Sylvie and Bruno
by Lewis Carroll · English · Gutenberg #620 · 384,594 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Sylvie and Bruno
Author: Lewis Carroll
Release date: August 1, 1996 [eBook #620]
Most recently updated: July 29, 2019
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/620
Credits: Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SYLVIE AND BRUNO ***
Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer
SYLVIE and BRUNO
By Lewis Carroll
Is all our Life, then but a dream
Seen faintly in the goldern gleam
Athwart Time's dark resistless stream?
Bowed to the earth with bitter woe
Or laughing at some raree-show
We flutter idly to and fro.
Man's little Day in haste we spend,
And, from its merry noontide, send
No glance to meet the silent end.
CONTENTS
SYLVIE AND BRUNO
CHAPTER 1. LESS BREAD! MORE TAXES!
CHAPTER 2. L'AMIE INCONNUE.
CHAPTER 3. BIRTHDAY-PRESENTS.
CHAPTER 4. A CUNNING CONSPIRACY.
CHAPTER 5. A BEGGAR'S PALACE.
CHAPTER 6. THE MAGIC LOCKET.
CHAPTER 7. THE BARONS EMBASSY.
CHAPTER 8. A RIDE ON A LION.
CHAPTER 9. A JESTER AND A BEAR.
CHAPTER 10. THE OTHER PROFESSOR.
CHAPTER 11. PETER AND PAUL.
CHAPTER 12. A MUSICAL GARDENER.
CHAPTER 13. A VISIT TO DOGLAND.
CHAPTER 14. FAIRY-SYLVIE.
CHAPTER 15. BRUNO'S REVENGE.
CHAPTER 16. A CHANGED CROCODILE.
CHAPTER 17. THE THREE BADGERS.
CHAPTER 18. QUEER STREET, NUMBER FORTY.
CHAPTER 19. HOW TO MAKE A PHLIZZ.
CHAPTER 20. LIGHT COME, LIGHT GO.
CHAPTER 21. THROUGH THE IVORY DOOR.
CHAPTER 22. CROSSING THE LINE.
CHAPTER 23. AN OUTLANDISH WATCH.
CHAPTER 24. THE FROGS' BIRTHDAY-TREAT.
CHAPTER 25. LOOKING EASTWARD.
PREFACE.
SYLVIE AND BRUNO
CHAPTER 1. LESS BREAD! MORE TAXES!
--and then all the people cheered again, and one man, who was more
excited than the rest, flung his hat high into the air, and shouted
(as well as I could make out) “Who roar for the Sub-Warden?” Everybody
roared, but whether it was for the Sub-Warden, or not, did not clearly
appear: some were shouting “Bread!” and some “Taxes!”, but no one seemed
to know what it was they really wanted.
All this I saw from the open window of the Warden's breakfast-saloon,
looking across the shoulder of the Lord Chancellor, who had sprung
to his feet the moment the shouting began, almost as if he had been
expecting it, and had rushed to the window which commanded the best view
of the market-place.
“What can it all mean?” he kept repeating to himself, as, with his hands
clasped behind him, and his gown floating in the air, he paced rapidly
up and down the room. “I never heard such shouting before--and at this
time of the morning, too! And with such unanimity! Doesn't it strike you
as very remarkable?”
I represented, modestly, that to my ears it appeared that they were
shouting for different things, but the Chancellor would not listen to my
suggestion for a moment. “They all shout the same words, I assure you!”
he said: then, leaning well out of the window, he whispered to a man who
was standing close underneath, “Keep'em together, ca'n't you? The Warden
will be here directly. Give'em the signal for the march up!” All this
was evidently not meant for my ears, but I could scarcely help hearing
it, considering that my chin was almost on the Chancellor's shoulder.
The 'march up' was a very curious sight:
{Image...The march-up}
a straggling procession of men, marching two and two, began from the
other side of the market-place, and advanced in an irregular zig-zag
fashion towards the Palace, wildly tacking from side to side, like a
sailing vessel making way against an unfavourable wind so that the head
of the procession was often further from us at the end of one tack than
it had been at the end of the previous one.
Yet it was evident that all was being done under orders, for I noticed
that all eyes were fixed on the man who stood just under the window, and
to whom the Chancellor was continually whispering. This man held his hat
in one hand and a little green flag in the other: whenever he waved the
flag the procession advanced a little nearer, when he dipped it they
sidled a little farther off, and whenever he waved his hat they all
raised a hoarse cheer. “Hoo-roah!” they cried, carefully keeping time
with the hat as it bobbed up and down. “Hoo-roah! Noo! Consti! Tooshun!
Less! Bread! More! Taxes!”
“That'll do, that'll do!” the Chancellor whispered. “Let 'em rest a bit
till I give you the word. He's not here yet!” But at this moment the
great folding-doors of the saloon were flung open, and he turned with a
guilty start to receive His High Excellency. However it was only Bruno,
and the Chancellor gave a little gasp of relieved anxiety.
“Morning!” said the little fellow, addressing the remark, in a general
sort of way, to the Chancellor and the waiters. “Doos oo know where
Sylvie is? I's looking for Sylvie!”
“She's with the Warden, I believe, y'reince!” the Chancellor replied
with a low bow. There was, no doubt, a certain amount of absurdity in
applying this title (which, as of course you see without my telling you,
was nothing but 'your Royal Highness' condensed into one syllable) to
a small creature whose father was merely the Warden of Outland: still,
large excuse must be made for a man who had passed several years at the
Court of Fairyland, and had there acquired the almost impossible art of
pronouncing five syllables as one.
But the bow was lost upon Bruno, who had run out of the room, even
while the great feat of The Unpronounceable Monosyllable was being
triumphantly performed.
Just then, a single voice in the distance was understood to shout “A
speech from the Chancellor!” “Certainly, my friends!” the Chancellor
replied with extraordinary promptitude. “You shall have a speech!”
Here one of the waiters, who had been for some minutes busy making a
queer-looking mixture of egg and sherry, respectfully presented it on
a large silver salver. The Chancellor took it haughtily, drank it off
thoughtfully, smiled benevolently on the happy waiter as he set down the
empty glass, and began. To the best of my recollection this is what he
said.
“Ahem! Ahem! Ahem! Fellow-sufferers, or rather suffering fellows--”
(“Don't call 'em names!” muttered the man under the window. “I didn't
say felons!” the Chancellor explained.) “You may be sure that I always
sympa--” (“'Ear, 'ear!” shouted the crowd, so loudly as quite to drown
the orator's thin squeaky voice) “--that I always sympa--” he repeated.
(“Don't simper quite so much!” said the man under the window. “It makes
yer look a hidiot!” And, all this time, “'Ear, 'ear!” went rumbling
round the market-place, like a peal of thunder.) “That I always
sympathise!” yelled the Chancellor, the first moment there was silence.
“But your true friend is the Sub-Warden! Day and night he is brooding on
your wrongs--I should say your rights--that is to say your wrongs--no,
I mean your rights--” (“Don't talk no more!” growled the man under the
window. “You're making a mess of it!”) At this moment the Sub-Warden
entered the saloon. He was a thin man, with a mean and crafty face,
and a greenish-yellow complexion; and he crossed the room very slowly,
looking suspiciously about him as if he thought there might be a savage
dog hidden somewhere. “Bravo!” he cried, patting the Chancellor on the
back. “You did that speech very well indeed. Why, you're a born orator,
man!”
“Oh, that's nothing!” the Chancellor replied, modestly, with downcast
eyes. “Most orators are born, you know.”
The Sub-Warden thoughtfully rubbed his chin. “Why, so they are!” he
admitted. “I never considered it in that light. Still, you did it very
well. A word in your ear!”
The rest of their conversation was all in whispers: so, as I could hear
no more, I thought I would go and find Bruno.
I found the little fellow standing in the passage, and being addressed
by one of the men in livery, who stood before him, nearly bent double
from extreme respectfulness, with his hands hanging in front of him
like the fins of a fish. “His High Excellency,” this respectful man was
saying, “is in his Study, y'reince!” (He didn't pronounce this quite so
well as the Chancellor.) Thither Bruno trotted, and I thought it well to
follow him.
The Warden, a tall dignified man with a grave but very pleasant face,
was seated before a writing-table, which was covered with papers, and
holding on his knee one of the sweetest and loveliest little maidens it
has ever been my lot to see. She looked four or five years older than
Bruno, but she had the same rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes, and the same
wealth of curly brown hair. Her eager smiling face was turned upwards
towards her father's, and it was a pretty sight to see the mutual love
with which the two faces--one in the Spring of Life, the other in its
late Autumn--were gazing on each other.
“No, you've never seen him,” the old man was saying: “you couldn't, you
know, he's been away so long--traveling from land to land, and seeking
for health, more years than you've been alive, little Sylvie!” Here
Bruno climbed upon his other knee, and a good deal of kissing, on a
rather complicated system, was the result.
“He only came back last night,” said the Warden, when the kissing was
over: “he's been traveling post-haste, for the last thousand miles or
so, in order to be here on Sylvie's birthday. But he's a very early
riser, and I dare say he's in the Library already. Come with me and see
him. He's always kind to children. You'll be sure to like him.”
“Has the Other Professor come too?” Bruno asked in an awe-struck voice.
“Yes, they arrived together. The Other Professor is--well, you won't
like him quite so much, perhaps. He's a little more dreamy, you know.”
“I wiss Sylvie was a little more dreamy,” said Bruno.
“What do you mean, Bruno?” said Sylvie.
Bruno went on addressing his father. “She says she ca'n't, oo know. But
I thinks it isn't ca'n't, it's wo'n't.”
“Says she ca'n't dream!” the puzzled Warden repeated.
“She do say it,” Bruno persisted. “When I says to her 'Let's stop
lessons!', she says 'Oh, I ca'n't dream of letting oo stop yet!'”
“He always wants to stop lessons,” Sylvie explained, “five minutes after
we begin!”
“Five minutes' lessons a day!” said the Warden. “You won't learn much at
that rate, little man!”
“That's just what Sylvie says,” Bruno rejoined. “She says I wo'n't learn
my lessons. And I tells her, over and over, I ca'n't learn 'em. And what
doos oo think she says? She says 'It isn't ca'n't, it's wo'n't!'”
“Let's go and see the Professor,” the Warden said, wisely avoiding
further discussion. The children got down off his knees, each secured a
hand, and the happy trio set off for the Library--followed by me. I had
come to the conclusion by this time that none of the party (except, for
a few moments, the Lord Chancellor) was in the least able to see me.
“What's the matter with him?” Sylvie asked, walking with a little extra
sedateness, by way of example to Bruno at the other side, who never
ceased jumping up and down.
{Image...Visiting the profesor}
“What was the matter--but I hope he's all right now--was lumbago, and
rheumatism, and that kind of thing. He's been curing himself, you
know: he's a very learned doctor. Why, he's actually invented three new
diseases, besides a new way of breaking your collar-bone!”
“Is it a nice way?” said Bruno.
“Well, hum, not very,” the Warden said, as we entered the Library. “And
here is the Professor. Good morning, Professor! Hope you're quite rested
after your journey!”
A jolly-looking, fat little man, in a flowery dressing-gown, with a
large book under each arm, came trotting in at the other end of the
room, and was going straight across without taking any notice of the
children. “I'm looking for Vol. Three,” he said. “Do you happen to have
seen it?”
“You don't see my children, Professor!” the Warden exclaimed, taking him
by the shoulders and turning him round to face them.
The Professor laughed violently: then he gazed at them through his great
spectacles, for a minute or two, without speaking.
At last he addressed Bruno. “I hope you have had a good night, my
child?” Bruno looked puzzled. “I's had the same night oo've had,” he
replied. “There's only been one night since yesterday!”
It was the Professor's turn to look puzzled now. He took off his
spectacles, and rubbed them with his handkerchief. Then he gazed at them
again. Then he turned to the Warden. “Are they bound?” he enquired.
“No, we aren't,” said Bruno, who thought himself quite able to answer
this question.
The Professor shook his head sadly. “Not even half-bound?”
“Why would we be half-bound?” said Bruno.
“We're not prisoners!”
But the Professor had forgotten all about them by this time, and was
speaking to the Warden again. “You'll be glad to hear,” he was saying,
“that the Barometer's beginning to move--”
“Well, which way?” said the Warden--adding, to the children, “Not that
I care, you know. Only he thinks it affects the weather. He's a
wonderfully clever man, you know. Sometimes he says things that only the
Other Professor can understand. Sometimes he says things that nobody can
understand! Which way is it, Professor? Up or down?”
“Neither!” said the Professor, gently clapping his hands. “It's going
sideways--if I may so express myself.”
“And what kind of weather does that produce?” said the Warden. “Listen,
children! Now you'll hear something worth knowing!”
“Horizontal weather,” said the Professor, and made straight for the
door, very nearly trampling on Bruno, who had only just time to get out
of his way.
“Isn't he learned?” the Warden said, looking after him with admiring
eyes. “Positively he runs over with learning!”
“But he needn't run over me!” said Bruno.
The Professor was back in a moment: he had changed his dressing-gown for
a frock-coat, and had put on a pair of very strange-looking boots, the
tops of which were open umbrellas. “I thought you'd like to see them,”
he said. “These are the boots for horizontal weather!”
{Image...Boots for horizontal weather}
“But what's the use of wearing umbrellas round one's knees?”
“In ordinary rain,” the Professor admitted, “they would not be of
much use. But if ever it rained horizontally, you know, they would be
invaluable--simply invaluable!”
“Take the Professor to the breakfast-saloon, children,” said the Warden.
“And tell them not to wait for me. I had breakfast early, as I've some
business to attend to.” The children seized the Professor's hands, as
familiarly as if they had known him for years, and hurried him away. I
followed respectfully behind.
CHAPTER 2. L'AMIE INCONNUE.
As we entered the breakfast-saloon, the Professor was saying “--and he
had breakfast by himself, early: so he begged you wouldn't wait for him,
my Lady. This way, my Lady,” he added, “this way!” And then, with (as it
seemed to me) most superfluous politeness, he flung open the door of my
compartment, and ushered in “--a young and lovely lady!” I muttered to
myself with some bitterness. “And this is, of course, the opening
scene of Vol. I. She is the Heroine. And I am one of those subordinate
characters that only turn up when needed for the development of her
destiny, and whose final appearance is outside the church, waiting to
greet the Happy Pair!”
“Yes, my Lady, change at Fayfield,” were the next words I heard (oh that
too obsequious Guard!), “next station but one.” And the door closed, and
the lady settled down into her corner, and the monotonous throb of the
engine (making one feel as if the train were some gigantic monster,
whose very circulation we could feel) proclaimed that we were once more
speeding on our way. “The lady had a perfectly formed nose,” I caught
myself saying to myself, “hazel eyes, and lips--” and here it occurred
to me that to see, for myself, what “the lady” was really like, would be
more satisfactory than much speculation.
I looked round cautiously, and--was entirely disappointed of my hope.
The veil, which shrouded her whole face, was too thick for me to see
more than the glitter of bright eyes and the hazy outline of what might
be a lovely oval face, but might also, unfortunately, be an equally
unlovely one. I closed my eyes again, saying to myself “--couldn't have
a better chance for an experiment in Telepathy! I'll think out her face,
and afterwards test the portrait with the original.”
At first, no result at all crowned my efforts, though I 'divided my
swift mind,' now hither, now thither, in a way that I felt sure would
have made AEneas green with envy: but the dimly-seen oval remained as
provokingly blank as ever--a mere Ellipse, as if in some mathematical
diagram, without even the Foci that might be made to do duty as a nose
and a mouth. Gradually, however, the conviction came upon me that I
could, by a certain concentration of thought, think the veil away, and
so get a glimpse of the mysterious face--as to which the two questions,
“is she pretty?” and “is she plain?”, still hung suspended, in my mind,
in beautiful equipoise.
Success was partial--and fitful--still there was a result: ever and
anon, the veil seemed to vanish, in a sudden flash of light: but,
before I could fully realise the face, all was dark again. In each such
glimpse, the face seemed to grow more childish and more innocent:
and, when I had at last thought the veil entirely away, it was,
unmistakeably, the sweet face of little Sylvie!
“So, either I've been dreaming about Sylvie,” I said to myself, “and
this is the reality. Or else I've really been with Sylvie, and this is a
dream! Is Life itself a dream, I wonder?”
To occupy the time, I got out the letter, which had caused me to take
this sudden railway-journey from my London home down to a strange
fishing-town on the North coast, and read it over again:--
“DEAR OLD FRIEND,
“I'm sure it will be as great a pleasure to me, as it can possibly
be to you, to meet once more after so many years: and of course I
shall be ready to give you all the benefit of such medical skill as
I have: only, you know, one mustn't violate professional etiquette!
And you are already in the hands of a first-rate London doctor,
with whom it would be utter affectation for me to pretend to compete.
(I make no doubt he is right in saying the heart is affected:
all your symptoms point that way.) One thing, at any rate, I have
already done in my doctorial capacity--secured you a bedroom on the
ground-floor, so that you will not need to ascend the stairs at all.
“I shalt expect you by last train on Friday, in accordance with your
letter: and, till then, I shalt say, in the words of the old song,
'Oh for Friday nicht! Friday's lang a-coming!'
“Yours always,
“ARTHUR FORESTER.
“P.S. Do you believe in Fate?”
This Postscript puzzled me sorely. “He is far too sensible a man,” I
thought, “to have become a Fatalist. And yet what else can he mean by
it?” And, as I folded up the letter and put it away, I inadvertently
repeated the words aloud. “Do you believe in Fate?”
The fair 'Incognita' turned her head quickly at the sudden question.
“No, I don't!” she said with a smile. “Do you?”
“I--I didn't mean to ask the question!” I stammered, a little taken
aback at having begun a conversation in so unconventional a fashion.
The lady's smile became a laugh--not a mocking laugh, but the laugh of a
happy child who is perfectly at her ease. “Didn't you?” she said. “Then
it was a case of what you Doctors call 'unconscious cerebration'?”
“I am no Doctor,” I replied. “Do I look so like one? Or what makes you
think it?”
She pointed to the book I had been reading, which was so lying that its
title, “Diseases of the Heart,” was plainly visible.
“One needn't be a Doctor,” I said, “to take an interest in medical
books. There's another class of readers, who are yet more deeply
interested--”
“You mean the Patients?” she interrupted, while a look of tender pity
gave new sweetness to her face. “But,” with an evident wish to avoid a
possibly painful topic, “one needn't be either, to take an interest in
books of Science. Which contain the greatest amount of Science, do you
think, the books, or the minds?”
“Rather a profound question for a lady!” I said to myself, holding, with
the conceit so natural to Man, that Woman's intellect is essentially
shallow. And I considered a minute before replying. “If you mean living
minds, I don't think it's possible to decide. There is so much written
Science that no living person has ever read: and there is so much
thought-out Science that hasn't yet been written. But, if you mean the
whole human race, then I think the minds have it: everything, recorded
in books, must have once been in some mind, you know.”
“Isn't that rather like one of the Rules in Algebra?” my Lady enquired.
(“Algebra too!” I thought with increasing wonder.) “I mean, if we
consider thoughts as factors, may we not say that the Least Common
Multiple of all the minds contains that of all the books; but not the
other way?”
“Certainly we may!” I replied, delighted with the illustration. “And
what a grand thing it would be,” I went on dreamily, thinking aloud
rather than talking, “if we could only apply that Rule to books! You
know, in finding the Least Common Multiple, we strike out a quantity
wherever it occurs, except in the term where it is raised to its highest
power. So we should have to erase every recorded thought, except in the
sentence where it is expressed with the greatest intensity.”
My Lady laughed merrily. “Some books would be reduced to blank paper,
I'm afraid!” she said.
“They would. Most libraries would be terribly diminished in bulk. But
just think what they would gain in quality!”
“When will it be done?” she eagerly asked. “If there's any chance of it
in my time, I think I'll leave off reading, and wait for it!”
“Well, perhaps in another thousand years or so--”
“Then there's no use waiting!”, said my Lady. “Let's sit down. Uggug, my
pet, come and sit by me!”
“Anywhere but by me!” growled the Sub-warden. “The little wretch always
manages to upset his coffee!”
I guessed at once (as perhaps the reader will also have guessed, if,
like myself, he is very clever at drawing conclusions) that my Lady was
the Sub-Warden's wife, and that Uggug (a hideous fat boy, about the same
age as Sylvie, with the expression of a prize-pig) was their son. Sylvie
and Bruno, with the Lord Chancellor, made up a party of seven.
{Image...A portable plunge-bath}
“And you actually got a plunge-bath every morning?” said the Sub-Warden,
seemingly in continuation of a conversation with the Professor. “Even at
the little roadside-inns?”
“Oh, certainly, certainly!” the Professor replied with a smile on his
jolly face. “Allow me to explain. It is, in fact, a very simple problem
in Hydrodynamics. (That means a combination of Water and Strength.)
If we take a plunge-bath, and a man of great strength (such as myself)
about to plunge into it, we have a perfect example of this science. I
am bound to admit,” the Professor continued, in a lower tone and with
downcast eyes, “that we need a man of remarkable strength. He must be
able to spring from the floor to about twice his own height, gradually
turning over as he rises, so as to come down again head first.”
“Why, you need a flea, not a man!” exclaimed the Sub-Warden.
“Pardon me,” said the Professor. “This particular kind of bath is
not adapted for a flea. Let us suppose,” he continued, folding his
table-napkin into a graceful festoon, “that this represents what is
perhaps the necessity of this Age--the Active Tourist's Portable Bath.
You may describe it briefly, if you like,” looking at the Chancellor,
“by the letters A.T.P.B.”
The Chancellor, much disconcerted at finding everybody looking at him,
could only murmur, in a shy whisper, “Precisely so!”
“One great advantage of this plunge-bath,” continued the Professor, “is
that it requires only half-a-gallon of water--”
“I don't call it a plunge-bath,” His Sub-Excellency remarked, “unless
your Active Tourist goes right under!”
“But he does go right under,” the old man gently replied. “The A.T.
hangs up the P. B. on a nail--thus. He then empties the water-jug into
it--places the empty jug below the bag--leaps into the air--descends
head-first into the bag--the water rises round him to the top of the
bag--and there you are!” he triumphantly concluded. “The A.T. is as much
under water as if he'd gone a mile or two down into the Atlantic!”
“And he's drowned, let us say, in about four minutes--”
“By no means!” the Professor answered with a proud smile. “After about
a minute, he quietly turns a tap at the lower end of the P. B.--all the
water runs back into the jug and there you are again!”
“But how in the world is he to get out of the bag again?”
“That, I take it,” said the Professor, “is the most beautiful part of
the whole invention. All the way up the P.B., inside, are loops for
the thumbs; so it's something like going up-stairs, only perhaps less
comfortable; and, by the time the A. T. has risen out of the bag, all
but his head, he's sure to topple over, one way or the other--the Law of
Gravity secures that. And there he is on the floor again!”
“A little bruised, perhaps?”
“Well, yes, a little bruised; but having had his plunge-bath: that's the
great thing.”
“Wonderful! It's almost beyond belief!” murmured the Sub-Warden. The
Professor took it as a compliment, and bowed with a gratified smile.
“Quite beyond belief!” my Lady added--meaning, no doubt, to be more
complimentary still. The Professor bowed, but he didn't smile this time.
“I can assure you,” he said earnestly, “that, provided the bath was
made, I used it every morning. I certainly ordered it--that I am clear
about--my only doubt is, whether the man ever finished making it. It's
difficult to remember, after so many years--”
At this moment the door, very slowly and creakingly, began to open, and
Sylvie and Bruno jumped up, and ran to meet the well-known footstep.
CHAPTER 3. BIRTHDAY-PRESENTS.
“It's my brother!” the Sub-warden exclaimed, in a warning whisper.
“Speak out, and be quick about it!”
The appeal was evidently addressed to the Lord Chancellor, who instantly
replied, in a shrill monotone, like a little boy repeating the alphabet,
“As I was remarking, your Sub-Excellency, this portentous movement--”
“You began too soon!” the other interrupted, scarcely able to restrain
himself to a whisper, so great was his excitement. “He couldn't have
heard you. Begin again!” “As I was remarking,” chanted the obedient Lord
Chancellor, “this portentous movement has already assumed the dimensions
of a Revolution!”
“And what are the dimensions of a Revolution?” The voice was genial and
mellow, and the face of the tall dignified old man, who had just entered
the room, leading Sylvie by the hand, and with Bruno riding triumphantly
on his shoulder, was too noble and gentle to have scared a less guilty
man: but the Lord Chancellor turned pale instantly, and could hardly
articulate the words “The dimensions your--your High Excellency?
I--I--scarcely comprehend!”
“Well, the length, breadth, and thickness, if you like it better!” And
the old man smiled, half-contemptuously.
The Lord Chancellor recovered himself with a great effort, and pointed
to the open window. “If your High Excellency will listen for a moment
to the shouts of the exasperated populace--” (“of the exasperated
populace!” the Sub-Warden repeated in a louder tone, as the Lord
Chancellor, being in a state of abject terror, had dropped almost into a
whisper) “--you will understand what it is they want.”
And at that moment there surged into the room a hoarse confused cry, in
which the only clearly audible words were “Less--bread--More--taxes!”
The old man laughed heartily. “What in the world--” he was beginning:
but the Chancellor heard him not. “Some mistake!” he muttered, hurrying
to the window, from which he shortly returned with an air of relief.
“Now listen!” he exclaimed, holding up his hand impressively. And now
the words came quite distinctly, and with the regularity of the ticking
of a clock, “More--bread--Less taxes!'”
“More bread!” the Warden repeated in astonishment. “Why, the new
Government Bakery was opened only last week, and I gave orders to sell
the bread at cost-price during the present scarcity! What can they
expect more?”
“The Bakery's closed, y'reince!” the Chancellor said, more loudly and
clearly than he had spoken yet. He was emboldened by the consciousness
that here, at least, he had evidence to produce: and he placed in the
Warden's hands a few printed notices, that were lying ready, with some
open ledgers, on a side-table.
“Yes, yes, I see!” the Warden muttered, glancing carelessly through
them. “Order countermanded by my brother, and supposed to be my doing!
Rather sharp practice! It's all right!” he added in a louder tone. “My
name is signed to it: so I take it on myself. But what do they mean by
'Less Taxes'? How can they be less? I abolished the last of them a month
ago!”
“It's been put on again, y'reince, and by y'reince's own orders!”, and
other printed notices were submitted for inspection.
The Warden, whilst looking them over, glanced once or twice at the
Sub-Warden, who had seated himself before one of the open ledgers, and
was quite absorbed in adding it up; but he merely repeated “It's all
right. I accept it as my doing.”
“And they do say,” the Chancellor went on sheepishly--looking much
more like a convicted thief than an Officer of State, “that a change
of Government, by the abolition of the Sub-Warden---I mean,” he hastily
added, on seeing the Warden's look of astonishment, “the abolition of
the office of Sub-Warden, and giving the present holder the right to
act as Vice-Warden whenever the Warden is absent--would appease all this
seedling discontent I mean,” he added, glancing at a paper he held in
his hand, “all this seething discontent!”
“For fifteen years,” put in a deep but very harsh voice, “my husband has
been acting as Sub-Warden. It is too long! It is much too long!” My Lady
was a vast creature at all times: but, when she frowned and folded her
arms, as now, she looked more gigantic than ever, and made one try to
fancy what a haystack would look like, if out of temper.
“He would distinguish himself as a Vice!” my Lady proceeded, being far
too stupid to see the double meaning of her words. “There has been no
such Vice in Outland for many a long year, as he would be!”
“What course would you suggest, Sister?” the Warden mildly enquired.
My Lady stamped, which was undignified: and snorted, which was
ungraceful. “This is no jesting matter!” she bellowed.
“I will consult my brother,” said the Warden. “Brother!”
“--and seven makes a hundred and ninety-four, which is sixteen and
two-pence,” the Sub-Warden replied. “Put down two and carry sixteen.”
The Chancellor raised his hands and eyebrows, lost in admiration. “Such
a man of business!” he murmured.
“Brother, could I have a word with you in my Study?” the Warden said in
a louder tone. The Sub-Warden rose with alacrity, and the two left the
room together.
My Lady turned to the Professor, who had uncovered the urn, and was
taking its temperature with his pocket-thermometer. “Professor!” she
began, so loudly and suddenly that even Uggug, who had gone to sleep in
his chair, left off snoring and opened one eye. The Professor pocketed
his thermometer in a moment, clasped his hands, and put his head on one
side with a meek smile.
“You were teaching my son before breakfast, I believe?” my Lady loftily
remarked. “I hope he strikes you as having talent?”
“Oh, very much so indeed, my Lady!” the Professor hastily replied,
unconsciously rubbing his ear, while some painful recollection seemed
to cross his mind. “I was very forcibly struck by His Magnificence, I
assure you!”
“He is a charming boy!” my Lady exclaimed. “Even his snores are more
musical than those of other boys!”
If that were so, the Professor seemed to think, the snores of other boys
must be something too awful to be endured: but he was a cautious man,
and he said nothing.
“And he's so clever!” my Lady continued. “No one will enjoy your Lecture
more by the way, have you fixed the time for it yet? You've never given
one, you know: and it was promised years ago, before you--
“Yes, yes, my Lady, I know! Perhaps next Tuesday or Tuesday week--”
“That will do very well,” said my Lady, graciously. “Of course you will
let the Other Professor lecture as well?”
“I think not, my Lady?” the Professor said with some hesitation. “You
see, he always stands with his back to the audience. It does very well
for reciting; but for lecturing--”
“You are quite right,” said my Lady. “And, now I come to think of it,
there would hardly be time for more than one Lecture. And it will go off
all the better, if we begin with a Banquet, and a Fancy-dress Ball--”
“It will indeed!” the Professor cried, with enthusiasm.
“I shall come as a Grass-hopper,” my Lady calmly proceeded. “What shall
you come as, Professor?”
The Professor smiled feebly. “I shall come as--as early as I can, my
Lady!”
“You mustn't come in before the doors are opened,” said my Lady.
“I ca'n't,” said the Professor. “Excuse me a moment. As this is Lady
Sylvie's birthday, I would like to--” and he rushed away.
Bruno began feeling in his pockets, looking more and more melancholy
as he did so: then he put his thumb in his mouth, and considered for a
minute: then he quietly left the room.
He had hardly done so before the Professor was back again, quite out of
breath. “Wishing you many happy returns of the day, my dear child!” he
went on, addressing the smiling little girl, who had run to meet him.
“Allow me to give you a birthday-present. It's a second-hand pincushion,
my dear. And it only cost fourpence-halfpenny!”
“Thank you, it's very pretty!” And Sylvie rewarded the old man with a
hearty kiss.
“And the pins they gave me for nothing!” the Professor added in high
glee. “Fifteen of 'em, and only one bent!”
“I'll make the bent one into a hook!” said Sylvie. “To catch Bruno with,
when he runs away from his lessons!”
“You ca'n't guess what my present is!” said Uggug, who had taken the
butter-dish from the table, and was standing behind her, with a wicked
leer on his face.
“No, I ca'n't guess,” Sylvie said without looking up. She was still
examining the Professor's pincushion.
“It's this!” cried the bad boy, exultingly, as he emptied the dish over
her, and then, with a grin of delight at his own cleverness, looked
round for applause.
Sylvie coloured crimson, as she shook off the butter from her frock: but
she kept her lips tight shut, and walked away to the window, where she
stood looking out and trying to recover her temper.
Uggug's triumph was a very short one: the Sub-Warden had returned, just
in time to be a witness of his dear child's playfulness, and in another
moment a skilfully-applied box on the ear had changed the grin of
delight into a howl of pain.
“My darling!” cried his mother, enfolding him in her fat arms. “Did they
box his ears for nothing? A precious pet!”
“It's not for nothing!” growled the angry father. “Are you aware, Madam,
that I pay the house-bills, out of a fixed annual sum? The loss of all
that wasted butter falls on me! Do you hear, Madam!”
“Hold your tongue, Sir!” My Lady spoke very quietly--almost in a
whisper. But there was something in her look which silenced him. “Don't
you see it was only a joke? And a very clever one, too! He only meant
that he loved nobody but her! And, instead of being pleased with the
compliment, the spiteful little thing has gone away in a huff!”
The Sub-Warden was a very good hand at changing a subject. He walked
across to the window. “My dear,” he said, “is that a pig that I see down
below, rooting about among your flower-beds?”
“A pig!” shrieked my Lady, rushing madly to the window, and almost
pushing her husband out, in her anxiety to see for herself. “Whose pig
is it? How did it get in? Where's that crazy Gardener gone?”
At this moment Bruno re-entered the room, and passing Uggug (who was
blubbering his loudest, in the hope of attracting notice) as if he was
quite used to that sort of thing, he ran up to Sylvie and threw his arms
round her. “I went to my toy-cupboard,” he said with a very sorrowful
face, “to see if there were somefin fit for a present for oo! And there
isn't nuffin! They's all broken, every one! And I haven't got no money
left, to buy oo a birthday-present! And I ca'n't give oo nuffin but
this!” (“This” was a very earnest hug and a kiss.)
“Oh, thank you, darling!” cried Sylvie. “I like your present best of
all!” (But if so, why did she give it back so quickly?)
His Sub-Excellency turned and patted the two children on the head with
his long lean hands. “Go away, dears!” he said. “There's business to
talk over.”
Sylvie and Bruno went away hand in hand: but, on reaching the door,
Sylvie came back again and went up to Uggug timidly. “I don't mind about
the butter,” she said, “and I--I'm sorry he hurt you!” And she tried to
shake hands with the little ruffian: but Uggug only blubbered louder,
and wouldn't make friends. Sylvie left the room with a sigh.
The Sub-Warden glared angrily at his weeping son. “Leave the room,
Sirrah!” he said, as loud as he dared. His wife was still leaning out of
the window, and kept repeating “I ca'n't see that pig! Where is it?”
“It's moved to the right now it's gone a little to the left,” said the
Sub-Warden: but he had his back to the window, and was making signals to
the Lord Chancellor, pointing to Uggug and the door, with many a cunning
nod and wink.
{Image...Removal of Uggug}
The Chancellor caught his meaning at last, and, crossing the room, took
that interesting child by the ear the next moment he and Uggug were out
of the room, and the door shut behind them: but not before one piercing
yell had rung through the room, and reached the ears of the fond mother.
“What is that hideous noise?” she fiercely asked, turning upon her
startled husband.
“It's some hyaena--or other,” replied the Sub-Warden, looking vaguely up
to the ceiling, as if that was where they usually were to be found. “Let
us to business, my dear. Here comes the Warden.” And he picked up from
the floor a wandering scrap of manuscript, on which I just caught the
words 'after which Election duly holden the said Sibimet and Tabikat
his wife may at their pleasure assume Imperial--' before, with a guilty
look, he crumpled it up in his hand.
CHAPTER 4. A CUNNING CONSPIRACY.
The Warden entered at this moment: and close behind him came the Lord
Chancellor, a little flushed and out of breath, and adjusting his wig,
which appeared to have been dragged partly off his head.
“But where is my precious child?” my Lady enquired, as the four took
their seats at the small side-table devoted to ledgers and bundles and
bills.
“He left the room a few minutes ago with the Lord Chancellor,” the
Sub-Warden briefly explained.
“Ah!” said my Lady, graciously smiling on that high official. “Your
Lordship has a very taking way with children! I doubt if any one could
gain the ear of my darling Uggug so quickly as you can!” For an entirely
stupid woman, my Lady's remarks were curiously full of meaning, of which
she herself was wholly unconscious.
The Chancellor bowed, but with a very uneasy air. “I think the Warden
was about to speak,” he remarked, evidently anxious to change the
subject.
But my Lady would not be checked. “He is a clever boy,” she continued
with enthusiasm, “but he needs a man like your Lordship to draw him
out!”
The Chancellor bit his lip, and was silent. He evidently feared that,
stupid as she looked, she understood what she said this time, and was
having a joke at his expense. He might have spared himself all anxiety:
whatever accidental meaning her words might have, she herself never
meant anything at all.
“It is all settled!” the Warden announced, wasting no time over
preliminaries. “The Sub-Wardenship is abolished, and my brother is
appointed to act as Vice-Warden whenever I am absent. So, as I am going
abroad for a while, he will enter on his new duties at once.”
“And there will really be a Vice after all?” my Lady enquired.
“I hope so!” the Warden smilingly replied.
My Lady looked much pleased, and tried to clap her hands: but you might
as well have knocked two feather-beds together, for any noise it made.
“When my husband is Vice,” she said, “it will be the same as if we had a
hundred Vices!”
“Hear, hear!” cried the Sub-Warden.
“You seem to think it very remarkable,” my Lady remarked with some
severity, “that your wife should speak the truth!”
“No, not remarkable at all!” her husband anxiously explained. “Nothing
is remarkable that you say, sweet one!”
My Lady smiled approval of the sentiment, and went on. “And am I
Vice-Wardeness?”
“If you choose to use that title,” said the Warden: “but 'Your
Excellency' will be the proper style of address. And I trust that both
'His Excellency' and 'Her Excellency' will observe the Agreement I have
drawn up. The provision I am most anxious about is this.” He unrolled a
large parchment scroll, and read aloud the words “'item, that we will be
kind to the poor.' The Chancellor worded it for me,” he added, glancing
at that great Functionary. “I suppose, now, that word 'item' has some
deep legal meaning?”
“Undoubtedly!” replied the Chancellor, as articulately as he could with
a pen between his lips. He was nervously rolling and unrolling several
other scrolls, and making room among them for the one the Warden had
just handed to him. “These are merely the rough copies,” he explained:
“and, as soon as I have put in the final corrections--” making a great
commotion among the different parchments, “--a semi-colon or two that I
have accidentally omitted--” here he darted about, pen in hand, from one
part of the scroll to another, spreading sheets of blotting-paper over
his corrections, “all will be ready for signing.”
“Should it not be read out, first?” my Lady enquired.
“No need, no need!” the Sub-Warden and the Chancellor exclaimed at the
same moment, with feverish eagerness.
“No need at all,” the Warden gently assented. “Your husband and I have
gone through it together. It provides that he shall exercise the full
authority of Warden, and shall have the disposal of the annual revenue
attached to the office, until my return, or, failing that, until Bruno
comes of age: and that he shall then hand over, to myself or to Bruno as
the case may be, the Wardenship, the unspent revenue, and the
contents of the Treasury, which are to be preserved, intact, under his
guardianship.”
All this time the Sub-Warden was busy, with the Chancellor's help,
shifting the papers from side to side, and pointing out to the Warden
the place whew he was to sign. He then signed it himself, and my Lady
and the Chancellor added their names as witnesses.
“Short partings are best,” said the Warden. “All is ready for my
journey. My children are waiting below to see me off” He gravely kissed
my Lady, shook hands with his brother and the Chancellor, and left the
room.
{Image...'What a game!'}
The three waited in silence till the sound of wheels announced that the
Warden was out of hearing: then, to my surprise, they broke into peals
of uncontrollable laughter.
“What a game, oh, what a game!” cried the Chancellor. And he and the
Vice-Warden joined hands, and skipped wildly about the room. My Lady was
too dignified to skip, but she laughed like the neighing of a horse, and
waved her handkerchief above her head: it was clear to her very limited
understanding that something very clever had been done, but what it was
she had yet to learn.
“You said I should hear all about it when the Warden had gone,” she
remarked, as soon as she could make herself heard.
“And so you shall, Tabby!” her husband graciously replied, as he removed
the blotting-paper, and showed the two parchments lying side by side.
“This is the one he read but didn't sign: and this is the one he signed
but didn't read! You see it was all covered up, except the place for
signing the names--”
“Yes, yes!” my Lady interrupted eagerly, and began comparing the two
Agreements.
“'Item, that he shall exercise the authority of Warden, in the Warden's
absence.' Why, that's been changed into 'shall be absolute governor
for life, with the title of Emperor, if elected to that office by the
people.' What! Are you Emperor, darling?”
“Not yet, dear,” the Vice-Warden replied. “It won't do to let this paper
be seen, just at present. All in good time.”
My Lady nodded, and read on. “'Item, that we will be kind to the poor.'
Why, that's omitted altogether!”
“Course it is!” said her husband. “We're not going to bother about the
wretches!”
“Good,” said my Lady, with emphasis, and read on again. “'Item, that the
contents of the Treasury be preserved intact.' Why, that's altered into
'shall be at the absolute disposal of the Vice-Warden'! Well, Sibby,
that was a clever trick! All the Jewels, only think! May I go and put
them on directly?”
“Well, not just yet, Lovey,” her husband uneasily replied. “You see the
public mind isn't quite ripe for it yet. We must feel our way. Of course
we'll have the coach-and-four out, at once. And I'll take the title of
Emperor, as soon as we can safely hold an Election. But they'll hardly
stand our using the Jewels, as long as they know the Warden's alive. We
must spread a report of his death. A little Conspiracy--”
“A Conspiracy!” cried the delighted lady, clapping her hands. “Of all
things, I do like a Conspiracy! It's so interesting!”
The Vice-Warden and the Chancellor interchanged a wink or two. “Let
her conspire to her heart's content!” the cunning Chancellor whispered.
“It'll do no harm!”
“And when will the Conspiracy--”
“Hist!', her husband hastily interrupted her, as the door opened, and
Sylvie and Bruno came in, with their arms twined lovingly round each
other--Bruno sobbing convulsively, with his face hidden on his sister's
shoulder, and Sylvie more grave and quiet, but with tears streaming down
her cheeks.
“Mustn't cry like that!” the Vice-Warden said sharply, but without any
effect on the weeping children. “Cheer 'em up a bit!” he hinted to my
Lady.
“Cake!” my Lady muttered to herself with great decision, crossing the
room and opening a cupboard, from which she presently returned with two
slices of plum-cake. “Eat, and don't cry!” were her short and simple
orders: and the poor children sat down side by side, but seemed in no
mood for eating.
For the second time the door opened--or rather was burst open, this
time, as Uggug rushed violently into the room, shouting “that old
Beggars come again!”
“He's not to have any food--” the Vice-warden was beginning, but the
Chancellor interrupted him. “It's all right,” he said, in a low voice:
“the servants have their orders.”
“He's just under here,” said Uggug, who had gone to the window, and was
looking down into the court-yard.
“Where, my darling?” said his fond mother, flinging her arms round the
neck of the little monster. All of us (except Sylvie and Bruno, who
took no notice of what was going on) followed her to the window. The old
Beggar looked up at us with hungry eyes. “Only a crust of bread, your
Highness!” he pleaded.
{Image...'Drink this!'}
He was a fine old man, but looked sadly ill and worn. “A crust of bread
is what I crave!” he repeated. “A single crust, and a little water!”
“Here's some water, drink this!”
Uggug bellowed, emptying a jug of water over his head.
“Well done, my boy!” cried the Vice-Warden.
“That's the way to settle such folk!”
“Clever boy!”, the Wardeness chimed in. “Hasn't he good spirits?”
“Take a stick to him!” shouted the Vice-Warden, as the old Beggar shook
the water from his ragged cloak, and again gazed meekly upwards.
“Take a red-hot poker to him!” my Lady again chimed in.
Possibly there was no red-hot poker handy: but some sticks were
forthcoming in a moment, and threatening faces surrounded the poor old
wanderer, who waved them back with quiet dignity. “No need to break my
old bones,” he said. “I am going. Not even a crust!”
“Poor, poor old man!” exclaimed a little voice at my side, half choked
with sobs. Bruno was at the window, trying to throw out his slice of
plum-cake, but Sylvie held him back.
“He shalt have my cake!” Bruno cried, passionately struggling out of
Sylvie's arms.
“Yes, yes, darling!” Sylvie gently pleaded. “But don't throw it out!
He's gone away, don't you see? Let's go after him.” And she led him
out of the room, unnoticed by the rest of the party, who were wholly
absorbed in watching the old Beggar.
The Conspirators returned to their seats, and continued their
conversation in an undertone, so as not to be heard by Uggug, who was
still standing at the window.
“By the way, there was something about Bruno succeeding to the
Wrardenship,” said my Lady. “How does that stand in the new Agreement?”
The Chancellor chuckled. “Just the same, word for word,” he said, “with
one exception, my Lady. Instead of 'Bruno,' I've taken the liberty to
put in--” he dropped his voice to a whisper, “to put in 'Uggug,' you
know!”
“Uggug, indeed!” I exclaimed, in a burst of indignation I could no
longer control. To bring out even that one word seemed a gigantic
effort: but, the cry once uttered, all effort ceased at once: a sudden
gust swept away the whole scene, and I found myself sitting up, staring
at the young lady in the opposite corner of the carriage, who had now
thrown back her veil, and was looking at me with an expression of amused
surprise.
CHAPTER 5. A BEGGAR'S PALACE.
That I had said something, in the act of waking, I felt sure: the hoarse
stifled cry was still ringing in my ears, even if the startled look
of my fellow-traveler had not been evidence enough: but what could I
possibly say by way of apology?
“I hope I didn't frighten you?” I stammered out at last. “I have no idea
what I said. I was dreaming.”
“You said 'Uggug indeed!'” the young lady replied, with quivering lips
that would curve themselves into a smile, in spite of all her efforts to
look grave. “At least--you didn't say it--you shouted it!”
“I'm very sorry,” was all I could say, feeling very penitent and
helpless. “She has Sylvie's eyes!” I thought to myself, half-doubting
whether, even now, I were fairly awake. “And that sweet look of innocent
wonder is all Sylvie's too. But Sylvie hasn't got that calm resolute
mouth nor that far-away look of dreamy sadness, like one that has had
some deep sorrow, very long ago--” And the thick-coming fancies almost
prevented my hearing the lady's next words.
“If you had had a 'Shilling Dreadful' in your hand,” she proceeded,
“something about Ghosts or Dynamite or Midnight Murder--one could
understand it: those things aren't worth the shilling, unless they give
one a Nightmare. But really--with only a medical treatise, you know--”
and she glanced, with a pretty shrug of contempt, at the book over which
I had fallen asleep.
Her friendliness, and utter unreserve, took me aback for a moment; yet
there was no touch of forwardness, or boldness, about the child
for child, almost, she seemed to be: I guessed her at scarcely over
twenty--all was the innocent frankness of some angelic visitant, new
to the ways of earth and the conventionalisms or, if you will, the
barbarisms--of Society. “Even so,” I mused, “will Sylvie look and speak,
in another ten years.”
“You don't care for Ghosts, then,” I ventured to suggest, “unless they
are really terrifying?”
“Quite so,” the lady assented. “The regular Railway-Ghosts--I mean the
Ghosts of ordinary Railway-literature--are very poor affairs. I feel
inclined to say, with Alexander Selkirk, 'Their tameness is shocking to
me'! And they never do any Midnight Murders. They couldn't 'welter in
gore,' to save their lives!”
“'Weltering in gore' is a very expressive phrase, certainly. Can it be
done in any fluid, I wonder?”
“I think not,” the lady readily replied--quite as if she had thought it
out, long ago. “It has to be something thick. For instance, you might
welter in bread-sauce. That, being white, would be more suitable for a
Ghost, supposing it wished to welter!”
“You have a real good terrifying Ghost in that book?” I hinted.
“How could you guess?” she exclaimed with the most engaging frankness,
and placed the volume in my hands. I opened it eagerly, with a not
unpleasant thrill (like what a good ghost-story gives one) at the
'uncanny' coincidence of my having so unexpectedly divined the subject
of her studies.
It was a book of Domestic Cookery, open at the article Bread Sauce.'
I returned the book, looking, I suppose, a little blank, as the lady
laughed merrily at my discomfiture. “It's far more exciting than some
of the modern ghosts, I assure you! Now there was a Ghost last month--I
don't mean a real Ghost in in Supernature--but in a Magazine. It was
a perfectly flavourless Ghost. It wouldn't have frightened a mouse! It
wasn't a Ghost that one would even offer a chair to!”
“Three score years and ten, baldness, and spectacles, have their
advantages after all!”, I said to myself. “Instead of a bashful youth
and maiden, gasping out monosyllables at awful intervals, here we have
an old man and a child, quite at their ease, talking as if they had
known each other for years! Then you think,” I continued aloud, “that
we ought sometimes to ask a Ghost to sit down? But have we any authority
for it? In Shakespeare, for instance--there are plenty of ghosts
there--does Shakespeare ever give the stage-direction 'hands chair to
Ghost'?”
The lady looked puzzled and thoughtful for a moment: then she almost
clapped her hands. “Yes, yes, he does!” she cried. “He makes Hamlet say
'Rest, rest, perturbed Spirit!”'
“And that, I suppose, means an easy-chair?”
“An American rocking-chair, I think--”
“Fayfield Junction, my Lady, change for Elveston!” the guard announced,
flinging open the door of the carriage: and we soon found ourselves,
with all our portable property around us, on the platform.
The accommodation, provided for passengers waiting at this Junction, was
distinctly inadequate--a single wooden bench, apparently intended for
three sitters only: and even this was already partially occupied by
a very old man, in a smock frock, who sat, with rounded shoulders and
drooping head, and with hands clasped on the top of his stick so as to
make a sort of pillow for that wrinkled face with its look of patient
weariness.
“Come, you be off!” the Station-master roughly accosted the poor old
man. “You be off, and make way for your betters! This way, my Lady!” he
added in a perfectly different tone. “If your Ladyship will take a seat,
the train will be up in a few minutes.” The cringing servility of his
manner was due, no doubt, to the address legible on the pile of luggage,
which announced their owner to be “Lady Muriel Orme, passenger to
Elveston, via Fayfield Junction.”
As I watched the old man slowly rise to his feet, and hobble a few paces
down the platform, the lines came to my lips:--
“From sackcloth couch the Monk arose,
With toil his stiffen'd limbs he rear'd;
A hundred years had flung their snows
On his thin locks and floating beard.”
{Image...'Come, you be off!'}
But the lady scarcely noticed the little incident. After one glance
at the 'banished man,' who stood tremulously leaning on his stick, she
turned to me. “This is not an American rocking-chair, by any means!
Yet may I say,” slightly changing her place, so as to make room for me
beside her, “may I say, in Hamlet's words, 'Rest, rest--'” she broke off
with a silvery laugh.
“--perturbed Spirit!”' I finished the sentence for her. “Yes, that
describes a railway-traveler exactly! And here is an instance of it,” I
added, as the tiny local train drew up alongside the platform, and the
porters bustled about, opening carriage-doors--one of them helping the
poor old man to hoist himself into a third-class carriage, while another
of them obsequiously conducted the lady and myself into a first-class.
She paused, before following him, to watch the progress of the other
passenger. “Poor old man!” she said. “How weak and ill he looks! It was
a shame to let him be turned away like that. I'm very sorry--” At this
moment it dawned on me that these words were not addressed to me, but
that she was unconsciously thinking aloud. I moved away a few steps,
and waited to follow her into the carriage, where I resumed the
conversation.
“Shakespeare must have traveled by rail, if only in a dream: 'perturbed
Spirit' is such a happy phrase.”
“'Perturbed' referring, no doubt,” she rejoined, “to the sensational
booklets peculiar to the Rail. If Steam has done nothing else, it has at
least added a whole new Species to English Literature!”
“No doubt of it,” I echoed. “The true origin of all our medical
books--and all our cookery-books--”
“No, no!” she broke in merrily. “I didn't mean our Literature! We are
quite abnormal. But the booklets--the little thrilling romances, where
the Murder comes at page fifteen, and the Wedding at page forty--surely
they are due to Steam?”
“And when we travel by Electricity if I may venture to develop your
theory we shall have leaflets instead of booklets, and the Murder and
the Wedding will come on the same page.”
“A development worthy of Darwin!”, the lady exclaimed enthusiastically.
“Only you reverse his theory. Instead of developing a mouse into an
elephant, you would develop an elephant into a mouse!” But here we
plunged into a tunnel, and I leaned back and closed my eyes for a
moment, trying to recall a few of the incidents of my recent dream.
“I thought I saw--” I murmured sleepily: and then the phrase insisted
on conjugating itself, and ran into “you thought you saw--he thought he
saw--” and then it suddenly went off into a song:--
“He thought he saw an Elephant,
That practised on a fife:
He looked again, and found it was
A letter from his wife.
'At length I realise,' he said,
“The bitterness of Life!'”
And what a wild being it was who sang these wild words! A Gardener
he seemed to be yet surely a mad one, by the way he brandished his
rake--madder, by the way he broke, ever and anon, into a frantic
jig--maddest of all, by the shriek in which he brought out the last
words of the stanza!
{Image....The gardener}
It was so far a description of himself that he had the feet of an
Elephant: but the rest of him was skin and bone: and the wisps of
loose straw, that bristled all about him, suggested that he had been
originally stuffed with it, and that nearly all the stuffing had come
out.
Sylvie and Bruno waited patiently till the end of the first verse. Then
Sylvie advanced alone (Bruno having suddenly turned shy) and timidly
introduced herself with the words “Please, I'm Sylvie!”
“And who's that other thing?', said the Gardener.
“What thing?” said Sylvie, looking round. “Oh, that's Bruno. He's my
brother.”
“Was he your brother yesterday?” the Gardener anxiously enquired.
“Course I were!” cried Bruno, who had gradually crept nearer, and
didn't at all like being talked about without having his share in the
conversation.
“Ah, well!” the Gardener said with a kind of groan. “Things change so,
here. Whenever I look again, it's sure to be something different! Yet I
does my duty! I gets up wriggle-early at five--”
“If I was oo,” said Bruno, “I wouldn't wriggle so early. It's as bad as
being a worm!” he added, in an undertone to Sylvie.
“But you shouldn't be lazy in the morning, Bruno,” said Sylvie.
“Remember, it's the early bird that picks up the worm!”
“It may, if it likes!” Bruno said with a slight yawn. “I don't like
eating worms, one bit. I always stop in bed till the early bird has
picked them up!”
“I wonder you've the face to tell me such fibs!” cried the Gardener.
To which Bruno wisely replied “Oo don't want a face to tell fibs
wiz--only a mouf.”
Sylvie discreetly changed the subject. “And did you plant all these
flowers?” she said.
“What a lovely garden you've made! Do you know, I'd like to live here
always!”
“In the winter-nights--” the Gardener was beginning.
“But I'd nearly forgotten what we came about!” Sylvie interrupted.
“Would you please let us through into the road? There's a poor old
beggar just gone out--and he's very hungry--and Bruno wants to give him
his cake, you know!”
“It's as much as my place is worth!” the Gardener muttered, taking a key
from his pocket, and beginning to unlock a door in the garden-wall.
“How much are it wurf?” Bruno innocently enquired.
But the Gardener only grinned. “That's a secret!” he said. “Mind you
come back quick!” he called after the children, as they passed out into
the road. I had just time to follow them, before he shut the door again.
We hurried down the road, and very soon caught sight of the old Beggar,
about a quarter of a mile ahead of us, and the children at once set off
running to overtake him.
Lightly and swiftly they skimmed over the ground, and I could not in
the least understand how it was I kept up with them so easily. But the
unsolved problem did not worry me so much as at another time it might
have done, there were so many other things to attend to.
The old Beggar must have been very deaf, as he paid no attention
whatever to Bruno's eager shouting, but trudged wearily on, never
pausing until the child got in front of him and held up the slice of
cake. The poor little fellow was quite out of breath, and could only
utter the one word “Cake!” not with the gloomy decision with which
Her Excellency had so lately pronounced it, but with a sweet childish
timidity, looking up into the old man's face with eyes that loved 'all
things both great and small.'
The old man snatched it from him, and devoured it greedily, as some
hungry wild beast might have done, but never a word of thanks did he
give his little benefactor--only growled “More, more!” and glared at the
half-frightened children.
“There is no more!”, Sylvie said with tears in her eyes. “I'd eaten
mine. It was a shame to let you be turned away like that. I'm very
sorry--”
I lost the rest of the sentence, for my mind had recurred, with a great
shock of surprise, to Lady Muriel Orme, who had so lately uttered
these very words of Sylvie's--yes, and in Sylvie's own voice, and with
Sylvie's gentle pleading eyes!
“Follow me!” were the next words I heard, as the old man waved his hand,
with a dignified grace that ill suited his ragged dress, over a bush,
that stood by the road side, which began instantly to sink into the
earth. At another time I might have doubted the evidence of my eyes,
or at least have felt some astonishment: but, in this strange scene, my
whole being seemed absorbed in strong curiosity as to what would happen
next.
When the bush had sunk quite out of our sight, marble steps were seen,
leading downwards into darkness. The old man led the way, and we eagerly
followed.
The staircase was so dark, at first, that I could only just see the
forms of the children, as, hand-in-hand, they groped their way down
after their guide: but it got lighter every moment, with a strange
silvery brightness, that seemed to exist in the air, as there were no
lamps visible; and, when at last we reached a level floor, the room, in
which we found ourselves, was almost as light as day.
It was eight-sided, having in each angle a slender pillar, round which
silken draperies were twined. The wall between the pillars was entirely
covered, to the height of six or seven feet, with creepers, from which
hung quantities of ripe fruit and of brilliant flowers, that almost hid
the leaves. In another place, perchance, I might have wondered to see
fruit and flowers growing together: here, my chief wonder was that
neither fruit nor flowers were such as I had ever seen before. Higher
up, each wall contained a circular window of coloured glass; and over
all was an arched roof, that seemed to be spangled all over with jewels.
With hardly less wonder, I turned this way and that, trying to make
out how in the world we had come in: for there was no door: and all the
walls were thickly covered with the lovely creepers.
“We are safe here, my darlings!” said the old man, laying a hand on
Sylvie's shoulder, and bending down to kiss her. Sylvie drew back
hastily, with an offended air: but in another moment, with a glad cry of
“Why, it's Father!”, she had run into his arms.
{Image...A beggar's palace}
“Father! Father!” Bruno repeated: and, while the happy children were
being hugged and kissed, I could but rub my eyes and say “Where, then,
are the rags gone to?”; for the old man was now dressed in royal robes
that glittered with jewels and gold embroidery, and wore a circlet of
gold around his head.
CHAPTER 6. THE MAGIC LOCKET.
“Where are we, father?” Sylvie whispered, with her arms twined closely
around the old man's neck, and with her rosy cheek lovingly pressed to
his.
“In Elfland, darling. It's one of the provinces of Fairyland.”
“But I thought Elfland was ever so far from Outland: and we've come such
a tiny little way!”
“You came by the Royal Road, sweet one. Only those of royal blood can
travel along it: but you've been royal ever since I was made King of
Elfland that's nearly a month ago. They sent two ambassadors, to make
sure that their invitation to me, to be their new King, should reach me.
One was a Prince; so he was able to come by the Royal Road, and to come
invisibly to all but me: the other was a Baron; so he had to come by the
common road, and I dare say he hasn't even arrived yet.”
“Then how far have we come?” Sylvie enquired.
“Just a thousand miles, sweet one, since the Gardener unlocked that door
for you.”
“A thousand miles!” Bruno repeated. “And may I eat one?”
“Eat a mile, little rogue?”
“No,” said Bruno. “I mean may I eat one of that fruits?”
“Yes, child,” said his father: “and then you'll find out what Pleasure
is like--the Pleasure we all seek so madly, and enjoy so mournfully!”
Bruno ran eagerly to the wall, and picked a fruit that was shaped
something like a banana, but had the colour of a strawberry.
He ate it with beaming looks, that became gradually more gloomy, and
were very blank indeed by the time he had finished.
“It hasn't got no taste at all!” he complained. “I couldn't feel nuffin
in my mouf! It's a--what's that hard word, Sylvie?”
“It was a Phlizz,” Sylvie gravely replied. “Are they all like that,
father?”
“They're all like that to you, darling, because you don't belong to
Elfland--yet. But to me they are real.”
Bruno looked puzzled. “I'll try anuvver kind of fruits!” he said, and
jumped down off the King's knee. “There's some lovely striped ones, just
like a rainbow!” And off he ran.
Meanwhile the Fairy-King and Sylvie were talking together, but in such
low tones that I could not catch the words: so I followed Bruno, who
was picking and eating other kinds of fruit, in the vain hope of finding
some that had a taste. I tried to pick so me myself--but it was like
grasping air, and I soon gave up the attempt and returned to Sylvie.
“Look well at it, my darling,” the old man was saying, “and tell me how
you like it.”
“'It's just lovely,” cried Sylvie, delightedly. “Bruno, come and
look!” And she held up, so that he might see the light through it, a
heart-shaped Locket, apparently cut out of a single jewel, of a rich
blue colour, with a slender gold chain attached to it.
“It are welly pretty,” Bruno more soberly remarked: and he began
spelling out some words inscribed on it. “All--will--love--Sylvie,” he
made them out at last. “And so they doos!” he cried, clasping his arms
round her neck. “Everybody loves Sylvie!”
“But we love her best, don't we, Bruno?” said the old King, as he took
possession of the Locket. “Now, Sylvie, look at this.” And he showed
her, lying on the palm of his hand, a Locket of a deep crimson colour,
the same shape as the blue one and, like it, attached to a slender
golden chain.
“Lovelier and lovelier!” exclaimed Sylvie, clasping her hands in
ecstasy. “Look, Bruno!”
“And there's words on this one, too,” said Bruno.
“Sylvie--will--love--all.”
“Now you see the difference,” said the old man: “different colours and
different words.”
“Choose one of them, darling. I'll give you which ever you like best.”
{Image...The crimson locket}
Sylvie whispered the words, several times over, with a thoughtful smile,
and then made her decision. “It's very nice to be loved,” she said: “but
it's nicer to love other people! May I have the red one, Father?”
The old man said nothing: but I could see his eyes fill with tears, as
he bent his head and pressed his lips to her forehead in a long loving
kiss. Then he undid the chain, and showed her how to fasten it round her
neck, and to hide it away under the edge of her frock. “It's for you
to keep you know he said in a low voice, not for other people to see.
You'll remember how to use it?”
“Yes, I'll remember,” said Sylvie.
“And now darlings it's time for you to go back or they'll be missing you
and then that poor Gardener will get into trouble!”
Once more a feeling of wonder rose in my mind as to how in the world we
were to get back again--since I took it for granted that wherever the
children went I was to go--but no shadow of doubt seemed to cross
their minds as they hugged and kissed him murmuring over and over again
“Good-bye darling Father!” And then suddenly and swiftly the darkness
of midnight seemed to close in upon us and through the darkness harshly
rang a strange wild song:--
He thought he saw a Buffalo
Upon the chimney-piece:
He looked again, and found it was
His Sister's Husband's Niece.
'Unless you leave this house,' he said,
'I'll send for the Police!'
{Image...'He thought he saw a buffalo'}
“That was me!” he added, looking out at us, through the half-opened
door, as we stood waiting in the road.' “And that's what I'd have
done--as sure as potatoes aren't radishes--if she hadn't have tooken
herself off! But I always loves my pay-rints like anything.”
“Who are oor pay-rints?” said Bruno.
“Them as pay rint for me, a course!” the Gardener replied. “You can come
in now, if you like.”
He flung the door open as he spoke, and we got out, a little dazzled
and stupefied (at least I felt so) at the sudden transition from
the half-darkness of the railway-carriage to the brilliantly-lighted
platform of Elveston Station.
A footman, in a handsome livery, came forwards and respectfully touched
his hat. “The carriage is here, my Lady,” he said, taking from her
the wraps and small articles she was carrying: and Lady Muriel, after
shaking hands and bidding me “Good-night!” with a pleasant smile,
followed him.
It was with a somewhat blank and lonely feeling that I betook myself to
the van from which the luggage was being taken out: and, after giving
directions to have my boxes sent after me, I made my way on foot to
Arthur's lodgings, and soon lost my lonely feeling in the hearty welcome
my old friend gave me, and the cozy warmth and cheerful light of the
little sitting-room into which he led me.
“Little, as you see, but quite enough for us two. Now, take the
easy-chair, old fellow, and let's have another look at you! Well, you
do look a bit pulled down!” and he put on a solemn professional air.
“I prescribe Ozone, quant. suff. Social dissipation, fiant pilulae quam
plurimae: to be taken, feasting, three times a day!”
“But, Doctor!” I remonstrated. “Society doesn't 'receive' three times a
day!”
“That's all you know about it!” the young Doctor gaily replied. “At
home, lawn-tennis, 3 P.M. At home, kettledrum, 5 P.M. At home, music
(Elveston doesn't give dinners), 8 P.M. Carriages at 10. There you are!”
It sounded very pleasant, I was obliged to admit. “And I know some
of the lady-society already,” I added. “One of them came in the same
carriage with me.”
“What was she like? Then perhaps I can identify her.”
“The name was Lady Muriel Orme. As to what she was like--well, I thought
her very beautiful. Do you know her?”
“Yes--I do know her.” And the grave Doctor coloured slightly as he added
“Yes, I agree with you. She is beautiful.”
“I quite lost my heart to her!” I went on mischievously. “We talked--”
“Have some supper!” Arthur interrupted with an air of relief, as the
maid entered with the tray. And he steadily resisted all my attempts to
return to the subject of Lady Muriel until the evening had almost worn
itself away. Then, as we sat gazing into the fire, and conversation was
lapsing into silence, he made a hurried confession.
“I hadn't meant to tell you anything about her,” he said (naming no
names, as if there were only one 'she' in the world!) “till you had
seen more of her, and formed your own judgment of her: but somehow you
surprised it out of me. And I've not breathed a word of it to any one
else. But I can trust you with a secret, old friend! Yes! It's true of
me, what I suppose you said in jest.
“In the merest jest, believe me!” I said earnestly. “Why, man, I'm three
times her age! But if she's your choice, then I'm sure she's all that is
good and--”
“--and sweet,” Arthur went on, “and pure, and self-denying, and
true-hearted, and--” he broke off hastily, as if he could not trust
himself to say more on a subject so sacred and so precious. Silence
followed: and I leaned back drowsily in my easy-chair, filled with
bright and beautiful imaginings of Arthur and his lady-love, and of all
the peace and happiness in store for them.
I pictured them to myself walking together, lingeringly and lovingly,
under arching trees, in a sweet garden of their own, and welcomed back
by their faithful gardener, on their return from some brief excursion.
It seemed natural enough that the gardener should be filled with
exuberant delight at the return of so gracious a master and mistress and
how strangely childlike they looked! I could have taken them for Sylvie
and Bruno less natural that he should show it by such wild dances, such
crazy songs!
“He thought he saw a Rattlesnake
That questioned him in Greek:
He looked again, and found it was
The Middle of Next Week.
'The one thing I regret,' he said,
'Is that it cannot speak!”
--least natural of all that the Vice-Warden and 'my Lady' should be
standing close beside me, discussing an open letter, which had just been
handed to him by the Professor, who stood, meekly waiting, a few yards
off.
“If it were not for those two brats,” I heard him mutter, glancing
savagely at Sylvie and Bruno, who were courteously listening to the
Gardener's song, “there would be no difficulty whatever.”
“Let's hear that bit of the letter again,” said my Lady. And the
Vice-Warden read aloud:--
“--and we therefore entreat you graciously to accept the Kingship, to
which you have been unanimously elected by the Council of Elfland: and
that you will allow your son Bruno of whose goodness, cleverness, and
beauty, reports have reached us--to be regarded as Heir-Apparent.”
“But what's the difficulty?” said my Lady.
“Why, don't you see? The Ambassador, that brought this, is waiting in
the house: and he's sure to see Sylvie and Bruno: and then, when he sees
Uggug, and remembers all that about 'goodness, cleverness, and beauty,'
why, he's sure to--”
“And where will you find a better boy than Uggug?” my Lady indignantly
interrupted. “Or a wittier, or a lovelier?”
To all of which the Vice-Warden simply replied “Don't you be a great
blethering goose! Our only chance is to keep those two brats out of
sight. If you can manage that, you may leave the rest to me. I'll make
him believe Uggug to be a model of cleverness and all that.”
“We must change his name to Bruno, of course?” said my Lady.
The Vice-Warden rubbed his chin. “Humph! No!” he said musingly.
“Wouldn't do. The boy's such an utter idiot, he'd never learn to answer
to it.”
“Idiot, indeed!” cried my Lady. “He's no more an idiot than I am!”
“You're right, my dear,” the Vice-Warden soothingly I replied. “He
isn't, indeed!”
My Lady was appeased. “Let's go in and receive the Ambassador,” she
said, and beckoned to the Professor. “Which room is he waiting in?” she
inquired.
“In the Library, Madam.”
“And what did you say his name was?” said the Vice-Warden.
The Professor referred to a card he held in his hand. “His Adiposity the
Baron Doppelgeist.”
“Why does he come with such a funny name?” said my Lady.
“He couldn't well change it on the journey,” the Professor meekly
replied, “because of the luggage.”
“You go and receive him,” my Lady said to the Vice-Warden, “and I'll
attend to the children.”
CHAPTER 7. THE BARONS EMBASSY.
I was following the Vice-Warden, but, on second thoughts, went after my
Lady, being curious to see how she would manage to keep the children out
of sight.
I found her holding Sylvie's hand, and with her other hand stroking
Bruno's hair in a most tender and motherly fashion: both children were
looking bewildered and half-frightened.
“My own darlings,” she was saying, “I've been planning a little treat
for you! The Professor shall take you a long walk into the woods this
beautiful evening: and you shall take a basket of food with you, and
have a little picnic down by the river!”
Bruno jumped, and clapped his hands. “That are nice!” he cried. “Aren't
it, Sylvie?”
Sylvie, who hadn't quite lost her surprised look, put up her mouth for a
kiss. “Thank you very much,” she said earnestly.
My Lady turned her head away to conceal the broad grin of triumph that
spread over her vast face, like a ripple on a lake. “Little simpletons!”
she muttered to herself, as she marched up to the house. I followed her
in.
“Quite so, your Excellency,” the Baron was saying as we entered the
Library. “All the infantry were under my command.” He turned, and was
duly presented to my Lady.
“A military hero?” said my Lady. The fat little man simpered. “Well,
yes,” he replied, modestly casting down his eyes. “My ancestors were all
famous for military genius.”
My Lady smiled graciously. “It often runs in families,” she remarked:
“just as a love for pastry does.”
The Baron looked slightly offended, and the Vice-Warden discreetly
changed the subject. “Dinner will soon be ready,” he said. “May I have
the honour of conducting your Adiposity to the guest-chamber?”
“Certainly, certainly!” the Baron eagerly assented. “It would never do
to keep dinner waiting!” And he almost trotted out of the room after the
Vice-Warden.
He was back again so speedily that the Vice-warden had barely time
to explain to my Lady that her remark about “a love for pastry” was
“unfortunate. You might have seen, with half an eye,” he added, “that
that's his line. Military genius, indeed! Pooh!”
“Dinner ready yet?” the Baron enquired, as he hurried into the room.
“Will be in a few minutes,” the Vice-Warden replied. “Meanwhile, let's
take a turn in the garden. You were telling me,” he continued, as the
trio left the house, “something about a great battle in which you had
the command of the infantry--”
“True,” said the Baron. “The enemy, as I was saying, far outnumbered
us: but I marched my men right into the middle of--what's that?” the
Military Hero exclaimed in agitated tones, drawing back behind the
Vice-Warden, as a strange creature rushed wildly upon them, brandishing
a spade.
“It's only the Gardener!” the Vice-Warden replied in an encouraging
tone. “Quite harmless, I assure you. Hark, he's singing! Its his
favorite amusement.”
And once more those shrill discordant tones rang out:--
“He thought he saw a Banker's Clerk
Descending from the bus:
He looked again, and found it was
A Hippopotamus:
'If this should stay to dine,' he said,
'There won't be mutch for us!'”
Throwing away the spade, he broke into a frantic jig, snapping his
fingers, and repeating, again and again,
“There won't be much for us!
There won't be much for us!”
{Image...It was a hippoptamus}
Once more the Baron looked slightly offended, but the Vice-Warden
hastily explained that the song had no allusion to him, and in fact had
no meaning at all. “You didn't mean anything by it, now did you?”
He appealed to the Gardener, who had finished his song, and stood,
balancing himself on one leg, and looking at them, with his mouth open.
“I never means nothing,” said the Gardener: and Uggug luckily came up at
the moment, and gave the conversation a new turn.
“Allow me to present my son,” said the Vice-warden; adding, in a
whisper, “one of the best and cleverest boys that ever lived! I'll
contrive for you to see some of his cleverness. He knows everything that
other boys don't know; and in archery, in fishing, in painting, and
in music, his skill is--but you shall judge for yourself. You see that
target over there? He shall shoot an arrow at it. Dear boy,” he went on
aloud, “his Adiposity would like to see you shoot. Bring his Highness'
bow and arrows!”
Uggug looked very sulky as he received the bow and arrow, and prepared
to shoot. Just as the arrow left the bow, the Vice-Warden trod heavily
on the toe of the Baron, who yelled with the pain.
“Ten thousand pardons!” he exclaimed. “I stepped back in my excitement.
See! It is a bull's-eye!”
The Baron gazed in astonishment. “He held the bow so awkwardly, it
seemed impossible!” he muttered. But there was no room for doubt: there
was the arrow, right in the centre of the bull's-eye!
“The lake is close by,” continued the Vice-warden. “Bring his Highness'
fishing-rod!” And Uggug most unwillingly held the rod, and dangled the
fly over the water.
“A beetle on your arm!” cried my Lady, pinching the poor Baron's
arm worse than if ten lobsters had seized it at once. “That kind is
poisonous,” she explained. “But what a pity! You missed seeing the fish
pulled out!”
An enormous dead cod-fish was lying on the bank, with the hook in its
mouth.
“I had always fancied,” the Baron faltered, “that cod were salt-water
fish?”
“Not in this country,” said the Vice-Warden. “Shall we go in? Ask my son
some question on the way any subject you like!” And the sulky boy was
violently shoved forwards, to walk at the Baron's side.
“Could your Highness tell me,” the Baron cautiously began, “how much
seven times nine would come to?”
“Turn to the left!” cried the Vice-Warden, hastily stepping forwards to
show the way---so hastily, that he ran against his unfortunate guest,
who fell heavily on his face.
“So sorry!” my Lady exclaimed, as she and her husband helped him to his
feet again. “My son was in the act of saying 'sixty-three' as you fell!”
The Baron said nothing: he was covered with dust, and seemed much hurt,
both in body and mind. However, when they had got him into the house,
and given him a good brushing, matters looked a little better.
Dinner was served in due course, and every fresh dish seemed to increase
the good-humour of the Baron: but all efforts, to get him to express his
opinion as to Uggug's cleverness, were in vain, until that interesting
youth had left the room, and was seen from the open window, prowling
about the lawn with a little basket, which he was filling with frogs.
“So fond of Natural History as he is, dear boy!” said the doting mother.
“Now do tell us, Baron, what you think of him!”
“To be perfectly candid,” said the cautious Baron, “I would like a
little more evidence. I think you mentioned his skill in--”
“Music?” said the Vice-Warden. “Why, he's simply a prodigy! You shall
hear him play the piano.” And he walked to the window. “Ug--I mean my
boy! Come in for a minute, and bring the music-master with you! To turn
over the music for him,” he added as an explanation.
Uggug, having filled his basket with frogs, had no objection to obey,
and soon appeared in the room, followed by a fierce-looking little man,
who asked the Vice-Warden “Vot music vill you haf?”
“The Sonata that His Highness plays so charmingly,” said the
Vice-Warden. “His Highness haf not--” the music-master began, but was
sharply stopped by the Vice-warden.
“Silence, Sir! Go and turn over the music for his Highness. My dear,”
(to the Wardeness) “will you show him what to do? And meanwhile, Baron,
I'll just show you a most interesting map we have--of Outland, and
Fairyland, and that sort of thing.”
By the time my Lady had returned, from explaining things to the
music-master, the map had been hung up, and the Baron was already much
bewildered by the Vice-Warden's habit of pointing to one place while he
shouted out the name of another.
{Image...The map of fairyland}
My Lady joining in, pointing out other places, and shouting other names,
only made matters worse; and at last the Baron, in despair, took to
pointing out places for himself, and feebly asked “Is that great yellow
splotch Fairyland?”
“Yes, that's Fairyland,” said the Vice-warden: “and you might as well
give him a hint,” he muttered to my Lady, “about going back to-morrow.
He eats like a shark! It would hardly do for me to mention it.”
His wife caught the idea, and at once began giving hints of the most
subtle and delicate kind. “Just see what a short way it is back to
Fairyland! Why, if you started to-morrow morning, you'd get there in
very little more than a week!”
The Baron looked incredulous. “It took me a full month to come,” he
said.
“But it's ever so much shorter, going back, you know!'
The Baron looked appealingly to the Vice-warden, who chimed in readily.
“You can go back five times, in the time it took you to come here
once--if you start to-morrow morning!”
All this time the Sonata was pealing through the room. The Baron could
not help admitting to himself that it was being magnificently played:
but he tried in vain to get a glimpse of the youthful performer. Every
time he had nearly succeeded in catching sight of him, either the
Vice-Warden or his wife was sure to get in the way, pointing out some
new place on the map, and deafening him with some new name.
He gave in at last, wished a hasty good-night, and left the room, while
his host and hostess interchanged looks of triumph.
“Deftly done!” cried the Vice-Warden. “Craftily contrived! But what
means all that tramping on the stairs?” He half-opened the door, looked
out, and added in a tone of dismay, “The Baron's boxes are being carried
down!”
“And what means all that rumbling of wheels?” cried my Lady. She peeped
through the window curtains. “The Baron's carriage has come round!” she
groaned.
At this moment the door opened: a fat, furious face looked in: a
voice, hoarse with passion, thundered out the words “My room is full of
frogs--I leave you!”: and the door closed again.
And still the noble Sonata went pealing through the room: but it was
Arthur's masterly touch that roused the echoes, and thrilled my very
soul with the tender music of the immortal 'Sonata Pathetique': and
it was not till the last note had died away that the tired but happy
traveler could bring himself to utter the words “good-night!” and to
seek his much-needed pillow.
CHAPTER 8. A RIDE ON A LION.
The next day glided away, pleasantly enough, partly in settling myself
in my new quarters, and partly in strolling round the neighbourhood,
under Arthur's guidance, and trying to form a general idea of Elveston
and its inhabitants. When five o'clock arrived, Arthur proposed without
any embarrassment this time--to take me with him up to 'the Hall,' in
order that I might make acquaintance with the Earl of Ainslie, who had
taken it for the season, and renew acquaintance with his daughter Lady
Muriel.
My first impressions of the gentle, dignified, and yet genial old man
were entirely favourable: and the real satisfaction that showed itself
on his daughter's face, as she met me with the words “this is indeed
an unlooked-for pleasure!”, was very soothing for whatever remains of
personal vanity the failures and disappointments of many long years, and
much buffeting with a rough world, had left in me.
Yet I noted, and was glad to note, evidence of a far deeper feeling than
mere friendly regard, in her meeting with Arthur though this was, as I
gathered, an almost daily occurrence--and the conversation between them,
in which the Earl and I were only occasional sharers, had an ease and a
spontaneity rarely met with except between very old friends: and, as
I knew that they had not known each other for a longer period than the
summer which was now rounding into autumn, I felt certain that 'Love,'
and Love alone, could explain the phenomenon.
“How convenient it would be,” Lady Muriel laughingly remarked, a propos
of my having insisted on saving her the trouble of carrying a cup of tea
across the room to the Earl, “if cups of tea had no weight at all! Then
perhaps ladies would sometimes be permitted to carry them for short
distances!”
“One can easily imagine a situation,” said Arthur, “where things would
necessarily have no weight, relatively to each other, though each would
have its usual weight, looked at by itself.”
“Some desperate paradox!” said the Earl. “Tell us how it could be. We
shall never guess it.”
“Well, suppose this house, just as it is, placed a few billion miles
above a planet, and with nothing else near enough to disturb it: of
course it falls to the planet?”
The Earl nodded. “Of course though it might take some centuries to do
it.”
“And is five-o'clock-tea to be going on all the while?” said Lady
Muriel.
“That, and other things,” said Arthur. “The inhabitants would live their
lives, grow up and die, and still the house would be falling, falling,
falling! But now as to the relative weight of things. Nothing can be
heavy, you know, except by trying to fall, and being prevented from
doing so. You all grant that?”
We all granted that.
“Well, now, if I take this book, and hold it out at arm's length, of
course I feel its weight. It is trying to fall, and I prevent it.
And, if I let go, it fails to the floor. But, if we were all falling
together, it couldn't be trying to fall any quicker, you know: for, if
I let go, what more could it do than fall? And, as my hand would be
falling too--at the same rate--it would never leave it, for that would
be to get ahead of it in the race. And it could never overtake the
failing floor!”
“I see it clearly,” said Lady Muriel. “But it makes one dizzy to think
of such things! How can you make us do it?”
“There is a more curious idea yet,” I ventured to say. “Suppose a cord
fastened to the house, from below, and pulled down by some one on the
planet. Then of course the house goes faster than its natural rate of
falling: but the furniture--with our noble selves--would go on failing
at their old pace, and would therefore be left behind.”
“Practically, we should rise to the ceiling,” said the Earl. “The
inevitable result of which would be concussion of brain.”
“To avoid that,” said Arthur, “let us have the furniture fixed to
the floor, and ourselves tied down to the furniture. Then the
five-o'clock-tea could go on in peace.”
“With one little drawback!” Lady Muriel gaily interrupted. “We should
take the cups down with us: but what about the tea?”
“I had forgotten the tea,” Arthur confessed. “That, no doubt, would rise
to the ceiling unless you chose to drink it on the way!”
“Which, I think, is quite nonsense enough for one while!” said the Earl.
“What news does this gentleman bring us from the great world of London?”
This drew me into the conversation, which now took a more conventional
tone. After a while, Arthur gave the signal for our departure, and in
the cool of the evening we strolled down to the beach, enjoying the
silence, broken only by the murmur of the sea and the far-away music of
some fishermen's song, almost as much as our late pleasant talk.
We sat down among the rocks, by a little pool, so rich in animal,
vegetable, and zoophytic--or whatever is the right word--life, that I
became entranced in the study of it, and, when Arthur proposed returning
to our lodgings, I begged to be left there for a while, to watch and
muse alone.
The fishermen's song grew ever nearer and clearer, as their boat stood
in for the beach; and I would have gone down to see them land their
cargo of fish, had not the microcosm at my feet stirred my curiosity yet
more keenly.
One ancient crab, that was for ever shuffling frantically from side to
side of the pool, had particularly fascinated me: there was a vacancy in
its stare, and an aimless violence in its behaviour, that irresistibly
recalled the Gardener who had befriended Sylvie and Bruno: and, as I
gazed, I caught the concluding notes of the tune of his crazy song.
The silence that followed was broken by the sweet voice of Sylvie.
“Would you please let us out into the road?”
“What! After that old beggar again?” the Gardener yelled, and began
singing:--
“He thought he saw a Kangaroo
That worked a coffee-mill:
He looked again, and found it was
A Vegetable-pill
'Were I to swallow this,' he said,
'I should be very ill!'”
{Image...He thought he saw a kangaroo}
“We don't want him to swallow anything,” Sylvie explained. “He's not
hungry. But we want to see him. So Will you please--”
“Certainly!” the Gardener promptly replied. “I always please. Never
displeases nobody. There you are!” And he flung the door open, and let
us out upon the dusty high-road.
We soon found our way to the bush, which had so mysteriously sunk into
the ground: and here Sylvie drew the Magic Locket from its hiding-place,
turned it over with a thoughtful air, and at last appealed to Bruno in a
rather helpless way. “What was it we had to do with it, Bruno? It's all
gone out of my head!”
“Kiss it!” was Bruno's invariable recipe in cases of doubt and
difficulty. Sylvie kissed it, but no result followed.
“Rub it the wrong way,” was Bruno's next suggestion.
“Which is the wrong way?”, Sylvie most reasonably enquired. The obvious
plan was to try both ways.
Rubbing from left to right had no visible effect whatever.
From right to left--“Oh, stop, Sylvie!” Bruno cried in sudden alarm.
“Whatever is going to happen?”
For a number of trees, on the neighbouring hillside, were moving slowly
upwards, in solemn procession: while a mild little brook, that had been
rippling at our feet a moment before, began to swell, and foam, and
hiss, and bubble, in a truly alarming fashion.
“Rub it some other way!” cried Bruno. “Try up-and-down! Quick!”
It was a happy thought. Up-and-down did it: and the landscape, which had
been showing signs of mental aberration in various directions, returned
to its normal condition of sobriety with the exception of a small
yellowish-brown mouse, which continued to run wildly up and down the
road, lashing its tail like a little lion.
“Let's follow it,” said Sylvie: and this also turned out a happy
thought. The mouse at once settled down into a business-like jog-trot,
with which we could easily keep pace. The only phenomenon, that gave
me any uneasiness, was the rapid increase in the size of the little
creature we were following, which became every moment more and more like
a real lion.
Soon the transformation was complete: and a noble lion stood patiently
waiting for us to come up with it. No thought of fear seemed to occur
to the children, who patted and stroked it as if it had been a
Shetland-pony.
{Image...The mouse-lion}
“Help me up!” cried Bruno. And in another moment Sylvie had lifted him
upon the broad back of the gentle beast, and seated herself behind him,
pillion-fashion. Bruno took a good handful of mane in each hand, and
made believe to guide this new kind of steed. “Gee-up!', seemed quite
sufficient by way of verbal direction: the lion at once broke into an
easy canter, and we soon found ourselves in the depths of the forest. I
say 'we,' for I am certain that I accompanied them though how I managed
to keep up with a cantering lion I am wholly unable to explain. But
I was certainly one of the party when we came upon an old beggar-man
cutting sticks, at whose feet the lion made a profound obeisance, Sylvie
and Bruno at the same moment dismounting, and leaping in to the arms of
their father.
“From bad to worse!” the old man said to himself, dreamily, when the
children had finished their rather confused account of the Ambassador's
visit, gathered no doubt from general report, as they had not seen him
themselves. “From bad to worse! That is their destiny. I see it, but
I cannot alter it. The selfishness of a mean and crafty man--the
selfishness of an ambitious and silly woman----the selfishness of a
spiteful and loveless child all tend one way, from bad to worse! And
you, my darlings, must suffer it awhile, I fear. Yet, when things are at
their worst, you can come to me. I can do but little as yet--”
Gathering up a handful of dust and scattering it in the air, he slowly
and solemnly pronounced some words that sounded like a charm, the
children looking on in awe-struck silence:--
“Let craft, ambition, spite,
Be quenched in Reason's night,
Till weakness turn to might,
Till what is dark be light,
Till what is wrong be right!”
The cloud of dust spread itself out through the air, as if it were
alive, forming curious shapes that were for ever changing into others.
“It makes letters! It makes words!” Bruno whispered, as he clung,
half-frightened, to Sylvie. “Only I ca'n't make them out! Read them,
Sylvie!”
“I'll try,” Sylvie gravely replied. “Wait a minute--if only I could see
that word--”
“I should be very ill!', a discordant voice yelled in our ears.
“Were I to swallow this,' he said,
'I should be very ill!'”
CHAPTER 9. A JESTER AND A BEAR.
Yes, we were in the garden once more: and, to escape that horrid
discordant voice, we hurried indoors, and found ourselves in the
library--Uggug blubbering, the Professor standing by with a bewildered
air, and my Lady, with her arms clasped round her son's neck, repeating,
over and over again, “and did they give him nasty lessons to learn? My
own pretty pet!”
“What's all this noise about?” the Vice-warden angrily enquired, as he
strode into the room. “And who put the hat-stand here?”
And he hung his hat up on Bruno, who was standing in the middle of the
room, too much astonished by the sudden change of scene to make any
attempt at removing it, though it came down to his shoulders, making him
look something like a small candle with a large extinguisher over it.
The Professor mildly explained that His Highness had been graciously
pleased to say he wouldn't do his lessons.
“Do your lessons this instant, you young cub!” thundered the
Vice-Warden. “And take this!” and a resounding box on the ear made the
unfortunate Professor reel across the room.
“Save me!” faltered the poor old man, as he sank, half-fainting, at my
Lady's feet.
“Shave you? Of course I will!” my Lady replied, as she lifted him into a
chair, and pinned an anti-macassar round his neck. “Where's the razor?”
The Vice-Warden meanwhile had got hold of Uggug, and was belabouring him
with his umbrella. “Who left this loose nail in the floor?” he shouted,
“Hammer it in, I say! Hammer it in!” Blow after blow fell on the
writhing Uggug, till he dropped howling to the floor.
{Image...'Hammer it in!'}
Then his father turned to the 'shaving' scene which was being enacted,
and roared with laughter. “Excuse me, dear, I ca'n't help it!” he said
as soon as he could speak. “You are such an utter donkey! Kiss me,
Tabby!”
And he flung his arms round the neck of the terrified Professor, who
raised a wild shriek, but whether he received the threatened kiss or
not I was unable to see, as Bruno, who had by this time released himself
from his extinguisher, rushed headlong out of the room, followed by
Sylvie; and I was so fearful of being left alone among all these crazy
creatures that I hurried after them.
“We must go to Father!” Sylvie panted, as they ran down the garden.
“I'm sure things are at their worst! I'll ask the Gardener to let us out
again.”
“But we ca'n't walk all the way!” Bruno whimpered. “How I wiss we had a
coach-and-four, like Uncle!”
And, shrill and wild, rang through the air the familiar voice:--
“He thought he saw a Coach-and-Four
That stood beside his bed:
He looked again, and found it was
A Bear without a Head.
'Poor thing,' he said, 'poor silly thing!
It's waiting to be fed!'”
{Image...A bear without a head}
“No, I ca'n't let you out again!” he said, before the children could
speak. “The Vice-warden gave it me, he did, for letting you out last
time! So be off with you!” And, turning away from them, he began digging
frantically in the middle of a gravel-walk, singing, over and over
again, “'Poor thing,' he said, 'poor silly thing! It's waiting to be
fed!'” but in a more musical tone than the shrill screech in which he
had begun.
The music grew fuller and richer at every moment: other manly voices
joined in the refrain: and soon I heard the heavy thud that told me the
boat had touched the beach, and the harsh grating of the shingle as the
men dragged it up. I roused myself, and, after lending them a hand in
hauling up their boat, I lingered yet awhile to watch them disembark a
goodly assortment of the hard-won 'treasures of the deep.'
When at last I reached our lodgings I was tired and sleepy, and glad
enough to settle down again into the easy-chair, while Arthur hospitably
went to his cupboard, to get me out some cake and wine, without which,
he declared, he could not, as a doctor, permit my going to bed.
And how that cupboard-door did creak! It surely could not be Arthur, who
was opening and shutting it so often, moving so restlessly about, and
muttering like the soliloquy of a tragedy-queen!
No, it was a female voice. Also the figure half-hidden by the
cupboard-door--was a female figure, massive, and in flowing robes.
Could it be the landlady? The door opened, and a strange man entered the
room.
“What is that donkey doing?” he said to himself, pausing, aghast, on the
threshold.
The lady, thus rudely referred to, was his wife. She had got one of the
cupboards open, and stood with her back to him, smoothing down a sheet
of brown paper on one of the shelves, and whispering to herself “So, so!
Deftly done! Craftily contrived!”
Her loving husband stole behind her on tiptoe, and tapped her on the
head. “Boh!” he playfully shouted at her ear. “Never tell me again I
ca'n't say 'boh' to a goose!”
My Lady wrung her hands. “Discovered!” she groaned. “Yet no--he is one
of us! Reveal it not, oh Man! Let it bide its time!”
“Reveal what not?” her husband testily replied, dragging out the sheet
of brown paper. “What are you hiding here, my Lady? I insist upon
knowing!”
My Lady cast down her eyes, and spoke in the littlest of little voices.
“Don't make fun of it, Benjamin!” she pleaded. “It's--it's---don't you
understand? It's a DAGGER!”
“And what's that for?” sneered His Excellency. “We've only got to make
people think he's dead! We haven't got to kill him! And made of tin,
too!” he snarled, contemptuously bending the blade round his thumb.
“Now, Madam, you'll be good enough to explain. First, what do you call
me Benjamin for?”
“It's part of the Conspiracy, Love! One must have an alias, you know--”
“Oh, an alias, is it? Well! And next, what did you get this dagger for?
Come, no evasions! You ca'n't deceive me!”
“I got it for--for--for--” the detected Conspirator stammered, trying
her best to put on the assassin-expression that she had been practising
at the looking-glass. “For--”
“For what, Madam!”
“Well, for eighteenpence, if you must know, dearest! That's what I got
it for, on my--”
“Now don't say your Word and Honour!” groaned the other Conspirator.
“Why, they aren't worth half the money, put together!”
“On my birthday,” my Lady concluded in a meek whisper. “One must have a
dagger, you know. It's part of the--”
“Oh, don't talk of Conspiracies!” her husband savagely interrupted, as
he tossed the dagger into the cupboard. “You know about as much how to
manage a Conspiracy as if you were a chicken. Why, the first thing is to
get a disguise. Now, just look at this!”
And with pardonable pride he fitted on the cap and bells, and the rest
of the Fool's dress, and winked at her, and put his tongue in his cheek.
“Is that the sort of thing, now.” he demanded.
My Lady's eyes flashed with all a Conspirator's enthusiasm. “The very
thing!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands. “You do look, oh, such a
perfect Fool!”
The Fool smiled a doubtful smile. He was not quite clear whether it was
a compliment or not, to express it so plainly. “You mean a Jester? Yes,
that's what I intended. And what do you think your disguise is to be?”
And he proceeded to unfold the parcel, the lady watching him in rapture.
“Oh, how lovely!” she cried, when at last the dress was unfolded. “What
a splendid disguise! An Esquimaux peasant-woman!”
“An Esquimaux peasant, indeed!” growled the other. “Here, put it on,
and look at yourself in the glass. Why, it's a Bear, ca'n't you use your
eyes?” He checked himself suddenly, as a harsh voice yelled through the
room,
“He looked again, and found it was
A Bear without a Head!”
But it was only the Gardener, singing under the open window. The
Vice-Warden stole on tip-toe to the window, and closed it noiselessly,
before he ventured to go on. “Yes, Lovey, a Bear: but not without a
head, I hope! You're the Bear, and me the Keeper. And if any one knows
us, they'll have sharp eyes, that's all!”
“I shall have to practise the steps a bit,” my Lady said, looking out
through the Bear's mouth: “one ca'n't help being rather human just at
first, you know. And of course you'll say 'Come up, Bruin!', won't you?”
“Yes, of course,” replied the Keeper, laying hold of the chain, that
hung from the Bear's collar, with one hand, while with the other he
cracked a little whip. “Now go round the room in a sort of a dancing
attitude. Very good, my dear, very good. Come up, Bruin! Come up, I
say!”
{Image...'Come up, bruin!'}
He roared out the last words for the benefit of Uggug, who had just come
into the room, and was now standing, with his hands spread out, and eyes
and mouth wide open, the very picture of stupid amazement. “Oh, my!” was
all he could gasp out.
The Keeper pretended to be adjusting the bear's collar, which gave him
an opportunity of whispering, unheard by Uggug, “my fault, I'm afraid!
Quite forgot to fasten the door. Plot's ruined if he finds it out! Keep
it up a minute or two longer. Be savage!” Then, while seeming to pull
it back with all his strength, he let it advance upon the scared boy:
my Lady, with admirable presence of mind, kept up what she no doubt
intended for a savage growl, though it was more like the purring of a
cat: and Uggug backed out of the room with such haste that he tripped
over the mat, and was heard to fall heavily outside--an accident to
which even his doting mother paid no heed, in the excitement of the
moment.
The Vice-Warden shut and bolted the door. “Off with the disguises!” he
panted. “There's not a moment to lose. He's sure to fetch the Professor,
and we couldn't take him in, you know!” And in another minute the
disguises were stowed away in the cupboard, the door unbolted, and the
two Conspirators seated lovingly side-by-side on the sofa, earnestly
discussing a book the Vice-Warden had hastily snatched off the table,
which proved to be the City-Directory of the capital of Outland.
The door opened, very slowly and cautiously, and the Professor peeped
in, Uggug's stupid face being just visible behind him.
“It is a beautiful arrangement!” the Vice-warden was saying with
enthusiasm. “You see, my precious one, that there are fifteen houses in
Green Street, before you turn into West Street.”
“Fifteen houses! Is it possible?” my Lady replied. “I thought it was
fourteen!” And, so intent were they on this interesting question, that
neither of them even looked up till the Professor, leading Uggug by the
hand, stood close before them.
My Lady was the first to notice their approach. “Why, here's the
Professor!” she exclaimed in her blandest tones. “And my precious child
too! Are lessons over?”
“A strange thing has happened!” the Professor began in a trembling tone.
“His Exalted Fatness” (this was one of Uggug's many titles) “tells me he
has just seen, in this very room, a Dancing-Bear and a Court-Jester!”
The Vice-Warden and his wife shook with well-acted merriment.
“Not in this room, darling!” said the fond mother. “We've been sitting
here this hour or more, reading--,” here she referred to the book lying
on her lap, “--reading the--the City-Directory.”
“Let me feel your pulse, my boy!” said the anxious father. “Now put out
your tongue. Ah, I thought so! He's a little feverish, Professor, and
has had a bad dream. Put him to bed at once, and give him a cooling
draught.”
“I ain't been dreaming!” his Exalted Fatness remonstrated, as the
Professor led him away.
“Bad grammar, Sir!” his father remarked with some sternness. “Kindly
attend to that little matter, Professor, as soon as you have corrected
the feverishness. And, by the way, Professor!” (The Professor left his
distinguished pupil standing at the door, and meekly returned.) “There
is a rumour afloat, that the people wish to elect an--in point of fact,
an--you understand that I mean an--”
“Not another Professor!” the poor old man exclaimed in horror.
“No! Certainly not!” the Vice-Warden eagerly explained. “Merely an
Emperor, you understand.”
“An Emperor!” cried the astonished Professor, holding his head between
his hands, as if he expected it to come to pieces with the shock. “What
will the Warden--”
“Why, the Warden will most likely be the new Emperor!” my Lady
explained. “Where could we find a better? Unless, perhaps--” she glanced
at her husband.
“Where indeed!” the Professor fervently responded, quite failing to take
the hint.
The Vice-Warden resumed the thread of his discourse. “The reason I
mentioned it, Professor, was to ask you to be so kind as to preside at
the Election. You see it would make the thing respectable--no suspicion
of anything, underhand--”
“I fear I ca'n't, your Excellency!” the old man faltered. “What will the
Warden--”
“True, true!” the Vice-Warden interrupted. “Your position, as
Court-Professor, makes it awkward, I admit. Well, well! Then the
Election shall be held without you.”
“Better so, than if it were held within me!” the Professor murmured with
a bewildered air, as if he hardly knew what he was saying. “Bed, I think
your Highness said, and a cooling-draught?” And he wandered dreamily
back to where Uggug sulkily awaited him.
I followed them out of the room, and down the passage, the Professor
murmuring to himself, all the time, as a kind of aid to his feeble
memory, “C, C, C; Couch, Cooling-Draught, Correct-Grammar,” till, in
turning a corner, he met Sylvie and Bruno, so suddenly that the startled
Professor let go of his fat pupil, who instantly took to his heels.
CHAPTER 10. THE OTHER PROFESSOR.
“We were looking for you!” cried Sylvie, in a tone of great relief. “We
do want you so much, you ca'n't think!”
“What is it, dear children?” the Professor asked, beaming on them with a
very different look from what Uggug ever got from him.
“We want you to speak to the Gardener for us,” Sylvie said, as she and
Bruno took the old man's hands and led him into the hall.
“He's ever so unkind!” Bruno mournfully added. “They's all unkind to us,
now that Father's gone. The Lion were much nicer!”
“But you must explain to me, please,” the Professor said with an anxious
look, “which is the Lion, and which is the Gardener. It's most important
not to get two such animals confused together. And one's very liable to
do it in their case--both having mouths, you know--”
“Doos oo always confuses two animals together?” Bruno asked.
“Pretty often, I'm afraid,” the Professor candidly confessed. “Now, for
instance, there's the rabbit-hutch and the hall-clock.” The Professor
pointed them out. “One gets a little confused with them--both having
doors, you know. Now, only yesterday--would you believe it?--I put some
lettuces into the clock, and tried to wind up the rabbit!”
“Did the rabbit go, after oo wounded it up?” said Bruno.
The Professor clasped his hands on the top of his head, and groaned.
“Go? I should think it did go! Why, it's gone? And where ever it's gone
to--that's what I ca'n't find out! I've done my best--I've read all the
article 'Rabbit' in the great dictionary--Come in!”
“Only the tailor, Sir, with your little bill,” said a meek voice outside
the door.
“Ah, well, I can soon settle his business,” the Professor said to the
children, “if you'll just wait a minute. How much is it, this year, my
man?” The tailor had come in while he was speaking.
“Well, it's been a doubling so many years, you see,” the tailor replied,
a little gruffly, “and I think I'd like the money now. It's two thousand
pound, it is!”
“Oh, that's nothing!” the Professor carelessly remarked, feeling in his
pocket, as if he always carried at least that amount about with him.
“But wouldn't you like to wait just another year, and make it four
thousand? Just think how rich you'd be! Why, you might be a King, if you
liked!”
“I don't know as I'd care about being a King,” the man said
thoughtfully. “But it dew sound a powerful sight o' money! Well, I
think I'll wait--”
“Of course you will!” said the Professor. “There's good sense in you, I
see. Good-day to you, my man!”
“Will you ever have to pay him that four thousand pounds?” Sylvie asked
as the door closed on the departing creditor.
“Never, my child!” the Professor replied emphatically. “He'll go on
doubling it, till he dies. You see it's always worth while waiting
another year, to get twice as much money! And now what would you like to
do, my little friends? Shall I take you to see the Other Professor?
This would be an excellent opportunity for a visit,” he said to himself,
glancing at his watch: “he generally takes a short rest--of fourteen
minutes and a half--about this time.”
Bruno hastily went round to Sylvie, who was standing at the other side
of the Professor, and put his hand into hers. “I thinks we'd like to
go,” he said doubtfully: “only please let's go all together. It's best
to be on the safe side, oo know!”
“Why, you talk as if you were Sylvie!” exclaimed the Professor.
“I know I did,” Bruno replied very humbly. “I quite forgotted I wasn't
Sylvie. Only I fought he might be rarver fierce!”
The Professor laughed a jolly laugh. “Oh, he's quite tame!” he said.
“He never bites. He's only a little--a little dreamy, you know.” He took
hold of Bruno's other hand; and led the children down a long passage
I had never noticed before--not that there was anything remarkable
in that: I was constantly coming on new rooms and passages in that
mysterious Palace, and very seldom succeeded in finding the old ones
again.
Near the end of the passage the Professor stopped. “This is his room,”
he said, pointing to the solid wall.
“We ca'n't get in through there!” Bruno exclaimed.
Sylvie said nothing, till she had carefully examined whether the wall
opened anywhere. Then she laughed merrily. “You're playing us a trick,
you dear old thing!” she said. “There's no door here!”
“There isn't any door to the room,” said the Professor. “We shall have
to climb in at the window.”
So we went into the garden, and soon found the window of the Other
Professor's room. It was a ground-floor window, and stood invitingly
open: the Professor first lifted the two children in, and then he and I
climbed in after them.
{Image...The other professor}
The Other Professor was seated at a table, with a large book open before
him, on which his forehead was resting: he had clasped his arms round
the book, and was snoring heavily. “He usually reads like that,”
the Professor remarked, “when the book's very interesting: and then
sometimes it's very difficult to get him to attend!”
This seemed to be one of the difficult times: the Professor lifted him
up, once or twice, and shook him violently: but he always returned to
his book the moment he was let go of, and showed by his heavy breathing
that the book was as interesting as ever.
“How dreamy he is!” the Professor exclaimed. “He must have got to a very
interesting part of the book!” And he rained quite a shower of thumps on
the Other Professor's back, shouting “Hoy! Hoy!” all the time. “Isn't it
wonderful that he should be so dreamy?” he said to Bruno.
“If he's always as sleepy as that,” Bruno remarked, “a course he's
dreamy!”
“But what are we to do?” said the Professor. “You see he's quite wrapped
up in the book!”
“Suppose oo shuts the book?” Bruno suggested.
“That's it!” cried the delighted Professor. “Of course that'll do it!”
And he shut up the book so quickly that he caught the Other Professor's
nose between the leaves, and gave it a severe pinch.
The Other Professor instantly rose to his feet, and carried the book
away to the end of the room, where he put it back in its place in the
book-case. “I've been reading for eighteen hours and three-quarters,”
he said, “and now I shall rest for fourteen minutes and a half. Is the
Lecture all ready?”
“Very nearly,” the Professor humbly replied. “I shall ask you to give me
a hint or two--there will be a few little difficulties--”
“And Banquet, I think you said?”
“Oh, yes! The Banquet comes first, of course. People never enjoy
Abstract Science, you know, when they're ravenous with hunger. And then
there's the Fancy-Dress-Ball. Oh, there'll be lots of entertainment!”
“Where will the Ball come in?” said the Other Professor.
“I think it had better come at the beginning of the Banquet--it brings
people together so nicely, you know.”
“Yes, that's the right order. First the Meeting: then the Eating: then
the Treating--for I'm sure any Lecture you give us will be a treat!”
said the Other Professor, who had been standing with his back to us all
this time, occupying himself in taking the books out, one by one, and
turning them upside-down. An easel, with a black board on it, stood near
him: and, every time that he turned a book upside-down, he made a mark
on the board with a piece of chalk.
“And as to the 'Pig-Tale'--which you have so kindly promised to give
us--” the Professor went on, thoughtfully rubbing his chin. “I think
that had better come at the end of the Banquet: then people can listen
to it quietly.”
“Shall I sing it?” the Other Professor asked, with a smile of delight.
“If you can,” the Professor replied, cautiously.
“Let me try,” said the Other Professor, seating himself at the
pianoforte. “For the sake of argument, let us assume that it begins on
A flat.” And he struck the note in question. “La, la, la! I think that's
within an octave of it.” He struck the note again, and appealed to
Bruno, who was standing at his side. “Did I sing it like that, my
child?”
“No, oo didn't,” Bruno replied with great decision. “It were more like a
duck.”
“Single notes are apt to have that effect,” the Other Professor said
with a sigh. “Let me try a whole verse,
There was a Pig, that sat alone,
Beside a ruined Pump.
By day and night he made his moan:
It would have stirred a heart of stone
To see him wring his hoofs and groan,
Because he could not jump.
Would you call that a tune, Professor?” he asked, when he had finished.
The Professor considered a little. “Well,” he said at last, “some of the
notes are the same as others and some are different but I should hardly
call it a tune.”
“Let me try it a bit by myself,” said the Other Professor. And he began
touching the notes here and there, and humming to himself like an angry
bluebottle.
“How do you like his singing?” the Professor asked the children in a low
voice.
“It isn't very beautiful,” Sylvie said, hesitatingly.
“It's very extremely ugly!” Bruno said, without any hesitation at all.
“All extremes are bad,” the Professor said, very gravely. “For instance,
Sobriety is a very good thing, when practised in moderation: but even
Sobriety, when carried to an extreme, has its disadvantages.”
“What are its disadvantages?” was the question that rose in my
mind--and, as usual, Bruno asked it for me. “What are its lizard
bandages?'
“Well, this is one of them,” said the Professor. “When a man's tipsy
(that's one extreme, you know), he sees one thing as two. But, when he's
extremely sober (that's the other extreme), he sees two things as one.
It's equally inconvenient, whichever happens.
“What does 'illconvenient' mean?” Bruno whispered to Sylvie.
“The difference between 'convenient' and 'inconvenient' is best
explained by an example,” said the Other Professor, who had overheard
the question. “If you'll just think over any Poem that contains the two
words--such as--”
The Professor put his hands over his ears, with a look of dismay. “If
you once let him begin a Poem,” he said to Sylvie, “he'll never leave
off again! He never does!”
“Did he ever begin a Poem and not leave off again?” Sylvie enquired.
“Three times,” said the Professor.
Bruno raised himself on tiptoe, till his lips were on a level with
Sylvie's ear. “What became of them three Poems?” he whispered. “Is he
saying them all, now?”
“Hush!” said Sylvie. “The Other Professor is speaking!”
“I'll say it very quick,” murmured the Other Professor, with downcast
eyes, and melancholy voice, which contrasted oddly with his face, as
he had forgotten to leave off smiling. (“At least it wasn't exactly a
smile,”) as Sylvie said afterwards: “it looked as if his mouth was made
that shape.”
“Go on then,” said the Professor. “What must be must be.”
“Remember that!” Sylvie whispered to Bruno, “It's a very good rule for
whenever you hurt yourself.”
“And it's a very good rule for whenever I make a noise,” said the saucy
little fellow. “So you remember it too, Miss!”
“Whatever do you mean?” said Sylvie, trying to frown, a thing she never
managed particularly well.
“Oftens and oftens,” said Bruno, “haven't oo told me 'There mustn't
be so much noise, Bruno!' when I've tolded oo 'There must!' Why, there
isn't no rules at all about 'There mustn't'! But oo never believes me!”
“As if any one could believe you, you wicked wicked boy!” said Sylvie.
The words were severe enough, but I am of opinion that, when you are
really anxious to impress a criminal with a sense of his guilt, you
ought not to pronounce the sentence with your lips quite close to his
cheek--since a kiss at the end of it, however accidental, weakens the
effect terribly.
CHAPTER 11. PETER AND PAUL.
“As I was saying,” the other Professor resumed, “if you'll just think
over any Poem, that contains the words--such as,
'Peter is poor,' said noble Paul,
'And I have always been his friend:
And, though my means to give are small,
At least I can afford to lend.
How few, in this cold age of greed,
Do good, except on selfish grounds!
But I can feel for Peter's need,
And I WILL LEND HIM FIFTY POUNDS!'
How great was Peter's joy to find
His friend in such a genial vein!
How cheerfully the bond he signed,
To pay the money back again!
'We ca'n't,' said Paul, 'be too precise:
'Tis best to fix the very day:
So, by a learned friend's advice,
I've made it Noon, the Fourth of May.
{Image...'How cheefully the bond he signed!'}
But this is April! Peter said.
'The First of April, as I think.
Five little weeks will soon be fled:
One scarcely will have time to wink!
Give me a year to speculate--
To buy and sell--to drive a trade--'
Said Paul 'I cannot change the date.
On May the Fourth it must be paid.'
'Well, well!' said Peter, with a sigh.
'Hand me the cash, and I will go.
I'll form a Joint-Stock Company,
And turn an honest pound or so.'
'I'm grieved,' said Paul, 'to seem unkind:
The money shalt of course be lent:
But, for a week or two, I find
It will not be convenient.'
So, week by week, poor Peter came
And turned in heaviness away;
For still the answer was the same,
'I cannot manage it to-day.'
And now the April showers were dry--
The five short weeks were nearly spent--
Yet still he got the old reply,
'It is not quite convenient!'
The Fourth arrived, and punctual Paul
Came, with his legal friend, at noon.
'I thought it best,' said he, 'to call:
One cannot settle things too soon.'
Poor Peter shuddered in despair:
His flowing locks he wildly tore:
And very soon his yellow hair
Was lying all about the floor.
The legal friend was standing by,
With sudden pity half unmanned:
The tear-drop trembled in his eye,
The signed agreement in his hand:
But when at length the legal soul
Resumed its customary force,
'The Law,' he said, 'we ca'n't control:
Pay, or the Law must take its course!'
Said Paul 'How bitterly I rue
That fatal morning when I called!
Consider, Peter, what you do!
You won't be richer when you're bald!
Think you, by rending curls away,
To make your difficulties less?
Forbear this violence, I pray:
You do but add to my distress!'
{Image...'Poor peter shuddered in despair'}
'Not willingly would I inflict,'
Said Peter, 'on that noble heart
One needless pang. Yet why so strict?
Is this to act a friendly part?
However legal it may be
To pay what never has been lent,
This style of business seems to me
Extremely inconvenient!
'No Nobleness of soul have I,
Like some that in this Age are found!'
(Paul blushed in sheer humility,
And cast his eyes upon the ground)
'This debt will simply swallow all,
And make my life a life of woe!'
'Nay, nay, nay Peter!' answered Paul.
'You must not rail on Fortune so!
'You have enough to eat and drink:
You are respected in the world:
And at the barber's, as I think,
You often get your whiskers curled.
Though Nobleness you ca'n't attain
To any very great extent--
The path of Honesty is plain,
However inconvenient!'
“Tis true, 'said Peter,' I'm alive:
I keep my station in the world:
Once in the week I just contrive
To get my whiskers oiled and curled.
But my assets are very low:
My little income's overspent:
To trench on capital, you know,
Is always inconvenient!'
'But pay your debts!' cried honest Paul.
'My gentle Peter, pay your debts!
What matter if it swallows all
That you describe as your “assets”?
Already you're an hour behind:
Yet Generosity is best.
It pinches me--but never mind!
I WILL NOT CHARGE YOU INTEREST!'
'How good! How great!' poor Peter cried.
'Yet I must sell my Sunday wig--
The scarf-pin that has been my pride--
My grand piano--and my pig!'
Full soon his property took wings:
And daily, as each treasure went,
He sighed to find the state of things
Grow less and less convenient.
Weeks grew to months, and months to years:
Peter was worn to skin and bone:
And once he even said, with tears,
'Remember, Paul, that promised Loan!'
Said Paul' I'll lend you, when I can,
All the spare money I have got--
Ah, Peter, you're a happy man!
Yours is an enviable lot!
{Image...Such boots as these you seldom see}
'I'm getting stout, as you may see:
It is but seldom I am well:
I cannot feel my ancient glee
In listening to the dinner-bell:
But you, you gambol like a boy,
Your figure is so spare and light:
The dinner-bell's a note of joy
To such a healthy appetite!'
Said Peter 'I am well aware
Mine is a state of happiness:
And yet how gladly could I spare
Some of the comforts I possess!
What you call healthy appetite
I feel as Hunger's savage tooth:
And, when no dinner is in sight,
The dinner-bell's a sound of ruth!
'No scare-crow would accept this coat:
Such boots as these you seldom see.
Ah, Paul, a single five-pound-note
Would make another man of me!'
Said Paul 'It fills me with surprise
To hear you talk in such a tone:
I fear you scarcely realise
The blessings that are all your own!
'You're safe from being overfed:
You're sweetly picturesque in rags:
You never know the aching head
That comes along with money-bags:
And you have time to cultivate
That best of qualities, Content--
For which you'll find your present state
Remarkably convenient!'
Said Peter 'Though I cannot sound
The depths of such a man as you,
Yet in your character I've found
An inconsistency or two.
You seem to have long years to spare
When there's a promise to fulfil:
And yet how punctual you were
In calling with that little bill!'
'One can't be too deliberate,'
Said Paul, 'in parting with one's pelf.
With bills, as you correctly state,
I'm punctuality itself:
A man may surely claim his dues:
But, when there's money to be lent,
A man must be allowed to choose
Such times as are convenient!'
It chanced one day, as Peter sat
Gnawing a crust--his usual meal--
Paul bustled in to have a chat,
And grasped his hand with friendly zeal.
'I knew,' said he, 'your frugal ways:
So, that I might not wound your pride
By bringing strangers in to gaze,
I've left my legal friend outside!
'You well remember, I am sure,
When first your wealth began to go,
And people sneered at one so poor,
I never used my Peter so!
And when you'd lost your little all,
And found yourself a thing despised,
I need not ask you to recall
How tenderly I sympathised!
'Then the advice I've poured on you,
So full of wisdom and of wit:
All given gratis, though 'tis true
I might have fairly charged for it!
But I refrain from mentioning
Full many a deed I might relate
For boasting is a kind of thing
That I particularly hate.
{Image...'I will lend you fifty more!'}
'How vast the total sum appears
Of all the kindnesses I've done,
From Childhood's half-forgotten years
Down to that Loan of April One!
That Fifty Pounds! You little guessed
How deep it drained my slender store:
But there's a heart within this breast,
And I WILL LEND YOU FIFTY MORE!'
'Not so,' was Peter's mild reply,
His cheeks all wet with grateful tears;
No man recalls, so well as I,
Your services in bygone years:
And this new offer, I admit,
Is very very kindly meant--
Still, to avail myself of it
Would not be quite convenient!'
You'll see in a moment what the difference is between 'convenient'
and 'inconvenient.' You quite understand it now, don't you?” he added,
looking kindly at Bruno, who was sitting, at Sylvie's side, on the
floor.
“Yes,” said Bruno, very quietly. Such a short speech was very unusual,
for him: but just then he seemed, I fancied, a little exhausted. In
fact, he climbed up into Sylvie's lap as he spoke, and rested his head
against her shoulder. “What a many verses it was!” he whispered.
CHAPTER 12. A MUSICAL GARDENER.
The Other Professor regarded him with some anxiety. “The smaller animal
ought to go to bed at once,” he said with an air of authority.
“Why at once?” said the Professor.
“Because he can't go at twice,” said the Other Professor.
The Professor gently clapped his hands. “Isn't he wonderful!” he said to
Sylvie. “Nobody else could have thought of the reason, so quick. Why, of
course he ca'n't go at twice! It would hurt him to be divided.”
This remark woke up Bruno, suddenly and completely. “I don't want to be
divided,” he said decisively.
“It does very well on a diagram,” said the Other Professor. “I could
show it you in a minute, only the chalk's a little blunt.”
“Take care!” Sylvie anxiously exclaimed, as he began, rather clumsily,
to point it. “You'll cut your finger off, if you hold the knife so!”
“If oo cuts it off, will oo give it to me, please? Bruno thoughtfully
added.
“It's like this,” said the Other Professor, hastily drawing a long line
upon the black board, and marking the letters 'A,' 'B,' at the two
ends, and 'C' in the middle: “let me explain it to you. If AB were to be
divided into two parts at C--”
“It would be drownded,” Bruno pronounced confidently.
The Other Professor gasped. “What would be drownded?”
“Why the bumble-bee, of course!” said Bruno. “And the two bits would
sink down in the sea!”
Here the Professor interfered, as the Other Professor was evidently too
much puzzled to go on with his diagram.
“When I said it would hurt him, I was merely referring to the action of
the nerves--”
The Other Professor brightened up in a moment. “The action of the
nerves,” he began eagerly, “is curiously slow in some people. I had a
friend, once, that, if you burnt him with a red-hot poker, it would take
years and years before he felt it!”
“And if you only pinched him?” queried Sylvie.
“Then it would take ever so much longer, of course. In fact, I doubt if
the man himself would ever feel it, at all. His grandchildren might.”
“I wouldn't like to be the grandchild of a pinched grandfather, would
you, Mister Sir?” Bruno whispered. “It might come just when you wanted
to be happy!”
That would be awkward, I admitted, taking it quite as a matter of course
that he had so suddenly caught sight of me. “But don't you always want
to be happy, Bruno?”
“Not always,” Bruno said thoughtfully. “Sometimes, when I's too happy,
I wants to be a little miserable. Then I just tell Sylvie about it, oo
know, and Sylvie sets me some lessons. Then it's all right.”
“I'm sorry you don't like lessons,” I said.
“You should copy Sylvie. She's always as busy as the day is long!”
“Well, so am I!” said Bruno.
“No, no!” Sylvie corrected him. “You're as busy as the day is short!”
“Well, what's the difference?” Bruno asked. “Mister Sir, isn't the day
as short as it's long? I mean, isn't it the same length?”
Never having considered the question in this light, I suggested that
they had better ask the Professor; and they ran off in a moment to
appeal to their old friend. The Professor left off polishing his
spectacles to consider. “My dears,” he said after a minute, “the day
is the same length as anything that is the same length as it.” And he
resumed his never-ending task of polishing.
The children returned, slowly and thoughtfully, to report his answer.
“Isn't he wise?”
Sylvie asked in an awestruck whisper. “If I was as wise as that, I
should have a head-ache all day long. I know I should!”
“You appear to be talking to somebody--that isn't here,” the Professor
said, turning round to the children. “Who is it?”
Bruno looked puzzled. “I never talks to nobody when he isn't here!” he
replied. “It isn't good manners. Oo should always wait till he comes,
before oo talks to him!”
The Professor looked anxiously in my direction, and seemed to look
through and through me without seeing me. “Then who are you talking to?”
he said. “There isn't anybody here, you know, except the Other Professor
and he isn't here!” he added wildly, turning round and round like a
teetotum. “Children! Help to look for him! Quick! He's got lost again!”
The children were on their feet in a moment.
“Where shall we look?” said Sylvie.
“Anywhere!” shouted the excited Professor. “Only be quick about it!” And
he began trotting round and round the room, lifting up the chairs, and
shaking them.
Bruno took a very small book out of the bookcase, opened it, and shook
it in imitation of the Professor. “He isn't here,” he said.
“He ca'n't be there, Bruno!” Sylvie said indignantly.
“Course he ca'n't!” said Bruno. “I should have shooked him out, if he'd
been in there!”
“Has he ever been lost before?” Sylvie enquired, turning up a corner of
the hearth-rug, and peeping under it.
“Once before,” said the Professor: “he once lost himself in a wood--”
“And couldn't he find his-self again?” said Bruno. “Why didn't he shout?
He'd be sure to hear his-self, 'cause he couldn't be far off, oo know.”
“Lets try shouting,” said the Professor.
“What shall we shout?” said Sylvie.
“On second thoughts, don't shout,” the Professor replied. “The
Vice-Warden might hear you. He's getting awfully strict!”
This reminded the poor children of all the troubles, about which they
had come to their old friend. Bruno sat down on the floor and began
crying. “He is so cruel!” he sobbed. “And he lets Uggug take away all my
toys! And such horrid meals!”
“What did you have for dinner to-day?” said the Professor.
“A little piece of a dead crow,” was Bruno's mournful reply.
“He means rook-pie,” Sylvie explained.
“It were a dead crow,” Bruno persisted. “And there were a
apple-pudding--and Uggug ate it all--and I got nuffin but a crust! And
I asked for a orange--and--didn't get it!” And the poor little fellow
buried his face in Sylvie's lap, who kept gently stroking his hair as
she went on. “It's all true, Professor dear! They do treat my darling
Bruno very badly! And they're not kind to me either,” she added in a
lower tone, as if that were a thing of much less importance.
The Professor got out a large red silk handkerchief, and wiped his eyes.
“I wish I could help you, dear children!” he said. “But what can I do?”
“We know the way to Fairyland--where Father's gone--quite well,” said
Sylvie: “if only the Gardener would let us out.”
“Won't he open the door for you?” said the Professor.
“Not for us,” said Sylvie: “but I'm sure he would for you. Do come and
ask him, Professor dear!”
“I'll come this minute!” said the Professor.
Bruno sat up and dried his eyes. “Isn't he kind, Mister Sir?”
“He is indeed,” said I. But the Professor took no notice of my remark.
He had put on a beautiful cap with a long tassel, and was selecting one
of the Other Professor's walking-sticks, from a stand in the corner of
the room. “A thick stick in one's hand makes people respectful,” he was
saying to himself. “Come along, dear children!” And we all went out into
the garden together.
“I shall address him, first of all,” the Professor explained as we went
along, “with a few playful remarks on the weather. I shall then question
him about the Other Professor. This will have a double advantage. First,
it will open the conversation (you can't even drink a bottle of
wine without opening it first): and secondly, if he's seen the Other
Professor, we shall find him that way: and, if he hasn't, we sha'n't.”
On our way, we passed the target, at which Uggug had been made to shoot
during the Ambassador's visit.
“See!” said the Professor, pointing out a hole in the middle of the
bull's-eye. “His Imperial Fatness had only one shot at it; and he went
in just here!”
Bruno carefully examined the hole. “Couldn't go in there,” he whispered
to me. “He are too fat!”
We had no sort of difficulty in finding the Gardener. Though he was
hidden from us by some trees, that harsh voice of his served to direct
us; and, as we drew nearer, the words of his song became more and more
plainly audible:--
“He thought he saw an Albatross
That fluttered round the lamp:
He looked again, and found it was
A Penny-Postage-Stamp.
'You'd best be getting home,' he said:
'The nights are very damp!'”
{Image...He thought he saw an albatross}
“Would it be afraid of catching cold?” said Bruno.
“If it got very damp,” Sylvie suggested, “it might stick to something,
you know.”
“And that somefin would have to go by the post, what ever it was!” Bruno
eagerly exclaimed. “Suppose it was a cow! Wouldn't it be dreadful for
the other things!”
“And all these things happened to him,” said the Professor. “That's what
makes the song so interesting.”
“He must have had a very curious life,” said Sylvie.
“You may say that!” the Professor heartily rejoined.
“Of course she may!” cried Bruno.
By this time we had come up to the Gardener, who was standing on one
leg, as usual, and busily employed in watering a bed of flowers with an
empty watering-can.
“It hasn't got no water in it!” Bruno explained to him, pulling his
sleeve to attract his attention.
“It's lighter to hold,” said the Gardener. “A lot of water in it makes
one's arms ache.” And he went on with his work, singing softly to
himself,
“The nights are very damp!”
“In digging things out of the ground which you probably do now and
then,” the Professor began in a loud voice; “in making things into
heaps--which no doubt you often do; and in kicking things about with one
heel--which you seem never to leave off doing; have you ever happened to
notice another Professor something like me, but different?”
“Never!” shouted the Gardener, so loudly and violently that we all drew
back in alarm. “There ain't such a thing!”
“We will try a less exciting topic,” the Professor mildly remarked to
the children. “You were asking--”
“We asked him to let us through the garden-door,” said Sylvie: “but he
wouldn't: but perhaps he would for you!”
The Professor put the request, very humbly and courteously.
“I wouldn't mind letting you out,” said the Gardener. “But I mustn't
open the door for children. D'you think I'd disobey the Rules? Not for
one-and-sixpence!”
The Professor cautiously produced a couple of shillings.
“That'll do it!” the Gardener shouted, as he hurled the watering-can
across the flower-bed, and produced a handful of keys--one large one,
and a number of small ones.
“But look here, Professor dear!” whispered Sylvie. “He needn't open the
door for us, at all. We can go out with you.”
“True, dear child!” the Professor thankfully replied, as he replaced
the coins in his pocket. “That saves two shillings!” And he took the
children's hands, that they might all go out together when the door
was opened. This, however, did not seem a very likely event, though the
Gardener patiently tried all the small keys, over and over again.
At last the Professor ventured on a gentle suggestion. “Why not try the
large one? I have often observed that a door unlocks much more nicely
with its own key.”
The very first trial of the large key proved a success: the Gardener
opened the door, and held out his hand for the money.
The Professor shook his head. “You are acting by Rule,” he explained,
“in opening the door for me. And now it's open, we are going out by
Rule--the Rule of Three.”
The Gardener looked puzzled, and let us go out; but, as he locked the
door behind us, we heard him singing thoughtfully to himself,
“He thought he saw a Garden-Door
That opened with a key:
He looked again, and found it was
A Double Rule of Three:
'And all its mystery,' he said,
'Is clear as day to me!'”
“I shall now return,” said the Professor, when we had walked a few
yards: “you see, it's impossible to read here, for all my books are in
the house.”
But the children still kept fast hold of his hands. “Do come with us!”
Sylvie entreated with tears in her eyes.
“Well, well!” said the good-natured old man. “Perhaps I'll come after
you, some day soon. But I must go back now. You see I left off at
a comma, and it's so awkward not knowing how the sentence finishes!
Besides, you've got to go through Dogland first, and I'm always a little
nervous about dogs. But it'll be quite easy to come, as soon as I've
completed my new invention--for carrying one's-self, you know. It wants
just a little more working out.”
“Won't that be very tiring, to carry yourself?” Sylvie enquired.
“Well, no, my child. You see, whatever fatigue one incurs by carrying,
one saves by being carried! Good-bye, dears! Good-bye, Sir!” he added to
my intense surprise, giving my hand an affectionate squeeze.
“Good-bye, Professor!” I replied: but my voice sounded strange and far
away, and the children took not the slightest notice of our farewell.
Evidently they neither saw me nor heard me, as, with their arms lovingly
twined round each other, they marched boldly on.
CHAPTER 13. A VISIT TO DOGLAND.
“There's a house, away there to the left,” said Sylvie, after we had
walked what seemed to me about fifty miles. “Let's go and ask for a
night's lodging.”
“It looks a very comfable house,” Bruno said, as we turned into the
road leading up to it. “I doos hope the Dogs will be kind to us, I is so
tired and hungry!”
A Mastiff, dressed in a scarlet collar, and carrying a musket, was
pacing up and down, like a sentinel, in front of the entrance. He
started, on catching sight of the children, and came forwards to meet
them, keeping his musket pointed straight at Bruno, who stood quite
still, though he turned pale and kept tight hold of Sylvie's hand, while
the Sentinel walked solemnly round and round them, and looked at them
from all points of view.
{Image...The mastiff-sentinel}
“Oobooh, hooh boohooyah!” He growled at last. “Woobah yahwah oobooh! Bow
wahbah woobooyah? Bow wow?” he asked Bruno, severely.
Of course Bruno understood all this, easily enough. All Fairies
understand Doggee---that is, Dog-language. But, as you may find it a
little difficult, just at first, I had better put it into English for
you. “Humans, I verily believe! A couple of stray Humans! What Dog do
you belong to? What do you want?”
“We don't belong to a Dog!” Bruno began, in Doggee. (“Peoples never
belongs to Dogs!” he whispered to Sylvie.)
But Sylvie hastily checked him, for fear of hurting the Mastiff's
feelings. “Please, we want a little food, and a night's lodging--if
there's room in the house,” she added timidly. Sylvie spoke Doggee
very prettily: but I think it's almost better, for you, to give the
conversation in English.
“The house, indeed!” growled the Sentinel. “Have you never seen a Palace
in your life? Come along with me! His Majesty must settle what's to be
done with you.”
They followed him through the entrance-hall, down a long passage, and
into a magnificent Saloon, around which were grouped dogs of all sorts
and sizes. Two splendid Blood-hounds were solemnly sitting up, one on
each side of the crown-bearer. Two or three Bull-dogs---whom I guessed
to be the Body-Guard of the King--were waiting in grim silence: in fact
the only voices at all plainly audible were those of two little dogs,
who had mounted a settee, and were holding a lively discussion that
looked very like a quarrel.
“Lords and Ladies in Waiting, and various Court Officials,” our guide
gruffly remarked, as he led us in. Of me the Courtiers took no notice
whatever: but Sylvie and Bruno were the subject of many inquisitive
looks, and many whispered remarks, of which I only distinctly caught
one--made by a sly-looking Dachshund to his friend “Bah wooh wahyah
hoobah Oobooh, hah bah?” (“She's not such a bad-looking Human, is she?”)
Leaving the new arrivals in the centre of the Saloon, the Sentinel
advanced to a door, at the further end of it, which bore an inscription,
painted on it in Doggee, “Royal Kennel--scratch and Yell.”
Before doing this, the Sentinel turned to the children, and said “Give
me your names.”
“We'd rather not!” Bruno exclaimed, pulling' Sylvie away from the door.
“We want them ourselves. Come back, Sylvie! Come quick!”
“Nonsense!” said Sylvie very decidedly: and gave their names in Doggee.
Then the Sentinel scratched violently at the door, and gave a yell that
made Bruno shiver from head to foot.
“Hooyah wah!” said a deep voice inside. (That's Doggee for “Come in!”)
“It's the King himself!” the Mastiff whispered in an awestruck tone.
“Take off your wigs, and lay them humbly at his paws.” (What we should
call “at his feet.”)
Sylvie was just going to explain, very politely, that really they
couldn't perform that ceremony, because their wigs wouldn't come off,
when the door of the Royal Kennel opened, and an enormous Newfoundland
Dog put his head out. “Bow wow?” was his first question.
“When His Majesty speaks to you,” the Sentinel hastily whispered to
Bruno, “you should prick up your ears!”
Bruno looked doubtfully at Sylvie. “I'd rather not, please,” he said.
“It would hurt.”
{Image...The dog-king}
“It doesn't hurt a bit!” the Sentinel said with some indignation. “Look!
It's like this!” And he pricked up his ears like two railway signals.
Sylvie gently explained matters. “I'm afraid we ca'n't manage it,”
she said in a low voice. “I'm very sorry: but our ears haven't got the
right--” she wanted to say “machinery” in Doggee: but she had forgotten
the word, and could only think of “steam-engine.”
The Sentinel repeated Sylvie's explanation to the King.
“Can't prick up their ears without a steam-engine!” His Majesty
exclaimed. “They must be curious creatures! I must have a look at them!”
And he came out of his Kennel, and walked solemnly up to the children.
What was the amazement--nor to say the horror of the whole assembly,
when Sylvie actually patted His Majesty on the head, while Bruno seized
his long ears and pretended to tie them together under his chin!
The Sentinel groaned aloud: a beautiful Greyhound who appeared to be
one of the Ladies in Waiting--fainted away: and all the other Courtiers
hastily drew back, and left plenty of room for the huge Newfoundland to
spring upon the audacious strangers, and tear them limb from limb.
Only--he didn't. On the contrary his Majesty actually smiled so far as
a Dog can smile--and (the other Dogs couldn't believe their eyes, but it
was true, all the same) his Majesty wagged his tail!
“Yah! Hooh hahwooh!” (that is “Well! I never!”) was the universal cry.
His Majesty looked round him severely, and gave a slight growl, which
produced instant silence. “Conduct my friends to the banqueting-hall!”
he said, laying such an emphasis on “my friends” that several of the
dogs rolled over helplessly on their backs and began to lick Bruno's
feet.
A procession was formed, but I only ventured to follow as far as the
door of the banqueting-hall, so furious was the uproar of barking dogs
within. So I sat down by the King, who seemed to have gone to sleep, and
waited till the children returned to say good-night, when His Majesty
got up and shook himself.
“Time for bed!” he said with a sleepy yawn. “The attendants will show
you your room,” he added, aside, to Sylvie and Bruno. “Bring lights!”
And, with a dignified air, he held out his paw for them to kiss.
But the children were evidently not well practised in Court-manners.
Sylvie simply stroked the great paw: Bruno hugged it: the Master of the
Ceremonies looked shocked.
All this time Dog-waiters, in splendid livery, were running up with
lighted candles: but, as fast as they put them upon the table, other
waiters ran away with them, so that there never seemed to be one for
me, though the Master kept nudging me with his elbow, and repeating, “I
ca'n't let you sleep here! You're not in bed, you know!”
I made a great effort, and just succeeded in getting out the words “I
know I'm not. I'm in an arm-chair.”
“Well, forty winks will do you no harm,” the Master said, and left me.
I could scarcely hear his words: and no wonder: he was leaning over the
side of a ship, that was miles away from the pier on which I stood. The
ship passed over the horizon and I sank back into the arm-chair.
The next thing I remember is that it was morning: breakfast was just
over: Sylvie was lifting Bruno down from a high chair, and saying to
a Spaniel, who was regarding them with a most benevolent smile, “Yes,
thank you we've had a very nice breakfast. Haven't we, Bruno?”
“There was too many bones in the”--Bruno began, but Sylvie frowned at
him, and laid her finger on her lips, for, at this moment, the travelers
were waited on by a very dignified officer, the Head-Growler, whose duty
it was, first to conduct them to the King to bid him farewell and
then to escort them to the boundary of Dogland. The great Newfoundland
received them most affably but instead of saying “good-bye” he startled
the Head-growler into giving three savage growls, by announcing that he
would escort them himself.
It is a most unusual proceeding, your Majesty! the Head-Growler
exclaimed, almost choking with vexation at being set aside, for he
had put on his best Court-suit, made entirely of cat-skins, for the
occasion.
“I shall escort them myself,” his Majesty repeated, gently but firmly,
laying aside the Royal robes, and changing his crown for a small
coronet, “and you may stay at home.”
“I are glad!” Bruno whispered to Sylvie, when they had got well out of
hearing. “He were so welly cross!” And he not only patted their Royal
escort, but even hugged him round the neck in the exuberance of his
delight.
His Majesty calmly wagged the Royal tail. “It's quite a relief,” he
said, “getting away from that Palace now and then! Royal Dogs have a
dull life of it, I can tell you! Would you mind” (this to Sylvie, in a
low voice, and looking a little shy and embarrassed) “would you mind the
trouble of just throwing that stick for me to fetch?”
Sylvie was too much astonished to do anything for a moment: it sounded
such a monstrous impossibility that a King should wish to run after a
stick. But Bruno was equal to the occasion, and with a glad shout of “Hi
then! Fetch it, good Doggie!” he hurled it over a clump of bushes. The
next moment the Monarch of Dogland had bounded over the bushes, and
picked up the stick, and came galloping back to the children with it in
his mouth. Bruno took it from him with great decision. “Beg for it!”
he insisted; and His Majesty begged. “Paw!” commanded Sylvie; and His
Majesty gave his paw. In short, the solemn ceremony of escorting the
travelers to the boundaries of Dogland became one long uproarious game
of play!
“But business is business!” the Dog-King said at last. “And I must
go back to mine. I couldn't come any further,” he added, consulting a
dog-watch, which hung on a chain round his neck, “not even if there were
a Cat insight!”
They took an affectionate farewell of His Majesty, and trudged on.
“That were a dear dog!” Bruno exclaimed. “Has we to go far, Sylvie? I's
tired!”
“Not much further, darling!” Sylvie gently replied. “Do you see that
shining, just beyond those trees? I'm almost sure it's the gate of
Fairyland! I know it's all golden--Father told me so and so bright, so
bright!” she went on dreamily.
“It dazzles!” said Bruno, shading his eyes with one little hand, while
the other clung tightly to Sylvie's hand, as if he were half-alarmed at
her strange manner.
For the child moved on as if walking in her sleep, her large eyes gazing
into the far distance, and her breath coming and going in quick pantings
of eager delight. I knew, by some mysterious mental light, that a great
change was taking place in my sweet little friend (for such I loved to
think her) and that she was passing from the condition of a mere Outland
Sprite into the true Fairy-nature.
Upon Bruno the change came later: but it was completed in both
before they reached the golden gate, through which I knew it would be
impossible for me to follow. I could but stand outside, and take a last
look at the two sweet children, ere they disappeared within, and the
golden gate closed with a bang.
And with such a bang! “It never will shut like any other cupboard-door,”
Arthur explained. “There's something wrong with the hinge. However,
here's the cake and wine. And you've had your forty winks. So you really
must get off to bed, old man! You're fit for nothing else. Witness my
hand, Arthur Forester, M.D.”
By this time I was wide-awake again. “Not quite yet!” I pleaded. “Really
I'm not sleepy now. And it isn't midnight yet.”
“Well, I did want to say another word to you,” Arthur replied in a
relenting tone, as he supplied me with the supper he had prescribed.
“Only I thought you were too sleepy for it to-night.”
We took our midnight meal almost in silence; for an unusual nervousness
seemed to have seized on my old friend.
“What kind of a night is it?” he asked, rising and undrawing the
window-curtains, apparently to change the subject for a minute. I
followed him to the window, and we stood together, looking out, in
silence.
“When I first spoke to you about--” Arthur began, after a long and
embarrassing silence, “that is, when we first talked about her--for I
think it was you that introduced the subject--my own position in life
forbade me to do more than worship her from a distance: and I was
turning over plans for leaving this place finally, and settling
somewhere out of all chance of meeting her again. That seemed to be my
only chance of usefulness in life.”
“Would that have been wise?” I said. “To leave yourself no hope at all?”
“There was no hope to leave,” Arthur firmly replied, though his eyes
glittered with tears as he gazed upwards into the midnight sky, from
which one solitary star, the glorious 'Vega,' blazed out in fitful
splendour through the driving clouds. “She was like that star to
me--bright, beautiful, and pure, but out of reach, out of reach!”
He drew the curtains again, and we returned to our places by the
fireside.
“What I wanted to tell you was this,” he resumed. “I heard this evening
from my solicitor. I can't go into the details of the business, but the
upshot is that my worldly wealth is much more than I thought, and I am
(or shall soon be) in a position to offer marriage, without imprudence,
to any lady, even if she brought nothing. I doubt if there would be
anything on her side: the Earl is poor, I believe. But I should have
enough for both, even if health failed.”
“I wish you all happiness in your married life!” I cried. “Shall you
speak to the Earl to-morrow?”
“Not yet awhile,” said Arthur. “He is very friendly, but I dare not
think he means more than that, as yet. And as for--as for Lady Muriel,
try as I may, I cannot read her feelings towards me. If there is love,
she is hiding it! No, I must wait, I must wait!”
I did not like to press any further advice on my friend, whose judgment,
I felt, was so much more sober and thoughtful than my own; and we parted
without more words on the subject that had now absorbed his thoughts,
nay, his very life.
The next morning a letter from my solicitor arrived, summoning me to
town on important business.
CHAPTER 14. FAIRY-SYLVIE.
For a full month the business, for which I had returned to London,
detained me there: and even then it was only the urgent advice of my
physician that induced me to leave it unfinished and pay another visit
to Elveston.
Arthur had written once or twice during the month; but in none of his
letters was there any mention of Lady Muriel. Still, I did not augur ill
from his silence: to me it looked like the natural action of a lover,
who, even while his heart was singing “She is mine!”, would fear to
paint his happiness in the cold phrases of a written letter, but would
wait to tell it by word of mouth. “Yes,” I thought, “I am to hear his
song of triumph from his own lips!”
The night I arrived we had much to say on other matters: and, tired with
the journey, I went to bed early, leaving the happy secret still untold.
Next day, however, as we chatted on over the remains of luncheon, I
ventured to put the momentous question. “Well, old friend, you have told
me nothing of Lady Muriel--nor when the happy day is to be?”
“The happy day,” Arthur said, looking unexpectedly grave, “is yet in the
dim future. We need to know--or, rather, she needs to know me better.
I know her sweet nature, thoroughly, by this time. But I dare not speak
till I am sure that my love is returned.”
“Don't wait too long!” I said gaily. “Faint heart never won fair lady!”
“It is 'faint heart,' perhaps. But really I dare not speak just yet.”
“But meanwhile,” I pleaded, “you are running a risk that perhaps you
have not thought of. Some other man--”
“No,” said Arthur firmly. “She is heart-whole: I am sure of that. Yet,
if she loves another better than me, so be it! I will not spoil her
happiness. The secret shall die with me. But she is my first--and my
only love!”
“That is all very beautiful sentiment,” I said, “but it is not
practical. It is not like you.
He either fears his fate too much,
Or his desert is small,
Who dares not put it to the touch,
To win or lose it all.”
“I dare not ask the question whether there is another!” he said
passionately. “It would break my heart to know it!”
“Yet is it wise to leave it unasked? You must not waste your life upon
an 'if'!”
“I tell you I dare not!,”
“May I find it out for you?” I asked, with the freedom of an old friend.
“No, no!” he replied with a pained look. “I entreat you to say nothing.
Let it wait.”
“As you please,” I said: and judged it best to say no more just then.
“But this evening,” I thought, “I will call on the Earl. I may be able
to see how the land lies, without so much as saying a word!”
It was a very hot afternoon--too hot to go for a walk or do anything--or
else it wouldn't have happened, I believe.
In the first place, I want to know--dear Child who reads this!--why
Fairies should always be teaching us to do our duty, and lecturing us
when we go wrong, and we should never teach them anything? You can't
mean to say that Fairies are never greedy, or selfish, or cross, or
deceitful, because that would be nonsense, you know. Well then, don't
you think they might be all the better for a little lecturing and
punishing now and then?
I really don't see why it shouldn't be tried, and I'm almost sure that,
if you could only catch a Fairy, and put it in the corner, and give it
nothing but bread and water for a day or two, you'd find it quite an
improved character--it would take down its conceit a little, at all
events.
The next question is, what is the best time for seeing Fairies? I
believe I can tell you all about that.
The first rule is, that it must be a very hot day--that we may consider
as settled: and you must be just a little sleepy--but not too sleepy to
keep your eyes open, mind. Well, and you ought to feel a little--what
one may call “fairyish “--the Scotch call it “eerie,” and perhaps that's
a prettier word; if you don't know what it means, I'm afraid I can
hardly explain it; you must wait till you meet a Fairy, and then you'll
know.
And the last rule is, that the crickets should not be chirping. I can't
stop to explain that: you must take it on trust for the present.
So, if all these things happen together, you have a good chance of
seeing a Fairy--or at least a much better chance than if they didn't.
The first thing I noticed, as I went lazily along through an open place
in the wood, was a large Beetle lying struggling on its back, and I went
down upon one knee to help the poor thing to its feet again. In some
things, you know, you ca'n't be quite sure what an insect would like:
for instance, I never could quite settle, supposing I were a moth,
whether I would rather be kept out of the candle, or be allowed to fly
straight in and get burnt--or again, supposing I were a spider, I'm not
sure if I should be quite pleased to have my web torn down, and the fly
let loose--but I feel quite certain that, if I were a beetle and had
rolled over on my back, I should always be glad to be helped up again.
So, as I was saying, I had gone down upon one knee, and was just
reaching out a little stick to turn the Beetle over, when I saw a sight
that made me draw back hastily and hold my breath, for fear of making
any noise and frightening the little creature a way.
Not that she looked as if she would be easily frightened: she seemed so
good and gentle that I'm sure she would never expect that any one could
wish to hurt her. She was only a few inches high, and was dressed in
green, so that you really would hardly have noticed her among the long
grass; and she was so delicate and graceful that she quite seemed to
belong to the place, almost as if she were one of the flowers. I may
tell you, besides, that she had no wings (I don't believe in Fairies
with wings), and that she had quantities of long brown hair and large
earnest brown eyes, and then I shall have done all I can to give you an
idea of her.
{Image...Fairy-sylvie}
Sylvie (I found out her name afterwards) had knelt down, just as I was
doing, to help the Beetle; but it needed more than a little stick for
her to get it on its legs again; it was as much as she could do, with
both arms, to roll the heavy thing over; and all the while she was
talking to it, half scolding and half comforting, as a nurse might do
with a child that had fallen down.
“There, there! You needn't cry so much about it. You're not killed
yet--though if you were, you couldn't cry, you know, and so it's a
general rule against crying, my dear! And how did you come to
tumble over? But I can see well enough how it was--I needn't ask you
that--walking over sand-pits with your chin in the air, as usual. Of
course if you go among sand-pits like that, you must expect to tumble.
You should look.”
The Beetle murmured something that sounded like “I did look,” and Sylvie
went on again.
“But I know you didn't! You never do! You always walk with your chin
up--you're so dreadfully conceited. Well, let's see how many legs are
broken this time. Why, none of them, I declare! And what's the good of
having six legs, my dear, if you can only kick them all about in the air
when you tumble? Legs are meant to walk with, you know. Now don't begin
putting out your wings yet; I've more to say. Go to the frog that
lives behind that buttercup--give him my compliments--Sylvie's
compliments--can you say compliments'?”
The Beetle tried and, I suppose, succeeded.
“Yes, that's right. And tell him he's to give you some of that salve I
left with him yesterday. And you'd better get him to rub it in for you.
He's got rather cold hands, but you mustn't mind that.”
I think the Beetle must have shuddered at this idea, for Sylvie went on
in a graver tone. “Now you needn't pretend to be so particular as all
that, as if you were too grand to be rubbed by a frog. The fact is, you
ought to be very much obliged to him. Suppose you could get nobody but a
toad to do it, how would you like that?”
There was a little pause, and then Sylvie added “Now you may go. Be a
good beetle, and don't keep your chin in the air.” And then began one of
those performances of humming, and whizzing, and restless banging about,
such as a beetle indulges in when it has decided on flying, but hasn't
quite made up its mind which way to go. At last, in one of its awkward
zigzags, it managed to fly right into my face, and, by the time I had
recovered from the shock, the little Fairy was gone.
I looked about in all directions for the little creature, but there
was no trace of her--and my 'eerie' feeling was quite gone off, and the
crickets were chirping again merrily--so I knew she was really gone.
And now I've got time to tell you the rule about the crickets. They
always leave off chirping when a Fairy goes by--because a Fairy's a kind
of queen over them, I suppose--at all events it's a much grander
thing than a cricket--so whenever you're walking out, and the crickets
suddenly leave off chirping, you may be sure that they see a Fairy.
I walked on sadly enough, you may be sure. However, I comforted myself
with thinking “It's been a very wonderful afternoon, so far. I'll just
go quietly on and look about me, and I shouldn't wonder if I were to
come across another Fairy somewhere.”
Peering about in this way, I happened to notice a plant with rounded
leaves, and with queer little holes cut in the middle of several of
them. “Ah, the leafcutter bee!” I carelessly remarked--you know I am
very learned in Natural History (for instance, I can always tell kittens
from chickens at one glance)--and I was passing on, when a sudden
thought made me stoop down and examine the leaves.
Then a little thrill of delight ran through me--for I noticed that the
holes were all arranged so as to form letters; there were three leaves
side by side, with “B,” “R,” and “U” marked on them, and after some
search I found two more, which contained an “N” and an “O.”
And then, all in a moment, a flash of inner light seemed to illumine
a part of my life that had all but faded into oblivion--the strange
visions I had experienced during my journey to Elveston: and with a
thrill of delight I thought “Those visions are destined to be linked
with my waking life!”
By this time the 'eerie' feeling had come back again, and I suddenly
observed that no crickets were chirping; so I felt quite sure that Bruno
was somewhere very near.
And so indeed he was--so near that I had very nearly walked over him
without seeing him; which would have been dreadful, always supposing
that Fairies can be walked over my own belief is that they are something
of the nature of Will-o'-the-wisps: and there's no walking over them.
Think of any pretty little boy you know, with rosy cheeks, large dark
eyes, and tangled brown hair, and then fancy him made small enough to go
comfortably into a coffee-cup, and you'll have a very fair idea of him.
“What's your name, little one?” I began, in as soft a voice as I could
manage. And, by the way, why is it we always begin by asking little
children their names? Is it because we fancy a name will help to make
them a little bigger? You never thought of asking a real large man his
name, now, did you? But, however that may be, I felt it quite necessary
to know his name; so, as he didn't answer my question, I asked it again
a little louder. “What's your name, my little man?”
“What's oors?” he said, without looking up.
I told him my name quite gently, for he was much too small to be angry
with.
“Duke of Anything?” he asked, just looking at me for a moment, and then
going on with his work.
“Not Duke at all,” I said, a little ashamed of having to confess it.
“Oo're big enough to be two Dukes,” said the little creature. “I suppose
oo're Sir Something, then?”
“No,” I said, feeling more and more ashamed. “I haven't got any title.”
The Fairy seemed to think that in that case I really wasn't worth the
trouble of talking to, for he quietly went on digging, and tearing the
flowers to pieces.
After a few minutes I tried again. “Please tell me what your name is.”
“Bruno,” the little fellow answered, very readily. “Why didn't oo say
'please' before?”
“That's something like what we used to be taught in the nursery,” I
thought to myself, looking back through the long years (about a hundred
of them, since you ask the question), to the time when I was a little
child. And here an idea came into my head, and I asked him “Aren't you
one of the Fairies that teach children to be good?”
“Well, we have to do that sometimes,” said Bruno, “and a dreadful bother
it is.” As he said this, he savagely tore a heartsease in two, and
trampled on the pieces.
“What are you doing there, Bruno?” I said.
“Spoiling Sylvie's garden,” was all the answer Bruno would give at
first. But, as he went on tearing up the flowers, he muttered to himself
“The nasty cross thing wouldn't let me go and play this morning,--said
I must finish my lessons first--lessons, indeed! I'll vex her finely,
though!”
“Oh, Bruno, you shouldn't do that!” I cried. “Don't you know that's
revenge? And revenge is a wicked, cruel, dangerous thing!”
“River-edge?” said Bruno. “What a funny word! I suppose oo call it cruel
and dangerous 'cause, if oo wented too far and tumbleded in, oo'd get
drownded.”
“No, not river-edge,” I explained: “revenge” (saying the word very
slowly). But I couldn't help thinking that Bruno's explanation did very
well for either word.
“Oh!” said Bruno, opening his eyes very wide, but without trying to
repeat the word.
“Come! Try and pronounce it, Bruno!” I said, cheerfully. “Re-venge,
re-venge.”
But Bruno only tossed his little head, and said he couldn't; that his
mouth wasn't the right shape for words of that kind. And the more I
laughed, the more sulky the little fellow got about it.
“Well, never mind, my little man!” I said. “Shall I help you with that
job?”
“Yes, please,” Bruno said, quite pacified.
“Only I wiss I could think of somefin to vex her more than this. Oo
don't know how hard it is to make her angry!”
“Now listen to me, Bruno, and I'll teach you quite a splendid kind of
revenge!”
“Somefin that'll vex her finely?” he asked with gleaming eyes.
“Something that will vex her finely. First, we'll get up all the weeds
in her garden. See, there are a good many at this end quite hiding the
flowers.”
“But that won't vex her!” said Bruno.
“After that,” I said, without noticing the remark, “we'll water this
highest bed--up here. You see it's getting quite dry and dusty.”
Bruno looked at me inquisitively, but he said nothing this time.
“Then after that,” I went on, “the walks want sweeping a bit; and I
think you might cut down that tall nettle--it's so close to the garden
that it's quite in the way--”
“What is oo talking about?” Bruno impatiently interrupted me. “All that
won't vex her a bit!”
“Won't it?” I said, innocently. “Then, after that, suppose we put in
some of these coloured pebbles--just to mark the divisions between
the different kinds of flowers, you know. That'll have a very pretty
effect.”
Bruno turned round and had another good stare at me. At last there
came an odd little twinkle into his eyes, and he said, with quite a new
meaning in his voice, “That'll do nicely. Let's put 'em in rows--all the
red together, and all the blue together.”
“That'll do capitally,” I said; “and then--what kind of flowers does
Sylvie like best?”
Bruno had to put his thumb in his mouth and consider a little before he
could answer. “Violets,” he said, at last.
“There's a beautiful bed of violets down by the brook--”
“Oh, let's fetch 'em!” cried Bruno, giving a little skip into the air.
“Here! Catch hold of my hand, and I'll help oo along. The grass is
rather thick down that way.”
I couldn't help laughing at his having so entirely forgotten what a
big creature he was talking to. “No, not yet, Bruno,” I said: “we must
consider what's the right thing to do first. You see we've got quite a
business before us.”
“Yes, let's consider,” said Bruno, putting his thumb into his mouth
again, and sitting down upon a dead mouse.
“What do you keep that mouse for?” I said. “You should either bury it,
or else throw it into the brook.”
“Why, it's to measure with!” cried Bruno. “How ever would oo do a garden
without one? We make each bed three mouses and a half long, and two
mouses wide.”
I stopped him, as he was dragging it off by the tail to show me how it
was used, for I was half afraid the 'eerie' feeling might go off before
we had finished the garden, and in that case I should see no more of him
or Sylvie. “I think the best way will be for you to weed the beds, while
I sort out these pebbles, ready to mark the walks with.”
“That's it!” cried Bruno. “And I'll tell oo about the caterpillars while
we work.”
“Ah, let's hear about the caterpillars,” I said, as I drew the pebbles
together into a heap and began dividing them into colours.
And Bruno went on in a low, rapid tone, more as if he were talking to
himself. “Yesterday I saw two little caterpillars, when I was sitting
by the brook, just where oo go into the wood. They were quite green, and
they had yellow eyes, and they didn't see me. And one of them had got a
moth's wing to carry--a great brown moth's wing, oo know, all dry, with
feathers. So he couldn't want it to eat, I should think--perhaps he
meant to make a cloak for the winter?”
“Perhaps,” I said, for Bruno had twisted up the last word into a sort of
question, and was looking at me for an answer.
One word was quite enough for the little fellow, and he went on merrily.
“Well, and so he didn't want the other caterpillar to see the moth's
wing, oo know--so what must he do but try to carry it with all his left
legs, and he tried to walk on the other set. Of course he toppled over
after that.”
“After what?” I said, catching at the last word, for, to tell the truth,
I hadn't been attending much.
“He toppled over,” Bruno repeated, very gravely, “and if oo ever saw a
caterpillar topple over, oo'd know it's a welly serious thing, and not
sit grinning like that--and I sha'n't tell oo no more!”
“Indeed and indeed, Bruno, I didn't mean to grin. See, I'm quite grave
again now.”
But Bruno only folded his arms, and said “Don't tell me. I see a little
twinkle in one of oor eyes--just like the moon.”
“Why do you think I'm like the moon, Bruno?” I asked.
“Oor face is large and round like the moon,” Bruno answered, looking
at me thoughtfully. “It doosn't shine quite so bright--but it's more
cleaner.”
I couldn't help smiling at this. “You know I sometimes wash my face,
Bruno. The moon never does that.”
“Oh, doosn't she though!” cried Bruno; and he leant forwards and added
in a solemn whisper, “The moon's face gets dirtier and dirtier every
night, till it's black all across. And then, when it's dirty all
over--so--” (he passed his hand across his own rosy cheeks as he spoke)
“then she washes it.”
“Then it's all clean again, isn't it?”
“Not all in a moment,” said Bruno. “What a deal of teaching oo wants!
She washes it little by little--only she begins at the other edge, oo
know.”
By this time he was sitting quietly on the dead mouse with his arms
folded, and the weeding wasn't getting on a bit: so I had to say “Work
first, pleasure afterwards: no more talking till that bed's finished.”
CHAPTER 15. BRUNO'S REVENGE.
After that we had a few minutes of silence, while I sorted out the
pebbles, and amused myself with watching Bruno's plan of gardening. It
was quite a new plan to me: he always measured each bed before he weeded
it, as if he was afraid the weeding would make it shrink; and once, when
it came out longer than he wished, he set to work to thump the mouse
with his little fist, crying out “There now! It's all gone wrong again!
Why don't oo keep oor tail straight when I tell oo!”
“I'll tell you what I'll do,” Bruno said in a half-whisper, as we
worked. “Oo like Fairies, don't oo?”
“Yes,” I said: “of course I do, or I shouldn't have come here. I should
have gone to some place where there are no Fairies.”
Bruno laughed contemptuously. “Why, oo might as well say oo'd go to some
place where there wasn't any air--supposing oo didn't like air!”
This was a rather difficult idea to grasp. I tried a change of subject.
“You're nearly the first Fairy I ever saw. Have you ever seen any people
besides me?”
“Plenty!” said Bruno. “We see'em when we walk in the road.”
“But they ca'n't see you. How is it they never tread on you?”
“Ca'n't tread on us,” said Bruno, looking amused at my ignorance. “Why,
suppose oo're walking, here--so--” (making little marks on the ground)
“and suppose there's a Fairy--that's me--walking here. Very well then,
oo put one foot here, and one foot here, so oo doosn't tread on the
Fairy.”
This was all very well as an explanation, but it didn't convince me.
“Why shouldn't I put one foot on the Fairy?” I asked.
“I don't know why,” the little fellow said in a thoughtful tone. “But
I know oo wouldn't. Nobody never walked on the top of a Fairy. Now
I'll tell oo what I'll do, as oo're so fond of Fairies. I'll get oo
an invitation to the Fairy-King's dinner-party. I know one of the
head-waiters.”
I couldn't help laughing at this idea. “Do the waiters invite the
guests?” I asked.
“Oh, not to sit down!” Bruno said. “But to wait at table. Oo'd like
that, wouldn't oo? To hand about plates, and so on.”
“Well, but that's not so nice as sitting at the table, is it?”
“Of course it isn't,” Bruno said, in a tone as if he rather pitied my
ignorance; “but if oo're not even Sir Anything, oo ca'n't expect to be
allowed to sit at the table, oo know.”
I said, as meekly as I could, that I didn't expect it, but it was the
only way of going to a dinner-party that I really enjoyed. And Bruno
tossed his head, and said, in a rather offended tone that I might do as
I pleased--there were many he knew that would give their ears to go.
“Have you ever been yourself, Bruno?”
“They invited me once, last week,” Bruno said, very gravely. “It was
to wash up the soup-plates--no, the cheese-plates I mean that was
grand enough. And I waited at table. And I didn't hardly make only one
mistake.”
“What was it?” I said. “You needn't mind telling me.”
“Only bringing scissors to cut the beef with,” Bruno said carelessly.
“But the grandest thing of all was, I fetched the King a glass of
cider!”
“That was grand!” I said, biting my lip to keep myself from laughing.
“Wasn't it?” said Bruno, very earnestly. “Oo know it isn't every one
that's had such an honour as that!”
This set me thinking of the various queer things we call “an honour” in
this world, but which, after all, haven't a bit more honour in them than
what Bruno enjoyed, when he took the King a glass of cider.
I don't know how long I might not have dreamed on in this way, if Bruno
hadn't suddenly roused me. “Oh, come here quick!” he cried, in a state
of the wildest excitement. “Catch hold of his other horn! I ca'n't hold
him more than a minute!”
He was struggling desperately with a great snail, clinging to one of its
horns, and nearly breaking his poor little back in his efforts to drag
it over a blade of grass.
I saw we should have no more gardening if I let this sort of thing go
on, so I quietly took the snail away, and put it on a bank where he
couldn't reach it. “We'll hunt it afterwards, Bruno,” I said, “if you
really want to catch it. But what's the use of it when you've got it?”
“What's the use of a fox when oo've got it?” said Bruno. “I know oo big
things hunt foxes.”
I tried to think of some good reason why “big things” should hunt foxes,
and he should not hunt snails, but none came into my head: so I said at
last, “Well, I suppose one's as good as the other. I'll go snail-hunting
myself some day.”
“I should think oo wouldn't be so silly,” said Bruno, “as to go
snail-hunting by oor-self. Why, oo'd never get the snail along, if oo
hadn't somebody to hold on to his other horn!”
“Of course I sha'n't go alone,” I said, quite gravely. “By the way,
is that the best kind to hunt, or do you recommend the ones without
shells?”
“Oh, no, we never hunt the ones without shells,” Bruno said, with a
little shudder at the thought of it. “They're always so cross about it;
and then, if oo tumbles over them, they're ever so sticky!”
By this time we had nearly finished the garden. I had fetched some
violets, and Bruno was just helping me to put in the last, when he
suddenly stopped and said “I'm tired.”
“Rest then,” I said: “I can go on without you, quite well.”
Bruno needed no second invitation: he at once began arranging the dead
mouse as a kind of sofa. “And I'll sing oo a little song,” he said, as
he rolled it about.
“Do,” said I: “I like songs very much.”
“Which song will oo choose?” Bruno said, as he dragged the mouse into a
place where he could get a good view of me. “'Ting, ting, ting' is the
nicest.”
There was no resisting such a strong hint as this: however, I pretended
to think about it for a moment, and then said “Well, I like 'Ting, ting,
ting,' best of all.”
{Image...Bruno's revenge}
“That shows oo're a good judge of music,” Bruno said, with a pleased
look. “How many hare-bells would oo like?” And he put his thumb into his
mouth to help me to consider.
As there was only one cluster of hare-bells within easy reach, I said
very gravely that I thought one would do this time, and I picked it
and gave it to him. Bruno ran his hand once or twice up and down
the flowers, like a musician trying an instrument, producing a most
delicious delicate tinkling as he did so. I had never heard flower-music
before--I don't think one can, unless one's in the 'eerie' state and I
don't know quite how to give you an idea of what it was like, except by
saying that it sounded like a peal of bells a thousand miles off.
When he had satisfied himself that the flowers were in tune, he seated
himself on the dead mouse (he never seemed really comfortable anywhere
else), and, looking up at me with a merry twinkle in his eyes, he began.
By the way, the tune was rather a curious one, and you might like to try
it for yourself, so here are the notes.
{Image...Music for hare-bells}
“Rise, oh, rise! The daylight dies:
The owls are hooting, ting, ting, ting!
Wake, oh, wake! Beside the lake
The elves are fluting, ting, ting, ting!
Welcoming our Fairy King,
We sing, sing, sing.”
He sang the first four lines briskly and merrily, making the hare-bells
chime in time with the music; but the last two he sang quite slowly and
gently, and merely waved the flowers backwards and forwards. Then he
left off to explain. “The Fairy-King is Oberon, and he lives across the
lake--and sometimes he comes in a little boat--and we go and meet him
and then we sing this song, you know.”
“And then you go and dine with him?” I said, mischievously.
“Oo shouldn't talk,” Bruno hastily said: “it interrupts the song so.”
I said I wouldn't do it again.
“I never talk myself when I'm singing,” he went on very gravely: “so oo
shouldn't either.” Then he tuned the hare-bells once more, and sang:---
“Hear, oh, hear! From far and near
The music stealing, ting, ting, ting!
Fairy belts adown the dells
Are merrily pealing, ting, ting, ting!
Welcoming our Fairy King,
We ring, ring, ring.
“See, oh, see! On every tree
What lamps are shining, ting, ting, ting!
They are eyes of fiery flies
To light our dining, ting, ting, ting!
Welcoming our Fairy King
They swing, swing, swing.
“Haste, oh haste, to take and taste
The dainties waiting, ting, ting, ting!
Honey-dew is stored--”
“Hush, Bruno!” I interrupted in a warning whisper. “She's coming!”
Bruno checked his song, and, as she slowly made her way through the
long grass, he suddenly rushed out headlong at her like a little bull,
shouting “Look the other way! Look the other way!”
“Which way?” Sylvie asked, in rather a frightened tone, as she looked
round in all directions to see where the danger could be.
“That way!” said Bruno, carefully turning her round with her face to the
wood. “Now, walk backwards walk gently--don't be frightened: oo sha'n't
trip!”
But Sylvie did trip notwithstanding: in fact he led her, in his hurry,
across so many little sticks and stones, that it was really a wonder
the poor child could keep on her feet at all. But he was far too much
excited to think of what he was doing.
I silently pointed out to Bruno the best place to lead her to, so as to
get a view of the whole garden at once: it was a little rising ground,
about the height of a potato; and, when they had mounted it, I drew back
into the shade, that Sylvie mightn't see me.
I heard Bruno cry out triumphantly “Now oo may look!” and then followed
a clapping of hands, but it was all done by Bruno himself. Sylvie: was
silent--she only stood and gazed with her hands clasped together, and I
was half afraid she didn't like it after all.
Bruno too was watching her anxiously, and when she jumped down off the
mound, and began wandering up and down the little walks, he cautiously
followed her about, evidently anxious that she should form her own
opinion of it all, without any hint from him. And when at last she drew
a long breath, and gave her verdict--in a hurried whisper, and without
the slightest regard to grammar--“It's the loveliest thing as I never
saw in all my life before!” the little fellow looked as well pleased
as if it had been given by all the judges and juries in England put
together.
“And did you really do it all by yourself, Bruno?” said Sylvie. “And all
for me?”
“I was helped a bit,” Bruno began, with a merry little laugh at her
surprise. “We've been at it all the afternoon--I thought oo'd like--”
and here the poor little fellow's lip began to quiver, and all in a
moment he burst out crying, and running up to Sylvie he flung his arms
passionately round her neck, and hid his face on her shoulder.
There was a little quiver in Sylvie's voice too, as she whispered “Why,
what's the matter, darling?” and tried to lift up his head and kiss him.
But Bruno only clung to her, sobbing, and wouldn't be comforted till
he had confessed. “I tried--to spoil oor garden--first--but I'll
never--never--” and then came another burst of tears, which drowned the
rest of the sentence. At last he got out the words “I liked--putting in
the flowers--for oo, Sylvie--and I never was so happy before.” And the
rosy little face came up at last to be kissed, all wet with tears as it
was.
Sylvie was crying too by this time, and she said nothing but “Bruno,
dear!” and “I never was so happy before,” though why these two children
who had never been so happy before should both be crying was a mystery
to me.
I felt very happy too, but of course I didn't cry: “big things” never
do, you know we leave all that to the Fairies. Only I think it must have
been raining a little just then, for I found a drop or two on my cheeks.
After that they went through the whole garden again, flower by flower,
as if it were a long sentence they were spelling out, with kisses for
commas, and a great hug by way of a full-stop when they got to the end.
“Doos oo know, that was my river-edge, Sylvie?” Bruno solemnly began.
Sylvie laughed merrily. “What do you mean?” she said. And she pushed
back her heavy brown hair with both hands, and looked at him with
dancing eyes in which the big teardrops were still glittering.
Bruno drew in a long breath, and made up his mouth for a great effort.
“I mean revenge,” he said: “now oo under'tand.” And he looked so happy
and proud at having said the word right at last, that I quite envied
him. I rather think Sylvie didn't “under'tand” at all; but she gave him
a little kiss on each cheek, which seemed to do just as well.
So they wandered off lovingly together, in among the buttercups, each
with an arm twined round the other, whispering and laughing as they
went, and never so much as once looked back at poor me. Yes, once,
just before I quite lost sight of them, Bruno half turned his head, and
nodded me a saucy little good-bye over one shoulder. And that was all
the thanks I got for my trouble. The very last thing I saw of them was
this--Sylvie was stooping down with her arms round Bruno's neck, and
saying coaxingly in his ear, “Do you know, Bruno, I've quite forgotten
that hard word. Do say it once more. Come! Only this once, dear!”
But Bruno wouldn't try it again.
CHAPTER 16. A CHANGED CROCODILE.
The Marvellous--the Mysterious--had quite passed out of my life for the
moment: and the Common-place reigned supreme. I turned in the direction
of the Earl's house, as it was now 'the witching hour' of five, and I
knew I should find them ready for a cup of tea and a quiet chat.
Lady Muriel and her father gave me a delightfully warm welcome. They
were not of the folk we meet in fashionable drawing-rooms who conceal
all such feelings as they may chance to possess beneath the impenetrable
mask of a conventional placidity. 'The Man with the Iron Mask' was, no
doubt, a rarity and a marvel in his own age: in modern London no one
would turn his head to give him a second look! No, these were real
people. When they looked pleased, it meant that they were pleased: and
when Lady Muriel said, with a bright smile, “I'm very glad to see you
again!”, I knew that it was true.
Still I did not venture to disobey the injunctions--crazy as I felt
them to be--of the lovesick young Doctor, by so much as alluding to his
existence: and it was only after they had given me full details of a
projected picnic, to which they invited me, that Lady Muriel exclaimed,
almost as an after-thought, “and do, if you can, bring Doctor Forester
with you! I'm sure a day in the country would do him good. I'm afraid he
studies too much--”
It was 'on the tip of my tongue' to quote the words “His only books are
woman's looks!” but I checked myself just in time--with something of the
feeling of one who has crossed a street, and has been all but run over
by a passing 'Hansom.'
“--and I think he has too lonely a life,” she went on, with a gentle
earnestness that left no room whatever to suspect a double meaning. “Do
get him to come! And don't forget the day, Tuesday week. We can drive
you over. It would be a pity to go by rail----there is so much pretty
scenery on the road. And our open carriage just holds four.”
“Oh, I'll persuade him to come!” I said with confidence--thinking “it
would take all my powers of persuasion to keep him away!”
The picnic was to take place in ten days: and though Arthur readily
accepted the invitation I brought him, nothing that I could say would
induce him to call--either with me or without me on the Earl and his
daughter in the meanwhile. No: he feared to “wear out his welcome,” he
said: they had “seen enough of him for one while”: and, when at last the
day for the expedition arrived, he was so childishly nervous and
uneasy that I thought it best so to arrange our plans that we should go
separately to the house--my intention being to arrive some time after
him, so as to give him time to get over a meeting.
With this object I purposely made a considerable circuit on my way to
the Hall (as we called the Earl's house): “and if I could only manage to
lose my way a bit,” I thought to myself, “that would suit me capitally!”
In this I succeeded better, and sooner, than I had ventured to hope
for. The path through the wood had been made familiar to me, by many a
solitary stroll, in my former visit to Elveston; and how I could have
so suddenly and so entirely lost it--even though I was so engrossed in
thinking of Arthur and his lady-love that I heeded little else--was a
mystery to me. “And this open place,” I said to myself, “seems to have
some memory about it I cannot distinctly recall--surely it is the very
spot where I saw those Fairy-Children! But I hope there are no snakes
about!” I mused aloud, taking my seat on a fallen tree. “I certainly do
not like snakes--and I don't suppose Bruno likes them, either!”
“No, he doesn't like them!” said a demure little voice at my side. “He's
not afraid of them, you know. But he doesn't like them. He says they're
too waggly!”
Words fail me to describe the beauty of the little group--couched on a
patch of moss, on the trunk of the fallen tree, that met my eager gaze:
Sylvie reclining with her elbow buried in the moss, and her rosy cheek
resting in the palm of her hand, and Bruno stretched at her feet with
his head in her lap.
{Image...Fairies resting}
“Too waggly?” was all I could say in so sudden an emergency.
“I'm not praticular,” Bruno said, carelessly: “but I do like straight
animals best--”
“But you like a dog when it wags its tail,” Sylvie interrupted. “You
know you do, Bruno!”
“But there's more of a dog, isn't there, Mister Sir?” Bruno appealed to
me. “You wouldn't like to have a dog if it hadn't got nuffin but a head
and a tail?”
I admitted that a dog of that kind would be uninteresting.
“There isn't such a dog as that,” Sylvie thoughtfully remarked.
“But there would be,” cried Bruno, “if the Professor shortened it up for
us!”
“Shortened it up?” I said. “That's something new. How does he do it?”
“He's got a curious machine,” Sylvie was beginning to explain.
“A welly curious machine,” Bruno broke in, not at all willing to
have the story thus taken out of his mouth, “and if oo puts
in--some-finoruvver--at one end, oo know and he turns the handle--and it
comes out at the uvver end, oh, ever so short!”
“As short as short!” Sylvie echoed.
“And one day when we was in Outland, oo know--before we came to
Fairyland me and Sylvie took him a big Crocodile. And he shortened it up
for us. And it did look so funny! And it kept looking round, and saying
'wherever is the rest of me got to?' And then its eyes looked unhappy--”
“Not both its eyes,” Sylvie interrupted.
“Course not!” said the little fellow. “Only the eye that couldn't
see wherever the rest of it had got to. But the eye that could see
wherever--”
“How short was the crocodile?” I asked, as the story was getting a
little complicated.
“Half as short again as when we caught it--so long,” said Bruno,
spreading out his arms to their full stretch.
I tried to calculate what this would come to, but it was too hard for
me. Please make it out for me, dear Child who reads this!
“But you didn't leave the poor thing so short as that, did you?”
“Well, no. Sylvie and me took it back again and we got it stretched
to--to--how much was it, Sylvie?”
“Two times and a half, and a little bit more,” said Sylvie.
“It wouldn't like that better than the other way, I'm afraid?”
“Oh, but it did though!” Bruno put in eagerly. “It were proud of its new
tail! Oo never saw a Crocodile so proud! Why, it could go round and walk
on the top of its tail, and along its back, all the way to its head!”
{Image...A changed crocodile}
“Not quite all the way,” said Sylvie. “It couldn't, you know.”
“Ah, but it did, once!” Bruno cried triumphantly. “Oo weren't
looking--but I watched it. And it walked on tippiety-toe, so as it
wouldn't wake itself, 'cause it thought it were asleep. And it got both
its paws on its tail. And it walked and it walked all the way along its
back. And it walked and it walked on its forehead. And it walked a tiny
little way down its nose! There now!”
This was a good deal worse than the last puzzle. Please, dear Child,
help again!
“I don't believe no Crocodile never walked along its own forehead!”
Sylvie cried, too much excited by the controversy to limit the number of
her negatives.
“Oo don't know the reason why it did it!” Bruno scornfully retorted. “It
had a welly good reason. I heerd it say 'Why shouldn't I walk on my own
forehead?' So a course it did, oo know!”
“If that's a good reason, Bruno,” I said, “why shouldn't you get up that
tree?”
“Shall, in a minute,” said Bruno: “soon as we've done talking. Only two
peoples ca'n't talk comfably togevver, when one's getting up a tree, and
the other isn't!”
It appeared to me that a conversation would scarcely be 'comfable' while
trees were being climbed, even if both the 'peoples' were doing it: but
it was evidently dangerous to oppose any theory of Bruno's; so I thought
it best to let the question drop, and to ask for an account of the
machine that made things longer.
This time Bruno was at a loss, and left it to Sylvie. “It's like a
mangle,” she said: “if things are put in, they get squoze--”
“Squeezeled!” Bruno interrupted.
“Yes.” Sylvie accepted the correction, but did not attempt to pronounce
the word, which was evidently new to her. “They get--like that--and they
come out, oh, ever so long!”
“Once,” Bruno began again, “Sylvie and me writed--”
“Wrote!” Sylvie whispered.
“Well, we wroted a Nursery-Song, and the Professor mangled it longer for
us. It were 'There was a little Man, And he had a little gun, And the
bullets--'”
“I know the rest,” I interrupted. “But would you say it long I mean the
way that it came out of the mangle?”
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