Drolls From Shadowland

  He was awakened presently by the gracious dawn, by the sweet andwholesome breath of morning, and the flash of the sunrise and thesinging of birds. And had it not been for the dew-crumpled volume thatnow lay blotched and smirched at his feet, he would have forgotten hismanhood and the unquiet life of cities and would have looked for hisbrothers only among the trees.

  But so long as the volume lay there forlornly, so long he remembered,and had something to regret.

  But the days passed--he could now keep no count of them--and humanspeech and human passions dropped away from his memory as quietly andpainlessly as his own ripe leaves began presently to drop. And thetree's life narrowed to its narrow round of needs.

  It sheltered the birds, and it took the wind's kisses gladly, and itcaught the snows in the wrinkles and twists of its boughs; and thesquirrel nested in it, and the wood-mouse nibbled at it; and its lifesufficed it, answering its desires.

  * * * * *

  One day there swept a mighty storm across the forest: the thundercrashed and the lightning flashed continuously; and the whole land heldits breath, listening to the uproar.

  The Lord of the Forest was moving among his children: and some of themhe passed without injuring or despoiling them; but others he smotewrathfully, so that he rent them and they died.

  And when he came to the tree that had one-time been the student, heremembered, and desired to bestow on it a boon.

  And he said to the elm, now gnarled and wrinkled, "You shall be a managain, if you earnestly desire it--a man again until you die."

  The tree heard the great wind roaring among its brethren, and it wasaware of the wee birds cowering among its boughs; and it remembered, asin a flash, the weary life of humanity, with hopes to befool it anddespair for its reward: and it rustled its myriad leaves whisperingmournfully, "Let me, O Master, remain as I am!"

  And the Lord of the Forest was content, and passed on.

  THE MAN WHO HAD SEEN.

  ON the third day he recovered from the "trance" and regainedconsciousness, and took up the burden of his life as before.

  But the revelation which had been vouchsafed to him had influenced himprofoundly. He had now a new estimate of values and results. The centreof his mental life was permanently shifted, and a new bias had beengiven to his thoughts.

  He went to the King, where he sat sunning himself in his palace.

  "You are very rich," said the man to the King.

  "God has so willed it, and I am grateful," said the King.

  "You hope one day to see God face to face?"

  "I _do_ hope so, fervently!" said the King, with unction.

  "And if He questions you of your wealth you will express your gratitudeand bow to Him, and God will accept the compliment and be content?"

  The King was silent.

  "You think He will ask no questions?" said the man. "He will not troubleto refer to His starving children, with whom you might reasonably haveshared your superfluities; to the sick whom you might have succoured; orto the sorrowing whom you might have cheered? You had wealth, and weregrateful for it: and you used it on yourself. And presently, when youare dead?" asked the man, more quietly. "If you sit beside the beggarwho perished at your gates, what will you say to him if he should referto matters such as these?"

  "Sit beside a beggar!" cried the King, in high disdain.

  "You forget it will be in heaven," said the man, gently.

  "In heaven, of course, I shall be a king as I am here!"

  "Oh, will you?" said the man: "I was not aware of that. I saw kingsthere performing the lowliest of services. And I saw many in hell: themajority of them were there." And therewith the man sighed heavily, ashe mused.

  The King turned his back on him: and they thrust him out at the gates.

  * * * * *

  The Archbishop was reading a novel by the fire.

  "Your work, then, is ended, is it?" asked the man.

  "Oh no! not by any means ended, I hope. I attended a drawing-roommeeting at Lady Clack's yesterday," said the Archbishop, smilingbenignantly on his questioner, "and this morning I have sanctionedproceedings against a vicar who for some time has been waveringheretically in his opinions. I think we can effectually silence him atlast. Oh yes, I am extremely busy, I can assure you."

  "There are no souls, then, to be saved?" said the man. "No lives to bereformed: and no mourners to be comforted? This side of your duties youhave completed and closed?"

  The Archbishop looked at him with extreme hauteur. "My dear sir, I leavethese matters to my subordinates. I am here as an administrator, not asa minister."

  "And you always choose the men best fitted to be ministers?"

  "Of course. At any rate, I hope so," quoth the Archbishop.

  "That young curate who has so successfully played the evangelist inGorseshire--he will have one of your earliest nominations, then, nodoubt?"

  "Indeed, he will not! He has offended me deeply. Would you believe it?he wrote an article on me in one of the reviews, and he actually had theaudacity, sir, to criticize me unfavourably! I will see that the manremains exactly where he is!"

  "And when you by-and-by make your report to your Master, will youexplain to Him your methods and your aims in this way? If so, do youthink He will be satisfied with you? Your methods and His are atvariance, surely? In heaven there are neither archbishops nor bishops,as such. If they pass the gates at all, it is merely as men who havedone their duty. Do you think you will pass the gates on that score,your Grace?"

  The Archbishop rang the bell sharply and abruptly.

  "Please show this gentleman out!" said His Grace.

  * * * * *

  "So you persist in disowning your daughter?" asked the man, looking hardat the portly, pleasant-faced matron who was dandling her thirteenthinfant on her knees. "You will show her no mercy, now she asks it atyour hands?"

  "She has disgraced me--I will never forgive her!" said the woman. "Lether starve with her brat. It will be well when they are dead."

  "She has disgraced you, you say? But has she disgraced Nature? I thoughtit was Nature who was responsible for her sex and its instincts. She hasobeyed the one and fulfilled the other. And they have been paramountconsiderations with you also, I perceive."

  "Did she owe no duty, then, to her parents? Was I to count in her lifemerely as the soil to the plant?"

  "In the scales of justice, as I saw them adjusted in heaven, the claimagainst the parents weighed the heaviest," said the man. "You suckledher at your breasts; but you brought her there to suckle. In yourbringing her there, lies the onus of her claim."

  "I tell you, she has disgraced me, and I will never forgive her!"

  "_'Never'_ is a long day for a mortal. You will be judged yourselfbefore you reach the end of it," said the man.

  * * * * *

  "Three months' imprisonment with hard labour," said the magistrate.

  "For taking a loaf of bread when he was starving!" cried the man.

  "Even so," said the magistrate, with his hands on his paunch.

  "But surely this is a monstrous perversion of justice. Or, rather, letme call it a monstrous _in_justice!"

  "The laws of the community must be respected," said the magistrate.

  "Here is a man--alive by no fault of his own, and poor, even tostarvation, through absolute want of work: and yet you begrudge him thenecessaries of life! If he tries to commit suicide, you pillory andchastise him, and if he tries to keep life in him out of thesuperfluities of others, you pass on him this monstrous sentence!" criedthe man. "Surely here is some fault in the structure of your society."

  "It is the law of the community!" said the magistrate, pompously.

  "And in what way is the law of the community so very sacred, that itshould be counted of higher price than the life and welfare of a man?The law of the community may be a very pretty idol to play before, butin heaven it c
ounts for nothing," said the quiet old man.

  "This man is a pestilent fellow," said the community. "He troubles usovermuch with this vision that he has knowledge of. Come, let us killhim!"

  And they smote him, and he died.

  THE UNCHRISTENED CHILD.

  "_Thee_ shaan't christen un, ef he's never christened!" said the father."I've no faith in'ee: not a dinyun.[L] Go to Halifax to shoot gaanders:tha's all thee'rt fit for!"

  "He'll suffer for it, both here and hereafter," said the parson.

  "Doan't believe it!" said the man.

  "Wherever he dies, whether on land or on water, he will become acreature of that element instead of going to his rest," said theparson, with an angry light in his eyes.

  "Doan't believe it!" said the man: "an' thee doan't nayther."

  The parson marched off, disdaining to reply.

  The infant grew into a bright little lad, but there was always a certainoddity about him, and he saw and understood more than he ought.

  One day he was out fishing with a companion, in a tiny punt they hadborrowed for the purpose, when he leaned overboard too far and fell intothe sea.

  His little companion was so paralysed with terror that he could donothing but set up a shrill screaming, clinging to the boat with bothhis hands.

  Silas rose once--and twice--with wildly-pleading eyes: his mouth full ofwater: his hair plastered against his head: then sank; and a third timeemerged just above the surface; so close to the boat that his companion,leaning over, could see him sinking down slowly into the crystallinedepths, with his hands stretched up and the hair on his head tapering toa point like the flame of a candle.

  "Silas! Silas!" the little lad shrieked.

  But Silas sank down; and ever down: lower and lower beneath thetranslucent waters, the vast flood deepening its tint above him, till atlast he was hopelessly buried out of sight.

  When John Penberthy heard the terrible news he took the blow as a manmight take a sentence of death--in grim silence, and with a sullendespair which nothing might henceforth banish or relieve. The roof-treeof his hopes was broken irretrievably, and he gazed down blankly at theruin around his feet.

  About three days after Silas was drowned, John was one afternoon outfishing for bait, and happened to be keeping rather close to thecliff-line, when he perceived a little seal emerge from a zawn[M] andcome swimming, as with a settled purpose, towards the boat.

  There was something so melancholy and so pathetically human in the soft,liquid eyes of the animal, that John felt his heart touchedunaccountably.

  Forgetting the line, which he was just about to draw in, he sat staringat the seal with a fixed intensity, as if he were looking in thefamiliar eyes of some one with whom he had a world of memories tointerchange.

  And, meanwhile, the seal swam straight up to him, till it was so closeto the boat that he could touch it with his hand.

  John leaned over and looked straight at the animal: fixing his eyeshungrily on the eyes of the seal.

  "Why dedn'ee ha' me christened, faather?" asked the little seal,piteously.

  "My God! are'ee Silas?" cried John, trembling violently.

  "Iss, I'm Silas," said the little seal.

  John stared aghast at the smooth brown head and the innocent eyes thatwatched him so pathetically.

  "Why, I thought thee wert drownded, Silas!" he ejaculated.

  "I caan't go to rest 'tell I'm christened," said the seal.

  "How can us do it now?" asked the father, anxiously.

  "Ef anywan who's christened wed change sauls weth me," said the seal,"then I cud go to rest right away."

  "Thee shall ha' _my_ saul, Silas," said the father, tenderly.

  "Wil'ee put thy mouth to mine an' braythe it into me, faather?"

  "Iss, me dear, that I will!" said the father. "Rest thee shust have ef Ican give it to'ee, Silas. Put thy haands or paws around me neck, wil'ee,soas?"

  And John leaned over the side of the boat till his face touched that ofthe piteous little seal.

  At that moment the boat--which for the last few minutes had been allowedto drift at the mercy of the tide, owing to John's pre-occupation--wascaught among the irregular currents near a skerry, and John wassuddenly jerked, or tilted, overboard, plunging into the waters with asullen splash.

  When he rose to the surface, with a deadly chill in him--the chill ofhis drear and imminent doom, even more than the grueing chill of thewater--his first thought, even in that perilous moment, was of dearlittle Silas and the promise he had given to him, or, at least, thepromise he had given to the seal.

  The quaint little creature was, however, nowhere visible; and John, witha sudden influx of strength--an alarmed awakening and resurgence of hiswill--made up his mind to save his life if it were possible, and quietlyleave the settlement of the other affair to God.

  But grey old Fate was stronger than he was. And the waves were here herobedient servants; doing her will blindly, without pity or remorse.

  In a little while John was tossing among the seaweed--into a bed ofwhich his body had descended--and what further dreams (if any) hedreamed there beneath the waters, must remain untold till the JudgmentDay.

  FOOTNOTES:

  [L] Little bit.

  [M] A cave.

  THE MAN WHO MET HATE.

  IT was drawing on towards midnight, and the world seemed very lonely.

  There was a huge, round harvest moon in the sky, and the hills werebathed in a kind of spectral splendour--a faint and filmy shimmer ofsilver that left the outlines of objects blurred and elusive, though thescene as a whole emerged clearly for the eye. The wind was sighingdrowsily across the moors, while high on the rugged cairns on thehill-tops it was wuthering mournfully beneath the wan grey sky.

  And 'Lijah, staring sleeplessly through his blindless bedroom-window,felt a growing unrest in the very marrow of his bones.

  He could see down below, in the little lonesome cove, the cottage whereDorcas had now made her nest with that "darned gayte long-legged 'Miah"for her husband, and in the sudden heat and bitterness of his wrath hisheart became like a live coal within him. "I'll have my revenge on un,ef I haang for it!" growled he.

  And then he remembered that up on yonder moors--whose ferns and graniteboulders he could see plainly in the moonlight--there was a "gashly owldfogou,"[N] where, if a man went at midnight prepared to boldly summonHate and to "turn a stone"[O] in her honour, his hatred would beaccomplished for him "as sure as death."

  "An' I'll go there, ef I die for it!" said he grimly to himself.

  The village was asleep, and all its cottages were smokeless. There wasno one stirring anywhere in the cove. But far out in the moonlit bay hecould see the fishing-boats dotting the vast grey plain, and he knewthat in one of them 'Miah Laity was fishing, and was no doubt thinkingof Dorcas as he fished.

  "I'll spoil 'es thinkin' for un 'fore long," said 'Lijah, "ayven ef Ihave to sill me saul to do the job!"

  And with that he slipped on his coat and boots--for he had beenstanding at the window half undressed--and clapping on his cap as hepassed through the kitchen, strode heavily and gloomily out of thehouse.

  On the moor he had only the breeze for company, and its long, vaguewail, as it rustled across the ferns, merely deepened the moodyirritation in his mind. He felt as sour as a fanatic and as gloomy as athief.

  To find the fogou, among the bewildering growth of ferns, was by nomeans the easiest task in the world: for the rude cave-dwelling wasliterally buried in the hill-side; its entrance being hidden by the rankvegetation that here reached almost to Elijah's arm-pits.

  As he ploughed his way through the trackless tangle, giving vent thewhile to a superfluity of oaths, he presently stumbled on the entranceto the fogou, almost precipitating himself into its darkness, sosuddenly had he stumbled on it, wading through the ferns.

  The low and narrow tunnel in the hill-side, with its walls and rooflined with slabs of rock, was as uncanny a spot as a man could set footin, and Elijah shoo
k like one with the ague, as he thrust aside theferns and peered into the blackness.

  He turned round, half inclined to retreat; but, as he turned, his eyeschanced to travel to the sea, where he could still discern thefishing-boats riding at their nets; and the idea of 'Miah out therethinking of Dorcas made him clench his teeth grimly, as if he hadreceived a blow.

  He swung round on his heels sharply and determinedly, savagely tramplingthe ferns beneath his feet, and strode forward into the pitch-blackmirk.

  Groping his way in, with hands extended, he presently found the block ofgranite called the altar, and "turning the stone" in the hollow on itssurface, he shaped the while in his heart his rancorous prayer to Hate.

  Suddenly he was aware of a face staring at him: a mere face vaguelylimned on the darkness, as if a bodiless head were held before him bythe hair.

  And in that same instant, without a word being uttered, he felt that hehad looked in the face of Hate.

  He reeled out of the fogou like a drunken man.

  The vision was one it would be impossible to forget. He must bear withhim this memory, as a man who has committed a murder must bear with himthe memory of his victim's ghastly face.

  "I'll wait an' see what comes of it," said 'Lijah to himself, as he ranand stumbled down the hill-side in the moonlight, the thick hairstiffening under his cap.

  * * * * *

  The months slipped by, and the years dragged on sluggishly, and 'Miahand Dorcas were as happy as ever. They had a couple of bairns to toddleabout their cottage, and 'Miah had been fairly fortunate on the fishery,so that their lives were generally sunny and enviable to an extent thatmade Elijah's blood turn to gall.