In the Hall of the Ancient Company of Milkmen round the great
fireplace at the end, when the winter logs are burning and all the
craft are assembled they tell to-day, as their grandfathers told
before them, why the milkman shudders when he perceives the dawn.
When dawn comes creeping over the edges of hills, peers through the
tree-trunks making wonderful shadows, touches the tops of tall columns
of smoke going up from awakening cottages in the valleys, and breaks
all golden over Kentish fields, when going on tip-toe thence it comes
to the walls of London and slips all shyly up those gloomy streets the
milkman perceives it and shudders.
A man may be a Milkman's Working Apprentice, may know what borax is
and how to mix it, yet not for that is the story told to him. There
are five men alone that tell that story, five men appointed by the
Master of the Company, by whom each place is filled as it falls
vacant, and if you do not hear it from one of them you hear the story
from no one and so can never know why the milkman shudders when he
perceives the dawn.
It is the way of one of these five men, greybeards all and milkmen
from infancy, to rub his hands by the fire when the great logs burn,
and to settle himself more easily in his chair, perhaps to sip some
drink far other than milk, then to look round to see that none are
there to whom it would not be fitting the tale should be told and,
looking from face to face and seeing none but the men of the Ancient
Company, and questioning mutely the rest of the five with his eyes, if
some of the five be there, and receiving their permission, to cough
and to tell the tale. And a great hush falls in the Hall of the
Ancient Company, and something about the shape of the roof and the
rafters makes the tale resonant all down the hall so that the youngest
hears it far away from the fire and knows, and dreams of the day when
perhaps he will tell himself why the milkman shudders when he
perceives the dawn.
Not as one tells some casual fact is it told, nor is it commented on
from man to man, but it is told by that great fire only and when the
occasion and the stillness of the room and the merit of the wine and
the profit of all seem to warrant it in the opinion of the five
deputed men: then does one of them tell it, as I have said, not
heralded by any master of ceremonies but as though it arose out of the
warmth of the fire before which his knotted hands would chance to be;
not a thing learned by rote, but told differently by each teller, and
differently according to his mood, yet never has one of them dared to
alter its salient points, there is none so base among the Company of
Milkmen. The Company of Powderers for the Face know of this story and
have envied it, the Worthy Company of Chin-Barbers, and the Company of
Whiskerers; but none have heard it in the Milkmen's Hall, through
whose wall no rumour of the secret goes, and though they have invented
tales of their own Antiquity mocks them.
This mellow story was ripe with honourable years when milkmen wore
beaver hats, its origin was still mysterious when smocks were the
vogue, men asked one another when Stuarts were on the throne (and only
the Ancient Company knew the answer) why the milkman shudders when he
perceives the dawn. It is all for envy of this tale's reputation that
the Company of Powderers for the Face have invented the tale that they
too tell of an evening, "Why the Dog Barks when he hears the step of
the Baker"; and because probably all men know that tale the Company of
the Powderers for the Face have dared to consider it famous. Yet it
lacks mystery and is not ancient, is not fortified with classical
allusion, has no secret lore, is common to all who care for an idle
tale, and shares with "The Wars of the Elves," the Calf-butcher's
tale, and "The Story of the Unicorn and the Rose," which is the tale
of the Company of Horse-drivers, their obvious inferiority.
But unlike all these tales so new to time, and many another that the
last two centuries tell, the tale that the milkmen tell ripples wisely
on, so full of quotation from the profoundest writers, so full of
recondite allusion, so deeply tinged with all the wisdom of man and
instructive with the experience of all times that they that hear it in
the Milkmen's Hall as they interpret allusion after allusion and trace
obscure quotation lose idle curiosity and forget to question why the
milkman shudders when he perceives the dawn.
You also, O my reader, give not yourself up to curiosity. Consider of
how many it is the bane. Would you to gratify this tear away the
mystery from the Milkmen's Hall and wrong the Ancient Company of
Milkmen? Would they if all the world knew it and it became a common
thing to tell that tale any more that they have told for the last four
hundred years? Rather a silence would settle upon their hall and a
universal regret for the ancient tale and the ancient winter evenings.
And though curiosity were a proper consideration yet even then this is
not the proper place nor this the proper occasion for the Tale. For
the proper place is only the Milkmen's Hall and the proper occasion
only when logs burn well and when wine has been deeply drunken, then
when the candles were burning well in long rows down to the dimness,
down to the darkness and mystery that lie at the end of the hall, then
were you one of the Company, and were I one of the five, would I rise
from my seat by the fireside and tell you with all the embellishments
that it has gleaned from the ages that story that is the heirloom of
the milkmen. And the long candles would burn lower and lower and
gutter and gutter away till they liquefied in their sockets, and
draughts would blow from the shadowy end of the hall stronger and
stronger till the shadows came after them, and still I would hold you
with that treasured story, not by any wit of mine but all for the sake
of its glamour and the times out of which it came; one by one the
candles would flare and die and, when all were gone, by the light of
ominous sparks when each milkman's face looks fearful to his fellow,
you would know, as now you cannot, why the milkman shudders when he
perceives the dawn.