Yet the reputation of John Frederic Campden stood high enough, for all his meagre earnings, and he was an ineffective author chiefly, perhaps, because he missed his audience. Somewhere, somehow, he fell between two stools. And his chagrin was undeniable; for though the poet"s heart in him kept all its splendid fires alight, his failure chilled a little the intellect that should fashion them along effective moulds. Now, with advancing years, the increasing cost of the children"s growing-up, and the failing of his wife"s health a little, the burdens of life were heavier than he cared to think about.
But this evening, as the group sat round the wide peat fire, cheerful and jolly in the lamplight, there was certainly no sign of sadness.
They were like a party of children in which the grave humour of the ever-knitting mother kept the balance true between fun and foolishness.
"Please, Daddy, a story at once," Jane Anne demanded, "but a told one, not a read-aloud one. I like a romantic effort best."
He fumbled in his pocket for a light, and Jimbo gravely produced a box he had secretly filled with matches already used, collected laboriously from the floor during the week. Then Monkey, full of mischief, came over from the window where she had been watching them with gasps of astonishment no one had heeded through the small end of the opera-gla.s.ses. There was a dancing brilliance in her movements, and her eyes, brown like her mother"s, sparkled with fun and wickedness. Taking the knee Jimbo left unoccupied, and waiting till the diversion caused by the match-box had subsided, she solemnly placed a bread-crumb in his rather tangled beard.
"Now you"re full-dress," she said, falling instantly so close against him that he could not tickle her, while Mother glanced up a second uncertain whether to criticise the impertinence or let it pa.s.s. She let it pa.s.s. None of the children had the faintest idea what it meant to be afraid of their father.
"People who waste bread," he began, "end by getting so thin themselves that they double up like paper and disappear."
"But _how_ thin, Daddy?" asked Jane Anne, ever literal to the death.
"And is it romantic or just silly?"
He was puzzled for a moment what to reply.
"He doesn"t know. He"s making up," piped Jimbo.
"I _do_ know," came the belated explanation, as he put the crumb into the bowl of his extinguished pipe with a solemnity that delighted them, but puzzled Jane Anne, who suggested it would taste "like toast smelt." "People who take bread that doesn"t belong to them end by having no dinner---"
"But that isn"t anything about thinness," interrupted Jinny, still uncomforted. Some one wasted by love was in her mind perhaps.
"It is, child, because they get so frightfully thin," he went on, "that they end by getting thinner than the thin end of a wedge."
The eyes of Mother twinkled, but the children still stared, waiting.
They had never heard of this phrase about the wedge. Indeed Jane Anne shared with Jimbo total ignorance of the word at all. Like the audience who read his books, or rather ought to have read them, they expected something different, yet still hoped.
"It"s a rhyme, and not a story though," he added, antic.i.p.ating perhaps their possible disappointment. For the recent talk about expenses had chilled his imagination too much for an instantaneous story, whereas rhymes came ever to him easily.
"All right! Let"s have it anyhow," came the verdict in sentences of French and English. And in the breathless pause that followed, even Mother looking up expectantly from her busy fingers, was heard this strange fate of the Thin Child who stole another"s bread-crumb:--
He then grew thinner than the thin, The thin end of the wedge; He grew so pitifully thin It set his teeth on edge; But the edge it set his teeth upon Was worse than getting thinner, For it was the edge of appet.i.te, And his teeth were in no dinner!
There was a deep silence. Mother looked as though she expected more,-- the good part yet to come. The rhyme fell flat as a pancake, for of course the children did not understand it. Its nonsense, clever enough, escaped them. True nonsense is for grown-ups only. Jane Anne stared steadily at him with a puzzled frown. Her face wore an expression like a moth.
"Thank you, Daddy, _very_ much," she said, certain as ever that the fault if any was her own, since all that Daddy said and did was simply splendid. Whereupon the others fairly screamed with delight, turning attention thereby from the dismal failure.
"She doesn"t understand it, but she"s always so polite!" cried Monkey.
Her mother quickly intervened. "Never mind, Jane Anne," she soothed her, lest her feelings should be ruffled; "you shall never want a dinner, lovey; and when all Monkey"s teeth are gone you"ll still be able to munch away at something."
But Jinny"s feelings were never ruffled exactly, only confused and puzzled. She was puzzled now. Her confidence in her father"s splendour was unshakable.
"And, anyhow, Mother, you"ll never be a thin wedge," she answered, meaning to show her grat.i.tude by a compliment. She joined herself as loudly as anybody in the roar that followed this sally. Obviously, she had said a clever and amusing thing, though it was not clear to her why it was so. Her flushed face was very happy; it even wore a touch of proud superiority. Her talents were domestic rather than intellectual.
"Excuse me, Daddy," she said gravely, in a pause that followed presently. "But what is a wedge, exactly? And I think I"d like to copy that poetry in my book, please." For she kept a book in which his efforts were neatly inscribed in a round copy-book handwriting, and called by Monkey "The Muddle Book." There his unappreciated doggerels found fame, though misunderstood most of all by the affectionate child who copied them so proudly.
The book was brought at once. Her father wrote out the nonsense verse on his knee and made a funny little ill.u.s.tration in the margin. "Oh, I say!" said Jimbo, watching him, while Monkey, lapsing into French, contributed with her usual impudence, "Pas tant mal!" They all loved the ill.u.s.trations.
The general interest, then, as the way is with children, puppies, and other young Inconsistencies, centred upon the contents of the book.
They eagerly turned the pages, as though they did not know its contents by heart already. They praised for the hundredth time the drawing of the Muddle Animal who
Hung its hopes upon a nail Or laid them on the shelf; Then p.r.i.c.ked its conscience with its tail, And sat upon itself.
They looked also with considerable approval upon the drawings and descriptions of the Muddle Man whose manners towards the rest of the world were cool; because
He saw things with his naked eye, That"s why his glance was chilly.
But the explanation of the disasters he caused everywhere by his disagreeable sharpness of speech and behaviour did _not_ amuse them.
They observed as usual that it was "too impossible"; the drawings, moreover, did not quite convince:--
So cutting was his speaking tone Each phrase snipped off a b.u.t.ton, So sharp his words, they have been known To carve a leg of mutton; He shaved himself with sentences, And when he went to dances, He made--Oh shocking tendencies!- Deep holes with piercing glances.
But on the last page the Muddle Man behaved so badly, was so positively indecent in his conduct, that he was persuaded to disappear altogether; and his manner of extinguishing himself in the ill.u.s.tration delighted the children far more than the verse whose fun again escaped them:--
They observed he was indecent, But he said it wasn"t true, For _he_ p.r.o.nounced it "in descent"-- Then disappeared from view!
Mother"s alleged "second sight" was also attributed to the fact that she "looked twice before she leaped"--and the drawing of that leap never failed to produce high spirits. For her calm and steady way of walking--sailing--had earned her the name of the frigate--and this was also ill.u.s.trated, with various winds, all coloured, driving her along.
The time pa.s.sed happily; some one turned the lamp out, and Daddy, regardless of expense--he had been grumbling about it ten minutes before--heaped on the bricks of peat. Riquette, a bit of movable furniture without which the room seemed incomplete, deftly slipped in between the circle of legs and feet, and curled up upon Jinny"s lap.
Her snoring, a wheezy noise that made Jimbo wonder "why it didn"t sc.r.a.pe her," was as familiar as the ticking of the clock. Old Mere Riquette knew her rights. And she exacted them. Jinny"s lap was one of these. She had a face like an old peasant woman, with a curious snub nose and irregular whiskers that betrayed recklessly the advance of age. Her snores and gentle purring filled the room now. A hush came over the whole party. At seven o"clock they must all troop over to the Pension des Glycines for supper, but there was still an hour left. And it was a magic hour. Sighs were audible here and there, as the exhausted children settled deeper into their chairs.
A change came over the atmosphere. Would nothing exciting ever happen?
"The stars are out," said Jimbo in his soft, gentle little voice, turning his head towards the windows. The others looked too--all except Mother, whose att.i.tude suggested suspiciously that she slept, and Riquette, who most certainly did sleep. Above the rampart of the darkened Alps swung up the army of the stars. The brighter ones were reflected in the lake. The sky was crowded. Tiny, golden pathways slid down the purple walls of the night. "Some one in heaven is letting down the star-ladders..." he whispered.
Jimbo"s sentence had marked the change of key. Enchantment was abroad --the Sat.u.r.day evening spell was in the room.
And suddenly a new enormous thing stirred in their father"s heart.
Whence it came, or why, he knew not. Like a fire it rose in him deep down, from very far away, delightful. Was it an inspiration coming, he wondered? And why did Jimbo use that phrase of beauty about star- ladders? How did it come into the mind of a little boy? The phrase opened a new channel in the very depths of him, thence climbing up and outwards, towards the brain.... And, with a thrill of curious high wonder, he let it come. It was large and very splendid. It came with a rush--as of numerous whispering voices that flocked about him, urging some exquisite, distant sweetness in him to unaccustomed delivery. A softness of ten thousand stars trooped down into his blood. Some constellation like the Pleiades had flung their fiery tackle across the dusk upon his mind. His thought turned golden....
CHAPTER VIII
We are the stars which sing.
We sing with our light.
We are the birds of fire.
We fly across the heaven.
Our light is a star.
We make a road for Spirits, A road for the Great Spirit.
Among us are three hunters Who chase a bear: There never was a time When they were not hunting; We look down on the mountains.
This is the Song of the Mountains.
_Red Indian_ (_Algonquin_) _Lyric_.
Translator, J. D. PRINCE.
"A star-story, please," the boy repeated, cuddling up. They all drew, where possible, nearer. Their belief in their father"s powers, rarely justified, was pathetic. Each time they felt sure he would make the adventures seem real, yet somehow he never quite did. They were aware that it was invention only. These things he told about he had not experienced himself. For they badly needed a leader, these children; and Daddy just missed filling the position. He was too "clever," his imagination neither wild nor silly enough, for children. And he felt it. He threw off rhymes and stories for them in a spirit of bravado rather--an expression of disappointment. Yet there was pa.s.sion in them too--concealed. The public missed the heart he showed them in his books in the same way.