Novel Notes Part 10

I am inclined to think that those young people, if they be still alive, are happy. Maybe, fortune has been kind to them, or maybe she has not, but in either event they are, I am inclined to think, happier than are most people.

Now and again, the daily tornado would rage with such fury as to defeat its own purpose by prematurely exhausting itself. On these rare occasions we would sit out on the deck, and enjoy the unwonted luxury of fresh air.

I remember well those few pleasant evenings: the river, luminous with the drowned light, the dark banks where the night lurked, the storm-tossed sky, jewelled here and there with stars.

It was delightful not to hear for an hour or so the sullen thras.h.i.+ng of the rain; but to listen to the leaping of the fishes, the soft swirl raised by some water-rat, swimming stealthily among the rushes, the restless twitterings of the few still wakeful birds.

An old corncrake lived near to us, and the way he used to disturb all the other birds, and keep them from going to sleep, was shameful. Amenda, who was town-bred, mistook him at first for one of those cheap alarm clocks, and wondered who was winding him up, and why they went on doing it all night; and, above all, why they didn't oil him.

He would begin his unhallowed performance about dusk, just as every respectable bird was preparing to settle down for the night. A family of thrushes had their nest a few yards from his stand, and they used to get perfectly furious with him.

"There's that fool at it again," the female thrush would say; "why can't he do it in the daytime if he must do it at all?" (She spoke, of course, in twitters, but I am confident the above is a correct translation.)

After a while, the young thrushes would wake up and begin chirping, and then the mother would get madder than ever.

"Can't you say something to him?" she would cry indignantly to her husband. "How do you think the children can get to sleep, poor things, with that hideous row going on all night? Might just as well be living in a saw-mill."

Thus adjured, the male thrush would put his head over the nest, and call out in a nervous, apologetic manner:--

"I say, you know, you there, I wish you wouldn't mind being quiet a bit.

My wife says she can't get the children to sleep. It's too bad, you know, 'pon my word it is."

"Gor on," the corncrake would answer surlily. "You keep your wife herself quiet; that's enough for you to do." And on he would go again worse than before.

Then a mother blackbird, from a little further off, would join in the fray.

"Ah, it's a good hiding he wants, not a talking to. And if I was a c.o.c.k, I'd give it him." (This remark would be made in a tone of withering contempt, and would appear to bear reference to some previous discussion.)

"You're quite right, ma'am," Mrs. Thrush would reply. "That's what I tell my husband, but" (with rising inflection, so that every lady in the plantation might hear) "_he_ wouldn't move himself, bless you--no, not if I and the children were to die before his eyes for want of sleep."

"Ah, he ain't the only one, my dear," the blackbird would pipe back, "they're all alike"; then, in a voice more of sorrow than of anger:--"but there, it ain't their fault, I suppose, poor things. If you ain't got the spirit of a bird you can't help yourself."

I would strain my ears at this point to hear if the male blackbird was moved at all by these taunts, but the only sound I could ever detect coming from his neighbourhood was that of palpably exaggerated snoring.

By this time the whole glade would be awake, expressing views concerning that corncrake that would have wounded a less callous nature.

"Blow me tight, Bill," some vulgar little hedge-sparrow would chirp out, in the midst of the hubbub, "if I don't believe the gent thinks 'e's a- singing."

"'Tain't 'is fault," Bill would reply, with mock sympathy. "Somebody's put a penny in the slot, and 'e can't stop 'isself."

Irritated by the laugh that this would call forth from the younger birds, the corncrake would exert himself to be more objectionable than ever, and, as a means to this end, would commence giving his marvellous imitation of the sharpening of a rusty saw by a steel file.

But at this an old crow, not to be trifled with, would cry out angrily:--

"Stop that, now. If I come down to you I'll peck your cranky head off, I will."

And then would follow silence for a quarter of an hour, after which the whole thing would begin again.

CHAPTER V

Brown and MacShaughna.s.sy came down together on the Sat.u.r.day afternoon; and, as soon as they had dried themselves, and had had some tea, we settled down to work.

Jephson had written that he would not be able to be with us until late in the evening, and Brown proposed that we should occupy ourselves until his arrival with plots.

"Let each of us," said he, "sketch out a plot. Afterwards we can compare them, and select the best."

This we proceeded to do. The plots themselves I forget, but I remember that at the subsequent judging each man selected his own, and became so indignant at the bitter criticism to which it was subjected by the other two, that he tore it up; and, for the next half-hour, we sat and smoked in silence.

When I was very young I yearned to know other people's opinion of me and all my works; now, my chief aim is to avoid hearing it. In those days, had any one told me there was half a line about myself in a newspaper, I should have tramped London to obtain that publication. Now, when I see a column headed with my name, I hurriedly fold up the paper and put it away from me, subduing my natural curiosity to read it by saying to myself, "Why should you? It will only upset you for the day."

In my cubhood I possessed a friend. Other friends have come into my life since--very dear and precious friends--but they have none of them been to me quite what this friend was. Because he was my first friend, and we lived together in a world that was much bigger than this world--more full of joy and of grief; and, in that world, we loved and hated deeper than we love and hate in this smaller world that I have come to dwell in since.

He also had the very young man's craving to be criticised, and we made it our custom to oblige each other. We did not know then that what we meant, when we asked for "criticism," was encouragement. We thought that we were strong--one does at the beginning of the battle, and that we could bear to hear the truth.

Accordingly, each one pointed out to the other one his errors, and this task kept us both so busy that we had never time to say a word of praise to one another. That we each had a high opinion of the other's talents I am convinced, but our heads were full of silly saws. We said to ourselves: "There are many who will praise a man; it is only his friend who will tell him of his faults." Also, we said: "No man sees his own shortcomings, but when these are pointed out to him by another he is grateful, and proceeds to mend them."

As we came to know the world better, we learnt the fallacy of these ideas. But then it was too late, for the mischief had been done.

When one of us had written anything, he would read it to the other, and when he had finished he would say, "Now, tell me what you think of it--frankly and as a friend."

Those were his words. But his thoughts, though he may not have known them, were:--

"Tell me it is clever and good, my friend, even if you do not think so.

The world is very cruel to those that have not yet conquered it, and, though we keep a careless face, our young hearts are scored with wrinkles. Often we grow weary and faint-hearted. Is it not so, my friend? No one has faith in us, and in our dark hours we doubt ourselves. You are my comrade. You know what of myself I have put into this thing that to others will be but an idle half-hour's reading. Tell me it is good, my friend. Put a little heart into me, I pray you."

But the other, full of the l.u.s.t of criticism, which is civilisation's subst.i.tute for cruelty, would answer more in frankness than in friends.h.i.+p. Then he who had written would flush angrily, and scornful words would pa.s.s.

One evening, he read me a play he had written. There was much that was good in it, but there were also faults (there are in some plays), and these I seized upon and made merry over. I could hardly have dealt out to the piece more unnecessary bitterness had I been a professional critic.

As soon as I paused from my sport he rose, and, taking his ma.n.u.script from the table, tore it in two, and flung it in the fire--he was but a very young man, you must remember--and then, standing before me with a white face, told me, unsolicited, his opinion of me and of my art. After which double event, it is perhaps needless to say that we parted in hot anger.

I did not see him again for years. The streets of life are very crowded, and if we loose each other's hands we are soon hustled far apart. When I did next meet him it was by accident.

I had left the Whitehall Rooms after a public dinner, and, glad of the cool night air, was strolling home by the Embankment. A man, slouching along under the trees, paused as I overtook him.

"You couldn't oblige me with a light, could you, guv'nor?" he said. The voice sounded strange, coming from the figure that it did.

I struck a match, and held it out to him, shaded by my hands. As the faint light illumined his face, I started back, and let the match fall:--

"Harry!"

He answered with a short dry laugh. "I didn't know it was you," he said, "or I shouldn't have stopped you."

"How has it come to this, old fellow?" I asked, laying my hand upon his shoulder. His coat was unpleasantly greasy, and I drew my hand away again as quickly as I could, and tried to wipe it covertly upon my handkerchief.