A Dreamer's Tales

  THE BEGGARS

  I was walking down Piccadilly not long ago, thinking of nursery rhymes andregretting old romance.

  As I saw the shopkeepers walk by in their black frock-coats and theirblack hats, I thought of the old line in nursery annals: "The merchants ofLondon, they wear scarlet."

  The streets were all so unromantic, dreary. Nothing could be done forthem, I thought--nothing. And then my thoughts were interrupted by barkingdogs. Every dog in the street seemed to be barking--every kind of dog, notonly the little ones but the big ones too. They were all facing Easttowards the way I was coming by. Then I turned round to look and had thisvision, in Piccadilly, on the opposite side to the houses just after youpass the cab-rank.

  Tall bent men were coming down the street arrayed in marvelous cloaks. Allwere sallow of skin and swarthy of hair, and most of them wore strangebeards. They were coming slowly, and they walked with staves, and theirhands were out for alms.

  All the beggars had come to town.

  I would have given them a gold doubloon engraven with the towers ofCastile, but I had no such coin. They did not seem the people to who itwere fitting to offer the same coin as one tendered for the use of ataxicab (O marvelous, ill-made word, surely the pass-word somewhere ofsome evil order). Some of them wore purple cloaks with wide green borders,and the border of green was a narrow strip with some, and some wore cloaksof old and faded red, and some wore violet cloaks, and none wore black.And they begged gracefully, as gods might beg for souls.

  I stood by a lamp-post, and they came up to it, and one addressed it,calling the lamp-post brother, and said, "O lamp-post, our brother of thedark, are there many wrecks by thee in the tides of night? Sleep not,brother, sleep not. There were many wrecks an it were not for thee."

  It was strange: I had not thought of the majesty of the street lamp andhis long watching over drifting men. But he was not beneath the notice ofthese cloaked strangers.

  And then one murmured to the street: "Art thou weary, street? Yet a littlelonger they shall go up and down, and keep thee clad with tar and woodenbricks. Be patient, street. In a while the earthquake cometh."

  "Who are you?" people said. "And where do you come from?"

  "Who may tell what we are," they answered, "or whence we come?"

  And one turned towards the smoke-stained houses, saying, "Blessed be thehouses, because men dream therein."

  Then I perceived, what I had never thought, that all these staring houseswere not alike, but different one from another, because they helddifferent dreams.

  And another turned to a tree that stood by the Green Park railings,saying, "Take comfort, tree, for the fields shall come again."

  And all the while the ugly smoke went upwards, the smoke that has stifledRomance and blackened the birds. This, I thought, they can neither praisenor bless. And when they saw it they raised their hands towards it,towards the thousand chimneys, saying, "Behold the smoke. The oldcoal-forests that have lain so long in the dark, and so long still, aredancing now and going back to the sun. Forget not Earth, O our brother,and we wish thee joy of the sun."

  It had rained, and a cheerless stream dropped down a dirty gutter. It hadcome from heaps of refuse, foul and forgotten; it had gathered upon itsway things that were derelict, and went to somber drains unknown to man orthe sun. It was this sullen stream as much as all other causes that hadmade me say in my heart that the town was vile, that Beauty was dead init, and Romance fled.

  Even this thing they blessed. And one that wore a purple cloak with broadgreen border, said, "Brother, be hopeful yet, for thou shalt surely comeat last to the delectable Sea, and meet the heaving, huge, and travelledships, and rejoice by isles that know the golden sun." Even thus theyblessed the gutter, and I felt no whim to mock.

  And the people that went by, in their black unseemly coats and theirmisshapen, monstrous, shiny hats, the beggars also blessed. And one ofthem said to one of these dark citizens: "O twin of Night himself, withthy specks of white at wrist and neck like to Night's scattered stars. Howfearfully thou dost veil with black thy hid, unguessed desires. They aredeep thoughts in thee that they will not frolic with colour, that they say'No' to purple, and to lovely green 'Begone.' Thou hast wild fancies thatthey must needs be tamed with black, and terrible imaginings that theymust be hidden thus. Has thy soul dreams of the angels, and of the wallsof faery that thou hast guarded it so utterly, lest it dazzle astonishedeyes? Even so God hid the diamond deep down in miles of clay.

  "The wonder of thee is not marred by mirth.

  "Behold thou art very secret.

  "Be wonderful. Be full of mystery."

  Silently the man in the black frock-coat passed on. And I came tounderstand when the purple beggar had spoken, that the dark citizen hadtrafficked perhaps with Ind, that in his heart were strange and dumbambitions; that his dumbness was founded by solemn rite on the roots ofancient tradition; that it might be overcome one day by a cheer in thestreet or by some one singing a song, and that when this shopman spokethere might come clefts in the world and people peering over at the abyss.

  Then turning towards Green Park, where as yet Spring was not, the beggarsstretched out their hands, and looking at the frozen grass and the yetunbudding trees they, chanting all together, prophesied daffodils.

  A motor omnibus came down the street, nearly running over some of the dogsthat were barking ferociously still. It was sounding its horn noisily.

  And the vision went then.