On Something Part 9

At a little desk in the gangway by which the chairs were approached sat a dark, pale child--I can call him by no other name, so frail and young did he seem--and the delicacy of his complexion led me to wonder perhaps whether he was not one of those whom the climate of England strikes with consumption, and who, in the mysterious providence of our race, wander abroad in search of health and find a Realm. His alertness, however, and the brilliance of his eye; his winning, almost obsequious address, and the hooked clutch of his gestures betrayed an energy that no physical weakness could conquer. He invited me to enter, and begged me to purchase a seat.

I had no need of one, for I had made arrangements to spend the Great Day itself and the next at a small hotel in the extreme north of Sutherlandshire, but I was arrested by the evident mental power of my new acquaintance, and I wasted five shillings in buying the chair marked D.

It was with some difficulty that I could purchase it, so eager was he that I should have the best place; "seeing," said he, "that they are all one price, and that you may as well benefit by being an early bird." I noted the strict rect.i.tude which, for all that men ignorant of modern commerce may say, is at the basis of commercial success.

Something so attracted me in the whole business that I was weak enough to take a chair in a tea-shop opposite and watch all day the actions of the Child of Fate.

In less than an hour twenty different people, mainly gentlefolk, had come in and bought places at the sensible price at which he offered them. To each of them he gave a ticket corresponding to the number of the chair. He was courteous to all, and even expansive. He explained the advantage of each particular seat.

So far so good; but, what was more astonishing, in the second hour another twenty came and appeared to purchase; in the third (which was the busiest time of the day) some forty, first and last, must have done business with the Favourite of Fortune. I pondered upon these things very deeply, and went home.

Next morning the attraction which the place had for me drew me as with a magnet, and I went, somewhat stealthily I fear, to the same tea-shop and noticed with the greatest astonishment that the chairs were now not lettered, but numbered, and that the boy was sitting at his little desk with a series of white cards bearing the figures from one to twenty-five.

It was very early--not ten o'clock--but the Child was as spruce and neat as he had been in the afternoon of the day before. He bore already that mark of energy combined with neatness which is the stamp of success.

I crossed the road and entered. He recognized me at once (their memory for faces is wonderful), and said cheerfully:

"Your D corresponds to the number 4."

I thanked him very much, and asked him why he had changed his system of notation. He told me it was because several people had explained to him that they remembered figures more easily than letters. We then talked to each other, agreeing upon the maxims of simplicity and directness which are at the root of all mercantile stability. He told me he required cash from all who bought his chairs; that there was no agreement, no insurance--no "frills," as he wittily called them.

"It is as simple," he said, "as buying a pound of tea. I am satisfied, and they are satisfied. As for the risk, it is covered by the low price, and if you ask me how I can let them at so low a price, I will tell you. It is because I have found exactly what was needed and have added nothing more.

Moreover, I did not buy the chairs, but hired them."

I went back to my tea-shop with head bent, murmuring to myself those memorable lines:

We founded many a mighty State, Pray G.o.d that we may never fail From craven fears of being great

(or words to that effect).

That day no less than 153 people did business with the Youth.

Next day I found among my morning letters a note from a politician of my acquaintance, telling me that the Function was postponed--indefinitely.

I wasted not a moment. I went at once to my post of observation, my tea-shop, and I proceeded to watch the Leader.

There was as yet no knowledge of the calamity in London.

My friend seemed to have noticed me; at any rate a new and somewhat anxious look was apparent on his face. With a firm and decided step I crossed the road to greet him, and when he saw me he was all at his ease.

He told me that my seat had been especially asked for, and that a higher price had been offered; but a bargain, he said, was a bargain, and so we fell to chatting. When I mentioned, among other subjects, the very great success of his enterprise, he gave a slight start, which did honour to his heart; but he was of too stern a mould to give way. He was of the temper of the Pioneers.

I a.s.sured him at once that it was very far from my intention to reproach him for the talents which he had used with so much ability and energy. I pointed out to him that even if I desired to injure him, which I did not, it would be impossible for me, or for any one, to trace more than half a dozen, at the most, of his numerous clients.

It is frequently the case that men of small business capacity will perceive some important element in a commercial problem which escapes the eyes of Genius; and I could see that this simple observation of mine had relieved him almost to tears.

Before he could thank me, a newsboy appeared with a very large placard, upon which was written

"POSTPONED."

In a moment his mind grasped the whole meaning of that word; but he went out with a steady step, and paid the sixpence which the newsboy demanded.

Even in that uncomplaining action, the uncomplaining forfeiture of the comparatively large sum which necessity demanded, one could detect the financial grip which is the true arbiter of the fates of nations. He needed the paper: he did not haggle about the price. He first mastered the exact words of the announcement, and then, looking up at me with a face of paper, he said:

"It is not only postponed, but all this preparation is thrown away."

I have said that I have no commercial apt.i.tude; I admit that I was puzzled.

"Surely," said I, "this is exactly what you needed?"

He shook his head, still restraining, by a powerful effort, the natural expression of his grief, and showed me, for all his answer, a rail way ticket to Boulogne which he had purchased, and which was available for the night boat on the eve of the Function. I then understood what he meant when he said that all his preparations had been thrown away.

I do not know whether I did right or wrong--I felt myself to be nothing more than a blind instrument in the hands of the superior power which governs the destinies of a people.

"How much did the ticket cost?" said I.

"Thirty shillings," said he.

I pulled out a sovereign and a half-sovereign from my pocket, and said:

"Here is the money. I have leisure, and I would as soon go to Boulogne as to Sutherlandshire."

He did not thank me effusively, as might one of the more excitable and less efficient races; but he grasped my hand and blessed me silently. I then left him.

In the steamer to Boulogne, as I was musing over this strange adventure, a st.u.r.dy Anglo-Saxon man, a true son of Drake or Raleigh, came up and asked me for my ticket. As I gave it him my eye fell idly upon the price of the ticket. It was twenty-five shillings--but I had saved a directing and creative mind.

If he should come across these lines he will remember me. He is probably in the House of Commons by now. Perhaps he has bought his peerage.

Wherever he is I hope he will remember me.

CAEDWALLA

Caedwalla, a prince out of Wales (though some deny it), wandered in the Andredsweald. He was nineteen years of age and his heart was full of anger for wrong that had been done him by men of his own blood. For he was rightfully heir to the throne of the kingdom of Suss.e.x, but he was kept from it by the injustice of men.

A retinue went with him of that sort which will always follow adventure and exile. These, the rich of the seacoast and of the Gwent called broken men; but they loved their Lord. So he went hunting, feeding upon what he slew, and proceeding from steading to steading in the spa.r.s.e woods of Andred where is sometimes an open heath, and sometimes a mile of oak, and often a clay swamp, and, seen from little lifted knolls of sand where the broom grows and the gorse, the Downs to the south like a wall.

As he so wandered upon one day, he came upon another man of a very different fashion, for Caedwalla would have nothing to do with the Cross of Christ, nor with the customs of the towns, nor with the talk of foreign men. But this man was a bishop wandering, and his name was Wilfrid. He also had his little retinue, and, by an accident of his office or of his exile, he had proceeded to a steading in the heaths and woods of the Weald where also was Caedwalla: so they met. The pride and the bearing of Wilfrid, seeing that he was of a Roman town and an officer of the State, and a bishop to boot, nay, a bishop above bishops, was not the pride Caedwalla loved, and the young man bore himself with another sort of pride, which was that of the mountains and of pagan men. Nevertheless Wilfrid put before him, with Roman rhetoric and with uplifted hands, the story of our Lord, and Caedwalla, keeping his face set during all that recital, could not forbid this story to sink into the depths of his heart, where for many years it remained, and did no more than remain.

The kingdom of Suss.e.x, cultivated by men of various kinds, received Wilfrid the Bishop wherever he went. He did many things that do not here concern me, and his chief work was to make the rich towns of the sea plain and of Chichester and of Lewes and of Arundel, and of the steadings of the Weald, and of the wealden markets also, Christian men; for he showed them that it was a mean thing to go about in a hairy way like pagans, unacquainted with letters, and of imperfect ability in the making of raiment or the getting of victuals. Indeed, as I have written in another place, it was St. Wilfrid who taught the King of Suss.e.x and his men how to catch fish in nets. They revered him everywhere, and when they had given up their shameful barbarism and decently accepted the rules of life and the religion of it, they pressed upon St. Wilfrid that he should found a bishopric, and that it should have a cathedral and a see (all of which things he had explained to them), and he did this on Selsey Bill: but to-day the sea has swallowed all.

Time pa.s.sed, and the young man Caedwalla, still a very young man in the twenties, came to his own, and he sat on the throne that was rightfully his in Chichester and he ruled all Suss.e.x to its utmost boundaries. And he was king of much more, as history shows, but all the while he proudly refused in his young man's heart the raiment and the manner of the thing which he had hated in his exile, nor would he accept the Latin prayers, nor bow to the name of the Christian G.o.d.

Caedwalla, still so young but now a king, thought it shameful that he should rule no more than the empire G.o.d had given him, and he was filled with a longing to cross the sea and to conquer new land. Wherefore, whether well or ill advised, he set out to cross the sea and to conquer the Isle of Wight, of which story said that Wight the hero had established his kingdom there in the old time before writing was, and when there were only songs. So Caedwalla and his fighting men, they landed in that island and they fought against the many inhabitants of it, and they subdued it, but in these battles Caedwalla was wounded.

It happened that the King of that island, whose name was Atwald, had two heirs, youths, whom it was pitifully hoped this conqueror would spare, for they fled up the Water to Stoneham; but a monk who served G.o.d by the ford of reeds which is near Hampton at the head of the Water, hearing that King Caedwalla (who was recovering of wounds he had had in the war with the men of Wight) had heard of the youths' hiding-place and had determined to kill them, sought the King and begged that at least they might be instructed in the Faith before they died, saying to him: "King, though you are not of the Faith, that is no reason that you should deprive others of such a gift. Let me therefore see that these young men are instructed and baptized, after which you may exercise your cruel will." And Caedwalla a.s.sented. These lads, therefore, were taken to a holy place up on Itchen, where they were instructed in the truths and the mysteries of religion.

And while this so went forward Caedwalla would ask from time to time whether they were yet Christians.