"I"ll buy a copy," said the Boy, as Pigeon blushed wrathfully. "I must, to see how the Dove lost his mounted company." He unfolded the flapping sheet and we crowded round it.
""_Complete Rout of the Guard,_"" he read. ""_Too Narrow a Front._" That"s one for you, Vee! "_Attack Antic.i.p.ated by Mr. Levitt, B. A._" Aha! "_The Schools Stand Fast._""
"Here"s another version," said Kyd, waving a tinted sheet. ""_To your tents, O Israel! The Hebrew Schools stop the Mounted Troops._" Pij, were you scuppered by Jewboys?"
""_Umpires Decide all Four Guns Lost,_"" Bayley went on. "By Jove, there"ll have to be an inquiry into this regrettable incident, Vee!"
"I"ll never try to amuse the kids again," said the baited Verschoyle.
"Children and newspapers are low things.... And I was. .h.i.t on the nose by a wad, too! They oughtn"t to be allowed blank ammunition!"
So we leaned against the railings in the warm twilight haze while the battalion, silently as a shadow, formed up behind us ready to be taken over. The heat, the hum of the great city, as it might have been the hum of a camped army, the creaking of the belts, and the well-known faces bent above them, brought back to me the memory of another evening, years ago, when Verschoyle and I waited for news of guns missing in no sham fight.
"A regular Sanna"s Post, isn"t it?" I said at last. "D"you remember, Vee-- by the market-square--that night when the wagons went out?"
Then it came upon me, with no horror, but a certain mild wonder, that we had waited, Vee and I, that night for the body of Boy Bayley; and that Vee himself had died of typhoid in the spring of 1902. The rustling of the papers continued, but Bayley, shifting slightly, revealed to me the three- day old wound on his left side that had soaked the ground about him. I saw Pigeon fling up a helpless arm as to guard himself against a spatter of shrapnel, and Luttrell with a foolish tight-lipped smile lurched over all in one jointless piece. Only old Vee"s honest face held steady for awhile against the darkness that had swallowed up the battalion behind us. Then his jaw dropped and the face stiffened, so that a fly made bold to explore the puffed and scornful nostril.
I waked brushing a fly from my nose, and saw the Club waiter set out the evening papers on the table.
"THEY"
THE RETURN OF THE CHILDREN
Neither the harps nor the crowns amused, nor the cherubs" dove-winged races-- Holding hands forlornly the Children wandered beneath the Dome; Plucking the radiant robes of the pa.s.sers by, and with pitiful faces Begging what Princes and Powers refused:--"Ah, please will you let us go home?"
Over the jewelled floor, nigh weeping, ran to them Mary the Mother, Kneeled and caressed and made promise with kisses, and drew them along to the gateway-- Yea, the all-iron unbribable Door which Peter must guard and none other.
Straightway She took the Keys from his keeping, and opened and freed them straightway.
Then to Her Son, Who had seen and smiled, She said: "On the night that I bore Thee What didst Thou care for a love beyond mine or a heaven that was not my arm?
Didst Thou push from the nipple O Child, to hear the angels adore Thee?
When we two lay in the breath of the kine?" And He said:--"Thou hast done no harm."
So through the Void the Children ran homeward merrily hand in hand, Looking neither to left nor right where the breathless Heavens stood still; And the Guards of the Void resheathed their swords, for they heard the Command.
"Shall I that have suffered the children to come to me hold them against their will?"
"THEY"
One view called me to another; one hill top to its fellow, half across the county, and since I could answer at no more trouble than the snapping forward of a lever, I let the country flow under my wheels. The orchid- studded flats of the East gave way to the thyme, ilex, and grey gra.s.s of the Downs; these again to the rich cornland and fig-trees of the lower coast, where you carry the beat of the tide on your left hand for fifteen level miles; and when at last I turned inland through a huddle of rounded hills and woods I had run myself clean out of my known marks. Beyond that precise hamlet which stands G.o.dmother to the capital of the United States, I found hidden villages where bees, the only things awake, boomed in eighty-foot lindens that overhung grey Norman churches; miraculous brooks diving under stone bridges built for heavier traffic than would ever vex them again; t.i.the-barns larger than their churches, and an old smithy that cried out aloud how it had once been a hall of the Knights of the Temple.
Gipsies I found on a common where the gorse, bracken, and heath fought it out together up a mile of Roman road; and a little farther on I disturbed a red fox rolling dog-fashion in the naked sunlight.
As the wooded hills closed about me I stood up in the car to take the bearings of that great Down whose ringed head is a landmark for fifty miles across the low countries. I judged that the lie of the country would bring me across some westward running road that went to his feet, but I did not allow for the confusing veils of the woods. A quick turn plunged me first into a green cutting brimful of liquid sunshine, next into a gloomy tunnel where last year"s dead leaves whispered and scuffled about my tyres. The strong hazel stuff meeting overhead had not been cut for a couple of generations at least, nor had any axe helped the moss-cankered oak and beech to spring above them. Here the road changed frankly into a carpetted ride on whose brown velvet spent primrose-clumps showed like jade, and a few sickly, white-stalked bluebells nodded together. As the slope favoured I shut off the power and slid over the whirled leaves, expecting every moment to meet a keeper; but I only heard a jay, far off, arguing against the silence under the twilight of the trees.
Still the track descended. I was on the point of reversing and working my way back on the second speed ere I ended in some swamp, when I saw sunshine through the tangle ahead and lifted the brake.
It was down again at once. As the light beat across my face my fore-wheels took the turf of a great still lawn from which sprang hors.e.m.e.n ten feet high with levelled lances, monstrous peac.o.c.ks, and sleek round-headed maids of honour--blue, black, and glistening--all of clipped yew. Across the lawn--the marshalled woods besieged it on three sides--stood an ancient house of lichened and weather-worn stone, with mullioned windows and roofs of rose-red tile. It was flanked by semi-circular walls, also rose-red, that closed the lawn on the fourth side, and at their feet a box hedge grew man-high. There were doves on the roof about the slim brick chimneys, and I caught a glimpse of an octagonal dove-house behind the screening wall.
Here, then, I stayed; a horseman"s green spear laid at my breast; held by the exceeding beauty of that jewel in that setting.
"If I am not packed off for a trespa.s.ser, or if this knight does not ride a wallop at me," thought I, "Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth at least must come out of that half-open garden door and ask me to tea."
A child appeared at an upper window, and I thought the little thing waved a friendly hand. But it was to call a companion, for presently another bright head showed. Then I heard a laugh among the yew-peac.o.c.ks, and turning to make sure (till then I had been watching the house only) I saw the silver of a fountain behind a hedge thrown up against the sun. The doves on the roof cooed to the cooing water; but between the two notes I caught the utterly happy chuckle of a child absorbed in some light mischief.
The garden door--heavy oak sunk deep in the thickness of the wall--opened further: a woman in a big garden hat set her foot slowly on the time- hollowed stone step and as slowly walked across the turf. I was forming some apology when she lifted up her head and I saw that she was blind.
"I heard you," she said. "Isn"t that a motor car?"
"I"m afraid I"ve made a mistake in my road. I should have turned off up above--I never dreamed"--I began.
"But I"m very glad. Fancy a motor car coming into the garden! It will be such a treat----" She turned and made as though looking about her. "You-- you haven"t seen any one have you--perhaps?"
"No one to speak to, but the children seemed interested at a distance."
"Which?"
"I saw a couple up at the window just now, and I think I heard a little chap in the grounds."
"Oh, lucky you!" she cried, and her face brightened. "I hear them, of course, but that"s all. You"ve seen them and heard them?"
"Yes," I answered. "And if I know anything of children one of them"s having a beautiful time by the fountain yonder. Escaped, I should imagine."
"You"re fond of children?"
I gave her one or two reasons why I did not altogether hate them.
"Of course, of course," she said. "Then you understand. Then you won"t think it foolish if I ask you to take your car through the gardens, once or twice--quite slowly. I"m sure they"d like to see it. They see so little, poor things. One tries to make their life pleasant, but----" she threw out her hands towards the woods. "We"re so out of the world here."
"That will be splendid," I said. "But I can"t cut up your gra.s.s."
She faced to the right. "Wait a minute," she said. "We"re at the South gate, aren"t we? Behind those peac.o.c.ks there"s a flagged path. We call it the Peac.o.c.k"s Walk. You can"t see it from here, they tell me, but if you squeeze along by the edge of the wood you can turn at the first peac.o.c.k and get on to the flags."
It was sacrilege to wake that dreaming house-front with the clatter of machinery, but I swung the car to clear the turf, brushed along the edge of the wood and turned in on the broad stone path where the fountain-basin lay like one star-sapphire.
"May I come too?" she cried. "No, please don"t help me. They"ll like it better if they see me."
She felt her way lightly to the front of the car, and with one foot on the step she called: "Children, oh, children! Look and see what"s going to happen!"
The voice would have drawn lost souls from the Pit, for the yearning that underlay its sweetness, and I was not surprised to hear an answering shout behind the yews. It must have been the child by the fountain, but he fled at our approach, leaving a little toy boat in the water. I saw the glint of his blue blouse among the still hors.e.m.e.n.
Very disposedly we paraded the length of the walk and at her request backed again. This time the child had got the better of his panic, but stood far off and doubting.
"The little fellow"s watching us," I said. "I wonder if he"d like a ride."
"They"re very shy still. Very shy. But, oh, lucky you to be able to see them! Let"s listen."