Tales of Wonder

  The City on Mallington Moor

  Besides the old shepherd at Lingwold whose habits render himunreliable I am probably the only person that has ever seen the cityon Mallington Moor.

  I had decided one year to do no London season; partly because of theugliness of the things in the shops, partly because of the unresistedinvasions of German bands, partly perhaps because some pet parrots inthe oblong where I lived had learned to imitate cab-whistles; butchiefly because of late there had seized me in London a quiteunreasonable longing for large woods and waste spaces, while the verythought of little valleys underneath copses full of bracken andfoxgloves was a torment to me and every summer in London the longinggrew worse till the thing was becoming intolerable. So I took a stickand a knapsack and began walking northwards, starting at Tetheringtonand sleeping at inns, where one could get real salt, and the waiterspoke English and where one had a name instead of a number; and thoughthe tablecloth might be dirty the windows opened so that the air wasclean, where one had the excellent company of farmers and men of thewold, who could not be thoroughly vulgar, because they had not themoney to be so even if they had wished it. At first the novelty wasdelightful, and then one day in a queer old inn up Uthering way,beyond Lingwold, I heard for the first time the rumour of the citysaid to be on Mallington Moor. They spoke of it quite casually overtheir glasses of beer, two farmers at the inn. "They say the queerfolk be at Mallington with their city," one farmer said. "Travellingthey seem to be," said the other. And more came in then and the rumourspread. And then, such are the contradictions of our little likes anddislikes and all the whims that drive us, that I, who had come so farto avoid cities, had a great longing all of a sudden for throngs againand the great hives of Man, and then and there determined on thatbright Sunday morning to come to Mallington and there search for thecity that rumour spoke of so strangely.

  Mallington Moor, from all that they said of it, was hardly a likelyplace to find a thing by searching. It was a huge high moor, verybleak and desolate and altogether trackless. It seemed a lonely placefrom what they said. The Normans when they came had called it Mal Lieuand afterwards Mallintown and so it changed to Mallington. Though whata town can ever have had to do with a place so utterly desolate I donot know. And before that some say that the Saxons called it Baplas,which I believe to be a corruption of Bad Place.

  And beyond the mere rumour of a beautiful city all of white marble andwith a foreign look up on Mallington Moor, beyond this I could notget. None of them had seen it himself, "only heard of it like," and myquestions, rather than stimulating conversation, would always stop itabruptly. I was no more fortunate on the road to Mallington until theTuesday, when I was quite near it; I had been walking two days fromthe inn where I had heard the rumour and could see the great hillsteep as a headland on which Mallington lay, standing up on theskyline: the hill was covered with grass, where anything grew at all,but Mallington Moor is all heather; it is just marked Moor on the map;nobody goes there and they do not trouble to name it. It was therewhere the gaunt hill first came into sight, by the roadside as Ienquired for the marble city of some labourers by the way, that I wasdirected, partly I think in derision, to the old shepherd of Lingwold.It appeared that he, following sometimes sheep that had strayed, andwandering far from Lingwold, came sometimes up to the edge ofMallington Moor, and that he would come back from these excursions andshout through the villages, raving of a city of white marble andgold-tipped minarets. And hearing me asking questions of this citythey had laughed and directed me to the shepherd of Lingwold. Onewell-meant warning they gave me as I went--the old man was notreliable.

  And late that evening I saw the thatches of Lingwold sheltering underthe edge of that huge hill that Atlas-like held up those miles of moorto the great winds and heaven.

  They knew less of the city in Lingwold than elsewhere but they knewthe whereabouts of the man I wanted, though they seemed a littleashamed of him. There was an inn in Lingwold that gave me shelter,whence in the morning, equipped with purchases, I set out to findtheir shepherd. And there he was on the edge of Mallington Moorstanding motionless, gazing stupidly at his sheep; his hands trembledcontinually and his eyes had a blear look, but he was quite sober,wherein all Lingwold had wronged him.

  And then and there I asked him of the city and he said he had neverheard tell of any such place. And I said, "Come, come, you must pullyourself together." And he looked angrily at me; but when he saw medraw from amongst my purchases a full bottle of whiskey and a bigglass he became more friendly. As I poured out the whiskey I asked himagain about the marble city on Mallington Moor but he seemed quitehonestly to know nothing about it. The amount of whiskey he drank wasquite incredible, but I seldom express surprise and once more I askedhim the way to the wonderful city. His hand was steadier now and hiseyes more intelligent and he said that he had heard something of somesuch city, but his memory was evidently blurred and he was stillunable to give me useful directions. I consequently gave him anothertumbler, which he drank off like the first without any water, andalmost at once he was a different man. The trembling in his handsstopped altogether, his eye became as quick as a younger man's, heanswered my questions readily and frankly, and, what was moreimportant to me still, his old memory became alert and clear for evenminutest details. His gratitude to myself I need not mention, for Imake no pretence that I bought the bottle of whiskey that the oldshepherd enjoyed so much without at least some thought of my ownadvantage. Yet it was pleasant to reflect that it was due to me thathe had pulled himself together and steadied his shaking hand andcleared his mind, recovered his memory and his self-respect. He spoketo me quite clearly, no longer slurring his words; he had seen thecity first one moonlight night when he was lost in the mist on the bigmoor, he had wandered far in the mist, and when it lifted he saw thecity by moonlight. He had no food, but luckily had his flask. Therenever was such a city, not even in books. Travellers talked sometimesof Venice seen from the sea, there might be such a place or theremight not, but, whether or no, it was nothing to the city onMallington Moor. Men who read books had talked to him in his time,hundreds of books, but they never could tell of any city like this.Why, the place was all of marble, roads, walls and palaces, all purewhite marble, and the tops of the tall thin spires were entirely ofgold. And they were queer folk in the city even for foreigners. Andthere were camels, but I cut him short for I thought I could judge formyself, if there was such a place, and, if not, I was wasting my timeas well as a pint of good whiskey. So I got him to speak of the way,and after more circumlocution than I needed and more talk of the cityhe pointed to a tiny track on the black earth just beside us, a littletwisty way you could hardly see.

  I said the moor was trackless; untrodden of man or dog it certainlywas and seemed to have less to do with the ways of man than any wasteI have seen, but the track the old shepherd showed me, if track itwas, was no more than the track of a hare--an elf-path the old mancalled it, Heaven knows what he meant. And then before I left him heinsisted on giving me his flask with the queer strong rum itcontained. Whiskey brings out in some men melancholy, in somerejoicing, with him it was clearly generosity and he insisted until Itook his rum, though I did not mean to drink it. It was lonely upthere, he said, and bitter cold and the city hard to find, being setin a hollow, and I should need the rum, and he had never seen themarble city except on days when he had had his flask: he seemed toregard that rusted iron flask as a sort of mascot, and in the end Itook it.

  I followed that odd, faint track on the black earth under the heathertill I came to the big grey stone beyond the horizon, where the trackdivides into two, and I took the one to the left as the old man toldme. I knew by another stone that I saw far off that I had not lost myway, nor the old man lied.

  And just as I hoped to see the city's ramparts before the gloamingfell on that desolate place, I suddenly saw a long high wall ofwhiteness with pinnacles here and there thrown up above it, floatingtowards me silent and grim as a secret, and knew it for that evilthing t
he mist. The sun, though low, was shining on every sprig ofheather, the green and scarlet mosses were shining with it too, itseemed incredible that in three minutes' time all those colours wouldbe gone and nothing left all round but a grey darkness. I gave up hopeof finding the city that day, a broader path than mine could have beenquite easily lost. I hastily chose for my bed a thick patch ofheather, wrapped myself in a waterproof cloak, and lay down and mademyself comfortable. And then the mist came. It came like the carefulpulling of lace curtains, then like the drawing of grey blinds; itshut out the horizon to the north, then to the east and west; itturned the whole sky white and hid the moor; it came down on it like ametropolis, only utterly silent, silent and white as tombstones.

  And then I was glad of that strange strong rum, or whatever it was inthe flask that the shepherd gave me, for I did not think that the mistwould clear till night, and I feared the night would be cold. So Inearly emptied the flask; and, sooner than I expected, I fell asleep,for the first night out as a rule one does not sleep at once but iskept awake some while by the little winds and the unfamiliar sound ofthe things that wander at night, and that cry to one another far-offwith their queer, faint voices; one misses them afterwards when onegets to houses again. But I heard none of these sounds in the mistthat evening.

  And then I woke and found that the mist was gone and the sun was justdisappearing under the moor, and I knew that I had not slept for aslong as I thought. And I decided to go on while I could, for I thoughtthat I was not very far from the city.

  I went on and on along the twisty track, bits of the mist came downand filled the hollows but lifted again at once so that I saw my way.The twilight faded as I went, a star appeared, and I was able to seethe track no longer. I could go no further that night, yet before Ilay down to sleep I decided to go and look over the edge of a widedepression in the moor that I saw a little way off. So I left thetrack and walked a few hundred yards, and when I got to the edge thehollow was full of mist all white underneath me. Another star appearedand a cold wind arose, and with the wind the mist flapped away like acurtain. And there was the city.

  Nothing the shepherd had said was the least untrue or evenexaggerated. The poor old man had told the simple truth, there is nota city like it in the world. What he had called thin spires wereminarets, but the little domes on the top were clearly pure gold as hesaid. There were the marble terraces he described and the pure whitepalaces covered with carving and hundreds of minarets. The city wasobviously of the East and yet where there should have been crescentson the domes of the minarets there were golden suns with rays, andwherever one looked one saw things that obscured its origin. I walkeddown to it, and, passing through a wicket gate of gold in a low wallof white marble, I entered the city. The heather went right up to thecity's edge and beat against the marble wall whenever the wind blewit. Lights began to twinkle from high windows of blue glass as Iwalked up the white street, beautiful copper lanterns were lit up andlet down from balconies by silver chains, from doors ajar came thesound of voices singing, and then I saw the men. Their faces wererather grey than black, and they wore beautiful robes of coloured silkwith hems embroidered with gold and some with copper, and sometimespacing down the marble ways with golden baskets hung on each side ofthem I saw the camels of which the old shepherd spoke.

  The people had kindly faces, but, though they were evidently friendlyto strangers, I could not speak with them being ignorant of theirlanguage, nor were the sounds of the syllables they used like anylanguage I had ever heard: they sounded more like grouse.

  When I tried to ask them by signs whence they had come with their citythey would only point to the moon, which was bright and full and wasshining fiercely on those marble ways till the city danced in light.And now there began appearing one by one, slipping softly out throughwindows, men with stringed instruments in the balconies. They werestrange instruments with huge bulbs of wood, and they played softly onthem and very beautifully, and their queer voices softly sang to themusic weird dirges of the griefs of their native land wherever thatmay be. And far off in the heart of the city others were singing too,the sound of it came to me wherever I roamed, not loud enough todisturb my thoughts, but gently turning the mind to pleasant things.Slender carved arches of marble, as delicate almost as lace, crossedand re-crossed the ways wherever I went. There was none of that hurryof which foolish cities boast, nothing ugly or sordid so far as Icould see. I saw that it was a city of beauty and song. I wondered howthey had travelled with all that marble, how they had laid it down onMallington Moor, whence they had come and what their resources were,and determined to investigate closely next morning, for the oldshepherd had not troubled his head to think how the city came, he hadonly noted that the city was there (and of course no one believed him,though that is partly his fault for his dissolute ways). But at nightone can see little and I had walked all day, so I determined to find aplace to rest in. And just as I was wondering whether to ask forshelter of those silk-robed men by signs or whether to sleep outsidethe walls and enter again in the morning, I came to a great archway inone of the marble houses with two black curtains, embroidered belowwith gold, hanging across it. Over the archway were carved apparentlyin many tongues the words: "Here strangers rest." In Greek, Latin andSpanish the sentence was repeated and there was writing also in thelanguage that you see on the walls of the great temples of Egypt, andArabic and what I took to be early Assyrian and one or two languages Ihad never seen. I entered through the curtains and found a tesselatedmarble court with golden braziers burning sleepy incense swinging bychains from the roof, all round the walls were comfortable mattresseslying upon the floor covered with cloths and silks. It must have beenten o'clock and I was tired. Outside the music still softly filled thestreets, a man had set a lantern down on the marble way, five or sixsat down round him, and he was sonorously telling them a story. Insidethere were some already asleep on the beds, in the middle of the widecourt under the braziers a woman dressed in blue was singing verygently, she did not move, but sung on and on, I never heard a songthat was so soothing. I lay down on one of the mattresses by the wall,which was all inlaid with mosaics, and pulled over me some of thecloths with their beautiful alien work, and almost immediately mythoughts seemed part of the song that the woman was singing in themidst of the court under the golden braziers that hung from the highroof, and the song turned them to dreams, and so I fell asleep.

  A small wind having arisen, I was awakened by a sprig of heather thatbeat continually against my face. It was morning on Mallington Moor,and the city was quite gone.