THE GARDEN IN THE SQUARE
As it chanced Godfrey did see Isobel once more before he left England.
It was arranged that he was to leave Charing Cross for Switzerland
early on a certain Wednesday morning. Late on the Tuesday afternoon,
Mr. Knight brought the lad to the Charing Cross Hotel. There, having
taken his ticket and made all other necessary arrangements, he left
him, returning himself to Essex by the evening train. Their farewell
was somewhat disconcerting, at any rate to the mind of the youth.
His father retired with him to his room at the top of the hotel, and
there administered a carefully prepared lecture which touched upon
every point of the earnest Christian’s duty, ending up with
admonitions on the dangers of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and
a strong caution against frivolous, unbelieving and evil-disposed
persons, especially such as were young, good-looking and wore
petticoats.
“Woman,” said Mr. Knight, “is the great danger of man. She is
the Devil’s favourite bait, at least to some natures of which I fear
yours is one, though that is strange, as I may say that on the whole I
have always disliked the sex, and I married for other reasons than
those which are supposed to be common. Woman,” he went on, warming to
his topic, “although allowed upon the world as a necessary evil, is a
painted snare, full of [he meant baited with] guile. You will remember
that the first woman, in her wicked desire to make him as bad as
herself, tempted Adam until he ate the apple, no doubt under threats of
estranging herself from him if he did not, and all the results that
came from her iniquity, one of which is that men have had to work hard
ever since.”
Here Godfrey reflected that there was someone behind who tempted the
woman, also that it is better to work than to sit in a garden in
eternal idleness, and lastly, that a desire for knowledge is natural
and praiseworthy. Had Isobel been in his place she would have advanced
these arguments, probably in vigorous and pointed language, but, having
learnt something of Adam’s lesson, he was wiser and held his tongue.
“There is this peculiarity about women,” continued his parent,
“which I beg you always to remember. It is that when you think she is
doing what you want and that she loves you, you are doing what she wants
and really she only loves herself. Therefore you must never pay
attention to her soft words, and especially beware of her tears which
are her strongest weapon given to her by the father of deceit to enable
her to make fools of men. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” said Godfrey, with hesitation,
“but——” this burst from him involuntarily, “but,
Father, if you have always avoided women, as you say, how do you know
all this about them?”
For a moment Mr. Knight was staggered. Then he rose to the occasion.
“I know it, Godfrey, by observing the effect of their arts on others,
as I have done frequently.”
A picture rose in Godfrey’s mind of his father with his eye to
keyholes, or peering through fences with wide-open ears, but wisely he
did not pursue the subject.
“My son,” continued and ended Mr. Knight, “I have watched you
closely and I am sure that your weakness lies this way. Woman is and
always will be the sin that doth so easily beset you. Even as a child
you loved Mrs. Parsons much more than you did me, because, although old
and unsightly, she is still female. When you left your home this
morning for the first time, who was it that you grieved to part from?
Not your companions, the other boys, but Mrs. Parsons again, whom I
found you embracing in that foolish fashion, yes, and mingling your
tears with hers, of which at your age you should be ashamed. Indeed I
believe that you feel being separated from that garrulous person, who
is but a servant, more than you do from me, your father.”
Here he waited for Godfrey’s contradiction, but as none came, went on
with added acerbity:
“Of that _anguis in herba_, that viper, Isobel, who turns the pure
milk of the Word to poison and bites the hand that fed her, I will say
nothing, nothing,” (here Godfrey reflected that Isobel would have
been better described as a lion in the path rather than as a snake in
the grass) “except that I rejoice that you are to be separated from
her, and I strictly forbid any communication between you and her, bold,
godless and revolutionary as she is. I had rather see any man for whose
welfare I cared, married to a virtuous and pious-minded housemaid, than
to this young lady, as she is called, with all her wealth and position,
who would eat out his soul with her acid unbelief and turn the world
upside down to satisfy her fancy. Now I must go or I shall miss my
train. Here is a present for you, of which I direct you to read a
chapter every day,” and he produced out of a brown paper parcel a
large French Bible. “It will both do you good and improve your
knowledge of the French tongue. I especially commend your attention to
certain verses in Proverbs dealing with the dangers on which I have
touched, that I have marked with a blue pencil. Do you hear?”
“Yes, Father. Solomon wrote Proverbs, didn’t he?”
“It is believed so and his wide—experience—gives a special
value to his counsel. You will write to me once a week, and when you
have had your dinner get to bed at once. On no account are you to go
out into the streets. Goodbye.”
Then he planted a frosty kiss upon Godfrey’s brow and departed,
leaving that youth full of reflections, but to tell the truth, somewhat
relieved.
Shortly afterwards Godfrey descended to the coffee-room and ate his
dinner. Here it was that the universal temptress against whom he had
been warned so urgently, put in a first appearance in the person of a
pleasant and elderly lady who was seated alongside of him. Noting this
good-looking and lonely lad, she began to talk to him, and being a
woman of the world, soon knew all about him, his name, who he was,
whither he was going, etc. When she found out that it was to Lucerne,
or rather its immediate neighbourhood, she grew quite interested,
since, as it happened, she—her name was Miss Ogilvy—had a house
there where she was accustomed to spend most of the year. Indeed, she
was returning by the same train that Godfrey was to take on the
following morning.
“We shall be travelling companions,” she said when she had
explained all this.
“I am afraid not,” he answered, glancing at the many evidences of
wealth upon her person. “You see,” he added colouring, “I am
going second and have to spend as little as possible. Indeed I have
brought some food with me in a basket so that I shall not need to buy
any meals at the stations.”
Miss Ogilvy was touched, but laughed the matter off in her charming way,
saying that he would have to be careful that the Custom-house officers
did not think he was smuggling something in his basket, and as she knew
them all must look to her to help him if he got into difficulties on
the journey. Then she went on chatting and drawing him out, and what is
more, made him take several glasses of some delicious white wine she
was drinking. It was not very strong wine, but except for a little
small beer, practically Godfrey had been brought up as a teetotaller
for economy’s sake, and it went to his head. He became rather
effusive; he told her of Sir John Blake about whom she seemed to know
everything already, and something of his friendship with Isobel, who, he
added, was coming out that very night at a fancy dress ball in London.
“I know,” said Miss Ogilvy, “at the de Lisles’ in
Grosvenor Square. I was asked to it, but could not go as I am starting
to-morrow.”
Then she rose and said “Good-night,” bidding him be sure not to be
late for the train, as she would want him to help her with her luggage.
So off she went looking very charming and gracious, although she was
over forty, and leaving Godfrey quite flattered by her attention.
Not knowing what to do he put on his hat and, walking across the station
yard, took his stand by a gateway pillar and watched the tide of London
life roll by. There he remained for nearly an hour, since the strange
sight fascinated him who had never been in town before, the object of
some attention from a policeman, although of this he was unaware. Also
some rather odd ladies spoke to him from time to time which he thought
kind of them, although they smelt so peculiar and seemed to have paint
upon their faces. In answer to the inquiries of two of them as to his
health he told them that he was very well. Also he agreed cordially
with a third as to the extreme fineness of the night, and assured a
fourth that he had no wish to take a walk as he was shortly going to
bed, a statement which caused her to break into uncalled-for laughter.
It was at this point that the doubting policeman suggested that he
should move on.
“Where to?” asked Godfrey of that officer of the law.
“To ’ell if you like,” he replied. Then struck with
curiosity, he inquired, “Where do you want to go to? This pillar
ain’t a leaning post.”
Godfrey considered the matter and said with the verve of slight
intoxication:
“Only two places appeal to me at present, heaven (not hell as you
suggested), and Grosvenor Square. Perhaps, however, they are the same;
at any rate, there is an angel in both of them.”
The policeman stared at him but could find no fault with the perfect
sobriety of his appearance.
“Young luny, I suspect,” he muttered to himself, then said aloud:
“Well, the Strand doesn’t lead to ’eaven so far as I have
noticed, rather t’other way indeed. But if you want Grosvenor Square,
it’s over there,” and he waved his hand vaguely towards the west.
“Thank you,” said Godfrey, taking off his hat with much politeness.
“If that is so, I will leave heaven to itself for the present and
content myself with Grosvenor Square.”
Off he started in the direction indicated, and, as it seemed to him,
walked for many miles through a long and bewildering series of
brilliant streets, continually seeking new information as to his goal.
The end of it was that at about a quarter to eleven he found himself
somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Edgware Road, utterly stranded as
it were, since his mind seemed incapable of appreciating further
indications of locality.
“Look here, young man,” said a breezy costermonger to whom he had
appealed, “I think you had better take a ’ansom for the ’orse
will know more about London than you seem to do. There’s one
’andy.”
“That is an idea,” said Godfrey, and entered the cab, giving the
address of Grosvenor Square.
“What number?” asked the driver.
“I don’t know,” replied Godfrey, “the Ball, Grosvenor
Square.”
Off they went, and in due course, reaching the square, drove round it
until they came to a great house where there were signs of festivity in
the shape of an awning above the entrance and a carpet on the pavement.
The cab stopped with a jerk and a voice from above—never having been
in a hansom before, at first Godfrey could not locate it—exclaimed:
“Here’s your Ball, young gent. Now you’d better hop out and
dance.”
His fare began to explain the situation through the little trap in the
roof, demonstrating to the Jehu that his object was to observe the ball
from without, not to dance at it within, and that it was necessary for
him to drive on a little further. That worthy grew indignant.
“Blowed if I don’t believe you’re a bilk,” he shouted
through the hole. “Here, you pay me my fare and hook it, young
codger.”
Godfrey descended and commenced a search for money, only to remember
that he had left his purse in his bag at the hotel. This also he
explained with many apologies to the infuriated cabby, two gorgeous
flunkeys who by now had arrived to escort him into the house, and a
group of idlers who had collected round the door.
“I told yer he was a bilk. You look after your spoons, Thomas; I
expect that’s wot he’s come for. Now you find that bob, Sonny, or I
fetches the perlice.”
Then an inspiration flashed on Godfrey’s bewildered mind. Suddenly he
recollected that, by the direction of heaven, Mrs. Parsons had sewn a
ten shilling piece into the lining of his waistcoat, “in case he
should ever want any money sudden-like.” He undid that garment and
heedless of the mockery of the audience, began to feel wildly at its
interior calico. Joy! there it was in the lefthand corner.
“I have money here if only I can get it out,” he gasped.
A woman in the gathering crowd, perhaps from pity, or curiosity, in the
most unexpected way produced a pair of scissors from her pocket with
which he began to hack at the waistcoat, gashing it sadly. At length
the job was done and the half-sovereign appeared wrapped in a piece of
cotton wool.
“Take it,” said Godfrey, “and go away. Let it teach you to
have more trust in your fellow creatures, Mr. Cabman.”
The man seized the coin, examined it by the light of his lamp, tasted
it, bit it, threw it on the top of the cab to see that it rang true,
then with a “Well, I’m blowed!” whipped up his horse and went
off.
Godfrey followed his example, as the flunkeys and the audience supposed
to recover his change, though the last thing he was thinking of at that
moment was change—except of locality. He ran a hundred yards or more
to a part of the square where there was no lamp, then paused to
consider.
“I have made a fool of myself,” he reflected, “as Isobel
always says I do when I get the chance. I have come all this way and
been abused and laughed at for nothing.”
Then his native determination began to assert itself. Why should it be
for nothing? There was the house, and in it was Isobel, and oh! he
wanted to see her. He crossed to the square-garden side and walked down
in the shadow of the trees which grew there.
Under one of these he took his stand, squeezing himself against the
railings, and watched the glowing house that was opposite, from which
came the sounds of music, of dancing feet, of laughter and the tinkling
of glasses. It had balconies, and on these appeared people dressed in
all sorts of costumes. Among them he tried to recognise Isobel, but
could not. Either she did not come or he was too far off to see her.
A dance was ending, the music grew faster and faster, then ceased with a
flourish. More people appeared on the balconies. Others crowded into the
hall, which he could see, for the door was open. Presently a pair came
onto the steps. One of them was dressed as a knight in shining armour.
He was a fine, tall young man, and his face was handsome, as the
watcher could perceive, for he had taken off his plumed helm and
carried it in his hand. The other was Isobel in her Plantagenet
costume, to which were added one rose and a necklet of pink pearls.
They stood on the steps a little while laughing and talking. Then he
heard her say:
“Let us go into the square. It will be cooler. The key is hanging on
the nail.”
She vanished for a moment, doubtless to fetch the key. Then they walked
down the steps, over the spread carpet, and across the roadway. Within
three paces of where Godfrey stood there was a gate. She gave the key
to the knight, and after one or two attempts the gate swung open.
Whilst he was fumbling at the lock she stood looking about her, and
presently caught sight of Godfrey’s slim figure crouched against the
railings in the deepest of the shadows.
“There is someone there, Lord Charles,” she said.
“Is there?” he answered, indifferently. “A cab-tout or a
beggar, I expect. They always hang about parties. Come on, it is open at
last.”
They passed into the garden and vanished. A wild jealousy seized
Godfrey, and he slipped after them with the intention of revealing
himself to Isobel. Inside the railings was a broad belt of shrubs
bordered by a gravel path. The pair walked along the path, Godfrey
following at a distance, till they came to a recessed seat on which
they sat down. He halted behind a lilac bush ten paces or so away, not
that he wanted to listen, but because he was ashamed to show himself.
Indeed, he stopped his ears with his fingers that he might not overhear
their talk. But he did not shut his eyes, and as the path curved here
and the moon shone on them, he could see them well. They seemed very
merry and to be playing some game.
At any rate, first with her finger she counted the air-holes in the
knight’s helmet which he held up to her. Then with his finger he
counted the pearls upon her neck. When he had finished she clapped her
hands as though she had won a bet. After this they began to whisper to
each other, at least he whispered and she smiled and shook her head.
Finally, she seemed to give way, for she unfastened the flower which
she wore in the breast of her dress, and presented it to him. Godfrey
started at the sight which caused him to take his fingers from his ears
and clutch the bush. A dry twig broke with a loud crack.
“What’s that?” said Isobel.
“Don’t know,” answered Lord Charles. “What a funny girl
you are, always seeing and hearing things. A stray cat, I expect; London
squares are full of them. Now I have won my lady’s favour and she must
fasten it to my helm after the ancient fashion.”
“Can’t,” said Isobel. “There are no pins in Plantagenet
dresses.”
“Then I must do it for myself. Kiss it first, that was the rule, you
know.”
“Very well,” said Isobel. “We must keep up the game, and
there are worse things to kiss than roses.”
He held the flower to her and she bent forward to touch it with her
lips. Suddenly he did the same, and their lips came very close together
on either side of the rose.
This was too much for Godfrey. He glided forward, as the stray cat might
have done, of which the fine knight had spoken, meaning to interrupt
them.
Then he remembered suddenly that he had no right to interfere; that it
was no affair of his with whom Isobel chose to kiss roses in a garden,
and that he was doing a mean thing in spying upon her. So he halted
behind another bush, but not without noise. His handsome young face was
thrust forward, and on it were written grief, surprise and shame. The
moonlight caught it, but nothing else of him. Isobel looked up and saw.
He knew that she had seen and turning, slipped away into the darkness
back to the gate. As he went he heard the knight called Lord Charles,
exclaim:
“What’s the matter with you?” and Isobel answer,
“Nothing. I have seen a ghost, that’s all. It’s this horrible
dress!”
He glanced back and saw her rise, snatch the rose from the knight’s
hand, throw it down and stamp upon it. Then he saw and heard no more
for he was through the gate and running down the square. At its end, as
he turned into some street, he was surprised to hear a gruff voice
calling to him to stop. On looking up he saw that it came from his
enemy, the hansom-cab man, who was apparently keeping a lookout on the
square from his lofty perch.
“Hi! young sir,” he said, “I’ve been watching for you
and thinking of wot you said to me. You gave me half a quid, you did.
Jump in and I’ll drive you wherever you want to go, for my fare was
only a bob.”
“I have no more money,” replied Godfrey, “for you kept the
change.”
“I wasn’t asking for none,” said the cabby. “Hop in and
name where it is to be.”
Godfrey told him and presently was being rattled back to the Charing
Cross Hotel, which they reached a little later. He got out of the cab
to go into the hotel when once again the man addressed him.
“I owe you something,” he said, and tendered the half-sovereign.
“I have no change,” said Godfrey.
“Nor ’ain’t I,” said the cabman, “and if I had I
wouldn’t give it you. I played a dirty trick on you and a dirtier one
still when I took your half sov, I did, seeing that I ought to have
known that you were just an obfusticated youngster and no bilk as I
called you to them flunkeys. What you said made me ashamed, though I
wouldn’t own it before the flunkeys. So I determined to pay you back
if I could, since otherwise I shouldn’t have slept well to-night. Now
we’re quits, and goodbye, and do you always think kindly of Thomas
Sims, though I don’t suppose I shall drive you no more in this
world.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Sims,” said Godfrey, who was touched. Moreover Mr.
Sims seemed to be familiar to him, at the moment he could not remember
how, or why.
The man wheeled his cab round, whipping the horse which was a spirited
animal, and started at a fast pace.
Godfrey, looking after him, heard a crash as he emerged from the gates,
and ran to see what was the matter. He found the cab overturned and the
horse with a ’bus pole driven deep into its side, kicking on the
pavement. Thomas Sims lay beneath the cab. When the police and others
dragged him clear, he was quite dead!
Godfrey went to bed that night a very weary and chastened youth, for
never before had he experienced so many emotions in a few short hours.
Moreover, he could not sleep well. Nightmares haunted him in which he
was being hunted and mocked by a jeering crowd, until Sims arrived and
rescued him in the cab. Only it was the dead Sims that drove with
staring eyes and fallen jaw, and the side of the horse was torn open.
Next he saw Isobel and the Knight in Armour, who kept pace on either
side of the ghostly cab and mocked at him, tossing roses to each other
as they sped along, until finally his father appeared, called Isobel a
young serpent, at which she laughed loudly, and bore off Sims to be
buried in the vault with the Plantagenet lady at Monk’s Acre.
Godfrey woke up shaking with fear, wet with perspiration, and reflected
earnestly on his latter end, which seemed to be at hand. If that great,
burly, raucous-voiced Sims had died so suddenly, why should not he,
Godfrey?
He wondered where Sims had gone to, and what he was doing now.
Explaining the matter of the half-sovereign to St. Peter, perhaps, and
hoping humbly that it and others would be overlooked, “since after
all he had done the right thing by the young gent.”
Poor Sims, he was sorry for him, but it might have been worse. _He_
might have been in the cab himself and now be offering explanations of
his own as to a wild desire to kill that knight in armour, and Isobel
as well. Oh! what a fool he had been. What business was it of his if
Isobel chose to give roses to some friend of hers at a dance? She was
not his property, but only a girl with whom he chanced to have been
brought up, and who found him a pleasant companion when there was no
one else at hand.
By nature, as has been recorded, Godfrey was intensely proud, and then
and there he made a resolution that he would have nothing more to do
with Isobel. Never again would he hang about the skirts of that fine
and rich young lady, who on the night that he was going away could give
roses to another man, just because he was a lord and
good-looking—yes, and kiss them too. His father was quite right about
women, and he would take his advice to the letter, and begin to study
Proverbs forthwith, especially the marked passages.
Having come to this conclusion, and thus eased his troubled mind, he
went to sleep in good earnest, for he was very tired. The next thing of
which he became aware was that someone was hammering at the door, and
calling out that a lady downstairs said he must get up at once if he
meant to be in time. He looked at his watch, a seven-and-sixpenny
article that he had been given off a Christmas tree at Hawk’s Hall,
and observed, with horror, that he had just ten minutes in which to
dress, pack, and catch the train. Somehow he did it, for fortunately
his bill had been paid. Always in after days a tumultuous vision
remained in his mind of himself, a long, lank youth with unbrushed hair
and unbuttoned waistcoat, carrying a bag and a coat, followed by an
hotel porter with his luggage, rushing wildly down an interminable
platform with his ticket in his teeth towards an already moving train.
At an open carriage door stood a lady in whom he recognized Miss
Ogilvy, who was imploring the guard to hold the train.
“Can’t do it, ma’am, any longer,” said the guard,
between blasts of his whistle and wavings of his green flag. “It’s
all my place is worth to delay the Continental Express for more than a
minute. Thank you kindly, ma’am. Here he comes,” and the flag
paused for a few seconds. “In you go, young gentleman.”
A heave, a struggle, an avalanche of baggage, and Godfrey found himself
in the arms of Miss Ogilvy in a reserved first-class carriage. From
those kind supporting arms he slid gently and slowly to the floor.
“Well,” said that lady, contemplating him with his back resting
against a portmanteau, “you cut things rather fine.”
Still seated on the floor, Godfrey pulled out his watch and looked at
it, then remarked that eleven minutes before he was fast asleep in bed.
“I thought as much,” she said severely, “and that’s why
I told the maid to see if you had been called, which I daresay you
forgot to arrange for yourself.”
“I did,” admitted Godfrey, rising and buttoning his waistcoat.
“I have had a very troubled night; all sorts of things happened to
me.”
“What have you been doing?” asked Miss Ogilvy, whose interest was
excited.
Then Godfrey, whose bosom was bursting, told her all, and the story
lasted most of the way to Dover.
“You poor boy,” she said, when he had finished, “you poor
boy!”
“I left the basket with the food behind, and I am so hungry,”
remarked Godfrey presently.
“There’s a restaurant car on the train, come and have some
breakfast,” said Miss Ogilvy, “for on the boat you may not wish to
eat. I shall at any rate.”
This was untrue for she had breakfasted already, but that did not
matter.
“My father said I was not to take meals on the trains,” explained
Godfrey, awkwardly, “because of the expense.”
“Oh! I’m your father, or rather your mother, now. Besides, I have a
table,” she added in a nebulous manner.
So Godfrey followed her to the dining car, where he made an excellent
meal.
“You don’t seem to eat much,” he said at length. “You
have only had a cup of tea and half a bit of toast.”
“I never can when I am going on the sea,” she explained. “I
expect I shall be very ill, and you will have to look after me, and you
know the less you eat, well—the less you can be ill.”
“Why did you not tell me that before?” he remarked, contemplating
his empty plate with a gloomy eye. “Besides I expect we shall be in
different parts of the ship.”
“Oh! I daresay it can be arranged,” she answered.
And as a matter of fact, it was “arranged,” all the way to Lucerne.
At Dover station Miss Ogilvy had a hurried interview at the ticket
office. Godfrey did not in the least understand what she was doing, but
as a result he was her companion throughout the long journey. The
crossing was very rough, and it was Godfrey who was ill, excessively
ill, not Miss Ogilvy who, with the assistance of her maid and the
steward, attended assiduously to him in his agonies.
“And to think,” he moaned faintly as they moored alongside of the
French pier, “that once I wished to be a sailor.”
“Nelson was always sick,” said Miss Ogilvy, wiping his damp brow
with a scented pocket-handkerchief, while the maid held the
smelling-salts to his nose.
“Then he must have been a fool to go to sea,” muttered Godfrey, and
relapsed into a torpor, from which he awoke only to find himself
stretched at length on the cushions of a first-class carriage.
Later on, the journey became very agreeable. Godfrey was interested in
everything, being of a quick and receptive mind, and Miss Ogilvy proved
a fund of information. When they had exhausted the scenery they
conversed on other topics. Soon she knew everything there was to know
about him and Isobel, whom it was evident she could not understand.
“Tell me,” she said, looking at his dark and rather unusual eyes,
“do you ever have dreams, Godfrey?” for now she called him by his
Christian name.
“Not at night, when I sleep very soundly, except after that poor
cabman was killed. I have seen lots of dead people, because my father
always takes me to look at them in the parish, to remind me of my own
latter end, as he says, but they never made me dream before.”
“Then do you have them at all?”
He hesitated a little.
“Sometimes, at least visions of a sort, when I am walking alone,
especially in the evening, or wondering about things. But always when I
am alone.”
“What are they?” she asked eagerly.
“I can’t quite explain,” he replied in a slow voice.
“They come and they go, and I forget them, because they fade out, just
like a dream does, you know.”
“You must remember something; try to tell me about them.”
“Well, I seem to be among a great many people whom I have never met.
Yet I know them and they know me, and talk to me about all sorts of
things. For instance, if I am puzzling over anything they will explain
it quite clearly, but afterwards I always forget the explanation and am
no wiser than I was before. A hand holding a cloth seems to wipe it out
of my mind, just as one cleans a slate.”
“Is that all?”
“Not quite. Occasionally I meet the people afterwards. For instance,
Thomas Sims, the cabman, was one of them, and,” he added colouring,
“forgive me for saying so, but you are another. I knew it at once, the
moment I saw you, and that is what made me feel so friendly.”
“How very odd!” she exclaimed, “and how delightful. Because,
you see—well never mind——”
He looked at her expectantly, but as she said no more, went on.
“Then now and again I see places before I really do see them. For
example, I think that presently we shall pass along a hillside with
great mountain slopes above and below us covered with dark trees.
Opposite to us also, running up to three peaks with a patch of snow on
the centre peak, but not quite at the top.” He closed his eyes, and
added, “Yes, and there is a village at the bottom of the valley by a
swift-running stream, and in it a small white church with a spire and a
gilt weathercock with a bird on it. Then,” he continued rapidly, “I
can see the house where I am going to live, with the Pasteur Boiset, an
old white house with woods above and all about it, and the beautiful
lake beneath, and beyond, a great mountain. There is a tree in the
garden opposite the front door, like a big cherry tree, only the fruit
looks larger than cherries,” he added with confidence.
“I suppose that no one showed you a photograph of the place?” she
asked doubtfully, “for as it happens I know it. It is only about two
miles from Lucerne by the short way through the woods. What is more,
there is a tree with a delicious fruit, either a big cherry or a small
plum, for I have eaten some of it several years ago.”
“No,” he answered, “no one. My father only told me that the
name of the little village is Kleindorf. He wrote it on the label for my
bag.”
Just then the line went round a bend. “Look,” he said, “there
is the place I told you we were coming to, with the dark trees, the
three peaks, and the stream, and the white church with the cock on top
of the spire.”
She let down the carriage window, and stared at the scene.
“Yes,” she exclaimed, “it is just as you described. Oh! at
last I have found what I have been seeking for years. Godfrey, I believe
that you have the true gift.”
“What gift, Miss Ogilvy?”
“Clairvoyance, of course, and perhaps clairaudience as well.”
The lad burst out laughing, and said that he wished it were something
more useful.
From all of which it will be guessed that Ethel Ogilvy was a mystic of
the first water.