All really wonderful things happen rather suddenly and without any
great emphasis upon their wonderfulness, and this was no exception to
the general rule. This Author went on comforting his devil as though
this was nothing more than a chance encounter with an unhappy child,
and the devil let his grief and discomfort have vent in a manner that
seemed at the time as natural as anything could be. He was clearly a
devil of feeble character and uncertain purpose, much broken down by
harshness and cruelty, and it throws a curious light upon the general
state of misconception with regard to matters diabolical that it came
as a quite pitiful discovery to our Author that a devil could be
unhappy and heart-broken. For a long time his most earnest and
persistent questioning could gather nothing except that his guest was
an exile from a land of great warmth and considerable entertainment,
and it was only after considerable further applications of brandy and
pepper that the sobbing confidences of the poor creature grew into the
form of a coherent and understandable narrative.
And then it became apparent that this person was one of the very
lowest types of infernal denizen, and that his role in the dark realms
of Dis had been that of watcher and minder of a herd of sinister
beings hitherto unknown to our Author, the Devil's Wild Asses, which
pastured in a stretch of meadows near the Styx. They were, he
gathered, unruly, dangerous, and enterprising beasts, amenable only to
a certain formula of expletives, which instantly reduced them to
obedience. These expletives the stoker-devil would not repeat; to do
so except when actually addressing one of the Wild Asses would, he
explained, involve torments of the most terrible description. The bare
thought of them gave him a shivering fit. But he gave the Author to
understand that to crack these curses as one drove the Wild Asses to
and from their grazing on the Elysian fields was a by no means
disagreeable amusement. The ass-herds would try who could crack the
loudest until the welkin rang.
And speaking of these things, the poor creature gave a picture of
diabolical life that impressed the Author as by no means unpleasant
for any one with a suitable constitution. It was like the Idylls of
Theocritus done in fire; the devils drove their charges along burning
lanes and sat gossiping in hedges of flames, rejoicing in the warm,
dry breezes (which it seems are rendered peculiarly bracing by the
faint flavour of brimstone in the air), and watching the harpies and
furies and witches circling in the perpetual afterglow of that
inferior sky. And ever and again there would be holidays, and one
would take one's lunch and wander over the sulphur craters picking
flowers of sulphur or fishing for the souls of usurers and publishers
and house-agents and land-agents in the lakes of boiling pitch. It was
good sport, for the usurers and publishers and house-agents and
land-agents were always eager to be caught; they crowded round the
hooks and fought violently for the bait, and protested vehemently and
entertainingly against the Rules and Regulations that compelled their
instant return to the lake of fire.
And sometimes when he was on holiday this particular devil would go
through the saltpetre dunes, where the witches-brooms grow and the
blasted heath is in flower, to the landing-place of the ferry whence
the Great Road runs through the shops and banks of the Via Dolorosa to
the New Judgement Hall, and watch the crowds of damned arriving by the
steam ferry-boats of the Consolidated Charon Company. This
steamboat-gazing seems about as popular down there as it is at
Folkestone. Almost every day notable people arrive, and, as the devils
are very well informed about terrestrial affairs--for of course all
the earthly newspapers go straight to hell--whatever else could one
expect?--they get ovations of an almost undergraduate intensity. At
times you can hear their cheering or booing, as the case may be, right
away on the pastures where the Wild Asses feed. And that had been this
particular devil's undoing.
He had always been interested in the career of the Rt. Hon. W. E.
Gladstone....
He was minding the Wild Asses. He knew the risks. He knew the
penalties. But when he heard the vast uproar, when he heard the eager
voices in the lane of fire saying, "It's Gladstone at last!" when he
saw how quietly and unsuspiciously the Wild Asses cropped their
pasture, the temptation was too much. He slipped away. He saw the
great Englishman landed after a slight struggle. He joined in the
outcry of "Speech! Speech!" He heard the first delicious promise of a
Home Rule movement which should break the last feeble links of
Celestial Control....
And meanwhile the Wild Asses escaped--according to the rules and the
prophecies....