Wandering Heath Part 21

"You're a very obstinate woman," he said.

And with this he unmoored his boat and rowed resolutely homewards.

A strong wind came piping down on the back of a strong tide, and Master Simon arched his shoulders against it.

"Married man or mariner!" it piped, as he rounded the first bend.

"I know my own mind, I believe," said Master Simon to himself.

"There's as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it; and for salmon, 'Flowing Source' will beat Christchurch any day, I've always maintained."

"Married man or mariner!" piped the wind in the words of Ann the cook.

Master Simon pulled his left paddle hard and rounded the second bend.

"Married man or mar--"

Cras.h.!.+

His heels flew up and his head struck the bottom-boards. Then, in a moment, the boat was gone, and a rush of water sang in his ears and choked him. He saw a black shadow overhanging, and clutched at it.

Mistress Prudence stood in her doorway on the quay, as Master Simon had left her. In the room above, the waitress blew out her candle, drew up the blind, and opened her window to the moonlight.

"Selina!" the mistress called.

Selina thrust out her head.

"What's that coming down the river?"

A black, unshapely ma.s.s was moving swiftly down towards the quay.

"I think 'tis a haystack," Selina whispered, and then, "Lord save us all, there's a man on it!"

"A man?" cried the widow, shrilly. "What man?"

A voice answered the question, calling for help out of the river--a voice that she knew.

"What is it?" she called back.

"I think," quavered Master Simon, "I think 'tis the roof o' 'Flowing Source'!"

Mistress Prudence ran down the quay steps, cast off the first boat that lay handy, and pulled towards the dark ma.s.s sweeping seaward.

As it crossed ahead of her bows, she dropped the paddles, ran to the painter, and flung it forward with all her might.

The "Pandora's Box" Inn stands on Ponteglos Quay to this day. And all that is left of "Flowing Source" hangs on the wall of its best parlour--four dark oak timbers forming a frame around a portrait, the portrait of a woman of middle age and comfortable countenance.

In the right-hand top corner of the picture, in letters of faded gold, runs the legend--VXOR BONA INSTAR NAVIS.

EXPERIMENTS.

I.--A YOUNG MAN'S DIARY.

_Monday, Sept. 7th_, 189-. I am one year old to-day.

I imagine that most people regard their first birthday as something of an event; a harvest-home of innocence, touched with I know not how delicate a bloom of virginal antic.i.p.ation; of emotion too volatile for a.n.a.lysis, or perhaps eluding a.n.a.lysis by its very simplicity.

But whatever point the festival might have had for me was rudely destroyed by my parents, who chose this day for jolting me back to London in a railway-carriage. We have just arrived home from Newquay, Cornwall, where we have been spending the summer holidays for the sake of my health, as papa has not scrupled to blurt out, once or twice, in my presence.

There is a strain of coa.r.s.eness in papa; or perhaps I should say--for the impression it leaves is primarily negative, as of something _manque_--an incompleteness in the sensitive equipment. As yet it can hardly be said to embarra.s.s me; though I foresee a time when I shall have to apologise for it to strangers. There is nothing absurd in this. If a man may take pride in his ancestry, why may he not apologise for his papa? My papa will be forgiven, for he is so splendidly virile! He left our compartment at Bristol and did not return again until the train stopped at Swindon for him to eat a bun.

In the interval, mamma took me from nurse and endeavoured to hush me by singing--

Father's gone a-hunting. . . .

Which was untrue, for he had lit a pipe and withdrawn to a smoking compartment. My nurse--an egregious female--had previously remarked, "The dear child _do_ take such notice of the puff-puff!" As a matter of fact, I took no interest in the locomotive; but I had observed it sufficiently to be sure that it offered no facilities for hunting.

A few months ago I might have accepted the explanation: for our family has affinity with what is vulgarly termed the upper cla.s.s, and my father inherits its crude and primitive instincts; among them a pa.s.sion for the chase. His appearance, as he returned to our compartment, oppressed me for the hundredth time with a sense of its superabundant and even riotous vitality. His cheeks were glowing, and his whiskers sprouted like cabbages on either side of his otherwise clean-shaven face. An indefinable flavour of the sea mingled with the odour of tobacco which he diffused about the carriage. It seemed as if the virile breezes of that s.h.a.ggy Cornish coast still blew about him; and I felt again that constriction of the chest from which I had suffered during the past month.

After all, it is good to be back in London! Newquay, with its obvious picturesqueness, its violent colouring, its sands, rocks, breakers and by-laws regulating the costume of bathers, merely exasperated my nerves. How far more subtle the appeal of these grey and dun-coloured opacities, these tent-cloths of fog pressed out into uncouth, dumbly pathetic shapes by the struggle for existence that seethes below it always--always! Decidedly I must begin to-morrow to practise walking. It seems a necessary step towards acquainting myself with the inner life of these inchoate millions, which must be well worth knowing. Papa, on arriving at our door, plunged into an altercation with a cab-tout. What a man! And yet sometimes I could find it in my heart to envy his robustness, his buoyancy. A Huntley and Palmer's Nursery Biscuit in a little hot water has somewhat quieted my nerves, which suffered cruelly during the scene.

I believe I shall sleep to-night.

_Tuesday, 8th_. The beginning of _Sturm und Drang_; I am learning to walk. Moreover I have surprised in myself, during the day, a tendency to fall in love with my nurse. On the pretence that walking might give me bandy legs she caught me up and pressed me to her bosom. We have no affinities; indeed, beyond cleanliness and a certain unreasoning honesty, she can be said to possess no attributes at all. I am convinced that a serious affection for her could only flourish on an intellectual atrophy; and yet for a while I abandoned myself. We went out into the bright streets together, and it was delicious to be propelled by her strong arms. We halted, on our way to Kensington Gardens, to listen to a German band. The voluptuous waltz-music affected me strangely, and I was sorry that, owing to my position in the vehicle, her face was hidden from me. In the midst of my ecstasy, a square object on wheels came round the street corner. It was painted a bright vermilion and bore the initials of K.V.--"Kytherea Victrix!" I cried in my heart; but as it pa.s.sed, at a slow pace, it rained a flood of tears upon the dusty road-way.

For some time after I sat in a strange calm, but with a sensation in the region of the diaphragm as if I had received a severe blow; and in truth I had. But the shock was salutary, and by the time that nurse and I were seated together by the Round Pond, I was able to listen to her talk without a quiver of the eyelids. Poor soul!

What malefic jest of Fate led her to select the story of Georgie-Porgie?

Georgie-Porgie, pudding and pie. . . .

It is as irrelevant as life itself.

Georgie-Porgie, pudding and pie, Kissed the girls and made them cry. . . .

Why pudding? Why pie? Why--if you ask this--why _any_ realism?

These concrete accidents solidify a thin and abstract love-story for our human comprehension. Or are they, perchance, symbolical?

Georgie-Porgie's promises, like pie-crust, were made to be broken.

He--

Kissed the girls and made them cry.

When the girls came out to play, Georgie-Porgie ran away.

--Simple solution of the difficulty! And I am already learning to walk! Poor woman!

_Wednesday, 9th_. I am troubled whenever I reflect on the subject of heredity. It terrifies me to think that I may grow up to resemble papa. Mamma, too, is hardly less a savage: she wore diamonds in her hair when she came up to the nursery, late last night, to look at me.

She believed that I was asleep; but I wasn't, and I never in my life felt so sorry that I couldn't speak. The appalling barbarism of those trinkets! I got out of the cradle and rocked myself to sleep.

It is raining this afternoon--the sky weeping like a Corot--and I am forced to stay indoors and affect an interest in Noah and his ark! Nurse's father came up and accosted her in the Gardens this morning. He is one of the Submerged Tenth, and extremely interesting. On the threat of running off with me and pitching me neck and crop into the Round Pond, he extracted half a crown from her. She gave him the coin docilely. I found myself almost hoping that he would raise his price, that I might discover how much the poor creature was ready to sacrifice for my sake. She is looking pale this afternoon; but this may be because I cried half the night and kept her awake. The fact is, I was cutting a tooth. I have given up learning to walk; but have some idea of trying somnambulism instead.

_Thursday, 10th_. To-day I was spanked for the first time. When I have stopped crying, I mean to a.n.a.lyse my sensations. Sometimes, in Kensington Gardens, I feel like a boy who is never growing up. . .