EXHIBITION DAY AT WINDWARD HOUSE
"Mansion and grounds will be thrown open to the public on Sunday
afternoon, between the hours of three and five, for the inspection of
the rare and costly antiquities collected during his numerous voyages by
Captain Francis Drake, who will personally conduct parties. As the hall
carpet is of inestimable value, having formerly covered a floor in the
Yildiz Palace, visitors are earnestly requested to wipe their boots."
"I think you have forgotten, William," said Mrs. Drake, when her husband
had posted this notice, "how you bought that strip of carpet at an
auction sale for eighteen pence. The piece you bought from Turkey is in
Bessie's bedroom."
"Ah, yes, my dear, but it might just as well be in the hall, and for the
purpose of exhibition we can quite easily imagine it _is_ there,"
replied the most capable showman.
By twenty minutes past three, which was punctual for Highfield, a
respectable number of villagers had gathered beside the noticeboard as
though awaiting an excursion train: old men and young, women and
children, stood huddled together like so many prisoners of war, all very
solemn and anxious. One little boy was sobbing bitterly because a report
had reached him concerning another little boy who had been invited
beyond that gate and introduced to the giant tortoise, which had
displayed since then a singularly well-nourished appearance. Therefore
he was vastly relieved when the Captain announced that, owing to the
size of the crowd, which was adopting a closer formation every moment,
children would not be admitted that afternoon, but a separate day would
be arranged for the little ones, when they could play in the garden and
feed the animals; an ominous invitation which made the little boy cry
yet louder.
The Yellow Leaf, who wore a coat not much younger than himself, as the
father of the people, and related to everybody within a ten mile radius,
stepped first into the house. He was, however, better dressed than the
Wallower in Wealth, who was believed to own a mattress so well stuffed
with gold and silver pieces that it could not be turned without the aid
of crowbars. The Gentle Shepherd paused on the threshold to scrape the
soles of his boots with a knife. The Dumpy Philosopher nervously
unfastened a collar which was borrowed. The ladies wore all the finery
they possessed.
"You are now, ladies and gentlemen, standing in the hall of Windward
House, upon the priceless carpet used by a former Sultan of Turkey as a
praying mat," began the Captain.
"Must ha' been a religious gentleman," said the Yellow Leaf approvingly,
as he tapped his stick upon the threadbare patches.
"And fond of a quiet smoke," added Squinting Jack, pointing to some
holes obviously caused by cigar ends.
"What size of a place would this Yildiz Parish be?" inquired the Gentle
Shepherd.
"Palace, my dear old fellow. It's the Windsor Castle of Turkey, where
the Sultan prays and smokes, and signs death sentences of his Christian
subjects."
"Amazing small rooms," remarked the Dumpy Philosopher curtly.
"The Turks don't cover the whole of their floors like we do," explained
the Captain. "When the Sultan wants to pray, they spread a mat like this
before the throne, and he comes down on it. When he's done praying, they
roll up the mat and chuck it out of the window, for the Sultan never
uses the same bit of carpet twice. I happened to be passing underneath
his window when this particular mat was thrown out, so I picked it up
and nipped off with it, though Christians are forbidden by the law of
Turkey to touch anything the Sultan has even looked at."
"Didn't 'em try to stop ye?" asked a lady.
"They did," said the Captain grimly. "Though boasting isn't much in my
line, they did try to stop me--officers of the army, ministers of state,
officials of the court, men in the street--but Turks have enormous
noses, while I own an uncommon big fist; and when one big thing, my
dear, aims at another big thing, they are bound to meet. You can see the
bloodstains on the carpet yet," declared the Captain, indicating a
corner where Bessie had upset the furniture polish.
"I do wish poor dear William wouldn't read so many newspapers," sighed
Mrs. Drake in the background.
"Now, my dear friends and neighbours," continued the showman, warming to
his work, "although fully conscious of my own unworthiness, I beg to
draw your attention to this pedigree of my family, framed in English
oak, and most beautifully decorated in the national colours by one of
our leading artists. It commences, you see, with the name of my
illustrious ancestor, Sir Francis Drake, the mighty admiral who, almost
unaided, sent the Spanish _Armada_ to the bottom of the Irish Sea. The
head of the family has been honoured with the name of Francis ever
since: the same name, ladies and gentlemen, and the same undaunted
spirit. Boasting is painful to any member of the Drake family, yet I
would say--give me the Irish Sea and some English ships; give me a
hostile Navy, such as was faced by my immortal propogand ... my
imperishable protogent ... my eternal prognosticator--that's the word,
dear people--and if you think I'm boasting, I am very sorry for your
opinion of Devonshire manliness and courage."
"You ha' forgot to mention what you might do to the hostile Navy,"
reminded Squinting Jack.
"Send it to the bottom," roared the Captain.
"I can't bear to listen when he gets near the pedigree," murmured Mrs.
Drake. "He will not remember he made it all up. And he has made me
promise to put Francis on the gravestone."
"Wur Queen Elizabeth one of your descendants too?" inquired the Gentle
Shepherd in great awe.
"Not exactly: she was not, what you would describe as one of my
forefathers," explained the Captain. "Her illustrious name is here
inserted within brackets as an indication that the Drakes do not claim
to be of the blood royal; but, as you will remember, Queen Elizabeth
knighted Sir Francis, and there is a pleasant tradition in the family
that she once flirted with him."
"Ain't that wonderful!" gasped one of the ladies.
They entered the parlour, where George was crushing flies with a cork
against the windows. It was his habit to display some form of activity
when his uncle was about.
"The pictures," resumed the Captain, "are chiefly good examples of the
oleographic school; with here and there a choice engraving taken from
the illustrated press: marine landscapes, depicting sea breaking upon
rocks, being a prominent feature. The young lady picking sunflowers was
painted by my wife at the age of seventeen, and is the only example of
that period which survives."
"The flowers are dahlias," Mrs. Drake corrected somewhat sharply.
"My dear, anybody acquainted with our simple wayside plants could tell
that at a glance. I am afraid, ladies and gentlemen, the only flowers I
can name with absolute certainty are sea anemones and jellyfish. The
grandfather clock is unique," hurried on the Captain. "It strikes the
hours upon a gong, chimes them upon bells, and is also provided with a
Burmese instrument which discourses sweet music at the quarters. A clock
like this relieves the unnatural stillness of midnight, and gets the
servants up early. A barometer is affixed to the case; this wind gauge
records the velocity of the draught between door and window; while the
burning glass registers the amount of sunshine received in this portion
of the room daily. Twice during the twenty-four hours this wooden
figure winds up an iron weight which, becoming detached at a certain
point, falls upon a detonating substance contained in this iron vessel.
The explosion occurs at noon and midnight."
"Ah, now I knows it ain't always cats," muttered the Dumpy Philosopher,
who lived about a hundred yards away.
"About four hours behind, ain't it, Captain?" remarked Squinting Jack.
"It does not profess to be a timekeeper," replied the Captain. "Any
ordinary clock will tell you the time. This does more--it instructs and
entertains. It keeps us alive at nights. I like a clock that announces
itself. Last Sunday evening, when in church, I distinctly heard the
explosion, the clock being then seven hours slow, and it seemed to me a
very homely sound."
"I hope Mrs. Drake ain't nervous," said one of the ladies.
"No, indeed," came the reply. "I lived for ten years next door to one of
the trade union halls. I find it very quiet here."
"I reckon this would be another clock," said the Gentle Shepherd,
staring at a grandfatherly shape in the corner.
"No, my friend, that is an Egyptian mummy."
"One o' they what used to go about on Christmas Eve in the gude old days
what be gone vor ever!" exclaimed the Yellow Leaf with great interest.
"Not a mummer, but a body, a corpse--dried up and withered," explained
the Captain.
"Same as I be nearly," murmured the Yellow Leaf; while some of the women
screamed and some giggled, one hoping the creature was quite dead,
another dreadfully afraid there had been a murder, and a third trusting
she wouldn't have to adorn some parlour when she was took.
"Can he do anything, Captain--sing and dance, or tell ye what the
weather's going to be?" asked Squinting Jack.
"'Tis a matter of taste, but I couldn't fancy corpses as furniture,"
observed the Dumpy Philosopher.
"What I ses is this," commented the Wallower in Wealth, "if I wur to dig
bodies out of churchyard, and sell 'em to folk as genuine antiquities, I
would have the policeman calling on me."
"You mustn't dig up Christians--that's blasphemy," said the Captain.
"This chap was a heathen king, one of the Pharaohs you read of in the
Bible, and he died thousands of years ago. He may have known Jacob and
Joseph--and I bought him for five bob."
"Ain't that wonderful!" exclaimed a lady.
"It do make they Children of Israel seem amazing real," admitted the
Gentle Shepherd.
"The remarkable object occupying the centre of the mantelpiece is a
Russian Ikon. It used to hang upon the quarterdeck of a battleship which
was lost in the Baltic," continued the Captain.
"I suppose 'tis useful vor navigating purposes," suggested the Dumpy
Philosopher.
"It is what the Russians call a holy picture. They say their prayers to
such things," shouted the Captain angrily.
"A queer lot of old stuff here along," said the Gentle Shepherd.
"A few articles are priceless," declared the proprietor. "These two
vases, for instance. They were looted from the royal palace at Pekin by
an English sailor lad who had intended them as a present for his
sweetheart; but, as he couldn't carry them about, he sold them to me for
ten shillings. An American gentleman offered me a hundred pounds for the
pair, but I wouldn't part with them for five times that amount. These
blue dragons are covered with a lustre known as glaze, which is now a
lost art. This portfolio of pictures also comes from China: there are
more than fifty, and each represents one of the various kinds of torture
commonly practised by Chinese magistrates upon people who are brought
before them, charged with such offences as forgetting to pay local
rates or being polite to foreigners. Here is the usual punishment for
omitting to lick the dust when a big-pot passes--being impaled upon
three stakes above a slow fire without the option of a fine."
"Nice pictures to look at on a Sunday evening," said Squinting Jack.
"The curiously twisted spike, which bears a close resemblance to iron,
and is indeed almost as heavy as that metal, was given me by an Egyptian
fellah, who said he had discovered it in the Assyrian desert," resumed
the Captain with somewhat less confidence. "It is supposed to be a horn
of that extinct animal the unicorn, but I don't guarantee it. According
to a mate who sailed with me once--a chap who knew a lot about animals,
and had taken prizes at dog shows--the unicorn had a hollow horn, and
this, you see, is solid."
"The Egyptian fellow had you, Captain. It is iron, and there's a mark
upon it that looks to me like a crown," declared the Wallower in Wealth,
who had commenced prosperity as a wheelwright.
"Don't that go to show it is genuine? Ain't the lion and unicorn
the--the motto of the crown of England?" demanded the Yellow Leaf.
"The beast wouldn't have a crown stamped on its horn when he drawed
breath," said Squinting Jack.
"I b'ain't so certain. I ha' seen rummy marks on a ram's horn," answered
the Gentle Shepherd.
"There are wonderful things in Nature," said the Captain. "When I was
off the coast of South Africa, I watched a big fish flap out of the
water, climb a tree, stuff itself with fruit, and then return to its
native element. It may be the unicorn was adopted as one of the
supporters of the Royal Arms, because it had this mark of a crown upon
the base of its horn."
"Some volk ses there never wur no unicorns," remarked the Dumpy
Philosopher.
"Plenty believe creation started after they were born," retorted the
Captain sharply. "The lion and the unicorn are the royal beasts of
England--any child knows that--and when all the lions have been shot,
lots of people will say there never were such creatures. If unicorns
never existed, how is it we possess pictures of the beast? How do we
know what 'twas like? How do we know its name, and how do we know it had
only one horn bang in the middle of its forehead?"
"That's the way to talk to unbelievers," chuckled the Yellow Leaf. "I
make no manner of doubt there wur plenty of unicorns; aye, and lions and
four footed tigers, and alligators too, in this here parish of
Highfield, though I don't seem to able call any of 'em to mind."
"'Tis an iron spike sure enough, and 'twur made in Birmingham,"
whispered the Wallower in Wealth to his nearest neighbour.
"The little creature in this glass case is a stuffed mermaid, supposed
to be about three months old," the Captain continued, indicating a
cleverly faked object, composed of the upper part of a monkey and the
tail of a hake. "I did not see it alive myself, but was told by the
inhabitant of Sumatra, from whom I bought it, he had found it upon a
rock at low tide crying piteously for its mother. He took it home, and
tried to rear it upon ass's milk, but the poor little thing did not live
many days. It was too young to show any intelligence."
"The ass's milk might ha' made it feel a bit silly like," suggested
Squinting Jack.
"Don't it seem a bit like slavery to ha' bought it?" asked a
tender-hearted matron.
"And a bit blasphemous to ha' stuffed the poor mite?" complained
another.
"Oh no, my dear ladies. These creatures do not possess immortal souls,"
replied the Captain.
"How be us to tell?" inquired the Dumpy Philosopher.
"Only creatures who can pray possess immortal souls," declared the
Captain piously. "When we pray we kneel. Mermaids cannot kneel because
they have no legs."
"There used to be a picture in the schuleroom of a camel on his knees,"
began Squinting Jack; but the Captain hurried off to the next object of
interest, which was a snuffbox composed of various woods inlaid with
mother of pearl.
"A tragic and mysterious relic of the French Revolution, found in the
hand of a Duke while his body was being removed for burial," he said in
his most impressive manner. "This box is supposed to possess a most
remarkable history, but it has not been opened since the original
owner's death."
"Will ye please to go on and tell us all about it," requested the Yellow
Leaf.
"It is the mystery of this box that nobody knows its history," came the
answer.
"Why don't ye open it, Captain?"
"The second mystery of this box is that the secret of opening it is
lost. It is alike on both sides, so that you cannot tell which is top
and which bottom."
"I'd open 'en quick enough," said the Wallower in Wealth.
"And smash they lovely pearls all to pieces!" cried a lady indignantly.
"'Twould be a pity to spoil a couple of mysteries," said Squinting Jack.
"That's how I feel about it. As it is, this snuffbox is a genuinely
romantic antique; but if we discovered its history--which I was assured
by some gentleman in Paris is most astounding, although entirely
unknown--it might lose a considerable part of its value. I have charged
my wife to present this box to the President of the French Republic
after I am taken from her. She is not bound to present it personally,
but may either entrust it to the registered post, or hand it to his
Excellency the French Ambassador at his official residence by
appointment, whichever course may be most pleasing to her," said the
Captain handsomely.
A number of curiosities sealed up in bottles were exhibited, and then
the Wallower in Wealth delivered a little speech he had prepared
beforehand. He began by mentioning that his cottage stood near the
garden of Windward House, and went on to explain how, upon certain
evenings, when shadows were lengthening, his soul had been soothed by
distant strains of sweetest music. His wife, who had no ear for harmony,
ventured to attribute these sounds to the rival choirs of cats on the
roof and owls in the trees; his mother-in-law, who was superstitious,
gave all credit to the pixies; his daughter, who was sentimental, had
gone so far as to suggest angelic visitors. But he was convinced the
sounds proceeded from Windward House. And he concluded by imploring the
Captain to entertain the company by a few selections upon his
gramophone.
Captain Drake replied that nothing so commonplace had ever disturbed
the silence of his abode. "Oriental music of the most classical
description is played here," he said, approaching a large black case
upon gilded legs and throwing back the lid. "This, ladies and gentlemen,
is the musical box, formerly in the possession of an Indian potentate,
and bestowed upon me in return for services which I could not mention
without appearing to glory in my sterling nobility of character, which
was one of the phrases employed during the ceremony of presentation. The
Maharajah offered me the choice of three gifts--a young lady, an
elephant, and this musical box. Being already married, and having no
room in my ship for a bulky pet, I--somewhat to the astonishment of my
generous benefactor--selected the musical box. There are only two others
like it in this world; one being in the possession of the Dalai Lama of
Tibet, while the other unfortunately reposes at the bottom of the
Atlantic. The small figures dressed as Chinamen--these boxes were made
in China, but the art is now lost--play upon various instruments after
the fashion of a military band. In a small room such as this the music
is somewhat harsh; but when heard from the garden it is, as our friend
here has said, exquisitely beautiful; the more so when the parrots sing
in unison."
"I thought parrots was like women; they just talked," said the Dumpy
Philosopher.
"They don't sing like nightingales," the Captain admitted. "But their
notes blend very pleasantly with instrumental music. Before we go
outside I will wind up the box; but here is one more interesting relic I
must show you. This Star beneath the glass case, although its rays are
now sadly tarnished, adorned at one time the coat of His Majesty King
George the First. Its history is fully set out upon the parchment
beneath. The thing does look worth twopence, I admit, but then you must
remember it was made in Germany, where they have always been fond of
cheap decorations, which could be worn at Court, and then hung upon
Christmas trees to amuse the children. According to this parchment,
which supplies us with documentary evidence--the writing is somewhat
blurred, as I was forced to use an uncommonly bad pen--this Star was
worn by His Majesty upon his arrival in England. The maid of honour,
whose duty it was to rub up the royal decorations, took the wrong bottle
one day, and used her own matchless preparation for the skin instead of
the usual cleaning mixture; and when all the pretty things turned black
she passed them on to a Jew, and told the king she was very sorry, but
she had accidentally dropped all his Hanoverian decorations down the
sink. What he said with the usual month's notice I can't tell you, but
probably he didn't care much, as he could buy stars and crosses and
eagles by the gross from the toymakers of the Black Forest cheap for
cash.
"This particular Star was cleaned by a patent process and sold to a
tailor, who stitched it on to a magnificent coat he had made for a young
Duke who had just stepped into the title; and he, after a time, passed
on coat and Star to his valet, who parted with them to a quack doctor,
well known as the discoverer of a certain cure for cataract. He had
already made about a score of people totally blind when he was called in
to attend a lady of quality; and when this lady's sight was destroyed,
her relatives invited the quack either to have his own eyes forcibly
treated with his ointment, or to clear out of the country. He soon made
up his mind, sold the coat and Star to a pedlar, and returned to
Germany, where he entered the diplomatic service and blinded a lot more
folk.
"The pedlar made his way up to Scotland and, meeting a very shabby old
fellow upon the road, sold him the coat and Star after the hardest bit
of bargaining he had ever known in his life. This old chap turned out to
be the first Duke in all Scotland, and he was driven to buy the finery
as he had been commanded to appear at Court. When he got to London in
his ramshackle old coach, he rubbed up the Star, put on the coat, inked
the seams a bit, then went to the Palace, where he found the King
playing dominoes with one of the English Dukes. 'Gott in Himmel!' cried
his Majesty, 'His Grace has got my old Star. I know it's mine, for 'twas
made in dear old Sharmany.' The Scot was trying to explain that the Star
had been made to order by his village blacksmith, when the English Duke
chimed in, 'And he's wearing one of my cast-off coats!' At this point
the manuscript breaks off abruptly.
"That's the true English history of this old Star, which I purchased for
sixpence from a sailor in whose family it had been an heirloom for the
last two hundred years."
"Ain't that wonderful!" exclaimed a lady.
"It do seem to make they old kings and Druid volk wonderful clear avore
us," murmured the Yellow Leaf.
The Captain led his guests into the garden, while George, after
laboriously collecting a handful of dead flies, followed, ready to
support his uncle if necessary, but still more anxious to support
himself.
"My cats are famous," said the Captain, approaching a building which had
been once a stable, and was now divided into two compartments; one with
a wired front for use in summer; the other closed and kept warm for
winter quarters. "I have now succeeded in obtaining a highly scientific
animal, combining the sleek beauty of the pure Persian with the
aggressive agility of the British species. For the last twenty years I
have supplied cats to the ships of the mercantile marine, and by so
doing have saved much of the commerce of this country; for a single rat
will destroy five shillings' worth of perishable cargo in one day; while
a single cat of my variety will readily account for fifty rats, not to
mention mice innumerable, during the same period. If you will reckon
sixty cats, let us say, supplied by me annually, each cat accounting for
fifty rats, again not reckoning mice innumerable, every day; if you will
add a dozen cats supplied, again by me, to dockyards and custom houses
swarming with vermin of every description, each rat doing damage to the
extent of some shillings daily, with smaller vermin doing the same
according to size and jaw power; if you will add sixty ships to twelve
dockyards, and add, let us say, twenty cats supplied from my stock to
foreign countries, reckoning in such cases in francs or dollars instead
of shillings, and making due allowance for the different tonnage of
vessels or dimensions of dockyards, if you will remember I have also
supplied most of the cats at present commissioned to kill rats and mice
upon the ships of the Royal Navy; and if you will include in your
estimate the Grimalkins I have sold, or given, to millers, warehousemen,
wholesale grocers, and provision merchants...."
"I reckon, Captain, that will come to about quarter of a million pounds
a year, not taking into account shillings and pence," broke in Squinting
Jack to free the Captain from his obvious difficulty.
"That is a moderate estimate; still I will accept it. Quarter of a
million pounds annually for twenty years, friends and neighbour! Have I
not done my part in liquidating the national debt?"
"Cats aren't what you might call nearly extinct animals same as they
unicorns. Us ha' got more home than us knows what to do with," remarked
a lady timidly.
"Us drowns 'em mostly," observed a matron who looked capable of doing
it.
"Not cats like these--the latest triumph of scientific inbreeding," the
Captain shouted.
"Oh no, sir! Ours be bred all nohow," said the timid lady.
"Don't the monkeys tease 'em, Captain?" asked the Gentle Shepherd.
"The simians have sufficient intelligence to understand that my felidæ
are famous for the claws. Beneath that tree," continued the Captain,
"about three paces from the side of my nephew, you see the giant
tortoise, which is the greatest antiquity that I possess--next, of
course, to the Egyptian mummy. That tortoise, my friends, has lived in
this world during the last five hundred years."
"Ain't that wonderful!" gasped a lady.
"I captured it upon the beach of one of the Galapagos Islands, where it
had just succeeded in laying an egg."
"Him lay eggs! Then all I can say is he'm the funniest old bird I ever
did set eyes on," cried a lady who was famous for her poultry.
"How did you manage to get hold of his birth certificate, Captain?"
asked Squinting Jack.
"Tortoises live for ever, if you let 'em alone--that's a proverbial
fact," stammered the Captain, somewhat taken aback. "You can tell his
age by--by merely glancing at his shell. This tortoise has his shell
covered with tarpaulin to prevent the newspaper cuttings from being
washed off by rain; but if it was removed you would see that the shell
is yellow. It is a well known scientific fact that the shell of a
tortoise is black during the first century of its life; takes on a
bluish tinge for the next two hundred years; and becomes mottled with
yellow when it approaches the enormous age of five hundred years."
"Same as me," said the Yellow Leaf sadly.