The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe wolf trailThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The wolf trailAuthor: Roger PocockRelease date: February 4, 2023 [eBook #69946]Language: EnglishOriginal publication: United States: D. Appleton and Company, 1923Credits: Al Haines*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOLF TRAIL ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The wolf trailAuthor: Roger PocockRelease date: February 4, 2023 [eBook #69946]Language: EnglishOriginal publication: United States: D. Appleton and Company, 1923Credits: Al Haines
Title: The wolf trail
Author: Roger Pocock
Author: Roger Pocock
Release date: February 4, 2023 [eBook #69946]
Language: English
Original publication: United States: D. Appleton and Company, 1923
Credits: Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOLF TRAIL ***
BY
ROGER S. POCOCK
AUTHOR OF "CURLY," ETC.
D. APPLETON AND COMPANYNEW YORK :: :: MCMXXIII
COPYRIGHT, 1923, BYD. APPLETON AND COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author is deeply indebted to Mr. J. S. M. Ward for permission to reproduce in this novel a passage from his work,A Subaltern in Spirit Land, published by Messrs. William Rider & Son, Ltd.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I.On London River
II.The Voyage of the "Beaver"
III.In British Oregon
IV.Kootenay
V.The Whole Armor
VI.The Ghost Trail
VII.The Holy Lodge
VIII.Rising Wolf
IX.The Striking of the Camp
X.The Translation
THE WOLF TRAIL
I
"To make a dogsnose," the publican explained, "you spices the ale, so. You laces it with a dash of rum, thus, then you proceeds to pour it into this yere metal cone, this way"—he crossed to the fireplace—"and shoves it in among the coals to mull."
"A great comfort is dogsnose," added Mr. Fright, "especially of a Sunday after church. You clears the vimmen off to church, and then you has the dogsnose."
Presently he took the cone from behind the bars of the grate, and filled the glasses with mulled beer, distributing the same to his guests.
With rolled-up shirt sleeves exposing brawny arms, a portly waistcoat, leather breeches, and top boots, this publican might well have posed for a portrait of John Bull, and yet his tavern, "The Fox under the Hill," had other associations, accounting for the landlord's artful sideways grin and a certain glint of humorous foxiness. Moreover, a lifelong devotion to rum had made him more ruddy than sunburned, his nose inclined to blossom, his eyes to water, and his hands to tremble. "A short life, and a merry one!" so Mr. Fright pledged the company. His guests appeared to be pleased with the sentiment, excepting only his brother, Mr. James Fright, the bargee, who crouched drunk in his window corner. Brief life was his portion also, but a diet of gin, instead of making ruddy the face of man, turns his complexion blue. The stuff is called blue ruin.
The bargee's only son, Bill, aged at that time eighteen, sat in the ingle. He had something of his father's short pugnacious nose, and chin thrust forward, but his hair was like wavy sunshine, and his eyes bright blue. He had a humorous twisty mouth, a freckled, weather-beaten ruddy skin, a sturdy strength, clean manliness, and amazing directness both of eyes and speech. His dress was a raggy blue jersey, torn slacks, and old sea boots; and he was busy mending one of them, making a workmanlike job with awl, waxed end, and bristles.
Warming his tails at the fire stood a guest of the house, a tall man in pumps, seedy black tights, a frayed blue coat brass-buttoned, a black satin choker, and his head so large and of such effulgent baldness that he would have shone out remarkable in any company. He was a Mr. Wilkins wanted by the magistrates for stealing pocket handkerchiefs, and now awaiting a wherry which would convey him presently to a coal boat, bound for Newcastle.
Of the company in the sanded bar parlor, perhaps only one other person need be mentioned, Mr. Brown, valet to Isaac Disraeli, Esquire, upon Adelphi Terrace.
The emigrant spoke feelingly of dogsnose as about to become, if he might venture to say so, one of the tenderest and most endearing of those beverages which the forlorn and desolate exile would have to—ahem—go without, a reminder to the banished heart of that sacred homeland whose blessed liberties and hard-won—ahem. The remainder of the sentiment was confided with tears to a large red bandanna handkerchief.
"Which liberties," said the publican sternly, crossing his bare forearms on the bar, "ain't what they're cracked up to be. Liberties! Liberties of the Fleet, the Marshalsea, and Newgate!
"It's terventy-one year since me and my brother James there, what's sitting drunk in the winder, fought at Waterloo. It's nineteen year come Lammas I been 'ere. Nineteen year—so to speak—I been the Fox under the Hill which sees plentiful, 'ears much, smells a good deal, but doesn't have nothing votever to talk abart. Vile I keeps my mask shut, gennelmen, I saves my brush."
He paused for a reply, but there was none.
"You mark my vords. 'Ere of a Sunday, so to speak, vith my doors closed during church, and none of you gennelmen being peelers, spies, nor warmints, speaking to friends I says we's had a durned sight too many Georges, and too many Villiams reigning over we—the same being a pack of Germans."
The company seemed to be startled by such frankness.
"A durned sight too many lawyers, too many parsons, too many lords and landlords, too many masters altogether, vich is a pack o' willians, 'umbugs, and sponges eating of our wittles wot we earns. The Prayer Book says as they'd ought to get their own living in that state of life, whereas they gets most of my living in tithes, rent, rates, taxes, and plundering of me on every cask of beer."
"Liberty! Equality! Fraternity!" cried a voice from the corner by the clock. "Hoff vith their bleedin' 'eads!"
"The Froggies did that," said the landlord, "and to the best of their knowledge and belief they 'ave their reapings and their 'arvest 'ome, which is the Reign of Terror.
"Then under old Boneyparte, hup comes a new crop of rogues, and we reaps them. The more rogues you crops the more comes up. These Froggies is excitable, and comes up. But for us English, vich ain't extravagent, one 'ead at a time says I, vether it be King Charles or King Villiam."
Mr. Fright's nephew looked around grinning, to interrupt: "Or Alexandrina Wictoria by the Grace——"
"Well," said the landlord, "if I was Princess Halexandrina Wictoria, I'd rather 'ave my 'ead took off than sign all that lot of stuff when I writes my name. She done no 'arm to me. Ven it comes to cropping 'eads, I wotes for Villiam the Fourth."
The nephew must needs interrupt. "Uncle," said Bill Fright, "does your 'ead fit? It may come loose from talking of 'igh treason."
"At that rate," said Mr. Fright, "Jack Ketch vill 'ave 'is 'ands full hanging the British public. The general public as a 'ole talks treason.
"Now I don't say nothing. Silence is my 'obby. But if I ever took to talking—you mark my vords, young feller. I was in India vith the Dook—Sir Harthur Vellesley he vas in them days—ven he swiped the Great Mogul, and sot down plump in Delhi. Dahn south in them days vas the Dook's hown brother, the Markvis Vellesley, whopping them Mahrattas, and setting plump on the Peishwa's nob at Poona. The Dook and the Markvis conquers India—and vot does they do abart it?
"Now, young Bill," he turned upon his nephew, "what does them Roman Generals in your schoolbooks do when they conquers anything?"
"Makes themselves Hemperors," answered Bill as usual, for this question belonged to the formal proceedings of a Sunday.
"Didn't I say so?" The publican triumphed. "And does the Dook and the Markvis make theirselves Hemperors of Northern and Southern Hindia?"
Young Bill had finished the cobbling. He hauled on his thigh boot, returned his palm thimble, glovers' needle, awl, waxed end, and beeswax to his trousers pocket, then shifted his position a little to watch his father, the drunken bargee in the window place. He always felt uneasy when Uncle Thomas, whom he dearly loved, was spouting treason in presence of his father. Bill did not trust his father, who seemed to be watching, listening, spying, while he pretended to be drunk as usual. The boy glanced up at his uncle anxious to warn him, but Mr. Thomas Fright could not have been more aggrieved if he had actually spoken.
"You shut your bleeding trap," growled Uncle Thomas. "I hain't said nothing yet. Well, gemmen, as I vos saying vhen the lad interrupts, I was vith the Dook in the Peninsula. His Lordship chases old Soult and all his Froggies clear acrost Spain from Torres Vedras into France, 'e did. Vot does 'e do next? Does the Dook declare for a monarchy vith hisself as King o' Spain? Not on yer life 'e don't. He got no use for Kings excep' them rotten Georges."
Dangerous talk this. The bargee in drunken confidences had told his son Bill plainly that he would peach to the new police and get Uncle Thomas put away for treason. And yet Bill could not stop his uncle's mouth.
Mr. Fright once more took up his parable.
"I vos the Dook's own sergeant trumpeter at the Battle o' Vaterloo, so I'd ought to know, gents. Boneyparte believes in being a Hemperor. The Dook hain't 'aving any. Vot does 'e do? Does 'e lead Napoleon in chains through Lunnon? Does 'e declare hisself our Hemperor—this 'ero who conquers India, Spain, and Boney? No, 'e don't. Hand why? He hain't no Roman General hain't the Dook. He don't believe in Kings no more nor I do, hand ven it comes to hanging of 'em, gents, I wotes for Villiam!"
So Mr. Thomas Fright continued talking treason. He spoke of the universal flogging, good for boys, but not for soldiers, seamen, convicts, and the like; of merchant sailors kidnaped by the press gangs to man the navy, of little children down in the coalpits harnessed as beasts of burden to haul trucks.
Then Bill remembered what mother said about pit owners offending one of these little ones. It would be better for such owners to have millstones tied to their necks, and be flung into the sea.
Uncle Thomas talked of naked women at the anvil forging chains for convicts; of citizens transported to Botany Bay for poaching a rabbit, condemned to life imprisonment for a few pounds of debt, or hanged outright for a five-pound theft. Such were the liberties for which Englishmen were asked to give their lives in battle, such was the Government demanding loyalty.
Bill had heard all that before. Treason was the religion of low-caste Englishmen, sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion articles of faith for all men oppressed who loved their country. Strong yeast that which leavens a healthy state until men and women are fit for freedom, until the slave becomes a disciplined citizen trained to the sovereign power, able to heal the maladies of the commonwealth. Masters and men alike will tell you any day this thousand years back that the country is going to the Devil. All is well. But, when they are content, look out for the first symptoms of decay.
So England, mother of nations, was in labor then, in that year of grace 1835. If she is still in sorrow, every drop of blood and every tear is a seed sown for mankind. The harvesting shall be in new achievements of freedom, new sciences, greater arts, enlarging revelation.
Yet as respectable folk in church let their attention wander from the sermon, so, while Uncle Thomas preached, Bill thought of other things. Especially his mind concentrated upon his father. Time out of mind the bargeman, like everybody else, enjoyed a drink when he got a chance. Who didn't! Even mother said it was all right.
Mother always said that she managed father quite easily until Uncle Joey got hold of him. And Uncle Joey never knew when to stop. The pair of them took to drinking together, more, so said Uncle Thomas, than was good for anybody.
They were mixed up in business, too, not father's trade of honest smuggling with the barge between Margate and London, but something downright crooked. Father's cargo was bought, but Joey's goods were stolen.
Anybody could see that father didn't like it. When they were drunk, father and Joey were always quarreling.
Then Joey was captured with stolen goods and everybody said that father gave him away. Father certainly turned King's evidence against his brother, so that, excepting Uncle Thomas, nobody would speak to him. He drank alone. He drank harder than ever.
When poor Uncle Joey was hanged, the family in their Sunday clothes attended the show at Tyburn in a hired wagon. The rain completely spoiled their day.
From that time onward—a month it must be now, or even more—while father was busy drinking himself to death, Bill always saw the Shadow. It was not an ordinary shadow. It was not a shadow cast by any light.
It was something awful, a blur in the air, shaped like a man, like Uncle Joey. It went about with father, glided behind him, stooped over him. Father drank because he was frightened of It; and when he drank It sprang upon him from behind, wrapped Its legs and arms about him, sucked at him. Then father craved and screamed for drink, and drank, always with the awful Thing wrapped round him, sucking him. Only when he was dead drunk the Shadow stood behind him watching, waiting.
The ghost of Uncle Joey was murdering father. Every day the awful Thing gained power, and sometimes there were horrible fits which could not be prevented, could not be eased, or stopped. One could only watch.
The Shadow was there now. While Uncle Thomas preached his usual Sunday sermon of high treason, and father crouched there drunk, the Thing was standing behind him in the window frame. It was stooping over him. There was going to be another seizure!
"Uncle Thomas!" Bill cried to Mr. Fright, "Uncle Thomas! Father's going to be took bad!"
Mr. Fright scowled at his nephew. Bill had taken of late to seeing ghosts, or shadows—something unwholesome, anyway. The less one noticed or encouraged him the sooner would he return to his natural ways, and leave the whimsies to his betters, which can afford the same.
Bill watched the Shadow stooping over father, nearer, nearer—Uncle Joey's ghost wrapping long arms round father—riding him, and then passing into him. There! The Shadow was gone in.
Bill cried aloud. "Oh, Uncle, can't you see? You—you are all blind? Look! Look!"
Just as though the spirit of Uncle Joey had captured father's body, so it seemed to be Joey who was waking up, yawning, stretching himself, and rapping knuckles truculent on the table, while in a hoarse whisper he ordered gin. Father's way would have been quite different—a blinking of the eyes, an apologetic grin, a cordial good morning to the gentlemen present, and a polite inquiry, "Did any one say gin?"
Surely, any one with eyes in his head could see that this was Uncle Joey taking a rousing pinch of snuff from the public mull on the table. Father never touched snuff, but always chewed twist tobacco.
Father would have been amiable, but Joey was fierce, with a sharp rasping voice demanding liquor even while he sneezed out the strong snuff.
Yet nobody seemed to see the change, the menace. Mr. Fright was expounding an argument to the bald customer, taking no notice whatever of the deep-throated growl of the drunkard in the window place, who now stood up shouting and threatening.
Bill turned to Mr. Fright. "Uncle Thomas!" he called. "Look out!—look out!"
"Vot's up?" asked Uncle Thomas, and went on counting on his fingers the heads of the argument. "And thirdly——"
"Look!" Bill screamed his final warning.
Father—or was it Uncle Joey?—had left his seat, was reeling drunkenly across the room, then banging his fists on the bar, demanding a bottle of gin, "and look sharp abart it, Marster!" Uncle Joey used to call him "Marster," in sarcasm of his successful brother the publican.
Uncle Thomas waved him away. "Not a drop," he said over his shoulder; "you'd better have another sleep, James. As I was a saying——"
The drunkard snatched a bottle of rum, splashed out a tumblerful, and poured it down his throat, then dashed the heavy glass in his brother's face.
Bill ran to interfere, to restrain his father, but somehow he was terrified and dared not touch him. There was something uncanny, horrible, from which he shrank.
The landlord's forehead showed a long bright gash, then spurting blood which blinded him, even as he vaulted across the bar. But the other, the maniac, had seized an oaken trivet stool, and laid about him, screaming, froth at his lips, demoniac rage convulsing his face—was it not Uncle Joey's voice, his face?—while he brought the weapon down on his brother's head.
The door behind the bar had opened, and Bill's mother stood there, a gaunt, gray, weather-beaten, haggard woman dressed in rusty black silk, a poke bonnet, lace mittens, Sunday best; and in her hand was a Bible stamped on the cover with a large gold cross. As she came round the end of the counter, she held out that cross, as though it could protect her from the maniac, who turned brandishing the stool to beat her brains out. Without showing the least fear she held the cross before his eyes, and at the sight of it he seemed to shrink away. He even tried to protect himself with the stool. He, not the woman, was afraid, and she pressed him backwards until he came against the deal table which stood in the middle of the room.
"Get out, you beast—get out, I say—get out, Joey, thou body-snatching devil!"
It seemed to the people as though James, her husband, died. The stool crashed to the floor, the light went out of the man's writhen face. The bargeman's body collapsed in a heap.
The woman sank down on the floor, shaking all over in abject terror, sobbing hysterically. "Bill," she wailed, "go thou—warm water—bandages—for Thomas——"
"All right, mother." Bill bent down, petting her. "Keep yer hair on, mother."
She went off in screaming hysterics.
II
In due time Mr. Fright was bandaged and put in the feather bed upstairs, Mr. James Fright, still unconscious, hoisted on board his barge and dropped down the cabin hatch, then Bill and his mother joined the family and their guests in the kitchen, where there was Sunday dinner. It was a very proper dinner, of beef roast on the spit, pudding served in the gravy, potatoes and cabbage in heaps, and beer by gallons. Afterwards, while the slavey washed up, and the diners slept it off, Bill took his mother in the wherry and pulled across the Thames to the Southwark shore. It was but a mile walk to Bedlam, and maybe another mile beyond to open country, but Bill, who had eaten heartily and wore thigh boots, found it heavy going, while the woman seemed only refreshed by the slight exercise. The golden autumn sunshine, blue pools of shadow under elm trees, the cattle standing drowsy in the shade, the buzz and murmur of the flies—here was there peace. The mother took her seat against an oak tree, the son lay at her feet, and while the lad was sleeping the woman watched.
III
By most urgent critics I am warned not to be a bigger fool than nature made me, not to be abrupt where the story changes rhythm, and by no means to take it for granted that the average reader is a psychologist.
I promise faithfully, then, that I will not preach, use long words, or be dull as one who takes himself too seriously. I only want to make quite sure that every reader shares with me the tremendous excitement, wonder, and glory of a theme splendid beyond example.
So please be kind, and glance at a few main facts.
A properly grown man has three bodies: the natural body, the soul (or body of desires), and the spirit (or body of pure thought). These have been likened to the vessel, the oil, and the flame of a lamp.
What, then, is life? That is the ray of Consciousness.
In sleep the ray lights up the natural brain but does not control it, so that we have those funny, inconsequent dreams which we remember.
In deep sleep the ray leaves the natural body and lights the spiritual body (soul and spirit), which is then free. The spiritual body may go away and enjoy the most surprising, delightful adventures—the dreams which fade out as we awaken. You see, the natural body was left behind at rest, missed all the fun, and so has nothing to remember.
In waking meditation and clear vision the ray lights up the spirit. "I was in the spirit," says St. John, and so begins his Book of the Revelation.
In the last deep sleep the spiritual body departs from the natural body, and cannot get back into it. That shattered or worn-out machine is scrapped, and the event is the birth of the earth-free Man. We call it death.
Now as to the places we go to in deep sleep and at death. An ordinary piano has seven octaves or forty-nine notes. Each of these is a set of waves in the air, large and slow for the low note, small and swift for the high note. We call these waves vibrations. You can see the wires vibrate. The visible earth has three great chords of vibration, known to us as land, sea, and air. But the visible earth is rather like the stone or core of a fruit and the invisible pulp of that fruit is arranged in layers like the flakes of an onion, layer on layer, just as in the piano there are forty-nine layers of vibration.
In deep sleep or at death we enter a group of layers, a world outside our world, with land, sea, and sky which are clearly visible to the eyes of the soul. The soul is keyed to its vibrations. That world has many names, the Hades of the Greeks, the Purgatory of the Catholic Churches, the Astral Plane of the Mystics.
Somewhere in its sixth layer is the country which we call Dreamland, and close by in its seventh layer is Fairyland. They are just as real as London or New York, and we are about to visit them in this happy story.
Beyond the Astral World are the Heavens Spiritual and the Heavens Celestial, where dwell spirits only, of just men made perfect, and of the holy angels. These also are quite real, but we shall not see them until we can believe.
How do I know all this? By reading books which are open to every student. But with the deepest humility and the utmost reverence I give my word of honor that I have seen enough for myself to know that the books are honest.
Now at last may I speak quite clearly about two people of this story, Mrs. James Fright the Quakeress, and Bill Fright her son? Both of them were seers. They had the rare gift of "dreaming true," of remembering the dreams of the deep sleep. The woman also had won by clean living, prayer, and meditation the greatest of all human faculties, the vision of the spirit, the keys of Heaven.
Take then a single example of meditation.
"Come unto Me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will refresh you."
The Quakeress took these words into meditation, repeating each phrase over and over again, until its meaning deepened, broadened out, and filled her, until she saw the golden aural light of other worlds, until she entered that Peace which passeth all understanding and looked out with the eyes of the Spirit upon the Plains of Heaven.
But the story must leave this holy woman, and follow the adventures of her son.
The boy's body lay at her feet, but Bill himself had stolen away to the frontier which is between Dreamland on the one side and Fairyland on the other. There were certainly fairies about, for as he came into the glade between the birch woods he hears them ringing the bellflowers, weaving thin fine threads of blended melodies into one rhapsody. The birch fairies, within their native trees, were swaying to the air of the carillon. The flower fairies peeped from within their blossoms, and several squirrels ran chattering down the path ahead of him to say that he was coming, to tell his Dreamland comrade, Rain, that he was on his way to keep his tryst with her.
He found Rain kneeling on a tuft of moss, an arrow set in her bow for aiming practice, and at his coming she sighted directly at his heart.
"Stand!" she said.
He stood quite still.
"Stupid!" she said.
"Why?"
"To obey a maid, and make her think she's master."
"But with an arrow through me?"
"What's the odds? You left your animal body down there, didn't you? This astral body cannot die." She drew the bow until the stone head of the arrow touched the grip. "Say after me, I do believe in the Great Spirit!"
"I does believe in Gawd!"
"And so you cannot die." She launched the arrow through his heart.
"You still believe?" she said.
"I does believe," he answered, laughing uneasily.
He turned about, and drew the arrow, which had lodged in a tree behind him. He gave it back to her.
"Love has no fear," she whispered, and he kissed her.
"My Dream!" he said.
"My Dream!" she answered, and they sat down. She nestled in his arms, and there was silence enfolding both of them.
Rain was Red Indian, of the Blackfoot nation, whose home is on the plains beside the World-Spine. Maid she was, and yet her dress that of a warrior, a deerskin hunting shirt, leggings and moccasins all tawny golden, the leather cut in thongs, long fringes of them about the shoulders, and along the seams. Quills dyed vermilion, violet, and lemon were set in patterns of delicate embroidery upon the breast, the shoulder straps, and the tongues of the soft skin shoes. A fringed and broidered quiver of stonehead arrows was slung on her back, a bag to hold a sacred talisman hung from her belt.
The dress was beautiful to illustrate youth, lithe, wholesome strength and grace, the clear-cut loveliness of a face colored like glowing bronze, the fearless gallantry of bearing, the spiritual purity and power.
The maid lived in the uttermost solitudes of the mountain wilderness, the lad was a bargee plying on London River. On earth they were worlds apart, and had never met, but here in Dreamland were joined together from earliest childhood in the strong bonds of a love untarnished by the world.
Bill's Dreamland name was Storms-all-of-a-sudden.
"Storm," she said wistfully, "I was calling and calling you ever so long."
"I had to wait," he answered. "After dinner on Sundays mother wants me. We go into the fields, and she prays, while I sleeps. Then I come quick."
"Storm," she said, "this is the last time that your mother will pray in the fields down there on earth. The spirits are calling her home."
"She is to die, then?"
"Her animal body is to die, dear."
"Will she come here?"
"Not here, Storm. I may see her as she comes through Dreamland, but she will be asleep, carried by the Radiant Spirits. She will wake up in air which we could not breathe, light far too strong for us to bear, love which outshines the sun. When you go back, will you tell her?"
"I shan't remember. It all fades away when I wake down there—gone. I remembers nothing."
"When you wake, seize both your mother's hands, and by her power you will remember. Afterwards you will not be so lonely, because you will remember. You will remember me." Her face became of a sudden, wild, savage, ferocious. "When you meet other women there down on the earth, you must remember me."
"Dost remember me, Rain, when you awake, down there on the Earth?"
"When men make love to me then I remember you." Her face had softened now. "For you are mine, all mine, dear, and I am yours, forever and forever, Storm, forever. But if any man or any woman come between us two, then I shall kill."
"My mother says," he answered, "'thee shalt not kill.'"
"My mother says," she looked out steadfastly into Space, "that if a woman will not defend her honor, with her weapons defend her honor, with all that she is, all that she has defend her honor, then let her not think that she shall dare the Wolf Trail. She shall not climb the Wolf Trail which leads to the land of the Blessed Spirits, but drift with the poor ghosts who have lost their way in the Sandhills."
"We doesn't call it the Wolf Trail," answered Storm. "Our people always calls it the Milky Way."
There is no such thing as Time yonder in Dreamland. But down on earth the bright day waned in England.
"I thinks old mother's calling me," said Storm.
"Go to her," answered Rain, "call to her, call as you go to her, and, as you wake, clutch both her hands, let all her power pour through you. So you shall remember."
He stood up. "Good-by," he said, then shouted as he turned, "Mother!—mother!"
* * * * * * *
"Mother!"
"What's wrong with thee, son?"
Bill had awakened shouting, "Mother!—mother!" He reached up and clutched her hands in both his own. "Rain says I got to tell!"
"'Rain says.' Who is this Rain?"
"I dreamed as she and me 'ave been together. We is Rain and Storm—her and me in love since we was kids."
"Thee dreamest."
"Yes, in Dreamland, all our lives since we was kids. There's Fairies, too. And she sends a message, mammie—a message to you."
"The Rain in Dreamland sends messages by the Storm, to me, dear? What is this message?"
"Radiant Spirits, carrying of you, mammie, over the Wolf Trail."
"What is the Wolf Trail, son?"
He put his hands to his forehead thinking deeply. "I forget," he said.
"Thee hast been dreaming, son."
"Aye, dreaming, that's all, mammie."
But he had not forgotten. His mother was to die.
IV
The barge lay at the land stage beside the tavern. Along the causeway below Adelphi Terrace one entered the underground streets. These winding tunnels beneath the Adelphi district have several exits convenient for the thieves and occasional murderers who harbored there, and the destitute who sheltered in that refuge. The streets and cellarages were then a large stable for draught horses and the milch cows of several dairies, in all a crowded, busy place with about five hundred inhabitants by day whose custom went to "The Fox under the Hill." From his earliest childhood Bill had frequented the underground town; but when he had the time, as on that Monday morning, waiting until the tide served, he loved the crowded Strand up in the daylight. It was good to loaf there when he ought to have been at work with sailor jobs on board.
The Strand was a game path once just at the edge of the crumbling river bank, where the flints went rolling down unto the Thames. Roan hairy elephants grazed there, loitering on their way to water in Fleet Ditch. Later, along that pathway of the Mammoth, tame kine went lowing homeward of an evening to the Brython's stockaded village on Tower Hill. Afterwards respectable suburban Romans built their villas there outside the walls of Augusta. A thousand years later still the Strand was a stable lane behind the Thames-side palaces of the Plantagenets. Then the mews became a cobbled Georgian street linking the olden cities of London and Westminster, and to-day it is the main artery of a world capital.
As a thoroughfare it may not claim comparison with the Grand Canal in Venice or the exquisite Sierpes of old Seville. It is not, like Princes Street in Edinburgh, part of a splendid landscape. It lacks the spaciousness and verdure of Unter den Linden, the endless perspective of the Nevski, the glittering wealth of the Rue de la Paix, the astounding uproar of abysmal Broadway. Many a provincial thoroughfare, as the Apollo Bunder in Bombay, or Collins Street in Melbourne, would put the Strand to shame; yet, second to the Via Dolorosa, it is a street of memories.
For if the Strand might speak it would tell us about Queen Boadicea in her scythed chariot, perhaps of St. Paul as a ship's passenger from Cadiz, of the English Emperor Hadrian on his way to Rome, of Richard Lionheart home from captivity, the Black Prince leading John of France his prisoner of war, of Henry V returning thanks for Agincourt, of Cabot and Columbus, Erasmus, Holbein, of Peter the Great and Handel and Voltaire, of Cochrane and Mazzini the Liberators, of Drake and Shakespeare, Milton, Newton, Darwin, Purcell, of Nelson and Wellington, of Gordon and Allenby, of ever so many saints, heroes, conquerors and statesmen, discoverers, explorers, adventurers, pioneers, in every field of service. How the old pavements echo to the tramp of horsemen! Processions march here of men from the ends of the Earth, bringing the glory with them of young free Dominions, hundreds of feudatory kingdoms, barbaric states in tutelage, and savage legions armed in the cause of Peace. So in this olden highway it is very pleasant on a sunny day to watch the passing traffic when one ought to be at work. And well may we envy fellows like Bill Fright, who saw the Strand in October, 1835, when still the shop windows were bowed with little panes of glass, and had a couple of tallow dips of an evening to light up the modest stock; when still men wore the dress becoming to their trade; big cargo wagons, drawn by teams of ten, came rumbling over the cobbles; and the gay mail coaches with a blare of horns set forth for Portsmouth or for Liverpool.
There goes Tittlebat Titmouse, Esquire, with little mousy features inflamed with drink, and bright green driving-gloves, perched in his high gig. Here's Mr. Jorrocks, grocer and sportsman, attended by James Pigg, jostling his way to buy a "hoss" at Aldridge's. Mr. Pickwick, author ofObservations on Tadpoles in the Hampstead Ponds, comes beaming past us, escorted by his colleagues the poet Snodgrass, the sportsman Winkle, and the loving Tupman. Time has enlarged their waistcoats since the day, now seventeen years ago, when they set forth upon their memorable journey to observe mankind. This is the anniversary, and they are on their way to the Adelphi Hotel, to dine most bountifully. Mr. Paul Pry, who lives close by at 11 Adam Street, may possibly look in, and say, with one eye round the corner of the door, "I hope I don't intrude!"
Here comes the Iron Duke, on an Arab whose dam had carried him at Waterloo. He has a seat in the saddle, this erstwhile flogging martinet, and mellow tyrant. He is attended by a mounted servant.
There is Mr. Pendennis, bound from the Temple to the Courts at Westminster; and behind him is Mr. Peter Simple, midshipman, guided by Boatswain Chucks, on his way to report at the Admiralty.
Here are two or three more notables, the Count d'Orsay, and young Mr. Disraeli the eminent novelist. What a pair of fops! Mr. Carlyle is slouching past, the unkempt, observant historian of the French Revolution, watching for another such upheaval here in England. Watch here a day or two and one might see Turner the painter, whose father's barber shop is just round the corner, Mr. Dickens, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Tennyson, and other blithe young fellows whose troubles are still to come.
The vision fades, and one can only see a solitary figure leaning against a post, a bareheaded youngster in a ragged jersey and sea boots, Bill Fright, whose barge is laden down beside the Fox, ready to clear with the ebb. So we must follow him as he slouches down Ivy Lane to the barge.
V
The bargePolly Phemusbelonged to Mr. Thomas Fright the publican, who found her a convenience for smuggling schnapps and cognac from certain caverns at Epple Bay upriver to his cellars. Mr. James Fright his brother was registered as master, but if entrusted with the cash for port dues would invest the same in gin for his own personal comfort. Now Mrs. Fright kept the cash account with Quakerish precision, and an excessive frankness, making such entries as "Bribe to peeler Addock, 2d.; squaring Mr. Wimpole, the Customs Officer, 2/—; to Mr. Dyker for brandy smuggled, 206/-2d."
"If her account book were ever captured—my hat!" said Mr. Thomas.
In consideration for not broaching cargo, Mr. James had three bottles of gin per voyage, duly shown in petit cash %. For abstinence from pawning the anchor, sails, or ship stores he had two bottles of gin per voyage. Yet shipments being in advance of his performance, when he needed a little refreshment in port he pawned Bill's blanket, or, on the present occasion, it being Monday, mother's Sunday bonnet. It might have been observed that mother had some cotton wound round her third left finger by way of a keeper to guard her wedding ring. If that were pawned while she slept, she would not be a respectable woman any more at all.
Concerning her husband, not a bad sort of fellow when he was sober, the wife made no complaint. She remembered him as a gallant corporal of horse, with the loveliest little fluffy whiskers and a fine red coat. And her parents had objected to his persiflage. He said "Damme!" To put them quite in the wrong, she married him. So had she made her bed, and now must lie in it for better or for worse. Still the slightest expression of sympathy would set her raving; but then, the dressing of our wounds rather depends upon the sort of nurse, and if Satan has a hospital in Hades, the publican's daughters, Miss Fright and Miss Euphemia Fright, may be employed there as chief and assistant torturers.
When Bill told Uncle Thomas about the stolen bonnet, the publican—abed with a bandaged head—was not in the best of tempers. He said it served the woman damn well right for her holy airs and graces. "All the same," said he, "your father has most annoying 'abits, vich I resents his deportment of a Sunday, making a shindy in my bar-parlor. The next time the press gang comes, Bill, I'll send you away out of sight, and offer hup your father to the Navy. He'll make a good thank offering, and you shall 'ave the barge."
"Mother won't like that," said Bill, somewhat aggrieved, "and I'd be lonesome vithout no punching block to keep me hexercised. As to thishyerPolly Phemus, you know my mother is master. Leave dad to me—I'll pet him comfortable."'
Mrs. James Fright, as everybody knew on London River, was the real master of thePolly Phemus. As Bill had grown up from childhood, each year she found more and more relief from a job beyond her strength, until now he left to her only a little steering at times when he entered or left port, or made or shortened sail. The sailorizing jobs of sennit and spunyarn, chafing gear, patching the canvas, renewing rigging, or tarring down he did when he felt disposed, which was very seldom, but therein father set an example by doing nothing at all.
On the whole the lad was unselfish, keen, and able, and kept the Ten Commandments, except the fifth. For when it came to honoring his father, he would do so with a clip under the ear or a punch in the jaw. Whenever the parent needed a slight hint on points of conduct, Bill would oblige at once. So, drunk or partially sober, Mr. James Fright found it was not expedient to speak unless he was spoken to, for if he said too much Bill knocked him overboard. Being a Quaker, Mrs. Fright would register a diplomatic protest against any sort of strife; but, as Bill explained, it takes two persons to make an argument, and the parent never got a word in edge-ways. One could not call that even a disagreement, much less a violation of Quaker principles. Mrs. Fright being very human, protested outwardly, but loved Bill all the more because he rebuked an erring husband beyond her own control.
She took the tiller for the run to Margate, not in her Sunday best, but in an old sou'wester, a jersey, a homespun skirt, and sea boots. To do her justice, never a bargee on London River, or even a deep-sea bo's'n, could pass remarks or exchange amenities without being presently floored by Mrs. Fright. Like theirs, her words were scriptural, but the men were merely profane, whereas the lady's fulminations were worthy even of the major prophets. Even so, they could bear up manfully under her heaviest fire until she crossed her words, and when she spoke of heathen raging furiously, she had them furing ragiously in the abomination of detonation, bowling their trails in the pist of the but.
The fact is she shocked the very worst of them, and it may be added that Bill took kindly to her scriptural lessons. He plied a sixteen-foot sweep to swing thePolly Phemusinto the tide while mother steered until they shot the three bridges, Waterloo, Southwark, and London. New built was London Bridge of granite brought by sea from Aberdeen, and never a stone less than a ton and a half in weight. To hit such masonry was bad for barges. Clear of the arch Bill stepped the mast in haste, and loosed the brails so that the big tanned mainsail filled, to give thePolly Phemusher steerage way. Then he set the topsail. Needed was that as she threaded the narrow channel in the Pool, whence six abreast for miles on either side the sailing ships lay berthed, and masts in uncounted thousands formed a forest. Bill set the headsail and came aft to take the helm, while mother cooked the belated dinner. Presently Bill snuffed the savor of kippers and fried bread which came up out of the cabin, filling his emptiness with a sort of anguish so greatly he desired to be fed. The parent was dining on a bottle of gin, squat in a corner, droning "Jump, Jim Crow," to the wheeze of his concertina. Then he began a convict song, a twopenny broadsheet sold at the street corners:
Come Bet my pet, and Sal my pal—a buss and then farewell,And Ned, the primest ruffling cove—that ever nail'd a swellTo share the swag, or chaff the gab—we'll never meet again,The hulk is now my bowsing crib—the hold my dossing ken.Don't nab the bib my Bet, this chance—must happen soon or later,For certain sure it is that trans—portation comes by natur'.His Lordship's self upon the bench—so downie his white wig in,Might sail with me if friends had he—to bring him up to priggin'.And it is not unkimmon fly—in them as rules the nation,To make us end with Botany—our public edication?But Sal, so kind, be sure you mind—the beaks don't catch youtripping;You'll find it hard to be for shop—ping sent on board the shipping.So tip your mauns[1] before we part—don't blear your eyes and nose,Another grip my jolly hearts—here's luck! and off we goes!
[1] Shake hands.
Down Greenwich way, where fishing smacks were moored by dozens above the Hospital, mother set out the dinner, handing the food and the beer to Bill as he squatted on the tiller head. The southwesterly wind made lively water, and the barge had a bone in her teeth as she swept down the reaches. Chill was the air under the purple shadows of the clouds, warm when the sun shone on the pale green river, the dark green meadows, and trees in autumn russet or sere gold. Tall ships were running free and shaking out more canvas. Little paddle steamers crept along inshore sneaking through back-waters, or crawling inch by inch where the ebb set against them at the headlands. There were six hundred steamers in Lloyd's List, but mother doubted if these would have God's blessing. They were not mentioned in the Holy Scripture. As to railways, and there was one which ran from Bristol to Paddington within a mile of London, there could be no good in headlong gallivanting at twenty miles an hour, disturbing the good kine, affrighting the birds whose songs in God's great honor were changed to shrieks, and doing away with the horses which England needs in her defense from the French and other savages.
Bill quite agreed, but all the same, when next they had a freight to Whitsable, the driver of the Canterbury train had promised him a journey, firing the engine.
Mother sighed. "The things of this yere world which shall perish, draws thee away, my son, from them which endureth forever."
"But I can't see," he answered, "these yere things which ain't wisible."
"Dost thee think," she answered, looking across the waters, far into the distance—"dost think I like livin' aboard of this dirty boat, with me 'ands filthy always, in the sty down there with that pig? Thinkest thee as I enjoys doing work far past a woman's strength, and cursing like a bargee when them sea-lubbers fouls me?"
"Don't you?" asked Bill. "Own up, mum!"
"Humph!" She glanced at him with one eye, trying not to smile with that side of her mouth. "Perhaps," she said, "I be woman enough to like the last word—and they don't get much change out of me—Christ forgive a sinner! But smuggling hain't honest, either, Bill, nor paying bribes. I'd like to be honest and live in a house. But them as goeth down to the sea in ships and hoccupies their business in great waters, them see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep. Thinkest thee as I sees none of all them wonders, Bill? Enter in by the gate of meditation, son, and thee shalt see as I does things as no words can tell of. Canst thee not believe thy mother?"
"I never done till yesterday," said Bill, "but all wot I seen in that dream, when I vos Storm, and Rain she showed me—mammie, I does believe."
"Wilt be baptized?"
"Yes. S'elp me bob. But I'll make a rotten Christian 'cept you helps me."
Standing with the tiller against his leg he bore up a little to clear some Barking fishing smacks ahead, then looked down at his mother where she sat beside the dinner plates and the scraps of food. The lad was sensitive, psychic, clairvoyant, and he was conscious of a strange light which surrounded his mother. He had grown and prospered in that mysterious glory. Her faith, her love, and the example of her holy life had given him some makings of real manhood. And he loved her. He worshiped her. Aye, but it would be hard to hand his worship over to a Deity he could not sense, or see, or love.
"She'll think," he said in his heart, "as I'm a bloody failure as a Christian."
Then he realized he had got to keep a better lookout or he would foul that smack on the larboard bow. The golden haze was gone, and down in the cabin the parent was howling to him to come and drink with him, to drink up manly. For the next half-hour, with a thickened utterance and slurred words, he reviled his son for a mollycoddle, a milk-sop, a mammie's darling, an 'oly prig, a sneak, a cur, a dirty coward. It was unreasonable of mother to refuse point-blank when Bill asked her to take the tiller while he gave the old man a licking. The devoted parent downstairs knew he was perfectly safe from being reproached. A string of blasphemies—all he could remember—addressed to mother, brought his remarks to an end quite inarticulate followed by loud snores.
Then mother read the Bible aloud. There were times when, having fastened her teeth into Jeremiah or Leviticus, she would not let go even to cook the meals until she had made an end. Then she was obstinate and Bill was bored, but this day she read chapters from the Gospel according to St. John. Rough was the voice, and many words were not pronounced correctly. She blundered through as best she could, and even so brought tears to the lad's eyes.
Few are the readers who can render the rhythm, the throbbing melody of this great English text, and fewer still the seers who alone have power to bring to light its modes of tender fun, of sparkling humor, of love, of awfulness, abysmal deeps, and heights illimitable. Wisdom and Understanding, Counsel, Power, Knowledge, Righteousness, and the Divine Awe, the seven rays of one clear spectrum, blend in the white light of this great revelation; and Time stands still, for all the years of Earth are numbered, spreading like ripples on a pool from this one message of the Word made Flesh.
The flaming sunset faded behind the smoke of London, the rose and violet of the afterglow waned as the indigo of night veiled all things earthly, and the heavens opened revealing high eternities of light, while still the mother spoke to her son, and he sat at the helm rapt, resolved to consecrate his life to her Master's service.
The wind slept in the high shoulder of the trysail long after the deep calm fell upon the waters, and still the tide served under the frosty starlight. Mother and son had their evening meal together on the cabin hatch. Would he have tea? Why, it was twenty shillings a pound! It could not be afforded to feed the likes of him. Still, she insisted. And although tea was an effeminate stuff which working men were ashamed to drink, Bill had some just for once. Nobody would know. Besides, it was rather nice, but still he hated being a mammie's pet.
Four miles short of Margate, with the lights of the town in the east, the tide failed, so to the last of the westerly air Bill luffed, then let the anchor go, brailed his trysail, took in the topsail and staysail, and made all snug for the night. Mother had gone to bed some time ago, and the parent was dead drunk before the sun set. Bill stood for some time smoking his father's clay pipe, unbeknown to mother, peering the while across the shallows to the loom of low chalk cliffs in Epple Bay. Here were the caves from which on the homeward passage thePolly Phemuswas to ship certain casks. Smuggling, of course, and she thought it wasn't honest. It was a famous place also for prize fights, and mother hated that also. Inland, to the right, were one or two lighted windows in the village of Birchington, and the church clock was striking eleven. By the way, he must remember at Margate to warn mother about the port dues on the Reverend Binks his harpsichord. Half the strings were missing, and ninepence ought to be ample.
His boots crunched frost crystals all along the gangway as he went forward, on the port side lest he should wake his mother. Then he dropped down the fore hatch into his little private glory hole, and pulled the cover close because, as mother said, the night air is so dangerous. As to the savor from coils of tarry rope, tallow, damp clothes, spare sail, and iron-rusted chain, rats' nests, and bilge water—that was just homely. He pulled off his boots, said "Our Father which," by way of a reminder of what was due to mother, turned in under the spare jib and went to sleep.
A northerly air which cut like knives began to quicken, and little bitter waves to smack the flanks of the barge.
VI
Storm came to the tuft of moss where he had tryst with Rain, but she was not there, and though he whistled the love call, she did not come. Indeed, the sun had risen then beyond the Rocky Mountains and Rain was awake eating smoked venison for breakfast before she went to her hunting. At such an hour she could not come to Dreamland. And since she did not come, Storm felt aggrieved. He would worry the Fairy Parson for lack of better sport.
He went up the bed of the sparkling brook which splashes but never wets one, through the still pool whose ripples flash like rainbows, and on past the fountain spring which croons a lullaby. It always croons one song, but when the fairies tickle it has to chuckle. It always chuckles too when the Padre preaches, as he does when he loses his temper.
The adobe house, although absurdly small, is really most important, the only parsonage in Fairyland.
The Padre used to be a monk, not by vocation, but by a mistake of his mother who hoped he was religious, because he was really fit for nothing else. Truly he was a born Unnaturalist, devoted from childhood to Unnatural History, heraldic animals, story-book monsters, sea serpents, nightmares, and of course all sorts of elementals, especially the bad ones. He felt it must be enormous sport to be a Fiery Dragon and hunt saints. Indeed he said so. Moreover, he announced one evening in the refectory that the Abbot was going to Heaven on Saturday. "Now God forbid!" said the Abbot, but on Saturday he went to Heaven. "Perhaps!" quoth this unholy monk, "I called it Heaven, because, you see, one must be polite to an Abbot."
Afterwards the monks as a body resolved that this was a very uncomfortable Brother, so he was ordered to go and convert the heathen.
"Not that they ever did me any harm," said he, "but perhaps the heathen may tell me stories, nice ones—about boiled monks—yes, boiled with parsley sauce."
And thus among the Red Indians he became an eminent Fairyologist. Nobody else but an eminent Fairyologist would have been so utterly unpractical as to go hunting Fairies in the driest corners of the Great American Desert. Everybody knows that Fairies like a moist climate, superstitious inhabitants, and Mozart or Greig to play their own tunes.
In Death Valley he found no moisture at all, no people whatsoever, or any music except when the snakes played their rattles. There he became very thirsty, lonely, and frightened, so altogether miserable that one of the rattlesnakes gave him a bite just to cheer him up.
... And he came here to be the Chaplain in Fairyland. Here, you see, no matter how badly he preached—and he preached badly even for a clergyman—he could not possibly do any harm because nobody would ever take the slightest notice of what he said except when he was cross. Then the fountain chuckled.
He built his little adobe house beside the crooning spring, and that was all right until a female Griffin, eighteen feet long, became his lady companion for lessons in deportment. Whenever she was pleased she wagged her tail, and when she wagged her tail the house came down. That is why the new walls are unusually thick, and the inside so small that the Griffin has to wag her tail outside. She has got so far with her lessons that now she puts her paw before her crocodile mouth before she sneezes—and then the clergyman is not blown through the window.
She was out mousing when Storm paid his call. That is, the boy crept in on all fours while the Padre was busy writing his book, which nobody will ever read, on Fairyology. Storm got under the stool and tickled the Padre's bare ankles with a feather.
"Bless the mosquitos!" said the holy man, "and send them a nourishing maiden."
Storm tickled again, and the Padre stooped down to slap the mosquitos, saying "Pax vobiscum."
Storm laughed, the fountain chuckled, and the Padre looked under the stool.
"Hello!" said he. "That you?"
"No," answered Storm, "I'm not."
So of course as it wasn't he, the holy man went on with his writing.
Since Rain had warned him of his mother's death, Storm was uneasy, and in his dream-life frightened of being alone. So as the Padre could not be bothered with him he crept into a corner of the cabin, where it was nearly dark, to brood upon this matter of his mother's passing.
"When my meat-body," so ran his thought, "is tired out after a long day's work, and can't be rode any longer, I turns it in for a watch below. Sometimes I stays all night in my meat-body, and has funny mixed-up dreams, the ones which I remembers afterwards. Sometimes I gets out of the meat-body and comes straight into this here world which Rain calls Dreamland. I've got my dream-body for life in the dream-world—so that's all clear.
"But suppose my animal-body gets wore out, or dies, or happens to get killed, so as I'm drove out, and can't get in again—that's what they calls Death. It's bound to happen sooner or later, and it doesn't matter anyway. The animal body won't be needed any longer, and so it can be took away, and buried, or burned, or drowned, and there's an end of that.
"I've got this dream-body, which is just as solid, and comfy. It looks just the same, and is a deal more useful. If I've been good on earth I'll have a fine time in this dream-world. If I've been bad I'll have a rotten time, and it will serve me right. But as I've promised mother to be good, and means to be good always, there's nothing to be afraid of. So that's all clear.
"The next part ain't so clear. Rain knows all about everything, and she says this: On Earth and in Dreamland we have a job, one job, to grow a soul. That soul is another body made of thoughts and feelings. It's called the spiritual body. It may be made of good thoughts and good feelings like mother's, or of bad thoughts and bad feelings like father's. When it is grown up, and all ready to sail, it clears for the port where it belongs. It leaves this dream-body, crumbled away into dust or gas, and it goes to the place where it will be at home. It is spiritual. It goes to the home of bad people in Hell, until it learns to pray, or of good people in Heaven. Mother is going there, and I'm to be awful lonesome, because I can't go with her, and I can't follow her there until I've growed a spiritual body fit to be seen in Heaven by the angels.
"All that is what the Bible means, if we could only understand things better. It's what Religion means. Mother's a Christian, and Rain's a heathen, but whatever sort of lamp we has to light the way, it's the same voyage. If we're good it's fine weather, if we're bad it's storms, so if a fellow has any sense at all, he'll jolly well do his best.
"That seems to be all clear."
"Have you quite finished?" asked the Padre. To look more impressive, he put horn spectacles upon his thin, high nose, but in order to see he had to glance over the top of them as he turned to bend his vision upon Storm, like a reproachful rabbit surveying a rotten turnip. "Because," he said peevishly, "if you had any sense at all, you'd know that your loud thoughts disturb me at my work."
Storm had forgotten that here in Dreamland no thoughts can be hidden, but all are heard by everybody who listens.
"I wants to go with mother," he answered sadly. "I comes to you for help 'cause you're a parson."
"Can't be done," said the Padre. "You haven't got a spirit-body yet. You're busy growing one and so am I. That's what we're here for."
"I see."
"I wish I could," sighed the Padre, taking off his spectacles. "Ah! That's better. Well, young man, and how is your temporal body? Well, I hope?"
"It's having its watch below."
"I mislaid mine"—the Padre seemed to be very unhappy about it—"down in the southern desert. The eagles had it. Poor things! It was mere skin and bone, not enough food for a mouse. And yet I sat on a rock and watched them squabbling over it. Poor dears! I can't think how they manage to get a meal."
"Ahem!" There came an affected cough, "Ahem!" outside the doorway. "Ahem!" A colossal head appeared, like that of a crocodile, looked in, and filled the door place. A red rag of a tongue lolled out on the starboard side, while the port eye was cocked up, meekly appealing to the Padre.
"May I come in?"
"No!" said the Padre. "Go, Julia, and practice deportment, or catch mice."
"He called me Julia!" This with both eyes to heaven. Then the creature wriggled in a few feet farther, and holding one paw bashfully to her mouth, "Ahem! ahem! Deportment is so fatiguing, and as to mice, you know they are so small. Oh!" Her snuff blew Storm against the wall, and then she sniffed. "Ah! Do you know, I think I could sit up and take a little boy." She smacked her lips. "Come here, little boy! Come to its Julia, then."
"If she swallers this good little bo-hoy," said Storm, deriding her, "I'll wager my sheath knife makes tripe of her blanked guts."
"G-o-o-od 'ittle b-o-oy, then ... Goo-oo——"
"Julia, shut up," said the Padre. "Boys are out of season. Surely you must know there's an V in the month. For shame! Go away and powder your face."
The Griffin retreated sobbing. "Nobody loves me!" Sniff! "No-body loves me!"
"But all the same, young man," said the Padre, "if I were you, Storm, I'd disappear. You'd really better go and look after your mother. I think she may be needing you, at once."
Storm willed himself back to Earth, and he was there. He willed back to the after cabin of the barge, and he was there.
VII
Still in his dream, Storm stood in the after cabin. He saw his father held by evil men, struggling to escape, screaming for mercy. The curved wall of the cabin, the bulkhead forward shutting off the cargo hold, were like dark mist, form without substance, and through them and within obscene and awful beasts crowded the air, their red eyes gloating upon James Fright, who writhed and shrieked, trying to get back to his body. That body of his lay sprawled upon the table, face downwards, arms outstretched. Uncle Joey was riding father's body, his legs locked round the loins, his arms with a strangle hold about the throat, while he looked up at Storm as though disturbed by his coming.
"Hello! mammie's darling!" he jeered. "Come to see the fun? And then you'll go sneaking to mammie? Now you watch—all done by kindness. One—two—three! There!"
Uncle Joey entered the vacant body, and father, held by his captors, was shrieking blasphemies, calling Storm a coward because he did not come instantly to the rescue.
Storm was not concerned for his father's worries. He knew that Uncle Joey was returned from the dead to earth for no good purpose, that he was dangerous, and that his own mother lay there asleep, helpless at this demon's mercy. He sprang to the bunk to guard her, to save her, but when he looked at the sleeping body he breathed most fervent thanks to Heaven. Mother was away in Dreamland. Only her body lay there tenantless. Should he call her? Nay, not into mortal peril. He put forth the whole power of his will to keep his mother away, then turned to fight the demon.
Uncle Joey, clad in the stolen body, rose from the table stiffly, groping at the air, unable now to see the astral world, to descry Storm on guard beside the bunk, or James Fright struggling in the clutches of the men who held him, or the awful monsters of the Pit which crowded in upon the nightmare scene. Only he whipped the sheath knife from his belt and reeled across to the bunk where he saw Mrs. Fright asleep. Storm tried to seize Uncle Joey, but his arms clutched thin air. The re-embodied demon sprang straight through him as though through mist, and yelling exultation, shouting with laughter, he plunged the blade again and again into the woman's body. Storm could do nothing. Sick with horror, he leaned against the panels, but his arm went through them as though they were but mist.
Uncle Joey drew back, still laughing. "Can you hear?" he shouted. "Did ye see that, Brother James, as I done your vife in? You as brought me to the gallows! You as peached, and got me hanged. And do you think as 'ow you're going to get back into this yere body what I've stole? No! Damn you! No!"
He drove the knife straight at his own breast, the breast of the stolen body, struck bone, and lunged again between the ribs.
The rigor of death clutching the hand to the hilt, the body reeling towards the blow, the stained yellow eyeballs rolling up—that which had been the living earthly habitation of James Fright went crashing down.
And there was Uncle Joey, again discarnate, leering in Storm's face beside the bunk.
"'Ow's that, umpire? 'Ow's that, Mollycoddle? Hain't that a proper vengeance worth giving of one's life for? Hain't I got my own back for being hanged, and damned before my time?"
But while he spoke, the fear grew in his eyes, the dawning sense of a most awful doom, for the dense astral matter which encrusted his spiritual body was crumbling to dust.
Storm watched, appalled, for now the man stood naked, black as coal, but with a dull red glow of rage, of hate, demoniac, horrible, doomed to perdition in the act of murder. But rage changed to terror, for he was falling, falling down through space, lost in the bottomless abyss upon whose overhanging, rocky verge Storm knelt, forgetting his own peril in an agony of prayer for a fellow creature drawn shrieking down to Hell.
"Mother!" he screamed—"help!"
Across the illimitable deeps of space Storm saw a white light like a little star, grow nearer, brighter, human in form, gigantic in stature, shining like the sun, filling the whole night with radiance, blinding. He covered his face in awe in terrified reverence.
Beaten to earth by the tremendous rays, his eyes burned by the splendor, he dared to look at the Angel, and saw his mother at rest in the strong arms, sheltered against the breast.
Then he felt a hand extended over him; and a sense of blessedness, of divine love, soothed all his fears, gave him to rest, to sleep.
VIII
In the fore cabin Bill sat up dazed, haunted, terrified by the sense of something awful. He shoved the hatch aside, letting the starlight into the dark forecastle of the barge, then pulled on his boots, and scrambled up upon the white, dimly glittering frost of the deck. Stiff with cold, he flogged his arms about his body until his fingers tingled with pain, and stamped until he felt the blood returning into his numb feet. Then he went aft, and opened the cabin hatch. He took the flint and steel from his pocket, struck a brisk shower of sparks into the tinder, kindled a sulphur match, and held the blue light down. His mother lay in the bunk, stone dead. His father's body lay stretched on the deck, a bloody sheath knife clutched in the stiff right hand.