 CHAPTER 1 GENERAL CARGO There was no evading the fact that my luck had left me. Left me so completely that my nerves suddenly failed me, and I wrote to Harry and said yes. With the letter in the pocket of my one and only coat, I sat on the pensance K and wished I had a hundred a year of my own. A small steamer of some four hundred tons was awaiting the afternoon tide to make the harbour, and gazing at her idly I thought over my decision. Was I glad I had agreed to marry Harry? How absurd it sounded! Marry Harry! Harry, marry! It would be good to be taken care of, and to have no anxiety about tomorrow. Of that much I was sure. I had just finished a set of watercolor illustrations to a book on Cornwall for Messers Harriet and Bale, which they had no sooner received than they went bankrupt. Fair well to the fat little cheque which meant a winter in Paris. Fair well to a winter anywhere, save in the workhouse, for I had exactly thirty-eight shillings and thruppants left in the world. It was the final blow, for having just recovered from a bad attack of flu, I was still a worm and no man. That was how it came about that I had the letter to Harry in my pocket. The letter which told him I had changed my mind, and as I sat on the quay I assured myself that I fully meant to post it, for I was in what I can only call the shoulder mood. Although at that time I thought there should be only two classes of men as far as marrying was concerned. The inevitable and the impossible. With one man in the former and all the rest of the world in the latter, I could still see that that was a counsel of perfection. A great many marriages are the result of almost any man coming along at just the right moment. When the girl is in the grip of the shoulder mood, which I suppose attacks chiefly lonely people like myself, in that mood one is conscious of only one overwhelming desire. To have a shoulder against which to lean one's head, with one's eyes shut. Any nice quiet, unobtrusive shoulder. Up till then, luckily enough, the mood and the man had never come together for me. By the time he appeared, the mood had vanished under the influence of a night's sleep, or sunshine, or a piece of work going well. And so I was still Viv Lovell. Now, flu and the failure of Harriet and Dale had bolstered up the shoulder mood, till it had resulted in the letter in my pocket. And shutting my eyes, I lent against the hard side of the lighthouse, trying to imagine it was Harry's shoulder, so that I might arrive at a forecast of my sensations. It would be restful to feel his arms round me, and give up the struggle. Yet some silly tears forced their way past my lashes. I had held my head so high, and flown the banner of independence, through straits nearly as narrow as this. But flu is an insidious devil. Opening my eyes I saw that the steamer had swung round on the tide, and was making for the harbor. On the bridge the skipper moved about, his cap very white, and his face and neck very glowing against the sparkling blue of the May sky. I walked to the empty wharf where she would berth, and watched her as she sidled slowly towards the Kay. The sunlight vivid on her vermilion-led paint, and making her black hull a soft greenish tone like an old coat. Her masts and ropes were burnished gold against a tangle of schooner rigging that lay in shadow behind. And in the sluggishly rippled harbor water the vermilion and orange reflections broke and joined again. Without warning the sea lure gripped me. I must go aboard, I thought. My foot impatient to feel again the planks of a deck. A fat harbor loafer who had been sitting pensively on a bollard arose to catch him to make vast a rope. Then twisting his thick red neck he glanced behind him and slowly brushed the seat of his trousers. Damn this new-fangled abbot a whitewash in the bollards he muttered. A chap can't get a bit of rest without his trousers given him away. He spat a much-chewed plug into the water and cut a new-piece off the licorice-like stick before sitting down on a heap of scrap iron. As soon as the gang-plank was across I went on board and ran into a rosy, round-faced little man with a dishcloth over his arm. Do you happen to be sailing for London soon? I asked, smiling upon him. You are general cargo, aren't you? He beamed at me. We are a miss. Anything from pig-iron to pepper. We unload this afternoon, load again to-morrow morning, and sail at half-after-five in the afternoon. Call at Plymouth and Torquay and make London River by Thursday, all being well. Do you take passengers? Well, miss, we don't belong to, but then we does it. In the season we as them packed like pilchards in the saloon, sleeping on the tables with the fiddles on to keep them from rolling to ground. This time of year you can have the place to yourself. First-class fare, fifteen shillen. Two shillen each your meals. Steerage, seven and six, and find your food. Intoxicants extra, but we ain't like the silly boat as don't carry a license. If she do come up again anything in the way of waves, she do knock her passengers about cruel, and gives and nothing but gas-water to comfort their innards. Monday to Thursday my money would just last, and instead of posting my letter to Harry, I would write and tell him to come on board and see me at Plymouth. So I reprieved myself. Have you a stewardess, said I, beginning already the wifely duty of considering Harry's prejudices? Never carry one, miss. I'm all the stewardess there is. I'm sure, sir, what is your name? Nann-Vero, miss. A good old Cornish name, Mr. Nann-Vero. Tez that, miss, he replied, beaming delightedly. Well, I'm sure, Mr. Nann-Vero, that you'd look after me beautifully. You'd bring me hot water in the morning, wouldn't you? Bring you anything you like, miss. Say the word, and the deck-cabin shall be put ready for you. I did say the word, and walked off the chuff committed to arriving with my luggage at five o'clock on Monday afternoon. I actually did arrive at twenty minutes past, a triumph of punctuality, and my landlady saw me off with many tears and a large pasty in a paper bag. It was a blue and yellow blustering kind of day. The wavetop stung to foam and the cloud shadows trailing swiftly over the hills beyond Marision. On the harbour water floated great patches of many-hued, iridescent scum, probably compounded of unutterableness, but burnished and beautiful as a pheasant's breast. We steamed out of the harbour and met the freshening breeze and the plash of the little waves. Penzats lay hidden in a misty blaze of sun, only St. Mary's tower showing faintly above the harbour. And on the mount the castle windows winked like diamonds. Sticking my hands in my pockets I flung up my chin to the salt wind and laughed aloud for joy that I was alone and free, till the thought of Harry came pricking at me. Never mind, thought I. I'll get all the more juice out of my last days. Dusk had fallen as we made the lizard, and the great shaft of light was throwing itself over and over across the sky. As the captain and I sat at supper we got into the race of the tide. There were sounds of things slipping about and cabin doors sliding too, and the horizon shot up the porthole only to fall swiftly down it the next minute. A typical cornishment of the seafaring order was the captain. With fair hair, a skin reddened by sun and wind, and a burly, bow-necked frame. Full of good yarns, too, and of a pretty wit. Nothing could have been finer than the air with which he informed my little Nanvaro, who waited on us, that a lady on board gave a touch of color to the voyage. After supper I went on to the bridge. It was too dark to see much but the glimmer of the foam as it slipped past us. But the sky boasted a new moon to which the captain uncovered, while I bowed thrice. We had left the rough water, a darker streak upon the grey sea, on our stern, and were throbbing a steady course with no sound but the restless plashing of the sea and the subdued thrumming of the engines, when from the gloom of the lower deck came the notes of a pipe. Leaning over the bridge I strained eyes and ears. Someone was playing Dvorak's humoresque and playing it well. Shrill and clear the thin jet of sound rose up and quivered in the night air, hung on a high sweet note, and fell in a rippling cascade. A pulse I had thought still began to beat. Something that stung to a sense of youth and gaiety. Harry slipped into the background. What had my kind stayed Harry to do with these pipes of pan? Down to the lower deck they lured me, always lilting to the measure in my blood. I plunged into the alleyway, and it seemed as though the piper, confident in his darkness, mocked at me. When I came to the stoke-hold door I suddenly slid it open, and a glare of red light shot into the gloom of the alleyway and lit up the figure of the piper. His piping stopped with a defiant flourish, and the hot breath from the furnaces on my cheek I stared at him. Oddly enough there was a look of a fawn about him. In the lock of fair hair tossed over his browner forehead, and in the bare throat on which his down-tucked chin cast a soft, three-cornered shadow. Finding himself he made a bow as I involuntarily stepped forward. The joy of it, when he said exactly the right thing, I could have blessed him for his comprehension. The great God-pan is not dead, he remarked in a low, very gentle voice, while there is any one left who knows how to listen. Do I understand your a reincarnation, I asked? I came to the stoke-hold door too again. Not exactly, he disclaimed modestly, merely a descendant. I stepped out of the alleyway on to the deck, and my piper followed me. Alas, he said mournfully, travelling incognito under the humble guise of a steerage-passenger, I am not allowed on the upper deck. The joy of watching the lake is denied me. But there is always the foxle. Shall we go right up into the bowels and play at being a figurehead? It's quite a good game, I admitted. I played it myself this afternoon. I know you did. I saw you. But like all the games worth playing, it takes two. Like quarreling, like quarreling, or kissing. They both begin with a K, I believe, with a Q in the best houses. After all, it's the thing that matters. Kissing by any other name would still lead to quarreling. Look at the phosphorus. It says, though, we struck sparks from the water. We lent over the side in silence for a while, till with a nervous gesture he pressed his hands against his forehead as though it ached. Don't think me confoundedly impertinent playing to you like that, he broke out. But you look, well, the right sort, the kind of girl who'd understand. You knew it was to you. Who else could it have been to, that tune? It's a vagrant's air, made for the high road and the seas. Does your head ache? Nothing much. Intuition seized me as I looked at him. Your needing food, I exclaimed. I'd known what that was like myself. He made a gesture of denial, but I was already on the way to my cabin. Wents I returned with my pasty. You're to eat this now at once. Don't dare to say a word I commanded, stamping my foot at him. He took it. And I strolled a little distance away, returning as he finished the last morsel. You've made a different man of me, he said simply. I can do nothing but play to you for it. Do play. Not for the pasty, but to please me. He laid the pipe to his lips, and through the darkness his long nimble fingers gleamed as they danced up and down. I set sideways, my arm locked round the flagstaff, and as the ship plunged and rose again, shaking the hissing foam from her bowels, and quivering slightly all her length like a living creature. I let my body be one with her motion, till I felt a princess of fairy story on some magic steed riding wither. I slipped down on the deck and held out my hand. Good night, Peter Piper, I said. I'm very tired, and four bells went just now. Good night, and thank you for your piping. CHAPTER 2 I turned restlessly in my bunk for hours, and when at length I fell into a troubled sleep, it was to dream that the pipes of pan were coming to me from some hidden place, while Harry was trying to hold me back. Shriller and shriller grew the piping till it pierced my sleep, and I woke to the scream of an un-oiled crane and the rattle of the donkey engine. It was four o'clock on a grey rainy morning, and we were unloading our cargo at Plymouth. Going back on that day, I don't wonder at my own bad temper. The town lay wet and comfortless under a chilly white sky, which reflected wandily in the dripping roofs and gleaming stretches of asphalt. After waiting for Harry till midday, I went ashore, lunched at a horrid little restaurant, and was back by three o'clock. No Harry. From imagining him dead in the ruins of the Exeter train, I advanced to the conclusion that he had become engaged to a minor cannon's daughter. I was picturing the wedding, the bride stump-nosed, and a model of all the virtues in white satin, when Mr. Nan Vero handed me a telegram. Sorry been delayed, it ran. If Missouet Plymouth will meet Boat at Torquay. How like Harry to say Boat, I reflected. Then remembering that the captain had said at breakfast that we were not calling at Torquay this voyage after all, I tore up the telegram in a rage. We had cast off and were slowly throbbing away from the side when a tall figure raced down the kay, took a flying leap, and just landed on our deck. The captain, leaning over the bridge, shouted an indignant question. But the intruder merely demanded. Is Miss Lovell on board? I'm here, Harry, I called from my doorway. He took off his cap, from which the rain was dripping in a little stream, and stood looking at me. I don't know what he was thinking, but as I saw him, his limp brown mustache and limp blue eyes, I thought, he's more like himself than ever. He spoke first. Viv, he said. Viv, it's yes, isn't it? You've sent for me to tell me so, haven't you, dear? Then I saw I'd been mistaken. This was a new Harry, his face years younger with hope. Truth was the only thing. I don't know, Harry, I said. I think it's yes, but I can't quite tell you yet. Do you think you can figure it out before I have to land at Torquay, asked Harry, who had gone rather white round the mouth? For a moment this absorbed my attention. I had often read of people who went suddenly pale, but I'd never seen it happen. Then the meaning of his words dawned on me. And though it seemed heartless, I sat down on my berth and laughed till I cried. Oh, Harry, we aren't putting in at Torquay, after all. We're going straight to London. And I've written to Barbara Vining to meet me. And I shan't have a rag of reputation left, not a rag. She's a deer, but you know how she wants me to settle down. And she'll rub it in that I ought to now, with you. Good Lord, what on earth am I to do? You'll have to lie low till she's borne me off. Lie low? Look at the size of the thing. A mouse couldn't hide. And that Miss Vining would nose out everything. If you were any other girl, I'd say, now you'll have to marry me. But I know it's only more likely to make you do the opposite. Well, don't let's bother yet. We don't reach Old Rat Wharf till Thursday. Go and see about a cabin and join me on deck. We spent the afternoon sitting on the port side of the bridge with the weather screen down to let a wet breeze blow in our faces. Thrashing up the deafened coast past the rugged cliffs whose crests were hidden by swirls of mist, we were sometimes so close in shore that we could see the gulls sitting on the rocks and the surf creaming in the crevices. Never had Harry been so dear, and yet, oh, why, why had I come by sea? Only the day before I had been glad to be marrying Harry. Now the old unrest was stirring. The divine unrest imparted by the fret of waves and the call of winds, and the strong subtle smell of tarry ropes and wet decks, an unrest to which one either has the response in one's blood when there is no resisting it, or to which one is impervious when no comprehension of it is possible. Harry, who has enough perception to know when there is something afoot which he cannot understand, looked at me oddly, then said, Viv, I'm losing hold of you. There's something about this damned ship that's going to your head. If we were only putting in at Torquay I'd have you in the exit or train, whether you would or know. I almost wish you could, Harry, but you wouldn't anyway. You're too good to me. If you were that sort I should have been married to you long ago. Oh, I can't stay here any longer. I'm going exploring. The magic of the hour that followed. In the stoke-hold where the air seemed to crackle with heat I tried my hand at stoking. Harry standing silently in the cool wind from an air-shaft. It was heavy work handling the great iron slices and rakes, and I soon relinquished them to watch the stoker tend to the fires. As he opened a furnace door a subdued roar arose, and the bed of pulsing flames lay straining away from us, almost level in the draft. He flung a shovel of coal, and with a roar that filled the ears the fire pounced on it, and like a hungry beast licked it up. The burnished light flickered over the stoker's shining face and white-knotted arms, and under the opening of his shirt a line of blue shadow lay softly on his glistening chest. I climbed up the greasy iron ladder in silence, but as we made our way to the engine room I turned to Harry. "'Wasn't it gorgeous?' I exclaimed. "'What is there about these things that appeals to you so?' asked Harry plaintively. "'I don't know. Oh, the way things look and feel. I'd go anywhere to see how a thing looked, or do anything, to know how it felt. I wish to heaven you'd marry me to see how it felt. Harry, if you're strenuous again while I'm on this platform of iron bars I shall fall into the engines, and then all will be over between us.' The engine room was clamorous with creatures of steel that leapt out only to check and draw back swiftly as though held in leash. Here and there a shimmer lay on sleek dark metal. The blotches and bands of shadow pulsated in the unsteady light from the oil lamps. Only the eccentrics, those old maids of the mechanical world, kept calm and sedate as they slowly rubbed their hands together round and round. The engineer wiped a shelf clean with cotton waste and, spreading a copy of tit-bits on it, invited me to sit down. "'How many knots are we making?' I asked him. "'About nine, Miss.' "'Only nine?' The telegraph's at full speed. "'Yes, Miss. That's just the cappin. These engines, they'm too powerful for the ship. If I was to put an at-top speed they'd tear the heart out at her. But get the cappin to believe it, you can't. "'Like to see me oil the engines, Miss?' Holding my skirts close I followed him on his round with his long-nosed can. The connecting rod slept fiercely up and down, up and down, seeming to snatch at the oil he dropped in as he lent over the protecting-bar. Then as they dived into the well of shadow over the crankshaft, and he laid a quick hand on the bearings to test their warmth, he seemed, to my excited fancy, like some tamer among the creatures that would rend him if they dared. A ship harbors a host of fierce hidden things that would master her if they slipped from control. Making my way round the engines I found Harry leaning against the ladder with a very pale face and eyes half shut. "'Let's get out of this,' he said. "'I feel deadly sick. And the smell of the engines has about finished me. Steadyest place in a ship.' "'But we are rolling a bit, sir,' said the sympathetic engineer. "'We unshipped all our cargo at Plymouth, and we'm going up channel as light as a cork. Bound to roll, sir.' In the fresh air Harry turned to me with a ghastly attempt at a smile. "'If you'll excuse me, Viv,' he said. "'I think I'll go to my cabin. I shall hardly be an engaging object.' "'Poor dear, just as you like. Is it any good sending you your supper?' "'Share waste of good material. Oh, lore!' He staggered away, and I saw him no more that night. "'As I was getting ready for bed, the humoresque sounded softly from under my port. The Piper must have stolen on to the upper deck. Resolutely I blew out my candle and, rolling over in my berth, drew the quilt over my ears.' End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 of The Milky Way All Wednesday a feeling that forces were gathering for an explosion beset me. And I think Harry also. It was not merely the leaden sky and heavy moving sea, but an oppressive sense of waiting as though something were holding its breath. At last I sent Harry, who was still rather a wreck, to lie down. And myself went on to the bridge to take the first dog-watch with the mate, who was a little grey-bearded, thin-necked man of the name of Simpson. I perched myself on the rail and went back against the canvas with my arm locked firmly round a stanchion. The captain, who was pacing up and down, beamed at me, and the mate sniffed and gazed mournfully ahead. He was rather a friend of mine and had taken me into his cabin to show me the portrait of his son, a youth in a tobacco factory at Bristol, who was engaged to the captain's daughter. An arrangement that promoted a nice family feeling in the ship. I wish I was a young lady remarked the mate gloomily to the world at large. They're nicely looked after, the young ladies are. Everyone's nice to ladies. Aren't you nicely looked after, Mr. Simpson? I asked. He shook his head. No, Miss, I am not. Here I am in the cold and the wet. But so am I, and you have thick-knitted gloves on, and I haven't. If you was to want gloves, Miss, every man in the ship would be crawling to give them to you. Ah, it's a rough life for us poor sailors, with nobody to love us. He waved one arm in a declamatory way, meandering mournfully up and down, with one worsted clad finger on the wheel. The captain grinned, and as he looked at me his eyelid flickered to his cheek. But see what an exciting life you have of it, I urged. I expect you've been all over the world. Pretty near, he admitted sadly. I wasn't always hugging the land up one week and down the next. I raped myself as a punishment. Sure enough, but I was born to Newfoundland, and when I was a lad, I was in the fisheries. Then I went in the guano trade, and going from one thing to another, I've seen a fair bit. I always had a mind too. When I was a bit of a lad, I got hold of an old book, full of pictures it were, telling about Peru and city inland. With gate temples and a picture oven standing up in the moonlight, I said to myself, I'll go there if I do live. And so I did. So I did. He stared dreamily ahead with his little bleared eyes for a moment, then went on. Yes, I got there. I went coasting up South America in a windjammer. And when we touched port, I left the ship and worked my way inland. Weeks, it took me. And sure enough, I got to that city and stood there in the moonlight. I tried to ship a bit off the marble to take home to my Lizzie. But it was too hard. It wouldn't come off know-how. I sat in silence, for his words had that curiously simple direct quality that pricks the imagination. This little scrubby man had had his soul fired by an old print and had followed his quest till he had attained the desired end. An end of no earthly advantage to him, merely a ruined city standing up in the moonlight. And he had tried to break a bit off for his Lizzie. The mate brought the wheel round and seemed to come back into the present with the action. Are you acquainted with any particular Baptist's miss? I confessed my ignorance of the sect in question. My mother-in-law was a particular Baptist, said Mr. Simpson. And she was like the rest of them. They thinks that what they thinks is the only right way to think. And if you don't think with them, you're all wrong. There's a good many people like that, miss. I nodded a heartfelt agreement. Well, one day I was telling her and my Lizzie. It was when we was only courting. About flying fish. My mother-in-law, she listened in silence. But when I was gone, she says to my Lizzie, Do you believe in that story of flying fish? Don't believe there's any such things. There's not bowton in scripture. Willie do say it, mother, says Lizzie. And that's enough for me. That's right, Lizzie, my maid, I say when she told me. You believe me in the scriptures, and you won't go far wrong. But get that story about flying fish down my mother-in-law's neck, you couldn't. Not with warm milk. I have met people like that, even though they weren't particular Baptists, said I, laughing. Well, miss, on my very next voyage we was fairly cutting through shoals of flying fish. And as I come off my watch one morning I saw one flopping about in the lease scuppers. That'll do for my mother-in-law, says I. And I stuffed it with tarry oakum and put it in spirits. It were a fair beauty, fifteen inches across the wings. When I showed it to my mother-in-law, she looked at it for a minute or two, and then she say, Well, I don't go for to call that anything. I've seen Pilchards caught in Mounts Bay with fins very near as big as that. There was no getting more out of my mother-in-law. One always hears mothers-in-law are a bit trying, I ventured. Sure enough. Have you ever thought a matrimony, miss? I've sometimes thought of it, Mr. Simpson, but somehow the more I thought the less I liked the idea. I used to think I shouldn't mind marrying a sailor, because they're away for such years at a time. And then they come home and think you're just perfect and have to leave again before they find you aren't. But there are so many drawbacks to a sailor. A sailor, declared the mate sentimentally, is the best a husband's. You can always count on him to be tender and lovin' to a wife. To anybody's wife, I inquired. Well, miss, he replied with a twinkle in his eye. I will say we'm not particular. How's the poor gentleman, miss? asked the captain with a discreet chuckle. Oh, he's only feeling a little run down today, captain. The worst is over. But I think I'll go and see how he's getting on. I did not go at once to Harry, however. For first the destination of the wake claimed me, and I stayed leaning over the taff rail, with the water gurgling in the scuppers at my feet, and the steering chain dragging itself now a few inches forwards, now backwards, with little groans as a pain. As we ran past Dungeon S. Mr. Nandverrow came to ask if I would care to haul up the signal flags, which I accordingly did, feeling very great and proud. I found Harry quite himself again, and we went together to our place on the bridge, and about six o'clock we made Dover in the teeth of a northeast gale. The boson, whose watch it was, enveloped himself in oil-skins, and the captain brought me his, and buttoned me up in them, tying the sowester under my chin with his big fumbling fingers. I was only just equipped when the storm swept on to us, the hail rattling on my turbulent shoulders with a crackling like pistol-fire, and soon the ice lay in drifts on the slippery bridge. When we got under the lee of the shore, an uncanny stillness prevailed as the ship shouldered her way through the heavy sea. A sky of dark slate hung over the grey-green water. Dover cliffs were pearl-coloured with dim pencilings, crested by an undulating ribbon of green downs. And Dover town, pearl-coloured also, sat enthroned behind her rampart-like harbour, from which two cream-hued funnels showed. Only the foam pattern that slipped over the heave of the waves beside us was white. Dead startling white. And through the holes in it I saw the bubbles of the drowned surf, driving down in pale-green wreaths through the deeper green of the water. The distant muttering broke the silence. Then came flash after flash a brilliant rose-coloured lightning. Gradually it spread all round the sky till we were girdled by quivering light, pure essence of rose-colour, zig-zags of it that flared out like wounds in the sky and lambent sheets of it. With every flash a deep pink glow was reflected on our shining decks and derricks, on the brasswork, on our oil-skins and our wet faces, till the ship seemed to fire from bowels to stern. It was not only the colour effect of grey, pearl and green, with the one note of deep cream and the rose-light over all. That was so exquisite. But every curve was perfect. Ripple of the downs, intricate pattern of the foam, pure lines of rigging towering against the sky, converging curves of the ship and long supple swell of the waves, with the sweep of the horizon binding all. It blended in one absolutely satisfying scheme of line. I pressed my cheek against a cold stanchion, nearly crying with joy. Harry slipped an arm round me, and his wet hand felt for mine, up the capacious sleeve of the captain's oilies. We were disturbed by a seaman coming to hang out the red portlight. The copper lantern was run up the formast, and over the lighted binnacle the boson stared out, the footlight effect softening his broad face but making his nose a blot of shadow. Through the deepening dusk the lights twinkled, and I tried to remember which hesitating at first, then with more confidence as the captain paused in his tramping to confirm me. That's Greenay over to Starbird, and that far one we can just see is Sandetti Light Vessel. And that's the South Goodwins. On a clear night when one can see them all, the Goodwins and Reutingen, there is thick as stars. Oh, Harry, it makes me memory sick. The dozens of times father and I crossed the channel together. Viv, you know I'm not a poor man. I love the old place in Devon, but we'd travel as much as you wished. The coast of France, like a cloud on the horizon, had stirred the wanderlust, and I suddenly nestled my head against Harry's shoulder. Of course I would say yes. It was on my tongue. When the notes of a pipe, plaintive now, and sad, rose up in the darkness, I stood erect, startled. Dear, it's only someone playing a whistle. Put your little round head down again. Viv, say yes. Think of the years I've waited. Sweetheart, think of all the years. Only someone playing a whistle. It was more than that. It was a vagabond calling to his like. It was the summons to fare forth again, and work and laugh and take life as it came. Pleading wet and cold, indeed by then the spray was drenching the bridge. I descended to the deck and went to lie down in my bunk for a rest. As I lay there the storm increased, and I felt the ship stagger and shudder at the edge of precipices, down which she shot as though she could never write herself again. And showers of spray were hurled against my port, and fell pattering on the strip of deck. A fog is the only thing which makes me nervous at sea. So I wedged myself in with pillows and presently fell asleep. It must have been half an hour or so later that I was awakened by something I can never adequately describe. Which was the more noticeable? The noise as of thunder crashing in the hold? Or the sensation of my bunk standing up on end and flinging me out? I don't know. Sound and sensation united in one stupendous effect that for a few moments bereft me of thought. Then the first feeling that flashed into my mind was one of fulfilled expectation. This is a collision, and I am in it, I thought. I've always heard one is awakened by a crash. CHAPTER IV In darkness, oil lamps and candles were the only means of lighting on board the chuff. I tried vainly to get my bearings. The floor was tilted at an oddly impossible angle, and my groping hand touched strange shapes dislodged from their usual places. I was like a person who, suddenly awaking in the night, has lost all sense of direction for a moment, and wonders which way on the window is in relation to the bed. Miss Lovell cried the voice of Nan Vero as he shook the handle of my door. Undo the bolt. It isn't bolted, I called back. Then the doors jammed. Don't be frightened, Miss. We'll soon stove it in. All right, I replied, experiencing what I had read of in books as a strange sinking sensation. I felt, too. One communicated to me through the cabin floor. The other taking place round my solar plexus out of sympathy. Hello! said a gentle voice close to my ear. My eyes had grown accustomed to the dark, and against the paler circle of the porthole I saw the blackness of a head and shoulders. The long neck and direct tuft of hair were unmistakable. It was my piper. Our steering gear went bust, he explained. And while we were stopped to repair it, in this blinding squall a brig ran into us. Our bowels had crashed through her old wooden sides with the force of her own impetus. Do you think you can insinuate yourself through this porthole? If I can get there, I replied, freezing up at the strangely tilted port that hung over me like a full moon. Please try, at once. Catch hold of my hand. As I was swinging myself up, the bows in a nan vero, shouting to me to stand clear, drove in my door. I hung on to the piper's hand for a moment, and there occurred one of those curious flashes when time to stand still, and the fraction of a second is intensified into a conscious period. The pale sphere with the piper's head hallowed in it. His face only a few inches from mine. The feeling of tense muscles, the oneness for that moment of our two selves, seemed the only solid facts in a reeling world. Then I dropped back on to the cabin floor, and nan vero was fastening a life-belt round me. With the aid of the piper, who was amazingly strong in spite of his read-like look, and of a rope the sailors had stretched from the taff-rail to the head of the companion ladder, I made my way along the drenched deck. At the door of the captain's cabin I came on Harry, who was clinging to the door-post, his heads waved in a clumsy bandage. Viv, thank heaven, he said. I got thrown down and knocked silly. Just my luck not to be able to come and see after you. Are you all right? Perfectly, thank you. Mr. Piper has been most helpful. But your poor head. Does it hurt? Not now. You'd better come in here. No, I'm going to see what's happening. You lie down again, leaving Harry looking irresolute. We struggled on to the focus of all the disorder, where a great shape loomed up in the darkness. The ships, quivering and close locked, seemed like two vast animals of the deep struggling in mortal combat. Are we going to reverse our engines? I asked the piper. No, the skipper says he can't. The damage is too serious. We're keeping locked by going slowly ahead while the boats are got out. Don't be frightened. We shall have heaps of time to take to them before the ships break apart. There was no room in the night for fear. There was so much noise and energy. I heard the captain calling orders from his host by the telegraph. I heard the shouts of men, and suddenly mingled with them the thin frantic cries of a woman. Looking up I saw, leaning over the rail of the brig, a woman with a bundle in her arms. Then the deck seemed to draw together beneath our feet. The brig lurched violently, and the woman screamed again. We shall go down. We're sinking, she cried, here. And she dropped the bundle straight down into my arms. I only just had time to hold them out. The piper swept me backwards and began to help me towards the main deck again. But I had just seemed to hear the woman call out something of which the only word I distinguished was John. I clasped the bundle firmly between my chin and the top of my life-belt. And the piper and I at last attained the captain's cabin, where we found Harry in the berth and a state of collapse. I laid the bundle on the table and began to unwrap the shawl, disclosing in the light from a match what I shall always maintain to be the most wonderful infant in the world. For he was sleeping peacefully, a rubber comforter between his contented lips and an expression of unaffected blandness on his brow. Such a child could not be born to be drowned. Such powers of aloofness and concentration were not made for nothing. We sent up a shower of rockets, and the cabin was filled with a sudden glare. The baby opened his eyes and, as darkness fell again, gave a little whimper. I picked him up and began to soothe him, and the whimpering faded away. And in spite of being cold and wet and in danger of drowning, as I pressed the little body closer, the most exquisite feeling I had ever known, tingled through me. In the darkness the tiny fingers closed over mine, and I laid my lips to the downy head. Are you there, Miss? Asked the voice of Nanvero. Cabin thinks it'd be best to take to the boats. There's no cause or alarm, Miss. Alarm, when with that small, warm thing entirely dependent on me, I felt like a god. Nanvero was carrying a lantern, which he now turned on to the cabin. I shall never forget his face when he caught sight of the baby. Oh, my dear life! Where did you get that to? he gasped. A woman on the other ship dropped him into my arms. I think his name is John. Dear Lord! ejaculated Mr. Nanvero. She said they would sink. Oh, do you think they will? Not they, Miss. We're control of the rudder. Declared the shameless steward. Put on this coat of the cabins, Miss. I paid no heed to this truly masculine injunction, but wrapped little John up again in his shawl, and rolled the coat round him so that it stood stiffly up like a fence over his head, admitting air, but screening him from wind and wet. Then I shook Harry by the arm. Hold yourself together, Harry, I said. We're taking to the boats. I'll get him along, Miss. You go with the young man, said the mate, appearing in the doorway. If there's one thing I dislike more than another, it's the misplaced heroism that insists on dislocating official machinery. So, though unwillingly, I obediently let myself be borne along to where a boat had been lowered from the davits. They were perilously close to the water, as the two ships had by now broken adrift, and already the sea foamed over our buckled bowels as we settled slowly by the head. The gift of the gods and I were lowered into the boat. The couple of seamen in her having hard work to prevent her being dashed against the side. Harry, still dazed by the blow on the head, was placed in the stern sheets beside me. Then the Piper and Nandvarro came over the side, followed by the mate who took command. How we lifted on the water. One was never at the same poise for two breaths together. And the acute angle of the chuff, which was rapidly foundering, added to the sense that it received a blow which must have sent it reeling sideways. As we were pulled away a second boat was lowered, and the remaining members of the crew, the captain last, swung themselves into her, and began to draw away from the vortex. There is something appalling about watching a ship go down. It is like seeing a human being die a violent death. As we lifted on to the crest of a big hole, and through the darkness I saw the chuff struggling in the hollow of the sea, I felt as though I were guilty of indecency in watching. And I turned away my eyes as one does from anyone who is overcome by violent emotion. When I uncovered my eyes and looked fearfully round, she was gone. If one must be shipwrecked, it is as well that it should be in a waterway as crowded as the Straits of Dover. We were rescued after only half an hour's acute discomfort by a cargo boat from Spain called the Solfarino. And we were given hot drinks, dry if oddly shaped garments, and cozy bunks. The gift of the gods, whom in default of any other name, I called Little John, came through the ordeal triumphantly, and I procured warm milk and water for him, and changed his clothes for swathings of soft flannel obtained from the medicine chest. Clad in a clean, though exceedingly stony-hearted shirt and a blue jersey, I fell asleep, lying very still and quiet on my back. For cradled in the curve of my arm, round head against my shoulder, and one pink-fist-flung palm upwards beside it lay the gift of the gods, I was already so used to thinking of him as Little John, that I continued to do so in my dreams. But as a matter of fact I had discovered that my ear could not have caught the mother's cry a little before. He was a girl. Chapter 5 The Last of Harry Little John was a somewhat exacting companion at night, and the result of many awakenings, during which I distractedly attempted to soothe her, resulted in my sleeping far into the morning, when I found we were lying anchored at Graves End. After I had barged and fed her, and re-attired myself in my own garments, curiously stiffened by the salt-water, I betook both of us on deck. There I found Harry, himself again safe for a crop of bruises, from which indeed we all suffered accepting Little John. Both our own skipper and the chief of the Salferino were ashore, caught up in the whorl of telegrams that follows such an adventure as ours. But our own mate, Mr. Simpson, who was lolling at the rail, gloomily informed me that the Salferino had to take a load of cement on board, which would keep us in a haze of cement dust till past noon. Harry and I went astern, and leaning over the taff rail, gazed at Tilbury Docks, where the black funnels of the P&O, the cream of an Orient and the strawberry red of an Atlantic transport, showed from behind the low green strip of land, each liner with her great bunches of derricks, up hove like helpless outstuck fingers. The storm was over, and a brown-gray blight seemed to hold the world. Brown-gray mudflats across one of them a trench where brown-gray little men, like nightmare insects, worked in the slime. A forest of tall chimneys with plumes of smoke, varying from black to yellow, trailing across a pallid sky, grey-green river where brown mud-clouds floated beneath the surface like gigantic sponges. Overall a haze of cement dust that puffed like smoke from every sack sent hurtling down the yellow wooden chutes into the holes of a couple of schooners moored nearby. Harry, it's Providence, I said. You can go ashore here, and I'll go to Barbara's with little John. And she need never know about you at all. You haven't given me my answer yet, Viv. Yesterday, before everything happened, I could have sworn you meant yes. But this morning. Harry, you know I've always told you I wasn't in love with you. Yes, you always played the straight game with me, Viv. Well it wouldn't be playing the game if I were to marry you. I've tried to think it would, but it's no good. It would be taking all and giving nothing. My nearly saying yes was the result of tiredness and depression and rank cowardice. You'd be giving me yourself, which is all I want. What about love, Harry? That would come. I'd make you so happy you'd have to love me. It's an odd thing, said I, half laughing through my tears, that a man is always so confident he can make a woman love him and make her happy. And they're the two most difficult tasks in the world. Viv, can't you realize what it is to me to know you're on the stream? You haven't a farthing, and you won't use me in any way. And now all your worldly goods are lying at the bottom of the channel. Viv, let me help you. I can't, Harry. And I've raked up some pluck again. And a job of sorts will follow. And I shall be with Barbara while I look round. So don't have the alone in London idea. Besides, I'm not alone. I have Little John. Harry groaned. To saddle yourself with a baby. It only needed that. I hope to heaven his fool of a mother will claim him. He's a she, after all, I said. But I hope she will, for her sake. When I woke and saw Little John's pink face near mine and thought she might be where she could never hold it to hers again. Oh, Harry! I felt awful for her. And Nan Varro told me when he called me that there's news of a sailing ship ashore near Margate. We've set all the telegraph wires hopping with messages to find out. And if it's the worst, well, as far as I'm concerned, it's not a bad bargain to lose a box of old clothes and find a real live baby. So you needn't worry anyway. And besides, people are always nice to me. Viv, dear, you're far too pretty to knock about alone. Poof! Me pretty with my farthing face? You look such a child, Viv. It's your way of wearing your hair in those flat things round your head. And your big gray eyes and little throat. It was your throat I first fell in love with Viv when I met you and your father in that weird place in Sicily. My throat was very unromantically sore when I had flew. And I've never found my big eyes in my way, you know. Viv, make it yes. Harry, I'm awfully sorry. And I hate to say it. But it must be no. He was silent for a minute. And I looked at Tilbury through a watery film. The different hued funnels mixed up together like colored candles melting. Then Harry said, I'll clear off, Viv, right to me from the Vining Woman's. Promise? Yes, I promise. Brr! The cement dust. It'll get in little John's eyes. I'll go to my cabin. At my door I laid the gift of the gods in the bunk and held out both hands. And Harry drew me towards him. Viv, won't you let me? You never have. I've never let anyone. Oh, Harry, I'm a mean ungenerous pig. But I can't. All right. I didn't mean to bother you. And you're not a pig. But, Viv, if ever you change your mind, if you ever feel you could bear to—to—you'll promise to let me know. I shan't have changed, you know. Dear Harry, the last man who said that to me has just married a widow with two grown-up daughters. But I mean it. I swear I do. I'll promise if it'll please you. But I shan't change my mind, Harry. I don't know quite what brought me so near it. But I know that nothing will again. Oh, Harry, I'm so sorry. There's nothing for you to be sorry about, Viv. I've had this much of you anyway. And you've been as divinely tender and friendly as only you can be. Goodbye. Goodbye, Harry. It was all I could manage. And when he was being rode ashore, looking very forlorn and big in the stern of the little boat, I lay in my bunk beside little John and cried till my nose went pink. I knew that what I had told Harry was true. The mood of utter weakness had brought me so near to the edge of the precipice that the one look over would prevent me ever drifting so close again. And short as was the time little John had been with me, she had affected a great deal. For I knew it was not so much the influence of the chuff. That, too, had been strong. Not even so much the stirring sense of adventure reawakened by the shipwreck, which had kept me from saying yes to Harry as the influence of little John. When I held her to me I knew, beyond the possibility of doubt, that never to Harry would I give a little John of my own. The not impossible he, if he existed at all, was still in the future. And if he did not, there are always little John's dreams. As I sat by the sleeping baby and thought of all this, the many little lures of shipboard began to prick my abstraction, the clanking of chains, the cheery whistling of the sailors, the many indescribable sounds of ship life, putting on my battered old leather sombrero to hide the havoc the tears had wrought. I gave myself a shake, mental and physical, and went on deck. And from each sack of cement that career down into the hold came a cloud of white dust, and glad that little John slumbered in her bunk, I went and sat up in the stern. There was plenty to watch on board and off, Pompas' little tugs, low-lying barges, weary and worn-looking iron merchant men, and odoriferous little refuse steamers, derisively dubbed beef-tea boats, or cemetery boats by the sailors. All these kept me interested and amused. Presently a tug flying the blue and white mission flag came alongside of us, and gazing down into it I saw a fat little cleric and an attendant sailor getting out a rope ladder. On catching sight of me the little cleric took off his hat, remarking to his helpmate, some ladies' papers if you please, James, those madams and the English church woman. I looked wildly round for help and made the terrifying discovery that the ship was seemingly deserted. The cement loading had just finished, and the men had apparently packed themselves into the hold with the sacks. The solferino might have been a ship of the dead. Just as I was invading against the cowardice of the other sacks, the mate of the chuff appeared to my rescue, and at the same moment the little cleric, by a superhuman effort, maneuvered his leg over the rail. He advanced nervously towards Mr. Simpson. Is the captain aboard, he asked? Captain's ashore, sows the mate, quote Mr. Simpson. I'm the mate a much tidier ship than this, but she's lying in another harbour. The little cleric advanced on the reluctant son of Simp and wrung his hand. And how are you, my friend, he asked. The mate drew up his grubby little person before replying, with an effable solemnity. And some in-person, sir, though poor in pocket. The sky-pilot laughed the laugh of propitiation, and on hearing that we came from Cornwall ventured a remark to the effect that all Cornishmen were fine men. As to the men, said Mr. Simpson, still speaking in a company drawl, them nothing out of the way. Men's men, but our Cornishwomen, them the rarest in the world. Good-looking are they? asked the sky-pilot. Can you need to ask me that? demanded the mate reproachfully, with a lofty wave of the hand towards me. When you can set eyes on the young lady there, the poor little cleric blushed nervously and began something to the effect that, of course, if the young lady were the standard of beauty, it certainly was very high. When I took pity on him and strolled away to the folk-soul, where I commandeered the boson and the chief engineer and made them come and talk to the gratified sky-pilot, he was a well-meaning, guileous soul, and the men treated him respectfully. But the shyness on both sides was embarrassing, and we were all glad when the mission-tug panted off on another errand and left us to the illustrated papers. And I may mention in passing that Madame was read with great interest before the mast, especially the advertisements. We were now waiting for the pilot who was to see us up London River, and I went into the folk-soul-head and sat on the capstan engine till two seamen came to wind in the anchor. And then I watched the second engineer oil the slewing gear of the crane, which he said was chirping like a bloomin' canary-bird. Or like my whistle. Didn't you like it that you hidden yourself these two days? I wheeled round to see the piper standing behind me, a haggard boy he looked by daylight, unmistakably a gentleman, through all his shabbiness. Evidently he had not detected that it was I who coaxed my little Nanvaro into giving him regular meals, only charging me the actual cost of them. I smiled at him in my relief, and then saw he was brandishing a telegram. Man is an egotistical creature, he said. I want congratulations. You have mine. Is it permitted to ask what on? Oh, I don't suppose you'll call it much. But I happen to be on my uppers. I'm a strolling player, and lately it's been nothing but strolling. This is from an old boss of mine, Haggett, who runs a travelling theatre. And he offers me Gentleman Lead, which means I may be called upon to play Hamlet one night, Charles Peace the next, and what's his name in The Murder in the Red Barn the night after. But the prospect of anything to do at all excites me. I do congratulate you, I said. I only wish I could have a stroke of luck like it. You, what on earth do you mean? Taking two sixpences out of my purse, I shook it upside down. That's what I mean. These will tip Nanvaro, and then I'm cleared out. Good heavens, who would have guessed it? His good-looking boyish face was very grave. Have you anywhere to go when you get to town? I told him about Barbara, and he nodded. Then, look here, he said, if you can't get anything else to do. Would you like me to tackle Haggett? It's a beastly life, going round in caravans. And it's no place for you. But when one hasn't a Sue, I know what that means. And Mrs. Haggett's careful of the girls. Do you think I should be good enough? Of course I've often acted, but only in amateur things. Heavens, you should see Haggett's damsels. Not an H to their names, raw red hands, and wastes up under their armpits. It will be very kind of you. If I can't get anything else, I shall be very glad. It would keep me going for some time anyway. That settled then, he cried gaily. Shall we swear eternal friendship? Certainly. For how long? Oh, till policeman Providence moves us on in opposite directions. We will swear by my whistle. My name's Vivian Lovell. And mine's Peter Wimparis. Peter Tracillian Wimparis. Humorous of it really to be Peter, isn't it? It sounds too perfect to be possible. Does the Tracillian mean you're a carnishman? I'm carnish, of course. So am I, on my mother's side, which I hold to be the more important. See, there's the pilot coming, and up goes the red and white pilot flag. The pilot, a crimson-faced pompous individual, was rode alongside and a ladder flung out. Mr. Simpson lent against the bulwarks, with his hands in his pockets, and watched the proceedings cynically. Never mind helping the pilot lads, he observed, pipe in mouth, to the men steadying the boat. He can swim aboard, he can. You learn to keep a civil tongue in your head, my man, snapped the pilot, growing redder than ever. Now we're properly introduced. We can watch the world go by together, as we go up the river, said I to my piper. Come up on the bridge with me. The captain won't mind a bit. He's a great friend of mine. We were rather a crowd on the bridge, what with the man at the wheel, the pilot, the captain, and ourselves. But except for the superior heirs of the pilot, we were all very friendly disposed. When the pilot wrapped out his orders, the solferino's captain, who was a thin, dark, sardonic-looking individual, would repeat them with an exquisite mimicry of tone. Winking the while at me. These are Don a trifle, snapped the pilot. These are Don a trifle, right, sir, repeated the captain, working the telegraph obediently. Past the factories and wharves and the serried ranks of gaunt black coal cranes, past the outward bound ships, some with red-turban blue-clad laskers standing on their decks, past the old world river ports, with little Georgian houses going down into the water, past all the starkness and bustle and magic of the pageant of London River we went, and the piper and I laughed and argued as though we had not a care in the world. Once he looked at me with a whimsical flaunt of his tawny brows, saying, It's good to be young, isn't it? Lord, how out of it other people are. How old are you? 23. And you, Mademoiselle Sansouci? 21. Which means I'm ten years older than you, because I'm a girl. Look, do you see that lettering? Old rat wharf. I'm longing to see Barbara again, if she asks if there were a stewardess on board. I shall say, oh, a charming person called Nan Vero. But I don't see Barbara. And I craned over the rail, gazing anxiously at the wharf. Barbers inordinately tall figure and shock of yellow hair were certainly not gracing either the wharf or the narrow lane leading away from it. I collected my things while the captain and pilot were going through the customary courtesies of whiskey's soda in the saloon. And then all those of the chuff company, who had come so far in the Salfarino, assembled at the Cape Lank to see me off. They were dear creatures. All of them Cornishmen, except one of the Stokers, a mere lad known as Irish Jack. And they all had one thing in common, a thing which experience has told me is inherent in their sex. Not a man on the ship, but had told me of his personal affairs. I had heard of the illness of the captain's wife and the cleverness of his daughter, of the mate's courtship, of Irish Jack's girl who had consumption, and of many other things beside, which all tended to foster in me that profound and true piece of feminine philosophy. Men are a kittle cattle. There was no news of any claimant to Little John. So I took matters into my own hands, and leaving my name and Barber's address with the captain. I was rowed ashore. Peter opposite me, and Little John, now my sole possession, on my lap. I expect Barber's besieging loids, I suggested. I expect so, said the Piper. But I don't like to leave you till I know. So we'll go and look her up together. That is, if you don't mind. We walked through the minarees and then took a motor-bus to Chelsea, the Piper having a shilling concealed about his person. My heart beat with apprehension as we mounted the stone stairs to Barber's flat in Beaufort Street, and I pressed the bell with a tremulous finger. After ringing many times I went in search of the hall-porter, and learned from him that Miss Vining was abroad, doing a rest-cure, and that her letters were not being forwarded. I thanked the man, and the Piper and I walked on to the embankment in silence. Into the gardens he took me, and we sat down on a bench, and I gazed blankly at Carlisle's unresponsive back. The high hopes to which the sea-life had strung me were rudely broken. Was it for this I had refused Harry? I asked myself the question sternly, but merely because I felt it the right and practical thing to ask. As a plain matter of truth I was very little cast down. Not for nothing does the wanderlust grip one, and the light-hearted philosophy of salt-water is born of something too deep to be easily mastered. My mind was a blank for the time being, but it was quite a bright little blank. Miss Lovell said the Piper. Yes. I have nothing in the ring or watch-line left. Have you? I held out my little gold half-hunter. I have this. It was a present from Father. Do you mind pawning it? His voice was very gentle. You can soon get it back, you know. I only wish there were anything of mine. But all that went long ago. And I haven't enough money left to take us to Haggit's, I'm afraid. He's out of Spridge Way, you know. And anyway you'll want a little to go on with. If you don't mind doing that, then we'll go to Haggit's together. He'll be just hopping mad to have you as soon as he sees you. I shall done both of you for a commission. Peter Piper, it's most awfully kind. But how can I be such a bother to you? And if one looks at it as a man of the world, little John makes another mouth to feed. Oh, if that's all. Will you come on this adventure with me, Princess? I'm a shabby knight, but to paraphrase the poet. A poor thing, but your own. Yes, I'll come. Peter Wimpers took off his hat, and we shook hands solemnly. Then we bowed to Carlisle, and together passed out of the garden, and set off on our pilgrimage to the pawn-shop. CHAPTER VII Late in the evening we arrived at Uxbridge, having careered there on the top of a screaming tram. And a few minutes' walk took us to the big, disused timber-yard, where the theatre, a great barn of an affair, made of what in my youth I had called congregated iron, with the imperial painted in big white letters across it, had been set up. Behind lay what had once been a field, and here several caravans, their shafts, prone and empty, stood about in the evening light. So much I saw almost without realizing it, for I was tired out by now, and little John seemed to grow heavier and heavier upon my arms. I sat down on the lowest plank of a pile of rotting timber, and leaning my head back, shut my eyes. Mr. Wimperous said I, with the firmness of despair, you must arrange everything. If they'll have me they will, and if they won't they won't, and anyway I can't walk or talk any more. And I hunched the long-suffering little John up against me, and stayed still. In a few moments more I was asleep. When the piper came back, attended by an enormously fat elderly woman, and a dark, lean young one, to wake me up, I was past taking an interest in anything beyond seeing little John fed and put to bed, and following her there myself. I was vaguely conscious of a queer, twisted little person who was neither like a boy nor a girl, but more in the nature of some changeling creature, who appeared from nowhere, and, taking little John from me, tended her with amazing deafness. And then I climbed into a high bunk in one of the caravans, and knew nothing more, till I awoke some time next morning, feeling rather stiff and very hungry. For a few moments I lay still, staring out of the open caravan door at the timber and a ragged thorn-tree against it, at one corner of the tin barn all bathed in the bright light made of the oblong opening of the doorway by the comparative darkness of the caravan's interior. I was quite alone, but from without came a low hissing sound, like that made by grooms when they are rubbing down horses. I slipped out of my bunk and saw I was wearing a coarse striped flannelette nightgown, so putting my own coat on over it I peeped out. Seated on the bottom step of the caravan was the changeling creature I dimly remembered from the night before. So dimly that had I never seen it again I should have thought the whole thing a dream. Apparently it was a girl, as two pallid and scrawny plaques, stiff as tiny wands, stuck out from her head, which was bent low over little John, who lay placid and happy across the strange nurse's lap. The changeling was supporting little John with one hand under her shoulders, while with a sad-looking little brush she smoothed the infant's downy locks that were more like fur than hair. The hissing noise proceeded from the lips of the changeling, who I afterwards learned acted as groom to the caravan horses, a position she combined with that of contortionist, in which role she appeared in the knockabouts after the plays. When she heard me behind her she started up nervously, and turning raised two mild and prominent blue eyes, and for a moment I stood looking down into them. Good morning, said I, smiling and nodding at her. She stood still a moment as though mistrustful, then an uncertain smile plucked at her little wedge-shaped face. Good morning she answered in a thick voice as though her tongue were too big for her mouth, as indeed it was. I sat down on the top step and beckoned her to give me little John, whose attire I examined, finding it had been put on with good intentions but what seemed misplaced ingenuity. The changeling's eyes followed all the movements of my fingers intently. She was plainly of an anxiously good heart, yet I had to be firm with myself or I could not have borne her presence. For that she was queer, there was no denying, and even physical deformity does not make me feel as sick as mental deformity. Of course we are all mentally wanting, that is a different thing. My brain has more blind alleys than most peoples. If I am asked if I am mathematical I reply that I can't add two and two, and am then crushed by the bewildering remark that mathematics have nothing to do with arithmetic. But the changeling was incapable of any mental outlook at all, and I had still to learn how far more important is an instinctive and clear spiritual outlook. Yet I caught a glimpse of something as I finished with little John's garments. For she glanced up at me again, this time with a gleaming smile, and I felt a queer liking in the midst of my repulsion. I never quite fathomed her position at Haggitz, nor who she really was, beyond the fact that everyone treated her with a half-kindly half-calice tolerance, expecting her to do most of the dirty work and to get nothing for it beyond her living, and an occasional penny or so as a treat. This last when Mr. Haggitz was in a generous mood. However slow her brain, her body was the most marvelously nimble I have ever seen. She might have been advertised as a boneless wonder. But as was generally the case with good material at Haggitz, her performances were thought nothing of. And, of course, she was only useful in the short variety shows that were sometimes turned on after the peace of the evening had been played. She was certainly half-witted, but I think even more it was that her wits were not quite in focus with the accepted points of view of more worldly wits. I know I never worried over little John when Emily, as the changeling was called, had her in charge, even when the clouded wits were more out of focus than usual. Sometimes for days together the girl would be as good a companion as a little dog, and very like one. Docile, affectionate, eager. Sometimes the curious withdrawn fit was on her, and though she kept by little John as usual, it was silently, with her knees drawn up to her chin and her milky blue eyes half-closed. The oddest thing I ever saw her do. She did one Saturday morning when a new penny had fallen her way. I was in the post office when she came in, penny in hand, and pushed it across to the girl behind the counter. Penny's stamp she muttered in her thickest voice. When it was given to her she took it up, licked it, stuck it carefully onto the counter, and walked out. There was something inexpressibly ludicrous about the action. And startled as I was, I had to laugh. My shrinking from the poor changeling was a thing of the past by then. And she, on her side, must, so Peter affirmed, have found some oddly focused point of view in me kindred to her own. For she lavished on me a devotion I was only too conscious, remembering how I had avoided her in disgust, of not deserving. On this first morning at Haggots I was glad to escape her by taking little John into the caravan and shutting the door, while I made my toilette with much labour and a little cold water. When I again emerged Peter was crouching on the ground outside, frying some bacon over an oil-stove. Hello, there you are, he said. This is for your breakfast. Do you like it crisp or sobbled? Crisp, please. How kind of you, though. Well? Well it's all settled, that is, if you agree. Do you like your bread fair-complected or brunette? I have both kinds here. Whichever's crustiest. Do you know who sped little John, and with what? I saw Emily, the half-witted kid, dandling her. Is that the right word? Dandling her in front of Ginny, your vanmate, who, with a bad grace but, to my ignorant eye, much savoire fair, was inducing her to imbibe milk out of a real baby's bottle. Ginny is our brunette, and plays tragedy in consequence. Our blonde, who is fat, forty, and ferrer than nature made her, does the other thing. And I, who am neither one nor the other, but plain mouse as to the hare, and straight at that, what shall I play, do you suppose? Lead, I expect, when the Haggots have had a good look at you, in which case you must prepare for ructions in the camp. I sat cross-legged, eating bread and bacon hungrily, and drinking a dark fluid which the Piper assured me was coffee, and which had the merit of being hot, and he rambled discursively on. You'd better come and get your interview with Pa and Ma over as soon as you finished breakfast, he advised. I've told them all the main facts, I think. They'd seen about the wreck in the papers, and the advertisement about Little John, description and all. I think Mrs. H. wouldn't be sorry if the fond mother appeared to claim her offspring. But with many sniffs she says she doesn't think it likely. Now if you feel braced to meet the world, come along. I went along, accordingly, to the smartest looking of the caravans, which boasted new red paint and much gilding, and there I found Mr. and Mrs. Haggot awaiting me. As far as externals went, Mrs. Haggot was a circular lady, upholstered in black alpaca. She had a complicated system of chins, of which the little top one seemed to button the others down. Her husband was a wide jowled man with bloodshot eyes and pendulous cheeks. A ponderous bully of a man, with a deceptive stilidity of speech. As I grew to know the couple better, I came to the conclusion that never were two people more admirably suited to each other. Cold, calculating, relentless, and as unimpressible as iron. It was true what Peter had told me that Mrs. Haggot looked after the girls. But it was for the sake of business. It would not have paid the Haggots for their company to get drunk or gad about. And a strict, though unaustentatious watch was kept. Mrs. Haggot had a violent temper, but her husband could master her and did. Coldly, heavily, as he did everything. I have known times when the ruffs at the back of the halls started cat-calling. And Haggot just came to the footlights his bushy brows bristling with a passion that had a curious quality of ice in it. Not another sound to you at the back. He would roar, menacing with his fist, for I'll come round and fight the first man who opens his mouth. And so he would have, and they knew it, and were silenced. On this my first interview with him. He was eminently business-like, as was his wife. And I was formally enrolled as a member of the company. I was told I must present myself for rehearsal that afternoon, and be prepared to play a part that night. And on this I was dismissed to make the acquaintance of my fellow mummers if I felt inclined. I discovered that they consisted of the blonde, an overblown woman with a face too dark for her hair, and her husband, Augustus Devere, the tragedy-lead, who both lived in rooms, of ginny, a handsome haggard creature with a wild eye, a burnt mirrored, who shared the third caravan with feeder, and had been a draper's assistant, and of a few colorless supers who never seemed to laugh. Those of us who lived in rooms were paid a pound a week for the women, and one pound ten for the men, while married couples attained thirty-five shillings between them. We caravanners only had fifteen shillings each. And how we worked. A different play each night, and some fancy turns, as well. It is true we all forgot our parts occasionally, and were prompted in a husky whisper by Mrs. Haggett from her pay desk halfway down the theatre. Haggett mirrored a tall hectic creature, with a profile like a biscuit that has had bites taken out of it, fancied himself greatly as an actor. We used to call him the Elocutionist. His idea of delivery was to add E.R. onto all his words. He played the temperance reformer to my chervais in a garbled translation of Zola's Lassomar. And just as I was raising the glass of wine to my lips he would appear in the wings, finger upraised, and say solemnly, chervaiser, doer, noter, drinker, batter. As Charles Peace, most transparently disguised in the midst of detectives, he was a gem. Ha-ha! he would confide to the audience, while the minions of the law tried to look as though they didn't hear. They little knower that our Charlie Peaser is here. He was rather a trial on the whole, for his morbidly active literary sense was forever plunging him into situations from which we had to rescue him. And it was somewhat of a satisfaction to see him hanged in Maria Martin or the murder in the Red Barn. By an ingenious contrivance his face would go purple and his tongue lull out to the wild delight of the audience. Amongst all the people who went to make up Haggott's Imperial Traveling Theatre there were only three people for whom it was possible for me to feel affection. Little John, the changeling, and Peter Wimparas, and of those three only with the last was any real companionship possible. On looking back it seems wonderful to me that I stayed there as long as I did. But after that first performance, when I had, on one rehearsal to play Trilby, wearing salmon-pink silk stockings, the nearest approach to bare feet, the delicate susceptibilities of the Haggott's permitted, it all seemed to me rather fun. And I said good night to Peter gaily enough at my caravan steps. It's entirely owing to you that Little John and I are able to be earning our livings at the present moment, I said gratefully. If it weren't for you we should be sleeping on the embankment. You are good, Peter Piper. I feel you're quite an uncle to Little John. And what is your position as regards that interesting infant? asked Peter. I'm apparent to her. Um! said Peter. What relation does that make you to me? I laughed and pulled the caravan door towards me. But opened it again to stick out my head and say, simperingly, Oh, Mr. Wimperous, let me, let me be a sister to you. Oh, Miss Lovell, whispered Peter, with an answering simper, through the darkness, this—this is so sudden. CHAPTER VIII. Some talk and a new toy. With June we moved further in towards London and encamped on a piece of wasteland on the outskirts of Hanwell. A locality that afforded Peter Wimperous a grim amusement. Peter's humour had been growing rather bitter of late, especially since we had left the comparatively contrified Uxbridge. We were great friends, he and I, and on Sunday evenings, when rehearsal was over, he, the changeling Little John and I, used to take the tram to Hillingdon, or all the way to Uxbridge, and then walked right out into the country and tried to pretend we lived there. The big elm tree in front of the church at Hillingdon always seemed to me an epitome of everything English. I know nothing so suggestive of a particular atmosphere as an elm tree. I remember one evening in the Cartier-Latin, two great friends of mine, Joe Nash and Chloe Callender, were both busy cutting wood blocks. I, idly watching the progress of Joe's block from upside down, said, Oh, is that an elm tree you're doing? No, it's a you, replied Joe, hacking away busily. How funny I exclaimed. From upside down it looked so like an elm that I saw a dusty white road. And both Joe and Chloe quite understood what I meant. In spite of the trams that went reeling past the Hillingdon Elm, it yet suggested dusty white roads, specked with crawling wagons and girt by hedge-roaves, and strengthening the impression from behind showed the church. For next to an elm impotency of creating atmosphere is the tower of an English village church. Ordinarily went on these expeditions. We took bread and butter with us and drank, trustingly, from any stray stream, saving for little John, who, of course, came attended by her bottle. But sometimes we were reckless and had tea at the inn. A real country tea, with mustard and crest sandwiches. During our quiet strolls over fields, or when we lay by canal banks and watch the swallows darting over the water, like flashes of blue fire. Peter told me all he knew about himself. While I learned as well a great deal of which he was ignorant. One Sunday evening we lay chins propped on hands at the grassy edge of a canal, a little way off the changeling and little John were bandying in articulate gurglings, while the former twisted some bind-weed into a necklace for the latter, who for her part seemed busily if ineffectively poking a fat soft finger earthwards as though in search of worms. On the still air came the sound of church bells, giving us the luxurious feeling which comes of completely disregarding their appeal. I knew already the outward facts of Peter's life, that he was an orphan, and that he was by way of being a writer. But this evening I began to know the real Peter. Hitherto he had been merely the good comrade. Now I began dimly to perceive that quality in him for which I have never been able to find a name. It was not exactly spirituality. Certainly not the spirituality whose only outlet is religion. The quality, whatever it was, pervaded the whole world for Peter. Where I would placidly accept the externals of a thing, Peter would grasp at its meaning. I think in his way of looking at life he was something of a futurist. Who, he always insisted, had hold of the wrong end of the right stick. Peter shared the particular ambition of most embryo authors he yearned to write a play. He had also every intention of doing so. He was in no hurry about it, but placed it quite tranquilly and surely in the future. And meanwhile he wrote anything and everything by way of practice. He had just finished reading me his latest production, a sketch called Pan in the Suburbs, a delicate whimsical trifle, and I withdrew my vaguely watchful eyes from little John to say, Oh, Peter, I wish you'd write a whole book so that I could illustrate it. And then perhaps we could get it published. So do I. It would be jolly. We will, too. Only Haggots doesn't seem to leave one the time or the energy to do anything that needs sustained effort. I'm always meaning to buy a few paints and do a panel of those lock gates and the way the shadow comes across them in the later afternoon. But I never shall. That's true. I suppose we must wait till we're clear of Haggots. And sometimes I feel I won't mind how soon that is. His tone was very tired as well as gloomy, and I laid my hand over his with a little shake of encouragement. I was very anxious about Peter. Myself, I was well enough, for my constitution of wire and elastic rebounded from anything. But Peter was a person of moods, and lately this mood of utter depression had been the dominant one. Where was my piping fawn now? Gloom-ridden, he seemed, with a haunted look in his eyes and a rather piteous and bitter smile at his mouth. Haggots was no place for a temperament like this, a thing of fine edges and deep-bitten impressions. And in my heart I, too, echoed the wish that he might soon win clear. A little silent spell between us, which Peter was the first to break. Princess, he said, do you know what it is for a black mood to take you by the throat and hold you for days, to poison your food and spoil your sleep and kill the daylight? I get fits of down-in-the- depth-ness, but on the whole I think life's so funny one can't help laughing with it. Oh, my little philosopher of mirth, life's so damnable that the only thing to do is to laugh at it. Our starting points are different, but the effect derived at's the same. Or would be if I could only shake off this fit of the blues. The other day I went down to Hammersmith on business for Haggots. It was that dark day, do you remember? The sky was leaden, without a cloud to break the gray roof of it. The air itself seemed brown and dead. Do you know when a depression that's like a sense of overwhelming disaster is over everything? It was there that day. Ugly, pinched-looking people hurried past me on the pavement. And I wanted to stop them and warn them of something dreadful. Of some awful thing they were going towards that only I knew of. And I didn't know what it was. Was it one of those days on which all the people one meets are uglier than each other? I asked. Because if so, I can sympathize. Sometimes for days together it seems to me the people in the streets and buses and things are so extraordinarily ugly. They're like caricatures of themselves. I think it largely depends on the state of one's own head inside. If one's in a good mood, one sees how even the ugliest people look stunning getting into a bus, for instance, when one is already inside it. They show as a lovely simple tone against the light, and the light itself plays along the edges of them. That's how I feel if I look at things as they appear. But I know if I start out in an idealistic mood, with the thought of a Grecian head, say, in my memory, then I see nothing but how hideous people are, because I only see them as their actual selves, without lighting and character and everything that goes to make appearance. Do you see what I mean? Yes, you mean that when people all look hideous to you, you're only seeing the facts and not the truth. Yes, that's it. Because, after all, truth is how a thing appears, not how a thing is. That's right enough, agreed Peter. But truth depends also on the point of view. An egg, after all, is only a circle, seen from a certain angle. But you see, you've only been talking of the external truths and facts. What gripped at me the other day was the feeling of something ugly behind it all. I felt people were hideous because of a hideous something behind that was working outwards. The footfalls on the pavement were like hammerings on a coffin-lid. The prosaic clang of the motor-bells was the knell of something undefined. Of all that's young and beautiful and hopeful, I think. Peter. Which last is impossible as long as there's you to come back to, they said, with his swift smile. Even that day while I was so afraid that I could hardly sit in the tram, it was certainly too afraid to get out. I thought of coming home to you and being made to think that life wasn't so bad after all. I had to get out of the tram eventually. We all had to. All the fat women and lean, weedy because the road was barricaded to prevent traffic. A big store was burnt out the other day and it was expected to fall at the least shake. Groups of people stood about on the pavement just staring upwards. They didn't speak. The sight of the gaunt walls didn't seem to afford them any satisfaction. And only a numb interest. There they stood, surly men in clumps, occasionally lowering their heads to spit on the road before them. What did it look like? You just saw the tall house-front with its burnt-out windows. Through the lower ones you caught glimpses of crumbled and blackened inner walls. And through the upper, the sky looked wanly, like pale, blind eyes. It was all bleak and bare and unspeakably ruined. But you came back to me and little John, Peter. That dreadful house was nothing to do with your life, really. And talking of little John, she has got something to show her uncle. Emily, just bring baby over here and show her uncle her new toy. The changeling came towards us over the grass, bearing little John, with a queer sawing movement that that remarkable child never seemed to resent. With many grins and gurglings of vast portent, the changeling laid little John across Peter's embarrassed knees and waited. I waited. So did Peter. And little John puckered up her face and opened her mouth to let out a disappointed roar. She thought more of your intelligence, Uncle Peter, I said reproachfully. Can't you see what it is? She's doing her best to show you. Still Peter stared. Then he broke into a yell that outdid little John's, and indeed nipped that infant's attempt in the bud. Little John's astonished mouth remained open just long enough for her uncle to point in surprise and triumph at her first tiny achievement in the way of a tooth.