The Golden Age
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Kenneth Grahame >> The Golden Age
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"But how can you learn anything," persisted Charlotte, "from what
doesn't exist?" And she left the table defiant, howbeit
depressed.
"Don't you mind HER," I said, consolingly; "how can she know
anything about it? Why, she can't even throw a stone properly!"
"Edward says they're all rot, too," replied Charlotte,
doubtfully.
Edward says everything's rot," I explained, "now he thinks he's
going into the Army. If a thing's in a book it MUST be true,
so that settles it!"
Charlotte looked almost reassured. The room was quieter now, for
Edward had got the dragon down and was boring holes in him with a
purring sound Harold was ascending the steps of the Athenaeum
with a jaunty air--suggestive rather of the Junior Carlton.
Outside, the tall elm-tops were hardly to be seen through the
feathery storm. "The sky's a-falling," quoted Charlotte, softly;
"I must go and tell the king." The quotation suggested a fairy
story, and I offered to read to her, reaching out for the
book. But the Wee Folk were under a cloud; sceptical hints had
embittered the chalice. So I was fain to fetch Arthur--second
favourite with Charlotte for his dames riding errant, and an easy
first with us boys for his spear-splintering crash of tourney and
hurtle against hopeless odds. Here again, however, I proved
unfortunate,--what ill-luck made the book open at the sorrowful
history of Balin and Balan? "And he vanished anon," I read: "and
so he heard an horne blow, as it had been the death of a beast.
`That blast,' said Balin, `is blowen for me, for I am the prize,
and yet am I not dead.'" Charlotte began to cry: she knew the
rest too well. I shut the book in despair. Harold emerged from
behind the arm-chair. He was sucking his thumb (a thing which
members of the Reform are seldom seen to do), and he stared wide-
eyed at his tear stained sister. Edward put off his histrionics,
and rushed up to her as the consoler--a new part for him.
"I know a jolly story," he began. "Aunt Eliza told it me. It
was when she was somewhere over in that beastly abroad"--(he had
once spent a black month of misery at Dinan)--"and there was
a fellow there who had got two storks. And one stork died--it
was the she-stork." ("What did it die of?" put in Harold.) "And
the other stork was quite sorry, and moped, and went on, and got
very miserable. So they looked about and found a duck, and
introduced it to the stork. The duck was a drake, but the stork
didn't mind, and they loved each other and were as jolly as could
be. By and by another duck came along,--a real she-duck this
time,--and when the drake saw her he fell in love, and left the
stork, and went and proposed to the duck: for she was very
beautiful. But the poor stork who was left, he said nothing at
all to anybody, but just pined and pined and pined away, till one
morning he was found quite dead! But the ducks lived happily
ever afterwards!"
This was Edward's idea of a jolly story! Down again went the
corners of poor Charlotte's mouth. Really Edward's stupid
inability to see the real point in anything was TOO annoying!
It was always so. Years before, it being necessary to prepare
his youthful mind for a domestic event that might lead to awkward
questionings at a time when there was little leisure to invent
appropriate answers, it was delicately inquired of him
whether he would like to have a little brother, or perhaps a
little sister? He considered the matter carefully in all its
bearings, and finally declared for a Newfoundland pup. Any boy
more "gleg at the uptak" would have met his parents half-way, and
eased their burden. As it was, the matter had to be approached
all over again from a fresh standpoint. And now, while Charlotte
turned away sniffingly, with a hiccough that told of an
overwrought soul, Edward, unconscious (like Sir Isaac's Diamond)
of the mischief he had done, wheeled round on Harold with a
shout.
"I want a live dragon," he announced: "you've got to be my
dragon!"
"Leave me go, will you?" squealed Harold, struggling stoutly.
"I'm playin' at something else. How can I be a dragon and belong
to all the clubs?"
"But wouldn't you like to be a nice scaly dragon, all green,"
said Edward, trying persuasion, "with a curly tail and red eyes,
and breathing real smoke and fire?"
Harold wavered an instant: Pall-Mall was still strong in him.
The next he was grovelling on the floor. No saurian ever
swung a tail so scaly and so curly as his. Clubland was a
thousand years away. With horrific pants he emitted smokiest
smoke and fiercest fire.
"Now I want a Princess," cried Edward, clutching Charlotte
ecstatically; "and YOU can be the doctor, and heal me from the
dragon's deadly wound."
Of all professions I held the sacred art of healing in worst
horror and contempt. Cataclysmal memories of purge and draught
crowded thick on me, and with Charlotte--who courted no barren
honours--I made a break for the door. Edward did likewise, and
the hostile forces clashed together on the mat, and for a brief
space things were mixed and chaotic and Arthurian. The silvery
sound of the luncheon-bell restored an instant peace, even in the
teeth of clenched antagonisms like ours. The Holy Grail itself,
"sliding athwart a sunbeam," never so effectually stilled a riot
of warring passions into sweet and quiet accord.
WHAT THEY TALKED ABOUT
Edward was standing ginger-beer like a gentleman, happening, as
the one that had last passed under the dentist's hands, to be the
capitalist of the flying hour. As in all well-regulated
families, the usual tariff obtained in ours,--half-a-crown a
tooth; one shilling only if the molar were a loose one. This
one, unfortunately--in spite of Edward's interested affectation
of agony--had been shaky undisguised; but the event was good
enough to run to ginger-beer. As financier, however, Edward had
claimed exemption from any servile duties of procurement, and had
swaggered about the garden while I fetched from the village post-
office, and Harold stole a tumbler from the pantry. Our
preparations complete, we were sprawling on the lawn; the
staidest and most self respecting of the rabbits had been let
loose to grace the feast, and was lopping demurely about the
grass, selecting the juiciest plantains; while Selina, as
the eldest lady present, was toying, in her affected feminine
way, with the first full tumbler, daintily fishing for bits of
broken cork.
"Hurry up, can't you?" growled our host; "what are you girls
always so beastly particular for?"
"Martha says," explained Harold (thirsty too, but still just),
"that if you swallow a bit of cork, it swells, and it swells, and
it swells inside you, till you--"
"O bosh!" said Edward, draining the glass with a fine pretence of
indifference to consequences, but all the same (as I noticed)
dodging the floating cork-fragments with skill and judgment.
"O, it's all very well to say bosh," replied Harold, nettled;
"but every one knows it's true but you. Why, when Uncle Thomas
was here last, and they got up a bottle of wine for him, he took
just one tiny sip out of his glass, and then he said, `Poo, my
goodness, that's corked!' And he wouldn't touch it. And they
had to get a fresh bottle up. The funny part was, though, I
looked in his glass afterwards, when it was brought out into the
passage, and there wasn't any cork in it at all! So I drank
it all off, and it was very good!"
"You'd better be careful, young man!" said his elder brother,
regarding him severely. "D' you remember that night when the
Mummers were here, and they had mulled port, and you went round
and emptied all the glasses after they had gone away?"
"Ow! I did feel funny that night," chuckled Harold. "Thought the
house was comin' down, it jumped about so; and Martha had to
carry me up to bed, 'cos the stairs was goin' all waggity!"
We gazed searchingly at our graceless junior; but it was clear
that he viewed the matter in the light of a phenomenon rather
than of a delinquency.
A third bottle was by this time circling; and Selina, who had
evidently waited for it to reach her, took a most unfairly long
pull, and then jumping up and shaking out her frock, announced
that she was going for a walk. Then she fled like a hare; for it
was the custom of our Family to meet with physical coercion any
independence of action in individuals.
"She's off with those Vicarage girls again," said Edward,
regarding Selina's long black legs twinkling down the path. "She
goes out with them every day now; and as soon as ever they start,
all their heads go together and they chatter, chatter, chatter
the whole blessed time! I can't make out what they find to talk
about. They never stop; it's gabble, gabble, gabble right along,
like a nest of young rooks!"
"P'raps they talk about birds'-eggs," I suggested sleepily (the
sun was hot, the turf soft, the ginger-beer potent); "and about
ships, and buffaloes, and desert islands; and why rabbits have
white tails; and whether they'd sooner have a schooner or a
cutter; and what they'll be when they're men--at least, I mean
there's lots of things to talk about, if you WANT to talk."
"Yes; but they don't talk about those sort of things at all,"
persisted Edward. "How CAN they? They don't KNOW
anything; they can't DO anything--except play the piano, and
nobody would want to talk about THAT; and they don't care
about anything--anything sensible, I mean. So what DO they
talk about?"
"I asked Martha once," put in Harold; "and she said, `Never
YOU mind; young ladies has lots of things to talk about
that young gentlemen can't understand.'"
"I don't believe it," Edward growled.
"Well, that's what she SAID, anyway," rejoined Harold,
indifferently. The subject did not seem to him of first-class
importance, and it was hindering the circulation of the ginger-
beer.
We heard the click of the front-gate. Through a gap in the hedge
we could see the party setting off down the road. Selina was in
the middle: a Vicarage girl had her by either arm; their heads
were together, as Edward had described; and the clack of their
tongues came down the breeze like the busy pipe of starlings on a
bright March morning.
"What DO they talk about, Charlotte?" I inquired, wishing to
pacify Edward. "You go out with them sometimes."
"I don't know," said poor Charlotte, dolefully. "They make me
walk behind, 'cos they say I'm too little, and mustn't hear. And
I DO want to so," she added.
"When any lady comes to see Aunt Eliza," said Harold, "they both
talk at once all the time. And yet each of 'em seems to hear
what the other one's saying. I can't make out how they do
it. Grown-up people are so clever!"
"The Curate's the funniest man," I remarked. "He's always saying
things that have no sense in them at all, and then laughing at
them as if they were jokes. Yesterday, when they asked him if
he'd have some more tea he said `Once more unto the breach, dear
friends, once more,' and then sniggered all over. I didn't see
anything funny in that. And then somebody asked him about his
button-hole and he said `'Tis but a little faded flower,' and
exploded again. I thought it very stupid."
"O HIM," said Edward contemptuously: "he can't help it, you
know; it's a sort of way he's got. But it's these girls I can't
make out. If they've anything really sensible to talk about, how
is it nobody knows what it is? And if they haven't--and we know
they CAN'T have, naturally--why don't they shut up their jaw?
This old rabbit here--HE doesn't want to talk. He's got
something better to do." And Edward aimed a ginger-beer cork at
the unruffled beast, who never budged.
"O but rabbits DO talk," interposed Harold. "I've
watched them often in their hutch. They put their heads together
and their noses go up and down, just like Selina's and the
Vicarage girls'. Only of course I can t hear what they're
saying."
"Well, if they do," said Edward, unwillingly, "I'll bet they
don't talk such rot as those girls do!"--which was ungenerous, as
well as unfair; for it had not yet transpired--nor has it to this
day--WHAT Selina and her friends talked about.
THE ARGONAUTS
The advent of strangers, of whatever sort, into our circle, had
always been a matter of grave dubiety and suspicion; indeed, it
was generally a signal for retreat into caves and fastnesses of
the earth, into unthreaded copses or remote outlying cowsheds,
whence we were only to be extricated by wily nursemaids, rendered
familiar by experience with our secret runs and refuges. It was
not surprising therefore that the heroes of classic legend, when
first we made their acquaintance, failed to win our entire
sympathy at once. "Confidence," says somebody, "is a plant of
slow growth;" and these stately dark-haired demi-gods, with names
hard to master and strange accoutrements, had to win a citadel
already strongly garrisoned with a more familiar soldiery. Their
chill foreign goddesses had no such direct appeal for us as the
mocking malicious fairies and witches of the North; we missed the
pleasant alliance of the animal--the fox who spread the
bushiest of tails to convey us to the enchanted castle, the frog
in the well, the raven who croaked advice from the tree; and--to
Harold especially--it seemed entirely wrong that the hero should
ever be other than the youngest brother of three. This belief,
indeed, in the special fortune that ever awaited the youngest
brother, as such,--the "Borough-English" of Faery,--had been of
baleful effect on Harold, producing a certain self-conceit and
perkiness that called for physical correction. But even in our
admonishment we were on his side; and as we distrustfully eyed
these new arrivals, old Saturn himself seemed something of a
parvenu.
Even strangers, however, if they be good fellows at heart,
may develop into sworn comrades; and these gay swordsmen, after
all, were of the right stuff. Perseus, with his cap of darkness
and his wonderful sandals, was not long in winging his way to our
hearts; Apollo knocked at Admetus' gate in something of the right
fairy fashion; Psyche brought with her an orthodox palace of
magic, as well as helpful birds and friendly ants. Ulysses, with
his captivating shifts and strategies, broke down the final
barrier, and hence forth the band was adopted and admitted
into our freemasonry.
I had been engaged in chasing Farmer Larkin's calves--his
special pride--round the field, just to show the man we hadn't
forgotten him, and was returning through the kitchen-garden with
a conscience at peace with all men, when I happened upon Edward,
grubbing for worms in the dung-heap. Edward put his worms into
his hat, and we strolled along together, discussing high matters
of state. As we reached the tool-shed, strange noises arrested
our steps; looking in, we perceived Harold, alone, rapt,
absorbed, immersed in the special game of the moment. He was
squatting in an old pig-trough that had been brought in to be
tinkered; and as he rhapsodised, anon he waved a shovel over his
head, anon dug it into the ground with the action of those who
would urge Canadian canoes. Edward strode in upon him.
"What rot are you playing at now?" he demanded sternly.
Harold flushed up, but stuck to his pig-trough like a man.
"I'm Jason," he replied, defiantly; "and this is the Argo. The
other fellows are here too, only you can't see them; and
we're just going through the Hellespont, so don't you come
bothering." And once more he plied the wine-dark sea.
Edward kicked the pig-trough contemptuously.
"Pretty sort of Argo you've got!" said he.
Harold began to get annoyed. "I can't help it," he replied.
"It's the best sort of Argo I can manage, and it's all right if
you only pretend enough; but YOU never could pretend one bit."
Edward reflected. "Look here," he said presently; "why shouldn't
we get hold of Farmer Larkin's boat, and go right away up the
river in a real Argo, and look for Medea, and the Golden Fleece,
and everything? And I'll tell you what, I don't mind your being
Jason, as you thought of it first."
Harold tumbled out of the trough in the excess of his emotion.
"But we aren't allowed to go on the water by ourselves," he
cried.
"No," said Edward, with fine scorn: "we aren't allowed; and Jason
wasn't allowed either, I daresay--but he WENT!"
Harold's protest had been merely conventional: he only
wanted to be convinced by sound argument. The next question was,
How about the girls? Selina was distinctly handy in a boat: the
difficulty about her was, that if she disapproved of the
expedition--and, morally considered, it was not exactly a
Pilgrim's Progress--she might go and tell; she having just
reached that disagreeable age when one begins to develop a
conscience. Charlotte, for her part, had a habit of day-dreams,
and was as likely as not to fall overboard in one of her rapt
musings. To be sure, she would dissolve in tears when she found
herself left out; but even that was better than a watery tomb.
In fine, the public voice--and rightly, perhaps--was against the
admission of the skirted animal: spite the precedent of Atalanta,
who was one of the original crew.
"And now," said Edward, "who's to ask Farmer Larkin? I can't;
last time I saw him he said when he caught me again he'd smack my
head. YOU'LL have to."
I hesitated, for good reasons. "You know those precious calves
of his?" I began.
Edward understood at once. "All right," he said; "then we won't
ask him at all. It doesn't much matter. He'd only be
annoyed, and that would be a pity. Now let's set off."
We made our way down to the stream, and captured the farmer's
boat without let or hindrance, the enemy being engaged in the
hayfields. This "river," so called, could never be discovered by
us in any atlas; indeed our Argo could hardly turn in it without
risk of shipwreck. But to us 't was Orinoco, and the cities of
the world dotted its shores. We put the Argo's head up stream,
since that led away from the Larkin province; Harold was
faithfully permitted to be Jason, and we shared the rest of the
heroes among us. Then launching forth from Thessaly, we threaded
the Hellespont with shouts, breathlessly dodged the Clashing
Rocks, and coasted under the lee of the Siren-haunted isles.
Lemnos was fringed with meadow-sweet, dog-roses dotted the Mysian
shore, and the cheery call of the haymaking folk sounded along
the coast of Thrace.
After some hour or two's seafaring, the prow of the Argo embedded
itself in the mud of a landing-place, plashy with the tread of
cows and giving on to a lane that led towards the smoke of human
habitations. Edward jumped ashore, alert for exploration, and
strode off without waiting to see if we followed; but I
lingered behind, having caught sight of a moss-grown water-gate
hard by, leading into a garden that from the brooding quiet
lapping it round, appeared to portend magical possibilities.
Indeed the very air within seemed stiller, as we circumspectly
passed through the gate; and Harold hung back shamefaced, as if
we were crossing the threshold of some private chamber, and
ghosts of old days were hustling past us. Flowers there were,
everywhere; but they drooped and sprawled in an overgrowth
hinting at indifference; the scent of heliotrope possessed the
place, as if actually hung in solid festoons from tall untrimmed
hedge to hedge. No basket-chairs, shawls, or novels dotted the
lawn with colour; and on the garden-front of the house behind,
the blinds were mostly drawn. A grey old sun-dial dominated the
central sward, and we moved towards it instinctively, as the most
human thing visible. An antique motto ran round it, and with
eyes and fingers we struggled at the decipherment.
"TIME: TRYETH: TROTHE:" spelt out Harold at last. "I wonder what
that means?"
I could not enlighten him, nor meet his further questions as to
the inner mechanism of the thing, and where you wound it up.
I had seen these instruments before, of course, but had never
fully understood their manner of working.
We were still puzzling our heads over the contrivance, when I
became aware that Medea herself was moving down the path from the
house. Dark-haired, supple, of a figure lightly poised and
swayed, but pale and listless--I knew her at once, and having
come out to find her, naturally felt no surprise at all. But
Harold, who was trying to climb on the top of the sun-dial,
having a cat-like fondness for the summit of things, started and
fell prone, barking his chin and filling the pleasance with
lamentation.
Medea skimmed the ground swallow-like, and in a moment was on her
knees comforting him,--wiping the dirt out of his chin with her
own dainty handkerchief,--and vocal with soft murmur of
consolation.
"You needn't take on so about him," I observed, politely. "He'll
cry for just one minute, and then he'll be all right."
My estimate was justified. At the end of his regulation time
Harold stopped crying suddenly, like a clock that had struck its
hour; and with a serene and cheerful countenance wriggled
out of Medea's embrace, and ran for a stone to throw at an
intrusive blackbird.
"O you boys!" cried Medea, throwing wide her arms with
abandonment. "Where have you dropped from? How dirty you are!
I've been shut up here for a thousand years, and all that time
I've never seen any one under a hundred and fifty! Let's play at
something, at once!"
"Rounders is a good game," I suggested. "Girls can play at
rounders. And we could serve up to the sun-dial here. But you
want a bat and a ball, and some more people."
She struck her hands together tragically. "I haven't a bat," she
cried, "or a ball, or more people, or anything sensible whatever.
Never mind; let's play at hide-and-seek in the kitchen garden.
And we'll race there, up to that walnut-tree; I haven't run for a
century!"
She was so easy a victor, nevertheless, that I began to doubt, as
I panted behind, whether she had not exaggerated her age by a
year or two. She flung herself into hide-and-seek with all the
gusto and abandonment of the true artist, and as she flitted
away and reappeared, flushed and laughing divinely, the pale
witch-maiden seemed to fall away from her, and she moved rather
as that other girl I had read about, snatched from fields of
daffodil to reign in shadow below, yet permitted once again to
visit earth, and light, and the frank, caressing air.
Tired at last, we strolled back to the old sundial, and Harold,
who never relinquished a problem unsolved, began afresh, rubbing
his finger along the faint incisions, "Time tryeth trothe.
Please, I want to know what that means."
Medea's face drooped low over the sun-dial, till it was almost
hidden in her fingers. "That's what I'm here for," she said
presently, in quite a changed, low voice. "They shut me up
here--they think I'll forget--but I never will--never, never!
And he, too--but I don't know--it is so long--I don't know!"
Her face was quite hidden now. There was silence again in the
old garden. I felt clumsily helpless and awkward; beyond a vague
idea of kicking Harold, nothing remedial seemed to suggest
itself.
None of us had noticed the approach of another she-creature--one
of the angular and rigid class--how different from our dear
comrade! The years Medea had claimed might well have belonged to
her; she wore mittens, too--a trick I detested in woman. "Lucy!"
she said, sharply, in a tone with AUNT writ large over it; and
Medea started up guiltily.
"You've been crying," said the newcomer, grimly regarding her
through spectacles. "And pray who are these exceedingly dirty
little boys?"
"Friends of mine, aunt," said Medea, promptly, with forced
cheerfulness. "I--I've known them a long time. I asked them to
come."
The aunt sniffed suspiciously. "You must come indoors, dear,"
she said, "and lie down. The sun will give you a headache. And
you little boys had better run away home to your tea. Remember,
you should not come to pay visits without your nursemaid."
Harold had been tugging nervously at my jacket for some time, and
I only waited till Medea turned and kissed a white hand to us as
she was led away. Then I ran. We gained the boat in safety; and
"What an old dragon!" said Harold.
"Wasn't she a beast!" I replied. "Fancy the sun giving any one a
headache! But Medea was a real brick. Couldn't we carry her
off?"
"We could if Edward was here," said Harold, confidently.
The question was, What had become of that defaulting hero? We
were not left long in doubt. First, there came down the lane the
shrill and wrathful clamour of a female tongue, then Edward,
running his best, and then an excited woman hard on his heel.
Edward tumbled into the bottom of the boat, gasping, "Shove her
off!" And shove her off we did, mightily, while the dame abused
us from the bank in the self same accents in which Alfred hurled
defiance at the marauding Dane.
"That was just like a bit out of Westward Ho!" I remarked
approvingly, as we sculled down the stream. "But what had you
been doing to her?"
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