Date: 1911-12-31T22:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Supernatural Fiction; Paranormal fiction; Ghost Stories; Fantasy
Description: Tales of visitations by ghosts and fairies and other supernatural beings. Most are in a gentle mood, with a few rather grim entries, but the “Ghost-Ship” is a rollicking romp.
Publisher: MobileRead.com
Rights: Public domain worldwide

PHANTASMS  AND  FANTASIES

RICHARD MIDDLETON

MobileRead Edition
2020

Richard Barham Middleton (28 October 1882 – 1 December 1911) was an English poet and author, who is remembered mostly for his short ghost stories, in particular “The Ghost Ship.” Suffering from severe depression, he committed suicide in 1911. His works in book form were published posthumously.

This collection is comprised of selected stories taken from The Ghost Ship and Other Stories (1912). The text is in the public domain worldwide.

CONTENTS:

- The Ghost-Ship
- Shepherd’s Boy
- The Passing of Edward
- On the Brighton Road
- Children of the Moon
- The Poet’s Allegory
- The Coffin Merchant
- The Conjurer

The Ghost-Ship

Fairfield is a little village lying near the Portsmouth Road about halfway between London and the sea. Strangers who find it by accident now and then, call it a pretty, old-fashioned place; we who live in it and call it home don’t find anything very pretty about it, but we should be sorry to live anywhere else. Our minds have taken the shape of the inn and the church and the green, I suppose. At all events we never feel comfortable out of Fairfield.

Of course the Cockneys, with their vasty houses and noise-ridden streets, can call us rustics if they choose, but for all that Fairfield is a better place to live in than London. Doctor says that when he goes to London his mind is bruised with the weight of the houses, and he was a Cockney born. He had to live there himself when he was a little chap, but he knows better now. You gentlemen may laugh—perhaps some of you come from London way—but it seems to me that a witness like that is worth a gallon of arguments.

Dull? Well, you might find it dull, but I assure you that I’ve listened to all the London yarns you have spun tonight, and they’re absolutely nothing to the things that happen at Fairfield. It’s because of our way of thinking and minding our own business. If one of your Londoners were set down on the green of a Saturday night when the ghosts of the lads who died in the war keep tryst with the lasses who lie in the church-yard, he couldn’t help being curious and interfering, and then the ghosts would go somewhere where it was quieter. But we just let them come and go and don’t make any fuss, and in consequence Fairfield is the ghostiest place in all England. Why, I’ve seen a headless man sitting on the edge of the well in broad daylight, and the children playing about his feet as if he were their father. Take my word for it, spirits know when they are well off as much as human beings.

Still, I must admit that the thing I’m going to tell you about was queer even for our part of the world, where three packs of ghost-hounds hunt regularly during the season, and blacksmith’s great-grandfather is busy all night shoeing the dead gentlemen’s horses. Now that’s a thing that wouldn’t happen in London, because of their interfering ways, but blacksmith he lies up aloft and sleeps as quiet as a lamb. Once when he had a bad head he shouted down to them not to make so much noise, and in the morning he found an old guinea left on the anvil as an apology. He wears it on his watch-chain now. But I must get on with my story; if I start telling you about the queer happenings at Fairfield I’ll never stop.

It all came of the great storm in the spring of ’97, the year that we had two great storms. This was the first one, and I remember it very well, because I found in the morning that it had lifted the thatch of my pigsty into the widow’s garden as clean as a boy’s kite. When I looked over the hedge, widow—Tom Lamport’s widow that was—was prodding for her nasturtiums with a daisy-grubber. After I had watched her for a little I went down to the “Fox and Grapes” to tell landlord what she had said to me. Landlord he laughed, being a married man and at ease with the sex. “Come to that,” he said, “the tempest has blowed something into my field. A kind of a ship I think it would be.”

I was surprised at that until he explained that it was only a ghost-ship and would do no hurt to the turnips. We argued that it had been blown up from the sea at Portsmouth, and then we talked of something else. There were two slates down at the parsonage and a big tree in Lumley’s meadow. It was a rare storm.

I reckon the wind had blown our ghosts all over England. They were coming back for days afterwards with foundered horses and as footsore as possible, and they were so glad to get back to Fairfield that some of them walked up the street crying like little children. Squire said that his great-grandfather’s great-grandfather hadn’t looked so dead-beat since the battle of Naseby, and he’s an educated man.

What with one thing and another, I should think it was a week before we got straight again, and then one afternoon I met the landlord on the green and he had a worried face. “I wish you’d come and have a look at that ship in my field,” he said to me; “it seems to me it’s leaning real hard on the turnips. I can’t bear thinking what the missus will say when she sees it.”

I walked down the lane with him, and sure enough there was a ship in the middle of his field, but such a ship as no man had seen on the water for three hundred years, let alone in the middle of a turnip-field. It was all painted black and covered with carvings, and there was a great bay window in the stern for all the world like the Squire’s drawing-room. There was a crowd of little black cannon on deck and looking out of her port-holes, and she was anchored at each end to the hard ground. I have seen the wonders of the world on picture-postcards, but I have never seen anything to equal that.

“She seems very solid for a ghost-ship,” I said, seeing the landlord was bothered.

“I should say it’s a betwixt and between,” he answered, puzzling it over, “but it’s going to spoil a matter of fifty turnips, and missus she’ll want it moved.” We went up to her and touched the side, and it was as hard as a real ship. “Now there’s folks in England would call that very curious,” he said.

Now I don’t know much about ships, but I should think that that ghost-ship weighed a solid two hundred tons, and it seemed to me that she had come to stay, so that I felt sorry for landlord, who was a married man. “All the horses in Fairfield won’t move her out of my turnips,” he said, frowning at her.

Just then we heard a noise on her deck, and we looked up and saw that a man had come out of her front cabin and was looking down at us very peaceably. He was dressed in a black uniform set out with rusty gold lace, and he had a great cutlass by his side in a brass sheath. “I’m Captain Bartholomew Roberts,” he said, in a gentleman’s voice, “put in for recruits. I seem to have brought her rather far up the harbour.”

“Harbour!” cried landlord; “why, you’re fifty miles from the sea.”

Captain Roberts didn’t turn a hair. “So much as that, is it?” he said coolly. “Well, it’s of no consequence.”

Landlord was a bit upset at this. “I don’t want to be unneighbourly,” he said, “but I wish you hadn’t brought your ship into my field. You see, my wife sets great store on these turnips.”

The captain took a pinch of snuff out of a fine gold box that he pulled out of his pocket, and dusted his fingers with a silk handkerchief in a very genteel fashion. “I’m only here for a few months,” he said; “but if a testimony of my esteem would pacify your good lady I should be content,” and with the words he loosed a great gold brooch from the neck of his coat and tossed it down to landlord.

Landlord blushed as red as a strawberry. “I’m not denying she’s fond of jewellery,” he said, “but it’s too much for half a sackful of turnips.” And indeed it was a handsome brooch.

The captain laughed. “Tut, man,” he said, “it’s a forced sale, and you deserve a good price. Say no more about it;” and nodding good-day to us, he turned on his heel and went into the cabin. Landlord walked back up the lane like a man with a weight off his mind. “That tempest has blowed me a bit of luck,” he said; “the missus will be much pleased with that brooch. It’s better than blacksmith’s guinea, any day.”

Ninety-seven was Jubilee year, the year of the second Jubilee, you remember, and we had great doings at Fairfield, so that we hadn’t much time to bother about the ghost-ship though anyhow it isn’t our way to meddle in things that don’t concern us. Landlord, he saw his tenant once or twice when he was hoeing his turnips and passed the time of day, and landlord’s wife wore her new brooch to church every Sunday. But we didn’t mix much with the ghosts at any time, all except an idiot lad there was in the village, and he didn’t know the difference between a man and a ghost, poor innocent! On Jubilee Day, however, somebody told Captain Roberts why the church bells were ringing, and he hoisted a flag and fired off his guns like a loyal Englishman. ’Tis true the guns were shotted, and one of the round shot knocked a hole in Farmer Johnstone’s barn, but nobody thought much of that in such a season of rejoicing.

It wasn’t till our celebrations were over that we noticed that anything was wrong in Fairfield. ’Twas shoemaker who told me first about it one morning at the “Fox and Grapes.” “You know my great great-uncle?” he said to me.

“You mean Joshua, the quiet lad,” I answered, knowing him well.

“Quiet!” said shoemaker indignantly. “Quiet you call him, coming home at three o’clock every morning as drunk as a magistrate and waking up the whole house with his noise.”

“Why, it can’t be Joshua!” I said, for I knew him for one of the most respectable young ghosts in the village.

“Joshua it is,” said shoemaker; “and one of these nights he’ll find himself out in the street if he isn’t careful.”

This kind of talk shocked me, I can tell you, for I don’t like to hear a man abusing his own family, and I could hardly believe that a steady youngster like Joshua had taken to drink. But just then in came butcher Aylwin in such a temper that he could hardly drink his beer. “The young puppy! the young puppy!” he kept on saying; and it was some time before shoemaker and I found out that he was talking about his ancestor that fell at Senlac.

“Drink?” said shoemaker hopefully, for we all like company in our misfortunes, and butcher nodded grimly.

“The young noodle,” he said, emptying his tankard.

Well, after that I kept my ears open, and it was the same story all over the village. There was hardly a young man among all the ghosts of Fairfield who didn’t roll home in the small hours of the morning the worse for liquor. I used to wake up in the night and hear them stumble past my house, singing outrageous songs. The worst of it was that we couldn’t keep the scandal to ourselves and the folk at Greenhill began to talk of “sodden Fairfield” and taught their children to sing a song about us:

“Sodden Fairfield, sodden Fairfield,
has no use for bread-and-butter,

Rum for breakfast, rum for dinner,
rum for tea, and rum for supper!”

We are easygoing in our village, but we didn’t like that.

Of course we soon found out where the young fellows went to get the drink, and landlord was terribly cut up that his tenant should have turned out so badly, but his wife wouldn’t hear of parting with the brooch, so that he couldn’t give the Captain notice to quit. But as time went on, things grew from bad to worse, and at all hours of the day you would see those young reprobates sleeping it off on the village green. Nearly every afternoon a ghost-wagon used to jolt down to the ship with a lading of rum, and though the older ghosts seemed inclined to give the Captain’s hospitality the go-by, the youngsters were neither to hold nor to bind.

So one afternoon when I was taking my nap I heard a knock at the door, and there was parson looking very serious, like a man with a job before him that he didn’t altogether relish. “I’m going down to talk to the Captain about all this drunkenness in the village, and I want you to come with me,” he said straight out.

I can’t say that I fancied the visit much, myself, and I tried to hint to parson that as, after all, they were only a lot of ghosts it didn’t very much matter.

“Dead or alive, I’m responsible for the good conduct,” he said, “and I’m going to do my duty and put a stop to this continued disorder. And you are coming with me John Simmons.” So I went, parson being a persuasive kind of man.

We went down to the ship, and as we approached her I could see the Captain tasting the air on deck. When he saw parson he took off his hat very politely and I can tell you that I was relieved to find that he had a proper respect for the cloth. Parson acknowledged his salute and spoke out stoutly enough. “Sir, I should be glad to have a word with you.”

“Come on board, sir; come on board,” said the Captain, and I could tell by his voice that he knew why we were there. Parson and I climbed up an uneasy kind of ladder, and the Captain took us into the great cabin at the back of the ship, where the bay-window was. It was the most wonderful place you ever saw in your life, all full of gold and silver plate, swords with jewelled scabbards, carved oak chairs, and great chests that look as though they were bursting with guineas. Even parson was surprised, and he did not shake his head very hard when the Captain took down some silver cups and poured us out a drink of rum. I tasted mine, and I don’t mind saying that it changed my view of things entirely. There was nothing betwixt and between about that rum, and I felt that it was ridiculous to blame the lads for drinking too much of stuff like that. It seemed to fill my veins with honey and fire.

Parson put the case squarely to the Captain, but I didn’t listen much to what he said; I was busy sipping my drink and looking through the window at the fishes swimming to and fro over landlord’s turnips. Just then it seemed the most natural thing in the world that they should be there, though afterwards, of course, I could see that that proved it was a ghost-ship.

But even then I thought it was queer when I saw a drowned sailor float by in the thin air with his hair and beard all full of bubbles. It was the first time I had seen anything quite like that at Fairfield.

All the time I was regarding the wonders of the deep parson was telling Captain Roberts how there was no peace or rest in the village owing to the curse of drunkenness, and what a bad example the youngsters were setting to the older ghosts. The Captain listened very attentively, and only put in a word now and then about boys being boys and young men sowing their wild oats. But when parson had finished his speech he filled up our silver cups and said to parson, with a flourish, “I should be sorry to cause trouble anywhere where I have been made welcome, and you will be glad to hear that I put to sea tomorrow night. And now you must drink me a prosperous voyage.” So we all stood up and drank the toast with honour, and that noble rum was like hot oil in my veins.

After that Captain showed us some of the curiosities he had brought back from foreign parts, and we were greatly amazed, though afterwards I couldn’t clearly remember what they were. And then I found myself walking across the turnips with parson, and I was telling him of the glories of the deep that I had seen through the window of the ship. He turned on me severely. “If I were you, John Simmons,” he said, “I should go straight home to bed.” He has a way of putting things that wouldn’t occur to an ordinary man, has parson, and I did as he told me.

Well, next day it came on to blow, and it blew harder and harder, till about eight o’clock at night I heard a noise and looked out into the garden. I dare say you won’t believe me, it seems a bit tall even to me, but the wind had lifted the thatch of my pigsty into the widow’s garden a second time. I thought I wouldn’t wait to hear what widow had to say about it, so I went across the green to the Fox and Grapes, and the wind was so strong that I danced along on tiptoe like a girl at the fair. When I got to the inn landlord had to help me shut the door; it seemed as though a dozen goats were pushing against it to come in out of the storm.

“It’s a powerful tempest,” he said, drawing the beer. “I hear there’s a chimney down at Dickory End.”

“It’s a funny thing how these sailors know about the weather,” I answered. “When Captain said he was going tonight, I was thinking it would take a capful of wind to carry the ship back to sea, but now here’s more than a capful.”

“Ah, yes,” said landlord, “it’s tonight he goes true enough, and, mind you, though he treated me handsome over the rent, I’m not sure it’s a loss to the village. I don’t hold with gentrice who fetch their drink from London instead of helping local traders to get their living.”

“But you haven’t got any rum like his,” I said, to draw him out.

His neck grew red above his collar, and I was afraid I’d gone too far; but after a while he got his breath with a grunt.

“John Simmons,” he said, “if you’ve come down here this windy night to talk a lot of fool’s talk, you’ve wasted a journey.”

Well, of course, then I had to smooth him down with praising his rum, and Heaven forgive me for swearing it was better than Captain’s. For the like of that rum no living lips have tasted save mine and parson’s. But somehow or other I brought landlord round, and presently we must have a glass of his best to prove its quality.

“Beat that if you can!” he cried, and we both raised our glasses to our mouths, only to stop halfway and look at each other in amaze. For the wind that had been howling outside like an outrageous dog had all of a sudden turned as melodious as the carol-boys of a Christmas Eve.

“Surely that’s not my Martha,” whispered landlord; Martha being his great-aunt that lived in the loft overhead.

We went to the door, and the wind burst it open so that the handle was driven clean into the plaster of the wall. But we didn’t think about that at the time; for over our heads, sailing very comfortably through the windy stars, was the ship that had passed the summer in landlord’s field. Her portholes and her bay-window were blazing with lights, and there was a noise of singing and fiddling on her decks. “He’s gone,” shouted landlord above the storm, “and he’s taken half the village with him!” I could only nod in answer, not having lungs like bellows of leather.

In the morning we were able to measure the strength of the storm, and over and above my pigsty there was damage enough wrought in the village to keep us busy. True it is that the children had to break down no branches for the firing that autumn, since the wind had strewn the woods with more than they could carry away. Many of our ghosts were scattered abroad, but this time very few came back, all the young men having sailed with Captain; and not only ghosts, for a poor half-witted lad was missing, and we reckoned that he had stowed himself away or perhaps shipped as cabin-boy, not knowing any better.

What with the lamentations of the ghost-girls and the grumbling of families who had lost an ancestor, the village was upset for a while, and the funny thing was that it was the folk who had complained most of the carryings-on of the youngsters, who made most noise now that they were gone. I hadn’t any sympathy with shoemaker or butcher, who ran about saying how much they missed their lads, but it made me grieve to hear the poor bereaved girls calling their lovers by name on the village green at nightfall. It didn’t seem fair to me that they should have lost their men a second time, after giving up life in order to join them, as like as not. Still, not even a spirit can be sorry forever, and after a few months we made up our mind that the folk who had sailed in the ship were never coming back, and we didn’t talk about it any more.

And then one day, I dare say it would be a couple of years after, when the whole business was quite forgotten, who should come trapesing along the road from Portsmouth but the daft lad who had gone away with the ship, without waiting till he was dead to become a ghost. You never saw such a boy as that in all your life. He had a great rusty cutlass hanging to a string at his waist, and he was tattooed all over in fine colours, so that even his face looked like a girl’s sampler. He had a handkerchief in his hand full of foreign shells and old-fashioned pieces of small money, very curious, and he walked up to the well outside his mother’s house and drew himself a drink as if he had been nowhere in particular.

The worst of it was that he had come back as soft-headed as he went, and try as we might we couldn’t get anything reasonable out of him. He talked a lot of gibberish about keel-hauling and walking the plank and crimson murders—things which a decent sailor should know nothing about, so that it seemed to me that for all his manners Captain had been more of a pirate than a gentleman mariner. But to draw sense out of that boy was as hard as picking cherries off a crab-tree. One silly tale he had that he kept on drifting back to, and to hear him you would have thought that it was the only thing that happened to him in his life. “We was at anchor,” he would say, “off an island called the Basket of Flowers, and the sailors had caught a lot of parrots and we were teaching them to swear. Up and down the decks, up and down the decks, and the language they used was dreadful. Then we looked up and saw the masts of the Spanish ship outside the harbour. Outside the harbour they were, so we threw the parrots into the sea and sailed out to fight. And all the parrots were drownded in the sea and the language they used was dreadful.” That’s the sort of boy he was, nothing but silly talk of parrots when we asked him about the fighting. And we never had a chance of teaching him better, for two days after he ran away again, and hasn’t been seen since.

That’s my story, and I assure you that things like that are happening at Fairfield all the time. The ship has never come back, but somehow as people grow older they seem to think that one of these windy nights she’ll come sailing in over the hedges with all the lost ghosts on board. Well, when she comes, she’ll be welcome. There’s one ghost-lass that has never grown tired of waiting for her lad to return. Every night you’ll see her out on the green, straining her poor eyes with looking for the mast-lights among the stars. A faithful lass you’d call her, and I’m thinking you’d be right.

Landlord’s field wasn’t a penny the worse for the visit, but they do say that since then the turnips that have been grown in it have tasted of rum.

—

Shepherd’s Boy

The path climbed up and up and threatened to carry me over the highest point of the downs till it faltered before a sudden outcrop of chalk and swerved round the hill on the level. I was grateful for the respite, for I had been walking all day and my knapsack was growing heavy. Above me in the blue pastures of the skies the cloud-sheep were grazing, with the sun on their snowy backs, and all about me the grey sheep of earth were cropping the wild pansies that grew wherever the chalk had won a covering of soil.

Presently I came upon the shepherd standing erect by the path, a tall, spare man with a face that the sun and the wind had robbed of all expression. The dog at his feet looked more intelligent than he. “You’ve come up from the valley,” he said as I passed; “perhaps you’ll have seen my boy?”

“I’m sorry, I haven’t,” I said, pausing.

“Sorrow breaks no bones,” he muttered, and strode away with his dog at his heels. It seemed to me that the dog was apologetic for his master’s rudeness.

I walked on to the little hill-girt village, where I had made up my mind to pass the night. The man at the village shop said he would put me up, so I took off my knapsack and sat down on a sackful of cattle cake while the bacon was cooking.

“If you came over the hill, you’ll have met shepherd,” said the man, “and he’ll have asked you for his boy.”

“Yes, but I hadn’t seen him.”

The shopman nodded. “There are clever folk who say you can see him, and clever folk who say you can’t. The simple ones like you and me, we say nothing, but we don’t see him. Shepherd hasn’t got no boy.”

“What! is it a joke?”

“Well, of course it may be,” said the shop-man guardedly, “though I can’t say I’ve heard many people laughing at it yet. You see, shepherd’s boy he broke his neck….

“That was in the days before they built the fence above the big chalk-pit that you passed on your left coming down. A dangerous place it used to be for the sheep, so shepherd’s boy he used to lie along there to stop them dropping into it, while shepherd’s dog he stopped them from going too far. And shepherd he used to come down here and have his glass, for he took it then like you or me. He’s blue ribbon now.

“It was one night when the mists were out on the hills, and maybe shepherd had had a glass too much, or maybe he got a bit lost in the smoke. But when he went up there to bring them home, he starts driving them into the pit as straight as could be. Shepherd’s boy he hollered out and ran to stop them, but four-and-twenty of them went over, and the lad he went with them. You mayn’t believe me, but five of them weren’t so much as scratched, though it’s a sixty feet drop. Likely they fell soft on top of the others. But shepherd’s boy he was done.

“Shepherd he’s a bit spotty now, and most times he thinks the boy’s still with him. And there are clever folk who’ll tell you that they’ve seen the boy helping shepherd’s dog with the sheep. That would be a ghost now, I shouldn’t wonder. I’ve never seen it, but then I’m simple, as you might say.

“But I’ve had two boys myself, and it seems to me that a boy like that, who didn’t eat and didn’t get into mischief, and did his work, would be the handiest kind of boy to have about the place.”

—

The Passing
of Edward

I found Dorothy sitting sedately on the beach, with a mass of black seaweed twined in her hands and her bare feet sparkling white in the sun. Even in the first glow of recognition I realised that she was paler than she had been the summer before, and yet I cannot blame myself for the tactlessness of my question.

“Where’s Edward?” I said; and I looked about the sands for a sailor suit and a little pair of prancing legs.

While I looked Dorothy’s eyes watched mine inquiringly, as if she wondered what I might see.

“Edward’s dead,” she said simply. “He died last year, after you left.”

For a moment I could only gaze at the child in silence, and ask myself what reason there was in the thing that had hurt her so. Now that I knew that Edward played with her no more, I could see that there was a shadow upon her face too dark for her years, and that she had lost, to some extent, that exquisite carelessness of poise which makes children so young. Her voice was so calm that I might have thought her forgetful had I not seen an instant of patent pain in her wide eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I said at length “very, very, sorry indeed. I had brought down my car to take you for a drive, as I promised.”

“Oh! Edward would have liked that,” she answered thoughtfully; “he was so fond of motors.” She swung round suddenly and looked at the sands behind her with staring eyes.

“I thought I heard—” she broke off in confusion.

I, too, had believed for an instant that I had heard something that was not the wind or the distant children or the smooth sea hissing along the beach. During that golden summer which linked me with the dead, Edward had been wont, in moments of elation, to puff up and down the sands, in artistic representation of a nobby, noisy motorcar. But the dead may play no more, and there was nothing there but the sands and the hot sky and Dorothy.

“You had better let me take you for a run, Dorothy,” I said. “The man will drive, and we can talk as we go along.”

She nodded gravely, and began pulling on her sandy stockings.

“It did not hurt him,” she said inconsequently.

The restraint in her voice pained me like a blow.

“Oh, don’t, dear, don’t!” I cried, “There is nothing to do but forget.”

“I have forgotten, quite,” she answered, pulling at her shoelaces with calm fingers. “It was ten months ago.”

We walked up to the front, where the car was waiting, and Dorothy settled herself among the cushions with a little sigh of contentment, the human quality of which brought me a certain relief. If only she would laugh or cry! I sat down by her side, but the man waited by the open door.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he answered, looking about him in confusion, “I thought I saw a young gentleman with you.”

He shut the door with a bang, and in a minute we were running through the town. I knew that Dorothy was watching my face with her wounded eyes; but I did not look at her until the green fields leapt up on either side of the white road.

“It is only for a little while that we may not see him,” I said; “all this is nothing.”

“I have forgotten,” she repeated. “I think this is a very nice motor.”

I had not previously complained of the motor, but I was wishing then that it would cease its poignant imitation of a little dead boy, a boy who would play no more. By the touch of Dorothy’s sleeve against mine I knew that she could hear it too. And the miles flew by, green and brown and golden, while I wondered what use I might be in the world, who could not help a child to forget, Possibly there was another way, I thought.

“Tell me how it happened,” I said.

Dorothy looked at me with inscrutable eyes, and spoke in a voice without emotion.

“He caught a cold, and was very ill in bed. I went in to see him, and he was all white and faded. I said to him, `How are you Edward?’ and he said, `I shall get up early in the morning to catch beetles.’ I didn’t see him any more.”

“Poor little chap!” I murmured.

“I went to the funeral,” she continued monotonously, “It was very rainy, and I threw a little bunch of flowers down into the hole. There was a whole lot of flowers there; but I think Edward liked apples better than flowers.”

“Did you cry?” I said cruelly.

She paused. “I don’t know. I suppose so. It was a long time ago; I think I have forgotten.”

Even while she spoke I heard Edward puffing along the sands: Edward who had been so fond of apples.

“I cannot stand this any longer,” I said aloud. “Let’s get out and walk in the woods for a change.”

She agreed, with a depth of comprehension that terrified me; and the motor pulled up with a jerk at a spot where hardly a post served to mark where the woods commenced and the wayside grass stopped. We took one of the dim paths which the rabbits had made and forced our way through the undergrowth into the peaceful twilight of the trees.

“You haven’t got very sunburnt this year,” I said as we walked.

“I don’t know why. I’ve been out on the beach all the days. Sometimes I’ve played, too.”

I did not ask her what games she had played, or who had been her play-friend. Yet even there in the quiet woods I knew that Edward was holding her back from me. It is true that, in his boy’s way, he had been fond of me; but I should not have dared to take her out without him in the days when his live lips had filled the beach with song, and his small brown body had danced among the surf. Now it seemed that I had been disloyal to him.

And presently we came to a clearing where the leaves of forgotten years lay brown and rotten beneath our feet, and the air was full of the dryness of death.

“Let’s be going back. What do you think, Dorothy?” I said.

“I think,” she said slowly,—“I think that this would be a very good place to catch beetles.”

A wood is full of secret noises, and that is why, I suppose, we heard a pair of small quick feet come with a dance of triumph through the rustling bracken. For a minute we listened deeply, and then Dorothy broke from my side with a piercing call on her lips.

“Oh, Edward, Edward!” she cried; “Edward!”

But the dead may play no more, and presently she came back to me with the tears that are the riches of childhood streaming down her face.

“I can hear him, I can hear him,” she sobbed; “but I cannot see him. Never, never again.”

And so I led her back to the motor. But in her tears I seemed to find a promise of peace that she had not known before.

Now Edward was no very wonderful little boy; it may be that he was jealous and vain and greedy; yet now, it seemed as he lay in his small grave with the memory of Dorothy’s flowers about him, he had wrought this kindness for his sister. Yes, even though we heard no more than the birds in the branches and the wind swaying the scented bracken; even though he had passed with another summer, and the dead and the love of the dead may rise no more from the grave.

—

On the Brighton Road

Slowly the sun had climbed up the hard white downs, till it broke with little of the mysterious ritual of dawn upon a sparkling world of snow. There had been a hard frost during the night, and the birds, who hopped about here and there with scant tolerance of life, left no trace of their passage on the silver pavements. In places the sheltered caverns of the hedges broke the monotony of the whiteness that had fallen upon the coloured earth, and overhead the sky melted from orange to deep blue, from deep blue to a blue so pale that it suggested a thin paper screen rather than illimitable space. Across the level fields there came a cold, silent wind which blew a fine dust of snow from the trees, but hardly stirred the crested hedges. Once above the skyline, the sun seemed to climb more quickly, and as it rose higher it began to give out a heat that blended with the keenness of the wind.

It may have been this strange alternation of heat and cold that disturbed the tramp in his dreams, for he struggled tor a moment with the snow that covered him, like a man who finds himself twisted uncomfortably in the bed-clothes, and then sat up with staring, questioning eyes. “Lord! I thought I was in bed,” he said to himself as he took in the vacant landscape, “and all the while I was out here.” He stretched his limbs, and, rising carefully to his feet, shook the snow off his body. As he did so the wind set him shivering, and he knew that his bed had been warm.

“Come, I feel pretty fit,” he thought. “I suppose I am lucky to wake at all in this. Or unlucky—it isn’t much of a business to come back to.” He looked up and saw the downs shining against the blue, like the Alps on a picture-postcard. “That means another forty miles or so, I suppose,” he continued grimly. “Lord knows what I did yesterday. Walked till I was done, and now I’m only about twelve miles from Brighton. Damn the snow, damn Brighton, damn everything!” The sun crept higher and higher, and he started walking patiently along the road with his back turned to the hills.

“Am I glad or sorry that it was only sleep that took me, glad or sorry, glad or sorry?” His thoughts seemed to arrange themselves in a metrical accompaniment to the steady thud of his footsteps, and he hardly sought an answer to his question. It was good enough to walk to.

Presently, when three milestones had loitered past, he overtook a boy who was stooping to light a cigarette. He wore no overcoat, and looked unspeakably fragile against the snow, “Are you on the road, guv’nor?” asked the boy huskily as he passed.

“I think I am,” the tramp said.

“Oh! then I’ll come a bit of the way with you if you don’t walk too fast. It’s bit lonesome walking this time of day.”

The tramp nodded his head, and the boy started limping along by his side.

“I’m eighteen,” he said casually. “I bet you thought I was younger.”

“Fifteen, I’d have said.”

“You’d have backed a loser. Eighteen last August, and I’ve been on the road six years. I ran away from home five times when I was a little ’un, and the police took me back each time. Very good to me, the police was. Now I haven’t got a home to run away from.”

“Nor have I,” the tramp said calmly.

“Oh, I can see what you are,” the boy panted; “you’re a gentleman come down. It’s harder for you than for me.” The tramp glanced at the limping, feeble figure and lessened his pace.

“I haven’t been at it as long as you have,” he admitted.

“No, I could tell that by the way you walk. You haven’t got tired yet. Perhaps you expect something at the other end?”

The tramp reflected for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said bitterly, “I’m always expecting things.”

“You’ll grow out of that;” the boy commented. “It’s warmer in London, but it’s harder to come by grub. There isn’t much in it really.”

“Still, there’s the chance of meeting somebody there who will understand—”

“Country people are better,” the boy interrupted. “Last night I took a lease of a barn for nothing and slept with the cows, and this morning the farmer routed me out and gave me tea and toke because I was so little. Of course, I score there; but in London, soup on the Embankment at night, and all the rest of the time coppers moving you on.”

“I dropped by the roadside last night and slept where I fell. It’s a wonder I didn’t die,” the tramp said. The boy looked at him sharply.

“How did you know you didn’t?” he said.

“I don’t see it,” the tramp said, after a pause.

“I tell you,” the boy said hoarsely, “people like us can’t get away from this sort of thing if we want to. Always hungry and thirsty and dog-tired and walking all the while. And yet if anyone offers me a nice home and work my stomach feels sick. Do I look strong? I know I’m little for my age, but I’ve been knocking about like this for six years, and do you think I’m not dead? I was drowned bathing at Margate, and I was killed by a gypsy with a spike; he knocked my head and yet I’m walking along here now, walking to London to walk away from it again, because I can’t help it. Dead! I tell you we can’t get away if we want to.”

The boy broke off in a fit of coughing, and the tramp paused while he recovered.

“You’d better borrow my coat for a bit, Tommy,” he said, “your cough’s pretty bad.”

“You go to hell!” the boy said fiercely, puffing at his cigarette; “I’m all right. I was telling you about the road. You haven’t got down to it yet, but you’ll find out presently. We’re all dead, all of us who’re on it, and we’re all tired, yet somehow we can’t leave it. There’s nice smells in the summer, dust and hay and the wind smack in your face on a hot day—and it’s nice waking up in the wet grass on a fine morning. I don’t know, I don’t know—” he lurched forward suddenly, and the tramp caught him in his arms.

“I’m sick,” the boy whispered—“sick.”

The tramp looked up and down the road, but he could see no houses or any sign of help. Yet even as he supported the boy doubtfully in the middle of the road a motor car suddenly flashed in the middle distance, and came smoothly through the snow.

“What’s the trouble?” said the driver quietly as he pulled up. “I’m a doctor.” He looked at the boy keenly and listened to his strained breathing.

“Pneumonia,” he commented. “I’ll give him a lift to the infirmary, and you, too, if you like.”

The tramp thought of the workhouse and shook his head “I’d rather walk,” he said.

The boy winked faintly as they lifted him into the car.

“I’ll meet you beyond Reigate,” he murmured to the tramp. “You’ll see.” And the car vanished along the white road.

All the morning the tramp splashed through the thawing snow, but at midday he begged some bread at a cottage door and crept into a lonely barn to eat it. It was warm in there, and after his meal he fell asleep among the hay. It was dark when he woke, and started trudging once more through the slushy roads.

Two miles beyond Reigate a figure, a fragile figure, slipped out of the darkness to meet him.

“On the road, guv’nor?” said a husky voice. “Then I’ll come a bit of the way with you if you don’t walk too fast. It’s a bit lonesome walking this time of day.”

“But the pneumonia!” cried the tramp, aghast.

“I died at Crawley this morning,” said the boy.

—

Children of the Moon

The boy stood at the place where the park trees stopped and the smooth lawns slid away gently to the great house. He was dressed only in a pair of ragged knickerbockers and a gaping buttonless shirt, so that his legs and neck and chest shone silver bare in the moonlight. By day he had a mass of rough golden hair, but now it seemed to brood above his head like a black cloud that made his face deathly white by comparison. On his arms there lay a great heap of gleaming dew-wet roses and lilies, spoil of the park flowerbeds. Their cool petals touched his cheek, and filled his nostrils with aching scent. He felt his arms smarting here and there, where the thorns of the roses had torn them in the dark, but these delicate caresses of pain only served to deepen to him the wonder of the night that wrapped him about like a cloak. Behind him there dreamed the black woods, and over his head multitudinous stars quivered and balanced in space; but these things were nothing to him, for far across the lawn that was spread knee-deep, with a web of mist there gleamed for his eager eyes the splendour of a fairy palace. Red and orange and gold, the lights of the fairy revels shone from a hundred windows and filled him with wonder that he should see with wakeful eyes the jewels that he had desired so long in sleep. He could only gaze and gaze until his straining eyes filled with tears, and set the enchanted lights dancing in the dark. On his ears, that heard no more the crying of the night-birds and the quick stir of the rabbits in the brake, there fell the strains of far music. The flowers in his arms seemed to sway to it, and his heart beat to the deep pulse of the night.

So enraptured were his senses that he did not notice the coming of the girl, and she was able to examine him closely before she called to him softly through the moonlight.

“Boy! Boy!”

At the sound of her voice he swung round and looked at her with startled eyes. He saw her excited little face and her white dress.

“Are you a fairy?” he asked hoarsely, for the night-mist was in his voice.

“No,” she said, “I’m a little girl. You’re a wood-boy, I suppose?”

He stayed silent, regarding her with a puzzled face. Who was this little white creature with the tender voice that had slipped so suddenly out of the night?

“As a matter of fact,” the girl continued, “I’ve come out to have a look at the fairies. There’s a ring down in the wood. You can come with me if you like, wood-boy.”

He nodded his head silently, for he was afraid to speak to her, and set off through the wood by her side, still clasping the flowers to his breast.

“What were you looking at when I found you?” she asked.

“The palace—the fairy palace,” the boy muttered.

“The palace?” the girl repeated. “Why, that’s not a palace; that’s where I live.”

The boy looked at her with new awe; if she were a fairy— But the girl had noticed that his feet made no sound beside her shoes.

“Don’t the thorns prick your feet, wood-boy?” she asked; but the boy said nothing, and they were both silent for a while, the girl looking about her keenly as she walked, and the boy watching her face. Presently they came to a wide pool where a little tinkling fountain threw bubbles to the hidden fish.

“Can you swim?” she said to the boy.

He shook his head.

“It’s a pity,” said the girl; “we might have had a bathe. It would be rather fun in the dark, but it’s pretty deep there. We’d better get on to the fairy ring.”

The moon had flung queer shadows across the glade in which the ring lay, and when they stood on the edge listening intently the wood seemed to speak to them with a hundred voices.

“You can take hold of my hand, if you like,” said the girl, in a whisper.

The boy dropped his flowers about his white feet and felt for the girl’s hand in the dark. Soon it lay in his own, a warm live thing, that stirred a little with excitement.

“I’m not afraid,” the girl said; and so they waited.

* * * * *

The man came upon them suddenly from among the silver birches. He had a knapsack on his back and his hair was as long as a tramp’s. At sight of him the girl almost screamed, and her hand trembled in the boy’s. Some instinct made him hold it tighter.

“What do you want?” he muttered, in his hoarse voice.

The man was no less astonished than the children.

“What on earth are you doing here?” he cried. His voice was mild and reassuring, and the girl answered him promptly.

“I came out to look for fairies.”

“Oh, that’s right enough,” commented the man; “and you,” he said, turning to the boy, “are you after fairies, too? Oh, I see; picking flowers. Do you mean to sell them?”

The boy shook his head.

“For my sister,” he said, and stopped abruptly.

“Is your sister fond of flowers?”

“Yes; she’s dead.”

The man looked at him gravely.

“That’s a phrase,” he said, “and phrases are the devil. Who told you that dead people like flowers?”

“They always have them,” said the boy, blushing for shame of his pretty thought.

“And what are you looking for?” the girl interrupted.

The man made a mocking grimace, and glanced around the glade as if he were afraid of being overheard.

“Dreams,” he said bluntly.

The girl pondered this for a moment.

“And your knapsack?” she began.

“Yes,” said the man, “it’s full of them.”

The children looked at the knapsack with interest, the girl’s fingers tingling to undo the straps of it.

“What are they like?” she asked.

The man gave a short laugh.

“Very like yours and his, I expect; when you grow older, young woman, you’ll find there’s really only one dream possible for a sensible person. But you don’t want to hear about my troubles. This is more in your line!” He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a flageolet, which he put to his lips.

“Listen!” he said.

To the girl it seemed as though the little tune had leapt from the pipe, and was dancing round the ring like a real fairy, while echo came tripping through the trees to join it. The boy gaped and said nothing.

At last, when the fairy was beginning to falter and echo was quite out of breath, the man took the flageolet from his lips.

“Well,” he said, with a smile.

“Thank you very much,” said the girl politely. “I think that was very nice indeed. Oh, boy!” she broke off, “you’re hurting my hand!”

The boy’s eyes were shining strangely, and he was waving his arms in dismay.

“All the wasted moonlight!” he cried; “the grass is quite wet with it.”

The girl turned to him in surprise.

“Why, boy, you’ve found your voice.”

“After that,” said the man gravely, as he put his flageolet back in his pocket, “I think I will show you the inside of my knapsack.”

The girl bent down eagerly, while he loosened the straps, but gave a cry of disappointment when she saw the contents.

“Pictures!” she said.

“Pictures,” echoed the man drily,—“pictures of dreams. I don’t know how you’re going to see them. Perhaps the moon will do her best.”

The girl looked at them nicely, and passed them on one by one to the boy. Presently she made a discovery.

“Oh, boy!” she cried, “your tears are spoiling all the pictures.”

“I’m sorry,” said the boy huskily; “I can’t help it.”

“I know,” the man said quickly; “it doesn’t matter a bit. I expect you’ve seen these pictures before.”

“I know them all,” said the boy, “but I have never seen them.”

The man frowned.

“It’s the devil,” he said to himself, “when boys speak English.” He turned suddenly to the girl, who was puzzling over the boy’s tears. “It’s time you went back to bed,” he said; “there won’t be any fairies tonight. It’s too cold for them.”

The girl yawned.

“I shall get into a row when I get back if they’ve found it out. I don’t care.”

“The moon is fading,” said the boy suddenly; “there are no more shadows.”

“We will see you through the wood,” the man continued, “and say good-night.”

He put his pictures back in his knapsack and then walked silently through the murmuring wood. At the edge of the wood the girl stopped.

“You are a wood-boy,” she said to the boy, “and you mustn’t come any farther. You can give me a kiss if you like.”

The boy did not move, but stayed regarding her awkwardly.

“I think you are a very silly boy,” said the girl, with a toss of her head, and she stalked away proudly into the mist.

“Why didn’t you kiss her?” asked the man.

“Her lips would burn me,” said the boy.

The man and the boy walked slowly across the park.

“Now, boy,” said the man, “since civilisation has gone to bed the time has come for you to hear your destiny.”

“I am only a poor boy,” the boy replied simply. “I don’t think I have any destiny.”

“Paradox,” said the man, “is meant to conceal the insincerity of the aged, not to express the simplicity of youth. But I wander. You have made phrases tonight.”

“What are phrases?”

“What are dreams? What are roses? What, in fine, is the moon? Boy, I take you for a moon-child. You hold her pale flowers in your arms, her white beams have caressed your limbs, you prefer the kisses of her cool lips to those of that earth-child; all this is very well. But, above all, you have the music of her great silence; above all, you have her tears. When I played to you on my pipe you recognised the voice of your mother. When I showed you my pictures you recalled the tales with which she hushed you to sleep. And so I knew that you were her son and my little brother.”

“The moon has always been my friend,” said the boy; “but I did not know that she was my mother.”

“Perhaps your sister knows it; the happy dead are glad to seek her for a mother; that is why they are so fond of white flowers.”

“We have a mother at home. She works very hard for us.”

“But it is your mother among the clouds who makes your life beautiful, and the beauty of your life is the measure of your days.”

While the boy reflected on these things they had reached the gates of the park, and they stole past the silent lodge on to the high road. A man was waiting there in the shadows, and when he saw the boy’s companion he rushed out and seized him by the arm.

“So I’ve got you,” he said; “I don’t think I’ll let you go again in a hurry.”

The son of the moon gave a queer little laugh.

“Why, it’s Taylor!” he said pleasantly; “but, Taylor, you know you’re making a great mistake.”

“Very possibly,” said the keeper, with a laugh.

“You see this boy here, Taylor; I assure you he is much madder than I am.”

Taylor looked at the boy kindly.

“Time you were in bed, Tommy,” he said.

“Taylor,” said the man earnestly, “this boy has made three phrases. If you don’t lock him up he will certainly become a poet. He will set your precious world of sanity ablaze with the fire of his mother, the moon. Your palaces will totter, Taylor, and your kingdoms become as dust. I have warned you.”

“That’s right, sir; and now you must come with me.”

“Boy,” said the man generously, “keep your liberty. By grace of Providence, all men in authority are fools. We shall meet again under the light of the moon.”

With dreamy eyes the boy watched the departure of his companion. He had become almost invisible along the road when, miraculously as it seemed, the light of the moon broke through the trees by the wayside and lit up his figure. For a moment it fell upon his head like a halo, and touched the knapsack of dreams with glory. Then all was lost in the blackness of night.

As he turned homeward the boy felt a cold wind upon his cheek. It was the first breath of dawn.

—

The Poet’s Allegory

I

The boy came into the town at six o’clock in the morning, but the baker at the corner of the first street was up, as is the way of bakers, and when he saw the boy passing, he hailed him with a jolly shout.

“Hullo, boy! What are you after?”

“I’m going about my business,” the boy said pertly.

“And what might that be, young fellow?”

“I might be a good tinker, and worship god Pan, or I might grind scissors as sharp as the noses of bakers. But, as a matter of fact, I’m a piper, not a rat-catcher, you understand, but just a simple singer of sad songs, and a mad singer of merry ones.”

“Oh,” said the baker dully, for he had hoped the boy was in search of work. “Then I suppose you have a message.”

“I sing songs,” the boy said emphatically. “I don’t run errands for anyone save it be for the fairies.”

“Well, then, you have come to tell us that we are bad, that our lives are corrupt and our homes sordid. Nowadays there’s money in that if you can do it well.”

“Your wit gets up too early in the morning for me, baker,” said the boy. “I tell you I sing songs.”

“Aye, I know, but there’s something in them, I hope. Perhaps you bring news. They’re not so popular as the other sort, but still, as long as it’s bad news—”

“Is it the flour that has changed his brains to dough, or the heat of the oven that has made them like dead grass?”

“But you must have some news —?”

“News! It’s a fine morning of summer, and I saw a kingfisher across the watermeadows coming along. Oh, and there’s a cuckoo back in the fir plantation, singing with a May voice. It must have been asleep all these months.”

“But, my dear boy, these things happen every day. Are there no battles or earthquakes or famines in the world? Has no man murdered his wife or robbed his neighbour? Is no one oppressed by tyrants or lied to by their officers.”

The boy shrugged his shoulders.

“I hope not,” he said. “But if it were so, and I knew, I should not tell you. I don’t want to make you unhappy.”

“But of what use are you then, if it be not to rouse in us the discontent that is alone divine? Would you have me go fat and happy, listening to your babble of kingfishers and cuckoos, while my brothers and sisters in the world are starving?”

The boy was silent for a moment.

“I give my songs to the poor for nothing,” he said slowly. “Certainly they are not much use to empty bellies, but they are all I have to give. And I take it, since you speak so feelingly, that you, too, do your best. And these others, these people who must be reminded hourly to throw their crusts out of window for the poor—would you have me sing to them? They must be told that life is evil, and I find it good; that men and women are wretched, and I find them happy; that food and cleanliness, order and knowledge are the essence of content while I only ask for love. Would you have me lie to cheat mean folk out of their scraps?”

The baker scratched his head in astonishment.

“Certainly you are very mad,” he said. “But you won’t get much money in this town with that sort of talk. You had better come in and have breakfast with me.”

“But why do you ask me?” said the boy, in surprise.

“Well, you have a decent, honest sort of face, although your tongue is disordered.”

“I had rather it had been because you liked my songs,” said the boy, and he went in to breakfast with the baker.

II

Over his breakfast the boy talked wisely on art, as is the wont of young singers, and afterwards he went on his way down the street.

“It’s a great pity,” said the baker; “he seems a decent young chap.”

“He has nice eyes,” said the baker’s wife.

As the boy passed down the street he frowned a little.

“What is the matter with them?” he wondered. “They’re pleasant people enough, and yet they did not want to hear my songs.”

Presently he came to the tailor’s shop, and as the tailor had sharper eyes than the baker, he saw the pipe in the boy’s pocket.

“Hullo, piper!” he called. “My legs are stiff. Come and sing us a song!”

The boy looked up and saw the tailor sitting cross-legged in the open window of his shop.

“What sort of song would you like?” he asked.

“Oh! the latest,” replied the tailor. “We don’t want any old songs here.” So the boy sung his new song of the kingfisher in the water-meadow and the cuckoo who had overslept itself.

“And what do you call that?” asked the tailor angrily, when the boy had finished.

“It’s my new song, but I don’t think it’s one of my best.” But in his heart the boy believed it was, because he had only just made it.

“I should hope it’s your worst,” the tailor said rudely. “What sort of stuff is that to make a man happy?”

“To make a man happy!” echoed the boy, his heart sinking within him.

“If you have no news to give me, why should I pay for your songs! I want to hear about my neighbours, about their lives, and their wives and their sins. There’s the fat baker up the street—they say he cheats the poor with light bread. Make me a song of that, and I’ll give you some breakfast. Or there’s the magistrate at the top of the hill who made the girl drown herself last week. That’s a poetic subject.”

“What’s all this!” said the boy disdainfully. “Can’t you make dirt enough for yourself!”

“You with your stuff about birds,” shouted the tailor; “you’re a rank impostor! That’s what you are!”

“They say that you are the ninth part of a man, but I find that they have grossly exaggerated,” cried the boy, in retort; but he had a heavy heart as he made off along the street.

By noon he had interviewed the butcher, the cobbler, the milkman, and the maker of candlesticks, but they treated him no better than the tailor had done, and as he was feeling tired he went and sat down under a tree.

“I begin to think that the baker is the best of the lot of them,” he said to himself ruefully, as he rolled his empty wallet between his fingers.

Then, as the folly of singers provides them in some measure with a philosophy, he fell asleep.

III

When he woke it was late in the afternoon, and the children, fresh from school, had come out to play in the dusk. Far and near, across the town square, the boy could hear their merry voices, but he felt sad, for his stomach had forgotten the baker’s breakfast, and he did not see where he was likely to get any supper. So he pulled out his pipe, and made a mournful song to himself of the dancing gnats and the bitter odour of the bonfires in the townsfolk’s gardens. And the children drew near to hear him sing, for they thought his song was pretty, until their fathers drove them home, saying, “That stuff has no educational value.”

“Why haven’t you a message?” they asked the boy.

“I come to tell you that the grass is green beneath your feet and that the sky is blue over your heads.”

“Oh I but we know all that,” they answered.

“Do you! Do you!” screamed the boy. “Do you think you could stop over your absurd labours if you knew how blue the sky is? You would be out singing on the hills with me!”

“Then who would do our work?” they said, mocking him.

“Then who would want it done?” he retorted; but it’s ill arguing on an empty stomach.

But when they had tired of telling him what a fool he was, and gone away, the tailor’s little daughter crept out of the shadows and patted him on the shoulder.

“I say, boy!” she whispered. “I’ve brought you some supper. Father doesn’t know.” The boy blessed her and ate his supper while she watched him like his mother and when he had done she kissed him on the lips.

“There, boy!” she said.

“You have nice golden hair,” the boy said.

“See! it shines in the dusk. It strikes me it’s the only gold I shall get in this town.”

“Still it’s nice, don’t you think?” the girl whispered in his ear. She had her arms round his neck.

“I love it,” the boy said joyfully; “and you like my songs, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes, I like them very much, but I like you better.”

The boy put her off roughly.

“You’re as bad as the rest of them,” he said indignantly. “I tell you my songs are everything, I am nothing.”

“But it was you who ate my supper, boy,” said the girl.

The boy kissed her remorsefully. “But I wish you had liked me for my songs,” he sighed. “You are better than any silly old songs!”

“As bad as the rest of them,” the boy said lazily, “but somehow pleasant.”

The shadows flocked to their evening meeting in the square, and overhead the stars shone out in a sky that was certainly exceedingly blue.

IV

Next morning they arrested the boy as a rogue and a vagabond, and in the afternoon they brought him before the magistrate.

“And what have you to say for yourself!” said the magistrate to the boy, after the second policeman, like a faithful echo, had finished reading his notes.

“Well,” said the boy, “I may be a rogue and a vagabond. Indeed, I think that I probably am; but I would claim the license that has always been allowed to singers.”

“Oh!” said the magistrate. “So you are one of those, are you! And what is your message!”

“I think if I could sing you a song or two I could explain myself better,” said the boy.

“Well,” replied the magistrate doubtfully, “you can try if you like, but I warn you that I wrote songs myself when I was a boy, so that I know something about it.”

“Oh, I’m glad of that,” said the boy, and he sang his famous song of the grass that is so green, and when he had finished the magistrate frowned.

“I knew that before,” he said.

So then the boy sang his wonderful song of the sky that is so blue. And when he had finished the magistrate scowled. “And what are we to learn from that!” he said.

So then the boy lost his temper and sang some naughty doggerel he had made up in his cell that morning. He abused the town and townsmen, but especially the townsmen. He damned their morals, their customs, and their institutions. He said that they had ugly faces, raucous voices, and that their bodies were unclean. He said they were thieves and liars and murderers, that they had no ear for music and no sense of humour. Oh, he was bitter!

“Good God!” said the magistrate, “that’s what I call real improving poetry. Why didn’t you sing that first? There might have been a miscarriage of justice.”

Then the baker, the tailor, the butcher, the cobbler, the milkman, and the maker of candlesticks rose in court and said—

“Ah, but we all knew there was something in him.”

So the magistrate gave the boy a certificate that showed that he was a real singer, and the tradesmen gave him a purse of gold, but the tailor’s little daughter gave him one of her golden ringlets. “You won’t forget, boy, will you?” she said.

“Oh, no,” said the boy; “but I wish you had liked my songs.”

Presently, when he had come a little way out of the town, he put his hand in his wallet and drew out the magistrate’s certificate and tore it in two; and then he took out the gold pieces and threw them into the ditch, and they were not half as bright as the buttercups. But when he came to the ringlet he smiled at it and put it back.

“Yet she was as bad as the rest of them,” he thought with a sigh.

And he went across the world with his songs.

—

The Coffin Merchant

I

London on a November Sunday inspired Eustace Reynolds with a melancholy too insistent to be ignored and too causeless to be enjoyed. The grey sky overhead between the housetops, the cold wind round every street-corner, the sad faces of the men and women on the pavements, combined to create an atmosphere of ineloquent misery. Eustace was sensitive to impressions, and in spite of a half-conscious effort to remain a dispassionate spectator of the world’s melancholy, he felt the chill of the aimless day creeping over his spirit. Why was there no sun, no warmth, no laughter on the earth? What had become of all the children who keep laughter like a mask on the faces of disillusioned men? The wind blew down Southampton Street, and chilled Eustace to a shiver that passed away in a shudder of disgust at the sombre colour of life. A windy Sunday in London before the lamps are lit, tempts a man to believe in the nobility of work.

At the corner by Charing Cross Telegraph Office a man thrust a handbill under his eyes, but he shook his head impatiently. The blueness of the fingers that offered him the paper was alone sufficient to make him disinclined to remove his hands from his pockets even for an instant. But, the man would not be dismissed so lightly.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said, following him, “you have not looked to see what my bills are.”

“Whatever they are I do not want them.”

“That’s where you are wrong, sir,” the man said earnestly. “You will never find life interesting if you do not lie in wait for the unexpected. As a matter of fact, I believe that my bill contains exactly what you do want.”

Eustace looked at the man with quick curiosity. His clothes were ragged, and the visible parts of his flesh were blue with cold, but his eyes were bright with intelligence and his speech was that of an educated man. It seemed to Eustace that he was being regarded with a keen expectancy, as though his decision I on the trivial point was of real importance.

“I don’t know what you are driving at,” he said, “but if it will give you any pleasure I will take one of your bills; though if you argue with all your clients as you have with me, it must take you a long time to get rid of them.”

“I only offer them to suitable persons,” the man said, folding up one of the handbills while he spoke, “and I’m sure you will not regret taking it,” and he slipped the paper into Eustace’s hand and walked rapidly away.

Eustace looked after him curiously for a moment, and then opened the paper in his hand. When his eyes comprehended its significance, he gave a low whistle of astonishment. “You will soon be warning a coffin!” it read. “At 606, Gray’s Inn Road, your order will be attended to with civility and despatch. Call and see us!!”

Eustace swung round quickly to look for the man, but he was out of sight. The wind was growing colder, and the lamps were beginning to shine out in the greying streets. Eustace crumpled the paper into his overcoat pocket, and turned homewards.

“How silly!” he said to himself, in conscious amusement. The sound of his footsteps on the pavement rang like an echo to his laugh.

II

Eustace was impressionable but not temperamentally morbid, and he was troubled a little by the fact that the gruesomely bizarre handbill continued to recur to his mind. The thing was so manifestly absurd, he told himself with conviction, that it was not worth a second thought, but this did not prevent him from thinking of it again and again. What manner of undertaker could hope to obtain business by giving away foolish handbills in the street? Really, the whole thing had the air of a brainless practical joke, yet his intellectual fairness forced him to admit that as far as the man who had given him the bill was concerned, brainlessness was out of the question, and joking improbable. There had been depths in those little bright eyes which his glance had not been able to sound, and the man’s manner in making him accept the handbill had given the whole transaction a kind of ludicrous significance.

“You will soon be wanting a coffin —!”

Eustace found himself turning the words over and over in his mind. If he had had any near relations he might have construed the thing as an elaborate threat, but he was practically alone in the world, and it seemed to him that he was not likely to want a coffin for anyone but himself.

“Oh damn the thing!” he said impatiently, as he opened the door of his flat, “it isn’t worth worrying about. I mustn’t let the whim of some mad tradesman get on my nerves. I’ve got no one to bury, anyhow.”

Nevertheless the thing lingered with him all the evening, and when his neighbour the doctor came in for a chat at ten o’clock, Eustace was glad to show him the strange handbill. The doctor, who had experienced the queer magics that are practised to this day on the West Coast of Africa, and who, therefore, had no nerves, was delighted with so striking an example of British commercial enterprise.

“Though, mind you,” he added gravely, smoothing the crumpled paper on his knee, “this sort of thing might do a lot of harm if it fell into the hands of a nervous subject. I should be inclined to punch the head of the ass who perpetrated it. Have you turned that address up in the Post Office Directory?”

Eustace shook his head, and rose and fetched the fat red book which makes London an English city. Together they found the Gray’s Inn Road, and ran their eyes down to No. 606.

“‘Harding, G. J., Coffin Merchant and Undertaker.’ Not much information there,” muttered the doctor.

“Coffin merchant’s a bit unusual, isn’t it?” queried Eustace.

“I suppose he manufactures coffins wholesale for the trade. Still, I didn’t know they called themselves that. Anyhow, it seems, as though that handbill is a genuine piece of downright foolishness. The idiot ought to be stopped advertising in that way.”

“I’ll go and see him myself tomorrow,” said Eustace bluntly.

“Well, he’s given you an invitation,” said the doctor, “so it’s only polite of you to go. I’ll drop in here in the evening to hear what he’s like. I expect that you’ll find him as mad as a hatter.”

“Something like that,” said Eustace, “or he wouldn’t give handbills to people like me. I have no one to bury except myself.”

“No,” said the doctor in the hall, “I suppose you haven’t. Don’t let him measure you for a coffin, Reynolds!”

Eustace laughed.

“We never know,” he said sententiously.

III

Next day was one of those gorgeous blue days of which November gives but few, and Eustace was glad to run out to Wimbledon for a game of golf, or rather for two. It was therefore dusk before he made his way to the Gray’s Inn Road in search of the unexpected. His attitude towards his errand despite the doctor’s laughter and the prosaic entry in the directory, was a little confused. He could not help reflecting that after all the doctor had not seen the man with the little wise eyes, nor could he forget that Mr. G. J. Harding’s description of himself as a coffin merchant, to say the least of it, approached the unusual. Yet he felt that it would be intolerable to chop the whole business without finding out what it all meant. On the whole he would have preferred not to have discovered the riddle at all; but having found it, he could not rest without an answer.

No. 606, Gray’s Inn Road, was not like an ordinary undertaker’s shop. The window was heavily draped with black cloth, but was otherwise unadorned. There were no letters from grateful mourners, no little model coffins, no photographs of marble memorials. Even more surprising was the absence of any name over the shop-door, so that the uninformed stranger could not possibly tell what trade was carried on within, or who was responsible for the management of the business. This uncommercial modesty did not tend to remove Eustace’s doubts as to the sanity of Mr. G. J. Harding; but he opened the shop-door which started a large bell swinging noisily, and stepped over the threshold. The shop was hardly more expressive inside than out. A broad counter ran across it, cutting it in two, and in the partial gloom overhead a naked gas-burner whistled a noisy song. Beyond this the shop contained no furniture whatever, and no stock-in-trade except a few planks leaning against the wall in one corner. There was a large ink-stand on the counter. Eustace waited patiently for a minute or two, and then as no one came he began stamping on the floor with his foot. This proved efficacious, for soon he heard the sound of footsteps ascending wooden stairs, the door behind the counter opened and a man came into the shop.

He was dressed quite neatly now, and his hands were no longer blue with cold, but Eustace knew at once that it was the man who had given him the handbill. Nevertheless he looked at Eustace without a sign of recognition.

“What can I do for you, sir?” he asked pleasantly.

Eustace laid the handbill down on the counter.

“I want to know about this,” he said. “It strikes me as being in pretty bad taste, and if a nervous person got hold of it, it might be dangerous.”

“You think so, sir? Yet our representative,” he lingered affectionately on the words, “our representative told you, I believe, that the handbill was only distributed to suitable cases.”

“That’s where you are wrong,” said Eustace sharply, “for I have no one to bury.”

“Except yourself,” said the coffin merchant suavely.

Eustace looked at him keenly. “I don’t see —” he began. But the coffin merchant interrupted him.

“You must know, sir,” he said, “that this is no ordinary undertaker’s business. We possess information that enables us to defy competition in our special class of trade.”

“Information!”

“Well, if you prefer it, you may say intuitions. If our representative handed you that advertisement, it was because he knew you would need it.”

“Excuse me,” said Eustace, “you appear to be sane, but your words do not convey to me any reasonable significance. You gave me that foolish advertisement yourself, and now you say that you did so because you knew I would need it. I ask you why?”

The coffin merchant shrugged his shoulders. “Ours is a sentimental trade,” he said, “I do not know why dead men want coffins, but they do. For my part I would wish to be cremated.”

“Dead men?”

“Ah, I was coming to that. You see, Mr.———?”

“Reynolds.”

“Thank you, my name is Harding—G. J. Harding. You see, Mr. Reynolds, our intuitions are of a very special character, and if we say that you will need a coffin, it is probable that you will need one.”

“You mean to say that I—”

“Precisely. In twenty-four hours or less, Mr. Reynolds, you will need our services.”

The revelation of the coffin merchant’s insanity came to Eustace with a certain relief. For the first time in the interview he had a sense of the dark empty shop and the whistling gas-jet over his head.

“Why, it sounds like a threat, Mr. Harding!” he said gaily.

The coffin merchant looked at him oddly, and produced a printed form from his pocket. “If you would fill this up,” he said.

Eustace picked it up off the counter and laughed aloud. It was an order for a hundred-guinea funeral.

“I don’t know what your game is,” he said, “but this has gone on long enough.”

“Perhaps it has, Mr. Reynolds,” said the coffin merchant, and he leant across the counter and looked Eustace straight in the face.

For a moment Eustace was amused; then he was suddenly afraid. “I think it’s time I —” he began slowly, and then he was silent, his whole will intent on fighting the eyes of the coffin merchant. The song of the gas-jet waned to a point in his ears, and then rose steadily till it was like the beating of the world’s heart. The eyes of the coffin merchant grew larger and larger, till they blended in one great circle of fire. Then Eustace picked a pen off the counter and filled in the form.

“Thank you very much, Mr. Reynolds,” said the coffin merchant, shaking hands with him politely. “I can promise you every civility and despatch. Good-day, sir.”

Outside on the pavement Eustace stood for a while trying to recall exactly what had happened. There was a slight scratch on his hand, and when he automatically touched it with his lips, it made them burn. The lit lamps in the Gray’s Inn Road seemed to him a little unsteady, and the passers-by showed a disposition to blunder into him.

“Queer business,” he said to himself dimly; “I’d better have a cab.”

He reached home in a dream.

It was nearly ten o’clock before the doctor remembered his promise, and went upstairs to Eustace’s flat. The outer door was half-open so that he thought he was expected, and he switched on the light in the little hall, and shut the door behind him with the simplicity of habit. But when he swung round from the door he gave a cry of astonishment. Eustace was lying asleep in a chair before him with his face flushed and drooping on his shoulder, and his breath hissing noisily through his parted lips. The doctor looked at him quizzically, “If I did not know you, my young friend,” he remarked, “I should say that you were as drunk as a lord.”

And he went up to Eustace and shook him by the shoulder; but Eustace did not wake.

“Queer!” the doctor muttered, sniffing at Eustace’s lips; “he hasn’t been drinking.”

—

The Conjurer

Certainly the audience was restive. In the first place it felt that it had been defrauded, seeing that Cissie Bradford, whose smiling face adorned the bills outside, had, failed to appear, and secondly, it considered that the deputy for that famous lady was more than inadequate. To the little man who sweated in the glare of the limelight and juggled desperately with glass balls in a vain effort to steady his nerve it was apparent that his turn was a failure. And as he worked he could have cried with disappointment, for his was a trial performance, and a year’s engagement in the Hennings’ group of music-halls would have rewarded success. Yet his tricks, things that he had done with the utmost ease a thousand times, had been a succession of blunders, rather mirth-provoking than mystifying to the audience. Presently one of the glass balls fell crashing on the stage, and amidst the jeers of the gallery he turned to his wife, who served as his assistant.

“I’ve lost my chance,” he said, with a sob; “I can’t do it!”

“Never mind, dear,” she whispered. “There’s a nice steak and onions at home for supper.”

“It’s no use,” he said despairingly. “I’ll try the disappearing trick and then get off. I’m done here.” He turned back to the audience.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said to the mockers in a wavering voice, “I will now present to you the concluding item of my entertainment. I will cause this lady to disappear under your very eyes, without the aid of any mechanical contrivance or artificial device.” This was the merest showman’s patter, for, as a matter of fact, it was not a very wonderful illusion. But as he led his wife forward to present her to the audience the conjurer was wondering whether the mishaps that had ruined his chance would meet him even here. If something should go wrong—he felt his wife’s hand tremble in his, and he pressed it tightly to reassure her. He must make an effort, an effort of will, and then no mistakes would happen. For a second the lights danced before his eyes, then he pulled himself together. If an earthquake should disturb the curtains and show Molly creeping ignominiously away behind he would still meet his fate like a man. He turned round to conduct his wife to the little alcove from which she should vanish. She was not on the stage!

For a minute he did not guess the greatness of the disaster. Then he realised that the theatre was intensely quiet, and that he would have to explain that the last item of his programme was even more of a fiasco than the rest. Owing to a sudden indisposition—his skin tingled at the thought of the hooting. His tongue rasped upon cracking lips as he braced himself and bowed to the audience.

Then came the applause. Again and again it broke out from all over the house, while the curtain rose and fell, and the conjurer stood on the stage, mute, uncomprehending. What had happened? At first he had thought they were mocking him, but it was impossible to misjudge the nature of the applause. Besides, the stage-manager was allowing him call after call, as if he were a star. When at length the curtain remained down, and the orchestra struck up the opening bars of the next song, he staggered off into the wings as if he were drunk. There he met Mr. James Hennings himself.

“You’ll do,” said the great man; “that last trick was neat. You ought to polish up the others though. I suppose you don’t want to tell me how you did it? Well, well, come in the morning and we’ll fix up a contract.”

And so, without having said a word, the conjurer found himself hustled off by the Vaudeville Napoleon. Mr. Hennings had something more to say to his manager.

“Bit rum,” he said. “Did you see it?”

“Queerest thing we’ve struck.”

“How was it done do you think?”

“Can’t imagine. There one minute on his arm, gone the next, no trap, or curtain, or anything.”

“Money in it, eh?”

“Biggest hit of the century, I should think.”

“I’ll go and fix up a contract and get him to sign it tonight. Get on with it.” And Mr. James Hennings fled to his office.

Meanwhile the conjurer was wandering in the wings with the drooping heart of a lost child. What had happened? Why was he a success, and why did people stare so oddly, and what had become of his wife? When he asked them the stage hands laughed, and said they had not seen her. Why should they laugh? He wanted her to explain things, and hear their good luck. But she was not in her dressing-room, she was not anywhere. For a moment he felt like crying.

Then, for the second time that night, he pulled himself together. After all, there was no reason to be upset. He ought to feel very pleased about the contract, however it had happened. It seemed that his wife had left the stage in some queer way without being seen. Probably to increase the mystery she had gone straight home in her stage dress, and had succeeded in dodging the stage-door keeper. It was all very strange; but, of course, there must be some simple explanation like that. He would take a cab home and find her there already. There was a steak and onions for supper.

As he drove along in the cab he became convinced that this theory was right. Molly had always been clever, and this time she had certainly succeeded in surprising everybody. At the door of his house he gave the cabman a shilling for himself with a light heart. He could afford it now. He ran up the steps cheerfully and opened the door. The passage was quite dark, and he wondered why his wife hadn’t lit the gas.

“Molly!” he cried, “Molly!”

The small, weary-eyed servant came out of the kitchen on a savoury wind of onions.

“Hasn’t missus come home with you, sir?” she said.

The conjurer thrust his hand against the wall to steady himself, and the pattern of the wallpaper seemed to burn his finger-tips.

“Not here!” he gasped at the frightened girl. “Then where is she? Where is she?”

“I don’t know, sir,” she began stuttering; but the conjurer turned quickly and ran out of the house. Of course, his wife must be at the theatre. It was absurd ever to have supposed that she could leave the theatre in her stage dress unnoticed; and now she was probably worrying because he had not waited for her. How foolish he had been.

It was a quarter of an hour before he found a cab, and the theatre was dark and empty when he got back to it. He knocked at the stage door, and the night watchman opened it.

“My wife?” he cried. “There’s no one here now, sir,” the man answered respectfully, for he knew that a new star had risen that night.

The conjurer leant against the doorpost faintly.

“Take me up to the dressing-rooms,” he said. “I want to see whether she has been, there while I was away.”

The watchman led the way along the dark passages. “I shouldn’t worry if I were you, sir,” he said. “She can’t have gone far.” He did not know anything about it, but he wanted to be sympathetic.

“God knows,” the conjurer muttered, “I can’t understand this at all.”

In the dressing-room Molly’s clothes still lay neatly folded as she had left them when they went on the stage that night, and when he saw them his last hope left the conjurer, and a strange thought came into his mind.

“I should like to go down on the stage,” he said, “and see if there is anything to tell me of her.”

The night watchman looked at the conjurer as if he thought he was mad, but he followed him down to the stage in silence. When he was there the conjurer leaned forward suddenly, and his face was filled with a wistful eagerness.

“Molly!” he called, “Molly!”

But the empty theatre gave him nothing but echoes in reply.

—