Ultima Thule! The words come into my head this winter night. That is
why I write down the story, as I know it, of a little old friend.
I used to see him first in Kensington Gardens, where he came in the
afternoons, accompanied by a very small girl. One would see them silent
before a shrub or flower, or with their heads inclined to heaven before
a tree, or leaning above water and the ducks, or stretched on their
stomachs watching a beetle, or on their backs watching the sky. Often
they would stand holding crumbs out to the birds, who would perch about
them, and even drop on their arms little white marks of affection and
esteem. They were admittedly a noticeable couple. The child, who was
fair-haired and elfinlike, with dark eyes and a pointed chin, wore
clothes that seemed somewhat hard put to it. And, if the two were not
standing still, she went along pulling at his hand, eager to get there;
and, since he was a very little light old man, he seemed always in
advance of his own feet. He was garbed, if I remember, in a daverdy
brown overcoat and broad-brimmed soft grey hat, and his trousers,
what was visible of them, were tucked into half-length black gaiters
which tried to join with very old brown shoes. Indeed, his costume
did not indicate any great share of prosperity. But it was his face
that riveted attention. Thin, cherry-red, and wind-dried as old wood,
it had a special sort of brightness, with its spikes and waves of
silvery hair, and blue eyes that seemed to shine. Rather mad, I used to
think. Standing by the rails of an enclosure, with his withered lips
pursed and his cheeks drawn in till you would think the wind might
blow through them, he would emit the most enticing trills and pipings,
exactly imitating various birds.
Those who rouse our interest are generally the last people we speak
to, for interest seems to set up a kind of special shyness; so it was
long before I made his acquaintance. But one day by the Serpentine,
I saw him coming along alone, looking sad, but still with that queer
brightness about him. He sat down on my bench with his little dried
hands on his thin little knees, and began talking to himself in a sort
of whisper. Presently I caught the words: “God cannot be like us.” And
for fear that he might go on uttering such precious remarks that were
obviously not intended to be heard, I had either to go away or else
address him. So, on an impulse, I said:
“Why?”
He turned without surprise.
“I’ve lost my landlady’s little girl,” he said. “Dead! And only seven
years old.”
“That little thing! I used to watch you.”
“Did you? Did you? I’m glad you saw her.”
“I used to see you looking at flowers, and trees, and those ducks.”
His face brightened wistfully. “Yes; she was a great companion to
an old man like me.” And he relapsed into his contemplation of the
water. He had a curious, precise way of speaking, that matched his
pipchinesque little old face. At last he again turned to me those blue
youthful eyes that seemed to shine out of a perfect little nest of
crow’s-feet.
“We were great friends! But I couldn’t expect it. Things don’t last, do
they?” I was glad to notice that his voice was getting cheerful. “When
I was in the orchestra at the Harmony Theatre, it never used to occur
to me that some day I shouldn’t play there any more. One felt like a
bird. That’s the beauty of music, sir. You lose yourself; like that
blackbird there.” He imitated the note of a blackbird so perfectly that
I could have sworn the bird started.
“Birds and flowers! Wonderful things; wonderful! Why, even a
buttercup----!” He pointed at one of those little golden flowers with
his toe. “Did you ever see such a marvellous thing?” And he turned his
face up at me. “And yet, somebody told me once that they don’t agree
with cows. Now can that be? I’m not a countryman--though I was born at
Kingston.”
“The cows do well enough on them,” I said, “in my part of the world. In
fact, the farmers say they like to see buttercups.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that. I was always sorry to think they
disagreed.”
When I got up to go, he rose, too.
“I take it as very kind of you,” he said, “to have spoken to me.”
“The pleasure was mine. I am generally to be found hereabouts in the
afternoons any time you like a talk.”
“Delighted,” he said; “delighted. I make friends of the creatures and
flowers as much as possible, but they can’t always make us understand.”
And after we had taken off our respective hats, he reseated himself,
with his hands on his knees.
Next time I came across him standing by the rails of an enclosure, and,
in his arms, an old and really wretched-looking cat.
“I don’t like boys,” he said, without preliminary of any sort. “What
do you think they were doing to this poor old cat? Dragging it along
by a string to drown it; see where it’s cut into the fur! I think boys
despise the old and weak!” He held it out to me. At the ends of those
little sticks of arms the beast looked more dead than alive; I had
never seen a more miserable creature.
“I think a cat,” he said, “is one of the most marvellous things in the
world. Such a depth of life in it.”
And, as he spoke, the cat opened its mouth as if protesting at that
assertion. It _was_ the sorriest-looking beast.
“What are you going to do with it?”
“Take it home: it looks to me as if it might die.”
“You don’t think that might be more merciful?”
“It depends; it depends. I shall see. I fancy a little kindness might
do a great deal for it. It’s got plenty of spirit. I can see from its
eye.”
“May I come along with you a bit?”
“Oh!” he said; “delighted.”
We walked on side by side, exciting the derision of nearly every one we
passed--his face looked so like a mother’s when she is feeding her baby!
“You’ll find this’ll be quite a different cat to-morrow,” he said.
“I shall have to get in, though, without my landlady seeing; a funny
woman! I have two or three strays already.”
“Can I help in any way?”
“Thank you,” he said. “I shall ring the area bell, and as she comes
out below I shall go in above. She’ll think it’s boys. They _are_ like
that.”
“But doesn’t she do your rooms, or anything?”
A smile puckered his face. “I’ve only one; I do it myself. Oh, it’d
never do to have her about, even if I could afford it. But,” he added,
“if you’re so kind as to come with me to the door, you might engage her
by asking where Mr. Thompson lives. That’s me. In the musical world my
name was Moronelli; not that I have Italian blood in me, of course.”
“And shall I come up?”
“Honoured; but I live very quietly.”
We passed out of the gardens at Lancaster Gate, where all the
house-fronts seem so successful, and out of it into a little street
that was extremely like a grubby child trying to hide under its
mother’s skirts. Here he took a newspaper from his pocket and wrapped
it round the cat.
“She’s a funny woman,” he repeated; “Scotch descent, you know.”
Suddenly he pulled an area bell and scuttled up the steps.
When he had opened the door, however, I saw before him in the hall a
short, thin woman dressed in black, with a sharp and bumpy face. Her
voice sounded brisk and resolute.
“What have you got there, Mr. Thompson?”
“Newspaper, Mrs. March.”
“Oh, indeed! Now, you’re not going to take that cat upstairs!”
The little old fellow’s voice acquired a sudden shrill determination.
“Stand aside, please. If you stop me, I’ll give you notice. The cat is
going up. It’s ill, and it is going up.”
It was then I said:
“Does Mr. Thompson live here?”
In that second he shot past her, and ascended.
“That’s him,” she said; “and I wish it wasn’t, with his dirty cats. Do
you want him?”
“I do.”
“He lives at the top.” Then, with a grudging apology: “I can’t help it;
he tries me--he’s very trying.”
“I am sure he is.”
She looked at me. The longing to talk that comes over those who answer
bells all day, and the peculiar Scottish desire to justify oneself,
rose together in that face which seemed all promontories dried by an
east wind.
“Ah!” she said; “he is. I don’t deny his heart; but he’s got no sense
of anything. Goodness knows what he hasn’t got up there. I wonder I
keep him. An old man like that ought to know better; half-starving
himself to feed them.” She paused, and her eyes, that had a cold and
honest glitter, searched me closely.
“If you’re going up,” she said, “I hope you’ll give him good advice. He
never lets me in. I wonder I keep him.”
There were three flights of stairs, narrow, clean, and smelling of
oilcloth. Selecting one of two doors at random, I knocked. His silvery
head and bright, pinched face were cautiously poked out.
“Ah!” he said; “I thought it might be her!”
The room, which was fairly large, had a bare floor with little on
it save a camp-bed and chest of drawers with jug and basin. A large
bird-cage on the wall hung wide open. The place smelt of soap and a
little of beasts and birds. Into the walls, whitewashed over a green
wall-paper which stared through in places, were driven nails with their
heads knocked off, onto which bits of wood had been spiked, so that
they stood out as bird-perches high above the ground. Over the open
window a piece of wire netting had been fixed. A little spirit-stove
and an old dressing-gown hanging on a peg completed the accoutrements
of a room which one entered with a certain diffidence. He had not
exaggerated. Besides the new cat, there were three other cats and four
birds, all--save one, a bullfinch--invalids. The cats kept close to
the walls, avoiding me, but wherever my little old friend went, they
followed him with their eyes. The birds were in the cage, except the
bullfinch, which had perched on his shoulder.
“How on earth,” I said, “do you manage to keep cats and birds in one
room?”
“There is danger,” he answered, “but I have not had a disaster yet.
Till their legs or wings are mended, they hardly come out of the cage;
and after that they keep up on my perches. But they don’t stay long,
you know, when they’re once well. That wire is only put over the window
while they’re mending; it’ll be off to-morrow, for this lot.”
“And then they’ll go?”
“Yes. The sparrow first, and then the two thrushes.”
“And this fellow?”
“Ask him,” he said. “Would _you_ go, bully?” But the bullfinch did not
deign to answer.
“And were all those cats, too, in trouble?”
“Yes,” he said. “They wouldn’t want me if they weren’t.”
Thereupon he began to warm some blue-looking milk, contemplating the
new cat, which he had placed in a round basket close to the little
stove, while the bullfinch sat on his head. It seemed time to go.
“Delighted to see you, sir,” he said, “any day.” And, pointing up at
the bullfinch on his head, he added: “Did you ever see anything so
wonderful as that bird? The size of its heart! Really marvellous!”
To the rapt sound of that word marvellous, and full of the memory of
his mysterious brightness while he stood pointing upward to the bird
perched on his thick, silvery hair, I went.
The landlady was still at the bottom of the stairs, and began at once:
“So you found him! I don’t know why I keep him. Of course, he was kind
to my little girl.” I saw tears gather in her eyes.
“With his cats and his birds, I wonder I keep him! But where would
he go? He’s no relations, and no friends--not a friend in the world,
I think! He’s a character. Lives on air--feeding them cats! I’ve no
patience with them, eating him up. He never lets me in. Cats and birds!
I wonder I keep him. Losing himself for those rubbishy things! It’s my
belief he was always like that; and that’s why he never got on. He’s no
sense of anything.”
And she gave me a shrewd look, wondering, no doubt, what the deuce I
had come about.
I did not come across him again in the gardens for some time, and went
at last to pay him a call. At the entrance to a mews just round the
corner of his grubby little street, I found a knot of people collected
round one of those bears that are sometimes led through the less
conspicuous streets of our huge towns. The yellowish beast was sitting
up in deference to its master’s nod, uttering little grunts, and moving
its uplifted snout from side to side, in the way bears have. But it
seemed to be extracting more amusement than money from its audience.
“Let your bear down off its hind legs and I’ll give you a penny.”
And suddenly I saw my little old friend under his flopping grey hat,
amongst the spectators, all taller than himself. But the bear’s master
only grinned and prodded the animal in the chest. He evidently knew a
good thing when he saw it.
“I’ll give you twopence to let him down.”
Again the bear-man grinned. “More!” he said, and again prodded the
bear’s chest. The spectators were laughing now.
“Threepence! And if you don’t let him down for that, I’ll hit you in
the eye.”
The bear-man held out his hand. “All a-right,” he said, “threepence; I
let him down.”
I saw the coins pass and the beast dropping on his forefeet; but just
then a policeman coming in sight, the man led his bear off, and I was
left alone with my little old friend.
“I wish I had that poor bear,” he said; “I could teach him to be happy.
But, even if I could buy him, what could I do with him up there? She’s
such a funny woman.”
He looked quite dim, but brightened as we went along.
“A bear,” he said, “is really an extraordinary animal. What wise little
eyes he has! I do think he’s a marvellous creation! My cats will have
to go without their dinner, though. I was going to buy it with that
threepence.”