DREAM DAYS

By Kenneth Grahame

Contents:

 THE TWENTY-FIRST OF OCTOBER DIES IRAE MUTABILE SEMPER THE MAGIC RING ITS WALLS WERE AS OF JASPER A SAGA OF THE SEAS THE RELUCTANT DRAGON A DEPARTURE

DREAM DAYS

THE TWENTY-FIRST OF OCTOBER

In the matter of general culture and attainments, we youngsters stood onpretty level ground. True, it was always happening that one of us wouldbe singled out at any moment, freakishly, and without regard to his ownpreferences, to wrestle with the inflections of some idiotic languagelong rightly dead; while another, from some fancied artistic tendencywhich always failed to justify itself, might be told off without warningto hammer out scales and exercises, and to bedew the senseless keys withtears of weariness or of revolt. But in subjects common to either sex, and held to be necessary even for him whose ambition soared no higherthan to crack a whip in a circus-ring--in geography, for instance, arithmetic, or the weary doings of kings and queens--each would havescorned to excel. And, indeed, whatever our individual gifts, a generaldogged determination to shirk and to evade kept us all at much the samedead level, --a level of ignorance tempered by insubordination. 

Fortunately there existed a wide range of subjects, of healthier tonethan those already enumerated, in which we were free to choose forourselves, and which we would have scorned to consider education; and inthese we freely followed each his own particular line, often attainingan amount of special knowledge which struck our ignorant elders assimply uncanny. For Edward, the uniforms, accoutrements, colours, and mottoes of the regiments composing the British Army had a specialglamour. In the matter of facings he was simply faultless; amongchevrons, badges, medals, and stars, he moved familiarly; he even knewthe names of most of the colonels in command; and he would squandersunny hours prone on the lawn, heedless of challenge from bird or beast, poring over a tattered Army List. My own accomplishment was of anothercharacter--took, as it seemed to me, a wider and a more untrammelledrange. Dragoons might have swaggered in Lincoln green, riflemen mighthave donned sporrans over tartan trews, without exciting notice orcomment from me. But did you seek precise information as to the fauna ofthe American continent, then you had come to the right shop. Where andwhy the bison "wallowed"; how beaver were to be trapped and wild turkeysstalked; the grizzly and how to handle him, and the pretty pressingways of the constrictor, --in fine, the haunts and the habits of all thatburrowed, strutted, roared, or wriggled between the Atlantic and thePacific, --all this knowledge I took for my province. By the others myequipment was fully recognized. Supposing a book with a bear-hunt init made its way into the house, and the atmosphere was electric withexcitement; still, it was necessary that I should first decide whetherthe slot had been properly described and properly followed up, ere thework could be stamped with full approval. A writer might have wonfame throughout the civilized globe for his trappers and his realisticbackwoods, and all went for nothing. If his pemmican were not properlycompounded I damned his achievement, and it was heard no more of. 

Harold was hardly old enough to possess a special subject of his own. Hehad his instincts, indeed, and at bird's-nesting they almost amounted toprophecy. Where we others only suspected eggs, surmised possible eggs, hinted doubtfully at eggs in the neighbourhood, Harold went straight forthe right bush, bough, or hole as if he carried a divining-rod. But thisfaculty belonged to the class of mere gifts, and was not to be rankedwith Edward's lore regarding facings, and mine as to the habits ofprairie-dogs, both gained by painful study and extensive travel in those"realms of gold, " the Army List and Ballantyne. 

Selina's subject, quite unaccountably, happened to be naval history. There is no laying down rules as to subjects; you just possess them--orrather, they possess you--and their genesis or protoplasm is rarely tobe tracked down. Selina had never so much as seen the sea; but forthat matter neither had I ever set foot on the American continent, the by-ways of which I knew so intimately. And just as I, if set downwithout warning in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, would have beenperfectly at home, so Selina, if a genie had dropped her suddenly onPortsmouth Hard, could have given points to most of its frequenters. From the days of Blake down to the death of Nelson (she nevercondescended further) Selina had taken spiritual part in every notableengagement of the British Navy; and even in the dark days when she hadto pick up skirts and flee, chased by an ungallant De Ruyter or VanTromp, she was yet cheerful in the consciousness that ere long she wouldbe gleefully hammering the fleets of the world, in the glorious timesto follow. When that golden period arrived, Selina was busy indeed; and, while loving best to stand where the splinters were flying the thickest. She was also a careful and critical student of seamanship and ofmanoeuvre. She knew the order in which the great line-of-battle shipsmoved into action, the vessels they respectively engaged, the momentwhen each let go its anchor, and which of them had a spring on its cable(while not understanding the phrase, she carefully noted the fact);and she habitually went into an engagement on the quarter-deck of thegallant ship that reserved its fire the longest. 

At the time of Selina's weird seizure I was unfortunately away fromhome, on a loathsome visit to an aunt; and my account is thereforefeebly compounded from hearsay. It was an absence I never ceased toregret--scoring it up, with a sense of injury, against the aunt. Therewas a splendid uselessness about the whole performance that speciallyappealed to my artistic sense. That it should have been Selina, too, who should break out this way--Selina, who had just become a regularsubscriber to the "Young Ladies' Journal, " and who allowed herself tobe taken out to strange teas with an air of resignation palpablyassumed--this was a special joy, and served to remind me that much ofthis dreaded convention that was creeping over us might be, afterall, only veneer. Edward also was absent, getting licked into shape atschool; but to him the loss was nothing. With his stern practical benthe wouldn't have seen any sense in it--to recall one of his favouriteexpressions. To Harold, however, for whom the gods had always cherisheda special tenderness, it was granted, not only to witness, but also, priestlike, to feed the sacred fire itself. And if at the time he paidthe penalty exacted by the sordid unimaginative ones who temporarilyrule the roast, he must ever after, one feels sure, have carried insidehim some of the white gladness of the acolyte who, greatly privileged, has been permitted to swing a censer at the sacring of the very Mass. 

October was mellowing fast, and with it the year itself; full of tenderhints, in woodland and hedgerow, of a course well-nigh completed. Fromall sides that still afternoon you caught the quick breathing and sobof the runner nearing the goal. Preoccupied and possessed, Selina hadstrayed down the garden and out into the pasture beyond, where, on abit of rising ground that dominated the garden on one side and the downswith the old coach-road on the other, she had cast herself down to chewthe cud of fancy. There she was presently joined by Harold, breathlessand very full of his latest grievance. 

"I asked him not to, " he burst out. "I said if he'd only please wait abit and Edward would be back soon, and it couldn't matter to HIM, andthe pig wouldn't mind, and Edward'd be pleased and everybody'd be happy. But he just said he was very sorry, but bacon didn't wait for nobody. So I told him he was a regular beast, and then I came away. And--and Ib'lieve they're doing it now!"

"Yes, he's a beast, " agreed Selina, absently. She had forgotten allabout the pig-killing. Harold kicked away a freshly thrown-up mole-hill, and prodded down the hole with a stick. From the direction of FarmerLarkin's demesne came a long-drawn note of sorrow, a thin cry andappeal, telling that the stout soul of a black Berkshire pig was alreadyfaring down the stony track to Hades. 

"D'you know what day it is?" said Selina presently, in a low voice, looking far away before her. 

Harold did not appear to know, nor yet to care. He had laid open hismole-run for a yard or so, and was still grubbing at it absorbedly. 

"It's Trafalgar Day, " went on Selina, trancedly; "Trafalgar Day--andnobody cares!"

Something in her tone told Harold that he was not behaving quitebecomingly. He didn't exactly know in what manner; still, he abandonedhis mole-hunt for a more courteous attitude of attention. 

"Over there, " resumed Selina--she was gazing out in the direction of theold highroad--"over there the coaches used to go by. Uncle Thomas wastelling me about it the other day. And the people used to watch for 'emcoming, to tell the time by, and p'r'aps to get their parcels. And onemorning--they wouldn't be expecting anything different--one morning, first there would be a cloud of dust, as usual, and then the coach wouldcome racing by, and THEN they would know! For the coach would be dressedin laurel, all laurel from stem to stern! And the coachman would bewearing laurel, and the guard would be wearing laurel; and then theywould know, then they would know!"

Harold listened in respectful silence. He would much rather have beenhunting the mole, who must have been a mile away by this time if he hadhis wits about him. But he had all the natural instincts of agentleman; of whom it is one of the principal marks, if not the completedefinition, never to show signs of being bored. 

Selina rose to her feet, and paced the turf restlessly with a shortquarter-deck walk. 

"Why can't we DO something?" she burst out presently. "HE--he dideverything--why can't we do anything for him?"

"WHO did everything?" inquired Harold, meekly. It was useless wastingfurther longings on that mole. Like the dead, he travelled fast. 

"Why, Nelson, of course, " said Selina, shortly, still looking restlesslyaround for help or suggestion. 

"But he's--he's DEAD, isn't he?" asked Harold, slightly puzzled. 

"What's that got to do with it?" retorted his sister, resuming hercaged-lion promenade. 

Harold was somewhat taken aback. In the case of the pig, for instance, whose last outcry had now passed into stillness, he had considered thechapter as finally closed. Whatever innocent mirth the holidays mighthold in store for Edward, that particular pig, at least, would not be acontributor. And now he was given to understand that the situation hadnot materially changed! He would have to revise his ideas, it seemed. Sitting up on end, he looked towards the garden for assistance in thetask. Thence, even as he gazed, a tiny column of smoke rose straight upinto the still air. The gardener had been sweeping that afternoon, andnow, an unconscious priest, was offering his sacrifice of autumn leavesto the calm-eyed goddess of changing hues and chill forebodings who wasmoving slowly about the land that golden afternoon. Harold was up andoff in a moment, forgetting Nelson, forgetting the pig, the mole, theLarkin betrayal, and Selina's strange fever of conscience. Here wasfire, real fire, to play with, and that was even better than messingwith water, or remodelling the plastic surface of the earth. Of all thetoys the world provides for right-minded persons, the original elementsrank easily the first. 

But Selina sat on where she was, her chin on her fists; and her fancieswhirled and drifted, here and there, in curls and eddies, along with thesmoke she was watching. As the quick-footed dusk of the short Octoberday stepped lightly over the garden, little red tongues of fire mightbe seen to leap and vanish in the smoke. Harold, anon staggering underarmfuls of leaves, anon stoking vigorously, was discernible only atfitful intervals. It was another sort of smoke that the inner eye ofSelina was looking upon, --a smoke that hung in sullen banks round themasts and the hulls of the fighting ships; a smoke from beneath whichcame thunder and the crash and the splinter-rip, the shout of theboarding party, the choking sob of the gunner stretched by his gun; asmoke from out of which at last she saw, as through a riven pall, theradiant spirit of the Victor, crowned with the coronal of a perfectdeath, leap in full assurance up into the ether that Immortals breathe. The dusk was glooming towards darkness when she rose and moved slowlydown towards the beckoning fire; something of the priestess in herstride, something of the devotee in the set purpose of her eye. 

The leaves were well alight by this time, and Harold had just added anold furze bush, which flamed and crackled stirringly. 

"Go 'n' get some more sticks, " ordered Selina, "and shavings, 'n' chunksof wood, 'n' anything you can find. Look here--in the kitchen-gardenthere's a pile of old pea-sticks. Fetch as many as you can carry, andthen go back and bring some more!"

"But I say, --" began Harold, amazedly, scarce knowing his sister, andwith a vision of a frenzied gardener, pea-stickless and threateningretribution. 

"Go and fetch 'em quick!" shouted Selina, stamping with impatience. 

Harold ran off at once, true to the stern system of discipline in whichhe had been nurtured. But his eyes were like round O's, and as he ran hetalked fast to himself, in evident disorder of mind. 

The pea-sticks made a rare blaze, and the fire, no longer smoulderingsullenly, leapt up and began to assume the appearance of a genuinebonfire. Harold, awed into silence at first, began to jump round it withshouts of triumph. Selina looked on grimly, with knitted brow; shewas not yet fully satisfied. "Can't you get any more sticks?" she saidpresently. "Go and hunt about. Get some old hampers and matting andthings out of the tool-house. Smash up that old cucumber frame Edwardshoved you into, the day we were playing scouts and Mohicans. Stop abit! Hooray! I know. You come along with me. "

Hard by there was a hot-house, Aunt Eliza's special pride and joy, andeven grimly approved of by the gardener. At one end, in an out-houseadjoining, the necessary firing was stored; and to this sacred fuel, ofwhich we were strictly forbidden to touch a stick, Selina went straight. Harold followed obediently, prepared for any crime after that of thepea-sticks, but pinching himself to see if he were really awake. 

"You bring some coals, " said Selina briefly, without any palaver orpro-and-con discussion. "Here's a basket. I'LL manage the faggots!"

In a very few minutes there was little doubt about its being a genuinebonfire and no paltry makeshift. Selina, a Maenad now, hatless andtossing disordered locks, all the dross of the young lady purged out ofher, stalked around the pyre of her own purloining, or prodded it witha pea-stick. And as she prodded she murmured at intervals, "I KNEW therewas something we could do! It isn't much--but still it's SOMETHING!"

The gardener had gone home to his tea. Aunt Eliza had driven out forhers a long way off, and was not expected back till quite late; and thisfar end of the garden was not overlooked by any windows. So the Tributeblazed on merrily unchecked. Villagers far away, catching sight ofthe flare, muttered something about "them young devils at their tricksagain, " and trudged on beer-wards. Never a thought of what day it was, never a thought for Nelson, who preserved their honest pint-pots, tobe paid for in honest pence, and saved them from litres and decimalcoinage. Nearer at hand, frightened rabbits popped up and vanished witha flick of white tails; scared birds fluttered among the branches, orsped across the glade to quieter sleeping-quarters; but never a bird nora beast gave a thought to the hero to whom they owed it that each yeartheir little homes of horsehair, wool, or moss, were safe stablished'neath the flap of the British flag; and that Game Laws, quietlypermanent, made la chasse a terror only to their betters. No one seemedto know, nor to care, nor to sympathise. In all the ecstasy of herburnt-offering and sacrifice, Selina stood alone. 

And yet--not quite alone! For, as the fire was roaring at its best, certain stars stepped delicately forth on the surface of the immensityabove, and peered down doubtfully--with wonder at first, then withinterest, then with recognition, with a start of glad surprise. THEYat least knew all about it, THEY understood. Among THEM the Name wasa daily familiar word; his story was a part of the music to which theyswung, himself was their fellow and their mate and comrade. So theypeeped, and winked, and peeped again, and called to their laggardbrothers to come quick and see. 

*****

"The best of life is but intoxication;" and Selina, who during her briefinebriation had lived in an ecstasy as golden as our drab existenceaffords, had to experience the inevitable bitterness of awakeningsobriety, when the dying down of the flames into sullen embers coincidedwith the frenzied entrance of Aunt Eliza on the scene. It was not somuch that she was at once and forever disrated, broke, sent before themast, and branded as one on whom no reliance could be placed, even withEdward safe at school, and myself under the distant vigilance of anaunt; that her pocket money was stopped indefinitely, and her new ChurchService, the pride of her last birthday, removed from her own custodyand placed under the control of a Trust. She sorrowed rather becauseshe had dragged poor Harold, against his better judgment, into a mosthorrible scrape, and moreover because, when the reaction had fairly setin, when the exaltation had fizzled away and the young-lady portion ofher had crept timorously back to its wonted lodging, she could only seeherself as a plain fool, unjustified, undeniable, without a shadow of anexcuse or explanation. 

As for Harold, youth and a short memory made his case less pitiful thanit seemed to his more sensitive sister. True, he started upstairs to hislonely cot bellowing dismally, before him a dreary future of pains andpenalties, sufficient to last to the crack of doom. Outside his door, however, he tumbled over Augustus the cat, and made capture of him; andat once his mourning was changed into a song of triumph, as he conveyedhis prize into port. For Augustus, who detested above all things goingto bed with little boys, was ever more knave than fool, and the trapperwho was wily enough to ensnare him had achieved something notable. Augustus, when he realized that his fate was sealed, and his night'slodging settled, wisely made the best of things, and listened, witha languorous air of complete comprehension, to the incoherent babbleconcerning pigs and heroes, moles and bonfires, which served Harold fora self-sung lullaby. Yet it may be doubted whether Augustus was one ofthose rare fellows who thoroughly understood. 

But Selina knew no more of this source of consolation than of thesympathy with which the stars were winking above her; and it was onlyafter some sad interval of time, and on a very moist pillow, that shedrifted into that quaint inconsequent country where you may meet yourown pet hero strolling down the road, and commit what hair-brainedoddities you like, and everybody understands and appreciates. 

DIES IRAE

Those memorable days that move in procession, their heads just outof the mist of years long dead--the most of them are full-eyed as thedandelion that from dawn to shade has steeped itself in sunlight. Here and there in their ranks, however, moves a forlorn one who isblind--blind in the sense of the dulled window-pane on which the peltingraindrops have mingled and run down, obscuring sunshine and the circlingbirds, happy fields, and storied garden; blind with the spatter of amisery uncomprehended, unanalysed, only felt as something corporeal inits buffeting effects. 

Martha began it; and yet Martha was not really to blame. Indeed, thatwas half the trouble of it--no solid person stood full in view, to beblamed and to make atonement. There was only a wretched, impalpablecondition to deal with. Breakfast was just over; the sun was summoningus, imperious as a herald with clamour of trumpet; I ran upstairs toher with a broken bootlace in my hand, and there she was, crying in acorner, her head in her apron. Nothing could be got from her but thesame dismal succession of sobs that would not have done, that struckand hurt like a physical beating; and meanwhile the sun was gettingimpatient, and I wanted my bootlace. 

Inquiry below stairs revealed the cause. Martha's brother was dead, it seemed--her sailor brother Billy; drowned in one of those strangefar-off seas it was our dream to navigate one day. We had known Billywell, and appreciated him. When an approaching visit of Billy to hissister had been announced, we had counted the days to it. When hischeery voice was at last heard in the kitchen and we had descendedwith shouts, first of all he had to exhibit his tattooed arms, always asubject for fresh delight and envy and awe; then he was called uponfor tricks, jugglings, and strange, fearful gymnastics; and lastly cameyarns, and more yarns, and yarns till bedtime. There had never been anyone like Billy in his own particular sphere; and now he was drowned, they said, and Martha was miserable, and--and I couldn't get a newbootlace. They told me that Billy would never come back any more, and Istared out of the window at the sun which came back, right enough, everyday, and their news conveyed nothing whatever to me. Martha's sorrow hithome a little, but only because the actual sight and sound of it gaveme a dull, bad sort of pain low down inside--a pain not to be actuallylocated. Moreover, I was still wanting my bootlace. 

This was a poor sort of a beginning to a day that, so far as outsideconditions went, had promised so well. I rigged up a sort of jurymastof a bootlace with a bit of old string, and wandered off to look up thegirls, conscious of a jar and a discordance in the scheme of things. Themoment I entered the schoolroom something in the air seemed to tellme that here, too, matters were strained and awry. Selina was staringlistlessly out of the window, one foot curled round her leg. When Ispoke to her she jerked a shoulder testily, but did not condescend tothe civility of a reply. Charlotte, absolutely unoccupied, sprawled ina chair, and there were signs of sniffles about her, even at that earlyhour. It was but a trifling matter that had caused all this electricityin the atmosphere, and the girls' manner of taking it seemed to me mostunreasonable. Within the last few days the time had come round for thedespatch of a hamper to Edward at school. Only one hamper a term waspermitted him, so its preparation was a sort of blend of revelryand religious ceremony. After the main corpus of the thing had beencarefully selected and safely bestowed--the pots of jam, the cake, thesausages, and the apples that filled up corners so nicely--after thelast package had been wedged in, the girls had deposited their ownprivate and personal offerings on the top. I forget their precisenature; anyhow, they were nothing of any particular practical use to aboy. But they had involved some contrivance and labour, some skimpingof pocket money, and much delightful cloud-building as to the effecton their enraptured recipient. Well, yesterday there had come a terseacknowledgment from Edward, heartily commending the cakes and the jam, stamping the sausages with the seal of Smith major's approval, andfinally hinting that, fortified as he now was, nothing more wasnecessary but a remittance of five shillings in postage stamps to enablehim to face the world armed against every buffet of fate. That was all. Never a word or a hint of the personal tributes or of his appreciationof them. To us--to Harold and me, that is--the letter seemed naturaland sensible enough. After all, provender was the main thing, and fiveshillings stood for a complete equipment against the most unexpectedturns of luck. The presents were very well in their way--very nice, andso on--but life was a serious matter, and the contest called for cakesand half crowns to carry it on, not gew-gaws and knitted mittens and thelike. The girls, however, in their obstinate way, persisted in takingtheir own view of the slight. Hence it was that I received my secondrebuff of the morning. 

Somewhat disheartened, I made my way downstairs and out into thesunlight, where I found Harold playing conspirators by himself on thegravel. He had dug a small hole in the walk and had laid an imaginarytrain of powder thereto; and, as he sought refuge in the laurels fromthe inevitable explosion, I heard him murmur: "`My God!' said the Czar, `my plans are frustrated!'" It seemed an excellent occasion for beinga black puma. Harold liked black pumas, on the whole, as well as anyanimal we were familiar with. 

So I launched myself on him, with the appropriate howl, rolling him overon the gravel. 

Life may be said to be composed of things that come off and things thatdon't come off. This thing, unfortunately, was one of the things thatdidn't come off. From beneath me I heard a shrill cry of, "Oh, it's mysore knee!" And Harold wriggled himself free from the puma's clutches, bellowing dismally. Now, I honestly didn't know he had a sore knee, and, what's more, he knew I didn't know he had a sore knee. According toboy ethics, therefore, his attitude was wrong, sore knee or not, and noapology was due from me. I made half-way advances, however, suggestingwe should lie in ambush by the edge of the pond and cut off the ducks asthey waddled down in simple, unsuspecting single file; then hunt themas bisons flying scattered over the vast prairie. A fascinating pursuitthis, and strictly illicit. But Harold would none of my overtures, andretreated to the house wailing with full lungs. 

Things were getting simply infernal. I struck out blindly for the opencountry; and even as I made for the gate a shrill voice from a windowbade me keep off the flower-beds. When the gate had swung to behind mewith a vicious click I felt better, and after ten minutes along the roadit began to grow on me that some radical change was needed, that I wasin a blind alley, and that this intolerable state of things must somehowcease. All that I could do I had already done. As well-meaning a fellowas ever stepped was pounding along the road that day, with an exceedingsore heart; one who only wished to live and let live, in touch with hisfellows, and appreciating what joys life had to offer. What was wantednow was a complete change of environment. Some where in the world, Ifelt sure, justice and sympathy still resided. There were places calledpampas, for instance, that sounded well. League upon league of grass, with just an occasional wild horse, and not a relation within thehorizon! To a bruised spirit this seemed a sane and a healing sort ofexistence. There were other pleasant corners, again, where you divedfor pearls and stabbed sharks in the stomach with your big knife. No relations would be likely to come interfering with you when thusblissfully occupied. And yet I did not wish--just yet--to have done withrelations entirely. They should be made to feel their position first, to see themselves as they really were, and to wish--when it was toolate--that they had behaved more properly. 

Of all professions, the army seemed to lend itself the most thoroughlyto the scheme. You enlisted, you followed the drum, you marched, fought, and ported arms, under strange skies, through unrecorded years. At last, at long last, your opportunity would come, when the horrors of war wereflickering through the quiet country-side where you were cradled andbred, but where the memory of you had long been dim. Folk would runtogether, clamorous, palsied with fear; and among the terror-strickengroups would figure certain aunts. "What hope is left us?" they wouldask themselves, "save in the clemency of the General, the mysterious, invincible General, of whom men tell such romantic tales?" And the armywould march in, and the guns would rattle and leap along the villagestreet, and, last of all, you--you, the General, the fabled hero--youwould enter, on your coal-black charger, your pale set face seamed byan interesting sabre-cut. And then--but every boy has rehearsed thisfamiliar piece a score of times. You are magnanimous, in fine--that goeswithout saying; you have a coal-black horse, and a sabre-cut, and youcan afford to be very magnanimous. But all the same you give them a goodtalking-to. 

This pleasant conceit simply ravished my soul for some twenty minutes, and then the old sense of injury began to well up afresh, and to callfor new plasters and soothing syrups. This time I took refuge in happythoughts of the sea. The sea was my real sphere, after all. On the sea, in especial, you could combine distinction with lawlessness, whereas thearmy seemed to be always weighted by a certain plodding submission todiscipline. To be sure, by all accounts, the life was at first a roughone. But just then I wanted to suffer keenly; I wanted to be a poordevil of a cabin boy, kicked, beaten, and sworn at--for a time. Perhapssome hint, some inkling of my sufferings might reach their ears. Indue course the sloop or felucca would turn up--it always did--therakish-looking craft, black of hull, low in the water, and bristlingwith guns; the jolly Roger flapping overhead, and myself for solecommander. By and by, as usually happened, an East Indiaman would comesailing along full of relations--not a necessary relation would bemissing. And the crew should walk the plank, and the captain shoulddance from his own yardarm, and then I would take the passengersin hand--that miserable group of well-known figures cowering on thequarter-deck!--and then--and then the same old performance: the airthick with magnanimity. In all the repertory of heroes, none is moretruly magnanimous than your pirate chief. 

When at last I brought myself back from the future to the actualpresent, I found that these delectable visions had helped me over alonger stretch of road than I had imagined; and I looked around and tookmy bearings. To the right of me was a long low building of grey stone, new, and yet not smugly so; new, and yet possessing distinction, marked with a character that did not depend on lichen or on crumblingsemi-effacement of moulding and mullion. Strangers might have beenpuzzled to classify it; to me, an explorer from earliest years, theplace was familiar enough. Most folk called it "The Settlement"; others, with quite sufficient conciseness for our neighbourhood, spoke of "themthere fellows up by Halliday's;" others again, with a hint of derision, named them the "monks. " This last title I supposed to be intended forsatire, and knew to be fatuously wrong. I was thoroughly acquaintedwith monks--in books--and well knew the cut of their long frocks, theirshaven polls, and their fascinating big dogs, with brandy-bottles roundtheir necks, incessantly hauling happy travellers out of the snow. Theonly dog at the settlement was an Irish terrier, and the good fellowswho owned him, and were owned by him, in common, wore clothes of themost nondescript order, and mostly cultivated side-whiskers. I hadwandered up there one day, searching (as usual) for something I neverfound, and had been taken in by them and treated as friend and comrade. They had made me free of their ideal little rooms, full of books andpictures, and clean of the antimacassar taint; they had shown me theirchapel, high, hushed; and faintly scented, beautiful with a strange newbeauty born both of what it had and what it had not--that too familiardowdiness of common places of worship. They had also fed me in theirdining-hall, where a long table stood on trestles plain to view, and allthe woodwork was natural, unpainted, healthily scrubbed, and redolent ofthe forest it came from. I brought away from that visit, and kept by mefor many days, a sense of cleanness, of the freshness that pricks thesenses--the freshness of cool spring water; and the large swept spacesof the rooms, the red tiles, and the oaken settles, suggested a comfortthat had no connexion with padded upholstery. 

On this particular morning I was in much too unsociable a mind forpaying friendly calls. Still, something in the aspect of the placeharmonised with my humour, and I worked my way round to the back, wherethe ground, after affording level enough for a kitchen-garden, brokesteeply away. Both the word Gothic and the thing itself were stillunknown to me; yet doubtless the architecture of the place, consistentthroughout, accounted for its sense of comradeship in my hour ofdisheartenment. As I mused there, with the low, grey, purposeful-lookingbuilding before me, and thought of my pleasant friends within, and whatgood times they always seemed to be having, and how they larked with theIrish terrier, whose footing was one of a perfect equality, I thoughtof a certain look in their faces, as if they had a common purpose anda business, and were acting under orders thoroughly recognised andunderstood. I remembered, too, something that Martha had told me, about these same fellows doing "a power o' good, " and other hints I hadcollected vaguely, of renouncements, rules, self-denials, and thelike. Thereupon, out of the depths of my morbid soul swam up a new andfascinating idea; and at once the career of arms seemed over-acted andstale, and piracy, as a profession, flat and unprofitable. This, then, or something like it, should be my vocation and my revenge. A severerline of business, perhaps, such as I had read of; something thatincluded black bread and a hair-shirt. There should be vows, too--irrevocable, blood curdling vows; and an iron grating. This irongrating was the most necessary feature of all, for I intended that onthe other side of it my relations should range themselves--I mentallyran over the catalogue, and saw that the whole gang was present, all intheir proper places--a sad-eyed row, combined in tristful appeal. "Wesee our error now, " they would say; "we were always dull dogs, slow tocatch--especially in those akin to us--the finer qualities of soul! Wemisunderstood you, misappreciated you, and we own up to it. And now--""Alas, my dear friends, " I would strike in here, waving towards theman ascetic hand--one of the emaciated sort, that lets the light shinethrough at the finger-tips--"Alas, you come too late! This conduct isfitting and meritorious on your part, and indeed I always expected it ofyou, sooner or later; but the die is cast, and you may go home again andbewail at your leisure this too tardy repentance of yours. For me, I amvowed and dedicated, and my relations henceforth are austerity and holyworks. Once a month, should you wish it, it shall be your privilege tocome and gaze at me through this very solid grating; but--" WHACK!

A well-aimed clod of garden soil, whizzing just past my ear, starred ona tree-trunk behind, spattering me with dirt. The present came back tome in a flash, and I nimbly took cover behind the trees, realising thatthe enemy was up and abroad, with ambuscades, alarms, and thrillingsallies. It was the gardener's boy, I knew well enough; a redproletariat, who hated me just because I was a gentleman. Hastilypicking up a nice sticky clod in one hand, with the other I delicatelyprojected my hat beyond the shelter of the tree-trunk. I had not foughtwith Red-skins all these years for nothing. 

As I had expected, another clod, of the first class for size andstickiness, took my poor hat full in the centre. Then, Ajax-like, shouting terribly, I issued from shelter and discharged my ammunition. Woe then for the gardener's boy, who, unprepared, skipping in prematuretriumph, took the clod full in his stomach!

He, the foolish one, witless on whose side the gods were fighting thatday, discharged yet other missiles, wavering and wide of the mark; forhis wind had been taken with the first clod, and he shot wildly, as onealready desperate and in flight. I got another clod in at short range;we clinched on the brow of the hill, and rolled down to the bottomtogether. When he had shaken himself free and regained his legs, hetrotted smartly off in the direction of his mother's cottage; but overhis shoulder he discharged at me both imprecation and deprecation, menace mixed up with an under-current of tears. 

But as for me, I made off smartly for the road, my frame tingling, myhead high, with never a backward look at the Settlement of suggestiveaspect, or at my well-planned future which lay in fragments around it. Life had its jollities, then; life was action, contest, victory! Thepresent was rosy once more, surprises lurked on every side, and I wasbeginning to feel villainously hungry. 

Just as I gained the road a cart came rattling by, and I rushed forit, caught the chain that hung below, and swung thrillingly between thedizzy wheels, choked and blinded with delicious-smelling dust, the worldslipping by me like a streaky ribbon below, till the driver licked atme with his whip, and I had to descend to earth again. Abandoning thebeaten track, I then struck homewards through the fields; not that theway was very much shorter, but rather because on that route one avoidedthe bridge, and had to splash through the stream and get refreshinglywet. Bridges were made for narrow folk, for people with aims andvocations which compelled abandonment of many of life's highestpleasures. Truly wise men called on each element alike to ministerto their joy, and while the touch of sun-bathed air, the fragranceof garden soil, the ductible qualities of mud, and the spark-whirlingrapture of playing with fire, had each their special charm, they didnot overlook the bliss of getting their feet wet. As I came forth on thecommon Harold broke out of an adjoining copse and ran to meet me, themorning rain-clouds all blown away from his face. He had made a newsquirrel-stick, it seemed. Made it all himself; melted the lead andeverything! I examined the instrument critically, and pronounced itabsolutely magnificent. As we passed in at our gate the girls weredistantly visible, gardening with a zeal in cheerful contrast to theirheartsick lassitude of the morning. "There's bin another letter cometo-day, " Harold explained, "and the hamper got joggled about on thejourney, and the presents worked down into the straw and all over theplace. One of 'em turned up inside the cold duck. And that's why theyweren't found at first. And Edward said, Thanks AWFULLY" I did not seeMartha again until we were all re-assembled at tea-time, when she seemedred-eyed and strangely silent, neither scolding nor finding faultwith anything. Instead, she was very kind and thoughtful with jams andthings, feverishly pressing unwonted delicacies on us, who wanted littlepressing enough. Then suddenly, when I was busiest, she disappeared; andCharlotte whispered me presently that she had heard her go to her roomand lock herself in. This struck me as a funny sort of proceeding. 

MUTABILE SEMPER

She stood on the other side of the garden fence, and regarded megravely as I came down the road. Then she said, "Hi-o!" and I responded, "Hullo!" and pulled up somewhat nervously. 

To tell the truth, the encounter was not entirely unexpected on my part. The previous Sunday I had seen her in church, and after service it hadtranspired who she was, this new-comer, and what aunt she was stayingwith. That morning a volunteer had been called for, to take a note tothe Parsonage, and rather to my own surprise I had found myself steppingforward with alacrity, while the others had become suddenly absorbed invarious pursuits, or had sneaked unobtrusively out of view. CertainlyI had not yet formed any deliberate plan of action; yet I suppose Irecollected that the road to the Parsonage led past her aunt's garden. 

She began the conversation, while I hopped backwards and forwards overthe ditch, feigning a careless ease. 

"Saw you in church on Sunday, " she said; "only you looked differentthen. All dressed up, and your hair quite smooth, and brushed up at thesides, and oh, so shiny! What do they put on it to make it shine likethat? Don't you hate having your hair brushed?" she ran on, withoutwaiting for an answer. "How your boots squeaked when you came down theaisle! When mine squeak, I walk in all the puddles till they stop. ThinkI'll get over the fence. "

This she proceeded to do in a businesslike way, while, with my handsdeep in my pockets, I regarded her movements with silent interest, asthose of some strange new animal. 

"I've been gardening, " she explained, when she had joined me, "but Ididn't like it. There's so many worms about to-day. I hate worms. Wishthey'd keep out of the way when I'm digging. "

"Oh, I like worms when I'm digging, " I replied heartily, "seem to makethings more lively, don't they?"

She reflected. "Shouldn't mind 'em so much if they were warm and DRY, "she said, "but--" here she shivered, and somehow I liked her for it, though if it had been my own flesh and blood hoots of derision wouldhave instantly assailed her. 

From worms we passed, naturally enough, to frogs, and thence to pigs, aunts, gardeners, rocking-horses, and other fellow-citizens of ourcommon kingdom. In five minutes we had each other's confidences, andI seemed to have known her for a lifetime. Somehow, on the subject ofone's self it was easier to be frank and communicative with her thanwith one's female kin. It must be, I supposed, because she was lessfamiliar with one's faulty, tattered past. 

"I was watching you as you came along the road, " she said presently, "and you had your head down and your hands in your pockets, and youweren't throwing stones at anything, or whistling, or jumping overthings; and I thought perhaps you'd bin scolded, or got a stomach-ache. "

"No, " I answered shyly, "it wasn't that. Fact is, I was--I often--butit's a secret. "

There I made an error in tactics. That enkindling word set her dancinground me, half beseeching, half imperious. "Oh, do tell it me!" shecried. "You must! I'll never tell anyone else at all, I vow and declareI won't!"

Her small frame wriggled with emotion, and with imploring eyesshe jigged impatiently just in front of me. Her hair was tumbledbewitchingly on her shoulders, and even the loss of a front tooth--aloss incidental to her age--seemed but to add a piquancy to her face. 

"You won't care to hear about it, " I said, wavering. "Besides, I can'texplain exactly. I think I won't tell you. " But all the time I knew Ishould have to. 

"But I DO care, " she wailed plaintively. "I didn't think you'd be sounkind!"

This would never do. That little downward tug at either corner of themouth--I knew the symptom only too well!

"It's like this, " I began stammeringly. "This bit of road here--up asfar as that corner--you know it's a horrid dull bit of road. I'm alwayshaving to go up and down it, and I know it so well, and I'm so sick ofit. So whenever I get to that corner, I just--well, I go right off toanother place!"

"What sort of a place?" she asked, looking round her gravely. 

"Of course it's just a place I imagine, " I went on hurriedly and rathershamefacedly: "but it's an awfully nice place--the nicest place you eversaw. And I always go off there in church, or during joggraphy lessons. "

"I'm sure it's not nicer than my home, " she cried patriotically. "Oh, you ought to see my home--it's lovely! We've got--"

"Yes it is, ever so much nicer, " I interrupted. "I mean"--I went onapologetically--"of course I know your home's beautiful and all that. But this MUST be nicer, 'cos if you want anything at all, you've onlyGOT to want it, and you can have it!"

"That sounds jolly, " she murmured. "Tell me more about it, please. Tellme how you get there, first. "

"I--don't--quite--know--exactly, " I replied. "I just go. But generallyit begins by--well, you're going up a broad, clear river in a sort ofa boat. You're not rowing or anything--you're just moving along. Andthere's beautiful grass meadows on both sides, and the river's veryfull, quite up to the level of the grass. And you glide along by theedge. And the people are haymaking there, and playing games, and walkingabout; and they shout to you, and you shout back to them, and they bringyou things to eat out of their baskets, and let you drink out of theirbottles; and some of 'em are the nice people you read about in books. And so at last you come to the Palace steps--great broad marble steps, reaching right down to the water. And there at the steps you find everysort of boat you can imagine--schooners, and punts, and row-boats, andlittle men-of-war. And you have any sort of boating you want to--rowing, or sailing, or shoving about in a punt!"

"I'd go sailing, " she said decidedly: "and I'd steer. No, YOU'D have tosteer, and I'd sit about on the deck. No, I wouldn't though; I'd row--atleast I'd make you row, and I'd steer. And then we'd--Oh, no! I'll tellyou what we'd do! We'd just sit in a punt and dabble!"

"Of course we'll do just what you like, " I said hospitably; but alreadyI was beginning to feel my liberty of action somewhat curtailed by thisexigent visitor I had so rashly admitted into my sanctum. 

"I don't think we'd boat at all, " she finally decided. "It's always soWOBBLY. Where do you come to next?"

"You go up the steps, " I continued, "and in at the door, and the veryfirst place you come to is the Chocolate-room!"

She brightened up at this, and I heard her murmur with gusto, "Chocolate-room!"

"It's got every sort of chocolate you can think of, " I went on: "softchocolate, with sticky stuff inside, white and pink, what girls like;and hard shiny chocolate, that cracks when you bite it, and takes such anice long time to suck!"

"I like the soft stuff best, " she said: "'cos you can eat such a lotmore of it!"

This was to me a new aspect of the chocolate question, and I regardedher with interest and some respect. With us, chocolate was none toocommon a thing, and, whenever we happened to come by any, we resorted tothe quaintest devices in order to make it last out. Still, legends hadreached us of children who actually had, from time to time, as muchchocolate as they could possibly eat; and here, apparently, was one ofthem. 

"You can have all the creams, " I said magnanimously, "and I'll eat thehard sticks, 'cos I like 'em best. "

"Oh, but you mustn't!" she cried impetuously. "You must eat the same asI do! It isn't nice to want to eat different. I'll tell you what--youmust give ME all the chocolate, and then I'll give YOU--I'll give youwhat you ought to have!"

"Oh, all right, " I said, in a subdued sort of way. It seemed a littlehard to be put under a sentimental restriction like this in one's ownChocolate-room. 

"In the next room you come to, " I proceeded, "there's fizzy drinks!There's a marble-slab business all round the room, and little silvertaps; and you just turn the right tap, and have any kind of fizzy drinkyou want. "

"What fizzy drinks are there?" she inquired. 

"Oh, all sorts, " I answered hastily, hurrying on. (She might restrictmy eatables, but I'd be hanged if I was going to have her meddle with mydrinks. ) "Then you go down the corridor, and at the back of the palacethere's a great big park--the finest park you ever saw. And there'sponies to ride on, and carriages and carts; and a little railway, allcomplete, engine and guard's van and all; and you work it yourself, andyou can go first-class, or in the van, or on the engine, just whicheveryou choose. "

"I'd go on the engine, " she murmured dreamily. "No, I wouldn't, I'd--"

"Then there's all the soldiers, " I struck in. Really the line had to bedrawn somewhere, and I could not have my railway system disorganised andturned upside down by a mere girl. "There's any quantity of 'em, finebig soldiers, and they all belong to me. And a row of brass cannons allalong the terrace! And every now and then I give the order, and theyfire off all the guns!"

"No, they don't, " she interrupted hastily. "I won't have 'em fire offany guns! You must tell 'em not to. I hate guns, and as soon as theybegin firing I shall run right away!"

"But--but that's what they're THERE for, " I protested, aghast. 

"I don't care, " she insisted. "They mustn't do it. They can walk aboutbehind me if they like, and talk to me, and carry things. But theymustn't fire off any guns. "

I was sadly conscious by this time that in this brave palace of mine, wherein I was wont to swagger daily, irresponsible and unquestioned, Iwas rapidly becoming--so to speak--a mere lodger. 

The idea of my fine big soldiers being told off to "carry things"! I wasnot inclined to tell her any more, though there still remained plentymore to tell. 

"Any other boys there?" she asked presently, in a casual sort of way. 

"Oh yes, " I unguardedly replied. "Nice chaps, too. We'll have great--"Then I recollected myself. "We'll play with them, of course, " I went on. "But you are going to be MY friend, aren't you? And you'll come in myboat, and we'll travel in the guard's van together, and I'll stop thesoldiers firing off their guns!"

But she looked mischievously away, and--do what I would--I could not gether to promise. 

Just then the striking of the village clock awoke within me anotherclamorous timepiece, reminding me of mid-day mutton a good half-mileaway, and of penalties and curtailments attaching to a late appearance. We took a hurried farewell of each other, and before we parted I gotfrom her an admission that she might be gardening again that afternoon, if only the worms would be less aggressive and give her a chance. 

"Remember, " I said as I turned to go, "you mustn't tell anybody aboutwhat I've been telling you!"

She appeared to hesitate, swinging one leg to and fro while she regardedme sideways with half-shut eyes. 

"It's a dead secret, " I said artfully. "A secret between us two, andnobody knows it except ourselves!"

Then she promised, nodding violently, big-eyed, her mouth pursed upsmall. The delight of revelation, and the bliss of possessing a secret, run each other very close. But the latter generally wins--for a time. 

I had passed the mutton stage and was weltering in warm rice pudding, before I found leisure to pause and take in things generally; and then aglance in the direction of the window told me, to my dismay, that it wasraining hard. This was annoying in every way, for, even if it clearedup later, the worms--I knew well from experience--would be offensivelynumerous and frisky. Sulkily I said grace and accompanied the othersupstairs to the schoolroom; where I got out my paint-box and resolvedto devote myself seriously to Art, which of late I had much neglected. Harold got hold of a sheet of paper and a pencil, retired to a table inthe corner, squared his elbows, and protruded his tongue. Literature hadalways been HIS form of artistic expression. 

Selina had a fit of the fidgets, bred of the unpromising weather, and, instead of settling down to something on her own account, must needswalk round and annoy us artists, intent on embodying our conceptions ofthe ideal. She had been looking over my shoulder some minutes before Iknew of it; or I would have had a word or two to say upon the subject. 

"I suppose you call that thing a ship, " she remarked contemptuously. "Who ever heard of a pink ship? Hoo-hoo!"

I stifled my wrath, knowing that in order to score properly it wasnecessary to keep a cool head. 

"There is a pink ship, " I observed with forced calmness, "lying inthe toy-shop window now. You can go and look at it if you like. D'yousuppose you know more about ships than the fellows who make 'em?"

Selina, baffled for the moment, returned to the charge presently. 

"Those are funny things, too, " she observed. "S'pose they're meant to betrees. But they're BLUE. "

"They ARE trees, " I replied with severity; "and they ARE blue. They'vegot to be blue, 'cos you stole my gamboge last week, so I can't mix upany green. "

"DIDN'T steal your gamboge, " declared Selina, haughtily, edging away, however, in the direction of Harold. "And I wouldn't tell lies, either, if I was you, about a dirty little bit of gamboge. "

I preserved a discreet silence. After all, I knew SHE knew she stole mygamboge. 

The moment Harold became conscious of Selina's stealthy approach, hedropped his pencil and flung himself flat upon the table, protectingthus his literary efforts from chilling criticism by the interposedthickness of his person. From somewhere in his interior proceededa heart rending compound of squeal and whistle, as of escapingsteam, --long-drawn, ear piercing, unvarying in note. 

"I only just want to see, " protested Selina, struggling to uproot hissmall body from the scrawl it guarded. But Harold clung limpet-like tothe table edge, and his shrill protest continued to deafen humanity andto threaten even the serenities of Olympus. The time seemed come for ademonstration in force. Personally I cared little what soul-outpouringsof Harold were pirated by Selina--she was pretty sure to get hold ofthem sooner or later--and indeed I rather welcomed the diversion asfavourable to the undisturbed pursuit of Art. But the clannishness ofsex has its unwritten laws. Boys, as such, are sufficiently put upon, maltreated, trodden under, as it is. Should they fail to hang togetherin perilous times, what disasters, what ignominies, may not be lookedfor? Possibly even an extinction of the tribe. I dropped my paint brushand sailed shouting into the fray. 

The result for a short space hung dubious. There is a period of lifewhen the difference of a year or two in age far outweighs the minoradvantage of sex. Then the gathers of Selina's frock came away with asound like the rattle of distant musketry; and this calamity it was, rather than mere brute compulsion, that quelled her indomitable spirit. 

The female tongue is mightier than the sword, as I soon had good reasonto know, when Selina, her riven garment held out at length, avenged herdiscomfiture with the Greek-fire of personalities and abuse. Every blackincident in my short, but not stainless, career--every error, everyfolly, every penalty ignobly suffered--were paraded before me as in amagic-lantern show. The information, however, was not particularly newto me, and the effect was staled by previous rehearsals. Besides, a victory remains a victory, whatever the moral character of thetriumphant general. 

Harold chuckled and crowed as he dropped from the table, revealing thedocument over which so many gathers had sighed their short lives out. "YOU can read it if you like, " he said to me gratefully. "It's only aDeath-letter. "

It had never been possible to say what Harold's particular amusement ofthe hour might turn out to be. One thing only was certain, that itwould be something improbable, unguessable, not to be foretold. Who, for instance, in search of relaxation, would ever dream of choosing thedrawing-up of a testamentary disposition of property? Yet this was theform taken by Harold's latest craze; and in justice this much had to besaid for him, that in the christening of his amusement he had goneright to the heart of the matter. The words "will" and "testament" havevarious meanings and uses; but about the signification of "death-letter"there can be no manner of doubt. I smoothed out the crumpled paper andread. In actual form it deviated considerably from that usually adoptedby family solicitors of standing, the only resemblance, indeed, lying inthe absence of punctuation. 

"my dear edward (it ran) when I die I leave all my muny to you my walkinsticks wips my crop my sord and gun bricks forts and all things i havegoodbye my dear charlotte when i die I leave you my wach and cumpus andpencel case my salors and camperdown my picteres and evthing goodbyeyour loving brother armen my dear Martha I love you very much i leaveyou my garden my mice and rabets my plants in pots when I die pleasetake care of them my dear--" Coetera desunt. 

"Why, you're not leaving me anything!" exclaimed Selina, indignantly. "You're a regular mean little boy, and I'll take back the last birthdaypresent I gave you!"

"I don't care, " said Harold, repossessing himself of the document. "Iwas going to leave you something, but I sha'n't now, 'cos you tried toread my death-letter before I was dead!"

"Then I'll write a death-letter myself, " retorted Selina, scenting anartistic vengeance: "and I sha'n't leave you a single thing!" And shewent off in search of a pencil. 

The tempest within-doors had kept my attention off the condition ofthings without. But now a glance through the window told me that therain had entirely ceased, and that everything was bathed instead in aradiant glow of sunlight, more golden than any gamboge of mine couldpossibly depict. Leaving Selina and Harold to settle their feud by amutual disinheritance, I slipped from the room and escaped into the openair, eager to pick up the loose end of my new friendship just where Ihad dropped it that morning. In the glorious reaction of the sunshineafter the downpour, with its moist warm smells, bespanglement ofgreenery, and inspiriting touch of rain-washed air, the parks andpalaces of the imagination glowed with a livelier iris, and theirblurred beauties shone out again with fresh blush and palpitation. AsI sped along to the tryst, again I accompanied my new comrade along thecorridors of my pet palace into which I had so hastily introduced her;and on reflection I began to see that it wouldn't work properly. I hadmade a mistake, and those were not the surroundings in which she wasmost fitted to shine. However, it really did not matter much; I hadother palaces to place at her disposal--plenty of 'em; and on a furtheracquaintance with and knowledge of her tastes, no doubt I could findsomething to suit her. 

There was a real Arabian one, for instance, which I visited butrarely--only just when I was in the fine Oriental mood for it; a wonderof silk hangings, fountains of rosewater, pavilions, and minarets. Hundreds of silent, well-trained slaves thronged the stairs and alleysof this establishment, ready to fetch and carry for her all day, if shewished it; and my brave soldiers would be spared the indignity. Alsothere were processions through the bazaar at odd moments--processionswith camels, elephants, and palanquins. Yes, she was more suited forthe East, this imperious young person; and I determined that thither sheshould be personally conducted as soon as ever might be. 

I reached the fence and climbed up two bars of it, and leaning over Ilooked this way and that for my twin-souled partner of the morning. Itwas not long before I caught sight of her, only a short distance away. Her back was towards me and--well, one can never foresee exactly how onewill find things--she was talking to a Boy. 

Of course there are boys and boys, and Lord knows I was never narrow. But this was the parson's son from an adjoining village, a red-headedboy and as common a little beast as ever stepped. He cultivatedferrets--his only good point; and it was evidently through the mediumof this art that he was basely supplanting me, for her head was bentabsorbedly over something he carried in his hands. With some trepidationI called out, "Hi!" But answer there was none. Then again I called, "Hi!" but this time with a sickening sense of failure and of doom. Shereplied only by a complex gesture, decisive in import if not easilydescribed. A petulant toss of the head, a jerk of the left shoulder, anda backward kick of the left foot, all delivered at once--that was all, and that was enough. The red-headed boy never even condescended toglance my way. Why, indeed, should he? I dropped from the fence withoutanother effort, and took my way homewards along the weary road. 

Little inclination was left to me, at first, for any solitary visit tomy accustomed palace, the pleasures of which I had so recently tastedin company; and yet after a minute or two I found myself, from habit, sneaking off there much as usual. Presently I became aware of a certainsolace and consolation in my newly-recovered independence of action. Quit of all female whims and fanciful restrictions, I rowed, sailed, orpunted, just as I pleased; in the Chocolate-room I cracked and nibbledthe hard sticks, with a certain contempt for those who preferred thesoft, veneered article; and I mixed and quaffed countless fizzy drinkswithout dread of any prohibitionist. Finally, I swaggered into the park, paraded all my soldiers on the terrace, and, bidding them take the timefrom me, gave the order to fire off all the guns. 

THE MAGIC RING

Grown-up people really ought to be more careful. Among themselves it mayseem but a small thing to give their word and take back their word. For them there are so many compensations. Life lies at their feet, aparty-coloured india-rubber ball; they may kick it this way or kickit that, it turns up blue, yellow, or green, but always coloured andglistening. Thus one sees it happen almost every day, and, with a jestand a laugh, the thing is over, and the disappointed one turns to freshpleasure, lying ready to his hand. But with those who are below them, whose little globe is swayed by them, who rush to build star-pointingalhambras on their most casual word, they really ought to be morecareful. 

In this case of the circus, for instance, it was not as if we had led upto the subject. It was they who began it entirely--prompted thereto bythe local newspaper. "What, a circus!" said they, in their irritating, casual way: "that would be nice to take the children to. Wednesday wouldbe a good day. Suppose we go on Wednesday. Oh, and pleats are being wornagain, with rows of deep braid, " etc. 

What the others thought I know not; what they said, if they saidanything, I did not comprehend. For me the house was bursting, wallsseemed to cramp and to stifle, the roof was jumping and lifting. Escapewas the imperative thing--to escape into the open air, to shake offbricks and mortar, and to wander in the unfrequented places of theearth, the more properly to take in the passion and the promise of thegiddy situation. 

Nature seemed prim and staid that day and the globe gave no hint that itwas flying round a circus ring of its own. Could they really be true, Iwondered, all those bewildering things I had heard tell of circuses? Didlong-tailed ponies really walk on their hind-legs and fire off pistols?Was it humanly possible for clowns to perform one-half of the bewitchingdrolleries recorded in history? And how, oh, how dare I venture tobelieve that, from off the backs of creamy Arab steeds, ladies of morethan earthly beauty discharged themselves through paper hoops? No, itwas not altogether possible, there must have been some exaggeration. Still, I would be content with very little, I would take a lowpercentage--a very small proportion of the circus myth would more thansatisfy me. But again, even supposing that history were, once in a way, no liar, could it be that I myself was really fated to look upon thisthing in the flesh and to live through it, to survive the rapture? No, it was altogether too much. Something was bound to happen, one of uswould develop measles, the world would blow up with a loud explosion. I must not dare, I must not presume, to entertain the smallest hope. Imust endeavour sternly to think of something else. 

Needless to say, I thought, I dreamed of nothing else, day or night. Waking, I walked arm-in-arm with a clown, and cracked a portentous whipto the brave music of a band. Sleeping, I pursued--perched astride of acoal-black horse--a princess all gauze and spangles, who always managedto keep just one unattainable length ahead. In the early morningHarold and I, once fully awake, cross-examined each other as to thepossibilities of this or that circus tradition, and exhausted the lorelong ere the first housemaid was stirring. In this state of exaltationwe slipped onward to what promised to be a day of all white days--whichbrings me right back to my text, that grown-up people really ought to bemore careful. 

I had known it could never really be; I had said so to myself a dozentimes. The vision was too sweetly ethereal for embodiment. 

Yet the pang of the disillusionment was none the less keen andsickening, and the pain was as that of a corporeal wound. It seemedstrange and foreboding, when we entered the breakfast-room, not to findeverybody cracking whips, jumping over chairs, and whooping. In ecstaticrehearsal of the wild reality to come. 

The situation became grim and pallid indeed, when I caught theexpressions "garden-party" and "my mauve tulle, " and realized that theyboth referred to that very afternoon. And every minute, as I sat silentand listened, my heart sank lower and lower, descending relentlesslylike a clock-weight into my boot soles. 

Throughout my agony I never dreamed of resorting to a direct question, much less a reproach. Even during the period of joyful anticipation somefear of breaking the spell had kept me from any bald circus talk in thepresence of them. But Harold, who was built in quite another way, sosoon as he discerned the drift of their conversation and heard the knellof all his hopes, filled the room with wail and clamour of bereavement. The grinning welkin rang with "Circus!" "Circus!" shook thewindow-panes; the mocking walls re-echoed "Circus!" Circus he wouldhave, and the whole circus, and nothing but the circus. No compromisefor him, no evasions, no fallacious, unsecured promises to pay. He haddrawn his cheque on the Bank of Expectation, and it had got to be cashedthen and there; else he would yell, and yell himself into a fit, andcome out of it and yell again. Yelling should be his profession, hisart, his mission, his career. He was qualified, he was resolute, and hewas in no hurry to retire from the business. 

The noisy ones of the world, if they do not always shout themselves intothe imperial purple, are sure at least of receiving attention. If theycannot sell everything at their own price, one thing--silence--must, atany cost, be purchased of them. Harold accordingly had to be consoledby the employment of every specious fallacy and base-born trick known tothose whose doom it is to handle children. For me their hollow cajoleryhad no interest, I could pluck no consolation out of their bankruptthough prodigal pledges I only waited till that hateful, well-known"Some other time, dear!" told me that hope was finally dead. Then I leftthe room without any remark. It made it worse--if anything could--tohear that stale, worn-out old phrase, still supposed by those dullardsto have some efficacy. 

To nature, as usual, I drifted by instinct, and there, out of the trackof humanity, under a friendly hedge-row had my black hour unseen. Theworld was a globe no longer, space was no more filled with whirlingcircuses of spheres. That day the old beliefs rose up and assertedthemselves, and the earth was flat again--ditch-riddled, stagnant, anddeadly flat. The undeviating roads crawled straight and white, elmsdressed themselves stiffly along inflexible hedges, all nature, centrifugal no longer, sprawled flatly in lines out to its farthestedge, and I felt just like walking out to that terminus, and droppingquietly off. Then, as I sat there, morosely chewing bits of stick, therecollection came back to me of certain fascinating advertisements I hadspelled out in the papers--advertisements of great and happy men, owningbig ships of tonnage running into four figures, who yet craved, tothe extent of public supplication, for the sympathetic co-operation ofyouths as apprentices. I did not rightly know what apprentices mightbe, nor whether I was yet big enough to be styled a youth; but one thingseemed clear, that, by some such means as this, whatever the interveninghardships, I could eventually visit all the circuses of the world--thecircuses of merry France and gaudy Spain, of Holland and Bohemia, ofChina and Peru. Here was a plan worth thinking out in all its bearings;for something had presently to be done to end this intolerable state ofthings. 

Mid-day, and even feeding-time, passed by gloomily enough, till a smalldisturbance occurred which had the effect of releasing some of theelectricity with which the air was charged. Harold, it should beexplained, was of a very different mental mould, and never brooded, moped, nor ate his heart out over any disappointment. One wildoutburst--one dissolution of a minute into his original elements of airand water, of tears and outcry--so much insulted nature claimed. Then hewould pull himself together, iron out his countenance with a smile, andadjust himself to the new condition of things. 

If the gods are ever grateful to man for anything, it is when he isso good as to display a short memory. The Olympians were never slow torecognize this quality of Harold's, in which, indeed, their salvationlay, and on this occasion their gratitude had taken the practical formof a fine fat orange, tough-rinded as oranges of those days were wont tobe. This he had eviscerated in the good old-fashioned manner, by bitingout a hole in the shoulder, inserting a lump of sugar therein, and thenworking it cannily till the whole soul and body of the orange passedglorified through the sugar into his being. Thereupon, filled full oforange-juice and iniquity, he conceived a deadly snare. Having deftlypatted and squeezed the orange-skin till it resumed its original shape, he filled it up with water, inserted a fresh lump of sugar in theorifice, and, issuing forth, blandly proffered it to me as I sat moodilyin the doorway dreaming of strange wild circuses under tropic skies. 

Such a stale old dodge as this would hardly have taken me in at ordinarymoments. But Harold had reckoned rightly upon the disturbing effect ofill-humour, and had guessed, perhaps, that I thirsted for comfort andconsolation, and would not criticise too closely the source from whichthey came. Unthinkingly I grasped the golden fraud, which collapsed atmy touch, and squirted its contents into my eyes and over my collar, till the nethermost parts of me were damp with the water that had rundown my neck. In an instant I had Harold down, and, with all the energyof which I was capable, devoted myself to grinding his head into thegravel; while he, realizing that the closure was applied, and thatthe time for discussion or argument was past, sternly concentrated hispowers on kicking me in the stomach. 

Some people can never allow events to work themselves out quietly. Atthis juncture one of Them swooped down on the scene, pouring shrill, misplaced abuse on both of us: on me for ill-treating my youngerbrother, whereas it was distinctly I who was the injured and thedeceived; on him for the high offence of assault and battery on a cleancollar--a collar which I had myself deflowered and defaced, shortlybefore, in sheer desperate ill-temper. Disgusted and defiant we fled indifferent directions, rejoining each other later in the kitchen-garden;and as we strolled along together, our short feud forgotten, Haroldobserved, gloomily: "I should like to be a cave-man, like Uncle Georgewas tellin' us about: with a flint hatchet and no clothes, and live in acave and not know anybody!"

"And if anyone came to see us we didn't like, " I joined in, catching onto the points of the idea, "we'd hit him on the head with the hatchettill he dropped down dead. "

"And then, " said Harold, warming up, "we'd drag him into the cave andSKIN HIM!"

For a space we gloated silently over the fair scene our imaginations hadconjured up. It was BLOOD we felt the need of just then. We wanted noluxuries, nothing dear-bought nor far-fetched. Just plain blood, andnothing else, and plenty of it. 

Blood, however, was not to be had. The time was out of joint, and we hadbeen born too late. So we went off to the greenhouse, crawled into theheating arrangement underneath, and played at the dark and dirty andunrestricted life of cave-men till we were heartily sick of it. Then weemerged once more into historic times, and went off to the road to lookfor something living and sentient to throw stones at. 

Nature, so often a cheerful ally, sometimes sulks and refuses to play. When in this mood she passes the word to her underlings, and all thelittle people of fur and feather take the hint and slip home quietlyby back streets. In vain we scouted, lurked, crept, and ambuscaded. Everything that usually scurried, hopped, or fluttered--the smallsociety of the undergrowth--seemed to have engagements elsewhere. Thehorrid thought that perhaps they had all gone off to the circus occurredto us simultaneously, and we humped ourselves up on the fence and feltbad. Even the sound of approaching wheels failed to stir any interestin us. When you are bent on throwing stones at something, humanity seemsobtrusive and better away. Then suddenly we both jumped off the fencetogether, our faces clearing. For our educated ear had told us that theapproaching rattle could only proceed from a dog-cart, and we felt sureit must be the funny man. 

We called him the funny man because he was sad and serious, and saidlittle, but gazed right into our souls, and made us tell him just whatwas on our minds at the time, and then came out with some magnificentlyluminous suggestion that cleared every cloud away. What was more hewould then go off with us at once and play the thing right out to itsfinish, earnestly and devotedly, putting all other things aside. So wecalled him the funny man, meaning only that he was different from thoseothers who thought it incumbent on them to play the painful mummer. Theideal as opposed to the real man was what we meant, only we were notacquainted with the phrase. Those others, with their laboured jests andclumsy contortions, doubtless flattered themselves that THEY were funnymen; we, who had to sit through and applaud the painful performance, knew better. 

He pulled up to a walk as soon as he caught sight of us, and thedog-cart crawled slowly along till it stopped just opposite. Then heleant his chin on his hand and regarded us long and soulfully, yetsaid he never a word; while we jigged up and down in the dust, grinningbashfully but with expectation. For you never knew exactly what this manmight say or do. 

"You look bored, " he remarked presently; "thoroughly bored. Or else--letme see; you're not married, are you?"

He asked this in such sad earnestness that we hastened to assure him wewere not married, though we felt he ought to have known that much; wehad been intimate for some time. 

"Then it's only boredom, " he said. "Just satiety and world-weariness. Well, if you assure me you aren't married you can climb into this cartand I'll take you for a drive. I'm bored, too. I want to do somethingdark and dreadful and exciting. "

We clambered in, of course, yapping with delight and treading all overhis toes; and as we set off, Harold demanded of him imperiously whitherhe was going. 

"My wife, " he replied, "has ordered me to go and look up the curate andbring him home to tea. Does that sound sufficiently exciting for you?"

Our faces fell. The curate of the hour was not a success, from our pointof view. He was not a funny man, in any sense of the word. 

"--but I'm not going to, " he added, cheerfully. "Then I was to stop atsome cottage and ask--what was it? There was NETTLE-RASH mixed up in it, I'm sure. But never mind, I've forgotten, and it doesn't matter. Lookhere, we're three desperate young fellows who stick at nothing. Supposewe go off to the circus?"

Of certain supreme moments it is not easy to write. The varying shadesand currents of emotion may indeed be put into words by those speciallyskilled that way; they often are, at considerable length. But the sheer, crude article itself--the strong, live thing that leaps up inside youand swells and strangles you, the dizziness of revulsion that takes thebreath like cold water--who shall depict this and live? All I knew wasthat I would have died then and there, cheerfully, for the funny man;that I longed for red Indians to spring out from the hedge on thedog-cart, just to show what I would do; and that, with all this, I couldnot find the least little word to say to him. 

Harold was less taciturn. With shrill voice, uplifted in solemn chant, he sang the great spheral circus-song, and the undying glory of theRing. Of its timeless beginning he sang, of its fashioning by cosmicforces, and of its harmony with the stellar plan. Of horses he sang, of their strength, their swiftness, and their docility as to tricks. Of clowns again, of the glory of knavery, and of the eternal type thatshall endure. Lastly he sang of Her--the Woman of the Ring--flawless, complete, untrammelled in each subtly curving limb; earth's highestoutput, time's noblest expression. At least, he doubtless sang allthese things and more--he certainly seemed to; though all that wasdistinguishable was, "We're-goin'-to-the-circus!" and then, once more, "We're-goin'-to-the-circus!"--the sweet rhythmic phrase repeated againand again. But indeed I cannot be quite sure, for I heard confusedly, as in a dream. Wings of fire sprang from the old mare's shoulders. Wewhirled on our way through purple clouds, and earth and the rattle ofwheels were far away below. 

The dream and the dizziness were still in my head when I found myself, scarce conscious of intermediate steps, seated actually in the circus atlast, and took in the first sniff of that intoxicating circus smell thatwill stay by me while this clay endures. The place was beset by ahum and a glitter and a mist; suspense brooded large o'er the blank, mysterious arena. Strung up to the highest pitch of expectation, we knewnot from what quarter, in what divine shape, the first surprise wouldcome. 

A thud of unseen hoofs first set us aquiver; then a crash of cymbals, ajangle of bells, a hoarse applauding roar, and Coralie was in the midstof us, whirling past 'twixt earth and sky, now erect, flushed, radiant, now crouched to the flowing mane; swung and tossed and moulded by themaddening dance-music of the band. The mighty whip of the count in thefrock-coat marked time with pistol-shots; his war-cry, whooping clearabove the music, fired the blood with a passion for splendid deeds, asCoralie, laughing, exultant, crashed through the paper hoops. We grippedthe red cloth in front of us, and our souls sped round and round withCoralie, leaping with her, prone with her, swung by mane or tail withher. It was not only the ravishment of her delirious feats, nor hercream coloured horse of fairy breed, long-tailed, roe-footed, anenchanted prince surely, if ever there was one! It was her more thanmortal beauty--displayed, too, under conditions never vouchsafed to usbefore--that held us spell-bound. What princess had arms so dazzlinglywhite, or went delicately clothed in such pink and spangles? Hithertowe had known the outward woman as but a drab thing, hour-glass shaped, nearly legless, bunched here, constricted there; slow of movement, andgiven to deprecating lusty action of limb. Here was a revelation! Fromhenceforth our imaginations would have to be revised and corrected upto date. In one of those swift rushes the mind makes in high-strungmoments, I saw myself and Coralie, close enfolded, pacing the worldtogether, o'er hill and plain, through storied cities, past rows ofapplauding relations, --I in my Sunday knickerbockers, she in her pinkand spangles. 

Summers sicken, flowers fail and die, all beauty but rides round thering and out at the portal; even so Coralie passed in her turn, poisedsideways, panting, on her steed; lightly swayed as a tulip-bloom, bowingon this side and on that as she disappeared; and with her went my heartand my soul, and all the light and the glory and the entrancement of thescene. 

Harold woke up with a gasp. "Wasn't she beautiful?" he said, in quitea subdued way for him. I felt a momentary pang. We had been friendlyrivals before, in many an exploit; but here was altogether a moreserious affair. Was this, then, to be the beginning of strife andcoldness, of civil war on the hearthstone and the sundering of old ties?Then I recollected the true position of things, and felt very sorry forHarold; for it was inexorably written that he would have to give wayto me, since I was the elder. Rules were not made for nothing, in asensibly constructed universe. 

There was little more to wait for, now Coralie had gone; yet I lingeredstill, on the chance of her appearing again. Next moment the clowntripped up and fell flat, with magnificent artifice, and at once freshemotions began to stir. Love had endured its little hour, and sternambition now asserted itself. Oh, to be a splendid fellow like this, self-contained, ready of speech, agile beyond conception, braving theforces of society, his hand against everyone, yet always getting thebest of it! What freshness of humour, what courtesy to dames, whattriumphant ability to discomfit rivals, frock-coated and moustachedthough they might be! And what a grand, self-confident straddle ofthe legs! Who could desire a finer career than to go through life thusgorgeously equipped! Success was his key-note, adroitness his panoply, and the mellow music of laughter his instant reward. Even Coralie'simage wavered and receded. I would come back to her in the evening, ofcourse; but I would be a clown all the working hours of the day. 

The short interval was ended: the band, with long-drawn chords, soundeda prelude touched with significance; and the programme, in lettersovertopping their fellows, proclaimed Zephyrine, the Bride of theDesert, in her unequalled bareback equestrian interlude. So sated was Ialready with beauty and with wit, that I hardly dared hope for a freshemotion. Yet her title was tinged with romance, and Coralie's displayhad aroused in me an interest in her sex which even herself had failedto satisfy entirely. 

Brayed in by trumpets, Zephyrine swung passionately into the arena. With a bound she stood erect, one foot upon each of her supple, plungingArabs; and at once I knew that my fate was sealed, my chapter closed, and the Bride of the Desert was the one bride for me. Black was herraiment, great silver stars shone through it, caught in the duskytwilight of her gauze; black as her own hair were the two mighty steedsshe bestrode. In a tempest they thundered by, in a whirlwind, a sciroccoof tan; her cheeks bore the kiss of an Eastern sun, and the sand-stormsof her native desert were her satellites. What was Coralie, with herpink silk, her golden hair and slender limbs, beside this magnificent, full-figured Cleopatra? In a twinkling we were scouring the desert--sheand I and the two coal-black horses. Side by side, keeping pace in ourswinging gallop, we distanced the ostrich, we outstrode the zebra; and, as we went, it seemed the wilderness blossomed like the rose. 

*****

I know not rightly how we got home that evening. On the road there wereeverywhere strange presences, and the thud of phantom hoofs encircledus. In my nose was the pungent circus-smell; the crack of the whip andthe frank laugh of the clown were in my ears. The funny man thoughtfullyabstained from conversation, and left our illusion quite alone, sparingus all jarring criticism and analysis; and he gave me no chance, whenhe deposited us at our gate, to get rid of the clumsy expressions ofgratitude I had been laboriously framing. For the rest of the evening, distraught and silent, I only heard the march-music of the band, playingon in some corner of my brain. When at last my head touched the pillow, in a trice I was with Zephyrine, riding the boundless Sahara, cheek tocheek, the world well lost; while at times, through the sand-clouds thatencircled us, glimmered the eyes of Coralie, touched, one fancied, withsomething of a tender reproach. 

ITS WALLS WERE AS OF JASPER

In the long winter evenings, when we had the picture-books out onthe floor, and sprawled together over them with elbows deep in thehearth-rug, the first business to be gone through was the process ofallotment. All the characters in the pictures had to be assigned anddealt out among us, according to seniority, as far as they would go. When once that had been satisfactorily completed, the story was allowedto proceed; and thereafter, in addition to the excitement of the plot, one always possessed a personal interest in some particular member ofthe cast, whose successes or rebuffs one took as so much private gain orloss. 

For Edward this was satisfactory enough. Claiming his right of theeldest, he would annex the hero in the very frontispiece; and for therest of the story his career, if chequered at intervals, was sure ofheroic episodes and a glorious close. But his juniors, who had to putup with characters of a clay more mixed--nay, sometimes with undilutedvillainy--were hard put to it on occasion to defend their other selves(as it was strict etiquette to do) from ignominy perhaps only too justlymerited. Edward was indeed a hopeless grabber. In the "Buffalo-book, "for instance (so named from the subject of its principal picture, thoughindeed it dealt with varied slaughter in every zone), Edward was thestalwart, bearded figure, with yellow leggings and a powder-horn, whoundauntedly discharged the fatal bullet into the shoulder of the greatbull bison, charging home to within a yard of his muzzle. To me wasallotted the subsidiary character of the friend who had succeeded inbringing down a cow; while Harold had to be content to hold Edward'sspare rifle in the background, with evident signs of uneasiness. Fartheron, again, where the magnificent chamois sprang rigid into mid-air, Edward, crouched dizzily against the precipice-face, was the sportsmanfrom whose weapon a puff of white smoke was floating away. A bare-kneedguide was all that fell to my share, while poor Harold had to take theboy with the haversack, or abandon, for this occasion at least, allAlpine ambitions. 

Of course the girls fared badly in this book, and it was not surprisingthat they preferred the "Pilgrim's Progress" (for instance), where womenhad a fair show, and there was generally enough of 'em to go round; ora good fairy story, wherein princesses met with a healthy appreciation. But indeed we were all best pleased with a picture wherein thecharacters just fitted us, in number, sex, and qualifications; and this, to us, stood for artistic merit. 

All the Christmas numbers, in their gilt frames on the nursery-wall, hadbeen gone through and allotted long ago; and in these, sooner or later, each one of us got a chance to figure in some satisfactory and brightlycoloured situation. Few of the other pictures about the house affordedequal facilities. They were generally wanting in figures, and even whenthese were present they lacked dramatic interest. In this picture thatI have to speak about, although the characters had a stupid way of notdoing anything, and apparently not wanting to do anything, there was atleast a sufficiency of them; so in due course they were allotted, too. 

In itself the picture, which--in its ebony and tortoise-shellframe--hung in a corner of the dining-room, had hitherto possessed nospecial interest for us, and would probably never have been dealt withat all but for a revolt of the girls against a succession of books onsport, in which the illustrator seemed to have forgotten that there weresuch things as women in the world. Selina accordingly made for it onerainy morning, and announced that she was the lady seated in the centre, whose gown of rich, flowered brocade fell in such straight, severe linesto her feet, whose cloak of dark blue was held by a jewelled clasp, andwhose long, fair hair was crowned with a diadem of gold and pearl. Well, we had no objection to that; it seemed fair enough, especiallyto Edward, who promptly proceeded to "grab" the armour-man who stoodleaning on his shield at the lady's right hand. A dainty and delicatearmour-man this! And I confess, though I knew it was all right and fairand orderly, I felt a slight pang when he passed out of my reachinto Edward's possession. His armour was just the sort I wantedmyself--scalloped and fluted and shimmering and spotless; and, thoughhe was but a boy by his beardless face and golden hair, the shatteredspear-shaft in his grasp proclaimed him a genuine fighter and fresh fromsome such agreeable work. Yes, I grudged Edward the armour-man, and whenhe said I could have the fellow on the other side, I hung back and saidI'd think about it. 

This fellow had no armour nor weapons, but wore a plain jerkin with aleather pouch--a mere civilian--and with one hand he pointed to a woundin his thigh. I didn't care about him, and when Harold eagerly put inhis claim I gave way and let him have the man. The cause of Harold'sanxiety only came out later. It was the wound he coveted, it seemed. Hewanted to have a big, sore wound of his very own, and go about and showit to people, and excite their envy or win their respect. Charlottewas only too pleased to take the child-angel seated at the lady's feet, grappling with a musical instrument much too big for her. Charlottewanted wings badly, and, next to those, a guitar or a banjo. The angel, besides, wore an amber necklace, which took her fancy immensely. 

This left the picture allotted, with the exception of two or three moreangels, who peeped or perched behind the main figures with a certainsubdued drollery in their faces, as if the thing had gone on longenough, and it was now time to upset something or kick up a row of somesort. We knew these good folk to be saints and angels, because we hadbeen told they were; otherwise we should never have guessed it. Angels, as we knew them in our Sunday books, were vapid, colourless, uninteresting characters, with straight up-and-down sort of figures, white nightgowns, white wings, and the same straight yellow hair partedin the middle. They were serious, even melancholy; and we had no desireto have any traffic with them. These bright bejewelled little persons, however, piquant of face and radiant of feather, were evidently hatchedfrom quite a different egg, and we felt we might have interests incommon with them. Short-nosed, shock headed, with mouths that went upat the corners and with an evident disregard for all their fine clothes, they would be the best of good company, we felt sure, if only we couldmanage to get at them. One doubt alone disturbed my mind. In gamesrequiring agility, those wings of theirs would give them a tremendouspull. Could they be trusted to play fair? I asked Selina, who repliedscornfully that angels ALWAYS played fair. But I went back and hadanother look at the brown-faced one peeping over the back of the lady'schair, and still I had my doubts. 

When Edward went off to school a great deal of adjustment andre-allotment took place, and all the heroes of illustrated literaturewere at my call, did I choose to possess them. In this particular case, however, I made no haste to seize upon the armour-man. Perhaps it wasbecause I wanted a FRESH saint of my own, not a stale saint that Edwardhad been for so long a time. Perhaps it was rather that, ever since Ihad elected to be saintless, I had got into the habit of strolling offinto the background, and amusing myself with what I found there. 

A very fascinating background it was, and held a great deal, though sotiny. Meadow-land came first, set with flowers, blue and red, like gems. Then a white road ran, with wilful, uncalled-for loops, up a steep, conical hill, crowned with towers, bastioned walls, and belfries; anddown the road the little knights came riding, two and two. The hill onone side descended to water, tranquil, far-reaching, and blue; anda very curly ship lay at anchor, with one mast having an odd sort ofcrow's-nest at the top of it. 

There was plenty to do in this pleasant land. The annoying thing aboutit was, one could never penetrate beyond a certain point. I might wanderup that road as often as I liked, I was bound to be brought up at thegateway, the funny galleried, top-heavy gateway, of the little walledtown. Inside, doubtless, there were high jinks going on; but thepassword was denied to me. I could get on board a boat and row up as faras the curly ship, but around the headland I might not go. On the otherside, of a surety, the shipping lay thick. The merchants walked on thequay, and the sailors sang as they swung out the corded bales. But asfor me, I must stay down in the meadow, and imagine it all as best Icould. 

Once I broached the subject to Charlotte, and found, to my surprise, that she had had the same joys and encountered the same disappointmentsin this delectable country. She, too, had walked up that road andflattened her nose against that portcullis; and she pointed outsomething that I had overlooked--to wit, that if you rowed off in a boatto the curly ship, and got hold of a rope, and clambered aboard of her, and swarmed up the mast, and got into the crow's-nest, you could justsee over the headland, and take in at your ease the life and bustle ofthe port. She proceeded to describe all the fun that was going on there, at such length and with so much particularity that I looked at hersuspiciously. "Why, you talk as if you'd been in that crow's-nestyourself!" I said. Charlotte answered nothing, but pursed her mouth upand nodded violently for some minutes; and I could get nothing more outof her. I felt rather hurt. Evidently she had managed, somehow or other, to get up into that crow's-nest. Charlotte had got ahead of me on thisoccasion. 

It was necessary, no doubt, that grown-up people should dress themselvesup and go forth to pay calls. I don't mean that we saw any sense in thepractice. It would have been so much more reasonable to stay at home inyour old clothes and play. But we recognized that these folk had todo many unaccountable things, and after all it was THEIR life, and notours, and we were not in a position to criticise. Besides, they had manyhabits more objectionable than this one, which to us generally meant afree and untrammelled afternoon, wherein to play the devil in our ownway. The case was different, however, when the press-gang was abroad, when prayers and excuses were alike disregarded, and we were forcedinto the service, like native levies impelled toward the foe less by theinherent righteousness of the cause than by the indisputable rifles oftheir white allies. This was unpardonable and altogether detestable. Still, the thing happened, now and again; and when it did, there was noarguing about it. The order was for the front, and we just had to shutup and march. 

Selina, to be sure, had a sneaking fondness for dressing up and payingcalls, though she pretended to dislike it, just to keep on the soft sideof public opinion. So I thought it extremely mean in her to havethe earache on that particular afternoon when Aunt Eliza ordered thepony-carriage and went on the war-path. I was ordered also, in the samebreath as the pony-carriage; and, as we eventually trundled off, itseemed to me that the utter waste of that afternoon, for which I hadplanned so much, could never be made up nor atoned for in all thetremendous stretch of years that still lay before me. 

The house that we were bound for on this occasion was a "big house;" ageneric title applied by us to the class of residence that had a longcarriage-drive through rhododendrons; and a portico propped by flutedpillars; and a grave butler who bolted back swing-doors, and came downsteps, and pretended to have entirely forgotten his familiar intercoursewith you at less serious moments; and a big hall, where no boots orshoes or upper garments were allowed to lie about frankly and easily, aswith us; and where, finally, people were apt to sit about dressed up asif they were going on to a party. 

The lady who received us was effusive to Aunt Eliza and hollowlygracious to me. In ten seconds they had their heads together and werehard at it talking CLOTHES. I was left high and dry on a straight-backedchair, longing to kick the legs of it, yet not daring. For a time I wascontent to stare; there was lots to stare at, high and low and around. Then the inevitable fidgets came on, and scratching one's legs mitigatedslightly, but did not entirely disperse them. My two warders were stilldeep in clothes; I slipped off my chair and edged cautiously around theroom, exploring, examining, recording. 

Many strange, fine things lay along my route--pictures and gimcrackson the walls, trinkets and globular old watches and snuff-boxes onthe tables; and I took good care to finger everything within reachthoroughly and conscientiously. Some articles, in addition, I smelt. Atlast in my orbit I happened on an open door, half concealed by thefolds of a curtain. I glanced carefully around. They were still deep inclothes, both talking together, and I slipped through. 

This was altogether a more sensible sort of room that I had got into;for the walls were honestly upholstered with books, though these for themost part glimmered provokingly through the glass doors of their tallcases. I read their titles longingly, breathing on every accessiblepane of glass, for I dared not attempt to open the doors, with the enemyencamped so near. In the window, though, on a high sort of desk, therelay, all by itself, a most promising-looking book, gorgeously bound. Iraised the leaves by one corner, and like scent from a pot-pourri jarthere floated out a brief vision of blues and reds, telling of pictures, and pictures all highly coloured! Here was the right sort of thing atlast, and my afternoon would not be entirely wasted. I inclined an earto the door by which I had entered. Like the brimming tide of a full-fedriver the grand, eternal, inexhaustible clothes-problem bubbled andeddied and surged along. It seemed safe enough. I slid the book off itsdesk with some difficulty, for it was very fine and large, and staggeredwith it to the hearthrug--the only fit and proper place for books ofquality, such as this. 

They were excellent hearthrugs in that house; soft and wide, with thethickest of pile, and one's knees sank into them most comfortably. WhenI got the book open there was a difficulty at first in making the greatstiff pages lie down. Most fortunately the coal-scuttle was actuallyat my elbow, and it was easy to find a flat bit of coal to lay on therefractory page. Really, it was just as if everything had been arrangedfor me. This was not such a bad sort of house after all. 

The beginnings of the thing were gay borders--scrolls and strap-workand diapered backgrounds, a maze of colour, with small misshapen figuresclambering cheerily up and down everywhere. But first I eagerly scannedwhat text there was in the middle, in order to get a hint of what itwas all about. Of course I was not going to waste any time in reading. A clue, a sign-board, a finger-post was all I required. To my dismay anddisgust it was all in a stupid foreign language! Really, the perversityof some people made one at times almost despair of the whole race. However, the pictures remained; pictures never lied, never shuffled norevaded; and as for the story, I could invent it myself. 

Over the page I went, shifting the bit of coal to a new position; and, as the scheme of the picture disengaged itself from out the medleyof colour that met my delighted eyes, first there was a warm sense offamiliarity, then a dawning recognition, and then--O then! along withblissful certainty came the imperious need to clasp my stomach withboth hands, in order to repress the shout of rapture that struggled toescape--it was my own little city!

I knew it well enough, I recognized it at once, though I had never beenquite so near it before. Here was the familiar gateway, to the left thatstrange, slender tower with its grim, square head shot far above thewalls; to the right, outside the town, the hill--as of old--brokesteeply down to the sea. But to-day everything was bigger and fresherand clearer, the walls seemed newly hewn, gay carpets were hung out overthem, fair ladies and long-haired children peeped and crowded on thebattlements. Better still, the portcullis was up--I could even catch aglimpse of the sunlit square within--and a dainty company was troopingthrough the gate on horseback, two and two. Their horses, in trappingsthat swept the ground, were gay as themselves; and THEY were the gayestcrew, for dress and bearing, I had ever yet beheld. It could meannothing else but a wedding, I thought, this holiday attire, this festaland solemn entry; and, wedding or whatever it was, I meant to be there. This time I would not be balked by any grim portcullis; this time Iwould slip in with the rest of the crowd, find out just what mylittle town was like, within those exasperating walls that had solong confronted me, and, moreover, have my share of the fun that wasevidently going on inside. Confident, yet breathless with expectation, Iturned the page. 

Joy! At last I was in it, at last I was on the right side of thoseprovoking walls; and, needless to say, I looked about me with muchcuriosity. A public place, clearly, though not such as I was used to. The houses at the back stood on a sort of colonnade, beneath which thepeople jostled and crowded. The upper stories were all painted withwonderful pictures. Above the straight line of the roofs the deepblue of a cloudless sky stretched from side to side. Lords and ladiesthronged the foreground, while on a dais in the centre a gallantgentleman, just alighted off his horse, stooped to the fingers of a girlas bravely dressed out as Selina's lady between the saints; and roundabout stood venerable personages, robed in the most variegated clothing. There were boys, too, in plenty, with tiny red caps on their thick hair;and their shirts had bunched up and worked out at the waist, just as myown did so often, after chasing anybody; and each boy of them wore anodd pair of stockings, one blue and the other red. This system of attirewent straight to my heart. I had tried the same thing so often, andhad met with so much discouragement; and here, at last, was myjustification, painted deliberately in a grown-up book! I looked aboutfor my saint-friends--the armour man and the other fellow--but they werenot to be seen. Evidently they were unable to get off duty, even for awedding, and still stood on guard in that green meadow down below. I wasdisappointed, too, that not an angel was visible. One or two of them, surely, could easily have been spared for an hour, to run up and see theshow; and they would have been thoroughly at home here, in the midst ofall the colour and the movement and the fun. 

But it was time to get on, for clearly the interest was only justbeginning. Over went the next page, and there we were, the whole crowdof us, assembled in a noble church. It was not easy to make out exactlywhat was going on; but in the throng I was delighted to recognize myangels at last, happy and very much at home. They had managed to getleave off, evidently, and must have run up the hill and scamperedbreathlessly through the gate; and perhaps they cried a little when theyfound the square empty, and thought the fun must be all over. Two ofthem had got hold of a great wax candle apiece, as much as they couldstagger under, and were tittering sideways at each other as the greaseran bountifully over their clothes. A third had strolled in among thecompany, and was chatting to a young gentleman, with whom she appearedto be on the best of terms. Decidedly, this was the right breed of angelfor us. None of your sick-bed or night nursery business for them!

Well, no doubt they were now being married, He and She, just as alwayshappened. And then, of course, they were going to live happily everafter; and THAT was the part I wanted to get to. Story-books were sostupid, always stopping at the point where they became really nice; butthis picture-story was only in its first chapters, and at last I was tohave a chance of knowing HOW people lived happily ever after. Wewould all go home together, He and She, and the angels, and I; and thearmour-man would be invited to come and stay. And then the story wouldreally begin, at the point where those other ones always left off. Iturned the page, and found myself free of the dim and splendid churchand once more in the open country. 

This was all right; this was just as it should be. The sky was afleckless blue, the flags danced in the breeze, and our merry bridalparty, with jest and laughter, jogged down to the water-side. I wasthrough the town by this time, and out on the other side of the hill, where I had always wanted to be; and, sure enough, there was theharbour, all thick with curly ships. Most of them were piled highwith wedding-presents--bales of silk, and gold and silver plate, andcomfortable-looking bags suggesting bullion; and the gayest ship ofall lay close up to the carpeted landing-stage. Already the bride wasstepping daintily down the gangway, her ladies following primly, one byone; a few minutes more and we should all be aboard, the hawsers wouldsplash in the water, the sails would fill and strain. From the deck Ishould see the little walled town recede and sink and grow dim, whileevery plunge of our bows brought us nearer to the happy island--itwas an island we were bound for, I knew well! Already I could see theisland-people waving hands on the crowded quay, whence the littlehouses ran up the hill to the castle, crowning all with its towers andbattlements. Once more we should ride together, a merry procession, clattering up the steep street and through the grim gateway; and thenwe should have arrived, then we should all dine together, then we shouldhave reached home! And then--

OW! OW! OW!

Bitter it is to stumble out of an opalescent dream into the colddaylight; cruel to lose in a second a sea-voyage, an island, and acastle that was to be practically your own; but cruellest and bitterestof all to know, in addition to your loss, that the fingers of an angryaunt have you tight by the scruff of your neck. My beautiful book wasgone too--ravished from my grasp by the dressy lady, who joined in theoutburst of denunciation as heartily as if she had been a relative--andnaught was left me but to blubber dismally, awakened of a sudden to theharshness of real things and the unnumbered hostilities of the actualworld. I cared little for their reproaches, their abuse; but I sorrowedheartily for my lost ship, my vanished island, my uneaten dinner, andfor the knowledge that, if I wanted any angels to play with, I musthenceforth put up with the anaemic, night-gowned nonentities thathovered over the bed of the Sunday-school child in the pages of theSabbath Improver. 

I was led ignominiously out of the house, in a pulpy, watery state, while the butler handled his swing doors with a stony, impassivecountenance, intended for the deception of the very elect, though it didnot deceive me. I knew well enough that next time he was off duty, andstrolled around our way, we should meet in our kitchen as man to man, and I would punch him and ask him riddles, and he would teach me trickswith corks and bits of string. So his unsympathetic manner did not addto my depression. 

I maintained a diplomatic blubber long after we had been packed intoour pony-carriage and the lodge-gate had clicked behind us, because itserved as a sort of armour-plating against heckling and argument andabuse, and I was thinking hard and wanted to be let alone. And thethoughts that I was thinking were two. 

First I thought, "I've got ahead of Charlotte THIS time!"

And next I thought, "When I've grown up big, and have money of my own, and a full-sized walking-stick, I will set out early one morning, andnever stop till I get to that little walled town. " There ought to be noreal difficulty in the task. It only meant asking here and asking there, and people were very obliging, and I could describe every stick andstone of it. 

As for the island which I had never even seen, that was not so easy. Yet I felt confident that somehow, at some time, sooner or later, I wasdestined to arrive. 

A SAGA OF THE SEAS

It happened one day that some ladies came to call, who were not at allthe sort I was used to. They suffered from a grievance, so far as Icould gather, and the burden of their plaint was Man--Men in general andMan in particular. (Though the words were but spoken, I could clearlydiscern the capital M in their acid utterance. )

Of course I was not present officially, so to speak. Down below, in mysub-world of chair-legs and hearthrugs and the undersides of sofas, Iwas working out my own floor-problems, while they babbled on far abovemy head, considering me as but a chair-leg, or even something lower inthe scale. Yet I was listening hard all the time, with that respectfulconsideration one gives to all grown-up people's remarks, so long as oneknows no better. 

It seemed a serious indictment enough, as they rolled it out. Intact, considerateness, and right appreciation, as well as in tasteand aesthetic sensibilities--we failed at every point, we breeched andbearded prentice-jobs of Nature; and I began to feel like collapsing onthe carpet from sheer spiritual anaemia. But when one of them, witha swing of her skirt, prostrated a whole regiment of my brave tinsoldiers, and never apologized nor even offered her aid towardrevivifying the battle-line, I could not help feeling that intactfulness and consideration for others she was still a little to seek. And I said as much, with some directness of language. 

That was the end of me, from a society point of view. Rudeness tovisitors was the unpardonable sin, and in two seconds I had my marchingorders, and was sullenly wending my way to the St. Elelena of thenursery. As I climbed the stair, my thoughts reverted somehow to a gamewe had been playing that very morning. 

It was the good old game of Rafts, --a game that will be played till allthe oceans are dry and all the trees in the world are felled--and after. And we were all crowded together on the precarious little platform, andSelina occupied every bit as much room as I did, and Charlotte's legsdidn't dangle over any more than Harold's. The pitiless sun overheadbeat on us all with tropic impartiality, and the hungry sharks, whosefins scored the limitless Pacific stretching out on every side, wereimpelled by an appetite that made no exceptions as to sex. When weshared the ultimate biscuit and circulated the last water-keg, the girlsgot an absolute fourth apiece, and neither more nor less; and the onlypartiality shown was entirely in favour of Charlotte, who was allowed toperceive and to hail the saviour-sail on the horizon. And this was onlybecause it was her turn to do so, not because she happened to be this orthat. Surely, the rules of the raft were the rules of life, and in what, then, did these visitor-ladies' grievance consist?

Puzzled and a little sulky, I pushed open the door of the desertednursery, where the raft that had rocked beneath so many hopes and fearsstill occupied the ocean-floor. To the dull eye, that merely tarriesupon the outsides of things, it might have appeared unromantic and evenunraftlike, consisting only as it did of a round sponge-bath on a balddeal towel-horse placed flat on the floor. Even to myself much of therecent raft-glamour seemed to have departed as I half-mechanicallystepped inside and curled myself up in it for a solitary voyage. Once Iwas in, however, the old magic and mystery returned in full flood, whenI discovered that the inequalities of the towel-horse caused the bathto rock, slightly, indeed, but easily and incessantly. A few minutesof this delightful motion, and one was fairly launched. So those womenbelow didn't want us? Well, there were other women, and other places, that did. And this was going to be no scrambling raft-affair, but afull-blooded voyage of the Man, equipped and purposeful, in search ofwhat was his rightful own. 

Whither should I shape my course, and what sort of vessel should Icharter for the voyage? The shipping of all England was mine to pickfrom, and the far corners of the globe were my rightful inheritance. Afrigate, of course, seemed the natural vehicle for a boy of spirit toset out in. And yet there was something rather "uppish" in commandinga frigate at the very first set-off, and little spread was left forthe ambition. Frigates, too, could always be acquired later by sheeradventure; and your real hero generally saved up a square-rigged shipfor the final achievement and the rapt return. No, it was a schoonerthat I was aboard of--a schooner whose masts raked devilishly as theleaping seas hissed along her low black gunwale. Many hairbrained youthsstarted out on a mere cutter; but I was prudent, and besides I had someinkling of the serious affairs that were ahead. 

I have said I was already on board; and, indeed, on this occasion I wastoo hungry for adventure to linger over what would have been a specialdelight at a period of more leisure--the dangling about the harbour, thechoosing your craft, selecting your shipmates, stowing your cargo, andfitting up your private cabin with everything you might want to put yourhand on in any emergency whatever. I could not wait for that. Out beyondsoundings the big seas were racing westward and calling me, albatrosseshovered motionless, expectant of a comrade, and a thousand islandsheld each of them a fresh adventure, stored up, hidden away, awaitingproduction, expressly saved for me. We were humming, close-hauled, downthe Channel, spray in the eyes and the shrouds thrilling musically, inmuch less time than the average man would have taken to transfer hisGladstone bag and his rugs from the train to a sheltered place on thepromenade-deck of the tame daily steamer. 

So long as we were in pilotage I stuck manfully to the wheel. Theundertaking was mine, and with it all its responsibilities, and therewas some tricky steering to be done as we sped by headland and bay, erewe breasted the great seas outside and the land fell away behind us. Butas soon as the Atlantic had opened out I began to feel that it wouldbe rather nice to take tea by myself in my own cabin, and it thereforebecame necessary to invent a comrade or two, to take their turn at thewheel. 

This was easy enough. A friend or two of my own age, from among theboys I knew; a friend or two from characters in the books I knew; anda friend or two from No-man's-land, where every fellow's a born sailor;and the crew was complete. I addressed them on the poop, divided theminto watches, gave instructions I should be summoned on the first signof pirates, whales, or Frenchmen, and retired below to a well-earnedspell of relaxation. 

That was the right sort of cabin that I stepped into, shutting the doorbehind me with a click. Of course, fire-arms were the first thing Ilooked for, and there they were, sure enough, in their racks, dozens of'em--double-barrelled guns, and repeating-rifles, and long pistols, and shiny plated revolvers. I rang up the steward and ordered tea, withscones, and jam in its native pots--none of your finicking shallow glassdishes; and, when properly streaked with jam, and blown out with tea, Iwent through the armoury, clicked the rifles and revolvers, tested theedges of the cutlasses with my thumb, and filled the cartridge-beltschock-full. Everything was there, and of the best quality, just as if Ihad spent a whole fortnight knocking about Plymouth and ordering things. Clearly, if this cruise came to grief, it would not be for want ofequipment. 

Just as I was beginning on the lockers and the drawers, the watchreported icebergs on both bows--and, what was more to the point, coveysof Polar bears on the icebergs. I grasped a rifle or two, and hastenedon deck. The spectacle was indeed magnificent--it generally is, withicebergs on both bows, and these were exceptionally enormous icebergs. But I hadn't come there to paint Academy pictures, so the captain'sgig was in the water and manned almost ere the boatswain's whistle hadceased sounding, and we were pulling hard for the Polar bears--myselfand the rifles in the stern-sheets. 

I have rarely enjoyed better shooting than I got during that afternoon'stramp over the icebergs. Perhaps I was in specially good form; perhapsthe bears "rose" well. Anyhow, the bag was a portentous one. In laterdays, on reading of the growing scarcity of Polar bears, my consciencehas pricked me; but that afternoon I experienced no compunction. Nevertheless, when the huge pile of skins had been hoisted on board, and a stiff grog had been served out to the crew of the captain's gig, I ordered the schooner's head to be set due south. For icebergs wereplayed out, for the moment, and it was getting to be time for somethingmore tropical. 

Tropical was a mild expression of what was to come, as was shortlyproved. It was about three bells in the next day's forenoon watch whenthe look-out man first sighted the pirate brigantine. I disliked thelooks of her from the first, and, after piping all hands to quarters, had the brass carronade on the fore-deck crammed with grape to themuzzle. 

This proved a wise precaution. For the flagitious pirate craft, havingcrept up to us under the colours of the Swiss Republic, a state withwhich we were just then on the best possible terms, suddenly shook outthe skull-and-cross-bones at her masthead, and let fly with round-shotat close quarters, knocking into pieces several of my crew, who couldill be spared. The sight of their disconnected limbs aroused my ireto its utmost height, and I let them have the contents of the brasscarronade, with ghastly effect. Next moment the hulls of the two shipswere grinding together, the cold steel flashed from its scabbard, andthe death-grapple had begun. 

In spite of the deadly work of my grape-gorged carronade, our foe stilloutnumbered us, I reckoned, by three to one. Honour forbade my fixingit at a lower figure--this was the minimum rate at which one dared to dobusiness with pirates. They were stark veterans, too, every man seamedwith ancient sabre-cuts, whereas my crew had many of them hardlyattained the maturity which is the gift of ten long summers--and thewhole thing was so sudden that I had no time to invent a reinforcementof riper years. It was not surprising, therefore, that my dauntlessboarding-party, axe in hand and cutlass between teeth, fought their wayto the pirates' deck only to be repulsed again and yet again, and thatour planks were soon slippery with our own ungrudged and inexhaustibleblood. At this critical point in the conflict, the bo'sun, grasping meby the arm, drew my attention to a magnificent British man-of-war, just hove to in the offing, while the signalman, his glass at his eye, reported that she was inquiring whether we wanted any assistance orpreferred to go through with the little job ourselves. 

This veiled attempt to share our laurels with us, courteously as it wasworded, put me on my mettle. Wiping the blood out of my eyes, I orderedthe signalman to reply instantly, with the half-dozen or so of flagsthat he had at his disposal, that much as we appreciated the valourof the regular service, and the delicacy of spirit that animatedits commanders, still this was an orthodox case of the younggentleman-adventurer versus the unshaved pirate, and Her Majesty'sMarine had nothing to do but to form the usual admiring and applaudingbackground. Then, rallying round me the remnant of my faithful crew, Iselected a fresh cutlass (I had worn out three already) and plunged oncemore into the pleasing carnage. 

The result was not long doubtful. Indeed, I could not allow it to be, asI was already getting somewhat bored with the pirate business, and waswanting to get on to something more southern and sensuous. All seriousresistance came to an end as soon as I had reached the quarter-deck andcut down the pirate chief--a fine black-bearded fellow in his way, but hardly up to date in his parry-and-thrust business. Those whom ourcutlasses had spared were marched out along their own plank, in theapproved old fashion; and in time the scuppers relieved the decks ofthe blood that made traffic temporarily impossible. And all the time theBritish-man-of-war admired and applauded in the offing. 

As soon as we had got through with the necessary throat-cutting andswabbing-up all hands set to work to discover treasure; and soon thedeck shone bravely with ingots and Mexican dollars and church plate. There were ropes of pearls, too, and big stacks of nougat; and rubies, and gold watches, and Turkish Delight in tubs. But I left these triflesto my crew, and continued the search alone. For by this time I haddetermined that there should be a Princess on board, carried off tobe sold in captivity to the bold bad Moors, and now with beating heartawaiting her rescue by me, the Perseus of her dreams. 

I came upon her at last in the big state-cabin in the stern; and shewore a holland pinafore over her Princess-clothes, and she had brownwavy hair, hanging down her back, just like--well, never mind, she hadbrown wavy hair. When gentle-folk meet, courtesies pass; and I willnot weary other people with relating all the compliments andcounter-compliments that we exchanged, all in the most approved manner. Occasions like this, when tongues wagged smoothly and speech flowedfree, were always especially pleasing to me, who am naturally inclinedto be tongue-tied with women. But at last ceremony was over, and we saton the table and swung our legs and agreed to be fast friends. And Ishowed her my latest knife--one-bladed, horn-handled, terrific, hunground my neck with string; and she showed me the chiefest treasures theship contained, hidden away in a most private and particular locker--amusical box with a glass top that let you see the works, and a railwaytrain with real lines and a real tunnel, and a tin iron-clad thatfollowed a magnet, and was ever so much handier in many respects thanthe real full-sized thing that still lay and applauded in the offing. 

There was high feasting that night in my cabin. We invited the captainof the man-of-war--one could hardly do less, it seemed to me--and thePrincess took one end of the table and I took the other, and the captainwas very kind and nice, and told us fairy-stories, and asked us both tocome and stay with him next Christmas, and promised we should have somehunting, on real ponies. When he left I gave him some ingots and things, and saw him into his boat; and then I went round the ship and addressedthe crew in several set speeches, which moved them deeply, and with myown hands loaded up the carronade with grape-shot till it ran over atthe mouth. This done, I retired into the cabin with the Princess, andlocked the door. And first we started the musical box, taking turns towind it up; and then we made toffee in the cabin-stove; and then we ranthe train round and round the room, and through and through the tunnel;and lastly we swam the tin ironclad in the bath, with the soap-dish fora pirate. 

Next morning the air was rich with spices, porpoises rolled andgambolled round the bows, and the South Sea Islands lay full inview (they were the REAL South Sea Islands, of course--not the badlyfurnished journeymen-islands that are to be perceived on the map). Asfor the pirate brigantine and the man-of-war, I don't really know whatbecame of them. They had played their part very well, for the time, but I wasn't going to bother to account for them, so I just let themevaporate quietly. The islands provided plenty of fresh occupation. Forhere were little bays of silvery sand, dotted with land-crabs; groves ofpalm-trees wherein monkeys frisked and pelted each other with cocoanuts;and caves, and sites for stockades, and hidden treasures significantlyindicated by skulls, in riotous plenty; while birds and beasts of everycolour and all latitudes made pleasing noises which excited the sportinginstinct. 

The islands lay conveniently close together, which necessitatedcareful steering as we threaded the devious and intricate channels thatseparated them. Of course no one else could be trusted at the wheel, soit is not surprising that for some time I quite forgot that there wassuch a thing as a Princess on board. This is too much the masculine way, whenever there's any real business doing. However, I remembered her assoon as the anchor was dropped, and I went below and consoled her, andwe had breakfast together, and she was allowed to "pour out, " whichquite made up for everything. When breakfast was over we ordered outthe captain's gig, and rowed all about the islands, and paddled, andexplored, and hunted bisons and beetles and butterflies, and foundeverything we wanted. And I gave her pink shells and tortoises and greatmilky pearls and little green lizards; and she gave me guinea-pigs, andcoral to make into waistcoat-buttons, and tame sea-otters, and a realpirate's powder-horn. It was a prolific day and a long-lasting one, andweary were we with all our hunting and our getting and our gathering, when at last we clambered into the captain's gig and rowed back to alate tea. 

The following day my conscience rose up and accused me. This was notwhat I had come out to do. These triflings with pearls and parrakeets, these al fresco luncheons off yams and bananas--there was no "making ofhistory" about them, I resolved that without further dallying I wouldturn to and capture the French frigate, according to the originalprogramme. So we upped anchor with the morning tide, and set all sailfor San Salvador. 

Of course I had no idea where San Salvador really was. I haven't now, for that matter. But it seemed a right-sounding sort of name for a placethat was to have a bay that was to hold a French frigate that was tobe cut out; so, as I said, we sailed for San Salvador, and made the bayabout eight bells that evening, and saw the topmasts of the frigateover the headland that sheltered her. And forthwith there was summoned aCouncil of War. 

It is a very serious matter, a Council of War. We had not held onehitherto, pirates and truck of that sort not calling for such solemntreatment. But in an affair that might almost be called international, it seemed well to proceed gravely and by regular steps. So we met in mycabin--the Princess, and the bo'sun, and a boy from the real-life lot, and a man from among the book-men, and a fellow from No-man's-land, andmyself in the chair. 

The bo'sun had taken part in so many cuttings-out during his past careerthat practically he did all the talking, and was the Council of Warhimself. It was to be an affair of boats, he explained. A boat's-crewwould be told off to cut the cables, and two boats'-crews to climbstealthily on board and overpower the sleeping Frenchmen, and two moreboats' crews to haul the doomed vessel out of the bay. This made rathera demand on my limited resources as to crews; but I was prepared tostretch a point in a case like this, and I speedily brought my numbersup to the requisite efficiency. 

The night was both moonless and star-less--I had arranged all that--whenthe boats pushed off from the side of our vessel, and made their waytoward the ship that, unfortunately for itself, had been singled outby Fate to carry me home in triumph. I was in excellent spirits, and, indeed, as I stepped over the side, a lawless idea crossed my mind, ofdiscovering another Princess on board the frigate--a French one thistime; I had heard that that sort was rather nice. But I abandoned thenotion at once, recollecting that the heroes of all history had alwaysbeen noted for their unswerving constancy. 

The French captain was snug in bed when I clambered in through hiscabin window and held a naked cutlass to his throat. Naturally he wassurprised and considerably alarmed, till I discharged one of my setspeeches at him, pointing out that my men already had his crew underhatchways, that his vessel was even then being towed out of harbour, andthat, on his accepting the situation with a good grace, his personand private property would be treated with all the respect due to therepresentative of a great nation for which I entertained feelings of theprofoundest admiration and regard and all that sort of thing. It was abeautiful speech. The Frenchman at once presented me with his parole, in the usual way, and, in a reply of some power and pathos, only beggedthat I would retire a moment while he put on his trousers. This Igracefully consented to do, and the incident ended. 

Two of my boats were sunk by the fire from the forts on the shore, andseveral brave fellows were severely wounded in the hand-to-hand strugglewith the French crew for the possession of the frigate. But the bo'sun'sadmirable strategy, and my own reckless gallantry in securing the Frenchcaptain at the outset, had the fortunate result of keeping down thedeath-rate. It was all for the sake of the Princess that I had arrangedso comparatively tame a victory. For myself, I rather liked a fairamount of blood-letting, red-hot shot, and flying splinters. But whenyou have girls about the place, they have got to be considered to acertain extent. 

There was another supper-party that night, in my cabin, as soon as wehad got well out to sea; and the French captain, who was the guest ofthe evening, was in the greatest possible form. We became sworn friends, and exchanged invitations to come and stay at each other's homes, andreally it was quite difficult to induce him to take his leave. But atlast he and his crew were bundled into their boats; and after I hadpressed some pirate bullion upon them--delicately, of course, but in apleasant manner that admitted of no denial--the gallant fellows quitebroke down, and we parted, our bosoms heaving with a full sense of eachother's magnanimity and good-fellowship. 

The next day, which was nearly all taken up with shifting our quartersinto the new frigate, so honourably and easily acquired, was a verypleasant one, as everyone who has gone up in the world and moved into alarger house will readily understand. At last I had grim, black guns allalong each side, instead of a rotten brass carronade; at last I had asquare-rigged ship, with real yards, and a proper quarter-deck. In fact, now that I had soared as high as could be hoped in a single voyage, it seemed about time to go home and cut a dash and show off a bit. Theworst of this ocean-theatre was, it held no proper audience. It washard, of course, to relinquish all the adventures that still layuntouched in these Southern seas. Whaling, for instance, had not yetbeen entered upon; the joys of exploration, and strange inland citiesinnocent of the white man, still awaited me; and the book of wrecksand rescues was not yet even opened. But I had achieved a frigate and aPrincess, and that was not so bad for a beginning, and more than enoughto show off with before those dull unadventurous folk who continued ontheir mill-horse round at home. 

The voyage home was a record one, so far as mere speed was concerned, and all adventures were scornfully left behind, as we rattled along, forother adventurers who had still their laurels to win. Hardly later thanthe noon of next day we dropped anchor in Plymouth Sound, and heard theintoxicating clamour of bells, the roar of artillery, and the hoarsecheers of an excited populace surging down to the quays, that told us wewere being appreciated at something like our true merits. The Lord Mayorwas waiting there to receive us, and with him several Admirals of theFleet, as we walked down the lane of pushing, enthusiastic Devonians, the Princess and I, and our war-worn, weather-beaten, spoil-laden crew. Everybody was very nice about the French frigate, and the pirate booty, and the scars still fresh on our young limbs; yet I think what I likedbest of all was, that they all pronounced the Princess to be a duck, anda peerless, brown-haired darling, and a true mate for a hero, and of theright Princess-breed. 

The air was thick with invitations and with the smell of civic banquetsin a forward stage; but I sternly waved all festivities aside. Thecoaches-and-four I had ordered immediately on arriving were blocking thewhole of the High Street; the champing of bits and the pawing of gravelsummoned us to take our seats and be off, to where the real performanceawaited us, compared with which all this was but an interlude. I placedthe Princess in the most highly gilded coach of the lot, and mounted tomy place at her side; and the rest of the crew scrambled on board of theothers as best they might. The whips cracked and the crowd scattered andcheered as we broke into a gallop for home. The noisy bells burst into afarewell peal--

Yes, that was undoubtedly the usual bell for school-room tea. And hightime too, I thought, as I tumbled out of the bath, which was beginningto feel very hard to the projecting portions of my frame-work. As Itrotted downstairs, hungrier even than usual, farewells floated up fromthe front door, and I heard the departing voices of our angular elderlyvisitors as they made their way down the walk. Man was still catchingit, apparently--Man was getting it hot. And much Man cared! The seaswere his, and their islands; he had his frigates for the taking, hispirates and their hoards for an unregarded cutlass-stroke or two; andthere were Princesses in plenty waiting for him somewhere--Princesses ofthe right sort. 

THE RELUCTANT DRAGON

Footprints in the snow have been unfailing provokers of sentiment eversince snow was first a white wonder in this drab-coloured world of ours. In a poetry-book presented to one of us by an aunt, there was a poem byone Wordsworth in which they stood out strongly--with a picture all tothemselves, too--but we didn't think very highly either of the poem orthe sentiment. Footprints in the sand, now, were quite anothermatter, and we grasped Crusoe's attitude of mind much more easily thanWordsworth's. Excitement and mystery, curiosity and suspense--these werethe only sentiments that tracks, whether in sand or in snow, were ableto arouse in us. 

We had awakened early that winter morning, puzzled at first by the addedlight that filled the room. Then, when the truth at last fully dawnedon us and we knew that snow-balling was no longer a wistful dream, buta solid certainty waiting for us outside, it was a mere brute fightfor the necessary clothes, and the lacing of boots seemed a clumsyinvention, and the buttoning of coats an unduly tedious form offastening, with all that snow going to waste at our very door. 

When dinner-time came we had to be dragged in by the scruff of ournecks. The short armistice over, the combat was resumed; but presentlyCharlotte and I, a little weary of contests and of missiles thatran shudderingly down inside one's clothes, forsook the trampledbattle-field of the lawn and went exploring the blank virgin spaces ofthe white world that lay beyond. It stretched away unbroken on everyside of us, this mysterious soft garment under which our familiar worldhad so suddenly hidden itself. Faint imprints showed where a casual birdhad alighted, but of other traffic there was next to no sign; which madethese strange tracks all the more puzzling. 

We came across them first at the corner of the shrubbery, and pored overthem long, our hands on our knees. Experienced trappers that we knewourselves to be, it was annoying to be brought up suddenly by a beast wecould not at once identify. 

"Don't you know?" said Charlotte, rather scornfully. "Thought you knewall the beasts that ever was. "

This put me on my mettle, and I hastily rattled off a string of animalnames embracing both the arctic and the tropic zones, but without muchreal confidence. 

"No, " said Charlotte, on consideration; "they won't any of 'em quite do. Seems like something LIZARDY. Did you say a iguanodon? Might be that, p'raps. But that's not British, and we want a real British beast. _I_think it's a dragon!"

"'T isn't half big enough, " I objected. 

"Well, all dragons must be small to begin with, " said Charlotte: "likeeverything else. P'raps this is a little dragon who's got lost. A littledragon would be rather nice to have. He might scratch and spit, but hecouldn't DO anything really. Let's track him down!"

So we set off into the wide snow-clad world, hand in hand, our heartsbig with expectation, --complacently confident that by a few smudgytraces in the snow we were in a fair way to capture a half-grownspecimen of a fabulous beast. 

We ran the monster across the paddock and along the hedge of the nextfield, and then he took to the road like any tame civilized tax-payer. Here his tracks became blended with and lost among more ordinaryfootprints, but imagination and a fixed idea will do a great deal, andwe were sure we knew the direction a dragon would naturally take. The traces, too, kept reappearing at intervals--at least Charlottemaintained they did, and as it was HER dragon I left the following ofthe slot to her and trotted along peacefully, feeling that it was anexpedition anyhow and something was sure to come out of it. 

Charlotte took me across another field or two, and through a copse, andinto a fresh road; and I began to feel sure it was only her confoundedpride that made her go on pretending to see dragon-tracks instead ofowning she was entirely at fault, like a reasonable person. At last shedragged me excitedly through a gap in a hedge of an obviously privatecharacter; the waste, open world of field and hedge-row disappeared, and we found ourselves in a garden, well-kept, secluded, mostun-dragon-haunted in appearance. Once inside, I knew where we were. This was the garden of my friend the circus-man, though I had neverapproached it before by a lawless gap, from this unfamiliar side. 

And here was the circus-man himself, placidly smoking a pipe as hestrolled up and down the walks. I stepped up to him and asked himpolitely if he had lately seen a Beast. 

"May I inquire, " he said, with all civility, "what particular sort of aBeast you may happen to be looking for?"

"It's a LIZARDY sort of Beast, " I explained. "Charlotte says it's adragon, but she doesn't really know much about beasts. "

The circus-man looked round about him slowly. "I don't THINK, " he said, "that I've seen a dragon in these parts recently. But if I come acrossone I'll know it belongs to you, and I'll have him taken round to you atonce. "

"Thank you very much, " said Charlotte, "but don't TROUBLE about it, please, 'cos p'raps it isn't a dragon after all. Only I thought I sawhis little footprints in the snow, and we followed 'em up, and theyseemed to lead right in here, but maybe it's all a mistake, and thankyou all the same. "

"Oh, no trouble at all, " said the circus-man, cheerfully. "I should beonly too pleased. But of course, as you say, it MAY be a mistake. And it's getting dark, and he seems to have got away for the present, whatever he is. You'd better come in and have some tea. I'm quite alone, and we'll make a roaring fire, and I've got the biggest Book ofBeasts you ever saw. It's got every beast in the world, and all of 'emcoloured; and we'll try and find YOUR beast in it!"

We were always ready for tea at any time, and especially when combinedwith beasts. There was marmalade, too, and apricot-jam, brought inexpressly for us; and afterwards the beast-book was spread out, and, asthe man had truly said, it contained every sort of beast that had everbeen in the world. 

The striking of six o'clock set the more prudent Charlotte nudgingme, and we recalled ourselves with an effort from Beast-land, andreluctantly stood up to go. 

"Here, I'm coming along with you, " said the circus-man. "I want anotherpipe, and a walk'll do me good. You needn't talk to me unless you like. "

Our spirits rose to their wonted level again. The way had seemed solong, the outside world so dark and eerie, after the bright warm roomand the highly-coloured beast-book. But a walk with a real Man--why, that was a treat in itself! We set off briskly, the Man in the middle. Ilooked up at him and wondered whether I should ever live to smoke a bigpipe with that careless sort of majesty! But Charlotte, whose young mindwas not set on tobacco as a possible goal, made herself heard from theother side. 

"Now, then, " she said, "tell us a story, please, won't you?"

The Man sighed heavily and looked about him. "I knew it, " he groaned. "I KNEW I should have to tell a story. Oh, why did I leave my pleasantfireside? Well, I WILL tell you a story. Only let me think a minute. "

So he thought a minute, and then he told us this story. 

Long ago--might have been hundreds of years ago--in a cottage half-waybetween this village and yonder shoulder of the Downs up there, ashepherd lived with his wife and their little son. Now the shepherdspent his days--and at certain times of the year his nights too--up onthe wide ocean-bosom of the Downs, with only the sun and the stars andthe sheep for company, and the friendly chattering world of men andwomen far out of sight and hearing. But his little son, when he wasn'thelping his father, and often when he was as well, spent much of histime buried in big volumes that he borrowed from the affable gentry andinterested parsons of the country round about. And his parents were veryfond of him, and rather proud of him too, though they didn't let on inhis hearing, so he was left to go his own way and read as much as heliked; and instead of frequently getting a cuff on the side of the head, as might very well have happened to him, he was treated more or less asan equal by his parents, who sensibly thought it a very fair divisionof labour that they should supply the practical knowledge, and he thebook-learning. They knew that book-learning often came in useful ata pinch, in spite of what their neighbours said. What the Boy chieflydabbled in was natural history and fairy-tales, and he just took them asthey came, in a sandwichy sort of way, without making any distinctions;and really his course of reading strikes one as rather sensible. 

One evening the shepherd, who for some nights past had been disturbedand preoccupied, and off his usual mental balance, came home all ofa tremble, and, sitting down at the table where his wife and sonwere peacefully employed, she with her seam, he in following out theadventures of the Giant with no Heart in his Body, exclaimed with muchagitation:

"It's all up with me, Maria! Never no more can I go up on them thereDowns, was it ever so!"

"Now don't you take on like that, " said his wife, who was a VERYsensible woman: "but tell us all about it first, whatever it is as hasgiven you this shake-up, and then me and you and the son here, betweenus, we ought to be able to get to the bottom of it!"

"It began some nights ago, " said the shepherd. "You know that cave upthere--I never liked it, somehow, and the sheep never liked it neither, and when sheep don't like a thing there's generally some reason forit. Well, for some time past there's been faint noises coming from thatcave--noises like heavy sighings, with grunts mixed up in them; andsometimes a snoring, far away down--REAL snoring, yet somehow not HONESTsnoring, like you and me o'nights, you know!"

"_I_ know, " remarked the Boy, quietly. 

"Of course I was terrible frightened, " the shepherd went on; "yetsomehow I couldn't keep away. So this very evening, before I come down, I took a cast round by the cave, quietly. And there--O Lord! there I sawhim at last, as plain as I see you!"

"Saw WHO?" said his wife, beginning to share in her husband's nervousterror. 

"Why HIM, I'm a telling you!" said the shepherd. "He was stickinghalf-way out of the cave, and seemed to be enjoying of the cool of theevening in a poetical sort of way. He was as big as four cart-horses, and all covered with shiny scales--deep-blue scales at the top of him, shading off to a tender sort o' green below. As he breathed, there wasthat sort of flicker over his nostrils that you see over our chalk roadson a baking windless day in summer. He had his chin on his paws, and Ishould say he was meditating about things. Oh, yes, a peaceable sort o'beast enough, and not ramping or carrying on or doing anything but whatwas quite right and proper. I admit all that. And yet, what am I to do?SCALES, you know, and claws, and a tail for certain, though I didn'tsee that end of him--I ain't USED to 'em, and I don't HOLD with 'em, andthat's a fact!"

The Boy, who had apparently been absorbed in his book during hisfather's recital, now closed the volume, yawned, clasped his handsbehind his head, and said sleepily:

"It's all right, father. Don't you worry. It's only a dragon. "

"Only a dragon?" cried his father. "What do you mean, sitting there, youand your dragons? ONLY a dragon indeed! And what do YOU know about it?"

"'Cos it IS, and 'cos I DO know, " replied the Boy, quietly. "Look here, father, you know we've each of us got our line. YOU know about sheep, and weather, and things; _I_ know about dragons. I always said, youknow, that that cave up there was a dragon-cave. I always said it musthave belonged to a dragon some time, and ought to belong to a dragonnow, if rules count for anything. Well, now you tell me it HAS got adragon, and so THAT'S all right. I'm not half as much surprised as whenyou told me it HADN'T got a dragon. Rules always come right if you waitquietly. Now, please, just leave this all to me. And I'll stroll upto-morrow morning--no, in the morning I can't, I've got a whole heap ofthings to do--well, perhaps in the evening, if I'm quite free, I'll goup and have a talk to him, and you'll find it'll be all right. Only, please, don't you go worrying round there without me. You don'tunderstand 'em a bit, and they're very sensitive, you know!"

"He's quite right, father, " said the sensible mother. "As he says, dragons is his line and not ours. He's wonderful knowing aboutbook-beasts, as every one allows. And to tell the truth, I'm not halfhappy in my own mind, thinking of that poor animal lying alone up there, without a bit o' hot supper or anyone to change the news with; and maybewe'll be able to do something for him; and if he ain't quite respectableour Boy'll find it out quick enough. He's got a pleasant sort o' waywith him that makes everybody tell him everything. "

Next day, after he'd had his tea, the Boy strolled up the chalky trackthat led to the summit of the Downs; and there, sure enough, he foundthe dragon, stretched lazily on the sward in front of his cave. The viewfrom that point was a magnificent one. To the right and left, the bareand billowy leagues of Downs; in front, the vale, with its clusteredhomesteads, its threads of white roads running through orchards andwell-tilled acreage, and, far away, a hint of grey old cities on thehorizon. A cool breeze played over the surface of the grass and thesilver shoulder of a large moon was showing above distant junipers. Nowonder the dragon seemed in a peaceful and contented mood; indeed, as the Boy approached he could hear the beast purring with a happyregularity. "Well, we live and learn!" he said to himself. "None of mybooks ever told me that dragons purred!"

"Hullo, dragon!" said the Boy, quietly, when he had got up to him. 

The dragon, on hearing the approaching footsteps, made the beginningof a courteous effort to rise. But when he saw it was a Boy, he set hiseyebrows severely. 

"Now don't you hit me, " he said; "or bung stones, or squirt water, oranything. I won't have it, I tell you!"

"Not goin' to hit you, " said the Boy wearily, dropping on the grassbeside the beast: "and don't, for goodness' sake, keep on saying`Don't;' I hear so much of it, and it's monotonous, and makes me tired. I've simply looked in to ask you how you were and all that sort ofthing; but if I'm in the way I can easily clear out. I've lots offriends, and no one can say I'm in the habit of shoving myself in whereI'm not wanted!"

"No, no, don't go off in a huff, " said the dragon, hastily; "factis, --I'm as happy up here as the day's long; never without anoccupation, dear fellow, never without an occupation! And yet, betweenourselves, it IS a trifle dull at times. "

The Boy bit off a stalk of grass and chewed it. "Going to make a longstay here?" he asked, politely. 

"Can't hardly say at present, " replied the dragon. "It seems a niceplace enough--but I've only been here a short time, and one must lookabout and reflect and consider before settling down. It's rathera serious thing, settling down. Besides--now I'm going to tell yousomething! You'd never guess it if you tried ever so!--fact is, I'm sucha confoundedly lazy beggar!"

"You surprise me, " said the Boy, civilly. 

"It's the sad truth, " the dragon went on, settling down between his pawsand evidently delighted to have found a listener at last: "and I fancythat's really how I came to be here. You see all the other fellows wereso active and EARNEST and all that sort of thing--always rampaging, andskirmishing, and scouring the desert sands, and pacing the margin of thesea, and chasing knights all over the place, and devouring damsels, andgoing on generally--whereas I liked to get my meals regular and thento prop my back against a bit of rock and snooze a bit, and wake up andthink of things going on and how they kept going on just the same, youknow! So when it happened I got fairly caught. "

"When WHAT happened, please?" asked the Boy. 

"That's just what I don't precisely know, " said the dragon. "I supposethe earth sneezed, or shook itself, or the bottom dropped out ofsomething. Anyhow there was a shake and a roar and a general stramash, and I found myself miles away underground and wedged in as tight astight. Well, thank goodness, my wants are few, and at any rate I hadpeace and quietness and wasn't always being asked to come along and DOsomething. And I've got such an active mind--always occupied, I assureyou! But time went on, and there was a certain sameness about the life, and at last I began to think it would be fun to work my way upstairs andsee what you other fellows were doing. So I scratched and burrowed, andworked this way and that way and at last I came out through this cavehere. And I like the country, and the view, and the people--what I'veseen of 'em--and on the whole I feel inclined to settle down here. "

"What's your mind always occupied about?" asked the Boy. "That's what Iwant to know. "

The dragon coloured slightly and looked away. Presently he saidbashfully:

"Did you ever--just for fun--try to make up poetry--verses, you know?"

"'Course I have, " said the Boy. "Heaps of it. And some of it's quitegood, I feel sure, only there's no one here cares about it. Mother's very kind and all that, when I read it to her, and so's fatherfor that matter. But somehow they don't seem to--"

"Exactly, " cried the dragon; "my own case exactly. They don't seem to, and you can't argue with 'em about it. Now you've got culture, youhave, I could tell it on you at once, and I should just like your candidopinion about some little things I threw off lightly, when I was downthere. I'm awfully pleased to have met you, and I'm hoping the otherneighbours will be equally agreeable. There was a very nice oldgentleman up here only last night, but he didn't seem to want tointrude. "

"That was my father, " said the boy, "and he IS a nice old gentleman, andI'll introduce you some day if you like. "

"Can't you two come up here and dine or something to-morrow?" asked thedragon eagerly. "Only, of course, if you've got nothing better to do, "he added politely. 

"Thanks awfully, " said the Boy, "but we don't go out anywhere withoutmy mother, and, to tell you the truth, I'm afraid she mightn't quiteapprove of you. You see there's no getting over the hard fact thatyou're a dragon, is there? And when you talk of settling down, and theneighbours, and so on, I can't help feeling that you don't quite realizeyour position. You're an enemy of the human race, you see!"

"Haven't got an enemy in the world, " said the dragon, cheerfully. "Too lazy to make 'em, to begin with. And if I DO read other fellows mypoetry, I'm always ready to listen to theirs!"

"Oh, dear!" cried the boy, "I wish you'd try and grasp the situationproperly. When the other people find you out, they'll come after youwith spears and swords and all sorts of things. You'll have to beexterminated, according to their way of looking at it! You're a scourge, and a pest, and a baneful monster!"

"Not a word of truth in it, " said the dragon, wagging his head solemnly. "Character'll bear the strictest investigation. And now, there's alittle sonnet-thing I was working on when you appeared on the scene--"

"Oh, if you WON'T be sensible, " cried the Boy, getting up, "I'm goingoff home. No, I can't stop for sonnets; my mother's sitting up. I'lllook you up to-morrow, sometime or other, and do for goodness' sake tryand realize that you're a pestilential scourge, or you'll find yourselfin a most awful fix. Good-night!"

The Boy found it an easy matter to set the mind of his parents' at easeabout his new friend. They had always left that branch to him, and theytook his word without a murmur. The shepherd was formally introduced andmany compliments and kind inquiries were exchanged. His wife, however, though expressing her willingness to do anything she could--to mendthings, or set the cave to rights, or cook a little something when thedragon had been poring over sonnets and forgotten his meals, as malethings WILL do, could not be brought to recognize him formally. The factthat he was a dragon and "they didn't know who he was" seemed to countfor everything with her. She made no objection, however, to her littleson spending his evenings with the dragon quietly, so long as he washome by nine o'clock: and many a pleasant night they had, sitting onthe sward, while the dragon told stories of old, old times, when dragonswere quite plentiful and the world was a livelier place than it is now, and life was full of thrills and jumps and surprises. 

What the Boy had feared, however, soon came to pass. The most modestand retiring dragon in the world, if he's as big as four cart-horses andcovered with blue scales, cannot keep altogether out of the public view. And so in the village tavern of nights the fact that a real live dragonsat brooding in the cave on the Downs was naturally a subject for talk. Though the villagers were extremely frightened, they were rather proudas well. It was a distinction to have a dragon of your own, and it wasfelt to be a feather in the cap of the village. Still, all were agreedthat this sort of thing couldn't be allowed to go on. 

The dreadful beast must be exterminated, the country-side must be freedfrom this pest, this terror, this destroying scourge. The fact that noteven a hen roost was the worse for the dragon's arrival wasn't allowedto have anything to do with it. He was a dragon, and he couldn't denyit, and if he didn't choose to behave as such that was his own lookout. But in spite of much valiant talk no hero was found willing to takesword and spear and free the suffering village and win deathless fame;and each night's heated discussion always ended in nothing. Meanwhilethe dragon, a happy Bohemian, lolled on the turf, enjoyed the sunsets, told antediluvian anecdotes to the Boy, and polished his old verseswhile meditating on fresh ones. 

One day the Boy, on walking in to the village, found everything wearinga festal appearance which was not to be accounted for in the calendar. Carpets and gay-coloured stuffs were hung out of the windows, thechurch-bells clamoured noisily, the little street was flower-strewn, and the whole population jostled each other along either side of it, chattering, shoving, and ordering each other to stand back. The Boy sawa friend of his own age in the crowd and hailed him. 

"What's up?" he cried. "Is it the players, or bears, or a circus, orwhat?"

"It's all right, " his friend hailed back. "He's a-coming. "

"WHO'S a-coming?" demanded the Boy, thrusting into the throng. 

"Why, St. George, of course, " replied his friend. "He's heard tell ofour dragon, and he's comin' on purpose to slay the deadly beast, andfree us from his horrid yoke. O my! won't there be a jolly fight!"

Here was news indeed! The Boy felt that he ought to make quite sure forhimself, and he wriggled himself in between the legs of his good-naturedelders, abusing them all the time for their unmannerly habit of shoving. Once in the front rank, he breathlessly awaited the arrival. 

Presently from the far-away end of the line came the sound of cheering. Next, the measured tramp of a great war-horse made his heart beatquicker, and then he found himself cheering with the rest, as, amidstwelcoming shouts, shrill cries of women, uplifting of babies and wavingof handkerchiefs, St. George paced slowly up the street. The Boy's heartstood still and he breathed with sobs, the beauty and the grace of thehero were so far beyond anything he had yet seen. His fluted armourwas inlaid with gold, his plumed helmet hung at his saddle-bow, and histhick fair hair framed a face gracious and gentle beyond expressiontill you caught the sternness in his eyes. He drew rein in front of thelittle inn, and the villagers crowded round with greetings and thanksand voluble statements of their wrongs and grievances and oppressions. The Boy heard the grave gentle voice of the Saint, assuring them thatall would be well now, and that he would stand by them and see themrighted and free them from their foe; then he dismounted and passedthrough the doorway and the crowd poured in after him. But the Boy madeoff up the hill as fast as he could lay his legs to the ground. 

"It's all up, dragon!" he shouted as soon as he was within sight ofthe beast. "He's coming! He's here now! You'll have to pull yourselftogether and DO something at last!"

The dragon was licking his scales and rubbing them with a bit ofhouse-flannel the Boy's mother had lent him, till he shone like a greatturquoise. 

"Don't be VIOLENT, Boy, " he said without looking round. "Sit down andget your breath, and try and remember that the noun governs the verb, and then perhaps you'll be good enough to tell me WHO'S coming?"

"That's right, take it coolly, " said the Boy. "Hope you'll be half ascool when I've got through with my news. It's only St. George who'scoming, that's all; he rode into the village half-an-hour ago. Of courseyou can lick him--a great big fellow like you! But I thought I'dwarn you, 'cos he's sure to be round early, and he's got the longest, wickedest-looking spear you ever did see!" And the Boy got up and beganto jump round in sheer delight at the prospect of the battle. 

"O deary, deary me, " moaned the dragon; "this is too awful. I won't seehim, and that's flat. I don't want to know the fellow at all. I'm surehe's not nice. You must tell him to go away at once, please. Say he canwrite if he likes, but I can't give him an interview. I'm not seeinganybody at present. "

"Now dragon, dragon, " said the Boy imploringly, "don't be perverse andwrongheaded. You've GOT to fight him some time or other, you know, 'coshe's St. George and you're the dragon. Better get it over, and then wecan go on with the sonnets. And you ought to consider other people alittle, too. If it's been dull up here for you, think how dull it's beenfor me!"

"My dear little man, " said the dragon solemnly, "just understand, oncefor all, that I can't fight and I won't fight. I've never fought in mylife, and I'm not going to begin now, just to give you a Roman holiday. In old days I always let the other fellows--the EARNEST fellows--do allthe fighting, and no doubt that's why I have the pleasure of being herenow. "

"But if you don't fight he'll cut your head off!" gasped the Boy, miserable at the prospect of losing both his fight and his friend. 

"Oh, I think not, " said the dragon in his lazy way. "You'll be able toarrange something. I've every confidence in you, you're such a MANAGER. Just run down, there's a dear chap, and make it all right. I leave itentirely to you. "

The Boy made his way back to the village in a state of greatdespondency. First of all, there wasn't going to be any fight; next, his dear and honoured friend the dragon hadn't shown up in quite such aheroic light as he would have liked; and lastly, whether the dragon wasa hero at heart or not, it made no difference, for St. George would mostundoubtedly cut his head off. "Arrange things indeed!" he said bitterlyto himself. "The dragon treats the whole affair as if it was aninvitation to tea and croquet. "

The villagers were straggling homewards as he passed up the street, allof them in the highest spirits, and gleefully discussing the splendidfight that was in store. The Boy pursued his way to the inn, and passedinto the principal chamber, where St. George now sat alone, musing overthe chances of the fight, and the sad stories of rapine and of wrongthat had so lately been poured into his sympathetic ears. 

"May I come in, St. George?" said the Boy politely, as he paused at thedoor. "I want to talk to you about this little matter of the dragon, ifyou're not tired of it by this time. "

"Yes, come in, Boy, " said the Saint kindly. "Another tale of miseryand wrong, I fear me. Is it a kind parent, then, of whom the tyrant hasbereft you? Or some tender sister or brother? Well, it shall soon beavenged. "

"Nothing of the sort, " said the Boy. "There's a misunderstandingsomewhere, and I want to put it right. The fact is, this is a GOODdragon. "

"Exactly, " said St. George, smiling pleasantly, "I quite understand. A good DRAGON. Believe me, I do not in the least regret that he is anadversary worthy of my steel, and no feeble specimen of his noxioustribe. "

"But he's NOT a noxious tribe, " cried the Boy distressedly. "Oh dear, ohdear, how STUPID men are when they get an idea into their heads! I tellyou he's a GOOD dragon, and a friend of mine, and tells me the mostbeautiful stories you ever heard, all about old times and when he waslittle. And he's been so kind to mother, and mother'd do anything forhim. And father likes him too, though father doesn't hold with art andpoetry much, and always falls asleep when the dragon starts talkingabout STYLE. But the fact is, nobody can help liking him when once theyknow him. He's so engaging and so trustful, and as simple as a child!"

"Sit down, and draw your chair up, " said St. George. "I like a fellowwho sticks up for his friends, and I'm sure the dragon has his goodpoints, if he's got a friend like you. But that's not the question. Allthis evening I've been listening, with grief and anguish unspeakable, totales of murder, theft, and wrong; rather too highly coloured, perhaps, not always quite convincing, but forming in the main a most serious rollof crime. History teaches us that the greatest rascals often possess allthe domestic virtues; and I fear that your cultivated friend, in spiteof the qualities which have won (and rightly) your regard, has got to bespeedily exterminated. "

"Oh, you've been taking in all the yarns those fellows have been tellingyou, " said the Boy impatiently. "Why, our villagers are the biggeststory-tellers in all the country round. It's a known fact. You're astranger in these parts, or else you'd have heard it already. Allthey want is a FIGHT. They're the most awful beggars for getting upfights--it's meat and drink to them. Dogs, bulls, dragons--anything solong as it's a fight. Why, they've got a poor innocent badger in thestable behind here, at this moment. They were going to have some funwith him to-day, but they're saving him up now till YOUR little affair'sover. And I've no doubt they've been telling you what a hero you were, and how you were bound to win, in the cause of right and justice, and soon; but let me tell you, I came down the street just now, and they werebetting six to four on the dragon freely!"

"Six to four on the dragon!" murmured St. George sadly, resting hischeek on his hand. "This is an evil world, and sometimes I begin tothink that all the wickedness in it is not entirely bottled up insidethe dragons. And yet--may not this wily beast have misled you as to hisreal character, in order that your good report of him may serve as acloak for his evil deeds? Nay, may there not be, at this very moment, some hapless Princess immured within yonder gloomy cavern?"

The moment he had spoken, St. George was sorry for what he had said, theBoy looked so genuinely distressed. 

"I assure you, St. George, " he said earnestly, "there's nothing of thesort in the cave at all. The dragon's a real gentleman, every inch ofhim, and I may say that no one would be more shocked and grieved thanhe would, at hearing you talk in that--that LOOSE way about matters onwhich he has very strong views!"

"Well, perhaps I've been over-credulous, " said St. George. "Perhaps I'vemisjudged the animal. But what are we to do? Here are the dragon andI, almost face to face, each supposed to be thirsting for each other'sblood. I don't see any way out of it, exactly. What do you suggest?Can't you arrange things, somehow?"

"That's just what the dragon said, " replied the Boy, rather nettled. "Really, the way you two seem to leave everything to me--I suppose youcouldn't be persuaded to go away quietly, could you?"

"Impossible, I fear, " said the Saint. "Quite against the rules. YOU knowthat as well as I do. "

"Well, then, look here, " said the Boy, "it's early yet--would you mindstrolling up with me and seeing the dragon and talking it over? It's notfar, and any friend of mine will be most welcome. "

"Well, it's IRREGULAR, " said St. George, rising, "but really it seemsabout the most sensible thing to do. You're taking a lot of trouble onyour friend's account, " he added, good-naturedly, as they passed outthrough the door together. "But cheer up! Perhaps there won't have to beany fight after all. "

"Oh, but _I_ hope there will, though!" replied the little fellow, wistfully. 

"I've brought a friend to see you, dragon, " said the Boy, rather loud. 

The dragon woke up with a start. "I was just--er--thinking aboutthings, " he said in his simple way. "Very pleased to make youracquaintance, sir. Charming weather we're having!"

"This is St George, " said the Boy, shortly. "St. George, let meintroduce you to the dragon. We've come up to talk things over quietly, dragon, and now for goodness' sake do let us have a little straightcommon-sense, and come to some practical business-like arrangement, forI'm sick of views and theories of life and personal tendencies, and allthat sort of thing. I may perhaps add that my mother's sitting up. "

"So glad to meet you, St. George, " began the dragon rather nervously, "because you've been a great traveller, I hear, and I've always beenrather a stay-at-home. But I can show you many antiquities, manyinteresting features of our country-side, if you're stopping here anytime--"

"I think, " said St. George, in his frank, pleasant way, "that we'dreally better take the advice of our young friend here, and try to cometo some understanding, on a business footing, about this little affairof ours. Now don't you think that after all the simplest plan would bejust to fight it out, according to the rules, and let the best man win?They're betting on you, I may tell you, down in the village, but I don'tmind that!"

"Oh, yes, DO, dragon, " said the Boy, delightedly; "it'll save such a lotof bother!"

"My young friend, you shut up, " said the dragon severely. "Believe me, St. George, " he went on, "there's nobody in the world I'd sooner obligethan you and this young gentleman here. But the whole thing's nonsense, and conventionality, and popular thick-headedness. There's absolutelynothing to fight about, from beginning to end. And anyhow I'm not goingto, so that settles it!"

"But supposing I make you?" said St. George, rather nettled. 

"You can't, " said the dragon, triumphantly. "I should only go intomy cave and retire for a time down the hole I came up. You'd soon getheartily sick of sitting outside and waiting for me to come out andfight you. And as soon as you'd really gone away, why, I'd come up againgaily, for I tell you frankly, I like this place, and I'm going to stayhere!"

St. George gazed for a while on the fair landscape around them. "But this would be a beautiful place for a fight, " he began againpersuasively. "These great bare rolling Downs for the arena, --and mein my golden armour showing up against your big blue scaly coils! Thinkwhat a picture it would make!"

"Now you're trying to get at me through my artistic sensibilities, " saidthe dragon. "But it won't work. Not but what it would make a very prettypicture, as you say, " he added, wavering a little. 

"We seem to be getting rather nearer to BUSINESS, " put in the Boy. "Youmust see, dragon, that there's got to be a fight of some sort, 'cos youcan't want to have to go down that dirty old hole again and stop theretill goodness knows when. "

"It might be arranged, " said St. George, thoughtfully. "I MUST spear yousomewhere, of course, but I'm not bound to hurt you very much. There'ssuch a lot of you that there must be a few SPARE places somewhere. Here, for instance, just behind your foreleg. It couldn't hurt you much, justhere!"

"Now you're tickling, George, " said the dragon, coyly. "No, thatplace won't do at all. Even if it didn't hurt, --and I'm sure it would, awfully, --it would make me laugh, and that would spoil everything. "

"Let's try somewhere else, then, " said St. George, patiently. "Underyour neck, for instance, --all these folds of thick skin, --if I spearedyou here you'd never even know I'd done it!"

"Yes, but are you sure you can hit off the right place?" asked thedragon, anxiously. 

"Of course I am, " said St. George, with confidence. "You leave that tome!"

"It's just because I've GOT to leave it to you that I'm asking, " repliedthe dragon, rather testily. "No doubt you would deeply regret any erroryou might make in the hurry of the moment; but you wouldn't regretit half as much as I should! However, I suppose we've got to trustsomebody, as we go through life, and your plan seems, on the whole, asgood a one as any. "

"Look here, dragon, " interrupted the Boy, a little jealous on behalf ofhis friend, who seemed to be getting all the worst of the bargain: "Idon't quite see where YOU come in! There's to be a fight, apparently, and you're to be licked; and what I want to know is, what are YOU goingto get out of it?"

"St. George, " said the dragon, "Just tell him, please, --what will happenafter I'm vanquished in the deadly combat?"

"Well, according to the rules I suppose I shall lead you in triumph downto the market-place or whatever answers to it, " said St. George. 

"Precisely, " said the dragon. "And then--"

"And then there'll be shoutings and speeches and things, " continued St. George. "And I shall explain that you're converted, and see the error ofyour ways, and so on. "

"Quite so, " said the dragon. "And then--?"

"Oh, and then--" said St. George, "why, and then there will be the usualbanquet, I suppose. "

"Exactly, " said the dragon; "and that's where _I_ come in. Look here, "he continued, addressing the Boy, "I'm bored to death up here, and noone really appreciates me. I'm going into Society, I am, through thekindly aid of our friend here, who's taking such a lot of trouble onmy account; and you'll find I've got all the qualities to endear meto people who entertain! So now that's all settled, and if you don'tmind--I'm an old-fashioned fellow--don't want to turn you out, but--"

"Remember, you'll have to do your proper share of the fighting, dragon!"said St. George, as he took the hint and rose to go; "I mean ramping, and breathing fire, and so on!"

"I can RAMP all right, " replied the dragon, confidently; "as tobreathing fire, it's surprising how easily one gets out of practice, butI'll do the best I can. Goodnight!"

They had descended the hill and were almost back in the village again, when St. George stopped short, "KNEW I had forgotten something, " hesaid. "There ought to be a Princess. Terror-stricken and chained to arock, and all that sort of thing. Boy, can't you arrange a Princess?"

The Boy was in the middle of a tremendous yawn. "I'm tired to death, " hewailed, "and I CAN'T arrange a Princess, or anything more, at this timeof night. And my mother's sitting up, and DO stop asking me to arrangemore things till tomorrow!"

Next morning the people began streaming up to the Downs at quitean early hour, in their Sunday clothes and carrying baskets withbottle-necks sticking out of them, every one intent on securing goodplaces for the combat. This was not exactly a simple matter, for ofcourse it was quite possible that the dragon might win, and in that caseeven those who had put their money on him felt they could hardly expecthim to deal with his backers on a different footing to the rest. Placeswere chosen, therefore, with circumspection and with a view to a speedyretreat in case of emergency; and the front rank was mostly composed ofboys who had escaped from parental control and now sprawled and rolledabout on the grass, regardless of the shrill threats and warningsdischarged at them by their anxious mothers behind. 

The Boy had secured a good front place, well up towards the cave, andwas feeling as anxious as a stage-manager on a first night. Could thedragon be depended upon? He might change his mind and vote the wholeperformance rot; or else, seeing that the affair had been so hastilyplanned, without even a rehearsal, he might be too nervous to show up. The Boy looked narrowly at the cave, but it showed no sign of life oroccupation. Could the dragon have made a moon-light flitting?

The higher portions of the ground were now black with sightseers, andpresently a sound of cheering and a waving of handkerchiefs toldthat something was visible to them which the Boy, far up towards thedragon-end of the line as he was, could not yet see. A minute more andSt. George's red plumes topped the hill, as the Saint rode slowly forthon the great level space which stretched up to the grim mouth of thecave. Very gallant and beautiful he looked, on his tall war-horse, his golden armour glancing in the sun, his great spear held erect, thelittle white pennon, crimson-crossed, fluttering at its point. He drewrein and remained motionless. The lines of spectators began to give backa little, nervously; and even the boys in front stopped pulling hair andcuffing each other, and leaned forward expectant. 

"Now then, dragon!" muttered the Boy impatiently, fidgeting wherehe sat. He need not have distressed himself, had he only known. Thedramatic possibilities of the thing had tickled the dragon immensely, and he had been up from an early hour, preparing for his first publicappearance with as much heartiness as if the years had run backwards, and he had been again a little dragonlet, playing with his sisters onthe floor of their mother's cave, at the game of saints-and-dragons, inwhich the dragon was bound to win. 

A low muttering, mingled with snorts, now made itself heard; rising toa bellowing roar that seemed to fill the plain. Then a cloud of smokeobscured the mouth of the cave, and out of the midst of it the dragonhimself, shining, sea-blue, magnificent, pranced splendidly forth;and everybody said, "Oo-oo-oo!" as if he had been a mighty rocket! Hisscales were glittering, his long spiky tail lashed his sides, his clawstore up the turf and sent it flying high over his back, and smokeand fire incessantly jetted from his angry nostrils. "Oh, well done, dragon!" cried the Boy, excitedly. "Didn't think he had it in him!" headded to himself. 

St. George lowered his spear, bent his head, dug his heels into hishorse's sides, and came thundering over the turf. The dragon chargedwith a roar and a squeal, --a great blue whirling combination of coilsand snorts and clashing jaws and spikes and fire. 

"Missed!" yelled the crowd. There was a moment's entanglement of goldenarmour and blue-green coils, and spiky tail, and then the great horse, tearing at his bit, carried the Saint, his spear swung high in the air, almost up to the mouth of the cave. 

The dragon sat down and barked viciously, while St. George withdifficulty pulled his horse round into position. 

"End of Round One!" thought the Boy. "How well they managed it! But Ihope the Saint won't get excited. I can trust the dragon all right. Whata regular play-actor the fellow is!"

St. George had at last prevailed on his horse to stand steady, and waslooking round him as he wiped his brow. Catching sight of the Boy, hesmiled and nodded, and held up three fingers for an instant. 

"It seems to be all planned out, " said the Boy to himself. "Round Threeis to be the finishing one, evidently. Wish it could have lasted a bitlonger. Whatever's that old fool of a dragon up to now?"

The dragon was employing the interval in giving a ramping-performancefor the benefit of the crowd. Ramping, it should be explained, consistsin running round and round in a wide circle, and sending waves andripples of movement along the whole length of your spine, from yourpointed ears right down to the spike at the end of your long tail. Whenyou are covered with blue scales, the effect is particularly pleasing;and the Boy recollected the dragon's recently expressed wish to become asocial success. 

St. George now gathered up his reins and began to move forward, droppingthe point of his spear and settling himself firmly in the saddle. 

"Time!" yelled everybody excitedly; and the dragon, leaving off hisramping, sat up on end, and began to leap from one side to the otherwith huge ungainly bounds, whooping like a Red Indian. This naturallydisconcerted the horse, who swerved violently, the Saint only justsaving himself by the mane; and as they shot past the dragon delivereda vicious snap at the horse's tail which sent the poor beast careeringmadly far over the Downs, so that the language of the Saint, who hadlost a stirrup, was fortunately inaudible to the general assemblage. 

Round Two evoked audible evidence of friendly feeling towards thedragon. The spectators were not slow to appreciate a combatant who couldhold his own so well and clearly wanted to show good sport, and manyencouraging remarks reached the ears of our friend as he strutted to andfro, his chest thrust out and his tail in the air, hugely enjoying hisnew popularity. 

St. George had dismounted and was tightening his girths, and telling hishorse, with quite an Oriental flow of imagery, exactly what he thoughtof him, and his relations, and his conduct on the present occasion; sothe Boy made his way down to the Saint's end of the line, and held hisspear for him. 

"It's been a jolly fight, St. George!" he said with a sigh. "Can't youlet it last a bit longer?"

"Well, I think I'd better not, " replied the Saint. "The fact is, yoursimple-minded old friend's getting conceited, now they've begun cheeringhim, and he'll forget all about the arrangement and take to playing thefool, and there's no telling where he would stop. I'll just finish himoff this round. "

He swung himself into the saddle and took his spear from the Boy. 

"Now don't you be afraid, " he added kindly. "I've marked my spotexactly, and HE'S sure to give me all the assistance in his power, because he knows it's his only chance of being asked to the banquet!"

St. George now shortened his spear, bringing the butt well up under hisarm; and, instead of galloping as before, trotted smartly towards thedragon, who crouched at his approach, flicking his tail till it crackedin the air like a great cart-whip. The Saint wheeled as he neared hisopponent and circled warily round him, keeping his eye on the spareplace; while the dragon, adopting similar tactics, paced with cautionround the same circle, occasionally feinting with his head. So the twosparred for an opening, while the spectators maintained a breathlesssilence. 

Though the round lasted for some minutes, the end was so swift thatall the Boy saw was a lightning movement of the Saint's arm, and then awhirl and a confusion of spines, claws, tail, and flying bits of turf. The dust cleared away, the spectators whooped and ran in cheering, andthe Boy made out that the dragon was down, pinned to the earth by thespear, while St. George had dismounted, and stood astride of him. 

It all seemed so genuine that the Boy ran in breathlessly, hoping thedear old dragon wasn't really hurt. As he approached, the dragon liftedone large eyelid, winked solemnly, and collapsed again. He was heldfast to earth by the neck, but the Saint had hit him in the spare placeagreed upon, and it didn't even seem to tickle. 

"Bain't you goin' to cut 'is 'ed orf, master?" asked one of theapplauding crowd. He had backed the dragon, and naturally felt a triflesore. 

"Well, not TO-DAY, I think, " replied St. George, pleasantly. "You see, that can be done at ANY time. There's no hurry at all. I think we'll allgo down to the village first, and have some refreshment, and then I'llgive him a good talking-to, and you'll find he'll be a very differentdragon!"

At that magic word REFRESHMENT the whole crowd formed up in processionand silently awaited the signal to start. The time for talking andcheering and betting was past, the hour for action had arrived. St. George, hauling on his spear with both hands, released the dragon, whorose and shook himself and ran his eye over his spikes and scales andthings, to see that they were all in order. Then the Saint mounted andled off the procession, the dragon following meekly in the company ofthe Boy, while the thirsty spectators kept at a respectful intervalbehind. 

There were great doings when they got down to the village again, andhad formed up in front of the inn. After refreshment St. George madea speech, in which he informed his audience that he had removed theirdireful scourge, at a great deal of trouble and inconvenience tohim-self, and now they weren't to go about grumbling and fancying they'dgot grievances, because they hadn't. And they shouldn't be so fond offights, because next time they might have to do the fighting themselves, which would not be the same thing at all. And there was a certain badgerin the inn stables which had got to be released at once, and he'd comeand see it done himself. Then he told them that the dragon had beenthinking over things, and saw that there were two sides to everyquestion, and he wasn't going to do it any more, and if they were goodperhaps he'd stay and settle down there. So they must make friends, andnot be prejudiced and go about fancying they knew everything there wasto be known, because they didn't, not by a long way. And he warned themagainst the sin of romancing, and making up stories and fancyingother people would believe them just because they were plausible andhighly-coloured. Then he sat down, amidst much repentant cheering, andthe dragon nudged the Boy in the ribs and whispered that he couldn'thave done it better himself. Then every one went off to get ready forthe banquet. 

Banquets are always pleasant things, consisting mostly, as they do, ofeating and drinking; but the specially nice thing about a banquet is, that it comes when something's over, and there's nothing more to worryabout, and to-morrow seems a long way off. St George was happy becausethere had been a fight and he hadn't had to kill anybody; for he didn'treally like killing, though he generally had to do it. The dragon washappy because there had been a fight, and so far from being hurt in ithe had won popularity and a sure footing in society. The Boy was happybecause there had been a fight, and in spite of it all his two friendswere on the best of terms. And all the others were happy because therehad been a fight, and--well, they didn't require any other reasons fortheir happiness. The dragon exerted himself to say the right thing toeverybody, and proved the life and soul of the evening; while the Saintand the Boy, as they looked on, felt that they were only assisting at afeast of which the honour and the glory were entirely the dragon's. Butthey didn't mind that, being good fellows, and the dragon was not in theleast proud or forgetful. On the contrary, every ten minutes or so heleant over towards the Boy and said impressively: "Look here! you WILLsee me home afterwards, won't you?" And the Boy always nodded, though hehad promised his mother not to be out late. 

At last the banquet was over, the guests had dropped away with manygood-nights and congratulations and invitations, and the dragon, who hadseen the last of them off the premises, emerged into the street followedby the Boy, wiped his brow, sighed, sat down in the road and gazed atthe stars. "Jolly night it's been!" he murmured. "Jolly stars! Jollylittle place this! Think I shall just stop here. Don't feel likeclimbing up any beastly hill. Boy's promised to see me home. Boy hadbetter do it then! No responsibility on my part. Responsibilityall Boy's!" And his chin sank on his broad chest and he slumberedpeacefully. 

"Oh, GET up, dragon, " cried the Boy, piteously. "You KNEW my mother'ssitting up, and I'm so tired, and you made me promise to see you home, and I never knew what it meant or I wouldn't have done it!" And the Boysat down in the road by the side of the sleeping dragon, and cried. 

The door behind them opened, a stream of light illumined the road, andSt. George, who had come out for a stroll in the cool night-air, caughtsight of the two figures sitting there--the great motionless dragon andthe tearful little Boy. 

"What's the matter, Boy?" he inquired kindly, stepping to his side. 

"Oh, it's this great lumbering PIG of a dragon!" sobbed the Boy. "Firsthe makes me promise to see him home, and then he says I'd better do it, and goes to sleep! Might as well try to see a HAYSTACK home! And I'm sotired, and mother's--" here he broke down again. 

"Now don't take on, " said St. George. "I'll stand by you, and we'll BOTHsee him home. Wake up, dragon!" he said sharply, shaking the beast bythe elbow. 

The dragon looked up sleepily. "What a night, George!" he murmured;"what a--"

"Now look here, dragon, " said the Saint, firmly. "Here's this littlefellow waiting to see you home, and you KNOW he ought to have been inbed these two hours, and what his mother'll say _I_ don't know, andanybody but a selfish pig would have MADE him go to bed long ago--"

"And he SHALL go to bed!" cried the dragon, starting up. "Poor littlechap, only fancy his being up at this hour! It's a shame, that's whatit is, and I don't think, St. George, you've been very considerate--butcome along at once, and don't let us have any more arguing orshilly-shallying. You give me hold of your hand, Boy--thank you, George, an arm up the hill is just what I wanted!"

So they set off up the hill arm-in-arm, the Saint, the Dragon, and theBoy. The lights in the little village began to go out; but there werestars, and a late moon, as they climbed to the Downs together. And, asthey turned the last corner and disappeared from view, snatches of anold song were borne back on the night-breeze. I can't be certain whichof them was singing, but I THINK it was the Dragon!

"Here we are at your gate, " said the man, abruptly, laying his hand onit. "Good-night. Cut along in sharp, or you'll catch it!"

Could it really be our own gate? Yes, there it was, sure enough, withthe familiar marks on its bottom bar made by our feet when we swung onit. 

"Oh, but wait a minute!" cried Charlotte. "I want to know a heap ofthings. Did the dragon really settle down? And did--"

"There isn't any more of that story, " said the man, kindly but firmly. "At least, not to-night. Now be off! Good-bye!"

"Wonder if it's all true?" said Charlotte, as we hurried up the path. "Sounded dreadfully like nonsense, in parts!"

"P'raps its true for all that, " I replied encouragingly. 

Charlotte bolted in like a rabbit, out of the cold and the dark; but Ilingered a moment in the still, frosty air, for a backward glance at thesilent white world without, ere I changed it for the land of firelightand cushions and laughter. It was the day for choir-practice, andcarol-time was at hand, and a belated member was passing homewards downthe road, singing as he went:--

 "Then St. George: ee made rev'rence: in the stable so dim, Oo vanquished the dragon: so fearful and grim. So-o grim: and so-o fierce: that now may we say All peaceful is our wakin': on Chri-istmas Day!"

The singer receded, the carol died away. But I wondered, with my handon the door-latch, whether that was the song, or something like it, thatthe dragon sang as he toddled contentedly up the hill. 

A DEPARTURE

It is a very fine thing to be a real Prince. There are points abouta Pirate Chief, and to succeed to the Captaincy of a Robber Band is atruly magnificent thing. But to be an Heir has also about it somethingextremely captivating. Not only a long-lost heir--an heir of themelodrama, strutting into your hitherto unsuspected kingdom at just theright moment, loaded up with the consciousness of unguessed merit andof rights so long feloniously withheld--but even to be a commonhumdrum domestic heir is a profession to which few would refuse to beapprenticed. 

To step from leading-strings and restrictions and one glass of portafter dinner, into property and liberty and due appreciation, saved up, polished and varnished, dusted and laid in lavender, all expresslyfor you--why, even the Princedom and the Robber Captaincy, when theiranxieties and responsibilities are considered, have hardly more tooffer. And so it will continue to be a problem, to the youth in whomambition struggles with a certain sensuous appreciation of life'sside-dishes, whether the career he is called upon to select out of theglittering knick-knacks that strew the counter had better be that of anheir or an engine-driver. 

In the case of eldest sons, this problem has a way of solving itself. Inchildhood, however, the actual heirship is apt to work on the principleof the "Borough-English" of our happier ancestors, and in most casesof inheritance it is the youngest that succeeds. Where the "res" is"angusta, " and the weekly books are simply a series of stiff hurdlesat each of which in succession the paternal legs falter with growingsuspicion of their powers to clear the flight, it is in the affair ofCLOTHES that the right of succession tells, and "the hard heir stridesabout the land" in trousers long ago framed for fraternal limbs--frondesnovas et non sua poma. A bitter thing indeed! Of those pretty silkenthreads that knit humanity together, high and low, past and present, none is tougher, more pervading, or more iridescent, than the honest, simple pleasure of new clothes. 

It tugs at the man as it tugs at the woman; the smirk of the well-fittedprince is no different from the smirk of the Sunday-clad peasant; andthe veins of the elders tingle with the same thrill that sets theirfresh-frocked grandchildren skipping. Never trust people who pretendthat they have no joy in their new clothes. 

Let not our souls be wrung, however, at contemplation of the lucklessurchin cut off by parental penury from the rapture of new clothes. Justas the heroes of his dreams are his immediate seniors, so his heroes'clothes share the glamour, and the reversion of them carries a highprivilege--a special thing not sold by Swears and Wells. The sword ofGalahad--and of many another hero--arrived on the scene already hoarywith history, and the boy rather prefers his trousers to be legendary, famous, haloed by his hero's renown--even though the nap may havealtogether vanished in the process. 

But, putting clothes aside, there are other matters in which thisreversed heirship comes into play. Take the case of Toys. It is hardlyright or fitting--and in this the child quite acquiesces--that as heapproaches the reverend period of nine or say ten years, he should stillbe the unabashed and proclaimed possessor of a hoop and a Noah's Ark. The child will quite see the reasonableness of this, and, the goal ofhis ambition being now a catapult, a pistol, or even a sword-stick, willbe satisfied that the titular ownership should lapse to his juniors, sofar below him in their kilted or petticoated incompetence. After all, the things are still there, and if relapses of spirit occur, on wetafternoons, one can still (nominally) borrow them and be happy onthe floor as of old, without the reproach of being a habitual babytoy-caresser. Also one can pretend it's being done to amuse the youngerones. 

None of us, therefore, grumbled when in the natural course of things thenominal ownership of the toys slipped down to Harold, and from him inturn devolved upon Charlotte. The toys were still there; they always hadbeen there and always would be there, and when the nursery door wasfast shut there were no Kings or Queens or First Estates in that smallRepublic on the floor. Charlotte, to be sure, chin-tilted, at last anowner of real estate, might patronize a little at times; but it wastacitly understood that her "title" was only a drawing-room one. 

Why does a coming bereavement project no thin faint voice, no shadow ofits woe, to warn its happy, heedless victims? Why cannot Olympians everthink it worth while to give some hint of the thunderbolts they aresilently forging? And why, oh, why did it never enter any of our thickheads that the day would come when even Charlotte would be consideredtoo matronly for toys? One's so-called education is hammered into onewith rulers and with canes. Each fresh grammar or musical instrument, each new historical period or quaint arithmetical rule, is impressedon one by some painful physical prelude. Why does Time, the biggestSchoolmaster, alone neglect premonitory raps, at each stage of hiscurriculum, on our knuckles or our heads?

Uncle Thomas was at the bottom of it. This was not the first mine he hadexploded under our bows. In his favourite pursuit of fads he had passedin turn from Psychical Research to the White Rose and thence to aChildren's Hospital, and we were being daily inundated with leafletsheaded by a woodcut depicting Little Annie (of Poplar) sitting up inher little white cot, surrounded by the toys of the nice, kind, rich children. The idea caught on with the Olympians, always open tosentiment of a treacly, woodcut order; and accordingly Charlotte, onentering one day dishevelled and panting, having been pursued by yellingRedskins up to the very threshold of our peaceful home, was curtlyinformed that her French lessons would begin on Monday, that she washenceforth to cease all pretence of being a trapper or a Redskin onutterly inadequate grounds, and moreover that the whole of her toys wereat that moment being finally packed up in a box, for despatch to London, to gladden the lives and bring light into the eyes of London waifs andPoplar Annies. 

Naturally enough, perhaps, we others received no official intimation ofthis grave cession of territory. We were not supposed to be interested. Harold had long ago been promoted to a knife--a recognized, birthdayknife. As for me, it was known that I was already given over, heart andsoul, to lawless abandoned catapults--catapults which were confiscatedweekly for reasons of international complications, but with which Edwardkept me steadily supplied, his school having a fine old tradition forexcellence in their manufacture. Therefore no one was supposed to bereally affected but Charlotte, and even she had already reached MissYonge, and should therefore have been more interested in prolificcurates and harrowing deathbeds. 

Nothwithstanding, we all felt indignant, betrayed, and sullen to theverge of mutiny. Though for long we had affected to despise them, thesetoys, yet they had grown up with us, shared our joys and our sorrows, seen us at our worst, and become part of the accepted scheme ofexistence. As we gazed at untenanted shelves and empty, hatefully tidycorners, perhaps for the first time for long we began to do them a tardyjustice. 

There was old Leotard, for instance. Somehow he had come to be sadlyneglected of late years--and yet how exactly he always respondedto certain moods! He was an acrobat, this Leotard, who lived in aglass-fronted box. His loose-jointed limbs were cardboard, cardboard hisslender trunk; and his hands eternally grasped the bar of a trapeze. Youturned the box round swiftly five or six times; the wonderful unsolvedmachinery worked, and Leotard swung and leapt, backwards, forwards, now astride the bar, now flying free; iron-jointed, supple-sinewed, unceasingly novel in his invention of new, unguessable attitudes; whileabove, below, and around him, a richly-dressed audience, painted inskilful perspective of stalls, boxes, dress-circle, and gallery, watchedthe thrilling performance with a stolidity which seemed to mark themout as made in Germany. Hardly versatile enough, perhaps, this Leotard;unsympathetic, not a companion for all hours; nor would you have chosenhim to take to bed with you. 

And yet, within his own limits, how fresh, how engrossing, howresourceful and inventive! Well, he was gone, it seemed--merely gone. Never specially cherished while he tarried with us, he had yet contrivedto build himself a particular niche of his own. Sunrise and sunset, andthe dinner-bell, and the sudden rainbow, and lessons, and Leotard, andthe moon through the nursery windows--they were all part of thegreat order of things, and the displacement of any one item seemed todisorganize the whole machinery. The immediate point was, not that theworld would continue to go round as of old, but that Leotard wouldn't. 

Yonder corner, now swept and garnished, had been the stall wherein thespotty horse, at the close of each laborious day, was accustomed to dozepeacefully the long night through. In days of old each of us in turn hadbeen jerked thrillingly round the room on his precarious back, had dugour heels into his unyielding sides, and had scratched our hands on thetin tacks that secured his mane to his stiffly-curving neck. Later, withincreasing stature, we came to overlook his merits as a beast ofburden; but how frankly, how good-naturedly, he had recognized the newconditions, and adapted himself to them without a murmur!

When the military spirit was abroad, who so ready to be a squadron ofcavalry, a horde of Cossacks, or artillery pounding into position? Hehad even served with honour as a gun-boat, during a period when navalstrategy was the only theme; and no false equine pride ever hindered himfrom taking the part of a roaring locomotive, earth-shaking, clangorous, annihilating time and space. Really it was no longer clear how life, with its manifold emergencies, was to be carried on at all without afellow like the spotty horse, ready to step in at critical moments andtake up just the part required of him. 

In moments of mental depression, nothing is quite so consoling as thehonest smell of a painted animal; and mechanically I turned towards theshelf that had been so long the Ararat of our weather-beaten Ark. The shelf was empty, the Ark had cast off moorings and sailed awayto Poplar, and had taken with it its haunting smell, as well as thatpleasant sense of disorder that the best conducted Ark is always able toimpart. The sliding roof had rarely been known to close entirely. Therewas always a pair of giraffe-legs sticking out, or an elephant-trunk, taking from the stiffness of its outline, and reminding us that ourmotley crowd of friends inside were uncomfortably cramped for room andonly too ready to leap in a cascade on the floor and browse and gallop, flutter and bellow and neigh, and be their natural selves again. Ithink that none of us ever really thought very much of Ham and Shem andJaphet. They were only there because they were in the story, butnobody really wanted them. The Ark was built for the animals, ofcourse--animals with tails, and trunks, and horns, and at least threelegs apiece, though some unfortunates had been unable to retain eventhat number. And in the animals were of course included the birds--thedove, for instance, grey with black wings, and the red-crestedwoodpecker--or was it a hoo-poe?--and the insects, for there was a dearbeetle, about the same size as the dove, that held its own with any ofthe mammalia. 

Of the doll-department Charlotte had naturally been sole chief for along time; if the staff were not in their places to-day, it was not Iwho had any official right to take notice. And yet one may have beenmember of a Club for many a year without ever exactly understanding theuse and object of the other members, until one enters, some Christmasday or other holiday, and, surveying the deserted armchairs, theuntenanted sofas, the barren hat-pegs, realizes, with depression, thatthose other fellows had their allotted functions, after all. Wherewas old Jerry? Where were Eugenie, Rosa, Sophy, Esmeralda? We had longdrifted apart, it was true, we spoke but rarely; perhaps, absorbed innew ambitions, new achievements, I had even come to look down on theseconservative, unprogressive members who were so clearly content toremain simply what they were. And now that their corners were unfilled, their chairs unoccupied--well, my eyes were opened and I wanted 'emback!

However, it was no business of mine. If grievances were the question, I hadn't a leg to stand upon. Though my catapults were officiallyconfiscated, I knew the drawer in which they were incarcerated, andwhere the key of it was hidden, and I could make life a burden, if Ichose, to every living thing within a square-mile radius, so long asthe catapult was restored to its drawer in due and decent time. ButI wondered how the others were taking it. The edict hit them moreseverely. They should have my moral countenance at any rate, if notmore, in any protest or countermine they might be planning. And, indeed, something seemed possible, from the dogged, sullen air with which thetwo of them had trotted off in the direction of the raspberry-canes. Certain spots always had their insensible attraction for certainmoods. In love, one sought the orchard. Weary of discipline, sick ofconvention, impassioned for the road, the mining camp, the land acrossthe border, one made for the big meadow. Mutinous, sulky, chargedwith plots and conspiracies, one always got behind the shelter of theraspberry-canes. 

*****

"You can come too if you like, " said Harold, in a subdued sort of way, as soon as he was aware that I was sitting up in bed watching him. "Wedidn't think you'd care, 'cos you've got to catapults. But we're goin'to do what we've settled to do, so it's no good sayin' we hadn't oughtand that sort of thing, 'cos we're goin' to!"

The day had passed in an ominous peacefulness. Charlotte and Harold hadkept out of my way, as well as out of everybody else's, in a purposefulmanner that ought to have bred suspicion. 

In the evening we had read books, or fitfully drawn ships and battleson fly-leaves, apart, in separate corners, void of conversation orcriticism, oppressed by the lowering tidiness of the universe, tillbedtime came, and disrobement, and prayers even more mechanical thanusual, and lastly bed itself without so much as a giraffe underthe pillow. Harold had grunted himself between the sheets with anostentatious pretence of overpowering fatigue; but I noticed that hepulled his pillow forward and propped his head against the brass barsof his crib, and, as I was acquainted with most of his tricks andsubterfuges, it was easy for me to gather that a painful wakefulness washis aim that night. 

I had dozed off, however, and Harold was out and on his feet, pokingunder the bed for his shoes, when I sat up and grimly regarded him. Justas he said I could come if I liked, Charlotte slipped in, her face rigidand set. And then it was borne in upon me that I was not on in thisscene. These youngsters had planned it all out, the piece was theirown, and the mounting, and the cast. My sceptre had fallen, my rule hadceased. In this magic hour of the summer night laws went for nothing, codes were cancelled, and those who were most in touch with themoonlight and the warm June spirit and the topsy-turvydom that reignswhen the clock strikes ten, were the true lords and lawmakers. 

Humbly, almost timidly, I followed without a protest in the wake ofthese two remorseless, purposeful young persons, who were marchingstraight for the schoolroom. Here in the moonlight the grim big boxstood visible--the box in which so large a portion of our past and ourpersonality lay entombed, cold, swathed in paper, awaiting the carrierof the morning who should speed them forth to the strange, cold, distant Children's Hospital, where their little failings would all bemisunderstood and no one would make allowances. A dreamy spectator, Istood idly by while Harold propped up the lid and the two plunged intheir arms and probed and felt and grappled. 

"Here's Rosa, " said Harold, suddenly. "I know the feel of her hair. Willyou have Rosa out?"

"Oh, give me Rosa!" cried Charlotte with a sort of gasp. And when Rosahad been dragged forth, quite unmoved apparently, placid as ever in hermoonfaced contemplation of this comedy-world with its ups and downs, Charlotte retired with her to the window-seat, and there in themoonlight the two exchanged their private confidences, leaving Harold tohis exploration alone. 

"Here's something with sharp corners, " said Harold, presently. "Must beLeotard, I think. Better let HIM go. "

"Oh, yes, we can't save Leotard, " assented Charlotte, limply. 

Poor old Leotard! I said nothing, of course; I was not on in this piece. But, surely, had Leotard heard and rightly understood all that was goingon above him, he must have sent up one feeble, strangled cry, one faintappeal to be rescued from unfamiliar little Annies and retained for anaudience certain to appreciate and never unduly critical. 

"Now I've got to the Noah's Ark, " panted Harold, still groping blindly. 

"Try and shove the lid back a bit, " said Charlotte, "and pull out a doveor a zebra or a giraffe if there's one handy. "

Harold toiled on with grunts and contortions, and presently produced intriumph a small grey elephant and a large beetle with a red stomach. 

"They're jammed in too tight, " he complained. "Can't get any more out. But as I came up I'm sure I felt Potiphar!" And down he dived again. 

Potiphar was a finely modelled bull with a suede skin, rough andcomfortable and warm in bed. He was my own special joy and pride, and Ithrilled with honest emotion when Potiphar emerged to light once more, stout-necked and stalwart as ever. 

"That'll have to do, " said Charlotte, getting up. "We dursn't take anymore, 'cos we'll be found out if we do. Make the box all right, andbring 'em along. "

Harold rammed down the wads of paper and twists of straw he haddisturbed, replaced the lid squarely and innocently, and picked up hissmall salvage; and we sneaked off for the window most generally in usefor prison-breakings and nocturnal escapades. A few seconds later and wewere hurrying silently in single file along the dark edge of the lawn. 

Oh, the riot, the clamour, the crowding chorus, of all silent thingsthat spoke by scent and colour and budding thrust and foison, thatmoonlit night of June! Under the laurel-shade all was still ghostlyenough, brigand-haunted, crackling, whispering of night and all itspossibilities of terror. But the open garden, when once we were init--how it turned a glad new face to welcome us, glad as of old whenthe sunlight raked and searched it, new with the unfamiliar night-aspectthat yet welcomed us as guests to a hall where the horns blew up to anew, strange banquet! Was this the same grass, could these be the samefamiliar flower-beds, alleys, clumps of verdure, patches of sward?At least this full white light that was flooding them was new, andaccounted for all. It was Moonlight Land, and Past-Ten-o'clock Land, andwe were in it and of it, and all its other denizens fully understood, and, tongue-free and awakened at last, responded and comprehended andknew. The other two, doubtless, hurrying forward full of their mission, noted little of all this. I, who was only a super, had leisure to takeit all in, and, though the language and the message of the land were notall clear to me then, long afterwards I remembered and understood. 

Under the farthest hedge, at the loose end of things, where the outerworld began with the paddock, there was darkness once again--not theblackness that crouched so solidly under the crowding laurels, but aduskiness hung from far-spread arms of high-standing elms. There, wherethe small grave made a darker spot on the grey, I overtook them, onlyjust in time to see Rosa laid stiffly out, her cherry cheeks pale in themoonlight, but her brave smile triumphant and undaunted as ever. Itwas a tiny grave and a shallow one, to hold so very much. Rosa once in, Potiphar, who had hitherto stood erect, stout-necked, through so manydays and such various weather, must needs bow his head and lie downmeekly on his side. The elephant and the beetle, equal now in a silentland where a vertebra and a red circulation counted for nothing, had tosnuggle down where best they might, only a little less crowded than intheir native Ark. 

The earth was shovelled in and stamped down, and I was glad that noorisons were said and no speechifying took place. The whole thing wasnatural and right and self-explanatory, and needed no justifying orinterpreting to our audience of stars and flowers. The connexion was notentirely broken now--one link remained between us and them. The Noah'sArk, with its cargo of sad-faced emigrants, might be hull down onthe horizon, but two of its passengers had missed the boat and wouldhenceforth be always near us; and, as we played above them, an elephantwould understand, and a beetle would hear, and crawl again in spiritalong a familiar floor. Henceforth the spotty horse would scour alongfar-distant plains and know the homesickness of alien stables; butPotiphar, though never again would he paw the arena when bull-fightswere on the bill, was spared maltreatment by town-bred strangers, quitecapable of mistaking him for a cow. Jerry and Esmeralda might shed theirlimbs and their stuffing, by slow or swift degrees, in uttermost partsand unguessed corners of the globe; but Rosa's book was finally closed, and no worse fate awaited her than natural dissolution almost withintouch and hail of familiar faces and objects that had been friendly toher since first she opened her eyes on a world where she had never beentreated as a stranger. 

As we turned to go, the man in the moon, tangled in elm-boughs, caughtmy eye for a moment, and I thought that never had he looked so friendly. He was going to see after them, it was evident; for he was always there, more or less, and it was no trouble to him at all, and he would tellthem how things were still going, up here, and throw in a story or twoof his own whenever they seemed a trifle dull. It made the going awayrather easier, to know one had left somebody behind on the spot; a goodfellow, too, cheery, comforting, with a fund of anecdote; a man in whomone had every confidence.