Paul Kelver

PAUL KELVER

By Jerome K. Jerome

(Jerome Klapka), 1859-1927

Transcriber's Note: Items in [brackets] are editorial comments added

in proofing. Italicized text is delimited by _underscores_. The pound

(currency) symbol has been replaced by the word “pound”.

CONTENTS.

PROLOGUE

BOOK I

I. PAUL, ARRIVED IN A STRANGE LAND, LEARNS MANY THINGS, AND GOES TO MEET

THE MAN IN GREY

II. IN WHICH PAUL MAKES ACQUAINTANCE OF THE MAN WITH THE UGLY MOUTH

III. HOW GOOD LUCK KNOCKED AT THE DOOR OF THE MAN IN GREY

IV. PAUL, FALLING IN WITH A GOODLY COMPANY OF PILGRIMS, LEARNS OF THEM

THE ROAD THAT HE MUST TRAVEL, AND MEETS THE PRINCESS OF THE GOLDEN LOCKS

V. IN WHICH THERE COMES BY ONE BENT UPON PURSUING HIS OWN WAY

VI. OF THE SHADOW THAT CAME BETWEEN THE MAN IN GREY AND THE LADY OF THE

LOVE-LIT EYES

VII. OF THE PASSING OF THE SHADOW

VIII. HOW THE MAN IN GREY MADE READY FOR HIS GOING

IX. OF THE FASHIONING OF PAUL

X. IN WHICH PAUL IS SHIPWRECKED, AND CAST INTO DEEP WATERS

BOOK II.

I. DESCRIBES THE DESERT ISLAND TO WHICH PAUL WAS DRIFTED

II. PAUL, ESCAPING FROM HIS SOLITUDE, FALLS INTO STRANGE COMPANY, AND

BECOMES CAPTIVE TO ONE OF HAUGHTY MIEN

III. GOOD FRIENDS SHOW PAUL THE ROAD TO FREEDOM. BUT BEFORE SETTING OUT,

HE WILL GO A-VISITING

IV. LEADS TO A MEETING

V. HOW ON A SWEET GREY MORNING THE FUTURE CAME TO PAUL

VI. OF THE GLORY AND GOODNESS AND THE EVIL THAT GO TO THE MAKING OF LOVE

VII. HOW PAUL SET FORTH UPON A QUEST

VIII. AND HOW CAME BACK AGAIN

IX. THE PRINCESS OF THE GOLDEN LOCKS SENDS PAUL A RING

X. PAUL FINDS HIS WAY

PAUL KELVER

PROLOGUE.

IN WHICH THE AUTHOR SEEKS TO CAST THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THIS STORY UPON

ANOTHER.

At the corner of a long, straight, brick-built street in the far East

End of London--one of those lifeless streets, made of two drab walls

upon which the level lines, formed by the precisely even window-sills

and doorsteps, stretch in weary perspective from end to end, suggesting

petrified diagrams proving dead problems--stands a house that ever draws

me to it; so that often, when least conscious of my footsteps, I awake

to find myself hurrying through noisy, crowded thoroughfares, where

flaring naphtha lamps illumine fierce, patient, leaden-coloured faces;

through dim-lit, empty streets, where monstrous shadows come and go

upon the close-drawn blinds; through narrow, noisome streets, where the

gutters swarm with children, and each ever-open doorway vomits riot;

past reeking corners, and across waste places, till at last I reach the

dreary goal of my memory-driven desire, and, coming to a halt beside the

broken railings, find rest.

The house, larger than its fellows, built when the street was still

a country lane, edging the marshes, strikes a strange note of

individuality amid the surrounding harmony of hideousness. It is

encompassed on two sides by what was once a garden, though now but a

barren patch of stones and dust where clothes--it is odd any one should

have thought of washing--hang in perpetuity; while about the door

continue the remnants of a porch, which the stucco falling has left

exposed in all its naked insincerity.

Occasionally I drift hitherward in the day time, when slatternly women

gossip round the area gates, and the silence is broken by the

hoarse, wailing cry of “Coals--any coals--three and sixpence a

sack--co-o-o-als!” chanted in a tone that absence of response has

stamped with chronic melancholy; but then the street knows me not, and

my old friend of the corner, ashamed of its shabbiness in the unpitying

sunlight, turns its face away, and will not see me as I pass.

Not until the Night, merciful alone of all things to the ugly, draws her

veil across its sordid features will it, as some fond old nurse, sought

out in after years, open wide its arms to welcome me. Then the teeming

life it now shelters, hushed for a time within its walls, the flickering

flare from the “King of Prussia” opposite extinguished, will it talk

with me of the past, asking me many questions, reminding me of

many things I had forgotten. Then into the silent street come the

well-remembered footsteps; in and out the creaking gate pass, not seeing

me, the well-remembered faces; and we talk concerning them; as two

cronies, turning the torn leaves of some old album where the faded

portraits in forgotten fashions, speak together in low tones of those

now dead or scattered, with now a smile and now a sigh, and many an “Ah

me!” or “Dear, dear!”

This bent, worn man, coming towards us with quick impatient steps, which

yet cease every fifty yards or so, while he pauses, leaning heavily upon

his high Malacca cane: “It is a handsome face, is it not?” I ask, as I

gaze upon it, shadow framed.

“Aye, handsome enough,” answers the old House; “and handsomer still it

must have been before you and I knew it, before mean care had furrowed

it with fretful lines.”

“I never could make out,” continues the old House, musingly, “whom you

took after; for they were a handsome pair, your father and your mother,

though Lord! what a couple of children!”

“Children!” I say in surprise, for my father must have been past five

and thirty before the House could have known him, and my mother's face

is very close to mine, in the darkness, so that I see the many grey

hairs mingling with the bonny brown.

“Children,” repeats the old House, irritably, so it seems to me, not

liking, perhaps, its opinions questioned, a failing common to old folk;

“the most helpless pair of children I ever set eyes upon. Who but

a child, I should like to know, would have conceived the notion of

repairing his fortune by becoming a solicitor at thirty-eight, or,

having conceived such a notion, would have selected the outskirts of

Poplar as a likely centre in which to put up his door-plate?”

“It was considered to be a rising neighbourhood,” I reply, a little

resentful. No son cares to hear the family wisdom criticised, even

though at the bottom of his heart he may be in agreement with the

critic. “All sorts and conditions of men, whose affairs were in

connection with the sea would, it was thought, come to reside hereabout,

so as to be near to the new docks; and had they, it is not unreasonable

to suppose they would have quarrelled and disputed with one another,

much to the advantage of a cute solicitor, convenient to their hand.”

“Stuff and nonsense,” retorts the old House, shortly; “why, the mere

smell of the place would have been sufficient to keep a sensible man

away. And”--the grim brick face before me twists itself into a goblin

smile--“he, of all men in the world, as 'the cute solicitor,' giving

advice to shady clients, eager to get out of trouble by the shortest

way, can you fancy it! he who for two years starved himself, living on

five shillings a week--that was before you came to London, when he

was here alone. Even your mother knew nothing of it till years

afterwards--so that no man should be a penny the poorer for having

trusted his good name. Do you think the crew of chandlers and brokers,

dock hustlers and freight wreckers would have found him a useful man of

business, even had they come to settle here?”

I have no answer; nor does the old House wait for any, but talks on.

“And your mother! would any but a child have taken that soft-tongued

wanton to her bosom, and not have seen through acting so transparent?

Would any but the veriest child that never ought to have been let out

into the world by itself have thought to dree her weird in such folly?

Children! poor babies they were, both of them.”

“Tell me,” I say--for at such times all my stock of common sense is not

sufficient to convince me that the old House is but clay. From its walls

so full of voices, from its floors so thick with footsteps, surely it

has learned to live; as a violin, long played on, comes to learn at last

a music of its own. “Tell me, I was but a child to whom life speaks in a

strange tongue, was there any truth in the story?”

“Truth!” snaps out the old House; “just truth enough to plant a lie

upon; and Lord knows not much ground is needed for that weed. I saw

what I saw, and I know what I know. Your mother had a good man, and

your father a true wife, but it was the old story: a man's way is not a

woman's way, and a woman's way is not a man's way, so there lives ever

doubt between them.”

“But they came together in the end,” I say, remembering.

“Aye, in the end,” answers the House. “That is when you begin to

understand, you men and women, when you come to the end.”

The grave face of a not too recently washed angel peeps shyly at

me through the railings, then, as I turn my head, darts back and

disappears.

“What has become of her?” I ask.

“She? Oh, she is well enough,” replies the House. “She lives close here.

You must have passed the shop. You might have seen her had you looked

in. She weighs fourteen stone, about; and has nine children living. She

would be pleased to see you.”

“Thank you,” I say, with a laugh that is not wholly a laugh; “I do not

think I will call.” But I still hear the pit-pat of her tiny feet, dying

down the long street.

The faces thicken round me. A large looming, rubicund visage smiles

kindly on me, bringing back into my heart the old, odd mingling of

instinctive liking held in check by conscientious disapproval. I turn

from it, and see a massive, clean-shaven face, with the ugliest mouth

and the loveliest eyes I ever have known in a man.

“Was he as bad, do you think, as they said?” I ask of my ancient friend.

“Shouldn't wonder,” the old House answers. “I never knew a worse--nor a

better.”

The wind whisks it aside, leaving to view a little old woman, hobbling

nimbly by aid of a stick. Three corkscrew curls each side of her head

bob with each step she takes, and as she draws near to me, making the

most alarming grimaces, I hear her whisper, as though confiding to

herself some fascinating secret, “I'd like to skin 'em. I'd like to skin

'em all. I'd like to skin 'em all alive!”

It sounds a fiendish sentiment, yet I only laugh, and the little old

lady, with a final facial contortion surpassing all dreams, limps beyond

my ken.

Then, as though choosing contrasts, follows a fair, laughing face. I saw

it in the life only a few hours ago--at least, not it, but the poor daub

that Evil has painted over it, hating the sweetness underlying. And as

I stand gazing at it, wishing it were of the dead who change not, there

drifts back from the shadows that other face, the one of the wicked

mouth and the tender eyes, so that I stand again helpless between the

two I loved so well, he from whom I learned my first steps in manhood,

she from whom I caught my first glimpse of the beauty and the mystery of

woman. And again the cry rises from my heart, “Whose fault was it--yours

or hers?” And again I hear his mocking laugh as he answers, “Whose

fault? God made us.” And thinking of her and of the love I bore her,

which was as the love of a young pilgrim to a saint, it comes into my

blood to hate him. But when I look into his eyes and see the pain that

lives there, my pity grows stronger than my misery, and I can only echo

his words, “God made us.”

Merry faces and sad, fair faces and foul, they ride upon the wind; but

the centre round which they circle remains always the one: a little

lad with golden curls more suitable to a girl than to a boy, with shy,

awkward ways and a silent tongue, and a grave, old-fashioned face.

And, turning from him to my old brick friend, I ask: “Would he know me,

could he see me, do you think?”

“How should he,” answers the old House, “you are so different to what he

would expect. Would you recognise your own ghost, think you?”

“It is sad to think he would not recognise me,” I say.

“It might be sadder if he did,” grumbles the old House.

We both remained silent for awhile; but I know of what the old House is

thinking. Soon it speaks as I expected.

“You--writer of stories, why don't you write a book about him? There is

something that you know.”

It is the favourite theme of the old House. I never visit it but it

suggests to me this idea.

“But he has done nothing?” I say.

“He has lived,” answers the old House. “Is not that enough?”

“Aye, but only in London in these prosaic modern times,” I persist. “How

of such can one make a story that shall interest the people?”

The old House waxes impatient of me.

“'The people!'” it retorts, “what are you all but children in a dim-lit

room, waiting until one by one you are called out to sleep. And one

mounts upon a stool and tells a tale to the others who have gathered

round. Who shall say what will please them, what will not.”

Returning home with musing footsteps through the softly breathing

streets, I ponder the words of the old House. Is it but as some foolish

mother thinking all the world interested in her child, or may there lie

wisdom in its counsel? Then to my guidance or misguidance comes the

thought of a certain small section of the Public who often of an evening

commands of me a story; and who, when I have told her of the dreadful

giants and of the gallant youths who slay them, of the wood-cutter's

sons who rescue maidens from Ogre-guarded castles; of the Princesses the

most beautiful in all the world, of the Princes with magic swords, still

unsatisfied, creeps closer yet, saying: “Now tell me a real story,”

adding for my comprehending: “You know: about a little girl who lived in

a big house with her father and mother, and who was sometimes naughty,

you know.”

So perhaps among the many there may be some who for a moment will turn

aside from tales of haughty Heroes, ruffling it in Court and Camp, to

listen to the story of a very ordinary lad who lived with very ordinary

folk in a modern London street, and who grew up to be a very ordinary

sort of man, loving a little and grieving a little, helping a few and

harming a few, struggling and failing and hoping; and if any such there

be, let them come round me.

But let not those who come to me grow indignant as they listen, saying:

“This rascal tells us but a humdrum story, where nothing is as it should

be;” for I warn all beforehand that I tell but of things that I have

seen. My villains, I fear, are but poor sinners, not altogether bad;

and my good men but sorry saints. My princes do not always slay their

dragons; alas, sometimes, the dragon eats the prince. The wicked

fairies often prove more powerful than the good. The magic thread leads

sometimes wrong, and even the hero is not always brave and true.

So let those come round me only who will be content to hear but their

own story, told by another, saying as they listen, “So dreamt I. Ah,

yes, that is true, I remember.”

CHAPTER I

PAUL, ARRIVED IN A STRANGE LAND, LEARNS MANY THINGS, AND GOES TO MEET

THE MAN IN GREY.

Fate intended me for a singularly fortunate man. Properly, I ought to

have been born in June, which being, as is well known, the luckiest

month in all the year for such events, should, by thoughtful parents, be

more generally selected. How it was I came to be born in May, which is,

on the other hand, of all the twelve the most unlucky, as I have proved,

I leave to those more conversant with the subject to explain. An early

nurse, the first human being of whom I have any distinct recollection,

unhesitatingly attributed the unfortunate fact to my natural impatience;

which quality she at the same time predicted would lead me into even

greater trouble, a prophecy impressed by future events with the stamp of

prescience. It was from this same bony lady that I likewise learned the

manner of my coming. It seems that I arrived, quite unexpectedly, two

hours after news had reached the house of the ruin of my father's mines

through inundation; misfortunes, as it was expounded to me, never coming

singly in this world to any one. That all things might be of a piece,

my poor mother, attempting to reach the bell, fell against and broke the

cheval-glass, thus further saddening herself with the conviction--for

no amount of reasoning ever succeeded in purging her Welsh blood of

its natural superstition--that whatever might be the result of future

battles with my evil star, the first seven years of tiny existence had

been, by her act, doomed to disaster.

“And I must confess,” added the knobbly Mrs. Fursey, with a sigh, “it

does look as though there must be some truth in the saying, after all.”

“Then ain't I a lucky little boy?” I asked. For hitherto it had been

Mrs. Fursey's method to impress upon me my exceptional good fortune.

That I could and did, involuntarily, retire to bed at six, while less

happily placed children were deprived of their natural rest until eight

or nine o'clock, had always been held up to me as an astounding piece of

luck. Some little boys had not a bed at all; for the which, in my more

riotous moments, I envied them. Again, that at the first sign of a cold

it became my unavoidable privilege to lunch off linseed gruel and sup

off brimstone and treacle--a compound named with deliberate intent to

deceive the innocent, the treacle, so far as taste is concerned, being

wickedly subordinated to the brimstone--was another example of Fortune's

favouritism: other little boys were so astoundingly unlucky as to be

left alone when they felt ill. If further proof were needed to convince

that I had been signalled out by Providence as its especial protege,

there remained always the circumstance that I possessed Mrs. Fursey

for my nurse. The suggestion that I was not altogether the luckiest of

children was a new departure.

The good dame evidently perceived her error, and made haste to correct

it.

“Oh, you! You are lucky enough,” she replied; “I was thinking of your

poor mother.”

“Isn't mamma lucky?”

“Well, she hasn't been too lucky since you came.”

“Wasn't it lucky, her having me?”

“I can't say it was, at that particular time.”

“Didn't she want me?”

Mrs. Fursey was one of those well-meaning persons who are of opinion

that the only reasonable attitude of childhood should be that of

perpetual apology for its existence.

“Well, I daresay she could have done without you,” was the answer.

I can see the picture plainly still. I am sitting on a low chair before

the nursery fire, one knee supported in my locked hands, meanwhile Mrs.

Fursey's needle grated with monotonous regularity against her thimble.

At that moment knocked at my small soul for the first time the problem

of life.

Suddenly, without moving, I said:

“Then why did she take me in?”

The rasping click of the needle on the thimble ceased abruptly.

“Took you in! What's the child talking about? Who's took you in?”

“Why, mamma. If she didn't want me, why did she take me in?”

But even while, with heart full of dignified resentment, I propounded

this, as I proudly felt, logically unanswerable question, I was glad

that she had. The vision of my being refused at the bedroom window

presented itself to my imagination. I saw the stork, perplexed and

annoyed, looking as I had sometimes seen Tom Pinfold look when the fish

he had been holding out by the tail had been sniffed at by Anna, and

the kitchen door shut in his face. Would the stork also have gone away

thoughtfully scratching his head with one of those long, compass-like

legs of his, and muttering to himself. And here, incidentally, I fell

a-wondering how the stork had carried me. In the garden I had often

watched a blackbird carrying a worm, and the worm, though no doubt

really safe enough, had always appeared to me nervous and uncomfortable.

Had I wriggled and squirmed in like fashion? And where would the stork

have taken me to then? Possibly to Mrs. Fursey's: their cottage was the

nearest. But I felt sure Mrs. Fursey would not have taken me in; and

next to them, at the first house in the village, lived Mr. Chumdley,

the cobbler, who was lame, and who sat all day hammering boots with

very dirty hands, in a little cave half under the ground, his whole

appearance suggesting a poor-spirited ogre. I should have hated being

his little boy. Possibly nobody would have taken me in. I grew pensive,

thinking of myself as the rejected of all the village. What would the

stork have done with me, left on his hands, so to speak. The reflection

prompted a fresh question.

“Nurse, where did I come from?”

“Why, I've told you often. The stork brought you.”

“Yes, I know. But where did the stork get me from?” Mrs. Fursey paused

for quite a long while before replying. Possibly she was reflecting

whether such answer might not make me unduly conceited. Eventually she

must have decided to run that risk; other opportunities could be relied

upon for neutralising the effect.

“Oh, from Heaven.”

“But I thought Heaven was a place where you went to,” I answered; “not

where you comed from.” I know I said “comed,” for I remember that at

this period my irregular verbs were a bewildering anxiety to my poor

mother. “Comed” and “goned,” which I had worked out for myself, were

particular favourites of mine.

Mrs. Fursey passed over my grammar in dignified silence. She had

been pointedly requested not to trouble herself with that part of my

education, my mother holding that diverging opinions upon the same

subject only confused a child.

“You came from Heaven,” repeated Mrs. Fursey, “and you'll go to

Heaven--if you're good.”

“Do all little boys and girls come from Heaven?”

“So they say.” Mrs. Fursey's tone implied that she was stating what

might possibly be but a popular fallacy, for which she individually took

no responsibility.

“And did you come from Heaven, Mrs. Fursey?” Mrs. Fursey's reply to this

was decidedly more emphatic.

“Of course I did. Where do you think I came from?”

At once, I am ashamed to say, Heaven lost its exalted position in my

eyes. Even before this, it had puzzled me that everybody I knew should

be going there--for so I was always assured; now, connected as it

appeared to be with the origin of Mrs. Fursey, much of its charm

disappeared.

But this was not all. Mrs. Fursey's information had suggested to me a

fresh grief. I stopped not to console myself with the reflection that my

fate had been but the fate of all little boys and girls. With a child's

egoism I seized only upon my own particular case.

“Didn't they want me in Heaven then, either?” I asked. “Weren't they

fond of me up there?”

The misery in my voice must have penetrated even Mrs. Fursey's bosom,

for she answered more sympathetically than usual.

“Oh, they liked you well enough, I daresay. I like you, but I like to

get rid of you sometimes.” There could be no doubt as to this last. Even

at the time, I often doubted whether that six o'clock bedtime was not

occasionally half-past five.

The answer comforted me not. It remained clear that I was not wanted

either in Heaven nor upon the earth. God did not want me. He was glad

to get rid of me. My mother did not want me. She could have done without

me. Nobody wanted me. Why was I here?

And then, as the sudden opening and shutting of the door of a dark room,

came into my childish brain the feeling that Something, somewhere, must

have need of me, or I could not be, Something I felt I belonged to and

that belonged to me, Something that was as much a part of me as I of It.

The feeling came back to me more than once during my childhood, though I

could never put it into words. Years later the son of the Portuguese Jew

explained to me my thought. But all that I myself could have told was

that in that moment I knew for the first time that I lived, that I was

I.

The next instant all was dark again, and I once more a puzzled little

boy, sitting by a nursery fire, asking of a village dame questions

concerning life.

Suddenly a new thought came to me, or rather the recollection of an old.

“Nurse, why haven't we got a husband?”

Mrs. Fursey left off her sewing, and stared at me.

“What maggot has the child got into its head now?” was her observation;

“who hasn't got a husband?”

“Why, mamma.”

“Don't talk nonsense, Master Paul; you know your mamma has got a

husband.”

“No, she ain't.”

“And don't contradict. Your mamma's husband is your papa, who lives in

London.”

“What's the good of _him_!”

Mrs. Fursey's reply appeared to me to be unnecessarily vehement.

“You wicked child, you; where's your commandments? Your father is in

London working hard to earn money to keep you in idleness, and you sit

there and say 'What's the good of him!' I'd be ashamed to be such an

ungrateful little brat.”

I had not meant to be ungrateful. My words were but the repetition of

a conversation I had overheard the day before between my mother and my

aunt.

Had said my aunt: “There she goes, moping again. Drat me if ever I saw

such a thing to mope as a woman.”

My aunt was entitled to preach on the subject. She herself grumbled all

day about all things, but she did it cheerfully.

My mother was standing with her hands clasped behind her--a favourite

attitude of hers--gazing through the high French window into the garden

beyond. It must have been spring time, for I remember the white and

yellow crocuses decking the grass.

“I want a husband,” had answered my mother, in a tone so ludicrously

childish that at sound of it I had looked up from the fairy story I was

reading, half expectant to find her changed into a little girl; “I hate

not having a husband.”

“Help us and save us,” my aunt had retorted; “how many more does a girl

want? She's got one.”

“What's the good of him all that way off,” had pouted my mother; “I want

him here where I can get at him.”

I had often heard of this father of mine, who lived far away in

London, and to whom we owed all the blessings of life; but my childish

endeavours to square information with reflection had resulted in my

assigning to him an entirely spiritual existence. I agreed with my

mother that such an one, however to be revered, was no substitute for

the flesh and blood father possessed by luckier folk--the big, strong,

masculine thing that would carry a fellow pig-a-back round the garden,

or take a chap to sail in boats.

“You don't understand me, nurse,” I explained; “what I mean is a husband

you can get at.”

“Well, and you'll 'get at him,' poor gentleman, one of these days,”

answered Mrs. Fursey. “When he's ready for you he'll send for you, and

then you'll go to him in London.”

I felt that still Mrs. Fursey didn't understand. But I foresaw that

further explanation would only shock her, so contented myself with a

simple, matter-of-fact question.

“How do you get to London; do you have to die first?”

“I do think,” said Mrs. Fursey, in the voice of resigned despair rather

than of surprise, “that, without exception, you are the silliest little

boy I ever came across. I've no patience with you.”

“I am very sorry, nurse,” I answered; “I thought--”

“Then,” interrupted Mrs. Fursey, in the voice of many generations, “you

shouldn't think. London,” continued the good dame, her experience no

doubt suggesting that the shortest road to peace would be through my

understanding of this matter, “is a big town, and you go there in a

train. Some time--soon now--your father will write to your mother that

everything is ready. Then you and your mother and your aunt will leave

this place and go to London, and I shall be rid of you.”

“And shan't we come back here ever any more?”

“Never again.”

“And I'll never play in the garden again, never go down to the

pebble-ridge to tea, or to Jacob's tower?”

“Never again.” I think Mrs. Fursey took a pleasure in the phrase. It

sounded, as she said it, like something out of the prayer-book.

“And I'll never see Anna, or Tom Pinfold, or old Yeo, or Pincher, or

you, ever any more?” In this moment of the crumbling from under me of

all my footholds I would have clung even to that dry tuft, Mrs. Fursey

herself.

“Never any more. You'll go away and begin an entirely new life. And I do

hope, Master Paul,” added Mrs. Fursey, piously, “it may be a better one.

That you will make up your mind to--”

But Mrs. Fursey's well-meant exhortations, whatever they may have been,

fell upon deaf ears. Here was I face to face with yet another problem.

This life into which I had fallen: it was understandable! One went away,

leaving the pleasant places that one knew, never to return to them.

One left one's labour and one's play to enter upon a new existence in a

strange land. One parted from the friends one had always known, one saw

them never again. Life was indeed a strange thing; and, would a body

comprehend it, then must a body sit staring into the fire, thinking very

hard, unheedful of all idle chatter.

That night, when my mother came to kiss me good-night, I turned my

face to the wall and pretended to be asleep, for children as well as

grown-ups have their foolish moods; but when I felt the soft curls brush

my cheek, my pride gave way, and clasping my arms about her neck, and

drawing her face still closer down to mine; I voiced the question that

all the evening had been knocking at my heart:

“I suppose you couldn't send me back now, could you? You see, you've had

me so long.”

“Send you back?”

“Yes. I'd be too big for the stork to carry now, wouldn't I?”

My mother knelt down beside the bed so that her face and mine were on

a level, and looking into her eyes, the fear that had been haunting me

fell from me.

“Who has been talking foolishly to a foolish little boy?” asked my

mother, keeping my arms still clasped about her neck.

“Oh, nurse and I were discussing things, you know,” I answered, “and she

said you could have done without me.” Somehow, I did not mind repeating

the words now; clearly it could have been but Mrs. Fursey's fun.

My mother drew me closer to her.

“And what made her think that?”

“Well, you see,” I replied, “I came at a very awkward time, didn't I;

when you had a lot of other troubles.”

My mother laughed, but the next moment looked grave again.

“I did not know you thought about such things,” she said; “we must be

more together, you and I, Paul, and you shall tell me all you think,

because nurse does not quite understand you. It is true what she said

about the trouble; it came just at that time. But I could not have done

without you. I was very unhappy, and you were sent to comfort me and

help me to bear it.” I liked this explanation better.

“Then it was lucky, your having me?” I said. Again my mother laughed,

and again there followed that graver look upon her childish face.

“Will you remember what I am going to say?” She spoke so earnestly that

I, wriggling into a sitting posture, became earnest also.

“I'll try,” I answered; “but I ain't got a very good memory, have I?”

“Not very,” smiled my mother; “but if you think about it a good deal it

will not leave you. When you are a good boy, and later on, when you are

a good man, then I am the luckiest little mother in all the world. And

every time you fail, that means bad luck for me. You will remember that

after I'm gone, when you are a big man, won't you, Paul?”

So, both of us quite serious, I promised; and though I smile now when

I remember, seeing before me those two earnest, childish faces, yet I

think, however little success it may be I have to boast of, it would

perhaps have been still less had I entirely forgotten.

From that day my mother waxes in my memory; Mrs. Fursey, of the many

promontories, waning. There were sunny mornings in the neglected garden,

where the leaves played round us while we worked and read; twilight

evenings in the window seat where, half hidden by the dark red curtains,

we would talk in whispers, why I know not, of good men and noble women,

ogres, fairies, saints and demons; they were pleasant days.

Possibly our curriculum lacked method; maybe it was too varied and

extensive for my age, in consequence of which chronology became confused

within my brain, and fact and fiction more confounded than has usually

been considered permissible, even in history. I saw Aphrodite, ready

armed and risen from the sea, move with stately grace to meet King

Canute, who, throned upon the sand, bade her come no further lest

she should wet his feet. In forest glade I saw King Rufus fall from a

poisoned arrow shot by Robin Hood; but thanks to sweet Queen Eleanor,

who sucked the poison from his wound, I knew he lived. Oliver Cromwell,

having killed King Charles, married his widow, and was in turn stabbed

by Hamlet. Ulysses, in the Argo, it was fixed upon my mind, had

discovered America. Romulus and Remus had slain the wolf and rescued

Little Red Riding Hood. Good King Arthur, for letting the cakes burn,

had been murdered by his uncle in the Tower of London. Prometheus, bound

to the Rock, had been saved by good St. George. Paris had given the

apple to William Tell. What matter! the information was there. It needed

rearranging, that was all.

Sometimes, of an afternoon, we would climb the steep winding pathway

through the woods, past awful precipices, spirit-haunted, by grassy

swards where fairies danced o' nights, by briar and bracken sheltered

Caves where fearsome creatures lurked, till high above the creeping sea

we would reach the open plateau where rose old Jacob's ruined tower.

“Jacob's Folly” it was more often called about the country side, and by

some “The Devil's Tower;” for legend had it that there old Jacob and his

master, the Devil, had often met in windy weather to wave false wrecking

lights to troubled ships. Who “old Jacob” was, I never, that I can

remember, learned, nor how nor why he built the Tower. Certain only it

is his memory was unpopular, and the fisher folk would swear that

still on stormy nights strange lights would gleam and flash from the

ivy-curtained windows of his Folly.

But in day time no spot was more inviting, the short moss-grass before

its shattered door, the lichen on its crumbling stones. From its topmost

platform one saw the distant mountains, faint like spectres, and the

silent ships that came and vanished; and about one's feet the pleasant

farm lands and the grave, sweet river.

Smaller and poorer the world has grown since then. Now, behind those

hills lie naught but smoky towns and dingy villages; but then they

screened a land of wonder where princesses dwelt in castles, where the

cities were of gold. Now the ocean is but six days' journey wide, ending

at the New York Custom House. Then, had one set one's sail upon it, one

would have travelled far and far, beyond the golden moonlight, beyond

the gate of clouds; to the magic land of the blood red shore, t'other

side o' the sun. I never dreamt in those days a world could be so small.

Upon the topmost platform a wooden seat ran round within the parapet,

and sitting there hand in hand, sheltered from the wind which ever blew

about the tower, my mother would people for me all the earth and air

with the forms of myth and legend--perhaps unwisely, yet I do not

know. I took no harm from it, good rather, I think. They were beautiful

fancies, most of them; or so my mother turned them, making for love and

pity, as do all the tales that live, whether poems or old wives fables.

But at that time of course they had no meaning for me other than the

literal; so that my mother, looking into my eyes, would often hasten

to add: “But that, you know, is only an old superstition, and of course

there are no such things nowadays.” Yet, forgetful sometimes of the

time, and overtaken homeward by the shadows, we would hasten swiftly

through the darkening path, holding each other tightly by the hand.

Spring had waxed to summer, summer waned to autumn. Then my aunt and I

one morning, waiting at the breakfast table, saw through the open window

my mother skipping, dancing, pirouetting up the garden path. She held

a letter open in her hand, which as she drew near she waved about her

head, singing:

“Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, then comes Wednesday morning.”

She caught me to her and began dancing with me round the room.

Observed my aunt, who continued steadily to eat bread and butter:

“Just like 'em all. Goes mad with joy. What for? Because she's going to

leave a decent house, to live in a poky hole in the East End of London,

and keep one servant.”

To my aunt the second person ever remained a grammatical superfluity.

Invariably she spoke not to but of a person, throwing out her

conversation in the form of commentary. This had the advantage

of permitting the party intended to ignore it as mere impersonal

philosophy. Seeing it was generally uncomplimentary, most people

preferred so to regard it; but my mother had never succeeded in

schooling herself to indifference.

“It's not a poky hole,” she replied; “it's an old-fashioned house, near

the river.”

“Plaistow marshes!” ejaculated my aunt, “calls it the river!”

“So it is the river,” returned my mother; “the river is the other side

of the marshes.”

“Let's hope it will always stop there,” said my aunt.

“And it's got a garden,” continued my mother, ignoring my aunt's last

remark; “which is quite an unusual feature in a London house. And it

isn't the East End of London; it is a rising suburb. And you won't make

me miserable because I am too happy.”

“Drat the woman!” said my aunt, “why can't she sit down and give us our

tea before it's all cold?”

“You are a disagreeable thing!” said my mother.

“Not half milk,” said my aunt. My aunt was never in the least disturbed

by other people's opinion of her, which was perhaps well for her.

For three days my mother packed and sang; and a dozen times a day

unpacked and laughed, looking for things wanted that were always found

at the very bottom of the very last box looked into, so that Anna,

waiting for a certain undergarment of my aunt's which shall be nameless,

suggested a saving of time:

“If I were you, ma'am,” said Anna, “I'd look into the last box you're

going to look into first.”

But it was found eventually in the first box-the box, that is, my mother

had intended to search first, but which, acting on Anna's suggestion,

she had reserved till the last. This caused my mother to be quite short

with Anna, who she said had wasted her time. But by Tuesday afternoon

all stood ready: we were to start early Wednesday morning.

That evening, missing my mother in the house, I sought her in the garden

and found her, as I had expected, on her favourite seat under the great

lime tree; but to my surprise there were tears in her eyes.

“But I thought you were glad we were going,” I said.

“So I am,” answered my mother, drying her eyes only to make room for

fresh tears.

“Then why are you crying?”

“Because I'm sorry to leave here.”

Grown-up folks with their contradictory ways were a continual puzzle to

me in those days; I am not sure I quite understand them even now, myself

included.

We were up and off next day before the dawn. The sun rose as the wagon

reached the top of the hill; and there we paused and took our farewell

look at Old Jacob's Tower. My mother cried a little behind her veil; but

my aunt only said, “I never did care for earwigs in my tea;” and as

for myself I was too excited and expectant to feel much sentiment about

anything.

On the journey I sat next to an exceptionally large and heavy man, who

in his sleep--and he slept often--imagined me to be a piece of stuffing

out of place. Then, grunting and wriggling, he would endeavour to rub

me out, until the continued irritation of my head between the window

and his back would cause him to awake, when he would look down upon me

reprovingly but not unkindly, observing to the carriage generally: “It's

a funny thing, ain't it, nobody's ever made a boy yet that could keep

still for ten seconds.” After which he would pat me heartily on the

head, to show he was not vexed with me, and fall to sleep again upon me.

He was a good-tempered man.

My mother sat occupied chiefly with her own thoughts, and my aunt had

found a congenial companion in a lady who had had her cap basket sat

upon; so I was left mainly to my own resources. When I could get my head

free of the big man's back, I gazed out of the window, and watched the

flying fragments as we shed the world. Now a village would fall from us,

now the yellow corn-land would cling to us for awhile, or a wood catch

at our rushing feet, and sometimes a strong town would stop us, and hold

us, panting for a space. Or, my eyes weary, I would sit and listen to

the hoarse singing of the wheels beneath my feet. It was a monotonous

chaunt, ever the same two lines:

“Here we suffer grief and pain,

Here we meet to part again,”

followed by a low, rumbling laugh. Sometimes fortissimo, sometimes

pianissimo; now vivace, now largo; but ever those same two lines, and

ever followed by the same low, rumbling laugh; still to this day the

iron wheels sing to me that same song.

Later on I also must have slept, for I dreamt that as the result of my

having engaged in single combat with a dragon, the dragon, ignoring all

the rules of Fairyland, had swallowed me. It was hot and stuffy in the

dragon's stomach. He had, so it appeared to me, disgracefully overeaten

himself; there were hundreds of us there, entirely undigested, including

Mother Hubbard and a gentleman named Johnson, against whom, at that

period, I entertained a strong prejudice by reason of our divergent

views upon the subject of spelling. Even in this hour of our mutual

discomfort Johnson would not leave me alone, but persisted in asking me

how I spelt Jonah. Nobody was looking, so I kicked him. He sprang up

and came after me. I tried to run away, but became wedged between

Hop-o'-my-Thumb and Julius Caesar. I suppose our tearing about must

have hurt the dragon, for at that moment he gave vent to a most fearful

scream, and I awoke to find the fat man rubbing his left shin, while

we struggled slowly, with steps growing ever feebler, against a sea of

brick that every moment closed in closer round us.

We scrambled out of the carriage into a great echoing cave that

might have been the dragon's home, where, to my alarm, my mother was

immediately swooped down upon by a strange man in grey.

“Why's he do that?” I asked of my aunt.

“Because he's a fool,” answered my aunt; “they all are.”

He put my mother down and came towards us. He was a tall, thin man, with

eyes one felt one would never be afraid of; and instinctively even then

I associated him in my mind with windmills and a lank white horse.

“Why, how he's grown,” said the grey man, raising me in his arms until

my mother beside me appeared to me in a new light as quite a little

person; “and solid too.”

My mother whispered something. I think from her face, for I knew the

signs, it was praise of me.

“And he's going to be our new fortune,” she added aloud, as the grey man

lowered me.

“Then,” said my aunt, who had this while been sitting rigid upon a flat

black box, “don't drop him down a coal-mine. That's all I say.”

I wondered at the time why the grey man's pale face should flush so

crimson, and why my mother should whisper angrily:

“How can you be so wicked, Fanny? How dare you say such a thing?”

“I only said 'don't drop him down a coal-mine,'” returned my aunt,

apparently much surprised; “you don't want to drop him down a coal-mine,

do you?”

We passed through glittering, joyous streets, piled high each side with

all the good things of the earth; toys and baubles, jewels and gold,

things good to eat and good to drink, things good to wear and good to

see; through pleasant ways where fountains splashed and flowers bloomed.

The people wore bright clothes, had happy faces. They rode in beautiful

carriages, they strolled about, greeting one another with smiles. The

children ran and laughed. London, thought I to myself, is the city of

the fairies.

It passed, and we sank into a grim city of hoarse, roaring streets,

wherein the endless throngs swirled and surged as I had seen the yellow

waters curve and fret, contending, where the river pauses, rock-bound.

Here were no bright costumes, no bright faces, none stayed to greet

another; all was stern, and swift, and voiceless. London, then, said I

to myself, is the city of the giants. They must live in these towering

castles side by side, and these hurrying thousands are their driven

slaves.

But this passed also, and we sank lower yet until we reached a third

city, where a pale mist filled each sombre street. None of the beautiful

things of the world were to be seen here, but only the things coarse

and ugly. And wearily to and fro its sunless passages trudged with heavy

steps a weary people, coarse-clad, and with dull, listless faces. And

London, I knew, was the city of the gnomes who labour sadly all their

lives, imprisoned underground; and a terror seized me lest I, too,

should remain chained here, deep down below the fairy city that was

already but a dream.

We stopped at last in a long, unfinished street. I remember our pushing

our way through a group of dirty urchins, all of whom, my aunt remarked

in passing, ought to be skinned. It was my aunt's one prescription for

all to whom she took objection; but really in the present instance I

think it would have been of service; nothing else whatever could have

restored them to cleanliness. Then the door closed behind us with an

echoing clang, and the small, cold rooms came forward stiffly to greet

us.

The man in grey went to the one window and drew back the curtain; it

was growing dusk now. My aunt sat on a straight, hard chair and stared

fixedly at the three-armed gaselier. My mother stood in the centre of

the room with one small ungloved hand upon the table, and I noticed--for

I was very near--that the poor little one-legged thing was trembling.

“Of course it's not what you've been accustomed to, Maggie,” said the

man in grey; “but it's only for a little while.”

He spoke in a new, angry voice; but I could not see his face, his back

being to the light.

My mother drew his arms around us both.

“It is the best home in all the world,” she said; and thus we stayed for

awhile.

“Nonsense,” said my aunt, suddenly; and this aroused us; “it's a poky

hole, as I told her it would be. Let her thank the Lord she's got a

man clever enough to get her out of it. I know him; he never could rest

where he was put. Now he's at the bottom; he'll go up.”

It sounded to me a very disagreeable speech; but the grey man laughed--I

had not heard him laugh till then--and my mother ran to my aunt and

kissed her; and somehow the room seemed to become lighter.

For some reason I slept downstairs that night, on the floor, behind a

screen improvised out of a clothes horse and a blanket; and later in the

evening the clatter of knives and forks and the sound of subdued voices

awoke me. My aunt had apparently gone to bed; my mother and the man in

grey were talking together over their supper.

“We must buy land,” said the voice of the grey man; “London is coming

this way. The Somebodies” (I forget the name my father mentioned) “made

all their money by buying up land round New York for a mere song. Then,

as the city spread, they became worth millions.”

“But where will you get the money from, Luke?” asked the voice of my

mother.

The voice of the grey man answered airily:

“Oh, that's merely a matter of business. You grant a mortgage. The

property goes up in value. You borrow more. Then you buy more--and so

on.”

“I see,” said my mother.

“Being on the spot gives one such an advantage,” said the grey man. “I

shall know just when to buy. It's a great thing, being on the spot.”

“Of course, it must be,” said my mother.

I suppose I must have dozed, for the next words I heard the grey man say

were:

“Of course you have the park opposite, but then the house is small.”

“But shall we need a very large one?” asked my mother.

“One never knows,” said the grey man. “If I should go into Parliament--”

At this point a hissing sound arose from the neighbourhood of the fire.

“It _looks_,” said my mother, “as if it were done.”

“If you will hold the dish,” said the grey man, “I think I can pour it

in without spilling.”

Again I must have dozed.

“It depends,” said the grey man, “upon what he is going to be. For the

classics, of course, Oxford.”

“He's going to be very clever,” said my mother. She spoke as one who

knows.

“We'll hope so,” said the grey man.

“I shouldn't be surprised,” said my mother, “if he turned out a poet.”

The grey man said something in a low tone that I did not hear.

“I'm not so sure,” answered my mother, “it's in the blood. I've often

thought that you, Luke, ought to have been a poet.”

“I never had the time,” said the grey man. “There were one or two little

things--”

“They were very beautiful,” interrupted my mother. The clatter of the

knives and forks continued undisturbed for a few moments. Then continued

the grey man:

“There would be no harm, provided I made enough. It's the law of nature.

One generation earns, the next spends. We must see. In any case, I think

I should prefer Oxford for him.”

“It will be so hard parting from him,” said my mother.

“There will be the vacations,” said the grey man, “when we shall

travel.”

CHAPTER II.

IN WHICH PAUL MAKES ACQUAINTANCE OF THE MAN WITH THE UGLY MOUTH.

The case of my father and mother was not normal. You understand they

had been separated for some years, and though they were not young in

age--indeed, before my childish eyes they loomed quite ancient folk,

and in fact my father must have been nearly forty and my mother quit of

thirty--yet, as you will come to think yourself, no doubt, during the

course of my story, they were in all the essentials of life little more

than boy and girl. This I came to see later on, but at that time, had I

been consulted by enquiring maid or bachelor, I might unwittingly have

given wrong impressions concerning marriage in the general. I should

have described a husband as a man who could never rest quite content

unless his wife were by his side; who twenty times a day would call from

his office door: “Maggie, are you doing anything important? I want to

talk to you about a matter of business.” ... “Maggie, are you alone? Oh,

all right, I'll come down.” Of a wife I should have said she was a woman

whose eyes were ever love-lit when resting on her man; who was glad

where he was and troubled where he was not. But in every case this might

not have been correct.

Also, I should have had something to say concerning the alarms and

excursions attending residence with any married couple. I should have

recommended the holding up of feet under the table lest, mistaken for

other feet, they should be trodden on and pressed. Also, I should have

advised against entry into any room unpreceded by what in Stageland

is termed “noise without.” It is somewhat disconcerting to the nervous

incomer to be met, the door still in his hand, by a sound as of people

springing suddenly into the air, followed by a weird scuttling of feet,

and then to discover the occupants sitting stiffly in opposite corners,

deeply engaged in book or needlework. But, as I have said, with regard

to some households, such precautions might be needless.

Personally, I fear, I exercised little or no controlling influence upon

my parents in this respect, my intrusions coming soon to be greeted

with: “Oh, it's only Spud,” in a tone of relief, accompanied generally

by the sofa cushion; but of my aunt they stood more in awe. Not that she

ever said anything, and, indeed, to do her justice, in her efforts to

spare their feelings she erred, if at all, on the side of excess.

Never did she move a footstep about the house except to the music of

a sustained and penetrating cough. As my father once remarked,

ungratefully, I must confess, the volume of bark produced by my aunt in

a single day would have done credit to the dying efforts of a hospital

load of consumptives; to a robust and perfectly healthy lady the cost in

nervous force must have been prodigious. Also, that no fear should live

with them that her eyes had seen aught not intended for them, she would

invariably enter backwards any room in which they might be, closing the

door loudly and with difficulty before turning round: and through dark

passages she would walk singing. No woman alive could have done more;

yet--such is human nature!--neither my father nor my mother was grateful

to her, so far as I could judge.

Indeed, strange as it may appear, the more sympathetic towards them she

showed herself, the more irritated against her did they become.

“I believe, Fanny, you hate seeing Luke and me happy together,” said my

mother one day, coming up from the kitchen to find my aunt preparing

for entry into the drawing-room by dropping teaspoons at five-second

intervals outside the door: “Don't make yourself so ridiculous.” My

mother spoke really quite unkindly.

“Hate it!” replied my aunt. “Why should I? Why shouldn't a pair of

turtle doves bill and coo, when their united age is only a little over

seventy, the pretty dears?” The mildness of my aunt's answers often

surprised me.

As for my father, he grew positively vindictive. I remember the occasion

well. It was the first, though not the last time I knew him lose his

temper. What brought up the subject I forget, but my father stopped

suddenly; we were walking by the canal bank.

“Your aunt”--my father may not have intended it, but his tone and manner

when speaking of my aunt always conveyed to me the impression that he

regarded me as personally responsible for her existence. This used to

weigh upon me. “Your aunt is the most cantankerous, the most--” he broke

off, and shook his fist towards the setting sun. “I wish to God,” said

my father, “your aunt had a comfortable little income of her own, with

a freehold cottage in the country, by God I do!” But the next moment,

ashamed, I suppose, of his brutality: “Not but what sometimes, of

course, she can be very nice, you know,” he added; “don't tell your

mother what I said just now.”

Another who followed with sympathetic interest the domestic comedy was

Susan, our maid-of-all-work, the first of a long and varied series,

extending unto the advent of Amy, to whom the blessing of Heaven. Susan

was a stout and elderly female, liable to sudden fits of sleepiness, the

result, we were given to understand, of trouble; but her heart, it was

her own proud boast, was always in the right place. She could never look

at my father and mother sitting anywhere near each other but she must

flop down and weep awhile; the sight of connubial bliss always reminding

her, so she would explain, of the past glories of her own married state.

Though an earnest enquirer, I was never able myself to grasp the ins

and outs of this past married life of Susan's. Whether her answers were

purposely framed to elude curiosity, or whether they were the result of

a naturally incoherent mind, I cannot say. Their tendency was to convey

confusion.

On Monday I have seen Susan shed tears of regret into the Brussels

sprouts, that she had been debarred by the pressure of other duties from

lately watering “his” grave, which, I gathered, was at Manor Park.

While on Tuesday I have listened, blood chilled, to the recital of her

intentions should she ever again enjoy the luxury of getting her fingers

near the scruff of his neck.

“But, I thought, Susan, he was dead,” was my very natural comment upon

this outbreak.

“So did I, Master Paul,” was Susan's rejoinder; “that was his

artfulness.”

“Then he isn't buried in Manor Park Cemetery?”

“Not yet; but he'll wish he was, the half-baked monkey, when I get hold

of him.”

“Then he wasn't a good man?”

“Who?”

“Your husband.”

“Who says he ain't a good man?” It was Susan's flying leaps from tense

to tense that most bewildered me. “If anybody says he ain't I'll gouge

their eye out!”

I hastened to assure Susan that my observation had been intended in the

nature of enquiry, not of assertion.

“Brings me a bottle of gin--for my headaches--every time he comes home,”

continued Susan, showing cause for opinion, “every blessed time.”

And at some such point as this I would retire to the clearer atmosphere

of German grammar or mixed fractions.

We suffered a good deal from Susan one way and another; for having

regard to the admirable position of her heart, we all felt it our duty

to overlook mere failings of the flesh--all but my aunt, that is, who

never made any pretence of being a sentimentalist.

“She's a lazy hussy,” was the opinion expressed of her one morning by my

aunt, who was rinsing; “a gulping, snorting, lazy hussy, that's what she

is.” There was some excuse for my aunt's indignation. It was then eleven

o'clock and Susan was still sleeping off an attack of what she called

“new-ralgy.”

“She has seen a good deal of trouble,” said my mother, who was wiping.

“And if she was my cook and housemaid,” replied my aunt, “she would see

more, the slut!”

“She's not a good servant in many respects,” admitted my mother, “but I

think she's good-hearted.”

“Oh, drat her heart,” was my aunt's retort. “The right place for that

heart of hers is on the doorstep. And that's where I'd put it, and her

and her box alongside it, if I had my way.”

The departure of Susan did take place not long afterwards. It occurred

one Saturday night. My mother came upstairs looking pale.

“Luke,” she said, “do please run for the doctor.”

“What's the matter?” asked my father.

“Susan,” gasped my mother, “she's lying on the kitchen floor breathing

in the strangest fashion and quite unable to speak.”

“I'll go for Washburn,” said my father; “if I am quick I shall catch him

at the dispensary.”

Five minutes later my father came back panting, followed by the doctor.

This was a big, black-bearded man; added to which he had the knack of

looking bigger than even he really was. He came down the kitchen stairs

two at a time, shaking the whole house. He brushed my mother aside, and

bent over the unconscious Susan, who was on her back with her mouth wide

open. Then he rose and looked at my father and mother, who were watching

him with troubled faces; and then he opened his mouth, and there came

from it a roar of laughter, the like of which sound I had never heard.

The next moment he had seized a pail half full of water and had flung it

over the woman. She opened her eyes and sat up.

“Feeling better?” said the doctor, with the pail still in his hand;

“have another dose?”

Susan began to gather herself together with the evident intention of

expressing her feelings; but before she could find the first word, he

had pushed the three of us outside and slammed the door behind us.

From the top of the stairs we could hear Susan's thick, rancorous voice

raging fiercer and fiercer, drowned every now and then by the man's

savage roar of laughter. And, when for want of breath she would flag for

a moment, he would yell out encouragement to her, shouting: “Bravo!

Go it, my beauty, give it tongue! Bark, bark! I love to hear you,”

applauding her, clapping his hands and stamping his feet.

“What a beast of a man,” said my mother.

“He is really a most interesting man when you come to know him,”

explained my father.

Replied my mother, stiffly: “I don't ever mean to know him.” But it is

only concerning the past that we possess knowledge.

The riot from below ceased at length, and was followed by a new voice,

speaking quietly and emphatically, and then we heard the doctor's step

again upon the stairs.

My mother held her purse open in her hand, and as the man entered the

room she went forward to meet him.

“How much do we owe you, Doctor?” said my mother. She spoke in a voice

trembling with severity.

He closed the purse and gently pushed it back towards her.

“A glass of beer and a chop, Mrs. Kelver,” he answered, “which I am

coming back in an hour to cook for myself. And as you will be without

any servant,” he continued, while my mother stood staring at him

incapable of utterance, “you had better let me cook some for you at the

same time. I am an expert at grilling chops.”

“But, really, Doctor--” my mother began. He laid his huge hand upon her

shoulder, and my mother sat down upon the nearest chair.

“My dear lady,” he said, “she's a person you never ought to have had

inside your house. She's promised me to be gone in half an hour, and

I'm coming back to see she keeps her word. Give her a month's wages, and

have a clear fire ready for me.” And before my mother could reply, he

had slammed the front door.

“What a very odd sort of a man,” said my mother, recovering herself.

“He's a character,” said my father; “you might not think it, but he's

worshipped about here.”

“I hardly know what to make of him,” said my mother; “I suppose I had

better go out and get some chops;” which she did.

Susan went, as sober as a judge on Friday, as the saying is, her great

anxiety being to get out of the house before the doctor returned. The

doctor himself arrived true to his time, and I lay awake--for no human

being ever slept or felt he wanted to sleep while Dr. Washburn was

anywhere near--and listened to the gusts of laughter that swept

continually through the house. Even my aunt laughed that supper time,

and when the doctor himself laughed it seemed to me that the bed shook

under me. Not liking to be out of it, I did what spoilt little boys

and even spoilt little girls sometimes will do under similar stress of

feeling, wrapped the blanket round my legs and pattered down, with

my face set to express the sudden desire of a sensitive and possibly

short-lived child for parents' love. My mother pretended to be angry,

but that I knew was only her company manners. Besides, I really had, if

not exactly a pain, an extremely uncomfortable sensation (one common to

me about that period) as of having swallowed the dome of St. Paul's. The

doctor said it was a frequent complaint with children, the result of too

early hours and too much study; and, taking me on his knee, wrote then

and there a diet chart for me, which included one tablespoonful of

golden syrup four times a day, and one ounce of sherbet to be placed

upon the tongue and taken neat ten minutes before each meal.

That evening will always live in my remembrance. My mother was brighter

than I had ever seen her. A flush was on her cheek and a sparkle in her

eye, and looking across at her as she sat holding a small painted screen

to shield her face from the fire, the sense of beauty became suddenly

born within me, and answering an impulse I could not have explained, I

slipped down, still with my blanket around me, from the doctor's knee,

and squatted on the edge of the fender, from where, when I thought no

one was noticing me, I could steal furtive glances up into her face.

So also my father seemed to me to have become all at once bigger and

more dignified, talking with a vigour and an enjoyment that sat newly on

him. Aunt Fan was quite witty and agreeable--for her; and even I asked

one or two questions, at which, for some reason or another, everybody

laughed; which determined me to remember and ask those same questions

again on some future occasion.

That was the great charm of the man, that by the magnetic spell of his

magnificent vitality he drew from everyone their best. In his company

clever people waxed intellectual giants, while the dull sat amazed at

their own originality. Conversing with him, Podsnap might have been

piquant, Dogberry incisive. But better than all else, I found it

listening to his own talk. Of what he spoke I could tell you no more

than could the children of Hamelin have told the tune the Pied Piper

played. I only know that at the tangled music of his strong voice

the walls of the mean room faded away, and that beyond I saw a brave,

laughing world that called to me; a world full of joyous fight, where

some won and some lost. But that mattered not a jot, because whatever

else came of it there was a right royal game for all; a world where

merry gentlemen feared neither life nor death, and Fate was but the

Master of the Revels.

Such was my first introduction to Dr. Washburn, or to give him the

name by which he was known in every slum and alley of that quarter, Dr.

Fighting Hal; and in a minor key that evening was an index to the whole

man. Often he would wrinkle his nose as a dog before it bites, and then

he was more brute than man--brutish in his instincts, in his appetites,

brutish in his pleasure, brutish in his fun. Or his deep blue eyes would

grow soft as a mother's, and then you might have thought him an angel

in a soft felt hat and a coat so loose-fitting as to suggest the

possibility of his wings being folded away underneath. Often have I

tried to make up my mind whether it has been better for me or worse that

I ever came to know him; but as easy would it be for the tree to

say whether the rushing winds and the wild rains have shaped it or

mis-shaped.

Susan's place remained vacant for some time. My mother would explain

to the few friends who occasionally came from afar to see us, that her

“housemaid” she had been compelled to suddenly discharge, and that

we were waiting for the arrival of a new and better specimen. But the

months passed and we still waited, and my father on the rare days when

a client would ring the office bell, would, after pausing a decent

interval, open the front door himself, and then call downstairs

indignantly and loudly, to know why “Jane” or “Mary” could not attend to

their work. And my mother, that the bread-boy or the milkman might not

put it about the neighbourhood that the Kelvers in the big corner house

kept no servant, would hide herself behind a thick veil and fetch all

things herself from streets a long way off.

For this family of whom I am writing were, I confess, weak and human.

Their poverty they were ashamed of as though it were a crime, and in

consequence their life was more full of paltry and useless subterfuge

than should be perhaps the life of brave men and women. The larder,

I fancy, was very often bare, but the port and sherry with the sweet

biscuits stood always on the sideboard; and the fire had often to be low

in the grate that my father's tall hat might shine resplendent and my

mother's black silk rustle on Sundays.

But I would not have you sneer at them, thinking all pretence must

spring from snobbishness and never from mistaken self-respect. Some fine

gentleman writers there be--men whose world is bounded on the east by

Bond Street--who see in the struggles of poverty to hide its darns only

matter for jest. But myself, I cannot laugh at them. I know the long

hopes and fears that centre round the hired waiter; the long cost of the

cream and the ice jelly ordered the week before from the confectioner's.

But to me it is pathetic, not ridiculous. Heroism is not all of one

pattern. Dr. Washburn, had the Prince of Wales come to see him, would

have put his bread and cheese and jug of beer upon the table, and helped

His Royal Highness to half. But my father and mother's tea was very weak

that Mr. Jones or Mr. Smith might have a glass of wine should they come

to dinner. I remember the one egg for breakfast, my mother arguing that

my father should have it because he had his business to attend to; my

father insisting that my mother should eat it, she having to go out

shopping, a compromise being effected by their dividing it between them,

each clamouring for the white as the most nourishing. And I know however

little the meal looked upon the table when we started I always rose well

satisfied. These are small things to speak of, but then you must bear in

mind this is a story moving in narrow ways.

To me this life came as a good time. That I was encouraged to eat

treacle in preference to butter seemed to me admirable. Personally, I

preferred sausages for dinner; and a supper of fried fish and potatoes,

brought in stealthily in a carpet bag, was infinitely more enjoyable

than the set meal where nothing was of interest till one came to the

dessert. What fun there was about it all! The cleaning of the doorstep

by night, when from the ill-lit street a gentleman with a piece

of sacking round his legs might very well pass for a somewhat tall

charwoman. I would keep watch at the gate to give warning should any

one looking like a possible late caller turn the corner of the street,

coming back now and then in answer to a low whistle to help my father

grope about in the dark for the hearthstone; he was always mislaying

the hearthstone. How much better, helping to clean the knives or running

errands than wasting all one's morning dwelling upon the shocking

irregularity of certain classes of French verbs; or making useless

calculations as to how long X, walking four and a quarter miles an hour,

would be overtaking Y, whose powers were limited to three and a half,

but who had started two and three quarter hours sooner; the whole

argument being reduced to sheer pedantry by reason of no information

being afforded to the student concerning the respective thirstiness of X

and Y.

Even my father and mother were able to take it lightly with plenty of

laughter and no groaning that I ever heard. For over all lay the morning

light of hope, and what prisoner, escaping from his dungeon, ever stayed

to think of his torn hands and knees when beyond the distant opening he

could see the sunlight glinting through the brambles?

“I had no idea,” said my mother, “there was so much to do in a house.

In future I shall arrange for the servants to have regular hours, and a

little time to themselves, for rest. Don't you think it right, Luke?”

“Quite right,” replied my father; “and I'll tell you another thing we'll

do. I shall insist on the landlord's putting a marble doorstep to the

next house we take; you pass a sponge over marble and it is always

clean.”

“Or tesselated,” suggested my mother.

“Or tesselated,” agreed my father; “but marble is more uncommon.”

Only once, can I recall a cloud. That was one Sunday when my mother,

speaking across the table in the middle of dinner, said to my father,

“We might save the rest of that stew, Luke; there's an omelette coming.”

My father laid down the spoon. “An omelette!”

“Yes,” said my mother. “I thought I would like to try again.”

My father stepped into the back kitchen--we dined in the kitchen, as a

rule, it saved much carriage--returning with the wood chopper.

“What ever are you going to do, Luke, with the chopper?” said my mother.

“Divide the omelette,” replied my father.

My mother began to cry.

“Why, Maggie--!” said my father.

“I know the other one was leathery,” said my mother, “but it was the

fault of the oven, you know it was, Luke.”

“My dear,” said my father, “I only meant it as a joke.”

“I don't like that sort of joke,” said my mother; “it isn't nice of you,

Luke.”

I don't think, to be candid, my mother liked much any joke that was

against herself. Indeed, when I come to think of it, I have never met a

woman who did, nor man, either.

There had soon grown up a comradeship between my father and myself for

he was the youngest thing I had met with as yet. Sometimes my mother

seemed very young, and later I met boys and girls nearer to my own age

in years; but they grew, while my father remained always the same. The

hair about his temples was turning grey, and when you looked close you

saw many crow's feet and lines, especially about the mouth. But his eyes

were the eyes of a boy, his laugh the laugh of a boy, and his heart the

heart of a boy. So we were very close to each other.

In a narrow strip of ground we called our garden we would play a cricket

of our own, encompassed about by many novel rules, rendered necessary by

the locality. For instance, all hitting to leg was forbidden, as tending

to endanger neighbouring windows, while hitting to off was likewise not

to be encouraged, as causing a temporary adjournment of the game, while

batter and bowler went through the house and out into the street to

recover the ball from some predatory crowd of urchins to whom it had

evidently appeared as a gift direct from Heaven. Sometimes rising very

early we would walk across the marshes to bathe in a small creek that

led down to the river, but this was muddy work, necessitating much

washing of legs on the return home. And on rare days we would, taking

the train to Hackney and walking to the bridge, row up the river Lea,

perhaps as far as Ponder's End.

But these sports being hedged around with difficulties, more commonly

for recreation we would take long walks. There were pleasant nooks even

in the neighbourhood of Plaistow marshes in those days. Here and there

a graceful elm still clung to the troubled soil. Surrounded on all sides

by hideousness, picturesque inns still remained hidden within green

walls where, if you were careful not to pry too curiously, you might

sit and sip your glass of beer beneath the oak and dream yourself where

reeking chimneys and mean streets were not. During such walks my father

would talk to me as he would talk to my mother, telling me all his wild,

hopeful plans, discussing with me how I was to lodge at Oxford, to what

particular branches of study and of sport I was to give my preference,

speaking always with such catching confidence that I came to regard my

sojourn in this brick and mortar prison as only a question of months.

One day, talking of this future, and laughing as we walked briskly,

through the shrill streets, I told him the words my mother had

said--long ago, as it seemed to me, for life is as a stone rolling

down-hill, and moves but slowly at first; she and I sitting on the moss

at the foot of old “Jacob's Folly”--that he was our Prince fighting

to deliver us from the grim castle called “Hard Times,” guarded by the

dragon Poverty.

My father laughed and his boyish face flushed with pleasure.

“And she was right, Paul,” he whispered, pressing my small hand in

his--it was necessary to whisper, for the street where we were was very

crowded, but I knew that he wanted to shout. “I will fight him and I

will slay him.” My father made passes in the air with his walking-stick,

and it was evident from the way they drew aside that the people round

about fancied he was mad. “I will batter down the iron gates and she

shall be free. I will, God help me, I will.”

The gallant gentleman! How long and how bravely he fought! But in the

end it was the Dragon triumphed, the Knight that lay upon the ground,

his great heart still. I have read how, with the sword of Honest

Industry, one may always conquer this grim Dragon. But such was in

foolish books. In truth, only with the sword of Chicanery and the stout

buckler of Unscrupulousness shall you be certain of victory over him. If

you care not to use these, pray to your Gods, and take what comes with a

stout heart.

CHAPTER III.

HOW GOOD LUCK KNOCKED AT THE DOOR OF THE MAN IN GREY.

“Louisa!” roared my father down the kitchen stairs, “are you all asleep?

Here have I had to answer the front door myself.” Then my father strode

into his office, and the door slammed. My father could be very angry

when nobody was by.

Quarter of an hour later his bell rang with a quick, authoritative

jangle. My mother, who was peeling potatoes with difficulty in

wash-leather gloves, looked at my aunt who was shelling peas. The bell

rang again louder still this time.

“Once for Louisa, twice for James, isn't it?” enquired my aunt.

“You go, Paul,” said my mother; “say that Louisa--” but with the words a

sudden flush overspread my mother's face, and before I could lay down

my slate she had drawn off her gloves and had passed me. “No, don't stop

your lessons, I'll go myself,” she said, and ran out.

A few minutes later the kitchen door opened softly, and my mother's

hand, appearing through the jar, beckoned to me mysteriously.

“Walk on your toes,” whispered my mother, setting the example as she

led the way up the stairs; which after the manner of stairs showed their

disapproval of deception by creaking louder and more often than under

any other circumstances; and in this manner we reached my parents'

bedroom, where, in the old-fashioned wardrobe, relic of better days,

reposed my best suit of clothes, or, to be strictly grammatical, my

better.

Never before had I worn these on a week-day morning, but all

conversation not germane to the question of getting into them quickly

my mother swept aside; and when I was complete, down even to the new

shoes--Bluchers, we called them in those days--took me by the hand, and

together we crept down as we had crept up, silent, stealthy and alert.

My mother led me to the street door and opened it.

“Shan't I want my cap?” I whispered. But my mother only shook her

head and closed the door with a bang; and then the explanation of the

pantomime came to me, for with such “business”--comic, shall I call

it, or tragic?--I was becoming familiar; and, my mother's hand upon my

shoulder, we entered my father's office.

Whether from the fact that so often of an evening--our drawing-room

being reserved always as a show-room in case of chance visitors;

Cowper's poems, open face-downwards on the wobbly loo table; the

half-finished crochet work, suggestive of elegant leisure, thrown

carelessly over the arm of the smaller easy-chair--this office would

become our sitting-room, its books and papers, as things of no account,

being huddled out of sight; or whether from the readiness with which my

father would come out of it at all times to play at something else--at

cricket in the back garden on dry days or ninepins in the passage on

wet, charging back into it again whenever a knock sounded at the front

door, I cannot say. But I know that as a child it never occurred to

me to regard my father's profession as a serious affair. To me he was

merely playing there, surrounded by big books and bundles of documents,

labelled profusely but consisting only of blank papers; by japanned

tin boxes, lettered imposingly, but for the most part empty. “Sutton

Hampden, Esq.,” I remember was practically my mother's work-box. The

“Drayton Estates” yielded apparently nothing but apples, a fruit of

which my father was fond; while “Mortgages” it was not until later in

life I discovered had no connection with poems in manuscript, some in

course of correction, others completed.

Now, as the door opened, he rose and came towards us. His hair stood up

from his head, for it was a habit of his to rumple it as he talked; and

this added to his evident efforts to compose his face into an expression

of businesslike gravity, added emphasis, if such were needed, to the

suggestion of the over long schoolboy making believe.

“This is the youngster,” said my father, taking me from my mother, and

passing me on. “Tall for his age, isn't he?”

With a twist of his thick lips, he rolled the evil-smelling cigar he was

smoking from the left corner of his mouth to the right; and held out a

fat and not too clean hand, which, as it closed round mine, brought to

my mind the picture of the walrus in my natural history book; with the

other he flapped me kindly on the head.

“Like 'is mother, wonderfully like 'is mother, ain't 'e?” he observed,

still holding my hand. “And that,” he added with a wink of one of his

small eyes towards my father, “is about the 'ighest compliment I can pay

'im, eh?”

His eyes were remarkably small, but marvellously bright and piercing; so

much so that when he turned them again upon me I tried to think quickly

of something nice about him, feeling sure that he could see right into

me.

“And where are you thinkin' of sendin' 'im?” he continued; “Eton or

'Arrow?”

“We haven't quite made up our minds as yet,” replied my father; “at

present we are educating him at home.”

“You take my tip,” said the fat man, “and learn all you can. Look at

me! If I'd 'ad the opportunity of being a schollard I wouldn't be here

offering your father an extravagant price for doin' my work; I'd be able

to do it myself.”

“You seem to have got on very well without it,” laughed my father;

and in truth his air of prosperity might have justified greater

self-complacency. Rings sparkled on his blunt fingers, and upon the

swelling billows of his waistcoat rose and sank a massive gold cable.

“I'd 'ave done better with it,” he grunted.

“But you look very clever,” I said; and though divining with a child's

cuteness that it was desired I should make a favourable impression upon

him, I hoped this would please him, the words were yet spontaneous.

He laughed heartily, his whole body shaking like some huge jelly.

“Well, old Noel Hasluck's not exactly a fool,” he assented, “but I'd

like myself better if I could talk about something else than business,

and didn't drop my aitches. And so would my little gell.”

“You have a daughter?” asked my mother, with whom a child, as a bond

of sympathy with the stranger took the place assigned by most women to

disrespectful cooks and incompetent housemaids.

“I won't tell you about 'er. But I'll just bring 'er to see you now and

then, ma'am, if you don't mind,” answered Mr. Hasluck. “She don't often

meet gentle-folks, an' it'll do 'er good.”

My mother glanced across at my father, but the man, intercepting her

question, replied to it himself.

“You needn't be afraid, ma'am, that she's anything like me,” he assured

her quite good-temperedly; “nobody ever believes she's my daughter,

except me and the old woman. She's a little lady, she is. Freak o'

nature, I call it.”

“We shall be delighted,” explained my mother.

“Well, you will when you see 'er,” replied Mr. Hasluck, quite

contentedly.

He pushed half-a-crown into my hand, overriding my parents'

susceptibilities with the easy good-temper of a man accustomed to have

his way in all things.

“No squanderin' it on the 'eathen,” was his parting injunction as I left

the room; “you spend that on a Christian tradesman.”

It was the first money I ever remember having to spend, that half-crown

of old Hasluck's; suggestions of the delights to be derived from a new

pair of gloves for Sunday, from a Latin grammar, which would then be all

my own, and so on, having hitherto displaced all less exalted visions

concerning the disposal of chance coins coming into my small hands. But

on this occasion I was left free to decide for myself.

The anxiety it gave me! the long tossing hours in bed! the tramping of

the bewildering streets! Even advice when asked for was denied me.

“You must learn to think for yourself,” said my father, who spoke

eloquently on the necessity of early acquiring sound judgment and what

he called “commercial aptitude.”

“No, dear,” said my mother, “Mr. Hasluck wanted you to spend it as you

like. If I told you, that would be spending it as I liked. Your father

and I want to see what you will do with it.”

The good little boys in the books bought presents or gave away to people

in distress. For this I hated them with the malignity the lower nature

ever feels towards the higher. I consulted my aunt Fan.

“If somebody gave you half-a-crown,” I put it to her, “what would you

buy with it?”

“Side-combs,” said my aunt; she was always losing or breaking her

side-combs.

“But I mean if you were me,” I explained.

“Drat the child!” said my aunt; “how do I know what he wants if he don't

know himself? Idiot!”

The shop windows into which I stared, my nose glued to the pane! The

things I asked the price of! The things I made up my mind to buy and

then decided that I wouldn't buy! Even my patient mother began to show

signs of irritation. It was rapidly assuming the dimensions of a family

curse, was old Hasluck's half-crown.

Then one day I made up my mind, and so ended the trouble. In the window

of a small plumber's shop in a back street near, stood on view among

brass taps, rolls of lead piping and cistern requisites, various squares

of coloured glass, the sort of thing chiefly used, I believe, for

lavatory doors and staircase windows. Some had stars in the centre,

and others, more elaborate, were enriched with designs, severe but

inoffensive. I purchased a dozen of these, the plumber, an affable

man who appeared glad to see me, throwing in two extra out of sheer

generosity.

Why I bought them I did not know at the time, and I do not know now.

My mother cried when she saw them. My father could get no further than:

“But what are you going to do with them?” to which I was unable to

reply. My aunt, alone, attempted comfort.

“If a person fancies coloured glass,” said my aunt, “then he's a fool

not to buy coloured glass when he gets the chance. We haven't all the

same tastes.”

In the end, I cut myself badly with them and consented to their being

thrown into the dust-bin. But looking back, I have come to regard myself

rather as the victim of Fate than of Folly. Many folks have I met since,

recipients of Hasluck's half-crowns--many a man who has slapped his

pocket and blessed the day he first met that “Napoleon of Finance,”

as later he came to be known among his friends--but it ever ended so;

coloured glass and cut fingers. Is it fairy gold that he and his kind

fling round? It would seem to be.

Next time old Hasluck knocked at our front door a maid in cap and apron

opened it to him, and this was but the beginning of change. New oilcloth

glistened in the passage. Lace curtains, such as in that neighbourhood

were the hall-mark of the plutocrat, advertised our rising fortunes to

the street, and greatest marvel of all, at least to my awed eyes, my

father's Sunday clothes came into weekday wear, new ones taking their

place in the great wardrobe that hitherto had been the stronghold of

our gentility; to which we had ever turned for comfort when rendered

despondent by contemplation of the weakness of our outer walls. “Seeing

that everything was all right” is how my mother would explain it. She

would lay the lilac silk upon the bed, fondly soothing down its rustling

undulations, lingering lovingly over its deep frosted flounces of rich

Honiton. Maybe she had entered the room weary looking and depressed, but

soon there would proceed from her a gentle humming as from some small

winged thing when the sun first touches it and warms it, and sometimes

by the time the Indian shawl, which could go through a wedding ring, but

never would when it was wanted to, had been refolded and fastened again

with the great cameo brooch, and the poke bonnet, like some fractious

child, shaken and petted into good condition, she would be singing

softly to herself, nodding her head to the words: which were generally

to the effect that somebody was too old and somebody else too bold and

another too cold, “so he wouldn't do for me;” and stepping lightly as

though the burden of the years had fallen from her.

One evening--it was before the advent of this Hasluck--I remember

climbing out of bed, for trouble was within me. Creatures, indescribable

but heavy, had sat upon my chest, after which I had fallen downstairs,

slowly and reasonably for the first few hundred flights, then with haste

for the next million miles or so, until I found myself in the street

with nothing on but my nightshirt. Personally, I was shocked, but nobody

else seemed to mind, and I hailed a two-penny 'bus and climbed in. But

when I tried to pay I found I hadn't any pockets, so I jumped out and

ran away and the conductor came after me. My feet were like lead, and

with every step he gained on me, till with a scream I made one mighty

effort and awoke.

Feeling the need of comfort after these unpleasant but by no means

unfamiliar experiences, I wrapped some clothes round me and crept

downstairs. The “office” was dark, but to my surprise a light shone from

under the drawing-room door, and I opened it.

The candles in the silver candlesticks were lighted, and in state,

one in each easy-chair, sat my father and mother, both in their best

clothes; my father in the buckled shoes and the frilled shirt that I had

never seen him wear before, my mother with the Indian shawl about her

shoulders, and upon her head the cap of ceremony that reposed three

hundred and sixty days out of the year in its round wicker-work nest

lined with silk. They started guiltily as I pushed open the door, but I

congratulate myself that I had sense enough--or was it instinct--to ask

no questions.

The last time I had seen them, three hours ago, they had been engaged,

the lights carefully extinguished, cleaning the ground floor windows,

my father the outside, my mother within, and it astonished me the change

not only in their appearance, but in their manner and bearing, and even

in their very voices. My father brought over from the sideboard the

sherry and sweet biscuits and poured out and handed a glass to my

mother, and he and my mother drank to each other, while I between them

ate the biscuits, and the conversation was of Byron's poems and the

great glass palace in Hyde Park.

I wonder am I disloyal setting this down? Maybe to others it shows but

a foolish man and woman, and that is far from my intention. I dwell

upon such trifles because to me the memory of them is very tender. The

virtues of our loved ones we admire, yet after all 'tis but what we

expected of them: how could they do otherwise? Their failings we would

forget; no one of us is perfect. But over their follies we love to

linger, smiling.

To me personally, old Hasluck's coming and all that followed thereupon

made perhaps more difference than to any one else. My father now was

busy all the day; if not in his office, then away in the grim city of

the giants, as I still thought of it; while to my mother came every day

more social and domestic duties; so that for a time I was left much to

my own resources.

Rambling--“bummelling,” as the Germans term it--was my bent. This my

mother would have checked, but my father said:

“Don't molly-coddle him. Let him learn to be smart.”

“I don't think the smart people are always the nicest,” demurred my

mother. “I don't call you at all 'smart,' Luke.”

My father appeared surprised, but reflected.

“I should call myself smart--in a sense,” he explained, after

consideration.

“Perhaps you are right, dear,” replied my mother; “and of course boys

are different from girls.”

Sometimes I would wander Victoria Park way, which was then surrounded by

many small cottages in leafy gardens; or even reach as far as Clapton,

where old red brick Georgian houses still stood behind high palings, and

tall elms gave to the wide road on sunny afternoons an old-world air of

peace. But such excursions were the exception, for strange though it may

read, the narrow, squalid streets had greater hold on me. Not the few

main thoroughfares, filled ever with a dull, deep throbbing as of some

tireless iron machine; where the endless human files, streaming ever up

and down, crossing and recrossing, seemed mere rushing chains of flesh

and blood, working upon unseen wheels; but the dim, weary, lifeless

streets--the dark, tortuous roots, as I fancied them, of that grim

forest of entangled brick. Mystery lurked in their gloom. Fear whispered

from behind their silence. Dumb figures flitted swiftly to and fro,

never pausing, never glancing right nor left. Far-off footsteps, rising

swiftly into sound, as swiftly fading, echoed round their lonely comers.

Dreading, yet drawn on, I would creep along their pavements as through

some city of the dead, thinking of the eyes I saw not watching from the

thousand windows; starting at each muffled sound penetrating the long,

dreary walls, behind which that close-packed, writhing life lay hid.

One day there came a cry from behind a curtained window. I stood still

for a moment and then ran; but before I could get far enough away I

heard it again, a long, piercing cry, growing fiercer before it ceased;

so that I ran faster still, not heeding where I went, till I found

myself in a raw, unfinished street, ending in black waste land,

bordering the river. I stopped, panting, wondering how I should find

my way again. To recover myself and think I sat upon the doorstep of

an empty house, and there came dancing down the road with a curious,

half-running, half-hopping step--something like a water wagtail's--a

child, a boy about my own age, who, after eyeing me strangely sat down

beside me.

We watched each other for a few minutes; and I noticed that his mouth

kept opening and shutting, though he said nothing. Suddenly, edging

closer to me, he spoke in a thick whisper. It sounded as though his

mouth were full of wool.

“Wot 'appens to yer when yer dead?”

“If you're good you go to Heaven. If you're bad you go to Hell.”

“Long way off, both of 'em, ain't they?”

“Yes. Millions of miles.”

“They can't come after yer? Can't fetch yer back again?”

“No, never.”

The doorstep that we occupied was the last. A yard beyond began the

black waste of mud. From the other end of the street, now growing dark,

he never took his staring eyes for an instant.

“Ever seen a stiff 'un--a dead 'un?”

“No.”

“I 'ave--stuck a pin into 'im. 'E never felt it. Don't feel anything

when yer dead, do yer?”

All the while he kept swaying his body to and fro, twisting his arms

and legs, and making faces. Comical figures made of ginger-bread, with

quaintly curved limbs and grinning features, were to be bought then in

bakers' shops: he made me hungry, reminding me of such.

“Of course not. When you are dead you're not there, you know. Our bodies

are but senseless clay.” I was glad I remembered that line. I tried to

think of the next one, which was about food for worms; but it evaded me.

“I like you,” he said; and making a fist, he gave me a punch in

the chest. It was the token of palship among the youth of that

neighbourhood, and gravely I returned it, meaning it, for friendship

with children is an affair of the instant, or not at all, and I knew him

for my first chum.

He wormed himself up.

“Yer won't tell?” he said.

I had no notion what I was not to tell, but our compact demanded that I

should agree.

“Say 'I swear.'”

“I swear.”

The heroes of my favourite fiction bound themselves by such like secret

oaths. Here evidently was a comrade after my own heart.

“Good-bye, cockey.”

But he turned again, and taking from his pocket an old knife, thrust it

into my hand. Then with that extraordinary hopping movement of his ran

off across the mud.

I stood watching him, wondering where he could be going. He stumbled

a little further, where the mud began to get softer and deeper, but

struggling up again, went hopping on towards the river.

I shouted to him, but he never looked back. At every few yards he would

sink down almost to his knees in the black mud, but wrenching himself

free would flounder forward. Then, still some distance from the river,

he fell upon his face, and did not rise again. I saw his arms beating

feebler and feebler as he sank till at last the oily slime closed over

him, and I could detect nothing but a faint heaving underneath the mud.

And after a time even that ceased.

It was late before I reached home, and fortunately my father and mother

were still out. I did not tell any one what I had seen, having sworn not

to; and as time went on the incident haunted me less and less until

it became subservient to my will. But of my fancy for those silent,

lifeless streets it cured me for the time. From behind their still walls

I would hear that long cry; down their narrow vistas see that writhing

figure, like some animated ginger-bread, hopping, springing, falling.

Yet in the more crowded streets another trouble awaited me, one more

tangible.

Have you ever noticed a pack of sparrows round some crumbs perchance

that you have thrown out from your window? Suddenly the rest of the

flock will set upon one. There is a tremendous Lilliputian hubbub,

a tossing of tiny wings and heads, a babel of shrill chirps. It is

comical.

“Spiteful little imps they are,” you say to yourself, much amused.

So I have heard good-tempered men and women calling out to one another

with a laugh.

“There go those young devils chivvying that poor little beggar again;

ought to be ashamed of theirselves.”

But, oh! the anguish of the poor little beggar! Can any one who has not

been through it imagine it! Reduced to its actualities, what was it?

Gibes and jeers that, after all, break no bones. A few pinches,

kicks and slaps; at worst a few hard knocks. But the dreading of it

beforehand! Terror lived in every street, hid, waiting for me, round

each corner. The half-dozen wrangling over their marbles--had they seen

me? The boy whistling as he stood staring into the print shop, would I

get past him without his noticing me; or would he, swinging round upon

his heel, raise the shrill whoop that brought them from every doorway to

hunt me?

The shame, when caught at last and cornered: the grinning face that

would stop to watch; the careless jokes of passers-by, regarding the

whole thing but as a sparrows' squabble: worst of all, perhaps, the rare

pity! The after humiliation when, finally released, I would dart away,

followed by shouted taunts and laughter; every eye turned to watch me,

shrinking by; my whole small carcass shaking with dry sobs of bitterness

and rage!

If only I could have turned and faced them! So far as the mere bearing

of pain was concerned, I knew myself brave. The physical suffering

resulting from any number of stand-up fights would have been trivial

compared with the mental agony I endured. That I, the comrade of a

hundred heroes--I, who nightly rode with Richard Coeur de Lion,

who against Sir Lancelot himself had couched a lance, and that not

altogether unsuccessful, I to whom all damsels in distress were wont to

look for succour--that I should run from varlets such as these!

My friend, my bosom friend, good Robin Hood! how would he have behaved

under similar circumstances? how Ivanhoe, my chosen companion in all

quests of knightly enterprise? how--to come to modern times--Jack

Harkaway, mere schoolboy though he might be? Would not one and all

have welcomed such incident with a joyous shout, and in a trice have

scattered to the winds the worthless herd?

But, alas! upon my pale lips the joyous shout sank into an unheard

whisper, and the thing that became scattered to the wind was myself, the

first opening that occurred.

Sometimes, the blood boiling in my veins, I would turn, thinking to go

back and at all risk defying my tormentors, prove to myself I was no

coward. But before I had retraced my steps a dozen paces, I would see

in imagination the whole scene again before me: the laughing crowd,

the halting passers-by, the spiteful, mocking little faces every way I

turned; and so instead would creep on home, and climbing stealthily up

into my own room, cry my heart out in the dark upon my bed.

Until one blessed day, when a blessed Fairy, in the form of a small

kitten, lifted the spell that bound me, and set free my limbs.

I have always had a passionate affection for the dumb world, if it be

dumb. My first playmate, I remember, was a water rat. A stream ran at

the bottom of our garden; and sometimes, escaping the vigilant eye of

Mrs. Fursey, I would steal out with my supper and join him on the banks.

There, hidden behind the osiers, we would play at banquets, he, it is

true, doing most of the banqueting, and I the make-believe. But it was

a good game; added to which it was the only game I could ever get him to

play, though I tried. He was a one-ideaed rat.

Later I came into the possession of a white specimen all my own. He

lived chiefly in the outside breast pocket of my jacket, in company with

my handkerchief, so that glancing down I could generally see his little

pink eyes gleaming up at me, except on very cold days, when it would be

only his tail that I could see; and when I felt miserable, somehow he

would know it, and, swarming up, push his little cold snout against

my ear. He died just so, clinging round my neck; and from many of my

fellow-men and women have I parted with less pain. It sounds callous to

say so; but, after all, our feelings are not under our own control; and

I have never been able to understand the use of pretending to emotions

one has not. All this, however, comes later. Let me return now to my

fairy kitten.

I heard its cry of pain from afar, and instinctively hastened my steps.

Three or four times I heard it again, and at each call I ran faster,

till, breathless, I arrived upon the scene, the opening of a narrow

court, leading out of a by-street. At first I saw nothing but the backs

of a small mob of urchins. Then from the centre of them came another

wailing appeal for help, and without waiting for any invitation, I

pushed my way into the group.

What I saw was Hecuba to me--gave me the motive and the cue for passion,

transformed me from the dull and muddy-mettled little John-a-dreams I

had been into a small, blind Fury. Pale Thought, that mental emetic,

banished from my system, I became the healthy, unreasoning animal, and

acted as such.

From my methods, I frankly admit, science was absent. In simple,

primitive fashion that would have charmed a Darwinian disciple to

observe, I “went for” the whole crowd. To employ the expressive idiom of

the neighbourhood, I was “all over it and inside.” Something clung about

my feet. By kicking myself free and then standing on it I gained the

advantage of quite an extra foot in height; I don't know what it was and

didn't care. I fought with my arms and I fought with my legs; where I

could get in with my head I did. I fought whatever came to hand in

a spirit of simple thankfulness, grateful for what I could reach and

indifferent to what was beyond me.

That the “show”--if again I may be permitted the local idiom--was not

entirely mine I was well aware. That not alone my person but my property

also was being damaged in the rear became dimly conveyed to me through

the sensation of draught. Already the world to the left of me was mere

picturesque perspective, while the growing importance of my nose was

threatening the absorption of all my other features. These things did

not trouble me. I merely noted them as phenomena and continued to punch

steadily.

Until I found that I was punching something soft and yet unyielding.

I looked up to see what this foreign matter that thus mysteriously had

entered into the mixture might be, and discovered it to be a policeman.

Still I did not care. The felon's dock! the prison cell! a fig for such

mere bogies. An impudent word, an insulting look, and I would have gone

for the Law itself. Pale Thought--it must have been a livid green by

this time--still trembled at respectful distance from me.

Fortunately for all of us, he was not impertinent, and though he spoke

the language of his order, his tone disarmed offence.

“Now, then. Now, then. What is all this about?”

There was no need for me to answer. A dozen voluble tongues were ready

to explain to him; and to explain wholly in my favour. This time the

crowd was with me. Let a man school himself to bear dispraise, for

thereby alone shall he call his soul his own. But let no man lie, saying

he is indifferent to popular opinion. That was my first taste of public

applause. The public was not select, and the applause might, by the

sticklers for English pure and undefiled, have been deemed ill-worded,

but to me it was the sweetest music I had ever heard, or have heard

since. I was called a “plucky little devil,” a “fair 'ot 'un,” not only

a “good 'un,” but a “good 'un” preceded by the adjective that in

the East bestows upon its principal every admirable quality that can

possibly apply. Under the circumstances it likewise fitted me literally;

but I knew it was intended rather in its complimentary sense.

Kind, if dirty, hands wiped my face. A neighbouring butcher presented me

with a choice morsel of steak, not to eat but to wear; and I found it,

if I may so express myself without infringing copyright, “grateful and

comforting.” My enemies had long since scooted, some of them, I had

rejoiced to notice, with lame and halting steps. The mutilated kitten

had been restored to its owner, a lady of ample bosom, who, carried

beyond judgment by emotion, publicly offered to adopt me on the spot.

The Law suggested, not for the first time, that everybody should now

move on; and slowly, followed by feminine commendation mingled with

masculine advice as to improved methods for the future, I was allowed to

drift away.

My bones ached, my flesh stung me, yet I walked as upon air. Gradually

I became conscious that I was not alone. A light, pattering step was

trying to keep pace with me. Graciously I slacked my speed, and the

pattering step settled down beside me. Every now and again she would run

ahead and then turn round to look up into my face, much as your small

dog does when he happens not to be misbehaving himself and desires you

to note the fact. Evidently she approved of me. I was not at my best,

as far as appearance was concerned, but women are kittle cattle, and

I think she preferred me so. Thus we walked for quite a long distance

without speaking, I drinking in the tribute of her worship and enjoying

it. Then gaining confidence, she shyly put her hand into mine, and

finding I did not repel her, promptly assumed possession of me,

according to woman's way.

For her age and station she must have been a person of means, for having

tried in vain various methods to make me more acceptable to followers

and such as having passed would turn their heads, she said:

“I know, gelatines;” and disappearing into a sweetstuff shop, returned

with quite a quantity. With these, first sucked till glutinous, we

joined my many tatters. I still attracted attention, but felt warmer.

She informed me that her name was Cissy, and that her father's shop was

in Three Colt Street. I informed her that my name was Paul, and that

my father was a lawyer. I also pointed out to her that a lawyer is much

superior in social position to a shopkeeper, which she acknowledged

cheerfully. We parted at the corner of the Stainsby Road, and I let her

kiss me once. It was understood that in the Stainsby Road we might meet

again.

I left Eliza gaping after me, the front door in her hand, and ran

straight up into my own room. Robinson Crusoe, King Arthur, The Last of

the Barons, Rob Roy! I looked them all in the face and was not ashamed.

I also was a gentleman.

My mother was much troubled when she saw me, but my father, hearing the

story, approved.

“But he looks so awful,” said my mother. “In this world,” said my

father, “one must occasionally be aggressive--if necessary, brutal.”

My father would at times be quite savage in his sentiments.

CHAPTER IV.

PAUL, FALLING IN WITH A GOODLY COMPANY OF PILGRIMS, LEARNS OF THEM THE

ROAD THAT HE MUST TRAVEL. AND MEETS THE PRINCESS OF THE GOLDEN LOCKS.

The East India Dock Road is nowadays a busy, crowded thoroughfare. The

jingle of the tram-bell and the rattle of the omnibus and cart mingle

continuously with the rain of many feet, beating ceaselessly upon its

pavements. But at the time of which I write it was an empty, voiceless

way, bounded on the one side by the long, echoing wall of the docks and

on the other by occasional small houses isolated amid market gardens,

drying grounds and rubbish heaps. Only one thing remains--or did remain

last time I passed along it, connecting it with its former self--and

that is the one-storeyed brick cottage at the commencement of the

bridge, and which was formerly the toll-house. I remember this

toll-house so well because it was there that my childhood fell from me,

and sad and frightened I saw the world beyond.

I cannot explain it better. I had been that afternoon to Plaistow on a

visit to the family dentist. It was an out-of-the-way place in which to

keep him, but there existed advantages of a counterbalancing nature.

“Have the half-crown in your hand,” my mother would direct me, while

making herself sure that the purse containing it was safe at the bottom

of my knickerbocker pocket; “but of course if he won't take it, why, you

must bring it home again.”

I am not sure, but I think he was some distant connection of ours; at

all events, I know he was a kind friend. I, seated in the velvet chair

of state, he would unroll his case of instruments before me, and ask me

to choose, recommending with affectionate eulogisms the most murderous

looking.

But on my opening my mouth to discuss the fearful topic, lo! a pair

would shoot from under his coat-sleeve, and almost before I knew what

had happened, the trouble would be over. After that we would have

tea together. He was an old bachelor, and his house stood in a great

garden--for Plaistow in those days was a picturesque village--and out of

the plentiful fruit thereof his housekeeper made the most wonderful

of jams and jellies. Oh, they were good, those teas! Generally our

conversation was of my mother who, it appeared, was once a little girl:

not at all the sort of little girl I should have imagined her; on the

contrary, a prankish, wilful little girl, though good company, I should

say, if all the tales he told of her were true. And I am inclined to

think they were, in spite of the fact that my mother, when I repeated

them to her, would laugh, saying she was sure she had no recollection of

anything of the kind, adding severely that it was a pity he and I could

not find something better to gossip about. Yet her next question would

be:

“And what else did he say, if you please?” explaining impatiently when

my answer was not of the kind expected: “No, no, I mean about me.”

The tea things cleared away, he would bring out his great microscope.

To me it was a peep-hole into a fairy world where dwelt strange dragons,

mighty monsters, so that I came to regard him as a sort of harmless

magician. It was his pet study, and looking back, I cannot help

associating his enthusiasm for all things microscopical with the fact

that he was an exceptionally little man himself, but one of the biggest

hearted that ever breathed.

On leaving I would formally hand him my half-crown, “with mamma's

compliments,” and he would formally accept it. But on putting my hand

into my jacket pocket when outside the gate I would invariably find

it there. The first time I took it back to him, but unblushingly he

repudiated all knowledge.

“Must be another half-crown,” he suggested; “such things do happen.

One puts change into a pocket and overlooks it. Slippery things,

half-crowns.”

Returning home on this particular day of days, I paused upon the bridge,

and watched for awhile the lazy barges manoeuvring their way between the

piers. It was one of those hushed summer evenings when the air even of

grim cities is full of whispering voices; and as, turning away from the

river, I passed through the white toll-gate, I had a sense of leaving

myself behind me on the bridge. So vivid was the impression, that I

looked back, half expecting to see myself still leaning over the iron

parapet, looking down into the sunlit water.

It sounds foolish, but I leave it standing, wondering if to others a

like experience has ever come. The little chap never came back to me.

He passed away from me as a man's body may possibly pass away from him,

leaving him only remembrance and regret. For a time I tried to play his

games, to dream his dreams, but the substance was wanting. I was only a

thin ghost, making believe.

It troubled me for quite a spell of time, even to the point of tears,

this feeling that my childhood lay behind me, this sudden realisation

that I was travelling swiftly the strange road called growing up. I did

not want to grow up; could nothing be done to stop it? Rather would I

be always as I had been, playing, dreaming. The dark way frightened me.

Must I go forward?

Then gradually, but very slowly, with the long months and years, came

to me the consciousness of a new being, new pulsations, sensories,

throbbings, rooted in but differing widely from the old; and little

Paul, the Paul of whom I have hitherto spoken, faded from my life.

So likewise must I let him fade with sorrow from this book. But before

I part with him entirely, let me recall what else I can remember of him.

Thus we shall be quit of him, and he will interfere with us no more.

Chief among the pictures that I see is that of my aunt Fan, crouching

over the kitchen fire; her skirt and crinoline rolled up round her

waist, leaving as sacrifice to custom only her petticoat. Up and down

her body sways in rhythmic motion, her hands stroking affectionately

her own knees; the while I, with paper knife for sword, or horse of

broomstick, stand opposite her, flourishing and declaiming. Sometimes I

am a knight and she a wicked ogre. She is slain, growling and swearing,

and at once becomes the beautiful princess that I secure and bear away

with me upon the prancing broomstick. So long as the princess is merely

holding sweet converse with me from her high-barred window, the scene

is realistic, at least, to sufficiency; but the bearing away has to be

make-believe; for my aunt cannot be persuaded to leave her chair before

the fire, and the everlasting rubbing of her knees.

At other times, with the assistance of the meat chopper, I am an Indian

brave, and then she is Laughing Water or Singing Sunshine, and we go out

scalping together; or in less bloodthirsty moods I am the Fairy Prince

and she the Sleeping Beauty. But in such parts she is not at her best.

Better, when seated in the centre of the up-turned table, I am Captain

Cook, and she the Cannibal Chief.

“I shall skin him and hang him in the larder till Sunday week,” says my

aunt, smacking her lips, “then he'll be just in right condition; not too

tough and not too high.” She was always strong in detail, was my aunt

Fan.

I do not wish to deprive my aunt of any credit due to her, but the more

I exercise my memory for evidence, the more I am convinced that her

compliance on these occasions was not conceived entirely in the spirit

of self-sacrifice. Often would she suggest the game and even the theme;

in such case, casting herself invariably for what, in old theatrical

parlance, would have been termed the heavy lead, the dragons and the

wicked uncles, the fussy necromancers and the uninvited fairies. As

authoress of a new cookery book for use in giant-land, my aunt, I am

sure, would have been successful. Most recipes that one reads are so

monotonously meagre: “Boil him,” “Put her on the spit and roast her for

supper,” “Cook 'em in a pie--with plenty of gravy;” but my aunt into the

domestic economy of Ogredom introduced variety and daintiness.

“I think, my dear,” my aunt would direct, “we'll have him stuffed with

chestnuts and served on toast. And don't forget the giblets. They make

such excellent sauce.”

With regard to the diet of imprisoned maidens she would advise:

“Not too much fish--it spoils the flesh for roasting.”

The things that she would turn people into--king's sons, rightful

princesses, such sort of people--people who after a time, one would

think, must have quite forgotten what they started as. To let her

have her way was a lesson to me in natural history both present and

pre-historic. The most beautiful damsel that ever lived she would

without a moment's hesitation turn into a Glyptodon or a Hippocrepian.

Afterwards, when I could guess at the spelling, I would look these

creatures up in the illustrated dictionary, and feel that under no

circumstances could I have loved the lady ever again. Warriors and kings

she would delight in transforming into plaice or prawns, and haughty

queens into Brussels sprouts.

With gusto would she plan a complicated slaughter, paying heed to every

detail: the sharpening of the knives, the having ready of mops and pails

of water for purposes of after cleaning up. As a writer she would have

followed the realistic school.

Her death, with which we invariably wound up the afternoon, was another

conscientious effort. Indeed, her groans and writhings would sometimes

frighten me. I always welcomed the last gurgle. That finished, but not a

moment before, my aunt would let down her skirt--in this way suggesting

the fall of the curtain upon our play--and set to work to get the tea.

Another frequently recurring picture that I see is of myself in

glazed-peaked cap explaining many things the while we walk through dingy

streets to yet a smaller figure curly haired and open eyed. Still every

now and then she runs ahead to turn and look admiringly into my face as

on the day she first became captive to the praise and fame of me.

I was glad of her company for more reasons than she knew of. For one,

she protected me against my baser self. With her beside me I should

not have dared to flee from sudden foes. Indeed, together we courted

adventure; for once you get used to it this standing hazard of attack

adds a charm to outdoor exercise that older folk in districts better

policed enjoy not. So possibly my dog feels when together we take the

air. To me it is a simple walk, maybe a little tiresome, suggested

rather by contemplation of my waistband than by desire for walking for

mere walking's sake; to him an expedition full of danger and surprises:

“The gentleman asleep with one eye open on The Chequer's doorstep!

will he greet me with a friendly sniff or try to bite my head off? This

cross-eyed, lop-eared loafer, lurching against the lamp-post! shall we

pass with a careless wag and a 'how-do,' or become locked in a life and

death struggle? Impossible to say. This coming corner, now, 'Ware! Is

anybody waiting round there to kill me, or not?”

But the trusting face beside me nerved me. As reward in lonely places I

would let her hold my hand.

A second advantage I derived from her company was that of being less

trampled on, less walked over, less swept aside into doorway or gutter

than when alone. A pretty, winsome face had this little maid, if Memory

plays me not kindly false; but also she had a vocabulary; and when the

blind idiot, male or female, instead of passing us by walking round us,

would, after the custom of the blind idiot, seek to gain the other side

of us by walking through us, she would use it.

“Now, then, where yer coming to, old glass-eye? We ain't sperrits. Can't

yer see us?”

And if they attempted reply, her child's treble, so strangely at

variance with her dainty appearance, would only rise more shrill.

“Garn! They'd run out of 'eads when they was making you. That's only a

turnip wot you've got stuck on top of yer!” I offer but specimens.

Nor was it of the slightest use attempting personal chastisement, as

sometimes an irate lady or gentleman would be foolish enough to do. As

well might an hippopotamus attempt to reprove a terrier. The only result

was to provide comedy for the entire street.

On these occasions our positions were reversed, I being the admiring

spectator of her prowess. Yet to me she was ever meek, almost

irritatingly submissive. She found out where I lived and would often

come and wait for me for hours, her little face pressed tight against

the iron railings, until either I came out or shook my head at her from

my bedroom window, when she would run off, the dying away into silence

of her pattering feet leaving me a little sad.

I think I cared for her in a way, yet she never entered into my

day-dreams, which means that she existed for me only in the outer world

of shadows that lay round about me and was not of my real life.

Also, I think she was unwise, introducing me to the shop, for children

and dogs--one seems unconsciously to bracket them in one's thoughts--are

snobbish little wretches. If only her father had been a dealer in

firewood I could have soothed myself by imagining mistakes. It was

a common occurrence, as I well knew, for children of quite the

best families to be brought up by wood choppers. Fairies, the best

intentioned in the world, but born muddlers, were generally responsible

for these mishaps, which, however, always became righted in time for the

wedding. Or even had he been a pork butcher, and there were many in the

neighbourhood, I could have thought of him as a swineherd, and so found

precedent for hope.

But a fishmonger--from six in the evening a fried fishmonger! I searched

history in vain. Fried fishmongers were without the pale.

So gradually our meetings became less frequent, though I knew that

every afternoon she waited in the quiet Stainsby Road, where dwelt in

semi-detached, six-roomed villas the aristocracy of Poplar, and that

after awhile, for arriving late at times I have been witness to the

sad fact, tears would trace pathetic patterns upon her dust-besprinkled

cheeks; and with the advent of the world-illuminating Barbara, to which

event I am drawing near, they ceased altogether.

So began and ended my first romance. One of these days--some quiet

summer's afternoon, when even the air of Pigott Street vibrates with

tenderness beneath the whispered sighs of Memory, I shall walk into the

little grocer's shop and boldly ask to see her. So far have I already

gone as to trace her, and often have I tried to catch sight of her

through the glass door, but hitherto in vain. I know she is the more

or less troubled mother of a numerous progeny. I am told she has grown

stout, and probable enough it is that her tongue has gained rather than

lost in sharpness. Yet under all the unrealities the clumsy-handed world

has built about her, I shall see, I know, the lithesome little maid with

fond, admiring eyes. What help they were to me I never knew till I had

lost them. How hard to gain such eyes I have learned since. Were we to

write the truth in our confession books, should we not admit the quality

we most admire in others is admiration of ourselves? And is it not a

wise selection? If you would have me admirable, my friend, admire me,

and speak your commendation without stint that in the sunshine of your

praises I may wax. For indifference maketh an indifferent man, and

contempt a contemptible man. Come, is it not true? Does not all that is

worthy in us grow best by honour?

Chief among the remaining figures on my childhood's stage were the many

servants of our house, the “generals,” as they were termed. So rapid,

as a rule, was their transit through our kitchen that only one or two,

conspicuous by reason of their lingering, remain upon my view. It was a

neighbourhood in which domestic servants were not much required. Those

intending to take up the calling seriously went westward. The local

ranks were recruited mainly from the discontented or the disappointed,

from those who, unappreciated at home, hoped from the stranger more

discernment; or from the love-lorn, the jilted and the jealous, who took

the cap and apron as in an earlier age their like would have taken the

veil. Maybe, to the comparative seclusion of our basement, as contrasted

with the alternative frivolity of shop or factory, they felt in such

mood more attuned. With the advent of the new or the recovery of the old

young man they would plunge again into the vain world, leaving my poor

mother to search afresh amid the legions of the cursed.

With these I made such comradeship as I could, for I had no child

friends. Kind creatures were most of them, at least so I found them.

They were poor at “making believe,” but would always squeeze ten minutes

from their work to romp with me, and that, perhaps, was healthier for

me. What, perhaps, was not so good for me was that, staggered at

the amount of “book-learning” implied by my conversation (for the

journalistic instinct, I am inclined to think, was early displayed in

me), they would listen open-mouthed to all my information, regarding me

as a precocious oracle. Sometimes they would obtain permission to take

me home with them to tea, generously eager that their friends should

also profit by me. Then, encouraged by admiring, grinning faces, I would

“hold forth,” keenly enjoying the sound of my own proud piping.

“As good as a book, ain't he?” was the tribute most often paid to me.

“As good as a play,” one enthusiastic listener, an old greengrocer, went

so far as to say.

Already I regarded myself as among the Immortals.

One girl, a dear, wholesome creature named Janet, stayed with us for

months and might have stayed years, but for her addiction to strong

language. The only and well-beloved child of the captain of the

barge “Nancy Jane,” trading between Purfleet and Ponder's End, her

conversation was at once my terror and delight.

“Janet,” my mother would exclaim in agony, her hands going up

instinctively to guard her ears, “how can you use such words?”

“What words, mum?”

“The things you have just called the gas man.”

“Him! Well, did you see what he did, mum? Walked straight into my clean

kitchen, without even wiping his boots, the--” And before my mother

could stop her, Janet had relieved her feelings by calling him it--or

rather them--again, without any idea that she had done aught else than

express in fitting phraseology a natural human emotion.

We were good friends, Janet and I, and therefore it was that I

personally undertook her reformation. It was not an occasion for mincing

one's words. The stake at issue was, I felt, too important. I told

her bluntly that if she persisted in using such language she would

inevitably go to hell.

“Then where's my father going?” demanded Janet.

“Does he use language?”

I gathered from Janet that no one who had enjoyed the privilege of

hearing her father could ever again take interest in the feeble efforts

of herself.

“I am afraid, Janet,” I explained, “that if he doesn't give it up--”

“But it's the only way he can talk,” interrupted Janet. “He don't mean

anything by it.”

I sighed, yet set my face against weakness. “You see, Janet, people who

swear do go there.”

But Janet would not believe.

“God send my dear, kind father to hell just because he can't talk like

the gentlefolks! Don't you believe it of Him, Master Paul. He's got more

sense.”

I hope I pain no one by quoting Janet's common sense. For that I should

be sorry. I remember her words because so often, when sinking in sloughs

of childish despond, they afforded me firm foothold. More often than

I can tell, when compelled to listen to the sententious voice of

immeasurable Folly glibly explaining the eternal mysteries, has it

comforted me to whisper to myself: “I don't believe it of Him. He's got

more sense.”

And about that period I had need of all the comfort I could get. As

we descend the road of life, the journey, demanding so much of our

attention, becomes of more importance than the journey's end; but to the

child, standing at the valley's gate, the terminating hills are

clearly visible. What lies beyond them is his constant wonder. I never

questioned my parents directly on the subject, shrinking as so strangely

we all do, both young and old, from discussion of the very matters

of most moment to us; and they, on their part, not guessing my need,

contented themselves with the vague generalities with which we seek

to hide even from ourselves the poverty of our beliefs. But there were

foolish voices about me less reticent; while the literature, illustrated

and otherwise, provided in those days for serious-minded youth, answered

all questionings with blunt brutality. If you did wrong you burnt in a

fiery furnace for ever and ever. Were your imagination weak you could

turn to the accompanying illustration, and see at a glance how you

yourself would writhe and shrink and scream, while cheerful devils, well

organised, were busy stoking. I had been burnt once, rather badly, in

consequence of live coals, in course of transit on a shovel, being let

fall upon me. I imagined these burning coals, not confined to a mere

part of my body, but pressing upon me everywhere, not snatched swiftly

off by loving hands, the pain assuaged by applications of soft soap and

the blue bag, but left there, eating into my flesh and veins. And this

continued for eternity. You suffered for an hour, a day, a thousand

years, and were no nearer to the end; ten thousand, a million years, and

yet, as at the very first, it was for ever, and for ever still it would

always be for ever! I suffered also from insomnia about this period.

“Then be good,” replied the foolish voices round me; “never do wrong,

and so avoid this endless agony.”

But it was so easy to do wrong. There were so many wrong things to do,

and the doing of them was so natural.

“Then repent,” said the voices, always ready.

But how did one repent? What was repentance? Did I “hate my sin,” as I

was instructed I must, or merely hate the idea of going to hell for

it? Because the latter, even my child's sense told me, was no true

repentance. Yet how could one know the difference?

Above all else there haunted me the fear of the “Unforgivable Sin.” What

this was I was never able to discover. I dreaded to enquire too closely,

lest I should find I had committed it. Day and night the terror of it

clung to me.

“Believe,” said the voices; “so only shall you be saved.” How believe?

How know you did believe? Hours would I kneel in the dark, repeating in

a whispered scream:

“I believe, I believe. Oh, I do believe!” and then rise with white

knuckles, wondering if I really did believe.

Another question rose to trouble me. In the course of my meanderings I

had made the acquaintance of an old sailor, one of the most disreputable

specimens possible to find; and had learned to love him. Our first

meeting had been outside a confectioner's window, in the Commercial

Road, where he had discovered me standing, my nose against the glass, a

mere palpitating Appetite on legs. He had seized me by the collar, and

hauled me into the shop. There, dropping me upon a stool, he bade me

eat. Pride of race prompted me politely to decline, but his language

became so awful that in fear and trembling I obeyed. So soon as I was

finished--it cost him two and fourpence, I remember--we walked down to

the docks together, and he told me stories of the sea and land that made

my blood run cold. Altogether, in the course of three weeks or a month,

we met about half a dozen times, when much the same programme was gone

through. I think I was a fairly frank child, but I said nothing about

him at home, feeling instinctively that if I did there would be an end

of our comradeship, which was dear to me: not merely by reason of

the pastry, though I admit that was a consideration, but also for his

wondrous tales. I believed them all implicitly, and so came to regard

him as one of the most interesting criminals as yet unhanged: and what

was sad about the case, as I felt myself, was that his recital of his

many iniquities, instead of repelling, attracted me to him. If ever

there existed a sinner, here was one. He chewed tobacco--one of the

hundred or so deadly sins, according to my theological library--and was

generally more or less drunk. Not that a stranger would have

noticed this; the only difference being that when sober he appeared

constrained--was less his natural, genial self. In a burst of confidence

he once admitted to me that he was the biggest blackguard in the

merchant service. Unacquainted with the merchant service, as at the time

I was, I saw no reason to doubt him.

One night in a state of intoxication he walked over a gangway and was

drowned. Our mutual friend, the confectioner, seeing me pass the window,

came out to tell me so; and having heard, I walked on, heavy of heart,

and pondering.

About his eternal destination there could be no question. The known

facts precluded the least ray of hope. How could I be happy in heaven,

supposing I eventually did succeed in slipping in, knowing that he, the

lovable old scamp, was burning for ever in hell?

How could Janet, taking it that she reformed and thus escaped damnation,

be contented, knowing the father she loved doomed to torment? The

heavenly hosts, so I argued, could be composed only of the callous and

indifferent.

I wondered how people could go about their business, eat, drink and

be merry, with tremendous fate hanging thus ever suspended over their

heads. When for a little space I myself forgot it, always it fell back

upon me with increased weight.

Nor was the contemplation of heaven itself particularly attractive to

me, for it was a foolish paradise these foolish voices had fashioned out

of their folly. You stood about and sang hymns--for ever! I was assured

that my fear of finding the programme monotonous was due only to my

state of original sin, that when I got there I should discover I liked

it. But I would have given much for the hope of avoiding both their

heaven and their hell.

Fortunately for my sanity I was not left long to brood unoccupied upon

such themes. Our worldly affairs, under the sunshine of old Hasluck's

round red face, prospered--for awhile; and one afternoon my father, who

had been away from home since breakfast time, calling me into his office

where also sat my mother, informed me that the long-talked-of school was

become at last a concrete thing.

“The term commences next week,” explained my father. “It is not exactly

what I had intended, but it will do--for the present. Later, of course,

you will go to one of the big public schools; your mother and I have not

yet quite decided which.”

“You will meet other boys there, good and bad,” said my mother, who

sat clasping and unclasping her hands. “Be very careful, dear, how you

choose your companions.”

“You will learn to take your own part,” said my father. “School is an

epitome of the world. One must assert oneself, or one is sat upon.”

I knew not what to reply, the vista thus opened out to me was so

unexpected. My blood rejoiced, but my heart sank.

“Take one of your long walks,” said my father, smiling, “and think it

over.”

“And if you are in any doubt, you know where to go for guidance, don't

you?” whispered my mother, who was very grave.

Yet I went to bed, dreaming of quite other things that night: of

Queens of Beauty bending down to crown my brows with laurel: of wronged

Princesses for whose cause I rode to death or victory. For on my

return home, being called into the drawing-room by my father, I stood

transfixed, my cap in hand, staring with all my eyes at the vision that

I saw.

No such wonder had I ever seen before, at all events, not to my

remembrance. The maidens that one meets in Poplar streets may be fair

enough in their way, but their millinery displays them not to advantage;

and the few lady visitors that came to us were of a staid and matronly

appearance. Only out of pictures hitherto had such witchery looked upon

me; and from these the spell faded as one gazed.

I heard old Hasluck's smoky voice saying, “My little gell, Barbara,” and

I went nearer to her, moving unconsciously.

“You can kiss 'er,” said the smoky voice again; “she won't bite.” But I

did not kiss her. Nor ever felt I wanted to, upon the mouth.

I suppose she must have been about fourteen, and I a little over ten,

though tall for my age. Later I came to know she had that rare gold

hair that holds the light, so that upon her face, which seemed of dainty

porcelain, there ever fell a softened radiance as from some shining

aureole; those blue eyes where dwell mysteries, shadow veiled. At the

time I knew nothing, but that it seemed to me as though the fairy-tales

had all come true.

She smiled, understanding and well pleased with my confusion. Child

though I was--little more than child though she was, it flattered her

vanity.

Fair and sweet, you had but that one fault. Would it had been another,

less cruel to you yourself.

CHAPTER V.

IN WHICH THERE COMES BY ONE BENT UPON PURSUING HIS OWN WAY.

“Correct” is, I think, the adjective by which I can best describe

Doctor Florret and all his attributes. He was a large man, but not

too large--just the size one would select for the head-master of an

important middle-class school; stout, not fat, suggesting comfort, not

grossness. His hands were white and well shaped. On the left he wore

a fine diamond ring, but it shone rather than sparkled. He spoke of

commonplace things in a voice that lent dignity even to the weather. His

face, which was clean-shaven, radiated benignity tempered by discretion.

So likewise all about him: his wife, the feminine counterpart of

himself. Seeing them side by side one felt tempted to believe that

for his special benefit original methods had been reverted to, and she

fashioned, as his particular helpmeet, out of one of his own ribs.

His furniture was solid, meant for use, not decoration. His pictures,

following the rule laid down for dress, graced without drawing attention

to his walls. He ever said the correct thing at the correct time in the

correct manner. Doubtful of the correct thing to do, one could always

learn it by waiting till he did it; when one at once felt that nothing

else could possibly have been correct. He held on all matters

the correct views. To differ from him was to discover oneself a

revolutionary.

In practice, as I learned at the cost of four more or less wasted

years, he of course followed the methods considered correct by English

schoolmen from the days of Edward VI. onwards.

Heaven knows I worked hard. I wanted to learn. Ambition--the all

containing ambition of a boy that “has its centre everywhere nor cares

to fix itself to form” stirred within me. Did I pass a speaker at some

corner, hatless, perspiring, pointing Utopias in the air to restless

hungry eyes, at once I saw myself, a Demosthenes swaying multitudes, a

statesman holding the House of Commons spellbound, the Prime Minister of

England, worshipped by the entire country. Even the Opposition papers,

had I known of them, I should have imagined forced to reluctant

admiration. Did the echo of a distant drum fall upon my ear, then before

me rose picturesque fields of carnage, one figure ever conspicuous:

Myself, well to the front, isolated. Promotion in the British army of

my dream being a matter purely of merit, I returned Commander-in-Chief.

Vast crowds thronged every flag-decked street. I saw white waving hands

from every roof and window. I heard the dull, deep roar of welcome, as

with superb seat upon my snow-white charger--or should it be coal-black?

The point cost me much consideration, so anxious was I that the day

should be without a flaw--I slowly paced at the head of my victorious

troops, between wild waves of upturned faces: walked into a lamp-post

or on to the toes of some irascible old gentleman, and awoke. A drunken

sailor stormed from between swing doors and tacked tumultuously down the

street: the factory chimney belching smoke became a swaying mast. The

costers round about me shouted “Ay, ay, sir. 'Ready, ay, ready.” I

was Christopher Columbus, Drake, Nelson, rolled into one. Spurning

the presumption of modern geographers, I discovered new continents.

I defeated the French--those useful French! I died in the moment of

victory. A nation mourned me and I was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Also I lived and was created a Duke. Either alternative had its charm:

personally I was indifferent. Boys who on November the ninth, as

explained by letters from their mothers, read by Doctor Florret with a

snort, were suffering from a severe toothache, told me on November

the tenth of the glories of Lord Mayor's Shows. I heard their chatter

fainter and fainter as from an ever-increasing distance. The bells of

Bow were ringing in my ears. I saw myself a merchant prince, though

still young. Nobles crowded my counting house. I lent them millions

and married their daughters. I listened, unobserved in a corner, to

discussion on some new book. Immediately I was a famous author. All men

praised me: for of reviewers and their density I, in those days, knew

nothing. Poetry, fiction, history, I wrote them all; and all men read,

and wondered. Only here was a crumpled rose leaf in the pillow on which

I laid my swelling head: penmanship was vexation to me, and spelling

puzzled me, so that I wrote with sorrow and many blots and scratchings

out. Almost I put aside the idea of becoming an author.

But along whichever road I might fight my way to the Elysian Fields

of fame, education, I dimly but most certainly comprehended, was a

necessary weapon to my hand. And so, with aching heart and aching head,

I pored over my many books. I see myself now in my small bedroom, my

elbows planted on the shaky, one-legged table, startled every now and

again by the frizzling of my hair coming in contact with the solitary

candle. On cold nights I wear my overcoat, turned up about the neck, a

blanket round my legs, and often I must sit with my fingers in my ears,

the better to shut out the sounds of life, rising importunately from

below. “A song, Of a song, To a song, A song, O! song!” “I love, Thou

lovest, He she or it loves. I should or would love” over and over again,

till my own voice seems some strange buzzing thing about me, while

my head grows smaller and smaller till I put my hands up frightened,

wondering if it still be entire upon my shoulders.

Was I more stupid than the average, or is a boy's brain physically

incapable of the work our educational system demands of it?

“Latin and Greek” I hear repeating the suave tones of Doctor Florret,

echoing as ever the solemn croak of Correctness, “are useful as mental

gymnastics.” My dear Doctor Florret and Co., cannot you, out of the vast

storehouse of really necessary knowledge, select apparatus better fitted

to strengthen and not overstrain the mental muscles of ten-to-fourteen?

You, gentle reader, with brain fully grown, trained by years of practice

to its subtlest uses, take me from your bookshelf, say, your Browning or

even your Shakespeare. Come, you know this language well. You have not

merely learned: it is your mother tongue. Construe for me this short

passage, these few verses: parse, analyse, resolve into component parts!

And now, will you maintain that it is good for Tommy, tear-stained,

ink-bespattered little brat, to be given AEsop's Fables, Ovid's

Metamorphoses to treat in like manner? Would it not be just as sensible

to insist upon his practising his skinny little arms with hundred pounds

dumb-bells?

We were the sons of City men, of not well-to-do professional men, of

minor officials, clerks, shopkeepers, our roads leading through the

workaday world. Yet quite half our time was taken up in studies utterly

useless to us. How I hated them, these youth-tormenting Shades. Homer!

how I wished the fishermen had asked him that absurd riddle earlier.

Horace! why could not that shipwreck have succeeded: it would have in

the case of any one but a classic.

Until one blessed day there fell into my hands a wondrous talisman.

Hearken unto me, ye heavy burdened little brethren of mine. Waste not

your substance upon tops and marbles, nor yet upon tuck (Do ye still

call it “tuck”?), but scrape and save. For in the neighbourhood of

Paternoster Row there dwells a good magician who for silver will provide

you with a “Key” that shall open wide for you the gates of Hades.

By its aid, the Frogs of Aristophanes became my merry friends. With

Ulysses I wandered eagerly through Wonderland. Doctor Florret was

charmed with my progress, which was real, for now, at last, I was

studying according to the laws of common sense, understanding first,

explaining afterwards. Let Youth, that the folly of Age would imprison

in ignorance, provide itself with “Keys.”

But let me not seem to claim credit due to another. Dan it was--Dan of

the strong arm and the soft smile, Dan the wise hater of all useless

labour, sharp-witted, easy-going Dan, who made this grand discovery.

Dan followed me a term later into the Lower Fourth, but before he had

been there a week was handling Latin verse with an ease and dexterity

suggestive of unholy dealings with the Devil. In a lonely corner of

Regent's Park, first making sure no one was within earshot, he revealed

to me his magic.

“Don't tell the others,” he commanded; “or it will get out, and then

nobody will be any the better.”

“But is it right?” I asked.

“Look here, young 'un,” said Dan; “what are you here for--what's

your father paying school fees for (it was the appeal to our

conscientiousness most often employed by Dr. Florret himself), for you

to play a silly game, or to learn something?

“Because if it's only a game--we boys against the masters,” continued

Dan, “then let's play according to rule. If we're here to learn--well,

you've been in the class four months and I've just come, and I bet I

know more Ovid than you do already.” Which was true.

So I thanked Dan and shared with him his key; and all the Latin I

remember, for whatever good it may be to me, I take it I owe to him.

And knowledge of yet greater value do I owe to the good fortune that

his sound mother wit was ever at my disposal to correct my dreamy

unfeasibility; for from first to last he was my friend; and to have

been the chosen friend of Dan, shrewd judge of man and boy, I deem no

unimportant feather in my cap. He “took to” me, he said, because I was

so “jolly green”--“such a rummy little mug.” No other reason would he

ever give me, save only a sweet smile and a tumbling of my hair with his

great hand; but I think I understood. And I loved him because he was

big and strong and handsome and kind; no one but a little boy knows

how brutal or how kind a big boy can be. I was still somewhat of an

effeminate little chap, nervous and shy, with a pink and white face, and

hair that no amount of wetting would make straight. I was growing too

fast, which took what strength I had, and my journey every day, added

to school work and home work, maybe was too much for my years. Every

morning I had to be up at six, leaving the house before seven to catch

the seven fifteen from Poplar station; and from Chalk Farm I had to walk

yet another couple of miles. But that I did not mind, for at Chalk Farm

station Dan was always waiting for me. In the afternoon we walked back

together also; and when I was tired and my back ached--just as if some

one had cut a piece out of it, I felt--he would put his arm round

me, for he always knew, and oh, how strong and restful it was to lean

against, so that one walked as in an easy-chair.

It seems to me, remembering how I would walk thus by his side, looking

up shyly into his face, thinking how strong and good he was, feeling so

glad he liked me, I can understand a little how a woman loves. He was so

solid. With his arm round me, it was good to feel weak.

At first we were in the same class, the Lower Third. He had no business

there. He was head and shoulders taller than any of us and years older.

It was a disgrace to him that he was not in the Upper Fourth. The Doctor

would tell him so before us all twenty times a week. Old Waterhouse

(I call him “Old Waterhouse” because “Mister Waterhouse, M.A.,”

would convey no meaning to me, and I should not know about whom I

was speaking) who cordially liked him, was honestly grieved. We, his

friends, though it was pleasant to have him among us, suffered in our

pride of him. The only person quite contented was Dan himself. It was

his way in all things. Others had their opinion of what was good

for him. He had his own, and his own was the only opinion that ever

influenced him. The Lower Third suited him. For him personally the Upper

Fourth had no attraction.

And even in the Lower Third he was always at the bottom. He preferred

it. He selected the seat and kept it, in spite of all allurements, in

spite of all reproaches. It was nearest to the door. It enabled him

to be first out and last in. Also it afforded a certain sense of

retirement. Its occupant, to an extent screened from observation,

became in the course of time almost forgotten. To Dan's philosophical

temperament its practical advantages outweighed all sentimental

objection.

Only on one occasion do I remember his losing it. As a rule, tiresome

questions, concerning past participles, square roots, or meridians never

reached him, being snapped up in transit by arm-waving lovers of such

trifles. The few that by chance trickled so far he took no notice of.

They possessed no interest for him, and he never pretended that they

did. But one day, taken off his guard, he gave voice quite unconsciously

to a correct reply, with the immediate result of finding himself in an

exposed position on the front bench. I had never seen Dan out of

temper before, but that moment had any of us ventured upon a whispered

congratulation we would have had our head punched, I feel confident.

Old Waterhouse thought that here at last was reformation. “Come, Brian,”

he cried, rubbing his long thin hands together with delight, “after all,

you're not such a fool as you pretend.”

“Never said I was,” muttered Dan to himself, with a backward glance of

regret towards his lost seclusion; and before the day was out he had

worked his way back to it again.

As we were going out together, old Waterhouse passed us on the stairs:

“Haven't you any sense of shame, my boy?” he asked sorrowfully, laying

his hand kindly on Dan's shoulder.

“Yes, sir,” answered Dan, with his frank smile; “plenty. It isn't yours,

that's all.”

He was an excellent fighter. In the whole school of over two hundred

boys, not half a dozen, and those only Upper Sixth boys--fellows who

came in top hats with umbrellas, and who wouldn't out of regard to their

own dignity--could have challenged him with any chance of success. Yet

he fought very seldom, and then always in a bored, lazy fashion, as

though he were doing it purely to oblige the other fellow.

One afternoon, just as we were about to enter Regent's Park by the

wicket opposite Hanover Gate, a biggish boy, an errand boy carrying an

empty basket, and supported by two smaller boys, barred our way.

“Can't come in here,” said the boy with the basket.

“Why not?” inquired Dan.

“'Cos if you do I shall kick you,” was the simple explanation.

Without a word Dan turned away, prepared to walk on to the next opening.

The boy with the basket, evidently encouraged, followed us: “Now, I'm

going to give you your coward's blow,” he said, stepping in front of us;

“will you take it quietly?” It is a lonely way, the Outer Circle, on a

winter's afternoon.

“I'll tell you afterwards,” said Dan, stopping short.

The boy gave him a slight slap on the cheek. It could not have hurt, but

the indignity, of course, was great. No boy of honour, according to our

code, could have accepted it without retaliating.

“Is that all?” asked Dan.

“That's all--for the present,” replied the boy with the basket.

“Good-bye,” said Dan, and walked on.

“Glad he didn't insist on fighting,” remarked Dan, cheerfully, as we

proceeded; “I'm going to a party tonight.”

Yet on another occasion, in a street off Lisson Grove, he insisted

on fighting a young rough half again his own weight, who, brushing up

against him, had knocked his hat off into the mud.

“I wouldn't have said anything about his knocking it off,” explained

Dan afterwards, tenderly brushing the poor bruised thing with his coat

sleeve, “if he hadn't kicked it.”

On another occasion I remember, three or four of us, Dan among the

number, were on our way one broiling summer's afternoon to Hadley Woods.

As we turned off from the highroad just beyond Barnet and struck into

the fields, Dan drew from his pocket an enormous juicy-looking pear.

“Where did you get that from?” inquired one, Dudley.

“From that big greengrocer's opposite Barnet Church,” answered Dan.

“Have a bit?”

“You told me you hadn't any more money,” retorted Dudley, in reproachful

tones.

“No more I had,” replied Dan, holding out a tempting slice at the end of

his pocket-knife.

“You must have had some, or you couldn't have bought that pear,” argued

Dudley, accepting.

“Didn't buy it.”

“Do you mean to say you stole it?”

“Yes.”

“You're a thief,” denounced Dudley, wiping his mouth and throwing away a

pip.

“I know it. So are you.”

“No, I'm not.”

“What's the good of talking nonsense. You robbed an orchard only last

Wednesday at Mill Hill, and gave yourself the stomach-ache.”

“That isn't stealing.”

“What is it?”

“It isn't the same thing.”

“What's the difference?”

And nothing could make Dan comprehend the difference. “Stealing is

stealing,” he would have it, “whether you take it off a tree or out of a

basket. You're a thief, Dudley; so am I. Anybody else say a piece?”

The thermometer was at that point where morals become slack. We all had

a piece; but we were all of us shocked at Dan, and told him so. It did

not agitate him in the least.

To Dan I could speak my inmost thoughts, knowing he would understand me,

and sometimes from him I received assistance and sometimes confusion.

The yearly examination was approaching. My father and mother said

nothing, but I knew how anxiously each of them awaited the result; my

father, to see how much I had accomplished; my mother, how much I had

endeavoured. I had worked hard, but was doubtful, knowing that prizes

depend less upon what you know than upon what you can make others

believe you know; which applies to prizes beyond those of school.

“Are you going in for anything, Dan?” I asked him. We were discussing

the subject, crossing Primrose Hill, one bright June morning.

I knew the question absurd. I asked it of him because I wanted him to

ask it of me.

“They're not giving away anything I particularly want,” murmured Dan, in

his lazy drawl: looked at from that point of view, school prizes are, it

must be confessed, not worth their cost.

“You're sweating yourself, young 'un, of course?” he asked next, as I

expected.

“I mean to have a shot at the History,” I admitted. “Wish I was better

at dates.”

“It's always two-thirds dates,” Dan assured me, to my discouragement.

“Old Florret thinks you can't eat a potato until you know the date that

chap Raleigh was born.”

“I've prayed so hard that I may win the History prize,” I explained to

him. I never felt shy with Dan. He never laughed at me.

“You oughtn't to have done that,” he said. I stared. “It isn't fair to

the other fellows. That won't be your winning the prize; that will be

your getting it through favouritism.”

“But they can pray, too,” I reminded him.

“If you all pray for it,” answered Dan, “then it will go, not to the

fellow that knows most history, but to the fellow that's prayed the

hardest. That isn't old Florret's idea, I'm sure.”

“But we are told to pray for things we want,” I insisted.

“Beastly mean way of getting 'em,” retorted Dan. And no argument that

came to me, neither then nor at any future time, brought him to right

thinking on this point.

He would judge all matters for himself. In his opinion Achilles was a

coward, not a hero.

“He ought to have told the Trojans that they couldn't hurt any part of

him except his heel, and let them have a shot at that,” he argued;

“King Arthur and all the rest of them with their magic swords, it wasn't

playing the game. There's no pluck in fighting if you know you're bound

to win. Beastly cads, I call them all.”

I won no prize that year. Oddly enough, Dan did, for arithmetic; the

only subject studied in the Lower Fourth that interested him. He liked

to see things coming right, he explained.

My father shut himself up with me for half an hour and examined me

himself.

“It's very curious, Paul,” he said, “you seem to know a good deal.”

“They asked me all the things I didn't know. They seemed to do it on

purpose,” I blurted out, and laid my head upon my arm. My father crossed

the room and sat down beside me.

“Spud!” he said--it was a long time since he had called me by that

childish nickname--“perhaps you are going to be with me, one of the

unlucky ones.”

“Are you unlucky?” I asked.

“Invariably,” answered my father, rumpling his hair. “I don't know why.

I try hard--I do the right thing, but it turns out wrong. It always

does.”

“But I thought Mr. Hasluck was bringing us such good fortune,” I said,

looking up in surprise. “We're getting on, aren't we?”

“I have thought so before, so often,” said my father, “and it has always

ended in a--in a collapse.”

I put my arms round his neck, for I always felt to my father as to

another boy; bigger than myself and older, but not so very much.

“You see, when I married your mother,” he went on, “I was a rich man.

She had everything she wanted.”

“But you will get it all back,” I cried.

“I try to think so,” he answered. “I do think so--generally speaking.

But there are times--you would not understand--they come to you.”

“But she is happy,” I persisted; “we are all happy.”

He shook his head.

“I watch her,” he said. “Women suffer more than we do. They live more

in the present. I see my hopes, but she--she sees only me, and I have

always been a failure. She has lost faith in me.”

I could say nothing. I understood but dimly.

“That is why I want you to be an educated man, Paul,” he continued after

a silence. “You can't think what a help education is to a man. I don't

mean it helps you to get on in the world; I think for that it rather

hampers you. But it helps you to bear adversity. To a man with a

well-stored mind, life is interesting on a piece of bread and a cup

of tea. I know. If it were not for you and your mother I should not

trouble.”

And yet at that time our fortunes were at their brightest, so far as I

remember them; and when they were dark again he was full of fresh hope,

planning, scheming, dreaming again. It was never acting. A worse actor

never trod this stage on which we fret. His occasional attempts at a

cheerfulness he did not feel inevitably resulted in our all three crying

in one another's arms. No; it was only when things were going well

that experience came to his injury. Child of misfortune, he ever rose,

Antaeus-like, renewed in strength from contact with his mother.

Nor must it be understood that his despondent moods, even in time of

prosperity, were oft recurring. Generally speaking, as he himself said,

he was full of confidence. Already had he fixed upon our new house in

Guilford Street, then still a good residential quarter; while at the

same time, as he would explain to my mother, sufficiently central for

office purposes, close as it was to Lincoln and Grey's Inn and Bedford

Row, pavements long worn with the weary footsteps of the Law's sad

courtiers.

“Poplar,” said my father, “has disappointed me. It seemed a good idea--a

rapidly rising district, singularly destitute of solicitors. It ought to

have turned out well, and yet somehow it hasn't.”

“There have been a few come,” my mother reminded him.

“Of a sort,” admitted my father; “a criminal lawyer might gather

something of a practice here, I have no doubt. But for general work,

of course, you must be in a central position. Now, in Guilford Street

people will come to me.”

“It should certainly be a pleasanter neighbourhood to live in,” agreed

my mother.

“Later on,” said my father, “in case I want the whole house for offices,

we could live ourselves in Regent's Park. It is quite near to the Park.”

“Of course you have consulted Mr. Hasluck?” asked my mother, who of the

two was by far the more practical.

“For Hasluck,” replied my father, “it will be much more convenient. He

grumbles every time at the distance.”

“I have never been quite able to understand,” said my mother, “why Mr.

Hasluck should have come so far out of his way. There must surely be

plenty of solicitors in the City.”

“He had heard of me,” explained my father. “A curious old

fellow--likes his own way of doing things. It's not everyone who would

care for him as a client. But I seem able to manage him.”

Often we would go together, my father and I, to Guilford Street. It was

a large corner house that had taken his fancy, half creeper covered,

with a balcony, and pleasantly situated, overlooking the gardens of the

Foundling Hospital. The wizened old caretaker knew us well, and having

opened the door, would leave us to wander through the empty, echoing

rooms at our own will. We furnished them handsomely in later Queen

Anne style, of which my father was a connoisseur, sparing no necessary

expense; for, as my father observed, good furniture is always worth its

price, while to buy cheap is pure waste of money.

“This,” said my father, on the second floor, stepping from the bedroom

into the smaller room adjoining, “I shall make your mother's boudoir.

We will have the walls in lavender and maple green--she is fond of soft

tones--and the window looks out upon the gardens. There we will put her

writing-table.”

My own bedroom was on the third floor, a sunny little room.

“You will be quiet here,” said my father, “and we can shut out the bed

and the washstand with a screen.”

Later, I came to occupy it; though its rent--eight and sixpence a week,

including attendance--was somewhat more than at the time I ought to have

afforded. Nevertheless, I adventured it, taking the opportunity of being

an inmate of the house to refurnish it, unknown to my stout landlady, in

later Queen Anne style, putting a neat brass plate with my father's name

upon the door. “Luke Kelver, Solicitor. Office hours, 10 till 4.” A

medical student thought he occupied my mother's boudoir. He was a dull

dog, full of tiresome talk. But I made acquaintanceship with him; and

often of an evening would smoke my pipe there in silence while

pretending to be listening to his monotonous brag.

The poor thing! he had no idea that he was only a foolish ghost;

that his walls, seemingly covered with coarse-coloured prints

of wooden-looking horses, simpering ballet girls and petrified

prize-fighters, were in reality a delicate tone of lavender and maple

green; that at her writing-table in the sunlit window sat my mother, her

soft curls curtaining her quiet face.

CHAPTER VI.

OF THE SHADOW THAT CAME BETWEEN THE MAN IN GREY AND THE LADY OF THE

LOVE-LIT EYES.

“There's nothing missing,” said my mother, “so far as I can find out.

Depend upon it, that's the explanation: she has got frightened and has

run away.

“But what was there to frighten her?” said my father, pausing with a

decanter in one hand and the bottle in the other.

“It was the idea of the thing,” replied my mother. “She has never been

used to waiting at table. She was actually crying about it only last

night.”

“But what's to be done?” said my father. “They will be here in less than

an hour.”

“There will be no dinner for them,” said my mother, “unless I put on an

apron and bring it up myself.”

“Where does she live?” asked my father.

“At Ilford,” answered my mother.

“We must make a joke of it,” said my father.

My mother, sitting down, began to cry. It had been a trying week for my

mother. A party to dinner--to a real dinner, beginning with anchovies

and ending with ices from the confectioner's; if only they would remain

ices and not, giving way to unaccustomed influences, present themselves

as cold custard--was an extraordinary departure from the even tenor of

our narrow domestic way; indeed, I recollect none previous. First there

had been the house to clean and rearrange almost from top to bottom;

endless small purchases to be made of articles that Need never misses,

but which Ostentation, if ever you let her sneering nose inside the

door, at once demands. Then the kitchen range--it goes without saying:

one might imagine them all members of a stove union, controlled by some

agitating old boiler out of work--had taken the opportunity to strike,

refusing to bake another dish except under permanently improved

conditions, necessitating weary days with plumbers. Fat cookery books,

long neglected on their shelf, had been consulted, argued with and

abused; experiments made, failures sighed over, successes noted; cost

calculated anxiously; means and ways adjusted, hope finally achieved,

shadowed by fear.

And now with victory practically won, to have the reward thus dashed

from her hand at the last moment! Downstairs in the kitchen would be

the dinner, waiting for the guests; upstairs round the glittering table

would be the assembled guests, waiting for their dinner. But between the

two yawned an impassable gulf. The bridge, without a word of warning,

had bolted--was probably by this time well on its way to Ilford. There

was excuse for my mother's tears.

“Isn't it possible to get somebody else?” asked my father.

“Impossible, in the time,” said my mother. “I had been training her for

the whole week. We had rehearsed it perfectly.”

“Have it in the kitchen,” suggested my aunt, who was folding napkins to

look like ships, which they didn't in the least, “and call it a picnic.”

Really it seemed the only practical solution.

There came a light knock at the front door.

“It can't be anybody yet, surely,” exclaimed my father in alarm, making

for his coat.

“It's Barbara, I expect,” explained my mother. “She promised to come

round and help me dress. But now, of course, I shan't want her.” My

mother's nature was pessimistic.

But with the words Barbara ran into the room, for I had taken it upon

myself to admit her, knowing that shadows slipped out through the window

when Barbara came in at the door--in those days, I mean.

She kissed them all three, though it seemed but one movement, she was so

quick. And at once they saw the humour of the thing.

“There's going to be no dinner,” laughed my father. “We are going to

look surprised and pretend that it was yesterday. It will be fun to see

their faces.”

“There will be a very nice dinner,” smiled my mother, “but it will be

in the kitchen, and there's no way of getting it upstairs.” And they

explained to her the situation.

She stood for an instant, her sweet face the gravest in the group. Then

a light broke upon it.

“I'll get you someone,” she said.

“My dear, you don't even know the neighbourhood,” began my mother. But

Barbara had snatched the latchkey from its nail and was gone.

With her disappearance, shadow fell again upon us. “If there were only

an hotel in this beastly neighbourhood,” said my father.

“You must entertain them by yourself, Luke,” said my mother; “and I must

wait--that's all.”

“Don't be absurd, Maggie,” cried my father, getting angry. “Can't cook

bring it in?”

“No one can cook a dinner and serve it, too,” answered my mother,

impatiently. “Besides, she's not presentable.”

“What about Fan?” whispered my father.

My mother merely looked. It was sufficient.

“Paul?” suggested my father.

“Thank you,” retorted my mother. “I don't choose to have my son turned

into a footman, if you do.”

“Well, hadn't you better go and dress?” was my father's next remark.

“It won't take me long to put on an apron,” was my mother's reply.

“I was looking forward to seeing you in that new frock,” said my father.

In the case of another, one might have attributed such a speech to tact;

in the case of my father, one felt it was a happy accident.

My mother confessed--speaking with a certain indulgence, as one does of

one's own follies when past--that she herself also had looked forward to

seeing herself therein. Threatening discord melted into mutual sympathy.

“I so wanted everything to be all right, for your sake, Luke,” said my

mother; “I know you were hoping it would help on the business.”

“I was only thinking of you, Maggie, dear,” answered my father. “You are

my business.”

“I know, dear,” said my mother. “It is hard.”

The key turned in the lock, and we all stood quiet to listen.

“She's come back alone,” said my mother. “I knew it was hopeless.”

The door opened.

“Please, ma'am,” said the new parlour-maid, “will I do?”

She stood there, framed by the lintel, in the daintiest of aprons, the

daintiest of caps upon her golden hair; and every objection she swept

aside with the wind of her merry wilfulness. No one ever had their way

with her, nor wanted it.

“You shall be footman,” she ordered, turning to me--but this time my

mother only laughed. “Wait here till I come down again.” Then to my

mother: “Now, ma'am, are you ready?”

It was the first time I had seen my mother, or, indeed, any other flesh

and blood woman, in evening dress, and to tell the truth I was a little

shocked. Nay, more than a little, and showed it, I suppose; for my

mother flushed and drew her shawl over the gleaming whiteness of her

shoulders, pleading coldness. But Barbara cried out against this, saying

it was a sin such beauty should be hid; and my father, filching a shawl

with a quick hand, so dextrously indeed as to suggest some previous

practice in the feat, dropped on one knee--as though the world were some

sweet picture book--and raised my mother's hand with grave reverence to

his lips; and Barbara, standing behind my mother's chair, insisted on

my following suit, saying the Queen was receiving. So I knelt also,

glancing up shyly as towards the gracious face of some fair lady

hitherto unknown, thus Catching my first glimpse of the philosophy of

clothes.

My memory lingers upon this scene by contrast with the sad, changed

days that swiftly followed, when my mother's eyes would flash towards

my father angry gleams, and her voice ring cruel and hard; though the

moment he was gone her lips would tremble and her eyes grow soft again

and fill with tears; when my father would sit with averted face and

sullen lips tight pressed, or worse, would open them only to pour forth

a rapid flood of savage speech; and fling out of the room, slamming the

door behind him, and I would find him hours afterwards, sitting alone in

the dark, with bowed head between his hands.

Wretched, I would lie awake, hearing through the flimsy walls their

passionate tones, now rising high, now fiercely forced into cold

whispers; and then their words to each other sounded even crueller.

In their estrangement from each other, so new to them, both clung closer

to me, though they would tell me nothing, nor should I have understood

if they had. When my mother was sobbing softly, her arms clasping me

tighter and tighter with each quivering throb, then I hated my father,

who I felt had inflicted this sorrow upon her. Yet when my father drew

me down upon his knee, and I looked into his kind eyes so full of pain,

then I felt angry with my mother, remembering her bitter tongue.

It seemed to me as though some cruel, unseen thing had crept into the

house to stand ever between them, so that they might never look into

each other's loving eyes but only into the eyes of this evil shadow. The

idea grew upon me until at times I could almost detect its outline in

the air, feel a chillness as it passed me. It trod silently through the

pokey rooms, always alert to thrust its grinning face before them.

Now beside my mother it would whisper in her ear; and the next moment,

stealing across to my father, answer for him with his voice, but

strangely different. I used to think I could hear it laughing to itself

as it stepped back into enfolding space.

To this day I seem to see it, ever following with noiseless footsteps

man and woman, waiting patiently its opportunity to thrust its face

between them. So that I can read no love tale, but, glancing round, I

see its mocking eyes behind my shoulder, reading also, with a silent

laugh. So that never can I meet with boy and girl, whispering in the

twilight, but I see it lurking amid the half lights, just behind them,

creeping after them with stealthy tread, as hand in hand they pass me in

quiet ways.

Shall any of us escape, or lies the road of all through this dark

valley of the shadow of dead love? Is it Love's ordeal? testing the

feeble-hearted from the strong in faith, who shall find each other yet

again, the darkness passed?

Of the dinner itself, until time of dessert, I can give no consecutive

account, for as footman, under the orders of this enthusiastic

parlour-maid, my place was no sinecure, and but few opportunities of

observation through the crack of the door were afforded me. All that

was clear to me was that the chief guest was a Mr. Teidelmann--or

Tiedelmann, I cannot now remember which--a snuffy, mumbling old frump,

with whose name then, however, I was familiar by reason of seeing it

so often in huge letters, though with a Co. added, on dreary long blank

walls, bordering the Limehouse reach. He sat at my mother's right hand;

and I wondered, noticing him so ugly and so foolish seeming, how she

could be so interested in him, shouting much and often to him; for added

to his other disattractions he was very deaf, which necessitated his

putting his hand up to his ear at every other observation made to

him, crying querulously: “Eh, what? What are you talking about? Say it

again,”--smiling upon him and paying close attention to his every want.

Even old Hasluck, opposite to him, and who, though pleasant enough

in his careless way, was far from being a slave to politeness, roared

himself purple, praising some new disinfectant of which this same

Teidelmann appeared to be the proprietor.

“My wife swears by it,” bellowed Hasluck, leaning across the table.

“Our drains!” chimed in Mrs. Hasluck, who was a homely soul; “well,

you'd hardly know there was any in the house since I've took to using

it.”

“What are they talking about?” asked Teidelmann, appealing to my mother.

“What's he say his wife does?”

“Your disinfectant,” explained my mother; “Mrs. Hasluck swears by it.”

“Who?”

“Mrs. Hasluck.”

“Does she? Delighted to hear it,” grunted the old gentleman, evidently

bored.

“Nothing like it for a sick-room,” persisted Hasluck; “might almost call

it a scent.”

“Makes one quite anxious to be ill,” remarked my aunt, addressing no one

in particular.

“Reminds me of cocoanuts,” continued Hasluck.

Its proprietor appeared not to hear, but Hasluck was determined his

flattery should not be lost.

“I say it reminds me of cocoanuts.” He screamed it this time.

“Oh, does it?” was the reply.

“Doesn't it you?”

“Can't say it does,” answered Teidelmann. “As a matter of fact, don't

know much about it myself. Never use it.”

Old Teidelmann went on with his dinner, but Hasluck was still full of

the subject.

“Take my advice,” he shouted, “and buy a bottle.”

“Buy a what?”

“A bottle,” roared the other, with an effort palpably beyond his

strength.

“What's he say? What's he talking about now?” asked Teidelmann, again

appealing to my mother.

“He says you ought to buy a bottle,” again explained my mother.

“What of?”

“Of your own disinfectant.”

“Silly fool!”

Whether he intended the remark to be heard and thus to close the topic

(which it did), or whether, as deaf people are apt to, merely misjudged

the audibility of an intended sotto vocalism, I cannot say. I only know

that outside in the passage I heard the words distinctly, and therefore

assume they reached round the table also.

A lull in the conversation followed, but Hasluck was not thin-skinned,

and the next thing I distinguished was his cheery laugh.

“He's quite right,” was Hasluck's comment; “that's what I am

undoubtedly. Because I can't talk about anything but shop myself, I

think everybody else is the same sort of fool.”

But he was doing himself an injustice, for on my next arrival in the

passage he was again shouting across the table, and this time Teidelmann

was evidently interested.

“Well, if you could spare the time, I'd be more obliged than I can tell

you,” Hasluck was saying. “I know absolutely nothing about pictures

myself, and Pearsall says you are one of the best judges in Europe.”

“He ought to know,” chuckled old Teidelmann. “He's tried often enough to

palm off rubbish onto me.”

“That last purchase of yours must have been a good thing for young--”

Hasluck mentioned the name of a painter since world famous; “been the

making of him, I should say.”

“I gave him two thousand for the six,” replied Teidelmann, “and they'll

sell for twenty thousand.”

“But you'll never sell them?” exclaimed my father.

“No,” grunted old Teidelmann, “but my widow will.” There came a soft,

low laugh from a corner of the table I could not see.

“It's Anderson's great disappointment,” followed a languid, caressing

voice (the musical laugh translated into prose, it seemed), “that he has

never been able to educate me to a proper appreciation of art. He'll pay

thousands of pounds for a child in rags or a badly dressed Madonna. Such

a waste of money, it appears to me.”

“But you would pay thousands for a diamond to hang upon your neck,”

argued my father's voice.

“It would enhance the beauty of my neck,” replied the musical voice.

“An even more absolute waste of money,” was my father's answer, spoken

low. And I heard again the musical, soft laugh.

“Who is she?” I asked Barbara.

“The second Mrs. Teidelmann,” whispered Barbara. “She is quite a swell.

Married him for his money--I don't like her myself, but she's very

beautiful.”

“As beautiful as you?” I asked incredulously. We were sitting on the

stairs, sharing a jelly.

“Oh, me!” answered Barbara. “I'm only a child. Nobody takes any notice

of me--except other kids, like you.” For some reason she appeared out of

conceit with herself, which was not her usual state of mind.

“But everybody thinks you beautiful,” I maintained.

“Who?” she asked quickly.

“Dr. Hal,” I answered.

We were with our backs to the light, so that I could not see her face.

“What did he say?” she asked, and her voice had more of contentment in

it.

I could not remember his exact words, but about the sense of them I was

positive.

“Ask him what he thinks of me, as if you wanted to know yourself,”

Barbara instructed me, “and don't forget what he says this time. I'm

curious.” And though it seemed to me a foolish command--for what could

he say of her more than I myself could tell her--I never questioned

Barbara's wishes.

Yet if I am right in thinking that jealousy of Mrs. Teidelmann may have

clouded for a moment Barbara's sunny nature, surely there was no reason

for this, seeing that no one attracted greater attention throughout the

dinner than the parlour-maid.

“Where ever did you get her from?” asked Mrs. Florret, Barbara having

just descended the kitchen stairs.

“A neat-handed Phillis,” commented Dr. Florret with approval.

“I'll take good care she never waits at my table,” laughed the wife

of our minister, the Rev. Cottle, a broad-built, breezy-voiced woman,

mother of eleven, eight of them boys.

“To tell the truth,” said my mother, “she's only here temporarily.”

“As a matter of fact,” said my father, “we have to thank Mrs. Hasluck

for her.”

“Don't leave me out of it,” laughed Hasluck; “can't let the old girl

take all the credit.”

Later my father absent-mindedly addressed her as “My dear,” at which

Mrs. Cottle shot a swift glance towards my mother; and before that

incident could have been forgotten, Hasluck, when no one was

looking, pinched her elbow, which would not have mattered had not the

unexpectedness of it drawn from her an involuntary “augh,” upon which,

for the reputation of the house, and the dinner being then towards

its end; my mother deemed it better to take the whole company into

her confidence. Naturally the story gained for Barbara still greater

admiration, so that when with the dessert, discarding the apron but

still wearing the dainty cap, which showed wisdom, she and the footman

took their places among the guests, she was even more than before the

centre of attention and remark.

“It was very nice of you,” said Mrs. Cottle, thus completing the circle

of compliments, “and, as I always tell my girls, that is better than

being beautiful.”

“Kind hearts,” added Dr. Florret, summing up the case, “are more than

coronets.” Dr. Florret had ever ready for the occasion the correct

quotation, but from him, somehow, it never irritated; rather it fell

upon the ear as a necessary rounding and completing of the theme; like

the Amen in church.

Only to my aunt would further observations have occurred.

“When I was a girl,” said my aunt, breaking suddenly upon the passing

silence, “I used to look into the glass and say to myself: 'Fanny,

you've got to be amiable,' and I was amiable,” added my aunt,

challenging contradiction with a look; “nobody can say that I wasn't,

for years.”

“It didn't pay?” suggested Hasluck.

“It attracted,” replied my aunt, “no attention whatever.”

Hasluck had changed places with my mother, and having after many

experiments learned the correct pitch for conversation with old

Teidelmann, talked with him as much aside as the circumstances of the

case would permit. Hasluck never wasted time on anything else than

business. It was in his opera box on the first night of Verdi's Aida (I

am speaking of course of days then to come) that he arranged the details

of his celebrated deal in guano; and even his very religion, so I have

been told and can believe, he varied to suit the enterprise of the

moment, once during the protracted preliminaries of a cocoa scheme

becoming converted to Quakerism.

But for the most of us interest lay in a discussion between Washburn and

Florret concerning the superior advantages attaching to residence in the

East End.

As a rule, incorrect opinion found itself unable to exist in Dr.

Florret's presence. As no bird, it is said, can continue its song once

looked at by an owl, so all originality grew silent under the cold stare

of his disapproving eye. But Dr. “Fighting Hal” was no gentle warbler

of thought. Vehement, direct, indifferent, he swept through all polite

argument as a strong wind through a murmuring wood, carrying his

partisans with him further than they meant to go, and quite unable to

turn back; leaving his opponents clinging desperately--upside down,

anyhow--to their perches, angry, their feathers much ruffled.

“Life!” flung out Washburn--Dr. Florret had just laid down unimpeachable

rules for the conduct of all mankind on all occasions--“what do you

respectable folk know of life? You are not men and women, you are

marionettes. You don't move to your natural emotions implanted by God;

you dance according to the latest book of etiquette. You live and love,

laugh and weep and sin by rule. Only one moment do you come face to face

with life; that is in the moment when you die, leaving the other puppets

to be dressed in black and make believe to cry.”

It was a favourite subject of denunciation with him, the artificiality

of us all.

“Little doll,” he had once called me, and I had resented the term.

“That's all you are, little Paul,” he had persisted, “a good little

hard-working doll, that does what it's made to do, and thinks what

it's made to think. We are all dolls. Your father is a gallant-hearted,

soft-headed little doll; your mother the sweetest and primmest of dolls.

And I'm a silly, dissatisfied doll that longs to be a man, but hasn't

the pluck. We are only dolls, little Paul.”

“He's a trifle--a trifle whimsical on some subjects,” explained my

father, on my repeating this conversation.

“There are a certain class of men,” explained my mother--“you will meet

with them more as you grow up--who talk for talking's sake. They don't

know what they mean. And nobody else does either.”

“But what would you have?” argued Dr. Florret, “that every man should do

that which is right in his own eyes?”

“Far better than, like the old man in the fable, he should do what every

other fool thinks right,” retorted Washburn. “The other day I called

to see whether a patient of mine was still alive or not. His wife was

washing clothes in the front room. 'How's your husband?' I asked. 'I

think he's dead,' replied the woman. Then, without leaving off her work,

'Jim,' she shouted, 'are you there?' No answer came from the inner room.

'He's a goner,' she said, wringing out a stocking.”

“But surely,” said Dr. Florret, “you don't admire a woman for being

indifferent to the death of her husband?”

“I don't admire her for that,” replied Washburn, “and I don't blame her.

I didn't make the world and I'm not responsible for it. What I do admire

her for is not pretending a grief she didn't feel. In Berkeley Square

she'd have met me at the door with an agonised face and a handkerchief

to her eyes.

“Assume a virtue, if you have it not,” murmured Dr. Florret.

“Go on,” said Washburn. “How does it run? 'That monster, custom, who all

sense doth eat, of devil's habit, is angel yet in this, that to the use

of actions fair and good he gives a frock that aptly is put on.' So was

the lion's skin by the ass, but it showed him only the more an ass. Here

asses go about as asses, but there are lions also. I had a woman under

my hands only a little while ago. I could have cured her easily. Why she

got worse every day instead of better I could not understand. Then by

accident learned the truth: instead of helping me she was doing all

she could to kill herself. 'I must, Doctor,' she cried. 'I must. I have

promised. If I get well he will only leave me, and if I die now he has

sworn to be good to the children.' Here, I tell you, they live--think

their thoughts, work their will, kill those they hate, die for those

they love; savages if you like, but savage men and women, not bloodless

dolls.”

“I prefer the dolls,” concluded Dr. Florret.

“I admit they are pretty,” answered Washburn.

“I remember,” said my father, “the first masked ball I ever went to when

I was a student in Paris. It struck me just as you say, Hal; everybody

was so exactly alike. I was glad to get out into the street and see

faces.”

“But I thought they always unmasked at midnight,” said the second Mrs.

Teidelmann in her soft, languid tones.

“I did not wait,” explained my father.

“That was a pity,” she replied. “I should have been interested to see

what they were like, underneath.”

“I might have been disappointed,” answered my father. “I agree with Dr.

Florret that sometimes the mask is an improvement.”

Barbara was right. She was a beautiful woman, with a face that would

have been singularly winning if one could have avoided the hard cold

eyes ever restless behind the half-closed lids.

Always she was very kind to me. Moreover, since the disappearance of

Cissy she was the first to bestow again upon me a good opinion of my

small self. My mother praised me when I was good, which to her was the

one thing needful; but few of us, I fear, child or grown-up, take much

pride in our solid virtues, finding them generally hindrances to our

desires: like the oyster's pearl, of more comfort to the world than to

ourselves. If others there were who admired me, very guardedly must they

have kept the secret I would so gladly have shared with them. But this

new friend of ours--or had I not better at once say enemy--made me feel

when in her presence a person of importance. How it was accomplished

I cannot explain. No word of flattery nor even of mere approval ever

passed her lips. Her charm to me was not that she admired me, but that

she led me by some mysterious process to admire myself.

And yet in spite of this and many lesser kindnesses she showed to me,

I never really liked her; but rather feared her, dreading always the

sudden raising of those ever half-closed eyelids.

She sat next to my father at the corner of the table, her chin resting

on her long white hands, her sweet lips parted, and as often as his

eyes were turned away from her, her soft low voice would draw them back

again. Once she laid her hand on his, laughing the while at some light

jest of his, and I saw that he flushed; and following his quick glance,

saw that my mother's eyes were watching also.

I have spoken of my father only as he then appeared to me, a child--an

older chum with many lines about his mobile mouth, the tumbled hair

edged round with grey; but looking back with older eyes, I see him a

slightly stooping, yet still tall and graceful man, with the face of a

poet--the face I mean a poet ought to possess but rarely does, nature

apparently abhorring the obvious--with the shy eyes of a boy, and a

voice tender as a woman's. Never the dingiest little drab that entered

the kitchen but adored him, speaking always of “the master” in tones of

fond proprietorship, for to the most slatternly his “orders” had ever

the air of requests for favours. Women, I so often read, can care for

only masterful men. But may there not be variety in women as in other

species? Or perhaps--if the suggestion be not over-daring--the many

writers, deeming themselves authorities upon this subject of woman, may

in this one particular have erred? I only know my father spoke to

few women whose eyes did not brighten. Yet hardly should I call him a

masterful man.

“I think it's all right,” whispered Hasluck to my father in the

passage--they were the last to go. “What does she think of it, eh?”

“I think she'll be with us,” answered my father.

“Nothing like food for bringing people together,” said Hasluck.

“Good-night.”

The door closed, but Something had crept into the house. It stood

between my father and mother. It followed them silently up the narrow

creaking stairs.

CHAPTER VII.

OF THE PASSING OF THE SHADOW.

Better is little, than treasure and trouble therewith. Better a dinner

of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith. None

but a great man would have dared to utter such a glaring commonplace as

that. Not only on Sundays now, but all the week, came the hot joint to

table, and on every day there was pudding, till a body grew indifferent

to pudding; thus a joy-giving luxury of life being lost and but another

item added to the long list of uninteresting needs. Now we could eat and

drink without stint. No need now to organise for the morrow's hash.

No need now to cut one's bread instead of breaking it, thinking of

Saturday's bread pudding. But there the saying fails, for never now were

we merry. A silent unseen guest sat with us at the board, so that no

longer we laughed and teased as over the half pound of sausages or the

two sweet-scented herrings; but talked constrainedly of empty things

that lay outside us.

Easy enough would it have been for us to move to Guilford Street.

Occasionally in the spiritless tones in which they now spoke on all

subjects save the one, my mother and father would discuss the project;

but always into the conversation would fall, sooner or later, some

loosened thought to stir it to anger, and so the aching months went by,

and the cloud grew.

Then one day the news came that old Teidelmann had died suddenly in his

counting house.

“You are going to her?” said my mother.

“I have been sent for,” said my father; “I must--it may mean business.”

My mother laughed bitterly; why, at the time, I could not understand;

and my father flung out of the house. During the many hours that he was

away my mother remained locked in her room, and, stealing sometimes to

the door, I was sure I heard her crying; and that she should grieve so

at old Teidelmann's death puzzled me.

She came oftener to our house after that. Her mourning added, I think,

to her beauty, softening--or seeming to soften--the hardness of her

eyes. Always she was very sweet to my mother, who by contrast beside her

appeared witless and ungracious; and to me, whatever her motive, she was

kindness itself; hardly ever arriving without some trifling gift or plan

for affording me some childish treat. By instinct she understood exactly

what I desired and liked, the books that would appeal to me as those my

mother gave me never did, the pleasures that did please me as opposed to

the pleasures that should have pleased me. Often my mother, talking

to me, would chill me with the vista of the life that lay before me:

a narrow, viewless way between twin endless walls of “Must” and “Must

not.” This soft-voiced lady set me dreaming of life as of sunny fields

through which one wandered laughing, along the winding path of Will; so

that, although as I have said, there lurked at the bottom of my thoughts

a fear of her; yet something within me I seemed unable to control went

out to her, drawn by her subtle sympathy and understanding of it.

“Has he ever seen a pantomime?” she asked of my father one morning,

looking at me the while with a whimsical screwing of her mouth.

My heart leaped within me. My father raised his eyebrows: “What would

your mother say, do you think?” he asked. My heart sank.

“She thinks,” I replied, “that theatres are very wicked places.” It

was the first time that any doubt as to the correctness of my mother's

judgments had ever crossed my mind.

Mrs. Teidelmann's smile strengthened my doubt. “Dear me,” she said, “I

am afraid I must be very wicked. I have always regarded a pantomime as

quite a moral entertainment. All the bad people go down so very straight

to--well, to the fit and proper place for them. And we could promise to

leave before the Clown stole the sausages, couldn't we, Paul?”

My mother was called and came; and I could not help thinking how

insignificant she looked with her pale face and plain dark frock,

standing stiffly beside this shining lady in her rustling clothes.

“You will let him come, Mrs. Kelver,” she pleaded in her soft caressing

tones; “it's Dick Whittington, you know--such an excellent moral.”

My mother had stood silent, clasping and unclasping her hands, a

childish trick she had when troubled; and her lips were trembling.

Important as the matter loomed before my own eyes, I wondered at her

agitation.

“I am very sorry,” said my mother, “it is very kind of you. But I would

rather he did not go.”

“Just this once,” persisted Mrs. Teidelmann. “It is holiday time.”

A ray of sunlight fell into the room, lighting upon her coaxing face,

making where my mother stood seem shadow.

“I would rather he did not go,” repeated my mother, and her voice

sounded harsh and grating. “When he is older others must judge for him,

but for the present he must be guided by me--alone.”

“I really don't think there could be any harm, Maggie,” urged my father.

“Things have changed since we were young.”

“That may be,” answered my mother, still in the same harsh voice; “it is

long ago since then.”

“I didn't intend it that way,” said my father with a short laugh.

“I merely meant that I may be wrong,” answered my mother. “I seem so old

among you all--so out of place. I have tried to change, but I cannot.”

“We will say no more about it,” said Mrs. Teidelmann, sweetly. “I merely

thought it would give him pleasure; and he has worked so hard this last

term, his father tells me.”

She laid her hand caressingly on my shoulder, drawing me a little closer

to her; and it remained there.

“It was very kind of you,” said my mother, “I would do anything to give

him pleasure, anything--I could. He knows that. He understands.”

My mother's hand, I knew, was seeking mine, but I was angry and would

not see; and without another word she left the room.

My mother did not allude again to the subject; but the very next

afternoon she took me herself to a hall in the neighbourhood, where we

saw a magic-lantern, followed by a conjurer. She had dressed herself in

a prettier frock than she had worn for many a long day, and was brighter

and gayer in herself than had lately been her wont, laughing and talking

merrily. But I, nursing my wrongs, remained moody and sulky. At any

other time such rare amusement would have overjoyed me; but the wonders

of the great theatre that from other boys I had heard so much of, that

from gaudy-coloured posters I had built up for myself, were floating

vague and undefined before me in the air; and neither the open-mouthed

sleeper, swallowing his endless chain of rats; nor even the live rabbit

found in the stout old gentleman's hat--the last sort of person in whose

hat one would have expected to find such a thing--could draw away my

mind from the joy I had caught a glimpse of only to lose.

So we walked home through the muddy, darkening streets, speaking but

little; and that night, waking--or rather half waking, as children do--I

thought I saw a figure in white crouching at the foot of my bed. I must

have gone to sleep again; and later, though I cannot say whether the

intervening time was short or long, I opened my eyes to see it still

there; and frightened, I cried out; and my mother rose from her knees.

She laughed, a curious broken laugh, in answer to my questions. “It was

a silly dream I had,” she explained “I must have been thinking of the

conjurer we saw. I dreamt that a wicked Magician had spirited you away

from me. I could not find you and was all alone in the world.”

She put her arms around me, so tight as almost to hurt me. And thus we

remained until again I must have fallen asleep.

It was towards the close of these same holidays that my mother and I

called upon Mrs. Teidelmann in her great stone-built house at Clapton.

She had sent a note round that morning, saying she was suffering from

terrible headaches that quite took her senses away, so that she was

unable to come out. She would be leaving England in a few days to

travel. Would my mother come and see her, she would like to say good-bye

to her before she went. My mother handed the letter across the table to

my father.

“Of course you will go,” said my father. “Poor girl, I wonder what the

cause can be. She used to be so free from everything of the kind.”

“Do you think it well for me to go?” said my mother. “What can she have

to say to me?”

“Oh, just to say good-bye,” answered my father. “It would look so

pointed not to go.”

It was a dull, sombre house without, but one entered through its

commonplace door as through the weed-grown rock into Aladdin's cave. Old

Teidelmann had been a great collector all his life, and his treasures,

now scattered through a dozen galleries, were then heaped there in

curious confusion. Pictures filled every inch of wall, stood propped

against the wonderful old furniture, were even stretched unframed across

the ceilings. Statues gleamed from every corner (a few of the statues

were, I remember, the only things out of the entire collection that Mrs.

Teidelmann kept for herself), carvings, embroideries, priceless china,

miniatures framed in gems, illuminated missals and gorgeously bound

books crowded the room. The ugly little thick-lipped man had surrounded

himself with the beauty of every age, brought from every land. He

himself must have been the only thing cheap and uninteresting to be

found within his own walls; and now he lay shrivelled up in his coffin,

under a monument by means of which an unknown cemetery became quite

famous.

Instructions had been given that my mother was to be shown up into Mrs.

Teidelmann's boudoir. She was lying on a sofa near the fire when we

entered, asleep, dressed in a loose lace robe that fell away, showing

her thin but snow-white arms, her rich dark hair falling loose about

her. In sleep she looked less beautiful: harder and with a suggestion of

coarseness about the face, of which at other times it showed no trace.

My mother said she would wait, perhaps Mrs. Teidelmann would awake; and

the servant, closing the door softly, left us alone with her.

An old French clock standing on the mantelpiece, a heart supported by

Cupids, ticked with a muffled, soothing sound. My mother, choosing a

chair by the window, sat with her eyes fixed on the sleeping woman's

face, and it seemed to me--though this may have been but my fancy born

of after-thought--that a faint smile relaxed for a moment the sleeping

woman's pained, pressed lips. Neither I nor my mother spoke, the only

sound in the room being the hushed ticking of the great gilt clock.

Until the other woman after a few slight movements of unrest began to

talk in her sleep.

Only confused murmurs escaped her at first, and then I heard her whisper

my father's name. Very low--hardly more than breathed--were the words,

but upon the silence each syllable struck clear and distinct: “Ah no, we

must not. Luke, my darling.”

My mother rose swiftly from her chair, but she spoke in quite

matter-of-fact tones.

“Go, Paul,” she said, “wait for me downstairs;” and noiselessly opening

the door, she pushed me gently out, and closed it again behind me.

It was half an hour or more before she came down, and at once we left

the house, letting ourselves out. All the way home my mother never once

spoke, but walked as one in a dream with eyes that saw not. With her

hand upon the lock of our gate she came back to life.

“You must say nothing, Paul, do you understand?” she said. “When people

are delirious they use strange words that have no meaning. Do you

understand, Paul; you must never breathe a word--never.”

I promised, and we entered the house; and from that day my mother's

whole manner changed. Not another angry word ever again escaped her

lips, never an angry flash lighted up again her eyes. Mrs. Teidelmann

remained away three months. My father, of course, wrote to her often,

for he was managing all her affairs. But my mother wrote to her

also--though this my father, I do not think, knew--long letters that she

would go away by herself to pen, writing them always in the twilight,

close to the window.

“Why do you choose this time, just when it's getting dark, to write your

letters,” my father would expostulate, when by chance he happened to

look into the room. “Let me ring for the lamp, you will strain your

eyes.” But my mother would always excuse herself, saying she had only a

few lines to finish.

“I can think better in this light,” she would explain.

And when Mrs. Teidelmann returned, it was my mother who was the first

to call upon her; before even my father knew that she was back. And from

thence onward one might have thought them the closest of friends, my

mother visiting her often, speaking of her to all in terms of praise and

liking.

In this way peace returned unto the house, and my father was tender

again in all his words and actions towards my mother, and my mother

thoughtful as before of all his wants and whims, her voice soft and low,

the sweet smile ever lurking around her lips as in the old days before

this evil thing had come to dwell among us; and I might have forgotten

it had ever cast its blight upon our life but that every day my mother

grew feebler, the little ways that had seemed a part of her gone from

her.

The summer came and went--that time in towns of panting days and

stifling nights, when through the open window crawls to one's face the

hot foul air, heavy with reeking odours drawn from a thousand streets;

when lying awake one seems to hear the fitful breathing of the myriad

mass around, as of some over-laboured beast too tired to even rest; and

my mother moved about the house ever more listlessly.

“There's nothing really the matter with her,” said Dr. Hal, “only

weakness. It is the place. Cannot you get her away from it?”

“I cannot leave myself,” said my father, “just yet; but there is no

reason why you and the boy should not take a holiday. This year I can

afford it, and later I might possibly join you.”

My mother consented, as she did to all things now, and so it came about

that again of afternoons we climbed--though more slowly and with many

pauses--the steep path to the ruined tower old Jacob in his happy

foolishness had built upon the headland, rested once again upon its

topmost platform, sheltered from the wind that ever blew about its

crumbling walls, saw once more the distant mountains, faint like

spectres, and the silent ships that came and vanished, and about our

feet the pleasant farm lands, and the grave, sweet river.

We had taken lodgings in the village: smaller now it seemed than

previously; but wonderful its sunny calm, after the turmoil of the

fierce dark streets. Mrs. Fursey was there still, but quite another than

the Mrs. Fursey of my remembrance, a still angular but cheery dame,

bent no longer on suppressing me, but rather on drawing me out before

admiring neighbours, as one saying: “The material was unpromising, as

you know. There were times when I almost despaired. But with

patience, and--may I say, a natural gift that way--you see what can

be accomplished!” And Anna, now a buxom wife and mother, with an

uncontrollable desire to fall upon and kiss me at most unexpected

moments, necessitating a never sleeping watchfulness on my part, and

a choosing of positions affording means of ready retreat. And old

Chumbley, still cobbling shoes in his tiny cave. On the bench before

him in a row they sat and watched him while he tapped and tapped and

hammered: pert little shoes piping “Be quick, be quick, we want to be

toddling. You seem to have no idea, my good man, how much toddling there

is to be done.” Dapper boots, sighing: “Oh, please make haste, we are

waiting to dance and to strut. Jack walks in the lane, Jill waits by

the gate. Oh, deary, how slowly he taps.” Stout sober boots, saying: “As

soon as you can, old friend. Remember we've work to do.” Flat-footed old

boots, rusty and limp, mumbling: “We haven't much time, Mr. Chumbley.

Just a patch, that is all, we haven't much further to go.” And old Joe,

still peddling his pack, with the help of the same old jokes. And Tom

Pinfold, still puzzled and scratching his head, the rejected fish still

hanging by its tail from his expostulating hand; one might almost have

imagined it the same fish. Grown-up folks had changed but little. Only

the foolish children had been playing tricks; parties I had left mere

sucking babes now swaggering in pinafore or knickerbocker; children I

had known now mincing it as men and women; such affectation annoyed me.

One afternoon--it was towards the close of the last week of our stay--my

mother and I had climbed, as was so often our wont, to the upper

platform of old Jacob's tower. My mother leant upon the parapet, her

eyes fixed dreamingly upon the distant mountains, and a smile crept to

her lips.

“What are you thinking of?” I asked.

“Oh, only of things that happened over there”--she nodded her head

towards the distant hills as to some old crony with whom she shares

secrets--“when I was a girl.”

“You lived there, long ago, didn't you, when you were young?” I asked.

Boys do not always stop to consider whether their questions might or

might not be better expressed.

“You're very rude,” said my mother--it was long since a tone of her old

self had rung from her in answer to any touch; “it was a very little

while ago.”

Suddenly she raised her head and listened. Perhaps some twenty seconds

she remained so with her lips parted, and then from the woods came a

faint, long-drawn “Coo-ee.” We ran to the side of the tower commanding

the pathway from the village, and waited until from among the dark pines

my father emerged into the sunlight.

Seeing us, he shouted again and waved his stick, and from the light of

his eyes and his gallant bearing, and the spring of his step across the

heathery turf, we knew instinctively that trouble had come upon him.

He always rose to meet it with that look and air. It was the old Norse

blood in his veins, I suppose. So, one imagines, must those godless old

Pirates have sprung to their feet when the North wind, loosed as a hawk

from the leash, struck at the beaked prow.

We heard his quick step on the rickety stair, and the next moment he was

between us, breathing a little hard, but laughing.

He stood for awhile beside my mother without speaking, both of them

gazing at the distant hills among which, as my mother had explained,

things had happened long ago. And maybe, “over there,” their memories

met and looked upon each other with kind eyes.

“Do you remember,” said my father, “we climbed up here--it was the first

walk we took together after coming here. We discussed our plans for the

future, how we would retrieve our fortunes.”

“And the future,” answered my mother, “has a way of making plans for us

instead.”

“It would seem so,” replied my father, with a laugh. “I am an unlucky

beggar, Maggie. I dropped all your money as well as my own down that

wretched mine.”

“It was the will--it was Fate, or whatever you call it,” said my mother.

“You could not help that, Luke.”

“If only that damned pump hadn't jambed,” said my father.

“Do you remember that Mrs. Tharand?” asked my mother.

“Yes, what of her?”

“A worldly woman, I always thought her. She called on me the morning we

were leaving; I don't think you saw her. 'I've been through more worries

than you would think, to look at me,' she said to me, laughing. I've

always remembered her words: 'and of all the troubles that come to us in

this world, believe me, Mrs. Kelver, money troubles are the easiest to

bear.'”

“I wish I could think so,” said my father.

“She rather irritated me at the time,” continued my mother. “I thought

it one of those commonplaces with which we console ourselves for other

people's misfortunes. But now I know she spoke the truth.”

There was silence between them for awhile. Then said my father in a

cheery tone:

“I've broken with old Hasluck.”

“I thought you would be compelled to sooner or later,” answered my

mother.

“Hasluck,” exclaimed my father, with sudden vehemence, “is little better

than a thief; I told him so.”

“What did he say?” asked my mother.

“Laughed, and said that was better than some people.”

My father laughed himself.

I wish to do the memory of Noel Hasluck no injustice. Ever was he a kind

friend to me; not only then, but in later years, when, having come to

learn that kindness is rarer in the world than I had dreamt, I was glad

of it. Added to which, if only for Barbara's sake, I would prefer

to write of him throughout in terms of praise. Yet even were his

good-tempered, thick-skinned ghost (and unless it were good-tempered

and thick-skinned it would be no true ghost of old Noel Hasluck) to

be reading over my shoulder the words as I write them down, I think it

would agree with me--I do not think it would be offended with me (for

ever in his life he was an admirer and a lover of the Truth, being one

of those good fighters capable of respecting even his foe, his enemy,

against whom from ten to four, occasionally a little later, he fought

right valiantly) for saying that of all the men who go down into the

City each day in a cab or 'bus or train, he was perhaps one of the most

unprincipled: and whether that be saying much or little I leave to those

with more knowledge to decide.

To do others, as it was his conviction, right or wrong, that they would

do him if ever he gave them half a chance, was his notion of “business;”

and in most of his transactions he was successful. “I play a game,”

he would argue, “where cheating is the rule. Nine out of every ten men

round the table are sharpers like myself, and the tenth man is a fool

who has no business to be there. We prey upon each other, and the cutest

of us is the winner.”

“But the innocent people, lured by your fine promises,” I ventured once

to suggest to him, “the widows and the orphans?”

“My dear lad,” he said, with a laugh, laying his fat hand upon my

shoulder, “I remember one of your widows writing me a pathetic letter

about some shares she had taken in a Silver Company of mine. Lord knows

where the mine is now--somewhere in Spain, I think. It looked as though

all her savings were gone. She had an only son, and it was nearly all

they possessed in the world, etc., etc.--you know the sort of thing.

Well, I did what I've often been numskull enough to do in similar cases,

wrote and offered to buy her out at par. A week later she answered,

thanking me, but saying it did not matter. There had occurred

a momentary rise, and she had sold out at a profit--to her own

brother-in-law, as I discovered, happening to come across the transfers.

You can find widows and orphans round the Monte Carlo card tables, if

you like to look for them; they are no more deserving of consideration

than the rest of the crowd. Besides, if it comes to that, I'm an orphan

myself;” and he laughed again, one of his deep, hearty, honest laughs.

No one ever possessed a laugh more suggestive in its every cadence

of simple, transparent honesty. He used to say himself it was worth

thousands to him.

Better from the Moralists' point of view had such a man been an

out-and-out rogue. Then might one have pointed, crying: “Behold:

Dishonesty, as you will observe in the person of our awful example, to

be hated, needs but to be seen.” But the duty of the Chronicler is to

bear witness to what he knows, leaving Truth with the whole case before

her to sum up and direct the verdict. In the City, old Hasluck had a

bad reputation and deserved it; in Stoke-Newington--then a green suburb,

containing many fine old houses, standing in great wooded gardens--he

was loved and respected. In his business, he was a man void of all moral

sense, without bowels of compassion for any living thing; in retirement,

a man with a strong sense of duty and a fine regard for the rights and

feelings of others, never happier than when planning to help or give

pleasure. In his office, he would have robbed his own mother. At home,

he would have spent his last penny to add to her happiness or comfort. I

make no attempt to explain. I only know that such men do exist, and that

Hasluck was one of them. One avoids difficulties by dismissing them as a

product of our curiously complex civilisation--a convenient phrase; let

us hope the recording angel may be equally impressed by it.

Casting about for some reason of excuse to myself for my liking of him,

I hit upon the expedient of regarding him as a modern Robin Hood, whom

we are taught to admire without shame, a Robin Hood up to date, adapted

to the changed conditions of modern environment; making his living

relieving the rich; taking pleasure relieving the poor.

“What will you do?” asked my mother.

“I shall have to give up the office,” answered my father. “Without him

there's not enough to keep it going. He was quite good-tempered

about the matter--offered to divide the work, letting me retain

the straightforward portion for whatever that might be worth. But I

declined. Now I know, I feel I would rather have nothing more to do with

him.”

“I think you were quite right,” agreed my mother.

“What I blame myself for,” said my father, “is that I didn't see through

him before. Of course he has been making a mere tool of me from the

beginning. I ought to have seen through him. Why didn't I?”

They discussed the future, or, rather, my father discussed, my mother

listening in silence, stealing a puzzled look at him from time to time,

as though there were something she could not understand.

He would take a situation in the City. One had been offered him. It

might sound poor, but it would be a steady income on which we must

contrive to live. The little money he had saved must be kept for

investments--nothing speculative--judicious “dealings,” by means of

which a cool, clear-headed man could soon accumulate capital. Here the

training acquired by working for old Hasluck would serve him well. One

man my father knew--quite a dull, commonplace man--starting a few years

ago with only a few hundreds, was now worth tens of thousands. Foresight

was the necessary qualification. You watched the “tendency” of things.

So often had my father said to himself: “This is going to be a

big thing. That other, it is no good,” and in every instance his

prognostications had been verified. He had “felt it;” some men had that

gift. Now was the time to use it for practical purposes.

“Here,” said my father, breaking off, and casting an approving eye upon

the surrounding scenery, “would be a pleasant place to end one's days.

The house you had was very pretty and you liked it. We might enlarge it,

the drawing-room might be thrown out--perhaps another wing.” I felt that

our good fortune as from this day was at last established.

But my mother had been listening with growing impatience, her puzzled

glances giving place gradually to flashes of anger; and now she turned

her face full upon him, her question written plainly thereon, demanding

answer.

Some idea of it I had even then, watching her; and since I have come to

read it word for word: “But that woman--that woman that loves you, that

you love. Ah, I know--why do you play with me? She is rich. With her

your life will be smooth. And the boy--it will be better far for him.

Cannot you three wait a little longer? What more can I do? Cannot you

see that I am surely dying--dying as quickly as I can--dying as that

poor creature your friend once told us of; knowing it was the only thing

she could do for those she loved. Be honest with me: I am no longer

jealous. All that is past: a man is ever younger than a woman, and a man

changes. I do not blame you. It is for the best. She and I have talked;

it is far better so. Only be honest with me, or at least silent. Will

you not honour me enough for even that?”

My father did not answer, having that to speak of that put my mother's

question out of her mind for all time; so that until the end no word

concerning that other woman passed again between them. Twenty years

later, nearly, I myself happened to meet her, and then long physical

suffering had chased the wantonness away for ever from the pain-worn

mouth; but in that hour of waning voices, as some trouble of the fretful

day when evening falls, so she faded from their life; and if even the

remembrance of her returned at times to either of them, I think it must

have been in those moments when, for no seeming reason, shyly their

hands sought one another.

So the truth of the sad ado--how far my mother's suspicions wronged my

father; for the eye of jealousy (and what loving woman ever lived that

was not jealous?) has its optic nerve terminating not in the brain

but in the heart, which was not constructed for the reception of true

vision--I never knew. Later, long after the curtain of green earth

had been rolled down upon the players, I spoke once on the matter with

Doctor Hal, who must have seen something of the play and with more

understanding eyes than mine, and who thereupon delivered to me a short

lecture on life in general, a performance at which he excelled.

“Flee from temptation and pray that you may be delivered from evil,”

shouted the Doctor--(his was not the Socratic method)--“but remember

this: that as sure as the sparks fly upward there will come a time when,

however fast you run, you will be overtaken--cornered--no one to deliver

you but yourself--the gods sitting round interested. It is a grim fight,

for the Thing, you may be sure, has chosen its right moment. And every

woman in the world will sympathise with you and be just to you, not even

despising you should you be overcome; for however they may talk, every

woman in the world knows that male and female cannot be judged by the

same standard. To woman, Nature and the Law speak with one voice: 'Sin

not, lest you be cursed of your sex!' It is no law of man: it is the

law of creation. When the woman sins, she sins not only against her

conscience, but against her every instinct. But to the man Nature

whispers: 'Yield.' It is the Law alone that holds him back. Therefore

every woman in the world, knowing this, will be just to you--every woman

in the world but one--the woman that loves you. From her, hope for no

sympathy, hope for no justice.”

“Then you think--” I began.

“I think,” said the Doctor, “that your father loved your mother

devotedly; but he was one of those fighters that for the first

half-dozen rounds or so cause their backers much anxiety. It is a

dangerous method.”

“Then you think my mother--”

“I think your mother was a good woman, Paul; and the good woman will

never be satisfied with man till the Lord lets her take him to pieces

and put him together herself.”

My father had been pacing to and fro the tiny platform. Now he came to a

halt opposite my mother, placing his hands upon her shoulders.

“I want you to help me, Maggie--help me to be brave. I have only a year

or two longer to live, and there's a lot to be done in that time.”

Slowly the anger died out of my mother's face.

“You remember that fall I had when the cage broke,” my father went on.

“Andrews, as you know, feared from the first it might lead to that. But

I always laughed at him.”

“How long have you known?” my mother asked.

“Oh, about six months. I felt it at the beginning of the year, but I

didn't say anything to Washburn till a month later. I thought it might

be only fancy.”

“And he is sure?”

My father nodded.

“But why have you never told me?”

“Because,” replied my father, with a laugh, “I didn't want you to know.

If I could have done without you, I should not have told you now.”

And at this there came a light into my mother's face that never

altogether left it until the end.

She drew him down beside her on the seat. I had come nearer; and my

father, stretching out his hand, would have had me with them. But my

mother, putting her arms about him, held him close to her, as though in

that moment she would have had him to herself alone.

CHAPTER VIII.

HOW THE MAN IN GREY MADE READY FOR HIS GOING.

The eighteen months that followed--for the end came sooner than we had

expected--were, I think, the happiest days my father and mother had ever

known; or if happy be not altogether the right word, let me say the most

beautiful, and most nearly perfect. To them it was as though God in

His sweet thoughtfulness had sent death to knock lightly at the door,

saying: “Not yet. You have still a little longer to be together. In a

little while.” In those last days all things false and meaningless they

laid aside. Nothing was of real importance to them but that they should

love each other, comforting each other, learning to understand each

other. Again we lived poorly; but there was now no pitiful straining

to keep up appearances, no haunting terror of what the neighbours

might think. The petty cares and worries concerning matters not worth

a moment's thought, the mean desires and fears with which we disfigure

ourselves, fell from them. There came to them broader thought, a wider

charity, a deeper pity. Their love grew greater even than their needs,

overflowing towards all things. Sometimes, recalling these months, it

has seemed to me that we make a mistake seeking to keep Death, God's

go-between, ever from our thoughts. Is it not closing the door to a

friend who would help us would we let him (for who knows life so well),

whispering to us: “In a little while. Only a little longer that you have

to be together. Is it worth taking so much thought for self? Is it worth

while being unkind?”

From them a graciousness emanated pervading all around. Even my aunt Fan

decided for the second time in her career to give amiability a trial.

This intention she announced publicly to my mother and myself one

afternoon soon after our return from Devonshire.

“I'm a beast of an old woman,” said my aunt, suddenly.

“Don't say that, Fan,” urged my mother.

“What's the good of saying 'Don't say it' when I've just said it,”

snapped back my aunt.

“It's your manner,” explained my mother; “people sometimes think you

disagreeable.”

“They'd be daft if they didn't,” interrupted my aunt. “Of course you

don't really mean it,” continued my mother.

“Stuff and nonsense,” snorted my aunt; “does she think I'm a fool? I

like being disagreeable. I like to see 'em squirming.”

My mother laughed.

“I can be agreeable,” continued my aunt, “if I choose. Nobody more so.”

“Then why not choose?” suggested my mother. “I tried it once,” said my

aunt, “and it fell flat. Nothing could have fallen flatter.”

“It may not have attracted much attention,” replied my mother, with a

smile, “but one should not be agreeable merely to attract attention.”

“It wasn't only that,” returned my aunt, “it was that it gave no

satisfaction to anybody. It didn't suit me. A disagreeable person is at

their best when they are disagreeable.”

“I can hardly agree with you there,” answered my mother.

“I could do it again,” communed my aunt to herself. There was a

suggestion of vindictiveness in her tones. “It's easy enough. Look at

the sort of fools that are agreeable.”

“I'm sure you could be if you tried,” urged my mother.

“Let 'em have it,” continued my aunt, still to herself; “that's the way

to teach 'em sense. Let 'em have it.”

And strange though it may seem, my aunt was right and my mother

altogether wrong. My father was the first to notice the change.

“Nothing the matter with poor old Fan, is there?” he asked. It was one

evening a day or two after my aunt had carried her threat into effect.

“Nothing happened, has there?”

“No,” answered my mother, “nothing that I know of.”

“Her manner is so strange,” explained my father, “so--so weird.”

My mother smiled. “Don't say anything to her. She's trying to be

agreeable.”

My father laughed and then looked wistful. “I almost wish she wouldn't,”

he remarked; “we were used to it, and she was rather amusing.”

But my aunt, being a woman of will, kept her way; and about the same

time that occurred tending to confirm her in her new departure. This

was the introduction into our small circle of James Wellington Gadley.

Properly speaking, it should have been Wellington James, that being the

order in which he had been christened in the year 1815. But in course

of time, and particularly during his school career, it had been borne in

upon him that Wellington is a burdensome name for a commonplace mortal

to bear, and very wisely he had reversed the arrangement. He was a

slightly pompous but simpleminded little old gentleman, very proud of

his position as head clerk to Mr. Stillwood, the solicitor to whom my

father was now assistant. Stillwood, Waterhead and Royal dated back

to the Georges, and was a firm bound up with the history--occasionally

shady--of aristocratic England. True, in these later years its glory

was dwindling. Old Mr. Stillwood, its sole surviving representative,

declined to be troubled with new partners, explaining frankly, in

answer to all applications, that the business was a dying one, and

that attempting to work it up again would be but putting new wine

into worn-out skins. But though its clientele was a yearly diminishing

quantity, much business yet remained to it, and that of a good class,

its name being still a synonym for solid respectability; and my father

had deemed himself fortunate indeed in securing such an appointment.

James Gadley had entered the firm as office boy in the days of its

pride, and had never awakened to the fact that it was not still the most

important legal firm within the half mile radius from Lombard Street.

Nothing delighted him more than to discuss over and over again the

many strange affairs in which Stillwood, Waterhead and Royal had been

concerned, all of which he had at his tongue's tip. Could he find a

hearer, these he would reargue interminably, but with professional

reticence, personages becoming Mr. Y. and Lady X.; and places, “the

capital of, let us say, a foreign country,” or “a certain town not

a thousand miles from where we are now sitting.” The majority of his

friends, his methods being somewhat forensic, would seek to discourage

him, but my aunt was a never wearied listener, especially if the case

were one involving suspicion of mystery and crime. When, during their

very first conversation, he exclaimed: “Now why--why, after keeping away

from his wife for nearly eighteen years, never even letting her know

whether he was alive or dead, why this sudden resolve to return to her?

That is what I want explained to me!” he paused, as was his wont, for

sympathetic comment, my aunt, instead of answering as others, with a

yawn: “Oh, I'm sure I don't know. Felt he wanted to see her, I suppose,”

replied with prompt intelligence:

“To murder her--by slow poison.”

“To murder her! But why?”

“In order to marry the other woman.”

“What other woman?”

“The woman he had just met and fallen in love with. Before that it was

immaterial to him what had become of his wife. This woman had said to

him: 'Come back to me a free man or never see my face again.'”

“Dear me! Now that's very curious.”

“Nothing of the sort. Plain common sense.”

“I mean, it's curious because, as a matter of fact, his wife did die a

little later, and he did marry again.”

“Told you so,” remarked my aunt.

In this way every case in the Stillwood annals was reviewed, and light

thrown upon it by my aunt's insight into the hidden springs of human

action. Fortunate that the actors remained mere Mr. X. and Lady Y., for

into the most innocent seeming behaviour my aunt read ever dark criminal

intent.

“I think you are a little too severe,” Mr. Gadley would now and then

plead.

“We're all of us miserable sinners,” my aunt would cheerfully affirm;

“only we don't all get the same chances.”

An elderly maiden lady, a Miss Z., residing in “a western town once

famous as the resort of fashion, but which we will not name,” my aunt

was convinced had burnt down a house containing a will, and forged

another under which her children--should she ever marry and be blessed

with such--would inherit among them on coming of age a fortune of seven

hundred pounds.

The freshness of her views on this, his favourite topic, always

fascinated Mr. Gadley.

“I have to thank you, ma'am,” he would remark on rising, “for a

most delightful conversation. I may not be able to agree with your

conclusions, but they afford food for reflection.”

To which my aunt would reply, “I hate talking to any one who agrees with

me. It's like taking a walk to see one's own looking-glass. I'd rather

talk to somebody who didn't, even if he were a fool,” which for her was

gracious.

He was a stout little gentleman with a stomach that protruded about a

foot in front of him, and of this he appeared to be quite unaware. Nor

would it have mattered had it not been for his desire when talking to

approach as close to his listener as possible. Gradually in the course

of conversation, his stomach acting as a gentle battering ram, he would

in this way drive you backwards round the room, sometimes, unless

you were artful, pinning you hopelessly into a corner, when it would

surprise him that in spite of all his efforts he never succeeded in

getting any nearer to you. His first evening at our house he was talking

to my aunt from the corner of his chair. As he grew more interested so

he drew his chair nearer and nearer, till at length, having withdrawn

inch by inch to avoid his encroachments, my aunt was sitting on the

extreme edge of her own. His next move sent her on to the floor. She

said nothing, which surprised me; but on the occasion of his next

visit she was busy darning stockings, an unusual occupation for her.

He approached nearer and nearer as before; but this time she sat

her ground, and it was he who in course of time sprang back with an

exclamation foreign to the subject under discussion.

Ever afterwards my aunt met him with stockings in her hand, and they

talked with a space between their chairs.

Nothing further came of it, though his being a widower added to their

intercourse that spice of possibility no woman is ever too old to

relish; but that he admired her intellectually was evident. Once he

even went so far as to exclaim: “Miss Davies, you should have been a

solicitor's wife!” to his thinking the crown of feminine ambition. To

which my aunt had replied: “Chances are I should have been if one had

ever asked me.” And warmed by appreciation, my aunt's amiability took

root and flourished, though assuming, as all growth developed late is

apt to, fantastic shape.

There came to her the idea, by no means ill-founded, that by flattery

one can most readily render oneself agreeable; so conscientiously she

set to work to flatter in season and out. I am sure she meant to give

pleasure, but the effect produced was that of thinly veiled sarcasm.

My father would relate to us some trifling story, some incident noticed

during the day that had seemed to him amusing. At once she would break

out into enthusiasm, holding up her hands in astonishment.

“What a funny man he is! And to think that it comes to him naturally

without an effort. What a gift it is!”

On my mother appearing in a new bonnet, or an old one retrimmed, an

event not unfrequent; for in these days my mother took more thought than

ever formerly for her appearance (you will understand, you women who

have loved), she would step back in simulated amazement.

“Don't tell me it's a married woman with a boy getting on for fourteen.

It's a girl. A saucy, tripping girl. That's what it is.”

Persons have been known, I believe, whose vanity, not checked in time,

has grown into a hopeless disease. But I am inclined to think that a

dose of my aunt, about this period, would have cured the most obstinate

case.

So also, and solely for our benefit, she assumed a vivacity and

spriteliness that ill suited her, that having regard to her age and

tendency towards rheumatism must have cost her no small effort. From

these experiences there remains to me the perhaps immoral opinion that

Virtue, in common with all other things, is at her best when unassuming.

Occasionally the old Adam--or should one say Eve--would assert itself in

my aunt, and then, still thoughtful for others, she would descend into

the kitchen and be disagreeable to Amy, our new servitor, who never

minded it. Amy was a philosopher who reconciled herself to all things

by the reflection that there were only twenty-four hours in a day.

It sounds a dismal theory, but from it Amy succeeded in extracting

perpetual cheerfulness. My mother would apologise to her for my aunt's

interference.

“Lord bless you, mum, it don't matter. If I wasn't listening to her

something else worse might be happening. Everything's all the same when

it's over.”

Amy had come to us merely as a stop gap, explaining to my mother that

she was about to be married and desired only a temporary engagement to

bridge over the few weeks between then and the ceremony.

“It's rather unsatisfactory,” had said my mother. “I dislike changes.”

“I can quite understand it, mum,” had replied Amy; “I dislike 'em

myself. Only I heard you were in a hurry, and I thought maybe that while

you were on the lookout for somebody permanent--”

So on that understanding she came. A month later my mother asked her

when she thought the marriage would actually take place.

“Don't think I'm wishing you to go,” explained my mother, “indeed I'd

like you to stop. I only want to know in time to make my arrangements.”

“Oh, some time in the spring, I expect,” was Amy's answer.

“Oh!” said my mother, “I understood it was coming off almost

immediately.”

Amy appeared shocked.

“I must know a little bit more about him before I go as far as that,”

she said.

“But I don't understand,” said my mother; “you told me when you came to

me that you were going to be married in a few weeks.”

“Oh, that one!” Her tone suggested that an unfair strain was being put

upon her memory. “I didn't feel I wanted him as much as I thought I did

when it came to the point.”

“You had meantime met the other one?” suggested my mother, with a smile.

“Well, we can't help our feelings, can we, mum?” admitted Amy, frankly,

“and what I always say is”--she spoke as one with experience even

then--“better change your mind before it's too late afterwards.”

Amiable, sweet-faced, broad-hearted Amy! most faithful of friends, but

oh! most faithless of lovers. Age has not withered nor custom staled her

liking for infinite variety. Butchers, bakers, soldiers, sailors, Jacks

of all trades! Does the sighing procession never pass before you, Amy,

pointing ghostly fingers of reproach! Still Amy is engaged. To whom at

the particular moment I cannot say, but I fancy to an early one who has

lately become a widower. After more exact knowledge I do not care to

enquire; for to confess ignorance on the subject, implying that one has

treated as a triviality and has forgotten the most important detail of

a matter that to her is of vital importance, is to hurt her feelings;

while to angle for information is but to entangle oneself. To speak of

Him as “Tom,” when Tom has belonged for weeks to the dead and buried

past, to hastily correct oneself to “Dick” when there hasn't been a Dick

for years, clearly not to know that he is now Harry, annoys her even

more. In my mother's time we always referred to him as “Dearest.” It was

the title with which she herself distinguished them all, and it avoided

confusion.

“Well, and how's Dearest?” my mother would enquire, opening the door to

Amy on the Sunday evening.

“Oh, very well indeed, mum, thank you, and he sends you his respects,”

or, “Well, not so nicely as I could wish. I'm a little anxious about

him, poor dear!”

“When you are married you will be able to take good care of him.”

“That's really what he wants--some one to take care of him. It's what

they all want, the poor dears.”

“And when is it coming off?”

“In the spring, mum.” She always chose the spring when possible.

Amy was nice to all men, and to Amy all men were nice. Could she have

married a dozen, she might have settled down, with only occasional

regrets concerning those left without in the cold. But to ask her to

select only one out of so many “poor dears” was to suggest shameful

waste of affection.

We had meant to keep our grim secret to ourselves; but to hide one's

troubles long from Amy was like keeping cold hands from the fire. Very

soon she knew everything that was to be known, drawing it all from my

mother as from some overburdened child. Then she put my mother down into

a chair and stood over her.

“Now you leave the house and everything connected with it to me, mum,”

commanded Amy; “you've got something else to do.”

And from that day we were in the hands of Amy, and had nothing else to

do but praise the Lord for His goodness.

Barbara also found out (from Washburn, I expect), though she said

nothing, but came often. Old Hasluck would have come himself, I am

sure, had he thought he would be welcome. As it was, he always sent

kind messages and presents of fruit and flowers by Barbara, and always

welcomed me most heartily whenever she allowed me to see her home.

She brought, as ever, sunshine with her, making all trouble seem far off

and shadowy. My mother tended to the fire of love, but Barbara lit the

cheerful lamp of laughter.

And with the lessening days my father seemed to grow younger, life lying

lighter on him.

One summer's night he and I were walking with Barbara to Poplar station,

for sometimes, when he was not looking tired, she would order him to

fetch his hat and stick, explaining to him with a caress, “I like them

tall and slight and full grown. The young ones, they don't know how to

flirt! We will take the boy with us as gooseberry;” and he, pretending

to be anxious that my mother did not see, would kiss her hand, and slip

out quietly with her arm linked under his. It was admirable the way he

would enter into the spirit of the thing.

The last cloud faded from before the moon as we turned the corner, and

even the East India Dock Road lay restful in front of us.

“I have always regarded myself,” said my father, “as a failure in life,

and it has troubled me.” I felt him pulled the slightest little bit

away from me, as though Barbara, who held his other arm, had drawn him

towards her with a swift pressure. “But do you know the idea that has

come to me within the last few months? That on the whole I have been

successful. I am like a man,” continued my father, “who in some deep

wood has been frightened, thinking he has lost his way, and suddenly

coming to the end of it, finds that by some lucky chance he has been

guided to the right point after all. I cannot tell you what a comfort it

is to me.

“What is the right point?” asked Barbara.

“Ah, that I cannot tell you,” answered my father, with a laugh. “I only

know that for me it is here where I am. All the time I thought I was

wandering away from it I was drawing nearer to it. It is very wonderful.

I am just where I ought to be. If I had only known I never need have

worried.”

Whether it would have troubled either him or my mother very much even

had it been otherwise I cannot say, for Life, so small a thing when

looked at beside Death, seemed to have lost all terror for them; but be

that as it may, I like to remember that Fortune at the last was kind

to my father, prospering his adventures, not to the extent his sanguine

nature had dreamt, but sufficiently: so that no fear for our future

marred the peaceful passing of his tender spirit.

Or should I award thanks not to Fate, but rather to sweet Barbara,

and behind her do I not detect shameless old Hasluck, grinning

good-naturedly in the background?

“Now, Uncle Luke, I want your advice. Dad's given me this cheque as a

birthday present. I don't want to spend it. How shall I invest it?”

“My dear, why not consult your father?”

“Now, Uncle Luke, dad's a dear, especially after dinner, but you and

I know him. Giving me a present is one thing, doing business for me

is another. He'd unload on me. He'd never be able to resist the

temptation.”

My father would suggest, and Barbara would thank him. But a minute later

would murmur: “You don't know anything about Argentinos.”

My father did not, but Barbara did; to quite a remarkable extent for a

young girl.

“That child has insisted on leaving this cheque with me and I have

advised her to buy Argentinos,” my father would observe after she was

gone. “I am going to put a few hundreds into them myself. I hope they

will turn out all right, if only for her sake. I have a presentiment

somehow that they will.”

A month later Barbara would greet him with: “Isn't it lucky we bought

Argentinos!”

“Yes; they haven't turned out badly, have they? I had a feeling, you

know, for Argentinos.”

“You're a genius, Uncle Luke. And now we will sell out and buy

Calcuttas, won't we?”

“Sell out? But why?”

“You said so. You said, 'We will sell out in about a month and be quite

safe.'”

“My dear, I've no recollection of it.”

But Barbara had, and before she had done with him, so had he. And the

next day Argentinos would be sold--not any too soon--and Calcuttas

bought.

Could money so gained bring a blessing with it? The question would

plague my father.

“It's very much like gambling,” he would mutter uneasily to himself at

each success, “uncommonly like gambling.”

“It is for your mother,” he would impress upon me. “When she is gone,

Paul, put it aside, Keep it for doing good; that may make it clean.

Start your own life without any help from it.”

He need not have troubled. It went the road that all luck derived

however indirectly from old Hasluck ever went. Yet it served good

purpose on its way.

But the most marvellous feat, to my thinking, ever accomplished by

Barbara was the bearing off of my father and mother to witness “A Voice

from the Grave, or the Power of Love, New and Original Drama in five

acts and thirteen tableaux.”

They had been bred in a narrow creed, both my father and my mother. That

Puritan blood flowed in their veins that throughout our land has drowned

much harmless joyousness; yet those who know of it only from hearsay

do foolishly to speak but ill of it. If ever earnest times should

come again, not how to enjoy but how to live being the question, Fate

demanding of us to show not what we have but what we are, we may regret

that they are fewer among us than formerly, those who trained themselves

to despise all pleasure, because in pleasure they saw the subtlest foe

to principle and duty. No graceful growth, this Puritanism, for its

roots are in the hard, stern facts of life; but it is strong, and from

it has sprung all that is worth preserving in the Anglo-Saxon character.

Its men feared and its women loved God, and if their words were harsh

their hearts were tender. If they shut out the sunshine from their lives

it was that their eyes might see better the glory lying beyond; and if

their view be correct, that earth's threescore years and ten are but

as preparation for eternity, then who shall call them even foolish for

turning away their thoughts from its allurements.

“Still, I think I should like to have a look at one, just to see what it

is like,” argued my father; “one cannot judge of a thing that one knows

nothing about.”

I imagine it was his first argument rather than his second that

convinced my mother.

“That is true,” she answered. “I remember how shocked my poor father

was when he found me one night at the bedroom window reading Sir Walter

Scott by the light of the moon.”

“What about the boy?” said my father, for I had been included in the

invitation.

“We will all be wicked together,” said my mother.

So an evening or two later the four of us stood at the corner of Pigott

Street waiting for the 'bus.

“It is a close evening,” said my father; “let's go the whole hog and

ride outside.”

In those days for a lady to ride outside a 'bus was as in these days for

a lady to smoke in public. Surely my mother's guardian angel must have

betaken himself off in a huff.

“Will you keep close behind and see to my skirt?” answered my mother,

commencing preparations. If you will remember that these were the days

of crinolines, that the “knife-boards” of omnibuses were then approached

by a perpendicular ladder, the rungs two feet apart, you will understand

the necessity for such precaution.

Which of us was the most excited throughout that long ride it would be

difficult to say. Barbara, feeling keenly her responsibility as prompter

and leader of the dread enterprise, sat anxious, as she explained to us

afterwards, hoping there would be nothing shocking in the play, nothing

to belie its innocent title; pleased with her success so far, yet

still fearful of failure, doubtful till the last moment lest we should

suddenly repent, and stopping the 'bus, flee from the wrath to come.

My father was the youngest of us all. Compared with him I was sober and

contained. He fidgeted: people remarked upon it. He hummed. But for

the stern eye of a thin young man sitting next to him trying to read

a paper, I believe he would have broken out into song. Every minute he

would lean across to enquire of my mother: “How are you feeling--all

right?” To which my mother would reply with a nod and a smile, She sat

very silent herself, clasping and unclasping her hands. As for myself,

I remember feeling so sorry for the crowds that passed us on their way

home. It was sad to think of the long dull evening that lay before them.

I wondered how they could face it.

Our seats were in the front row of the upper circle. The lights were low

and the house only half full when we reached them.

“It seems very orderly and--and respectable,” whispered my mother. There

seemed a touch of disappointment in her tone.

“We are rather early,” replied Barbara; “it will be livelier when the

band comes in and they turn up the gas.”

But even when this happened my mother was not content. “There is so

little room for the actors,” she complained.

It was explained to her that the green curtain would go up, that the

stage lay behind.

So we waited, my mother sitting stiffly on the extreme edge of her

seat, holding me tightly by the hand; I believe with some vague idea of

flight, should out of that vault-scented gloom the devil suddenly appear

to claim us for his own. But before the curtain was quite up she had

forgotten him.

You poor folk that go to the theatre a dozen times a year, perhaps

oftener, what do you know of plays? You see no drama, you see but

middle-aged Mr. Brown, churchwarden, payer of taxes, foolishly

pretending to be a brigand; Miss Jones, daughter of old Jones the

Chemist, making believe to be a haughty Princess. How can you, a grown

man, waste money on a seat to witness such tomfoolery! What we saw was

something very different. A young and beautiful girl--true, not a lady

by birth, being merely the daughter of an honest yeoman, but one equal

in all the essentials of womanhood to the noblest in the land--suffered

before our very eyes an amount of misfortune that, had one not seen it

for oneself, one would never have believed Fate could have accumulated

upon the head of any single individual. Beside her woes our own poor

troubles sank into insignificance. We had used to grieve, as my mother

in a whisper reminded my father, if now and again we had not been able

to afford meat for dinner. This poor creature, driven even from her

wretched attic, compelled to wander through the snow without so much as

an umbrella to protect her, had not even a crust to eat; and yet never

lost her faith in Providence. It was a lesson, as my mother remarked

afterwards, that she should never forget. And virtue had been

triumphant, let shallow cynics say what they will. Had we not proved it

with our own senses? The villain--I think his Christian name, if one

can apply the word “Christian” in connection with such a fiend, was

Jasper--had never really loved the heroine. He was incapable of love. My

mother had felt this before he had been on the stage five minutes, and

my father--in spite of protests from callous people behind who appeared

to be utterly indifferent to what was going on under their very

noses--had agreed with her. What he was in love with was her

fortune--the fortune that had been left to her by her uncle in

Australia, but about which nobody but the villain knew anything. Had

she swerved a hair's breadth from the course of almost supernatural

rectitude, had her love for the hero ever weakened, her belief in

him--in spite of damning evidence to the contrary--for a moment wavered,

then wickedness might have triumphed. How at times, knowing all the

facts but helpless to interfere, we trembled, lest deceived by the

cruel lies the villain told her; she should yield to importunity. How

we thrilled when, in language eloquent though rude, she flung his false

love back into his teeth. Yet still we feared. We knew well that it was

not the hero who had done the murder. “Poor dear,” as Amy would have

called him, he was quite incapable of doing anything requiring one-half

as much smartness. We knew that it was not he, poor innocent lamb! who

had betrayed the lady with the French accent; we had heard her on the

subject and had formed a very shrewd conjecture. But appearances,

we could not help admitting, were terribly to his disfavour. The

circumstantial evidence against him would have hanged an Archbishop.

Could she in face of it still retain her faith? There were moments when

my mother restrained with difficulty her desire to rise and explain.

Between the acts Barbara would whisper to her that she was not to mind,

because it was only a play, and that everything would be sure to come

right in the end.

“I know, my dear,” my mother would answer, laughing, “it is very foolish

of me; I forget. Paul, when you see me getting excited, you must remind

me.”

But of what use was I in such case! I, who only by holding on to the

arms of my seat could keep myself from swarming down on to the stage

to fling myself between this noble damsel and her persecutor--this

fair-haired, creamy angel in whose presence for the time being I had

forgotten even Barbara.

The end came at last. The uncle from Australia was not dead. The

villain--bungler as well as knave--had killed the wrong man, somebody of

no importance whatever. As a matter of fact, the comic man himself was

the uncle from Australia--had been so all along. My mother had had a

suspicion of this from the very first. She told us so three times, to

make up, I suppose, for not having mentioned it before. How we cheered

and laughed, in spite of the tears in our eyes.

By pure accident it happened to be the first night of the piece, and

the author, in response to much shouting and whistling, came before the

curtain. He was fat and looked commonplace; but I deemed him a genius,

and my mother said he had a good face, and waved her handkerchief

wildly; while my father shouted “Bravo!” long after everybody else had

finished; and people round about muttered “packed house,” which I didn't

understand at the time, but came to later.

And stranger still, it happened to be before that very same curtain

that many years later I myself stepped forth to make my first bow as a

playwright. I saw the house but dimly, for on such occasion one's vision

is apt to be clouded. All that I saw clearly was in the front row of the

second circle--a sweet face laughing though the tears were in her eyes;

and she waved to me a handkerchief. And on one side of her stood a

gallant gentleman with merry eyes who shouted “Bravo!” and on the other

a dreamy-looking lad; but he appeared disappointed, having expected

better work from me. And the fourth face I could not see, for it was

turned away from me.

Barbara, determined on completeness, insisted upon supper. In those

days respectability fed at home; but one resort possible there was, an

eating-house with some pretence to gaiety behind St. Clement Danes,

and to that she led us. It was a long, narrow room, divided into wooden

compartments, after the old coffee-house plan, a gangway down the

centre. Now we should call it a dismal hole, and closing the door hasten

away. But to Adam, Eve in her Sunday fig-leaves was a stylishly dressed

woman; and to my eyes, with its gilded mirrors and its flaring gas, the

place seemed a palace.

Barbara ordered oysters, a fish that familiarity with its empty shell

had made me curious concerning. Truly no spot on the globe is so rich in

oyster shells as the East End of London. A stranger might be led to the

impression (erroneous) that the customary lunch of the East End labourer

consists of oysters. How they collect there in such quantities is a

mystery, though Washburn, to whom I once presented the problem, found no

difficulty in solving it to his own satisfaction: “To the rich man the

oyster; to the poor man the shell; thus are the Creator's gifts divided

among all His creatures; none being sent empty away.” For drink the

others had stout and I had ginger beer. The waiter, who called me “Sir,”

advised against this mixture; but among us all the dominating sentiment

by this time was that nothing really mattered very much. Afterwards my

father called for a cigar and boldly lighted it, though my mother looked

anxious; and fortunately perhaps it would not draw. And then it came out

that he himself had once written a play.

“You never told me of that,” complained my mother.

“It was a long while ago,” replied my father; “nothing came of it.”

“It might have been a success,” said my mother; “you always had a gift

for writing.”

“I must look it over again,” said my father; “I had quite forgotten it.

I have an impression it wasn't at all bad.”

“It can be of much help,” said my mother, “a good play. It makes one

think.”

We put Barbara into a cab and rode home ourselves inside a 'bus. My

mother was tired, so my father slipped his arm round her, telling her

to lean against him, and soon she fell asleep with her head upon his

shoulder. A coarse-looking wench sat opposite, her man's arm round her

likewise, and she also fell asleep, her powdered face against his coat.

“They can do with a bit of nursing, can't they?” said the man with a

grin to the conductor.

“Ah, they're just kids,” agreed the conductor, sympathetically, “that's

what they are, all of 'em, just kids.”

So the day ended. But oh, the emptiness of the morrow! Life without

a crime, without a single noble sentiment to brighten it!--no comic

uncles, no creamy angels! Oh, the barrenness and dreariness of life!

Even my mother at moments was quite irritable.

We were much together again, my father and I, about this time. Often,

making my way from school into the City, I would walk home with him, he

leaning on each occasion a little heavier upon my arm. To this day I can

always meet and walk with him down the Commercial Road. And on Saturday

afternoons, crossing the river to Greenwich, we would climb the hill and

sit there talking, or sometimes merely thinking together, watching the

dim vast city so strangely still and silent at our feet.

At first I did not grasp the fact that he was dying. The “year to two”

of life that Washburn had allowed to him had somehow become converted in

my mind to vague years, a fate with no immediate meaning; the meanwhile

he himself appeared to grow from day to day in buoyancy. How could I

know it was his great heart rising to his need.

The comprehension came to me suddenly. It was one afternoon in early

spring. I was on my way to the City to meet him. The Holborn Viaduct was

then in building, and the traffic round about was in consequence always

much disorganised. The 'bus on which I was riding became entangled in a

block at the corner of Snow Hill, and for ten minutes we had been merely

crawling, one joint of a long, sinuous serpent moving by short, painful

jerks. It came to me while I was sitting there with a sharp spasm of

physical pain. I jumped from the 'bus and began to run, and the terror

and the hurt of it grew with every step. I ran as if I feared he might

be dead before I could reach the office. He was waiting for me with a

smile as usual, and I flung myself sobbing into his arms.

I think he understood, though I could explain nothing, but that I had

had a fear something had happened to him, for from that time forward

he dropped all reserve with me, and talked openly of our approaching

parting.

“It might have come to us earlier, my dear boy,” he would say with his

arm round me, “or it might have been a little later. A year or so one

way or the other, what does it matter? And it is only for a little

while, Paul. We shall meet again.”

But I could not answer him, for clutch them to me as I would, all my

beliefs--the beliefs in which I had been bred, the beliefs that until

then I had never doubted, in that hour of their first trial, were

falling from me. I could not even pray. If I could have prayed for

anything, it would have been for my father's life. But if prayer were

all powerful, as they said, would our loved ones ever die? Man has not

faith enough, they would explain; if he had there would be no parting.

So the Lord jests with His creatures, offering with the one hand to

snatch back with the other. I flung the mockery from me. There was no

firm foothold anywhere. What were all the religions of the word but

narcotics with which Humanity seeks to dull its pain, drugs in which it

drowns its terrors, faith but a bubble that death pricks.

I do not mean my thoughts took this form. I was little more than a lad,

and to the young all thought is dumb, speaking only with a cry. But they

were there, vague, inarticulate. Thoughts do not come to us as we grow

older. They are with us all our lives. We learn their language, that is

all.

One fair still evening it burst from me. We had lingered in the Park

longer than usual, slowly pacing the broad avenue leading from the

Observatory to the Heath. I poured forth all my doubts and fears--that

he was leaving me for ever, that I should never see him again, I could

not believe. What could I do to believe?

“I am glad you have spoken, Paul,” he said, “it would have been sad had

we parted not understanding each other. It has been my fault. I did not

know you had these doubts. They come to all of us sooner or later. But

we hide them from one another. It is foolish.”

“But tell me,” I cried, “what can I do? How can I make myself believe?”

“My dear lad,” answered my father, “how can it matter what we believe or

disbelieve? It will not alter God's facts. Would you liken Him to some

irritable schoolmaster, angry because you cannot understand him?”

“What do you believe,” I asked, “father, really I mean.”

The night had fallen. My father put his arm round me and drew me to him.

“That we are God's children, little brother,” he answered, “that what He

wills for us is best. It may be life, it may be sleep; it will be best.

I cannot think that He will let us die: that were to think of Him as

without purpose. But His uses may not be our desires. We must trust Him.

'Though He slay me yet will I trust in Him.'”

We walked awhile in silence before my father spoke again.

“'Now abideth these three, Faith, Hope and Charity'--you remember

the verse--Faith in God's goodness to us, Hope that our dreams may

be fulfiled. But these concern but ourselves--the greatest of all is

Charity.”

Out of the night-shrouded human hive beneath our feet shone here and

there a point of light.

“Be kind, that is all it means,” continued my father. “Often we do what

we think right, and evil comes of it, and out of evil comes good. We

cannot understand--maybe the old laws we have misread. But the new Law,

that we love one another--all creatures He has made; that is so clear.

And if it be that we are here together only for a little while, Paul,

the future dark, how much the greater need have we of one another.”

I looked up into my father's face, and the peace that shone from it slid

into my soul and gave me strength.

CHAPTER IX.

OF THE FASHIONING OF PAUL.

Loves of my youth, whither are ye vanished? Tubby of the golden locks;

Langley of the dented nose; Shamus stout of heart but faint of limb,

easy enough to “down,” but utterly impossible to make to cry: “I give

you best;” Neal the thin; and Dicky, “dicky Dick” the fat; Ballett of

the weeping eye; Beau Bunnie lord of many ties, who always fought in

black kid gloves; all ye others, ye whose names I cannot recollect,

though I well remember ye were very dear to me, whither are ye vanished,

where haunt your creeping ghosts? Had one told me then there would come

a day I should never see again your merry faces, never hear your wild,

shrill whoop of greeting, never feel again the warm clasp of your inky

fingers, never fight again nor quarrel with you, never hate you, never

love you, could I then have borne the thought, I wonder?

Once, methinks, not long ago, I saw you, Tubby, you with whom so often

I discovered the North Pole, probed the problem of the sources of the

Nile, (Have you forgotten, Tubby, our secret camping ground beside the

lonely waters of the Regent's Park canal, where discussing our frugal

meal of toasted elephant's tongue--by the uninitiated mistakable for

jumbles--there would break upon our trained hunters' ear the hungry

lion or tiger's distant roar, mingled with the melancholy, long-drawn

growling of the Polar Bear, growing ever in volume and impatience until

half-past four precisely; and we would snatch our rifles, and

with stealthy tread and every sense alert make our way through the

jungle--until stopped by the spiked fencing round the Zoological

Gardens?) I feel sure it was you, in spite of your side whiskers and the

greyness and the thinness of your once clustering golden locks. You were

hurrying down Throgmorton Street chained to a small black bag. I should

have stopped you, but that I had no time to spare, having to catch a

train at Liverpool Street and to get shaved on the way. I wonder if

you recognised me: you looked at me a little hard, I thought. Gallant,

kindly hearted Shamus, you who fought once for half an hour to save

a frog from being skinned; they tell me you are now an Income Tax

assessor; a man, it is reported, with power of disbelief unusual among

even Inland Revenue circles; of little faith, lacking in the charity

that thinketh no evil. May Providence direct you to other districts than

to mine.

So Time, Nature's handy-man, bustles to and fro about the many rooms,

making all things tidy, covers with sweet earth the burnt volcanoes,

turns to use the debris of the ages, smoothes again the ground above the

dead, heals again the beech bark marred by lovers.

In the beginning I was far from being a favourite with my schoolmates,

and this was the first time trouble came to dwell with me. Later, we men

and women generally succeed in convincing ourselves that whatever else

we may have missed in life, popularity in a greater or less degree

we have at all events secured, for without it altogether few of us, I

think, would care to face existence. But where the child suffers keener

than the man is in finding himself exposed to the cold truth without the

protecting clothes of self-deception. My ostracism was painfully plain

to me, and, as was my nature, I brooded upon it in silence.

“Can you run?” asked of me one day a most important personage whose name

I have forgotten. He was head of the Lower Fourth, a tall youth with a

nose like a beak, and the manner of one born to authority. He was the

son of a draper in the Edgware Road, and his father failing, he had

to be content for a niche in life with a lower clerkship in the Civil

Service. But to us youngsters he always appeared a Duke of Wellington in

embryo, and under other circumstances might, perhaps, have become one.

“Yes,” I answered. As a matter of fact it was my one accomplishment, and

rumour of it maybe had reached him.

“Run round the playground twice at your fastest,” he commanded; “let me

see you.”

I clinched my fists and charged off. How grateful I was to him for

having spoken to me, the outcast of the class, thus publicly, I could

only show by my exertions to please him. When I drew up before him I was

panting hard, but I could see that he was satisfied.

“Why don't the fellows like you?” he asked bluntly.

If only I could have stepped out of my shyness, spoken my real thoughts!

“O Lord of the Lower Fourth! You upon whom success--the only success in

life worth having--has fallen as from the laps of the gods! You to whom

all Lower Fourth hearts turn! tell me the secret of this popularity. How

may I acquire it? No price can be too great for me to pay for it. Vain

little egoist that I am, it is the sum of my desires, and will be till

the long years have taught me wisdom. The want of it embitters all my

days. Why does silence fall upon their chattering groups when I draw

near? Why do they drive me from their games? What is it shuts me out

from them, repels them from me? I creep into the corners and shed

scalding tears of shame. I watch with envious eyes and ears all you

to whom the wondrous gift is given. What is your secret? Is it Tommy's

swagger? Then I will swagger, too, with anxious heart, with mingled fear

and hope. But why--why, seeing that in Tommy they admire it, do they

wait for me with imitations of cock-a-doodle-do, strut beside me

mimicking a pouter pigeon? Is it Dicky's playfulness?--Dicky, who runs

away with their balls, snatches their caps from off their heads, springs

upon their backs when they are least expecting it?

“Why should Dicky's reward be laughter, and mine a bloody nose and a

widened, deepened circle of dislike? I am no heavier than Dicky; if

anything a pound or two lighter. Is it Billy's friendliness? I too

would fling my arms about their necks; but from me they angrily wrench

themselves free. Is indifference the best plan? I walk apart with step I

try so hard to render careless; but none follows, no little friendly

arm is slipped through mine. Should one seek to win one's way by kind

offices? Ah, if one could! How I would fag for them. I could do their

sums for them--I am good at sums--write their impositions for them,

gladly take upon myself their punishments, would they but return

my service with a little love and--more important still--a little

admiration.”

But all I could find to say was, sulkily: “They do like me, some of

them.” I dared not, aloud, acknowledge the truth.

“Don't tell lies,” he answered; “you know they don't--none of them.” And

I hung my head.

“I'll tell you what I'll do,” he continued in his lordly way; “I'll give

you a chance. We're starting hare and hounds next Saturday; you can be a

hare. You needn't tell anybody. Just turn up on Saturday and I'll see to

it. Mind, you'll have to run like the devil.”

He walked away without waiting for my answer, leaving me to meet Joy

running towards me with outstretched hands. The great moment comes

to all of us; to the politician, when the Party whip slips from

confabulation with the Front Bench to congratulate him, smiling, on his

really admirable little speech; to the youthful dramatist, reading in

his bed-sitting-room the managerial note asking him to call that morning

at eleven; to the subaltern, beckoned to the stirrup of his chief--the

moment when the sun breaks through the morning mists, and the world lies

stretched before us, our way clear.

Obeying orders, I gave no hint in school of the great fortune that had

come to me; but hurrying home, I exploded in the passage before the

front door could be closed behind me.

“I am to be a hare because I run so fast. Anybody can be a hound, but

there's only two hares, and they all want me. And can I have a jersey?

We begin next Saturday. He saw me run. I ran twice round the playground.

He said I was splendid! Of course, it's a great honour to be a hare. We

start from Hampstead Heath. And may I have a pair of shoes?”

The jersey and the shoes my mother and I purchased that very day, for

the fear was upon me that unless we hastened, the last blue and white

striped jersey in London might be sold, and the market be empty of

running shoes. That evening, before getting into bed, I dressed myself

in full costume to admire myself before the glass; and from then till

the end of the week, to the terror of my mother, I practised leaping

over chairs, and my method of descending stairs was perilous and

roundabout. But, as I explained to them, the credit of the Lower

Fourth was at stake, and banisters and legs equally of small account

as compared with fame and honour; and my father, nodding his head,

supported me with manly argument; but my mother added to her prayers

another line.

Saturday came. The members of the hunt were mostly boys who lived in the

neighbourhood; so the arrangement was that at half-past two we should

meet at the turnpike gate outside the Spaniards. I brought my lunch with

me and ate it in Regent's Park, and then took the 'bus to the Heath. One

by one the others came up. Beyond mere glances, none of them took any

notice of me. I was wearing my ordinary clothes over my jersey. I knew

they thought I had come merely to see them start, and I hugged to myself

the dream of the surprise that was in store for them, and of which I

should be the hero. He came, one of the last, our leader and chief, and

I sidled up behind him and waited, while he busied himself organising

and constructing.

“But we've only got one hare,” cried one of them. “We ought to have two,

you know, in case one gets blown.”

“We've got two,” answered the Duke. “Think I don't know what I'm about?

Young Kelver's going to be the other one.”

Silence fell upon the meet.

“Oh, I say, we don't want him,” at last broke in a voice. “He's a muff.”

“He can run,” explained the Duke.

“Let him run home,” came another voice, which was greeted with laughter.

“You'll run home in a minute yourself,” threatened the Duke, “if I have

any of your cheek. Who's captain here--you or me? Now, young 'un, are

you ready?”

I had commenced unbuttoning my jacket, but my hands fell to my side. “I

don't want to come,” I answered, “if they don't want me.”

“He'll get his feet wet,” suggested the boy who had spoken first. “Don't

spoil him, he's his mother's pet.”

“Are you coming or are you not?” shouted the Duke, seeing me still

motionless. But the tears were coming into my eyes and would not go

back. I turned my face away without speaking.

“All right, stop then,” cried the Duke, who, like all authoritative

people, was impatient above all things of hesitation. “Here, Keefe, you

take the bag and be off. It'll be dark before we start.”

My substitute snatched eagerly at the chance, and away went the hares,

while I, still keeping my face hid, moved slowly off.

“Cry-baby!” shouted a sharp-eyed youngster.

“Let him alone,” growled the Duke; and I went on to where the cedars

grew.

I heard them start off a few minutes later with a whoop. How could I go

home, confess my disappointment, my shame? My father would be expecting

me with many questions, my mother waiting for me with hot water and

blankets. What explanation could I give that would not betray my

miserable secret?

It was a chill, dismal afternoon, the Heath deserted, a thin rain

commencing. I slipped off my shirt and jacket, and rolling them under my

arm, trotted off alone, hare and hounds combined in one small carcass,

to chase myself sadly by myself.

I see it still, that pathetically ridiculous little figure, jogging

doggedly over the dank fields. Mile after mile it runs, the little

idiot; jumping--sometimes falling into the muddy ditches: it seems

anxious rather than otherwise to get itself into a mess; scrambling

through the dripping hedges; swarming over tarry fence and slimy paling.

On, on it pants--through Bishop's Wood, by tangled Churchyard Bottom,

where now the railway shrieks; down sloppy lanes, bordering Muswell

Hill, where now stand rows of jerry-built, prim villas. At intervals

it stops an instant to dab its eyes with its dingy little rag of a

handkerchief, to rearrange the bundle under its arm, its chief anxiety

to keep well out of sight of chance wanderers, to dodge farmhouses, to

dart across highroads when nobody is looking. And so tear-smeared and

mud-bespattered up the long rise of darkening Crouch End Lane, where

to-night the electric light blazes from a hundred shops, and dead

beat into the Seven Sisters Road station, there to tear off its soaked

jersey; and then home to Poplar, with shameless account of the jolly

afternoon that it has spent, of the admiration and the praise that it

has won.

You poor, pitiful little brat! Popularity? it is a shadow. Turn your

eyes towards it, and it shall ever run before you, escaping you. Turn

your back upon it, walk joyously towards the living sun, and it shall

follow you. Am I not right? Why, then, do you look at me, your little

face twisted into that quizzical grin?

When one takes service with Deceit, one signs a contract that one may

not break but under penalty. Maybe it was good for my health, those

lonely runs; but oh, they were dreary! By a process of argument not

uncommon I persuaded myself that truth was a matter of mere words, that

so long as I had actually gone over the ground I described I was not

lying. To further satisfy my conscience, I bought a big satchel and

scattered from it torn-up paper as I ran.

“And they never catch you?” asked my mother.

“Oh, no, never; they never even get within sight of me.”

“Be careful, dear,” would advise my mother; “don't overstrain yourself.”

But I could see that she was proud of me.

And after awhile imagination came to my help, so that often I could hear

behind me the sound of pursuing feet, catch through gaps in the trees a

sight of a merry, host upon my trail, and would redouble my speed.

Thus, but for Dan, my loneliness would have been unbearable. His

friendship was always there for me to creep to, the shadow of a great

rock in a weary land. To this day one may always know Dan's politics:

they are those of the Party out of power. Always without question one

may know the cause that he will champion, the unpopular cause; the man

he will defend, the man who is down.

“You are such an un-understandable chap,” complained a fellow Clubman to

him once in my hearing. “I sometimes ask myself if you have any opinions

at all.”

“I hate a crowd,” was Dan's only confession of faith.

He never claimed anything from me in return for his affection; he was

there for me to hold to when I wanted him. When, baffled in all my

attempts to win the affections of others, I returned to him for comfort,

he gave it me, without even relieving himself of friendly advice. When

at length childish success came to me and I needed him less, he was

neither hurt nor surprised. Other people--their thoughts, their actions,

even when these concerned himself--never troubled him. He loved to

bestow, but as to response was strangely indifferent; indeed, if

anything, it bored him. His nature appeared to be that of the fountain,

which fulfils itself by giving, but is unable to receive.

My popularity came to me unexpectedly after I had given up hoping for

it; surprising me, annoying me. Gradually it dawned upon me that my

company was being sought.

“Come along, Kelver,” would say the spokesman of one group; “we're going

part of your way home. You can walk with us.”

Maybe I would go with them, but more often, before we reached the gate,

the delight of my society would be claimed by a rival troop.

“He's coming with us this afternoon. He promised.”

“No, he didn't.”

“Yes, he did.”

“Well, he ain't, anyhow. See?”

“Oh, isn't he? Who says he isn't?”

“I do.”

“Punch his head, Dick!”

“Yes, you do, Jimmy Blake, and I'll punch yours. Come, Kelver.”

I might have been some Queen of Beauty offered as prize for knightly

contest. Indeed, more than once the argument concluded thus primitively,

I being carried off in triumph by the victorious party.

For a period it remained a mystery to me, until I asked explanation of

Norval--we called him “Norval,” he being one George Grampian: it was our

wit. From taking joy in teasing me, Norval had suddenly become one of my

greatest admirers. This by itself was difficult enough to understand.

He was in the second eleven, and after Dan the best fighter in the lower

school. If I could understand Norval's change of attitude all would be

plain to me; so when next time, bounding upon me in the cloakroom and

slipping his arm into mine, he clamoured for my company to Camden Town,

I put the question to him bluntly.

“Why should I walk home with you? Why do you want me?”

“Because we like you.”

“But why do you like me?”

“Why! Why, because you're such a funny chap. You say such funny things.”

It struck me like a slap in the face. I had thought to reach popularity

upon the ladder of heroic qualities. In all the school books I had read,

Leonard or Marmaduke (we had a Marmaduke in the Lower Fifth--they

called him Marmalade: in the school books these disasters are not

contemplated), won love and admiration by reason of integrity of

character, nobility of sentiment, goodness of heart, brilliance of

intellect; combined maybe with a certain amount of agility, instinct in

the direction of bowling, or aptitude for jumping; but such only by the

way. Not one of them had ever said a funny thing, either consciously or

unconsciously.

“Don't be disagreeable, Kelver. Come with us and we will let you into

the team as an extra. I'll teach you batting.”

So I was to be their Fool--I, dreamer of knightly dreams, aspirant to

hero's fame! I craved their wonder; I had won their laughter. I had

prayed for popularity; it had been granted to me--in this guise. Were

the gods still the heartless practical jokers poor Midas had found them?

Had my vanity been less I should have flung their gift back in their

faces. But my thirst for approbation was too intense. I had to choose:

Cut capers and be followed, or walk in dignity, ignored. I chose to cut

the capers. As time wore on I found myself striving to cut them quicker,

quainter, thinking out funny stories, preparing ingenuous impromptus,

twisting all ideas into odd expression.

I had my reward. Before long my company was desired by all the school.

But I was never content. I would rather have been the Captain of their

football club, even his deputy Vice; would have given all my meed of

laughter for stuttering Jerry's one round of applause when in our match

against Highbury he knocked up his century, and so won the victory for

us by just three.

Till the end I never quite abandoned hope of exchanging my vine leaves

for the laurels. I would rise an hour earlier in the morning to practise

throwing at broomsticks set up in waste places. At another time, the

sport coming into temporary fashion, I wearied body and mind for weeks

in vain attempts to acquire skill on stilts. That even fat Tubby could

out-distance me upon them saddened my life for months.

A lad there was, a Sixth Form boy, one Wakeham by name, if I remember

rightly, who greatly envied me my gift of being able to amuse. He was of

the age when the other sex begins to be of importance to a fellow, and

the desire had come to him to be regarded as a star of wit among

the social circles of Gospel Oak. Need I say that by nature he was a

ponderously dull boy.

One afternoon I happened to be the centre of a small group in the

playground. I had been holding forth and they had been laughing. Whether

I had delivered myself of anything really entertaining or not I cannot

say. It made no difference; they had got into the habit of laughing when

I talked. Sometimes I would say quite serious things on purpose; they

would laugh just the same. Wakeham was among them, his eyes fixed on me,

watching me as boys watch a conjurer in the hope of finding out “how he

does it.” Later in the afternoon he slipped his arm through mine, and

drew me away into an empty corner of the ground.

“I say, Kelver,” he broke out, the moment we were beyond hearing, “you

really are funny!”

It gave me no pleasure. If he had told me that he admired my bowling I

might not have believed him, but should have loved him for it.

“So are you,” I answered savagely, “only you don't know it.”

“No, I'm not,” he replied. “Wish I was. I say, Kelver”--he glanced round

to see that no one was within earshot--“do you think you could teach me

to be funny?”

I was about to reply with conviction in the negative when an idea

occurred to me. Wakeham was famous among us for one thing; he could,

inserting two fingers in his mouth, produce a whistle capable of

confusing dogs a quarter of a mile off, and of causing people near at

hand to jump from six to eighteen inches into the air.

This accomplishment of his I envied him as keenly as he envied me mine.

I did not admire it; I could not see the use of it. Generally speaking,

it called forth irritation rather than affection. A purple-faced old

gentleman, close to whose ear he once performed, promptly cuffed his

head for it; and for so doing was commended by the whole street as a

public benefactor. Drivers of vehicles would respond by flicking at him,

occasionally with success. Even youth, from whom sympathy might have

been expected, appeared impelled, if anything happened to be at all

handy, to take it up and throw it at him. My own social circle would,

I knew, regard it as a vulgar accomplishment, and even Wakeham himself

dared not perform it in the hearing of his own classmates. That any

human being should have desired to acquire it seems incomprehensible.

Yet for weeks in secret I had wrestled to produce the hideous sound.

Why? For three reasons, so far as I can analyse this youngster of whom I

am writing:

Firstly, here was a means of attracting attention; secondly, it was

something that somebody else could do and that he couldn't; thirdly, it

was a thing for which he evidently had no natural aptitude whatever, and

therefore a thing to acquire which his soul yearned the more. Had a boy

come across his path, clever at walking on his hands with his heels in

the air, Master Paul Kelver would in all probability have broken his

neck in attempts to copy and excel. I make no apologies for the brat:

I merely present him as a study for the amusement of a world of wiser

boys--and men.

I struck a bargain with young Wakeham; I undertook to teach him to be

funny in return for his teaching me this costermonger's whistle.

Each of us strove conscientiously to impart knowledge. Neither of us

succeeded. Wakeham tried hard to be funny; I tried hard to whistle. He

did all I told him; I followed his instructions implicitly. The result

was the feeblest of wit and the feeblest of whistles.

“Do you think anybody would laugh at that?” Wakeham would pathetically

enquire at the termination of his supremest effort. And honestly I would

have to confess I did not think any living being would.

“How far off do you think any one could hear that?” I would demand

anxiously, on recovering sufficient breath to speak at all.

“Well, it would depend upon whether you knew it was coming,” Wakeham

would reply kindly, not wishing to discourage me.

We abandoned the scheme by mutual consent at about the end of a

fortnight.

“I suppose it's something that you've got to have inside you,” I

suggested to Wakeham in consolation.

“I don't think the roof of your mouth can be quite the right shape for

it,” concluded Wakeham.

My success as story-teller, commentator, critic, jester, revived

my childish ambition towards authorship. My first stirrings in this

direction I cannot rightly place. I remember when very small falling

into a sunk dust-bin--a deep hole, rather, into which the gardener shot

his rubbish. The fall twisted my ankle so that I could not move; and

the time being evening and my prison some distance from the house, my

predicament loomed large before me. Yet one consolation remained with

me: the incident would be of value to me in the autobiography upon which

I was then engaged. I can distinctly recollect lying on my back among

decaying leaves and broken glass, framing my account. “On this day a

strange adventure befell me. Walking in the garden, all unheeding, I

suddenly”--I did not want to add the truth--“tumbled into a dust-hole,

six feet square, that any one but a moon calf might have seen.” I

puzzled to evolve a more dignified situation. The dust-bin became a

cavern, the entrance to which had been artfully concealed; the six or

seven feet I had really fallen, “an endless descent, terminating in a

vast and gloomy chamber.” I was divided between opposing desires: One,

for rescue followed by sympathy and supper; the other, for the alarming

experience of a night of terror where I lay. Nature conquering Art,

I yelled; and the episode terminated prosaically with a warm bath and

arnica. But from it I judge that desire for the woes and perils of

authorship was with me somewhat early.

Of my many other dreams I would speak freely, discussing them at length

with sympathetic souls, but concerning this one ambition I was curiously

reticent. Only to two--my mother and a grey-bearded Stranger--did I

ever breathe a word of it. Even from my father I kept it a secret, close

comrades in all else though we were. He would have talked of it much and

freely, dragged it into the light of day; and from this I shrank.

My talk with the Stranger came about in this wise. One evening I had

taken a walk to Victoria Park--a favourite haunt of mine at summer time.

It was a fair and peaceful evening, and I fell a-wandering there in

pleasant reverie, until the waning light hinted to me the question of

time. I looked about me. Only one human being was in sight, a man with

his back towards me, seated upon a bench overlooking the ornamental

water.

I drew nearer. He took no notice of me, and interested--though why, I

could not say--I seated myself beside him at the other end of the bench.

He was a handsome, distinguished-looking man, with wonderfully bright,

clear eyes and iron-grey hair and beard. I might have thought him a sea

captain, of whom many were always to be met with in that neighbourhood,

but for his hands, which were crossed upon his stick, and which were

white and delicate as a woman's. He turned his face and glanced at me.

I fancied that his lips beneath the grey moustache smiled; and

instinctively I edged a little nearer to him.

“Please, sir,” I said, after awhile, “could you tell me the right time?”

“Twenty minutes to eight,” he answered, looking at his watch. And his

voice drew me towards him even more than had his beautiful strong face.

I thanked him, and we fell back into silence.

“Where do you live?” he turned and suddenly asked me.

“Oh, only over there,” I answered, with a wave of my arm towards the

chimney-fringed horizon behind us. “I needn't be in till half-past

eight. I like this Park so much,” I added, “I often come and sit here of

an evening.'

“Why do you like to come and sit here?” he asked. “Tell me.”

“Oh, I don't know,” I answered. “I think.”

I marvelled at myself. With strangers generally I was shy and silent;

but the magic of his bright eyes seemed to have loosened my tongue.

I told him my name; that we lived in a street always full of ugly

sounds, so that a gentleman could not think, not even in the evening

time, when Thought goes a-visiting.

“Mamma does not like the twilight time,” I confided to him. “It always

makes her cry. But then mamma is--not very young, you know, and has had

a deal of trouble; and that makes a difference, I suppose.”

He laid his hand upon mine. We were sitting nearer to each other now.

“God made women weak to teach us men to be tender,” he said. “But you,

Paul, like this 'twilight time'?”

“Yes,” I answered, “very much. Don't you?”

“And why do you like it?” he asked.

“Oh,” I answered, “things come to you.”

“What things?”

“Oh, fancies,” I explained to him. “I am going to be an author when I

grow up, and write books.”

He took my hand in his and shook it gravely, and then returned it to me.

“I, too, am a writer of books,” he said.

And then I knew what had drawn me to him.

So for the first time I understood the joy of talking “shop” with a

fellow craftsman. I told him my favourite authors--Scott, and Dumas,

and Victor Hugo; and to my delight found they were his also; he agreeing

with me that real stories were the best, stories in which people did

things.

“I used to read silly stuff once,” I confessed, “Indian tales and that

sort of thing, you know. But mamma said I'd never be able to write if I

read that rubbish.”

“You will find it so all through life, Paul,” he replied. “The things

that are nice are rarely good for us. And what do you read now?”

“I am reading Marlowe's Plays and De Quincey's Confessions just now,” I

confided to him.

“And do you understand them?”

“Fairly well,” I answered. “Mamma says I'll like them better as I go

on. I want to learn to write very, very well indeed,” I admitted to him;

“then I'll be able to earn heaps of money.”

He smiled. “So you don't believe in Art for Art's sake, Paul?”

I was puzzled. “What does that mean?” I asked.

“It means in our case, Paul,” he answered, “writing books for the

pleasure of writing books, without thinking of any reward, without

desiring either money or fame.”

It was a new idea to me. “Do many authors do that?” I asked.

He laughed outright this time. It was a delightful laugh. It rang

through the quiet Park, awaking echoes; and caught by it, I laughed with

him.

“Hush!” he said; and he glanced round with a whimsical expression of

fear, lest we might have been overheard. “Between ourselves, Paul,” he

continued, drawing me more closely towards him and whispering, “I don't

think any of us do. We talk about it. But I'll tell you this, Paul; it

is a trade secret and you must remember it: No man ever made money or

fame but by writing his very best. It may not be as good as somebody

else's best, but it is his best. Remember that, Paul.”

I promised I would.

“And you must not think merely of the money and the fame, Paul,” he

added the next moment, speaking more seriously. “Money and fame are very

good things, and only hypocrites pretend to despise them. But if you

write books thinking only of money, you will be disappointed. It is

earned easier in other ways. Tell me, that is not your only idea?”

I pondered. “Mamma says it is a very noble calling, authorship,” I

remembered, “and that any one ought to be very proud and glad to be able

to write books, because they give people happiness and make them forget

things; and that one ought to be very good if one is going to be an

author, so as to be worthy to help and teach others.”

“And do you try to be good, Paul?” he enquired.

“Yes,” I answered; “but it's very hard to be quite good--until of course

you're grown up.”

He smiled, but more to himself than to me. “Yes,” he said, “I suppose it

is difficult to be good until you are grown up. Perhaps we shall all of

us be good when we're quite grown up.” Which, from a gentleman with a

grey beard, appeared to me a puzzling observation.

“And what else does mamma say about literature?” he asked. “Can you

remember?”

Again I pondered, and her words came back to me. “That he who can write

a great book is greater than a king; that the gift of being able to

write is given to anybody in trust; that an author should never forget

he is God's servant.”

He sat for awhile without speaking, his chin resting on his folded hands

supported by his gold-topped cane. Then he turned and laid a hand upon

my shoulder, and his clear, bright eyes were close to mine.

“Your mother is a wise lady, Paul,” he said. “Remember her words always.

In later life let them come back to you; they will guide you better than

the chatter of the Clubs.”

“And what modern authors do you read?” he asked after a silence: “any of

them--Thackeray, Bulwer Lytton, Dickens?”

“I have read 'The Last of the Barons,'” I told him; “I like that. And

I've been to Barnet and seen the church. And some of Mr. Dickens'.”

“And what do you think of Mr. Dickens?” he asked. But he did not seem

very interested in the subject. He had picked up a few small stones, and

was throwing them carefully into the water.

“I like him very much,” I answered; “he makes you laugh.”

“Not always?” he asked. He stopped his stone-throwing, and turned

sharply towards me.

“Oh, no, not always,” I admitted; “but I like the funny bits best. I

like so much where Mr. Pickwick--”

“Oh, damn Mr. Pickwick!” he said.

“Don't you like him?” I asked.

“Oh, yes, I like him well enough, or used to,” he replied; “I'm a bit

tired of him, that's all. Does your mamma like Mr.--Mr. Dickens?”

“Not the funny parts,” I explained to him. “She thinks he is

occasionally--”

“I know,” he interrupted, rather irritably, I thought; “a trifle

vulgar.”

It surprised me that he should have guessed her exact words. “I don't

think mamma has much sense of humour,” I explained to him. “Sometimes

she doesn't even see papa's jokes.”

At that he laughed again. “But she likes the other parts?” he enquired,

“the parts where Mr. Dickens isn't--vulgar?”

“Oh, yes,” I answered. “She says he can be so beautiful and tender, when

he likes.”

Twilight was deepening. It occurred to me to enquire of him again the

time.

“Just over the quarter,” he answered, looking at his watch.

“I'm so sorry,” I said. “I must go now.”

“So am I sorry, Paul,” he answered. “Perhaps we shall meet again.

Good-bye.” Then as our hands touched: “You have never asked me my name,

Paul,” he reminded me.

“Oh, haven't I?” I answered.

“No, Paul,” he replied, “and that makes me think of your future with

hope. You are an egotist, Paul; and that is the beginning of all art.”

And after that he would not tell me his name. “Perhaps next time we

meet,” he said. “Good-bye, Paul. Good luck to you!”

So I went my way. Where the path winds out of sight I turned. He was

still seated upon the bench, but his face was towards me, and he waved

his hand to me. I answered with a wave of mine. And then the intervening

boughs and bushes gradually closed in around me. And across the rising

mist there rose the hoarse, harsh cry:

“All out! All out!”

CHAPTER X.

IN WHICH PAUL IS SHIPWRECKED, AND CAST INTO DEEP WATERS.

My father died, curiously enough, on the morning of his birthday. We had

not expected the end to arrive for some time, and at first did not know

that it had come.

“I have left him sleeping,” said my mother, who had slipped out very

quietly in her dressing-gown. “Washburn gave him a draught last night.

We won't disturb him.”

So we sat round the breakfast table, speaking in low tones, for the

house was small and flimsy, all sound easily heard through its thin

partitions. Afterwards my mother crept upstairs, I following, and

cautiously opened the door a little way.

The blinds were still down, and the room dark. It seemed a long time

that my mother stood there listening, her ear against the jar. The

first costermonger--a girl's voice, it sounded--passed, crying shrilly:

“Watercreases, fine fresh watercreases with your breakfast-a'penny

a bundle watercreases;” and further off a hoarse youth was wailing:

“Mee-ilk-mee-ilk-oi.”

Inch by inch my mother opened the door wider and we stole in. He was

lying with his eyes still closed, the lips just slightly parted. I had

never seen death before, and could not realise it. All that I could see

was that he looked even younger than I had ever seen him look before.

By slow degrees only, it came home to me, the knowledge that he was gone

away from us. For days--for weeks, I would hear his step behind me in

the street, his voice calling to me, see his face among the crowds,

and hastening to meet him, stand bewildered because it had mysteriously

disappeared. But at first I felt no pain whatever.

To my mother it was but a short parting. Into her placid faith had never

fallen fear nor doubt. He was waiting for her. In God's good time they

would meet again. What need of sorrow! Without him the days passed

slowly: the house must ever be a little dull when the good man's away.

But that was all. So my mother would speak of him always--of his dear,

kind ways, of his oddities and follies we loved so to recall, not

through tears, but smiles, thinking of him not as of one belonging to

the past, but as of one beckoning to her from the future.

We lived on still in the old house though ever planning to move, for

the great brick monster had crept closer round about us year by year,

devouring in his progress all things fair. Field and garden, tree and

cottage, time-mellowed house suggesting story, kind hedgerow hiding

hideousness beyond--the few spots yet in that doomed land lingering to

remind one of the sunshine, one by one had he scrunched them between his

ugly teeth. A world apart, this east end of London, this ghetto of the

poor for ever growing, dreariness added year by year to dreariness,

hopelessness stretching ever farther its long, shrivelled arms, these

endless rows of reeking cells where London herds her slaves. Often of a

misty afternoon when we knew that without this city of the dead life was

stirring in the sunshine, we would fare forth to house-hunt in

pleasant suburbs, now themselves added to the weary catacomb of narrow

streets--to Highgate, then a tiny town connected by a coach with leafy

Holloway; to Hampstead with its rows of ancient red-brick houses, from

whose wind-blown heath one saw beyond the woods and farms, far London's

domes and spires, to Wood Green among the pastures, where smock-coated

labourers discussed their politics and ale beneath wide-spreading elms;

to Hornsey, then a village consisting of an ivy-covered church and one

grass-bordered way. But though we often saw “the very thing for us” and

would discuss its possibilities from every point of view and find them

good, we yet delayed.

“We must think it over,” would say my mother; “there is no hurry; for

some reasons I shall be sorry to leave Poplar.”

“For what reasons, mother?”

“Oh, well, no particular reason, Paul. Only we have lived there so long,

you know. It will be a wrench leaving the old house.”

To the making of man go all things, even to the instincts of the

clinging vine. We fling our tendrils round what is the nearest

castle-keep or pig-stye wall, rain and sunshine fastening them but

firmer. Dying Sir Walter Scott--do you remember?--hastening home from

Italy, fearful lest he might not be in time to breathe again the damp

mists of the barren hills. An ancient dame I knew, they had carried her

from her attic in slumland that she might be fanned by the sea breezes,

and the poor old soul lay pining for what she called her “home.” Wife,

mother, widow, she had lived there till the alley's reek smelt good

to her nostrils, till its riot was the voices of her people. Who shall

understand us save He who fashioned us?

So the old house held us to its dismal bosom; and not until within its

homely but unlovely arms, first my aunt, and later on my mother had

died, and I had said good-bye to Amy, crying in the midst of littered

emptiness, did I leave it.

My aunt died as she had lived, grumbling.

“You will be glad to get rid of me, all of you!” she said, dropping for

the first and last time I can recollect into the retort direct; “and I

can't say I shall be very sorry to go myself. It hasn't been my idea of

life.”

Poor old lady! That was only a couple of weeks before the end. I do not

suppose she guessed it was so certain or perhaps she might have been

more sentimental.

“Don't be foolish,” said my mother, “you're not going to die!”

“What's the use of talking like an idiot,” retorted my aunt, “I've got

to do it some time. Why not now, when everything's all ready for it. It

isn't as if I was enjoying myself.”

“I am sure we do all we can for you,” said my mother. “I know you do,”

replied my aunt. “I'm a burden to you. I always have been.”

“Not a burden,” corrected my mother.

“What does the woman call it then,” snapped back my aunt. “Does she

reckon I've been a sunbeam in the house? I've been a trial to everybody.

That's what I was born for; it's my metier.”

My mother put her arms about the poor old soul and kissed her. “We

should miss you very much,” she said.

“I'm sure I hope they all will!” answered my aunt. “It's the only thing

I've got to leave 'em, worth having.”

My mother laughed.

“Maybe it's been a good thing for you, Maggie,” grumbled my aunt; “if

it wasn't for cantankerous, disagreeable people like me, gentle, patient

people like you wouldn't get any practice. Perhaps, after all, I've been

a blessing to you in disguise.”

I cannot honestly say we ever wished her back; though we certainly

did miss her--missed many a joke at her oddities, many a laugh at her

cornery ways. It takes all sorts, as the saying goes, to make a world.

Possibly enough if only we perfect folk were left in it we would find it

uncomfortably monotonous.

As for Amy, I believe she really regretted her.

“One never knows what's good for one till one's lost it,” sighed Amy.

“I'm glad to think you liked her,” said my mother.

“You see, mum,” explained Amy, “I was one of a large family; and a bit

of a row now and again cheers one up, I always think. I'll be losing the

power of my tongue if something doesn't come along soon.”

“Well, you are going to be married in a few weeks now,” my mother

reminded her.

But Amy remained despondent. “They're poor things, the men, at a few

words, the best of them,” she replied. “As likely as not just when

you're getting interested you turn round to find that they've put on

their hat and gone out.”

My mother and I were very much alone after my aunt's death. Barbara had

gone abroad to put the finishing touches to her education--to learn the

tricks of the Nobs' trade, as old Hasluck phrased it; and I had left

school and taken employment with Mr. Stillwood, without salary, the idea

being that I should study for the law.

“You are in luck's way, my boy, in luck's way,” old Mr. Gadley had

assured me. “To have commenced your career in the office of Stillwood,

Waterhead and Royal will be a passport for you anywhere. It will stamp

you, my boy.”

Mr. Stillwood himself was an extremely old and feeble gentleman--so old

and feeble it seemed strange that he, a wealthy man, had not long ago

retired.

“I am always meaning to,” he explained to me one day soon after my

advent in his office. “When your poor father came to me he told me very

frankly the sad fact--that he had only a few more years to live. 'Mr.

Kelver,' I answered him, 'do not let that trouble you, so far as I am

concerned. There are one or two matters in the office I should like to

see cleared up, and in these you can help me. When they are completed I

shall retire! Yet, you see, I linger on. I am like the old hackney coach

horse, Mr. Weller--or is it Mr. Jingle--tells us of; if the shafts were

drawn away I should probably collapse. So I jog on, I jog on.'”

He had married late in life a common woman much younger than himself,

who had brought to him a horde of needy and greedy relatives, and no

doubt, as a refuge from her noisy neighbourhood, the daily peace of

Lombard Street was welcome to him. We saw her occasionally. She was

one of those blustering, “managing” women who go through life under

the impression that making a disturbance is somehow “putting things to

rights.” Ridiculously ashamed of her origin, she sought to hide it under

what her friends assured her was the air of a duchess, but which, as

a matter of fact, resembled rather the Sunday manners of an elderly

barmaid. Mr. Gadley alone was not afraid of her; but, on the contrary,

kept her always very much in fear of him, often speaking to her with

refreshing candour. He had known her in the days it was her desire

should be buried in oblivion, and had always resented as a personal

insult her entry into the old established aristocratic firm of Stillwood

& Co.

Her history was peculiar. Mr. Stillwood, when a blase man about

town, verging on forty, had first seen her, then a fair-haired,

ethereal-looking child, in spite of her dirt, playing in the gutter. To

his lasting self-reproach it was young Gadley himself, accompanying his

employer home from Westminster, who had drawn Mr. Stillwood's attention

to the girl by boxing her ears for having, as he passed, slapped his

face with a convenient sprat. Stillwood, acting on the impulse of the

moment, had taken the child by the hand and dragged her, unwilling,

to her father's place of business--a small coal shed in the Horseferry

Road. The arrangement he there made amounted practically to the purchase

of the child. She was sent abroad to school and the coal shed closed.

On her return, ten years later, a big, handsome young woman, he married

her, and learned at leisure the truth of the old saying, “what's bred in

the bone will come out in the flesh,” scrub it and paint it and hide it

away under fine clothes as you will.

Her constant complaint against her husband was that he was only a

solicitor, a profession she considered vulgar; and nothing “riled” old

Gadley more than hearing her views upon this point.

“It's not fair to the gals,” I once heard her say to him. I was working

in the next room, with the door not quite closed, added to which she

talked at the top of her voice on all subjects. “What real gentleman, I

should like to know, is going to marry the daughter of a City attorney?

As I told him years ago, he ought to have retired and gone into the

House.”

“The very thing your poor father used to talk of doing whenever things

were going a bit queer in the retail coal and potato business,” grunted

old Gadley.

Mrs. Stillwood called him a “low beast” in her most aristocratic tones,

and swept out of the room.

Not that old Stillwood himself ever expressed fondness for the law.

“I am not at all sure, Kelver,” I remember his saying to me on one

occasion, “that you have done wisely in choosing the law. It makes

one regard humanity morally as the medical profession regards it

physically:--as universally unsound. You suspect everybody of being a

rogue. When people are behaving themselves, we lawyers hear nothing of

them. All we hear of is roguery, trickery and hypocrisy. It

deteriorates the character, Kelver. We live in a perpetual atmosphere of

transgression. I sometimes fancy it may be infectious.”

“It does not seem to have infected you, sir,” I replied; for, as I think

I have already mentioned, the firm of Stillwood, Waterhead and Royal

was held in legal circles as the synonym for rectitude of dealing quite

old-fashioned.

“I hope not, Kelver, I hope not,” the old gentleman replied; “and yet,

do you know, I sometimes suspect myself--wonder if I may not perhaps

be a scamp without realising it. A rogue, you know, Kelver, can always

explain himself into an honest man to his own satisfaction. A scamp is

never a scamp to himself.”

His words for the moment alarmed me, for, acting on old Gadley's

advice, I had persuaded my mother to put all her small capital into Mr.

Stillwood's hands for re-investment, a transaction that had resulted in

substantial increase of our small income. But, looking into his smiling

eyes, my momentary fear vanished.

Laughing, he laid his hand upon my shoulder. “One person always be

suspicious of, Kelver--yourself. Nobody can do you so much harm as

yourself.”

Of Washburn we saw more and more. “Hal” we both called him now, for

removing with his gentle, masterful hands my mother's shyness from about

her, he had established himself almost as one of the family, my mother

regarding him as she might some absurdly bearded boy entrusted to her

care without his knowing it, I looking up to him as to some wonderful

elder brother.

“You rest me, Mrs. Kelver,” he would say, lighting his pipe and sinking

down into the deep leathern chair that always waited for him in our

parlour. “Your even voice, your soft eyes, your quiet hands, they soothe

me.”

“It is good for a man,” he would say, looking from one to the other of

us through the hanging smoke, “to test his wisdom by two things:

the face of a good woman, and the ear of a child--I beg your pardon,

Paul--of a young man. A good woman's face is the white sunlight. Under

the gas-lamps who shall tell diamond from paste? Bring it into the

sunlight: does it stand that test? Then it is good. And the children!

they are the waiting earth on which we fling our store. Is it chaff and

dust or living seed? Wait and watch. I shower my thoughts over our Paul,

Mrs. Kelver. They seem to me brilliant, deep, original. The young beggar

swallows them, forgets them. They were rubbish. Then I say something

that dwells with him, that grows. Ah, that was alive, that was a seed.

The waiting earth, it can make use only of what is true.”

“You should marry, Hal,” my mother would say. It was her panacea for all

mankind.

“I would, Mrs. Kelver,” he answered her on one occasion, “I would

to-morrow if I could marry half a dozen women. I should make an ideal

husband for half a dozen wives. One I should neglect for five days, and

be a burden to upon the sixth.”

From any other than Hal my mother would have taken such a remark, made

even in jest, as an insult to her sex. But Hal's smile was a coating

that could sugar any pill.

“I am not one man, Mrs. Kelver, I am half a dozen. If I were to marry

one wife she would be married to six husbands. It is too many for any

woman to manage.”

“Have you never fallen in love?” asked my mother.

“Three of me have, but on each occasion the other five of me out-voted

him.”

“You're sure six would be sufficient?” queried my mother, smiling.

“Just the right number, Mrs. Kelver. There is one of me must worship,

adore a woman madly, abjectly; grovel before her like the Troubadour

before his Queen of Song, eat her slipper, drink the water she has

washed in, scourge himself before her window, die for a kiss of her

glove flung down with a laugh. She must be scornful, contemptuous,

cruel. There is another I would cherish, a tender, yielding creature,

one whose face would light at my coming, cloud at my going; one to whom

I should be a god. There is a third I, a child of Pan--an ugly little

beast, Mrs. Kelver; horns on head and hoofs on feet, leering through the

wood, seeking its fit mate. And a fourth would wed a wholesome, homely

wench, deep of bosom, broad of hip; fit mother of a sturdy brood. A

fifth could only be content with a true friend, a comrade wise and

witty, a sharer and understander of all joys and thoughts and feelings.

And a last, Mrs. Kelver, yearns for a woman pure and sweet, clothed in

love and crowned with holiness. Shouldn't we be a handful, Mrs. Kelver,

for any one woman in an eight-roomed house?”

But my mother was not to be discouraged. “You will find the woman one

day, Hal, who will be all of them to you--all of them that are worth

having, that is. And your eight-roomed house will be a kingdom!”

“A man is many, and a woman but one,” answered Hal.

“That is what men say who are too blind to see more than one side of a

woman,” retorted my mother, a little sharply; for the honour and credit

of her own sex in all things was very dear to my mother. And indeed this

I have learned, that the flag of Womanhood you shall ever find upheld by

all true women, flouted only by the false. For a judge in petticoats is

ever but a witness in a wig.

Hal laid aside his pipe and leant forward in his chair. “Now tell us,

Mrs. Kelver, for our guidance, we two young bachelors, what must the

lover of a young girl be?”

Always very serious on this subject of love, my mother answered gravely:

“She asks for the whole of a man, Hal, not merely for a sixth, nor any

other part of him. She is a child asking for a lover to whom she can

look up, who will teach her, guide her, protect her. She is a queen

demanding homage, and yet he is her king whom it is her joy to serve.

She asks to be his partner, his fellow-worker, his playmate, and at the

same time she loves to think of him as her child, her big baby she must

take care of. Whatever he has to give she has also to respond with. You

need not marry six wives, Hal; you will find your six in one.

“'As the water to the vessel, woman shapes herself to man;' an old

heathen said that three thousand years ago, and others have repeated

him; that is what you mean.”

“I don't like that way of putting it,” answered my mother. “I mean that

as you say of man, so in every true woman is contained all women. But to

know her completely you must love her with all love.”

Sometimes the talk would be of religion, for my mother's faith was

no dead thing that must be kept ever sheltered from the air, lest it

crumble.

One evening “Who are we that we should live?” cried Hal. “The spider

is less cruel; the very pig less greedy, gluttonous and foul; the tiger

less tigerish; our cousin ape less monkeyish. What are we but savages,

clothed and ashamed, nine-tenths of us?”

“But Sodom and Gomorrah,” reminded him my mother, “would have been

spared for the sake of ten just men.”

“Much more sensible to have hurried the ten men out, leaving the

remainder to be buried with all their abominations under their own

ashes,” growled Hal.

“And we shall be purified,” continued my mother, “the evil in us washed

away.”

“Why have made us ill merely to mend us? If the Almighty were so anxious

for our company, why not have made us decent in the beginning?” He had

just come away from a meeting of Poor Law Guardians, and was in a state

of dissatisfaction with human nature generally.

“It is His way,” answered my mother. “The precious stone lies hid in

clay. He has His purpose.”

“Is the stone so very precious?”

“Would He have taken so much pains to fashion it if it were not? You see

it all around you, Hal, in your daily practice--heroism, self-sacrifice,

love stronger than death. Can you think He will waste it, He who uses

again even the dead leaf?”

“Shall the new leaf remember the new flower?”

“Yes, if it ever knew it. Shall memory be the only thing to die?”

Often of an evening I would accompany Hal upon his rounds. By the savage

tribe he both served and ruled he had come to be regarded as medicine

man and priest combined. He was both their tyrant and their slave,

working for them early and late, yet bullying them unmercifully,

enforcing his commands sometimes with vehement tongue, and where that

would not suffice with quick fists; the counsellor, helper, ruler,

literally of thousands. Of income he could have made barely enough to

live upon; but few men could have enjoyed more sense of power; and that

I think it was that held him to the neighbourhood.

“Nature laid me by and forgot me for a couple of thousand years,” was

his own explanation of himself. “Born in my proper period, I should have

climbed to chieftainship upon uplifted shields. I might have been an

Attila, an Alaric. Among the civilised one can only climb by crawling,

and I am too impatient to crawl. Here I am king at once by force of

brain and muscle.” So in Poplar he remained, poor in fees but rich in

honour.

The love of justice was a passion with him. The oppressors of the poor

knew and feared him well. Injustice once proved before him, vengeance

followed sure. If the law would not help, he never hesitated to employ

lawlessness, of which he could always command a satisfactory supply.

Bumble might have the Board of Guardians at his back, Shylock legal

support for his pound of flesh; but sooner or later the dark night

brought punishment, a ducking in dock basin or canal, “Brutal Assault

Upon a Respected Resident” (according to the local papers), the

“miscreants” always making and keeping good their escape, for he was an

admirable organiser.

One night it seemed to him necessary that a child should go at once into

the Infirmary.

“It ain't no use my taking her now,” explained the mother, “I'll only

get bullyragged for disturbing 'em. My old man was carried there three

months ago when he broke his leg, but they wouldn't take him in till the

morning.”

“Oho! oho! oho!” sang Hal, taking the child up in his arms and putting

on his hat. “You follow me; we'll have some sport. Tally ho! tally

ho!” And away we went, Hal heading our procession through the streets,

shouting a rollicking song, the baby staring at him openmouthed.

“Now ring,” cried Hal to the mother on our reaching the Workhouse gate.

“Ring modestly, as becomes the poor ringing at the gate of Charity.” And

the bell tinkled faintly.

“Ring again!” cried Hal, drawing back into the shadow; and at last the

wicket opened.

“Oh, if you please, sir, my baby--”

“Blast your baby!” answered a husky voice, “what d'ye mean by coming

here this time of night?”

“Please, sir, I'm afraid it's dying, and the Doctor--”

The man was no sentimentalist, and to do him justice made no

hypocritical pretence of being one. He consigned the baby and its mother

and the doctor to Hell, and the wicket would have closed but for the

point of Hal's stick.

“Open the gate!” roared Hal. It was idle pretending not to hear Hal

anywhere within half a mile of him when he filled his lungs for a cry.

“Open it quick, you blackguard! You gross vat-load of potato spirit,

you--”

That the Governor should speak a language familiar to the governed was

held by the Romans, born rulers of men, essential to authority. This

theory Hal also maintained. His command of idiom understanded by his

people was one of his rods of power. In less time than it took the

trembling porter to loosen the bolts, Hal had presented him with a

word picture of himself, as seen by others, that must have lessened his

self-esteem.

“I didn't know as it was you, Doctor,” explained the man.

“No, you thought you had only to deal with some helpless creature you

could bully. Stir your fat carcass, you ugly cur! I'm in a hurry.”

The House Surgeon was away, but an attendant or two were lounging about,

unfortunately for themselves, for Hal, being there, took it upon himself

to go round the ward setting crooked things straight; and a busy and

alarming time they had of it. Not till a couple of hours later did he

fling himself forth again, having enjoyed himself greatly.

A gentleman came to reside in the district, a firm believer in the

wisdom of the couplet: “A woman, a spaniel and a walnut tree, The more

you beat them the better they be.” The spaniel and the walnut tree he

did not possess, so his wife had the benefit of his undivided energies.

Whether his treatment had improved her morally, one cannot say; her

evident desire to do her best may have been natural or may have been

assisted; but physically it was injuring her. He used to beat her about

the head with his strap, his argument being that she always seemed half

asleep, and that this, for the time being, woke her up. Sympathisers

brought complaint to Hal, for the police in that neighbourhood are to

keep the streets respectable. With the life in the little cells that

line them they are no more concerned than are the scavengers of the

sewers with the domestic arrangements of the rats.

“What's he like?” asked Hal.

“He's a big 'un,” answered the woman who had come with the tale, “and

he's good with his fists--I've seen him. But there's no getting at him.

He's the sort to have the law on you if you interfere with him, and

she's the sort to help him.”

“Any likely time to catch him at it?” asked Hal.

“Saturdays it's as regular as early closing,” answered the woman, “but

you might have to wait a bit.”

“I'll wait in your room, granny, next Saturday,” suggested Hal.

“All right,” agreed the woman, “I'll risk it, even if I do get a bloody

head for it.”

So that week end we sat very still on two rickety chairs listening to a

long succession of sharp, cracking sounds that, had one not known,

one might have imagined produced by some child monotonously exploding

percussion caps, each one followed by an answering groan. Hal never

moved, but sat smoking his pipe, an ugly smile about his mouth. Only

once he opened his lips, and then it was to murmur to himself: “And God

blessed them and said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply.”

The horror ceased at last, and later we heard the door unlock and a

man's foot upon the landing above. Hal beckoned to me, and swiftly we

slipped out and down the creaking stairs. He opened the front door, and

we waited in the evil-smelling little passage. The man came towards

us whistling. He was a powerfully built fellow, rather good-looking,

I remember. He stopped abruptly upon catching sight of Hal, who stood

crouching in the shadow of the door.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“Waiting to pull your nose!” answered Hal, suiting the action to the

word. And then laughing he ran down the street, I following.

The man gave chase, calling to us with a string of imprecations to stop.

But Hal only ran the faster, though after a street or two he slackened,

and the man gained on us a little.

So we continued, the distance between us and our pursuer now a little

more, now a little less. People turned and stared at us. A few boys,

scenting grim fun, followed shouting for awhile; but these we soon

out-paced, till at last in deserted streets, winding among warehouses

bordering the river, we three ran alone, between long, lifeless walls. I

looked into Hal's face from time to time, and he was laughing; but every

now and then he would look over his shoulder at the man behind him still

following doggedly, and then his face would be twisted into a comically

terrified grimace. Turning into a narrow cul-de-sac, Hal suddenly ducked

behind a wide brick buttress, and the man, still running, passed us.

And then Hal stood up and called to him, and the man turned, looked into

Hal's eyes, and understood.

He was not a coward. Besides, even a rat when cornered will fight for

its life. He made a rush at Hal, and Hal made no attempt to defend

himself. He stood there laughing, and the man struck him full in the

face, and the blood spurted out and flowed down into his mouth. The

man came on again, though terror was in every line of his face, all his

desire being to escape. But this time Hal drove him back again. They

fought for awhile, if one can call it fighting, till the man, mad for

air, reeled against the wall, stood there quivering convulsively, his

mouth wide open, resembling more than anything else some huge dying

fish. And Hal drew away and waited.

I have no desire to see again the sight I saw that quiet, still evening,

framed by those high, windowless walls, from behind which sounded with

ceaseless regularity the gentle swish of the incoming tide. All sense of

retribution was drowned in the sight of Hal's evident enjoyment of his

sport. The judge had disappeared, leaving the work to be accomplished by

a savage animal loosened for the purpose.

The wretched creature flung itself again towards its only door of

escape, fought with the vehemence of despair, to be flung back again, a

hideous, bleeding mass of broken flesh. I tried to cling to Hal's arm,

but one jerk of his steel muscles flung me ten feet away.

“Keep off, you fool!” he cried. “I won't kill him. I'm keeping my head.

I shall know when to stop.” And I crept away and waited.

Hal joined me a little later, wiping the blood from his face. We made

our way to a small public-house near the river, and from there Hal sent

a couple of men on whom he could rely with instructions how to act. I

never heard any more of the matter. It was a subject on which I did not

care to speak to Hal. I can only hope that good came of it.

There was a spot--it has been cleared away since to make room for the

approach to Greenwich Tunnel--it was then the entrance to a grain depot

in connection with the Milwall Docks. A curious brick well it resembled,

in the centre of which a roadway wound downward, corkscrew fashion,

disappearing at the bottom into darkness under a yawning arch. The place

possessed the curious property of being ever filled with a ceaseless

murmur, as though it were some aerial maelstrom, drawing into its

silent vacuum all wandering waves of sound from the restless human ocean

flowing round it. No single tone could one ever distinguish: it was

a mingling of all voices, heard there like the murmur of a sea-soaked

shell.

We passed through it on our return. Its work for the day was finished,

its strange, weary song uninterrupted by the mighty waggons thundering

up and down its spiral way. Hal paused, leaning against the railings

that encircled its centre, and listened.

“Hark, do you not hear it, Paul?” he asked. “It is the music of

Humanity. All human notes are needful to its making: the faint wail of

the new-born, the cry of the dying thief; the beating of the hammers,

the merry trip of dancers; the clatter of the teacups, the roaring of

the streets; the crooning of the mother to her babe, the scream of the

tortured child; the meeting kiss of lovers, the sob of those that part.

Listen! prayers and curses, sighs and laughter; the soft breathing of

the sleeping, the fretful feet of pain; voices of pity, voices of hate;

the glad song of the strong, the foolish complaining of the weak. Listen

to it, Paul! Right and wrong, good and evil, hope and despair, it is but

one voice--a single note, drawn by the sweep of the Player's hand across

the quivering strings of man. What is the meaning of it, Paul? Can you

read it? Sometimes it seems to me a note of joy, so full, so endless,

so complete, that I cry: 'Blessed be the Lord whose hammers have beaten

upon us, whose fires have shaped us to His ends!' And sometimes it

sounds to me a dying note, so that I could curse Him who in wantonness

has wrung it from the anguish of His creatures--till I would that

I could fling myself, Prometheus like, between Him and His victims,

calling: 'My darkness, but their light; my agony, O God; their hope!'”

The faint light from a neighbouring gas-lamp fell upon his face that

an hour before I had seen the face of a wild beast. The ugly mouth was

quivering, tears stood in his great, tender eyes. Could his prayer in

that moment have been granted, could he have pressed against his bosom

all the pain of the world, he would have rejoiced.

He shook himself together with a laugh. “Come, Paul, we have had a busy

afternoon, and I'm thirsty. Let us drink some beer, my boy, good sound

beer, and plenty of it.”

My mother fell ill that winter. Mountain born and mountain bred, the

close streets had never agreed with her, and scolded by all of us, she

promised, “come the fine weather,” to put sentiment behind her, and go

away from them.

“I'm thinking she will,” said Hal, gripping my shoulder with his strong

hand, “but it'll be by herself that she'll go, lad. My wonder is,” he

continued, “that she has held out so long. If anything, it is you that

have kept her alive. Now that you are off her mind to a certain extent,

she is worrying about your father, I expect. These women, they never

will believe a man can take care of himself, even in Heaven. She's never

quite trusted the Lord with him, and never will till she's there to give

an eye to things herself.”

Hal's prophecy fell true. She left “come the fine weather,” as she had

promised: I remember it was the first day primroses were hawked in the

street. But another death had occurred just before; which, concerning me

closely as it does, I had better here dispose of; and that was the death

of old Mr. Stillwood, who passed away rich in honour and regret, and was

buried with much ostentation and much sincere sorrow; for he had been to

many of his clients, mostly old folk, rather a friend than a mere man

of business, and had gained from all with whom he had come in contact,

respect, and from many real affection.

In conformity with the old legal fashions that in his life he had so

fondly clung to, his will was read aloud by Mr. Gadley after the return

from the funeral, and many were the tears its recital called forth.

Written years ago by himself and never altered, its quaint phraseology

was full of kindly thought and expression. No one had been forgotten.

Clerks, servants, poor relations, all had been treated with even-handed

justice, while for those with claim upon him, ample provision had

been made. Few wills, I think, could ever have been read less open to

criticism.

Old Gadley slipped his arm into mine as we left the house. “If you've

nothing to do, young 'un,” he said, “I'll get you to come with me to the

office. I have got all the keys in my pocket, and we shall be quiet.

It will be sad work for me, and I had rather we were alone. A couple of

hours will show us everything.”

We lighted the wax candles--old Stillwood could never tolerate gas in

his own room--and opening the safe took out the heavy ledgers one by

one, and from them Gadley dictated figures which I wrote down and added

up.

“Thirty years I have kept these books for him,” said old Gadley, as we

laid by the last of them, “thirty years come Christmas next, he and I

together. No other hands but ours have ever touched them, and now people

to whom they mean nothing but so much business will fling them about,

drop greasy crumbs upon them--I know their ways, the brutes!--scribble

all over them. And he who always would have everything so neat and

orderly!”

We came to the end of them in less than the time old Gadley had thought

needful: in such perfect order had everything been maintained. I was

preparing to go, but old Gadley had drawn a couple of small keys from

his pocket, and was shuffling again towards the safe.

“Only one more,” he explained in answer to my look, “his own private

ledger. It will merely be in the nature of a summary, but we'll just

glance through it.”

He opened an inner drawer and took from it a small thick volume bound

in green leather and closed with two brass locks. An ancient volume, it

appeared, its strong binding faded and stained. Old Gadley sat down

with it at the dead man's own desk, and snuffing the two shaded candles,

unlocked and opened it. I was standing opposite, so that the book to me

was upside down, but the date on the first page, “1841,” caught my eye,

as also the small neat writing now brown with age.

“So neat, so orderly he always was,” murmured old Gadley again,

smoothing the page affectionately with his hand, and I waited for his

dictation.

But no glib flow of figures fell from him. His eyebrows suddenly

contracted, his body stiffened itself. Then for the next quarter of an

hour nothing sounded in the quiet room but his turning of the creakling

pages. Once or twice he glanced round swiftly over his shoulder, as

though haunted by the idea of some one behind him; then back to the

neat, closely written folios, his little eyes, now exhibiting a comical

look of horror, starting out of his round red face. First slowly, then

quickly with trembling hands he turned the pages, till the continual

ratling of the leaves sounded like strange, mocking laughter through

the silent, empty room; almost one could imagine it coming from some

watching creature hidden in the shadows.

The end reached, he sat staring before him, his whole body quivering,

great beads of sweat upon his shiny bald head.

“Am I mad?” was all he could find to say. “Kelver, am I mad?”

He handed me the book. It was a cynically truthful record of fraud,

extending over thirty years. Every client, every friend, every relative

that had fallen into his net he had robbed: the fortunate ones of a

part, the majority of their all. Its very first entry debited him

with the proceeds of his own partner's estate. Its last ran--“Re

Kelver--various sales of stock.” To his credit were his payments year

after year of imaginary interests on imaginary securities, the surplus

accounted for with simple brevity: “Transferred to own account.” No

record could have been more clear, more frank. Beneath each transaction

was written its true history; the actual investments, sometimes

necessary, carefully distinguished from the false. In neat red ink would

occur here and there a note for his own guidance: “Eldest child comes of

age August, '73. Be prepared for trustees desiring production.” Turning

to “August, '73,” one found that genuine investment had been made, to

be sold again a few months later on. From beginning to end not a single

false step had he committed. Suspicious clients had been ear-marked:

the trusting discriminated with gratitude, and milked again and again to

meet emergency.

As a piece of organisation it was magnificent. No one but a financial

genius could have picked a dozen steps through such a network of

chicanery. For half a lifetime he had moved among it, dignified,

respected and secure.

Whether even he could have maintained his position for another month was

doubtful. Suicide, though hinted at, was proved to have been impossible.

It seemed as though with his amazing audacity he had tricked even Death

into becoming his accomplice.

“But it is impossible, Kelver!” cried Gadley, “this must be some dream.

Stillwood, Waterhead and Royal! What is the meaning of it?”

He took the book into his hands again, then burst into tears. “You never

knew him,” wailed the poor little man. “Stillwood, Waterhead and Royal!

I came here as office boy fifty years ago. He was more like a friend to

me than--” and again the sobs shook his little fat body.

I locked the books away and put him into his hat and coat. But I had

much difficulty in getting him out of the office.

“I daren't, young 'un,” he cried, drawing back. “Fifty years I have

walked out of this office, proud of it, proud of being connected with

it. I daren't face the street!”

All the way home his only idea was: Could it not be hidden? Honest,

kindly little man that he was, he seemed to have no thought for the

unfortunate victims. The good name of his master, of his friend, gone!

Stillwood, Waterhead and Royal, a by-word! To have avoided that I

believe he would have been willing for yet another hundred clients to be

ruined.

I saw him to his door, then turned homeward; and to my surprise in

a dark by-street heard myself laughing heartily. I checked myself

instantly, feeling ashamed of my callousness, of my seeming indifference

to the trouble even of myself and my mother. Yet as there passed before

me the remembrance of that imposing and expensive funeral with its

mournful following of tearful faces; the hushed reading of the will with

its accompaniment of rustling approval; the picture of the admirably

sympathetic clergyman consoling with white hands Mrs. Stillwood,

inclined to hysteria, but anxious concerning her two hundred pounds'

worth of crape which by no possibility of means could now be paid

for--recurred to me the obituary notice in “The Chelsea Weekly

Chronicle”: the humour of the thing swept all else before it, and I

laughed again--I could not help it--loud and long. It was my first

introduction to the comedy of life, which is apt to be more brutal than

the comedy of fiction.

But nearing home, the serious side of the matter forced itself

uppermost. Fortunately, our supposed dividends had been paid to us

by Mr. Stillwood only the month before. Could I keep the thing from

troubling my mother's last days? It would be hard work. I should have to

do it alone, for a perhaps foolish pride prevented my taking Hal into my

confidence, even made his friendship a dread to me, lest he should come

to learn and offer help. There is a higher generosity, it is said, that

can receive with pleasure as well as bestow favour; but I have never

felt it. Could I be sure of acting my part, of not betraying myself to

her sharp eyes, of keeping newspapers and chance gossip away from her?

Good shrewd Amy I cautioned, but I shrank from even speaking on the

subject to Hal, and my fear was lest he should blunder into the subject,

which for the usual nine days occupied much public attention. But

fortunately he appeared not even to have heard of the scandal.

Possibly had the need lasted longer I might have failed, but as it was,

a few weeks saw the end.

“Don't leave me to-day, Paul,” whispered my mother to me one morning. So

I stayed, and in the evening my mother put her arms around my neck and I

lay beside her, my head upon her breast, as I used to when a little boy.

And when the morning came I was alone.

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I

DESCRIBES THE DESERT ISLAND TO WHICH PAUL WAS DRIFTED.

“Room to let for a single gentleman.” Sometimes in an idle hour,

impelled by foolishness, I will knock at the door. It is opened after a

longer or shorter interval by the “slavey”--in the morning, slatternly,

her arms concealed beneath her apron; in the afternoon, smart in dirty

cap and apron. How well I know her! Unchanged, not grown an inch--her

round bewildered eyes, her open mouth, her touzled hair, her scored red

hands. With an effort I refrain from muttering: “So sorry, forgot

my key,” from pushing past her and mounting two at a time the narrow

stairs, carpeted to the first floor, but bare beyond. Instead, I say,

“Oh, what rooms have you to let?” when, scuttling to the top of the

kitchen stairs, she will call over the banisters: “A gentleman to see

the rooms.” There comes up, panting, a harassed-looking, elderly

female, but genteel in black. She crushes past the little “slavey,” and

approaching, eyes me critically.

“I have a very nice room on the first floor,” she informs me, “and one

behind on the third.”

I agree to see them, explaining that I am seeking them for a young

friend of mine. We squeeze past the hat and umbrella stand: there is

just room, but one must keep close to the wall. The first floor is

rather an imposing apartment, with a marble-topped sideboard measuring

quite three feet by two, the doors of which will remain closed if you

introduce a wad of paper between them. A green table-cloth, matching the

curtains, covers the loo-table. The lamp is perfectly safe so long as

it stands in the exact centre of the table, but should not be shifted.

A paper fire-stove ornament in some mysterious way bestows upon the room

an air of chastity. Above the mantelpiece is a fly-blown mirror, between

the once gilt frame and glass of which can be inserted invitation

cards; indeed, one or two so remain, proving that the tenants even of

“bed-sitting-rooms” are not excluded from social delights. The wall

opposite is adorned by an oleograph of the kind Cheap Jacks sell

by auction on Saturday nights in the Pimlico Road, and warrant as

“hand-made.” Generally speaking, it is a Swiss landscape. There appears

to be more “body” in a Swiss landscape than in scenes from less favoured

localities. A dilapidated mill, a foaming torrent, a mountain, a maiden

and a cow can at the least be relied upon. An easy chair (I disclaim

all responsibility for the adjective), stuffed with many coils of steel

wire, each possessing a “business end” in admirable working order, and

covered with horsehair, highly glazed, awaits the uninitiated. There is

one way of sitting upon it, and only one: by using the extreme edge, and

planting your feet firmly on the floor. If you attempt to lean back in

it you inevitably slide out of it. When so treated it seems to say to

you: “Excuse me, you are very heavy, and you would really be much more

comfortable upon the floor. Thank you so much.” The bed is behind the

door, and the washstand behind the bed. If you sit facing the window you

can forget the bed. On the other hand, if more than one friend come

to call on you, you are glad of it. As a matter of fact, experienced

visitors prefer it--make straight for it, refusing with firmness to

exchange it for the easy chair.

“And this room is?”

“Eight shillings a week, sir--with attendance, of course.”

“Any extras?”

“The lamp, sir, is eighteenpence a week; and the kitchen fire, if the

gentleman wishes to dine at home, two shillings.”

“And fire?”

“Sixpence a scuttle, sir, I charge for coals.”

“It's rather a small scuttle.”

The landlady bridles a little. “The usual size, I think, sir.” One

presumes there is a special size in coal-scuttles made exclusively for

lodging-house keepers.

I agree that while I am about it I may as well see the other room,

the third floor back. The landlady opens the door for me, but remains

herself on the landing. She is a stout lady, and does not wish to dwarf

the apartment by comparison. The arrangement here does not allow of your

ignoring the bed. It is the life and soul of the room, and it

declines to efface itself. Its only possible rival is the washstand,

straw-coloured; with staring white basin and jug, together with other

appurtenances. It glares defiantly from its corner. “I know I'm small,”

it seems to say; “but I'm very useful; and I won't be ignored.”

The remaining furniture consists of a couple of chairs--there is no

hypocrisy about them: they are not easy and they do not pretend to be

easy; a small chest of light-painted drawers before the window, with

white china handles, upon which is a tiny looking-glass; and, occupying

the entire remaining space, after allowing three square feet for the

tenant, when he arrives, an attenuated four-legged table apparently

home-made. The only ornament in the room is, suspended above the

fireplace, a funeral card, framed in beer corks. As the corpse

introduced by the ancient Egyptians into their banquets, it is hung

there perhaps to remind the occupant of the apartment that the luxuries

and allurements of life have their end; or maybe it consoles him in

despondent moments with the reflection that after all he might be worse

off.

The rent of this room is three-and-sixpence a week, also including

attendance; lamp, as for the first floor, eighteen-pence; but kitchen

fire a shilling.

“But why should kitchen fire for the first floor be two shillings, and

for this only one?”

“Well, as a rule, sir, the first floor wants more cooking done.”

You are quite right, my dear lady, I was forgetting. The gentleman

in the third floor back! cooking for him is not a great tax upon the

kitchen fire. His breakfast, it is what, madam, we call plain, I think.

His lunch he takes out. You may see him, walking round the quiet square,

up and down the narrow street that, leading to nowhere in particular, is

between twelve and two somewhat deserted. He carries a paper bag,

into which at intervals, when he is sure nobody is looking, his mouth

disappears. From studying the neighbourhood one can guess what it

contains. Saveloys hereabouts are plentiful and only twopence each.

There are pie shops, where meat pies are twopence and fruit pies a

penny. The lady behind the counter, using deftly a broad, flat knife,

lifts the little dainty with one twist clean from its tiny dish: it is

marvellous, having regard to the thinness of the pastry, that she never

breaks one. Roley-poley pudding, sweet and wonderfully satisfying, more

especially when cold, is but a penny a slice. Peas pudding, though this

is an awkward thing to eat out of a bag, is comforting upon cold days.

Then with his tea he takes two eggs or a haddock, the fourpenny size;

maybe on rare occasions, a chop or steak; and you fry it for him, madam,

though every time he urges on you how much he would prefer it grilled,

for fried in your one frying-pan its flavour becomes somewhat confused.

But maybe this is the better for him, for, shutting his eyes and

trusting only to smell and flavour, he can imagine himself enjoying

variety. He can begin with herrings, pass on to liver and bacon, opening

his eyes again for a moment perceive that he has now arrived at the

joint, and closing them again, wind up with distinct suggestion of

toasted cheese, thus avoiding monotony. For dinner he goes out again.

Maybe he is not hungry, late meals are a mistake; or, maybe, putting

his hand into his pocket and making calculations beneath a lamp-post,

appetite may come to him. Then there are places cheerful with the sound

of frizzling fat, where fried plaice brown and odorous may be had for

three halfpence, and a handful of sliced potatoes for a penny; where for

fourpence succulent stewed eels may be discussed; vinegar ad lib.; or

for sevenpence--but these are red-letter evenings--half a sheep's head

may be indulged in, which is a supper fit for any king, who happened to

be hungry.

I explain that I will discuss the matter with my young friend when he

arrives. The landlady says, “Certainly, sir:” she is used to what she

calls the “wandering Christian;” and easing my conscience by slipping a

shilling into the “slavey's” astonished, lukewarm hand, I pass out

again into the long, dreary street, now echoing maybe to the sad cry of

“Muffins!”

Or sometimes of an evening, the lamp lighted, the remnants of the meat

tea cleared away, the flickering firelight cosifying the dingy rooms,

I go a-visiting. There is no need for me to ring the bell, to mount the

stairs. Through the thin transparent walls I can see you plainly,

old friends of mine, fashions a little changed, that is all. We wore

bell-shaped trousers; eight-and-six to measure, seven-and-six if from

stock; fastened our neckties in dashing style with a horseshoe pin. I

think in the matter of waistcoats we had the advantage of you; ours were

gayer, braver. Our cuffs and collars were of paper: sixpence-halfpenny

the dozen, three-halfpence the pair. On Sunday they were white and

glistening; on Monday less aggressively obvious; on Tuesday morning

decidedly dappled. But on Tuesday evening, when with natty cane, or

umbrella neatly rolled in patent leather case, we took our promenade

down Oxford Street--fashionable hour nine to ten p.m.--we could shoot

our arms and cock our chins with the best. Your india-rubber linen has

its advantages. Storm does not wither it; it braves better the heat and

turmoil of the day. The passing of a sponge! and your “Dicky” is itself

again. We had to use bread-crumbs, and so sacrifice the glaze. Yet I

cannot help thinking that for the first few hours, at all events, our

paper was more dazzling.

For the rest I see no change in you, old friends. I wave you greeting

from the misty street. God rest you, gallant gentlemen, lonely and

friendless and despised; making the best of joyless lives; keeping

yourselves genteel on twelve, fifteen, or eighteen (ah, but you are

plutocrats!) shillings a week; saving something even of that, maybe, to

help the old mother in the country, so proud of her “gentleman” son who

has book learning and who is “something in the City.” May nothing you

dismay. Bullied, and badgered, and baited from nine to six though you

may be, from then till bedtime you are rorty young dogs. The half-guinea

topper, “as worn by the Prince of Wales” (ah, how many a meal has it not

cost!), warmed before the fire, brushed and polished and coaxed, shines

resplendent. The second pair of trousers are drawn from beneath the bed;

in the gaslight, with well-marked crease from top to toe, they will pass

for new. A pleasant evening to you! May your cheap necktie make all the

impression your soul can desire! May your penny cigar be mistaken for

Havana! May the barmaid charm your simple heart by addressing you as

“Baby!” May some sweet shop-girl throw a kindly glance at you, inviting

you to walk with her! May she snigger at your humour; may other dogs

cast envious looks at you, and may no harm come of it!

You dreamers of dreams, you who while your companions play and sleep

will toil upward in the night! You have read Mr. Smiles' “Self-Help,”

Longfellow's “Psalm of Life,” and so strengthened attack with confidence

“French Without a Master,” “Bookkeeping in Six Lessons.” With a sigh to

yourselves you turn aside from the alluring streets, from the bright,

bewitching eyes, into the stuffy air of Birkbeck Institutions,

Polytechnic Schools. May success compensate you for your youth devoid of

pleasure! May the partner's chair you seen in visions be yours before

the end! May you live one day in Clapham in a twelve-roomed house!

And, after all, we have our moments, have we not? The Saturday night at

the play. The hours of waiting, they are short. We converse with kindred

souls of the British Drama, its past and future: we have our views. We

dream of Florence This, Kate That; in a little while we shall see

her. Ah, could she but know how we loved her! Her photo is on our

mantelpiece, transforming the dismal little room into a shrine. The poem

we have so often commenced! when it is finished we will post it to her.

At least she will acknowledge its receipt; we can kiss the paper her

hand has rested on. The great doors groan, then quiver. Ah, the wild

thrill of that moment! Now push for all you are worth: charge, wriggle,

squirm! It is an epitome of life. We are through--collarless, panting,

pummelled from top to toe: but what of that? Upward, still upward; then

downward with leaps at risk of our neck, from bench to bench through the

gloom. We have gained the front row! Would we exchange sensations with

the stallite, strolling languidly to his seat? The extravagant dinner

once a week! We banquet _a la Francais_, in Soho, for one-and-six,

including wine. Does Tortoni ever give his customers a repast they enjoy

more? I trow not.

My first lodging was an attic in a square the other side of Blackfriars

Bridge. The rent of the room, if I remember rightly, was three shillings

a week with cooking, half-a-crown without. I purchased a methylated

spirit stove with kettle and frying-pan, and took it without.

Old Hasluck would have helped me willingly, and there were others to

whom I might have appealed, but a boy's pride held me back. I would make

my way alone, win my place in the world by myself. To Hal, knowing he

would sympathise with me, I confided the truth.

“Had your mother lived,” he told me, “I should have had something to say

on the subject. Of course, I knew what had happened, but as it is--well,

you need not be afraid, I shall not offer you help; indeed, I should

refuse it were you to ask. Put your Carlyle in your pocket: he is not

all voices, but he is the best maker of men I know. The great thing to

learn of life is not to be afraid of it.”

“Look me up now and then,” he added, “and we'll talk about the stars,

the future of Socialism, and the Woman Question--anything you like

except about yourself and your twopenny-half-penny affairs.”

From another it would have sounded brutal, but I understood him. And

so we shook hands and parted for longer than either of us at the time

expected. The Franco-German War broke out a few weeks later on, and

Hal, the love of adventure always strong within him, volunteered his

services, which were accepted. It was some years before we met again.

On the door-post of a house in Farringdon Street, not far from the

Circus, stood in those days a small brass plate, announcing that the

“Ludgate News Rooms” occupied the third and fourth floors, and that the

admission to the same was one penny. We were a seedy company that every

morning crowded into these rooms: clerks, shopmen, superior artisans,

travellers, warehousemen--all of us out of work. Most of us were young,

but with us was mingled a sprinkling of elder men, and these latter were

always the saddest and most silent of this little whispering army of

the down-at-heel. Roughly speaking, we were divided into two groups:

the newcomers, cheery, confident. These would flit from newspaper to

newspaper with buzz of pleasant anticipation, select their advertisement

as one choosing some dainty out of a rich and varied menu card, and

replying to it as one conferring favour.

“Dear Sir,--in reply to your advertisement in to-day's _Standard_, I

shall be pleased to accept the post vacant in your office. I am of good

appearance and address. I am an excellent--” It was really marvellous

the quality and number of our attainments. French! we wrote and spoke it

fluently, _a la Ahn_. German! of this we possessed a slighter knowledge,

it was true, but sufficient for mere purposes of commerce. Bookkeeping!

arithmetic! geometry! we played with them. The love of work! it was a

passion with us. Our moral character! it would have adorned a Free Kirk

Elder. “I could call on you to-morrow or Friday between eleven and one,

or on Saturday any time up till two. Salary required, two guineas a

week. An early answer will oblige. Yours truly.”

The old stagers did not buzz. Hour after hour they sat writing,

steadily, methodically, with day by day less hope and heavier fears:

“Sir,--Your advt. in to-day's _D. T._ I am--” of such and such an age.

List of qualifications less lengthy, set forth with more modesty; object

desired being air of verisimilitude.--“If you decide to engage me I will

endeavour to give you every satisfaction. Any time you like to appoint

I will call on you. I should not ask a high salary to start with. Yours

obediently.”

Dozens of the first letter, hundreds of the second, I wrote with painful

care, pen carefully chosen, the one-inch margin down the left hand side

of the paper first portioned off with dots. To three or four I received

a curt reply, instructing me to call. But the shyness that had stood so

in my way during the earlier half of my school days had now, I know not

why, returned upon me, hampering me at every turn. A shy child grown-up

folks at all events can understand and forgive; but a shy young man

is not unnaturally regarded as a fool. I gave the impression of being

awkward, stupid, sulky. The more I strove against my temperament

the worse I became. My attempts to be at my ease, to assert myself,

resulted--I could see it myself--only in rudeness.

“Well, I have got to see one or two others. We will write and let you

know,” was the conclusion of each interview, and the end, as far as I

was concerned, of the enterprise.

My few pounds, guard them how I would, were dwindling rapidly. Looking

back, it is easy enough to regard one's early struggles from a humorous

point of view. One knows the story, it all ended happily. But at the

time there is no means of telling whether one's biography is going to be

comedy or tragedy. There were moments when I felt confident it was going

to be the latter. Occasionally, when one is feeling well, it is not

unpleasant to contemplate with pathetic sympathy one's own death-bed.

One thinks of the friends and relations who at last will understand and

regret one, be sorry they had not behaved themselves better. But myself,

there was no one to regret. I felt very small, very helpless. The world

was big. I feared it might walk over me, trample me down, never seeing

me. I seemed unable to attract its attention.

One morning I found waiting for me at the Reading Room another of the

usual missives. It ran: “Will Mr. P. Kelver call at the above address

to-morrow morning between ten-thirty and eleven.” The paper was headed:

“Lott and Co., Indian Commission Agents, Aldersgate Street.” Without

much hope I returned to my lodgings, changed my clothes, donned my

silk hat, took my one pair of gloves, drew its silk case over my holey

umbrella; and so equipped for fight with Fate made my way to Aldersgate

Street. For a quarter of an hour or so, being too soon, I walked up and

down the pavement outside the house, gazing at the second-floor windows,

behind which, so the door-plate had informed me, were the offices of

Lott & Co. I could not recall their advertisement, nor my reply to it.

The firm was evidently not in a very flourishing condition. I wondered

idly what salary they would offer. For a moment I dreamt of a Cheeryble

Brother asking me kindly if I thought I could do with thirty shillings

a week as a beginning; but the next I recalled my usual fate, and

considered whether it was even worth while to climb the stairs, go

through what to me was a painful ordeal, merely to be impressed again

with the sense of my own worthlessness.

A fine rain began to fall. I did not wish to unroll my umbrella,

yet felt nervous for my hat. It was five minutes to the half hour.

Listlessly I crossed the road and mounted the bare stairs to the second

floor. Two doors faced me, one marked “Private.” I tapped lightly at the

second. Not hearing any response, after a second or two I tapped again.

A sound reached me, but it was unintelligible. I knocked yet again,

still louder. This time I heard a reply in a shrill, plaintive tone:

“Oh, do come in.”

The tone was one of pathetic entreaty. I turned the handle and entered.

It was a small room, dimly lighted by a dirty window, the bottom half of

which was rendered opaque by tissue paper pasted to its panes. The place

suggested a village shop rather than an office. Pots of jam, jars of

pickles, bottles of wine, biscuit tins, parcels of drapery, boxes of

candles, bars of soap, boots, packets of stationery, boxes of cigars,

tinned provisions, guns, cartridges--things sufficient to furnish a

desert island littered every available corner. At a small desk under the

window sat a youth with a remarkably small body and a remarkably

large head; so disproportionate were the two I should hardly have been

surprised had he put up his hands and taken it off. Half in the room and

half out, I paused.

“Is this Lott & Co.?” I enquired.

“No,” he answered; “it's a room.” One eye was fixed upon me, dull and

glassy; it never blinked, it never wavered. With the help of the other

he continued his writing.

“I mean,” I explained, coming entirely into the room, “are these the

offices of Lott & Co.?”

“It's one of them,” he replied; “the back one. If you're really anxious

for a job, you can shut the door.”

I complied with his suggestion, and then announced that I was Mr.

Kelver--Mr. Paul Kelver.

“Minikin's my name,” he returned, “Sylvanus Minikin. You don't happen by

any chance to know what you've come for, I suppose?”

Looking at his body, my inclination was to pick my way among the goods

that covered the floor and pull his ears for him. From his grave and

massive face, he might, for all I knew, be the head clerk.

“I have called to see Mr. Lott,” I replied, with dignity; “I have an

appointment.” I produced the letter from my pocket, and leaning across

a sewing-machine, I handed it to him for his inspection. Having read it,

he suddenly took from its socket the eye with which he had been hitherto

regarding me, and proceeding to polish it upon his pocket handkerchief,

turned upon me his other. Having satisfied himself, he handed me back my

letter.

“Want my advice?” he asked.

I thought it might be useful to me, so replied in the affirmative.

“Hook it,” was his curt counsel.

“Why?” I asked. “Isn't he a good employer?”

Replacing his glass eye, he turned again to his work. “If employment is

what you want,” answered Mr. Minikin, “you'll get it. Best employer in

London. He'll keep you going for twenty-four hours a day, and then offer

you overtime at half salary.”

“I must get something to do,” I confessed.

“Sit down then,” suggested Mr. Minikin. “Rest while you can.”

I took the chair; it was the only chair in the room, with the exception

of the one Minikin was sitting on.

“Apart from his being a bit of a driver,” I asked, “what sort of a man

is he? Is he pleasant?”

“Never saw him put out but once,” answered Minikin.

It sounded well. “When was that?” I asked.

“All the time I've known him.”

My spirits continued to sink. Had I been left alone with Minikin much

longer, I might have ended by following his advice, “hooking it” before

Mr. Lott arrived. But the next moment I heard the other door open, and

some one entered the private office. Then the bell rang, and Minikin

disappeared, leaving the communicating door ajar behind him. The

conversation that I overheard was as follows:

“Why isn't Mr. Skeat here?”

“Because he hasn't come.”

“Where are the letters?”

“Under your nose.”

“How dare you answer me like that?”

“Well, it's the truth. They are under your nose.”

“Did you give Thorneycroft's man my message?”

“Yes.”

“What did he answer?”

“Said you were a liar.”

“Oh, he did, did he! What did you reply?”

“Asked him to tell me something I didn't know.”

“Thought that clever, didn't you?”

“Not bad.”

Whatever faults might be laid to Mr. Lott's door, he at least, I

concluded, possesssed the virtue of self-control.

“Anybody been here?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“Mr. Kelver--Mr. Paul Kelver.”

“Kelver, Kelver. Who's Kelver?”

“Know what he is--a fool.”

“What do you mean?”

“He's come after the place.”

“Is he there?”

“Yes.”

“What's he like?”

“Not bad looking; fair--”

“Idiot! I mean is he smart?”

“Just at present--got all his Sunday clothes on.”

“Send him in to me. Don't go, don't go.”

“How can I send him in to you if I don't go?”

“Take these. Have you finished those bills of lading?”

“No.”

“Good God! when will you have finished them?”

“Half an hour after I have begun them.”

“Get out, get out! Has that door been open all the time?”

“Well, I don't suppose it's opened itself.”

Minikin re-entered with papers in his hand. “In you go,” he said.

“Heaven help you!” And I passed in and closed the door behind me.

The room was a replica of the one I had just left. If possible, it was

more crowded, more packed with miscellaneous articles. I picked my

way through these and approached the desk. Mr. Lott was a small,

dingy-looking man, with very dirty hands, and small, restless eyes. I

was glad that he was not imposing, or my shyness might have descended

upon me; as it was, I felt better able to do myself justice. At once he

plunged into the business by seizing and waving in front of my eyes a

bulky bundle of letters tied together with red tape.

“One hundred and seventeen answers to an advertisement,” he cried with

evident satisfaction, “in one day! That shows you the state of the

labour market!”

I agreed it was appalling.

“Poor devils, poor devils!” murmured Mr. Lott “what will become of them?

Some of them will starve. Terrible death, starvation, Kelver; takes such

a long time--especially when you're young.”

Here also I found myself in accord with him.

“Living with your parents?”

I explained to him my situation.

“Any friends?”

I informed him I was entirely dependent upon my own efforts.

“Any money? Anything coming in?”

I told him I had a few pounds still remaining to me, but that after that

was gone I should be penniless.

“And to think, Kelver, that there are hundreds, thousands of young

fellows precisely in your position! How sad, how very sad! How long have

you been looking for a berth?”

“A month,” I answered him.

“I thought as much. Do you know why I selected your letter out of the

whole batch?”

I replied I hoped it was because he judged from it I should prove

satisfactory.

“Because it's the worst written of them all.” He pushed it across to me.

“Look at it. Awful, isn't it?”

I admitted that handwriting was not my strong point.

“Nor spelling either,” he added, and with truth. “Who do you think will

engage you if I don't?”

“Nobody,” he continued, without waiting for me to reply. “A month hence

you will still be looking for a berth, and a month after that. Now, I'm

going to do you a good turn; save you from destitution; give you a start

in life.”

I expressed my gratitude.

He waived it aside. “That is my notion of philanthropy: help those that

nobody else will help. That young fellow in the other room--he isn't a

bad worker, he's smart, but he's impertinent.”

I murmured that I had gathered so much.

“Doesn't mean to be, can't help it. Noticed his trick of looking at you

with his glass eye, keeping the other turned away from you?”

I replied that I had.

“Always does it. Used to irritate his last employer to madness. Said to

him one day: 'Do turn that signal lamp of yours off, Minikin, and look

at me with your real eye.' What do you think he answered? That it was

the only one he'd got, and that he didn't want to expose it to shocks.

Wouldn't have mattered so much if it hadn't been one of the ugliest men

in London.”

I murmured my indignation.

“I put up with him. Nobody else would. The poor fellow must live.”

I expressed admiration at Mr. Lott's humanity.

“You don't mind work? You're not one of those good-for-nothings who

sleep all day and wake up when it's time to go home?”

I assured him that in whatever else I might fail I could promise him

industry.

“With some of them,” complained Mr. Lott, in a tone of bitterness, “it's

nothing but play, girls, gadding about the streets. Work, business--oh,

no. I may go bankrupt; my wife and children may go into the workhouse.

No thought for me, the man that keeps them, feeds them, clothes them.

How much salary do you want?”

I hesitated. I gathered this was not a Cheeryble Brother; it would be

necessary to be moderate in one's demands. “Five-and-twenty shillings a

week,” I suggested.

He repeated the figure in a scream. “Five-and-twenty shillings for

writing like that! And can't spell commission! Don't know anything about

the business. Five-and-twenty!--Tell you what I'll do: I'll give you

twelve.”

“But I can't live on twelve,” I explained.

“Can't live on twelve! Do you know why? Because you don't know how to

live. I know you all. One veal and ham pie, one roley-poley, one Dutch

cheese and a pint of bitter.”

His recital made my mouth water.

“You overload your stomachs, then you can't work. Half the diseases you

young fellows suffer from are brought about by overeating.”

“Now, you take my advice,” continued Mr. Lott; “try vegetarianism. In

the morning, a little oatmeal. Wonderfully strengthening stuff, oatmeal:

look at the Scotch. For dinner, beans. Why, do you know there's

more nourishment in half a pint of lentil beans than in a pound of

beefsteak--more gluten. That's what you want, more gluten; no corpses,

no dead bodies. Why, I've known young fellows, vegetarians, who have

lived like fighting cocks on sevenpence a day. Seven times seven are

forty-nine. How much do you pay for your room?”

I told him.

“Four-and-a-penny and two-and-six makes six-and-seven. That leaves you

five and fivepence for mere foolery. Good God! what more do you want?”

“I'll take eighteen, sir,” I answered. “I can't really manage on less.”

“Very well, I won't beat you down,” he answered. “Fifteen shillings a

week.”

“I said eighteen,” I persisted.

“Well, and I said fifteen,” he retorted, somewhat indignant at the

quibbling. “That's splitting the difference, isn't it? I can't be fairer

than that.”

I dared not throw away the one opportunity that had occurred. Anything

was better than return to the Reading Rooms, and the empty days full of

despair. I accepted, and it was agreed that I should come the following

Monday morning.

“Nabbed?” was Minikin's enquiry on my return to the back office for my

hat.

I nodded.

“What's he wasting on you?”

“Fifteen shillings a week,” I whispered.

“Felt sure somehow that he'd take a liking to you,” answered Minikin.

“Don't be ungrateful and look thin on it.”

Outside the door I heard Mr. Lott's shrill voice demanding to know where

postage stamps were to be found.

“At the Post-office,” was Minikin's reply.

The hours were long--in fact, we had no office hours; we got away

when we could, which was rarely before seven or eight--but my work was

interesting. It consisted of buying for unfortunate clients in India or

the Colonies anything they might happen to want, from a stage coach to

a pot of marmalade; packing it and shipping it across to them. Our

“commission” was anything they could be persuaded to pay over and above

the value of the article. I was not much interfered with. There was that

to be said for Lott & Co., so long as the work was done he was quite

content to leave one to one's own way of doing it. And hastening through

the busy streets, bargaining in shop or warehouse, bustling important in

and out the swarming docks, I often thanked my stars that I was not as

some poor two-pound-a-week clerk chained to a dreary desk.

The fifteen shillings a week was a tight fit; but that was not my

trouble. Reduce your denominator--you know the quotation. I found it no

philosophical cant, but a practical solution of life. My food cost me

on the average a shilling a day. If more of us limited our commissariat

bill to the same figure, there would be less dyspepsia abroad. Generally

I cooked my own meals in my own frying-pan; but occasionally I would

indulge myself with a more orthodox dinner at a cook shop, or tea with

hot buttered toast at a coffee-shop; and but for the greasy table-cloth

and the dirty-handed waiter, such would have been even greater

delights. The shilling a week for amusements afforded me at least one,

occasionally two, visits to the theatre, for in those days there were

Paradises where for sixpence one could be a god. Fourpence a week on

tobacco gave me half-a-dozen cigarettes a day; I have spent more on

smoke and derived less satisfaction. Dress was my greatest difficulty.

One anxiety in life the poor man is saved: he knows not the haunting

sense of debt. My tailor never dunned me. His principle was half-a-crown

down on receipt of order, the balance on the handing over of the goods.

No system is perfect; the method avoided friction, it is true; yet

on the other hand it was annoying to be compelled to promenade, come

Sundays, in shiny elbows and frayed trousers, knowing all the while

that finished, waiting, was a suit in which one might have made one's

mark--had only one shut one's eyes passing that pastry-cook's window on

pay-day. Surely there should be a sumptuary law compelling pastry-cooks

to deal in cellars or behind drawn blinds.

Were it because of its mere material hardships that to this day I think

of that period of my life with a shudder, I should not here confess to

it. I was alone. I knew not a living soul to whom I dared to speak, who

cared to speak to me. For those first twelve months after my mother's

death I lived alone, thought alone, felt alone. In the morning, during

the busy day, it was possible to bear; but in the evenings the sense

of desolation gripped me like a physical pain. The summer evenings

came again, bringing with them the long, lingering light so laden with

melancholy. I would walk into the Parks and, sitting there, watch with

hungry eyes the men and women, boys and girls, moving all around me,

talking, laughing, interested in one another; feeling myself some

speechless ghost, seeing but not seen, crying to the living with a voice

they heard not. Sometimes a solitary figure would pass by and glance

back at me; some lonely creature like myself longing for human sympathy.

In the teeming city must have been thousands such--young men and women

to whom a friendly ear, a kindly voice, would have been as the water of

life. Each imprisoned in his solitary cell of shyness, we looked at one

another through the grating with condoling eyes; further than that

was forbidden to us. Once, in Kensington Gardens, a woman turned, then

slowly retracing her steps, sat down beside me on the bench. Neither of

us spoke; had I done so she would have risen and moved away; yet there

was understanding between us. To each of us it was some comfort to sit

thus for a little while beside the other. Had she poured out her heart

to me, she could have told me nothing more than I knew: “I, too, am

lonely, friendless; I, too, long for the sound of a voice, the touch of

a hand. It is hard for you, it is harder still for me, a girl; shut out

from the bright world that laughs around me; denied the right of

youth to joy and pleasure; denied the right of womanhood to love and

tenderness.”

The footsteps to and fro grew fewer. She moved to rise. Stirred by an

impulse, I stretched out my hand, then seeing the flush upon her face,

drew it back hastily. But the next moment, changing her mind, she held

hers out to me, and I took it. It was the first clasp of a hand I had

felt since six months before I had said good-bye to Hal. She turned and

walked quickly away. I stood watching her; she never looked round, and I

never saw her again.

I take no credit to myself for keeping straight, as it is termed, during

these days. For good or evil, my shyness prevented my taking part in the

flirtations of the streets. Whether inviting eyes were ever thrown to me

as to others, I cannot say. Sometimes, fancying so--hoping so, I would

follow. Yet never could I summon up sufficient resolution to face the

possible rebuff before some less timid swain would swoop down upon the

quarry. Then I would hurry on, cursing myself for the poorness of my

spirit, fancying mocking contempt in the laughter that followed me.

On a Sunday I would rise early and take long solitary walks into the

country. One winter's day--I remember it was on the road between Edgware

and Stanmore--there issued from a by-road a little ahead of me a party

of boys and girls, young people about my own age, bound evidently on

a skating expedition. I could hear the musical ring of their blades,

clattering as they walked, and the sound of their merry laughter so

clear and bell-like through the frosty air. And an aching anguish fell

upon me. I felt a mad desire to run after them, to plead with them to

let me walk with them a little way, to let me laugh and talk with them.

Every now and then they would pirouette to cry some jest to one another.

I could see their faces: the girls' so sweetly alluring, framed by their

dainty hats and furs, the bright colour in their cheeks, the light

in their teasing eyes. A little further on they turned aside into a

by-lane, and I stood at the corner listening till the last echo of their

joyous voices died away, and on a stone that still remains standing

there I sat down and sobbed.

I would walk about the streets always till very late. I dreaded the

echoing clang of the little front door when I closed it behind me, the

climbing of the silent stairs, the solitude that waited for me in my

empty room. It would rise and come towards me like some living thing,

kissing me with cold lips. Often, unable to bear the closeness of its

presence, I would creep out into the streets. There, even though it

followed me, I was not alone with it. Sometimes I would pace them the

whole night, sharing them with the other outcasts while the city slept.

Occasionally, during these nightly wanderings would come to me moments

of exaltation when fear fell from me and my blood would leap with joy at

prospect of the fierce struggle opening out before me. Then it was the

ghostly city sighing round me that seemed dead, I the only living thing

real among a world of shadows. In long, echoing streets I would laugh

and shout. Misunderstanding policemen would turn their bull's-eyes on

me, gruffly give me practical advice: they knew not who I was! I stood

the centre of a vast galanty-show: the phantom houses came and went;

from some there shone bright lights; the doors were open, and little

figures flitted in and out, the tiny coaches glided to and fro, manikins

grotesque but pitiful crept across the star-lit curtain.

Then the mood would change. The city, grim and vast, stretched round

me endless. I crawled, a mere atom, within its folds, helpless,

insignificant, absurd. The houseless forms that shared my vigil were

my fellows. What were we? Animalcule upon its bosom, that it saw not,

heeded not. For company I would mingle with them: ragged men, frowsy

women, ageless youths, gathered round the red glow of some coffee stall.

Rarely would we speak to one another. More like animals we browsed

there, sipping the halfpenny cup of hot water coloured with coffee

grounds (at least it was warm), munching the moist slab of coarse cake;

looking with dull, indifferent eyes each upon the wretchedness of

the others. Perhaps some two would whisper to each other in listless,

monotonous tone, broken here and there by a short, mirthless laugh; some

shivering creature, not yet case-hardened to despair, seek, perhaps,

the relief of curses that none heeded. Later, a faint chill breeze would

shake the shadows loose, a thin, wan light streak the dark air with

shade, and silently, stealthily, we would fade away and disappear.

CHAPTER II.

PAUL, ESCAPING FROM HIS SOLITUDE, FALLS INTO STRANGE COMPANY. AND

BECOMES CAPTIVE TO ONE OF HAUGHTY MIEN.

All things pass, even the self-inflicted sufferings of shy young men,

condemned by temperament to solitude. Came the winter evenings, I took

to work: in it one may drown much sorrow for oneself. With its handful

of fire, its two candles lighted, my “apartment” was more inviting.

I bought myself paper, pens and ink. Great or small, what more can a

writer do? He is but the would-be medium: will the spirit voices employ

him or reject him?

London, with its million characters, grave and gay; its ten thousand

romances, its mysteries, its pathos, and its humour, lay to my hand. It

stretched before me, asking only intelligent observation, more or less

truthful report. But that I could make a story out of the things I

really knew never occurred to me. My tales were of cottage maidens, of

bucolic yeomen. My scenes were laid in windmills, among mountains, or in

moated granges. I fancy this phase of folly is common to most youthful

fictionists.

A trail of gentle melancholy lay over them. Sentiment was more popular

then than it is now, and, as do all beginners, I scrupulously followed

fashion. Generally speaking, to be a heroine of mine was fatal. However

naturally her hair might curl--and curly hair, I believe, is the

hall-mark of vitality; whatever other indications of vigorous health she

might exhibit in the first chapter, such as “dancing eyes,” “colour

that came and went,” “ringing laughter,” “fawn-like agility,” she was

tolerably certain, poor girl, to end in an untimely grave. Snowdrops and

early primroses (my botany I worked up from a useful little volume, “Our

Garden Favourites, Illustrated”) grew there as in a forcing house; and

if in the neighbourhood of the coast, the sea-breezes would choose

that particular churchyard, somewhat irreverently, for their favourite

playground. Years later a white-haired man would come there leading

little children by the hand, and to them he would tell the tale anew,

which must have been a dismal entertainment for them.

Now and then, by way of change, it would be the gentleman who would

fall a victim of the deadly atmosphere of my literature. It was of

no particular consequence, so he himself would conclude in his last

soliloquy; “it was better so.” Snowdrops and primroses, for whatever

consolation they might have been to him, it was hopeless for him to

expect; his grave, marked by a rude cross, being as a rule situate in an

exceptionally unfrequented portion of the African veldt or amid burning

sands. For description of final scenery on these occasions a visit to

the British Museum reading-room would be necessary.

Dismal little fledgelings! And again and again would I drive them from

the nest; again and again they fluttered back to me, soiled, crumpled,

physically damaged. Yet one person had admired them, cried over

them--myself.

All methods I tried. Sometimes I would send them forth accompanied by

a curt business note of the take-it-or-leave-it order. At other times I

would attach to it pathetic appeals for its consideration. Sometimes

I would give value to it, stating that the price was five guineas and

requesting that the cheque should be crossed; at other times seek to

tickle editorial cupidity by offering this, my first contribution to

their pages, for nothing--my sample packet, so to speak, sent gratis,

one trial surely sufficient. Now I would write sarcastically, enclosing

together with the stamped envelope for return a brutally penned note of

rejection. Or I would write frankly, explaining elaborately that I was a

beginner, and asking to be told my faults--if any.

Not one found a resting place for its feet. A month, a week, a couple of

days, they would remain away from me, then return. I never lost a single

one. I wished I had. It would have varied the monotony.

I hated the poor little slavey who, bursting joyously into the room,

would hold them out to me from between her apron-hidden thumb and

finger; her chronic sniff I translated into contempt. If flying down the

stairs at the sound of the postman's knock I secured it from his hands,

it seemed to me he smiled. Tearing them from their envelopes, I would

curse them, abuse them, fling them into the fire sometimes; but before

they were more than scorched I would snatch them out, smooth them,

reread them. The editor himself could never have seen them; it was

impossible; some jealous underling had done this thing. I had sent them

to the wrong paper. They had arrived at the inopportune moment. Their

triumph would come. Rewriting the first and last sheets, I would send

them forth again with fresh hope.

Meanwhile, understanding that the would-be happy warrior must shine in

camp as well as field, I sought to fit myself also for the social side

of life. Smoking and drinking were the twin sins I found most difficulty

in acquiring. I am not claiming a mental excellence so much as

confessing a bodily infirmity. The spirit had always been willing, but

my flesh was weak. Fired by emulation, I had at school occasionally

essayed a cigarette. The result had been distinctly unsatisfactory, and

after some two or three attempts, I had abandoned, for the time being,

all further endeavour; excusing my faint-heartedness by telling myself

with sanctimonious air that smoking was bad for growing boys; attempting

to delude myself by assuming, in presence of contemporaries of stronger

stomach, fine pose of disapproval; yet in my heart knowing myself a

young hypocrite, disguising physical cowardice in the robes of moral

courage: a self-deception to which human nature is prone.

So likewise now and again I had tasted the wine that was red, and that

stood year in, year out, decanted on our sideboard. The true

inwardness of St. Paul's prescription had been revealed to me; the

attitude--sometimes sneered at--of those who drink it under doctor's

orders, regarding it purely as a medicine, appeared to me reasonable.

I had noticed also that others, some of them grown men even, making wry

faces, when drinking my mother's claret, and had concluded therefrom

that taste for strong liquor was an accomplishment less easily acquired

than is generally supposed. The lack of it in a young man could be no

disgrace, and accordingly effort in that direction also had I weakly

postponed.

But now, a gentleman at large, my education could no longer be delayed.

To the artist in particular was training--and severe training--an

absolute necessity. Recently fashion has changed somewhat, but a quarter

of a century ago a genius who did not smoke and drink--and that more

than was good for him--would have been dismissed without further

evidence as an impostor. About the genius I was hopeful, but at no time

positively certain. As regarded the smoking and drinking, so much at

least I could make sure of. I set to work methodically, conscientiously.

Smoking, experience taught me, was better practised on Saturday nights,

Sunday affording me the opportunity of walking off the effects. Patience

and determination were eventually crowned with success: I learned to

smoke a cigarette to all appearance as though I were enjoying it. Young

men of less character might here have rested content, but attainment

of the highest has always been with me a motive force. The cigarette

conquered, I next proceeded to attack the cigar. My first one I remember

well: most men do. It was at a smoking concert held in the Islington

Drill Hall, to which Minikin had invited me. Not feeling sure whether my

growing dizziness were due solely to the cigar, or in part to the hot,

over-crowded room, I made my excuses and slipped out. I found myself in

a small courtyard, divided from a neighbouring garden by a low wall. The

cause of my trouble was clearly the cigar. My inclination was to take it

from my mouth and see how far I could throw it. Conscience, on the other

hand, urged me to persevere. It occurred to me that if climbing on to

the wall I could walk along it from end to end, there would be no excuse

for my not heeding the counsels of perfection. If, on the contrary, try

as I might, the wall proved not wide enough for my footsteps, then I

should be entitled to lose the beastly thing, and, as best I could,

make my way home to bed. I attained the wall with some difficulty and

commenced my self-inflicted ordeal. Two yards further I found

myself lying across the wall, my legs hanging down one side, my head

overhanging the other. The position proving suitable to my requirements,

I maintained it. Inclination, again seizing its opportunity, urged me

then and there to take a solemn vow never to smoke again. I am proud

to write that through that hour of temptation I remained firm;

strengthening myself by whispering to myself: “Never despair. What

others can do, so can you. Is not all victory won through suffering?”

A liking for drink I had found, if possible, even yet more difficult of

achievement. Spirits I almost despaired of. Once, confusing bottles, I

drank some hair oil in mistake for whiskey, and found it decidedly less

nauseous. But twice a week I would force myself to swallow a glass of

beer, standing over myself insisting on my draining it to the bitter

dregs. As reward afterwards, to take the taste out of my mouth, I

would treat myself to chocolates; at the same time comforting myself

by assuring myself that it was for my good, that there would come a day

when I should really like it, and be grateful to myself for having been

severe with myself.

In other and more sensible directions I sought also to progress.

Gradually I was overcoming my shyness. It was a slow process. I found

the best plan was not to mind being shy, to accept it as part of my

temperament, and with others laugh at it. The coldness of an indifferent

world is of service in hardening a too sensitive skin. The gradual

rubbings of existence were rounding off my many corners. I became

possible to my fellow creatures, and they to me. I began to take

pleasure in their company.

By directing me to this particular house in Nelson Square, Fate had

done to me a kindness. I flatter myself we were an interesting menagerie

gathered together under its leaky roof. Mrs. Peedles, our landlady, who

slept in the basement with the slavey, had been an actress in Charles

Keane's company at the old Princess's. There, it is true, she had played

only insignificant parts. London, as she would explain to us was even

then but a poor judge of art, with prejudices. Besides an actor-manager,

hampered by a wife--we understood. But previously in the Provinces there

had been a career of glory: Juliet, Amy Robsart, Mrs. Haller in “The

Stranger”--almost the entire roll of the “Legitimates”. Showed we any

signs of disbelief, proof was forthcoming: handbills a yard long, rich

in notes of exclamation: “On Tuesday Evening! By Special Desire!!!

Blessington's Theatre! In the Meadow, adjoining the Falcon Arms!”--“On

Saturday! Under the Patronage of Col. Sir William and the Officers of

the 74th!!!! In the Corn Exchange!” Maybe it would convince us further

were she to run through a passage here and there, say Lady Macbeth's

sleep-walking scene, or from Ophelia's entrance in the fourth act? It

would be no trouble; her memory was excellent. We would hasten to assure

her of our perfect faith.

Listening to her, it was difficult, as she herself would frankly admit,

to imagine her the once “arch Miss Lucretia Barry;” looking at her, to

remember there had been an evening when she had been “the cynosure of

every eye.” One found it necessary to fortify oneself with perusal of

underlined extracts from ancient journals, much thumbed and creased,

thoughtfully lent to one for the purpose. Since those days Fate had

woven round her a mantle of depression. She was now a faded, watery-eyed

little woman, prone on the slightest provocation to sit down suddenly on

the nearest chair and at once commence a history of her troubles. Quite

unconscious of this failing, it was an idea of hers that she was an

exceptionally cheerful person.

“But there, fretting's no good. We must grin and bear things in this

world,” she would conclude, wiping her eyes upon her apron. “It's better

to laugh than to cry, I always say.” And to prove that this was no mere

idle sentiment, she would laugh then and there upon the spot.

Much stair-climbing had bestowed upon her a shortness of breath, which

no amount of panting in her resting moments was able to make good.

“You don't know 'ow to breathe,” explained our second floor front to

her on one occasion, a kindly young man; “you don't swallow it, you

only gargle with it. Take a good draught and shut your mouth; don't

be frightened of it; don't let it out again till it's done something:

that's what it's 'ere for.”

He stood over her with his handkerchief pressed against her mouth to

assist her; but it was of no use.

“There don't seem any room for it inside me,” she explained.

Bells had become to her the business of life; she lived listening

for them. Converse to her was a filling in of time while waiting for

interruptions.

A bottle of whiskey fell into my hands that Christmas time, a present

from a commercial traveller in the way of business. Not liking whiskey

myself, it was no sacrifice for me to reserve it for the occasional

comfort of Mrs. Peedles, when, breathless, with her hands to her side,

she would sink upon the chair nearest to my door. Her poor, washed-out

face would lighten at the suggestion.

“Ah, well,” she would reply, “I don't mind if I do. It's a poor heart

that never rejoices.”

And then, her tongue unloosened, she would sit there and tell me stories

of my predecessors, young men lodgers who like myself had taken her

bed-sitting-rooms, and of the woes and misfortunes that had overtaken

them. I gathered that a more unlucky house I could not have selected.

A former tenant of my own room, of whom I strangely reminded her, had

written poetry on my very table. He was now in Portland doing five years

for forgery. Mrs. Peedles appeared to regard the two accomplishments as

merely different expressions of the same art. Another of her young men,

as she affectionately called us, had been of studious ambition. His

career up to a point appeared to have been brilliant. “What he mightn't

have been,” according to Mrs. Peedles, there was practically no saying;

what he happened to be at the moment of conversation was an unpromising

inmate of the Hanwell lunatic asylum.

“I've always noticed it,” Mrs. Peedles would explain; “it's always the

most deserving, those that try hardest, to whom trouble comes. I'm sure

I don't know why.”

I was glad on the whole when that bottle of whiskey was finished. A

second might have driven me to suicide.

There was no Mr. Peedles--at least, not for Mrs. Peedles, though as an

individual he continued to exist. He had been “general utility” at

the Princess's--the old terms were still in vogue at that time--a fine

figure of a man in his day, so I was given to understand, but one easily

led away, especially by minxes. Mrs. Peedles spoke bitterly of general

utilities as people of not much use.

For working days Mrs. Peedles had one dress and one cap, both black

and void of ostentation; but on Sundays and holidays she would appear

metamorphosed. She had carefully preserved the bulk of her stage

wardrobe, even to the paste-decked shoes and tinsel jewelry. Shapeless

in classic garb as Hermia, or bulgy in brocade and velvet as Lady

Teazle, she would receive her few visitors on Sunday evenings, discarded

puppets like herself, with whom the conversation was of gayer nights

before their wires had been cut; or, her glory hid from the ribald

street beneath a mackintosh, pay her few calls. Maybe it was the unusual

excitement that then brought colour into her furrowed cheeks, that

straightened and darkened her eyebrows, at other times so singularly

unobtrusive. Be this how it may, the change was remarkable, only

the thin grey hair and the work-worn hands remaining for purposes of

identification. Nor was the transformation merely one of surface.

Mrs. Peedles hung on her hook behind the kitchen door, dingy, limp,

discarded; out of the wardrobe with the silks and satins was lifted down

to be put on as an undergarment Miss Lucretia Barry, like her costumes

somewhat aged, somewhat withered, but still distinctly “arch.”

In the room next to me lived a law-writer and his wife. They were very

old and miserably poor. The fault was none of theirs. Despite copy-books

maxims, there is in this world such a thing as ill-luck-persistent,

monotonous, that gradually wears away all power of resistance. I

learned from them their history: it was hopelessly simple, hopelessly

uninstructive. He had been a schoolmaster, she a pupil teacher; they had

married young, and for a while the world had smiled upon them. Then came

illness, attacking them both: nothing out of which any moral could be

deduced, a mere case of bad drains resulting in typhoid fever. They had

started again, saddled by debt, and after years of effort had succeeded

in clearing themselves, only to fall again, this time in helping a

friend. Nor was it even a case of folly: a poor man who had helped them

in their trouble, hardly could they have done otherwise without proving

themselves ungrateful. And so on, a tedious tale, commonplace, trivial.

Now listless, patient, hard working, they had arrived at an animal-like

indifference to their fate, content so long as they could obtain the

bare necessities of existence, passive when these were not forthcoming,

their interest in life limited to the one luxury of the poor--an

occasional glass of beer or spirits. Often days would go by without

his obtaining any work, and then they would more or less starve. Law

documents are generally given out to such men in the evening, to be

returned finished the next morning. Waking in the night, I would hear

through the thin wooden partition that divided our rooms the even

scratching of his pen.

Thus cheek by jowl we worked, I my side of the screen, he his: youth and

age, hope and realisation.

Out of him my fears fashioned a vision of the future. Past his door I

would slink on tiptoe, dread meeting him upon the stairs. Once had not

he said to himself: “The world's mine oyster?” May not the voices of the

night have proclaimed him also king? Might I not be but an idle dreamer,

mistaking desire for power? Would not the world prove stronger than I?

At such times I would see my life before me: the clerkship at thirty

shillings a week rising by slow instalments, it may be, to one hundred

and fifty a year; the four-roomed house at Brixton; the girl wife,

pretty, perhaps, but sinking so soon into the slatternly woman; the

squalling children. How could I, unaided, expect to raise myself from

the ruck? Was not this the more likely picture?

Our second floor front was a young fellow in the commercial line. Jarman

was Young London personified--blatant yet kind-hearted; aggressively

self-assertive, generous to a fault; cunning, yet at the same time

frank; shrewd, cheery, and full of pluck. “Never say die” was his motto,

and anything less dead it would be difficult to imagine. All day long

he was noisy, and all night long he snored. He woke with a start, bathed

like a porpoise, sang while dressing, roared for his boots, and

whistled during his breakfast. His entrance and exit were always to an

orchestration of banging doors, directions concerning his meals shouted

at the top of his voice as he plunged up or down the stairs, the

clattering and rattling of brooms and pails flying before his feet. His

departure always left behind it the suggestion that the house was now to

let; it came almost as a shock to meet a human being on the landing. He

would have conveyed an atmosphere of bustle to the Egyptian pyramids.

Sometimes carrying his own supper-tray, arranged for two, he would march

into my room. At first, resenting his familiarity, I would hint at my

desire to be alone, would explain that I was busy.

“You fire away, Shakespeare Redivivus,” he would reply. “Don't delay the

tragedy. Why should London wait? I'll keep quiet.”

But his notion of keeping quiet was to retire into a corner and there

amuse himself by enacting a tragedy of his own in a hoarse whisper,

accompanied by appropriate gesture.

“Ah, ah!” I would hear him muttering to himself, “I 'ave killed 'er good

old father; I 'ave falsely accused 'er young man of all the crimes that

I 'ave myself committed; I 'ave robbed 'er of 'er ancestral estates. Yet