Fifty-One Tales Read online

  And then it was that I remembered a pin, thrown carelessly downout of an evening-tie in another world to the one where grew thatglittering wall, and lying now if no evil chance had removed it on achest of drawers by my bed. The apes were very close, and hurrying,for they knew my fingers were slipping, and the cruel peaks of thoseinfernal mountains seemed surer of me than the apes. I reached outwith a desperate effort of will towards where the pin lay on the chestof drawers. I groped about. I found it! I ran it into my arm. Saved!

  THE RETURN OF THE EXILES

  The old man with a hammer and the one-eyed man with a spear wereseated by the roadside talking as I came up the hill.

  "It isn't as though they hadn't asked us," the one with the hammer said.

  "There ain't no more than twenty as knows about it," said the other.

  "Twenty's twenty," said the first.

  "After all these years," said the one-eyed man with the spear. "Afterall these years. We might go back just once."

  "O' course we might," said the other.

  Their clothes were old even for laborers, the one with the hammerhad a leather apron full of holes and blackened, and their handslooked like leather. But whatever they were they were English, andthis was pleasant to see after all the motors that had passed me thatday with their burden of mixed and doubtful nationalities.

  When they saw me the one with the hammer touched his greasy cap.

  "Might we make so bold, sir," he said, "as the ask the way toStonehenge?"

  "We never ought to go," mumbled the other plaintively. "There'snot more than twenty as knows, but...."

  I was bicycling there myself to see the place so I pointed out theway and rode on at once, for there was something so utterly servileabout them both that I did not care for their company. They seemedby their wretched mien to have been persecuted or utterly neglectedfor many years, I thought that very likely they had done long termsof penal servitude.

  When I came to Stonehenge I saw a group of about a score of menstanding among the stones. They asked me with some solemnity ifI was expecting anyone, and when I said No they spoke to me nomore. It was three miles back where I left those strange old men,but I had not been in the stone circle long when they appeared,coming with great strides along the road. When they saw them allthe people took off their hats and acted very strangely, and I sawthat they had a goat which they led up then to the old altar stone.And the two old men came up with their hammer and spear andbegan apologizing plaintively for the liberty they had taken in comingback to that place, and all the people knelt on the grass before them.And then still kneeling they killed the goat by the altar, and when thetwo old men saw this they came up with many excuses and eagerlysniffed the blood. And at first this made them happy. But soon theone with the spear began to whimper. "It used to be men," helamented. "It used to be men."

  And the twenty men began looking uneasily at each other, and theplaint of the one-eyed man went on in that tearful voice, and all ofa sudden they all looked at me. I do not know who the two old menwere or what any of them were doing, but there are moments whenit is clearly time to go, and I left them there and then. And just as Igot up on to my bicycle I heard the plaintive voice of the one with thehammer apologizing for the liberty he had taken in coming back toStonehenge.

  "But after all these years," I heard him crying, "After all theseyears...."

  And the one with the spear said: "Yes, after three thousand years...."

  NATURE AND TIME

  Through the streets of Coventry one winter's night strode atriumphant spirit. Behind him stooping, unkempt, utterly ragged,wearing the clothes and look that outcasts have, whining, weeping,reproaching, an ill-used spirit tried to keep pace with him. Continuallyshe plucked him by the sleeve and cried out to him as she pantedafter and he strode resolute on.

  It was a bitter night, yet it did not seem to be the cold that she feared,ill-clad though she was, but the trams and the ugly shops and the glareof the factories, from which she continually winced as she hobbled on,and the pavement hurt her feet.

  He that strode on in front seemed to care for nothing, it might be hotor cold, silent or noisy, pavement or open fields, he merely had theair of striding on.

  And she caught up and clutched him by the elbow. I heard herspeak in her unhappy voice, you scarcely heard it for the noise ofthe traffic.

  "You have forgotten me," she complained to him. "You have forsakenme here."

  She pointed to Coventry with a wide wave of her arm and seemedto indicate other cities beyond. And he gruffly told her to keeppace with him and that he did not forsake her. And she went onwith her pitiful lamentation.

  "My anemones are dead for miles," she said, "all my woods arefallen and still the cities grow. My child Man is unhappy and my otherchildren are dying, and still the cities grow and you have forgotten me!"

  And then he turned angrily on her, almost stopping in that stride ofhis that began when the stars were made.

  "When have I ever forgotten you?" he said, "or when forsaken youever? Did I not throw down Babylon for you? And is not Ninevehgone? Where is Persepolis that troubled you? Where Tarshish andTyre? And you have said I forget you."

  And at this she seemed to take a little comfort. I heard her speakonce more, looking wistfully at her companion. "When will the fieldscome back and the grass for my children?"

  "Soon, soon," he said: then they were silent. And he strode away,she limping along behind him, and all the clocks in the towers chimedas he passed.

  THE SONG OF THE BLACKBIRD

  As the poet passed the thorn-tree the blackbird sang.

  "How ever do you do it?" the poet said, for he knew bird language.

  "It was like this," said the blackbird. "It really was the mostextraordinary thing. I made that song last Spring, it came to meall of a sudden. There was the most beautiful she-blackbird thatthe world has ever seen. Her eyes were blacker than lakes are atnight, her feathers were blacker than the night itself, and nothing wasas yellow as her beak; she could fly much faster than the lightning.She was not an ordinary she-blackbird, there has never been anyother like her at all. I did not dare go near her because she was sowonderful. One day last Spring when it got warm again--it had beencold, we ate berries, things were quite different then, but Spring cameand it got warm--one day I was thinking how wonderful she was andit seemed so extraordinary to think that I should ever have seen her,the only really wonderful she-blackbird in the world, that I openedmy beak to give a shout, and then this song came, and there hadnever been anything like it before, and luckily I remembered it, thevery song that I sang just now. But what is so extraordinary, the mostamazing occurence of that marvellous day, was that no sooner had Isung the song than that very bird, the most wonderful she-blackbirdin the world, flew right up to me and sat quite close to me on the sametree. I never remember such wonderful times as those.

  "Yes, the song came in a moment, and as I was saying...."

  And an old wanderer walking with a stick came by and the blackbirdflew away, and the poet told the old man the blackbird's wonderfulstory.

  "That song new?" said the wanderer. "Not a bit of it. God made ityears ago. All the blackbirds used to sing it when I was young. Itwas new then."

  THE MESSENGERS

  One wandering nigh Parnassus chasing hares heard the high Muses.

  "Take us a message to the Golden Town."

  Thus sang the Muses.

  But the man said: "They do not call to me. Not to such as me speakthe Muses."

  And the Muses called him by name.

  "Take us a message," they said, "to the Golden Town."

  And the man was downcast for he would have chased hares.

  And the Muses called again.

  And when whether in valleys or on high crags of the hills he stillheard the Muses he went at last to them and heard their message,though he would fain have left it to other men and chased the fleethares still in happy valleys.

  And they gave him a wreath of laurels car
ved out of emeralds asonly the Muses can carve. "By this," they said, "they shall know thatyou come from the Muses."

  And the man went from that place and dressed in scarlet silksas befitted one that came from the high Muses. And through thegateway of the Golden Town he ran and cried his message, and hiscloak floated behind him. All silent sat the wise men and the aged,they of the Golden Town; cross-legged they sat before their housesreading from parchments a message of the Muses that they sent longbefore.

  And the young man cried his message from the Muses.

  And they rose up and said: "Thou art not from the Muses. Otherwisespake they." And they stoned him and he died.

  And afterwards they carved his message upon gold; and read it intheir temples on holy days.

  When will the Muses rest? When are they weary? They sentanother messenger to the Golden Town. And they gave him awand of ivory to carry in his hand with all the beautiful stories ofthe world wondrously carved thereon. And only the Muses couldhave carved it. "By this," they said, "they shall know that you comefrom the Muses."

  And he came through the gateway of the Golden Town with themessage he had for its people. And they rose up at once in theGolden street, they rose from reading the message that they hadcarved upon gold. "The last who came," they said, "came with awreath of laurels carved out of emeralds, as only the Muses cancarve. You are not from the Muses." And even as they had stonedthe last so also they stoned him. And afterwards they carved hismessage on gold and laid it up in their temples.

  When will the Muses rest? When are they weary? Even yet onceagain they sent a messenger under the gateway into the GoldenTown. And for all that he wore a garland of gold that the high Musesgave him, a garland of kingcups soft and yellow on his head, yetfashioned of pure gold and by whom but the Muses, yet did theystone him in the Golden Town. But they had the message, and whatcare the Muses?

  And yet they will not rest, for some while since I heard them call to me.

  "Go take our message," they said, "unto the Golden Town."

  But I would not go. And they spake a second time. "Go take ourmessage," they said.

  And still I would not go, and they cried out a third time: "Go takeour message."

  And though they cried a third time I would not go. But morning andnight they cried and through long evenings.

  When will the Muses rest? When are they weary? And when theywould not cease to call to me I went to them and I said: "TheGolden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold theirpillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coinsout of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble,there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs aregone."

  "Go take our message," they cried.

  And I said to the high Muses: "You do not understand. You haveno message for the Golden Town, the holy city no longer."

  "Go take our message," they cried.

  "What is your message?" I said to the high Muses.

  And when I heard their message I made excuses, dreading to speaksuch things in the Golden Town; and again they bade me go.

  And I said: "I will not go. None will believe me."

  And still the Muses cry to me all night long.

  They do not understand. How should they know?

  THE THREE TALL SONS

  And at last Man raised on high the final glory of his civilization,the towering edifice of the ultimate city.

  Softly beneath him in the deeps of the earth purred his machineryfulfilling all his needs, there was no more toil for man. There he satat ease discussing the Sex Problem.

  And sometimes painfully out of forgotten fields, there came to hisouter door, came to the furthest rampart of the final glory of Man,a poor old woman begging. And always they turned her away.This glory of Man's achievement, this city was not for her.

  It was Nature that came thus begging in from the fields, whom theyalways turned away.

  And away she went again alone to her fields.

  And one day she came again, and again they sent her hence. Buther three tall sons came too.

  "These shall go in," she said. "Even these my sons to your city."

  And the three tall sons went in.

  And these are Nature's sons, the forlorn one's terrible children,War, Famine and Plague.

  Yea and they went in there and found Man unawares in his citystill poring over his Problems, obsessed with his civilization, andnever hearing their tread as those three came up behind.

  COMPROMISE

  They built their gorgeous home, their city of glory, above the lairof the earthquake. They built it of marble and gold in the shiningyouth of the world. There they feasted and fought and called theircity immortal, and danced and sang songs to the gods. None heededthe earthquake in all those joyous streets. And down in the deepsof the earth, on the black feet of the abyss, they that would conquerMan mumbled long in the darkness, mumbled and goaded theearthquake to try his strength with that city, to go forth blithely atnight and to gnaw its pillars like bones. And down in those grimydeeps the earthquake answered them, and would not do theirpleasure and would not stir from thence, for who knew who theywere who danced all day where he rumbled, and what if the lordsof that city that had no fear of his anger were haply even the gods!

  And the centuries plodded by, on and on round the world, and oneday they that had danced, they that had sung in that city, rememberedthe lair of the earthquake in the deeps down under their feet, and madeplans one with another and sought to avert the danger, sought toappease the earthquake and turn his anger away.

  They sent down singing girls, and priests with oats and wine, theysent down garlands and propitious berries, down by dark steps tothe black depths of the earth, they sent peacocks newly slain, andboys with burning spices, and their thin white sacred cats with collarsof pearls all newly drawn from sea, they sent huge diamonds down incoffers of teak, and ointment and strange oriental dyes, arrows andarmor and the rings of their queen.

  "Oho," said the earthquake in the coolth of the earth, "so they arenot the gods."

  WHAT WE HAVE COME TO

  When the advertiser saw the cathedral spires over the downs in thedistance, he looked at them and wept.

  "If only," he said, "this were an advertisement of Beefo, so nice, sonutritious, try it in your soup, ladies like it."

  THE TOMB OF PAN

  "Seeing," they said, "that old-time Pan is dead, let us now makea tomb for him and a monument, that the dreadful worship of longago may be remembered and avoided by all."

  So said the people of the enlightened lands. And they built awhite and mighty tomb of marble. Slowly it rose under the handsof the builders and longer every evening after sunset it gleamed withrays of the departed sun.

  And many mourned for Pan while the builders built; many reviledhim. Some called the builders to cease and to weep for Pan andothers called them to leave no memorial at all of so infamous a god.But the builders built on steadily.

  And one day all was finished, and the tomb stood there like asteep sea-cliff. And Pan was carved thereon with humbled headand the feet of angels pressed upon his neck. And when the tombwas finished the sun had already set, but the afterglow was rosy onthe huge bulk of Pan.

  And presently all the enlightened people came, and saw the tomband remembered Pan who was dead, and all deplored him and hiswicked age. But a few wept apart because of the death of Pan.

  But at evening as he stole out of the forest, and slipped like a shadowsoftly along the hills, Pan saw the tomb and laughed.