III
THE LITTLE ICE-MEN
Marian's daddy was very glad when Captain Jeremy married Gwendolen's aunt, because he and Captain Jeremy had been boys at school together, and he had always been very fond of him; and he was gladder still when Captain Jeremy and Gwendolen's aunt left Bellington Square. This they did a week after the wedding, because Captain Jeremy hated Bellington Square; and they went to live in an old farmhouse, two miles out of the town.
It was a beautiful old house, with a gabled roof and golden-red bricks like a winter sunset; and the hall and passages of it were dark and velvety, and the rooms upstairs smelt of lavender. Leading from the road to the front door was a cobbly path, with lawns on each side of it, and big trees standing on the lawns, with low-spreading branches that touched the grass. Behind the house was a kitchen-garden full of cucumber-frames and vegetables, and behind that was an orchard, with a gate leading into the fields. These were all hard and crinkly with frost, and the fruit-trees were bare, because it was the second of January, but that made the house seem all the snugger, with its low panelled walls and log fires.
When they had been in this house a week, Gwendolen's aunt gave a children's party, and Marian and Cuthbert were asked to go, because their daddy was Captain Jeremy's friend. Marian was very pleased, because she had always liked Gwendolen, although she had never known her very well, but Cuthbert said that he didn't like her and that he'd rather stay at home. Marian told him how much she had improved since her voyage to Monkey Island, but Cuthbert said that he didn't care, and that she was a silly sort of girl anyhow. He was only pretending, however, because just after Christmas he had been in hospital having his tonsils out, and he had already missed two or three parties and didn't mean to miss another.
So they went to the party, and Cuthbert was rather glad, because one of the girls there was a girl called Doris, who had been in hospital having her tonsils out just at the same time as he. She was rather a decent girl, ten years old, with dark-coloured eyes and brown hair, and one of her thumbs was double-jointed, and she had been eight times to the seaside. Just at present she was a little pale, and so was Cuthbert himself; and Gwendolen was so brown that, when they stood near her, they looked paler still.
Captain Jeremy came and shook hands with them.
"Hullo," he said, "what's the matter with you?"
"It's their tonsils," said Marian. "They've just had them out, and of course they're a little pulled down."
Captain Jeremy examined them thoughtfully.
Cuthbert liked him, and so did Doris.
"What you want," he said, "is a trip with me. That would soon set you up again."
Gwendolen and Marian had gone off to play, so Cuthbert and Doris had him to themselves.
"I should like it very much," said Cuthbert.
"So should I," said Doris, "but I'm afraid Mummy wouldn't let me go."
"I see," said the Captain. "Well, I'm off next week to Port Jacobson in the Arctic Circle. But you wouldn't be able to go to school next term if you came with me, because I shan't be back till the middle of May."
Cuthbert put his hand up and pinched his throat.
"It's still rather sore," he said.
"So is mine," said Doris.
Captain Jeremy laughed.
"Well, there's nothing like the Arctic Circle," he said, "for people who've just had their tonsils out."
Then he spoke to Doris.
"Let me see," he said: "I know where Cuthbert lives, but where do you live?"
Doris told him that she lived in John Street, which was the next street to Cuthbert's. Her father was dead, and her mummy was rather poor, as she had five other children besides Doris.
Captain Jeremy nodded.
"Then perhaps I shall be able to persuade her," he said, "to let me take you off her hands for a bit."
Doris danced up and down.
"Oh, I wish you would!" she cried. "I'd simply love to see the Arctic Circle!"
"So should I," said Cuthbert, and they were both so excited that they could hardly eat any tea. When Marian heard about it, she wished that she was pale too, and she wished it ever so much more the next morning when Captain Jeremy called on her father and mother and persuaded them to let Cuthbert go. Then he went to John Street and talked to Doris's mother, and he looked so commanding and yet so gentle that Doris's mother said she would be very glad to let Doris go with him to Port Jacobson.
"Of course, it'll be very cold," he said, "and they'll have to wear furs, but we can easily get those when we arrive, and all they'll want for the voyage is plenty of underclothing and their oldest clothes."
For a voyage like that, all among the ice, Captain Jeremy's sailing-ship wasn't quite suitable, so he had hired a little steamer with very thick sides, and a trusty pilot. Port Jacobson was in a sort of bay just under the shelter of Cape Fury, and beyond Cape Fury the coast had hardly been explored, it was all so bare and bleak and rocky. The only people who lived there were a few fishermen, a clergyman called Mr Smith, and a couple of engineers, who had been there for a year and had just found a coal-mine. It was the engineers who had written to Captain Jeremy, because they wanted him to bring them some machinery, and also because they wanted him to take back some of the coal that they had already dug up. That was how Captain Jeremy made his living, fetching and carrying things across the sea.
Neither Cuthbert nor Doris was the least bit sea-sick, and they loved to stand on the bridge beside Captain Jeremy and see the great billows rushing toward the steamer, one after another, in the bright sunshine. Sometimes they went below into the dark engine-room, where they had to shout to make themselves heard, and where the pistons of the engines slid to and fro like the arms of boxers that never got tired. How they loved the cabin, too, at meal-times, when the cook rolled in with the steaming dishes, and what meals they ate, in spite of the lurching table and the water slamming against the port-holes!
In a couple of days' time they had forgotten all about their tonsils, and two days after that they had almost forgotten their homes, and a week later they saw something in the distance like the grey ghost of a cathedral. It was an iceberg—the first that they had seen; but soon they began to see them every day, sometimes pale, in mournful groups, like broken statues in a cemetery, and sometimes sparkling in the sun as though they were crusted with a million diamonds.
One day they came on deck just after breakfast and saw miles and miles of ice, all jumbled together, and three hours later they saw a great cliff, covered with snow, standing out to sea. That was Cape Fury, and as they drew nearer they could see a little cluster of dark houses, with spires of smoke rising from their chimneys, and that was Port Jacobson. The pilot was on deck now, shouting all the time, and the steamer was going very slowly, with ice on each side of it, and they could see some men coming toward them, with rough-haired dogs pulling sledges. At last the steamer could get no farther, although it was still about a mile from the town, and they cast out anchors and a long cable that they began to carry toward the shore. It seemed very funny to Cuthbert and Doris to feel their feet again on something steady, even though this was only the rough surface of the frozen bay in front of the port. The days were so short here that the sun was already low, and the great cape stood dark and menacing, while far inland they could see the peaks of mountains slowly fading against the sky.
Among the men who had come to meet them were the two engineers and Mr Smith, and they were very surprised to see Cuthbert and Doris running about on the ice and trying to make snowballs. Then they all set off toward the little town, with the lights shining in its windows, and Mr Smith said that they must stay with him, because he and Mrs Smith had no children. Captain Jeremy was to stay with the two engineers, who had built a little house of their own, but they all came in to supper with the Smiths, and Cuthbert and Doris were allowed to sit up.
"To-morrow," said Mr Smith, "we'll get you some furs, and then you'll be able to go tobogganing with the other children," and Cuthbert and Doris said "Hooray!" because they had learned to toboggan on Fairbarrow Down. Just before they went to bed they saw a wonderful thing, for the whole of the sky began to quiver, and beautiful colours went dancing across it, melting away and then coming back again. These were the Northern Lights, or the Aurora Borealis, and Cuthbert and Doris could have watched them all night.
But they soon fell asleep; and most of the next day they were out tobogganing with the other children, and they soon became so good at it that they could go as fast as any of them, and hardly ever had a spill. By the end of the week they had got into the habit of climbing on to the top of Cape Fury and tobogganing back again, more than a mile and a half, right down to Mr Smith's house. The first time they climbed up there the slope had looked so steep, and the roofs of the houses so far below them, that they had stood for nearly ten minutes before they could make up their minds to start. But some of the other children had done it, and at last Doris had said, "Well, come on, Cuthbert, we mustn't be afraid," and Cuthbert had told her to hold on tight, and so they had pushed off over the frozen snow.
By the time they had got half-way, they were going so fast that the air was roaring in their ears, but the track was straight, and they had kept in the middle of it, and ran safely into the town. After that it didn't seem worth while to go tobogganing on any of the lower hills, and that was how it came about that the following Wednesday they found themselves as usual on the top of Cape Fury.
It was a still, cold day, and the air was so clear that they could see the coast for miles and miles, and the tops of mountains far inland that they had never seen before. Below them in the bay, stuck in the ice, they could see the little steamer, with the sailors on the deck, and beyond the ice a strip of blue water, and beyond that again more ice still. That was on one side of them, and on the other they saw the farther slope of Cape Fury, slanting down and down and down to the unexplored regions toward the north. It was a gentler slope than the slope toward the town, and suddenly Cuthbert had a great idea.
"I say," he said, "why shouldn't we toboggan down there? I don't suppose anybody has ever done it."
What with the wind and the sun and the snow, the cheeks of both of them were like ripe chestnuts, and Doris's eyes began to sparkle as she listened to Cuthbert's great idea. When he was at home Cuthbert didn't get many ideas, and he generally used to laugh at other people's, so he was very pleased when he got this one and Doris said that she thought it ripping.
"We won't go too fast," he said, "so that, if we see a precipice or anything, we shall be able to stop ourselves in time."
They had a stout little toboggan, just big enough for two, and so they started off down this new slope, with the sun shining and the snow glittering. At first they moved quite slowly, but lower down the side of the hill became steeper, and soon they were going so fast that, even if they had wanted to, they would have found it pretty hard to stop themselves. And then an awful thing happened, for suddenly, just in front of them, they saw a deep cleft in the snow sliding down, at a terrific angle, into a sort of tunnel under the hillside.
Almost before they could breathe, they had plunged into this, and now there was nothing to do but to hold on. They saw the tunnel's mouth leaping toward them, and the next moment they were in darkness. Neither Cuthbert nor Doris had ever been so frightened before. In the pitchy blackness they could see nothing. They could only feel themselves shooting deeper and deeper into the very heart of the frozen earth. Sometimes a bump on the floor of the tunnel would send them careering toward the roof, and then they would come down again with a thud that almost pitched them off the toboggan. Every moment they expected to be killed. There came another tremendous bump. And then they felt their toboggan springing through the air and dropping like a stone into some fearful well. They shut their eyes, waiting for death, and then went rolling over and over, with something strange and soft and feathery wrapping them round like a bedroom quilt. For a minute or two they could only gasp, and then Cuthbert sat up and called to Doris.
"Hullo, Doris!" he said; "are you all right?"
"Yes, I think so," said Doris. "Are you?"
Cuthbert told her that he was; and now that they could look about, they saw that they were on the floor of an immense cave, and that they had pitched down from somewhere near the top of it on to a huge mass of feathers. These were evidently the feathers of thousands and thousands of sea-birds; but who could have plucked them and stored them here so carefully?
Then they heard a strange sort of coughing and grunting and spluttering, and they saw the oddest of little men. He was about three feet high, with a red beard and a very cheerful sort of face, and he had evidently been asleep in among the feathers, for he was rubbing his eyes and staring at them in astonishment. Then they heard some more grunting and coughing, and at last they saw a dozen of these little men standing all round them, dressed in the skins of animals, and with feathers sticking to their beards. They were all looking rather disturbed, but when Cuthbert and Doris smiled they began to smile too and come toward them. Then they began to talk, and, though at first the sounds that they made seemed very queer, Cuthbert and Doris, rather to their surprise, found that they could understand them perfectly well. That was because the language in which the little men spoke was the oldest language in the world, the father and mother of all the other languages, and so of course the children soon understood it. They also found that in a very little while they could talk in this language themselves, and soon they were all chattering together about what had happened, as if they had known each other all their lives.
Now that they had become used to the dim light, they could see that this great cave had walls of rock, with long icicles hanging from the roof and the sticking-out pieces of the walls. Most of the floor of it was of smooth ice, but in the middle there was a flat rock; and on this rock there was a little fire burning, a little fire made of coal. The leader of the men was a man called Marmaduke, and he told the children that they had all been asleep, and that they had lived in this cave for hundreds of thousands of years, and that the great pile of feathers was where they went to bed.
"But it's day-time," said Cuthbert. "Why do you go to bed in day-time?"
Marmaduke laughed, and so did all the other men.
"Because at night," he said, "we go out and hunt to get our wolf-and seal-meat, when no one can see us."
But they were all so excited at the appearance of Cuthbert and Doris that they led them to the fire, where they sat and talked to them, and presently they cooked a delicious meal for them of seal-soup and wolf-chops. The coal that they burnt they had found in a deep hole in one corner of the cave, and at the other corner there was a little crack, down which they presently led the children. This opened upon a ledge of ice, five or six feet above the shore, but now they could hardly see anything, because the air was full of snow, driving fiercely into their faces. The little ice-men looked grave.
"It's a blizzard," they said, "and very likely it'll go on for a week. But luckily we've got plenty of meat, so that we shan't be in want of food."
"But how shall we get back?" said Doris. "They won't know where we are, and they'll think that we're both dead."
Marmaduke shook his head.
"I don't exactly know," he replied, "how you'd get back in any case. You could never climb up the way you came, and it's very difficult to get round the coast."
"But we'll have to get back somehow," said Cuthbert, "because of our relations at home."
"What are relations?" he said. "And why should you want to go back?"
So Cuthbert had to tell them all about his father and mother and his Uncle Joe and his sister Marian; and Doris had to tell them all about her mummy and her five little brothers and her aunts and cousins. They were very interested, but it was quite clear that Cuthbert and Doris couldn't leave that night; and so presently they crept in among the feathers, and were soon very comfy and fast asleep. The next morning it was still snowing, but it was rather fun helping to cook the meals, and the little men showed them some lovely dances that were almost as old as the world itself.
For a whole week they had to stay in the cave, with the blizzard raging outside, but one morning when they crept down the crack they found the sky clear and the sun shining. They could now see, towering straight above them, tremendous precipices of rock, and miles of boulders and broken ice, stretching out toward the horizon.
"Our only hope," said Cuthbert, "is that Captain Jeremy and some of the fishermen will come exploring for us," and just as he said that far in the distance they heard the report of a gun. Then a long way off they saw some little figures and a tiny sledge drawn by dogs; and they stood on tiptoe and waved and waved, hoping that Captain Jeremy might see them through his telescope.
The little ice-men never came out by daylight, and when they heard what the children had seen they made them promise on their dying oath not to tell anybody the way to the cave. Once before, they said, a learned man had discovered them, and he had tried to measure them with a pair of compasses, so they had had to kill him, as gently as they could, by putting him in the middle of the pile of feathers. Then they said good-bye, and all the little men kissed them and sent their love to everybody at home, and Cuthbert and Doris began to scramble over the ice toward the sledge-party that was now much nearer.
When Captain Jeremy met them, you can guess how pleased he was, because he had made up his mind that they must have been killed; and good Mr Smith had tears in his eyes, but they were tears of joy. Everybody at Port Jacobson, too, was so pleased that they made a big bonfire to celebrate the occasion, and they all drank the healths of the little ice-men and ate a lot of sweets in their honour.
When the children arrived home, however, early in May, and Cuthbert told Marian all about them, she said at first that she wouldn't believe in them, because Cuthbert hadn't believed in Mr Jugg. But Cuthbert had grown wiser and less conceited, and he told Marian that he had changed his mind. So Marian believed in them, and her daddy was rather pleased, because there were more things under the earth, he said, than most people imagined.
Not a twig that learned to climb
In the babyhood of time,
Not a bud that broke the air
In the days before men were,
Not a bird that tossed in flight
Ere the first man walked upright,
Nor a bee with craftier cell
Than a Roman citadel,
But, with all its pride and pain,
Into dust crept back again.
Oh, what wisdom there must be
Hidden in the earth and me!
UNCLE JOE'S STORY
IV
UNCLE JOE'S STORY
Marian's mummy used to read the Bible to her, so that she knew all about Adam and Eve; but she never knew that Eve had a little daughter until Uncle Joe told her this story. Next to her mummy and daddy, Marian loved Uncle Joe better than anybody in the whole world. He lived in a little house tucked into a sort of dimple on the side of Fairbarrow Down, and a man called Mr Parker lived with him and helped to keep the place tidy. Uncle Joe had been a soldier in a lot of queer countries a long way off; and when Marian and Cuthbert asked him what he had fought for, he generally used to tell them that it was for lost causes. In between wars he had done lots of other things, such as trying to find out what caused diseases, or whether plants that grew in some places could be made to grow in others. Mr Parker had been a soldier too—a soldier of misfortune, he used to say—and he had saved Uncle Joe's life three times, and Uncle Joe had saved his life twice.
Uncle Joe's face was yellowish brown, because he had been in the sun so much and had fever; but Mr Parker's face was red, and one of his eyes was made of glass. Mr Parker used to call himself a lone, lorn orphan, though he was much fatter than Uncle Joe, and afterward he used to spit and say that it was rough weather in the Baltic.
It was about a fortnight after Cuthbert and Doris had come back from the Arctic Circle that Uncle Joe told Marian this story, while they were sitting under one of his apple-trees. Some of the apple-petals had begun to drop, leaving the tiny, weeny, baby apples behind them, and the only really ripe apples in Uncle Joe's garden were the two apples in Marian's cheeks.
"But those aren't real apples," said Marian.
"Well, it all depends," said Uncle Joe, "on what you mean by real."
"You see," said Mr Parker, who had just come out to mow the lawn, "there's more kinds of apples than a few. There's eating apples and cooking apples and pineapples and crab-apples; and there's oak-apples and Adam's apples and the apples what you sees in little girls' cheeks."
"Kissing apples," said Uncle Joe. "They're one of the most important kinds."
He began to fill his pipe.
"And now that I come to think of it," he said, "they're one of the oldest kinds too."
"As old as Mr Jugg," asked Marian, "or the little ice-men?"
"Well," said Uncle Joe, "I don't know about that. But they're certainly as old as Eve's little girl," and then he began to tell Marian all about her.
"I'm not quite sure," he said, "what her name was. It might have been Gretchen or Olga, or it might have been Seraphine or Marie-Louise, but I rather think that it was Bella. Of course you remember what happened in the Garden of Eden, and how Adam and Eve had to leave it, not because the good Lord God wanted to turn them out, but because He knew that they could never be happy there any more. Every hour that they stayed they would have become more and more miserable; and if they had come back it would have broken their hearts, so He had to put two angels to guard the gate. You see, He had wanted them to be sort of grown-up babies in the loveliest nursery ever imagined, and to be able to go there and play games with them whenever He was tired of ruling the universe. But when once they had heard about growing up, and choosing for themselves, and things of that sort, they could never have been babies any more, and it would have been cruel to keep them in the nursery.
"Of course, they didn't understand that, and they thought it very hard, and very often they used to grumble; and when they had learned to write they used to send Him angry letters and say bad things about Him in books. That was chiefly because they had to work and learn to look after themselves; but that was the only way, as the good Lord God saw, in which they could ever be happy again. 'They weren't content,' He thought, 'just to be My playthings, so now they must learn to be My comrades; and perhaps in the end that'll be the best for everybody, though it'll be a long, long time before they've learnt how.' And then He sighed as He saw the empty nursery and all the animals that they used to play with, just as fathers and mothers sigh now when their babies grow up and have to go to school. So Adam and Eve had to leave the Garden, and just outside it there was a big town, full of houses and factories and chimneys, and men and women who worked all day long. Who were those men and women, and where did they come from? Well, it's rather hard to explain. You see, Adam and Eve, through never having grown up, had been in the Garden for thousands and thousands of years. But outside the Garden there were seas and deserts and thick, hot jungles full of wild animals. Some of these animals had looked through the railings and been very struck with Adam and Eve, and sort of wished in the bottoms of their hearts that they could have children just like them. Some of them wished so hard that their next lot of children actually did become a little like them, and their grandchildren became liker still, and at last their great-great-grandchildren became real men and women. Of course they weren't Garden men and women, like Adam and Eve; they were just jungle men and women, running wild.
"Well, after thousands of years these jungle men and women became so clever that they cleared away the jungle, and then they dug fields and planted hedges and sowed corn and built towns; and those were the people that Adam and Eve found when they left the Garden and began to look for work. Later on Adam and Eve's children married the children of the jungle people; so that now all the people in the world are half Garden and half jungle."
"Even clergymen?" asked Marian.
Uncle Joe nodded.
"Yes, and policemen and postmen too."
"And lone, lorn orphans," said Mr Parker, "and the man what comes to mend the bath."
"But that's jumping forward," said Uncle Joe, "a long time, for when Adam and Eve left the Garden they didn't even know what children were, and their hearts were full of bitterness against the good Lord God. That was one of the reasons why He thought it would be so nice for them to have a little girl of their own, because then in time they might begin to guess, He thought, something of what He felt toward themselves.
"So about a year after they had left the Garden little Bella was born, and they both thought that she was the loveliest baby that had ever been seen since the world began. Poor Adam and Eve were then living in a dark street on the outskirts of the town, and all that they could afford was one room on the top floor at the back.
"Adam had got work at one of the factories where they made boots and shoes, but he was only a beginner, of course, and hadn't learnt much, and so his wages were very small. Sometimes Eve took in a little washing, or got a job from somebody of darning socks, but she did her best to keep their home tidy and some fresh flowers on the mantelpiece. Every day, too, she put crumbs on the window-sill, and soon she had made friends with the birds that came and ate them, and sometimes a bird would fly from the Garden, and feed from her hand, and tell her the news. Both Adam and Eve, you see, knew the birds' language through having lived with them for so long. But they were never able to teach it to their children, and since they died no one has ever learnt it.
"Soon after Bella was born Adam got a rise in wages, but soon after that Eve had another baby; and then she had some more, and though they rented another room or two they were always poor and often hungry. But after a while they began to think less often of their old life in the Garden of Eden, and sometimes they would even wonder whether they would go back there if the good Lord God gave them the chance. You see, in spite of their poverty and their hard work and the noise and smells of the great town, they had learnt what it meant to have children, and to bend over their cots and kiss them good-night.
"When Bella was eight she was rather a fat little girl, with dark eyes and an impudent mouth, and she wore her hair in a long pigtail, and her nose was ever so slightly turned up. Adam and Eve thought that she was very beautiful, but everybody else thought her quite ordinary, and she spent most of her time in the streets, though she was always punctual for meals. She had lots of friends, most of them boys, but every now and then she would get tired of them all; and those were the times when she would go exploring and generally end up by hurting herself. Eve was too busy ever to bother much about what Bella did or where she went, and the Garden of Eden was the only place that she had strictly forbidden her to go near. It was one of the rules, of course, that nobody was to go near it, and there were angels at the gate with swords of flame; and this was a rule, Eve thought, that it would be very much worse for one of her children to break than for anybody else.
"So she had always told Bella never even to go up the street that led into the fields just outside the Garden; and if Bella hadn't been feeling bored on this particular day—it was just a week after her birthday—and if it hadn't been so hot, and the sun so scorching, and the streets so dusty, and everybody so cross, and if Bella hadn't been inquisitive just like her mother used to be, and if she hadn't sort of happened to be walking up that street, and if the fields at the end of it hadn't seemed so cool and so inviting, and if Bobby Gee, who was a great friend of hers, hadn't dared her to do it—well, there's no saying, but perhaps after all Bella wouldn't have stood looking at those dreadful gates.
"There was now only a strip of grass between her and the Garden, and she could see it stretched there beyond the railings. It was the middle of the afternoon, and so heavy was the sunshine that the leaves of the trees were all pressed down by it. None of them stirred. There was no sound. The lawns beneath them looked like wax. And where were the angels? Bella held her breath. There were none to be seen. There were only the sentry-boxes.
"Very cautiously she took a step or two forward. Her bare feet made no noise. The bars of the gate quivered in the heat. Then she stopped again and listened. At first she heard nothing, but then, very, very faint, there came to her ears the ghost of a sound. It came and died, and came and died, like the waves of a sea hundreds of miles off. She crept nearer and listened again, and now there were two sounds, rising and falling. They came from the sentry-boxes, one on each side of the gate. The angels inside were fast asleep. Bella bit her lip and crept forward. She could feel her heart jumping like a mouse in a cage. The scents of the Garden came to meet her. She could see its curved and vanishing pathways.
"But what caught her eyes and made them grow round was a bending tree just inside the gate. With her hands on the bars she stood looking at it, and presently her mouth began to water. For from every branch of it there hung such apples as she had never seen in all her life, and from the lowest bough there hung an apple that was the biggest and most beautiful of them all. And then another thing happened, for as she pressed against the bars the great gate began to move. Very slowly it swung open, and still the angels were fast asleep. Her heart was beating now like two clocks at once—what an apple it would be to eat! A bright-coloured bird hopped across the grass, and stood looking up at her with an inquiring eye. She glanced round about her and over her shoulder, but there was nobody in sight. Dared she go in? She thought about the rules, and what her mother had said, and then she remembered Bobby Gee. The angels were still breathing lightly and regularly. The bright-coloured bird had flown away.
"Then she took a bold step and went into the Garden and tiptoed softly up to the tree. The apple was so ripe that it was nearly ready to drop, and it was just on a level with the tip of her nose. It smelt like honey, and when she touched it it was as cool as marble. Then she touched it again, and caught hold of it, and somehow or other it came off the tree. She lifted it to her lips, and it felt like a kiss; and then a Voice behind her said—
"'Well?'
"She jumped round, almost dropping the apple. It was the good Lord God who stood looking at her.
"'What are you doing?'
"She hid the apple behind her, but His eyes shone through her, like light through a window. She hung her head.
"'Are you Eve's little girl?' He asked.
"Bella nodded. She couldn't say a word.
"'I thought you must be,' He said. He put His finger under her chin. There came a sound like the rushing of a great wind. The two angels had heard His voice, and drawn their swords, and leapt into the Garden. In another moment, Bella thought, they would have killed her. But the good Lord God held up His hand. The two angels stood one on each side of Him, leaning on their swords and looking rather downcast. Bella held out her hand. The good Lord God bent forward and took the apple away from her.
"'Well, what excuse have you,' He said, 'for stealing My apples?'
"Bella considered for a moment. Then she thought of one.
"'Please, sir, mother did it. She told me so.'
"'But you knew the rules,' said the good Lord God.
"Bella hung her head again. She knew them quite well.
"'And the rules must be obeyed,' He said.
"Bella began to tremble.
"There was a moment's silence. The two angels stood like statues, still leaning on their swords. Then the good Lord God spoke again.
"'Look at Me,' He said.
"Bella lifted her eyes and saw the World without End. He gave her back the apple.
"'Well, you may keep it,' He went on, 'on condition that you give half of it to Bobby Gee.'
"Bella said, 'Thank you, sir.'
"'But that's not all,' He continued.
"He bent forward and touched her cheeks.
"'For I hereby ordain,' He said, 'that now and for ever every little girl and every little boy shall wear apples in their cheeks in remembrance of what you have done. They shall be known as the brand of Eden—the brand of Eden for little thieves—and their parents must see to it, on pain of My displeasure, that they shall never be allowed to fade away.'
"Then He bent still lower and gave Bella a kiss, and the tall angels led her outside the gate; and that's why it is that the apples in little girls' cheeks are almost the oldest kind in the world."
Uncle Joe lit his pipe. From where they were sitting they could see the country for miles and miles. Down below them the town looked quite small, and the spire of St Peter's Church just like a toy spire. Far behind it, beyond the level cornlands, the sun was dropping into the evening mists. It grew rosier and rosier, until it almost looked like an apple itself. Mr Parker winked at Marian.
"Rough weather," he said, "in the Baltic."
Then he spat in his hands and rubbed them together.
"Well, I must be getting along," he said, "with this here lawn-mowing."
Eden had an apple-tree,
Eve a little daughter,
Tried to do as mother did,
But the Good Lord caught her.
"Wherefore 'tis ordained," He said,
"Here and in all places,
Children shall henceforward wear
Apples in their faces."
BEARDY NED
V
BEARDY NED
Near Uncle Joe's house there was a small pool which was really the beginning of a river; and this river ran into a bigger one that flowed through the town in which Marian and Cuthbert lived. The big river was rather muddy, but the little one was nearly always clear, and it was quite easy to paddle across it, though there were some pools in it six feet deep.
Up in the downs, where it began, it was hardly more than a bubbly trickle, but lower down it grew wider and wider, and ran between the reeds at the edges of the meadows. Close to Captain Jeremy's farmhouse, where it joined the big river that flowed through the town, it ran for almost a quarter of a mile through the middle of a sort of wood. It was under the roots of some of these trees, as they pushed through the water into the soil beneath, that the biggest of the trout had their nests, where fishermen with flies couldn't reach them. But there were some big trout, too, that lived under the meadow banks, and used to put up their noses in the summer evenings, and suck down the flies that fell on the water when they were tired of dancing in the air.
Cuthbert and Marian and Doris and Gwendolen were all very fond of this river, and when they had finished paddling or bathing in the pools (for they had all learnt to swim) they used to lie on the bank and keep very still and watch the trout having their evening meal. They would see an orange-coloured fly or a blue fly or a fly with pale wings like a distant rain-cloud floating down on the top of the water and probably wondering where it had got to; and then they would hear a little noise like grown-up people make with the tips of their tongues against the roofs of their mouths; and then the fly would be gone, and there would be a tiny wave on the water, shaped like a ring, and growing bigger and bigger. That meant that a trout had been lying in wait, with his eye cocked on the surface of the stream, and had seen the fly, and liked the look of him, and suddenly decided to swallow him up.
Sometimes a fisherman would come quietly along and kneel down on one knee, and, after he had seen a trout rise, would open a little box and take out a fly like the one that the trout had eaten. But this would be a sham fly, made of feathers and silk, cunningly tied round a sharp hook, and he would thread it on to a piece of gut so thin that they could hardly see it. Then he would tie the gut to a sort of string that was hanging down from the point of his fishing-rod; and then he would swish his rod until the fly flew out straight and fell upon the stream, just as the real one had done.
Sometimes they could see a trout come up and look at this fly and shake his head, and go down again; but once or twice they had seen a big trout rise and swallow it just as if it had been a real one. Then the trout had found himself caught, and they had seen the fisherman's rod bent almost double as the trout dashed to and fro; and at last they had seen the fisherman slip a net into the water, and lift the trout on to the bank, all curved and shining. But very often there would be no fishermen at all, and they would see nobody for hours and hours, and hear nothing but the cries of the river-birds and the suck, suck, of the feeding trout.
The man that they saw most often was a man called Beardy Ned, because, though he was only a youngish man, he had a sandy-coloured beard; and they were always very sorry for him, because he had lost his wife in a terrible railway accident soon after he had married her. She had left him with a little girl only ten months old, and that was why Ned had let his beard grow. He hadn't time, he said, to look after the little girl and shave his face every day as well. When he had married, Ned had been a postman, but after his wife had been killed he had given that up; and he had wandered about ever since, doing all sorts of odd jobs.
Sometimes he helped the farmers get their hay in, or the gamekeepers trap stoats, and sometimes he would chop wood, and sometimes he would go far away and not come back for weeks and weeks. But wherever he went he would take his little girl, whom he had called Liz after her mother; and sooner or later he would always come back to this river, because that was where he had first met his dead wife. He had lived so much in the open air that his skin was as dark as a Red Indian's, and when he laughed his teeth were like snow, and his eyes like the sea on a sunny day. People like clergymen and large employers often used to tell him that he ought to settle down. But why should he settle down, he asked, so long as there was only Liz, and she could sleep in his arms as snug as snug?
Liz was four years old now, and as brown as her father, and her hair was short and curly like a boy's; and Cuthbert and Marian and Doris and Gwendolen loved her almost as much as they loved Beardy Ned. For Beardy Ned, in spite of his great trouble, was always full of a secret happiness, and he had made this little song out of his own head that he used to sing every two or three hours:
The wickedest girl there was,
The wickedest girl there is,
The wickedest girl there ever will be
Is my young daughter Liz.
He only meant it in fun, of course, and when Liz was running about he would shout it at the top of his voice, but when she was sleepy he would only croon it until her eyelids began to drop.
Of course Cuthbert couldn't always be bothered to go up the river with the girls, and on the same evening that Uncle Joe told Marian about the apples he went by himself to have a bathe in a big pool called Kingfisher Pool. It was still only May, so that the water was cold, but the air above it was warm and still, and he was lying on the bank without anything on, when he suddenly heard a splash and a gurgling cry. He sat bolt upright, and then, looking across the pool, he saw a little form struggling in the deep water, and rolling over in it, head downward, and then beginning to slip out of sight. It was Liz, with all her clothes on. She had evidently slipped down the steep bank, and if Cuthbert couldn't save her she would be sure to drown, because Beardy Ned was nowhere in sight.
It was so awful to see her that at first Cuthbert couldn't move; but a moment later he was in the water and swimming across the pool as fast as he could, and faster than he had ever swum before. He prayed to God that he might be in time. The pool had never looked so wide. But at last he had swum across it and made a grab at a piece of Liz's frock just under the surface. He pulled this hard, and tried to go on swimming with his other arm and both legs; and then it was only a second or two before his toes touched the bottom of the river, and he was able to stand up and lift her out of the pool.
She was quite pale, and the water was pouring from her mouth, and her eyes were staring as if they couldn't see anything. He scrambled up the bank, grazing his knees, and then she began to choke and take deep breaths. Just then, too, Beardy Ned came crashing through the reeds with great strides, for Cuthbert had shouted as loud as he could just before he plunged into the pool. Ned's face had turned grey, and there was a look in his eyes that made Cuthbert feel almost frightened. But when he saw Liz sitting up and crying he gave a shout and caught her in his arms. Then he gripped Cuthbert by the wrist, and Cuthbert could feel that he was shaking all over; and then Beardy Ned began to cry too, so that Cuthbert had to look the other way. But next moment both he and Liz were laughing, and Cuthbert swam back again to put on his clothes; and then he crossed the river upon a plank lower down, where he found Beardy Ned and Liz waiting for him.
Beardy Ned took him by the shoulder.
"Come along," he said, "and have supper with us."
He was carrying Liz, and sticking out of one of his pockets Cuthbert could see the tails of a brace of trout; and presently they came to a bend of the stream, where the bank was high and there was a little beach. From the top of the bank a great tree had fallen, with its roots sticking up in the air, and under the trunk there was just room enough for Beardy Ned and Liz to sleep. He had put a couple of blankets there and an old waterproof, and standing on the beach were a cup and kettle; and soon he had made a fire with some dry sticks, and was showing Cuthbert how to cook trout.
It was beginning to get dark now, and the stars were shining, and the flames of the fire made the river look like ink. But they were so sheltered under the high bank that they might almost have been at home. They had trout for supper, and drank tea, and Liz, who was almost asleep, had a cup of milk; and then they ate biscuits, and jam out of a pot, and Beardy Ned filled his pipe. He had made Liz take off her wet clothes, of course, and these were hanging from sticks on either side of the fire, and he had wrapped her in a blanket, and soon she was fast asleep, lying on his knees as he sat and smoked.
He seemed to be thinking a lot, but at last he looked at Cuthbert.
"You've saved my little girl's life," he said, "and I can never pay you back. But I'll show you a secret that no one else in the whole world knows."
Cuthbert liked secrets, so he was rather pleased. But Beardy Ned changed the subject.
"It was just here," he said, "just where we're sitting, that I first saw my Liz—I mean her mother. Perhaps, in a manner of speaking, it was where I first saw this one too, but that's neither here nor there. She was just nineteen. She'd been paddling in the stream. I called out to her, and she turned and looked at me. She was in an old frock, but she looked quite the lady. Her eyes was dark, and she was smiling."
He moved his head a little.
"There goes a fox," he said.
He sucked his pipe for a moment in silence. The sound of the fire was like somebody talking to them. But the sound of the river was like something talking to itself.
Then Beardy Ned felt in his pocket and pulled out the end of a candle. It looked like an ordinary candle, with an ordinary wick, and it was just about an inch long.
"This was give me," he said, "by an old feller—James Parkins, that was his name—and there's not another like it in the whole world, and there never won't be again."
Beardy Ned held it in the palm of his hand, as though he were weighing it, while he looked at Cuthbert.
"Have you ever wondered," he said, "where candles goes to—where they goes to when they goes out?"
"No, I don't think so," said Cuthbert. "Where do they go to?"
Liz stirred a little, and Beardy Ned bent over her.
"Well, I'll tell you," he said. "They goes into the In-between Land—the place as is in between everything you can see. How do I know? Because I've been there. Because James Parkins showed me how."
"That's very interesting," said Cuthbert politely, but Beardy Ned didn't seem to hear.
"The trouble is, you see," Beardy Ned continued, "that candles, when they goes out, can't take people with them. But James Parkins, he'd found a candle that could take a person with it, and this is the candle. When he first gave it me, two year ago, it was about eight inches long. But I've used it a lot, and after you've blowed it out, and it's taken you with it, it goes on burning. When you come back, it's an inch shorter—an inch shorter every time. And this here bit is the last bit as'll ever take anyone to In-between Land."
He gave it to Cuthbert.
"Do you want to go there?" he said. "You've saved my little girl's life, and you've only to say the word."
"But it's the last bit," said Cuthbert.
"Never mind. I know what's there. That's the chief thing."
"Is it quite safe?" asked Cuthbert. "It seems rather queer."
"I'll tell you what it's like," said Beardy Ned. "It's like a dream. Or rather it's not like a dream so much as waking up from a dream. You sees the trees and things, all kind of misty, and the houses in the towns, and the people in the houses. And you sees 'em quarrelling and the like, and grieving, and you wants to tell 'em as it's only a dream. You wants to tell 'em they're just going to wake up. That's what it seems like in In-between Land."
Liz stirred again, and he shifted her on his knees a little.
"You see, in a manner of speaking," he went on, "there ain't no time there, not as we reckons time. But once you've been there—well, you'll see for yourself if you'd like to go."
Cuthbert held out the candle.
"Yes, I'd like to," he said. "It would be rather exciting."
Beardy Ned bent forward and took a stick from the fire. He lit the end of the candle between Cuthbert's fingers.
"Now blow it out," he said, "and you'll go out with it. It'll be all right. You'll be back in a tick."
Cuthbert's hand was shaking a little, but he blew out the candle, and then, for a moment, he saw nothing at all. But he felt something. He felt as if he'd been asleep for ever and ever and had suddenly opened his eyes. He felt as if he could do anything, he was so strong. He felt as if he could jump over the highest star. Toothache, and school, and taking medicine—they all seemed too stupid even to bother about. He felt like a prisoner just set free. He knew that he was really free, and that nothing could ever hurt him. Then he began to see things—the fire of sticks, the stream beyond, and the dusky meadows. But they looked just like dream-sticks, and a dream-fire, and there were real things beyond them whose names he didn't know. Then he looked round and saw Beardy Ned with little Liz upon his knees; and it was just then that he saw something else that was perhaps the most wonderful thing of all. For beside Beardy Ned stood a girl of nineteen, who had been paddling in the stream. She was in an old frock, but she looked quite the lady, and her eyes were dark, and she was smiling.
Then she was gone. The candle had burnt away. Cuthbert was back again in the ordinary world. He saw Beardy Ned looking at him gravely.
"Now you know," he said, "why I'm happy."
Cuthbert rose to his feet.
"I must be going home," he said. "They'll be wondering where I've been."
Beardy Ned nodded.
"Well, good night," he said.
"Good night," said Cuthbert.
He climbed the bank.
But on the top of the bank he turned round for a moment and looked down again at Beardy Ned. He was still sitting there with Liz on his knees, and Cuthbert saw him stoop and give her a kiss. Then he began to sing very softly the queer song that he had made up:
The wickedest girl there was,
The wickedest girl there is,
The wickedest girl there ever will be
Is my young daughter Liz.
In between the things we know,
Touch and handle, taste and see,
Lies the land where lovers go
At their life's end quietly.
There, in that untroubled place,
There, with eyes amused, they scan,
Cradled still in time and space,
This, the infant world of man.