Eden Phillpotts, “The Diary of a Perfect Gentleman”

Just because I’ve started a new insane project is no reason to abandon the old one: here’s the weekly dose of public domain short stories. This week it’s Eden Philpotts, a fairly classy British writer of the Oughts, Teens and Twenties, who could be wearily jaded or roughly sentimental, as the occasion allowed. This is a trifle of a story, more social satire than anything, and would probably be condensed into one page in the New Yorker’s “Shouts and Murmurs” section today. I got it from Philpotts’ 1903 story collection Fancy Free.

There is to be a break-up in the family, and I gather that my future address will be Peckham Rye. Never heard of the place, and never wanted to, but begin to take an interest in it now. I travel in a hamper alone. It seems I was advertised in the Exchange and Mart, and my people have sold me for thirty shillings. Thirty shillings for a pure-bred Persian tom kitten! Their business instincts must be paltry. I am worth five pounds if a penny. Not sorry to go. Only regret leaving my mother. I am two months old now, and she has been a great comfort to me since I was born. However, I can lap all right, so she’s no more use. My people tie a ribbon round my neck, pretend to regret my departure, then take me to the station. Thus I enter the world.

* * *

Two maiden ladies have secured me. Might have been worse, for they are a soft-hearted couple. They tell one another that they have a bargain and think themselves clever to have acquired me for £1 10s. They laugh when I am introduced to their wirehaired fox-terrier and put up my back and get ready for him. But it seems he has lived with cats all his life. He wags his tail and makes friends. He appears to be a lumbering, well-meaning fool. His nose will be out of joint in four-and-twenty hours. The old women like me, and stuff me, and decide I shall be called “Shah.” So far so good. They talk a great deal about me, and watch me walk around, and quarrel as to where I shall sleep. It is to be a toss-up between a tool-shed and the kitchen. They decide for the kitchen. But, when they have gone to bed, the cook decides for tool-shed. Never trust a servant. They are time-serving wretches. They pretend to like a cat about the place. But not one mistress in a hundred knows what we have to put up with behind her back.

* * *

Distinct score off the cook last night. She left me in the tool-shed, and during some excursions I fetched down a board with a variety of gardening trifles upon it. Of pots there were broken two score. Gardener annoyed. This man will be my thorn in the flesh, I fancy. He dares cook to put me there again. I am left in the garden while they argue. Dog has a kennel, but I don’t like it. He invites me to join him at breakfast. Cold water and stuff he calls biscuit. I explain I shall take my meals with the family. He hopes I am not home-sick, and tells me that he will do all he can to make things pleasant. Snub him. Explain my origin, and let him plainly understand that there is a social gulf fixed between us. He is humble and apologetic. A good breakfast indoors. The cook assures my mistress that I slept in the kitchen and didn’t behave well. I knew she would. Always be on your guard against a liar.

* * *

When a man interferes with my amusement he suffers for it sooner or later. The gardener has told me to keep off a bed of mignonette seed. Fool — he ought to have commanded me to keep on it! A deliberate invitation to do anything in particular always annoys me; a command angers me. I spend much time upon the mignonette. The dog is rather impressed. I invite him to join me, but he refuses, and explains that the gardener dare not touch me, but would not hesitate in his case. Unpleasantness to-day. Was having a game with some stuffed birds in the drawing-room when my old ladies rang for the parlourmaid to remove me. I scratched her hand, and my old ladies laughed and applauded my spirit. But when she got me on the other side of the door, that parlourmaid rubbed it in pretty stiffly. I shan’t forget it. When I’m a grown cat, there will probably be a day of reckoning.

* * *

A niece has come to stay with the old ladies. She is very wealthy and engaged. We get on well. But the man, who calls twice a week, is a failure. The first time he came he slighted me, saying that Persians had no spirit or “go,” and were always sleeping or eating. Later on I went round to his silk hat, which was on the floor, and when he came back from a stroll round the garden he knew all about it. My strength is such that I can now jump through the drawing-room window; and when I had made it clear that I was responsible for the hat, I jumped. Tree-climbing very good for the claws; gives strength and tone. Relations strained all round now, because I caught a bee off a white lily yesterday, and broke down the lily. Moth-hunting of an evening is tidy sport.

* * *

The niece is called Ethel. She is to be married from here. My own opinion is that the man only wants her money, for he is a low-looking brute, though the servants say he is the younger son of somebody distinguished. The girl talks to me about him. The dog does not like this man either. A trustful animal, a dog. Gives everybody credit for best motives as a rule. But still, this dog bars this man; he cannot tell me why, but says it must be instinct. Have made a friend — an elderly tabby tom from four doors lower down the terrace. He has seen a good deal of the seamy side of life, and gathers his roses where he can. Well up in dustbins. Is called “Jim.” He moral views are elastic. I believe nothing at present, but Jim’s code will suit me well enough. Convenience is its principal beauty. Jim makes a good deal of me. He says I have gifts, and he assures me that it refreshes him and causes him to think deeply when I talk. I have made him free of our dustbin and introduced him to the dog. Henceforth he is safe here. He hates the gardener, too. He had a brother the gardener caught in the fowl-house. Jim knows where his brother was buried — in a tomato bed. Murderous man, the gardener.

* * *

Of course I’m not under Jim’s thumb. Yesterday we were walking together in the cool of the evening on the croquet ground, and my old ladies saw us, and rushed out as if I was taking a stroll with the devil. Jim had to hurry, and they picked me up, and told me he was a bad companion and would teach me all sorts of wicked things. What fools women are! I fancy I know a bit more than they think already. And as to Jim — why I teach him. He says that I’m always well worth listening to, and constantly asks my advice. Am growing quickly now, and begin to see a little society. Ethel’s wedding comes off this day fortnight. I shall give my first party on that evening. A quiet wedding it is to be; but probably a noisy party. Jim is asking the cats. He says I cannot be too careful about invitations. No doubt he is right. Good fellow, Jim, and worships me. Learning to sing a little. The ladies like it — not my old ladies, but the young ones of my own species. We are badly off for ladies in this terrace; still, I have my eye on a pretty little thing — black, with white paws. She is coming to the party. No catch socially, but love levels all — so Jim says. (Ethel’s wedding breakfast will include salmon. I heard the cook say so.) Row with the oldest of my ladies. She can’t understand that a cat gets beyond the cork-on-a-string stage. I’m growing up fast. Not that I don’t have a game on the quiet sometimes, but never before people. They turn me out at night now. Much pleasanter. Supped with Jim down the road at his own place. A fair bit of haddock, but no style. There are children in the house.

* * *

Wedding went off very well. A number of strange people about. Naturally I watched with some interest to see what went into the dustbin. Rather disappointing. Servants are the deuce in a case like this. Can’t keep their hands off anything. Managed to get a tail of salmon myself, while they were hiding a few bottles of champagne. Secreted the salmon in the garden. It will come as a pleasant surprise to-night. Ethel cried when she started. My old ladies cried too. The man seemed pleased at what he’d managed. I’m afraid he’s a blackguard. My party begins about half-past eleven. There are about ten of us. The black girl with white paws is called “Tottie” — pretty name. Very shy and retiring. Pleasant voice. Jim and a grey cat, called “The Colonel,” have a rather unseemly row over an old tortoiseshell dowager. I wouldn’t have looked at her. No accounting for tastes. Music sets the dogs barking for miles. Our own dog chained up. Not that he would have interfered. Cook, or some other damned menial, flings a pot of potatum into the very middle of the conversazione. Nobody hurt, thank God, but a good deal is said about it. Of course I make it clear that the fault is not mine. Fine moonlight. Hide-and-seek in the geraniums. Wish the gardener could see us. I seem very popular. Get a chat with Tottie, and take her off to where I hid the salmon. Gone! I had only mentioned it to Jim. So much for friendship. In another month I shall not be afraid to stand up to him. Then he’ll possibly wish he’d never been born. Party over at dawn. See Tottie home. She says that to meet a real gentleman is refreshing nowadays. True enough. They’re growing scarce.

* * *

Very cheap next morning, and my old ladies see I am. Unpleasant remarks and an inclination to withhold my saucer of milk. Some talk of giving me away. Giving me away! How insulting human beings are. And then they turn round and say we have no gratitude! Caught a young thrush in the afternoon. It was sitting with its back turned waiting for its mother. Mother came back with a worm, and when she saw what I’d been and done, she spoke her mind. Gardener noticed me too and seemed rather gratified than not. I shall go on catching young thrushes — not to please the gardener, but because I like them.

* * *

We are engaged. I sang to her for an hour in the moonlight. Henceforth we live for each other. Everybody is saying she angled for me and caught me. I am a catch and I know it; but, in a place like this, where there’s not another Persian within a radius of five hundred yards, we must do the best we can. And Tottie worships the wall I walk on. A very good, trustful, domesticated, little thing, and knows her luck. Am growing devilish handsome. My old ladies talk about sending me to the Crystal Palace Show next autumn. Had it out with Jim last night. He said I was ungrateful and never looked at him now that I was getting in with a better set. I knocked him out of a rain-shoot into a water-barrel; and when he came ashore we fought four rounds. He had some fur out of me certainly, but I took half his right ear off and hall-marked his nose for life. Now we pass on the same flower-bed and don’t know each other. A low-bred animal Jim, and blood will tell. After our difference my old ladies changed their mind about sending me for exhibition.

* * *

I am a father. Tottie has a fine family. Rather a bore. But of course there are no obligations. Two days later she meets me with a face as long as a chicken’s thigh-bone. The family has been drowned to a kitten before her eyes. Well, well, we must all die. Surprised to find how I bear this blow. Tottie hard to comfort. Of course, the murderers did not know that I was the father. Those kittens cannot have been worth less than five shillings each. I feel angry when I look at the matter from a business point of view. Tottie rather a nuisance about it. What’s the use of crying over dead kittens? I tell her not to try my patience too far. Females are so exacting. She is hurt. What does she expect? She surely doesn’t suppose that I am going to cry about it? She goes and gets one of her dead babes and lays it at my feet. Very harrowing, of course; but if the others were like this one, I am glad somebody drowned them. These mixed marriages are a mistake.

* * *

Ethel has come back to my old ladies. The dog and I were right about that man. Only been married six months, and he is tired of her, and has been brutal; and she must go through some legal business to be rid of him. What devils these men are to the weaker vessels! Tottie has gone off in appearance a good deal lately. Her spirit is broken. To see her crawl along a fence you would think she was five years old. Her temper is soured too. There has come a blue French cat to the house next door but three. I introduced myself. She is young and attractive, and, thank Heaven, a lady of elegant extraction. Inclined to be extremely exclusive. Tell her she is right. Her name is “Sally B.” Pretty name. Has some English, but not much. Is teaching me French. Chic — very chic indeed. Had half a brickbat within two inches of me yesterday, next door but three. Her people are as exclusive as she is. Faint Persian never won fair French puss yet. Tottie growing quite impossible. Sorry, but had to speak. She fainted. You can only live your life once; therefore never let sentiment come between you and your ambitions. Sally B. says ours was a case of love at first sight. Very possibly. We are engaged, anyhow. Haven’t mentioned Tottie.

* * *

They are saying in the house that Ethel is going to die. If she does, they certainly ought to kill the fiend who is responsible for her misery. I’m sure I can feel for the poor girl. Sally B. has thrown me over for a lop-sided, yellow cat, with one eye and no tail — a paltry Manx thing that would disgrace Seven Dials. Oh yes, the beast can fight, I know; but I was dead out of training at the time. Not that I care. I might have known what to expect from a French cat. There are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it.

* * *

Shall give up keeping a diary. The thing only makes people laugh at you after you are gone. Besides, you often think of things you can’t even say to yourself, let alone write in a book.

* * *

Resumed my diary after several years. I’ve felt very seedy lately and been getting worse every day for a year. Shabby and old. Don’t create any sensation as of yore. Vet comes to see me, and the case evidently interests him a good deal. He says a pinch of arsenic is the only thing for me, and my old ladies both begin to cry. I suppose it’s expensive. Still, as this is the only cure the man can suggest, they are bound in decency to let me have it. They agree to the vet’s proposal, though reluctantly. Disgusting to see meanness at such a time. However, it’s all right: I’m to have the arsenic to-morrow.

Maurice Maeterlinck, “The Massacre of the Innocents”

Maurice Maeterlinck, a Flemish (i. e. Belgian) writer, was famous for two things in his day: for enormously popular plays that used a rather twee symbolism to express a sophisticated nihilistic philosophy; and for essays that explored the beauty and structure of nature in a fairly Freudian (though not sexual) manner. He was an atheist, but fascinated by religion, particularly the symbol-rich Catholicism of his homeland. This is one of his few prose stories that were translated to English; it’s based on actual events and can be seen as a precursor to the violence-heavy literature of Cormac McCarthy and other modern writers. It’s from the 1895 collection The Massacre of Innocents and Other Tales by Belgian Writers. It was translated from the French by Edith Wingate Rinder.

Towards the hour of supper on Friday, the twenty-sixth day of the month of December, a little shepherd lad came into Nazareth, crying bitterly.

Some peasants, who were drinking ale in the Blue Lion, opened the shutters to look into the village orchard, and saw the child running over the snow. They recognized him as the son of Korneliz, and called from the window: “What is the matter? It’s time you were abed!”

But, sobbing still and shaking with terror, the boy cried that the Spaniards had come, that they had set fire to the farm, had hanged his mother among the nut trees and bound his nine little sisters to the trunk of a big tree. At this the peasants rushed out of the inn. Surrounding the child, they stunned him with their questionings and outcries. Between his sobs, he added that the soldiers were on horseback and wore armor, that they had taken away the cattle of his uncle, Petrus Krayer, and would soon be in the forest with the sheep and cows. All now ran to the Golden Swan where, as they knew, Korneliz and his brother-in-law were also drinking their mug of ale. The moment the innkeeper heard these terrifying tidings, he hurried into the village, crying that the Spaniards were at hand.

What a stir, what an uproar there was then in Nazareth! Women opened windows, and peasants hurriedly left their houses carrying lights which were put out when they reached the orchard, where, because of the snow and the full moon, one could see as well as at midday.

Later, they gathered round Korneliz and Krayer, in the open space which faced the inns. Several of them had brought pitchforks and rakes, and consulted together, terror-stricken, under the trees.

But, as they did not know what to do, one of them ran to fetch the curé, who owned Korneliz’s farm. He came out of the house with the sacristan carrying the keys of the church. All followed him into the churchyard, whither his cry came to them from the top of the tower, that he beheld nothing either in the fields, or by the forest, but that around the farm he saw ominous red clouds, for all that the sky was of a deep blue and agleam with stars over the rest of the plain.

After taking counsel for a long time in the churchyard, they decided to hide in the wood through which the Spaniards must pass, and, if these were not too numerous, to attack them and recover Petrus Krayer’s cattle and the plunder which had been taken from the farm.

Having armed themselves with pitchforks and spades, while the women remained outside the church with the curé, they sought a suitable ambuscade. Approaching a mill on a rising ground adjacent to the verge of the forest, they saw the light of the burning farm flaming against the stars. There they waited under enormous oaks, before a frozen mere.

A shepherd, known as Red Dwarf, climbed the hill to warn the miller, who had stopped his mill when he saw the flames on the horizon. He bade the peasant enter, and both men went to a window to stare out into the night.

Before them the moon shone over the burning farmstead, and in its light they saw a long procession winding athwart the snow. Having carefully scrutinized it, the Dwarf descended where his comrades waited under the trees, and now, they too gradually distinguished four men on horseback behind a flock which moved grazing on the plain.

While the peasants in their blue breeches and red cloaks continued to search about the margins of the mere and under the snowlit trees, the sacristan pointed out to them a box-hedge, behind which they hid.

The Spaniards, driving before them the sheep and the cattle, advanced upon the ice. When the sheep reached the hedge they began to nibble at the green stuff, and now Korneliz broke from the shadows of the bushes, followed by the others with their pitchforks. Then in the midst of the huddled-up sheep and of the cows who stared affrighted, the savage strife was fought out beneath the moon, and ended in a massacre.

When they had slain not only the Spaniards, but also their horses, Korneliz rushed thence across the meadow in the direction of the flames, while the others plundered and stripped the dead. Thereafter all returned to the village with their flocks. The women, who were observing the dark forest from behind the churchyard walls, saw them coming through the trees and ran with the curé to meet them, and all returned dancing joyously amid the laughter of the children and the barking of the dogs.

But, while they made merry, under the pear trees of the orchard, where the Red Dwarf had hung lanterns in honor of the kermesse, they anxiously demanded of the curé what was to be done.

The outcome of this was the harnessing of a horse to a cart in order to fetch the bodies of the woman and the nine little girls to the village. The sisters and other relations of the dead woman got into the cart along with the curé, who, being old and very fat, could not walk so far.

In silence they entered the forest, and emerged upon the moonlit plain. There, in the white light, they descried the dead men, rigid and naked, among the slain horses. Then they moved onward toward the farm, which still burned in the midst of the plain.

When they came to the orchard of the flaming house, they stopped at the gate of the garden, dumb before the overwhelming misfortune of the peasant. For there, his wife hung, quite naked, on the branches of an enormous nut tree, among which he himself was now mounting on a ladder, and beneath which, on the frozen grass, lay his nine little daughters. Korneliz had already, climbed along the vast boughs, when suddenly, by the light of the snow, he saw the crowd who horror-struck watched his every movement. With tears in his eyes, he made a sign to them to help him, whereat the innkeepers of the Blue Lion and the Golden Sun, the curé, with a lantern, and many others, climbed up in the moonshine amid the snow-laden branches, to unfasten the dead. The women of the village received the corpse in their arms at the foot of the tree; even as our Lord Jesus Christ was received by the women at the foot of the Cross.

On the morrow they buried her, and for the week thereafter nothing unusual happened in Nazareth.

But the following Sunday, hungry wolves ran through the village after high mass, and it snowed until midday. Then, suddenly, the sun shone brilliantly, and the peasants went to dine as was their wont, and dressed for the benediction.

There was no one to be seen on the Place, for it froze bitterly. Only the dogs and chickens roamed about under the trees, or the sheep nibbled at a three-cornered bit of grass, while the curé’s servant swept away the snow from his garden.

At that moment a troop of armed men crossed the stone bridge at the end of the village, and halted in the orchard. Peasants hurried from their houses, but, recognizing the new-comers as Spaniards, they retreated terrified, and went to the windows to see what would happen.

About thirty soldiers, in full armor, surrounded an old man with a white beard. Behind them, on pillions, rode red and yellow lancers who jumped down and ran over the snow to shake off their stiffness, while several of the soldiers in armor dismounted likewise and fastened their horses to the trees.

Then they moved in the direction of the Golden Sun, and knocked at the door. It was opened reluctantly; the soldiers went in, warmed themselves near the fire, and called for ale.

Presently they came out of the inn, carrying pots, jugs, and rye-bread for their companions, who surrounded the man with the white beard, where he waited behind the hedge of lances.

As the street remained deserted the commander sent some horsemen to the back of the houses, to guard the village on the country side. He then ordered the lancers to bring him all the children of two years old and under, to be massacred, as is written in the Gospel of St. Matthew.

The soldiers first went to the little inn of the Green Cabbage, and to the barber’s cottage which stood side by side midway in the street.

One of them opened a sty and a litter of pigs wandered into the village. The innkeeper and the barber came out, and humbly asked the men what they wanted; but they did not understand Flemish, and went into the houses to look for the children.

The innkeeper had one child, who, in its little shift, was screaming on the table where they had just dined. A soldier took it in his arms, and carried it away under the apple trees, while the father and mother followed, crying.

Thereafter the lancers opened other stable doors,—those of the cooper, the blacksmith, the cobbler,—and calves, cows, asses, pigs, goats, and sheep roamed about the square. When they broke the carpenter’s windows, several of the oldest and richest inhabitants of the village assembled in the street, and went to meet the Spaniards. Respectfully they took off their caps and hats to the leader in the velvet mantle, and asked him what he was going to do. He did not, understand their language; so some one ran to fetch the curé.

The priest was putting on a gold chasuble in the vestry, in readiness for the benediction. The peasant cried: “The Spaniards are in the orchard!” Horrified, the curé ran to the door of the church, and the choir-boys followed, carrying wax-tapers and censer.

As he stood there, he saw the animals from the pens and stables wandering on the snow and on the grass; the horsemen in the village, the soldiers before the doors, horses tied to trees all along the street; men and women entreating the man who held the child in its little shift.

The curé hastened into the churchyard, and the peasants turned anxiously towards him as he came through the pear trees, like the Divine Presence itself robed in white and gold. They crowded about him where he confronted the man with the white beard.

He spoke in Flemish and in Latin, but the commander merely shrugged his shoulders to show that he did not understand.

The villagers asked their priest in a low voice: “What does he say? What is he going to do?” Others, when they saw the curé in the orchard, came cautiously from their cottages, women hurried up and whispered in groups, while the soldiers, till that moment besieging an inn, ran back at sight of the crowd in the square.

Then the man who held the innkeeper’s child by the leg cut off its head with his sword.

The people saw the head fall, and thereafter the body lie bleeding upon the grass. The mother picked it up, and carried it away, but forgot the head. She ran towards her home, but stumbling against a tree fell prone on the snow, where she lay in a swoon, while the father struggled between two soldiers.

Some young peasants cast stones and blocks of wood at the Spaniards, but the horsemen all lowered their lances; the women fled and the curé with his parishioners began to shriek with horror, amid the bleating of the sheep, the cackling of the geese, and the barking of the dogs.

But as the soldiers moved away again into the street, the crowd stood silent to see what would happen.

A troop entered the shop kept by the sacristan’s sisters, but came out quietly, without harming the seven women, who knelt on the threshold praying.

From these they went to the inn of St. Nicholas, which belonged to the Hunchback. Here, too, so as to appease them, the door was opened at once; but, when the soldiers reappeared amid a great uproar, they carried three children in their arms. The marauders were surrounded by the Hunchback, his wife, and daughters, all, with clasped hands, imploring for mercy.

When the soldiers came to their white-bearded leader, they placed the children at the foot of an elm, where the little ones remained seated on the snow in their Sunday clothes. But one of them, in a yellow frock, got up and toddled unsteadily towards the sheep. A soldier followed, with bare sword; and the child died with his face in the grass, while the others were killed around the tree.

The peasants and the innkeeper’s daughters all fled screaming, and shut themselves up in their houses. The curé, who was left alone in the orchard, threw himself on his knees, first before one horseman, then another, and with crossed arms, supplicated the Spaniards piteously, while the fathers and mothers seated on the snow beyond wept bitterly for the dead children whom they held upon their knees.

As the lancers passed along the street, they noticed a big blue farmstead. When they had tried, in vain, to force open the oaken door studded with nails, they clambered atop of some tubs, which were frozen over near the threshold, and by this means gained the house through the upper windows.

There had been a kermesse in this farm. At sound of the broken window-panes, the families who had assembled there to eat gaufres, custards, and hams, crowded together behind the table on which still stood some empty jugs and dishes. The soldiers entered the kitchen, and after savage struggle in which many were wounded, they seized all the little boys and girls; then, with these, and the servant who had bitten a lancer’s thumb, they left the house and fastened the door behind them in such a way that the parents could not get out.

The villagers who had no children slowly left their houses, and followed the soldiers at a distance. They saw them throw down their victims on the grass before the old man, and callously kill them with lance and sword. During this, men and women leaned out of all the windows of the blue house, and out of the barn, blaspheming and flinging their hands to heaven, when they saw the red, pink, and white frocks of their motionless little ones on the grass between the trees. The soldiers next hanged the farm servant at the sign of the Half Moon on the other side of the street, and there was a long silence in the village.

The massacre now became general. Mothers fled from their houses, and attempted to escape through the flower and vegetable gardens, and so into the country beyond, but the horsemen pursued them and drove them back into the street. Peasants with caps in their clasped hands knelt before the men who dragged away their children, while amid the confusion the dogs barked joyously. The curé, with hands upraised to heaven, rushed up and down in front of the houses and under the trees, praying desperately; here and there, soldiers, trembling with cold, blew on their fingers as they moved about the road, or waited with hands in their breeches pockets, and swords under their arms, before the windows of the houses which were being scaled.

Everywhere, as in small bands of twos and threes, they moved along the streets, where these scenes were being enacted, and entered the houses, they beheld the piteous grief of the peasants. The wife of a market-gardener, who occupied a red brick cottage near the church, pursued with a wooden stool the two men who carried off her children in a wheelbarrow. When she saw them die, a horrible sickness came upon her, and they thrust her down on the stool under a tree by the roadside.

Other soldiers swarmed up the lime trees in front of a farmstead with its blank walls tinted mauve, and entered the house by removing the tiles. When they came back on to the roof, the father and mother, with outstretched arms, tried to follow them through the opening, but the soldiers repeatedly pushed them back, and had at last to strike them on the head with their swords, before they could disengage themselves and regain the street.

One family shut up in the cellar of a large cottage lamented near the grating, through which the father wildly brandished a pitchfork. Outside on a heap of manure, a bald old man sobbed all alone; in the square, a woman in a yellow dress had swooned, and her weeping husband now supported her under the arms, against a pear tree; another woman in red fondled her little girl, bereft of her hands, and lifted now one tiny arm, now the other, to see if the child would not move. Yet another woman fled towards the country; but the soldiers pursued her among the hayricks, which stood out in black relief against the fields of snow.

Beneath the inn of the Four Sons of Aymon a surging tumult reigned. The inhabitants had formed a barricade, and the soldiers went round and round the house without being able to enter. Then they were attempting to climb up to the signboard by the creepers, when they noticed a ladder behind the garden door. This they raised against the wall, and went up it in file. But the innkeeper and all his family hurled tables, stools, plates, and cradles down upon them from the windows; the ladder was
overturned, and the soldiers fell.

In a wooden hut at the end of the village, another band found a peasant woman washing her children in a tub near the fire. Being old and very deaf, she did not hear them enter. Two men took the tub and carried it away, and the stupefied woman followed with the clothes in which she was about to dress the children. But when she saw traces of blood everywhere in the village, swords in the orchards, cradles overturned in the street, women on their knees, others who wrung their hands over thedead, she began to scream and beat the soldiers, who put down the tub to defend themselves. The curé hastened up also, and with hands clasped over his chasuble, entreated the Spaniards before the naked little ones howling in the water. Some soldiers came up, tied the mad peasant to a tree, and carried off the children.

The butcher, who had hidden his little girl, leaned against his shop, and looked on callously. A lancer and one of the men in armor entered the house and found the child in a copper boiler. Then the butcher in despair took one of his knives and rushed after them into the street, but soldiers who were passing disarmed him and hanged him by the hands to the hooks in the wall—there, among the flayed animals, he kicked and struggled, blaspheming, until the evening.

Near the churchyard, there was a great gathering before a long, low house, painted green. The owner, standing on his threshold, shed bitter tears; as he was very fat and jovial looking, he excited the pity of some soldiers who were seated in the sun against the wall, patting a dog. The one, too, who dragged away his child by the hand, gesticulated as if to say: “What can I do? It’s not my fault!”

A peasant who was pursued, jumped into a boat, moored near the stone bridge, and with his wife and children moved away across the unfrozen part of the narrow lagoon. Not daring to follow, the soldiers strode furiously through the reeds. They climbed up into the willows on the banks to try to reach the fugitives with their lances—as they did not succeed, they continued for a long time to threaten the terrified family adrift upon the black water.

The orchard was still full of people, for it was there, in front of the white-bearded man who directed the massacre, that most of the children were killed. Little dots who could just walk alone stood side by side munching their slices of bread and jam, and stared curiously at the slaying of their helpless playmates, or collected round the village fool who played his flute on the grass.

Then suddenly there was a uniform movement in the village. The peasants ran towards the castle which stood on the brown rising ground, at the end of the street. They had seen their seigneur leaning on the battlements of his tower and watching the massacre. Men, women, old people, with hands outstretched, supplicated to him, in his velvet mantle and his gold cap, as to a king in heaven. But he raised his arms and shrugged his shoulders to show his helplessness, and when they implored him more and more persistently, kneeling in the snow, with bared heads, and uttering piteous cries, he turned slowly into the tower and the peasants’ last hope was gone.

When all the children were slain, the tired soldiers wiped their swords on the grass, and supped under the pear trees. Then they mounted one behind the other, and rode out of Nazareth across the stone bridge, by which they had come.

The setting of the sun behind the forest made the woods aflame, and dyed the village blood-red. Exhausted with running and entreating, the curé had thrown himself upon the snow, in front of the church, and his servant stood near him. They stared upon the street and the orchard, both thronged with the peasants in their best clothes. Before many thresholds, parents with dead children on their knees bewailed with ever fresh amaze their bitter grief. Others still lamented over the children where they had died, near a barrel, under a barrow, or at the edge of a pool. Others carried away the dead in silence. There were some who began to wash the benches, the stools, the tables, the blood-stained shifts, and to pick up the cradles which had been thrown into the street. Mother by mother moaned under the trees over the dead bodies which lay upon the grass, little mutilated bodies which they recognized by their woollen frocks. Those who were childless moved aimlessly through the square, stopping at times in front of the bereaved, who wailed and sobbed in their sorrow. The men, who no longer wept, sullenly pursued their strayed animals, around which the barking dogs coursed; or, in silence, repaired so far their broken windows and rifled roofs. As the moon solemnly rose through the quietudes of the sky, deep silence as of sleep descended upon the village, where now not the shadow of a living thing stirred.

Horace Annesley Vachell, “Pals”

Of all the forgotten, lost-to-the-dustbin-of-history genres, the one I think I miss the most is the backstager. The reason it’s been lost, of course, is that the theatre is no longer the cultural force it once was; film and stories about Hollywood have taken its place. But there’s something fine, humble, and often sweet even though trite, about the old understudy-makes-good type of story. Horace Annesely Vachell was a fairly popular British writer around the turn of the century. Today he’d write screenplays that would be stripped of all their charm before making it to the screen. This story comes from his 1914 collection Loot (from the Temple of Fortune).

“I simply loathe the woman. She’s supremely selfish, and she can’t act for nuts.”

“Fanny!”

“I think I ought to know. And she’ll never give you a chance if she can prevent it. She’d crawl on to the stage if she was dyin’.”

“She’s been very pleasant to me.”

“Cat! Anyhow, she’s wrecking this play, and Raeburn knows it.”

The girls shared a small dressing-room at the top of the flight of stone stairs behind the stage. Upon a long table were the usual articles of make-up, brilliantly illuminated by two electric lights. The looking-glass—a large three-sided affair—was the only bit of furniture worth more than a few shillings. It belonged to the plainer of the pair, Fanny Temple, granddaughter of the illustrious Charles Temple, and therefore of the kin to the Beans and the Sherrys and other lesser lights of the dramatic profession. Long ago, Fanny had humbly realized that she was one of the innumerable actresses who are constrained, by physical disability alone, to play second-rate parts. She was hardly ever out of an engagement, and the critics always praised her performances. Managers said she was “sound.”

The other girl, Joan Forsyth, was in striking contrast to her friend. She had no affiliations whatever with the stage, except genuine talent, and in adopting it as a livelihood had quarrelled with her father, a country parson, and most of her relations. Her face, remarkable for its sweetness and intelligence as much as for its beauty, exhibited signs of suffering, the record of four years’ hard work upon an insufficient salary. Finally her great friend, Fanny, had obtained for her the billet of understudy to Miss Sybil Egremont.

Fanny rubbed her cheeks with cold cream, while Joan stared at the handsomely framed photograph of Henry Raeburn, which occupied the place of honour. In another silver frame might be seen the genial presentment of Alfred Brand, Raeburn’s stage-manager, the most active person, physically and mentally, whom Joan had ever met. Just in front of the mirror was a large oblong piece of place glass, covering a paper upon which were inscribed the autographs of all the stars with whom, at one time or another, Fanny had acted. Originally it had been the sight of this interesting document which had filled Joan with a consuming desire to become an actress. Fanny, having recited a thousand reasons against a parson’s daughter trying to earn a living on the boards, had eventually persuaded the famous Johnson to accept Joan as a pupil with the promise of a small salary if she could earn it. With Johnson, Joan played dozens of parts, always in the provinces, and was rigorously trained. But she very nearly starved.

Fanny began to rub in the flesh tint, as she saw Joan staring at Raeburn’s photograph. Her eyes twinkled; then she added sharply:

“Did Henry rehearse with you this morning?”

A slight blush deepened the colour upon Joan’s cheeks as she replied rather tartly: “Of course he didn’t.”

“You had to go through it with that awful stick of an understudy?”

“Yes; but Mr. Brand was very nice.”

“Nice?” Fanny laughed derisively as she attacked her eyelashes. “What did he say?”

“He said I seemed to have some sort of an idea of what was what.”

“I’ll bet that did you more good than the bun and glass of milk you take for your lunch. Well, I told Alf to be nice, as you call it, to you.”

“He has promised to persuade Mr. Raeburn to go through the big scene with me.”

“Henry is such a slacker about understudy rehearsals.”

“He isn’t a slacker about anything,” said Joan.

Fanny put the finishing touch of red to her lips as the call-boy knocked hard at the door.

“Good gracious,” exclaimed Fanny, “it’s not time yet.”

The boy’s pert face appeared.

“Miss Egremont wants to see you, Miss Temple, before you go on.”

“Right,” said Fanny. Then, as the boy vanished and they heard him clattering downstairs, she added grumblingly: “What on earth can she want with me?”

She dressed and descended, leaving Joan behind vaguely curious, because everything that concerned the leading lady cast a shadow, so to speak, upon herself. Sybil Egremont, indeed, obscured the present and future. During the run of the preceding piece, which had lasted more than a year, Joan had prayed nightly that a chance might be vouchsafed her. But the fair Sybil had sworn never to disappoint her dear public. She would come on with a temperature of 103, flout her doctor, faint after the performance, remain in bed from midnight till five in the afternoon, but the dear public saw her smiling and gay at nine every evening! And in the preceding play she had scored a great success in a part discreetly written to reveal dazzlingly her quality as a light comedienne while obscuring as discreetly her defects. But this new venture of Raeburn’s was quite another matter. From the first rehearsal it became plain to both author and actor-manager that Miss Egremont had been tried too high. A pretty woman, with a charming voice, and a sparkling manner slightly stereotyped after five-and-twenty years’ work, she had always yearned to play a serious part in a strong problem play. Fanatics was certainly strong enough, and her part, as she took it, a serious one. Raeburn smiled in public and gnashed his teeth in private. Upon the strength of her success in his previous production, his leading lady had signed an ironclad agreement “for the run of the piece.”

And the critics, alas! although kind to a popular favourite, predicted that the run would be short. Indeed, the more knowing affirmed that the libraries and agencies alone kept Fanatics going. They had speculated heavily. Raeburn, on this account, was not likely to lose much money, but everybody knew that money was nothing to him; whereas success was as the breath of his nostrils. And the author and he had been so very cocksure that Fanatics would please and, possibly, instruct the town.

After the first act Fanny came back. Joan, as understudy, might have gone home.

Fanny burst into speech as she opened the door.

“I say, the author has put a lot of idiotic comedy into Sybil’s part, and into mine. We have an absurd scene together.”

“What a shame!”

“Business is business. Alfred Brand says every laugh will be worth a fiver a night. There are about thirty judiciously interpolated laughs!”

“The play will be spoilt.”

“Henry, poor darling, is desperate. He hasn’t another suitable play, and if he had, the author wouldn’t let him produce it before the autumn. The critics are to be invited to attend the revised version next Monday week. We shall have an awful time rehearsing—and in this broiling weather, too.” Joan sighed.

“I do wish you could have played the part once as it is written,” said Fanny fervently.

Joan kissed her. “What an angel you are!”

“Angel! Alfred calls me a rum little devil.”

“Cheek! Do you like Mr. Brand, Fanny? Sometimes—er—I think you do, and sometimes I think you don’t.”

“He’s not a bad old darling,” said Fanny lightly. Then she added, with her tongue in her cheek: “And his wife will never be out of a London engagement.”

“Fanny! That doesn’t count with you?”

“Make no bloomin’ error! It does.” Joan went her way, back to a dismal lodging in Bloomsbury. As she walked she wondered whether she would ever marry such a man as Alfred Brand. “Monkey” Brand he was called in the profession, because he had an ape-like facility in grimacing. Was Alf a bounder?

From the point of view of a parson’s daughter, who happened to be the niece of a pompous, fussy baronet, Alf must be reckoned as slightly “off colour.” His ties were—! He wore his hat, on and off the stage, with a tilt not approved by county families. And his language in the presence of ladies—!

But he was a power; and a good, honest, hardworking fellow, likely to own a theatre some day. And his wife—as Fanny observed—would not pine away unemployed. Joan, let it be added, was sick unto death of shoulder of mutton, of thrice-trimmed hats, of darned stockings, and of cleaned gloves. Then she thought of Henry Raeburn, Eton and Oxford man, clever, charming, and, admittedly, one of the best.

“I am a fool,” said Joan to herself.

* * *

During the following week the rehearsals of the new version engaged the time and attention of the principals; but the understudies were left in peace. Joan, indeed, had not received her new part. Everybody noticed that Raeburn seemed worried and distressed, and Alfred reflected faithfully the moods of his “governor.” Fanny said he was behaving like a beast.

“He’s mad,” she confided to Joan, “because really he persuaded Henry to adopt the revisions.”

Saturday came at last with the two performances of the original play. After the first act of the matinee, Fanny said to Joan very sulkily: “Sybil has asked me to spend Sunday and Monday with her at her cottage in Sussex. That means more rehearsals of our scene. She never asked me before, and never will again. I was going on the river with Alf. But he says I must kow-tow to Sybil.”

“Mr. Brand has asked me to go with him instead of you.”

“He has, has he? “said Fanny quickly. “Are you going?”

“I don’t know.”

“Of course you’ll go. Alf always has his own way.”

“Fanny dear, is there anything between you and Mr. Brand?”

“Lots of things. Make Alf behave himself on Sunday.”

“You don’t mean—?”

“Oh! he’s always been ridiculously prim and proper with me, but I’m only a rum little devil. You’re It, the greatest thing that ever happened. Alf learnt such expressions in America, but he never applied ’em to—me.”

“He hasn’t applied them to me, Fanny.”

“Really? That’s what he calls you behind your back. He may be very enterprising to-morrow after lunch.”

“I won’t go,” said Joan.

“Oh yes, you will,” said Fanny.

Sunday dawned dazzlingly fine: a glorious day for the river. Joan put on her thinnest and prettiest frock, wondering vaguely whether it wouldn’t have been wiser to wear a less alluring gown. Fanny’s word “enterprising” terrified her. And Alf had hinted at champagne, supposed she liked it not too dry. Just before the evening performance she had ventured to decline his invitation. Alf had been bold as young Lochinvar.

“What? And the punt and the lunch ordered—! Of course you’ll come. I’ll pick you up in a hansom at nine sharp. You’ll be fined if you’re late.”

As she pinned on her hat, which represented the difference in price between milk and a bun and a properly grilled chop multiplied by the number of days in a calendar month, Joan murmured to herself: “I couldn’t marry him.”

They travelled together to Shepperton. Here a punt and a hamper awaited them.

“Anybody else coming? “said Joan.

“Not much.”

“But—!” The hamper was indicated with a lift of her nicely defined eyebrows.

“We’re going to do ourselves jolly well.”

Alf smiled genially, and Joan smiled in return. Alfred looked quite presentable in flannels, and he handled his pole like a waterman.

“We’ve had a beastly week at the theatre,” he said, as they were passing through the lock. “The governor’s nearly off his head.”

Joan nodded. Her hand trailed in the cool water and she lay back upon the cushions easier in body than in mind. Her father’s conscience, which troubled her at times, told her that she was obtaining goods (from Fortnum & Mason’s) and other amenities under false pretences. Hunger, however, partly obliterated this uncomfortable conviction. They lunched up a shady backwater, amongst the willows and meadowsweet, and during luncheon shop was talked. After luncheon, Alf lit an immense cigar.

“Now for it!” thought Joan.

Up to this point not even a glance from the young man’s eyes had betrayed his feelings. He was as prim and proper with the “greatest thing that ever happened” as with the “rum little devil.” This rare self-control evoked Joan’s admiration, an admiration slightly tempered by pique. Alfred might have said something interesting about her hat, not to mention what was under it.

The explosion came suddenly.

“Of course, Miss Forsyth, with your penetrating eye, you must know what’s the matter with me?”

Joan cast down her eyes.

“You do know—don’t you?”

“Ye-es.”

“I’m in love. Bad dose, too. Quite incurable. And I know that the young lady doesn’t care a hang for me, and—er—in fact, looks upon me as a sort of bounder.”

“She doesn’t,” said Joan.

“She does. Because she’s a peach, a regular nectarine, she may say I’m not a bad sort, but in her heart of hearts she thinks me a bounder. And I feel abject.”

“Thank goodness, you don’t look abject,” said Joan. “I hate the doormat kind of man.”

“Do you mind my talking to you like this?”

“No-o,” said Joan doubtfully. A new feeling for Alf was stirring in her heart. For the first time she saw the man, a really modest, unassuming fellow, beneath the crust of the didactic, dominating, loud-speaking stage-manager.

“I had to speak—or bust,” Alfred explained.

Joan smiled.

“I’m glad you spoke, Mr. Brand.”

“I wish you’d call me Alf, and let me call you Joan.”

“I don’t mind.”

“And as we don’t trot in the same class—”

“But we do. At least—”

“We don’t. My father was a Nonconformist pork butcher. Of course, I was given no choice in the matter. You belong to the nobility.”

“I don’t.”

“Your uncle is a baronet. I dare say he’s eaten my father’s sausages.”

“I’m sure they were delicious.”

“It’s very good of you to say that,” said Alf; “I always thought he put in too many bread-crumbs. But we’re wandering from the subject. I want you to give me the straight tip.”

“The straight tip?”

“You see, I want to brush myself up a bit. See?”

“I see.”

“I do one or two things not quite—er—Louis Quatorze. Eh? Trifles, you say. In real life, as on the stage, trifles are important. I’m a stickler for trifles on the stage.”

“You are,” agreed Joan.

“Now, then,” said Alf, settling himself in the punt, “fire away. What’s wrong with Alfred Brand?”

“I really don’t know.”

“Now, Joan dear, that won’t wash. You know jolly well. Have another glass of fizz?”

“No, thank you. You place me in a most embarrassing position.”

“Whatever you say I shall take it lying down.”

He lay at full length at the bottom of the punt, and blew some circles of smoke into the air. Above, the bees droned; below, the river lapped seductively against the sides of the punt.

“Perhaps your ties—”

“Good! Tone down ties! I was rather doubtful myself about that lavender and green I wore yesterday. Next!”

“Some people have a prejudice against patent leather boots with bright yellow tops.”

“I paid twenty-five bob for those boots,” murmured Alf. “Happy thought, I’ll have the tops darkened.”

“In moments of excitement your language—”

“On or off the stage?”

“On, of course.”

“We’ll let that slide, Joan. I know my duty to the governor. And it’s rather rough on me that I have to do his dirty work. Blaze away!”

“I can’t think of anything else.”

“Try!”

“I’ve seen you wearing a tall hat with a blue serge suit.”

“Never more, as the raven said.”

The rest of the day passed swiftly and pleasantly. Alfred exhibited a courtesy and deference which tickled delightfully Joan’s self-respect, and compliments to the hat and what was under it were not lacking. When he deposited her, later, at the door of her dingy lodging, he whispered confidentially:

“I mean to boom you sky-high some day.”

* * *

Next day Joan went early to the theatre. The doorkeeper seemed less impassive than usual, and as Joan paused to ask for letters he said, with an odious grin:
“Mr. Brand is looking for you, miss.”

“Is he?” Joan replied indifferently. She hoped that Alfred would not make his attentions too conspicuous at the theatre. He had behaved so amazingly well on the river that a reaction was to be apprehended. Then she heard his voice, very hard and cross:

“You’ve turned up at last.”

“I’m earlier than usual.”

“Come along with me.”

She followed the autocrat obediently, wondering what was the matter. Alf s hat was being worn at an angle which indicated contemptuous indifference to her admonitions of the previous afternoon. He hurried straight to his own room, upon a level with the stage.

“Look at this!”

He handed her a telegram.

“Miss Egremont and Miss Mordaunt will not be able to play to-night.”

“Heavens! “exclaimed Joan, dazed by surprise.

“Just come,” said Alf in a terrible voice. “The governor’s wild—simply balmy. No explanations! Unheard of! And to-night of all nights, with Tomlinson and Bagshot and old Wrest in the stalls.”

At these great names Joan paled.

“I shall do my best,” she faltered.

“There’s going to be no performance.”

“Oh!”

Into that simple exclamation Joan put something impossible to set down, not merely disappointment, but a certain poignant protest against the irony of a fate that presented opportunity with the malicious intention of snatching it from her, even as she leapt to seize it. Alfred stared at her. Then he said very slowly, incredulously:

“I can’t believe you’d go on without having a single rehearsal with the governor.”

“That’s his fault, not mine,” panted Joan. “I know my part perfectly, and you know that I know it. Oh, Mr. Brand—Alfred—do, please,” she laid a trembling hand upon his arm, “let me have my chance. I’ve waited for it so long. And I won’t disgrace you. You have such influence with Mr. Raeburn.” She grew desperate, seeing his face harden, and the deepening lines between his brows. “Do this for me, and I’ll do anything, anything, for you.”

In her agitation she clung to him, uplifting wet eyes to his impassive face.

“You’re a good plucked ’un,” he said curtly. “I will try.”

“You nice man!”

“But I’m afraid Henry won’t have it. Run to Sybil’s room and look at her frocks.”

“She wouldn’t allow me to wear them.”

“Rot! The dresses belong to us. And she’s put us in the cart, d—n her!”

He raced off, muttering to himself. Joan crossed the passage and went to No. 1 dressing-room, where Sybil Egremont’s dresser greeted her with a grin.

“Looks as if you was going to ’ave yer chance, miss.”

“Mr. Brand has just asked me to look over Miss Egremont’s dresses.”

“She will be mad if you wear ’em.”

“I don’t care,” said Joan, with a laugh.

“Nor do I,” said the dresser, who knew her Sybil from alpha to omega.

Three minutes later Raeburn and Brand came in. With a gesture, Raeburn dismissed the dresser; then he turned to Joan:

“Do you really think you can do it?”

“I swear I can,” said Joan.

“A sight better than the other,” said Alfred. “Give the critics a chance to see the original version played as it ought to be played.”

Joan could have fallen upon his neck and kissed him. But she kept her eye on Raeburn, who stared as steadily at her, trying to measure an unknown quantity. He drew in his breath sharply, as he said:

“All right. If you don’t funk it, I won’t. You’re a trump, anyway.”

He smiled faintly, nodded, and went out of the room. “Can you wear her frocks?” said Alf in his most businesslike tone. “Yes.”

Just before the curtain went up, Alfred made a little speech to the audience. He said that the presentation of the revised version was indefinitely postponed owing to the absence of Miss Egremont and Miss Mordaunt; then he asked for the sympathy of the playgoers on behalf of Miss Joan Forsyth, whose performance—he ventured to predict—would be very interesting and remarkable. The house received this statement in chilling silence. Alf rushed round to the front just in time to meet Tomlinson and Wrest. He attacked them instantly.

“I’ve never asked a favour of you,” he said, “but don’t go. I beg you to stay, and ask the others to stay.” He indicated Bagshot and half a dozen men slipping through the doors which led from the stalls. “It’s going to be worth while.”

“Who is Miss Joan Forsyth? “said Bagshot.

“She’s—It,” said Alf solemnly. “She’s the rising young actress you’ve all been looking for, and tonight she’s come to stay.”

Old Wrest twisted his grizzled moustache.

“We’ve heard that before,” he grumbled.

“Not from me, Mr. Wrest. Gentlemen, please don’t go!”

All and sundry glanced at old Wrest, who had a headache, and in consequence was in a vile temper. But there must have been quality in Alf’s eyes. The famous critic shrugged his shoulders, and without a word went back into the theatre; the others followed like sheep. Alfred, smiling for the first time that evening, returned to the stage, and, an instant later, was knocking at the door of Joan’s dressing-room. To his intense disgust, he found her quivering with fright and almost in a state of collapse.

“I shall make a mess of it! “she wailed.

Alf seized her and shook her, not gently.

“Look here,” he said savagely. “You seem to forget that my reputation is at stake. You’ve got to justify me before Raeburn and old Wrest, and don’t you forget it!” In a softer and kindlier tone he added: “Thunder and Mars! How ripping you look!”

“Do I? “said Joan feebly.

“You’re beyond the giddy horizon.”

The call-boy hammered at the door.

“Miss Forsyth,” he said, and vanished.

“Come on! “said Alf, taking her arm.

She must have passed a dozen persons before she reached the wings. There was not one but had a kindly glance for her. Friendly hands sought hers; eager voices murmured “Good luck!” and “God bless you, miss!” The stage-carpenter, who went a-racing, said in a stage whisper: “There’s a winner!”

“How can I thank you?” whispered Joan to Alf.

“I’ll tell you after the show,” said Alf.

* * *

Joan’s entrance came rather late. Up to this point the first act had been generally considered admirable. But always Raeburn had been sensible that Sybil Egremont “let things down,” to use the vivid technical expression. Interest, action, dialogue seemed to flag because the long-expected leading lady was too light for the part. Sybil tripped on smiling, sure of a boisterous welcome from the groundlings. Not till the applause had completely died down did she assume the expression suited to her rô1e, the rô1e of a girl who is about to dismiss her lover because he is a free-thinker and an agnostic.

Joan entered very slowly, with eyes abased, and trembling. She despised herself; but Raeburn, waiting to receive her, thought she was acting. When she began her voice faltered and broke. What Alf said to the prompter need not be recorded, but old Wrest screwed his glass into his eye. An unmistakable thrill rustled through the house. Joan was not aware of this, but Raeburn responded instantly. He knew that the psychological moment had come. Out of all present Joan herself and Alf were the only persons who were unable to distinguish triumph from failure.

Gradually the long, intense scene drew to a close. Joan wondered why the house was so cold, but she was playing to Raeburn alone; not once had her glance strayed across the footlights. Her exit, necessarily a quiet one, left Raeburn alone on the stage. The curtain fell immediately.

“Stop!” said Alfred huskily, as Joan was hurrying off to her dressing-room. “Good Lord! don’t you hear ’em?”

“Where is she?” said Raeburn.

He pulled her forward. Across the blazing footlights she saw the innumerable faces and heard the deafening applause. Then the curtain fell, and she heard Raeburn give a deep sigh.

“Was I very bad?” she asked.

He did not answer, for, as usual, he took the second call alone. Joan slipped away, and again Alf stopped her.

“They’ll want you,” he said.

And they did. The great London public wanted her alone. She understood at last, and tried to smile, failing deliciously. Two tears rolled down her cheeks. The house began to cheer.

“She’s knocked ‘em,” said Alfred.

“Why the devil didn’t you tell me about her before? “demanded Raeburn.

“Told you again and again, and you wouldn’t listen.”

“Of course there’s the third act to come.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for a thousand pounds. I hope the author is in front.”

“He isn’t,” said Raeburn. “He went away furious.”

“He may be at his Club. I’ll ’phone him on the chance.”

* * *

Two noteworthy incidents occurred before the big scene in the third and last act. The author entered the house. A stall was found for him. To his intense amazement, he saw Sybil Egremont and Fanny Temple in one of the small boxes. Both ladies, who had just arrived, appeared to be in high health, but beneath the fair Sybil’s too carefully composed features the dramatist divined volcanic fires. Then he saw that he was sitting next to old Wrest.

“Hullo!” he whispered. “How are you? I’ve had one fit to-night. Am I going to have another?”

“Yes, you are,” said the mighty one. “And I’ll tell you something else, my young friend! To-morrow is going to be a day of surprises for you and a good many other persons.”

But afterwards the author admitted that the night was a bigger thing, so far as surprises went, than the day which followed: the day which transformed him, professionally speaking, from a mere mouse into a man. The scene after the third act eclipsed all previous records at that particular theatre. Raeburn and Joan had sixteen calls, and even then the house refused to go home unless the author appeared. Never, in the history of the stage, had the great fact that an author is at the mercy of his interpreter been more abundantly set forth.

Finally, Raeburn, on the way to his dressing-room, accompanied by the faithful Alfred, met Fanny Temple.

“Where’s Sybil?” he said nervously, for he had been told of her arrival.

“The excitement has been too much for her,” said Fanny demurely. “She’s gone home.” Then, with a twinkle in her two small beady eyes, she added: “You’ll receive a note from her to-morrow. She’s chucking her part, retiring gracefully.”

“Thank the Lord! “exclaimed Raeburn. “What happened?”

“We came to grief motoring up. I had awful difficulty in getting that wire to you. Everything has turned out for the best, hasn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Raeburn thoughtfully. “You must give me the details to-morrow. That friend of yours is a wonder; and a dear and a sweet.”

But the details were only given to two persons: Alfred Brand and Joan. Fanny found Joan in her dressing-room, almost exhausted, and quite incurious as to what had caused the accident to Miss Egremont’s motor. Fanny, moreover, did most of the talking.

“I knew you had it in you,” she declared. “Now you’re a star, and I hope you’ll shine for ever and ever. What sort of time did you and Alf have on the river?”

“Very pleasant.”

“Was he—er—enterprising?”

“Not at all. Perhaps he might have been if—”

“If you’d not looked as you’re looking at this very moment. Well, you won’t have to marry to get an engagement now—eh?”

The “Eh?” was put rather sharply, but Joan was very tired. Fanny, eyeing her shrewdly, bade her good-night with many kisses.

“What a pal you are!” said Joan.

“Ain’t I?” said Fanny, with a wicked wink. At the door she paused with dramatic effect.

“Henry says you’re a dear and a sweet,” she said, as she whisked out of sight.

Joan looked at Raeburn’s photograph, and from it again to the comical, genial countenance of the man for whom she had promised to do anything, the man who was waiting downstairs, the man who had scribbled a note asking her to sup with him alone.

* * *

They supped at the Savoy, in the grill-room, at a snug table set in a corner apart from the others. Whatever physical weakness and exhaustion Joan might have felt vanished with the first glass of champagne. She received many congratulations. The superlative Achille, prince of head waiters, had heard the news, and presented a basket of orchids with the compliments of the management. He waited on her, smiling blandly, with the rare smile reserved for the chosen few. And he addressed her as “Madame.” Not perhaps till then did Joan fully realize that greatness had been thrust upon her.

Alfred sipped his coffee and removed carefully the end of a Calixto cigar.

“It’s coming now,” thought Joan.

By this time her mind was working clearly. Ever since the call at the end of the first act, and even before, she had been conscious of nothing beyond the exactions of the passing moment. So inordinate a demand had been made upon her physical and mental powers that everything not immediately concerned with her part in the play became nebulous and amorphous. Even when Fanny had said pointedly that she was independent of material considerations, her mind, still dazed by her triumph, had refused to grapple with the future.

“You said you would do anything for me,” whispered Alf.

She had the courage to meet his eyes. And, instantly, she knew that procrastination would be futile and abominable.

“Yes,” she answered deliberately.

His next question puzzled her.

“Miss Temple is a great pal of yours, isn’t she?”

“The only one I have—of my own sex.”

“Thanks.” He leaned forward. “Do you think she cares for me?”

“I don’t know,” said Joan, with a nervous smile. If Fanny cared, the situation was lamentable.

“You are so clever, you could find out,” suggested Alf.

“You mean it would m-make a d-difference?” She found herself blushing and stammering. Certainly Alf must be given credit for singular delicacy.

“Make a difference—?” He laughed rather coarsely. “Look here, Joan, you seem to have a poor opinion of me. Do you think that I’m such a cad as to consider only myself?”

“I beg your pardon,” said Joan humbly.

“She’s such a rum little devil,” said Alf reflectively. “I’ve never been able to make her out. Last year, before you joined us, I paid her a lot of attention.”

“I never knew that,” said Joan quickly.

“After you came I rather dried up, because—”

“Yes, yes—”

“You can guess why I dried up?”

“Naturally.”

“Naturally?” He stared at her in astonishment. “Tell me, how did you guess?”

“I suppose that I—”

“You are a wonder. Yes, it was you. Till you came I was her pal, and everything was working just right. You upset the whole apple-cart. You couldn’t help it, of course. I have some pride. So I kept away from both of you. But, once or twice lately, I’ve had a sort of feeling in my bones that she cares.”

“I will find out,” said Joan.

“Thanks, most awfully,” said Alf. “If she does care,” he added, blushing, “I’ll be grateful to you as long as I live.”

Then Joan understood, but Alf always wondered why she burst out laughing.

“You want me to propose for you?”

“Heaven forbid! But I want a hint. Was I pal, or something more?”

“I’m almost sure you were something more.”

And Joan laughed again.

* * *

Fanny came round to Joan’s dismal room early the next morning, carrying every one of the daily papers. Old Wrest had a column and a half about Miss Forsyth.

“Wish I could read ’em aloud to Sybil,” said Fanny. “Oh, the time she gave me! And, honestly, I believe that the new version would have hurt her badly, and killed the author. Supped with Alf, didn’t you?”

“How did you know?”

“I’m not a very scrupulous person. I saw his note open on the dressing-table. Anything happen?”

Fanny was smiling, but Joan saw that her right hand was clenched.

“Something happened. Alf is head over ears in love.”

“We all knew that.”

“With you.”

“Me?”

“You. And I see as plainly that you’re head over ears in love with him.”

Explanations and kissing followed. Then there was silence, broken by Fanny’s slightly high-pitched voice:

“Last night I committed a terrible crime.”

“Heavens, Fanny!”

“I deliberately prevented Sybil from playing. I put tar into the clutch. Sybil thinks a mischievous boy did it. There was a pot of the stuff near her garden railings. The chauffeur was making love to the cook. I saw the chance and took it. I put in the tar, and got back into the house. Purposely, I came down late, and Sybil ragged me savagely. We started, and the tar took time to do its work. Two miles from anywhere we stuck hopelessly, and the chauffeur found out that a trick had been played. He remembered the pot of tar, and had hazy recollections of a small boy hovering near it. Sybil howled with rage, and I volunteered to get a telegram to the theatre. I walked and ran my toes off, but it reached the theatre in time. Of course, I was horribly afraid there would be no performance.”

“You did this for me?”

Fanny screwed up her face.

“I’d like you to think so, but I must tell the truth sometimes. I said to myself that if you had a big success, and I was sure of that, you wouldn’t look at my Alf. I see now the finger of Providence. I was inspired. Never give me away! Swear!”

“I’ll swear, but you’ll tell Alf?”

“On my wedding-day.”

And the only remark that Alf made was: “I always said you were a rum little devil.”

Mrs. Raeburn is rather too fond of boasting that she has no secrets from her husband, but he doesn’t know and never will know the name of the person who put the tar into the clutch.

Flora Annie Steel, “The Most Nailing Bad Shot in Creation”

This is one of my favorite stories that I’ve discovered in compiling this collection. Flora Annie Steel was the wife of an administrative official in the British Empire and spent a lot of time in India and other parts of the Empire; she was friends with Rudyard Kipling. She was also something of a feminist and certainly a shrewd observer of human interaction, devoid of prejudice and White Man’s Burden guff. This story blows so much latter-day intellectualizing about Colonialism and Victorian Womanhood to shreds; it even has something to say about the third subject of British literature, Class. Struggle through the Cockney and Yorkshire dialects; it’s worth it. And it’s an ordinary, unpretentious magazine story where action, humor and wit matter. I found it in the 1903 volume In the Guardianship of God.

This again is one of poor Craddock’s stories which he told me when we were stretching a steel-edged ribbon of rail across shifting sand-hills; that ribbon uniting West to East on which, a few years later, he met his death in trying to rid the permanent-way of something which Fate had decreed should be permanently in the way.

It happened in mutiny time; shortly after his appearance down the King’s Well, which is told elsewhere. He was serving as a volunteer in one of the breastworks which, as the long hot-weather months dragged by, began to seam and sear the face of the red rocks on the Ridge at Delhi; creeping nearer and nearer to the red face of the city wall.

And with him, as the catch phrase runs, “lay” Joe Banks, the Yorkshireman; tall, stolid, silent. Good-looking also, with a thick close crop of curly brown hair and hard, honest blue eyes. He was not stupid by any means; only phenomenally silent, except when the talk turned on women, and then, as Craddock put it tersely, he “damned free;” perhaps because, as the latter worthy used to add with a suspicion of sympathy in his drink-blurred face, he had “cared a sight deal too much for one woman to ’ave much likin’ left for the lot.”

To one side of the breastwork lay a dry ravine where every day the vipers used to sun themselves on the hot red rocks. Just across it, within range, rose a small Mahomedan shrine amid sparse brushwood, which thickened a bit till it was barred by the ruined wall of a garden where the slow oxen circled round the well, sending runnels of slippery-looking water to the scented shade of citrons, roses, and mangoes, heedless of the great cannon-balls which sometimes came trundling, like playthings, down the wide walks. Not often, though, for the stress of strife lay at the other angle of the breastwork which faced the city wall.

Still, those who came to smoke a hard-earned pipe in what was the safest spot in the outpost, soon found that the pious-looking shrine, the peaceful garden, were not always so innocent as they looked. In the dusk of dark or dawn they were tenanted by what, after a time, the men agreed to call the “most nailin’ bad shot in creation.” “The direction wasn’t, so to speak, so bad, sir,” Craddock used to explain to me. “ ’E’d about ’ave ’it the sea-serpent for length; it was the elevation which, as Bull’s-eyes said, savin’ your presence, sir, was d— ficient. The top o’ the Monument was about in it, sir, an’ that was why the only feller as really use langwidge was Joe Banks; for ’e was a ’ead and shoulders higher than the lot o’ us.” So when, in the dark, a flash used to glimmer for a second among the brushwood like a firefly, the men learnt to sing out, “That’s for you, Joey,” “Duck, my darlin’, duck,” and other witticisms of that kind, until the big Yorkshireman’s face darkened beyond jesting-point: for he had the devil’s own temper when roused. It was this, joined to his extreme good looks and a somewhat hazy recollection of the Bible and the classics among the volunteers, which earned him the nickname of Apollyon. So to soothe him, some of the wilder spirits would organise a charge over the ravine, scattering, perhaps, a few drowsy adders which had forgotten to go to bed; but nothing else. The blind old fakeer in the shrine was always fast asleep, the bullocks in the garden circling slowly, driven by a drowsy lad curled up behind them.

So the days passed; and, despite practice, the Most Nailin’ Bad Shot shot badly as ever. The odds, however, as the men pointed out gravely to Apollyon, kept on improving; so that sooner or later there must be a “casualty” in the garrison of Number One outpost. Joey, too, would get careless; he wouldn’t smart enough, etc., etc. And, sure enough, one evening just as the moonlight was mixing with the daylight, and Joey Banks had risen to his full height in a huff because Craddock for once had sided against him in the perennial argument as to whether it was worth while fighting for women who didn’t know what they would be at, and hadn’t the pluck of a mouse, one of these firefly flashes was followed by a sudden clapping of the giant’s hands to the very crown of his head.

“We looked, sir,” Craddock used to say gravely, with that reminiscent biblical knowledge of his which had doubtless supplied Apollyon, “for ’im to fall dead; as ’e deserve rich; for ’e’d been damnin’ uncommon free, sir. But ’e only use it worse. And then, savin’ your presence, sir, we see that ’e’d ’ad, so ter speak, a narrer-gauge line laid down thro’ ’is jungle — right through ’is curls, sir. Lordy! ’ow we laughed. It was a lady, we told ’im, as wanted some locks an’ no mistake. It sorter made ’im mad, for ’e just stooped and gathered the lot — bein’ fair, you could see it shinin’ in the dust — together.

“ ‘She shall ’ave ’em, never fear,’ ’e says, quiet like. ‘Yes! the person who fired that shot shall ’ave more o’ my ’air than he reckons for.’ ”

Just at that moment, however, one of those sudden alarms which for three months kept the men and officers before Delhi on the alert by day and night broke up the company, and so Joe Banks’ loss passed out of most minds. Except his own, of course. It lingered there, aided by that narrow gauge over his brain on which the cool night wind passed pleasantly.

So when the alarm passed, instead of coming back to rest, he crept out surreptitiously by the back of the breastwork, for such sorties were strictly out of order, and so by a slant downwards across the ravine. It was a brilliant moonlight night, and he caught the sparkle of many a deadly pair of eyes among the rocks. But he was in no mood to step aside from any danger, and once beyond fear of recall he strode along straight as if the whole place belonged to him; it might have, for all the opposition he met. The fakeer was asleep as usual, the oxen circling round the well, and in the scented shade of the roses and citrons he could find nothing save some drowsy birds who fluttered and twittered helplessly as his tall head forced a way through the thickets.

Feeling ill-used, he set his face back towards the breastwork, until the extraordinary peace of the moonlit scene, which, as Craddock asserted used in the interval of onslaught to make the beleaguered city look like the New Jerusalem, brought him to a standstill; first to look, then to take out his pipe; finally to sit on a rock and think vaguely of the Yorkshire wolds and of some one, no doubt, who had not had the courage of her convictions, for after a big he murmured, “She were a raight down coward, that’s where it is, aw’m thinkin’.”

He had not much time for reflection, however, for at that moment there was a flash, a crack, and something whizzed past his left ear. The Most Nailin’ Bad Shot was better at close quarters. His blood was up in a second, and without pausing to pick up his musket, which he had laid aide, he was off to the spot whence the flash had come. And there! whoop forward! gone away! was his quarry for sure, running like a hare for some hiding-place, no doubt, among the rocks. It might have been reached, for romance tells of many secret passages between palaces inside the city and gardens without, but for a true lover’s knot of viper which refused to budge from the path; which made the flying figure give a screech, and the flying feet, in their effort to overleap it, miss footing and fall.

The next instant Joe Banks was on it as it lay, and conscious even in his hurry that what he gripped was something young and soft — a boy, no doubt — devil’s spawn.

“Aw’m goän ter choak ye on t’ hair,” he said grimly. “Open yer domed mouth, d’ye hear?”

It was almost as if the prostrate figure understood; but the next instant a set of gleaming white teeth had closed like a squirrel’s round Joe Banks’ first finger. He let off an echoing yell to the previous screech, and an oddly satisfied smile came to the fierce little face he could scarcely see for his big hand. It was an oval face, smooth as a girl’s.

“That’s nowt to Joey Banks, lad, he can kill anoother way,” he growled savagely, as he shifted a knee to press his prisoner down, loosened his left hand, his right being detained, and deliberately drew out one of the many knives stuck in his enemy’s waistband. “Aw’ll lay t’ hair abun tha’ heaart, tha’ wrigglin’ worm, and driv it hoäm — that aw wull.”

In pursuance of which plan, he undid an embroidered satin waistcoat, and began to push aside an inner muslin vest. A whiff of musk and roses mingled with the moonlight.

“Stinks and bites like a foumart,” he muttered. “Soa lie thee still, will tha? an’ tak’ that to thissen ma — gor amoighty!”

Joe Banks was on his feet; so was his enemy. Both dazed, uncertain. Flight seemed to come uppermost to the latter’s thought, when the big man suddenly laughed a low chuckle of sheer amusement.

“An’ t’coom like a wild cat at Joey Banks — that caps owt!”

The next instant he was grappling with a whirlwind of knives and nails, anything.

“Woa! woa! ma lass! Hands off, tha little vixen, till a’ git a look at tha!” he said soothingly, as he prisoned two small hands in one huge fist, and with the other held his adversary almost tenderly at arm’s length. What he saw, as he afterwards described it to Craddock, was just a “moit o’ pistols an’ pouches.”

“Well! well! Aw’m — aw’m jiggered!” he exclaimed at last; adding argumentatively, “Whatten iver mad tha’ go fur t’ do it, tha foolish lass?”

Something in his broad, not unkindly rebuke seemed to take the starch out of the Most Nailin’ Bad Shot. It seemed to cower in on itself and become smaller; though, as Joe Banks told himself perplexedly, it had been small enough to begin with.

“Well, aw am jiggered,” he repeated more softly. “Whatten iver mad tha’ do it, ma lass?”

The answer was feminine and disconcerting; a sudden storm of tears. So they stood, the quaintest couple in the world. She bristling with cold steel of sorts; he bareheaded in the moonlight, with nothing but his hands for weapons.

“Dunnot,” he said soothingly, not without a certain trepidation. “Aw’m noän goän to hurt thee, ma gell. We’m not thaat soort t’ womenkind; an’ tha’s a main pratty gell.” Here he laughed softly; a laugh that was lost in a third —

“Wall, aw’m jiggered.”

He appeared to be so, for he ceased thrusting her from him — she being, indeed, too much engaged with tears to make it dangerous — and passed his hand over his forehead as if to clear his brain.

“Aw’m noän goän t’ hurt tha, ma lass,” he repeated suddenly, as if for his own information. “Aw’m nobbut goän t’ shame tha’ fur tha’ badness.”

And with that he lifted her right up like a baby, sate down on a neighbouring rock, and set her on his knee.

“Thou’rt as light as a feather,” he said almost admiringly. “An’ t’ coom at Joey Banks like a wild cat; for sure it caps owt; but thou’rt a bad gell, an’ mun be shamed. So set tha still an’ be doon wi’ it.”

Once more he might have claimed comprehension, for the Most Nailin’ Bad Shot sate still; with the half-wicked, half-frightened look of a curious squirrel, as one by one he transferred knives and pistols to his own person. It was rather a lengthy business by reason of his right hand — the one that had been bitten — being still occupied in prisoning hers. Not that she struggled; on the contrary, she sate curiously still, checking even her sobs.

“Now for t’ hair,” he went on methodically, pulling off the large green turban wound around the small head. He sat half perturbed and breathless after this was done, and the half-wicked, half-frightened dark eyes watching him, seemed to admit a faint smile.

“Whew-w-w,” he said under his breath, “it’s long, for sartin sure.” It was, and a faint scent of orange-blossom assailed him as he loosed the plaits. His hand trembled among them a little, and lingered.

“Aw mun be as good’s ma word,” he muttered, “as Joey Banks’ word. See tha here — sit tha still, there’s a good lass, an’ let me hurry up; wilt thee?” There was almost an appeal in his voice, and both hands shook a little as the long black tresses twined themselves about the big fingers like snakes.

“Aw’m noän goän t’ hurt,” he reiterated blandly; when, perhaps fortunately, the whole bewildering face before him relapsed into a mischievous smile, and one small finger pointed derisively to the crown of his head. He flushed up scarlet.

“Thee’m nobbut a wicked, bad gell,” he said fierceley, “an’ Joey Banks’ll shame tha — a bold hussy.” So he set her on her feet, and attacked her last bit of masculinity. This was a long, green waistband wound about her middle, and which had carried a score or so of pistols, yataghans, and Heaven knows what murderous weapons. Of this portion of the toilette Craddock said it was hard to get Joey Banks to speak at all, and when he did, his voice dropped to a whisper, and he looked positively scared. She was so main slender, he said, that he thought he would never have done unwinding, though after a bit she helped cheerfully by twirling like a teetotum. At last, however, she stood there, slim, girlish, her long hair shimmering, her dark eyes shining, half with tears, half with smiles.

“ ‘An’ then, Joey?’ I arst ’im, sir, when ’e sate mumchance,” Craddock interpolated.

“Aw out wi’ ‘Fower angels round ma bed,’ man, an’ a’ up wi’ her in ma arms, an’ a’ kissed her fair an’ oft, man, fair an’ oft, just t’ shame her, an’ a’ runned awaay. That’s what a’ did — aw runned awaay.”

Half-way across the ravine, however, he paused to pick up his musket and look back. The Most Nailin’ Bad Shot in creation was standing where he had left her, her face hidden in her hands. For an instant something tore at his heart, bidding him go back; then he set his teeth with an oath, and ran on. Five minutes afterwards he had slipped into a favourite cranny of rock beside Craddock and was puffing away at his pipe as if nothing had happened, absolutely silent, till, according to the latter’s report, he “give a silly sort of laugh,” and in the moonlight his eyes could be seen shining like stars as he turned and said softly —

“Well, lad — a’ ha’ dune it this toime.”

“Done what, Apollyon?” asked Craddock.

“A’ dunnot roightly kna’, but a’ ha’ dune it, for sartin sure,” replied Joey Banks, succinctly; and then he told the story.

“One of them gazes¹ as they call ’em,” interrupted Craddock, when the big man told of his discovery in a sort of hushed voice. “They makes ’em male an’ female — the latter most wicious. Bad lots out o’ the bazaar, needin’ a passport to the skies — or the devil.”

Joey Banks’ big fist came down like a sledgehammer on Craddock’s knee.

“Hush, mon!” he said peremptorily. “She woan’t none that sort. When a’ kissed her — ” he stopped short, and blushed furiously.

“Apollyon!” remarked Craddock, after a pause, with great severity. “It ain’t wholesome to keep sech things comfortable in yer own buzzum. It’s better to ’ave up an’ done with it an’ begin agin. When you kiss her — w’ot then?”

But Joe Banks’ shining eyes were looking out into the soft darkness, soft and dark for all their shininess. “A’ meant to ’a’ keppen coont — but a’ didn’t somehow.” His voice was quite dreamy, and Craddock rose in wrath.

“It’s my belief, same as I was in the catechising, Joey Banks, that you bin an’ fallen in love with a female gaze; but mark my word — there ain’t no gratitoode to speak of in gazes, and she’ll nick you yet, sure as my name’s Nathaniel James. She’ll nick you yet, I du assure you.”

But Craddock was wrong. Whatever else she did, the Most Nailin’ Bad Shot shot no more. Not that it mattered much to Joey Banks whether she did or not, since but a few days after there was a “casoolty” in Number One outpost, Volunteer Joseph Banks, sometime canal overseer, was reported missing after a sortie; but as he had been last seen mortally wounded close to the city wall, his comrades mourned Apollyon from the first as dead. So as Craddock said feelingly, “there weren’t even a lock o’ ’is ’air for ’is old mother, an’ she was a widder.”

Not that there was much time for mourning in the outpost, since the long months of the siege were drawing to a close. Then came the final assault, the ten days of struggle within the city, until even the Palace was ours, and the army which had taken it prepared to move on elsewhere. It was the evening before the start, and Craddock, who, as a volunteer, had more liberty to come and go as he chose, went down to the now deserted outpost to smoke a last pipe, and think over the past with the pleasing melancholy which goes so admirably with tobacco.

“Poor Joey Banks!” he thought, as memory came round to that episode, “’im and ’is female gaze. I shan’t never forget ’em.”

I will tell the rest in Craddock’s own words; they suit it.

“I look up, sir, an’ you might ’ave knock me over with a ninepin, for there was Joey, lookin’ as spry as spry. ‘Joey,’ says I, takin’ it as one does, sir, for all them sayin’s of ninepins and feathers and such like, quite calm, ‘so you’re not dead?’

“ ‘Na! lad,’ he says back, as calm like. ‘Aw’m goän t’ be married, an’ a’ve coom t’ get t’ best man.’

“It took me all of a ’eap, sir, sorter Malachi an’ the minor prophets, sir, as things does sometimes. ‘Joey, my boy,’ I says, ‘you ain’t never goin’ to marry a female gaze?’ says I.

“But ’e was, sir. Ter cut a long story short, she’d found ’im an’ nursed him. An’ we all knows wot that means, white or black, sir. ’E’d a ’eap to tell — though Lord knows where ’e got it, for ’e didn’t know no ’Industani to speak of, sir — about ’ow she lived in quite a fine ’ouse an’ ’ow her father an’ brothers ’ad bin killed, so as she kinder ’adn’t no choice but gazing. But I wasn’t to be took with chaff, so I says to ’im quite solemn like, ‘Afore I’m best man, I’ve got to know, Joey — is she square?’ ’E just looked at me, sir, as if I were slush.

“ ‘She’d gotten ma hair in t’ buzzum,’ he said, an’ said no moor.

“So I gave my word to be best man, sir, an’ ’e sighed like as a weight was took off him. ‘Then coom awa’ wi’ me t’ passon,’ says ’e, ‘fur I’m goän t’ be marrid afoor aw goes with t’ army to-morer.’

“ ‘Then you’ve ’ad the banns cried,’ says I, for my father bein’ bell-ringer same as give me my name in ’oly baptism, sir, I was up to them dodges. ’E gave me a real Apollyon frown, sir.

“ ‘Na, lad; aw’ve noän had nought cried, but aw’m goän t’ wed her fair afoor a’ fight, so save t’ breath an’ coom t’ passon.’

“Well, sir, parson wasn’t a bad chap, as I knowed, ’aving seen ’im doing dooty stiddily like the rest o’ us, but ’e’d got ’is black coat on agin, an’ ’e were by nature, the canonised red bricky sort; so ’e wouldn’t none o’ it, though I stood solemn for Joe like as if I bin godfather, tellin’ ’im ’ow Joe would ’ave bin a deader but for ’er, an’ ’ow she was willin’ to become a Christian in ’oly baptism wen she ’ad a chanst, an’ ’ow Joe wouldn’t never ’ave bin in a ’urry without bridesmaids but for bin’ that eager to fight ’is country’s foes agin — for of course, sir, ’e ’adn’t ’ad a look in at anythin’ but beef-tea an’ barely water till we took the city.

“ ‘Why doesn’t he wait decently till he comes back?’ says parson. ‘The sacrament of marriage is not a responsibility to be entered into unawares, my good — ’

“Joe rose up — Lord bless you! — two ’heads taller nor parson. ‘Coom awa’! best man,’ ’e says. ‘It’s waaste toime heere, an’ aw’ll need tha at t’ mosque; passon theer ar’n’t so scrumfumptious, an’ she towt ma t’ Kulma this marnin’ foor fear’ — that’s their creed, sir, same as the Gazes, male an’ female, yell when they’re a stickin’ of you.

“Well, parson ’e brought up sharp at this an’ said, ‘Stay a bit.’ Then ’e look at Joe, an’ Joe look at ’im.

“ ‘Tha see she’s gotten t’ be ma wife, man,’ said Joe apologetic like, an’ parson ’e push ’is red bricky prayer-book away fretful.

“ ‘But I don’t know anything,’ he said. ‘I don’t even know if she is a spinster or a widow. Will you swear she hasn’t a husband living?”

“Well, sir, Joe looked at parson, and then ’e looked at me, an’ then ’e scratch ’is ’ead — the curls ’ad grown tight as ever, sir — an’ then sudden ’e smile — one o’ them smiles like the sun on a daisy, sir.

“ ‘Aw dunnot rightly knaw,’ says ’e, ‘aw nivver arst her,’ and parson ’e look at me an’ at ’im and at the solemnisation o’ ’oly matrimony as ’f ’e didn’t know which was which.

“Well, the end o’ it was that the three o’ us went down to one o’ them light an’ shady open-air houses with a tree growin’ out o’ a wall, and a lot o’ pigeons. Parson ’e stood in one o’ the arches raise up a step or two, an’ they stood in the space below, right in the sun, an’ I stood ’twist an’ between, for you see, sir, I was clerk as well as best man.

“ ‘Will you take this woman to be thy wedded wife?’ arst parson.

“ ‘Such is my desire,’ says I, in order; but Joe Banks wouldn’t none o’ that.

“ ‘Fur better fur worse,’ ’e says, ‘fur richer fur poorer, domed if a’ doan’t.’

“So ’e was wedded to the Most Nailin’ Bad Shot in creation.”

“And was she pretty?” I asked of Craddock.

He shook his head. “I niver set eyes on her, sir, though I was best man. She was wrap up in a white veil, an’ ’e kep’ her so — said she liked it — they does, sir, when they’ve got a good ’usband.”

“So they lived happily ever after?”

“Not for long, sir — ” here Craddock slipped his hands into his pockets as the first step towards slouching off. “That sort o’ thing don’t somehow last long, sir,” here his eyes caught the gold of the setting sun, as they had a trick of doing when they grew soft. “Seems to me — savin’ your presence, sir — as if there was too much o’ the Noo Jerewsalem about that sort o’ thing fur this world; that’s ’ow it is. She died, sir, a few years after, when ’e was back in the Canals, in a God-forsaken spot, where there wasn’t no one to — to be best man like. An’ so they found ’im lying beside ’er with a bullet in ’is brain. So I was a minor prophet after all, an’ Joey Banks got nicked at last by the Most Nailin’ Bad Shot in creation.”

1 Ghâzie — religious fanatic.