--BUT DIFFERENTLY!
Church was very--that is, they enjoyed the service very much, without
knowing precisely why they liked it. They joined in the hymns with more
energy than usual, because they felt "singy" and knew the tunes as
well. Colonel Stumper handed round one of the bags at the end of a long
pole--and, though the clergyman didn't look at all as if he required
feeding, the threepenny bits dropped in without the least regret on the
part of the contributors. Tim's coin, however, having been squeezed for
several minutes before the bag came round, stuck to his moist finger,
and Stumper, thinking he had nothing to put in, drove the long handle
past him towards Maria. That same instant the coin came un-stuck, and
dropped with a rattle into the aisle. Come-Back Stumper stooped to
recover it. Whereupon, to Judy, Tim and Uncle Felix, watching him, came
a sudden feeling of familiarity, as though all this had happened
before. The bent figure, groping after the hidden coin, seemed
irresistibly familiar. It was very odd, they thought, very odd indeed.
Where--when--had they seen him groping before like that, almost on all
fours? But no one, of course, could remark upon it, and it was only Tim
and Judy who exchanged a brief, significant glance. Maria, being
asleep, did not witness it, nor did she contribute to the feeding of
the clergyman either.
There followed a short sermon, of which they heard only the beginning,
the end, and certain patches in the middle when the preacher raised his
voice abruptly, but the text, they all agreed, was "Seek and ye shall
find." During the delivery of the portions that escaped them, Tim
scratched his head and thought about rabbits, while Judy's mind
hesitated between various costumes in the pews in front of her, unable
to decide which she would wear when she reached the age of its
respective owner.
And so, in due course, feeling somehow that something very real had
been accomplished, they streamed out with the rest of the congregation
into the blazing summer sunshine. Expectant, inquisitive and hungry,
they stood between the yew trees and the porch, yawning and fidgeting
until Uncle Felix gave the signal to start. The sunlight made them
blink. There was something of pleasurable excitement in knowing
themselves part of a "Congregation," for a Congregation was distantly
connected with "metropolis" and "govunment," and an important kind of
thing at any time.
They stood and watched it. It scattered slowly, loth to separate and
go. There was no hurry certainly. People talked in lowered voices, as
if conversation after service was against the rules, and the church and
graves might overhear; they smiled, but not too gaily; they seemed
subdued; yet really they wanted to sing and dance--once safely out of
hearing and sight, they would run and jump and stand on their heads.
The children, that is, attributed their own feelings to them.
Several--all "Members" of the Congregation--approached and asked unreal
questions, to which Judy, as the eldest, gave unreal answers:
"Your parents will soon be back again?"
"Yes; Father comes to-morrow, Mother too."
"I hope they have enjoyed their little change."
"I think so--thank you."
Gradually the Congregation melted away, broughams and victorias drove
off sedately down the road, the horses making as little sound as
possible with their hoofs. The Choir-boys emerged from a side-door and
vanished into a field; a series of Old Ladies and Invalids felt their
way down the gravel path with sticks; the "Neighbours," looking clean
and dressed-up, went off in various directions--gravely, voices hushed,
manners circumspect. Tim, feeling as usual "awfully empty after
church," was sure they ran as fast as ever they could the moment they
were out of sight. A Congregation was a wonderful thing altogether. It
was a puzzle how the little church could hold so many people. They
watched the whole familiar business with suppressed excitement,
forgetting they were hungry and impatient. It was both real and unreal,
something better beckoned beyond all the time; but there was no hurry.
It was a deep childhood mystery--wonder filled them to the brim.
"Come on, children; we'll be off now," sounded their uncle's voice, and
at the same moment Come-Back Stumper joined them. He had been counting
over the money with the clergyman, of course, all this time. He was
very slow. They hoped their contributions had been noticed.
"You'll come back with us?" suggested Uncle Felix. And Stumper,
growling his acceptance, walked home to lunch with them in the old Mill
House. In his short black coat, trousers of shepherd's plaid, and
knotted white tie bearing a neat horseshoe pin, he looked smart yet
soldierly. Tim apologised for his moist finger and the threepenny bit.
"I thought it had got down a hole," he said, "but you found it
wonderfully." "It simply flew!" cried Judy. "Clever old thing!" she
added with admiration.
"I've found harder things than that," said Stumper. "It hid itself
well, though--bang in the open like a lost collar-stud. Thought I'd
never look _there!"_
They glanced at one another with a curious, half-expectant air, and Tim
suddenly took the soldier's hand. But no one said anything more about
it; the sin was forgiven and forgotten. Uncle Felix put in a vague
remark concerning Indian life, and Stumper mentioned proudly that a new
edition of his scouting book was coming out and he had just finished
revising the last sheets. "All yesterday I spent working on it," he
informed them with a satisfied air, whereupon Tim said "Fancy that!"
and Judy exclaimed "Did you really?" They seemed to have an idea that
he was doing something else "all yesterday"; but no one knew exactly
what it was. Then Judy planted herself in the road before him, made him
stop, and picked something off his shoulder. "A tiny caterpillar!" she
explained. "Another minute and you'd have had it down your neck." "It
would have come back though," he said with a gruff laugh. "It might'nt
have," returned Judy. "But look; it's awfully beautiful!" They examined
it for a moment, all five of them, and then Judy set it down carefully
in the ditch and watched it march away towards the safer hedge.
It was a pleasant walk home, all together; they took the short cut
across the fields; the world was covered with flowers, birds were
singing, the air was fresh and sweet and the delicious sunlight not
uncomfortably hot. Tim ran everywhere, exploring eagerly like a dog,
and, also like a dog, doubling the journey's length. He whistled to
himself; from time to time he came back to report results of his
discoveries. He was full of energy. Judy behaved in a similar manner,
dancing in circles to make her hair and dress fly out; she sang bits of
the hymn-tunes that she liked, taking the tune but fitting words of her
own upon it. Maria was carried over two fields and a half; the
down-hill parts she walked, however. She kept everybody waiting. They
could not leave her. She contrived to make herself the centre of the
party. Stumper and Uncle Felix brought up the rear, talking together
"about things," and whirling their sticks in the air as though it
helped them forward somehow.
On the slippery plank-bridge across the mill stream all paused a moment
to watch the dragon-flies that set the air on fire with their coloured
tails.
"The things that nobody can understand!" cried Judy.
"Nobody else," Tim corrected her. "We do!"
They leaned over the rail and saw their own reflections in the running
water.
"Why, Come-Back hasn't got a button-hole!" exclaimed Judy--and flew off
to find one for him, Tim fast upon her heels like a collie after a
dipping swallow. They raced down the banks where the golden king-cups
grew in spendthrift patches and disappeared among the colonies of
reeds. Between some hanging willow branches further down they were
visible a moment, like dryad figures peering and flitting through the
cataract of waving green. They searched as though their lives depended
on success. It was absurd that Stumper had no button-hole!
Maria, seated comfortably on the lower rail, watched their efforts and
listened to the bursts of laughing voices that came up-stream--then,
with a leisurely movement, took the flower from her own button-hole and
handed it to Stumper. The eyes rolled upwards with the
flower--solemnly. And Come-Back saw the action reflected in the stream
below.
"Aw--thank you, my dear," he said, fastening the forget-me-not into his
Sunday coat, "but I ought not to take it all. It's yours." The voice
had a quiet, almost distant sound in it.
"Ours," Maria murmured to herself, addressing the faces in the water.
She took the fragment Stumper handed back to her. All three, forgetting
it was time for lunch, forgetting they were hungry, forgetting that
there was still half a mile of lane between them and the house, gazed
down at their reflections in the stream as though fascinated. Uncle
Felix certainly felt the watery-enchantment in his soul. The
reflections trembled and quivered, yet did not pass away. The stream
flowed hurrying by them, yet still was always there. It gave him a
strange, familiar feeling--something he knew, but had forgotten.
Everything in life was passing, yet nothing went--there was no hurry.
The rippling music, as the water washed the banks and made the grasses
swish, was audible, and there was a deeper sound of swirling round the
wooden posts that held the bridge secure. Bubbles rose and burst in
spray. A lark, hanging like a cross in the blue sky, overhead, dropped
suddenly as though it was a stone, but in the reflection it rushed up
into their faces. It seemed to rise at them from the pebbly bed of the
stream. Both movements seemed one and the same--both were true--the
direction depended upon the point of view.
It startled them and broke the water-spell. For the singing stopped
abruptly too. At the same moment Judy and Tim arrived, their arms full
of flowers, hemlock, ferns, and bulrushes. They were breathless and
exhausted; both talked at once; they had quite forgotten, apparently,
what they had gone to find. Judy had seen a king-fisher, Tim had
discovered tracks of an otter; in the excitement they forgot about the
button-hole. But, somehow, the bird, the animal, and the flowers were
the same thing really--one big simple thing. Only the point of view was
different.
"We've looked simply everywhere!" cried Judy.
"Just look what we found!" Tim echoed.
To Uncle Felix it seemed they said one and the same thing merely--using
_one_ word in many syllables.
"Beautiful!" agreed Stumper, as they emptied their arms at his feet in
wild profusion; "and enough for everybody too!"
Stumper also said the thing they had just said. Uncle Felix watched him
move forward, where Maria was already using the heaped-up greenery as a
cushion for her back, and pick something off the stem of a giant
bulrush.
"But that's what I like best," he exclaimed. "Look at the colour, will
you--blue and cream and yellow! You can hear the Ganges in it, if you
listen close enough." He held a small, coloured snail-shell between his
sinewy fingers, then placed it against his ear, while the others,
caught by a strange enveloping sense of wonder, stared and listened,
swept for a moment into another world.
"How marvellous!" whispered some one.
"Extrornary!" another murmured.
"Yes," said Maria. Her voice made a sound like a thin stone falling
from a height into water. But Maria had said the same thing as the
others, only said it shorter. An entire language lay in that
mono-syllable. Again, it was the point of view of doing, saying one
enormous thing. And Maria's point of view was everywhere at once--the
centre.
"Listen!" she added the next minute.
Perhaps the sunlight quivering on the surface of the stream confused
them, or perhaps it was the murmur and movement of the leaves upon the
banks that brought the sense of sweet, queer bewilderment upon all
five. A new sound there certainly was--footsteps, as though some one
came dancing--voices, as though some one sang. Figures were seen in the
distance among the waving world of green; they moved behind the
cataract of falling willow branches; and their distance was as the
distance of a half-remembered dream.
"They're coming," gasped Judy below her breath.
"They're coming back," Tim whispered, the tone muffled, underground.
"Eh?" ejaculated Stumper. "Coming back?" His voice, too, had distance
in it.
Whether they saw it in the reflections on the running water, or whether
the maze of shadow and sunshine in the wooded banks produced it, no one
knew exactly. The figures, at any rate, were plainly visible, moving
along with singing and dancing through the summery noontide of the
brilliant day. No one spoke while they went by, no one except Maria who
at intervals murmured "Yes." There was no other audible comment or
remark. They afterwards agreed that Weeden was seen clearest, but
Thompson and Mrs. Horton were fairly distinct as well, and bringing up
the rear was a figure in blue that could only have been the Policeman
who lived usually upon the high road to London. They carried flowers in
their arms, they moved lightly and quickly--it was uncommonly like
dancing--and their voices floated through the woodland spaces with a
sound that, if it was not singing, was at least an excellent
imitation--an attempt to sing!
"They're not lost," said Tim, as they disappeared from view. "They're
just looking--for the way."
"The way home," said Judy. "And they're following some one--who knows
it."
"Yes," added Maria. For another figure, more like a tree moving in the
wind than anything else, and certainly looking differently to each of
them--another figure was seen in advance of the group, seen in flashes,
as it were, and only glimpses of it discernible among the world of
moving green. This other figure was singing too; snatches of wild sweet
music floated through the quiet wood--one said the singing of a bird,
another, the wind, a third, the rippling murmur of the stream--but, to
one and all, an enchanting and enticing sound. And, to one and all,
familiar too, with the familiarity of a half-remembered dream.
And a flood of memory rose about them as they watched and listened, a
tide that carried them away with it into the heart of something they
knew, yet had forgotten. In the few moments' interval an eternity might
have passed. Their hearts opened curiously, they saw wonder growing
like a flower inside--the exquisite wonder of common things. There was
something they were looking for, but they had found it. The flower of
wonder blossomed there before their very eyes, explaining the world,
but not explaining it away, explaining simply that it was wonderful
beyond all telling. They all knew suddenly what they didn't know they
knew; they understood what nobody understands. None knew why it came
just at this particular moment, and none knew where it came from
either. It was there, so what else mattered. It broke upon them out of
the heart of the summer's day, out of this very ordinary Sunday
morning, out of the brimming life all about them that was passing but
could never pass away. The familiar figures of the gardener, the
butler, the policeman and the cook brought back to them the memory of
something they had forgotten, yet brought it back in the form of
endless and inexhaustible enticement rather than of complete recovery.
There had been long preparation somewhere, growth, development; but
that was past and they gave no thought to it; Expectancy and Wonder
rushed them off their feet. The world hid something. Every one was
looking for it. _They_ must go on looking, looking, looking too!
_What_ it was they had forgotten--they entirely forgot. Only the
marvellous hint remained, and the certainty that it could be found.
For, to each of them it seemed, came this fairy reminder, stealing
deliciously upon the senses: somewhere, somehow, they had known an
experience that had enriched their lives. It had become part of them.
It had always been in them, but they had found it now. They felt quite
positive about it. They believed. To Tim came messages from the solid
earth about him, secrets from creatures that lived in it and knew;
Judy, catching a thousand kisses from the air upon her cheeks, divined
the mystery of all flying life--that brought the stars within her
reach; Maria, possessing all within herself, remained steady and calm
at the eternal centre of the circle--a clearing-house for messages from
everywhere at once. Asking nothing for herself, she merely wanted to
give away, give out. She said "Yes" to all that came her way; and all
did come her way. To every one of them, to Stumper and Uncle Felix too,
came a great conviction that they had passed nearer, somehow, to an
everlasting joy. There was no hurry, life had just begun--seemed
singing everywhere about them. There was Unity.
"It's a lovely day," remarked Uncle Felix presently. "I want my
luncheon."
He picked up Maria and moved on across the bridge.
"It's the Extra Day," Maria whispered in his ear. "It's my adventure,
but you all can have it."
The others followed with Come-Back Stumper, and in the lane they saw
the figures of Weeden, Thompson and Mrs. Horton in front of them,
coming home from church. They were walking quietly enough.
"We're not late, then," Tim remarked. "There's lots of time!"
Crossing the field in the direction of the London road a policeman was
moving steadily. They saw him stoop and pick a yellow flower as he
went. He was off to take charge of the world upon his Sunday beat. He
disappeared behind a hedge. The butler and the cook vanished through a
side-door into the old Mill House about the same time.
In due course, they also arrived at the porch, and Uncle Felix set his
burden down. As they scraped their muddy boots and rubbed them on the
mat, their backs were turned to the outside world; but Maria, whose
boots required no scraping, happened to face it still. As usual she
faced in all directions like a circle.
"Look," she said. "There's some one coming!"
And they saw the figure of a tramp go past the opening of the drive
where the London road was just visible. He paused a moment and looked
towards the house. He did not come in. He just looked--and waved his
hand at them. The next minute he was gone. But not before Maria had
returned his wave.
"He'll come back," suggested Stumper, as they went inside.
"Yes," said Maria. "He's mine--but you can have him too."
Ten minutes later, when they all sat down to lunch, the big blue figure
of the policeman passed the opening of the drive. Being occupied with
hot roast beef, they did not see him. He paused a moment, looked
towards the house, and then went slowly out of sight again along the
London road, following the tramp....
THE END