comprehensive view of the surrounding scenery. In front of us lay a
broad basin enclosed in a broken circuit of rising ground and with
the yellow sands and foaming bar of the issuing river in the middle
distance. The opposite extremity of this half-enclosed sheet of
water ended in a projecting rocky headland dotted with white-washed
farmhouses and cottages, and barring the farther view of the coast-line
to southward. Nearer at hand and adjacent to the inn there jutted forth
the northern horn of the little bay, backed by the craggy islet of
Ynys Ilar formed like a couched lion with his visage set towards the
sinking sun. The rocky shores had assumed everywhere a purple-black
tint against the pale blue of sea and sky, whilst inland the bleak
unfertile soil showed brown and bare in the walled fields now denuded
of their crops of oats and barley. I would not deny a certain inherent
charm to the quiet scenery of Glanymôr, and possibly some landscape
painter of an unambitious type might have felt tempted to portray its
sober tints and restful contours; but I myself experienced a sense of
disappointment in what I deemed its negative character. Here was no
savage majesty of nature; no sweep of limitless ocean; no thundering
breakers on a boundless strand; no gloomy groves descending to the
shore; no groups of gnarled and distorted pines that were eloquent of
furious gales. And yet the features and general aspect of the place
somehow imbued me with regretful thoughts of Tamarida, its haven and
its twin promontories. For the first time a craving for my lost palace
struck at my heart, as I gazed upon the encircling sweep of land and
sea and sky. It may have been my fancy, but I thought I perceived a
shadowy vision of that aerial city hover for a second like a mirage in
the greyness of the dull horizon.
Our daily life at Glanymôr was placid and not unpleasant. The soft
Welsh air, the perpetual sobbing of the sea beneath our windows, the
peaceful atmosphere, the wholesome food all reacted on my over-strung
nerves, which in time began to recover their wonted tone. I was
braced by bathing in the Atlantic waters, icy-cold though they were;
I appreciated my daily walks in company with Dr Wayne along the crest
of the indented shore that faces the crags of Ynys Ilar. I mightily
preferred the cries of the curlew and guillemot to the shouting of men
and the hooting of cars in London. Altogether I was tolerably happy but
for one drawback, and this was my total inability to concentrate my
thinking powers on the very subject I had travelled hither to study.
Try as I would, I could not marshal my reasonings and calculations to
meet in one point; and so I allowed the crucial question to remain
unanswered, almost unattempted, and let myself drift with the current
of my own indecision. Instead of racking my brain, I preferred to lie
in some sheltered hollow of the rocks above the water, watching the
waves collect and disperse with half-shut eyes that idly noted the dull
yellow riband of tiny shells which marked the limits of the advancing
and receding tides along the line of cliffs. Dr Wayne, in such hours
as he could spare from his multiplicity of newspapers, was evidently
studying me and my movements with silent interest, but we rarely spoke
during our long walks above the coast-line or over the brown fallows
and stony paths of the wind-swept treeless countryside.
Thus passed day after day of that precious interregnum, which ought
to have been expended in constant deliberation and with the nicest
weighing of advantages, instead of being frittered thus in yielding
to an insistent temptation to somnolence and vacuity of mind. Perhaps
there may have been some external unsuspected force, which was being
directed against my own efforts of concentration to prevent my arriving
at any conclusion. I had been the plaything of Fate for so long that
possibly I may be excused for harbouring such a notion.
IX
A quarter of a mile behind our inn of Glanymôr stood the buildings of
a fair-sized farm. I used often to walk to Pen Maelgwyn, whose name
recalled that of a doughty Welsh chieftain slain in Plantagenet days,
ascending the slope thither by means of a narrow footpath traversing
the russet stubbles wherein still lingered a few gay marigolds and
fragile poppies. The front of the house, a long low erection, was
coloured a Naples yellow, but its roof and many clustering byres and
sheds were all thickly coated with dazzling whitewash. Above the porch
and many windows set with diminutive panes had been painted ornamental
stripes of black and vermilion in a local style that has now almost
fallen out of fashion. Before the threshold lay a broad stone slab
marked in chalk with elaborate patterns in rings and lines, which Dr
Wayne, who is skilled in Celtic folk-lore, tells me is a relic of the
dim past, when such tracery was designed to entice the good fairies
indoors and at the same time to exclude any malignant elementals that
might be skulking near. The whole length of the façade of the dwelling
was distinguished by a narrow walled-in flower garden, wherein Mrs Mary
Davies, the farmer's wife, cherished a number of gaudy dahlias, Indian
pinks, purple asters and tall spikes of golden-rod, these last being
much patronised by a pair of elegant Red Admiral butterflies.
The messuage and its attendant buildings were wholly enclosed within a
low rampart of rubble and loose boulders, also profusely daubed with
the prevailing whitewash, this boundary wall surrounding an irregular
space which included a round weed-covered pond and a number of middens
for the cackling fowls of every condition--geese, chickens, ducks,
turkeys and even peacocks. The yard was dirty, stony and unkempt, yet
it possessed a certain fascination of its own, and there was a stile
surmounting its haphazard parapet whereon I often sate, sometimes to
watch the crowded life of the haggard, but more generally with my
face turned towards the open sea. By directing my eyes hence in a
sou'-westerly direction, so as to avoid the converging lines of the
Welsh and Irish coasts, I had been told that nothing but the ocean
with no intervening obstacle of land stretched between the cliffs of
Glanymôr and the far-away coast of North America. There were no trees
within a mile and more of Pen Maelgwyn, but the rough stone wall was
heavily fringed with tall aromatic herbs such as tansy, wormwood and
wild reseda to make amends for the total lack of arboreal verdure.
Hither then I often strolled during the morning hours when Dr Wayne
was absorbed in his newspapers or his correspondence, and from the
date of my first intrusion at Pen Maelgwyn I always received a
courteous welcome from Mr and Mrs Davies, the tenants of the place,
who held a couple of hundred acres of varied but indifferent land.
That Mr Hannaniah Davies belonged to the old school was evident from
his speech, his dress and his professed outlook on life itself. Having
served as bailiff for many years to a neighbouring squire he spoke
English easily and correctly, and moreover with a well-bred accent.
His wife Mary, on the other hand, could scarcely aspire to a word of
any language save her native Welsh, so that our intercourse was of
necessity confined to gesticulation and smiles, or to a few trivial
phrases of which the expressions "Dim Saesneg" on her part and of
"Dim Cymraeg" on mine, were perhaps the most lucid and useful. With
Hannaniah however I often held converse--on the war, on politics,
on travel, on religious controversy; and though he was bigoted and
benighted in his tenets yet he could argue with politeness and good
temper, which constitutes a virtue in itself, and that no common one.
Our debates were usually held in the kitchen (which I vastly preferred
to the chill musty parlour with its garish modern furniture and its
repellent portraits of pastors and demagogues) and in this low warm
cosy chamber I loitered for many a pleasant hour. The uneven stone
floor was generally strewn with lily-white sand; the settle and chairs
and dresser of pale Welsh oak shone brightly with Mary's affectionate
polishing; I loved the many quaint old jugs and plates which had
happily escaped the accursed hand of the plundering collector. In the
deep-set space of the sole window flourished Mary's winter garden, a
miscellaneous series of pots and saucers containing a fine geranium, a
fuchsia, a trailing white campanula, some musk and a bizarre vegetable
of the leek family that resembled a shining green octopus set on end.
Above our heads depended from the rafters fine hams and bunches of
odorous sage and marjoram.
In this old-time chamber I often partook of my "merenda," which
invariably consisted of a glass of buttermilk with one or two square
currant-engrained biscuits known to the polite world as Garibaldis,
but owning a less romantic if more descriptive name in the days of
my boyhood. This matutinal hospitality, I may add, was repaid not in
coin but by the loan of papers and periodicals which Hannaniah read by
the aid of a pair of antiquated spectacles, that reposed on the great
sheepskin folio Welsh Bible always ready for use. Thus alternately
reading aloud and discoursing, with Mary's clogs clattering in and
out of the fragrant kitchen, I often succeeded in making the worthy
Hannaniah waste an hour or more of his valuable agricultural time in
the course of the morning.
A calendar month had already elapsed since our arrival at Glanymôr,
and I was beginning to wonder in what guise the waiting Meleagrian
envoys would next present themselves. Yet although the month had been
fulfilled, with a few days to spare, I was still speculating as to
how, when and where they would approach me. With my mind absorbed in
anticipation and replete with intense curiosity that was not tinctured
by any alarm, I went one morning to Pen Maelgwyn on my usual errand,
and on my arrival found my friend Hannaniah much excited over a matter
of domestic concern, which he was eager to impart to me. It appeared
that both Mr Davies's farm lads, English-speaking boys from a large
industrial school of the Midlands, had been lately secured in the local
recruiting nets, so that the farm itself was suffering in consequence
of their departure. There were none to fill the vacant places, and so
pressed was the farmer that two days ago he had been only too thankful
to engage the temporary services of what he described as a "nigger
tramp," who called himself an Indian. The new-comer certainly did
not seem very proficient in the duties he declared himself willing
to perform but he seemed intelligent and anxious to please; whilst
on his side the sorely tried Hannaniah was thankful to obtain even
such inferior assistance as this. There were hopes expressed that
the strange heathen might in time develop into a fairly capable farm
hand, and in this expectation even the suspicious Mrs Davies had
agreed to lay aside her intense prejudice against the man's colour and
appearance. Thus spake Hannaniah Davies; and I need not say that at
this piece of news my heart began to hammer at my ribs, though not (I
can truthfully vouch) with fear, but rather with suppressed exaltation.
For I felt thankful to be relieved at last from my long spell of
uncertainty and indecision, than which any definite evil seemed almost
preferable. The idea of coming action served to brace and vivify me,
so that it required some restraint on myself to criticise the matter
propounded by the farmer with the proper degree of calmness. I approved
warmly his decision to employ the stranger, and then remarked with an
air of indifference: "I wonder if by any chance I can speak your black
man's language, if he is really an Indian, as he declares. I have spent
many years among the natives of Hindostan, and I should much like to
interview the man, whose name you tell me is Hamid."
I had scarcely finished speaking when Hannaniah, looking out of one of
the tiny panes of thick greenish glass of the kitchen window, spied the
subject of our conversation crossing the yard, and at my suggestion he
beckoned him to approach the homestead. Mrs Davies, too, who had paused
from her usual routine of scrubbing, was deeply interested, and in her
native vernacular expressed her admiration for the powers of the Saxon
gentleman who could speak the language of the blacks, for in her simple
philosophy all dark-skinned foreigners owned but one lingo, whilst a
multiplicity of tongues was a special privilege reserved for the Aryan
race. Hannaniah was no doubt more enlightened on such a point, but I
fancy he had no fixed or correct views concerning Indians and negroes;
it would therefore in no way be surprising to him, a good bilinguist,
that anyone who had lived in the East like myself should understand the
language of a wandering Oriental. He left the room, and I followed him
into the soft breeze and the mellow October sunshine which was reviving
Mary's rain-sodden dahlias round which the Red Admirals were hovering
with brilliant if somewhat tattered wings.
The figure of the newly hired labourer could be observed slowly
descending the long yard, for he was encumbered with a bundle of clover
under his left arm, whilst his right side was heavily weighed down by
a bucket of some provender for the calves. His garments formed a sort
of ugly compromise between the costumes of East and West--a turban of
soiled mauve muslin, a shabby threadbare brown coat and loose baggy
trousers of canvas such as Levantine sailors affect. In this cheap
and unattractive garb I quickly recognised Fajal, a leading member
of the hierarchy of Meleager, and after Anzoni the most trustworthy
and agreeable personage of all that august body to my mind. On our
appearance in the yard the new servant halted a moment, placed the
dirty bucket on the ground, and made an obeisance equally to Mr Davies
and myself. As he bent before us in his squalid disguise, with his
delicate shapely hands encrusted with barley-meal, and with his shoddy
boots all caked with filthy mud, I reflected and marvelled for a second
or two on the inexorable sense of duty or responsibility which could
compel such a man as Fajal, whose pedigree could easily vie with that
of a Habsburg or a Colonna, to stoop to such abasement and to face such
vicissitudes. Yet though he bent ragged and grimy and cringing before
us, I could still detect the noble fruit concealed within the rugged
husk, albeit such a gift of discrimination was wholly beyond the range
of the farmer's blunter powers of perception and inferior knowledge
of humanity. I addressed a few commonplace phrases in Meleagrian to
Fajal, who replied with discreet modesty, only in his last sentence
bidding me seek him in the adjacent byre as soon as it was feasible.
Mr Davies standing by was certainly impressed with the fluency of
our conversation, but after an admiring "Well! Well!" as a tribute
to my linguistic attainments, he turned away in order to visit his
head labourer, John Lewis, who was cutting bracken on the distant lea
against the sky-line. I accompanied my host so far as the farm gate,
but declined to walk with him to the upland, whither I watched him
proceed alone. With the master and man busy over the fern stacking,
with the mistress and maids employed within the dairy or kitchen, the
way was clear before me. I turned my eyes with mixed feelings towards
the indicated byre, which stood next to a row of newly thatched ricks
of oats and barley, the spoils of the lately garnered harvest. In that
humble structure I knew there tarried now for me the messenger of Fate,
the arbiter of my destiny. It was as useless, as it would have been
cowardly, to evade or postpone the inevitable interview, so without
further ado I carefully shut the yard gate and slowly picked my steps
through the stones and mire to the open doorway of the shippen.
X
The cow-house at Pen Maelgwyn was a lengthy rather dilapidated
building, and in its atmosphere of semi-darkness and bovine stuffiness
I groped my way along the narrow passage between the crazy old mud
wall and the wooden railing which secured the beasts. At the farther
end was a square pen wherein the calves were kept, and it was here
that at length I chanced on Fajal who was busily occupied in feeding
his charges. On noticing me approach, he made an end of his task,
and letting down the slip rail advanced to accost me in the gangway.
Here he sank on his knees upon the slimy cobbles, at the same time
catching hold of my coat with uplifted hands. This unexpected attitude
of worship and devotion at once struck me unpleasantly; I deemed it
insincere and inappropriate; and I repelled my suppliant in no gracious
manner, striving to disengage myself from his grasp.
"I had a better esteem of you, Fajal," I began in tones of reproachful
chagrin, "than that you should still attempt to mock me by persisting
in this threadbare pretence of a subject and his king. You know who I
am, and what I am in the eyes of the body to which you belong; so why
indulge in this sickly acting when there is no stage and no necessity
for hypocrisy? Speak to me as man to man. Tell me what you wish to say,
but tell it in the spirit of plain truth and reality."
Nevertheless, crouching yet more abjectly into the mire, Fajal still
clung obstinately to my knees and even endeavoured to kiss my feet as
he started to speak in a hollow voice that suggested intense emotion
kept with difficulty under control.
"Majesty! Your rebuke is neither harsh nor undeserved; and if it
so pleased you, I should willingly and joyfully feel the weight of
your foot upon my neck, or even on my face. Cheerfully would I in my
own person make the atonement justly due to you for the treacherous
ingratitude that has been your Majesty's sole reward for your reign
of virtue and self-sacrifice in Meleager. But there is no mockery
in my attitude of subjection to the King of Meleager who has thus
successfully defied and vanquished his fate, and now for a second time
receives the entreaty to come and reign amongst us. And this time
the loyalty I am authorised to proffer will not be confined to the
uneducated populace, but it will also emanate freely from our hierarchy
who have delegated me, seeing that I was in the past your most open
admirer and warmest upholder, to implore your pardon and to beg you to
acquire incalculable merit by returning and resuming that unselfish and
beneficent sway for which at this moment all Meleager is sighing and
praying. Do not suffer me to plead in vain, O King!"
Fajal paused, and then as I stood motionless and showed no disposition
to interrupt he continued to entreat yet more vehemently, using at
times the old arguments I had heard years ago from d'Aragno, and at
times a novel system of reasoning based on the present affection and
anxiety of the Meleagrians for my return.
"We are at the present time in a parlous state of unrest and transition
in Meleager. Our people cry aloud for their vanished King, and threaten
to over-turn our ancient constitution, for some peculiar instinct
seems to have penetrated the common mind--by what means or influence
assuredly even I cannot divine--that you have deserted our planet
in wrath and dudgeon to seek again your Father's court. Already a
revolution has taken place in the hierarchy itself, and Marzona's
satellites have shared their leader's fate, the fate which you yourself
inflicted on him, most noble, puissant and wonderful Being! All, all
pray daily for your speedy return; whilst amongst such old councillors
as have survived the late cataclysm and the newly elected members
of our caste, there is but one ardent all-pervading desire--to see
yourself installed again as our King, our King who has of his own
motion mastered The Secret, who has flown back to Earth, who alone is
fitted to rule in Meleager....
"And if you will but accept again our crown under these changed
conditions of tardy sincerity in our hierarchy and of burning loyalty
of our people in all its ranks, what results may you not achieve?
The periods of your rejuvenation will continue unchecked; you will be
living and ruling and bending life to your purpose for generations
hence, nay, centuries after my poor bones and those of my colleagues
have been converted to dust and ashes; for aught I know to the
contrary you may even, if you so will, achieve immortality thanks to
the unmatched potentialities of our marvellous fountain. The very
salutation 'O King, live for ever!' that occurs again and again in
your Book of the Christian cult will in your case cease to be the
meaningless compliment of courtier and sycophant. You will rule and
rule, always youthful, always dominant, the one thing stable in a
community of perpetual change. There are certain limits perhaps which
you may not exceed, but these you already recognise and will observe
henceforward in the same spirit that you have so nobly and unselfishly
exhibited in the past. And if the day should dawn--may it be untold
æons hence from my own day of recall!--when you will have grown weary
of well-doing, weary of your unending performance of duty even under
the lightest of moral yokes, when you sigh for release and oblivion,
and yearn to plunge into the dusky mazes of the Hereafter, are there
not means accessible to gratify such a craving? There is but one mode
of entering this world, and that involves travail and tears, but there
are a hundred exits from the house of life, and many of these are
pleasant and free of dolour. Remember what one of your own Herthian
poets has dangled before the eyes of those who are exhausted and
sighing for their euthanasia:
"'There are poppies by the river,
There is hemlock in the dell.'
"Nevertheless, may the time be far removed when the ideal King of
Meleager thinks fit to abdicate, preferring the unseen unsubstantial
bliss of the Other Life to the ceaseless routine of sovereignty with
its attendant pleasures and burdens....
"Majesty, ponder all this in your present quiet retreat which as yet
has been scarcely touched by the encroachments of the bloodshed and
tumult that have been released to complete the utter downfall of your
unhappy Earth. Have you not dimly apprehended the dire prospects that
even now await your fellow-mortals on this devoted distracted planet?
Is she not in the pangs of a fresh period of travail, and seeing
her thus threatened and knowing her past history, do you expect her
to bring forth a regenerating angel? I tell you, no. The horrors of
carnage and greed and ambition have only begun; the stream of blood is
trickling slowly, but it will continue to creep onward with increasing
volume till scarcely a corner of the Earth will not be saturated with
human gore....
"But enough of this awful theme, for my personal argument there is
unsound insomuch as you yourself are concerned, for you at least
will be spared the sight and taste of the evils that will assuredly
follow. Your sojourn on Earth will be very brief; already the effects
of your last immersion in our sacred pool are beginning to subside; so
that before this fateful year draws to its bloody and hideous close,
your spark of life will be extinguished. Do not therefore imagine
that you will be permitted to achieve the allotted span of mankind on
Earth; the hidden waters of the Meleagrian spring are both lethal and
vitalising. Once the proper hour of renewal is passed, a species of
decay, even of disintegration, will supervene, and you will sink into
your miserable grave, a loathsome object, a mass of disease, impotence
and decomposition.
"Reflect, O King, reflect, ere it prove too late! Make your choice
between an inevitable, speedy and revolting demise here on Earth, and
the prospect of a further reign in Meleager under such conditions as I
have already indicated to you."
With this last earnest appeal Fajal watched me narrowly for some
seconds, whilst I remained voiceless and irresolute. Seeing me thus
still obdurate in my indecision, he sighed heavily and then sought
in the folds of his vest, whence he drew forth a thin packet that he
presented to me with these significant words: "If you doubt my warning
and advice, look in this mirror steadily a while, and you will then
understand."