Hugh gasped with pleasure. "I"ll read them all, however many there are!" he said excitedly. "Every word."
"Well," said Mr. Pidgen, "that"s more than any one else has ever done."
"I"d rather be with you," said the boy very confidently, "than Mr. Lasher.
I"d rather write stories than preach sermons that no one wants to listen to." Then more timidly he continued: "I know what you meant about the man who comes when you"re a baby. I remember him quite well, but I never can say anything because they"d say I was silly. Sometimes I think he"s still hanging round only he doesn"t come to the vicarage much. He doesn"t like Mr. Lasher much, I expect. But I _do_ remember him. He had a beard and I used to think it funny the nurse didn"t see him. That was before we went to Ceylon, you know, we used to live in Polchester then. When it was nearly dark and not quite he"d be there. I forgot about him in Ceylon, but since I"ve been here I"ve wondered ... it"s sometimes like some one whispering to you and you know if you turn round he won"t be there, but he _is_ there all the same. I made twenty-five last summer against Porthington Grammar; they"re not much good _really_, and it was our second eleven, and I was nearly out second ball; anyway I made twenty-five, and afterwards as I was ragging about I suddenly thought of him. I _know_ he was pleased. If it had been a little darker I believe I"d have seen him. And then last night, after I was in bed and was thinking about what you"d said I _know_ he was near the window, only I didn"t look lest he should go away. But of course Mr. Lasher would say that"s all rot, like the pirates, only I _know_ it isn"t." Hugh broke off for lack of breath, nothing else would have stopped him. When he was encouraged he was a terrible talker. He suddenly added in a sharp little voice like the report from a pistol: "So one can"t be lonely or anything, can one, if there"s always some one about?"
Mr. Pidgen was greatly touched. He put his hand upon Hugh"s shoulder.
"My dear boy," he said, "my dear boy--dear me, dear me. I"m afraid you"re going to have a dreadful time when you grow up. I really mustn"t encourage you. And yet, who can help himself?"
"But you said yourself that you"d seen him, that you knew him quite well?"
"And so I do--and so I do. But you"ll find, as you grow older, there are many people who won"t believe you. And there"s this, too. The more you live in your head, dreaming and seeing things that aren"t there, the less you"ll see the things that _are_ there. You"ll always be tumbling over things. You"ll never get on. You"ll never be a success."
"Never mind," said Hugh, "it doesn"t matter much what you say now, you"re only talking "for my good" like Mr. Lasher. I don"t care, I heard what you said yesterday, and it"s made all the difference. I"ll come and stay with you."
"Well, so you shall," said Mr. Pidgen. "I can"t help it. You shall come as often as you like. Upon my soul, I"m younger to-day than I"ve felt for a long time. We"ll go to the pantomime together if you aren"t too old for it. I"ll manage to ruin you all right. What"s that shining?" He pointed in front of him.
They had come to a rise in the Polwint Road. To their right, running to the very foot of their path, was the moor. It stretched away, like a cloud, vague and indeterminate to the horizon. To their left a dark brown field rose in an ascending wave to a ridge that cut the sky, now crocus-coloured. The field was lit with the soft light of the setting sun. On the ridge of the field something, suspended, it seemed, in midair, was shining like a golden fire.
"What"s that?" said Mr. Pidgen again. "It"s hanging. What the devil!"
They stopped for a moment, then started across the field. When they had gone a little way Mr. Pidgen paused again.
"It"s like a man with a golden helmet. He"s got legs, he"s coming to us."
They walked on again. Then Hugh cried, "Why, it"s only an old Scarecrow.
We might have guessed."
The sun, at that instant, sank behind the hills and the world was grey.
The Scarecrow, perched on the high ridge, waved its tattered sleeves in the air. It was an old tin can that had caught the light; the can hanging over the stake that supported it in drunken fashion seemed to wink at them. The shadows came streaming up from the sea and the dark woods below in the hollow drew closer to them.
The Scarecrow seemed to lament the departure of the light. "Here, mind,"
he said to the two of them, "you saw me in my glory just now and don"t you forget it. I may be a knight in shining armour after all. It only depends upon the point of view."
"So it does," said Mr. Pidgen, taking his hat off, "you were very fine, I shan"t forget."
VI
They stood there in silence for a time....
VII
At last they turned back and walked slowly home, the intimacy of their new friendship growing with their silence. Hugh was happier than he had ever been before. Behind the quiet evening light he saw wonderful prospects, a new life in which he might dream as he pleased, a new friend to whom he might tell these dreams, a new confidence in his own power....
But it was not to be.
That very night Mr. Pidgen died, very peacefully, in his sleep, from heart failure. He had had, as he had himself said, a happy life.
VIII
Years pa.s.sed and Hugh Seymour grew up. I do not wish here to say much more about him. It happened that when he was twenty-four his work compelled him to live in that Square in London known as March Square (it will be very carefully described in a minute). Here he lived for five years, and, during that time, he was happy enough to gain the intimacy and confidence of some of the children who played in the Gardens there.
They trusted him and told him more than they told many people. He had never forgotten Mr. Pidgen; that walk, that vision of the Scarecrow, stood, as such childish things will, for a landmark in his history. He came to believe that those experiences that he knew, in his own life, to be true, were true also for some others. That"s as it may be. I can only say that Barbara and Angelina, Bim and even Sarah Trefusis were his friends. I daresay his theory is all wrong.
I can only say that I _know_ that they were his friends; perhaps, after all, the Scarecrow _is_ shining somewhere in golden armour. Perhaps, after all, one need not be so lonely as one often fancies that one is.
CHAPTER I
HENRY FITZGEORGE STRETHER
I
March Square is not very far from Hyde Park Corner in London Town.
Behind the whir and rattle of the traffic it stands, s.p.a.cious and cool and very old, m.u.f.fled by the little streets that guard it, happily unconscious, you would suppose, that there were any in all the world so unfortunate as to have less than five thousand a year for their support.
Perhaps a hundred years ago March Square might boast of such superior ignorance, but fashions change, to prevent, it may be, our own too easily irritated monotonies, and, for some time now, the Square has been compelled, here, there, in one corner and another, to admit the invader.
It is true that the solemn, respectable grey house, No. 3, can boast that it is the town residence of His Grace the Duke of Crole and his beautiful young d.u.c.h.ess, nee Miss Jane Tunster of New York City, but it is also true that No. ---- is in the possession of Mr. Munty Ross of Potted Shrimp fame, and there are Dr. Cruthen, the Misses Dent, Herbert Hoskins and his wife, whose incomes are certainly nearer to 500 than 5,000. Yes, rents and blue blood have come down in March Square; it is, certainly, not the less interesting for that, but----
Some of the houses can boast the days of good Queen Anne for their period. There is one, at the very corner where Somers Street turns off towards the Park, that was built only yesterday, and has about it some air of shame, a furtive embarra.s.sment that it will lose very speedily.
There is no house that can claim beauty, and yet the Square, as a whole, has a fine charm, something that age and colour, haphazard adventure, s.p.a.ce and quiet have all helped towards.
There is, perhaps, no square in London that clings so tenaciously to any sign or symbol of old London that motor-cars and the increase of speed have not utterly destroyed. All the oldest London mendicants find their way, at different hours of the week, up and down the Square. There is, I believe, no other square in London where musicians are permitted. On Monday morning there is the blind man with the black patch over one eye; he has an organ (a very old one, with a painted picture of the Battle of Trafalgar on the front of it) and he wears an old black skull-cap. He wheezes out his old tunes (they are older than other tunes that March Square hears, and so, perhaps, March Square loves them). He goes despondently, and the tap of his stick sounds all the way round the Square. A small and dirty boy--his grandson, maybe--pushes the organ for him. On Tuesday there comes the remnants of a German band--remnants because now there are only the cornet, the flute and the trumpet. Sadly wind-blown, drunken and diseased they are, and the Square can remember when there were a number of them, hale and hearty young fellows, but drink and compet.i.tion have been too strong for them. On Wednesdays there is sometimes a lady who sings ballads in a voice that can only be described as that contradiction in terms "a shrill contralto." Her notes are very piercing and can be heard from one end of the Square to the other. She sings "Annie Laurie" and "Robin Adair," and wears a battered hat of black straw. On Thursday there is a handsome Italian with a barrel organ that bears in its belly the very latest and most popular tunes. It is on Thursday that the Square learns the music of the moment; thus from one end of the year to the other does it keep pace with the movement.
On Fridays there is a lean and ragged man wearing large and, to the children of the Square, terrifying spectacles. He is a very gloomy fellow and sings hymn-tunes, "Rock of Ages," "There is a Happy Land,"
and "Jerusalem the Golden." On Sat.u.r.days there is a stout, happy little man with a harp. He has white hair and looks like a retired colonel. He cannot play the harp very much, but he is quite the most popular visitor of the week, and must be very rich indeed does he receive in other squares so handsome a reward for his melody as this one bestows; he is known as "Colonel Harry." In and out of these regular visitors there are, of course, many others. There is a dark, sinister man with a harmonium and a shivering monkey on a chain; there is an Italian woman, wearing bright wraps round her head, and she has a cage of birds who tell fortunes; there is a horsey, stable-bred, ferret-like man with, two performing dogs, and there is quite an old lady in a black bonnet and shawl who sings duets with her grand-daughter, a young thing of some fifty summers.
There can be nothing in the world more charming than the way the Square receives its friends. Let it number amongst its guests a d.u.c.h.ess, that is no reason why it should scorn "Colonel Harry" or "Mouldy Jim," the singer of hymns. Scorn, indeed, cannot be found within its grey walls, soft grey, soft green, soft white and blue--in these colours is the Square"s body clothed, no anger in its mild eyes, nor contempt anywhere at its heart.
The Square is proud, and is proud with reason, of its garden. It is not a large garden as London gardens go. It has in its centre a fountain.
Neptune, with a fine wreath of seaweed about his middle, blowing water through, his conch. There are two statues, the one of a general who fought in the Indian Mutiny and afterwards lived and died in the Square, the other of a mid-Victorian philanthropist whose stout figure and urbane self-satisfaction (as portrayed by the sculptor) bear witness to an easy conscience and an unimaginative mind. There is, round and about the fountain, a lovely green lawn, and there are many overhanging trees and shady corners. An air of peace the garden breathes, and that although children are for ever racing up and down it, shattering the stillness of the air with their cries, rivalling the bells of St.
Matthew"s round the corner with their piercing notes.
But it is the quality of the Square that nothing can take from it its peace, nothing temper its tranquillity. In the heat of the days motor-cars will rattle through, bells will ring, all the bustle of a frantic world invade its security; for a moment it submits, but in the evening hour, when the colours are being washed from the sky, and the moon, apricot-tinted, is rising slowly through the smoke, March Square sinks, with a little sigh, back into her peace again. The modern world has not yet touched her, nor ever shall.
II
The d.u.c.h.ess of Crole had three months ago a son, Henry Fitzgeorge, Marquis of Strether. Very fortunate that the first-born should be a son, very fortunate also that the first-born should be one of the healthiest, liveliest, merriest babies that it has ever been any one"s good fortune to encounter. All smiles, chuckles and amiability is Henry Fitzgeorge; he is determined that all shall be well.
His birth was for a little time the sensation of the Square. Every one knew the beautiful d.u.c.h.ess; they had seen her drive, they had seen her walk, they had seen her in the picture-papers, at race-meetings and coming away from fashionable weddings. The word went round day by day as to his health; he was watched when he came out in his perambulator, and there was gossip as to his appearance and behaviour.
"A jolly little fellow."