this anxiety has made me as empty in myself as a clean saucer."
"Just what I was saying; if you are hungry, you can----"
"Say that again, say it just once more," she said, and her eyes grew
narrow as she said it, "and I shall----"
"What shall you do?" I asked, for she stopped suddenly.
She calmed herself. "Oh, you know how it is when one's been all
excited-like and worked up; we all say more than we mean. But that about
dry bread! Well, there! I simply can't bear it. It's a wicked, cruel
untruth, that's what it is; and besides, you _can't_ be going to eat all
the whole of what she's put down for you." Excitement was coming on
again, and she ended with a loud ill-tempered mew.
Well, I gave her what she seemed to want, and shortly after, worn out
doubtless with the fatigues of the day, she went to sleep on a chair,
not even caring to follow the maid downstairs when things were cleared
away.
VI
THE CAT, WAG, SLIM AND OTHERS
I got out my precious casket. I sat by the window and watched. The moon
shone out, the lid of the box loosened in due course, and I touched my
forehead with the ointment. But neither at once nor for some little time
after did I notice any fresh power coming to me.
With the moon, up came also the little town, and no sooner were the
doors of the houses level with the grass than the boys were out of them
and running in some numbers towards my window; in fact, some slipped out
of their own windows, not waiting for the doors to be available. Wag was
the first. Slim, more sedate, came among the crowd that followed. These
were still the only two who felt no hesitation about talking to me. The
others were all fully occupied in exploring the room.
"To-morrow," I said (after some sort of how-do-you-do's had been
exchanged), "you'll be flying all over the place, I suppose."
"Yes," said Wag, shortly. "But I want to know--I say, Slim, what was it
we wanted first?"
"Wasn't there a message from your father?" said Slim.
"Oh, yes, of course. 'If they're about the house,' he said, 'give them
horseshoes; if there's a bat-ball, squirt at it': he thinks there's a
squirt in the tool-house--Oh, there's the cat; I must----" After
delivering all this in one sentence, he rushed to the edge of the table
and took a kind of header into the midst of the unfortunate animal, who,
however, only moaned or crowed without waking, and turned partly over on
her back.
Slim remained sitting on a book and gazing soberly at me.
"Well," I said, "it's very kind of Wag's father to send me a message,
but I must say I can't make much of it."
Slim nodded. "So he said, and he said you'd see when the time came; of
course I don't know, myself; I've never seen a bat-ball. Wag says he
has, but you never know with Wag."
"Well, I must do the best I can, I suppose; but look here, Slim, I wish
you could tell me one or two things. What _are_ you? What do they call
you?"
"They call me Slim: and the whole of us they call the Right People,"
said Slim; "but it's no good asking us much, because we don't know, and
besides, it isn't good for us."
"How do you mean?"
"Why, you see, our job is to keep the little things right, and if we do
more than that, or if we try to find out much more, then we burst."
"And is that the end of you?"
"Oh, no!" he said cheerfully, "but that's one of the things it's no good
asking."
"And if you don't do your job, what then?"
"Oh, then they get smaller and have no sense." (He said _they_, not
_we_, I noticed.)
"I see. Well now, you go to school, don't you?" He nodded. "What for?
Isn't that likely to be bad for you?" (I hardly liked to say "make you
burst.")
"No," he said; "you see, it's to learn our job. We have to be told what
used to go on, so as we can put things right, or keep them right. And
the owls, you see, they remember a long way back, but they don't know
any more than we do about the swell things."
I was very shy about putting the next question I had in mind, but I felt
I must. "Now do you know how old you are, or how long it takes you to
grow up, or how--how long you go on when you _are_ grown up!"
He pressed his hands to his head, and I was dreadfully afraid for the
moment that it might be swelling and would burst; but it was not so bad
as that. After a few seconds he looked up and said:
"I think it's seven times seven moons since I went to school and seven
times seven times seven moons before I grow up; and the rest is no good
asking. But it's all right"; upon which he smiled.
And this, I may say, was the most part of what I ventured to ask any of
them about themselves. But at other times I gathered that as long as
they "did their job" nothing could injure them; and they were regularly
measured--all of them--to see if they were getting smaller, and a
careful record kept. But if anyone lost as much as a quarter of his
height, he was doomed, and he crept off out of the settlement. Whether
such a one ever came back I could not be sure; most of the failures (and
they were not common) went and lived in hollow trees or by brooks, and
were happy enough, but in a feeble way, not remembering much, nor able
to make anything; and it was supposed that very slowly they shrunk to
the size of a pin's point, and probably to nothing. All the same, it was
believed that they _could_ recover. Many other things that _you_ would
have asked, I did not, being anxious to avoid giving trouble.
But this time, anyhow, I felt I had catechized Slim long enough, so I
broke off and said:
"What can Wag be doing all this while?"
"There's no knowing," said Slim. "But he's very quiet for him; either
he's doing something awful, or he's asleep."
"I saw him with the cat last," I said; "you might go and look at her."
He walked to the edge of the table, and said, "Why, he _is_ asleep!" And
so he was, with his head on the cat's chest, under her chin, which she
had turned up; and she had put her front paws together over the top of
his head. As for the others, I descried them sitting in a circle in a
corner of the room, also very quiet. (I imagine they were a little
afraid of doing much without Wag, and also of waking him.) But I could
not make out what they were doing, so I asked Slim.
"Racing earwigs, I should think," he said, with something of contempt.
"Well, I hope they won't leave them about when they go. I don't like
earwigs."
"Who does?" he said; "but they'll take them away all right; they're
prize ones, some of them."
I went over and looked at the racing for a little. The course was neatly
marked out with small lights sprouting out of the boards, and the circle
was at the winning-post, the starters being at the other end, some six
feet away. I watched one heat. The earwigs seemed to me neither very
speedy nor very intelligent, and all except one were apt to stop in
mid-course and engage in personal encounters with each other.
I was beginning to wonder how long this would go on, when Wag woke up.
Like most of us, he was not willing to allow that he had been asleep.
"I thought I'd just lie down a bit," he said, "and then I didn't want to
bustle your cat, so I stopped there. And now I want to know--Slim, I
say, what was it you were asking me?"
"Me asking you? I don't know."
"Oh, yes, you do; what he was doing the other time before we came in."
"I didn't ask you that; you asked me."
"Well, it doesn't matter who asked." (Turning to me): "What _were_ you
doing?"
"I don't know," I said. "Was it these things I was using" (taking up a
pack of cards), "or something like this?" (I held up a book.)
"Yes, that one. What were you doing with it? What's it for?"
"We call it reading a book," and I tried to explain what the idea was,
and read out a few lines; it happened to be _Pickwick_. They were
absorbed. Slim said, half to himself, "Something like a glass," which I
thought quite meaningless at the time. Then I showed them a picture in
another book. That they made out very quickly.
"But when's it going to move on?" said Slim.
"Never," I said. "Ours stop just like that always. Do yours move on?"
"Of course they do; look here." He lay down on the tablecloth and
pressed his forehead on it, but evidently could make nothing of it.
"It's all rough," he said. I gave him a sheet of paper. "That's better;"
and he lay down again in the same posture for a few seconds. Then he got
up and began rubbing the paper all over with the palms of his hands. As
he did so a coloured picture came out pretty quickly, and when it was
finished he drew aside to let me see, and said, somewhat bashfully, "I
don't think I've got it _quite_ right, but I meant it for what happened
the other evening." He had certainly not got it right as far as I was
concerned. It was a view of the window of the house, seen from outside
by moonlight, and there was a back view of a row of figures with their
elbows on the sill. So far, so good; but inside the open window was
standing a figure which was plainly--much too plainly, I thought--meant
for me; far too short and fat, far too red-faced, and with an owlish
expression which I am sure I never wear. This person was now seen to
move his hand--a very poor hand, with only about three fingers--to his
side, and pull, apparently, out of his body, a round object more or less
like a watch (at any rate it was white on one side with black marks, and
yellow on the other) and lay it down in front of him. At this the
figures at the window-sill threw up their arms in all directions and
fell or slid down like so many dolls. Then the picture began to get
fainter, and disappeared from the paper. Slim looked at me expectantly.
"Well," I said, "it's very interesting to see how you do it, but is that
the best likeness of me that you can make?"
"What's wrong with it?" said he. "Isn't it handsome enough or
something?"
I heard Wag throw himself down on the table, and, looking at him, I saw
that he had got both hands pressed over his mouth.
"May I ask what the joke is?" I said rather dryly (for it is surprising
how touchy one can be over one's personal appearance, even at my time of
life). He looked up for an instant at me, and then gasped and hid his
face again. Slim went up to him and kicked him in the ribs.
"Where's your manners?" he said in a loud whisper. Wag rolled over and
sat up, wiping his eyes.
"I'm very sorry," he said. "I'm sure I don't know what I was laughing
for." Slim whistled. "Well," said Wag, "what _was_ I?"
"Him, of course, and you know perfectly well!"
"Oh, was I? Well, perhaps you'll tell me what there is to laugh at about
him?" said Wag, rather basely, I thought; so, as Slim put his finger to
his lip and looked unhappy, I interrupted.
"Get up a minute, Wag," I said. "I want to see something."
"What?" said he, jumping up at once.
"Stand back to back with Slim, if you don't mind. That's it. Dear me! I
thought you were taller than that--you looked to me taller last night.
My mistake, I dare say. All right, thanks." But there they stood, gazing
at each other with horror, and I felt I had been trifling with a most
serious subject, so I laughed and said, "Don't disturb yourselves. I was
only chaffing you, Wag, because you seemed to be doing something of the
kind to me."
Slim understood, and heaved a sigh of relief. Wag sat down on a book and
looked reproachfully upon me. Neither said a word. I was very much
ashamed, and begged their pardon as nicely as I knew how. Luckily Wag
was soon convinced that I was not in earnest, and he recovered his
spirits directly.
"All _right_," he said, nodding at me; "did I hear you say you didn't
like earwigs? That's worth remembering, Slim."
This reduced me at once; I tried to point out that he had begun it, and
that it would be a mean revenge, and very hard on the earwigs, if he
filled my room with them, for I should be obliged to kill all I could.
"Why," he said, "they needn't be real earwigs; my own tickle every bit
as much as real ones."
This was no better for me, and I tried to make more appeals to his
better feelings. He did not seem to be listening very attentively,
though his eyes were fixed on me.
"What's that on your neck?" he said suddenly, and at the same moment I
felt a procession of legs walking over my skin. I brushed at it hastily,
and something seemed to fall on the table. "No, the other side I mean,"
said he, and again I felt the same horrid tickling and went through the
same exercises, with a face, I've no doubt, contorted with terror.
Anyhow, it seemed to amuse them very much; Wag, in fact, was quite
unable to speak, and could only point. It was dull of me not to have
realized at once that these were "his" earwigs and not real ones. But
now I did, and though I still felt the tickling, I did not move, but sat
down and gazed severely at him. Soon he got the better of his mirth and
said, "I think we are quits now." Then, with sudden alarm, "I say,
what's become of the others? The bell hasn't gone, has it?"
"How should I know?" I said. "If you hadn't been making all this
disturbance, perhaps we might have heard it."
He took a flying leap--an extraordinary feat it was--from the edge of
the table to a chair in the window, scrambled up to the sill, and gazed
out. "It's all right," he said, in a faint voice of infinite relief; let
himself down limply to the floor, and climbed slowly up my leg to his
former place.
"Well," I said, "the bell hasn't gone, it seems, but where are the rest?
I've hardly seen anything of them."
"Oh, _you_ go and find 'em, Slim; I'm worn out with all these frights."
Slim went to the farther end of the table, prospected, and returned. He
reported them "all right, but they're having rather a slow time of it, I
think." I, too, got up, walked round, and looked; they were seated in a
solemn circle on the floor round the cat, who was now curled up and fast
asleep on a round footstool. Not a word was being said by anybody. I
thought I had better address them, so I said:
"Gentlemen, I'm afraid I've been very inattentive to you this evening.
Isn't there anything I can do to amuse you? Won't you come up on the
table? You're welcome to walk up my leg if you find that convenient."
I was almost sorry I had spoken the moment after, for they made but one
rush at my legs as I stood by the table, and the sensation was rather
like that, I imagine, of a swarm of rats climbing up one's trousers.
However, it was over in a few seconds, and all of them--over a
dozen--were with Wag and Slim on the table, except one, who, whether by
mistake or on purpose, went on climbing me by way of my waistcoat
buttons, rather deliberately, until he reached my shoulder. I didn't
object, of course, but I turned round (which made him catch at my ear)
and went back to my chair, seated in which I felt rather as if I was
presiding at a meeting. The one on my shoulder sat down and, I thought,
folded his arms and looked at his friends with some triumph. Wag
evidently took this to be a liberty.
"My word!" he said, "what do you mean by it, Wisp? Come off it!"
Wisp was a little daunted, as I judged by his fidgeting somewhat, but
put a bold face on it and said, "Why should I come off?"
I put in a word: "I don't mind his being here."
"I dare say not; that's not the point," said Wag. "Are you coming down?"
"No," said Wisp, "not for you." But his tone was rather blustering than
brave.
"Very well, don't then," said Wag; and I expected him to run up and pull
Wisp down by the legs, but he didn't do that. He took something out of
the breast of his tunic, put it in his mouth, lay down on his stomach,
and, with his eyes on Wisp, puffed out his cheeks. Two or three seconds
passed, during which I felt Wisp shifting about on his perch, and
breathing quickly. Then he gave a sharp shriek, which went right through
my head, slipped rapidly down my chest and legs and on to the floor,
where he continued to squeal and to run about like a mad thing, to the
great amusement of everyone on the table.
Then I saw what was the matter. All round his head were a multitude of
little sparks, which flew about him like a swarm of bees, every now and
then settling and coming off again, and, I suppose, burning him every
time; if he beat them off, they attacked his hands, so he was in a bad
way. After watching him for about a minute from the edge of the table,
Wag called out:
"Do you apologize?"
"Yes!" he screamed.
"All right," said Wag; "stand still! stand still, you bat! How can I get
'em back if you don't?" Wag was back to me and I couldn't see what he
did, but Wisp sat down on the carpet free of sparks, and wiped his face
and neck with his handkerchief for some time, while the rest gradually
recovered from their laughter. "You can come up again now," said Wag;
and so he did, though he was slow and shy about it.
"Why didn't he send sparks at Wag?" said I to Slim.
"He hasn't got 'em to send," was the answer. "It's only the Captain of
the moon."
"Well now, what about a little peace and quiet?" I said. "And, you know,
I've never been introduced to you all properly. Wouldn't it be a good
idea to do that, before the bell goes?"
"Very well," said Wag. "We'll _do_ it properly. You bring 'em up one at
a time, Slim, and" (to me) "you put your sun-hand out on the table."
(_I_: "Sun-hand?"
_Wag_: "Yes, sun-hand; don't you know?" He held up his right hand, then
his left: "Sun-hand, Moon-hand, Day-hand, Night-hand, Star-hand,
Cloud-hand, and so on."
_I_: "Thank you.")
This was done, and meanwhile Slim formed the troop into a queue and
beckoned them up one by one. Wag stood on a book on the right and
proclaimed the name of each. First he had made me arrange my right hand
edgeways on the table, with the forefinger out. Then "Gold!" said Wag.
Gold stepped forward and made a lovely bow, which I returned with an
inclination of my head, then took as much of my forefinger top joint in
his right hand as he could manage, bent over it and shook it or tried
to, and then took up a position on the left and watched the next comer.
The ceremony was the same for everyone, but not all the bows were
equally elegant; some of the boys were jocular, and shook my finger with
both hands and a great display of effort. These were frowned upon by
Wag. The names (I need not set them all down now) were all of the same
kind as you have heard; there was Red, Wise, Dart, Sprat, and so on.
After Wisp, who came last and was rather humble, Wag called out Slim,
and, after him, descended and presented himself in the same form.
"And now," he said, "perhaps you'll tell us _your_ name."
I did so (one is always a little shamefaced about it, I don't know why)
in full. He whistled.
"Too much," he said; "what's the easiest you can do?"
After some thought I said, "What about M or N?"
"Much better! If M's all right for you, it'll do for us." So M was
agreed upon.
I was still rather afraid that the rank and file had been passing a dull
evening and would not come again, and I tried to express as much to
them. But they said:
"Dull? Oh no, M; why we've found out all sorts of things!"
"Really? What sort of things?"
"Well, inside the wall in that corner there's the biggest spider I've
ever seen, for one thing."
"Good gracious!" I said. "I hate 'em. I hope it can't get out?"
"It would have to-night if we hadn't stopped up the hole. Something's
been helping it to gnaw through."
"Has it?" said Wag. "My word! that looks bad. What was it made the
hole?"
Some called out, "A bat," and some "A rat."
"It doesn't matter much for that," said Slim, "so long as it's safe now.
Where is it?"
"Gone down to the bottom and saying awful things," Red answered.
"Well, I _am_ obliged to you," I said. "Anything else?"
"There's a lot of this stuff under the floor," said Dart, pointing with
his foot at a half-crown which lay on the table.
"Is there? Whereabouts?" said I. "Oh, but I was forgetting; I can look
after that myself."
"Yes, of course you can," they said; "and lots of things happened here
before you came. We were watching. The old man and the woman, they were
the worst, weren't they, Red?"
"Do you mean you've been here before?" I asked.
"No, no, but to-night we were looking at them, like we do at school."
This was beyond me, and I thought it would be of no use to ask for more
explanations. Besides, just at this moment we heard the bell. They all
clambered down either me or the chairs or the tablecloth. Slim lingered
a moment to say, "You'll look out, won't you?" and then followed the
rest on to the window-sill, where, taking the time from Captain Wag,
they all stood in a row, bowed with their caps off, straightened up
again, each sang one note, which combined into a wonderful chord, faced
round and disappeared. I followed them to the window and saw the
inhabitants of the house separating and going to their homes with the
young ones capering round them. One or two of the elders--Wag's father
in particular--looked up at me, paused in their walk, and bowed gravely,
which courtesy I returned. I went on gazing until the lawn was a blank
once more, and then, closing and fastening the sitting-room window, I
betook myself to the bedroom.
VII
THE BAT-BALL
It had certainly been an eventful day and evening, and I felt that my
adventures could not be quite at an end yet, for I had still to find out
what new power or sense the Fourth Jar had brought me. I stood and
thought, and tried quite vainly to detect some difference in myself. And
then I went to the window and drew the curtain aside and looked out on
the road, and within a few minutes I began to understand.
There came walking rapidly along the road a young man, and he turned in
at the garden gate and came straight up the path to the house door. I
began to be surprised, not at his coming, for it was not so very late,
but at the look of him. He was young, as I said, rather red-faced, but
not bad-looking; of the class of a farmer, I thought. He wore biggish
brown whiskers--which is not common nowadays--and his hair was rather
long at the back--which also is not common with young men who want to
look smart--but his hat, and his clothes generally, were the really odd
part of him. The hat was a sort of low top-hat, with a curved brim; it
spread out at the top and it was brushed rough instead of smooth. His
coat was a blue swallow-tail with brass buttons. He had a broad tie
wound round and round his neck, and a Gladstone collar. His trousers
were tight all the way down and had straps under his feet. To put it in
the dullest, shortest way, he was "dressed in the fashion of eighty or
ninety years ago," as we read in the ghost stories. Evidently he knew
his way about very well. He came straight up to the front door and, as
far as I could tell, into the house, but I did not hear the door open
or shut or any steps on the stairs. He must, I thought, be in my
landlady's parlour downstairs.
I turned away from the window, and there was the next surprise. It was
as if there was no wall between me and the sitting-room. I saw straight
into it. There was a fire in the grate, and by it were sitting face to
face an old man and an old woman. I thought at once of what one of the
boys had said, and I looked curiously at them. They were, you would have
said, as fine specimens of an old-fashioned yeoman and his wife as
anyone could wish to see. The man was hale and red-faced, with grey
whiskers, smiling as he sat bolt upright in his arm-chair. The old lady
was rosy and smiling too, with a smart silk dress and a smart cap, and
tidy ringlets on each side of her face--a regular picture of wholesome
old age; and yet I hated them both. The young man, their son, I suppose,
was in the room standing at the door with his hat in his hand, looking
timidly at them. The old man turned half round in his chair, looked at
him, turned down the corners of his mouth, looked across at the old
lady, and they both smiled as if they were amused. The son came farther
into the room, put his hat down, leaned with both hands on the table,
and began to speak (though nothing could be heard) with an earnestness
that was painful to see, because I could be certain his pleading would
be of no use; sometimes he spread out his hands and shook them, every
now and again he brushed his eyes. He was very much moved, and so was I,
merely watching him. The old people were not; they leaned forward a
little in their chairs and sometimes smiled at each other--again as if
they were amused. At last he had done, and stood with his hands before
him, quivering all over. His father and mother leaned back in their
chairs and looked at each other. I think they said not a single word.
The son caught up his hat, turned round, and went quickly out of the
room. Then the old man threw back his head and laughed, and the old lady
laughed too, not so boisterously.