“I have known such watches,” I remarked.
“Itgoes, of course, at the usual rate. Only the time has to gowithit. Hence, if I move the hands, I change the time. To move themforwards, inadvanceof the true time, is impossible: but I can move them as much as a monthbackwards—that is the limit. And then you have the events all over again—with any alterations experience may suggest.”
“Whata blessing such a watch would be,” I thought, “in real life! To be able to unsay some heedless word—to undo some reckless deed! Might I see the thing done?”
“With pleasure!” said the good natured Professor. “When I movethishand back tohere,” pointing out the place, “History goes back fifteen minutes!”
Trembling with excitement, I watched him push the hand round as he described.
“Hurted mine selfwellymuch!”
Shrilly and suddenly the words rang in my ears, and, more startled than I cared to show, I turned to look for the speaker.
Yes! There was Bruno, standing with the tears running down his cheeks, just as I hadseen him a quarter of an hour ago; and there was Sylvie with her arms round his neck!
I had not the heart to make the dear little fellow go through his troubles a second time, so hastily begged the Professor to push the hands round into their former position. In a moment Sylvie and Bruno were gone again, and I could just see them in the far distance, picking ‘dindledums.’
“Wonderful, indeed!” I exclaimed.
“It has another property, yet more wonderful,” said the Professor. “You see this little peg? That is called the ‘Reversal Peg.’ If you push it in, the events of the next hour happen in the reverse order. Do not try it now. I will lend you the Watch for a few days, and you can amuse yourself with experiments.”
“Thank you very much!” I said as he gave me the Watch. “I’ll take the greatest care of it—why, here are the children again!”
“We could only but findsixdindledums,” said Bruno, putting them into my hands, “’cause Sylvie said it were time to go back. And here’s a big blackberry forooself! We couldn’t only find buttwo!”
“Thank you: it’sverynice,” I said. “And I supposeyouate the other, Bruno?”
“No, I didn’t,” Bruno said, carelessly. “Aren’tthey pretty dindledums, Mister Sir?”
“Yes, very: but what makes you limp so, my child?”
“Mine foot’s comehurtedagain!” Bruno mournfully replied. And he sat down on the ground, and began nursing it.
The Professor held his head between his hands—an attitude that I knew indicated distraction of mind. “Better rest a minute,” he said. “It may be better then—or it may be worse. If only I had some of my medicines here! I’m Court-Physician, you know,” he added, aside to me.
“Shall I go and get you some blackberries, darling?” Sylvie whispered, with her arms round his neck; and she kissed away a tear that was trickling down his cheek.
Bruno brightened up in a moment. “Thatarea good plan!” he exclaimed. “I thinks my foot would comequiteunhurted, if I eated a blackberry—two or three blackberries—six or seven blackberries—”
Sylvie got up hastily. “I’d better go,” she said, aside to me, “before he gets into the double figures!”
“Let me come and help you,” I said. “I can reach higher up than you can.”
“Yes, please,” said Sylvie, putting her hand into mine: and we walked off together.
“Brunolovesblackberries,” she said, as we paced slowly along by a tall hedge, that looked a promising place for them, “and it was sosweetof him to make me eat the only one!”
“Oh, it wasyouthat ate it, then? Bruno didn’t seem to like to tell me about it.”
“No; I saw that,” said Sylvie. “He’s always afraid of being praised. But hemademe eat it, really! I would much rather he—oh, what’s that?” And she clung to my hand, half-frightened, as we came in sight of a hare, lying on its side with legs stretched out, just in the entrance to the wood.
“It’s ahare, my child. Perhaps it’s asleep.”
“No, it isn’t asleep,” Sylvie said, timidly going nearer to look at it: “it’s eyes are open. Is it—is it—” her voice dropped to an awestruck whisper, “is itdead, do you think?”
“Yes, it’s quite dead,” I said, after stooping to examine it. “Poor thing! I think it’s been hunted to death. I know the harriers were out yesterday. But they haven’t touched it. Perhaps they caught sight of another, and left it to die of fright and exhaustion.”
“Hunted todeath?” Sylvie repeated to herself, very slowly and sadly. “I thought hunting was a thing theyplayedat—like a game. Bruno and I hunt snails: but we never hurt them when we catch them!”
“Sweet angel!” I thought. “How am I to get the idea ofSportinto your innocent mind?” And as we stood, hand-in-hand, looking down at the dead hare, I tried to put the thing into such words as she could understand. “You know what fierce wild-beasts lions and tigers are?” Sylvie nodded. “Well, in some countries menhaveto kill them, to save their own lives, you know.”
“Yes,” said Sylvie: “if one tried to killme, Bruno would killit—if he could.”
“Well, and so the men—the hunters—get to enjoy it, you know: the running, and the fighting, and the shouting, and the danger.”
“Yes,” said Sylvie. “Bruno likes danger.”
“Well, but, inthiscountry, there aren’t any lions and tigers, loose: so they hunt other creatures, you see.” I hoped, but in vain, that this would satisfy her, and that she would ask no more questions.
“They huntfoxes,” Sylvie said, thoughtfully. “And I think theykillthem, too. Foxes are very fierce. I daresay men don’t love them. Are hares fierce?”
“No,” I said. “A hare is a sweet, gentle, timid animal—almost as gentle as a lamb.”
“But, if menlovehares, why—why—” her voice quivered, and her sweet eyes were brimming over with tears.
“I’m afraid theydon’tlove them, dear child.”
“Allchildrenlove them,” Sylvie said. “All ladies love them.”
“I’m afraid evenladiesgo to hunt them, sometimes.”
Sylvie shuddered. “Oh, no, notladies!” she earnestly pleaded. “Not Lady Muriel!”
“No,shenever does, I’m sure—but this is too sad a sight foryou, dear. Let’s try and find some—”
But Sylvie was not satisfied yet. In a hushed, solemn tone, with bowed head and clasped hands, she put her final question. “DoesGodlove hares?”
“Yes!” I said. “I’msureHe does! He loves every living thing. Even sinfulmen. How much more the animals, that cannot sin!”
“I don’t know what ‘sin’ means,” said Sylvie. And I didn’t try to explain it.
“Come, my child,” I said, trying to lead her away. “Wish good-bye to the poor hare, and come and look for blackberries.”
“Good-bye, poor hare!” Sylvie obediently repeated, looking over her shoulder at it as we turned away. And then, all in a moment, her self-command gave way. Pulling her hand out of mine, she ran back to where the dead hare was lying, and flung herself down at its side in such an agony of grief as I could hardly have believed possible in so young a child.
“Oh, my darling, my darling!” she moaned, over and over again. “AndGodmeant your life to be so beautiful!”
Sometimes, but always keeping her face hidden on the ground, she would reach out onelittle hand, to stroke the poor dead thing, and then once more bury her face in her hands, and sob as if her heart would break.
THE DEAD HARETHE DEAD HARE
THE DEAD HARE
I was afraid she would really make herself ill: still I thought it best to let her weep away the first sharp agony of grief: and, after a few minutes, the sobbing gradually ceased, and Sylvie rose to her feet, and looked calmly at me, though tears were still streaming down her cheeks.
I did not dare to speak again, just yet; but simply held out my hand to her, that we might quit the melancholy spot.
“Yes, I’ll come now,” she said. Very reverently she kneeled down, and kissed the dead hare; then rose and gave me her hand, and we moved on in silence.
A child’s sorrow is violent, but short; and it was almost in her usual voice that she said, after a minute, “Oh stop, stop! Here are somelovelyblackberries!”
We filled our hands with fruit, and returned in all haste to where the Professor and Bruno were seated on a bank, awaiting our return.
Just before we came within hearing-distance, Sylvie checked me. “Please don’t tellBrunoabout the hare!” she said.
“Very well, my child. But why not?”
Tears again glittered in those sweet eyes, and she turned her head away, so that I could scarcely hear her reply. “He’s—he’s veryfondof gentle creatures, you know. And he’d—he’d be so sorry! I don’t want him to be made sorry.”
“Andyouragony of sorrow is to count for nothing, then, sweet unselfish child!” I thought to myself. But no more was said till we had reached our friends; and Bruno was far toomuch engrossed, in the feast we had brought him, to take any notice of Sylvie’s unusually grave manner.
“I’m afraid it’s getting rather late, Professor?” I said.
“Yes, indeed,” said the Professor. “I must take you all through the Ivory Door again. You’ve stayed your full time.”
“Mightn’t we stay alittlelonger!” pleaded Sylvie.
“Justoneminute!” added Bruno.
But the Professor was unyielding. “It’s a great privilege, coming through at all,” he said. “We must go now.” And we followed him obediently to the Ivory Door, which he threw open, and signed to me to go through first.
“You’re coming too, aren’t you?” I said to Sylvie.
“Yes,” she said: “but you won’t see us after you’ve gone through.”
“But suppose I wait for you outside?” I asked, as I stepped through the doorway.
“In that case,” said Sylvie, “I think the potato would bequitejustified in askingyourweight. I can quite imagine a reallysuperiorkidney-potato declining to argue with any one underfifteen stone!”
With a great effort I recovered the thread of my thoughts. “We lapse very quickly into nonsense!” I said.
“Let us lapse back again,” said Lady Muriel. “Take another cup of tea? I hopethat’ssound common sense?”
“And all that strange adventure,” I thought, “has occupied the space of a single comma in Lady Muriel’s speech! A single comma, for which grammarians tell us to ‘countone’!” (I felt no doubt that the Professor had kindly put back the time for me, to the exact point at which I had gone to sleep.)
When, a few minutes afterwards, we left the house, Arthur’s first remark was certainly astrange one. “We’ve been there justtwenty minutes,” he said, “and I’ve done nothing but listen to you and Lady Muriel talking: and yet, somehow, I feel exactly as ifIhad been talking with her for anhourat least!”
And so hehadbeen, I felt no doubt: only, as the time had been put back to the beginning of the tête-à-tête he referred to, the whole of it had passed into oblivion, if not into nothingness! But I valued my own reputation for sanity too highly to venture on explaining tohimwhat had happened.
For some cause, which I could not at the moment divine, Arthur was unusually grave and silent during our walk home. It could not be connected with Eric Lindon, I thought, as he had for some days been away in London: so that, having Lady Muriel almost ‘all to himself’—forIwas only too glad to hear those two conversing, to have any wish to intrude any remarks of my own—heought, theoretically, to have been specially radiant and contented with life. “Can he have heard any bad news?” I said to myself. And, almost as if he had read my thoughts, he spoke.
“He will be here by the last train,” he said, in the tone of one who is continuing a conversation rather than beginning one.
“Captain Lindon, do you mean?”
“Yes—Captain Lindon,” said Arthur: “I said ‘he,’ because I fancied we were talking about him. The Earl told me he comes to-night, thoughto-morrowis the day when he will know about the Commission that he’s hoping for. I wonder he doesn’t stay another day to hear the result, if he’s really so anxious about it as the Earl believes he is.”
“He can have a telegram sent after him,” I said: “but it’s not very soldier-like, running away from possible bad news!”
“He’s a very good fellow,” said Arthur: “but I confess it would be good news forme, if he got his Commission, and his Marching Orders, all at once! I wish him all happiness—withoneexception. Good night!” (We had reached home by this time.) “I’m not good company to-night—better be alone.”
It was much the same, next day. Arthur declared he wasn’t fit for Society, and I had to set forth alone for an afternoon-stroll. Itook the road to the Station, and, at the point where the road from the ‘Hall’ joined it, I paused, seeing my friends in the distance, seemingly bound for the same goal.
“Will you join us?” the Earl said, after I had exchanged greetings with him, and Lady Muriel, and Captain Lindon. “This restless young man is expecting a telegram, and we are going to the Station to meet it.”
“There is also a restless young woman in the case,” Lady Muriel added.
“That goes without saying, my child,” said her father. “Women arealwaysrestless!”
“For generous appreciation of all one’sbestqualities,” his daughter impressively remarked, “there’s nothing to compare with a father, is there, Eric?”
“Cousins are not ‘in it,’” said Eric: and then somehow the conversation lapsed into two duologues, the younger folk taking the lead, and the two old men following with less eager steps.
“And when are we to see your little friends again?” said the Earl. “They are singularly attractive children.”
“I shall be delighted to bring them, when I can,” I said. “But I don’t know, myself, when I am likely to see them again.”
“I’m not going to question you,” said the Earl: “but there’s no harm in mentioning that Muriel is simply tormented with curiosity! We know most of the people about here, and she has been vainly trying to guess what house they can possibly be staying at.”
“Some day I may be able to enlighten her: but just at present——”
“Thanks. She must bear it as best she can.Itell her it’s a grand opportunity for practisingpatience. But she hardly sees it from that point of view. Why, therearethe children!”
So indeed they were: waiting (forus, apparently) at a stile, which they could not have climbed over more than a few moments, as Lady Muriel and her cousin had passed it without seeing them. On catching sight of us, Bruno ran to meet us, and to exhibit to us, with much pride, the handle of a clasp-knife—the blade having been broken off—which he had picked up in the road.
“And what shall you use it for, Bruno?” I said.
“Don’t know,” Bruno carelessly replied: “must think.”
“A child’s first view of life,” the Earl remarked, with that sweet sad smile of his, “is that it is a period to be spent in accumulating portable property. That view gets modified as the years glide away.” And he held out his hand to Sylvie, who had placed herself by me, looking a little shy of him.
But the gentle old man was not one with whom any child, human or fairy, could be shy for long; and she had very soon deserted my hand for his—Bruno alone remaining faithful to his first friend. We overtook the other couple just as they reached the Station, and both Lady Muriel and Eric greeted the children as old friends—the latter with the words “So you got to Babylon by candlelight, after all?”
“Yes, and back again!” cried Bruno.
Lady Muriel looked from one to the other in blank astonishment. “What,youknow them, Eric?” she exclaimed. “This mystery grows deeper every day!”
“Then we must be somewhere in the Third Act,” said Eric. “You don’t expect the mystery to be cleared up till the Fifth Act, do you?”
“But it’s such alongdrama!” was the plaintive reply. “Wemusthave got to the Fifth Act by this time!”
“ThirdAct, I assure you,” said the young soldier mercilessly. “Scene, a railway-platform. Lights down. Enter Prince (in disguise, of course) and faithful Attendant.Thisis the Prince—” (taking Bruno’s hand) “and here stands his humble Servant! What is your Royal Highness’s next command?” And he made a most courtier-like low bow to his puzzled little friend.
“Oo’renota Servant!” Bruno scornfully exclaimed. “Oo’re aGemplun!”
“Servant, I assure your Royal Highness!” Eric respectfully insisted. “Allow me to mention to your Royal Highness my various situations—past, present, and future.”
“What did oo begin wiz?” Bruno asked, beginning to enter into the jest. “Was oo a shoe-black?”
“Lower than that, your Royal Highness! Years ago, I offered myself as aSlave—as a ‘ConfidentialSlave,’ I think it’s called?” he asked, turning to Lady Muriel.
But Lady Muriel heard him not: something had gone wrong with her glove, which entirely engrossed her attention.
“Did oo get the place?” said Bruno.
“Sad to say, Your Royal Highness, I didnot! So I had to take a situation as—asWaiter, which I have now held for some years—haven’t I?” He again glanced at Lady Muriel.
“Sylvie dear,dohelp me to button this glove!” Lady Muriel whispered, hastily stooping down, and failing to hear the question.
“And what will oo benext?” said Bruno.
“My next place will, I hope, be that ofGroom. And after that——”
“Don’t puzzle the child so!” Lady Muriel interrupted. “What nonsense you talk!”
“—after that,” Eric persisted, “I hope to obtain the situation ofHousekeeper, which—Fourth Act!” he proclaimed, with a sudden change of tone. “Lights turned up. Redlights. Green lights. Distant rumble heard. Enter a passenger-train!”
And in another minute the train drew up alongside of the platform, and a stream of passengers began to flow out from the booking office and waiting-rooms.
“Did you ever makereallife into a drama?” said the Earl. “Now just try. I’ve often amused myself that way. Consider this platform as our stage. Good entrances and exits onbothsides, you see. Capital background scene: real engine moving up and down. All this bustle, and people passing to and fro, must have been most carefully rehearsed! How naturally they do it! With never a glance at the audience! And every grouping is quite fresh, you see. No repetition!”
It really was admirable, as soon as I began to enter into it from this point of view. Even a porter passing, with a barrow piled with luggage, seemed so realistic that one was tempted to applaud. He was followed by an angry mother, with hot red face, dragging along two screaming children, and calling, to some one behind, “John! Come on!” Enter John,very meek, very silent, and loaded with parcels. And he was followed, in his turn, by a frightened little nursemaid, carrying a fat baby, also screaming. All the children screamed.
“Capital byplay!” said the old man aside. “Did you notice the nursemaid’s look of terror? It was simplyperfect!”
“You have struck quite a new vein,” I said. “To most of us Life and its pleasures seem like a mine that is nearly worked out.”
“Worked out!” exclaimed the Earl. “For any one with true dramatic instincts, it is only the Overture that is ended! The real treat has yet to begin. You go to a theatre, and pay your ten shillings for a stall, and what do you get for your money? Perhaps it’s a dialogue between a couple of farmers—unnatural in their overdone caricature of farmers’ dress—more unnatural in their constrained attitudes and gestures—most unnatural in their attempts at ease and geniality in their talk. Go instead and take a seat in a third-class railway-carriage, and you’ll get the same dialogue doneto the life! Front-seats—no orchestra to block the view—and nothing to pay!”
“Which reminds me,” said Eric. “There is nothing to pay on receiving a telegram! Shall we enquire for one?” And he and Lady Muriel strolled off in the direction of the Telegraph-Office.
“I wonder if Shakespeare had that thought in his mind,” I said, “when he wrote ‘All the world’s a stage’?”
The old man sighed. “And so it is,” he said, “look at it as you will. Life is indeed a drama; a drama with but fewencores—and nobouquets!” he added dreamily. “We spend one half of it in regretting the things we did in the other half!”
“And the secret ofenjoyingit,” he continued, resuming his cheerful tone, “isintensity!”
“But not in the modern æsthetic sense, I presume? Like the young lady, in Punch, who begins a conversation with ‘Are youintense?’”
“By no means!” replied the Earl. “What I mean is intensity ofthought—a concentratedattention. We lose half the pleasure we might have in Life, by not reallyattending. Take any instance you like: it doesn’t matterhowtrivial the pleasure may be—the principle isthe same. SupposeAandBare reading the same second-rate circulating-library novel.Anever troubles himself to master the relationships of the characters, on which perhaps all the interest of the story depends: he ‘skips’ over all the descriptions of scenery, and every passage that looks rather dull: he doesn’t half attend to the passages he does read: he goes on reading—merely from want of resolution to find another occupation—for hours after he ought to have put the book aside: and reaches the ‘FINIS’ in a state of utter weariness and depression!Bputs his whole soulintothe thing—on the principle that ‘whatever is worth doing is worth doingwell’: he masters the genealogies: he calls up pictures before his ‘mind’s eye’ as he reads about the scenery: best of all, he resolutely shuts the book at the end of some chapter, while his interest is yet at its keenest, and turns to other subjects; so that, when next he allows himself an hour at it, it is like a hungry man sitting down to dinner: and, when the book is finished, he returns to the work of his daily life like ‘a giant refreshed’!”
“But suppose the book were reallyrubbish—nothing to repay attention?”
“Well, suppose it,” said the Earl. “My theory meetsthatcase, I assure you!Anever finds out that itisrubbish, but maunders on to the end, trying to believe he’s enjoying himself.Bquietly shuts the book, when he’s read a dozen pages, walks off to the Library, and changes it for a better! I have yetanothertheory for adding to the enjoyment of Life—that is, if I have not exhausted your patience? I’m afraid you find me a very garrulous old man.”
“No indeed!” I exclaimed earnestly. And indeed I felt as if onecouldnot easily tire of the sweet sadness of that gentle voice.
“It is, that we should learn to take our pleasuresquickly, and our painsslowly.”
“But why? I should have put it the other way, myself.”
“By takingartificialpain—which can be as trivial as you please—slowly, the result is that, whenrealpain comes, however severe, all you need do is to let it go at itsordinarypace, and it’s over in a moment!”
“Very true,” I said, “but how about thepleasure?”
“Why, by taking it quick, you can get so much more into life. It takesyouthree hours and a half to hear and enjoy an opera. SupposeIcan take it in, and enjoy it, in half-an-hour. Why, I can enjoysevenoperas, while you are listening toone!”
“Always supposing you have an orchestra capable ofplayingthem,” I said. “And that orchestra has yet to be found!”
The old man smiled. “I have heard an air played,” he said, “and by no means a short one—played right through, variations and all, in three seconds!”
“When? And how?” I asked eagerly, with a half-notion that I was dreaming again.
“It was done by a little musical-box,” he quietly replied. “After it had been wound up, the regulator, or something, broke, and it ran down, as I said, in about three seconds. But itmusthave played all the notes, you know!”
“Did youenjoyit?” I asked, with all the severity of a cross-examining barrister.
“No, I didn’t!” he candidly confessed. “But then, you know, I hadn’t been trained to that kind of music!”
“I should much like totryyour plan,” I said, and, as Sylvie and Bruno happened to run up to us at the moment, I left them to keep the Earl company, and strolled along the platform, making each person and event play its part in anextemporedrama for my especial benefit. “What, is the Earl tired of you already?” I said, as the children ran past me.
“No!” Sylvie replied with great emphasis. “He wants the evening-paper. So Bruno’s going to be a little news-boy!”
“Mind you charge a good price for it!” I called after them.
Returning up the platform, I came upon Sylvie alone. “Well, child,” I said, “where’s your little news-boy? Couldn’t he get you an evening-paper?”
“He went to get one at the book-stall at the other side,” said Sylvie; “and he’s coming across the line with it—oh, Bruno, you ought to cross by the bridge!” for the distant thud, thud, of the Express was already audible.Suddenly a look of horror came over her face. “Oh, he’s fallen down on the rails!” she cried, and darted past me at a speed that quite defied the hasty effort I made to stop her.
But the wheezy old Station-Master happened to be close behind me: he wasn’t good for much, poor old man, but he was good for this; and, before I could turn round, he had the child clasped in his arms, saved from the certain death she was rushing to. So intent was I in watching this scene, that I hardly saw a flying figure in a light grey suit, who shot across from the back of the platform, and was on the line in another second. So far as one could take note of time in such a moment of horror he had about ten clear seconds, before the Express would be upon him, in which to cross the rails and to pick up Bruno. Whether he did so or not it was quite impossible to guess: the next thing one knew was that the Express had passed, and that, whether for life or death, all was over. When the cloud of dust had cleared away, and the line was once more visible, we saw with thankful hearts that the child and his deliverer were safe.
“All right!” Eric called to us cheerfully, as he recrossed the line. “He’s more frightened than hurt!”
CROSSING THE LINECROSSING THE LINE
CROSSING THE LINE
He lifted the little fellow up into Lady Muriel’s arms, and mounted the platform as gaily as if nothing had happened: but he was as pale as death, and leaned heavily on the arm I hastily offered him, fearing he was about to faint. “I’ll just—sit down a moment—” he said dreamily: “—where’s Sylvie?”
Sylvie ran to him, and flung her arms round his neck, sobbing as if her heart would break. “Don’t do that, my darling!” Eric murmured, with a strange look in his eyes. “Nothing to cry about now, you know. But you very nearly got yourself killed for nothing!”
“For Bruno!” the little maiden sobbed. “And he would have done it for me. Wouldn’t you, Bruno?”
“Course I would!” Bruno said, looking round with a bewildered air.
Lady Muriel kissed him in silence as she put him down out of her arms. Then she beckoned Sylvie to come and take his hand, and signed to the children to go back to where the Earl was seated. “Tell him,” she whispered with quivering lips, “tell him—all is well!” Then she turned to the hero of the day. “I thought it wasdeath,” she said. “Thank God, you are safe! Did you see how near it was?”
“I saw there was just time,” Eric said lightly. “A soldier must learn to carry his life in his hand, you know. I’m all right now. Shall we go to the telegraph-office again? I daresay it’s come by this time.”
I went to join the Earl and the children, and we waited—almost in silence, for no one seemed inclined to talk, and Bruno was half-asleep on Sylvie’s lap—till the others joined us. No telegram had come.
“I’ll take a stroll with the children,” I said, feeling that we were a littlede trop, “and I’ll look in, in the course of the evening.”
“We must go back into the wood, now,” Sylvie said, as soon as we were out of hearing. “We ca’n’t stay this size any longer.”
“Then you will be quite tiny Fairies again, next time we meet?”
“Yes,” said Sylvie: “but we’ll be children again some day—if you’ll let us. Bruno’s very anxious to see Lady Muriel again.”
“She arewellynice,” said Bruno.
“I shall be very glad to take you to see her again,” I said. “Hadn’t I better give you back the Professor’s Watch? It’ll be too large for you to carry when you’re Fairies, you know.”
Bruno laughed merrily. I was glad to see he had quite recovered from the terrible scene he had gone through. “Oh no, it won’t!” he said. “Whenwego small,it’llgo small!”
“And then it’ll go straight to the Professor,” Sylvie added, “and you won’t be able to use it any more: so you’d better use it all you can,now. Wemustgo small when the sun sets. Good-bye!”
“Good-bye!” cried Bruno. But their voices sounded very far away, and, when I looked round, both children had disappeared.
“And it wants only two hours to sunset!” I said as I strolled on. “I must make the best of my time!”
As I entered the little town, I came upon two of the fishermen’s wives interchanging that last word “which never was the last”: and it occurred to me, as an experiment with the Magic Watch, to wait till the little scene was over, and then to ‘encore’ it.
“Well, good night t’ye! And ye winna forget to send us word when your Martha writes?”
“Nay, ah winna forget. An’ if she isn’t suited, she can but coom back. Good night t’ye!”
A casual observer might have thought “and there ends the dialogue!” That casual observer would have been mistaken.
“Ah, she’ll like ’em, I war’n’ ye!They’llnot treat her bad, yer may depend. They’re varry canny fowk. Good night!”
“Ay, theyarethat! Good night!”
“Good night! And ye’ll send us word if she writes?”
“Aye, ah will, yer may depend! Good night t’ye!”
And at last they parted. I waited till they were some twenty yards apart, and then put the Watch a minute back. The instantaneous change was startling: the two figures seemed to flash back into their former places.
“—isn’t suited, she can but coom back. Good night t’ye!” one of them was saying: and so the whole dialogue was repeated, and, when they had parted for the second time, I let them go their several ways, and strolled on through the town.
“But the real usefulness of this magic power,” I thought, “would be to undo some harm, some painful event, some accident——”I had not long to wait for an opportunity of testingthisproperty also of the Magic Watch, for, even as the thought passed through my mind, the accident I was imagining occurred. A light cart was standing at the door of the ‘Great Millinery Depôt’ of Elveston, laden with card-board packing-cases, which the driver was carrying into the shop, one by one. One of the cases had fallen into the street, but it scarcely seemed worth while to step forward and pick it up, as the man would be back again in a moment. Yet, in that moment, a young man riding a bicycle came sharp round the corner of the street and, in trying to avoid running over the box, upset his machine, and was thrown headlong against the wheel of the spring-cart. The driver ran out to his assistance, and he and I together raised the unfortunate cyclist and carried him into the shop. His head was cut and bleeding; and one knee seemed to be badly injured; and it was speedily settled that he had better be conveyed at once to the only Surgery in the place. I helped them in emptying the cart, and placing in it some pillows for the wounded man to rest on;and it was only when the driver had mounted to his place, and was starting for the Surgery, that I bethought me of the strange power I possessed of undoing all this harm.
“Now is my time!” I said to myself, as I moved back the hand of the Watch, and saw, almost without surprise this time, all things restored to the places they had occupied at the critical moment when I had first noticed the fallen packing-case.
Instantly I stepped out into the street, picked up the box, and replaced it in the cart: in the next moment the bicycle had spun round the corner, passed the cart without let or hindrance, and soon vanished in the distance, in a cloud of dust.
“Delightful power of magic!” I thought. “How much of human suffering I have—not only relieved, but actually annihilated!” And, in a glow of conscious virtue, I stood watching the unloading of the cart, still holding the Magic Watch open in my hand, as I was curious to see what would happen when we again reached the exact time at which I had put back the hand.
The result was one that, if only I had considered the thing carefully, I might have foreseen: as the hand of the Watch touched the mark, the spring-cart—which had driven off, and was by this time half-way down the street, was back again at the door, and in the act of starting, while—oh woe for the golden dream of world-wide benevolence that had dazzled my dreaming fancy!—the wounded youth was once more reclining on the heap of pillows, his pale face set rigidly in the hard lines that told of pain resolutely endured.
“Oh mocking Magic Watch!” I said to myself, as I passed out of the little town, and took the seaward road that led to my lodgings. “The good I fancied I could do is vanished like a dream: the evil of this troublesome world is the only abiding reality!”
And now I must record an experience so strange, that I think it only fair, before beginning to relate it, to release my much-enduring reader from any obligation he may feel to believe this part of my story.Iwould not have believed it, I freely confess, if I had not seen it with my own eyes: then why should I expectit of my reader, who, quite possibly, has never seen anything of the sort?
I was passing a pretty little villa, which stood rather back from the road, in its own grounds, with bright flower-beds in front—creepers wandering over the walls and hanging in festoons about the bow-windows—an easy-chair forgotten on the lawn, with a newspaper lying near it—a small pug-dog “couchant” before it, resolved to guard the treasure even at the sacrifice of life—and a front-door standing invitingly half-open. “Here is my chance,” I thought, “for testing the reverse action of the Magic Watch!” I pressed the ‘reversal-peg’ and walked in. Inanotherhouse, the entrance of a stranger might cause surprise—perhaps anger, even going so far as to expel the said stranger with violence: buthere, I knew, nothing of the sort could happen. Theordinarycourse of events—first, to think nothing about me; then, hearing my footsteps to look up and see me; and then to wonder what business I had there—would be reversed by the action of my Watch. They wouldfirstwonder who I was,thensee me,then look down, and think no more about me. And as to being expelled with violence,thatevent would necessarily comefirstin this case. “So, if I can once getin,” I said to myself, “all risk ofexpulsionwill be over!”
‘THE PUG-DOG SAT UP’‘THE PUG-DOG SAT UP’
‘THE PUG-DOG SAT UP’
The pug-dog sat up, as a precautionary measure, as I passed; but, as I took no notice of the treasure he was guarding, he let me go by without even one remonstrant bark. “He that takes my life,” he seemed to be saying, wheezily, to himself, “takes trash: But he that takes theDaily Telegraph——!” But this awful contingency I did not face.
The party in the drawing-room—I had walked straight in, you understand, without ringing the bell, or giving any notice of my approach—consisted of four laughing rosy children, of ages from about fourteen down to ten, who were, apparently, all coming towards the door (I found they were really walkingbackwards), while their mother, seated by the fire with some needlework on her lap, was saying, just as I entered the room, “Now, girls, you may get your things on for a walk.”
To my utter astonishment—for I was not yet accustomed to the action of the Watch—“all smiles ceased” (as Browning says) on the four pretty faces, and they all got out pieces of needle-work, and sat down. No one noticedmein the least, as I quietly took a chair and sat down to watch them.
When the needle-work had been unfolded, and they were all ready to begin, their mother said “Come,that’sdone, at last! You may fold up your work, girls.” But the children took no notice whatever of the remark; on the contrary, they set to work at once sewing—if that is the proper word to describe an operationsuch asIhad never before witnessed. Each of them threaded her needle with a short end of thread attached to the work, which was instantly pulled by an invisible force through the stuff, dragging the needle after it: the nimble fingers of the little sempstress caught it at the other side, but only to lose it again the next moment. And so the work went on, steadily undoing itself, and the neatly-stitched little dresses, or whatever they were, steadily falling to pieces. Now and then one of the children would pause, as the recovered thread became inconveniently long, wind it on a bobbin, and start again with another short end.
At last all the work was picked to pieces and put away, and the lady led the way into the next room, walking backwards, and making the insane remark “Not yet, dear: wemustget the sewing done first.” After which, I was not surprised to see the children skipping backwards after her, exclaiming “Oh, mother, itissuch a lovely day for a walk!”
In the dining-room, the table had only dirty plates and empty dishes on it. However the party—with the addition of a gentleman, asgood-natured, and as rosy, as the children—seated themselves at it very contentedly.
You have seen people eating cherry-tart, and every now and then cautiously conveying a cherry-stone from their lips to their plates? Well, something like that went on all through this ghastly—or shall we say ‘ghostly’?—banquet. An empty fork is raised to the lips: there it receives a neatly-cut piece of mutton, and swiftly conveys it to the plate, where it instantly attaches itself to the mutton already there. Soon one of the plates, furnished with a complete slice of mutton and two potatoes, was handed up to the presiding gentleman, who quietly replaced the slice on the joint, and the potatoes in the dish.
Their conversation was, if possible, more bewildering than their mode of dining. It began by the youngest girl suddenly, and without provocation, addressing her eldest sister. “Oh, youwickedstory-teller!” she said.
I expected a sharp reply from the sister; but, instead of this, she turned laughingly to her father, and said, in a very loud stage-whisper, “To be a bride!”