THE advent of strangers, of whatever sort, into our circle had always
been a matter of grave dubiety and suspicion. Indeed, it was generally a
signal for retreat into caves and fastnesses of the earth, into
unthreaded copses or remote outlying cowsheds, whence we were only to be
extricated by wily nursemaids, rendered familiar by experience with our
secret runs and refuges. It was not surprising, therefore, that the
heroes of classic legend, when first we made their acquaintance, failed
to win our entire sympathy at once. 'Confidence,' says somebody, 'is a
plant of slow growth'; and these stately dark-haired demi-gods, with
names hard to master and strange accoutrements, had to win a citadel
already strongly garrisoned with a more familiar soldiery. Their chill
foreign goddesses had no such direct appeal for us as the mocking
malicious fairies and witches of the North. We missed the pleasant
alliance of the animal--the fox who spread the bushiest of tails to
convey us to the enchanted castle, the frog in the well, the raven who
croaked advice from the tree; and--to Harold especially--it seemed
entirely wrong that the hero should ever be other than the youngest
brother of three. This belief, indeed, in the special fortune that ever
awaited the youngest brother, as such,--the 'Borough-English' of
Faëry,--had been of baleful effect on Harold, producing a certain
self-conceit and perkiness that called for physical correction. But even
in our admonishment we were on his side; and as we distrustfully eyed
these new arrivals, old Saturn himself seemed something of a _parvenu_.
Even strangers, however, if they be good fellows at heart, may develop
into sworn comrades; and these gay swordsmen, after all, were of the
right stuff. Perseus, with his cap of darkness and his wonderful
sandals, was not long in winging his way to our hearts. Apollo knocked
at Admetus' gate in something of the right fairy fashion. Psyche
brought with her an orthodox palace of magic, as well as helpful birds
and friendly ants. Ulysses, with his captivating shifts and strategies,
broke down the final barrier, and henceforth the band was adopted and
admitted into our freemasonry.
I had been engaged in chasing Farmer Larkin's calves--his special
pride--round the field, just to show the man we hadn't forgotten him,
and was returning through the kitchen-garden with a conscience at peace
with all men, when I happened upon Edward, grubbing for worms in the
dung-heap. Edward put his worms into his hat, and we strolled along
together, discussing high matters of state. As we reached the tool-shed,
strange noises arrested our steps; looking in, we perceived Harold,
alone, rapt, absorbed, immersed in the special game of the moment. He
was squatting in an old pig-trough that had been brought in to be
tinkered; and as he rhapsodised, anon he waved a shovel over his head,
anon dug it into the ground with the action of those who would urge
Canadian canoes. Edward strode in upon him.
[Illustration: '"_I'm Jason . . . and this is the Argo . . . and we're
just going through the Hellespont_"']
'What rot are you playing at now?' he demanded sternly.
Harold flushed up, but stuck to his pig-trough like a man. 'I'm Jason,'
he replied defiantly; 'and this is the Argo. The other fellows are here
too, only you can't see them; and we're just going through the
Hellespont, so don't you come bothering.' And once more he plied the
wine-dark sea.
Edward kicked the pig-trough contemptuously. 'Pretty sort of Argo you've
got!' said he.
Harold began to get annoyed. 'I can't help it,' he retorted. 'It's the
best sort of Argo I can manage, and it's all right if you only pretend
enough. But _you_ never could pretend one bit.'
Edward reflected. 'Look here,' he said presently. 'Why shouldn't we get
hold of Farmer Larkin's boat, and go right away up the river in a real
Argo, and look for Medea, and the Golden Fleece, and everything? And
I'll tell you what, I don't mind your being Jason, as you thought of it
first.'
Harold tumbled out of the trough in the excess of his emotion. 'But
we aren't allowed to go on the water by ourselves,' he cried.
'No,' said Edward, with fine scorn: 'we aren't allowed; and Jason wasn't
allowed either, I daresay. But he _went_!'
Harold's protest had been merely conventional: he only wanted to be
convinced by sound argument. The next question was, How about the girls?
Selina was distinctly handy in a boat: the difficulty about her was,
that if she disapproved of the expedition--and, morally considered, it
was not exactly a Pilgrim's Progress--she might go and tell; she having
just reached that disagreeable age when one begins to develop a
conscience. Charlotte, for her part, had a habit of day-dreams, and was
as likely as not to fall overboard in one of her rapt musings. To be
sure, she would dissolve in tears when she found herself left out; but
even that was better than a watery tomb. In fine, the public voice--and
rightly, perhaps--was against the admission of the skirted animal:
despite the precedent of Atalanta, who was one of the original crew.
'And now,' said Edward, 'who's to ask Farmer Larkin? _I_ can't; last
time I saw him he said when he caught me again he'd smack my head.
_You'll_ have to.'
I hesitated, for good reasons. 'You know those precious calves of his?'
I began.
Edward understood at once. 'All right,' he said; 'then we won't ask him
at all. It doesn't much matter. He'd only be annoyed, and that would be
a pity. Now let's set off.'
We made our way down to the stream, and captured the farmer's boat
without let or hindrance, the enemy being engaged in the hay-fields.
This 'river,' so called, could never be discovered by us in any atlas;
indeed our Argo could hardly turn in it without risk of shipwreck. But
to us 'twas Orinoco, and the cities of the world dotted its shores. We
put the Argo's head upstream, since that led away from the Larkin
province; Harold was faithfully permitted to be Jason, and we shared the
rest of the heroes among us. Then, quitting Thessaly, we threaded the
Hellespont with shouts, breathlessly dodged the Clashing Rocks, and
coasted under the lee of the Siren-haunted isles. Lemnos was fringed
with meadow-sweet, dog-roses dotted the Mysian shore, and the cheery
call of the haymaking folk sounded along the coast of Thrace.
After some hour or two's seafaring, the prow of the Argo embedded itself
in the mud of a landing-place, plashy with the tread of cows and giving
on to a lane that led towards the smoke of human habitations. Edward
jumped ashore, alert for exploration, and strode off without waiting to
see if we followed; but I lingered behind, having caught sight of a
moss-grown water-gate hard by, leading into a garden that, from the
brooding quiet lapping it round, appeared to portend magical
possibilities.
Indeed the very air within seemed stiller, as we circumspectly passed
through the gate; and Harold hung back shamefaced, as if we were
crossing the threshold of some private chamber, and ghosts of old days
were hustling past us. Flowers there were, everywhere; but they drooped
and sprawled in an overgrowth hinting at indifference; the scent of
heliotrope possessed the place as if actually hung in solid festoons
from tall untrimmed hedge to hedge. No basket-chairs, shawls, or novels
dotted the lawn with colour, and on the garden-front of the house
behind, the blinds were mostly drawn. A grey old sun-dial dominated the
central sward, and we moved towards it instinctively, as the most human
thing in sight. An antick motto ran round it, and with eyes and fingers
we struggled at the decipherment.
TIME: TRYETH: TROTHE: spelt out Harold at last. 'I wonder what that
means?'
I could not enlighten him, nor meet his further questions as to the
inner mechanism of the thing, and where you wound it up. I had seen
these instruments before, of course; but had never fully understood
their manner of working.
We were still puzzling our heads over the contrivance, when I became
aware that Medea herself was moving down the path from the house.
Dark-haired, supple, of a figure lightly poised and swayed, but pale and
listless--I knew her at once, and having come out to find her, naturally
felt no surprise at all. But Harold, who was trying to climb on to the
top of the sun-dial, having a cat-like fondness for the summit of
things, started and fell prone, barking his chin and filling the
pleasance with lamentation.
Medea skimmed the ground swallow-like, and in a moment was on her knees
comforting him, wiping the dirt out of his chin with her own dainty
handkerchief, and vocal with soft murmur of consolation.
'You needn't take on so about him,' I observed politely. 'He'll cry for
just one minute, and then he'll be all right.'
My estimate was justified. At the end of his regulation time Harold
stopped crying suddenly, like a clock that had struck its hour; and with
a serene and cheerful countenance wriggled out of Medea's embrace, and
ran for a stone to throw at an intrusive blackbird.
'O you boys!' cried Medea, throwing wide her arms with abandonment.
'Where have you dropped from? How dirty you are! I've been shut up here
for a thousand years, and all that time I've never seen any one under a
hundred and fifty! Let's play at something, at once!'
'Rounders is a good game,' I suggested. 'Girls can play at rounders. And
we could serve up to the sun-dial here. But you want a bat and a ball,
and some more people.'
She struck her hands together tragically. 'I haven't a bat,' she cried,
'or a ball, or more people, or anything sensible whatever. Never mind;
let's play at hide-and-seek in the kitchen-garden. And we'll race there,
up to that walnut-tree; I haven't run for a century!'
She was so easy a victor, nevertheless, that I began to doubt, as I
panted behind, whether she had not exaggerated her age by a year or two.
She flung herself into hide-and-seek with all the gusto and abandonment
of the true artist; and as she flitted away and reappeared, flushed and
laughing divinely, the pale witch-maiden seemed to fall away from her,
and she moved rather as that other girl I had read about, snatched from
fields of daffodil to reign in shadow below, yet permitted now and
again to revisit earth and light and the frank, caressing air.
Tired at last, we strolled back to the old sun-dial, and Harold, who
never relinquished a problem unsolved, began afresh, rubbing his finger
along the faint incisions. '_Time tryeth trothe_. Please, I want to know
what that means?'
Medea's face drooped low over the sun-dial, till it was almost hidden in
her fingers. 'That's what I'm here for,' she said presently in quite a
changed, low voice. 'They shut me up here--they think I'll forget--but I
never will--never, never! And he, too--but I don't know--it is so
long--I don't know!'
Her face was quite hidden now. There was silence again in the old
garden. I felt clumsily helpless and awkward. Beyond a vague idea of
kicking Harold, nothing remedial seemed to suggest itself.
None of us had noticed the approach of another she-creature--one of the
angular and rigid class--how different from our dear comrade! The years
Medea had claimed might well have belonged to her; she wore mittens,
too--a trick I detested in woman. 'Lucy!' she said sharply, in a tone
with _aunt_ writ large over it; and Medea started up guiltily.
'You've been crying,' said the newcomer, grimly regarding her through
spectacles. 'And pray who are these exceedingly dirty little boys?'
'Friends of mine, aunt,' said Medea promptly, with forced cheerfulness.
I--I've known them a long time. I asked them to come.'
The aunt sniffed suspiciously. 'You must come indoors, dear,' she said,
'and lie down. The sun will give you a headache. And you little boys had
better run away home to your tea. Remember, you should not come to pay
visits without your nursemaid.'
Harold had been tugging nervously at my jacket for some time, and I only
waited till Medea turned and kissed a white hand to us as she was led
away. Then I ran. We gained the boat in safety; and 'What an old
dragon!' said Harold.
'Wasn't she a beast!' I replied. 'Fancy the sun giving any one a
headache! But Medea was a real brick. Couldn't we carry her off?'
'We could if Edward was here,' said Harold confidently.
The question was, What had become of that defaulting hero? We were not
left long in doubt. First, there came down the lane the shrill and
wrathful clamour of a female tongue; then Edward, running his best; and
then an excited woman hard on his heel. Edward tumbled into the bottom
of the boat, gasping 'Shove her off!' And shove her off we did,
mightily, while the dame abused us from the bank in the self-same
accents in which Alfred hurled defiance at the marauding Dane.
'That was just like a bit out of _Westward Ho_!' I remarked approvingly,
as we sculled down the stream. 'But what had you been doing to her?'
'Hadn't been doing anything,' panted Edward, still breathless. 'I went
up into the village and explored, and it was a very nice one, and the
people were very polite. And there was a blacksmith's forge there, and
they were shoeing horses, and the hoofs fizzled and smoked, and smelt
so jolly! I stayed there quite a long time. Then I got thirsty, so I
asked that old woman for some water, and while she was getting it her
cat came out of the cottage, and looked at me in a nasty sort of way,
and said something I didn't like. So I went up to it just to--to teach
it manners, and somehow or other, next minute it was up an apple-tree,
spitting, and I was running down the lane with that old thing after me.'
Edward was so full of his personal injuries that there was no
interesting him in Medea at all. Moreover, the evening was closing in,
and it was evident that this cutting-out expedition must be kept for
another day. As we neared home, it gradually occurred to us that perhaps
the greatest danger was yet to come, for the farmer must have missed his
boat ere now, and would probably be lying in wait for us near the
landing-place. There was no other spot admitting of debarcation on the
home side; if we got out on the other, and made for the bridge, we
should certainly be seen and cut off. Then it was that I blessed my
stars that our elder brother was with us that day. He might be little
good at pretending, but in grappling with the stern facts of life he had
no equal. Enjoining silence, he waited till we were but a little way
from the fated landing-place, and then brought us in to the opposite
bank. We scrambled out noiselessly and--the gathering darkness favouring
us--crouched behind a willow, while Edward pushed off the empty boat
with his foot. The old Argo, borne down by the gentle current, slid and
grazed along the rushy bank; and when she came opposite the suspected
ambush, a stream of imprecation told us that our precaution had not been
wasted. We wondered, as we listened, where Farmer Larkin, who was
bucolically bred and reared, had acquired such range and wealth of
vocabulary. Fully realising at last that his boat was derelict,
abandoned, at the mercy of wind and wave--as well as out of his
reach--he strode away to the bridge, about a quarter of a mile further
down; and as soon as we heard his boots clumping on the planks we nipped
out, recovered the craft, pulled across, and made the faithful vessel
fast to her proper moorings. Edward was anxious to wait and exchange
courtesies and compliments with the disappointed farmer, when he should
confront us on the opposite bank; but wiser counsels prevailed. It was
possible that the piracy was not yet laid at our particular door:
Ulysses, I reminded him, had reason to regret a similar act of bravado,
and--were he here--would certainly advise a timely retreat. Edward held
but a low opinion of me as a counsellor; but he had a very solid respect
for Ulysses.
[Illustration]