bitter. Aye, 'tis a sad +business, a sad business." + +And never could he be got to say anything more enlightening. + +On a clear frosty evening, a few days before the festival of +Christmas, Stoner stood in a corner of the orchard which commanded +a wide view of the countryside. Here and there he could see the +twinkling dots of lamp or candle glow which told of human homes +where the goodwill and jollity of the season held their sway. +Behind him lay the grim, silent farm-house, where no one ever +laughed, where even a quarrel would have seemed cheerful. As he +turned to look at the long grey front of the gloom-shadowed +building, a door opened and old George came hurriedly forth. +Stoner heard his adopted name called in a tone of strained +anxiety. Instantly he knew that something untoward had happened, +and with a quick revulsion of outlook his sanctuary became in his +eyes a place of peace and contentment, from which he dreaded to be +driven. + +"Master Tom," said the old man in a hoarse whisper, "you must slip +away quiet from here for a few days. Michael Ley is back in the +village, an' he swears to shoot you if he can come across you. +He'll do it, too, there's murder in the look of him. Get away +under cover of night, 'tis only for a week or so, he won't be here +longer." + +"But where am I to go?" stammered Stoner, who had caught the +infection of the old man's obvious terror. + +"Go right away along the coast to Punchford and keep hid there. +When Michael's safe gone I'll ride the roan over to the Green +Dragon at Punchford; when you see the cob stabled at the Green +Dragon 'tis a sign you may come back agen." + +"But--" began Stoner hesitatingly. + +"'Tis all right for money," said the other; "the old Missus agrees +you'd best do as I say, and she's given me this." + +The old man produced three sovereigns and some odd silver. + +Stoner felt more of a cheat than ever as he stole away that night +from the back gate of the farm with the old woman's money in his +pocket. Old George and Bowker's pup stood watching him a silent +farewell from the yard. He could scarcely fancy that he would +ever come back, and he felt a throb of compunction for those two +humble friends who would wait wistfully for his return. Some day +perhaps the real Tom would come back, and there would be wild +wonderment among those simple farm folks as to the identity of the +shadowy guest they had harboured under their roof. For his own +fate he felt no immediate anxiety; three pounds goes but little +way in the world when there is nothing behind it, but to a man who +has counted his exchequer in pennies it seems a good starting- +point. Fortune had done him a whimsically kind turn when last he +trod these lanes as a hopeless adventurer, and there might yet be +a chance of his finding some work and making a fresh start; as he +got further from the farm his spirits rose higher. There was a +sense of relief in regaining once more his lost identity and +ceasing to be the uneasy ghost of another. He scarcely bothered +to speculate about the implacable enemy who had dropped from +nowhere into his life; since that life was now behind him one +unreal item the more made little difference. For the first time +for many months he began to hum a careless lighthearted refrain. +Then there stepped out from the shadow of an overhanging oak tree +a man with a gun. There was no need to wonder who he might be; +the moonlight falling on his white set face revealed a glare of +human hate such as Stoner in the ups and downs of his wanderings +had never seen before. He sprang aside in a wild effort to break +through the hedge that bordered the lane, but the tough branches +held him fast. The hounds of Fate had waited for him in those +narrow lanes, and this time they were not to be denied. + + + + +THE RECESSIONAL + + + +Clovis sat in the hottest zone but two of a Turkish bath, +alternately inert in statuesque contemplation and rapidly +manoeuvring a fountain-pen over the pages of a note-book. + +"Don't interrupt me with your childish prattle," he observed to +Bertie van Tahn, who had slung himself languidly into a +neighbouring chair and looked conversationally inclined; "I'm +writing deathless verse." + +Bertie looked interested. + +"I say, what a boon you would be to portrait painters if you +really got to be notorious as a poetry writer. If they couldn't +get your likeness hung in the Academy as 'Clovis Sangrail, Esq., +at work on his latest poem,' they could slip you in as a Study of +the Nude or Orpheus descending into Jermyn Street. They always +complain that modern dress handicaps them, whereas a towel and a +fountain-pen--" + +"It was Mrs. Packletide's suggestion that I should write this +thing," said Clovis, ignoring the bypaths to fame that Bertie van +Tahn was pointing out to him. "You see, Loona Bimberton had a +Coronation Ode accepted by the NEW INFANCY, a paper that has been +started with the idea of making the NEW AGE seem elderly and +hidebound. 'So clever of you, dear Loona,' the Packletide +remarked when she had read it; 'of course, anyone could write a +Coronation Ode, but no one else would have thought of doing it.' +Loona protested that these things were extremely difficult to do, +and gave us to understand that they were more or less the province +of a gifted few. Now the Packletide has been rather decent to me +in many ways, a sort of financial ambulance, you know, that +carries you off the field when you're hard hit, which is a +frequent occurrence with me, and I've no use whatever for Loona +Bimberton, so I chipped in and said I could turn out that sort of +stuff by the square yard if I gave my mind to it. Loona said I +couldn't, and we got bets on, and between you and me I think the +money's fairly safe. Of course, one of the conditions of the +wager is that the thing has to be published in something or other, +local newspapers barred; but Mrs. Packletide has endeared herself +by many little acts of thoughtfulness to the editor of the SMOKY +CHIMNEY, so if I can hammer out anything at all approaching the +level of the usual Ode output we ought to be all right. So far +I'm getting along so comfortably that I begin to be afraid that I +must he one of the gifted few." + +"It's rather late in the day for a Coronation Ode, isn't it?" said +Bertie. + +"Of course," said Clovis; "this is going to be a Durbar +Recessional, the sort of thing that you can keep by you for all +time if you want to." + +"Now I understand your choice of a place to write it in," said +Bertie van Tahn, with the air of one who has suddenly unravelled a +hitherto obscure problem; "you want to get the local temperature." + +"I came here to get freedom from the inane interruptions of the +mentally deficient," said Clovis, "but it seems I asked too much +of fate." + +Bertie van Tahn prepared to use his towel as a weapon of +precision, but reflecting that he had a good deal of unprotected +coast-line himself, and that Clovis was equipped with a fountain- +pen as well as a towel, he relapsed pacifically into the depths of +his chair. + +"May one hear extracts from the immortal work?" he asked. "I +promise that nothing that I hear now shall prejudice me against +borrowing a copy of the SMOKY CHIMNEY at the right moment." + +"It's rather like casting pearls into a trough," remarked Clovis +pleasantly, "but I don't mind reading you bits of it. It begins +with a general dispersal of the Durbar participants: + + 'Back to their homes in Himalayan heights + The stale pale elephants of Cutch Behar + Roll like great galleons on a tideless sea--'" + +"I don't believe Cutch Behar is anywhere near the Himalayan +region," interrupted Bertie. "You ought to have an atlas on hand +when you do this sort of thing; and why stale and pale?" + +"After the late hours and the excitement, of course," said Clovis; +"and I said their HOMES were in the Himalayas. You can have +Himalayan elephants in Cutch Behar, I suppose, just as you have +Irish-bred horses running at Ascot." + +"You said they were going back to the Himalayas," objected Bertie. + +"Well, they would naturally be sent home to recuperate. It's the +usual thing out there to turn elephants loose in the hills, just +as we put horses out to grass in this country." + +Clovis could at least flatter himself that he had infused some of +the reckless splendour of the East into his mendacity. + +"Is it all going to be in blank verse?" asked the critic. + +"Of course not; 'Durbar' comes at the end of the fourth line." + +"That seems so cowardly; however, it explains why you pitched on +Cutch Behar." + +"There is more connection between geographical place-names and +poetical inspiration than is generally recognized; one of the +chief reasons why there are so few really great poems about Russia +in our language is that you can't possibly get a rhyme to names +like Smolensk and Tobolsk and Minsk." + +Clovis spoke with the authority of one who has tried. + +"Of course, you could rhyme Omsk with Tomsk," he continued; "in +fact, they seem to be there for that purpose, but the public +wouldn't stand that sort of thing indefinitely." + +"The public will stand a good deal," said Bertie malevolently, +"and so small a proportion of it knows Russian that you could +always have an explanatory footnote asserting that the last three +letters in Smolensk are not pronounced. It's quite as believable +as your statement about putting elephants out to grass in the +Himalayan range." + +"I've got rather a nice bit," resumed Clovis with unruffled +serenity, "giving an evening scene on the outskirts of a jungle +village: + + 'Where the coiled cobra in the gloaming gloats, + And prowling panthers stalk the wary goats.'" + +"There is practically no gloaming in tropical countries," said +Bertie indulgently; "but I like the masterly reticence with which +you treat the cobra's motive for gloating. The unknown is +proverbially the uncanny. I can picture nervous readers of the +SMOKY CHIMNEY keeping the light turned on in their bedrooms all +night out of sheer sickening uncertainty as to WHAT the cobra +might have been gloating about." + +"Cobras gloat naturally," said Clovis, "just as wolves are always +ravening from mere force of habit, even after they've hopelessly +overeaten themselves. I've got a fine bit of colour painting +later on," he added, "where I describe the dawn coming up over the +Brahma-putra river: + + 'The amber dawn-drenched East with sun-shafts kissed, + Stained sanguine apricot and amethyst, + O'er the washed emerald of the mango groves + Hangs in a mist of opalescent mauves, + While painted parrot-flights impinge the haze + With scarlet, chalcedon and chrysoprase.'" + +"I've never seen the dawn come up over the Brahma-putra river," +said Bertie, "so I can't say if it's a good description of the +event, but it sounds more like an account of an extensive jewel +robbery. Anyhow, the parrots give a good useful touch of local +colour. I suppose you've introduced some tigers into the scenery? +An Indian landscape would have rather a bare, unfinished look +without a tiger or two in the middle distance." + +"I've got a hen-tiger somewhere in the poem," said Clovis, hunting +through his notes. "Here she is: + + 'The tawny tigress 'mid the tangled teak + Drags to her purring cubs' enraptured ears + The harsh death-rattle in the pea-fowl's beak, + A jungle lullaby of blood and tears.'" + +Bertie van Tahn rose hurriedly from his recumbent position and +made for the glass door leading into the next compartment. + +"I think your idea of home life in the jungle is perfectly +horrid," he said. "The cobra was sinister enough, but the +improvised rattle in the tiger-nursery is the limit. If you're +going to make me turn hot and cold all over I may as well go into +the steam room at once." + +"Just listen to this line," said Clovis; "it would make the +reputation of any ordinary poet: + + 'and overhead + The pendulum-patient Punkah, parent of stillborn breeze.'" + +"Most of your readers will think 'punkah' is a kind of iced drink +or half-time at polo," said Bertie, and disappeared into the +steam. + + . . . . . . . . . . + +The SMOKY CHIMNEY duly published the "Recessional," but it proved +to be its swan song, for the paper never attained to another +issue. + +Loona Bimberton gave up her intention of attending the Durbar and +went into a nursing-home on the Sussex Downs. Nervous breakdown +after a particularly strenuous season was the usually accepted +explanation, but there are three or four people who know that she +never really recovered from the dawn breaking over the Brahma- +putra river. + + + + +A MATTER OF SENTIMENT + + + +It was the eve of the great race, and scarcely a member of Lady +Susan's house-party had as yet a single bet on. It was one of +those unsatisfactory years when one horse held a commanding market +position, not by reason of any general belief in its crushing +superiority, but because it was extremely difficult to pitch on +any other candidate to whom to pin ones faith. Peradventure II +was the favourite, not in the sense of being a popular fancy, but +by virtue of a lack of confidence in any one of his rather +undistinguished rivals. The brains of clubland were much +exercised in seeking out possible merit where none was very +obvious to the naked intelligence, and the house-party at Lady +Susan's was possessed by the same uncertainty and irresolution +that infected wider circles. + +"It is just the time for bringing off a good coup," said Bertie +van Tahn. + +"Undoubtedly. But with what?" demanded Clovis for the twentieth +time. + +The women of the party were just as keenly interested in the +matter, and just as helplessly perplexed; even the mother of +Clovis, who usually got good racing information from her +dressmaker, confessed herself fancy free on this occasion. +Colonel Drake, who was professor of military history at a minor +cramming establishment, was the only person who had a definite +selection for the event, but as his choice varied every three +hours he was worse than useless as an inspired guide. The +crowning difficulty of the problem was that it could only be +fitfully and furtively discussed. Lady Susan disapproved of +racing. She disapproved of many things; some people went as far +as to say that she disapproved of most things. Disapproval was to +her what neuralgia and fancy needlework are to many other women. +She disapproved of early morning tea and auction bridge, of ski- +ing and the two-step, of the Russian ballet and the Chelsea Arts +Club ball, of the French policy in Morocco and the British policy +everywhere. It was not that she was particularly strict or narrow +in her views of life, but she had been the eldest sister of a +large family of self-indulgent children, and her particular form +of indulgence had consisted in openly disapproving of the foibles +of the others. Unfortunately the hobby had grown up with her. As +she was rich, influential, and very, very kind, most people were +content to count their early tea as well lost on her behalf. +Still, the necessity for hurriedly dropping the discussion of an +enthralling topic, and suppressing all mention of it during her +presence on the scene, was an affliction at a moment like the +present, when time was slipping away and indecision was the +prevailing note. + +After a lunch-time of rather strangled and uneasy conversation, +Clovis managed to get most of the party together at the further +end of the kitchen gardens, on the pretext of admiring the +Himalayan pheasants. He had made an important discovery. Motkin, +the butler, who (as Clovis expressed it) had grown prematurely +grey in Lady Susan's service, added to his other excellent +qualities an intelligent interest in matters connected with the +Turf. On the subject of the forthcoming race he was not +illuminating, except in so far that he shared the prevailing +unwillingness to see a winner in Peradventure II. But where he +outshone all the members of the house-party was in the fact that +he had a second cousin who was head stable-lad at a neighbouring +racing establishment, and usually gifted with much inside +information as to private form and possibilities. Only the fact +of her ladyship having taken it into her head to invite a house- +party for the last week of May had prevented Mr. Motkin from +paying a visit of consultation to his relative with respect to the +big race; there was still time to cycle over if he could get leave +of absence for the afternoon on some specious excuse. + +"Let's jolly well hope he does," said Bertie van Tahn; "under the +circumstances a second cousin is almost as useful as second +sight." + +"That stable ought to know something, if knowledge is to be found +anywhere," said Mrs. Packletide hopefully. + +"I expect you'll find he'll echo my fancy for Motorboat," said +Colonel Drake. + +At this moment the subject had to be hastily dropped. Lady Susan +bore down upon them, leaning on the arm of Clovis's mother, to +whom she was confiding the fact that she disapproved of the craze +for Pekingese spaniels. It was the third thing she had found time +to disapprove of since lunch, without counting her silent and +permanent disapproval of the way Clovis's mother did her hair. + +"We have been admiring the Himalayan pheasants," said Mrs. +Packletide suavely. + +"They went off to a bird-show at Nottingham early this morning," +said Lady Susan, with the air of one who disapproves of hasty and +ill-considered lying. + +"Their house, I mean; such perfect roosting arrangements, and all +so clean," resumed Mrs. Packletide, with an increased glow of +enthusiasm. The odious Bertie van Tahn was murmuring audible +prayers for Mrs. Packletide's ultimate estrangement from the paths +of falsehood. + +"I hope you don't mind dinner being a quarter of an hour late to- +night," said Lady Susan; "Motkin has had an urgent summons to go +and see a sick relative this afternoon. He wanted to bicycle +there, but I am sending him in the motor." + +"How very kind of you! Of course we don't mind dinner being put +off." The assurances came with unanimous and hearty sincerity. + +At the dinner-table that night an undercurrent of furtive +curiosity directed itself towards Motkin's impassive countenance. +One or two of the guests almost expected to find a slip of paper +concealed in their napkins, bearing the name of the second +cousin's selection. They had not long to wait. As the butler +went round with the murmured question, "Sherry?" he added in an +even lower tone the cryptic words, "Better not." Mrs. Packletide +gave a start of alarm, and refused the sherry; there seemed some +sinister suggestion in the butler's warning, as though her hostess +had suddenly become addicted to the Borgia habit. A moment later +the explanation flashed on her that "Better Not" was the name of +one of the runners in the big race. Clovis was already pencilling +it on his cuff, and Colonel Drake, in his turn, was signalling to +every one in hoarse whispers and dumb-show the fact that he had +all along fancied "B.N." + +Early next morning a sheaf of telegrams went Townward, +representing the market commands of the house-party and servants' +hall. + +It was a wet afternoon, and most of Lady Susan's guests hung about +the hall, waiting apparently for the appearance of tea, though it +was scarcely yet due. The advent of a telegram quickened every +one into a flutter of expectancy; the page who brought the +telegram to Clovis waited with unusual alertness to know if there +might be an answer. + +Clovis read the message and gave an exclamation of annoyance. + +"No bad news, I hope," said Lady Susan. Every one else knew that +the news was not good. + +"It's only the result of the Derby," he blurted out; "Sadowa won; +an utter outsider." + +"Sadowa!" exclaimed Lady Susan; "you don't say so! How +remarkable! It's the first time I've ever backed a horse; in fact +I disapprove of horse-racing, but just for once in a way I put +money on this horse, and it's gone and won." + +"May I ask," said Mrs. Packletide, amid the general silence, "why +you put your money on this particular horse. None of the sporting +prophets mentioned it as having an outside chance." + +"Well," said Lady Susan, "you may laugh at me, but it was the name +that attracted me. You see, I was always mixed up with the +Franco-German war; I was married on the day that the war was +declared, and my eldest child was born the day that peace was +signed, so anything connected with the war has always interested +me. And when I saw there was a horse running in the Derby called +after one of the battles in the Franco-German war, I said I MUST +put some money on it, for once in a way, though I disapprove of +racing. And it's actually won." + +There was a general groan. No one groaned more deeply than the +professor of military history. + + + + +THE SECRET SIN OF SEPTIMUS BROPE + + + +"Who and what is Mr. Brope?" demanded the aunt of Clovis suddenly. + +Mrs. Riversedge, who had been snipping off the heads of defunct +roses, and thinking of nothing in particular, sprang hurriedly to +mental attention. She was one of those old-fashioned hostesses +who consider that one ought to know something about one's guests, +and that the something ought to be to their credit. + +"I believe he comes from Leighton Buzzard," she observed by way of +preliminary explanation. + +"In these days of rapid and convenient travel," said Clovis, who +was dispersing a colony of green-fly with visitations of cigarette +smoke, "to come from Leighton Buzzard does not necessarily denote +any great strength of character. It might only mean mere +restlessness. Now if he had left it under a cloud, or as a +protest against the incurable and heartless frivolity of its +inhabitants, that would tell us something about the man and his +mission in life." + +"What does he do?" pursued Mrs. Troyle magisterially. + +"He edits the CATHEDRAL MONTHLY," said her hostess, "and he's +enormously learned about memorial brasses and transepts and the +influence of Byzantine worship on modern liturgy, and all those +sort of things. Perhaps he is just a little bit heavy and +immersed in one range of subjects, but it takes all sorts to make +a good house-party, you know. You don't find him TOO dull, do +you?" + +"Dullness I could overlook," said the aunt of Clovis; "what I +cannot forgive is his making love to my maid." + +"My dear Mrs. Troyle," gasped the hostess, "what an extraordinary +idea! I assure you Mr. Brope would not dream of doing such a +thing." + +"His dreams are a matter of indifference to me; for all I care his +slumbers may be one long indiscretion of unsuitable erotic +advances, in which the entire servants' hall may be involved. But +in his waking hours he shall not make love to my maid. It's no +use arguing about it, I'm firm on the point." + +"But you must be mistaken," persisted Mrs. Riversedge; "Mr. Brope +would be the last person to do such a thing." + +"He is the first person to do such a thing, as far as my +information goes, and if I have any voice in the matter he +certainly shall be the last. Of course, I am not referring to +respectably-intentioned lovers." + +"I simply cannot think that a man who writes so charmingly and +informingly about transepts and Byzantine influences would behave +in such an unprincipled manner," said Mrs. Riversedge; "what +evidence have you that he's doing anything of the sort? I don't +want to doubt your word, of course, but we mustn't he too ready to +condemn him unheard, must we?" + +"Whether we condemn him or not, he has certainly not been unheard. +He has the room next to my dressing-room, and on two occasions, +when I dare say he thought I was absent, I have plainly heard him +announcing through the wall, 'I love you, Florrie.' Those +partition walls upstairs are very thin; one can almost hear a +watch ticking in the next room." + +"Is your maid called Florence?" + +"Her name is Florinda." + +"What an extraordinary name to give a maid!" + +"I did not give it to her; she arrived in my service already +christened." + +"What I mean is," said Mrs. Riversedge, "that when I get maids +with unsuitable names I call them Jane; they soon get used to it." + +"An excellent plan," said the aunt of Clovis coldly; +"unfortunately I have got used to being called Jane myself. It +happens to be my name." + +She cut short Mrs. Riversedge's flood of apologies by abruptly +remarking: + +"The question is not whether I'm to call my maid Florinda, but +whether Mr. Brope is to be permitted to call her Florrie. I am +strongly of opinion than he shall not." + +"He may have been repeating the words of some song," said Mrs. +Riversedge hopefully; "there are lots of those sorts of silly +refrains with girls' names," she continued, turning to Clovis as a +possible authority on the subject. "'You mustn't call me Mary--'" + +"I shouldn't think of doing so," Clovis assured her; "in the first +place, I've always understood that your name was Henrietta; and +then I hardly know you well enough to take such a liberty." + +"I mean there's a SONG with that refrain," hurriedly explained +Mrs. Riversedge, "and there's 'Rhoda, Rhoda kept a pagoda,' and +'Maisie is a daisy,' and heaps of others. Certainly it doesn't +sound like Mr. Brope to be singing such songs, but I think we +ought to give him the benefit of the doubt." + +"I had already done so," said Mrs. Troyle, "until further evidence +came my way." + +She shut her lips with the resolute finality of one who enjoys the +blessed certainty of being implored to open them again. + +"Further evidence!" exclaimed her hostess; "do tell me!" + +"As I was coming upstairs after breakfast Mr. Brope was just +passing my room. In the most natural way in the world a piece of +paper dropped out of a packet that he held in his hand and +fluttered to the ground just at my door. I was going to call out +to him 'You've dropped something,' and then for some reason I held +back and didn't show myself till he was safely in his room. You +see it occurred to me that I was very seldom in my room just at +that hour, and that Florinda was almost always there tidying up +things about that time. So I picked up that innocent-looking +piece of paper." + +Mrs. Troyle paused again, with the self-applauding air of one who +has detected an asp lurking in an apple-charlotte. + +Mrs. Riversedge snipped vigorously at the nearest rose bush, +incidentally decapitating a Viscountess Folkestone that was just +coming into bloom. + +"What was on the paper?" she asked. + +"Just the words in pencil, 'I love you, Florrie,' and then +underneath, crossed out with a faint line, but perfectly plain to +read, 'Meet me in the garden by the yew.'" + +"There IS a yew tree at the bottom of the garden," admitted Mrs. +Riversedge. + +"At any rate he appears to be truthful," commented Clovis. + +"To think that a scandal of this sort should be going on under my +roof!" said Mrs. Riversedge indignantly. + +"I wonder why it is that scandal seems so much worse under a +roof," observed Clovis; "I've always regarded it as a proof of the +superior delicacy of the cat tribe that it conducts most of its +scandals above the slates." + +"Now I come to think of it," resumed Mrs. Riversedge, "there are +things about Mr. Brope that I've never been able to account for. +His income, for instance: he only gets two hundred a year as +editor of the CATHEDRAL MONTHLY, and I know that his people are +quite poor, and he hasn't any private means. Yet he manages to +afford a flat somewhere in Westminster, and he goes abroad to +Bruges and those sorts of places every year, and always dresses +well, and gives quite nice luncheon-parties in the season. You +can't do all that on two hundred a year, can you?" + +"Does he write for any other papers?" queried Mrs. Troyle. + +"No, you see he specializes so entirely on liturgy and +ecclesiastical architecture that his field is rather restricted. +He once tried the SPORTING AND DRAMATIC with an article on church +edifices in famous fox-hunting centres, but it wasn't considered +of sufficient general interest to be accepted. No, I don't see +how he can support himself in his present style merely by what he +writes." + +"Perhaps he sells spurious transepts to American enthusiasts," +suggested Clovis. + +"How could you sell a transept?" said Mrs. Riversedge; "such a +thing would be impossible." + +"Whatever he may do to eke out his income," interrupted Mrs. +Troyle, "he is certainly not going to fill in his leisure moments +by making love to my maid." + +"Of course not," agreed her hostess; "that must be put a stop to +at once. But I don't quite know what we ought to do." + +"You might put a barbed wire entanglement round the yew tree as a +precautionary measure," said Clovis. + +"I don't think that the disagreeable situation that has arisen is +improved by flippancy," said Mrs. Riversedge; "a good maid is a +treasure--" + +"I am sure I don't know what I should do without Florinda," +admitted Mrs. Troyle; "she understands my hair. I've long ago +given up trying to do anything with it myself. I regard one's +hair as I regard husbands: as long as one is seen together in +public one's private divergences don't matter. Surely that was +the luncheon gong." + +Septimus Brope and Clovis had the smoking-room to themselves after +lunch. The former seemed restless and preoccupied, the latter +quietly observant. + +"What is a lorry?" asked Septimus suddenly; "I don't mean the +thing on wheels, of course I know what that is, but isn't there a +bird with a name like that, the larger form of a lorikeet?" + +"I fancy it's a lory, with one 'r,'" said Clovis lazily, "in which +case it's no good to you." + +Septimus Brope stared in some astonishment. + +"How do you mean, no good to me?" he asked, with more than a trace +of uneasiness in his voice. + +"Won't rhyme with Florrie," explained Clovis briefly. + +Septimus sat upright in his chair, with unmistakable alarm on his +face. + +"How did you find out? I mean how did you know I was trying to +get a rhyme to Florrie?" he asked sharply. + +"I didn't know," said Clovis, "I only guessed. When you wanted to +turn the prosaic lorry of commerce into a feathered poem flitting +through the verdure of a tropical forest, I knew you must be +working up a sonnet, and Florrie was the only female name that +suggested itself as rhyming with lorry." + +Septimus still looked uneasy. + +"I believe you know more," he said. + +Clovis laughed quietly, but said nothing. + +"How much do you know?" Septimus asked desperately. + +"The yew tree in the garden," said Clovis. + +"There! I felt certain I'd dropped it somewhere. But you must +have guessed something before. Look here, you have surprised my +secret. You won't give me away, will you? It is nothing to he +ashamed of, but it wouldn't do for the editor of the CATHEDRAL +MONTHLY to go in openly for that sort of thing, would it?" + +"Well, I suppose not," admitted Clovis. + +"You see," continued Septimus, "I get quite a decent lot of money +out of it. I could never live in the style I do on what I get as +editor of the CATHEDRAL MONTHLY." + +Clovis was even more startled than Septimus had been earlier in +the conversation, but he was better skilled in repressing +surprise. + +"Do you mean to say you get money out of--Florrie?" he asked. + +"Not out of Florrie, as yet," said Septimus; "in fact, I don't +mind saying that I'm having a good deal of trouble over Florrie. +But there are a lot of others." + +Clovis's cigarette went out. + +"This is VERY interesting," he said slowly. And then, with +Septimus Brope's next words, illumination dawned on him. + +"There are heaps of others; for instance: + + 'Cora with the lips of coral, + You and I will never quarrel.' + +That was one of my earliest successes, and it still brings me in +royalties. And then there is--'Esmeralda, when I first beheld +her,' and 'Fair Teresa, how I love to please her,' both of those +have been fairly popular. And there is one rather dreadful one," +continued Septimus, flushing deep carmine, "which has brought me +in more money than any of the others: + + 'Lively little Lucie + With her naughty nez retroussé.' + +Of course, I loathe the whole lot of them; in fact, I'm rapidly +becoming something of a woman-hater under their influence, but I +can't afford to disregard the financial aspect of the matter. And +at the same time you can understand that my position as an +authority on ecclesiastical architecture and liturgical subjects +would be weakened, if not altogether ruined, if it once got about +that I was the author of 'Cora with the lips of coral' and all the +rest of them." + +Clovis had recovered sufficiently to ask in a sympathetic, if +rather unsteady, voice what was the special trouble with +"Florrie." + +"I can't get her into lyric shape, try as I will," said Septimus +mournfully. "You see, one has to work in a lot of sentimental, +sugary compliment with a catchy rhyme, and a certain amount of +personal biography or prophecy. They've all of them got to have a +long string of past successes recorded about them, or else you've +got to foretell blissful things about them and yourself in the +future. For instance, there is: + + 'Dainty little girlie Mavis, + She is such a rara avis, + All the money I can save is + All to be for Mavis mine.' + +It goes to a sickening namby-pamby waltz tune, and for months +nothing else was sung and hummed in Blackpool and other popular +centres." + +This time Clovis's self-control broke down badly. + +"Please excuse me," he gurgled, "but I can't help it when I +remember the awful solemnity of that article of yours that you so +kindly read us last night, on the Coptic Church in its relation to +early Christian worship." + +Septimus groaned. + +"You see how it would be," he said; "as soon as people knew me to +be the author of that miserable sentimental twaddle, all respect +for the serious labours of my life would be gone. I dare say I +know more about memorial brasses than anyone living, in fact I +hope one day to publish a monograph on the subject, but I should +be pointed out everywhere as the man whose ditties were in the +mouths of nigger minstrels along the entire coast-line of our +Island home. Can you wonder that I positively hate Florrie all +the time that I'm trying to grind out sugar-coated rhapsodies +about her." + +"Why not give free play to your emotions, and be brutally abusive? +An uncomplimentary refrain would have an instant success as a +novelty if you were sufficiently outspoken." + +"I've never thought of that," said Septimus, "and I'm afraid I +couldn't break away from the habit of fulsome adulation and +suddenly change my style." + +"You needn't change your style in the least," said Clovis; "merely +reverse the sentiment and keep to the inane phraseology of the +thing. If you'll do the body of the 'song I'll knock off the +refrain, which is the thing that principally matters, I believe. +I shall charge half-shares in the royalties, and throw in my +silence as to your guilty secret. In the eyes of the world you +shall still be the man who has devoted his life to the study of +transepts and Byzantine ritual; only sometimes, in the long winter +evenings, when the wind howls drearily down the chimney and the +rain beats against the windows, I shall think of you as the author +of 'Cora with the lips of coral.' Of course, if in sheer +gratitude at my silence you like to take me for a much-needed +holiday to the Adriatic or somewhere equally interesting, paying +all expenses, I shouldn't dream of refusing." + +Later in the afternoon Clovis found his aunt and Mrs. Riversedge +indulging in gentle exercise in the Jacobean garden. + +"I've spoken to Mr. Brope about F.," he announced. + +"How splendid of you! What did he say?" came in a quick chorus +from the two ladies. + +"He was quite frank and straightforward with me when he saw that I +knew his secret," said Clovis, "and it seems that his intentions +were quite serious, if slightly unsuitable. I tried to show him +the impracticability of the course that he was following. He said +he wanted to be understood, and he seemed to think that Florinda +would excel in that requirement, but I pointed out that there were +probably dozens of delicately nurtured, pure-hearted young English +girls who would be capable of understanding him, while Florinda +was the only person in the world who understood my aunt's hair. +That rather weighed with him, for he's not really a selfish +animal, if you take him in the right way, and when I appealed to +the memory of his happy childish days, spent amid the daisied +fields of Leighton Buzzard (I suppose daisies do grow there), he +was obviously affected. Anyhow, he gave me his word that he would +put Florinda absolutely out of his mind, and he has agreed to go +for a short trip abroad as the best distraction for his thoughts. +I am going with him as far as Ragusa. If my aunt should wish to +give me a really nice scarf-pin (to be chosen by myself), as a +small recognition of the very considerable service I have done +her, I shouldn't dream of refusing. I'm not one of those who +think that because one is abroad one can go about dressed anyhow." + +A few weeks later in Blackpool and places where they sing, the +following refrain held undisputed sway: + + "How you bore me, Florrie, + With those eyes of vacant blue; + You'll be very sorry, Florrie, + If I marry you. + Though I'm easygoin', Florrie, + This I swear is true, + I'll throw you down a quarry, Florrie, + If I marry you." + + + + +"MINISTERS OF GRACE" + + + +Although he was scarcely yet out of his teens, the Duke of Scaw +was already marked out as a personality widely differing from +others of his caste and period. Not in externals; therein he +conformed correctly to type. His hair was faintly reminiscent of +Houbigant, and at the other end of him his shoes exhaled the right +SOUPÇON of harness-room; his socks compelled one's attention +without losing one's respect; and his attitude in repose had just +that suggestion of Whistler's mother, so becoming in the really +young. It was within that the trouble lay, if trouble it could be +accounted, which marked him apart from his fellows. The Duke was +religious. Not in any of the ordinary senses of the word; he took +small heed of High Church or Evangelical standpoints, he stood +outside of all the movements and missions and cults and crusades +of the day, uncaring and uninterested. Yet in a mystical- +practical way of his own, which had served him unscathed and +unshaken through the fickle years of boyhood, he was intensely and +intensively religious. His family were naturally, though +unobtrusively, distressed about it. "I am so afraid it may affect +his bridge," said his mother. + +The Duke sat in a pennyworth of chair in St. James's Park, +listening to the pessimisms of Belturbet, who reviewed the +existing political situation from the gloomiest of standpoints. + +"Where I think you political spade-workers are so silly," said the +Duke, "is in the misdirection of your efforts. You spend +thousands of pounds of money, and Heaven knows how much dynamic +force of brain power and personal energy, in trying to elect or +displace this or that man, whereas you could gain your ends so +much more simply by making use of the men as you find them. If +they don't suit your purpose as they are, transform them into +something more satisfactory." + +"Do you refer to hypnotic suggestion?" asked Belturbet, with the +air of one who is being trifled with. + +"Nothing of the sort. Do you understand what I mean by the verb +to koepenick? That is to say, to replace an authority by a +spurious imitation that would carry just as much weight for the +moment as the displaced original; the advantage, of course, being +that the koepenick replica would do what you wanted, whereas the +original does what seems best in its own eyes." + +"I suppose every public man has a double, if not two or three," +said Belturbet; "but it would be a pretty hard task to koepenick a +whole bunch of them and keep the originals out of the way." + +"There have been instances in European history of highly +successful koepenickery," said the Duke dreamily. + +"Oh, of course, there have been False Dimitris and Perkin +Warbecks, who imposed on the world for a time," assented +Belturbet, "but they personated people who were dead or safely out +of the way. That was a comparatively simple matter. It would be +far easier to pass oneself of as dead Hannibal than as living +Haldane, for instance." + +"I was thinking," said the Duke, "of the most famous case of all, +the angel who koepenicked King Robert of Sicily with such +brilliant results. Just imagine what an advantage it would be to +have angels deputizing, to use a horrible but convenient word, for +Quinston and Lord Hugo Sizzle, for example. How much smoother the +Parliamentary machine would work than at present!" + +"Now you're talking nonsense," said Belturbet; "angels don't exist +nowadays, at least, not in that way, so what is the use of +dragging them into a serious discussion? It's merely silly." + +"If you talk to me like that I shall just DO it," said the Duke. + +"Do what?" asked Belturbet. There were times when his young +friend's uncanny remarks rather frightened him. + +"I shall summon angelic forces to take over some of the more +troublesome personalities of our public life, and I shall send the +ousted originals into temporary retirement in suitable animal +organisms. It's not every one who would have the knowledge or the +power necessary to bring such a thing off--" + +"Oh, stop that inane rubbish," said Belturbet angrily; "it's +getting wearisome. Here's Quinston coming," he added, as there +approached along the almost deserted path the well-known figure of +a young Cabinet Minister, whose personality evoked a curious +mixture of public interest and unpopularity. + +"Hurry along, my dear man," said the young Duke to the Minister, +who had given him a condescending nod; "your time is running +short," he continued in a provocative strain; "the whole inept +crowd of you will shortly be swept away into the world's waste- +paper basket." + +"You poor little strawberry-leafed nonentity," said the Minister, +checking himself for a moment in his stride and rolling out his +words spasmodically; "who is going to sweep us away, I should like +to know? The voting masses are on our side, and all the ability +and administrative talent is on our side too. No power of earth +or Heaven is going to move us from our place till we choose to +quit it. No power of earth or--" + +Belturbet saw, with bulging eyes, a sudden void where a moment +earlier had been a Cabinet Minister; a void emphasized rather than +relieved by the presence of a puffed-out bewildered-looking +sparrow, which hopped about for h moment in a dazed fashion and +then fell to a violent cheeping and scolding. + +"If we could understand sparrow-language," said the Duke serenely, +"I fancy we should hear something infinitely worse than +'strawberry-leafed nonentity.'" + +"But good Heavens, Eugène," said Belturbet hoarsely, "what has +become of-- Why, there he is! How on earth did he get there?" +And he pointed with a shaking finger towards a semblance of the +vanished Minister, which approached once more along the +unfrequented path. + +The Duke laughed. + +"It is Quinston to all outward appearance," he said composedly, +"but I fancy you will find, on closer investigation, that it is an +angel understudy of the real article." + +The Angel-Quinston greeted them with a friendly smile. + +"How beastly happy you two look sitting there!" he said wistfully. + +"I don't suppose you'd care to change places with poor little us," +replied the Duke chaffingly. + +"How about poor little me?" said the Angel modestly. "I've got to +run about behind the wheels of popularity, like a spotted dog +behind a carriage, getting all the dust and trying to look as if I +was an important part of the machine. I must seem a perfect fool +to you onlookers sometimes." + +"I think you are a perfect angel," said the Duke. + +The Angel-that-had-been-Quinston smiled and passed on his way, +pursued across the breadth of the Horse Guards Parade by a +tiresome little sparrow that cheeped incessantly and furiously at +him. + +"That's only the beginning," said the Duke complacently; "I've +made it operative with all of them, irrespective of parties." + +Belturbet made no coherent reply; he was engaged in feeling his +pulse. The Duke fixed his attention with some interest on a black +swan that was swimming with haughty, stiff-necked aloofness amid +the crowd of lesser water-fowl that dotted the ornamental water. +For all its pride of bearing, something was evidently ruffling and +enraging it; in its way it seemed as angry and amazed as the +sparrow had been. + +At the same moment a human figure came along the pathway. +Belturbet looked up apprehensively. + +"Kedzon," he whispered briefly. + +"An Angel-Kedzon, if I am not mistaken," said the Duke. "Look, he +is talking affably to a human being. That settles it." + +A shabbily dressed lounger had accosted the man who had been +Viceroy in the splendid East, and who still reflected in his mien +some of the cold dignity of the Himalayan snow-peaks. + +"Could you tell me, sir, if them white birds is storks or +halbatrosses? I had an argyment--" + +The cold dignity thawed at once into genial friendliness. + +"Those are pelicans, my dear sir. Are you interested in birds? +If you would join me in a bun and a glass of milk at the stall +yonder, I could tell you some interesting things about Indian +birds. Right oh! Now the hill-mynah, for instance--" + +The two men disappeared in the direction of the bun stall, +chatting volubly as they went, and shadowed from the other side of +the railed enclosure by a black swan, whose temper seemed to have +reached the limit of inarticulate rage. + +Belturbet gazed in an open-mouthed wonder after the retreating +couple, then transferred his attention to the infuriated swan, and +finally turned with a look of scared comprehension at his young +friend lolling unconcernedly in his chair. There was no longer +any room to doubt what was happening. The "silly talk" had been +translated into terrifying action. + +"I think a prairie oyster on the top of a stiffish brandy-and-soda +might save my reason," said Belturbet weakly, as he limped towards +his club. + +It was late in the day before he could steady his nerves +sufficiently to glance at the evening papers. The Parliamentary +report proved significant reading, and confirmed the fears that he +had been trying to shake off. Mr. Ap Dave, the Chancellor, whose +lively controversial style endeared him to his supporters and +embittered him, politically speaking, to his opponents, had risen +in his place to make an unprovoked apology for having alluded in a +recent speech to certain protesting taxpayers as "skulkers." He +had realized on reflection that they were in all probability +perfectly honest in their inability to understand certain legal +technicalities of the new finance laws. The House had scarcely +recovered from this sensation when Lord Hugo Sizzle caused a +further flutter of astonishment by going out of his way to indulge +in an outspoken appreciation of the fairness, loyalty, and +straightforwardness not only of the Chancellor, but of all the +members of the Cabinet. A wit had gravely suggested moving the +adjournment of the House in view of the unexpected circumstances +that had arisen. + +Belturbet anxiously skimmed over a further item of news printed +immediately below the Parliamentary report: "Wild cat found in an +exhausted condition in Palace Yard." + +"Now I wonder which of them--" he mused, and then an appalling +idea came to him. "Supposing he's put them both into the same +beast!" He hurriedly ordered another prairie oyster. + +Belturbet was known in his club as a strictly moderate drinker; +his consumption of alcoholic stimulants that day gave rise to +considerable comment. + +The events of the next few days were piquantly bewildering to the +world at large; to Belturbet, who knew dimly what was happening, +the situation was fraught with recurring alarms. The old saying +that in politics it's the unexpected that always happens received +a justification that it had hitherto somewhat lacked, and the +epidemic of startling personal changes of front was not wholly +confined to the realm of actual politics. The eminent chocolate +magnate, Sadbury, whose antipathy to the Turf and everything +connected with it was a matter of general knowledge, had evidently +been replaced by an Angel-Sadbury, who proceeded to electrify the +public by blossoming forth as an owner of race-horses, giving as a +reason his matured conviction that the sport was, after all, one +which gave healthy open-air recreation to large numbers of people +drawn from all classes of the community, and incidentally +stimulated the important industry of horse-breeding. His colours, +chocolate and cream hoops spangled with pink stars, promised to +become as popular as any on the Turf. At the same time, in order +to give effect to his condemnation of the evils resulting from the +spread of the gambling habit among wage-earning classes, who lived +for the most part from hand to mouth, he suppressed all betting +news and tipsters' forecasts in the popular evening paper that was +under his control. His action received instant recognition and +support from the Angel-proprietor of the EVENING VIEWS, the +principal rival evening halfpenny paper, who forthwith issued an +ukase decreeing a similar ban on betting news, and in a short +while the regular evening Press was purged of all mention of +starting prices and probable winners. A considerable drop in the +circulation of all these papers was the immediate result, +accompanied, of course, by a falling-off in advertisement value, +while a crop of special betting broadsheets sprang up to supply +the newly-created want. Under their influence the betting habit +became if anything rather wore widely diffused than before. The +Duke had possibly overlooked the futility of koepenicking the +leaders of the nation with excellently intentioned angel under- +studies, while leaving the mass of the people in its original +condition. + +Further sensation and dislocation was caused in the Press world by +the sudden and dramatic RAPPROCHEMENT which took place between the +Angel-Editor of the SCRUTATOR and the Angel-Editor of the ANGLIAN +REVIEW, who not only ceased to criticize and disparage the tone +and tendencies of each other's publication, but agreed to exchange +editorships for alternating periods. Here again public support +was not on the side of the angels; constant readers of the +SCRUTATOR complained bitterly of the strong meat which was thrust +upon them at fitful intervals in place of the almost vegetarian +diet to which they had become confidently accustomed; even those +who were not mentally averse to strong meat as a separate course +were pardonably annoyed at being supplied with it in the pages of +the SCRUTATOR. To be suddenly confronted with a pungent herring +salad when one had attuned oneself to tea and toast, or to +discover a richly truffled segment of PATÉ DE FOIE dissembled in a +bowl of bread and milk, would he an experience that might upset +the equanimity of the most placidly disposed mortal. An equally +vehement outcry arose from the regular subscribers of the ANGLIAN +REVIEW who protested against being served from time to time with +literary fare which no young person of sixteen could possibly want +to devour in secret. To take infinite precautions, they +complained, against the juvenile perusal of such eminently +innocuous literature was like reading the Riot Act on an +uninhabited island. Both reviews suffered a serious falling-off +in circulation and influence. Peace hath its devastations as well +as war. + +The wives of noted public men formed another element of +discomfiture which the young Duke had almost entirely left out of +his calculations. It is sufficiently embarrassing to keep abreast +of the possible wobblings and veerrings-round of a human husband, +who, from the strength or weakness of his personal character, may +leap over or slip through the barriers which divide the parties; +for this reason a merciful politician usually marries late in +life, when he has definitely made up his mind on which side he +wishes his wife to be socially valuable. But these trials were as +nothing compared to the bewilderment caused by the Angel-husbands +who seemed in some cases to have revolutionized their outlook on +life in the interval between breakfast and dinner, without +premonition or preparation of any kind, and apparently without +realizing the least need for subsequent explanation. The +temporary peace which brooded over the Parliamentary situation was +by no means reproduced in the home circles of the leading +statesmen and politicians. It had been frequently and extensively +remarked of Mrs. Exe that she would try the patience of an angel; +now the tables were reversed, and she unwittingly had an +opportunity for discovering that the capacity for exasperating +behaviour was not all on one side. + +And then, with the introduction of the Navy Estimates, +Parliamentary peace suddenly dissolved. It was the old quarrel +between Ministers and the Opposition as to the adequacy or the +reverse of the Government's naval programme. The Angel-Quinston +and the Angel-Hugo-Sizzle contrived to keep the debates free from +personalities and pinpricks, but an enormous sensation was created +when the elegant lackadaisical Halfan Halfour threatened to bring +up fifty, thousand stalwarts to wreck the House if the Estimates +were not forthwith revised on a Two-Power basis. It was a +memorable scene when he rose in his place, in response to the +scandalized shouts of his opponents, and thundered forth, +"Gentlemen, I glory in the name of Apache." + +Belturbet, who had made several fruitless attempts to ring up his +young friend since the fateful morning in St. James's Park, ran +him to earth one afternoon at his club, smooth and spruce and +unruffled as ever. + +"Tell me, what on earth have you turned Cocksley Coxon into?" +Belturbet asked anxiously, mentioning the name of one of the +pillars of unorthodoxy in the Anglican Church. "I don't fancy he +BELIEVES in angels, and if he finds an angel preaching orthodox +sermons from his pulpit while he's been turned into a fox-terrier, +he'll develop rabies in less than no time." + +"I rather think it was a fox-terrier," said the Duke lazily. + +Belturbet groaned heavily, and sank into a chair. + +"Look here, Eugène," he whispered hoarsely, having first looked +well round to see that no one was within hearing range, "you've +got to stop it. Consols are jumping up and down like bronchos, +and that speech of Halfour's in the House last night has simply +startled everybody out of their wits. And then on the top of it, +Thistlebery--" + +"What has he been saying?" asked the Duke quickly. + +"Nothing. That's just what's so disturbing. Every one thought it +was simply inevitable that he should come out with a great epoch- +making speech at this juncture, and I've just seen on the tape +that he has refused to address any meetings at present, giving as +a reason his opinion that something more than mere speech-making +was wanted." + +The young Duke said nothing, but his eyes shone with quiet +exultation. + +"It's so unlike Thistlebery," continued Belturbet; "at least," he +said suspiciously, "it's unlike the REAL Thistlebery--" + +"The real Thistlebery is flying about somewhere as a vocally- +industrious lapwing," said the Duke calmly; "I expect great things +of the Angel-Thistlebery," he added. + +At this moment there was a magnetic stampede of members towards +the lobby, where the tape-machines were ticking out some news of +more than ordinary import. + +"COUP D'ÉTAT in the North. Thistlebery seizes Edinburgh Castle. +Threatens civil war unless Government expands naval programme." + +In the babel which ensued Belturbet lost sight of his young +friend. For the best part of the afternoon he searched one likely +haunt after another, spurred on by the sensational posters which +the evening papers were displaying broadcast over the West End. +"General Baden-Baden mobilizes Boy-Scouts. Another COUP D'ÉTAT +feared. Is Windsor Castle safe?" This was one of the earlier +posters, and was followed by one of even more sinister purport: +"Will the Test-match have to be postponed?" It was this +disquietening question which brought home the real seriousness of +the situation to the London public, and made people wonder whether +one might not pay too high a price for the advantages of party +government. Belturbet, questing round in the hope of finding the +originator of the trouble, with a vague idea of being able to +induce him to restore matters to their normal human footing, came +across an elderly club acquaintance who dabbled extensively in +some of the more sensitive market securities. He was pale with +indignation, and his pallor deepened as a breathless newsboy +dashed past with a poster inscribed: "Premier's constituency +harried by moss-troopers. Halfour sends encouraging telegram to +rioters. Letchworth Garden City threatens reprisals. Foreigners +taking refuge in Embassies and National Liberal Club." + +"This is devils' work!" he said angrily. + +Belturbet knew otherwise. + +At the bottom of St. James's Street a newspaper motor-cart, which +had just come rapidly along Pall Mall, was surrounded by a knot of +eagerly talking people, and for the first time that afternoon +Belturbet heard expressions of relief and congratulation. + +It displayed a placard with the welcome announcement: "Crisis +ended. Government gives way. Important expansion of naval +programme." + +There seemed to be no immediate necessity for pursuing the quest +of the errant Duke, and Belturbet turned to make his way homeward +through St. James's Park. His mind, attuned to the alarums and +excursions of the afternoon, became dimly aware that some +excitement of a detached nature was going on around him. In spite +of the political ferment which reigned in the streets, quite a +large crowd had gathered to watch the unfolding of a tragedy that +had taken place on the shore of the ornamental water. A large +black swan, which had recently shown signs of a savage and +dangerous disposition, had suddenly attacked a young gentleman who +was walking by the water's edge, dragged him down under the +surface, and drowned him before anyone could come to his +assistance. At the moment when Belturbet arrived on the spot +several park-keepers were engaged in lifting the corpse into a +punt. Belturbet stooped to pick up a hat that lay near the scene +of the struggle. It was a smart soft felt hat, faintly +reminiscent of Houbigant. + +More than a month elapsed before Belturbet had sufficiently +recovered from his attack of nervous prostration to take an +interest once more in what was going on in the world of politics. +The Parliamentary Session was still in full swing, and a General +Election was looming in the near future. He called for a batch of +morning papers and skimmed rapidly through the speeches of the +Chancellor, Quinston, and other Ministerial leaders, as well as +those of the principal Opposition champions, and then sank back in +his chair with a sigh of relief. Evidently the spell had ceased +to act after the tragedy which had overtaken its invoker. There +was no trace of angel anywhere. + + + + +THE REMOULDING OF GROBY LINGTON + +"A man is known by the company he keeps." + + + +In the morning-room of his sister-in-law's house Groby Lington +fidgeted away the passing minutes with the demure restlessness of +advanced middle age. About a quarter of an hour would have to +elapse before it would be time to say his good-byes and make his +way across the village green to the station, with a selected +escort of nephews and nieces. He was a good-natured, kindly +dispositioned man, and in theory he was delighted to pay +periodical visits to the wife and children of his dead brother +William; in practice, he infinitely preferred the comfort and +seclusion of his own house and garden, and the companionship of +his books and his parrot to these rather meaningless and tiresome +incursions into a family circle with which he had little in +common. It was not so much the spur of his own conscience that +drove him to make the occasional short journey by rail to visit +his relatives, as an obedient concession to the more insistent but +vicarious conscience of his brother, Colonel John, who was apt to +accuse him of neglecting poor old William's family. Groby usually +forgot or ignored the existence of his neighbour kinsfolk until +such time as he was threatened with a visit from the Colonel, when +he would put matters straight by a hurried pilgrimage across the +few miles of intervening country to renew his acquaintance with +the young people and assume a kindly if rather forced interest in +the well-being of his sister-in-law. On this occasion he had cut +matters so fine between the timing of his exculpatory visit and +the coming of Colonel John, that he would scarcely be home before +the latter was due to arrive. Anyhow, Groby had got it over, and +six or seven months might decently elapse before he need again +sacrifice his comforts and inclinations on the altar of family +sociability. He was inclined to be distinctly cheerful as he +hopped about the room, picking up first one object, then another, +and subjecting each to a brief bird-like scrutiny. + +Presently his cheerful listlessness changed sharply to an attitude +of vexed attention. In a scrap-book of drawings and caricatures +belonging to one of his nephews he had come across an unkindly +clever sketch of himself and his parrot, solemnly confronting each +other in postures of ridiculous gravity and repose, and bearing a +likeness to one another that the artist had done his utmost to +accentuate. After the first flush of annoyance had passed away, +Groby laughed good-naturedly and admitted to himself the +cleverness of the drawing. Then the feeling of resentment +repossessed him, resentment not against the caricaturist who had +embodied the idea in pen and ink, but against the possible truth +that the idea represented. Was it really the case that people +grew in time to resemble the animals they kept as pets, and had he +unconsciously become more and more like the comically solemn bird +that was his constant companion? Groby was unusually silent as he +walked to the train with his escort of chattering nephews and +nieces, and during the short railway journey his mind was more and +more possessed with an introspective conviction that he had +gradually settled down into a sort of parrot-like existence. +What, after all, did his daily routine amount to but a sedate +meandering and pecking and perching, in his garden, among his +fruit trees, in his wicker chair on the lawn, or by the fireside +in his library? And what was the sum total of his conversation +with chance-encountered neighbours? "Quite a spring day, isn't +it?" "It looks as though we should have some rain." "Glad to see +you about again; you must take care of yourself." "How the young +folk shoot up, don't they?" Strings of stupid, inevitable +perfunctory remarks came to his mind, remarks that were certainly +not the mental exchange of human intelligences, but mere empty +parrot-talk. One might really just as well salute one's +acquaintances with "Pretty polly. Puss, puss, miaow!" Groby +began to fume against the picture of himself as a foolish +feathered fowl which his nephew's sketch had first suggested, and +which his own accusing imagination was filling in with such +unflattering detail. + +"I'll give the beastly bird away," he said resentfully; though he +knew at the same time that he would do no such thing. It would +look so absurd after all the years that he had kept the parrot and +made much of it suddenly to try and find it a new home. + +"Has my brother arrived?" he asked of the stable-boy, who had come +with the pony-carriage to meet him. + +"Yessir, came down by the two-fifteen. Your parrot's dead." The +boy made the latter announcement with the relish which his class +finds in proclaiming a catastrophe. + +"My parrot dead?" said Groby. "What caused its death?" + +"The ipe," said the boy briefly. + +"The ipe?" queried Groby. "Whatever's that?" + +"The ipe what the Colonel brought down with him," came the rather +alarming answer. + +"Do you mean to say my brother is ill?" asked Groby. "Is it +something infectious?" + +"Th' Colonel's so well as ever he was," said the boy; and as no +further explanation was forthcoming Groby had to possess himself +in mystified patience till he reached home. His brother was +waiting for him at the hall door. + +"Have you heard about the parrot?" he asked at once. "'Pon my +soul I'm awfully sorry. The moment he saw the monkey I'd brought +down as a surprise for you he squawked out 'Rats to you, sir!' and +the blessed monkey made one spring at him, got him by the neck and +whirled him round like a rattle. He was as dead as mutton by the +time I'd got him out of the little beggar's paws. Always been +such a friendly little beast, the monkey has, should never have +thought he'd got it in him to see red like that. Can't tell you +how sorry I feel about it, and now of course you'll hate the sight +of the monkey." + +"Not at all," said Groby sincerely. A few hours earlier the +tragic end which had befallen his parrot would have presented +itself to him as a calamity; now it arrived almost as a polite +attention on the part of the Fates. + +"The bird was getting old, you know," he went on, in explanation +of his obvious lack of decent regret at the loss of his pet. "I +was really beginning to wonder if it was an unmixed kindness to +let him go on living till he succumbed to old age. What a +charming little monkey!" he added, when he was introduced to the +culprit. + +The new-comer was a small, long-tailed monkey from the Western +Hemisphere, with a gentle, half-shy, half-trusting manner that +instantly captured Groby's confidence; a student of simian +character might have seen in the fitful red light in its eyes some +indication of the underlying temper which the parrot had so rashly +put to the test with such dramatic consequences for itself. The +servants, who had come to regard the defunct bird as a regular +member of the household, and one who gave really very little +trouble, were scandalized to find his bloodthirsty aggressor +installed in his place as an honoured domestic pet. + +"A nasty heathen ipe what don't never say nothing sensible and +cheerful, same as pore Polly did," was the unfavourable verdict of +the kitchen quarters. + + . . . . . . . . . + +One Sunday morning, some twelve or fourteen months after the visit +of Colonel John and the parrot-tragedy, Miss Wepley sat decorously +in her pew in the parish church, immediately in front of that +occupied by Groby Lington. She was, comparatively speaking a new- +comer in the neighbourhood, and was not personally acquainted with +her fellow-worshipper in the seat behind, but for the past two +years the Sunday morning service had brought them regularly within +each other's sphere of consciousness. Without having paid +particular attention to the subject, she could probably have given +a correct rendering of the way in which he pronounced certain +words occurring in the responses, while he was well aware of the +trivial fact that, in addition to her prayer book and +handkerchief, a small paper packet of throat lozenges always +reposed on the seat beside her. Miss Wepley rarely had recourse +to her lozenges, but in case she should be taken with a fit of +coughing she wished to have the emergency duly provided for. On +this particular Sunday the lozenges occasioned an unusual +diversion in the even tenor of her devotions, far more disturbing +to her personally than a prolonged attack of coughing would have +been. As she rose to take part in the singing of the first hymn, +she fancied that she saw the hand of her neighbour, who was alone +in the pew behind her, make a furtive downward grab at the packet +lying on the seat; on turning sharply round she found that the +packet had certainly disappeared, but Mr. Lington was to all +outward seeming serenely intent on his hymnbook. No amount of +interrogatory glaring on the part of the despoiled lady could +bring the least shade of conscious guilt to his face. + +"Worse was to follow," as she remarked afterwards to a scandalized +audience of friends and acquaintances. "I had scarcely knelt in +prayer when a lozenge, one of my lozenges, came whizzing into the +pew, just under my nose. I turned round and stared, but Mr. +Lington had his eyes closed and his lips moving as though engaged +in prayer. The moment I resumed my devotions another lozenge came +rattling in, and then another. I took no notice for awhile, and +then turned round suddenly just as the dreadful man was about to +flip another one at me. He hastily pretended to be turning over +the leaves of his book, but I was not to be taken in that time. +He saw that he had been discovered and no more lozenges came. Of +course I have changed my pew." + +"No gentleman would have acted in such a disgraceful manner," said +one of her listeners; "and yet Mr. Lington used to be so respected +by everybody. He seems to have behaved like a little ill-bred +schoolboy." + +"He behaved like a monkey," said Miss Wepley. + +Her unfavourable verdict was echoed in other quarters about the +same time. Groby Lington had never been a hero in the eyes of his +personal retainers, but he had shared the approval accorded to his +defunct parrot as a cheerful, well-dispositioned body, who gave no +particular trouble. Of late months, however, this character would +hardly have been endorsed by the members of his domestic +establishment. The stolid stable-boy, who had first announced to +him the tragic end of his feathered pet, was one of the first to +give voice to the murmurs of disapproval which became rampant and +general in the servants' quarters, and he had fairly substantial +grounds for his disaffection. In a burst of hot summer weather he +had obtained permission to bathe in a modest-sized pond in the +orchard, and thither one afternoon Groby had bent his steps, +attracted by loud imprecations of anger mingled with the shriller +chattering of monkey-language. He, beheld his plump diminutive +servitor, clad only in a waistcoat and a pair of socks, storming +ineffectually at the monkey which was seated on a low branch of an +apple tree, abstractedly fingering the remainder of the boy's +outfit, which he had removed just out of has reach. + +"The ipe's been an' took my clothes;" whined the boy, with the +passion of his kind for explaining the obvious. His incomplete +toilet effect rather embarrassed him, but he hailed the arrival of +Groby with relief, as promising moral and material support in his +efforts to get back his raided garments. The monkey had ceased +its defiant jabbering, and doubtless with a little coaxing from +its master it would hand back the plunder. + +"If I lift you up," suggested Groby, "you will just be able to +reach the clothes." + +The boy agreed, and Groby clutched him firmly by the waistcoat, +which was about all there was to catch hold of, and lifted, him +clear of the ground. Then, with a deft swing he sent him crashing +into a clump of tall nettles, which closed receptively round him. +The victim had not been brought up in a school which teaches one +to repress one's emotions--if a fox had attempted to gnaw at his +vitals he would have flown to complain to the nearest hunt +committee rather than have affected an attitude of stoical +indifference. On this occasion the volume of sound which he +produced under the stimulus of pain and rage and astonishment was +generous and sustained, but above his bellowings he could +distinctly hear the triumphant chattering of his enemy in the +tree, and a peal of shrill laughter from Groby. + +When the boy had finished an improvised St. Vitus caracole, which +would have brought him fame on the boards of the Coliseum, and +which indeed met with ready appreciation and applause from the +retreating figure of Groby Lington, he found that the monkey had +also discreetly retired, while his clothes were scattered on the +grass at the foot of the tree. + +"They'm two ipes, that's what they be," he muttered angrily, and +if his judgment was severe, at least he spoke under the sting of +considerable provocation. + +It was a week or two later that the parlour-maid gave notice, +having been terrified almost to tears by an outbreak of sudden +temper on the part of the master anent some underdone cutlets. +"'E gnashed 'is teeth at me, 'e did reely," she informed a +sympathetic kitchen audience. + +"I'd like to see 'im talk like that to me, I would," said the cook +defiantly, but her cooking from that moment showed a marked +improvement. + +It was seldom that Groby Lington so far detached himself from his +accustomed habits as to go and form one of a house-party, and he +was not a little piqued that Mrs. Glenduff should have stowed him +away in the musty old Georgian wing of the house, in the next +room, moreover, to Leonard Spabbink, the eminent pianist. + +"He plays Liszt like an angel," had been the hostess's +enthusiastic testimonial. + +"He may play him like a trout for all I care," had been Groby's +mental comment, "but I wouldn't mind betting that he snores. He's +just the sort and shape that would. And if I hear him snoring +through those ridiculous thin-panelled walls, there'll be +trouble." + +He did, and there was. + +Groby stood it for about two and a quarter minutes, and then made +his way through the corridor into Spabbink's room. Under Groby's +vigorous measures the musician's flabby, redundant figure sat up +in bewildered semi-consciousness like an ice-cream that has been +taught to beg. Groby prodded him into complete wakefulness, and +then the pettish self-satisfied pianist fairly lost his temper and +slapped his domineering visitant on the hand. In another moment +Spabbink was being nearly stifled and very effectually gagged by a +pillow-case tightly bound round his head, while his plump pyjama'd +limbs were hauled out of bed and smacked, pinched, kicked, and +bumped in a catch-as-catch-can progress across the floor, towards +the flat shallow bath in whose utterly inadequate depths Groby +perseveringly strove to drown him. For a few moments the room was +almost in darkness: Groby's candle had overturned in an early +stage of the scuffle, and its flicker scarcely reached to the spot +where splashings, smacks, muffled cries, and splutterings, and a +chatter of ape-like rage told of the struggle that was being waged +round the shores of the bath. A few instants later the one-sided +combat was brightly lit up by the flare of blazing curtains and +rapidly kindling panelling. + +When the hastily aroused members of the house-party stampeded out +on to the lawn, the Georgian wing was well alight and belching +forth masses of smoke, but some moments elapsed before Groby +appeared with the half-drowned pianist in his arms, having just +bethought him of the superior drowning facilities offered by the +pond at the bottom of the lawn. The cool night air sobered his +rage, and when he found that he was innocently acclaimed as the +heroic rescuer of poor Leonard Spabbink, and loudly commended for +his presence of mind in tying a wet cloth round his head to +protect him from smoke suffocation, he accepted the situation, and +subsequently gave a graphic account of his finding the musician +asleep with an overturned candle by his side and the conflagration +well started. Spabbink gave HIS version some days later, when he +had partially recovered from the shock of his midnight castigation +and immersion, but the gentle pitying smiles and evasive comments +with which his story was greeted warned him that the public ear +was not at his disposal. He refused, however, to attend the +ceremonial presentation of the Royal Humane Society's life-saving +medal. + +It was about this time that Groby's pet monkey fell a victim to +the disease which attacks so many of its kind when brought under +the influence of a northern climate. Its master appeared to be +profoundly affected by its loss, and never quite recovered the +level of spirits that he had recently attained. In company with +the tortoise, which Colonel John presented to him on his last +visit, he potters about his lawn and kitchen garden, with none of +his erstwhile sprightliness; and his nephews and nieces are fairly +well justified in alluding to him as "Old Uncle Groby." + + + + +ACKNOWLEDGEMENT + + + +"The Background " originally appeared in the LEINSTERS' MAGAZINE; +"The Stampeding of Lady Bastable " in the DAILY MAIL; "Mrs. +Packletide's Tiger," "The Chaplet," "The Peace Offering," " +Filboid Studge " and "Ministers of Grace " (in an abbreviated +form) in the BYSTANDER; and the remainder of the stories (with the +exception of "The Music on the Hill," "The Story of St. +Vespaluus," "The Secret Sin of Septimus Brope," "The Remoulding of +Groby Lington," and "The Way to the Dairy," which have never +previously been published) in the WESTMINSTER GAZETTE. To the +Editors of these papers I am indebted for courteous permission to +reprint them. + + + + + +Project Gutenberg's The Chronicles of Clovis, by Saki [H. H. Munro + |