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H. Rider Haggard - "Long Odds"

Xenophon - "The Symposium"

Mr. And Mrs. Haldeman Julius - "Dust"

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - "Der Tragoedie zweiter Teil"

The Little White Bird

J >> J. M. Barrie >> The Little White Bird




Yes, carried out, for this is the book, rapidly approaching
completion. She and I are running a neck-and-neck race.

I have also once more brought the story of David's adventures to
an abrupt end. "And it really is the end this time, David," I
said severely. (I always say that.)

It ended on the coast of Patagonia, whither we had gone to shoot
the great Sloth, known to be the largest of animals, though we
found his size to have been under-estimated. David, his father
and I had flung our limbs upon the beach and were having a last
pipe before turning in, while Mary, attired in barbaric
splendour, sang and danced before us. It was a lovely evening,
and we lolled manlike, gazing, well-content, at the pretty
creature.

The night was absolutely still save for the roaring of the Sloths
in the distance.

By-and-by Irene came to the entrance of our cave, where by the
light of her torch we could see her exploring a shark that had
been harpooned by David earlier in the day.

Everything conduced to repose, and a feeling of gentle peace
crept over us, from which we were roused by a shrill cry. It was
uttered by Irene, who came speeding to us, bearing certain
articles, a watch, a pair of boots, a newspaper, which she had
discovered in the interior of the shark. What was our surprise
to find in the newspaper intelligence of the utmost importance to
all of us. It was nothing less than this, the birth of a new
baby in London to Mary.

How strange a method had Solomon chosen of sending us the news.

The bald announcement at once plunged us into a fever of
excitement, and next morning we set sail for England. Soon we
came within sight of the white cliffs of Albion. Mary could not
sit down for a moment, so hot was she to see her child. She
paced the deck in uncontrollable agitation.

"So did I!" cried David, when I had reached this point in the
story.

On arriving at the docks we immediately hailed a cab.

"Never, David," I said, "shall I forget your mother's excitement.
She kept putting her head out of the window and calling to the
cabby to go quicker, quicker. How he lashed his horse! At last
he drew up at your house, and then your mother, springing out,
flew up the steps and beat with her hands upon the door."

David was quite carried away by the reality of it. "Father has
the key!" he screamed.

"He opened the door," I said grandly, "and your mother rushed in,
and next moment her Benjamin was in her arms."

There was a pause.

"Barbara," corrected David.

"Benjamin," said I doggedly.

"Is that a girl's name?"

"No, it's a boy's name."

"But mother wants a girl," he said, very much shaken.

"Just like her presumption," I replied testily. "It is to be a
boy, David, and you can tell her I said so."

He was in a deplorable but most unselfish state of mind. A boy
would have suited him quite well, but he put self aside
altogether and was pertinaciously solicitous that Mary should be
given her fancy.

"Barbara," he repeatedly implored me.

"Benjamin," I replied firmly.

For long I was obdurate, but the time was summer, and at last I
agreed to play him for it, a two-innings match. If he won it was
to be a girl, and if I won it was to be a boy.


XXV

The Cricket Match

I think there has not been so much on a cricket match since the
day when Sir Horace Mann walked about Broad Ha'penny agitatedly
cutting down the daisies with his stick. And, be it remembered,
the heroes of Hambledon played for money and renown only, while
David was champion of a lady. A lady! May we not prettily say
of two ladies? There were no spectators of our contest except
now and again some loiterer in the Gardens who little thought
what was the stake for which we played, but cannot we conceive
Barbara standing at the ropes and agitatedly cutting down the
daisies every time David missed the ball? I tell you, this was
the historic match of the Gardens.

David wanted to play on a pitch near the Round Pond with which he
is familiar, but this would have placed me at a disadvantage, so
I insisted on unaccustomed ground, and we finally pitched stumps
in the Figs. We could not exactly pitch stumps, for they are
forbidden in the Gardens, but there are trees here and there
which have chalk-marks on them throughout the summer, and when
you take up your position with a bat near one of these you have
really pitched stumps. The tree we selected is a ragged yew
which consists of a broken trunk and one branch, and I viewed the
ground with secret satisfaction, for it falls slightly at about
four yards' distance from the tree, and this exactly suits my
style of bowling.

I won the toss and after examining the wicket decided to take
first knock. As a rule when we play the wit at first flows free,
but on this occasion I strode to the crease in an almost eerie
silence. David had taken off his blouse and rolled up his shirt-
sleeves, and his teeth were set, so I knew he would begin by
sending me down some fast ones.

His delivery is underarm and not inelegant, but he sometimes
tries a round-arm ball, which I have seen double up the fielder
at square leg. He has not a good length, but he varies his
action bewilderingly, and has one especially teasing ball which
falls from the branches just as you have stepped out of your
ground to look for it. It was not, however, with his teaser that
he bowled me that day. I had notched a three and two singles,
when he sent me down a medium to fast which got me in two minds
and I played back to it too late. Now, I am seldom out on a
really grassy wicket for such a meagre score, and as David and I
changed places without a word, there was a cheery look on his
face that I found very galling. He ran in to my second ball and
cut it neatly to the on for a single, and off my fifth and sixth
he had two pretty drives for three, both behind the wicket.
This, however, as I hoped, proved the undoing of him, for he now
hit out confidently at everything, and with his score at nine I
beat him with my shooter.

The look was now on my face.

I opened my second innings by treating him with uncommon respect,
for I knew that his little arm soon tired if he was unsuccessful,
and then when he sent me loose ones I banged him to the railings.
What cared I though David's lips were twitching.

When he ultimately got past my defence, with a jumpy one which
broke awkwardly from the off, I had fetched twenty-three so that
he needed twenty to win, a longer hand than he had ever yet made.
As I gave him the bat he looked brave, but something wet fell on
my hand, and then a sudden fear seized me lest David should not
win.

At the very outset, however, he seemed to master the bowling, and
soon fetched about ten runs in a classic manner. Then I tossed
him a Yorker which he missed and it went off at a tangent as soon
as it had reached the tree. "Not out," I cried hastily, for the
face he turned to me was terrible.

Soon thereafter another incident happened, which I shall always
recall with pleasure. He had caught the ball too high on the
bat, and I just missed the catch. "Dash it all!" said I
irritably, and was about to resume bowling, when I noticed that
he was unhappy. He hesitated, took up his position at the wicket,
and then came to me manfully. "I am a cad," he said in distress,
"for when the ball was in the air I prayed." He had prayed that
I should miss the catch, and as I think I have already told you,
it is considered unfair in the Gardens to pray for victory.

My splendid David! He has the faults of other little boys, but
he has a noble sense of fairness. "We shall call it a no-ball,
David," I said gravely.

I suppose the suspense of the reader is now painful, and
therefore I shall say at once that David won the match with two
lovely fours, the one over my head and the other to leg all along
the ground. When I came back from fielding this last ball I
found him embracing his bat, and to my sour congratulations he
could at first reply only with hysterical sounds. But soon he
was pelting home to his mother with the glorious news.

And that is how we let Barbara in.


XXVI

The Dedication

It was only yesterday afternoon, dear reader, exactly three weeks
after the birth of Barbara, that I finished the book, and even
then it was not quite finished, for there remained the
dedication, at which I set to elatedly. I think I have never
enjoyed myself more; indeed, it is my opinion that I wrote the
book as an excuse for writing the dedication.

"Madam" (I wrote wittily), "I have no desire to exult over you,
yet I should show a lamentable obtuseness to the irony of things
were I not to dedicate this little work to you. For its
inception was yours, and in your more ambitious days you thought
to write the tale of the little white bird yourself. Why you so
early deserted the nest is not for me to inquire. It now appears
that you were otherwise occupied. In fine, madam, you chose the
lower road, and contented yourself with obtaining the Bird. May
I point out, by presenting you with this dedication, that in the
meantime I am become the parent of the Book? To you the shadow,
to me the substance. Trusting that you will accept my little
offering in a Christian spirit, I am, dear madam," etc.

It was heady work, for the saucy words showed their design
plainly through the varnish, and I was re-reading in an ecstasy,
when, without warning, the door burst open and a little boy
entered, dragging in a faltering lady.

"Father," said David, "this is mother."

Having thus briefly introduced us, he turned his attention to the
electric light, and switched it on and off so rapidly that, as
was very fitting, Mary and I may be said to have met for the
first time to the accompaniment of flashes of lightning. I think
she was arrayed in little blue feathers, but if such a costume is
not seemly, I swear there were, at least, little blue feathers in
her too coquettish cap, and that she was carrying a muff to
match. No part of a woman is more dangerous than her muff, and
as muffs are not worn in early autumn, even by invalids, I saw in
a twink, that she had put on all her pretty things to wheedle me.
I am also of opinion that she remembered she had worn blue in
the days when I watched her from the club-window. Undoubtedly
Mary is an engaging little creature, though not my style. She
was paler than is her wont, and had the touching look of one whom
it would be easy to break. I daresay this was a trick. Her
skirts made music in my room, but perhaps this was only because
no lady had ever rustled in it before. It was disquieting to me
to reflect that despite her obvious uneasiness, she was a very
artful woman.

With the quickness of David at the switch, I slipped a blotting-
pad over the dedication, and then, "Pray be seated," I said
coldly, but she remained standing, all in a twitter and very much
afraid of me, and I know that her hands were pressed together
within the muff. Had there been any dignified means of escape, I
think we would both have taken it.

"I should not have come," she said nervously, and then seemed to
wait for some response, so I bowed.

"I was terrified to come, indeed I was," she assured me with
obvious sincerity.

"But I have come," she finished rather baldly.

"It is an epitome, ma'am," said I, seeing my chance, "of your
whole life," and with that I put her into my elbow-chair.

She began to talk of my adventures with David in the Gardens, and
of some little things I have not mentioned here, that I may have
done for her when I was in a wayward mood, and her voice was as
soft as her muff. She had also an affecting way of pronouncing
all her r's as w's, just as the fairies do. "And so," she said,
"as you would not come to me to be thanked, I have come to you to
thank you." Whereupon she thanked me most abominably. She also
slid one of her hands out of the muff, and though she was smiling
her eyes were wet.

"Pooh, ma'am," said I in desperation, but I did not take her
hand.

"I am not very strong yet," she said with low cunning. She said
this to make me take her hand, so I took it, and perhaps I patted
it a little. Then I walked brusquely to the window. The truth
is, I begun to think uncomfortably of the dedication.

I went to the window because, undoubtedly, it would be easier to
address her severely from behind, and I wanted to say something
that would sting her.

"When you have quite done, ma'am," I said, after a long pause,
"perhaps you will allow me to say a word."

I could see the back of her head only, but I knew, from David's
face, that she had given him a quick look which did not imply
that she was stung. Indeed I felt now, as I had felt before,
that though she was agitated and in some fear of me, she was also
enjoying herself considerably.

In such circumstances I might as well have tried to sting a sand-
bank, so I said, rather off my watch, "If I have done all this
for you, why did I do it?"

She made no answer in words, but seemed to grow taller in the
chair, so that I could see her shoulders, and I knew from this
that she was now holding herself conceitedly and trying to look
modest. "Not a bit of it, ma'am," said I sharply, "that was not
the reason at all."

I was pleased to see her whisk round, rather indignant at last.

"I never said it was," she retorted with spirit, "I never thought
for a moment that it was." She added, a trifle too late in the
story, "Besides, I don't know what you are talking of."

I think I must have smiled here, for she turned from me quickly,
and became quite little in the chair again.

"David," said I mercilessly, "did you ever see your mother
blush?"

"What is blush?"

"She goes a beautiful pink colour."

David, who had by this time broken my connection with the head
office, crossed to his mother expectantly.

"I don't, David," she cried.

"I think," said I, "she will do it now," and with the instinct of
a gentleman I looked away. Thus I cannot tell what happened, but
presently David exclaimed admiringly, "Oh, mother, do it again!"

As she would not, he stood on the fender to see in the mantel-
glass whether he could do it himself, and then Mary turned a most
candid face on me, in which was maternity rather than reproach.
Perhaps no look given by woman to man affects him quite so much.
"You see," she said radiantly and with a gesture that disclosed
herself to me, "I can forgive even that. You long ago earned the
right to hurt me if you want to."

It weaned me of all further desire to rail at Mary, and I felt an
uncommon drawing to her.

"And if I did think that for a little while--," she went on, with
an unsteady smile.

"Think what?" I asked, but without the necessary snap.

"What we were talking of," she replied wincing, but forgiving me
again. "If I once thought that, it was pretty to me while it
lasted and it lasted but a little time. I have long been sure
that your kindness to me was due to some other reason."

"Ma'am," said I very honestly, "I know not what was the reason.
My concern for you was in the beginning a very fragile and even a
selfish thing, yet not altogether selfish, for I think that what
first stirred it was the joyous sway of the little nursery
governess as she walked down Pall Mall to meet her lover. It
seemed such a mighty fine thing to you to be loved that I thought
you had better continue to be loved for a little longer. And
perhaps having helped you once by dropping a letter I was charmed
by the ease with which you could be helped, for you must know
that I am one who has chosen the easy way for more than twenty
years."

She shook her head and smiled. "On my soul," I assured her, "I
can think of no other reason."

"A kind heart," said she.

"More likely a whim," said I.

"Or another woman," said she.

I was very much taken aback.

"More than twenty years ago," she said with a soft huskiness in
her voice, and a tremor and a sweetness, as if she did not know
that in twenty years all love stories are grown mouldy.

On my honour as a soldier this explanation of my early solicitude
for Mary was one that had never struck me, but the more I
pondered it now--. I raised her hand and touched it with my lips,
as we whimsical old fellows do when some gracious girl makes us
to hear the key in the lock of long ago. "Why, ma'am," I said,
"it is a pretty notion, and there may be something in it. Let us
leave it at that."

But there was still that accursed dedication, lying, you
remember, beneath the blotting-pad. I had no longer any desire
to crush her with it. I wished that she had succeeded in writing
the book on which her longings had been so set.

"If only you had been less ambitious," I said, much troubled that
she should be disappointed in her heart's desire.

"I wanted all the dear delicious things," she admitted
contritely.

"It was unreasonable," I said eagerly, appealing to her
intellect. "Especially this last thing."

"Yes," she agreed frankly, "I know." And then to my amazement
she added triumphantly, "But I got it."

I suppose my look admonished her, for she continued
apologetically but still as if she really thought hers had been a
romantic career, "I know I have not deserved it, but I got it."

"Oh, ma'am," I cried reproachfully, "reflect. You have not got
the great thing." I saw her counting the great things in her
mind, her wondrous husband and his obscure success, David,
Barbara, and the other trifling contents of her jewel-box.

"I think I have," said she.

"Come, madam," I cried a little nettled, "you know that there is
lacking the one thing you craved for most of all."

Will you believe me that I had to tell her what it was? And when
I had told her she exclaimed with extraordinary callousness, "The
book? I had forgotten all about the book!" And then after
reflection she added, "Pooh!" Had she not added Pooh I might
have spared her, but as it was I raised the blotting-pad rather
haughtily and presented her with the sheet beneath it.

"What is this?" she asked.

"Ma'am," said I, swelling, "it is a Dedication," and I walked
majestically to the window.

There is no doubt that presently I heard an unexpected sound.
Yet if indeed it had been a laugh she clipped it short, for in
almost the same moment she was looking large-eyed at me and
tapping my sleeve impulsively with her fingers, just as David
does when he suddenly likes you.

"How characteristic of you," she said at the window.

"Characteristic," I echoed uneasily. "Ha!"

"And how kind."

"Did you say kind, ma'am?"

"But it is I who have the substance and you who have the shadow,
as you know very well," said she.

Yes, I had always known that this was the one flaw in my
dedication, but how could I have expected her to have the wit to
see it? I was very depressed.

"And there is another mistake," said she.

"Excuse me, ma'am, but that is the only one."

"It was never of my little white bird I wanted to write," she
said.

I looked politely incredulous, and then indeed she overwhelmed
me. "It was of your little white bird," she said, "it was of a
little boy whose name was Timothy."

She had a very pretty way of saying Timothy, so David and I went
into another room to leave her alone with the manuscript of this
poor little book, and when we returned she had the greatest
surprise of the day for me. She was both laughing and crying,
which was no surprise, for all of us would laugh and cry over a
book about such an interesting subject as ourselves, but said
she, "How wrong you are in thinking this book is about me and
mine, it is really all about Timothy."

At first I deemed this to be uncommon nonsense, but as I
considered I saw that she was probably right again, and I gazed
crestfallen at this very clever woman.

"And so," said she, clapping her hands after the manner of David
when he makes a great discovery, "it proves to be my book after
all."

"With all your pretty thoughts left out," I answered, properly
humbled.

She spoke in a lower voice as if David must not hear. "I had
only one pretty thought for the book," she said, "I was to give
it a happy ending." She said this so timidly that I was about to
melt to her when she added with extraordinary boldness, "The
little white bird was to bear an olive-leaf in its mouth."

For a long time she talked to me earnestly of a grand scheme on
which she had set her heart, and ever and anon she tapped on me
as if to get admittance for her ideas. I listened respectfully,
smiling at this young thing for carrying it so motherly to me,
and in the end I had to remind her that I was forty-seven years
of age.

"It is quite young for a man," she said brazenly.

"My father," said I, "was not forty-seven when he died, and I
remember thinking him an old man."

"But you don't think so now, do you?" she persisted, "you feel
young occasionally, don't you? Sometimes when you are playing
with David in the Gardens your youth comes swinging back, does it
not?"

"Mary A----," I cried, grown afraid of the woman, "I forbid you to
make any more discoveries to-day."

But still she hugged her scheme, which I doubt not was what had
brought her to my rooms. "They are very dear women," said she
coaxingly.

"I am sure," I said, "they must be dear women if they are friends
of yours."

"They are not exactly young," she faltered, "and perhaps they are
not very pretty--"

But she had been reading so recently about the darling of my
youth that she halted abashed at last, feeling, I apprehend, a
stop in her mind against proposing this thing to me, who, in
those presumptuous days, had thought to be content with nothing
less than the loveliest lady in all the land.

My thoughts had reverted also, and for the last time my eyes saw
the little hut through the pine wood haze. I met Mary there, and
we came back to the present together.

I have already told you, reader, that this conversation took
place no longer ago than yesterday.

"Very well, ma'am," I said, trying to put a brave face on it, "I
will come to your tea-parties, and we shall see what we shall
see."

It was really all she had asked for, but now that she had got
what she wanted of me the foolish soul's eyes became wet, she
knew so well that the youthful romances are the best.

It was now my turn to comfort her. "In twenty years," I said,
smiling at her tears, "a man grows humble, Mary. I have stored
within me a great fund of affection, with nobody to give it to,
and I swear to you, on the word of a soldier, that if there is
one of those ladies who can be got to care for me I shall be very
proud." Despite her semblance of delight I knew that she was
wondering at me, and I wondered at myself, but it was true.

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