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THE KING OF ALSANDER
by
JAMES ELROY FLECKER
London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.
Ruskin House 40 Museum Street, W.C.
1915
DEDICATION
_To_
J.N. MAVROGORDATO
This Romance,
of which he never despaired in the Rough
Is dedicated in the Ripe
CONTENTS
Preface
Chapter I. Blaindon
Chapter II. Alsander
Chapter III. En Pension in Alsander
Chapter IV. Introducing a good beggar and a bad King
Chapter V. Of the knighting of Norman Price
Chapter VI. Concerning Isis and Aphrodite:
with a digression on the shocking
treatment the latter's followers receive
from the hands of English novelists
Chapter VII. The Society for the Advancement of Alsander
Chapter VIII. How Norman failed to pass
a qualifying examination for the post
of King of Alsander, and was whipped:
together with a digression on the excellence
of whipping
Chapter IX. The Consul
Chapter X. Contains the President's tale
and a debate on the advantages of murder
Chapter XI. A Visit to Vorza
Chapter XII. In which the Beetles crawl
Chapter XIII. Re-Coronation
Chapter XIV. Princess Ianthe
Chapter XV. Peronella and the Priest
Chapter XVI. The Counter Conspiracy: an
episode in the style of the worst writers
Chapter XVII. Battle
Chapter XVIII. The Poet visits Blaindon
once more, and takes John Gaffekin to
the seashore, where a miracle occurs
PREFACE
_Here is a tale all romance--a tale such as only a Poet can write for
you, O appreciative and generous Public--a tale of madmen, kings,
scholars, grocers, consuls, and Jews: a tale with two heroines, both of
an extreme and indescribable beauty: a tale of the South and of
sunshine, wherein will be found disguises, mysteries, conspiracies,
fights, at least_ one _good whipping, and plenty of blood and love and
absurdity: a very old sort of tale: a tale as joyously improbable as
life itself._
_But if I know you aright, appreciative and generous Public, you look
for more than this in these tragic days of social unrest, and you will
be most dissatisfied with my efforts to please you. For you a king is a
shadow, a madman a person to be shut up, a scholar a fool, a grocer a
tradesman, a consul an inferior grade of diplomatic officer, and a Jew a
Jew. You will demand to know what panacea is preached in this novel as a
sovran remedy for the dismal state of affairs in England. With what hope
do I delude the groaning poor: with what sarcasm insult the insulting
rich? What is the meaning of my apparent joyousness? What has grim
iron-banging England to do with sunshine, dancing, adventure and, above
all, with Poets?_
_In support of my reputation let me hasten to observe that in my efforts
to please a generous and appreciative Public I have not failed to insert
several passages of a high moral tone. Grave matters of ethics are
frequently discussed in the course of my story, and the earnest inquirer
may learn much from this book concerning the aim, purpose and origin of
his existence. To Government and its problems I have given particular
attention, and the observant reader may draw from these subtle pages a
complete theory of the Fallacy of the Picturesque. Only I implore the
public to forgive the Poet his proverbial licence, to remember that
truth is still truth, though clad in harlequin raiment, and thought
still thought, though hinted and not explained._
_Farewell, then, my King of Alsander. Ride out into the world and
conquer. Behind you--a merry and a mocking phantom--my youth rides out
for ever!_
_Beyrouth,_ _Syria_, 1913.
THE KING OF ALSANDER
CHAPTER I
BLAINDON
Would that I had a little cot
Beside a little hill,
In some romantic English spot
Where summer's not so very hot
And winter not too chill.
_J. Williams_
The writer of these simple lines, now unhappily dead, was a man of the
soil, whose sweet native note had never been troubled by the sinister
depravities, the heartless affectations of urban existence; and I
believe myself that his pathetic and modest ideal could have been
actually realized had he inhabited, as perhaps he did, the peaceful
village of Blaindon. This secluded hamlet lies some ten miles from the
sea, in an undulating, but not terrible, country--a land of woodland and
meadow, of buttercup and daisy, of tiny streams and verdant dells. At
evening the scene is more tranquil than ever, and the old church spire,
standing sentinel above the cold ploughlands, presents a curiously sad
appearance, tinged as it is with the melancholy of years. However at
the time when this story opens it was not evening, but afternoon, and a
very hot one. The horse in his freedom, like the pig in his confinement,
lolled upon the ground, and the thatches rustled with the melodies of
sleep.
Yes, let us look beneath those thatches and consider the village yokel
for a moment, as with mouth agape and heavy eyelids he takes his meed of
repose:
Nec partem solido demere de die
Spernit; nunc viridi membra sub arbuto
Stratus; nunc ad aquae lene caput sacrae.
But if, here in England, he has no arbute tree, or sacred fountain,
whereby to stretch his large, unwieldy limbs, there awaits him,
nevertheless, the fireside in winter, the straw of the stable loft for
hotter days. Ensconced beneath such lowly roofs as those of little
Blaindon, many a hundred sons of toil have been born, been married and
been finally dead, after a life spent in working nobly for an ignoble
pittance, far away from the wearisome strife of new ideas and
endeavours, and all the rumbling of the world's chariot wheels.
I have carefully examined the records in the parish church, thinking
that they might interest all those who still have faith in the sterling
qualities and bulldog tenacity of our British yeoman class. I discovered
the interesting fact that only a fifth of the population die before the
age of sixty-five; and that the same families seem to have lived here in
a state of ceaseless intermarriage for century after century. The
_Weolkeðings_ of Saxon days, the _Weilcans_ of the Normans, who are they
but the honest Wilkinses round the corner? No great calamities have
occurred at Blaindon except an occasional plague; no stirring battles
have there been fought. The place seems to have been forgotten or
overlooked during the Civil Wars. (However, an inhabitant of the town
fought at Balaclava, but not in the Heavy Brigade.) Of the prevailing
insanity, I need say nothing; this is the inheritance of all rustic
communities. That the people of Blaindon are happy and appreciate their
charming home they have proved in the clearest possible way. They have
never left it.
Would that he who looks over the church-yard wall down at the tidy rows
of one-room cottages, whose gardens blaze with nasturtia and red
daisies, could say that no jarring note, no trace of a restless
individuality, marred the enchanting scene. But, alas! every traveller
is bound to remark a peculiarly ugly two-storied erection, whose
rectangular bricks render it at once an eyesore and a solecism. This
building used to be called by the inhabitants Price's bongmash: but the
name on its sign was Bon Marché (French for Good Market). Mr Price's
business was at the time this story opens the most flourishing concern
in Blaindon. It was carried on chiefly by the indomitable energy of the
younger Price; his father now slept most of the day, not so much on
account of his advancing years as because he was very tired and a heavy
eater. He could trust his son completely. Young Norman Price was one of
the most envied personages in Blaindon. He was only nineteen; a handsome
and strong young man, and the face he showed a customer wore no servile
frock-coated smirk, but a laugh of real pleasure at being able to supply
the needs of the community. Nearly everything was on sale in his
shop--all groceries, also cloth, garden seeds, papers, books (the least
flourishing part of the trade), and tobacco. Yet his store did not look
at all like other village stores where everything is bought in dirty
pennyworths. It was well arranged, and the goods were displayed to good
account, more after the tradition, I fear, of American vulgarity than of
British honesty. Worse still, Price had actually taken upon himself to
corrupt the adorable simplicity of the villagers and to turn their
thoughts to the enervating fashions of great cities. If a young villager
came in who liked to be thought rather a nut and who fancied him self in
a new waistcoat, the young grocer would give him a little elegant and
expensive tobacco to try, explain that he smoked it himself, and that
one smoked less of it than of the commoner sorts, so it came no dearer
after all. He utterly refused to sell cigarettes at ten for a penny, or
assorted sweets at three half-pence the quarter. It soon became a mark
of distinction to be a customer at the Bon Marche, and the firm got a
reputation for selling "sound articles and no trash."
I have not mentioned, however, the object that would probably most
astonish a gentleman of culture on entering the shop. On the wall hung a
large and fine reproduction of Holbein's portrait of Georg Gisze. The
young merchant, robed in delicate silk and velvet, and surrounded by
keys, quadrants, scissors, maps, and ledgers, was obviously meant to be
the tutelary deity of the house; indeed, as a set-off to the flowers
that stand upon the painted table, Norman had placed a large bowl of
carnations on his counter.
The picture had been a present from his friend, John Gaffekin. If young
Price appears in this story so strangely different from his father and
from the other villagers of Blaindon, and indeed from all grocers
whatsoever, we need not accept the explanation of some, that his father
was "a deeper man than you'd think" or the assertion of others that he
"got it from his mother," a lady of whom he had never seen so much as a
photograph. The lad's singularity was much more likely due to this
curious and close intimacy with a gentleman: and I hope that those who
read this history will not close the book without a sigh of remonstrance
against all those who insist on giving the lower classes thoughts above
their station. John Gaffekin lived with his widowed mother in the
Elizabethan Blaindon Hall, a typical old country house standing just
outside the village on a plot of park. The old lady was infirm, and in
order that he might attend to his mother, and also avoid drawing on a by
no means unlimited income, John had never gone to school. He had taken
some lessons from the Vicar, who had been "a fine classic in his day,"
and as he naturally loved books and was of a quiet disposition he became
so proficient that the Reverend George Apple warmly urged him to try for
a scholarship at Oxford. For a long time he had refused even to attempt
this feat. He declared that he could not leave his mother. He feared he
could not win the scholarship. But the old lady joined her importunities
to those of the Vicar. "They had not enough money to go on for ever,"
she maintained, "and if John had a degree he would always be able to
turn his hand to something at a pinch, and earn his daily bread." Very
much at a pinch, had the dear old lady but known it!
"I can easily get some one to look after me," said the old lady, "and
it is very wrong of me not to have sent you away before. You are getting
buried in this stupid place, and too dreamy altogether, with no one here
but that grocer friend of yours to talk to."
"I wish Norman could come with me to Oxford," said John. "It's wrong of
me to leave him."
"My dear son, I can't have you consorting with that sort of person all
your life."
"I do hate that subject," protested John.
"My dear boy, you'll find the wisdom of my words when you've seen a
little more of the world," said Mrs Gaffekin.
"Besides," interposed the Vicar, tactfully, "College terms only account
for half the year. We shall see plenty of you down here."
So John got his scholarship and went to Oxford, and Norman found himself
rather lonely. One day, three years ago, John had begun to talk to him
when he came into Blaindon to buy tobacco, and since then they had been
continuously together, walking, fishing and shooting all over the place,
and conversing on high and learned topics. That is why Norman was an
educated man after a certain curious fashion. He was, however, no mere
counterpart of his friend. Left to himself, Norman had fire and
intelligence enough to make his mark. But the sudden wide prospect
opened up by all that golden world all those enchanted gardens that lie
hid between pasteboard covers--had dazzled his eyes and made him a most
exceptional person. He had plunged into everything, learnt Latin and
French, attempted Greek. There were very few books that he read
carefully; hardly one would he read twice. "There are so many more to
read," he used to say. No one could be less of a scholar, and the fine
points of characterization, the delicate shades of metre and language,
lay beyond his sphere. But he loved all the books that are not generally
read; he could feel that such books were peculiarly his own property or
his own discovery, and a habit of always reading books that no one else
has read is not a bad guide to literature. All the works that glow with
dark frenzy, or with diabolical Rembrandt fires, whose authors died
nameless deaths or were burnt for magic, all the fantastic tales about
new countries on the other side of mountains, or happy islands in
limitless seas, all stories of the moon or stars were his especial
delight and continual joy. For he loved the _Monk_ of Monk Lewis, and
this is a rare book to find, and _Vathek_, and _William Jordan, Junior,_
greatest of unread modern books; and he sang to himself the _Gods of
Pegana_ and dreamed over its ethereal pictures, and he loved the new
Irish tales. And he adored that mysterious wonder-story of the _Golden
Ass_, and its glittering precious style; and he read Richepin's tales
of the Roman decadence. And he never wearied of James Thompson (not of
the "Seasons"), or of Baudelaire, or of the great travel poems of the
world from the _Odyssey_ to _Waring_.
And here, again, I must point the moral. The egregious bad taste of this
young man was almost certainly the outcome of his low antecedents. Stale
romanticism is embedded in the poorer classes. He liked his literature
garish and vivid, and with his insistent passion for all the decadent
stuff that used to be in favour ten or twelve years ago, he could never
appreciate that really noble modern literature, much of it dramatic,
which tackles so fearlessly and with such psychological insight the
problems of our industrial age. In fact, he used to say that it might be
damned good, but it was damned boring. Such is the obtuseness of the
Philistine. He was, moreover, no critic, as you may well opine; he had
not the fine taste of his friend, but he fell the more readily under the
spell and domination of strange books; he was a dreamer, and entertained
ideas of his own, which he would not have dared impart. Yet this dreamer
was a man of business, and employed all the resources of a crude but
powerful imagination in the disposal of his wares. How, then, could he
help feeling a little weary of Blaindon, especially when John was away
at Oxford? And on this afternoon, on which I have promised that my story
should begin, he was sitting rather disconsolate in his shop, drowning
care in the delights of Conrad's _Youth_.
He had hardly been interrupted the whole day, except for lunch. The
sexton had been in for some twine, and the Vicar's daughter for some
pink wool "to match the merino mother bought yesterday." She was a
pretty girl, and Price almost aspired to marry her. Had he only known
it, the poverty-stricken Mr Apple would have been only too glad, and I
do not think the young lady was at all averse to Norman, whose beauty of
person and brilliance of mind made one forget his unfortunate connexion
with trade.
At about half-past three he shut the book with a bang, heaved a
disconsolate sigh to think that the glorious tales were over, and
stretched himself. Then he slid off the counter and looked down the high
road to see if anything stirred thereon. Straight, broad, white,
glaring, over the sleeping downs lay the deserted road that led to
Blaindon from the unseen Ocean, fit for the trampling of armies and the
shouting of men, a road for caravans and caravans of merchandise to
traverse with bells a-jangle while wagoners told the tales of wagoners
high perched on their creaking wains; yet a road for modern life, ready
for tramways to glide along its hedges, and motor-cars to spin down its
smooth and cambered way; yet perhaps chiefly an ancient road, down which
some herald would speed, his gold coat laced with dust, his knees tight
gripping his steaming horse, with a message of war, disaster, or relief.
And down this mighty road came no wagon, nor army, nor motor, nor
herald: no one save in the far distance a solitary walker, small and
lonely in the vast sunshine. Price lazily watched the approaching
figure. It seemed to be that of an old man, but if so this old man was
walking faster than any other old man in the world. At all events, Price
was already sure that he was no inhabitant of Blaindon, and he therefore
came out and stood at his door to look at him.
It was indeed a tall, straight and singular old man who came up some
twenty minutes later and halted opposite the Bon Marche, resting on his
stick. His long hair and beard were of an almost dramatic whiteness,
like those of a Father Christmas in sugar. What was seen of his face
seemed smooth, and he had surprisingly young, blue eyes. Afterwards, one
noticed his long archaic lips and the beauty of his hands. His clothes,
subordinate as all clothes should be to the face, were yet curious and
distinctive. He wore a mauve silk scarf, a sort of Norfolk jacket, a
cricketing shirt, grey flannel trousers, and brown boots with pointed
toes. No collar, and no hat. His stick was a stout partridge cane with a
silver nameplate. The old man stood opposite Price and looked at him
with fixed attention for at least half a minute.
"Have you got any Navy Cut, sir?" said the old man.
"Mild or medium?" said Norman, beating a retreat into the shop to let
the stranger enter and to look for the tobacco.
"Strong, of course," bellowed the old man. "Thank you."
"What a voice he has!" thought the grocer. The new customer sat down on
a chair and threaded out the tobacco into an enormous briar, looking
curiously about him. Suddenly he started.
"You don't mean to say that you keep Menodoron Mixture here!" said he.
"I haven't been able to get any in this damned county at all."
He tapped the Navy Cut out of his pipe, swept it into his pouch, and
seized hold of the Menodoron tin. As he did so his eye lit upon the
Holbein. He gave a second start, more violent than the first, a quick,
violent spasm of his entire body, which made his snowy beard flap like
the handle of a water pump.
"Hullo! Where did you get that from?"
"Georg Gisze? He's a present from a friend of mine."
"And all those books and dictionaries, are they for sale? Have you a
Grammar School in this notable town?"
"No, sir. I read them when business is slack."
"Then what are you doing here?" said the old man, earnestly. "I can see
you are not a gentleman: you look too much like a god. Tell me, what are
you doing, with a library like that, here in a grocer's shop, in this
horrible little village?"
"Now, come, sir," said Norman, "it's a picturesque old place, situated
in charming country."
"Sir," replied the stranger, "I am a travelled man; I am perhaps a
trifle over-proud of my great journeys. I have seen all the Great
Effects. I have clambered among fearful crags to see the Euphrates, that
old river, burst through the Gate of Taurus. I have seen the Alps from
the Finsteraarhorn below me, Niagara from the footpath above me, night
in the city, day in the desert, dawn on the sea. I have seen the Little
Effects: Normandy, Tasmania, the English Lakes. But never on train,
steamer, bicycle, tram, motor, balloon, camel, horse, mule, or foot,
have I found such an unutterably dull place as Blaindon. Forgive this
rhetoric, purveyor of sweetmeats, but be assured of its truth."
"In all places, sir, there is a sky, a sun, and stars."
"Where," pursued the stranger, "did you learn to talk with that pure
accent, vendor of spices; or to frame such pleasant words? What are you
doing in this fantastic shop?"
"Earning my living, sir. Nor is there any mystery about my case. I have
a friend, now at Oxford, who gave me books to read and taught me Latin."
"Are you contented? Perfectly happy in your sunlight and starlight?
Supremely satisfied with Catullus on the counter?"
"As a rule, yes. But my friend is away at present; there is no one to
talk to, and these wonderful stories" (he pointed to the book lying face
downward on the counter) "stir the soul to travel."
"Well, why not travel, O Lord of Things in Tins? Blaindon's no good for
a man like you, great enough to make castles out of his biscuit tins,
and fortifications out of washing soap." And he pointed to Norman's
window, which was dressed that day with certain architectural effects.
"I have been content with my dreams for a long time," said Norman, with
a little vulgar pride in his poetic and pathetic phraseology "I am fond
of dreams--they are my best friends."
"If you imagine I am going to be impressed by that sort of Watts-Dunton
talk you are wrong; I'm going," said the old man, as he pose up from his
chair.
"Sir!" cried Norman; "you haven't paid for the tobacco."
The old man sat down with a thump.
"I am a poet," he said, with deprecatory grandeur. "And you aren't a
cultured snob after all, but something of a man. Have you travelled at
all, now? Tell me."
"Oh, yes, I go round the county a bit. On market days I usually go over
to Iffcombe in the Marsh; it's quite lively there."
"By the Queen of the Moon and the Sea whom I worship and by the memory
of your mother whom I swear you have never known, how dare you stand
opposite me, a young man with the face of a god, and blither about
Iffcombe in the Marsh! Travel, man, over the water, down south among the
palms! You've got money?"
"Not I!"
"A little, surely!"
"Only about a hundred pounds of my own, so far."
"Only a hundred pounds! Then go away with it before your friend borrows
it off you to pay his Oxford bills. No, don't get wrathful; I'm an
Oxford man myself and understand that curious world. A hundred pounds!
Why, I've never had a hundred pounds all at one time for many a year.
How you can keep a hundred pounds in your pocket or in the bank, I do
not know, when five pounds will take you to the Alps, seven to Italy,
twelve to the Gulf of Corinth, thirty to Damascus,[1] and fifty to
Yokohama. You should clear out of this rat-hole, young man, and that
immediately. Why not to-night? as thundering Salvationists cry, desiring
to save the soul. That engagement, this duty, the other promise, _este,
ese, aquel_, as the Spaniards have it, leave it all and save your life,
this is the Poet's appeal, the Muse's command. You'll find a kingdom
somewhere, or a war, or an adventure. I am a prophet, and the worshipper
of a Holy Lady. Now, good-bye."
He laid his hands on the boy's shoulders, and looked at him
dramatically. Then he turned round, seized the tin of Menodoron and
strode away.
"Two and sixpence," said Norman, calling him back.
"Two and elevenpence, counting the Navy Cut," said the poet, handing
over the exact sum. "You will certainly succeed, Mr Norman Price. So I
will give you a good tip," he added in a stage whisper. "Go straight to
Alsander."
"Where's that?" said Norman, but the eccentric customer, without another
word, strode out of the shop, leaving him bewildered. There was nothing
to do in the shop; he tried to re-arrange some shelves, but felt it was
not worth the trouble. He opened the _Golden Ass_ and found he could not
progress without looking up many exotic words, and the dictionary was
too heavy. Finally he sat down on his counter, gazing at the sunswept
fields and lengthening shadows of the hedges. The vast mournful light of
the late afternoon penetrated his spirit, and he felt, not for the first
time, that unutterable sadness, that vague and restless longing for the
Unknown land Impossible that it is the privilege of young men to feel.
For many a youth this curious sense of unity with the earth is but a
first awakening of amorous desire, and to such a one Venus comes
quickly, with all her gentle pain. But there are a few who understand
their souls, or who have souls to understand, whose daydreams are
fashioned of other delights and different imaginings.
So Norman began dreaming, at first as schoolboys dream of adventure,
plot, swordsmanship, hidden treasures, dense jungles, heroic bravery,
desperate efficiency and lost princesses. Then a poet's dream of hot
suns, and open plains, and vast masses of swaying colour. Then he
bethought himself of a multitude of pleasant practical schemes. John and
he had often talked of a bicycling tour in Normandy. That would be
inexpensive, but now it seemed so tame an affair. What of this
delicately--named Alsander the Poet talked of? It sounded remote enough.
To go somewhere where no one else had ever been would be better than
reading books no one else had ever read. And one should go at an hour's
notice, without making any plans. What a curiously-inspired man this old
poet or artist was! Quite mad, no doubt, with his Holy Lady. And what
did he mean by mentioning Norman's mother? Norman had no gods; he feared
Death and loved Life. Well, since Life is short, and since one is sure
of nothing, shall one not be bold? To-night!
The old man's words thrilled him. If, as the poet had suggested, a
trumpet-voiced vulgarian in black can save a drinker from dirt and
disease in a quarter of an hour, cannot a radiant poet save a dreamer
from stagnation in ten minutes? Norman began to think hard, and his
pulses were stirring for action, when the bell rang behind the shop. It
was time for meat-tea.
Norman, with no feeling of any bathos, entered the parlour with the full
intention of eating a hearty meal. He sat down opposite old William
Price and began to cut himself enormous slices of bread. Meanwhile he
looked at his father, and studied the old man's appearance carefully and
cynically for the first time in his life. We often take some of our near
relations for granted (like the nursery cuckoo clock or the
cabbage-roses on the porch), and we never become acutely conscious of
their existence or individuality unless they die, disappear, or make
themselves offensive. Norman dispassionately scrutinized his father's
stumpy red beard, curious veiled eyes, and fireless, thin face,
remembered his equanimity and his shrewdness, and wondered with boyish
shallowness and conceit--for he knew less about his father than about
the man in the moon--what on earth he had in common with such a man
outside human nature and the grocery business. The only recent change
that Norman could observe in his parent was that he had certainly become
fatter and more foolish since he had left his son to do all the grocery
work. The lad was sure that the one salvation for his father would be to
take the business on again, and his idea of effecting a dramatic
departure--for a time, at least--grew almost a resolve.
Usually Norman never told his father anything that could possibly puzzle
or worry the excellent old gentleman, and had maintained the rule that
the elder generation is the last place where the new should expect
sympathy. However, for want of something to talk about, Norman observed
that a most peculiar person, describing himself as a poet, had been in
the shop and had tried to persuade him to travel.
"To travel, eh?" said William Price. "What in?"
"Oh, he meant abroad."
"I've n'er bin abroa'," said the honest oil fellow, stifling his words
in large mouthfuls of ham. "But I bin 'sfuras Wales."
"I'm longing to go," said Norman, "and I will go, too."
"Ah, yes," said the old man, paying no serious attention, as he leaned
back in his wooden armchair. "I've often wanted to see it myself. Used
to live down by the sea in Kent, and I was always wunnering what was the
other side, and thinking I saw France, but it was only the clouds. I'm
glad I never went there though; they say it's a very irreligious
country."
Norman finished his meal in silence and folded up his napkin.
"Good night, father," he said, as he got up from his chair, leaving the
old man still hard at work. "I expect you'll want to get to sleep now,
it's been a tiring day."
"Indeed it has," said William Price. "Indeed it has."
"I'm going out for a stroll," said Norman, at the door.
"Oh, _we_ understand," gurgled Mr William Price after him, with a wink.
"Young rip!" he added complacently as he continued his meal.
But when, his meal finished, he began to doze in the armchair by the
fire, even his confident son might have been startled to see him open
his wide dark eyes, unfilmed, and smile as though he saw Paradise dawn
upon the ceiling.
Norman walked up and down the village street, as though he hoped that
the moon, Whose silver bow hung listlessly above, would send some barbed
messenger of watery fire to confirm him in a resolution. Whether indeed
the celestial lady did touch him somehow, or whether his vanity and
naughty desire to startle the villagers was not more powerful, cannot
say; but in a few minutes a strange decided mood swept over him, and
when a quarter of an hour later he swung into the Blaindon Arms it was
as a man resolved to say good-bye.
For neither business nor inclination had ever permitted Norman to lose
touch with these heroes of the soil, the Blaindon working class. They
were honest, strenuous, interesting fellows, a little too full perhaps
of local colour, Though they were a little jealous of him, they were a
kindly folk and bowed naturally to his superior wealth. Superior
intellect they did not allow him to possess. For them he was a bright
boy who'd got "notions."
He greeted little Nancy at the bar as a habitué should, and asked for
the time-table.
"Surely ye aren't goin' anywhere this tame o' nate," murmured John Oggs.
"Yes, I am," said Norman. "I'm just off abroad. And I've come to say
good-bye."
"What!" said old Canthrop, a person who combined the functions of
village patriarch and village imbecile, and was, in accordance with the
universal custom of savage communities, almost worshipped in
consequence. "What!" he repeated, making the mono-syllable rhyme with
hat. "Aiy didn't know: no one tould me!"
"Well, you're the first to know as usual, Mr Canthrop. The old man
doesn't know yet."
"What!" said old Canthrop, almost shrieking, "not tould yer feyther? Not
tould yer feyther that yer goin' away?"
He rocked convulsively in his chair.
"Isn't that rather sudden of you, Mr Price?" said pleasant Nancy,
simpering. She was a great friend of Norman's, and her voice was a
little tremulous as she asked her question.
Thomas Bodkin, the sexton, who passed for a man of the world, and was
drinking airily at the bar, leaned over and whispered very audibly,
"It's a scrape, Nancy ... these young dogs ... must let 'em sow their
oats ... eh, what?... We know."
Mr Bodkin's jerky mouthfuls passed in the inn for nimble elocution, his
metaphors for the delicious slang of an old and experienced rake.
"Gawd!" ejaculated John Oggs, who was sitting behind him, "ye have it
there, man, ye have it there!"
"What nonsense!" said Norman. "You don't imagine I should run away from
trouble, do you? Or that I should be likely to get into trouble? Or that
if I did I should be such a fool as to tell you anything about it?"
"Why did you, then?" said Thomas Bodkin. A roar of laughter greeted this
vivacious sally.
Price looked round with rather priggish disgust. It was more than he
could stand, this asinine mockery. "I came to say good-bye," he said.
"Till to-morrow, eh?" said the sexton. "You will not see me to-morrow,"
said Norman.
"See now, Mr Price," pursued the sexton, "there are _no_ more trains.
None between five this evening and 10.30 to-morrow, except on markets
when the 8.15 goes to Iffcombe. You're mad."
Another peal of laughter, during which Norman disappeared, a baffled
Byron, punished by the native humour of honourable working men for
trying to produce a cheap effect.
But his resolution had received its final confirmation. He could not
face the ridicule of the morrow. He hurried back at once to the shop,
and there on the counter wrote a concise note to his father. He thought
it unnecessary to condole or excuse. He knew how delightful it would be
for the old man to have anything happen to him at all, how he would
enjoy being the centre of sympathetic interest in the village, and how
thoroughly good it would be for his moral character to get back to
business. He then took the Post Office Savings Bank book from the safe.
There were ninety pounds odd in it, entered in his name, the profits
that had accrued during his two years' management of the shop. Perhaps
it was not strictly his; his father had established the business, and
provided the initial stock. But then his father had laid by enough to
keep him even in food for the next ten years, and Norman had done the
work. It is the young who want money; Norman had never been able to see
the object of saving money with immense toil over against the day when
one should become infirm, insane, or dead. He uttered a vigorous oath
against the Post Office system, which means a day's delay in
withdrawal, sent the book up to headquarters at once, asking that it
should be sent him by return to the Central Post Office, Southampton,
posted it in the box opposite, and then considered what he ought to
pack. He took a change of raiment, and then looked lovingly at the
ponderous tomes on his shelves. Only the smallest could go with him.
"After all," said Norman, "I have read all these once. New lands, new
books, and I am not going away for what John would call a reading
party."
Finally he took no book with him save a little Elzevir _Apuleius_, and
packed it with all his other effects on his bicycle carrier and in the
saddle-bag. Just as he was mounting one more thought troubled him. Would
he not be terribly lonely? If only John could come too! "No," he said,
arguing to himself, "my life must not consist of John. If I'm lonely I
shall have to discover for myself new companions in new countries."
It was a splendid night. He set off down the High Street, on the main
road to Southampton in a state of perilous exultation. Smoothly and
quickly the tyred wheels bore him on out to infinity. The door of the
Blaindon Arms stood open, and as he rolled noiselessly by he could hear
Canthrop summing up his view of the situation for the fiftieth time,
"Bloody silly, I call it," said the old man, "bloody silly!"
[1] I should subjoin a word to prevent any enthusiastic reader from
taking the words of the old poet too seriously and wasting thirty pounds
in going to Damascus. It is a very filthy town with electric trams and
no drains.
The fares mentioned by the poet are of course third-class.