Drolls From Shadowland Part 3

[K] Silly.

THE PURSUIT.

IT began when I was a lad at the country day-school, struggling to hold my own among the scholars in my cla.s.s.

If I could only always be perfect in my lessons, and among the foremost (if not the first) in the examinations; then, at least, I thought, I should see Her face to face.

But these good things befell me--possibly undeservedly--and though I swelled beneath my coat with inward satisfaction, _She_ was still far off: a phantom on the hills.

Then it struck me that if I went to dear Mother Nature she would tell me of this daughter of hers--so enchanting, yet so shy--and I might even one day surprise Her on the hill-slopes, or meet Her as She wandered among the green, winding lanes.

So I presently became a haunter of the tree-clad valleys, of the prattling brooks with the meadowsweet drooping over them, and of the lone, bleak hills where the great wind growled.

Many mornings did I steal out long before the sunrise in order to watch the stars die out in the dawning and the red bars glow in the palpitating east. And when, standing among the firs in the windy plantation, I saw the huge sun rear its head and flood the world with splendour, and heard the birds sing jubilantly, almost breathless with delight, I have fancied I felt the breath of the Beloved One on my cheek and Her heart beating wildly and tremulously against my own. But it was only fancy. Presently the singing dwindled and became fainter: the air grew hot beneath the aromatic fir-boughs: and when, in the distance, the flood of dazzling sunlight dashed redly on the window-panes of the village cottages, I knew I must descend from the haunted hill-top and return to the more prosaic details of life. If She had flown past me, brushing me with Her garments in pa.s.sing, I had not yet discovered Her as a possession that I could grasp.

Then I said to myself, I shall find Her among my girl-friends: among their rustling garments I shall hear _Her_ garments rustle; and from among the laughing eyes with which they bewilder me, I shall no doubt be able to single out _Hers_.

I chose the pleasantest of the maidens who fluttered through my world; and I knew her beautiful, and I believed her to be true. But that old clown Circ.u.mstance was piping in the market-place, shewing his cheap-jack wares to catch the fancies of the maidens, and my sweetheart, caught in the excitement of the moment, presently paid down for one of his flashy baubles no less a price than her own young heart.

Then I said, I will look abroad in the market-place myself. Through the clatter of feet and the babble of many voices, I may perhaps catch a whisper, a hint of Her presence. Possibly She may love the eager haunts of men even more than She loves the silent haunt of the wood-dove and the great wide moors where the kite circles slowly. I will move among my fellows and will search for Her there.

But the market-place with its thud, thud, thud of many feet, and its clatter of vehicles, and its buzz of many voices, was a busy spot, and the pleasures were very cheap ones: and not here could I manage to get a glimpse of Her face.

I looked in the shops, and I stood beside the hawkers, and I listened to the sellers and gossiped with those who bought; but the noise, and the heat, and the dust that rose so thickly, were more than I had bargained for, and I felt lonely and disillusioned: so I very lamely turned my back on it all, and went away feeling that I should never find Her there.

Then I built for myself a study into which I gathered covetously the most perfect vintage of the human intellect--the ripest fruit our wise race has garnered during all the years it has been harvesting from time.

And here I sat me down waiting for my Beloved. She will surely show Her face to me here, said I.

The wind rattled the cas.e.m.e.nt; the lamp-flame shook tremulously; and the fire burned cheerfully in the grotesque-tiled grate. I could hear the rain viciously swishing against the window-panes and gurgling unmelodiously through the gutters and from the pipes, but She whom I desired came not to keep me company.

For all the feast I have gathered for us, and for all the comfort I have secured for Her, She holds aloof, and I have never seen Her yet.

And sometimes now I fancy that possibly I may never see Her: but that one day, when I am lying in my coffin, She will press Her lips to mine--and I shall never know.

A PLEASANT ENTERTAINMENT.

"I HAVE here," said the Showman, "the most interesting entertainment to be witnessed on earth! Walk up! walk up, and judge for yourselves!" And with that he beat the drum and blew shrilly on the pipes.

The music travelled to the ears of his audience with a difference: or so it seemed to them, as they stood before the booth. Some heard in it, through the discordant hubbub of the fair, the rattle of vehicles and the tramp of feet in the busy thoroughfares of a great city; for others, it was the whistling of birds in the hedgerows; and to some, like the restless pulsations of the sea. To each, according to his memories and his mood. But the music of the Showman was a single tune for all.

"Walk up! walk up!" bawled the grey-coated Showman, blowing at the pipes and pounding on the drum.

"Darned if I wouldn't go in, if I had the bra.s.s!" quoth a lean, unshaven, shabby-looking man, who stood in front of the booth with his hands in his pockets.

"I'll stand treat, if you like!" cried a sunken-eyed young woman, whose cheap and much-bedraggled finery matched aptly enough with her wan and haggard countenance. It was the impulse of a moment, but she was the puppet of impulse and danced on the wires at the slightest touch of chance.

"Right you are!" cried the man.

And they mounted the steps together.

"It's like going up to the altar, isn't it?" giggled the woman to her companion.

"More like going up to the gallows," growled the man.

The Showman rattled the coins as he pocketed them, and flinging aside the canvas admitted them to the booth.

The interior was enveloped in a dim obscurity; hardly deep enough to be counted as darkness, but oppressive enough to slow the pulses of both.

There was, however, at one end of the booth a large disc projected on the obscurity: a pale, empty, weirdly-lighted circle, which they stared at dumbly, with wonder in their eyes.

"Is this some darned fool's joke?" growled the man.

"Hush!" said the woman, "the entertainment has commenced."

And, true enough, the disc at which they had been staring had already a stirring, as of life, across its surface.

They were aware of a couple of enthralling faces fronting them side by side on the disc.

One was a woman's face, exquisitely beautiful, with soft blue eyes, full of the most charming gaiety, and with lips as sweetly winsome as a child's: the other was a man's face, proud and handsome, the mouth set firmly, the eyes full of thought.

"Such a face I had dreamed of as my own," sighed the woman.

"So I had imagined I might have been," mused the man.

And then the scenes on the disc began to wax and dwindle rapidly; like the momentary clinging, and as rapid vanishing, of breath across a mirror of polished steel.

There was a vague fluttering and interchange of images; an elusive, intangible influx of suggestions, and an equally dreamy efflux of the same.

A young girl growing into beautiful womanhood, well-dressed, shapely, sought eagerly in marriage, admired by the opposite s.e.x, and envied by her own. Then a woman in the prime of her powers of enjoyment--with her charms undiminished and her wishes ripened--wedded, and successfully shaping her life: a woman blessed greatly, and very happy.

And side by side with these dream-fancies, or imaginings, went those of a young man facing the world gallantly; surmounting every obstacle easily, and conquering hearts as if by a spell. There was success for him in every scene on which he entered: he was proud and admired, and very haughty, and very rich.

Presently, as if through some dexterous sleight of hand, the pictures of his wooing blended waveringly and dimly with the pictures which emerged for the bedraggled woman who stood beside the loafer in front of the disc.

In the church, when the wedding-march was being played, and in the vignettes of domestic happiness that ensued, the faces and scenes mysteriously coalesced.

For the two spectators, who watched the shifting pictures breathlessly, there were no longer four figures in the scene, but only two.

"Some such future I had imagined for myself," the man muttered.

And the woman mused amazedly: "These were day-dreams of my own."