 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading is by Graham Redman. The Chronicles of Clovis. Short Stories by Sarky The Way to the Dairy The Baroness and Clovis sat in a much-frequented corner of the park, exchanging biographical confidences about the long succession of passers-by. "'Who are those depressed-looking young women who have just gone by?' asked the Baroness. "'They have the air of people who have bowed to destiny, and are not quite sure whether the salute will be returned.' "'Those,' said Clovis, are the brimly bomb-fields. I daresay you would look depressed if you had been through their experiences.' "'I'm always having depressing experiences,' said the Baroness. But I never give them outward expression. It's as bad as looking one's age. Tell me about the brimly bomb-fields.' "'Well,' said Clovis, the beginning of their tragedy was that they found an aunt. The aunt had been there all the time, but they had very nearly forgotten her existence until a distant relative refreshed their memory by remembering her very distinctly in his will. It is wonderful what the force of example will accomplish. The aunt, who had been unobtrusively poor, became quite pleasantly rich, and the brimly bomb-fields grew suddenly concerned at the loneliness of her life, and took her under their collective wings. She had as many wings around her at this time as one of those beast-things in Revelation. "'So far I don't see any tragedy from the brimly bomb-fields' point of view,' said the Baroness. "'We haven't got to it yet,' said Clovis. The aunt had been used to living very simply and had seen next to nothing of what we should consider life, and her nieces didn't encourage her to do much in the way of making a splash with her money. Quite a good deal of it would come to them at her death, and she was a fairly old woman. But there was one circumstance which cast a shadow of gloom over the satisfaction they felt in the discovery and acquisition of this desirable aunt. She openly acknowledged that a comfortable slice of her little fortune would go to a nephew on the other side of her family. He was rather a deplorable thing in rotters, and quite hopelessly top-hole in the way of getting through money. But he had been more or less decent to the old lady in her unremembered days, and she wouldn't hear anything against him. At least she wouldn't pay any attention to what she did here, but her nieces took care that she should have to listen to a good deal in that line. "'It seemed such a pity,' they said among themselves, that good money should fall into such worthless hands. They habitually spoke of their aunt's money as good money, as though other people's aunts dabbled for the most part in spurious currency. Regularly after the Derby, St. Ledger, and other notable racing events, they indulged in audible speculations as to how much money Roger had squandered in unfortunate betting transactions. "'His travelling expenses must come to a big sum,' said the oldest Brimley Bonfield one day. They say he attends every race meeting in England, besides others abroad. I shouldn't wonder if he went all the way to India to see the race for the Calcutta Sweepstake that one hears so much about." "'Travel enlarges the mind, my dear Christine,' said her aunt. "'Yes, dear aunt, travel undertaken in the right spirit,' agreed Christine, but travel pursued merely as a means towards gambling and extravagant living is more likely to contract the purse than to enlarge the mind. However, as long as Roger enjoys himself, I suppose he doesn't care how fast or unprofitably the money goes, or where he is to find more. It seems a pity, that's all. The aunt by that time had begun to talk of something else, and it was doubtful if Christine's moralising had been even accorded a hearing. It was her remark, however, the aunt's remark, I mean, about travel enlarging the mind, that gave the youngest Brimley Bonfield her great idea for the showing up of Roger. "'If aunt could only be taken somewhere to see him gambling and throwing away money,' she said, it would open her eyes to his character more effectively than anything we can say.' "'My dear Veronique,' said her sisters, we can't go following him to race meetings.' "'Certainly not to race meetings,' said Veronique. "'But we might go to some place where one can look on at gambling without taking part in it.' "'Do you mean Monte Carlo?' they asked her, beginning to jump rather at the idea. "'Monte Carlo is a long way off, and has a dreadful reputation,' said Veronique. "'I shouldn't like to tell our friends that we were going to Monte Carlo. But I believe Roger usually goes to the app about this time of year, and some quite respectable English people go there, and the journey wouldn't be expensive. If aunt could stand the channel crossing the change of scene might do her a lot of good.' And that was how the fateful idea came to the Brimley-Bombfields. From the very first set-off disaster hung over the expedition, as they afterwards remembered. To begin with, all the Brimley-Bombfields were extremely unwell during the crossing, while the aunt enjoyed the sea-air and made friends with all manner of strange travelling-companions. Then, although it was many years since she had been on the continent, she had served a very practical apprenticeship there as a paid companion, and her knowledge of colloquial French beat theirs to a standstill. It became increasingly difficult to keep under their collective wings a person who knew what she wanted, and was able to ask for it, and to see that she got it. Also, as far as Roger was concerned, they drew Dieppe blank. It turned out that he was staying at Pourville, a little watering-place a mile or two further west. The Brimley-Bombfields discovered that Dieppe was too crowded and frivolous, and persuaded the old lady to migrate to the comparative seclusion of Pourville. You won't find it, doll, you know. They assured her. There is a little casino attached to the hotel, and you can watch the people dancing and throwing away their money at Petitchavot. It was just before Petitchavot had been supplanted by Boulle. Roger was not staying in the same hotel, but they knew that the casino would be certain of his patronage on most afternoons and evenings. On the first evening of their visit they wandered into the casino after a fairly early dinner, and hovered near the tables. Bertie van Thaan was staying there at the time, and he described the whole incident to me. The Brimley-Bombfields kept a furtive watch on the doors as though they were expecting someone to turn up, and the aunt got more and more amused and interested, watching the little horses whirl round and round the board. Do you know poor little number eight hasn't won for the last thirty-two times, she said to Christine. I've been keeping count. I shall really have to put five francs on him to encourage him. Come and watch the dancing, dear," said Christine nervously. It was scarcely part of their strategy that Roger should come in and find the old lady backing her fancy at the Petitchavot table. Just wait while I put five francs on number eight," said the aunt, and in another moment her money was lying on the table. The horses commenced to move round. It was a slow race this time, and number eight crept up at the finish like some crafty demon, and placed his nose just a fraction in front of number three who had seemed to be winning easily. Recourse had to be had to measurement, and the number eight was proclaimed the winner. The aunt picked up thirty-five francs. After that the brimly bomb-fields would have had to have used concerted force to get her away from the tables. When Roger appeared on the scene she was fifty-two francs to the good. Her nieces were hovering for lonely in the background, like chickens that have been hatched out by a duck, and are despairingly watching their parent desporting herself in a dangerous and uncongenial element. The supper-party, which Roger insisted on standing that night in honour of his aunt and the three miss brimly bomb-fields, was remarkable for the unrestrained gaiety of two of the participants, and the funereal mirthlessness of the remaining guests. I do not think, Christine confided afterwards to a friend who reconfided it to Bertie-Fantan, that I shall ever be able to touch paté de foie gras again. It would bring back memories of that awful evening. For the next two or three days the nieces made plans for returning to England, or moving on to some other resort where there was no casino. The aunt was busy making a system for winning at Petit Chavaux. Number eight, her first love, had been running rather unkindly for her, and a series of plunges on number five had turned out even worse. Do you know I dropped over seven hundred francs at the tables this afternoon? She announced cheerfully at dinner on the fourth evening of their visit. Aunt, twenty-eight pounds, and you were losing last night, too. Oh, I shall get it all back, she said optimistically, but not here. These silly little horses are no good. I shall go somewhere where one can play comfortably at roulette. You needn't look so shocked. I've always felt that, given the opportunity, I should be an inveterate gambler, and now you darlings have put the opportunity in my way. I must drink your very good healths. Waiter, a bottle of ponte canne. Ah, it's number seven on the wine-list. I shall plunge on number seven tonight. It won four times running this afternoon when I was backing that silly number five. Number seven was not in a winning mood that evening. The brimley bomb-fields, tired of watching disaster from a distance, drew near to the table where their aunt was now an honoured obitue, and gazed mournfully at the successive victories of one, and five, and eight, and four, which swept good money out of the purse of seven's obstinate backer. The day's losses totaled something very near two thousand francs. You incorrigible gamblers, said Roger chaffingly to them when he found them at the tables. We are not gambling, said Christine freezingly. We are looking on. I don't think, said Roger knowingly. Of course you're a syndicate, and aunt is putting the stakes on for all of you. Anyone can tell by your looks when the wrong horse wins that you've got a stake on. Aunt and nephew had supper alone that night, or at least they would have if Bertie hadn't joined them. All the brimley bomb-fields had headaches. The aunt carried them all off to Dieppe the next day, and set cheerily about the task of winning back some of her losses. Her luck was variable. In fact she had some fair streaks of good fortune, just enough to keep her thoroughly amused with her new distraction, but on the whole she was a loser. The brimley bomb-fields had a collective attack of nervous prostration on the day when she sold out a quantity of shares in Argentine rails. Nothing will ever bring that money back, they remarked lugubriously to one another. Veronique at last could bear it no longer, and went home. You see, it had been her idea to bring the aunt on this disastrous expedition, and though the others did not cast the fact verbally in her face, there was a certain lurking reproach in their eyes which was harder to meet than actual upradings. The other two remained behind, for lonely mounting-guard over their aunt until such time as the waning of the Dieppe season should at last turn her in the direction of home and safety. They made anxious calculations as to how little good money might, with reasonable luck, be squandered in the meantime. Here, however, their reckoning went far astray. The clothes of the Dieppe season merely turned their aunt's thoughts in search of some other convenient gambling resort. Show a cat the weight of the dairy. I forget how the proverb goes on, but it summed up the situation as far as the brimley bomb-fields' aunt was concerned. She had been introduced to unexplored pleasures, and found them greatly to her liking, and she was in no hurry to forgo the fruits of her newly acquired knowledge. You see, for the first time in her life the old thing was thoroughly enjoying herself. She was losing money, but she had plenty of fun and excitement over the process, and she had enough left to do very comfortably on. Indeed, she was only just learning to understand the art of doing oneself well. She was a popular hostess, and in return her fellow gamblers were always ready to entertain her to dinners and suppers when their luck was in. Her nieces, who still remained in attendance on her, with the pathetic unwillingness of a crew to leave a foundering treasure-ship which might yet be steered into port, found little pleasure in these bohemian festivities. To see good money lavished on good living for the entertainment of a nondescript circle of acquaintances, who were not likely to be in any way socially useful to them, did not attune them to a spirit of revelry. They contrived, whenever possible, to excuse themselves from participation in their arse-deplored gayities. The brimley-bomfield headaches became famous. And one day the nieces came to the conclusion that, as they would have expressed it, no useful purpose would be served by their continued attendance on a relative who had so thoroughly emancipated herself from the sheltering protection of their wings. The aunt bore the announcement of their departure with a cheerfulness that was almost disconcerting. It's time you went home and had those headaches seen to by a specialist, was her comment on the situation. The homeward journey of the brimley-bomfields was a veritable retreat from Moscow. And what made it the more bitter was the fact that the Moscow, in this case, was not overwhelmed with fire and ashes, but merely extravagantly over-illuminated. From mutual friends and acquaintances they sometimes get glimpses of their prodigal relative, who has settled down into a confirmed gambling maniac living on such salvage of income as obliging moneylenders have left at her disposal. So you need not be surprised, concluded Clovis, if they do wear a depressed look in public. Which is verinique? asked the Baroness. The most depressed looking of the three, said Clovis, end of The Way to the Dairy. This recording is in the public domain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading is by Graham Redmon. The Chronicles of Clovis. Short Stories by Sarky The Peace Offering. I want you to help me in getting up a dramatic entertainment of some sort, said the Baroness to Clovis. You'll see there's been an election petition down here, and a member unseated and no end of bitterness and ill-feeling, and the county is socially divided against itself. I thought a play of some kind would be an excellent opportunity for bringing people together again, and giving them something to think of besides tiresome political squabbles. The Baroness was evidently ambitious of reproducing beneath her own roof the pacifying effects traditionally ascribed to the celebrated reel of Tollic Gorum. We might do something on the lines of Greek tragedy, said Clovis, after due reflection. The return of Agamemnon, for instance. The Baroness frowned. It sounds rather reminiscent of an election result, doesn't it? It wasn't that sort of return, explained Clovis. It was a homecoming. I thought you said it was a tragedy. Well, it was. He was killed in his bathroom, you know. Oh, now I know the story, of course. Do you want me to take the part of Charlotte Corday? That's a different story and a different century, said Clovis. The dramatic unit is for bid one to lay a scene in more than one century at a time. The killing in this case has to be done by Clytemnestra. Rather a pretty name. I'll do that part. I suppose you want to be Agam—whatever his name is. Dear man, no. Agamemnon was the father of grown-up children and probably wore a beard and looked prematurely aged. I shall be his charioteer or bath attendant or something decorative of that kind. We must do everything in the Sumurran manner, you know. I don't know, said the Baroness. At least I should know better if you would explain exactly what you mean by the Sumurran manner. Clovis obliged. Weird music and exotic skippings and flying leaps and lots of drapery and undrapery, particularly undrapery. I think I told you the county are coming. The county won't stand anything very Greek. You can get over any objection by calling it hygiene or limb culture or something of that sort. After all, every one exposes their insides to the public gaze and sympathy nowadays. So why not one's outside? My dear boy, I can ask the county to a Greek play or to a costume play, but to a Greek costume play never. It doesn't do to let the dramatic instinct carry one too far. One must consider one's environment. When one lives among Greyhounds one should avoid giving life-like imitations of a rabbit unless one wants one's head snapped off. Remember, I've got this place on a seven-year lease. And then, continue the Baroness, as to skippings and flying leaps, I must ask Emily Dushford to take apart. She is a dear good thing and will do anything she's told or tried to, but can you imagine her doing a flying leap under any circumstances? She can be Cassandra, and she need only take flying leaps into the future in a metaphorical sense. Cassandra, rather a pretty name. What kind of character is she? She was a sort of advance agent for calamities. To know her was to know the worst. Fortunately for the gaiety of the age she lived in, no one took her very seriously. Still, it must have been fairly galling to have her turning up after every catastrophe with the conscious air of, perhaps another time, you'll believe what I say. I should have wanted to kill her. As Glytemnestra I believe you gratify that very natural wish. Then it has a happy ending in spite of it being a tragedy. Well, hardly, said Clovis. You see, the satisfaction of putting a violent end to Cassandra must have been considerably damped by the fact that she had foretold what was going to happen to her. She probably dies with an intensely irritating, what did I tell you? smile on her lips. By the way, of course all the killing will be done in the Sumerian manner. Please explain again," said the Baroness, taking out a notebook and pencil. Little and often, you know, instead of one sweeping blow, you see you are at your own home so there's no need to hurry over the murdering as though it was some disagreeable but necessary duty. And what sort of end do I have? I mean, what curtain do I get? I suppose you rush into your lover's arms. That is where one of the flying leaps will come in. The getting up and rehearsing of the play seemed likely to cause in a restricted area nearly as much heart-burning and ill feeling as the election petition. Clovis, as adapter and stage manager, insisted, as far as he was able, on the charioteer being quite the most prominent character in the play, and his panther-skin tunic caused almost as much trouble and discussion as Clytemnestra's spasmodic succession of lovers, who broke down on probation with alarming uniformity. When the cast was at length fixed beyond hope of reprieve, matters went scarcely more smoothly. Clovis and the Baroness rather overdid the Sumurran manner, while the rest of the company could hardly be said to attempt it at all. As for Cassandra, who was expected to improvise her own prophecies, she appeared to be as incapable of taking flying leaps into futurity as of executing more than a severely plentegrade walk across the stage. Woe Trojans, woe to Troy! was the most inspired remark she could produce after several hours of conscientious study of all the available authorities. It's no earthly use for telling the fall of Troy, expostulated Clovis, because Troy has fallen before the action of the play begins. And you mustn't say too much about your own impending doom, either, because that will give things away too much to the audience. After several minutes of painful brain-searching, Cassandra smiled reassuringly. I know I'll predict a long and happy reign for George V. My dear girl, protested Clovis, have you reflected that Cassandra specialized in foretelling calamities? There was another prolonged pause, and another triumphant issue. I know I'll fall tell a most disastrous season for the Foxhounds. On no account, entreated Clovis, do remember that all Cassandra's predictions came true. The MFH and the Hunt Secretary are both awfully superstitious, and they are both going to be present. Cassandra retreated hastily to her bedroom to bathe her eyes before appearing at tea. The marinescent Clovis were by this time scarcely on speaking terms. Each sincerely wished their respective role to be the pivot round which the entire production should revolve, and each lost no opportunity for furthering the cause they had at heart. As fast as Clovis introduced some effective bit of business for the charioteer, and he introduced a great many, the baroness would remorselessly cut it out, or more often dovetail it into her own part, while Clovis retaliated in a similar fashion whenever possible. The climax came when Clytemnestra annexed some highly complementary lines, which were to have been addressed to the charioteer by a bevy of admiring Greek damsels, and put them into the mouth of her lover. Clovis stood by in apparent unconcern, while the words, O lovely stripling radiant as the dawn, were transposed into O Clytemnestra radiant as the dawn, but there was a dangerous glitter in his eye that might have given the baroness warning. He had composed the verse himself, inspired and thoroughly carried away by his subject. He suffered therefore a double pang in beholding his tribute deflected from its destined object, and his words mutilated and twisted into what became an extravagant panigeric on the baroness's personal charms. It was from this moment that he became gentle and assiduous in his private coaching of Cassandra. The county, forgetting its dissensions, mustered in full strength to witness the much talked-of production. The protective providence that looks after little children and amateur theatricals made good its traditional promise that everything should be right on the night. The baroness and Clovis seemed to have sunk their mutual differences, and between them dominated the scene to the partial eclipse of all the other characters, who, for the most part, seemed well content to remain in the shadow. Even Agil Memnon, with ten years of strenuous life around Troy standing to his credit, appeared to be an unobtrusive personality compared with his flamboyant charioteer. But the moment came for Cassandra, who had been excused from any very definite outpourings during rehearsals, to support her role by delivering herself of a few well-chosen anticipations of pending misfortune. The musicians obliged with appropriately lugubrious wailings and thumpings, and the baroness seized the opportunity to make a dash to the dressing-room to effect certain repairs in her make-up. Cassandra, nervous but resolute, came down to the footlights and, like one repeating a carefully learned lesson, flung her remarks straight at the audience. I see woe for this fair country if the brood of corrupt, self-seeking, unscrupulous, unprincipled politicians—here she named one of the two rival parties in the state—continue to infest and poison our local councils and undermine our parliamentary representation. If they continue to snatch votes by nefarious and discreditable means, a humming as of a great hive of bewildered and affronted bees drowned her further remarks, and wore down the droning of the musicians. The baroness, who should have been greeted on her return to the stage with the pleasing invocation, oh, Clyton Nestra, radiant as the dawn, heard instead the imperious voice of Lady Thistledale ordering her carriage, and something like a storm of open discord going on at the back of the room. The social divisions in the county healed themselves after their own fashion. Both parties found common ground in condemning the baroness's outrageously bad taste and tactlessness. She has been fortunate in subletting for the greater part of her seven years' lease. End of The Peace Offering This recording is in the public domain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading is by Graham Redman. The Chronicles of Clevis Short Stories by Sarky The Peace of Mosul Barton Crefton Lockyer sat at his ease, an ease alike of body and soul, in the little patch of ground half orchard and half garden that abutted on the farm-yard at Mosul Barton. After the stress and noise of long years of city life, the repose and peace of the hill-begirt homestead struck on his senses with an almost dramatic intensity. Time and space seemed to lose their meaning and their abruptness. The minutes slid away into hours, and the meadows and fallows sloped away into middle distance, softly and imperceptibly. Wild weeds of the hedge-row straggled into the flower-garden and wall-flowers and garden-bushes made counter-raids into farm-yard and lane. Sleepy-looking hens and solemn, preoccupied ducks were equally at home in yard, orchard, or roadway. Nothing seemed to belong definitely to anywhere. Even the gates were not necessarily to be found on their hinges. And over the whole scene brooded the sense of a peace that had almost a quality of magic in it. In the afternoon you felt that it had always been afternoon, and must always remain afternoon. In the twilight you knew that it could never have been anything else but twilight. Crefton Locker sat at his ease in the rustic seat beneath an old medallary, and decided that here was the life-anchorage that his mind had so fondly pictured, and that latterly his tired and jarred senses had so often pined for. He would make a permanent lodging-place among these simple friendly people, gradually increasing the modest comforts with which he would like to surround himself, but falling in as much as possible with their manner of living. As he slowly matured this resolution in his mind, an elderly woman came hobbling with uncertain gait through the orchard. He recognized her as a member of the farm household, the mother, or possibly the mother-in-law, of Mrs. Spurfield, his present landlady, and hastily formulated some pleasant remark to make to her. She forestalled him. There's a bit of writing chalked up on the door over yonder. What is it? She spoke in a dull, impersonal manner, as though the question had been on her lips for years, and had best begot rid of. Her eyes, however, looked impatiently over Crefton's head at the door of a small barn which formed the outpost of a straggling line of farm buildings. Martha Pillamon is an old witch. Was the announcement that met Crefton's inquiring scrutiny? And he hesitated a moment before giving the statement wider publicity. For all he knew, to the contrary, it might be Martha herself to whom he was speaking. It was possible that Mrs. Spurfield's maiden name had been Pillamon, and the gaunt withered old dame at his side might certainly fulfil local conditions as to the outward aspect of a witch. It's something about someone called Martha Pillamon, he explained cautiously. What does it say? It's very disrespectful, said Crefton. It says she's a witch. Such things ought not to be written up. It's true, every word of it, said his listener with considerable satisfaction, adding, as a special descriptive note of her own, the old toad. And as she hobbled away through the farmyard, she shrilled out in her cracked voice, Martha Pillamon is an old witch. Did you hear what she said? Mumbled a weak, angry voice somewhere behind Crefton's shoulder. Turning hastily, he beheld another old crone, thin and yellow and wrinkled, and evidently in a high state of displeasure. Obviously this was Martha Pillamon in person. The orchard seemed to be a favourite promenade for the aged women of the neighbourhood. "'Tis lies, tis sinful lies,' the weak voice went on. "'Tis bet secret is the old witch, she and her daughter, the dirty rat. I'll put a spell on them, the old nuisance is.' As she limped slowly away, her eye caught the chalk inscription on the barn door. "'What's written up there?' she demanded, wheeling round on Crefton. "'Vote for Sorka,' he responded, with the craven boldness of the practised peacemaker. The old woman grunted, and her mutterings and her faded red shawl lost themselves gradually among the treetunks. Crefton rose presently and made his way towards the farmhouse. Somehow a good deal of the peace seemed to have slipped out of the atmosphere. The cherry bustle of tea-time in the old farm kitchen, which Crefton had found so agreeable on previous afternoons, seemed to have soured to-day and to a certain uneasy melancholy. There was a dull, dragging silence around the board, and the tea itself, when Crefton came to taste it, was a flat, lukewarm concoction that would have driven the spirit of revelry out of a carnival. It's no use complaining of the tea," said Mrs. Spurfield hastily, as her guests stared with an air of polite inquiry at his cup. The kettle won't boil, and that's the truth of it. Crefton turned to the hearth, where an unusually fierce fire was banked up under a big black kettle, which sent a thin wreath of steam from its spout, but seemed otherwise to ignore the action of the roaring blaze beneath it. It's been there more than an hour, and boil it won't," said Mrs. Spurfield, adding by way of complete explanation, we're bewitched. It's Martha Pillarman, as has done it, chimed in the old mother. I'll be even with the old toad. I'll put a spell on her. It must boil in time, protested Crefton, ignoring the suggestions of foul influences. Perhaps the coal is damp. It won't boil in time for supper, nor for breakfast tomorrow morning, not if you was to keep the fire a-going all night for it," said Mrs. Spurfield. And it didn't. The households subsisted on fried and baked dishes, and a neighbour obligingly brewed tea, and sent it across in a moderately warm condition. I suppose you'll be leaving us now that things has turned up uncomfortable, Mrs. Spurfield observed at breakfast. There are folks as deserts one as soon as trouble comes. Crefton hurriedly disclaimed any immediate change of plans. He observed, however, to himself that the earlier heartiness of manner had in a large measure deserted the household. Suspicious looks, sulkish silences, or sharp speeches had become the order of the day. As for the old mother, she sat about the kitchen or the garden all day, murmuring threats and spells against Martha Pillarman. There was something alike terrifying and piteous in the spectacle of these frail old morsels of humanity, consecrating their last flickering energies to the task of making each other wretched. Hatred seemed to be the one faculty which had survived in undiminished vigor and intensity, where all else was dropping into ordered and symmetrical decay. And the uncanny part of it was that some horrid, unwholesome power seemed to be distilled from their spite and their cursings. No amount of sceptical explanation could remove the undoubted fact that neither kettle nor saucepan would come to boiling point over the hottest fire. Crefton clung as long as possible to the theory of some defect in the coals, but a wood fire gave the same result, and when a small spirit-lamp kettle which he ordered out by carrier showed the same obstinate refusal to allow its contents to boil, he felt that he had come suddenly into contact with some unguest at and very evil aspect of hidden forces. Miles away down through an opening in the hills he could catch glimpses of a road where motor-cars sometimes passed, and yet here so little removed from the arteries of the latest civilization was a bat-haunted old homestead where something unmistakably like witchcraft seemed to hold a very practical sway. Passing out through the farm garden on his way to the lanes beyond where he hoped to recapture the comfortable sense of peacefulness that was so lacking around house and hearth, especially hearth, Crefton came across the old mother sitting mumbling to herself in the seat beneath the meddler-tree, let and sink as swims, let and sink as swims, she was repeating over and over again as a child repeats a half-learned lesson, and now and then she would break off into a shrill laugh with a note of malice in it that was not pleasant to hear. Crefton was glad when he found himself out of earshot in the quiet and seclusion of the deep overgrown lanes that seemed to lead away to nowhere. One narrower and deeper than the rest attracted his footsteps, and he was almost annoyed when he found that it rarely did act as a miniature roadway to a human dwelling. A forlorn-looking cottage with a scrap of ill-tended cabbage garden and a few aged apple-trees stood at an angle where a swift flowing stream widened out for a space into a decent-sized pond, before hurrying away again through the willows that had checked its course. Crefton leaned against a tree-trunk and looked across the swirling eddies of the pond at the humble little homestead opposite him. The only sign of life came from a small procession of dingy-looking ducks that marched in single file down to the water's edge. There is always something rather taking in the way a duck changes itself in an instant from a slow clumsy waddle of the earth to a graceful buoyant swimmer of the waters, and Crefton waited with a certain arrested attention to watch the leader of the file launch itself onto the surface of the pond. He was aware at the same time of a curious warning instinct that something strange and unpleasant was about to happen. The duck flung itself confidently forward into the water and rolled immediately under the surface. Its head appeared for a moment and went under again, leaving a train of bubbles in its wake, while wings and legs churned the water in a helpless swirl of flapping and kicking. The bird was obviously drowning. Crefton thought at first that it had caught itself in some weeds, or was being attacked from below by a pike or water-rat. But no blood floated to the surface, and the wildly bobbing body made the circuit of the pond current without hindrance from any entanglement. A second duck had by this time launched itself into the pond, and a second struggling body rolled and twisted under the surface. There was something peculiarly piteous in the sight of the gasping beaks that showed now and again above the water, as though in terrified protest at this treachery of a trusted and familiar element. Crefton gazed with something like horror as a third duck poised itself on the bank and splashed in to share the fate of the other two. He felt almost relieved when the remainder of the flock, taking tardy alarm from the commotion of the slowly drowning bodies, drew themselves up with tense outstretched necks, and sidled away from the scene of danger, quacking a deep note of disquietude as they went. At the same moment Crefton became aware that he was not the only human witness of the scene. A bent and withered old woman, whom he recognized at once as Martha Pillaman of sinister reputation, had limped down the cottage path to the water's edge, and was gazing fixedly at the gruesome furly gig of dying birds that went in horrible procession round the pool. Presently her voice rang out in a shrill note of quavering rage. "'Tis bet secret had done it, the old rat. I'll put a spell on her, see if I don't." Crefton slipped quietly away, uncertain whether or no the old woman had noticed his presence. Even before she had proclaimed the guiltiness of Betsy Crute, the latter's muttered incantation, let unsink her swims, had flashed uncomfortably across his mind. But it was the final threat of a retaliatory spelt which crowded his mind with misgiving to the exclusion of all other thoughts or fancies. His reasoning powers could no longer afford to dismiss these old wives' threats as empty bickering. The household at Mosel Barton lay under the displeasure of a vindictive old woman who seemed able to materialize her personal spites in a very practical fashion, and there was no saying what form her revenge for three drowned ducks might not take. As a member of the household, Crefton might find himself involved in some general and highly disagreeable visitation of Martha Pillaman's wrought. Of course he knew that he was giving way to absurd fancies, but the behavior of the spirit-lamp kettle and the subsequent scene at the pond had considerably unnerved him, and the vagueness of his alarm added to its terrors, when once you have taken the impossible into your calculations, its possibilities become practically limitless. Crefton rose at his usual early hour the next morning, after one of the least restful nights he had spent at the farm. His sharpened senses quickly detected that subtle atmosphere of things being not altogether well that hangs over a stricken household. The cows had been milked, but they stood huddled about in the yard, waiting impatiently to be driven out of field, and the poultry kept up an importunate querulous reminder of deferred feeding time. The yard-pump, which usually made discordant music at frequent intervals during the early morning, was today ominously silent. In the house itself there was a coming and going of scuttering footsteps, rushing and dying away of hurried voices and long, uneasy stillnesses. Crefton finished his dressing and made his way to the head of a narrow staircase. He could hear a dull, complaining voice, a voice into which an odd hush had crept, and recognized the speaker as Mrs. Spurfield. He'll go away for sure, the voice was saying. There are those as runs away from one as soon as real misfortune shows itself. Crefton felt that he probably was one of those, and that there were moments when it was advisable to be true to type. He crept back to his room, collected and packed his few belongings, placed the money due for his lodgings on a table, and made his way out by a back door into the yard. A mob of poultry surged expectantly towards him. Shaking off their interested attentions, he hurried a long undercover of cowstall, pigory, and hay-ricks till he reached the lane at the back of the farm. A few minutes' walk, which only the burden of his portmanteau restrained from developing into an undisguised run, brought him to a main road, where the early carrier soon overtook him and sped him onward to the neighbouring town. At a bend of the road he caught a last glimpse of the farm. The old gabled roofs and thatched barns, the straggling orchard, and the medler tree with its wooden seat, stood out with an almost spectral clearness in the early morning light, and over it all brooded that air of magic possession which Crefton had once mistaken for peace. The bustle and roar of Paddington Station smote on his ears with a welcome protective greeting. Very bad for our nerves, all this rush and hurry, said a fellow traveller, give me the peace and quiet of the country. Crefton mentally surrendered his share of the desired commodity. A crowded, brilliantly overlighted music-hall, where an exuberant rendering of 1812 was being given by a strenuous orchestra, came nearest to his ideal of a nerve sedative. End of The Peace of Mosul Barton This recording is in the public domain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading is by Graham Redman. The Chronicles of Clovis Short Stories by Sarkie The Talking Out of Tarrington Heavens exclaimed the aunt of Clovis. Here's someone I know bearing down on us. I can't remember his name, but he lunched with us once in town. Tarrington. Yes, that's it. He's heard of the picnic I'm giving for the Princess, and he'll cling to me like a life-belt till I give him an invitation. Then he'll ask if he may bring all his wives and mothers and sisters with him. That's the worst of these small watering places. One can't escape from anybody. I'll fight a rear-guard action for you if you like to do a belt now. Volunteered Clovis, you've a clear ten yards start if you don't lose time. The aunt of Clovis responded gamely to the suggestion, and churned away like a Nile steamer with a long-brown ripple of Pikini's spaniel trailing in her wake. Pretend you don't know him, was her parting advice tinged with the reckless courage of the non-combatant. The next moment the overtures of an affably disposed gentleman were being received by Clovis with a silent upon-a-peak in Darien's stair which denoted an absence of all previous acquaintance with the objects scrutinized. I expect you don't know me with my moustache, said the newcomer. I've only grown it during the last two months. On the contrary, said Clovis, the moustache is the only thing about you that seemed familiar to me. I felt certain that I had met it somewhere before. My name is Tarrington, resumed the candidate for recognition. A very useful kind of name, said Clovis, with a name of that sort no one would blame you if you did nothing in particular heroic or remarkable, would they? And yet if you were to raise a troop of light-horse in a moment of national emergency, Tarrington's light-horse would sound quite appropriate and pulse-quickening. Whereas if you were called Spoopin, for instance, the thing would be out of the question. No one, even in a moment of national emergency, could possibly belong to Spoopin's horse. The newcomer smiled weakly, as one who is not to be put off by mere flippancy, and began again with patient persistence. I think you ought to remember my name. I shall, said Clovis, with an air of immense sincerity. My aunt was asking me only this morning to suggest names for four young elves she's just had sent her as pets. I shall call them all Tarrington. Then if one or two of them die, or fly away, or leave us in any of the ways that pet owls are prone to, there will be always one or two left to carry on your name. And my aunt won't let me forget it. She will always be asking, Have the Tarringtons had their mice? And questions of that sort. She says if you keep wild creatures in captivity, you ought to see after their wants. And, of course, she's quite right there. I met you at luncheon at your aunt's house once. Broke in Mr. Tarrington pale, but still resolute. My aunt never lunches, said Clovis. She belongs to the National Anti-Luncheon League, which is doing quite a lot of good work in a quiet, unobtrusive way. A subscription of half a crown per quarter entitles you to go without 92 luncheons. This must be something new, exclaimed Tarrington. It's the same aunt that I've always had, said Clovis coldly. I perfectly well remember meeting you at a luncheon party given by your aunt, persisted Tarrington, who was beginning to flash an unhealthy shade of mottled pink. What was there for lunch? asked Clovis. Oh, well, I don't remember that. How nice of you to remember my aunt when you can no longer recall the names of the things you ate. Now, my memory works quite differently. I can remember a menu long after I'd forgotten the hostess that accompanied it. When I was seven years old I recollect being given a peach at a garden party by some Duchess or other. I can't remember a thing about her, except that I imagine our acquaintance must have been of the slightest, as she called me a nice little boy. But I have unfading memories of that peach. It was one of those exuberant peaches that meet you half-way, so to speak, and are all over you in a moment. It was a beautiful, unspoiled product of a hot house, and yet it managed quite successfully to give itself the airs of a compote. You had to bite it and imbibe it at the same time. To me there has always been something charming and mystic in the thought of that delicate velvet globe of fruit, slowly ripening and warming to perfection through the long summer days and perfumed nights, and then coming suddenly a thwart my life in the supreme moment of its existence. I can never forget it, even if I wished to. And when I had devoured all that was edible of it there still remained the stone, which a heedless, thoughtless child would doubtless have thrown away. I put it down the neck of a young friend who was wearing a very decollete sailor suit. I told him it was a scorpion, and from the way he wriggled and screamed he evidently believed it. Though where the silly kid imagined I could procure a live scorpion at a garden party, I don't know. Altogether that peach is for me an unfading and happy memory. The defeated Tarrington had by this time retreated out of earshot, comforting himself as best he might, with the reflection that a picnic which included the presence of Clovis might prove a doubtfully agreeable experience. I shall certainly go in for a parliamentary career, said Clovis to himself, as he turned complacently to rejoin his aunt. As a talker out of inconvenient bills, I should be invaluable. End of THE TALKING OUT OF Tarrington. This recording is in the public domain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading is by Graham Redman. The Chronicles of Clovis Short Stories by Sarkie THE Hounds of Fate In the fading light of a close dull autumn afternoon, Martin Stoner plodded his way along muddy lanes and rut-seamed cart tracks that led he knew not exactly whither. Somewhere in front of him he fancied lay the sea, and towards the sea his footsteps seemed persistently turning. Why he was struggling weirdly forward to that goal he could scarcely have explained, unless he was possessed by the same instinct that turns a hard-pressed stag cliffward in its last extremity. In his case the hounds of fate were certainly pressing him with unrelenting insistence. Hunger, fatigue, and despairing hopelessness had numbed his brain, and he could scarcely summon sufficient energy to wonder what underlying impulse was driving him onward. Stoner was one of those unfortunate individuals who seemed to have tried everything. A natural slothfulness and improvidence had always intervened to blight any chance of even moderate success, and now he was at the end of his tether, and there was nothing more to try. Desperation had not awakened in him any dormant reserve of energy. On the contrary, a mental torpor grew up round the crisis of his fortunes. With the clothes he stood up in, a hipney in his pocket, and no single friend or acquaintance to turn to, with no prospect either of a bed for the night or a meal for the morrow, Martin Stoner trudged stolidly forward, between moist hedgerows and beneath dripping trees, his mind almost a blank, except that he was subconsciously aware that somewhere in front of him lay the sea. Another consciousness obtruded itself now and then, the knowledge that he was miserably hungry. Presently he came to a halt by an open gateway that led into a spacious and rather neglected farm garden. There was little sign of life about, and the farmhouse at the further end of the garden looked chill and inhospitable. A drizzling rain, however, was setting in, and Stoner thought that here perhaps he might obtain a few minutes' shelter and buy a glass of milk with his last remaining coin. He turned slowly and wearily into the garden and followed a narrow flagged path up to a side door. Before he had time to knock, the door opened, and a bent, withered looking old man stood aside in the doorway as though to let him pass in. Could I come in out of the rain? Stoner began, but the old man interrupted him. Come in, Master Tom, I knew you would come back one of these days. Stoner lurched across the threshold and stood staring uncomprehendingly at the other. Sit down while I put you out a bit of supper, said the old man with quavering eagerness. Stoner's legs gave way from very weariness, and he sank inertly into the armchair that had been pushed up to him. In another minute he was devouring the cold meat, cheese, and bread that had been placed on the table at his side. You, little change, these four years, went on the old man in a voice that sounded to Stoner as something in a dream, far away and inconsequent. But you'll find us a deal changed, you will. There's no one about the place same as when you left, nor but me and your old aunt. I'll go and tell her that you'll come. She won't be seeing you, but she'll let you stay right enough. She always did say, if you was to come back, you should stay. But she had never set eyes on you or speak to you again. The old man placed a mug of beer on the table in front of Stoner, and then hobbled away down a long passage. The drizzle of rain had changed to a furious lashing downpour, which beat violently against door and windows. The wanderer thought with a shudder of what the seashore must look like under this drenching rainfall, with night beating down on all sides. He finished the food and beer, and sat numbly waiting for the return of his strange host. As the minutes ticked by on the grandfather-clock in the corner, a new hope began to flicker and grow in the young man's mind. It was merely the expansion of his former craving for food and a few minutes' rest into a longing to find a night's shelter under this seemingly hospitable roof. A clattering of footsteps down the passage heralded the old farm servant's return. The old Mrs. won't see you, Master Tom, but she says you are to stay. It is right enough, seeing the farm will be yours when she be put under earth. I've had a fire lit in your room, Master Tom, and the maids has put fresh sheets onto the bed. You'll find more changed up there. Maybe you'm tired and would like to go there now. Without a word, Martin Stoner rose heavily to his feet and followed his ministering angel along a passage, up a short creaking stair, along another passage, and into a large room lit with a cheerfully blazing fire. There was but little furniture, plain old-fashioned and good of its kind. A stuffed squirrel in a case and a wall calendar of four years ago were about the only symptoms of decoration. But Stoner had eyes for little else than the bed, and could scarce wait to tear his clothes off him before rolling in a luxury of weariness into its comfortable depths. The hounds of fate seemed to have checked for a brief moment. In the cold light of morning, Stoner laughed mirthlessly as he slowly realised the position in which he found himself. Perhaps he might snatch a bit of breakfast on the strength of his likeness to this other missing ne'er-do-well, and get safely away before anyone discovered the fraud that had been thrust on him. In the room downstairs he found the bent old man ready with a dish of bacon and fried eggs for Master Tom's breakfast. While a hard-faced elderly maid brought in a teapot and poured him out a cup of tea, as he sat at the table a small spaniel came up and made friendly advances. "'Tis old Boucher's pup,' explained the old man, whom the hard-faced maid had addressed as George. "'She was main fond of you, but never seemed the same after you went away to Australia. She died about a year ago. "'Tis her pup.' Stoner found it difficult to regret her decease. As a witness for identification she would have left something to be desired.' "'You'll go for a ride, Master Tom?' was the next startling proposition that came from the old man. "'We've a nice little roan cob that goes well in saddle. Old Biddy is getting a bit up in years. Though a goes well still, but I'll have the little roan saddled and brought round to door.' "'I've got no riding things,' stammered the cast away, almost laughing as he looked down at his one suit of well-worn clothes. "'Master Tom,' said the old man earnestly, almost with an offended air. "'All your things is just as you left them. A bit of airing before the fire, and they'll be all right. It will be a bit of a distraction like a little riding and wild fouling now and again. You'll find the folk around here has hard and bitter minds towards you. They hasn't forgotten nor forgiven. No one'll come nigh you, so you'll best get what distraction you can with horse and dog. They'm good company, too.' Old George hobbled away to give his orders, and Stoner, feeling more than ever like one in a dream, went upstairs to inspect Master Tom's wardrobe. A ride was one of the pleasure's dearest to his heart, and there was some protection against immediate discovery of his imposture in the thought that none of Tom's four-time companions were likely to favour him with a close inspection. As the interloper thrust himself into some tolerably well-fitting riding-cords, he wondered vaguely what manner of misdeed the genuine Tom had committed to set the whole countryside against him. The thud of quick, eager hooves on damp earth cut short his speculations. The Roan Cobb had been brought up to the side door. Talk of beggars on horseback, thought Stoner to himself, as he trotted rapidly along the muddy lanes where he had tramped yesterday as a down-at-heel outcast, and then he flung reflection indolently aside, and gave himself up to the pleasure of a smart canter along the turf-grown side of a level stretch of road. At an open gateway he checked his pace to allow two carts to turn into a field. The lads driving the carts found time to give him a prolonged stare, and as he passed on he heard an excited voice call out, "'Tis Tom Prike! I note him at once. Showing his self here again, is he?' Evidently the likeness which had imposed at close quarters on a doddering old man was good enough to mislead younger eyes at a short distance. In the course of his ride he met with ample evidence to confirm the statement that local folk had neither forgotten nor forgiven the bygone crime which had come to him as a legacy from the absent Tom. Scowling looks, mutterings, and nudgings greeted him whenever he chanced upon human beings. Bowker's pup, trotting placidly by his side, seemed the one element of friendliness in a hostile world. As he dismounted at the side door he caught a fleeting glimpse of a gaunt elderly woman peering at him from behind the curtain of an upper window. Evidently this was his aunt by adoption. Over the ample midday meal that stood in readiness for him, Stono was able to review the possibilities of his extraordinary situation. The real Tom, after four years of absence, might suddenly turn up at the farm, or a letter might come from him at any moment. Again in the character of air to the farm the false Tom might be called on to sign documents which would be an embarrassing predicament, or a relative might arrive who would not imitate the aunt's attitude of aloofness. All these things would mean ignominious exposure. On the other hand the alternative was the open sky and the muddy lanes that led down to the sea. The farm offered him at any rate a temporary refuge from destitution. Farming was one of the many things he had tried, and he would be able to do a certain amount of work in return for the hospitality to which he was so little entitled. "'Will you have cold pork for your supper?' asked the hard-faced maid as she cleared the table. "'Or will you have it hotted up?' "'Hot with onions,' said Stono. It was the only time in his life that he had made a rapid decision, and as he gave the order he knew that he meant to stay.' Stono kept rigidly to those portions of the house which seemed to have been allotted to him by a tacit treaty of delimitation. When he took part in the farm work it was as one who worked under orders and never initiated them. Old George, the Roan Cobb, and Bowker's Pup were his sole companions in a world that was otherwise frostillous, silent, and hostile. Of the mistress of the farm he saw nothing. Once when he knew she had gone forth to church he made a furtive visit to the farm parlour in an endeavour to glean some fragmentary knowledge of the young man whose place he had usurped and whose ill-repute he had fastened on himself. There were many photographs hung on the walls or stuck in prim frames, but the likeness he sought for was not among them. At last in an album thrust out of sight he came across what he wanted. There was a whole series labelled Tom, a podgy child of three in a fantastic frock, an awkward boy of about twelve holding a cricket bat as though he loathed it, a rather good-looking youth of eighteen with very smooth, evenly parted hair, and, finally, a young man with a somewhat surly daredevil expression. At this last portrait Stoner looked with particular interest. The likeness to himself was unmistakable. From the lips of old George, who was garrulous enough on most subjects, he tried again and again to learn something of the nature of the offence which shut him off as a creature to be shunned and hated by his fellow men. What do the folk around here say about me? he asked one day as they were walking home from an outlying field. The old man shook his head. They be bitter again, you mortal bitter. I, it is a sad business, a sad business. And never could he begot to say anything more enlightening. On a clear frosty evening, a few days before the festival of Christmas, Stoner stood in a corner of the orchard which commanded a wide view of the countryside. Here and there he could see the twinkling dots of lamp or candle-glow which told of human homes where the goodwill and jollity of the season held their sway. Behind him lay the grim, silent farmhouse, where no one ever laughed, where even a quarrel would have seemed cheerful. As he turned to look at the long grey front of the gloom-shadowed building, a door opened, and old George came hurriedly forth. Stoner heard his adopted name called in a tone of strained anxiety. Instantly he knew that something untoward had happened, and with a quick revulsion of outlook his sanctuary became in his eyes a place of peace and contentment from which he dreaded to be driven. Master Tom, said the old man in a horse-whisper, you must slip away quiet from here for a few days. Michael Lay is back in the village, and he swears to shoot you if he can come across you. He'll do it too, there's murder in the look of him. Get away under cover of night, to zone if for a week or so, he won't be here longer. But where am I to go, stammered Stoner, who had caught the infection of the old man's obvious terror? Go right away along the coast to Punchford and keep hid there. When Michael's safe gone I'll ride the Rhone over to the Green Dragon at Punchford. When you see the cob stabled at the Green Dragon, tis a sign you may come back again. But, began Stoner hesitatingly, tis all right for money, said the other, the old Mrs agrees your best do as I say, and she's given me this. The old man produced three sovereigns and some odd silver. Stoner felt more of a cheat than ever as he stole away that night from the back gate of the farm with the old woman's money in his pocket. Old George and Bowker's pup stood watching him a silent farewell from the yard. He could scarcely fancy that he would ever come back, and he felt a throb of compunction for those two humble friends who would wait wistfully for his return. Someday perhaps the real Tom would come back, and there would be wild wonderment among those simple farm folks as to the identity of the shadowy guest they had harboured under their roof. For his own fate he felt no immediate anxiety. Three pounds goes but little way in the world when there is nothing behind it, but to a man who has counted his ex-checker in pennies, it seems a good starting point. Fortune had done him a whimsically kind turn when last he trod these lanes as a hopeless adventurer, and there might yet be a chance of his finding some work at making a fresh start. As he got further from the farm his spirits rose higher. There was a sense of relief in regaining once more his lost identity, and ceasing to be the uneasy ghost of another. He scarcely bothered to speculate about the implacable enemy who had dropped from nowhere into his life, since that life was now behind him one unreal item the more made little difference. For the first time for many months he began to hum a careless light-hearted refrain. Then there stepped out from the shadow of an overhanging oak-tree a man with a gun. There was no need to wonder who he might be. The moonlight falling on his white-set face revealed a glare of human hate such as stoner in the ups and downs of his wanderings had never seen before. He sprang aside in a wild effort to break through the hedge that bordered the lane, but the tough branches held him fast. The hounds of fate had waited for him in those narrow lanes, and this time they were not to be denied. This recording is in the public domain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. This reading is by Graham Redman. The Chronicles of Clovis. Short Stories by Sarky. The Recessional. Clovis sat in the hottest zone but two of a Turkish bath, alternately inert in statuesque contemplation and rapidly manoeuvring a fountain pen over the pages of a notebook. Don't interrupt me with your childish prattle! he observed to Bertie Fantin, who had slung himself languidly into a neighbouring chair and looked conversationally inclined. I'm writing deathless verse. Bertie looked interested. I say, what a boon you would be to portrait painters if you really got to be notorious as a poetry writer. If they couldn't get your likeness hung in the academy as Clovis Sangray-Lisquire at work on his latest poem, they could slip you in as a study of the nude or Orpheus descending into German Street. They always complained that modern dress handicaps them, whereas a towel and a fountain pen. It was Mrs. Packeltide's suggestion that I should write this thing, said Clovis, ignoring the bypass to fame that Bertie Fantin was pointing out to him. You see, Luna Bimberton had a coordination ode accepted by the New Infancy, a paper that has been started with the idea of making the New Age seem elderly and hidebound. So clever of you, dear Luna, the Packeltide remarked when she had read it, of course any one could write a coordination ode, but no one else would have thought of doing it. Luna protested that these things were extremely difficult to do, and gave us to understand that they were more or less the province of a gifted few. Now the Packeltide has been rather decent to me in many ways, a sort of financial ambulance, you know, that carries you off the field when you're hard hit, which is a frequent occurrence with me, and I've no use whatever for Luna Bimberton, so I chipped in and said I could turn out that sort of stuff by the square yard if I gave my mind to it. Luna said I couldn't, and we got bets on, and between you and me I think the money is fairly safe. Of course one of the conditions of the wager is that the thing has to be published in something or other, local newspapers barred, but Mrs. Packeltide has endeared herself by many little acts of thoughtfulness to the editor of the smoky chimney, so if I can hammer out anything at all approaching the level of the usual owed output, we ought to be all right. So far I'm getting along so comfortably that I begin to be afraid that I must be one of the gifted few. It's rather late in the day for a coronation owed, isn't it?" said Bertie. "'Of course,' said Clavis. "'This is going to be a der bar recessional, the sort of thing that you can keep by you for all time if you want to.' "'Now I understand your choice of a place to write it in,' said Bertie Fantaan, with the air of one who has suddenly unraveled a hitherto obscure problem. You want to get the local temperature.' "'I came here to get freedom from the inane interruptions of the mentally deficient,' said Clavis. "'But it seems I asked too much of fate.' Bertie Fantaan prepared to use his towel as a weapon of precision, but reflecting that he had a good deal of unprotected coastline himself, and that Clavis was equipped with a fountain pen as well as a towel, he relapsed pacifically into the depths of his chair. "'May one hear extracts from the immortal work?' he asked. "'I promise that nothing I hear now shall prejudice me against borrowing a copy of the smoky chimney at the right moment.' "'It's rather like casting pearls into a trough,' remarked Clavis pleasantly, but I don't mind reading you bits of it. It begins with the general dispersal of the Durbar participants. Back to their homes in Himalayan heights, the stale pale elephants of Kuchbeha roll like great galleons on a tideless sea. I don't believe Kuchbeha is anywhere near the Himalayan region,' interrupted Bertie. "'You ought to have an atlas on hand when you do this sort of thing, and wise stale and pale. After the late hours and the excitement, of course,' said Clavis. "'And I said their homes were in the Himalayas. You can have Himalayan elephants in Kuchbeha, I suppose, just as you have Irish-bred horses running at Ascot. You said they were going back to the Himalayas,' objected Bertie. Well, they would naturally be sent home to recuperate. It's the usual thing out there to turn elephants loose in the hills, just as we put horses out to grass in this country.' Clavis could at least flatter himself that he had infused some of the reckless splendour of the east into his mendacity. "'Is it all going to be in blank verse?' asked the critic. "'Of course not. Durbar comes at the end of the fourth line. That seems so cowardly. However, it explains why you pitched on Kuchbeha. There is more connection between geographical placenames and poetical inspiration than is generally recognised. One of the chief reasons why there are so few really great poems about Russia in our language is that you can't possibly get a rhyme to names like Smolensk and Tobolsk and Minsk.' Clavis spoke with the authority of one who has tried. "'Of course you could rhyme Omsk with Tomsk,' he continued. In fact they seem to be there for that purpose. But the public wouldn't stand that sort of thing indefinitely. The public will stand a good deal,' said Bertie malevolently, and so small a proportion of it knows Russian that you could always have an explanatory footnote asserting that the last three letters in Smolensk are not pronounced. It's quite as believable as your statement about putting elephants out to grass in the Himalayan range. I've got rather a nice bit,' resumed Clavis, with unruffled serenity, giving an evening scene on the outskirts of a jungle village. Where the coiled cobra in the gloaming glotes and prowling panthers stalk the weary goats. There is practically no gloaming in tropical countries,' said Bertie indulgently, but I like the masterly reticence with which you treat the cobra's motive for gloating. The unknown is proverbially the uncanny. I can picture nervous readers of the smoky chimney keeping the light turned on in their bedrooms all night, out of sheer sickening uncertainty as to what the cobra might have been gloating about. Cobra's gloat naturally, said Clavis, just as wolves are always ravining from mere force of habit, even after they've hopelessly overeaten themselves. I've got a fine bit of colour-painting later on,' he added, where I described the dawn coming up over the Brahmaputra River. The amber dawn drenched east with sun-shafts kissed, stained sanguine apricot and amethyst, or the washed emerald of the mango-groves hangs in a mist of opalescent moves, while painted parrot flights impinge the haze with scarlet calcidone and chrysoprase. I've never seen the dawn come up over the Brahmaputra River,' said Bertie, so I can't say if it's a good description of the event, but it sounds more like an account of an extensive jewel-robbery. Anyhow, the parrots give a good useful touch of local colour. I suppose you've introduced some tigers into the scenery. An Indian landscape would have rather a bare, unfinished look without a tiger or two in the middle distance. I've got a hen-tiger somewhere in the poem,' said Clovis, hunting through his notes. Here she is. The tawny Tigris mid the tangled teak drags to her pearing curbs and raptureeers the harsh death-rattle in the PFAL's beak, a jungle lullaby of blood and tears. Bertie Phantan rose hurriedly from his recumbent position and made for the glass door leading into the next compartment. I think your idea of home-life in the jungle is perfectly horrid,' he said. The cobra was sinister enough, but the improvised rattle in the tiger-nursery is the limit. If you're going to make me turn hot and cold all over, I may as well go into the steam-room at once. Just listen to this line,' said Clovis. It would make the reputation of any ordinary poet. And overhead the pendulumpatient punker, parent of still-born breeze. Most of your readers will think punker as a kind of iced drink or half-time a polo,' said Bertie, and disappeared into the steam. The smoky chimney duly published the recessional, but it proved to be its swan-song, for the paper never attained to another issue. Luna Bimberton gave up her intention of attending the Durbar and went into a nursing-home on the Sussex Downs. Nervous breakdown after a particularly strenuous season was the usually accepted explanation, but there are three or four people who know that she never really recovered from the dawn breaking over the Brahmaputra River. End of The Recessional This recording is in the public domain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading is by Graham Redman. The Chronicles of Clovis Short Stories by Sarkie A Matter of Sentiment It was the eve of the Great Race, and scarcely a member of Lady Susan's House Party had as yet a single bet on. It was one of those unsatisfactory years when one horse held a commanding market position, not by reason of any general belief in its crushing superiority, but because it was extremely difficult to pitch on any other candidate to whom to pin one's faith. Peradventure II was the favorite, not in the sense of being a popular fancy, but by virtue of a lack of confidence in any one of his rather undistinguished rivals. The brains of club-land were much exercised in seeking out possible merit where none was very obvious to the naked intelligence, and the House Party at Lady Susan's was possessed by the same uncertainty and irresolution that infected wider circles. It is just the time for bringing off a good coup, said Bertie Van Tarn. Undoubtedly, but with what? demanded Clovis for the twentieth time. The women of the party were just as keenly interested in the matter, and just as helplessly perplexed. Even the mother of Clovis, who usually got good racing information from her dressmaker, confessed herself fancy-free on this occasion. Colonel Drake, who was Professor of Military History at a minor cramming establishment, was the only person who had a definite selection for the event, but as his choice varied every three hours, he was worse than useless as an inspired guide. The crowning difficulty of the problem was that it could only be fitfully and furtively discussed. Lady Susan disapproved of racing. She disapproved of many things. Some people went as far as to say that she disapproved of most things. Disapproval was to her what New Rouger and fancy needlework are to many other women. She disapproved of early morning tea and auction bridge, of skiing and the two-step, of the Russian ballet and the Chelsea Arts Club ball, of the French policy in Morocco, and the British policy everywhere. It was not that she was particularly strict or narrow in her views of life, but she had been the eldest sister of a large family of self-indulgent children, and her particular form of indulgence had consisted in openly disapproving of the foibles of the others. Unfortunately the hobby had grown up with her. As she was rich, influential, and very, very kind, most people were content to count their early tea as well lost on her behalf. Still the necessity for hurriedly dropping the discussion of an enthralling topic and suppressing all mention of it during her presence on the scene was an affliction at a moment like the present, when time was slipping away and in decision was the prevailing note. After a lunchtime of rather strangled and uneasy conversation, Clovis managed to get most of the party together at the further end of the kitchen gardens, on the pretext of admiring the Himalayan pheasants. He had made an important discovery. Motkin the Butler, who, as Clovis expressed it, had grown prematurely gray in Lady Susan's service, added to his other excellent qualities an intelligent interest in matters connected with the turf. On the subject of the forthcoming race he was not illuminating, except in so far that he shared the prevailing unwillingness to see a winner in Peradventure II. But where he outshone all the members of the House Party was in the fact that he had a second cousin who was head-stable lad at a neighbouring racing establishment, and usually gifted with much inside information as to private form and possibilities. Only the fact of her ladyship having taken it into her head to invite a House Party for the last week of May had prevented Mr. Motkin from paying a visit of consultation to his relative with respect to the big race. There was still time to cycle over if he could get leave of absence for the afternoon on some specious excuse. Let's jolly well hope he does, said Bertie Phantan, under the circumstances a second cousin is almost as useful as second sight. That stable ought to know something if knowledge is to be found anywhere," said Mrs. Packle-tide, hopefully. I expect you'll find he'll echo my fancy from boat to boat," said Colonel Drake. At this moment the subject had to be hastily dropped. Lady Susan bore down upon them, leaning on the arm of Clovis's mother, to whom she was confiding the fact that she disapproved of the craze for picking-y's spaniels. It was the third thing she had found time to disapprove of since lunch, without counting her silent and permanent disapproval of the way Clovis's mother did her hair. We have been admiring the Himalayan pheasants," said Mrs. Packle-tide suavely. They went off to a bird-show at Nottingham early this morning, said Lady Susan, with the air of one who disapproves of hasty and ill-considered lying. Their house, I mean, such perfect roosting arrangements, and all so clean, resumed Mrs. Packle-tide with an increased glow of enthusiasm. The odious Bertie Phantan was murmuring audible prayers for Mrs. Packle-tide's ultimate estrangement from the paths of falsehood. I hope you don't mind dinner being a quarter of an hour late tonight," said Lady Susan. Motkin has had an urgent summons to go and see a sick relative this afternoon. He wanted to bicycle there, but I am sending him in the motor. How very kind of you! Of course we don't mind dinner being put off. The assurances came with unanimous and hearty sincerity. At the dinner-table that night an undercurrent of furtive curiosity directed itself towards Motkin's impassive countenance. One or two of the guests almost expected to find a slip of paper concealed in their napkins bearing the name of the second cousin's selection. They had not long to wait. As the butler went round with the murmur at question, Sherry, he added in an even lower tone the cryptic words, better not. Mrs. Packle-tide gave a start of alarm and refused the Sherry. There seemed some sinister suggestion in the butler's warning, as though her hostess had suddenly become addicted to the Borgia habit. A moment later the explanation flashed on her that, better not, was the name of one of the runners in the big race. Clovis was already penciling it on his cuff, and Colonel Drake, in his turn, was signalling to everyone in horse whispers and dumb show the fact that he had all along fancied B.N. Early next morning a chief of telegrams went townward, representing the market commands of the house party and servants' hall. It was a wet afternoon, and most of Lady Susan's guests hung about the hall, waiting apparently for the appearance of tea, though it was scarcely yet due. The advent of a telegram quickened everyone into a flutter of expectancy. The page who brought the telegram to Clovis waited with unusual alertness to know if there might be an answer. Clovis read the message and gave an exclamation of annoyance. No bad news, I hope, said Lady Susan. Everyone else knew that the news was not good. It's only the result of the derby. He blurted out. Sardover won, an utter outsider. Sardover, exclaimed Lady Susan, you don't say so. How remarkable! It's the first time I've ever backed a horse. In fact, I disapprove of horse racing, but just for once in a way I put money on this horse, and it's gone and won. May I ask, said Mrs. Packeltide, amid the general silence, why you put your money on this particular horse? None of the sporting-profits mentioned it as having an outside chance. Well, said Lady Susan, you may laugh at me, but it was the name that attracted me. You see, I was always mixed up with the Franco-German war. I was married on the day that the war was declared, and my oldest child was born the day that peace was signed. So anything connected with the war has always interested me. And when I saw there was a horse running in the derby called after one of the battles in the Franco-German war, I said I must put some money on it for once in a way, though I disapprove of racing. And it's actually won. There was a general groan. No one groaned more deeply than the Professor of Military History. End of A Matter of Sentiment. This recording is in the public domain.