Stories of two brothers are common enough the world over--probably more
so than stories of young men who have fallen in love with their
grandmothers, and the main feature in most of them, as in the story I
have just told, is in the close resemblance of the two brothers, for on
that everything hinges. It is precisely the same in the one I am about
to relate, one I came upon a few years ago--just how many I wish not to
say, nor just where it happened except that it was in the west country;
and for the real names of people and places I have substituted
fictitious ones. For this too, like the last, is a true story. The
reader on finishing it will perhaps blush to think it true, but apart
from the moral aspect of the case it is, psychologically, a singularly
interesting one.
One summer day I travelled by a public conveyance to Pollhampton, a
small rustic market town several miles distant from the nearest
railroad. My destination was not the town itself, but a lonely
heath-grown hill five miles further on, where I wished to find
something that grew and blossomed on it, and my first object on arrival
was to secure a riding horse or horse and trap to carry me there. I was
told at once that it was useless to look for such a thing, as it was
market day and everybody was fully occupied. That it was market day I
already knew very well, as the two or three main streets and wide
market-place in the middle of the town were full of sheep and cows and
pigs and people running about and much noise of shoutings and barking
dogs. However, the strange object of the strange-looking stranger in
coming to the town, interested some of the wild native boys, and they
rushed about to tell it, and in less than five minutes a nice
neat-looking middle-aged man stood at my elbow and said he had a good
horse and trap and for seven-and-sixpence would drive me to the hill,
help me there to find what I wanted, and bring me back in time to catch
the conveyance. Accordingly in a few minutes we were speeding out of
the town drawn by a fast-trotting horse. Fast trotters appeared to be
common in these parts, and as we went along the road from time to time
a small cloud of dust would become visible far ahead of us, and in two
or three minutes a farmer's trap would appear and rush past on its way
to market, to vanish behind us in two or three minutes more and be
succeeded by another and then others. By-and-by one came past driven by
two young women, one holding the reins, the other playing with the
whip. They were tall, dark, with black hair, and colourless faces, aged
about thirty, I imagined. As they flew by I remarked, "I would lay a
sovereign to a shilling that they are twins." "You'd lose your
money--there's two or three years between them," said my driver. "Do
you know them--you didn't nod to them nor they to you?" I said. "I know
them," he returned, "as well as I know my own face when I look at
myself in a glass." On which I remarked that it was very wonderful.
"'Tis only a part of the wonder, and not the biggest part," he said.
"You've seen what they are like and how like they are, but if you
passed a day with them in the house you'd be able to tell one from the
other; but if you lived a year in the same house with their two
brothers you'd never be able to tell one from the other and be sure you
were right. The strangest thing is that the brothers who, like their
sisters, have two or three years between them, are not a bit like their
sisters; they are blue-eyed and seem a different race."
That, I said, made it more wonderful still. A curiously symmetrical
family. Rather awkward for their neighbours, and people who had
business relations with them.
"Yes--perhaps," he said, "but it served them very well on one occasion
to be so much alike."