Perhaps it would be more correct to say "opened the door and was down."
It was my own fault, I admit. We had talked this thing over before going to bed, and I myself had impressed upon Veronica the need for caution.
The architect of the country cottage does not waste s.p.a.ce. He dispenses with landings; the bedroom door opens on to the top stair. It does not do to walk out of your bedroom, for the reason there is nothing outside to walk on. I had said to Veronica, pointing out this fact to her:
"Now don"t, in the morning, come bursting out of the room in your usual volcanic style, because if you do there will be trouble. As you perceive, there is no landing. The stairs commence at once; they are steep, and they lead down to a brick floor. Open the door quietly, look where you are going, and step carefully."
d.i.c.k had added his advice to mine. "I did that myself the first morning," d.i.c.k had said. "I stepped straight out of the bedroom into the kitchen; and I can tell you, it hurts. You be careful, young "un. This cottage doesn"t lend itself to dash."
Robina had fallen down with a tray in her hand. She said that never should she forget the horror of that moment, when, sitting on the kitchen floor, she had cried to d.i.c.k-her own voice sounding to her as if it came from somewhere quite far off: "Is it broken? Tell me the truth. Is it broken anywhere?" and d.i.c.k had replied: "Broken! why, it"s smashed to atoms. What did you expect?" Robina had asked the question with reference to her head, while d.i.c.k had thought she was alluding to the teapot. In that moment, had said Robina, her whole life had pa.s.sed before her. She let Veronica feel the b.u.mp.
Veronica was disappointed with the b.u.mp, having expected something bigger, but had promised to be careful. We had all agreed that if in spite of our warnings she forgot, and came blundering down in the morning, it would serve her right. It was thinking of all this that, as I lay upon the floor, made me feel angry with everybody. I hate people who can sleep through noises that wake me up. Why was I the only person in the house to be disturbed? d.i.c.k"s room was round the corner; there was some excuse for him. But Robina and Veronica"s window looked straight down upon the cow. If Robina and Veronica were not a couple of logs, the cow would have aroused them. We should have discussed the matter with the door ajar. Robina would have said, "Whatever you do, be careful of the stairs, Pa," and I should have remembered. The modern child appears to me to have no feeling for its parent.
I picked myself up and started for the door. The cow continued bellowing steadily. My whole anxiety was to get to her quickly and to hit her.
But the door took more finding than I could have believed possible. The shutters were closed and the whole place was in pitch darkness. The idea had been to furnish this cottage only with things that were absolutely necessary, but the room appeared to me to be overcrowded. There was a milking-stool, which is a thing made purposely heavy so that it may not be easily upset. If I tumbled over it once I tumbled over it a dozen times. I got hold of it at last and carried it about with me. I thought I would use it to hit the cow-that is, when I had found the front-door.
I knew it led out of the parlour, but could not recollect its exact position. I argued that if I kept along the wall I should be bound to come to it. I found the wall, and set off full of hope. I suppose the explanation was that, without knowing it, I must have started with the door, not the front-door, the other door, leading into the kitchen. I crept along, carefully feeling my way, and struck quite new things altogether-things I had no recollection of and that hit me in fresh places. I climbed over what I presumed to be a beer-barrel and landed among bottles; there were dozens upon dozens of them. To get away from these bottles I had to leave the wall; but I found it again, as I thought, and I felt along it for another half a dozen yards or so and then came again upon bottles: the room appeared to be paved with bottles.
A little farther on I rolled over another beer-barrel: as a matter of fact it was the same beer-barrel, but I did not know this. At the time it seemed to me that Robina had made up her mind to run a public-house.
I found the milking-stool again and started afresh, and before I had gone a dozen steps was in among bottles again. Later on, in the broad daylight, it was easy enough to understand what had happened. I had been carefully feeling my way round and round a screen. I got so sick of these bottles and so tired of rolling over these everlasting beer-barrels, that I abandoned the wall and plunged boldly into s.p.a.ce.
I had barely started, when, looking up, I saw the sky above me: a star was twinkling just above my head. Had I been wide awake, and had the cow stopped bellowing for just one minute, I should have guessed that somehow or another I had got into a chimney. But as things were, the wonder and the mystery of it all appalled me. "Alice"s Adventures in Wonderland"
would have appeared to me, at that moment, in the nature of a guide to travellers. Had a rocking-horse or a lobster suddenly appeared to me I should have sat and talked to it; and if it had not answered me I should have thought it sulky and been hurt. I took a step forward and the star disappeared, just as if somebody had blown it out. I was not surprised in the least. I was expecting anything to happen.
I found a door and it opened quite easily. A wood was in front of me. I couldn"t see any cow anywhere, but I still heard her. It all seemed quite natural. I would wander into the wood; most likely I should meet her there, and she would be smoking a pipe. In all probability she would know some poetry.
With the fresh air my senses gradually came back to me, and I began to understand why it was I could not see the cow. The reason was that the house was between us. By some mysterious process I had been discharged into the back garden. I still had the milking-stool in my hand, but the cow no longer troubled me. Let her see if she could wake Veronica by merely bellowing outside the door; it was more than I had ever been able to do.
I sat down on the stool and opened my note-book. I headed the page: "Sunrise in July: observations and emotions," and I wrote down at once, lest I should forget it, that towards three o"clock a faint light is discernible, and added that this light gets stronger as the time goes on.
It sounded footling even to myself, but I had been reading a novel of the realistic school that had been greatly praised for its actuality. There is a demand in some quarters for this cla.s.s of observation. I likewise made a note that the pigeon and the corncrake appear to be among the earliest of Nature"s children to welcome the coming day; and added that the screech-owl may be heard, perhaps at its best, by anyone caring to rise for the purpose, some quarter of an hour before the dawn. That was all I could think of just then. As regards emotions, I did not seem to have any.
I lit a pipe and waited for the sun. The sky in front of me was tinged with a faint pink. Every moment it flushed a deeper red. I maintain that anyone, not an expert, would have said that was the portion of the horizon on which to keep one"s eye. I kept my eye upon it, but no sun appeared. I lit another pipe. The sky in front of me was now a blaze of glory. I scribbled a few lines, likening the scattered clouds to brides blushing at the approach of the bridegroom. That would have been all right if later on they hadn"t begun to turn green: it seemed the wrong colour for a bride. Later on still they went yellow, and that spoilt the simile past hope. One cannot wax poetical about a bride who at the approach of the bridegroom turns first green and then yellow: you can only feel sorry for her. I waited some more. The sky in front of me grew paler every moment. I began to fear that something had happened to that sun. If I hadn"t known so much astronomy I should have said that he had changed his mind and had gone back again. I rose with the idea of seeing into things. He had been up apparently for hours: he had got up at the back of me. It seemed to be n.o.body"s fault. I put my pipe into my pocket and strolled round to the front. The cow was still there; she was pleased to see me, and started bellowing again.
I heard a sound of whistling. It proceeded from a farmer"s boy. I hailed him, and he climbed a gate and came to me across the field. He was a cheerful youth. He nodded to the cow and hoped she had had a good night: he p.r.o.nounced it "nihet."
"You know the cow?" I said.
"Well," he explained, "we don"t precisely move in the sime set. Sort o"
business relytionship more like-if you understand me?"
Something about this boy was worrying me. He did not seem like a real farmer"s boy. But then nothing seemed quite real this morning. My feeling was to let things go.
"Whose cow is it?" I asked.
He stared at me.
"I want to know to whom it belongs," I said. "I want to restore it to him."
"Excuse me," said the boy, "but where do you live?"
He was making me cross. "Where do I live?" I retorted. "Why, in this cottage. You don"t think I"ve got up early and come from a distance to listen to this cow? Don"t talk so much. Do you know whose cow it is, or don"t you?"
"It"s your cow," said the boy.
It was my turn to stare.
"But I haven"t got a cow," I told him.
"Yus you have," he persisted; "you"ve got that cow."
She had stopped bellowing for a moment. She was not the cow I felt I could ever take a pride in. At some time or another, quite recently, she must have sat down in some mud.
"How did I get her?" I demanded.
"The young lydy," explained the boy, "she came rahnd to our plice on Tuesday-"
I began to see light. "An excitable young lady-talks very fast-never waits for the answer?"
"With jolly fine eyes," added the boy approvingly.
"And she ordered a cow?"
"Didn"t seem to "ave strength enough to live another dy withaht it."
"Any stipulation made concerning the price of the cow?"
"Any what?"
"The young lady with the eyes-did she think to ask the price of the cow?"
"No sordid details was entered into, so far as I could "ear," replied the boy.
They would not have been-by Robina.
"Any hint let fall as to what the cow was wanted for?"
"The lydy gives us to understand," said the boy, "that fresh milk was "er idea."
That surprised me: that was thoughtful of Robina. "And this is the cow?"
"I towed her rahnd last night. I didn"t knock at the door and tell yer abaht "er, cos, to be quite frank with yer, there wasn"t anybody in."
"What is she bellowing for?" I asked.
"Well," said the boy, "it"s only a theory, o" course, but I should sy, from the look of "er, that she wanted to be milked."
"But it started bellowing at half-past two," I argued. "It doesn"t expect to be milked at half-past two, does it?"
"Meself," said the boy, "I"ve given up looking for sense in cows."
In some unaccountable way this boy was hypnotising me. Everything had suddenly become out of place.