THE WONDERFUL WINDOW
The old man in the Oriental-looking robe was being moved on by thepolice, and it was this that attracted to him and the parcel under hisarm the attention of Mr. Sladden, whose livelihood was earned in theemporium of Messrs. Mergin and Chater, that is to say in theirestablishment.
Mr. Sladden had the reputation of being the silliest young man inBusiness; a touch of romance--a mere suggestion of it--would send hiseyes gazing away as though the walls of the emporium were of gossamerand London itself a myth, instead of attending to customers.
Merely the fact that the dirty piece of paper that wrapped the oldman's parcel was covered with Arabic writing was enough to give Mr.Sladden the idea of romance, and he followed until the little crowdfell off and the stranger stopped by the kerb and unwrapped his parceland prepared to sell the thing that was inside it. It was a littlewindow in old wood with small panes set in lead; it was not much morethan a foot in breadth and was under two feet long. Mr. Sladden hadnever before seen a window sold in the street, so he asked the priceof it.
"Its price is all you possess," said the old man.
"Where did you get it?" said Mr. Sladden, for it was a strange window.
"I gave all that I possessed for it in the streets of Baghdad."
"Did you possess much?" said Mr. Sladden.
"I had all that I wanted," he said, "except this window."
"It must be a good window," said the young man.
"It is a magical window," said the old one.
"I have only ten shillings on me, but I have fifteen-and-six at home."
The old man thought for a while.
"Then twenty-five-and-sixpence is the price of the window," he said.
It was only when the bargain was completed and the ten shillings paidand the strange old man was coming for his fifteen-and-six and to fitthe magical window into his only room that it occurred to Mr.Sladden's mind that he did not want a window. And then they were atthe door of the house in which he rented a room, and it seemed toolate to explain.
The stranger demanded privacy when he fitted up the window, so Mr.Sladden remained outside the door at the top of a little flight ofcreaky stairs. He heard no sound of hammering.
And presently the strange old man came out with his faded yellow robeand his great beard, and his eyes on far-off places. "It is finished,"he said, and he and the young man parted. And whether he remained aspot of colour and an anachronism in London, or whether he ever cameagain to Baghdad, and what dark hands kept on the circulation of histwenty-five-and-six, Mr. Sladden never knew.
Mr. Sladden entered the bare-boarded room in which he slept and spentall his indoor hours between closing-time and the hour at whichMessrs. Mergin and Chater commenced. To the Penates of so dingy a roomhis neat frock-coat must have been a continual wonder. Mr. Sladdentook it off and folded it carefully; and there was the old man'swindow rather high up in the wall. There had been no window in thatwall hitherto, nor any ornament at all but a small cupboard, so whenMr. Sladden had put his frock-coat safely away he glanced through hisnew window. It was where his cupboard had been in which he kept histea-things: they were all standing on the table now. When Mr. Sladdenglanced through his new window it was late in a summer's evening; thebutterflies some while ago would have closed their wings, though thebat would scarcely yet be drifting abroad--but this was in London: theshops were shut and street-lamps not yet lighted.
Mr. Sladden rubbed his eyes, then rubbed the window, and still he sawa sky of blazing blue, and far, far down beneath him, so that no soundcame up from it or smoke of chimneys, a mediaeval city set withtowers; brown roofs and cobbled streets, and then white walls andbuttresses, and beyond them bright green fields and tiny streams. Onthe towers archers lolled, and along the walls were pikemen, and nowand then a wagon went down some old-world street and lumbered throughthe gateway and out to the country, and now and then a wagon drew upto the city from the mist that was rolling with evening over thefields. Sometimes folks put their heads out of lattice windows,sometimes some idle troubadour seemed to sing, and nobody hurried ortroubled about anything. Airy and dizzy though the distance was, forMr. Sladden seemed higher above the city than any cathedral gargoyle,yet one clear detail he obtained as a clue: the banners floating fromevery tower over the idle archers had little golden dragons all over apure white field.
He heard motor-buses roar by his other window, he heard the newsboyshowling.
Mr. Sladden grew dreamier than ever after that on the premises, in theestablishment of Messrs. Mergin and Chater. But in one matter he waswise and wakeful: he made continuous and careful inquiries about thegolden dragons on a white flag, and talked to no one of his wonderfulwindow. He came to know the flags of every king in Europe, he evendabbled in history, he made inquiries at shops that understoodheraldry, but nowhere could he learn any trace of little dragons _or_on a field _argent_. And when it seemed that for him alone thosegolden dragons had fluttered he came to love them as an exile in somedesert might love the lilies of his home or as a sick man might loveswallows when he cannot easily live to another spring.
As soon as Messrs. Mergin and Chater closed, Mr. Sladden used to goback to his dingy room and gaze though the wonderful window until itgrew dark in the city and the guard would go with a lantern round theramparts and the night came up like velvet, full of strange stars.Another clue he tried to obtain one night by jotting down the shapesof the constellations, but this led him no further, for they wereunlike any that shone upon either hemisphere.
Each day as soon as he woke he went first to the wonderful window, andthere was the city, diminutive in the distance, all shining in themorning, and the golden dragons dancing in the sun, and the archersstretching themselves or swinging their arms on the tops of the windytowers. The window would not open, so that he never heard the songsthat the troubadours sang down there beneath the gilded balconies; hedid not even hear the belfries' chimes, though he saw the jack-dawsrouted every hour from their homes. And the first thing that he alwaysdid was to cast his eye round all the little towers that rose up fromthe ramparts to see that the little golden dragons were flying thereon their flags. And when he saw them flaunting themselves on whitefolds from every tower against the marvelous deep blue of the sky hedressed contentedly, and, taking one last look, went off to his workwith a glory in his mind. It would have been difficult for thecustomers of Messrs. Mergin and Chater to guess the precise ambitionof Mr. Sladden as he walked before them in his neat frock-coat: it wasthat he might be a man-at-arms or an archer in order to fight for thelittle golden dragons that flew on a white flag for an unknown king inan inaccessible city. At first Mr. Sladden used to walk round andround the mean street that he lived in, but he gained no clue fromthat; and soon he noticed that quite different winds blew below hiswonderful window from those that blew on the other side of the house.
In August the evenings began to grow shorter: this was the very remarkthat the other employees made to him at the emporium, so that healmost feared that they suspected his secret, and he had much lesstime for the wonderful window, for lights were few down there and theyblinked out early.
One morning late in August, just before he went to Business, Mr.Sladden saw a company of pikemen running down the cobbled road towardsthe gateway of the mediaeval city--Golden Dragon City he used to callit alone in his own mind, but he never spoke of it to anyone. The nextthing that he noticed was that the archers were handling round bundlesof arrows in addition to the quivers which they wore. Heads werethrust out of windows more than usual, a woman ran out and called somechildren indoors, a knight rode down the street, and then more pikemenappeared along the walls, and all the jack-daws were in the air. Inthe street no troubadour sang. Mr. Sladden took one look along thetowers to see that the flags were flying, and all the golden dragonswere streaming in the wind. Then he had to go to Business. He took abus back that evening and ran upstairs. Nothing seemed to be happeningin Golden Dragon City except a crowd in the cobbled street that ledd
own to the gateway; the archers seemed to be reclining as usuallazily in their towers, and then a white flag went down with all itsgolden dragons; he did not see at first that all the archers weredead. The crowd was pouring towards him, towards the precipitous wallfrom which he looked; men with a white flag covered with goldendragons were moving backwards slowly, men with another flag werepressing them, a flag on which there was one huge red bear. Anotherbanner went down upon a tower. Then he saw it all: the golden dragonswere being beaten--his little golden dragons. The men of the bear werecoming under the window; what ever he threw from that height wouldfall with terrific force: fire-irons, coal, his clock, whatever hehad--he would fight for his little golden dragons yet. A flame brokeout from one of the towers and licked the feet of a reclining archer;he did not stir. And now the alien standard was out of sight directlyunderneath. Mr. Sladden broke the panes of the wonderful window andwrenched away with a poker the lead that held them. Just as the glassbroke he saw a banner covered with golden dragons fluttering still,and then as he drew back to hurl the poker there came to him the scentof mysterious spices, and there was nothing there, not even thedaylight, for behind the fragments of the wonderful window was nothingbut that small cupboard in which he kept his tea-things.
And though Mr. Sladden is older now and knows more of the world, andeven has a Business of his own, he has never been able to buy suchanother window, and has not ever since, either from books or men,heard any rumour at all of Golden Dragon City.
EPILOGUE
Here the fourteenth Episode of the Book of Wonder endeth and here therelating of the Chronicles of Little Adventures at the Edge of theWorld. I take farewell of my readers. But it may be we shall even meetagain, for it is still to be told how the gnomes robbed the fairies,and of the vengeance that the fairies took, and how even the godsthemselves were troubled thereby in their sleep; and how the King ofOol insulted the troubadours, thinking himself safe among his scoresof archers and hundreds of halberdiers, and how the troubadours stoleto his towers by night, and under his battlements by the light of themoon made that king ridiculous for ever in song. But for this I mustfirst return to the Edge of the World. Behold, the caravans start.
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