Vailima Letters Part 17

-XVIII. I know, but I have to hurry here; this is the broken back of my story; some business briefly transacted, I am leaping for Barbara's ap.r.o.n-strings.

_Slip_ 57. Quite right again; I shall make it plain.

_Chap._ XX. I shall make all these points clear. About Lady Prestongrange (not _Lady_ Grant, only _Miss_ Grant, my dear, though _Lady_ Prestongrange, quoth the dominie) I am taken with your idea of her death, and have a good mind to subst.i.tute a featureless aunt.

_Slip_ 78. I don't see how to lessen this effect. There is really not much said of it; and I know Catriona did it. But I'll try.

-89. I know. This is an old puzzle of mine. You see C.'s dialect is not wholly a bed of roses. If only I knew the Gaelic. Well, I'll try for another expression.

_The end_. I shall try to work it over. James was at Dunkirk ordering post-horses for his own retreat. Catriona did have her suspicions aroused by the letter, and, careless gentleman, I told you so-or she did at least.-Yes, the blood money, I am bothered about the portmanteau; it is the presence of Catriona that bothers me; the rape of the pockmantie is historic. . . .

To me, I own, it seems in the proof a very pretty piece of workmans.h.i.+p.

David himself I refuse to discuss; he _is_. The Lord Advocate I think a strong sketch of a very difficult character, James More, sufficient; and the two girls very pleasing creatures. But O dear me, I came near losing my heart to Barbara! I am not quite so constant as David, and even he-well, he didn't know it, anyway! _Tod Lapraik_ is a piece of living Scots: if I had never writ anything but that and _Thrawn Janet_, still I'd have been a writer. The defects of _D.B._ are inherent, I fear. But on the whole, I am far indeed from being displeased with the tailie.

They want more Alan? Well, they can't get it.

I found my fame much grown on this return to civilisation. _Digito monstrari_ is a new experience; people all looked at me in the streets in Sydney; and it was very queer. Here, of course, I am only the white chief in the Great House to the natives; and to the whites, either an ally or a foe. It is a much healthier state of matters. If I lived in an atmosphere of adulation, I should end by kicking against the p.r.i.c.ks.

O my beautiful forest, O my beautiful s.h.i.+ning, windy house, what a joy it was to behold them again! No chance to take myself too seriously here.

The difficulty of the end is the ma.s.s of matter to be attended to, and the small time left to transact it in. I mean from Alan's danger of arrest. But I have just seen my way out, I do believe.

_Easter Sunday_.

I have now got as far as slip 28, and finished the chapter of the law technicalities. Well, these seemed to me always of the essence of the story, which is the story of a _cause celebre_; moreover, they are the justification of my inventions; if these men went so far (granting Davie sprung on them) would they not have gone so much further? But of course I knew they were a difficulty; determined to carry them through in a conversation; approached this (it seems) with cowardly anxiety; and filled it with gabble, sir, gabble. I have left all my facts, but have removed 42 lines. I should not wonder but what I'll end by re-writing it. It is not the technicalities that shocked you, it was my bad art.

It is very strange that X. should be so good a chapter and IX. and XI. so uncompromisingly bad. It looks as if XI. also would have to be re-formed. If X. had not cheered me up, I should be in doleful dumps, but X. is alive anyway, and life is all in all.

_Thursday_, _April_ 5_th_.

Well, there's no disguise possible; f.a.n.n.y is not well, and we are miserably anxious. . . .

_Friday_, 7_th_.

I am thankful to say the new medicine relieved her at once. A c.r.a.pe has been removed from the day for all of us. To make things better, the morning is ah! such a morning as you have never seen; heaven upon earth for sweetness, freshness, depth upon depth of unimaginable colour, and a huge silence broken at this moment only by the far-away murmur of the Pacific and the rich piping of a single bird. You can't conceive what a relief this is; it seems a new world. She has such extraordinary recuperative power that I do hope for the best. I am as tired as man can be. This is a great trial to a family, and I thank G.o.d it seems as if ours was going to bear it well. And O! if it only lets up, it will be but a pleasant memory. We are all seedy, bar Lloyd: f.a.n.n.y, as per above; self nearly extinct; Belle, utterly overworked and bad toothache; Cook, down with a bad foot; Butler, prostrate with a bad leg. Eh, what a faim'ly!

_Sunday_.

Grey heaven, raining torrents of rain; occasional thunder and lightning.

Everything to dispirit; but my invalids are really on the mend. The rain roars like the sea; in the sound of it there is a strange and ominous suggestion of an approaching tramp; something nameless and measureless seems to draw near, and strikes me cold, and yet is welcome. I lie quiet in bed to-day, and think of the universe with a good deal of equanimity.

I have, at this moment, but the one objection to it; the _fracas_ with which it proceeds. I do not love noise; I am like my grandfather in that; and so many years in these still islands has ingrained the sentiment perhaps. Here are no trains, only men pacing barefoot. No carts or carriages; at worst the rattle of a horse's shoes among the rocks. Beautiful silence; and so soon as this robustious rain takes off, I am to drink of it again by oceanfuls.

_April_ 16_th_.

Several pages of this letter destroyed as beneath scorn; the wailings of a crushed worm; matter in which neither you nor I can take stock. f.a.n.n.y is distinctly better, I believe all right now; I too am mending, though I have suffered from crushed wormery, which is not good for the body, and d.a.m.nation to the soul. I feel to-night a baseless anxiety to write a lovely poem _a propos des bottes de ma grandmere_. I see I am idiotic.

I'll try the poem.

17_th_.

The poem did not get beyond plovers and lovers. I am still, however, hara.s.sed by the unauthentic Muse; if I cared to encourage her-but I have not the time, and anyway we are at the vernal equinox. It is funny enough, but my pottering verses are usually made (like the G.o.d-gifted organ voice's) at the autumnal; and this seems to hold at the Antipodes.

There is here some odd secret of Nature. I cannot speak of politics; we wait and wonder. It seems (this is partly a guess) Ide won't take the C.

J. s.h.i.+p, unless the islands are disarmed; and that England hesitates and holds off. By my own idea, strongly corroborated by Sir George, I am writing no more letters. But I have put as many irons in against this folly of the disarming as I could manage. It did not reach my ears till nearly too late. What a risk to take! What an expense to incur! And for how poor a gain! Apart from the treachery of it. My dear fellow, politics is a vile and a bungling business. I used to think meanly of the plumber; but how he s.h.i.+nes beside the politician!

_Thursday_.

A general, steady advance; f.a.n.n.y really quite chipper and jolly-self on the rapid mend, and with my eye on _forests_ that are to fall-and my finger on the axe, which wants stoning.

_Sat.u.r.day_, 22.

Still all for the best; but I am having a heart-breaking time over _David_. I have nearly all corrected. But have to consider _The Heather on Fire_, _The Wood by Silvermills_, and the last chapter. They all seem to me off colour; and I am not fit to better them yet. No proof has been sent of the t.i.tle, contents, or dedication.

CHAPTER XXIX

25_th_ _April_.

MY DEAR COLVIN,-To-day early I sent down to Maben (Secretary of State) an offer to bring up people from Malie, keep them in my house, and bring them down day by day for so long as the negotiation should last. I have a favourable answer so far. This I would not have tried, had not old Sir George Grey put me on my mettle; 'Never despair,' was his word; and 'I am one of the few people who have lived long enough to see how true that is.' Well, thereupon I plunged in; and the thing may do me great harm, but yet I do not think so-for I think jealousy will prevent the trial being made. And at any rate it is another chance for this distracted archipelago of children, sat upon by a clique of fools. If, by the gift of G.o.d, I can do-I am allowed to try to do-and succeed: but no, the prospect is too bright to be entertained.

To-day we had a ride down to Tanugamanono, and then by the new wood paths. One led us to a beautiful clearing, with four native houses; taro, yams, and the like, excellently planted, and old Folau-'the Samoan Jew'-sitting and whistling there in his new-found and well-deserved well-being. It was a good sight to see a Samoan thus before the world.

Further up, on our way home, we saw the world clear, and the wide die of the shadow lying broad; we came but a little further, and found in the borders of the bush a Banyan. It must have been 150 feet in height; the trunk, and its acolytes, occupied a great s.p.a.ce; above that, in the peaks of the branches, quite a forest of ferns and orchids were set; and over all again the huge spread of the boughs rose against the bright west, and sent their shadow miles to the eastward. I have not often seen anything more satisfying than this vast vegetable.

_Sunday_.

A heavenly day again! the world all dead silence, save when, from far down below us in the woods, comes up the crepitation of the little wooden drum that beats to church. Scarce a leaf stirs; only now and again a great, cool gush of air that makes my papers fly, and is gone.-The King of Samoa has refused my intercession between him and Mataafa; and I do not deny this is a good riddance to me of a difficult business, in which I might very well have failed. What else is to be done for these silly folks?

_May_ 12_th_.