A DAY HAS COME
MARIA'S PARTICULAR ADVENTURE
The day was hardly born, and still unsure of itself, when a robin with
its tail cocked up stood up alertly on the window-sill of Uncle Felix's
bedroom, peeped in through the open sash, and noticed the objects in
front of it with a certain deliberation.
These objects were half in shadow, but, unlike those it was most
familiar with, they did not move in the breeze that stirred the world
outside. The robin had just swung up from a lilac branch below. Its
toes were spread to their full extent for balancing purposes. It peeped
busily in all directions. Then, suddenly, a big object at the far end
of the darkened room moved slowly underneath a mass of white, as Uncle
Felix, aware that some one was watching him, rolled over in his bed,
opened his sleepy eyes, and stared. At the same moment the robin
twitched, and fixed its brilliant glance upon him. It had found the
particular object that it sought.
Uncle Felix, somewhat dazed by sleep and dreams, saw the tight, fat
body of the bird outlined against the open sky, but thought at first it
was an eagle or a turkey, until perspective righted itself, and enabled
him to decide that it was a robin only. He saw its scut tail pointing.
And, from the attitude of the bird, of its cocked-up tail, the angle of
its neck and head, to say nothing of the inquisitive way it peeped
sideways at him over the furniture, he realised that it had come in
with a definite purpose--a purpose that concerned himself. In a word,
it had something to communicate.
"Odd!" he thought drowsily, as he met its piercing eye. "A robin in my
room at dawn! I wonder what it's up to?"
Then, remembering vaguely that he expected somebody or something out of
the ordinary, he made a peculiar noise that seemed to meet the case: he
tried to whistle at it. But his lips, being rather dry, made instead a
hissing sound that would have frightened most robins out of the room at
once. On this particular bird, however, the effect was just the
opposite. It hopped self-consciously on to the dressing-table,
fluttered next to the arm-chair, and the same second dropped out of
sight behind the end of the four-poster bed. It acted, that is, with
decision; it was making distinct advances.
He sat up then in order to see it better, and discovered it perched
saucily upon the toe of his evening shoe, looking deliberately into his
face as it rose above the bed-clothes.
"Come along," he said, making his voice as soft as possible, "and tell
me what you want."
His expression tried to convey that he was harmless, and he smiled to
counteract the effect of his bristling hair which stuck out at right
angles as it only can stick out on waking. He felt complimented by the
visit of the bird, and did not wish to frighten it. But the Robin,
accustomed to seeing scarecrows in the dawn, showed not the slightest
fear; on the contrary, it showed interest and a simple, innocent
affection too. It fluttered up on to the rail between the bed-posts,
almost within reach of his stretched-out hand; its flexible toes
clutched the bar as though it were a twig; it moved first two inches to
the right, then two inches to the left again, then held steady. It next
flicked its tail, and cocked its small head sideways, as if about to
deliver a speech or message it had learned by heart; stared intently
into the bearded human visage close in front of it; abruptly opened its
wings; whirred them with a rapidity that made a sound like a shower of
peas striking a taut sheet; and then, with a single, exquisitely-chosen
curve--vanished through the open window and was gone.
"Well," murmured the confused and astonished man, "if anything means
anything, that does. Only, I wonder what it _does_ mean!"
He was a little startled, and he remained in a sitting position for
some minutes, staring at the open window, and hoping the robin would
return. Somehow he did not think it would, but he hoped it might. The
robin, however, made no sign. And, meanwhile, the dawn slipped higher
up the sky, showing the groups of trees with greater sharpness. A
draught of morning air came in.
"The dawn!" he thought; "how marvellous! Perhaps the robin came to show
me that." He sniffed the fresh perfume of dew and leaves and earth that
rise for a moment with the early light, then fade away. "Or that!" he
added, pausing to enjoy the delicate fragrance. "But for the bird I
should have slept, and missed them both. I wonder!"
He wished he were dressed and out upon the lawn; but the bed was
enticing, and it was no easy thing to get up and wash and put on eleven
separate articles of clothing. What a pity he was not dressed like a
bird in one garment only! What a pity he could not wash himself by
flying through a rushing shower of sweet rain! By the time his clothes
were on, and he had made his way downstairs, and unlocked the big
chained doors, all this strange, wild emotion would have evaporated. If
only he could have landed with a single curve among the flower-beds, as
the robin did! Besides, he would feel hungry, and a worm...!
The warmth of the bed crept upwards towards his eyes; the eyelids
dropped of their own accord; his weight sank slowly downwards; the
pillow was smooth as cream. He remembered Judy saying once that, if a
war came, she would go out and "soothe pillows." A pillow was, indeed,
a very soothing thing. His head sank backwards into a mass of feathery
sensations like a flock of dreams. He drew a long, deep breath. He
began to forget a number of things, and to remember a number of other
things. They mingled together, they became indistinguishable. What were
they? He could make a selection--choose those he liked best, and leave
the others--couldn't he? Why not, indeed? Why not?
One was that the clocks had stopped for twenty-four hours and that an
extra, unused day was dawning; another, that To-day was Sunday. He
could make his choice. Yet all days, surely, were unused till they
came! True; but clocks decreed and regulated their length. _This_ Extra
Day, having been overlooked long ago, was beyond the reach of measuring
clocks. No clocks had ever ticked it into passing. It could never pass.
Only the present passed. The Past, to which this day belonged, remained
where it was, endless, beginningless, self-repeating. He chose it
without more ado. And the robin had come to mention something about it.
Its small round body was full, its head tight packed with what it had
to tell. It was bursting with information. But what--?
And then he realised abruptly another thing: It _had_ delivered its
message.
The presence of the bird had announced a change of conditions in the
room, a change in his heart and brain as well. But how? He was too
drowsy to decide quite; yet in some way the robin had brought in with
it the dawn of an unusual day, a kind of bird-day, light as a feather,
swift as a flashing wing, spontaneous--air, freedom, escape, sweet
brilliance, a thing of flowers, winds, and beauty, a thing of innocence
and captivating loveliness, a happy, dancing day. He felt a new sort of
knowledge pass darting through him, a new point of view, almost a
bird's-eye aspect of old familiar things--joy. That neat, sharp beak
had pricked his imagination into swifter life. The meaning of the
bird's announcement flowed with delicate power all through his drowsy
body. It summed itself up in this:--Somebody, Something, long expected,
at last was coming....
And then he incontinently fell asleep. He lost consciousness. But,
while he lay heavily upon his soothing pillow, the marvellous Dawn slid
higher up the sky, and the robin popped up once upon the window-sill
again, glanced sideways at him with approval, then flashed away so
close above the soaking lawn that the dew-drops quivered as it passed.
Apparently, it was satisfied.
At the same moment, in another part of the old house, Tim found his
sleep disturbed in a similar fashion; a shrill twittering beneath the
eaves mingled with his dreams. He shook a toe and wrinkled up his nose.
He woke. His bedroom, being on the top floor, was lighter than those
below; there were no trees to cast shadows or obstruct the dawn.
Tim rubbed his eyes, yawned, scratched, then pattered over to the
window to see what all the noise was about. In his night-shirt he
looked like a skinny bird with folded wings of white, as he leaned
forward and stuck his head out into the morning air. Upon the strip of
back-lawn below, the swallows, who had been chattering so loudly
overhead, stood in an active group. Clutching the cold iron bars, and
resting his chin upon the topmost one, he watched them. He had never
before seen swallows on the ground like that; he associated them with
the upper sky. It was odd to see them standing instead of flying; their
behaviour seemed not quite normal; there was commotion of an unusual
kind among them. A grey cat, stalking them warily down the stable path,
came near yet did not trouble them; they felt no alarm. They strutted
about like a lot of black-frocked parsons at a congress; they looked as
if they had hands tucked behind their pointed coat-tails. They were
talking among themselves--discussing something. And from time to time
they shot upward glances at the window just above them--at himself.
"I believe they want me to look at something or other," the boy thought
vaguely. It seemed as if he had picked them out of a dream and put them
there upon the lawn. He felt dazed and happy; he had been dreaming of
curious wild things. Where was he? What had happened? "It feels just
like something coming," he decided, "or somebody. Some one's about in
the grounds, perhaps...!"
It was very exciting to be awake at such an unearthly hour; the sun was
still below the edge of the gigantic earth! A great, slow thrill stole
up into his heart. He noticed the streaks of colour in the sky, and
felt the chilly wind. "It's sunrise!" he exclaimed, rubbing one naked
foot against the other; "that's what it is. And I'm up to see it!"
The thrill merged into a deep, huge sense of wonder that enthralled
him. At the same moment the swallows, disturbed by his voice, looked up
with one accord, then rose in a single sweep and whirled off into the
upper air, wings faintly tinged with gold. They scattered. Tim watched
them for a little while, dimly aware that he watched something
"perfectly magnificent." His eyes followed one bird after another,
caught in a sudden little rapture he could not understand... then
turned and saw his bed, flushed with early pink, across the room. With
a running jump he landed among the sheets, rolled himself up into a
ball, and promptly fell asleep again. It was not yet four o'clock.
Across the landing, meanwhile, Judy, wakened by a brush of feathery
wind, was at her window too. She felt very sure of something, although
she didn't in the least know what. It was the same thing that Tim and
Uncle Felix knew, only they knew they didn't know it, whereas she
didn't know she knew it. Her knowledge, therefore, was greater than
theirs.
The room was touched with soft grey light; it was to the west, and the
night still clung about the furniture. Like a ball in a saucer, Maria
lay asleep in bed against the opposite wall, her neutrality to all that
was going on absolute as usual. But Judy did not wake her, she
preferred to live alone; she knew that she was alive in her night-gown
between night and morning, and that was an unusual pleasure she wished
to enjoy without interference. For months she had not waked before
half-past seven. The excitement of the unfamiliar was in her heart. She
had caught the earth asleep--surprised it. For the first time in her
life she saw "the Earth." She discovered it.
She knelt on a chair beside the open window, peering out, and as she
did so, a strange, wild cry came sounding through the stillness. It was
like a bugle-call, but she knew no human lips had made it. She glanced
quickly in the direction whence it came--the pond--and the next instant
the reeds about the edge parted and the thing that had emitted the
curious wild cry emerged plainly into view. It was a pompous-looking
creature. It came out waddling.
"It's the up-and-under bird," exclaimed Judy in a whisper. "Something's
happening!"
It was a water-fowl, a creature whose mysterious habit of living upon
the surface of the pond as well as underneath made the children's
nick-name a necessity. And now it was attempting a raid on land as
well. But land was not its natural place. Something certainly had
happened, or was going to happen.
"It's a snopportunity," decided Judy instantly. Far more than an
opportunity, a snopportunity was something to be snapped up quickly,
the sort of thing that ordinarily happened behind one's back, usually
discovered too late to be made use of. "I've caught it!" She remembered
that the clocks had stopped, yet not knowing why she remembered it. It
was the thing she didn't know she knew. She knew it before it happened.
That was a snopportunity.
She watched the heavy bird for a considerable time as it slowly
appropriated the land it had no right to. It moved, she thought, like a
twisted drum on very short drumsticks. It had a water-logged
appearance. It was bird and fish ordinarily, but now it was pretending
to be animal as well--a thing that flew, swam, walked. Its webbed feet
patted the ground complacently. It came laboriously towards the wall of
the house, then halted. It paused a moment, then turned its eyes up,
while Judy turned hers down. The pair of creatures looked at one
another steadily for several seconds.
"You're not out for nothing," exclaimed Judy audibly. "So now I know!"
The reply was neither in the affirmative nor in the negative. The
up-and-under bird said nothing. It made no sign. It just turned away,
stalked heavily back across the lawn without once looking either to
right or left, launched itself upon the water, uttered its queer
bugle-call for the last and second time, and promptly disappeared
below. The tilt of its vanishing tail expressed sublime indifference to
everything on land. And Judy, reflecting vaguely that she, too, was
something of an up-and-under creature, followed its example, though
without the same dispatch or neatness of execution. She tumbled
sideways into bed and disappeared beneath the sheets, aware that the
bird had left her richer than it found her. It had communicated
something that lay beyond all possible explanation. She had no tail,
nor did she express indifference. On the contrary, she hugged herself,
making sounds of pleasurable anticipation in her throat that lay
plunged among depths of soothing pillows.
It seems, then, that the entire household, the important portion of it,
at any rate, had been duly notified that something unusual was afoot,
and that the dawn of the day just breaking through a ghostly sky was
distinctly out of the ordinary. The birds, always the first to wake,
and provided with the most sensitive apparatus for recording changes,
had caught the mysterious whisper from the fading night; they had
instantly communicated it to the best of their ability to their
established friends. The robin, the swallows, and the up-and-under
bird, having accomplished their purpose, disappeared from view in order
to attend to breakfast and the arrangement of their own subsequent
adventures. Earth, air, and water had delivered messages. The news had
been flashed. Those who deserved it had been warned. The day could now
begin.
Maria, alone, meanwhile, slept on soundly, secure in that stodgy
immobility that takes no risks. Oblivious, apparently, of all secret
warnings of excitement or alarm, she lay in a tight round ball,
inactive, undisturbed. Even her breathing revealed her peculiar
idiosyncrasy: no actual movement on her surface was discernible. Her
breathing involved the least possible disturbance of the pink and white
contours that bulged the sheets and counterpane. Her face was calm,
expressionless, and even dull, yet wore a certain look as though she
knew so much that she had no need to maintain her position by the least
assertion. Exertion would have been a denial of her right to exist. And
exist she certainly did. The weight of her personality lent balance to
the quivering uncertainty of this mysterious dawn. Maria remained an
unassailable reality, an immovable centre round which anything might
happen, yet never end, and certainly no disaster come. And Judy,
glancing at her as she disappeared below her own sheets, noted this
fact without understanding that she did so. This was another aspect of
the thing she didn't know she knew.
"Maria's asleep," she felt, "so there's no need to get up yet. It's all
right!" In spite of the marvellous thing she knew was coming, that is,
she felt herself anchored safely to the firm reality of calm Maria,
soundly, peacefully asleep. And five minutes later she was in the same
desirable condition herself.
But, hardly were they all asleep, than a figure none of them had
noticed, yet all perhaps had vaguely felt, rose out of the little ditch
this side of the laurel shrubberies, and advanced slowly towards the
old Mill House. The shape was shadowy and indeterminate at first; it
might have been a bush, a sheaf of straw, a clump of high-grown weeds,
for birds fluttered just above it, and the swallows darted down without
alarm. A shaggy thing, it seemed part of the natural landscape.
Half-way across the lawn, however, it paused and stretched itself; it
rubbed its eyes; it yawned; and, as it shook the sleep from face and
body, the outline grew distinctly clearer. The thing that had looked
like a bundle of hay or branches resolved itself into a human being;
the loose untidiness gave place to definite shape, as leaves, grass,
twigs, and wisps of straw fell fluttering from it to the ground. It was
a pathetic and yet wonderful sight, beauty, happiness, and peace about
it somewhere, together with a soft and tender sweetness that tempered
the wildness of its aspect. Indescribably these qualities proclaimed
themselves. It was a man.
"They've seen me twice," he mentioned to the dipping swallows. "This is
my third appearance. They'll recognise me without a word. The Day has
come."
He stood a moment, shaking the extras of the night from hair and
clothing, then laughed with a sound like running water as the birds
swooped down and carried the straws and twigs away with a great
business of wings. Next, glancing up at the open windows of the house,
he started forward with a light but steady step. "They will not be
surprised," he said, "for they have always believed in me. They knew
that some day I should come, and in the twinkling of an eye!" He paused
and chuckled in his beard. "I'm not _the_ one thing they're expecting,
but I'm next door to it, and I can show them how to look at any rate."
And he began softly humming the words of a little song he had evidently
made up himself, and therefore liked immensely. He neared the walls;
the sunrise tipped a happy, glorious face; he disappeared from view as
though he had melted through the old grey stone. And a flight of
swallows, driven by the fresh dawn wind, passed high overhead across
the heavens, leading the night away. They swung to the rhythm of his
little song:
My secret's in the wind and open sky,
There is no longer any Time--to lose;
The world is young with laughter; we can fly
Among the imprisoned hours as we choose.
The rushing minutes pause; an unused day
Breaks into dawn and cheats the tired sun;
The birds are singing. Hark! Come out and play!
There is no hurry! Life has just begun!
THE EXTRA DAY
BEHIND _TIME_
I
The day broke. It broke literally. The sky gave way and burst asunder,
scattering floods of radiant sunshine. This was the feeling in Uncle
Felix's heart as he came downstairs to breakfast in the schoolroom. A
sensation of feathery lightness was in him, of speed as well: he could
rise above every obstacle in the world, only--there were no obstacles
in the world to rise above. Boredom, despair, and pessimism, he
suddenly realised, meant deficiency of energy merely. "Birds can rise
above everything--and so can I!"--as though he possessed a robin's
normal temperature of 110 degrees!
Although it was Sunday morning, and a dark suit was his usual custom,
he had slipped into flannels and a comfortable low collar, without
thinking about it one way or the other. "It's a jolly day," he hummed
to himself, "and I'm alive. We must do all kinds of things--everything!
It's all one thing really!" It seemed there was a new, uplifting sense
of joy in merely being alive. He repeated the word again and
again--"alive, alive, alive!" Of course a robin sang: it was the
natural thing to do.
He looked out of the window while dressing, and caught the startling
impression that this life emanated from the world of familiar trees and
grass and flowers spread out before his eyes. Everything was singing.
Beauty had dropped down upon the earth; the earth, moreover, knew that
she was beautiful--she was obviously enjoying herself, both as a whole
and in every tiniest nook and corner of her gigantic being. Yet without
undue surprise he noted this; the marvel was there as always, but he
did not pause to say, "How marvellous!" It was as natural as breathing,
and as easily accepted. He was always breathing, but he never stopped
and thought, "Good Lord, I'm breathing! How dreadful if it stopped!" He
simply went on breathing. And so, with the beauty of this radiant
morning, it never occurred to him "This will not last, the sun will
set, the shadows fall, the marvel pass and die." That this particular
day could end did not even suggest itself.
On his way down the passage, Judy and Tim came dancing from their rooms
to meet him. They, too, were dressed in their everyday-adventure
things, no special sign of Sunday anywhere about them--slipped into
their summery clothing as naturally as birds and flowers grow into the
bright and feathery stuff that covers them. This notion struck him, but
faintly; it was not a definite thought. He might as well have noticed,
"Ah, the sky is dressed in light, or mist! The wind blows it into folds
and creases!" Yet the notion did strike him with its little dream-like
hammer, because with it came a second tiny blow, producing, it seemed,
a soft blaze of light behind his eyes somewhere: "I've recovered the
childhood sense of reality, the vivid certainty, the knowledge!...
Somebody's coming.... Somebody's here--hiding still, perhaps, yet
nearer..." It flashed like a gold-fish in some crystal summer
fountain... and was gone again.
In the passage Judy touched his hand, and said confidingly, "You will
take me to the end of the world to-day, Uncle."
It was true and possible. No special preparation was required for any
journey whatsoever. They were already prepared for anything--like
birds. And some one, it seemed, had taken his name away!
"We'll do everything at once," said Tim, with the utmost assurance in
tone and manner.
"Of course," was his obvious and natural reply to each, no explanations
or conditions necessary. Things would happen of themselves,
spontaneously. There was only one thing to do! "We're alive," he added.
They just looked at him as he said it, then pulled him down the passage
a little faster than before. Yet the way they ran dancing along that
oil-cloth passage held something of the joy and confidence with which
birds launch themselves into flight across the earth. There was this
sense of spontaneous excitement and delight about.
"He's here already," Judy whispered, as they neared the breakfast room.
"I can feel it."
"Came in while we were asleep," her brother added. "I know it," and he
clapped his hands.
"At dawn, yes," agreed Uncle Felix, saying it on the spur of the
moment. He was perplexed a little, perhaps, but did not hesitate. He
had not _quite_ the assurance of the others. He meant to let himself
go, however.
There was not the slightest doubt or question anywhere; _they_ believed
because they knew; what they had expected for so long had happened. The
Stranger in the Tea-cup had arrived at last. They went down the long
corridor of the Old Mill House, every window open to the sunshine that
came pouring in. The very walls seemed made of transparent, shining
paper. The world came flowing in. A happiness of the glowing earth sang
in their veins. At the door they paused a second.
"I know exactly who he is," breathed Judy softly.
"I know what he looks like," whispered Tim.
"There was never time to see him properly before," said Uncle Felix.
"Things went by so fast. He whizzed and vanished. But now--of course-"
They pushed the door open and went in.
Breakfast was already laid upon the shining cloth; hot dishes steamed;
there were flowers upon the table, and climbing roses peeped in round
the grey walls of sun-baked stone. A bird or two hopped carelessly upon
the window-sill, and a smell of earth and leaves was in the air.
Sunshine, colour, and perfume filled the room to overflowing, yet not
so full that there was not ample space for the "somebody" who had
brought them. For somebody certainly was there--some one whom the
children, moreover, took absolutely for granted.
There had been surprise outside the door, but there was none when they
were in. Something like a dream, it seemed, this absence of
astonishment, though, of course, no one took it in that way. For, at
first, no one spoke at all. The children went to their places, lifting
the covers to see what there was to eat. They did the normal, natural
thing; eyed and sniffed the porridge, cream, brown sugar, and
especially approved the dish of comfortable, fat poached eggs on toast.
They were satisfied with what they saw; everything was as it ought to
be--plentiful, available, on hand. There was enough for everybody.
But Uncle Felix paused a moment just inside the open door, and stared;
he looked about him as though the incredible thing had really happened
at last. A rapt expression passed over his face, and his eyes seemed
fixed upon something radiant that hung upon the air. He sighed, and
caught his breath. His heart grew amazingly light within him. Every
thought and feeling that made up his personality--so it felt, at
least--had wings of silver tipped with golden fire.
"At last!" he murmured softly to himself, "at last!"
He moved forward slowly into the room, his eyes still fixed on vacancy.
The face showed exquisite delight, but the lips were otherwise dumb. He
looked as if he had caught a glimpse of something he could not utter.
"Porridge, please, Uncle," he heard a voice saying, as some one put a
large silver spoon into his hand. "I like the hard lumps." And another
voice added, "I like the soupy, slippery stuff, please." He pulled
himself together with an effort.
"Ah," he mumbled, peeping from the dishes at the children's faces, "the
tea has stopped turning in the cup at last. He's come up to the
surface."
And they turned and looked at him, but without the least surprise
again; it was perfectly natural, it seemed, that there should be this
Presence in the room; their Uncle's remark was neither here nor there.
He had a right to express his own ideas in his own way if he wanted to.
Their own remarks outside the door they had apparently forgotten. That,
indeed, was already a very long time ago now. In the full bliss of
realisation, anticipation was naturally not remembered. The excitement
in the passage belonged to some dim Yesterday--almost when they were
little.
They began immediately to talk _at_ the Stranger in the room.
"I didn't _hear_ anybody come," remarked Tim, as he mixed cream and
demerara sugar inside an artificial pool of porridge, "but it's all the
same--now. Our Somebody's here all right." And then, between gulps, he
added, "The swallows laid an awful lot of eggs in the night, I think."
"On tiptoe just at dawn," remarked Judy casually, following her own
train of thought, and intent upon chasing a slippery poached egg round
and round her plate at the same time. "The birds were awake, of course."
The birds! As she said it, a memory of some faint, exquisite dream, of
years and years ago it seemed, fled also on tiptoe through the bright,
still air, and through three listening hearts as well. The robin, the
swallows, and the up-and-under bird made secret signs and vanished.
"They know everything first, of course," said Uncle Felix aloud;
"they're up so early, aren't they?" To himself he said, "I'm dreaming!
This is a dream!" his reason still fluttering a little before it died.
But he kept his secret about the robin tightly in its hiding-place.
"Before they've happened--_really_," Tim mentioned. "They do a thing
to-morrow long before to-morrow's come." He knew something the others
could not possibly know.
"Everything comes from the air, you see," advanced Judy, secure in the
memory of her private morning interview. "But it can disappear
under--underneath when it wants to."
"Or into a hole," agreed Tim.
And somebody in that breakfast-room, somebody besides themselves, heard
every word they spoke, listened attentively, and understood the
meanings they thought they hid so cleverly. They knew, moreover, that
he did so.
"Let's pretend," Tim suddenly exclaimed, catching his sister's eye just
as it was wandering into the pot of home-made marmalade.
"All right," she said at once, "same as usual, I suppose?"
Tim nodded, glancing across the table. "Sitting next to _you_,
Uncle"--he pointed to the unoccupied chair and unused plate--"in that
empty place."
"Thank you," murmured the man, still hovering between reality and
dream. He said it shyly. It was all too marvellous to ask questions
about, he felt.
"It's a lovely morning," continued Judy politely, smiling at the empty
place. "Will you have tea and coffee, or milkhotwaterandsugar?" She
listened attentively for the answer, the smile of a duchess on her rosy
face, then bowed and handed a lump of sugar to Tim, who set it
carefully in the middle of the plate.
"Butter or honey?" inquired the boy, "or butter and honey?" He, too,
waited for the inaudible reply, then asked his Uncle to pass the pot of
honey _and_ the butter-dish. The Stranger, apparently, liked sweet
things best--at any rate, natural things.
They went on with their breakfast then, eating as much as ever they
could hold, talking about everything in the world as usual, and
occasionally bowing to the empty chair, addressing remarks to it, and
listening to--answers! Sometimes they passed things, too--another lump
of sugar, more drops of honey, a thick blob of clotted cream as well.
It was obvious to them that somebody occupied that chair, so real,
indeed, that Uncle Felix found himself passing things and making
observations about the weather and even arranging a few crumbs of bread
in a row beside the other delicacies. It was the right thing to do
evidently; acting spontaneously, he had performed an inspired action.
And the odd thing was that the food, lying in the blaze of sunlight on
the plate, slowly underwent a change: the sugar got smaller in size,
the honey-drops diminished, the blob of cream lost its first
circumference, and even the bread-crumbs seemed to dwindle visibly.
"It's very hot this morning," said Judy after a bit. "The sun's
hungrier than usual," and she pushed the plate into the shade. But it
was clear that she referred to some one other than the sun, although
the sun belonged to what was going on. "Thirsty, too," she added,
"although there are bucketsful of dew about."
"And extra bright into the bargain," declared Tim. "I love shiny stuff
like that to wear and dress in. It fits so easily--no bothering
buttons."
"And doesn't wear out or stain, does it?" put in Uncle Felix, saying
the first thing that came into his head--and again behaving in the
appropriate, spontaneous manner. It was clear that the Stranger--to
them, at least--was clothed in the gold and silver of the brilliant
morning. There was a delicate perfume, too, as of wild flowers and
sweet little roadside blossoms. The very air of the room was charged
with some living light and beauty brought by the invisible guest. It
was passing wonderful. The invading Presence seemed all about them like
a spreading fire of loveliness and joy--yet natural as sunshine.
Then, suddenly, Tim sprang up from his chair, and ran to the empty
seat. His face shone with keen and eager expectancy, but wore a touch
of shyness too.
"I want to be like you," he said in a hushed voice that had all the
yearning of childhood breaking through it. "Please put your hand on
me." He lowered his head and closed his eyes. He made an odd grimace,
half pleasure and half awe, like a boy about to plunge into a pool of
water,--then stood upright, proud and delighted as any victorious king.
He drew a long breath of relief. He seemed astonished that it had been
so easily accomplished.
"I'm full of it!" he cried. "I'm burning! He touched me on the head!"
"Touched!" cried Judy, full herself of joy and happy envy.
The boy nodded his head, as though he would nod it off on to the
tablecloth. He looked as if any minute he might burst into flame with
the sheer enjoyment of it. "Warm all over," he gasped. "I could strike
a match on my trousers now like Weeden."
Then, while Uncle Felix rubbed his eyes and did his best to see the
invisible, Judy sprang lightly from her chair, ran up to the vacant
place, put out her arms and bent her face down so that her falling
torrent of hair concealed it for a moment. She certainly put her arms
round--something. The next minute she straightened up again with
triumph and tumult in her shining eyes.
"I kissed him," she announced, flushed like any rose, "and he kissed me
back. He blew the wind into my hair as well. I'm flying! I'm lighter
than a feather!" And she went, dancing and flitting, round the table
like a happy bird.
Then Uncle Felix rose sedately from his seat. He did not mean to be
left out of all this marvellous business merely because his body was a
little older and more worn. He stretched his arm across the table,
missing the cream-jug by a narrow margin, but knocking the toast-rack
over in his eagerness. He held his hand out to the empty chair.
"Please take my hand," he said, "and let me have something too."
He went through the pantomime of shaking hands, but to his intense
amazement it seemed that there was an answering clasp. A smooth, soft
running touch closed gently on his own; it was cool and yielding,
delicate as the down upon a robin's breast, yet firm as steel. And in
that moment he knew that his glimpse on entering the room was not a
trick, but had been a passing glimpse of what the children always
believed in, hoped for--saw.
"Thank you," he murmured, withdrawing his hand and examining it, "very
much indeed. This _is_ a beautiful day."
An extraordinary power came into him, a feeling of confidence and
security and joy he had never known before. Yet all he could find to
say was that it was a very beautiful day. The commonest speech
expressed exactly what he felt. Ordinary words at last had meaning,
small words could tell it.
"It's all right?" remarked Tim, in an excited but quite natural tone.
"It _is_," he answered.
"Then let's go out now and do all sorts of things. There's simply heaps
to do."
"Out into the sun," cried Judy. "Come on. We'll get into our old garden
boots." And she dragged her brother headlong out of the room.
THE STRANGER WHO IS WONDER
II
And Uncle Felix moved forward into the pool of sunlight that blazed
upon the faded carpet pattern. It was composed of round, fat trees,
this pattern, with birds like goblin peacocks flying in mid-air between
them. The sunshine somehow lifted them, so that they floated upon the
quivering atmosphere; the pattern seemed to hover between him and the
carpet. And he too felt himself lifted--in mid-air--part of the day and
sunshine.
He closed his eyes; he tried to realise who and where he was; all he
could remember, however, went into a single sentence and kept repeating
itself on the waves of his singing, dancing blood: "Clock's stopped,
clock's stopped,--stopped clocks, stopped clocks...!" till it sounded
like a puzzle sentence--then lost all meaning.
He sat down in a chair, but the chair was next to the "empty" one, and
from it something poured into him, over him, round him, as wind pours
about a bird or tree. He became enveloped by it; his mind began to
rush, yet rushed in a circle, so that he never entirely lost sight of
it. Another set of words replaced the first ones: "Behind Time, behind
Time," jostling on each other's heels, tearing round and round like a
Catherine Wheel, shining and dancing as they spun.
He opened his eyes and looked about him. The room was full of wonder.
It glistened, sparkled, shone. A million things, screened hitherto from
sight by thick clouds of rushing minutes, paused and offered
themselves; things that were commonplace before stood still, revealed
in startling glory. They no longer raced past at headlong speed.
Visible at last, unmasked, they showed themselves as they really were,
in naked beauty. This beauty settled on everything in golden rain, it
settled on himself as well. All that his eyes rested on
looked--distinguished....
And, like snow-flakes, words and thoughts came thickly crowding, like
flakes of fire too. He snatched at them, caught them in bunches, tried
to sort them into sentences. They were everywhere about him, showering
down as from a box of cardboard letters overturned in the sky. The
reality he sought hid among them as a whole--he knew that--but no mere
sequence of words and letters could quite capture this reality.
He plunged his hands among the flying symbols....
In a flash a number of things--an enormous number of things--became
extraordinarily clear and simple; they became one single thing. Then,
while reason and vision still fluttered to and fro, like a pair of
butterflies, first one and then the other leading, he dashed in between
them. He seized handfuls of the flying letters and made the queerest
sentences out of them, longer and faster-moving than the first ones.
"Time _is_ the arch-deceiver. It drives things past us in a hurrying
flock. We snatch at them. And those we miss seem lost for ever because
some one calls out, in a foolish voice of terror and regret, 'Too
late!' Yet, in reality, _we_ stand still; the rush of the hours is a
sham. We see things out of proportion, like trees from the window of a
train, their beauty hidden in a long, thick smudge. _We_ do not move;
it is the train that hurries us along: the trees are always steadily
there--and beautiful. There is enough of everything for everybody--no
need to try and get there first. To hurry is to chase your tail, which
some one has suggested does not belong to you. It can never be captured
by pursuit. But pause--stand still--it instantly presents itself,
twitches its tip, and laughs: 'I've been here all the time. I'm part of
you!'"
He turned towards the empty chair and smiled. The smile, he felt, came
marvellously back to him from the sunshine and the open world of sky
and trees beyond. There was some one there who smiled--invisibly.
"You're real, quite real," the letters danced instantly into new
sentences. "But you are so awfully close to me--so close I cannot see
you."
He felt the invisible Stranger suddenly as real as that. There was only
one thing to see--only one thing everywhere. The beauty of the
discovery put reason utterly and finally to flight. But that one thing
was hiding. The Stranger concealed himself--he hid on purpose. He
wanted to be looked for--found. And the heart grew "warm" or "cold"
accordingly: when it was warm that mysterious anticipation
stirred--"Some one is coming!"
And Uncle Felix, sitting in the sunlight of that breakfast-room,
understood that the entire universe formed a conspiracy to hide "him."
Some one, indeed, had come, slipped into the gorgeous and detailed
clothing of the entire world as easily as birds and trees slip into
their own particular clothing, planning with Time to hide him, wanting
to play a little--to play at Hide-and-Seek. "Let them all look for me!
I'm hiding!..."
Yet so few would play! Instead of coming out to find him where he hid
so simply in the open, they built severe and gloomy edifices; invented
Rules of the game by which each could prove himself right and all the
others wrong.... Oh, dear!... And all the time, _he_ hid there in the
open before their very eyes--in the wind, the stream, the grass, in the
sunlight and the song of birds, and especially behind little careless
things that took no thought ... waiting to play and let himself be
found... while songs and poems and fairy-tales, even religious too,
cried endlessly across the world, "Look and you'll find him." There
_was_ only one thing to say: "Search in the open; he hides there!"
Everything became clear and simple--one thing, Life was a game of
Hide-and-Seek. There were obstacles placed in the way on purpose to
make it more interesting. One of them was Time. But everything was one
thing, and one thing only; a peacock and a policeman were the same, so
were an elephant and a violet, an uncle and a bee, a Purple Emperor and
a child like Tim or Judy: all did, said, lived one and the same thing
only. They looked different--because one looked _at_ them differently.
Smiling happily to himself again as the letters grouped themselves
swiftly into these curious sentences, he heard the birds singing in the
clean, great sky... and it seemed to him that the Stranger blew softly
upon his eyes and hair. The sentences instantly telescoped: "Come, look
for me! There is no hurry; life has just begun...." And he barely had
time to realise that the entire complicated mass of them had, after
all, only this one thing to say... when the returning children bursting
into the room scattered his long reverie, and the last cardboard letter
disappeared like magic into empty space.
"Where is he?" cried Tim at once, staring impatiently about him. There
was rebuke and disappointment in his eyes. "Uncle, you've been arguing.
He's gone!"
Judy was equally quick to seize the position of affairs. "You've
frightened him away!" she declared with energy. "Quick! We must go out
and look!"
"Yes," muttered their uncle a little guiltily, and was about to add
something by way of explanation when he felt Judy pull his sleeve.
"Look!" she whispered. "He can't have gone so _very_ far!"
She pointed to the plate with the sugar, honey, cream, and crumbs upon
it; a bird was picking up the crumbs, a wasp was on the lump of sugar,
a bee beside it, standing on its head, was drinking at the drop of
honey; all were unafraid, and very leisurely about it; there seemed no
hurry; there was enough for every one. Then, as the trio of humans
stared with delight, they saw another guest arrive and dance up gaily
to the feast. A gorgeous butterfly sailed in, hovered above the crowded
plate a moment, then settled comfortably beside its companions and
examined the blob of cream. The others moved a little to make room for
it. It was a Purple Emperor, the rarest butterfly in all England, whose
home was normally high above the trees.
"Of course," Judy whispered to her brother, as she watched the bee make
room for its larger neighbour; "they belong to him--"
"He sent them," replied Tim below his breath, "just to let us know--"
"Yes," mumbled Uncle Felix for the second time, a soft amazement
stealing over him. "He brought them. And they're all the same thing
really."
There was the perfume of a thousand flowers in the room. A faint breeze
floated through the open window and touched his eyes. He heard the
world outside singing in the sunshine. "Come along," he said in a low,
hushed whisper; "let's go and look." And he moved eagerly--over the
tree-and-peacock pattern.
They tiptoed out together, while the bird cocked up its head to watch
them go; the bee, still drinking, raised its eyes; and all four
fluttered their wings as though they laughed. They seemed to say "There
is no hurry! We're all alive together! There's enough for all; no need
to get there first!" _They_ knew. The golden day lay waiting outside
with overflowing beauty, and he who had brought them in stood just
behind this beauty that hid and covered them. When they had eaten and
drunk, they, too, would come and join the search. Exceedingly beautiful
they were--the shy grace of the dainty bird, the brilliant wasp in
black and gold, the soft brown bee, the magnificent Purple Emperor,
fresh from the open spaces above the windy forest: all said the same
big, joyful thing, "We are alive!... No hurry!..."
The trio flew down the passage, took the stairs in leaps and bounds,
raced across the hall where the back-door, standing open, framed the
lawn and garden in a blaze of sunshine.
And as Uncle Felix followed, half dancing like the other two, he saw a
little thing that vaguely reminded him of--another little thing. The
memory was vague and far away; there was a curious distance in it, like
the distance of a dream recalled in the day-light, no longer what is
called quite real. For his eye caught something gleaming on the
side-table below the presentation clock, and the odd, ridiculous word
that sprang into his mind was "salver." It was the silver salver on
which Thompson brought in visitors' cards. But it was a plate as well;
and, being a plate, he remembered vaguely something about a collection.
The association of ideas worked itself out in a remote and dreamlike
way; he felt in his pocket for a shilling, a sixpence, or a threepenny
bit, and wondered for a second where the big, dark building was to
which all this belonged. Something was changed, it seemed. His clothes,
this dancing sunshine, joy and laughter. The world was new. What did it
mean?...
"No bells are ringing," flashed back the flying letters in a spray.
He was on the point of catching something by the tail... when he saw
the children waiting for him on the sunny lawn outside. He ran out
instantly to join them. They had noticed nothing odd, apparently. It
had never even occurred to them. And in himself the memory dived away,
its very trail obliterated as though it had not been.
For this was Sunday morning, yet Sunday had not--happened.
HIDE-AND-SEEK
III
The garden clung close and soft about the Old Mill House as a mood
clings about the emotion that has summoned it. Uncle Felix, Tim, and
Judy were as much a part of it as the lilac, hyacinths, and tulips. Any
minute, it seemed, the butterflies and bees and birds might settle on
them too.
For a bloom of exquisite, fresh wonder lay upon the earth, lay softly
and secure as though it need never pass away. No fading of daylight
could dim the glory of all the promises of joy the day contained, no
hint of waning anywhere. "There is no hurry," seemed written on the
very leaves and blades of grass. "We're all alive together! Come
and--look!" The garden, lying there so gently in its beauty, hid a
secret.
Yet, though all was so calm and peaceful, there was nowhere the dulness
of stagnation. Life brimmed the old-world garden with incessant
movement that flashed dancing and rhythm even into things called
stationary. The joy of existence ran riot everywhere without check or
hindrance; there was no time--to pause and die. For the sunlight did
not merely lie upon the air--it poured; wind did not blow--it breathed,
ambushed one minute among the rose-trees just above the ground, and
cantering next through the crests of the busy limes. The elms and
horse-chestnuts that ordinarily grew now leaped--leaped upwards to the
sun; while all flying things--birds, insects, bees, and
butterflies--passed in and out like darting threads of colour, pinning
the beauty into a patterned tapestry for all to see. The entire day was
charged with the natural delight of endless, sheer existence. It was
visible.
Each detail, moreover, claimed attention, as though never seen properly
before; no longer dulled by familiarity, but shaking off its "ordinary"
appearance, proud to be looked at, naked and alive. The rivulet ran on,
but did not run away; the gravel paths, soft as rolled brown sugar, led
somewhere, but led in both directions, each of them inviting; the blue
of the sky did not stay "up there and far away," but dropped down close
in myriad flakes, lifting the green carpet of the lawn to meet it. The
day seemed like a turning circle that changed every moment to show
another aspect of its gorgeous pattern, yet, while changing, only
turned, unable to grow older or to pass away. There was something real
at last, something that could be known, enjoyed--something of eternity
about it. It was real.
"Wherever has he got to?" exclaimed Judy, trying to pierce the
distances of earth and sky with distended eyes. "He can't be very far
away, because--I kissed him."
Tim, sitting beside her on the grass, felt the exquisite mystery of it
too. It was marvellous that any one could vanish in such a way. But he
hesitated too. He felt uncertain about something. His thoughts flew off
to that strange wood he loved to play in. He remembered the warning:
"Beware the centre, if you enter; For once you're _there_, you
disappear!" But this explanation did not appeal to him as likely now.
He stared at Judy and his uncle. Some one _had_ touched him, making him
warm and happy. He remembered that distinctly. He had caught a
glimpse--though a glimpse too marvellous to be seen for long, even to
be remembered properly. "But there's no good looking unless we know
where to look," he remarked. "Is there?"
"He's just gone out like a candle," whispered Judy.
"Extror'nary," declared her brother, hugging the excitement that
thrilled his heart. "But he can't be really lost. I'm sure of that!"
And a great hush fell upon them all. Some one, it seemed, was
listening; some one was watching; some one was waiting for them to move.
"Uncle?" they said in the same breath together, then hung upon his
answer.
This authority hesitated a moment, looking about him expectantly as
though for help.
"I think," he stated shyly, "I think--he's--hiding."
Nothing more wonderful ever fell from grown-up lips. They had heard it
said before--but only said. Now they realised it.
"Hiding!" They stood up; they could see further that way. But they
waited for more detail before showing their last approval.
"Out here," he added.
They were not quite sure. They expected a disclosure more out of the
ordinary. It _might_ be true, but--
"Hide-and-seek?" they repeated doubtfully. "But that's just a game."
They were unsettled in their minds.
"Not _that_ kind," he replied significantly. "I mean the kind the rain
plays with the wind and leaves, the stream with the stones and roots
along its bank, the rivers with the sea. That's the kind of
hide-and-seek I mean!"
He chose instinctively watery symbols. And his tone conveyed something
so splendid and mysterious that it was impossible to doubt or hesitate
a moment longer.
"Oh," they exclaimed. "It never ends, you mean?"
"Goes on for ever and ever," he murmured. "The moment the river finds
the sea it disappears and the sea begins to look. The wind never really
finds the clouds, and the sun and the stars--"
"_We_ know!" they shouted, cutting his explanations short.
"Come on then!" he cried. "We've got the hunt of our lives before us."
And he began to run about in a circle like an animal trying to catch
its tail.
"But are we to look for him, or he for us?" inquired the boy, after a
preliminary canter over the flower-beds.
"We for him." They sprang to attention and clapped their hands.
"It's an enormous hide," said Tim. "We may get lost ourselves. Better
look out!"
And then they waited for instructions. But the odd thing was that their
uncle waited too. There was this moment's hesitation. They looked to
him. The old fixed habit asserted itself: a grown-up must surely know
more than they did. How could it be otherwise? In this case, however,
the grown-up seemed in doubt. He looked at them. It _was_ otherwise.
"It's so long since I played this kind of hide-and-seek," he murmured.
"I've rather forgotten--"
He stopped short. There certainly was a difficulty. Nobody knew in what
direction to begin.
"It's a snopportunity," exclaimed Judy. "I'm sure of that!"
"We just look--everywhere!" cried Tim.
A light broke over their uncle's face as if a ray of sunshine touched
it. His mind cleared. Some old, forgotten joy, wonderful as the dawn,
burst into his heart, rose to fire in his eyes, flooded his whole
being. A glory long eclipsed, a dream interrupted years ago, an
uncompleted game of earliest youth--all these rose from their
hiding-place and recaptured him, soul and body. He glanced at the
children. These things he had recaptured, they, of course, had never
lost; this state and attitude of wonder was their natural prerogative;
he had recovered the ownership of the world, but they had possessed it
always. They knew the whole business from beginning to end--only they
liked to hear it stated. That was obviously his duty as a grown-up: to
stick the label on.
"Of course," he whispered, deliciously enchanted. "You've got it. It's
_the_ snopportunity! The great thing is to--look."
And, as if to prove him right, a flock of birds passed sweeping through
the air above their heads, paused in mid-flight, wheeled, fluttered
noisily a second, then scattered in all directions like leaves whirled
by an eddy of loose, autumn wind.
"Come on," cried Tim, remembering perhaps the "dodgy" butterfly and
trying to imitate it with his arms and legs. "I know where to go first.
Just follow me!"
"And there'll be signs, remember," Uncle Felix shouted as he followed.
"Whoever finds a sign must let the others know at once."
They began with the feeling that they would discover the Stranger in a
moment, sure of the places where he had tried cleverly to conceal
himself, but soon began to realise that this was no ordinary game, and
that he certainly knew of mysterious spots and corners they had never
dreamed about. It was as Tim declared, "an enormous hide." Come-Back
Stumper's cunning dive into bed was nothing compared to the skill with
which this hider eluded their keen searching. There was another
difference too. In Stumper's case their interest had waned, they felt
they had been cheated somehow, they knew themselves defeated and had
given up the search. But here the interest was unfailing; it increased
rather than diminished; they were ever on the very edge of finding him,
and more than once they shrieked with joy, "I've got him!"--only to
find they had been "very hot" but not quite hot enough. It was, like
everything else upon this happy morning, endless.
It continued and continued, as naturally as the rivulet that ran for
ever downhill to find the sea, that nothing, it seemed, could put a
stop to, much less an end. The feeling that time was passing utterly
disappeared; weeks, months, and years lay waiting somewhere near, but
could be left or taken, used or not used, as they pleased. To take a
week and use it was like picking a flower that looked much prettier
growing sweetly in the sunny earth. Why pick it? It came to an end that
way! The minutes, the hours and days, morning, noon and night as well,
the very seasons too, offered themselves, and--vanished. They did not
come and go, they were just "there"; and to steal into one or other of
them at will was like stealing into one mood after another as the heart
decreed. They were mere counters in the gorgeous and unending game.
They helped to hide the mysterious Stranger who was evidently in the
centre round which all life lay grouped so marvellously. They hid and
covered him as moods hide and cover the heart that wears
them--temporarily. Uncle Felix and the children used them somewhat in
this way, it seems, for while they looked and hunted in and out among
them, any minute, day or season was recoverable at will. They did not
pass away. It was the seekers who passed through them. To Uncle Felix,
at any rate, it seemed a fact--this joyous sensation of immense
duration, yet of nothing passing away: the bliss of utter freedom. He
gasped to realise it. But the children did not gasp. They had always
known that nothing ever really came to an end. "The weather's still
here," he heard Judy calling across the lawn to Tim--as though she had
just been looking among December snowdrifts and had popped back again
into the fragrance of midsummer hayfields. "The Equator's made of
golden butterflies, all shining," the boy called back, having evidently
just been round the world and seen its gleaming waist....
But none of them had found what they were looking for....
They had looked in all the difficult places where a clever player would
be most likely to conceal himself, yet in vain; there was no definite
sign of him, no footprints on the flower-beds or along the edge of the
shrubberies. The garden proper had been searched from end to end
without result. The children had been to the particular hiding-places
each knew best, Tim to the dirty nook between the ilex and the larder
window, and Judy to the scooped-out trunk of the rotten elm, and both
together to the somewhat smelly channel between the yew trees and a
disused outhouse--all equally untenanted.
In the latter gloomy place, in fact, they met. No sunlight pierced the
dense canopy of branches; it was barely light enough to see. Judy and
Tim advanced towards each other on tiptoe, confident of discovery at
last. They only realised their mistake at five yards' distance.
"You!" exclaimed Tim, in a disappointed whisper. "I thought it was
going to be a sign." "I felt positive he'd be in here somewhere," said
Judy.
"Perhaps we're both signs," they declared together, then paused, and
held a secret discussion about it all.
"He's got a splendid hide," was the boy's opinion. "D'you think Uncle
Felix knows anything? You heard what he said about signs...!"
They decided without argument that he didn't. He just went "thumping
about" in the usual places. He'd never find him. They agreed it was
very wonderful. Tim advanced his pet idea--it had been growing on him:
"I think _he_ knows some special place we'd never look in--a hole or
something." But Judy met the suggestion with superior knowledge: "He
moves about," she announced. "He doesn't stop in a hole. He flies at an
awful rate--from place to place. That's--signs, I expect."
"Wings?" suggested Tim.
Judy hesitated. "You remember--at breakfast, wasn't it?--ages and ages
ago--all had wings--those things--"
She broke off and pointed significantly at the figure of Uncle Felix
who was standing with his head cocked up at an awkward angle, staring
into the sky. Shading his eyes with one hand, he was apparently
examining the topmost branches of the tall horse-chestnuts.
"He couldn't have got up a tree, could he, or into a bird's nest?" said
the girl. She offered the suggestion timidly, yet her brother did not
laugh at her. There was this strange feeling that the hider might be
anywhere--simply anywhere. This was no ordinary game.
"There's such a lot," Tim answered vaguely.
She looked at him with intense admiration. The wonder of this
marvellous game was in their hearts. The moment when they would find
him was simply too extraordinary to think about.
Judy moved a step closer in the darkness. "Can he get small, then--like
that?" she whispered.
But the question was too much for Tim.
"Anyhow he gets about, doesn't he?" was the reply, the vagueness of
uncertain knowledge covering the disappointment. "There are simply
millions of trees and nests and--and rabbit-holes all over the place."
They were silent for a moment. Then Judy asked, still more timidly:
"I say, Tim?"
"Well."
"What does he really look like? I can't remember quite. I mean--shall
we recognise him?"
Tim stared at her. "My dear!" he gasped, as though the question almost
shocked him. "Why, he touched me--on the head! I felt it!"
Judy laughed softly; it was only that she wanted to remind herself of
something too precious to be forgotten.
"_I_ kissed him!" she whispered, a hint of triumph in her voice and
eyes.
They stood staring at one another for a little while, weighing the
proofs thus given; then Tim broke the silence with a question of his
own. It was the result of this interval of reflection. It was an
unexpected sort of question:
"Do you know what it is we want?" he asked. "I do," he added hurriedly,
lest she should answer first.
"What?" she said, seeing from his tone and manner that it was important.
"We shall never, never find him this way," he said decisively.
"What?" she repeated with impatience.
Tim lowered his voice. "What we want," he said with the emphasis of
true conviction, "is--a Leader."
Judy repeated the word after him immediately; it was obvious; why
hadn't she thought of it herself? "Of course," she agreed. "That's it
exactly."
"We're looking wrong somewhere," her brother added, and they both
turned their heads in the direction of Uncle Felix who was still
standing on the lawn in a state of bewilderment, examining the
treetops. He expected something from the air, it seemed. Perhaps he was
looking for rain--he loved water so. But evidently he was not a proper
leader; he was even more bewildered than themselves; he, too, was
looking wrong somewhere, somehow. They needed some one to show them how
and where to look. Instinctively they felt their uncle was no better at
this mighty game than they were. If only somebody who knew and
understood--a leader--would turn up!
And it was just then that Judy clutched her brother by the arm and said
in a startled whisper, "Hark!"
They harked. Through the hum of leaves and insects that filled the air
this sweet June morning they heard another sound--a voice that reached
them even here beneath the dense roof of shrubbery. They heard words
distinctly, though from far away, rising, falling, floating across the
lawn as though some one as yet invisible were singing to himself.
For it was the voice of a man, and it certainly was a song. Moreover,
without being able to explain it exactly, they felt that it was just
the kind of singing that belonged to the kind of day: it was right and
natural, a fresh and windy sound in the careless notes, almost as
though it was a bird that sang. So exquisite was it, indeed, that they
listened spellbound without moving, standing hand in hand beneath the
dark bushes. And Uncle Felix evidently heard it too, for he turned his
head; instead of examining the tree-tops he peered into the rose trees
just behind him, both hands held to his ears to catch the happy song.
There was both joy and laughter in the very sound of it:
My secret's in the wind and open sky;
There is no longer any Time--to lose;
The world is young with laughter; we can fly
Among the imprisoned hours as we choose.
The rushing minutes pause; an unused day
Breaks into dawn and cheats the tired sun.
The birds are singing. Hark! Come out and play!
There is no hurry; life has just begun.
The voice died away among the rose trees, and the birds burst into a
chorus of singing everywhere, as if they carried on the song among
themselves. Then, in its turn, their chorus also died away. Tim looked
at his sister. He seemed about to burst--if not into song, then into a
thousand pieces.
"A leader!" he exclaimed, scarcely able to get the word out in his
excitement. "Did you hear it?"
"Tim!" she gasped--and they flew out, hand in hand still, to join their
uncle in the sunshine.
"Found anything?" he greeted them before they could say a word. "I
heard some one singing--a man, or something--over there among the rose
trees--"
"And the birds," interrupted Judy. "Did you hear them?"
"Uncle," cried Tim with intense conviction, "it's a sign. I do believe
it's a sign--"
"That's exactly what it is," a deep voice broke in behind them "--a
sign; and no mistake about it either."
All three turned with a start. The utterance was curiously slow; there
was a little dragging pause between each word. The rose trees parted,
and they found themselves face to face with some one whom they had seen
twice before in their lives, and who now made his appearance for the
third time therefore--the man from the End of the World: the Tramp.
THE LEADER
IV
He was a ragged-looking being, yet his loose, untidy clothing became
him so well that his appearance seemed almost neat--it was certainly
natural: he was dressed in the day, the garden, the open air. Judy and
Tim ran up fearlessly and began fingering the bits of stuff that clung
to him from the fields and ditches. In his beard were some stray rose
leaves and the feather of a little bird. The children had an air of
sheltering against a tree trunk--woodland creatures--mice or squirrels
chattering among the roots, or birds flown in to settle on a hedge.
They were not one whit afraid. For nothing surprised them on this
marvellous morning; everything that happened they--accepted.
"He's shining underneath," Judy whispered in Tim's ear, cocking her
head sideways so that she could catch her brother's eye and at the same
time feel the great comfort of the new arrival against her cheek.
"And awfully strong," was the admiring reply.
"So soft, too," she declared--though whether of mind or body was not
itemized--"like feathers."
"And smells delicious," affirmed Tim, "like hay and rabbits."
Each child picked out the quality the heart desired and approved;
almost, it seemed, each felt him differently. Yet, although not one
whit afraid, they whispered. Perhaps the wonder of it choked their
utterance a little.
The Tramp smiled at them. All four smiled. The way he had emerged from
among the rose trees made them smile. It was as natural as though he
had been there all the time, growing out of the earth, waving in the
morning air and sunlight. There was something simple and very beautiful
about him, perhaps, that made them smile like this. Then Uncle Felix,
whom the first shock of surprise had apparently deprived of speech,
found his voice and observed, "Good-morning to you, good-morning." The
little familiar phrase said everything in a quite astonishing way. It
was like a song.
"_Good_-morning," replied the Tramp. "It is. I was wondering how long
it would be before you saw me."
"Ah!" said Judy and Tim in the same breath, "of course."
"The fact is," stammered Uncle Felix, "you're so like the rest of the
garden--so like a bit of the garden, I mean--that we didn't notice you
at first. But we heard--" he broke off in the middle of the
sentence--"That _was_ you singing, wasn't it?" he asked with a note of
hushed admiration in his voice.
The smile upon the great woodland face broadened perceptibly. It was as
though the sun burst through a cloud. "That's hard to say," he replied,
"when the whole place is singing. I'm just like everything else--alive.
It's natural to sing, and natural to dance--when you're alive and
looking--and know it."
He spoke with a sound as though he had swallowed the entire morning, a
forest rustling in his chest, singing water just behind the lips.
_"Looking!"_ exclaimed Uncle Felix, picking out the word. He moved
closer; the children caught his hands; the three of them sheltered
against the spreading figure till the four together seemed like a
single item of the landscape. "Looking!" he repeated, "that's odd.
We've lost something too. You said too,--just now--something about--a
sign, I think?" Uncle Felix added shyly.
All waited, but the Tramp gave no direct reply. He smiled again and
folded two mighty arms about them. Two big feathery wings seemed round
them. Judy thought of a nest, Tim of a cozy rabbit hole, Uncle Felix
had the amazing impression that there were wild flowers growing in his
heart, or that a flock of robins had hopped in and began to sing.
"Lost something, have you?" the Tramp enquired genially at length; and
the slow, leisurely way he said it, the curious half-singing utterance
he used, the words falling from his great beard with this sound as of
wind through leaves or water over sand and pebbles--somehow included
them in the rhythm of existence to which he himself naturally belonged.
They all seemed part of the garden, part of the day, part of the sun
and earth and flowers together, marvellously linked and caught within
some common purpose. Question and answer in the ordinary sense were
wrong and useless. They must _feel_--feel as he did--to find what they
sought.
It was Uncle Felix who presently replied: "Something--we've--mis-laid,"
he said hesitatingly, as though a little ashamed that he expressed the
truth so lamely.
"Mis-laid?" asked the Tramp. "Mis-laid, eh?"
"Forgotten," put in Tim.
"Mis-laid or forgotten," repeated the other. "That all?"
"Some_body_, I should have said," explained Uncle Felix yet still
falteringly, "somebody we've lost, that is."
"Hiding," Tim said quickly.
"About," added Judy. There was a hush in all their voices.
The Tramp picked the small feather from his beard--apparently a
water-wagtail's--and appeared to reflect a moment. He held the soft
feather tenderly between a thumb and finger that were thick as a
walking-stick and stained with roadside mud and yellow with
flower-pollen too.
"Hiding, is he?" He held up the feather as if to see which way it
fluttered in the wind. "Hiding?" he repeated, with a distinct
broadening of the smile that was already big enough to cover half the
lawn. It shone out of him almost like rays of light, of sunshine, of
fire. "Aha! That's his way, maybe, just a little way he has--of playing
with you."
"You know him, then! You know who it is?" two eager voices asked
instantly. "Tell us at once. You're leader now!" The children, in their
excitement, almost burrowed into him; Uncle Felix drew a deep breath
and stared. His whole body listened.
And slowly the Tramp turned round his shaggy head and gazed into their
faces, each in turn. He answered in his leisurely, laborious way as
though each word were a bank-note that he dealt out carefully, fixing
attention upon its enormous value. There was certainly a tremor in his
rumbling voice. But there was no hurry.
"I've--seen him," he said with feeling, "seen him--once or twice. My
life's thick with memories--"
"Seen him!" sprang from three mouths simultaneously.
"Once or twice, I said." He paused and sighed. Wind stirred the rose
trees just behind him. He went on murmuring in a lower tone; and as he
spoke a sense of exquisite new beauty stole across the old-world
garden. "It was--in the morning--very early," he said below his breath.
"At dawn!" Uncle Felix whispered.
"When the birds begin," from Judy very softly.
"To sing," Tim added, a single shiver of joy running through all three
of them at once. The enchantment of their own dim memories of the
dawn--of a robin, of swallows, and of an up-and-under bird flashed
magically back.
The Tramp nodded his great head slowly; he bowed it to the sunlight, as
it were. There was a great light flaming in his eyes. He seemed to give
out heat.
"Just seen him--and no more," he went on marvellously, as though
speaking of a wonderful secret of his own. "Seen him a-stealing past
me--in the dawn. Just looked at me--and went--went back again behind
the rushing minutes!"
"Was it long ago? How long?" asked Judy with eager impatience
impossible to suppress. They did not notice the reference to Time,
apparently.
The wanderer scratched his tangled crop of hair and seemed to calculate
a moment. He gazed down at the small white feather in his hand. But the
feather held quite still. No breath of wind was stirring. "When I was
young," he said, with an expression half quizzical, half yearning.
"When I first took to the road--as a boy--and began to look."
"As long ago as that!" Tim murmured breathlessly. It was like a stretch
of history.
The Tramp put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "I was about your age,"
he said, "when I got tired of the ordinary life, and started wandering.
And I've been wandering and looking ever since. Wandering--and
wondering--and looking--ever since," he repeated in the same slow way,
while the feather between his great fingers began to wave a little in
time with the dragging speech.
The wonder of it enveloped them all three like a perfume rising from
the entire earth.
"We've been looking for ages too," cried Judy.
"And we've seen him," exclaimed her brother quickly.
"Somebody," added Uncle Felix, more to himself than to the others.
The Tramp combed his splendid beard, as if he hoped to find more
feathers in it.
"This morning, wasn't it?" he asked gently, "very early?"
They reflected a moment, but the reflection did not help them much.
"Ages and ages ago," they answered. "So long that we've forgotten
rather--"
"Forgotten what he looks like. That's it. Same trouble here," and he
tapped his breast. "We're all together, doing the same old thing. The
whole world's doing it. It's the only thing to do." And he looked so
wise and knowing that their wonder increased to a kind of climax; they
were tapping their own breasts before they knew it.
"Doing it everywhere," he went on, weighing his speech as usual; "only
some don't know they're doing it." He looked significantly into their
shining eyes, then finished with a note of triumph in his voice. "We
do!"
"Hooray!" cried Tim. "We can all start looking together now."
"Maybe," agreed the wanderer, very sweetly for a tramp, they thought.
They glanced at their Uncle first for his approval; the Tramp glanced
at him too; his face was flushed and happy, the eyes very bright. But
there was an air of bewilderment about him too. He nodded his head, and
repeated in a shy, contented voice--as though he surrendered himself to
some enchantment too great to understand--"I think so; I hope so;
I--wonder!"
"We've looked everywhere already," Tim shouted by way of
explanation--when the Tramp cut him short with a burst of rolling
laughter:
"But in the wrong kind of places, maybe," he suggested, moving forward
like a hedge or bit of hayfield the wind pretends to shift.
"Oh, well--perhaps," the boy admitted.
"Probly," said Judy, keeping close beside him.
"Of course," decided Uncle Felix; "but we've been pretty warm once or
twice all the same." He lumbered after the other three, yet something
frisky about him, as about a pony released into a field and still
uncertain of its bounding strength.
"Have you really?" remarked their leader, good-humouredly, but with a
touch of sarcasm. "Good and right, so far as it goes; only 'warm' is
not enough; we want to be hot, burning hot and steaming all the time.
That's the way to find him." He paused and turned towards them; he
gathered them nearer to him with his smiling eyes somehow. "It's like
this," he went on more slowly than ever: "A good hider doesn't choose
the difficult places; he chooses the common ordinary places where
nobody would ever think of looking." He kept his eyes upon them to make
sure they understood him. "The little, common places," he continued
with emphasis, "that no one thinks worth while. He hides in the
open--bang out in the open!"
"In the open!" cried the children. "The open air!"
"In the open!" gasped Uncle Felix. "The open sea!"
The Tramp almost winked at them. He looked like a lot of ordinary
people. He looked like everybody. He looked like the whole world
somehow. He smiled just like a multitude. He spoke, as it were, for all
the world--said the one simple thing that everybody everywhere was
trying to say in millions of muddled words and sentences. The wind and
trees and sunshine said it with him, for him, after him, before him. He
said the thing--so Uncle Felix felt, at any rate,--that was always
saying itself, that was everywhere heard, though rarely listened to;
but, according to the children, the thing they knew and believed
already. Only it was nice to hear it stated definitely--_they_ felt.
And the tide of enchantment rose higher and higher; in a tide of
flowing gold it poured about all three.
"That's it," the Tramp continued, as though he had not noticed the
rapture his very ordinary words had caused. "Sea and land and air
together. But more than that--he hides deep and beautiful."
"Deeply and beautifully," murmured the writer of historical novels, all
of them entirely forgotten now.
"Deep and beautiful," repeated the other, as though he preferred the
rhythm of his own expression. He drew himself up and swallowed a long
and satisfying draught of air and sunshine. He waved the little
wagtail's feather before their eyes. He touched their faces with its
tip. "Deep, tender, kind, and beautiful," he elaborated. "Those are the
signs--signs that he's been along--just passed that way. The whole
world's looking, and the whole world's full of signs!"
For a moment all stood still together like a group of leafy things a
passing wind has shaken, then left motionless; a wild rose-bush, a
climbing vine, a clinging ivy branch--all three kept close to the
stalwart figure of their big, incomparable leader.
And Judy knew at last the thing she didn't know; Tim felt himself
finally in the eternal centre of his haunted wood; in the eyes of Uncle
Felix there was a glistening moisture that caught the sunlight like dew
upon the early lawn. He staggered a little as though he were on a deck
and the sea was rolling underneath him.
"How ever did you find it out?" he asked, after an interval that no one
had cared to interrupt. "What in the world made you first think of it?"
And though his voice was very soft and clear, it was just a little
shaky.
"Well," drawled the Tramp, "maybe it was just because I thought of
nothing else. On the road we live sort of simply. There's never any
hurry; the wind's a-blowing free; everything's sweet and careless--and
so am I." And he chuckled happily to himself.
"Let's begin at once!" cried Tim impatiently. "I feel warm already--hot
all over--simply burning."
The Tramp signified his agreement. "But you must each get a feather
first," he told them, "a feather that a bird has dropped. It's a sign
that we belong together. Birds know everything first. They go
everywhere and see everything all at once. They're in the air, and on
the ground, and on the water, and under it as well. They live in the
open--sea or land. And if you have a feather in your hand--well, it
means keeping in touch with everything that's going. They go light and
easy; we must go light and easy too."
They stared at him with wonder at the breaking point. It all seemed so
obviously and marvellously true. How had they missed it up till now?
"So get a feather," he went on quietly, "and then we can begin to look
at once."
No one objected, no one criticised, no one hesitated. Tim knew where
all the feathers were because he knew every nest in the garden. He led
the way. In less than two minutes all had small, soft feathers in their
hands.
"Now, we'll begin to look," the Tramp announced. "It's the loveliest
game on earth, and the only one. It's Hide-and-Seek behind the rushing
minutes. And, remember," he added, holding up a finger and chuckling
happily, "there's no hurry, the wind's a-blowing free, the sun is warm,
everything's sweet and careless--and so are we."
THE COMMON SIGNS
V
"But has he called yet?" asked Tim, remembering suddenly that it wasn't
fair to begin till the hider announced that he was ready. "He's got to
hoot first, you know. Hasn't he?" he added doubtfully.
"Listen!" replied the man of the long white roads. And he held his
feather close against his ear, while the others copied him. Fixing
their eyes upon a distant point, they listened, and as they listened,
their lips relaxed, their mouths opened slowly, their eyebrows
lifted--they heard, apparently, something too wonderful to be believed.
To Uncle Felix, still fumbling in his mind among unnecessary questions,
it seemed that the power of hearing had awakened for the first time, or
else had grown of a sudden extraordinarily acute. The children merely
listened and said "Oh, oh, oh!"; the sound they heard was familiar,
though never fully understood till now. For him, it was, perhaps, the
recovery of a power he had long forgotten. At any rate he--heard. For
the air passed through the tiny fronds of the feather--through the
veined web of its delicate resistance--round the hollow stem and across
the fluffy breadth of it--with a humming music as of wind among the
telegraph wires, only infinitely sweet and far away. There were several
notes in it, a chord--the music that accompanies all flying things,
even a butterfly or settling leaf, and ever fills the air with
unguessed melody.
It opened their power of hearing to a degree as yet undreamed of even
by the all-believing children. Their feathers became wee, accurate,
tuning-forks for all existence. They understood that everything in the
whole world sang; that no rose leaf fluttered to the earth, no rabbit
twitched its ears, no mouse its tail, no single bluebell waved a head
towards its bluer neighbour, without this exquisite accompaniment of
fairy music.
"Listen, listen!" the Tramp repeated softly from time to time, watching
their faces keenly. "Listen, and you'll hear him calling...!"
And this fairy humming, having so marvellously attuned their hearing,
then led them on to the larger, louder sounds; they pricked their ears
up, as the saying goes; they noticed the deeper music everywhere. For
the morning breeze was rustling and whispering among the leaves and
blades of grass with a thousand happy voices. It was the ordinary
summer sound of moving air that no one pays attention to.
"Oh, that!" exclaimed Uncle Felix. "I hadn't noticed it." He felt
ashamed. He who had taught them the beauty of the self-advertising
Night-Wind, had somehow missed and overlooked the wonder--the
searching, yearning beauty--of this meek, incomparable music: because
it was so usual. For the first time in his life he heard the wind as it
slipped between the leaves, shaking them into rapture.
"And that," laughed the Tramp, cocking his great head to catch the
murmur of the stream beyond the lawn, "if the dust of furniture and
houses ain't blocked your ears too thickly." They stooped to listen.
"Like laughter, isn't it?" he observed, "singing and laughing mixed
together?"
They straightened up again, too full of wonder to squeeze out any words.
"It's everywhere," said Uncle Felix, "this calling--these calling
voices. Is that where you got _your_ song from?"
"It's everywhere and always," replied the other evasively. "The birds
get their singing from it. They get everything first, of course, then
pass it on. The whole world's music comes from that, though there's
nothing--_nothing_," he added with emphasis, "to touch the singing of a
bird. He's calling everywhere and always," he went on as no one
contradicted him or ventured upon any question; "only you've got to
listen close. He calls soft and beautiful. He doesn't shout and yell at
you."
"Soft and beautiful, yes," repeated Uncle Felix below his breath, "the
small, still voices of the air and sea and earth." And, as he said it,
they caught the murmur of the little stream; they heard singing in the
air as well. The blackbirds whistled in one direction, the thrushes
trilled and gurgled in another, and overhead, both among the covering
leaves and from the open sky, a chorus of twittering and piping filled
the chambers of the day. Judy recalled, as of long ago, the warning
bugle-call of an up-and-under bird; Tim faintly remembered having
overheard some swallows "discussing" together; Uncle Felix saw a robin
perched against a sky of pearly grey at the end of an interminable
corridor that stretched across whole centuries.... Then, close beside
the three of them, a bumble-bee, a golden fly, and a company of summer
gnats went by--booming, trumpeting, singing like a tiny carillon of
bells respectively.
"Hark and listen," exclaimed the Tramp with triumph in his voice, and
looking down at Tim particularly. "He's calling all the time. It's the
little ordinary sounds that give the hints."
"It's an enormous hide; I mean to look for ever and ever," cried the
delighted boy.
"I can hear everything in the world now," cried Judy.
"Signs," said Uncle Felix, after a pause. This time he did not make a
question of his thought, but merely dropped the word out like a note of
music into the air. His feather answered it and took it further.
The Tramp caught the word flying before it reached the ground:
"Deep, tender, kind and beautiful," he said, "but above
all--beautiful." He turned his shaggy head and looked about him
carelessly. "There's one of them, for instance," he added, pointing
across the lawn. "There's a sign. It means he's passed that way! He
ain't too far away--may-be."
They followed the direction of his eyes. A dragon-fly paused hovering
above the stream, its reflection mirrored in the clear running water
underneath. Against the green palisade of reeds its veined and crystal
wings scattered the sunlight into shining flakes. The blue upon its
body burned--a patch of flaming beauty in mid-air. They watched it for
a moment. Then, suddenly--it was gone, the spot was empty. But the
speed, the poise, the perfect movement, the flashing wings, above all
the flaming blue upon its tail still held them spellbound. Somehow, it
seemed, they had borrowed that speed, that flashing beauty, making the
loveliness part and parcel of themselves. Swiftly they turned and
stared up at the Tramp. There was a rapt look upon his tangled face.
"A sign," he was saying softly. "He's passed this way. He can't be
hiding very far from here." And, drawing a long, deep breath, he gazed
about him into endless space as though about to sing again.
The dragon-fly had vanished, none knew whither, gone doubtless into
some new hiding-place; it just gave the hint, then slipped away upon
its business. But the wonder and the beauty it had brought remained
behind, crept into every heart. The mystery of life, the reality that
lay hiding at the core of things, the marvel and the dream--all these
were growing clearer. All lovely things were "signs." And there fell a
sudden hush upon the group, for the Thing that Nobody could Understand
crept up and touched them.
Abruptly, then, lest the wonder of it should prove more than they could
bear perhaps, a blackbird whistled with a burst of flying laughter at
them from the shrubberies. Laughter and dancing both were part of
wonder. The Tramp at once moved forward, chuckling in his beard; he
waved his arms; his step was lighter, quicker; he was singing softly to
himself: they only caught stray sentences, but they loved the windy
ringing of his voice. They knew not where he borrowed words and tune:
"The world is young with laughter; we can fly.... Among the imprisoned
hours as we choose.... The birds are singing.... Hark! Come out and
play.... There is no hurry.... Life has just begun...."
"Come on!" cried Tim. "Let's follow him; we're getting frightfully
warm!"
He seized Judy and his uncle by the hands and cleared the rivulet with
a running leap. The Tramp, however, preferred to wade across. "Get into
everything you can," he explained in mid-stream with a laugh. "It keeps
you in touch; it's all part of the looking."
He led them into the field where the blackbird still went on whistling
its heart out into the endless summer morning. But to them it seemed
that he led them out across the open world for ever and ever....
It grew very marvellous, this game of hide and seek. Sometimes they
forgot it was a game at all, forgot what they were looking for, forgot
that they were looking for anything or any one at all. Yet the mighty
search continued subconsciously, even when passing incidents drew their
attention from their chief desire. Always, at the back of thought, lay
this exquisite, sweet memory in their hearts, something they half
remembered, half forgot, but very dear, very marvellous. Some one was
hiding somewhere, waiting, longing to play with them, expecting to be
found.
It may be that intervals went by, those intervals called years and
months; yet no one noticed them, and certainly no one named them. They
knew one feeling only--the joy of endless search. Some one was hiding,
some one was near, and signs lay scattered everywhere. This some one
lay in his wonderful hiding-place and watched their search with
laughter in his eyes. He remained invisible; perhaps they would never
see him actually; but they felt his presence everywhere, in every
object, every tree and flower and stone, in sun and wind, in water and
in earth. The power and loveliness of common things became insistent.
They were aware of them. It seemed they brushed against this shining
presence, pushing for ever against a secret door of exit that led into
the final hiding-place. Eager to play with them, yet more eager still
to be discovered, the wonderful hider kept just beyond their sight and
touch, while covering the playground with endless signs that he was
near enough for them to know for certain he was--there. For among the
four of them there was no heart that doubted. None explained. None said
No.... Nor was there any hurry.
"_I_ believe," announced Tim at length, with the air of a sage about
him, "the best way is to sit still and wait; then he'll just come out
like a rabbit and show himself." And, as no one contradicted, he added
confidently, "that's _my_ idea." His love was evidently among the
things of the soil, rabbits, rats and hedgehogs, both hunter and
adventurer strong in him.
"A hole!" cried Judy with indignation. "Never! He's in the air. I heard
a bird just now that--"
"Whew!" whistled Uncle Felix, interrupting her excitedly. "He's been
along here. Look! I'm sure of it." And he said it with such conviction
that they ran up, expecting actual footprints.
"How do you know?" Tim asked dubiously, seeing no immediate proof
himself. All paused for the reply; but Uncle Felix also paused. He had
said a thing it seemed he could not justify.
"Don't hesitate," said the Tramp, watching him with amusement. "Don't
think before you speak. There's nothing to think about until you've
spoken."
Uncle Felix wore an expression of bewilderment. "I meant the flowers,"
he stammered, still unsure of his new powers.
"Of course," the other chuckled. "Didn't I tell you 'tender and
beautiful,' and 'bang out in the open'?"
"Then you're right, Uncle; they _are_ signs," cried Judy, "and you _do_
like butter," and she danced away to pick the dandelions that smothered
the field with gold. But the Tramp held out his feather like a wand.
"They're our best signs, remember," he cried. "You might as well pick a
feather out of a living bird."
"Oh!"--and she pulled herself up sharply, a little flush running across
her face and the wind catching at her flying hair. She swayed a moment,
nearly overbalancing owing to the interrupted movement, and looking for
all the world like a wild young rose tree, her eyes two shining
blossoms in the air. Then she dropped down and buried her nose among
the crowd of yellow flowers. She smelt them audibly, drawing her breath
in and letting it out again as though she could almost taste and eat
the perfume.
"That's better," said the Tramp approvingly. "Smell, then follow," and
he moved forward again with his dancing, happy step. "All the wild,
natural things do it," he cried, looking back over his shoulder at the
three who were on their knees with faces pressed down against the
yellow carpet. "It's the way to keep on the trail. Smell--then follow."
Something flashed through the clearing mind of the older man, though
where it came from he had less idea than the dandelions: a mood of
forgotten beauty rushed upon him--
"O, follow, follow!
Through the caverns hollow,
As the song floats thou pursue,
Where the wild bee never flew--"
and he ran dancing forward after the great Tramp, singing the words as
though they were his own.
Yet the flowers spread so thickly that the trail soon lost itself; it
seemed like a paper-chase where the hare had scattered coloured petals
instead of torn white copy-books. Each searcher followed the sign of
his or her own favourite flower; like a Jack-in-the-Box each one bobbed
up and down, smelling, panting, darting hither and thither as in the
mazes of some gnat--or animal-dance, till knees and hands were stained
with sweet brown earth, and lips and noses gleamed with the dust of
orange-tinted pollen.
"Anyhow, I'd rather look than find," cried Tim, turning a somersault
over a sandy rabbit-mound.
The swallows flashed towards Judy, a twittering song sprinkling itself
like liquid silver behind them as they swooped away again.
"I expect," the girl confessed breathlessly, "that when we do find
him--we shall just die--!"
"Of happiness, and wonder," ventured Uncle Felix, watching a common
Meadow Brown that perched, opening and closing its wings, upon his
sleeve. And the Tramp, almost invisible among high standing grass and
thistles, laughed and called in his curious, singing voice, "There is
no hurry! Life has just begun!"
"Then we might as well sit down," suggested Uncle Felix, and suiting
the action to the word, chose a nice soft spot upon the mossy bank and
made himself comfortable as though he meant to stay; the Tramp did
likewise, gathering the children close about his tangled figure. For
one thing a big ditch faced them, its opposite bank overgrown with
bramble bushes, and for another the sloping moss offered itself
invitingly, like a cushioned sofa. So they lay side by side, watching
the empty ditch, listening to the faint trickle of water tinkling down
it. Slender reeds and tall straight grasses fringed the nearer edge,
and, as the wind passed through them with a hush and whisper, they bent
over in a wave of flowing green.
"He's certainly gone that way," Judy whispered, following with her eyes
the direction of the bending reeds. She was getting expert now.
"Along the ditch, I do believe," agreed Tim. There were no flowers in
it, and few, perhaps, would have found beauty there, yet the pointing
of the reeds was unmistakable. "It's chock full of stuff," he added,
"but a rat could get along, so I suppose--"
"The signs are very slight sometimes," murmured the Tramp, his head
half buried in the moss, "and sometimes difficult as well. You'd be
surprised." He flung out his arms and legs and continued laughingly.
"When things are contrary you may be sure you're getting
somewhere--getting warm, that is."
The children heard this outburst, but they did not listen. They were
absorbed in something else already, for the movements of the reeds were
fascinating. They began to imitate them, swaying their heads and bodies
to and fro in time, and crooning to themselves in an attempt to copy
the sound made by the wind among the crowded stalks.
"Don't," objected Uncle Felix, half in fun, "it makes me dizzy." He was
tempted to copy them, however, and made an effort, but the movement
caught him in the ribs a little. His body, like his mind, was not as
supple as theirs. An oak tree or an elm, perhaps, was more his model.
"Do," the Tramp corrected him, swaying as he said it. "Swing with a
thing if you want to understand it. Copy it, and you catch its meaning.
That's rhythm!" He made an astonishing mouthful of the word. The
children overheard it.
"How do you spell it?" Judy asked.
"I don't," he replied; "I do it. Once you get into the"--he took a
great breath--"rhythm of a thing, you begin to like it. See?"
And he went on swaying his big shoulders in imitation of the rustling
reeds. All four swayed together then, holding their feathers before
them like little flying banners. More than ever, they seemed things
growing out of the earth, out of the very ditch. The movement brought a
delicious, soothing sense of peace and safety over them; earth, air,
and sunshine all belonged to them, plenty for everybody, no need to get
there first and snatch at the best places. There was no hurry, life had
just begun. They seemed to have dug a hole in space and curled up
cosily inside it. They whispered curious natural things to one another.
"A wren is settling on my hair," said Judy: "a butterfly on my neck,"
said Uncle Felix: "a mouse," Tim mentioned, "is making its nest in my
trousers pocket." And the Tramp kept murmuring in his voice of wind and
water, "I'm full of air and sunlight, floating in them, floating
away... my secret's in the wind and open sky... there is no longer any
Time--to lose...."
A bright green lizard darted up the sun-baked bank, vanishing down a
crack without a sound; it left a streak of fire in the air. A golden
fly hovered about the tallest reed, then darted into another world,
invisibly. A second followed it, a third, a fourth--points of gold that
pinned the day fast against the moving wall of green. A wren shot at
full speed along the bed of the ditch, threading its winding length
together as upon a woven pattern. All were busy and intent upon some
purpose common to the whole of them, and to everything else as well;
even the things that did not move were doing something.
"I say," cried Tim suddenly, "they're covering him up. They're hiding
him better so that we shan't find him. We've got too warm."
How long they had been in that ditch when the boy exclaimed no one
could tell; perhaps a lifetime, or perhaps an age only. It was long
enough, at any rate, for the Tramp to have changed visibly in
appearance--he looked younger, thinner, sprightlier, more shining. He
seemed to have shed a number of outward things that made him
bulky--bits of beard and clothing, several extra waistcoats, and every
scrap of straw and stuff from the hedges that he wore at first. More
and more he looked as Judy had seen him, ages and ages ago, emerging
from the tarpaulin on the rubbish-heap at the End of the World.
He sprang alertly to his feet at the sound of Tim's exclamation. The
sunlit morning seemed to spring up with him.
"We have been very warm indeed," he sang, "but we shall get warmer
still before we find him. Besides, those things aren't hiding
him--they're looking. Everything and everybody in the whole wide world
is looking, but the signs are different for everybody, don't you see?
Each knows and follows their own particular sign. Come on!" he cried,
"come on and look! We shall find him in the end."
COME-BACK STUMPER'S SIGN
VI
The steep bank was easily managed. They were up it in a twinkling, a
line of dancing figures, all holding hands.