Title: John Ingerfield, and Other Stories
Author: Jerome, Jerome K. (Jerome Klapka)
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.


*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "John Ingerfield, and Other Stories" ***


JOHN INGERFIELD
AND OTHER STORIES

by Jerome K. Jerome



Contents

 To the Gentle Reader
 In Remembrance of John Ingerfield and of Anne, his Wife
 The Woman of the Sæter
 Variety Patter
 Silhouettes
 The Lease of the “Cross Keys”



TO THE GENTLE READER;
also
TO THE GENTLE CRITIC.


Once upon a time, I wrote a little story of a woman who was crushed to
death by a python. A day or two after its publication, a friend stopped
me in the street. “Charming little story of yours,” he said, “that
about the woman and the snake; but it’s not as funny as some of your
things!” The next week, a newspaper, referring to the tale, remarked,
“We have heard the incident related before with infinitely greater
humour.”

With this—and many similar experiences—in mind, I wish distinctly to
state that “John Ingerfield,” “The Woman of the Sæter,” and
“Silhouettes,” are not intended to be amusing. The two other
items—“Variety Patter,” and “The Lease of the Cross Keys”—I give over
to the critics of the new humour to rend as they will; but “John
Ingerfield,” “The Woman of the Sæter,” and “Silhouettes,” I repeat, I
should be glad if they would judge from some other standpoint than that
of humour, new or old.



IN REMEMBRANCE OF JOHN INGERFIELD, AND OF ANNE, HIS WIFE
A STORY OF OLD LONDON, IN TWO CHAPTERS

CHAPTER I.


If you take the Underground Railway to Whitechapel Road (the East
station), and from there take one of the yellow tramcars that start
from that point, and go down the Commercial Road, past the George, in
front of which stands—or used to stand—a high flagstaff, at the base of
which sits—or used to sit—an elderly female purveyor of pigs’ trotters
at three-ha’pence apiece, until you come to where a railway arch
crosses the road obliquely, and there get down and turn to the right up
a narrow, noisy street leading to the river, and then to the right
again up a still narrower street, which you may know by its having a
public-house at one corner (as is in the nature of things) and a marine
store-dealer’s at the other, outside which strangely stiff and
unaccommodating garments of gigantic size flutter ghost-like in the
wind, you will come to a dingy railed-in churchyard, surrounded on all
sides by cheerless, many-peopled houses. Sad-looking little old houses
they are, in spite of the tumult of life about their ever open doors.
They and the ancient church in their midst seem weary of the ceaseless
jangle around them. Perhaps, standing there for so many years,
listening to the long silence of the dead, the fretful voices of the
living sound foolish in their ears.

Peering through the railings on the side nearest the river, you will
see beneath the shadow of the soot-grimed church’s soot-grimed
porch—that is, if the sun happen, by rare chance, to be strong enough
to cast any shadow at all in that region of grey light—a curiously high
and narrow headstone that once was white and straight, not tottering
and bent with age as it is now. There is upon this stone a carving in
bas-relief, as you will see for yourself if you will make your way to
it through the gateway on the opposite side of the square. It
represents, so far as can be made out, for it is much worn by time and
dirt, a figure lying on the ground with another figure bending over it,
while at a little distance stands a third object. But this last is so
indistinct that it might be almost anything, from an angel to a post.

And below the carving are the words (already half obliterated) that I
have used for the title of this story.

Should you ever wander of a Sunday morning within sound of the cracked
bell that calls a few habit-bound, old-fashioned folk to worship within
those damp-stained walls, and drop into talk with the old men who on
such days sometimes sit, each in his brass-buttoned long brown coat,
upon the low stone coping underneath those broken railings, you might
hear this tale from them, as I did, more years ago than I care to
recollect.

But lest you do not choose to go to all this trouble, or lest the old
men who could tell it you have grown tired of all talk, and are not to
be roused ever again into the telling of tales, and you yet wish for
the story, I will here set it down for you.

But I cannot recount it to you as they told it to me, for to me it was
only a tale that I heard and remembered, thinking to tell it again for
profit, while to them it was a thing that had been, and the threads of
it were interwoven with the woof of their own life. As they talked,
faces that I did not see passed by among the crowd and turned and
looked at them, and voices that I did not hear spoke to them below the
clamour of the street, so that through their thin piping voices there
quivered the deep music of life and death, and my tale must be to
theirs but as a gossip’s chatter to the story of him whose breast has
felt the press of battle.

* * * * *

John Ingerfield, oil and tallow refiner, of Lavender Wharf, Limehouse,
comes of a hard-headed, hard-fisted stock. The first of the race that
the eye of Record, piercing the deepening mists upon the centuries
behind her, is able to discern with any clearness is a long-haired,
sea-bronzed personage, whom men call variously Inge or Unger. Out of
the wild North Sea he has come. Record observes him, one of a small,
fierce group, standing on the sands of desolate Northumbria, staring
landward, his worldly wealth upon his back. This consists of a
two-handed battle-axe, value perhaps some forty stycas in the currency
of the time. A careful man, with business capabilities, may, however,
manipulate a small capital to great advantage. In what would appear, to
those accustomed to our slow modern methods, an incredibly short space
of time, Inge’s two-handed battle-axe has developed into wide lands and
many head of cattle; which latter continue to multiply with a rapidity
beyond the dreams of present-day breeders. Inge’s descendants would
seem to have inherited the genius of their ancestor, for they prosper
and their worldly goods increase. They are a money-making race. In all
times, out of all things, by all means, they make money. They fight for
money, marry for money, live for money, are ready to die for money.

In the days when the most saleable and the highest priced article in
the markets of Europe was a strong arm and a cool head, then each
Ingerfield (as “Inge,” long rooted in Yorkshire soil, had grown or been
corrupted to) was a soldier of fortune, and offered his strong arm and
his cool head to the highest bidder. They fought for their price, and
they took good care that they obtained their price; but, the price
settled, they fought well, for they were staunch men and true,
according to their lights, though these lights may have been placed
somewhat low down, near the earth.

Then followed the days when the chief riches of the world lay tossed
for daring hands to grasp upon the bosom of the sea, and the sleeping
spirit of the old Norse Rover stirred in their veins, and the lilt of a
wild sea-song they had never heard kept ringing in their ears; and they
built them ships and sailed for the Spanish Main, and won much wealth,
as was their wont.

Later on, when Civilisation began to lay down and enforce sterner rules
for the game of life, and peaceful methods promised to prove more
profitable than violent, the Ingerfields became traders and merchants
of grave mien and sober life; for their ambition from generation to
generation remains ever the same, their various callings being but
means to an end.

A hard, stern race of men they would seem to have been, but just—so far
as they understood justice. They have the reputation of having been
good husbands, fathers, and masters; but one cannot help thinking of
them as more respected than loved.

They were men to exact the uttermost farthing due to them, yet not
without a sense of the thing due from them, their own duty and
responsibility—nay, not altogether without their moments of heroism,
which is the duty of great men. History relates how a certain Captain
Ingerfield, returning with much treasure from the West Indies—how
acquired it were, perhaps, best not to inquire too closely—is
overhauled upon the high seas by King’s frigate. Captain of King’s
frigate sends polite message to Captain Ingerfield requesting him to be
so kind as to promptly hand over a certain member of his ship’s
company, who, by some means or another, has made himself objectionable
to King’s friends, in order that he (the said objectionable person) may
be forthwith hanged from the yard-arm.

Captain Ingerfield returns polite answer to Captain of King’s frigate
that he (Captain Ingerfield) will, with much pleasure, hang any member
of his ship’s company that needs hanging, but that neither the King of
England nor any one else on God Almighty’s sea is going to do it for
him. Captain of King’s frigate sends back word that if objectionable
person be not at once given up he shall be compelled with much regret
to send Ingerfield and his ship to the bottom of the Atlantic. Replies
Captain Ingerfield, “That is just what he will have to do before I give
up one of my people,” and fights the big frigate—fights it so fiercely
that after three hours Captain of King’s frigate thinks it will be good
to try argument again, and sends therefore a further message,
courteously acknowledging Captain Ingerfield’s courage and skill, and
suggesting that, he having done sufficient to vindicate his honour and
renown, it would be politic to now hand over the unimportant cause of
contention, and so escape with his treasure.

“Tell your Captain,” shouts back this Ingerfield, who has discovered
there are sweeter things to fight for than even money, “that the _Wild
Goose_ has flown the seas with her belly full of treasure before now,
and will, if it be God’s pleasure, so do again, but that master and man
in her sail together, fight together, and die together.”

Whereupon King’s frigate pounds away more vigorously than ever, and
succeeds eventually in carrying out her threat. Down goes the _Wild
Goose_, her last chase ended—down she goes with a plunge, spit foremost
with her colours flying; and down with her goes every man left standing
on her decks; and at the bottom of the Atlantic they lie to this day,
master and man side by side, keeping guard upon their treasure.

Which incident, and it is well authenticated, goes far to prove that
the Ingerfields, hard men and grasping men though they be—men caring
more for the getting of money than for the getting of love—loving more
the cold grip of gold than the grip of kith or kin, yet bear buried in
their hearts the seeds of a nobler manhood, for which, however, the
barren soil of their ambition affords scant nourishment.

The John Ingerfield of this story is a man very typical of his race. He
has discovered that the oil and tallow refining business, though not a
pleasant one, is an exceedingly lucrative one. These are the good days
when George the Third is king, and London is rapidly becoming a city of
bright night. Tallow and oil and all materials akin thereto are in
ever-growing request, and young John Ingerfield builds himself a large
refining house and warehouse in the growing suburb of Limehouse, which
lies between the teeming river and the quiet fields, gathers many
people round about him, puts his strong heart into his work, and
prospers.

All the days of his youth he labours and garners, and lays out and
garners yet again. In early middle age he finds himself a wealthy man.
The chief business of life, the getting of money, is practically done;
his enterprise is firmly established, and will continue to grow with
ever less need of husbandry. It is time for him to think about the
secondary business of life, the getting together of a wife and home,
for the Ingerfields have ever been good citizens, worthy heads of
families, openhanded hosts, making a brave show among friends and
neighbours.

John Ingerfield, sitting in his stiff, high-backed chair, in his
stiffly, but solidly, furnished dining-room, above his counting-house,
sipping slowly his one glass of port, takes counsel with himself.

What shall she be?

He is rich, and can afford a good article. She must be young and
handsome, fit to grace the fine house he will take for her in
fashionable Bloomsbury, far from the odour and touch of oil and tallow.
She must be well bred, with a gracious, noble manner, that will charm
his guests and reflect honour and credit upon himself; she must, above
all, be of good family, with a genealogical tree sufficiently
umbrageous to hide Lavender Wharf from the eyes of Society.

What else she may or may not be he does not very much care. She will,
of course, be virtuous and moderately pious, as it is fit and proper
that women should be. It will also be well that her disposition be
gentle and yielding, but that is of minor importance, at all events so
far as he is concerned: the Ingerfield husbands are not the class of
men upon whom wives vent their tempers.

Having decided in his mind _what_ she shall be, he proceeds to discuss
with himself _who_ she shall be. His social circle is small.
Methodically, in thought, he makes the entire round of it, mentally
scrutinising every maiden that he knows. Some are charming, some are
fair, some are rich; but no one of them approaches near to his
carefully considered ideal.

He keeps the subject in his mind, and muses on it in the intervals of
business. At odd moments he jots down names as they occur to him upon a
slip of paper, which he pins for the purpose on the inside of the cover
of his desk. He arranges them alphabetically, and when it is as
complete as his memory can make it, he goes critically down the list,
making a few notes against each. As a result, it becomes clear to him
that he must seek among strangers for his wife.

He has a friend, or rather an acquaintance, an old school-fellow, who
has developed into one of those curious social flies that in all ages
are to be met with buzzing contentedly within the most exclusive
circles, and concerning whom, seeing that they are neither rare nor
rich, nor extraordinarily clever nor well born, one wonders “how the
devil they got there!” Meeting this man by chance one afternoon, he
links his arm in his and invites him home to dinner.

So soon as they are left alone, with the walnuts and wine between them,
John Ingerfield says, thoughtfully cracking a hard nut between his
fingers—

“Will, I’m going to get married.”

“Excellent idea—delighted to hear it, I’m sure,” replies Will, somewhat
less interested in the information than in the delicately flavoured
Madeira he is lovingly sipping. “Who’s the lady?”

“I don’t know, yet,” is John Ingerfield’s answer.

His friend glances slyly at him over his glass, not sure whether he is
expected to be amused or sympathetically helpful.

“I want you to find one for me.”

Will Cathcart puts down his glass and stares at his host across the
table.

“Should be delighted to help you, Jack,” he stammers, in an alarmed
tone—“’pon my soul I should; but really don’t know a damned woman I
could recommend—’pon my soul I don’t.”

“You must see a good many: I wish you’d look out for one that you
_could_ recommend.”

“Certainly I will, my dear Jack!” answers the other, in a relieved
voice. “Never thought about ’em in that way before. Daresay I shall
come across the very girl to suit you. I’ll keep my eyes open and let
you know.”

“I shall be obliged to you if you will,” replies John Ingerfield,
quietly; “and it’s your turn, I think, to oblige me, Will. I have
obliged you, if you recollect.”

“Shall never forget it, my dear Jack,” murmurs Will, a little uneasily.
“It was uncommonly good of you. You saved me from ruin, Jack: shall
think about it to my dying day—’pon my soul I shall.”

“No need to let it worry you for so long a period as that,” returns
John, with the faintest suspicion of a smile playing round his firm
mouth. “The bill falls due at the end of next month. You can discharge
the debt then, and the matter will be off your mind.”

Will finds his chair growing uncomfortable under him, while the Madeira
somehow loses its flavour. He gives a short, nervous laugh.

“By Jove,” he says: “so soon as that? The date had quite slipped my
memory.”

“Fortunate that I reminded you,” says John, the smile round his lips
deepening.

Will fidgets on his seat. “I’m afraid, my dear Jack,” he says, “I shall
have to get you to renew it, just for a month or two,—deuced awkward
thing, but I’m remarkably short of money this year. Truth is, I can’t
get what’s owing to myself.”

“That’s very awkward, certainly,” replies his friend, “because I am not
at all sure that I shall be able to renew it.”

Will stares at him in some alarm. “But what am I to do if I hav’n’t the
money?”

John Ingerfield shrugs his shoulders.

“You don’t mean, my dear Jack, that you would put me in prison?”

“Why not? Other people have to go there who can’t pay their debts.”

Will Cathcart’s alarm grows to serious proportions. “But our
friendship,” he cries, “our—”

“My dear Will,” interrupts the other, “there are few friends I would
lend three hundred pounds to and make no effort to get it back. You,
certainly, are not one of them.”

“Let us make a bargain,” he continues. “Find me a wife, and on the day
of my marriage I will send you back that bill with, perhaps, a couple
of hundred added. If by the end of next month you have not introduced
me to a lady fit to be, and willing to be, Mrs. John Ingerfield, I
shall decline to renew it.”

John Ingerfield refills his own glass and hospitably pushes the bottle
towards his guest—who, however, contrary to his custom, takes no notice
of it, but stares hard at his shoe-buckles.

“Are you serious?” he says at length.

“Quite serious,” is the answer. “I want to marry. My wife must be a
lady by birth and education. She must be of good family—of family
sufficiently good, indeed, to compensate for the refinery. She must be
young and beautiful and charming. I am purely a business man. I want a
woman capable of conducting the social department of my life. I know of
no such lady myself. I appeal to you, because you, I know, are intimate
with the class among whom she must be sought.”

“There may be some difficulty in persuading a lady of the required
qualifications to accept the situation,” says Cathcart, with a touch of
malice.

“I want you to find one who will,” says John Ingerfield.

Early in the evening Will Cathcart takes leave of his host, and departs
thoughtful and anxious; and John Ingerfield strolls contemplatively up
and down his wharf, for the smell of oil and tallow has grown to be
very sweet to him, and it is pleasant to watch the moonbeams shining on
the piled-up casks.

Six weeks go by. On the first day of the seventh John takes Will
Cathcart’s acceptance from its place in the large safe, and lays it in
the smaller box beside his desk, devoted to more pressing and immediate
business. Two days later Cathcart picks his way across the slimy yard,
passes through the counting-house, and enters his friend’s inner
sanctum, closing the door behind him.

He wears a jubilant air, and slaps the grave John on the back. “I’ve
got her, Jack,” he cries. “It’s been hard work, I can tell you:
sounding suspicious old dowagers, bribing confidential servants,
fishing for information among friends of the family. By Jove, I shall
be able to join the Duke’s staff as spy-in-chief to His Majesty’s
entire forces after this!”

“What is she like?” asks John, without stopping his writing.

“Like! My dear Jack, you’ll fall over head and ears in love with her
the moment you see her. A little cold, perhaps, but that will just suit
you.”

“Good family?” asks John, signing and folding the letter he has
finished.

“So good that I was afraid at first it would be useless thinking of
her. But she’s a sensible girl, no confounded nonsense about her, and
the family are poor as church mice. In fact—well, to tell the truth, we
have become most excellent friends, and she told me herself frankly
that she meant to marry a rich man, and didn’t much care whom.”

“That sounds hopeful,” remarks the would-be bridegroom, with his
peculiar dry smile: “when shall I have the pleasure of seeing her?”

“I want you to come with me to-night to the Garden,” replies the other;
“she will be in Lady Heatherington’s box, and I will introduce you.”

So that evening John Ingerfield goes to Covent Garden Theatre, with the
blood running a trifle quicker in his veins, but not much, than would
be the case were he going to the docks to purchase tallow—examines,
covertly, the proposed article from the opposite side of the house, and
approves her—is introduced to her, and, on closer inspection, approves
her still more—receives an invitation to visit—visits frequently, and
each time is more satisfied of the rarity, serviceableness, and quality
of the article.

If all John Ingerfield requires for a wife is a beautiful social
machine, surely here he has found his ideal. Anne Singleton, only
daughter of that persistently unfortunate but most charming of
baronets, Sir Harry Singleton (more charming, it is rumoured, outside
his family circle than within it), is a stately, graceful, high-bred
woman. Her portrait, by Reynolds, still to be seen above the carved
wainscoting of one of the old City halls, shows a wonderfully handsome
and clever face, but at the same time a wonderfully cold and heartless
one. It is the face of a woman half weary of, half sneering at the
world. One reads in old family letters, whereof the ink is now very
faded and the paper very yellow, long criticisms of this portrait. The
writers complain that if the picture is at all like her she must have
greatly changed since her girlhood, for they remember her then as
having a laughing and winsome expression.

They say—they who knew her in after-life—that this earlier face came
back to her in the end, so that the many who remembered opening their
eyes and seeing her bending down over them could never recognise the
portrait of the beautiful sneering lady, even when they were told whom
it represented.

But at the time of John Ingerfield’s strange wooing she was the Anne
Singleton of Sir Joshua’s portrait, and John Ingerfield liked her the
better that she was.

He had no feeling of sentiment in the matter himself, and it simplified
the case that she had none either. He offered her a plain bargain, and
she accepted it. For all he knew or cared, her attitude towards this
subject of marriage was the usual one assumed by women. Very young
girls had their heads full of romantic ideas. It was better for her and
for him that she had got rid of them.

“Ours will be a union founded on good sense,” said John Ingerfield.

“Let us hope the experiment will succeed,” said Anne Singleton.


CHAPTER II.

But the experiment does not succeed. The laws of God decree that man
shall purchase woman, that woman shall give herself to man, for other
coin than that of good sense. Good sense is not a legal tender in the
marriage mart. Men and women who enter therein with only sense in their
purse have no right to complain if, on reaching home, they find they
have concluded an unsatisfactory bargain.

John Ingerfield, when he asked Anne Singleton to be his wife, felt no
more love for her than he felt for any of the other sumptuous household
appointments he was purchasing about the same time, and made no
pretence of doing so. Nor, had he done so, would she have believed him;
for Anne Singleton has learned much in her twenty-two summers and
winters, and knows that love is only a meteor in life’s sky, and that
the true lodestar of this world is gold. Anne Singleton has had her
romance and buried it deep down in her deep nature and over its grave,
to keep its ghost from rising, has piled the stones of indifference and
contempt, as many a woman has done before and since. Once upon a time
Anne Singleton sat dreaming out a story. It was a story old as the
hills—older than some of them—but to her, then, it was quite new and
very wonderful. It contained all the usual stock material common to
such stories: the lad and the lass, the plighted troth, the richer
suitors, the angry parents, the love that was worth braving all the
world for. One day into this dream there fell from the land of the
waking a letter, a poor, pitiful letter: “You know I love you and only
you,” it ran; “my heart will always be yours till I die. But my father
threatens to stop my allowance, and, as you know, I have nothing of my
own except debts. Some would call her handsome, but how can I think of
her beside you? Oh, why was money ever let to come into the world to
curse us?” with many other puzzling questions of a like character, and
much severe condemnation of Fate and Heaven and other parties
generally, and much self-commiseration.

Anne Singleton took long to read the letter. When she had finished it,
and had read it through again, she rose, and, crushing it her hand,
flung it in the fire with a laugh, and as the flame burnt up and died
away felt that her life had died with it, not knowing that bruised
hearts can heal.

So when John Ingerfield comes wooing, and speaks to her no word of love
but only of money, she feels that here at last is a genuine voice that
she can trust. Love of the lesser side of life is still left to her. It
will be pleasant to be the wealthy mistress of a fine house, to give
great receptions, to exchange the secret poverty of home for display
and luxury. These things are offered to her on the very terms she would
have suggested herself. Accompanied by love she would have refused
them, knowing she could give none in return.

But a woman finds it one thing not to desire affection and another
thing not to possess it. Day by day the atmosphere of the fine house in
Bloomsbury grows cold and colder about her heart. Guests warm it at
times for a few hours, then depart, leaving it chillier than before.

For her husband she attempts to feel indifference, but living creatures
joined together cannot feel indifference for each other. Even two dogs
in a leash are compelled to think of one another. A man and wife must
love or hate, like or dislike, in degree as the bond connecting them is
drawn tight or allowed to hang slack. By mutual desire their chains of
wedlock have been fastened as loosely as respect for security will
permit, with the happy consequence that her aversion to him does not
obtrude itself beyond the limits of politeness.

Her part of the contract she faithfully fulfils, for the Singletons
also have their code of honour. Her beauty, her tact, her charm, her
influence, are devoted to his service—to the advancement of his
position, the furtherance of his ambition. Doors that would otherwise
remain closed she opens to him. Society, that would otherwise pass by
with a sneer, sits round his table. His wishes and pleasures are hers.
In all things she yields him wifely duty, seeks to render herself
agreeable to him, suffers in silence his occasional caresses. Whatever
was implied in the bargain, that she will perform to the letter.

He, on his side, likewise performs his part with businesslike
conscientiousness—nay, seeing that the pleasing of her brings no
personal gratification to himself—not without generosity. He is ever
thoughtful of and deferential to her, awarding her at all times an
unvarying courteousness that is none the less sincere for being
studied. Her every expressed want is gratified, her every known
distaste respected. Conscious of his presence being an oppression to
her, he is even careful not to intrude it upon her oftener than is
necessary.

At times he asks himself, somewhat pertinently, what he has gained by
marriage—wonders whether this social race was quite the most
interesting game he could have elected to occupy his leisure—wonders
whether, after all, he would not have been happier over his
counting-house than in these sumptuous, glittering rooms, where he
always seems, and feels himself to be, the uninvited guest.

The only feeling that a closer intimacy has created in him for his wife
is that of indulgent contempt. As there is no equality between man and
woman, so there can be no respect. She is a different being. He must
either look up to her as superior to himself, or down upon her as
inferior. When a man does the former he is more or less in love, and
love to John Ingerfield is an unknown emotion. Her beauty, her charm,
her social tact—even while he makes use of them for his own purposes,
he despises as the weapons of a weak nature.

So in their big, cold mansion John Ingerfield and Anne, his wife, sit
far apart, strangers to one another, neither desiring to know the other
nearer.

About his business he never speaks to her, and she never questions him.
To compensate for the slight shrinkage of time he is able to devote to
it, he becomes more strict and exacting; grows a harsher master to his
people, a sterner creditor, a greedier dealer, squeezing the uttermost
out of every one, feverish to grow richer, so that he may spend more
upon the game that day by day he finds more tiresome and uninteresting.

And the piled-up casks upon his wharves increase and multiply; and on
the dirty river his ships and barges lie in ever-lengthening lines; and
round his greasy cauldrons sweating, witch-like creatures swarm in
ever-denser numbers, stirring oil and tallow into gold.

Until one summer, from its nest in the far East, there flutters
westward a foul thing. Hovering over Limehouse suburb, seeing it
crowded and unclean, liking its fetid smell, it settles down upon it.

Typhus is the creature’s name. At first it lurks there unnoticed,
battening upon the rich, rank food it finds around it, until, grown too
big to hide longer, it boldly shows its hideous head, and the white
face of Terror runs swiftly through alley and street, crying as it
runs, forces itself into John Ingerfield’s counting-house, and tells
its tale. John Ingerfield sits for a while thinking. Then he mounts his
horse and rides home at as hard a pace as the condition of the streets
will allow. In the hall he meets Anne going out, and stops her.

“Don’t come too near me,” he says quietly. “Typhus fever has broken out
at Limehouse, and they say one can communicate it, even without having
it oneself. You had better leave London for a few weeks. Go down to
your father’s: I will come and fetch you when it is all over.”

He passes her, giving her a wide berth, and goes upstairs, where he
remains for some minutes in conversation with his valet. Then, coming
down, he remounts and rides off again.

After a little while Anne goes up into his room. His man is kneeling in
the middle of the floor, packing a valise.

“Where are you to take it?” she asks.

“Down to the wharf, ma’am,” answers the man: “Mr. Ingerfield is going
to be there for a day or two.”

Then Anne sits in the great empty drawing-room, and takes _her_ turn at
thinking.

John Ingerfield finds, on his return to Limehouse, that the evil has
greatly increased during the short time he has been away. Fanned by
fear and ignorance, fed by poverty and dirt, the scourge is spreading
through the district like a fire. Long smouldering in secret, it has
now burst forth at fifty different points at once. Not a street, not a
court but has its “case.” Over a dozen of John’s hands are down with it
already. Two more have sunk prostrate beside their work within the last
hour. The panic grows grotesque. Men and women tear their clothes off,
looking to see if they have anywhere upon them a rash or a patch of
mottled skin, find that they have, or imagine that they have, and rush,
screaming, half-undressed, into the street. Two men, meeting in a
narrow passage, both rush back, too frightened to pass each other. A
boy stoops down and scratches his leg—not an action that under ordinary
circumstances would excite much surprise in that neighbourhood. In an
instant there is a wild stampede from the room, the strong trampling on
the weak in their eagerness to escape.

These are not the days of organised defence against disease. There are
kind hearts and willing hands in London town, but they are not yet
closely enough banded together to meet a swift foe such as this. There
are hospitals and charities galore, but these are mostly in the City,
maintained by the City Fathers for the exclusive benefit of poor
citizens and members of the guilds. The few free hospitals are already
over-crowded and ill-prepared. Squalid, outlying Limehouse, belonging
to nowhere, cared for by nobody, must fight for itself.

John Ingerfield calls the older men together, and with their help
attempts to instil some sense and reason into his terrified people.
Standing on the step of his counting-house, and addressing as many of
them as are not too scared to listen, he tells them of the danger of
fear and of the necessity for calmness and courage.

“We must face and fight this thing like men,” he cries, in that deep,
din-conquering voice that has served the Ingerfields in good stead on
many a steel-swept field, on many a storm-struck sea; “there must be no
cowardly selfishness, no faint-hearted despair. If we’ve got to die
we’ll die; but please God we’ll live. Anyhow, we will stick together,
and help each other. I mean to stop here with you, and do what I can
for you. None of my people shall want.”

John Ingerfield ceases, and as the vibrations of his strong tones roll
away a sweet voice from beside him rises clear and firm:—

“I have come down to be with you also, and to help my husband. I shall
take charge of the nursing and tending of your sick, and I hope I shall
be of some real use to you. My husband and I are so sorry for you in
your trouble. I know you will be brave and patient. We will all do our
best, and be hopeful.”

He turns, half expecting to see only the empty air and to wonder at the
delirium in his brain. She puts her hand in his, and their eyes meet;
and in that moment, for the first time in their lives, these two see
one another.

They speak no word. There is no opportunity for words. There is work to
be done, and done quickly, and Anne grasps it with the greed of a woman
long hungry for the joy of doing. As John watches her moving swiftly
and quietly through the bewildered throng, questioning, comforting,
gently compelling, the thought comes to him, Ought he to allow her to
be here, risking her life for his people? followed by the thought, How
is he going to prevent it? For in this hour the knowledge is born
within him that Anne is not his property; that he and she are fellow
hands taking their orders from the same Master; that though it be well
for them to work together and help each other, they must not hinder one
another.

As yet John does not understand all this. The idea is new and strange
to him. He feels as the child in a fairy story on suddenly discovering
that the trees and flowers he has passed by carelessly a thousand times
can think and talk. Once he whispers to her of the labour and the
danger, but she answers simply, “They are my people too, John: it is my
work”; and he lets her have her way.

Anne has a true woman’s instinct for nursing, and her strong sense
stands her in stead of experience. A glance into one or two of the
squalid dens where these people live tells her that if her patients are
to be saved they must be nursed away from their own homes; and she
determines to convert the large counting-house—a long, lofty room at
the opposite end of the wharf to the refinery—into a temporary
hospital. Selecting some seven or eight of the most reliable women to
assist her, she proceeds to prepare it for its purpose. Ledgers might
be volumes of poetry, bills of lading mere street ballads, for all the
respect that is shown to them. The older clerks stand staring aghast,
feeling that the end of all things is surely at hand, and that the
universe is rushing down into space, until, their idleness being
detected, they are themselves promptly impressed for the sacrilegious
work, and made to assist in the demolition of their own temple.

Anne’s commands are spoken very sweetly, and are accompanied by the
sweetest of smiles; but they are nevertheless commands, and somehow it
does not occur to any one to disobey them. John—stern, masterful,
authoritative John, who has never been approached with anything more
dictatorial than a timid request since he left Merchant Taylors’ School
nineteen years ago, who would have thought that something had suddenly
gone wrong with the laws of Nature if he had been—finds himself
hurrying along the street on his way to a druggist’s shop, slackens his
pace an instant to ask himself why and wherefore he is doing so,
recollects that he was told to do so and to make haste back, marvels
who could have dared to tell him to do anything and to make haste back,
remembers that it was Anne, is not quite sure what to think about it,
but hurries on. He “makes haste back,” is praised for having been so
quick, and feels pleased with himself; is sent off again in another
direction, with instructions what to say when he gets there. He starts
off (he is becoming used to being ordered about now). Halfway there
great alarm seizes him, for on attempting to say over the message to
himself, to be sure that he has it quite right, he discovers he has
forgotten it. He pauses, nervous and excited; cogitates as to whether
it will be safe for him to concoct a message of his own, weighs
anxiously the chances—supposing that he does so—of being found out.
Suddenly, to his intense surprise and relief, every word of what he was
told to say comes back to him; and he hastens on, repeating it over and
over to himself as he walks, lest it should escape him again.

And then a few hundred yards farther on there occurs one of the most
extraordinary events that has ever happened in that street before or
since: John Ingerfield laughs.

John Ingerfield, of Lavender Wharf, after walking two-thirds of Creek
Lane, muttering to himself with his eyes on the ground, stops in the
middle of the road and laughs; and one small boy, who tells the story
to his dying day, sees him and hears him, and runs home at the top of
his speed with the wonderful news, and is conscientiously slapped by
his mother for telling lies.

All that day Anne works like a heroine, John helping her, and
occasionally getting in the way. By night she has her little hospital
prepared and three beds already up and occupied; and, all now done that
can be done, she and John go upstairs to his old rooms above the
counting-house.

John ushers her into them with some misgiving, for by contrast with the
house at Bloomsbury they are poor and shabby. He places her in the
arm-chair near the fire, begging her to rest quiet, and then assists
his old housekeeper, whose wits, never of the strongest, have been
scared by the day’s proceeding, to lay the meal.

Anne’s eyes follow him as he moves about the room. Perhaps here, where
all the real part of his life has been passed, he is more his true self
than amid the unfamiliar surroundings of fashion; perhaps this simpler
frame shows him to greater advantage; but Anne wonders how it is she
has never noticed before that he is a well-set, handsome man. Nor,
indeed, is he so very old-looking. Is it a trick of the dim light, or
what? He looks almost young. But why should he not look young, seeing
he is only thirty-six, and at thirty-six a man is in his prime? Anne
wonders why she has always thought of him as an elderly person.

A portrait of one of John’s ancestors hangs over the great
mantelpiece—of that sturdy Captain Ingerfield who fought the King’s
frigate rather than give up one of his people. Anne glances from the
dead face to the living and notes the strong likeness between them.
Through her half-closed eyes she sees the grim old captain hurling back
his message of defiance, and his face is the face she saw a few hours
ago, saying, “I mean to stop here with you and do what I can for you.
None of my people shall want.”

John is placing a chair for her at the table, and the light from the
candles falls upon him. She steals another glance at his face—a strong,
stern, handsome face, capable of becoming a noble face. Anne wonders if
it has ever looked down tenderly at anyone; feels a sudden fierce pain
at the thought; dismisses the thought as impossible; wonders,
nevertheless, how tenderness would suit it; thinks she would like to
see a look of tenderness upon it, simply out of curiosity; wonders if
she ever will.

She rouses herself from her reverie as John, with a smile, tells her
supper is ready, and they seat themselves opposite each other, an odd
air of embarrassment pervading.

Day by day their work grows harder; day by day the foe grows stronger,
fiercer, more all-conquering; and day by day, fighting side by side
against it, John Ingerfield and Anne, his wife, draw closer to each
other. On the battle-field of life we learn the worth of strength. Anne
feels it good, when growing weary, to glance up and find him near her;
feels it good, amid the troubled babel round her, to hear the deep,
strong music of his voice.

And John, watching Anne’s fair figure moving to and fro among the
stricken and the mourning; watching her fair, fluttering hands, busy
with their holy work, her deep, soul-haunting eyes, changeful with the
light and shade of tenderness; listening to her sweet, clear voice,
laughing with the joyous, comforting the comfortless, gently
commanding, softly pleading, finds creeping into his brain strange new
thoughts concerning women—concerning this one woman in particular.

One day, rummaging over an old chest, he comes across a coloured
picture-book of Bible stories. He turns the torn pages fondly,
remembering the Sunday afternoons of long ago. At one picture, wherein
are represented many angels, he pauses; for in one of the younger
angels of the group—one not quite so severe of feature as her
sisters—he fancies he can trace resemblance to Anne. He lingers long
over it. Suddenly there rushes through his brain the thought, How good
to stoop and kiss the sweet feet of such a woman! and, thinking it, he
blushes like a boy.

So from the soil of human suffering spring the flowers of human love
and joy, and from the flowers there fall the seeds of infinite pity for
human pain, God shaping all things to His ends.

Thinking of Anne, John’s face grows gentler, his hand kinder; dreaming
of him, her heart grows stronger, deeper, fuller. Every available room
in the warehouse has been turned into a ward, and the little hospital
is open free to all, for John and Anne feel that the whole world are
their people. The piled-up casks are gone—shipped to Woolwich and
Gravesend, bundled anywhere out of the way, as though oil and tallow
and the gold they can be stirred into were matters of small moment in
this world, not to be thought of beside such a thing as the helping of
a human brother in sore strait.

All the labour of the day seems light to them, looking forward to the
hour when they sit together in John’s old shabby dining-room above the
counting-house. Yet a looker-on might imagine such times dull to them;
for they are strangely shy of one another, strangely sparing of
words—fearful of opening the flood-gates of speech, feeling the
pressure of the pent-up thought.

One evening, John, throwing out words, not as a sop to the necessity
for talk, but as a bait to catch Anne’s voice, mentions girdle-cakes,
remembers that his old housekeeper used to be famous for the making of
them, and wonders if she has forgotten the art.

Anne, answering tremulously, as though girdle-cakes were a somewhat
delicate topic, claims to be a successful amateur of them herself.
John, having been given always to understand that the talent for them
was exceedingly rare, and one usually hereditary, respectfully doubts
Anne’s capabilities, deferentially suggesting that she is thinking of
scones. Anne indignantly repudiates the insinuation, knows quite well
the difference between girdle-cakes and scones, offers to prove her
powers by descending into the kitchen and making some then and there,
if John will accompany her and find the things for her.

John accepts the challenge, and, guiding Anne with one shy, awkward
hand, while holding aloft a candle in the other, leads the way. It is
past ten o’clock, and the old housekeeper is in bed. At each creaking
stair they pause, to listen if the noise has awakened her; then,
finding all silent, creep forward again, with suppressed laughter,
wondering with alarm, half feigned, half real, what the prim,
methodical dame would say were she to come down and catch them.

They reach the kitchen, thanks more to the suggestions of a friendly
cat than to John’s acquaintanceship with the geography of his own
house; and Anne rakes together the fire and clears the table for her
work. What possible use John is to her—what need there was for her
stipulating that he should accompany her, Anne might find it difficult,
if examined, to explain satisfactorily. As for his “finding the things”
for her, he has not the faintest notion where they are, and possesses
no natural aptitude for discovery. Told to find flour, he industriously
searches for it in the dresser drawers; sent for the rolling-pin—the
nature and characteristics of rolling-pins being described to him for
his guidance—he returns, after a prolonged absence, with the copper
stick. Anne laughs at him; but really it would seem as though she
herself were almost as stupid, for not until her hands are covered with
flour does it occur to her that she has not taken that preliminary step
in all cooking operations of rolling up her sleeves.

She holds out her arms to John, first one and then the other, asking
him sweetly if he minds doing it for her. John is very slow and clumsy,
but Anne stands very patient. Inch by inch he peels the black sleeve
from the white round arm. Hundreds of times must he have seen those
fair arms, bare to the shoulder, sparkling with jewels; but never
before has he seen their wondrous beauty. He longs to clasp them round
his neck, yet is fearful lest his trembling fingers touching them as he
performs his tantalising task may offend her. Anne thanks him, and
apologises for having given him so much trouble, and he murmurs some
meaningless reply, and stands foolishly silent, watching her.

Anne seems to find one hand sufficient for her cake-making, for the
other rests idly on the table—very near to one of John’s, as she would
see were not her eyes so intent upon her work. How the impulse came to
him, where he—grave, sober, business-man John—learnt such story-book
ways can never be known; but in one instant he is down on both knees,
smothering the floury hand with kisses, and the next moment Anne’s arms
are round his neck and her lips against his, and the barrier between
them is swept away, and the deep waters of their love rush together.

With that kiss they enter a new life whereinto one may not follow them.
One thinks it must have been a life made strangely beautiful by
self-forgetfulness, strangely sweet by mutual devotion—a life too
ideal, perhaps, to have remained for long undimmed by the mists of
earth.

They who remember them at that time speak of them in hushed tones, as
one speaks of visions. It would almost seem as though from their faces
in those days there shone a radiance, as though in their voices dwelt a
tenderness beyond the tenderness of man.

They seem never to rest, never to weary. Day and night, through that
little stricken world, they come and go, bearing healing and peace,
till at last the plague, like some gorged beast of prey, slinks slowly
back towards its lair, and men raise their heads and breathe.

One afternoon, returning from a somewhat longer round than usual, John
feels a weariness creeping into his limbs, and quickens his step, eager
to reach home and rest. Anne, who has been up all the previous night,
is asleep, and not wishing to disturb her, he goes into the dining-room
and sits down in the easy chair before the fire. The room strikes cold.
He stirs the logs, but they give out no greater heat. He draws his
chair right in front of them, and sits leaning over them with his feet
on the hearth and his hands outstretched towards the blaze; yet he
still shivers.

Twilight fills the room and deepens into dusk. He wonders listlessly
how it is that Time seems to be moving with such swift strides. After a
while he hears a voice close to him, speaking in a slow, monotonous
tone—a voice curiously familiar to him, though he cannot tell to whom
it belongs. He does not turn his head, but sits listening to it
drowsily. It is talking about tallow: one hundred and ninety-four casks
of tallow, and they must all stand one inside the other. It cannot be
done, the voice complains pathetically. They will not go inside each
other. It is no good pushing them. See! they only roll out again.

The voice grows wearily fretful. Oh! why do they persist when they see
it is impossible? What fools they all are!

Suddenly he recollects the voice, and starts up and stares wildly about
him, trying to remember where he is. With a fierce straining of his
will he grips the brain that is slipping away from him, and holds it.
As soon as he feels sure of himself he steals out of the room and down
the stairs.

In the hall he stands listening; the house is very silent. He goes to
the head of the stairs leading to the kitchen and calls softly to the
old housekeeper, and she comes up to him, panting and grunting as she
climbs each step. Keeping some distance from her, he asks in a whisper
where Anne is. The woman answers that she is in the hospital.

“Tell her I have been called away suddenly on business,” he says,
speaking in quick, low tones: “I shall be away for some days. Tell her
to leave here and return home immediately. They can do without her here
now. Tell her to go back home at once. I will join her there.”

He moves toward the door but stops and faces round again.

“Tell her I beg and entreat her not to stop in this place an hour
longer. There is nothing to keep her now. It is all over: there is
nothing that cannot be done by any one. Tell her she must go home—this
very night. Tell her if she loves me to leave this place at once.”

The woman, a little bewildered by his vehemence, promises, and
disappears down the stairs. He takes his hat and cloak from the chair
on which he had thrown them, and turns once more to cross the hall. As
he does so, the door opens and Anne enters.

He darts back into the shadow, squeezing himself against the wall. Anne
calls to him laughingly, then, as he does not answer, with a frightened
accent:

“John,—John, dear. Was not that you? Are not you there?”

He holds his breath, and crouches still closer into the dark corner;
and Anne, thinking she must have been mistaken in the dim light, passes
him and goes upstairs.

Then he creeps stealthily to the door, lets himself out and closes it
softly behind him.

After the lapse of a few minutes the old housekeeper plods upstairs and
delivers John’s message. Anne, finding it altogether incomprehensible,
subjects the poor dame to severe examination, but fails to elicit
anything further. What is the meaning of it? What “business” can have
compelled John, who for ten weeks has never let the word escape his
lips, to leave her like this—without a word! without a kiss! Then
suddenly she remembers the incident of a few moments ago, when she had
called to him, thinking she saw him, and he did not answer; and the
whole truth strikes her full in the heart.

She refastens the bonnet-strings she has been slowly untying, and goes
down and out into the wet street.

She makes her way rapidly to the house of the only doctor resident in
the neighbourhood—a big, brusque-mannered man, who throughout these
terrible two months has been their chief stay and help. He meets her on
her entrance with an embarrassed air that tells its own tale, and at
once renders futile his clumsy attempts at acting:—

How should he know where John is? Who told her John had the fever—a
great, strong, hulking fellow like that? She has been working too hard,
and has got fever on the brain. She must go straight back home, or she
will be having it herself. She is more likely to take it than John.

Anne, waiting till he has finished jerking out sentences while stamping
up and down the room, says gently, taking no notice of his denials,—“If
you will not tell me I must find out from some one else—that is all.”
Then, her quick eyes noting his momentary hesitation, she lays her
little hand on his rough paw, and, with the shamelessness of a woman
who loves deeply, wheedles everything out of him that he has promised
to keep secret.

He stops her, however, as she is leaving the room. “Don’t go in to him
now,” he says; “he will worry about you. Wait till to-morrow.”

So, while John lies counting endless casks of tallow, Anne sits by his
side, tending her last “case.”

Often in his delirium he calls her name, and she takes his fevered hand
in hers and holds it, and he falls asleep.

Each morning the doctor comes and looks at him, asks a few questions
and gives a few commonplace directions, but makes no comment. It would
be idle his attempting to deceive her.

The days move slowly through the darkened room. Anne watches his thin
hands grow thinner, his sunken eyes grow bigger; yet remains strangely
calm, almost contented.

Very near the end there comes an hour when John wakes as from a dream,
and remembers all things clearly.

He looks at her half gratefully, half reproachfully.

“Anne, why are you here?” he asks, in a low, laboured voice. “Did they
not give you my message?”

For answer she turns her deep eyes upon him.

“Would you have gone away and left me here to die?” she questions him,
with a faint smile.

She bends her head down nearer to him, so that her soft hair falls
about his face.

“Our lives were one, dear,” she whispers to him. “I could not have
lived without you; God knew that. We shall be together always.”

She kisses him, and laying his head upon her breast, softly strokes it
as she might a child’s; and he puts his weak arms around her.

Later on she feels them growing cold about her, and lays him gently
back upon the bed, looks for the last time into his eyes, then draws
the lids down over them.

His people ask that they may bury him in the churchyard hard by, so
that he may always be among them; and, Anne consenting, they do all
things needful with their own hands, wishful that no unloving labour
may be mingled with their work. They lay him close to the porch, where,
going in and out the church, their feet will pass near to him; and one
among them who is cunning with the graver’s chisel shapes the stone.

At the head he carves in bas-relief the figure of the good Samaritan
tending the brother fallen by the way, and underneath the letters, “In
Remembrance of John Ingerfield.”

He thinks to put a verse of Scripture immediately after; but the gruff
doctor says, “Better leave a space, in case you want to add another
name.”

So the stone remains a little while unfinished; till the same hand
carves thereon, a few weeks later, “And of Anne, his Wife.”



THE WOMAN OF THE SÆTER.


Wild-reindeer stalking is hardly so exciting a sport as the evening’s
verandah talk in Norroway hotels would lead the trustful traveller to
suppose. Under the charge of your guide, a very young man with the
dreamy, wistful eyes of those who live in valleys, you leave the
farmstead early in the forenoon, arriving towards twilight at the
desolate hut which, for so long as you remain upon the uplands, will be
your somewhat cheerless headquarters.

Next morning, in the chill, mist-laden dawn, you rise; and, after a
breakfast of coffee and dried fish, shoulder your Remington, and step
forth silently into the raw, damp air; the guide locking the door
behind you, the key grating harshly in the rusty lock.

For hour after hour you toil over the steep, stony ground, or wind
through the pines, speaking in whispers, lest your voice reach the
quick ears of your prey, that keeps its head ever pressed against the
wind. Here and there, in the hollows of the hills lie wide fields of
snow, over which you pick your steps thoughtfully, listening to the
smothered thunder of the torrent, tunnelling its way beneath your feet,
and wondering whether the frozen arch above it be at all points as firm
as is desirable. Now and again, as in single file you walk cautiously
along some jagged ridge, you catch glimpses of the green world, three
thousand feet below you; though you gaze not long upon the view, for
your attention is chiefly directed to watching the footprints of the
guide, lest by deviating to the right or left you find yourself at one
stride back in the valley—or, to be more correct, are found there.

These things you do, and as exercise they are healthful and
invigorating. But a reindeer you never see, and unless, overcoming the
prejudices of your British-bred conscience, you care to take an
occasional pop at a fox, you had better have left your rifle at the
hut, and, instead, have brought a stick which would have been helpful.
Notwithstanding which the guide continues sanguine, and in broken
English, helped out by stirring gesture, tells of the terrible
slaughter generally done by sportsmen under his superintendence, and of
the vast herds that generally infest these fields; and when you grow
sceptical upon the subject of Reins he whispers alluringly of Bears.

Once in a way you will come across a track, and will follow it
breathlessly for hours, and it will lead to a sheer precipice. Whether
the explanation is suicide, or a reprehensible tendency on the part of
the animal towards practical joking, you are left to decide for
yourself. Then, with many rough miles between you and your rest, you
abandon the chase.

But I speak from personal experience merely.

All day long we had tramped through the pitiless rain, stopping only
for an hour at noon to eat some dried venison and smoke a pipe beneath
the shelter of an overhanging cliff. Soon afterwards Michael knocked
over a ryper (a bird that will hardly take the trouble to hop out of
your way) with his gun-barrel, which incident cheered us a little; and,
later on, our flagging spirits were still further revived by the
discovery of apparently very recent deer-tracks. These we followed,
forgetful, in our eagerness, of the lengthening distance back to the
hut, of the fading daylight, of the gathering mist. The track led us
higher and higher, farther and farther into the mountains, until on the
shores of a desolate rock-bound vand it abruptly ended, and we stood
staring at one another, and the snow began to fall.

Unless in the next half-hour we could chance upon a sæter, this meant
passing the night upon the mountain. Michael and I looked at the guide;
but though, with characteristic Norwegian sturdiness, he put a bold
face upon it, we could see that in that deepening darkness he knew no
more than we did. Wasting no time on words, we made straight for the
nearest point of descent, knowing that any human habitation must be far
below us.

Down we scrambled, heedless of torn clothes and bleeding hands, the
darkness pressing closer round us. Then suddenly it became black—black
as pitch—and we could only hear each other. Another step might mean
death. We stretched out our hands, and felt each other. Why we spoke in
whispers, I do not know, but we seemed afraid of our own voices. We
agreed there was nothing for it but to stop where we were till morning,
clinging to the short grass; so we lay there side by side, for what may
have been five minutes or may have been an hour. Then, attempting to
turn, I lost my grip and rolled. I made convulsive efforts to clutch
the ground, but the incline was too steep. How far I fell I could not
say, but at last something stopped me. I felt it cautiously with my
foot: it did not yield, so I twisted myself round and touched it with
my hand. It seemed planted firmly in the earth. I passed my arm along
to the right, then to the left. I shouted with joy. It was a fence.

Rising and groping about me, I found an opening, and passed through,
and crept forward with palms outstretched until I touched the logs of a
hut; then, feeling my way round, discovered the door, and knocked.
There came no response, so I knocked louder; then pushed, and the heavy
woodwork yielded, groaning. But the darkness within was even darker
than the darkness without. The others had contrived to crawl down and
join me. Michael struck a wax vesta and held it up, and slowly the room
came out of the darkness and stood round us.

Then something rather startling happened. Giving one swift glance about
him, our guide uttered a cry, and rushed out into the night. We
followed to the door, and called after him, but only a voice came to us
out of the blackness, and the only words that we could catch, shrieked
back in terror, were: “_Sætervronen_! _Sætervronen_!” (“The woman of
the sæter”).

“Some foolish superstition about the place, I suppose,” said Michael.
“In these mountain solitudes men breed ghosts for company. Let us make
a fire. Perhaps, when he sees the light, his desire for food and
shelter may get the better of his fears.”

We felt about in the small enclosure round the house, and gathered
juniper and birch-twigs, and kindled a fire upon the open stove built
in the corner of the room. Fortunately, we had some dried reindeer and
bread in our bag, and on that and the ryper and the contents of our
flasks we supped. Afterwards, to while away the time, we made an
inspection of the strange eyrie we had lighted on.

It was an old log-built sæter. Some of these mountain farmsteads are as
old as the stone ruins of other countries. Carvings of strange beasts
and demons were upon its blackened rafters, and on the lintel, in runic
letters, ran this legend: “Hund builded me in the days of Haarfager.”
The house consisted of two large apartments. Originally, no doubt,
these had been separate dwellings standing beside one another, but they
were now connected by a long, low gallery. Most of the scanty furniture
was almost as ancient as the walls themselves, but many articles of a
comparatively recent date had been added. All was now, however, rotting
and falling into decay.

The place appeared to have been deserted suddenly by its last
occupants. Household utensils lay as they were left, rust and dirt
encrusted on them. An open book, limp and mildewed, lay face downwards
on the table, while many others were scattered about both rooms,
together with much paper, scored with faded ink. The curtains hung in
shreds about the windows; a woman’s cloak, of an antiquated fashion,
drooped from a nail behind the door. In an oak chest we found a tumbled
heap of yellow letters. They were of various dates, extending over a
period of four months; and with them, apparently intended to receive
them, lay a large envelope, inscribed with an address in London that
has since disappeared.

Strong curiosity overcoming faint scruples, we read them by the dull
glow of the burning juniper twigs, and, as we laid aside the last of
them, there rose from the depths below us a wailing cry, and all night
long it rose and died away, and rose again, and died away again;
whether born of our brain or of some human thing, God knows.

And these, a little altered and shortened, are the letters:—

_Extract from first letter_:

“I cannot tell you, my dear Joyce, what a haven of peace this place is
to me after the racket and fret of town. I am almost quite recovered
already, and am growing stronger every day; and, joy of joys, my brain
has come back to me, fresher and more vigorous, I think, for its
holiday. In this silence and solitude my thoughts flow freely, and the
difficulties of my task are disappearing as if by magic. We are perched
upon a tiny plateau halfway up the mountain. On one side the rock rises
almost perpendicularly, piercing the sky; while on the other, two
thousand feet below us, the torrent hurls itself into the black waters
of the fiord. The house consists of two rooms—or, rather, it is two
cabins connected by a passage. The larger one we use as a living room,
and the other is our sleeping apartment. We have no servant, but do
everything for ourselves. I fear sometimes Muriel must find it lonely.
The nearest human habitation is eight miles away, across the mountain,
and not a soul comes near us. I spend as much time as I can with her,
however, during the day, and make up for it by working at night after
she has gone to sleep; and when I question her, she only laughs, and
answers that she loves to have me all to herself. (Here you will smile
cynically, I know, and say, ‘Humph, I wonder will she say the same when
they have been married six years instead of six months.’) At the rate I
am working now I shall have finished my first volume by the spring, and
then, my dear fellow, you must try and come over, and we will walk and
talk together ‘amid these storm-reared temples of the gods.’ I have
felt a new man since I arrived here. Instead of having to ‘cudgel my
brains,’ as we say, thoughts crowd upon me. This work will make my
name.”


_Part of the third letter_, _the second being mere talk about the book_
(_a history apparently_) _that the man was writing_:


“MY DEAR JOYCE,—I have written you two letters—this will make the
third—but have been unable to post them. Every day I have been
expecting a visit from some farmer or villager, for the Norwegians are
kindly people towards strangers—to say nothing of the inducements of
trade. A fortnight having passed, however, and the commissariat
question having become serious, I yesterday set out before dawn, and
made my way down to the valley; and this gives me something to tell
you. Nearing the village, I met a peasant woman. To my intense
surprise, instead of returning my salutation, she stared at me, as if I
were some wild animal, and shrank away from me as far as the width of
the road would permit. In the village the same experience awaited me.
The children ran from me, the people avoided me. At last a grey-haired
old man appeared to take pity on me, and from him I learnt the
explanation of the mystery. It seems there is a strange superstition
attaching to this house in which we are living. My things were brought
up here by the two men who accompanied me from Drontheim, but the
natives are afraid to go near the place, and prefer to keep as far as
possible from any one connected with it.

“The story is that the house was built by one Hund, ‘a maker of runes’
(one of the old saga writers, no doubt), who lived here with his young
wife. All went peacefully until, unfortunately for him, a certain
maiden stationed at a neighbouring sæter grew to love him.

“Forgive me if I am telling you what you know, but a ‘sæter’ is the
name given to the upland pastures to which, during the summer, are sent
the cattle, generally under the charge of one or more of the maids.
Here for three months these girls will live in their lonely huts,
entirely shut off from the world. Customs change little in this land.
Two or three such stations are within climbing distance of this house,
at this day, looked after by the farmers’ daughters, as in the days of
Hund, ‘maker of runes.’

“Every night, by devious mountain paths, the woman would come and tap
lightly at Hund’s door. Hund had built himself two cabins, one behind
the other (these are now, as I think I have explained to you, connected
by a passage); the smaller one was the homestead; in the other he
carved and wrote, so that while the young wife slept the ‘maker of
runes’ and the sæter woman sat whispering.

“One night, however, the wife learnt all things, but said no word.
Then, as now, the ravine in front of the enclosure was crossed by a
slight bridge of planks, and over this bridge the woman of the sæter
passed and repassed each night. On a day when Hund had gone down to
fish in the fiord, the wife took an axe, and hacked and hewed at the
bridge, yet it still looked firm and solid; and that night, as Hund sat
waiting in his workshop, there struck upon his ears a piercing cry, and
a crashing of logs and rolling rock, and then again the dull roaring of
the torrent far below.

“But the woman did not die unavenged; for that winter a man, skating
far down the fiord, noticed a curious object embedded in the ice; and
when, stooping, he looked closer, he saw two corpses, one gripping the
other by the throat, and the bodies were the bodies of Hund and his
young wife.

“Since then, they say, the woman of the sæter haunts Hund’s house, and
if she sees a light within she taps upon the door, and no man may keep
her out. Many, at different times, have tried to occupy the house, but
strange tales are told of them. ‘Men do not live at Hund’s sæter,’ said
my old grey-haired friend, concluding his tale,—‘they die there.’

“I have persuaded some of the braver of the villagers to bring what
provisions and other necessaries we require up to a plateau about a
mile from the house and leave them there. That is the most I have been
able to do. It comes somewhat as a shock to one to find men and
women—fairly educated and intelligent as many of them are—slaves to
fears that one would expect a child to laugh at. But there is no
reasoning with superstition.”


_Extract from the same letter_, _but from a part seemingly written a
day or two later_:

“At home I should have forgotten such a tale an hour after I had heard
it, but these mountain fastnesses seem strangely fit to be the last
stronghold of the supernatural. The woman haunts me already. At night
instead of working, I find myself listening for her tapping at the
door; and yesterday an incident occurred that makes me fear for my own
common sense. I had gone out for a long walk alone, and the twilight
was thickening into darkness as I neared home. Suddenly looking up from
my reverie, I saw, standing on a knoll the other side of the ravine,
the figure of a woman. She held a cloak about her head, and I could not
see her face. I took off my cap, and called out a good-night to her,
but she never moved or spoke. Then—God knows why, for my brain was full
of other thoughts at the time—a clammy chill crept over me, and my
tongue grew dry and parched. I stood rooted to the spot, staring at her
across the yawning gorge that divided us; and slowly she moved away,
and passed into the gloom, and I continued my way. I have said nothing
to Muriel, and shall not. The effect the story has had upon myself
warns me not to do so.”


_From a letter dated eleven days later_:


“She has come. I have known she would, since that evening I saw her on
the mountain; and last night she came, and we have sat and looked into
each other’s eyes. You will say, of course, that I am mad—that I have
not recovered from my fever—that I have been working too hard—that I
have heard a foolish tale, and that it has filled my overstrung brain
with foolish fancies: I have told myself all that. But the thing came,
nevertheless—a creature of flesh and blood? a creature of air? a
creature of my own imagination?—what matter? it was real to me.

“It came last night, as I sat working, alone. Each night I have waited
for it, listened for it—longed for it, I know now. I heard the passing
of its feet upon the bridge, the tapping of its hand upon the door,
three times—tap, tap, tap. I felt my loins grow cold, and a pricking
pain about my head; and I gripped my chair with both hands, and waited,
and again there came the tapping—tap, tap, tap. I rose and slipped the
bolt of the door leading to the other room, and again I waited, and
again there came the tapping—tap, tap, tap. Then I opened the heavy
outer door, and the wind rushed past me, scattering my papers, and the
woman entered in, and I closed the door behind her. She threw her hood
back from her head, and unwound a kerchief from about her neck, and
laid it on the table. Then she crossed and sat before the fire, and I
noticed her bare feet were damp with the night dew.

“I stood over against her and gazed at her, and she smiled at me—a
strange, wicked smile, but I could have laid my soul at her feet. She
never spoke or moved, and neither did I feel the need of spoken words,
for I understood the meaning of those upon the Mount when they said,
‘Let us make here tabernacles: it is good for us to be here.’

“How long a time passed thus I do not know, but suddenly the woman held
her hand up, listening, and there came a faint sound from the other
room. Then swiftly she drew her hood about her face and passed out,
closing the door softly behind her; and I drew back the bolt of the
inner door and waited, and hearing nothing more, sat down, and must
have fallen asleep in my chair.

“I awoke, and instantly there flashed through my mind the thought of
the kerchief the woman had left behind her, and I started from my chair
to hide it. But the table was already laid for breakfast, and my wife
sat with her elbows on the table and her head between her hands,
watching me with a look in her eyes that was new to me.

“She kissed me, though her lips were cold; and I argued to myself that
the whole thing must have been a dream. But later in the day, passing
the open door when her back was towards me, I saw her take the kerchief
from a locked chest and look at it.

“I have told myself it must have been a kerchief of her own, and that
all the rest has been my imagination; that, if not, then my strange
visitant was no spirit, but a woman; and that, if human thing knows
human thing, it was no creature of flesh and blood that sat beside me
last night. Besides, what woman would she be? The nearest sæter is a
three-hours’ climb to a strong man, and the paths are dangerous even in
daylight: what woman would have found them in the night? What woman
would have chilled the air around her, and have made the blood flow
cold through all my veins? Yet if she come again I will speak to her. I
will stretch out my hand and see whether she be mortal thing or only
air.”


_The fifth letter_:


“MY DEAR JOYCE,—Whether your eyes will ever see these letters is
doubtful. From this place I shall never send them. They would read to
you as the ravings of a madman. If ever I return to England I may one
day show them to you, but when I do it will be when I, with you, can
laugh over them. At present I write them merely to hide away,—putting
the words down on paper saves my screaming them aloud.

“She comes each night now, taking the same seat beside the embers, and
fixing upon me those eyes, with the hell-light in them, that burn into
my brain; and at rare times she smiles, and all my being passes out of
me, and is hers. I make no attempt to work. I sit listening for her
footsteps on the creaking bridge, for the rustling of her feet upon the
grass, for the tapping of her hand upon the door. No word is uttered
between us. Each day I say: ‘When she comes to-night I will speak to
her. I will stretch out my hand and touch her.’ Yet when she enters,
all thought and will goes out from me.

“Last night, as I stood gazing at her, my soul filled with her wondrous
beauty as a lake with moonlight, her lips parted, and she started from
her chair; and, turning, I thought I saw a white face pressed against
the window, but as I looked it vanished. Then she drew her cloak about
her, and passed out. I slid back the bolt I always draw now, and stole
into the other room, and, taking down the lantern, held it above the
bed. But Muriel’s eyes were closed as if in sleep.”


_Extract from the sixth letter_:

“It is not the night I fear, but the day. I hate the sight of this
woman with whom I live, whom I call ‘wife.’ I shrink from the blow of
her cold lips, the curse of her stony eyes. She has seen, she has
learnt; I feel it, I know it. Yet she winds her arms around my neck,
and calls me sweetheart, and smoothes my hair with her soft, false
hands. We speak mocking words of love to one another, but I know her
cruel eyes are ever following me. She is plotting her revenge, and I
hate her, I hate her, I hate her!”


_Part of the seventh letter_:


“This morning I went down to the fiord. I told her I should not be back
until the evening. She stood by the door watching me until we were mere
specks to one another, and a promontory of the mountain shut me from
view. Then, turning aside from the track, I made my way, running and
stumbling over the jagged ground, round to the other side of the
mountain, and began to climb again. It was slow, weary work. Often I
had to go miles out of my road to avoid a ravine, and twice I reached a
high point only to have to descend again. But at length I crossed the
ridge, and crept down to a spot from where, concealed, I could spy upon
my own house. She—my wife—stood by the flimsy bridge. A short hatchet,
such as butchers use, was in her hand. She leant against a pine trunk,
with her arm behind her, as one stands whose back aches with long
stooping in some cramped position; and even at that distance I could
see the cruel smile about her lips.

“Then I recrossed the ridge, and crawled down again, and, waiting until
evening, walked slowly up the path. As I came in view of the house she
saw me, and waved her handkerchief to me, and in answer I waved my hat,
and shouted curses at her that the wind whirled away into the torrent.
She met me with a kiss, and I breathed no hint to her that I had seen.
Let her devil’s work remain undisturbed. Let it prove to me what manner
of thing this is that haunts me. If it be a spirit, then the bridge
wilt bear it safely; if it be woman—

“But I dismiss the thought. If it be human thing, why does it sit
gazing at me, never speaking? why does my tongue refuse to question it?
why does all power forsake me in its presence, so that I stand as in a
dream? Yet if it be spirit, why do I hear the passing of her feet? and
why does the night-rain glisten on her hair?

“I force myself back into my chair. It is far into the night, and I am
alone, waiting, listening. If it be spirit, she will come to me; and if
it be woman, I shall hear her cry above the storm—unless it be a demon
mocking me.

“I have heard the cry. It rose, piercing and shrill, above the storm,
above the riving and rending of the bridge, above the downward crashing
of the logs and loosened stones. I hear it as I listen now. It is
cleaving its way upward from the depths below. It is wailing through
the room as I sit writing.

“I have crawled upon my belly to the utmost edge of the still standing
pier, until I could feel with my hand the jagged splinters left by the
fallen planks, and have looked down. But the chasm was full to the brim
with darkness. I shouted, but the wind shook my voice into mocking
laughter. I sit here, feebly striking at the madness that is creeping
nearer and nearer to me. I tell myself the whole thing is but the fever
in my brain. The bridge was rotten. The storm was strong. The cry is
but a single one among the many voices of the mountain. Yet still I
listen; and it rises, clear and shrill, above the moaning of the pines,
above the sobbing of the waters. It beats like blows upon my skull, and
I know that she will never come again.”


_Extract from the last letter_:


“I shall address an envelope to you, and leave it among these letters.
Then, should I never come back, some chance wanderer may one day find
and post them to you, and you will know.

“My books and writings remain untouched. We sit together of a
night—this woman I call ‘wife’ and I—she holding in her hands some
knitted thing that never grows longer by a single stitch, and I with a
volume before me that is ever open at the same page. And day and night
we watch each other stealthily, moving to and fro about the silent
house; and at times, looking round swiftly, I catch the smile upon her
lips before she has time to smooth it away.

“We speak like strangers about this and that, making talk to hide our
thoughts. We make a pretence of busying ourselves about whatever will
help us to keep apart from one another.

“At night, sitting here between the shadows and the dull glow of the
smouldering twigs, I sometimes think I hear the tapping I have learnt
to listen for, and I start from my seat, and softly open the door and
look out. But only the Night stands there. Then I close-to the latch,
and she—the living woman—asks me in her purring voice what sound I
heard, hiding a smile as she stoops low over her work; and I answer
lightly, and, moving towards her, put my arm about her, feeling her
softness and her suppleness, and wondering, supposing I held her close
to me with one arm while pressing her from me with the other, how long
before I should hear the cracking of her bones.

“For here, amid these savage solitudes, I also am grown savage. The old
primeval passions of love and hate stir within me, and they are fierce
and cruel and strong, beyond what you men of the later ages could
understand. The culture of the centuries has fallen from me as a flimsy
garment whirled away by the mountain wind; the old savage instincts of
the race lie bare. One day I shall twine my fingers about her full
white throat, and her eyes will slowly come towards me, and her lips
will part, and the red tongue creep out; and backwards, step by step, I
shall push her before me, gazing the while upon her bloodless face, and
it will be my turn to smile. Backwards through the open door, backwards
along the garden path between the juniper bushes, backwards till her
heels are overhanging the ravine, and she grips life with nothing but
her little toes, I shall force her, step by step, before me. Then I
shall lean forward, closer, closer, till I kiss her purpling lips, and
down, down, down, past the startled sea-birds, past the white spray of
the foss, past the downward peeping pines, down, down, down, we will go
together, till we find the thing that lies sleeping beneath the waters
of the fiord.”


With these words ended the last letter, unsigned. At the first streak
of dawn we left the house, and, after much wandering, found our way
back to the valley. But of our guide we heard no news. Whether he
remained still upon the mountain, or whether by some false step he had
perished upon that night, we never learnt.



VARIETY PATTER.


My first appearance at a Music Hall was in the year one thousand eight
hundred and s---. Well, I would rather not mention the exact date. I
was fourteen at the time. It was during the Christmas holidays, and my
aunt had given me five shillings to go and see Phelps—I think it was
Phelps—in _Coriolanus_—I think it was _Coriolanus_. Anyhow, it was to
see a high-class and improving entertainment, I know.

I suggested that I should induce young Skegson, who lived in our road,
to go with me. Skegson is a barrister now, and could not tell you the
difference between a knave of clubs and a club of knaves. A few years
hence he will, if he works hard, be innocent enough for a judge. But at
the period of which I speak he was a red-haired boy of worldly tastes,
notwithstanding which I loved him as a brother. My dear mother wished
to see him before consenting to the arrangement, so as to be able to
form her own opinion as to whether he was a fit and proper companion
for me; and, accordingly, he was invited to tea. He came, and made a
most favourable impression upon both my mother and my aunt. He had a
way of talking about the advantages of application to study in early
life, and the duties of youth towards those placed in authority over
it, that won for him much esteem in grown-up circles. The spirit of the
Bar had descended upon Skegson at a very early period of his career.

My aunt, indeed, was so much pleased with him that she gave him two
shillings towards his own expenses (“sprung half a dollar” was how he
explained the transaction when we were outside), and commended me to
his especial care.

Skegson was very silent during the journey. An idea was evidently
maturing in his mind. At the Angel he stopped and said: “Look here,
I’ll tell you what we’ll do. Don’t let’s go and see that rot. Let’s go
to a Music Hall.”

I gasped for breath. I had heard of Music Halls. A stout lady had
denounced them across our dinner table on one occasion—fixing the while
a steely eye upon her husband, who sat opposite and seemed
uncomfortable—as low, horrid places, where people smoked and drank, and
wore short skirts, and had added an opinion that they ought to be put
down by the police—whether the skirts or the halls she did not explain.
I also recollected that our charwoman, whose son had lately left London
for a protracted stay in Devonshire, had, in conversation with my
mother, dated his downfall from the day when he first visited one of
these places; and likewise that Mrs. Philcox’s nursemaid, upon her
confessing that she had spent an evening at one with her young man, had
been called a shameless hussy, and summarily dismissed as being no
longer a fit associate for the baby.

But the spirit of lawlessness was strong within me in those days, so
that I hearkened to the voice of Skegson, the tempter, and he lured my
feet from the paths that led to virtue and Sadler’s Wells, and we
wandered into the broad and crowded ways that branch off from the Angel
towards Merry Islington.

Skegson insisted that we should do the thing in style, so we stopped at
a shop near the Agricultural Hall and purchased some big cigars. A huge
card in the window claimed for these that they were “the most
satisfactory twopenny smokes in London.” I smoked two of them during
the evening, and never felt more satisfied—using the word in its true
sense, as implying that a person has had enough of a thing, and does
not desire any more of it, just then—in all my life. Where we went, and
what we saw, my memory is not very clear upon. We sat at a little
marble table. I know it was marble because it was so hard, and cool to
the head. From out of the smoky mist a ponderous creature of strange,
undefined shape floated heavily towards us, and deposited a squat
tumbler in front of me containing a pale yellowish liquor, which
subsequent investigation has led me to believe must have been Scotch
whisky. It seemed to me then the most nauseous stuff I had ever
swallowed. It is curious to look back and notice how one’s tastes
change.

I reached home very late and very sick. That was my first dissipation,
and, as a lesson, it has been of more practical use to me than all the
good books and sermons in the world could have been. I can remember to
this day standing in the middle of the room in my night-shirt, trying
to catch my bed as it came round.

Next morning I confessed everything to my mother, and, for several
months afterwards, was a reformed character. Indeed, the pendulum of my
conscience swung too far the other way, and I grew exaggeratedly
remorseful and unhealthily moral.

There was published in those days, for the edification of young people,
a singularly pessimistic periodical, entitled _The Children’s Band of
Hope Review_. It was a magazine much in favour among grown-up people,
and a bound copy of Vol. IX. had lately been won by my sister as a
prize for punctuality (I fancy she must have exhausted all the virtue
she ever possessed, in that direction, upon the winning of that prize.
At all events, I have noticed no ostentatious display of the quality in
her later life.) I had formerly expressed contempt for this book, but
now, in my regenerate state, I took a morbid pleasure in poring over
its denunciations of sin and sinners. There was one picture in it that
appeared peculiarly applicable to myself. It represented a gaudily
costumed young man, standing on the topmost of three steep steps,
smoking a large cigar. Behind him was a very small church, and below, a
bright and not altogether uninviting looking hell. The picture was
headed “The Three Steps to Ruin,” and the three stairs were labelled
respectively “Smoking,” “Drinking,” “Gambling.” I had already travelled
two-thirds of the road! Was I going all the way, or should I be able to
retrace those steps? I used to lie awake at night and think about it
till I grew half crazy. Alas! since then I have completed the descent,
so where my future will be spent I do not care to think.

Another picture in the book that troubled me was the frontispiece. This
was a highly-coloured print, illustrating the broad and narrow ways.
The narrow way led upward past a Sunday-school and a lion to a city in
the clouds. This city was referred to in the accompanying letterpress
as a place of “Rest and Peace,” but inasmuch as the town was
represented in the illustration as surrounded by a perfect mob of
angels, each one blowing a trumpet twice his own size, and obviously
blowing it for all he was worth, a certain confusion of ideas would
seem to have crept into the allegory.

The other path—the “broad way”—which ended in what at first glance
appeared to be a highly successful display of fireworks, started from
the door of a tavern, and led past a Music Hall, on the steps of which
stood a gentleman smoking a cigar. All the wicked people in this book
smoked cigars—all except one young man who had killed his mother and
died raving mad. He had gone astray on short pipes.

This made it uncomfortably clear to me which direction I had chosen,
and I was greatly alarmed, until, on examining the picture more
closely, I noticed, with much satisfaction, that about midway the two
paths were connected by a handy little bridge, by the use of which it
seemed feasible, starting on the one path and ending up on the other,
to combine the practical advantages of both roads. From subsequent
observation I have come to the conclusion that a good many people have
made a note of that little bridge.

My own belief in the possibility of such convenient compromise must, I
fear, have led to an ethical relapse, for there recurs to my mind a
somewhat painful scene of a few months’ later date, in which I am
seeking to convince a singularly unresponsive landed proprietor that my
presence in his orchard is solely and entirely due to my having
unfortunately lost my way.

It was not until I was nearly seventeen that the idea occurred to me to
visit a Music Hall again. Then, having regard to my double capacity of
“Man About Town” and journalist (for I had written a letter to _The
Era_, complaining of the way pit doors were made to open, and it had
been inserted), I felt I had no longer any right to neglect
acquaintanceship with so important a feature in the life of the people.
Accordingly, one Saturday night, I wended my way to the “Pav.”; and
there the first person that I ran against was my uncle. He laid a heavy
hand upon my shoulder, and asked me, in severe tones, what I was doing
there. I felt this to be an awkward question, for it would have been
useless trying to make him understand my real motives (one’s own
relations are never sympathetic), and I was somewhat nonplussed for an
answer, until the reflection occurred to me: What was _he_ doing there?
This riddle I, in my turn, propounded to him, with the result that we
entered into treaty, by the terms of which it was agreed that no future
reference should be made to the meeting by either of us—especially not
in the presence of my aunt—and the compact was ratified according to
the usual custom, my uncle paying the necessary expenses.

In those days, we sat, some four or six of us, round a little table, on
which were placed our drinks. Now we have to balance them upon a narrow
ledge; and ladies, as they pass, dip the ends of their cloaks into
them, and gentlemen stir them up for us with the ferrules of their
umbrellas, or else sweep them off into our laps with their coat tails,
saying as they do so, “Oh, I beg your pardon.”

Also, in those days, there were “chairmen”—affable gentlemen, who would
drink anything at anybody’s expense, and drink any quantity of it, and
never seem to get any fuller. I was introduced to a Music Hall chairman
once, and when I said to him, “What is your drink?” he took up the
“list of beverages” that lay before him, and, opening it, waved his
hand lightly across its entire contents, from clarets, past champagnes
and spirits, down to liqueurs. “That’s my drink, my boy,” said he.
There was nothing narrow-minded or exclusive about his tastes.

It was the chairman’s duty to introduce the artists. “Ladies and
gentlemen,” he would shout, in a voice that united the musical
characteristics of a foghorn and a steam saw, “Miss ’Enerietta
Montressor, the popular serio-comic, will now happear.” These
announcements were invariably received with great applause by the
chairman himself, and generally with chilling indifference by the rest
of the audience.

It was also the privilege of the chairman to maintain order, and
reprimand evil-doers. This he usually did very effectively, employing
for the purpose language both fit and forcible. One chairman that I
remember seemed, however, to be curiously deficient in the necessary
qualities for this part of his duty. He was a mild and sleepy little
man, and, unfortunately, he had to preside over an exceptionally rowdy
audience at a small hall in the South-East district. On the night that
I was present, there occurred a great disturbance. “Joss Jessop, the
Monarch of Mirth,” a gentleman evidently high in local request was, for
some reason or other, not forthcoming, and in his place the management
proposed to offer a female performer on the zithern, one Signorina
Ballatino.

The little chairman made the announcement in a nervous, deprecatory
tone, as if he were rather ashamed of it himself. “Ladies and
gentlemen,” he began,—the poor are staunch sticklers for etiquette: I
overheard a small child explaining to her mother one night in Three
Colts Street, Limehouse, that she could not get into the house because
there was a “lady” on the doorstep, drunk,—“Signorina Ballatino, the
world-renowned—”

Here a voice from the gallery requested to know what had become of “Old
Joss,” and was greeted by loud cries of “’Ear, ’ear.”

The chairman, ignoring the interruption, continued:

“—the world-renowned performer on the zither—”

“On the whoter?” came in tones of plaintive inquiry from the back of
the hall.

“_Hon_ the zither,” retorted the chairman, waxing mildly indignant; he
meant zithern, but he called it a zither. “A hinstrument well-known to
anybody as ’as ’ad any learning.”

This sally was received with much favour, and a gentleman who claimed
to be acquainted with the family history of the interrupter begged the
chairman to excuse that ill-bred person on the ground that his mother
used to get drunk with the twopence a week and never sent him to
school.

Cheered by this breath of popularity, our little president endeavoured
to complete his introduction of the Signorina. He again repeated that
she was the world-renowned performer on the zithern; and, undeterred by
the audible remark of a lady in the pit to the effect that she’d “never
’eard on ’er,” added:

“She will now, ladies and gentlemen, with your kind permission, give
you examples of the—”

“Blow yer zither!” here cried out the gentleman who had started the
agitation; “we want Joss Jessop.”

This was the signal for much cheering and shrill whistling, in the
midst of which a wag with a piping voice suggested as a reason for the
favourite’s non-appearance that he had not been paid his last week’s
salary.

A temporary lull occurred at this point; and the chairman, seizing the
opportunity to complete his oft-impeded speech, suddenly remarked,
“songs of the Sunny South”; and immediately sat down and began
hammering upon the table.

Then Signora Ballatino, clothed in the costume of the Sunny South,
where clothes are less essential than in these colder climes, skipped
airily forward, and was most ungallantly greeted with a storm of groans
and hisses. Her beloved instrument was unfeelingly alluded to as a
pie-dish, and she was advised to take it back and get the penny on it.
The chairman, addressed by his Christian name of “Jimmee,” was told to
lie down and let her sing him to sleep. Every time she attempted to
start playing, shouts were raised for Joss.

At length the chairman, overcoming his evident disinclination to take
any sort of hand whatever in the game, rose and gently hinted at the
desirability of silence. The suggestion not meeting with any support,
he proceeded to adopt sterner measures. He addressed himself personally
to the ringleader of the rioters, the man who had first championed the
cause of the absent Joss. This person was a brawny individual, who,
judging from appearances, followed in his business hours the calling of
a coalheaver. “Yes, sir,” said the chairman, pointing a finger towards
him, where he sat in the front row of the gallery; “you, sir, in the
flannel shirt. I can see you. Will you allow this lady to give her
entertainment?”

“No,” answered he of the coalheaving profession, in stentorian tones.

“Then, sir,” said the little chairman, working himself up into a state
suggestive of Jove about to launch a thunderbolt—“then, sir, all I can
say is that you are no gentleman.”

This was a little too much, or rather a good deal too little, for the
Signora Ballatino. She had hitherto been standing in a meek attitude of
pathetic appeal, wearing a fixed smile of ineffable sweetness but she
evidently felt that she could go a bit farther than that herself, even
if she was a lady. Calling the chairman “an old messer,” and telling
him for Gawd’s sake to shut up if that was all he could do for his
living, she came down to the front, and took the case into her own
hands.

She did not waste time on the rest of the audience. She went direct for
that coalheaver, and thereupon ensued a slanging match the memory of
which sends a thrill of admiration through me even to this day. It was
a battle worthy of the gods. He was a heaver of coals, quick and ready
beyond his kind. During many years sojourn East and South, in the
course of many wanderings from Billingsgate to Limehouse Hole, from
Petticoat Lane to Whitechapel Road; out of eel-pie shop and penny gaff;
out of tavern and street, and court and doss-house, he had gathered
together slang words and terms and phrases, and they came back to him
now, and he stood up against her manfully.

But as well might the lamb stand up against the eagle, when the shadow
of its wings falls across the green pastures, and the wind flies before
its dark oncoming. At the end of two minutes he lay gasping, dazed, and
speechless.

Then she began.

She announced her intention of “wiping down the bloomin’ ’all” with
him, and making it respectable; and, metaphorically speaking, that is
what she did. Her tongue hit him between the eyes, and knocked him down
and trampled on him. It curled round and round him like a whip, and
then it uncurled and wound the other way. It seized him by the scruff
of his neck, and tossed him up into the air, and caught him as he
descended, and flung him to the ground, and rolled him on it. It played
around him like forked lightning, and blinded him. It danced and
shrieked about him like a host of whirling fiends, and he tried to
remember a prayer, and could not. It touched him lightly on the sole of
his foot and the crown of his head, and his hair stood up straight, and
his limbs grew stiff. The people sitting near him drew away, not
feeling it safe to be near, and left him alone, surrounded by space,
and language.

It was the most artistic piece of work of its kind that I have ever
heard. Every phrase she flung at him seemed to have been woven on
purpose to entangle him and to embrace in its choking folds his people
and his gods, to strangle with its threads his every hope, ambition,
and belief. Each term she put upon him clung to him like a garment, and
fitted him without a crease. The last name that she called him one felt
to be, until one heard the next, the one name that he ought to have
been christened by.

For five and three-quarter minutes by the clock she spoke, and never
for one instant did she pause or falter; and in the whole of that
onslaught there was only one weak spot.

That was when she offered to make a better man than he was out of a Guy
Fawkes and a lump of coal. You felt that one lump of coal would not
have been sufficient.

At the end, she gathered herself together for one supreme effort, and
hurled at him an insult so bitter with scorn, so sharp with insight
into his career and character, so heavy with prophetic curse, that
strong men drew and held their breath while it passed over them, and
women hid their faces and shivered.

Then she folded her arms, and stood silent; and the house, from floor
to ceiling, rose and cheered her until there was no more breath left in
its lungs.

In that one night she stepped from oblivion into success. She is now a
famous “artiste.”

But she does not call herself Signora Ballatino, and she does not play
upon the zithern. Her name has a homelier sound, and her speciality is
the delineation of coster character.



SILHOUETTES.


I fear I must be of a somewhat gruesome turn of mind. My sympathies are
always with the melancholy side of life and nature. I love the chill
October days, when the brown leaves lie thick and sodden underneath
your feet, and a low sound as of stifled sobbing is heard in the damp
woods—the evenings in late autumn time, when the white mist creeps
across the fields, making it seem as though old Earth, feeling the
night air cold to its poor bones, were drawing ghostly bedclothes round
its withered limbs. I like the twilight of the long grey street, sad
with the wailing cry of the distant muffin man. One thinks of him, as,
strangely mitred, he glides by through the gloom, jangling his harsh
bell, as the High Priest of the pale spirit of Indigestion, summoning
the devout to come forth and worship. I find a sweetness in the aching
dreariness of Sabbath afternoons in genteel suburbs—in the evil-laden
desolateness of waste places by the river, when the yellow fog is
stealing inland across the ooze and mud, and the black tide gurgles
softly round worm-eaten piles.

I love the bleak moor, when the thin long line of the winding road lies
white on the darkening heath, while overhead some belated bird, vexed
with itself for being out so late, scurries across the dusky sky,
screaming angrily. I love the lonely, sullen lake, hidden away in
mountain solitudes. I suppose it was my childhood’s surroundings that
instilled in me this affection for sombre hues. One of my earliest
recollections is of a dreary marshland by the sea. By day, the water
stood there in wide, shallow pools. But when one looked in the evening
they were pools of blood that lay there.

It was a wild, dismal stretch of coast. One day, I found myself there
all alone—I forget how it came about—and, oh, how small I felt amid the
sky and the sea and the sandhills! I ran, and ran, and ran, but I never
seemed to move; and then I cried, and screamed, louder and louder, and
the circling seagulls screamed back mockingly at me. It was an “unken”
spot, as they say up North.

In the far back days of the building of the world, a long, high ridge
of stones had been reared up by the sea, dividing the swampy grassland
from the sand. Some of these stones—“pebbles,” so they called them
round about—were as big as a man, and many as big as a fair-sized
house; and when the sea was angry—and very prone he was to anger by
that lonely shore, and very quick to wrath; often have I known him sink
to sleep with a peaceful smile on his rippling waves, to wake in fierce
fury before the night was spent—he would snatch up giant handfuls of
these pebbles and fling and toss them here and there, till the noise of
their rolling and crashing could be heard by the watchers in the
village afar off.

“Old Nick’s playing at marbles to-night,” they would say to one
another, pausing to listen. And then the women would close tight their
doors, and try not to hear the sound.

Far out to sea, by where the muddy mouth of the river yawned wide,
there rose ever a thin white line of surf, and underneath those crested
waves there dwelt a very fearsome thing, called the Bar. I grew to hate
and be afraid of this mysterious Bar, for I heard it spoken of always
with bated breath, and I knew that it was very cruel to fisher folk,
and hurt them so sometimes that they would cry whole days and nights
together with the pain, or would sit with white scared faces, rocking
themselves to and fro.

Once when I was playing among the sandhills, there came by a tall, grey
woman, bending beneath a load of driftwood. She paused when nearly
opposite to me, and, facing seaward, fixed her eyes upon the breaking
surf above the Bar. “Ah, how I hate the sight of your white teeth!” she
muttered; then turned and passed on.

Another morning, walking through the village, I heard a low wailing
come from one of the cottages, while a little farther on a group of
women were gathered in the roadway, talking. “Ay,” said one of them, “I
thought the Bar was looking hungry last night.”

So, putting one and the other together, I concluded that the “Bar” must
be an ogre, such as a body reads of in books, who lived in a coral
castle deep below the river’s mouth, and fed upon the fishermen as he
caught them going down to the sea or coming home.

From my bedroom window, on moonlight nights, I could watch the silvery
foam, marking the spot beneath where he lay hid; and I would stand on
tip-toe, peering out, until at length I would come to fancy I could see
his hideous form floating below the waters. Then, as the little
white-sailed boats stole by him, tremblingly, I used to tremble too,
lest he should suddenly open his grim jaws and gulp them down; and when
they had all safely reached the dark, soft sea beyond, I would steal
back to the bedside, and pray to God to make the Bar good, so that he
would give up eating the poor fishermen.

Another incident connected with that coast lives in my mind. It was the
morning after a great storm—great even for that stormy coast—and the
passion-worn waters were still heaving with the memory of a fury that
was dead. Old Nick had scattered his marbles far and wide, and there
were rents and fissures in the pebbly wall such as the oldest fisherman
had never known before. Some of the hugest stones lay tossed a hundred
yards away, and the waters had dug pits here and there along the ridge
so deep that a tall man might stand in some of them, and yet his head
not reach the level of the sand.

Round one of these holes a small crowd was pressing eagerly, while one
man, standing in the hollow, was lifting the few remaining stones off
something that lay there at the bottom. I pushed my way between the
straggling legs of a big fisher lad, and peered over with the rest. A
ray of sunlight streamed down into the pit, and the thing at the bottom
gleamed white. Sprawling there among the black pebbles it looked like a
huge spider. One by one the last stones were lifted away, and the thing
was left bare, and then the crowd looked at one another and shivered.

“Wonder how he got there,” said a woman at length; “somebody must ha’
helped him.”

“Some foreign chap, no doubt,” said the man who had lifted off the
stones; “washed ashore and buried here by the sea.”

“What, six foot below the water-mark, wi’ all they stones atop of him?”
said another.

“That’s no foreign chap,” cried a grizzled old woman, pressing forward.
“What’s that that’s aside him?”

Some one jumped down and took it from the stone where it lay
glistening, and handed it up to her, and she clutched it in her skinny
hand. It was a gold earring, such as fishermen sometimes wear. But this
was a somewhat large one, and of rather unusual shape.

“That’s young Abram Parsons, I tell ’ee, as lies down there,” cried the
old creature, wildly. “I ought to know. I gave him the pair o’ these
forty year ago.”

It may be only an idea of mine, born of after brooding upon the scene.
I am inclined to think it must be so, for I was only a child at the
time, and would hardly have noticed such a thing. But it seems to my
remembrance that as the old crone ceased, another woman in the crowd
raised her eyes slowly, and fixed them on a withered, ancient man, who
leant upon a stick, and that for a moment, unnoticed by the rest, these
two stood looking strangely at each other.

From these sea-scented scenes, my memory travels to a weary land where
dead ashes lie, and there is blackness—blackness everywhere. Black
rivers flow between black banks; black, stunted trees grow in black
fields; black withered flowers by black wayside. Black roads lead from
blackness past blackness to blackness; and along them trudge black,
savage-looking men and women; and by them black, old-looking children
play grim, unchildish games.

When the sun shines on this black land, it glitters black and hard; and
when the rain falls a black mist rises towards heaven, like the
hopeless prayer of a hopeless soul.

By night it is less dreary, for then the sky gleams with a lurid light,
and out of the darkness the red flames leap, and high up in the air
they gambol and writhe—the demon spawn of that evil land, they seem.

Visitors who came to our house would tell strange tales of this black
land, and some of the stories I am inclined to think were true. One man
said he saw a young bull-dog fly at a boy and pin him by the throat.
The lad jumped about with much sprightliness, and tried to knock the
dog away. Whereupon the boy’s father rushed out of the house, hard by,
and caught his son and heir roughly by the shoulder. “Keep still, thee
young ---, can’t ’ee!” shouted the man angrily; “let ’un taste blood.”

Another time, I heard a lady tell how she had visited a cottage during
a strike, to find the baby, together with the other children, almost
dying for want of food. “Dear, dear me!” she cried, taking the wee
wizened mite from the mother’s arms, “but I sent you down a quart of
milk, yesterday. Hasn’t the child had it?”

“Theer weer a little coom, thank ’ee kindly, ma’am,” the father took
upon himself to answer; “but thee see it weer only just enow for the
poops.”

We lived in a big lonely house on the edge of a wide common. One night,
I remember, just as I was reluctantly preparing to climb into bed,
there came a wild ringing at the gate, followed by a hoarse, shrieking
cry, and then a frenzied shaking of the iron bars.

Then hurrying footsteps sounded through the house, and the swift
opening and closing of doors; and I slipped back hastily into my
knickerbockers and ran out. The women folk were gathered on the stairs,
while my father stood in the hall, calling to them to be quiet. And
still the wild ringing of the bell continued, and, above it, the
hoarse, shrieking cry.

My father opened the door and went out, and we could hear him striding
down the gravel path, and we clung to one another and waited.

After what seemed an endless time, we heard the heavy gate unbarred,
and quickly clanged to, and footsteps returning on the gravel. Then the
door opened again, and my father entered, and behind him a crouching
figure that felt its way with its hands as it crept along, as a blind
man might. The figure stood up when it reached the middle of the hall,
and mopped its eyes with a dirty rag that it carried in its hand; after
which it held the rag over the umbrella-stand and wrung it out, as
washerwomen wring out clothes, and the dark drippings fell into the
tray with a dull, heavy splut.

My father whispered something to my mother, and she went out towards
the back; and, in a little while, we heard the stamping of hoofs—the
angry plunge of a spur-startled horse—the rhythmic throb of the long,
straight gallop, dying away into the distance.

My mother returned and spoke some reassuring words to the servants. My
father, having made fast the door and extinguished all but one or two
of the lights, had gone into a small room on the right of the hall; the
crouching figure, still mopping that moisture from its eyes, following
him. We could hear them talking there in low tones, my father
questioning, the other voice thick and interspersed with short panting
grunts.

We on the stairs huddled closer together, and, in the darkness, I felt
my mother’s arm steal round me and encompass me, so that I was not
afraid. Then we waited, while the silence round our frightened whispers
thickened and grew heavy till the weight of it seemed to hurt us.

At length, out of its depths, there crept to our ears a faint murmur.
It gathered strength like the sound of the oncoming of a wave upon a
stony shore, until it broke in a Babel of vehement voices just outside.
After a few moments, the hubbub ceased, and there came a furious
ringing—then angry shouts demanding admittance.

Some of the women began to cry. My father came out into the hall,
closing the room door behind him, and ordered them to be quiet, so
sternly that they were stunned into silence. The furious ringing was
repeated; and, this time, threats mingled among the hoarse shouts. My
mother’s arm tightened around me, and I could hear the beating of her
heart.

The voices outside the gate sank into a low confused mumbling. Soon
they died away altogether, and the silence flowed back.

My father turned up the hall lamp, and stood listening.

Suddenly, from the back of the house, rose the noise of a great
crashing, followed by oaths and savage laughter.

My father rushed forward, but was borne back; and, in an instant, the
hall was full of grim, ferocious faces. My father, trembling a little
(or else it was the shadow cast by the flickering lamp), and with lips
tight pressed, stood confronting them; while we women and children, too
scared to even cry, shrank back up the stairs.

What followed during the next few moments is, in my memory, only a
confused tumult, above which my father’s high, clear tones rise every
now and again, entreating, arguing, commanding. I see nothing
distinctly until one of the grimmest of the faces thrusts itself before
the others, and a voice which, like Aaron’s rod, swallows up all its
fellows, says in deep, determined bass, “Coom, we’ve had enow chatter,
master. Thee mun give ’un up, or thee mun get out o’ th’ way an’ we’ll
search th’ house for oursel’.”

Then a light flashed into my father’s eyes that kindled something
inside me, so that the fear went out of me, and I struggled to free
myself from my mother’s arm, for the desire stirred me to fling myself
down upon the grimy faces below, and beat and stamp upon them with my
fists. Springing across the hall, he snatched from the wall where it
hung an ancient club, part of a trophy of old armour, and planting his
back against the door through which they would have to pass, he
shouted, “Then be damned to you all, he’s in this room! Come and fetch
him out.”

(I recollect that speech well. I puzzled over it, even at that time,
excited though I was. I had always been told that only low, wicked
people ever used the word “damn,” and I tried to reconcile things, and
failed.)

The men drew back and muttered among themselves. It was an ugly-looking
weapon, studded with iron spikes. My father held it secured to his hand
by a chain, and there was an ugly look about him also, now, that gave
his face a strange likeness to the dark faces round him.

But my mother grew very white and cold, and underneath her breath she
kept crying, “Oh, will they never come—will they never come?” and a
cricket somewhere about the house began to chirp.

Then all at once, without a word, my mother flew down the stairs, and
passed like a flash of light through the crowd of dusky figures. How
she did it I could never understand, for the two heavy bolts had both
been drawn, but the next moment the door stood wide open; and a hum of
voices, cheery with the anticipation of a period of perfect bliss, was
borne in upon the cool night air.

My mother was always very quick of hearing.

* * * * *

Again, I see a wild crowd of grim faces, and my father’s, very pale,
amongst them. But this time the faces are very many, and they come and
go like faces in a dream. The ground beneath my feet is wet and sloppy,
and a black rain is falling. There are women’s faces in the crowd, wild
and haggard, and long skinny arms stretch out threateningly towards my
father, and shrill, frenzied voices call out curses on him. Boys’ faces
also pass me in the grey light, and on some of them there is an impish
grin.

I seem to be in everybody’s way; and to get out of it, I crawl into a
dark, draughty corner and crouch there among cinders. Around me, great
engines fiercely strain and pant like living things fighting beyond
their strength. Their gaunt arms whirl madly above me, and the ground
rocks with their throbbing. Dark figures flit to and fro, pausing from
time to time to wipe the black sweat from their faces.

The pale light fades, and the flame-lit night lies red upon the land.
The flitting figures take strange shapes. I hear the hissing of wheels,
the furious clanking of iron chains, the hoarse shouting of many
voices, the hurrying tread of many feet; and, through all, the wailing
and weeping and cursing that never seem to cease. I drop into a
restless sleep, and dream that I have broken a chapel window,
stone-throwing, and have died and gone to hell.

At length, a cold hand is laid upon my shoulder, and I awake. The wild
faces have vanished and all is silent now, and I wonder if the whole
thing has been a dream. My father lifts me into the dog-cart, and we
drive home through the chill dawn.

My mother opens the door softly as we alight. She does not speak, only
looks her question. “It’s all over, Maggie,” answers my father very
quietly, as he takes off his coat and lays it across a chair; “we’ve
got to begin the world afresh.”

My mother’s arms steal up about his neck; and I, feeling heavy with a
trouble I do not understand, creep off to bed.



THE LEASE OF THE “CROSS KEYS.”


This story is about a shop: many stories are. One Sunday evening this
Bishop had to preach a sermon at St. Paul’s Cathedral. The occasion was
a very special and important one, and every God-fearing newspaper in
the kingdom sent its own special representative to report the
proceedings.

Now, of the three reporters thus commissioned, one was a man of
appearance so eminently respectable that no one would have thought of
taking him for a journalist. People used to put him down for a County
Councillor or an Archdeacon at the very least. As a matter of fact,
however, he was a sinful man, with a passion for gin. He lived at Bow,
and, on the Sabbath in question, he left his home at five o’clock in
the afternoon, and started to walk to the scene of his labours. The
road from Bow to the City on a wet and chilly Sunday evening is a
cheerless one; who can blame him if on his way he stopped once or twice
to comfort himself with “two” of his favourite beverage? On reaching
St. Paul’s he found he had twenty minutes to spare—just time enough for
one final “nip.” Half way down a narrow court leading out of the
Churchyard he found a quiet little hostelry, and, entering the private
bar, whispered insinuatingly across the counter:

“Two of gin hot, if you please, my dear.”

His voice had the self-satisfied meekness of the successful
ecclesiastic, his bearing suggested rectitude tempered by desire to
avoid observation. The barmaid, impressed by his manner and appearance,
drew the attention of the landlord to him. The landlord covertly took
stock of so much of him as could be seen between his buttoned-up coat
and his drawn-down hat, and wondered how so bland and innocent-looking
a gentleman came to know of gin.

A landlord’s duty, however, is not to wonder, but to serve. The gin was
given to the man, and the man drank it. He liked it. It was good gin:
he was a connoisseur, and he knew. Indeed, so good did it seem to him
that he felt it would be a waste of opportunity not to have another
twopen’orth. Therefore he had a second “go”; maybe a third. Then he
returned to the Cathedral, and sat himself down with his notebook on
his knee and waited.

As the service proceeded there stole over him that spirit of
indifference to all earthly surroundings that religion and drink are
alone able to bestow. He heard the good Bishop’s text and wrote it
down. Then he heard the Bishop’s “sixthly and lastly,” and took that
down, and looked at his notebook and wondered in a peaceful way what
had become of the “firstly” to “fifthly” inclusive. He sat there
wondering until the people round him began to get up and move away,
whereupon it struck him swiftly and suddenly that be had been asleep,
and had thereby escaped the main body of the discourse.

What on earth was he to do? He was representing one of the leading
religious papers. A full report of the sermon was wanted that very
night. Seizing the robe of a passing wandsman, he tremulously inquired
if the Bishop had yet left the Cathedral. The wandsman answered that he
had not, but that he was just on the point of doing so.

“I must see him before he goes!” exclaimed the reporter, excitedly.

“You can’t,” replied the wandsman. The journalist grew frantic.

“Tell him,” he cried, “a penitent sinner desires to speak with him
about the sermon he has just delivered. To-morrow it will be too late.”

The wandsman was touched; so was the Bishop. He said he would see the
poor fellow.

As soon as the door was shut the man, with tears in his eyes, told the
Bishop the truth—leaving out the gin. He said that he was a poor man,
and not in good health, that he had been up half the night before, and
had walked all the way from Bow that evening. He dwelt on the
disastrous results to himself and his family should he fail to obtain a
report of the sermon. The Bishop felt sorry for the man. Also, he was
anxious that his sermon should be reported.

“Well, I trust it will be a warning to you against going to sleep in
church,” he said, with an indulgent smile. “Luckily, I have brought my
notes with me, and if you will promise to be very careful of them, and
to bring them back to me the first thing in the morning, I will lend
them to you.”

With this, the Bishop opened and handed to the man a neat little black
leather bag, inside which lay a neat little roll of manuscript.

“Better take the bag to keep it in,” added the Bishop. “Be sure and let
me have them both back early to-morrow.”

The reporter, when he examined the contents of the bag under a lamp in
the Cathedral vestibule, could hardly believe his good fortune. The
careful Bishop’s notes were so full and clear that for all practical
purposes they were equal to a report. His work was already done. He
felt so pleased with himself that he determined to treat himself to
another “two” of gin, and, with this intent, made his way across to the
little “public” before-mentioned.

“It’s really excellent gin you sell here,” he said to the barmaid when
he had finished; “I think, my dear, I’ll have just one more.”

At eleven the landlord gently but firmly insisted on his leaving, and
he went, assisted, as far as the end of the court, by the potboy. After
he was gone, the landlord noticed a neat little black bag on the seat
where he had been lying. Examining it closely, he discovered a brass
plate between the handles, and upon the brass plate were engraved the
owner’s name and title. Opening the bag, the landlord saw a neat little
roll of manuscript, and across a corner of the manuscript was written
the Bishop’s name and address.

The landlord blew a long, low whistle, and stood with his round eyes
wide open gazing down at the open bag. Then he put on his hat and coat,
and taking the bag, went out down the court, chuckling hugely as he
walked. He went straight to the house of the Resident Canon and rang
the bell.

“Tell Mr. ---,” he said to the servant, “that I must see him to-night.
I wouldn’t disturb him at this late hour if it wasn’t something very
important.”

The landlord was ushered up. Closing the door softly behind him, he
coughed deferentially.

“Well, Mr. Peters” (I will call him “Peters”), said the Canon, “what is
it?”

“Well, sir,” said Mr. Peters, slowly and deliberately, “it’s about that
there lease o’ mine. I do hope you gentlemen will see your way to
makin’ it twenty-one year instead o’ fourteen.”

“God bless the man!” cried the Canon, jumping up indignantly, “you
don’t mean to say you’ve come to me at eleven o’clock on a Sunday night
to talk about your lease?”

“Well, not entirely, sir,” answered Peters, unabashed; “there’s another
little thing I wished to speak to you about, and that’s this”—saying
which, he laid the Bishop’s bag before the Canon and told his story.

The Canon looked at Mr. Peters, and Mr. Peters looked at the Canon.

“There must be some mistake,” said the Canon.

“There’s no mistake,” said the landlord. “I had my suspicions when I
first clapped eyes on him. I seed he wasn’t our usual sort, and I seed
how he tried to hide his face. If he weren’t the Bishop, then I don’t
know a Bishop when I sees one, that’s all. Besides, there’s his bag,
and there’s his sermon.”

Mr. Peters folded his arms and waited. The Canon pondered. Such things
had been known to happen before in Church history. Why not again?

“Does any one know of this besides yourself?” asked the Canon.

“Not a livin’ soul,” replied Mr. Peters, “as yet.”

“I think—I think, Mr. Peters,” said the Canon, “that we may be able to
extend your lease to twenty-one years.”

“Thank you kindly, sir,” said the landlord, and departed. Next morning
the Canon waited on the Bishop and laid the bag before him.

“Oh,” said the Bishop cheerfully, “he’s sent it back by you, has he?”

“He has, sir,” replied the Canon; “and thankful I am that it was to me
he brought it. It is right,” continued the Canon, “that I should inform
your lordship that I am aware of the circumstances under which it left
your hands.”

The Canon’s eye was severe, and the Bishop laughed uneasily.

“I suppose it wasn’t quite the thing for me to do,” he answered
apologetically; “but there, all’s well that ends well,” and the Bishop
laughed.

This stung the Canon. “Oh, sir,” he exclaimed, with a burst of fervour,
“in Heaven’s name—for the sake of our Church, let me entreat—let me
pray you never to let such a thing occur again.”

The Bishop turned upon him angrily.

“Why, what a fuss you make about a little thing!” he cried; then,
seeing the look of agony upon the other’s face, he paused.

“How did you get that bag?” he asked.

“The landlord of the Cross Keys brought it me,” answered the Canon;
“you left it there last night.”

The Bishop gave a gasp, and sat down heavily. When he recovered his
breath, he told the Canon the real history of the case; and the Canon
is still trying to believe it.





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "John Ingerfield, and Other Stories" ***


Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.