In a Canadian Canoe; The Nine Muses Minus One, and Other Stories

ON a beautiful summer night of last long vacation a cloud sailed slowly out of the west. The sun was going down; the honest worker had fallen asleep over his books, and in his dream was standing before a booking office in the Bay of Tarentum and asking for a second aorist return to Clapham; the jubilant whist player, holding the situation in his hand, had exhausted the trumps, and was bringing in the rest of a long suit; the mere conversationalist had worked in that epigram again, and the mere athlete, who did not believe in that fancy kind of talk, had gone away to drink a little good beer; the fiery bedmaker had just gone round to the kitchens, to tell the men precisely what she thought about them: in fact, everything—except the cloud—was much as usual. But the cloud was extraordinary.

It was granted to me to see that cloud close at hand, to stand in its midst, to hear what was spoken there, while I remained unseen and unheard. I do not wish to speak of myself much, because it seems to me vain and immodest; but I must say that I believe the real reason why I was permitted to behold the Muses, and to hear the stories which they told to one another to while away the summer night, is that my nature is singularly pure, and good, and spiritual, and free from grossness, and beautiful. So, I feel sure, is your nature, my dear reader, although in a less degree.

In the front of the cloud hung a rosy curtain of some delicate tissue, and behind this curtain was the rose-lit room in which the Muses were grouped. Clio was standing erect. She wore a long and ample robe; her figure was stately; her look was the look of a handsome, learned woman, who is on the brink of her thirtieth year. In one hand was an open roll of paper, on which gilt letters were blazoned. She was looking down upon the towers, and steeples, and house-tops of Cambridge, and on the slow river winding like a reluctant silver corkscrew through the beautiful meadows of Grantchester.

Behind her, seven of her sisters, picturesquely grouped, reclined on a low divan at the farther end of the room. They all were beautiful in different ways. Their robes, snow-white and pearly-grey, golden and crimson and deep-sea blue, made a poem of colour.

And on the mosaic floor, kneeling on one knee, bending over a little tripod that supported a brazier, was one who wore no robe, but the long night of her beautiful hair. Mockery was on her lips, but dreams were in her eyes. She seemed a young girl of seventeen. She was Erato, who sings to us of love. The picture of her in the classical dictionaries is absurdly wrong. Beside her on the floor lay her lyre and a curious golden casket. From the brazier a thin, wandering line of fragrant smoke came up, and hovered in the room.

There was a moment’s silence. Then Clio turned round to her sisters. “We will stay here,” she said, “for a little while. This is Granta; and here are gathered young men who are truly gymnasts and yet follow the Muses. For they do all of them seek after culture, and love naught but the reading of many learned books, and the hearing of the wisdom of their teachers; and they all strive to lead the higher life.”

Terpsichore gave a curious little cough. I have no certain idea what it meant; but it seemed to imply in some way that she had been there before. The grave and stately Clio never noticed it.

“Yes, we will stay, and tell to one another improving stories,” she went on. “Cupid! Cupid!” she called.

A curtain at the side of the room was flung aside, and in came a little winged boy, with laughing eyes, naked but for the quiver that hung from the shoulders. He does a good deal for the Muses, but not in a menial way. They all smiled when he came in. He stood by the side of Erato, who evidently petted him a good deal, drawing one strand of her dark hair through his little rosy fingers—but he was looking at Clio.

“Cupid,” said the grave Muse, “we would stay here: let the wind blow our cloud no farther.” He nodded his head, turned to go, and then lingered, still playing with Erato’s hair.

“Erato,” he whispered in her ear, “my bow-string is frayed. Let me make a bow-string of your hair.”

“No—perhaps—not now. You wicked little boy!” she said, looking up in his face and laughing.

“Then soon,” he whispered again, and passed once more behind the curtain. I do not know what he did, but the wind ceased, and the cloud remained still. Clio took her place on the divan. “Who shall begin?” she asked.

“Oh, you!” they all cried together.

“You’re the eldest, you know,” added Erato, a little maliciously. Erato had taken a cushion from the divan, and stretched herself very lazily on the floor. I am afraid the other Muses were all anxious to get Clio’s story over as soon as possible. History was her province, and she was so exceedingly historical as to be sometimes almost dull.

“Very well, then. I will begin,” said Clio. “The number of temporal lords summoned by writ to the parliaments of the House of Plantagenet was exceedingly various.”

Clio paused. There was a sly, mischievous look on Erato’s face; she stretched out one hand to the golden casket, and took from it a little powder, which she dropped into the brazier. A strange, pungent odour came up from it. I do not know what it was, but it had a curious effect.

“I think I will begin again,” said Clio. “That’s the wrong story.”

Then she told the story which follows. I am afraid the powder had a little to do with it.

With the battle of Waterloo the last hope of Charles was humbled in the dust. Three years afterwards he was found by the lictors seated in a poor third-class compartment in the railway junction which was erected on the site of that scene of carnage, and still retains the name of Waterloo. Charles surveyed them from the window, calmly and unflinchingly. “Go,” he said, “and tell the Carthaginians that you have seen Marius seated in the South-Eastern Express for Charing Cross.”

His request was never carried out. It was almost impossible to book through to Carthage, and it was too far to walk. With tears in their eyes, the lictors walked sorrowfully away to the refreshment-room. The train steamed out of the station and arrived a week later at Charing Cross, a little tired, but in fairly good condition. Charles Marius levied two benevolences on the arrival platform, and conferred a monopoly on the bookstall; but he was not looking at all well. The marshes of Minturnæ, and a rooted dislike to being called a man of blood, had preyed on his mind, and made him appear haggard and anxious. He was met under the clock by the aged Menenius Agrippa, Socrates, John Bradshaw, the Spanish Ambassador, and others. John Bradshaw was naturally the first to speak.

“As Serjeant-at-Law and President of the High Court of Justice, it is my painful duty to——”

“Stay,” interrupted Menenius Agrippa. “I once told a fable to the Plebeians, and it did good. It is not generally known, and it may be of service in the present critical juncture. Charles Marius, you man of blood, listen. Once upon a time the members refused to work any longer for the Belly, which led a lazy life, and grew fat upon——”

“Don’t, my dear friend, don’t,” said the Spanish Ambassador piteously. “We know it by heart. It’s all in little Smith.”

“But it may do good,” said the aged Menenius. “How far had I got? Oh yes—and grew fat upon their toils. But receiving no longer any nourishment from the Belly, they soon began to——”

At this moment a cheerful porter, with a merry cry of “Now then, stoopid!” ran a heavy truckful of luggage into the aged Menenius and bowled him over. This gave John Bradshaw an opportunity to resume his remarks:

“It seemeth to me that the time hath now gone by when the telling of fables might serve the body politick; and seeing what grave charges have been exhibited against you, Charles Marius, you man of blood, and duly proven before me, it behoveth us rather to inquire into the method which shall be deemed most suitable for your execution.”

He went on to point out that there were many methods of execution, but that it was most agreeable to the sense of the nation that Charles Marius should be taken to a very small, very cheap, very dirty, very Italian restaurant; and that he should drink there one bottle of that sound dinner-wine Raisonola at eleven shillings the dozen.

“We hereby give our royal word,” said Charles Marius; but he was sternly checked by the Serjeant-at-Law.

“We need nothing of your royal word, having in former times had too much of it. I myself will walk first, accompanied by the Spanish Ambassador and Menenius Agrippa. You, Socrates, will accompany that man of blood, Charles Marius, and administer to him the consolations of your philosophy. You others will remain.”

The sad procession filed out of Charing Cross Station. Menenius Agrippa looked a little angry, and was brushing the dust from his toga; but the Spanish Ambassador and John Bradshaw were intensely stately and dignified. Behind them walked Socrates and Charles Marius. Socrates began at once:

“Seeing, my friend, that you are about to be executed, let us speak of execution. For it is well to speak always of the thing which is the present thing. So, setting aside your misconduct under H. Metellus Stanleius in Africa, let us discuss this execution. Now, I have often wondered why to the many it always seems an evil to be executed. For if a will be duly executed, it takes force therefrom. Now, to acquire force is plainly to be reckoned among the good things. Therefore to be executed must be good and desirable. Or shall we say rather that words have no meaning?”

“Go to the deuce!” said Charles Marius sulkily. “We offered John Bradshaw our royal word, and he refused to take it. So we won’t talk at all.”

And he never said another word until they were all five seated at one table in the Italian restaurant. A melancholy waiter of no nationality brought a soiled bill of fare; he also added two forks and a mustard-pot as a kind of after-thought.

“Bring,” said John Bradshaw, “one bottle of Raisonola and one glass.”

“Ver’ well,” said the waiter sadly, flicking a dead fly off the table with one end of his napkin. “It will be a shilling, if you please.”

“Pay afterwards,” said John Bradshaw sharply.

The waiter shrugged his shoulders. “I am ver’ sorry, but we mos’ always ask for ze monny before we bring ze Raisonola. We haf our orders. You see we haf often had a trouble to get ze monny afterwards from ze heirs. Tree weeks ago two gemmens kom in and order ze Raisonola. They trink it, and die all over ze floor.” (An expressive shrug of shoulders came in again here.) “We sweep ’em up, and throw ’em away, and they pay us nossin—nossin at all. It is all so moch loss.” His hands were turned outward, deprecatingly.

“Look here, my man,” said Menenius Agrippa quickly. “Once upon a time the members refused to work any longer for the Belly, which——”

“Dry up,” thundered John Bradshaw. “We must pay,” he added. “And it so befalleth that I have not my purse, but the Spanish Ambassador——”

The Ambassador explained that he had only Spanish coins with him, which would not be accepted. Socrates hastily added the information that he always took his money straight home to Xantippe, and that if he was short that night there would be unpleasantness.

Menenius said that he had no money, but would be glad to continue his fable. “Let’s see. Where was I? Oh, I know—any longer for the Belly, which——”

“Do drop it,” sighed the Spanish Ambassador pathetically.

“Silence,” said John Bradshaw. “Charles, be a man, and pay for your own execution.”

Charles offered his note-of-hand and his royal word.

But the waiter refused them. And the five were compelled to leave the restaurant. There was a crowd round the door. When they had got clear of the crowd, one of their number was missing. It was Charles Marius.

The rest of the story is well known. Charles Marius escaped to St. Helena, and spent the rest of his life in collaborating with Dr. Gauden on a novel called “Eikon Basilike.” The failure of the execution preyed upon John Bradshaw’s mind, and in a fit of madness he wrote the time-tables which bear his name. Menenius Agrippa became a diner-out, and acquired the surname of “History,” because he always repeated himself. The Ambassador still lives in his castle in Spain.

Clio had finished. “Thank you so much,” said the other Muses.