The Golden Age

SNOWBOUND

TWELFTH-NIGHT had come and gone, and life next morning seemed a trifle flat and purposeless. But yester-eve, and the mummers were here! They had come striding into the old kitchen, powdering the red brick floor with snow from their barbaric bedizenments; and stamping, and crossing, and declaiming, till all was whirl and riot and shout. Harold was frankly afraid: unabashed, he buried himself in the cook's ample bosom. Edward feigned a manly superiority to illusion, and greeted these awful apparitions familiarly, as Dick and Harry and Joe. As for me, I was too big to run, too rapt to resist the magic and surprise. Whence came these outlanders, breaking in on us with song and ordered masque and a terrible clashing of wooden swords? And after these, what strange visitants might we not look for any quiet night, when the chestnuts popped in the ashes, and the old ghost stories drew the awe-stricken circle close? Old Merlin, perhaps, 'all furred in black sheep-skins, and a russet gown, with a bow and arrows, and bearing wild geese in his hand!' Or stately Ogier the Dane, recalled from Faëry, asking his way to the land that once had need of him! Or even, on some white night, the Snow-Queen herself, with a chime of sleigh-bells and the patter of reindeer's feet, halting of a sudden at the door flung wide, while aloft the Northern Lights went shaking attendant spears among the quiet stars!

This morning, house-bound by the relentless indefatigable snow, I was feeling the reaction. Edward, on the contrary, being violently stage-struck on this his first introduction to the real Drama, was striding up and down the floor, proclaiming 'Here be I, King Gearge the Third,' in a strong Berkshire accent. Harold, accustomed, as the youngest, to lonely antics and to sports that asked no sympathy, was absorbed in 'clubmen': a performance consisting in a measured progress round the room arm-in-arm with an imaginary companion of reverend years, with occasional halts at imaginary clubs, where – imaginary steps being leisurely ascended – imaginary papers were glanced at, imaginary scandal was discussed with elderly shakings of the head, and – regrettable to say – imaginary glasses were lifted lipwards. Heaven only knows how the germ of this dreary pastime first found way into his small-boyish being. It was his own invention, and he was proportionately proud of it. Meanwhile Charlotte and I, crouched in the window-seat, watched, spell-stricken, the whirl and eddy and drive of the innumerable snow-flakes, wrapping our cheery little world in an uncanny uniform, ghastly in line and hue.

Charlotte was sadly out of spirits. Having 'countered' Miss Smedley at breakfast, during some argument or other, by an apt quotation from her favourite classic (the Fairy Book), she had been gently but firmly informed that no such things as fairies ever really existed. 'Do you mean to say it's all lies?' asked Charlotte bluntly. Miss Smedley deprecated the use of any such unladylike words in any connexion at all. 'These stories had their origin, my dear,' she explained, 'in a mistaken anthropomorphism in the interpretation of nature. But though we are now too well informed to fall into similar errors, there are still many beautiful lessons to be learned from these myths – '

'But how can you learn anything,' persisted Charlotte, 'from what doesn't exist?' And she left the table defiant, howbeit depressed.

'Don't you mind her,' I said consolingly; 'how can she know anything about it? Why, she can't even throw a stone properly!'

'Edward says they're all rot, too,' replied Charlotte doubtfully.

'Edward says everything's rot,' I explained, 'now he thinks he's going into the Army. If a thing's in a book it must be true, so that settles it!'

Charlotte looked almost reassured. The room was quieter now, for Edward had got the dragon down and was boring holes in him with a purring sound; Harold was ascending the steps of the Athenæum with a jaunty air – suggestive rather of the Junior Carlton. Outside, the tall elm-tops were hardly to be seen through the feathery storm. 'The sky's a-falling,' quoted Charlotte softly; 'I must go and tell the king.' The quotation suggested a fairy story, and I offered to read to her, reaching out for the book. But the Wee Folk were under a cloud; sceptical hints had embittered the chalice. So I was fain to fetch Arthur– second favourite with Charlotte for his dames riding errant, and an easy first with us boys for his spear-splintering crash of tourney and hurtle against hopeless odds. Here again, however, I proved unfortunate; what ill-luck made the book open at the sorrowful history of Balin and Balan? 'And he vanished anon,' I read: 'and so he heard an horne blow, as it had been the death of a beast. "That blast," said Balin, "is blowen for me, for I am the prize, and yet am I not dead."' Charlotte began to cry: she knew the rest too well. I shut the book in despair. Harold emerged from behind the arm-chair. He was sucking his thumb (a thing which members of the Reform are seldom seen to do), and he stared wide-eyed at his tear-stained sister. Edward put off his histrionics, and rushed up to her as the consoler – a new part for him.

'I know a jolly story,' he began. 'Aunt Eliza told it me. It was when she was somewhere over in that beastly abroad' – (he had once spent a black month of misery at Dinan) – 'and there was a fellow there who had got two storks. And one stork died – it was the she-stork.' – ('What did it die of?' put in Harold.) – 'And the other stork was quite sorry, and moped, and went on, and got very miserable. So they looked about and found a duck, and introduced it to the stork. The duck was a drake, but the stork didn't mind, and they loved each other and were as jolly as could be. By and by another duck came along – a real she-duck this time – and when the drake saw her he fell in love, and left the stork, and went and proposed to the duck: for she was very beautiful. But the poor stork who was left, he said nothing at all to anybody, but just pined and pined and pined away, till one morning he was found quite dead! But the ducks lived happily ever afterwards!'

This was Edward's idea of a jolly story! Down again went the corners of poor Charlotte's mouth. Really Edward's stupid inability to see the real point in anything was too annoying! It was always so. Years before, it being necessary to prepare his youthful mind for a domestic event that might lead to awkward questionings at a time when there was little leisure to invent appropriate answers, it was delicately inquired of him whether he would like to have a little brother, or perhaps a little sister? He considered the matter carefully in all its bearings, and finally declared for a Newfoundland pup. Any boy more 'gleg at the uptak' would have met his parents half-way, and eased their burden. As it was, the matter had to be approached all over again from a fresh standpoint. And now, while Charlotte turned away sniffingly, with a hiccup that told of an overwrought soul, Edward, unconscious (like Sir Isaac's Diamond) of the mischief he had done, wheeled round on Harold with a shout.

'I want a live dragon,' he announced: 'You've got to be my dragon!'

'Leave me go, will you?' squealed Harold, struggling stoutly. 'I'm playin' at something else. How can I be a dragon and belong to all the clubs?'

'But wouldn't you like to be a nice scaly dragon, all green,' said Edward, trying persuasion, 'with a curly tail and red eyes, and breathing real smoke and fire?'

Harold wavered an instant: Pall-Mall was still strong in him. The next he was grovelling on the floor. No saurian ever swung a tail so scaly and so curly as his. Clubland was a thousand years away. With horrific pants he emitted smokiest smoke and fiercest fire.

'Now I want a Princess,' cried Edward, clutching Charlotte ecstatically; 'and you can be the Doctor, and heal me from the dragon's deadly wound.'

Of all professions I held the sacred art of healing in worst horror and contempt. Cataclysmal memories of purge and draught crowded thick on me, and with Charlotte – who courted no barren honours – I made a break for the door. Edward did likewise, and the hostile forces clashed together on the mat, and for a brief space things were mixed and chaotic and Arthurian. The silvery sound of the luncheon-bell restored an instant peace, even in the teeth of clenched antagonisms like ours. The Holy Grail itself, 'sliding athwart a sunbeam,' never so effectually stilled a riot of warring passions into sweet and quiet accord.

WHAT THEY TALKED ABOUT

EDWARD was standing ginger-beer like a gentleman, happening, as the one that had last passed under the dentist's hands, to be the capitalist of the flying hour. As in all well-regulated families, the usual tariff obtained in ours: half-a-crown a tooth; one shilling only if the molar were a loose one. This one, unfortunately – in spite of Edward's interested affectation of agony – had been shakiness undisguised; but the event was good enough to run to ginger-beer. As financier, however, Edward had claimed exemption from any servile duties of procurement, and had swaggered about the garden while I fetched from the village post-office, and Harold stole a tumbler from the pantry. Our preparations complete, we were sprawling on the lawn; the staidest and most self-respecting of the rabbits had been let loose to grace the feast, and was lopping demurely about the grass, selecting the juiciest plantains; while Selina, as the eldest lady present, was toying, in her affected feminine way, with the first full tumbler, daintily fishing for bits of broken cork.

'Hurry up, can't you?' growled our host; 'what are you girls always so beastly particular for?'

'Martha says,' explained Harold (thirsty too, but still just), 'that if you swallow a bit of cork, it swells, and it swells, and it swells inside you, till you – '

'O bosh!' said Edward, draining the glass with a fine pretence of indifference to consequences, but all the same (as I noticed) dodging the floating cork-fragments with skill and judgment.

'O, it's all very well to say bosh,' replied Harold nettled: 'but every one knows it's true but you. Why, when Uncle Thomas was here last, and they got up a bottle of wine for him, he took just one tiny sip out of his glass, and then he said, "Poo, my goodness, that's corked!" And he wouldn't touch it. And they had to get a fresh bottle up. The funny part was, though, I looked in his glass afterwards, when it was brought out into the passage, and there wasn't any cork in it at all! So I drank it all off, and it was very good!'

'You'd better be careful, young man!' said his elder brother, regarding him severely: 'D'you remember that night when the Mummers were here, and they had mulled port, and you went round and emptied all the glasses after they had gone away?'

'Ow! I did feel funny that night,' chuckled Harold. 'Thought the house was comin' down, it jumped about so: and Martha had to carry me up to bed, 'cos the stairs was goin' all waggity!'

We gazed searchingly at our graceless junior; but it was clear that he viewed the matter in the light of a phenomenon rather than of a delinquency.

A third bottle was by this time circling; and Selina, who had evidently waited for it to reach her, took a most unfairly long pull, and then, jumping up and shaking out her frock, announced that she was going for a walk. Then she fled like a hare; for it was the custom of our Family to meet with physical coercion any independence of action in individuals.

'She's off with those Vicarage girls again,' said Edward, regarding Selina's long black legs twinkling down the path. 'She goes out with them every day now; and as soon as ever they start, all their heads go together and they chatter, chatter, chatter the whole blessèd time! I can't make out what they find to talk about. They never stop; it's gabble, gabble, gabble right along, like a nest of young rooks!'

'P'raps they talk about birds'-eggs,' I suggested sleepily (the sun was hot, the turf soft, the ginger-beer potent); 'and about ships, and buffaloes, and desert islands; and why rabbits have white tails; and whether they'd sooner have a schooner or a cutter; and what they'll be when they're men – at least, I mean there's lots of things to talk about, if you want to talk.'

'Yes; but they don't talk about those sort of things at all,' persisted Edward. 'How can they? They don't know anything; they can't do anything – except play the piano, and nobody would want to talk about that; and they don't care about anything – anything sensible, I mean. So what do they talk about?'

'I asked Martha once,' put in Harold; 'and she said, "Never you mind; young ladies has lots of things to talk about that young gentlemen can't understand."'

'I don't believe it,' Edward growled.

'Well, that's what she said, anyway,' rejoined Harold indifferently. The subject did not seem to him of first-class importance, and it was hindering the circulation of the ginger-beer.

We heard the click of the front-gate. Through a gap in the hedge we could see the party setting off down the road. Selina was in the middle; a Vicarage girl had her by either arm; their heads were together, as Edward had described; and the clack of their tongues came down the breeze like the busy pipe of starlings on a bright March morning.

'What do they talk about, Charlotte?' I inquired, wishing to pacify Edward. 'You go out with them sometimes.'

'I don't know,' said poor Charlotte dolefully. 'They make me walk behind, 'cos they say I'm too little, and mustn't hear. And I do want to so,' she added.

'When any lady comes to see Aunt Eliza,' said Harold, 'they both talk at once all the time. And yet each of 'em seems to hear what the other one's saying. I can't make out how they do it. Grown-up people are so clever!'

'The Curate's the funniest man,' I remarked. 'He's always saying things that have no sense in them at all, and then laughing at them as if they were jokes. Yesterday, when they asked him if he'd have some more tea, he said, "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more," and then sniggered all over. I didn't see anything funny in that. And then somebody asked him about his button-hole, and he said, "'Tis but a little faded flower," and exploded again. I thought it very stupid.'

'O him,' said Edward contemptuously: 'he can't help it, you know; it's a sort of way he's got. But it's these girls I can't make out. If they've anything really sensible to talk about, how is it nobody knows what it is? And if they haven't – and we know they can't have, naturally – why don't they shut up their jaw? This old rabbit here —he doesn't want to talk. He's got something better to do.' And Edward aimed a ginger-beer cork at the unruffled beast, who never budged.

'O but rabbits do talk,' interposed Harold. 'I've watched them often in their hutch. They put their heads together and their noses go up and down, just like Selina's and the Vicarage girls'. Only of course I can't hear what they're saying.'

'Well, if they do,' said Edward unwillingly, 'I'll bet they don't talk such rot as those girls do!' Which was ungenerous, as well as unfair; for it had not yet transpired – nor has it to this day —what Selina and her friends talked about.

THE ARGONAUTS

THE advent of strangers, of whatever sort, into our circle had always been a matter of grave dubiety and suspicion. Indeed, it was generally a signal for retreat into caves and fastnesses of the earth, into unthreaded copses or remote outlying cowsheds, whence we were only to be extricated by wily nursemaids, rendered familiar by experience with our secret runs and refuges. It was not surprising, therefore, that the heroes of classic legend, when first we made their acquaintance, failed to win our entire sympathy at once. 'Confidence,' says somebody, 'is a plant of slow growth'; and these stately dark-haired demi-gods, with names hard to master and strange accoutrements, had to win a citadel already strongly garrisoned with a more familiar soldiery. Their chill foreign goddesses had no such direct appeal for us as the mocking malicious fairies and witches of the North. We missed the pleasant alliance of the animal – the fox who spread the bushiest of tails to convey us to the enchanted castle, the frog in the well, the raven who croaked advice from the tree; and – to Harold especially – it seemed entirely wrong that the hero should ever be other than the youngest brother of three. This belief, indeed, in the special fortune that ever awaited the youngest brother, as such, – the 'Borough-English' of Faëry, – had been of baleful effect on Harold, producing a certain self-conceit and perkiness that called for physical correction. But even in our admonishment we were on his side; and as we distrustfully eyed these new arrivals, old Saturn himself seemed something of a parvenu.

Even strangers, however, if they be good fellows at heart, may develop into sworn comrades; and these gay swordsmen, after all, were of the right stuff. Perseus, with his cap of darkness and his wonderful sandals, was not long in winging his way to our hearts. Apollo knocked at Admetus' gate in something of the right fairy fashion. Psyche brought with her an orthodox palace of magic, as well as helpful birds and friendly ants. Ulysses, with his captivating shifts and strategies, broke down the final barrier, and henceforth the band was adopted and admitted into our freemasonry.

I had been engaged in chasing Farmer Larkin's calves – his special pride – round the field, just to show the man we hadn't forgotten him, and was returning through the kitchen-garden with a conscience at peace with all men, when I happened upon Edward, grubbing for worms in the dung-heap. Edward put his worms into his hat, and we strolled along together, discussing high matters of state. As we reached the tool-shed, strange noises arrested our steps; looking in, we perceived Harold, alone, rapt, absorbed, immersed in the special game of the moment. He was squatting in an old pig-trough that had been brought in to be tinkered; and as he rhapsodised, anon he waved a shovel over his head, anon dug it into the ground with the action of those who would urge Canadian canoes. Edward strode in upon him.

'What rot are you playing at now?' he demanded sternly.

Harold flushed up, but stuck to his pig-trough like a man. 'I'm Jason,' he replied defiantly; 'and this is the Argo. The other fellows are here too, only you can't see them; and we're just going through the Hellespont, so don't you come bothering.' And once more he plied the wine-dark sea.

Edward kicked the pig-trough contemptuously. 'Pretty sort of Argo you've got!' said he.

Harold began to get annoyed. 'I can't help it,' he retorted. 'It's the best sort of Argo I can manage, and it's all right if you only pretend enough. But you never could pretend one bit.'

Edward reflected. 'Look here,' he said presently. 'Why shouldn't we get hold of Farmer Larkin's boat, and go right away up the river in a real Argo, and look for Medea, and the Golden Fleece, and everything? And I'll tell you what, I don't mind your being Jason, as you thought of it first.'

Harold tumbled out of the trough in the excess of his emotion. 'But we aren't allowed to go on the water by ourselves,' he cried.

'No,' said Edward, with fine scorn: 'we aren't allowed; and Jason wasn't allowed either, I daresay. But he went!'

Harold's protest had been merely conventional: he only wanted to be convinced by sound argument. The next question was, How about the girls? Selina was distinctly handy in a boat: the difficulty about her was, that if she disapproved of the expedition – and, morally considered, it was not exactly a Pilgrim's Progress – she might go and tell; she having just reached that disagreeable age when one begins to develop a conscience. Charlotte, for her part, had a habit of day-dreams, and was as likely as not to fall overboard in one of her rapt musings. To be sure, she would dissolve in tears when she found herself left out; but even that was better than a watery tomb. In fine, the public voice – and rightly, perhaps – was against the admission of the skirted animal: despite the precedent of Atalanta, who was one of the original crew.

'And now,' said Edward, 'who's to ask Farmer Larkin? I can't; last time I saw him he said when he caught me again he'd smack my head. You'll have to.'

I hesitated, for good reasons. 'You know those precious calves of his?' I began.

Edward understood at once. 'All right,' he said; 'then we won't ask him at all. It doesn't much matter. He'd only be annoyed, and that would be a pity. Now let's set off.'

We made our way down to the stream, and captured the farmer's boat without let or hindrance, the enemy being engaged in the hay-fields. This 'river,' so called, could never be discovered by us in any atlas; indeed our Argo could hardly turn in it without risk of shipwreck. But to us 'twas Orinoco, and the cities of the world dotted its shores. We put the Argo's head upstream, since that led away from the Larkin province; Harold was faithfully permitted to be Jason, and we shared the rest of the heroes among us. Then, quitting Thessaly, we threaded the Hellespont with shouts, breathlessly dodged the Clashing Rocks, and coasted under the lee of the Siren-haunted isles. Lemnos was fringed with meadow-sweet, dog-roses dotted the Mysian shore, and the cheery call of the haymaking folk sounded along the coast of Thrace.

After some hour or two's seafaring, the prow of the Argo embedded itself in the mud of a landing-place, plashy with the tread of cows and giving on to a lane that led towards the smoke of human habitations. Edward jumped ashore, alert for exploration, and strode off without waiting to see if we followed; but I lingered behind, having caught sight of a moss-grown water-gate hard by, leading into a garden that, from the brooding quiet lapping it round, appeared to portend magical possibilities.

Indeed the very air within seemed stiller, as we circumspectly passed through the gate; and Harold hung back shamefaced, as if we were crossing the threshold of some private chamber, and ghosts of old days were hustling past us. Flowers there were, everywhere; but they drooped and sprawled in an overgrowth hinting at indifference; the scent of heliotrope possessed the place as if actually hung in solid festoons from tall untrimmed hedge to hedge. No basket-chairs, shawls, or novels dotted the lawn with colour, and on the garden-front of the house behind, the blinds were mostly drawn. A grey old sun-dial dominated the central sward, and we moved towards it instinctively, as the most human thing in sight. An antick motto ran round it, and with eyes and fingers we struggled at the decipherment.

time: tryeth: trothe: spelt out Harold at last. 'I wonder what that means?'

I could not enlighten him, nor meet his further questions as to the inner mechanism of the thing, and where you wound it up. I had seen these instruments before, of course; but had never fully understood their manner of working.

We were still puzzling our heads over the contrivance, when I became aware that Medea herself was moving down the path from the house. Dark-haired, supple, of a figure lightly poised and swayed, but pale and listless – I knew her at once, and having come out to find her, naturally felt no surprise at all. But Harold, who was trying to climb on to the top of the sun-dial, having a cat-like fondness for the summit of things, started and fell prone, barking his chin and filling the pleasance with lamentation.

Medea skimmed the ground swallow-like, and in a moment was on her knees comforting him, wiping the dirt out of his chin with her own dainty handkerchief, and vocal with soft murmur of consolation.

'You needn't take on so about him,' I observed politely. 'He'll cry for just one minute, and then he'll be all right.'

My estimate was justified. At the end of his regulation time Harold stopped crying suddenly, like a clock that had struck its hour; and with a serene and cheerful countenance wriggled out of Medea's embrace, and ran for a stone to throw at an intrusive blackbird.

'O you boys!' cried Medea, throwing wide her arms with abandonment. 'Where have you dropped from? How dirty you are! I've been shut up here for a thousand years, and all that time I've never seen any one under a hundred and fifty! Let's play at something, at once!'

'Rounders is a good game,' I suggested. 'Girls can play at rounders. And we could serve up to the sun-dial here. But you want a bat and a ball, and some more people.'

She struck her hands together tragically. 'I haven't a bat,' she cried, 'or a ball, or more people, or anything sensible whatever. Never mind; let's play at hide-and-seek in the kitchen-garden. And we'll race there, up to that walnut-tree; I haven't run for a century!'

She was so easy a victor, nevertheless, that I began to doubt, as I panted behind, whether she had not exaggerated her age by a year or two. She flung herself into hide-and-seek with all the gusto and abandonment of the true artist; and as she flitted away and reappeared, flushed and laughing divinely, the pale witch-maiden seemed to fall away from her, and she moved rather as that other girl I had read about, snatched from fields of daffodil to reign in shadow below, yet permitted now and again to revisit earth and light and the frank, caressing air.

Tired at last, we strolled back to the old sun-dial, and Harold, who never relinquished a problem unsolved, began afresh, rubbing his finger along the faint incisions. 'Time tryeth trothe. Please, I want to know what that means?'

Medea's face drooped low over the sun-dial, till it was almost hidden in her fingers. 'That's what I'm here for,' she said presently in quite a changed, low voice. 'They shut me up here – they think I'll forget – but I never will – never, never! And he, too – but I don't know – it is so long – I don't know!'

Her face was quite hidden now. There was silence again in the old garden. I felt clumsily helpless and awkward. Beyond a vague idea of kicking Harold, nothing remedial seemed to suggest itself.

None of us had noticed the approach of another she-creature – one of the angular and rigid class – how different from our dear comrade! The years Medea had claimed might well have belonged to her; she wore mittens, too – a trick I detested in woman. 'Lucy!' she said sharply, in a tone with aunt writ large over it; and Medea started up guiltily.

'You've been crying,' said the newcomer, grimly regarding her through spectacles. 'And pray who are these exceedingly dirty little boys?'

'Friends of mine, aunt,' said Medea promptly, with forced cheerfulness. I – I've known them a long time. I asked them to come.'

The aunt sniffed suspiciously. 'You must come indoors, dear,' she said, 'and lie down. The sun will give you a headache. And you little boys had better run away home to your tea. Remember, you should not come to pay visits without your nursemaid.'

Harold had been tugging nervously at my jacket for some time, and I only waited till Medea turned and kissed a white hand to us as she was led away. Then I ran. We gained the boat in safety; and 'What an old dragon!' said Harold.

'Wasn't she a beast!' I replied. 'Fancy the sun giving any one a headache! But Medea was a real brick. Couldn't we carry her off?'

'We could if Edward was here,' said Harold confidently.

The question was, What had become of that defaulting hero? We were not left long in doubt. First, there came down the lane the shrill and wrathful clamour of a female tongue; then Edward, running his best; and then an excited woman hard on his heel. Edward tumbled into the bottom of the boat, gasping 'Shove her off!' And shove her off we did, mightily, while the dame abused us from the bank in the self-same accents in which Alfred hurled defiance at the marauding Dane.

'That was just like a bit out of Westward Ho!' I remarked approvingly, as we sculled down the stream. 'But what had you been doing to her?'

'Hadn't been doing anything,' panted Edward, still breathless. 'I went up into the village and explored, and it was a very nice one, and the people were very polite. And there was a blacksmith's forge there, and they were shoeing horses, and the hoofs fizzled and smoked, and smelt so jolly! I stayed there quite a long time. Then I got thirsty, so I asked that old woman for some water, and while she was getting it her cat came out of the cottage, and looked at me in a nasty sort of way, and said something I didn't like. So I went up to it just to – to teach it manners, and somehow or other, next minute it was up an apple-tree, spitting, and I was running down the lane with that old thing after me.'

Edward was so full of his personal injuries that there was no interesting him in Medea at all. Moreover, the evening was closing in, and it was evident that this cutting-out expedition must be kept for another day. As we neared home, it gradually occurred to us that perhaps the greatest danger was yet to come, for the farmer must have missed his boat ere now, and would probably be lying in wait for us near the landing-place. There was no other spot admitting of debarcation on the home side; if we got out on the other, and made for the bridge, we should certainly be seen and cut off. Then it was that I blessed my stars that our elder brother was with us that day. He might be little good at pretending, but in grappling with the stern facts of life he had no equal. Enjoining silence, he waited till we were but a little way from the fated landing-place, and then brought us in to the opposite bank. We scrambled out noiselessly and – the gathering darkness favouring us – crouched behind a willow, while Edward pushed off the empty boat with his foot. The old Argo, borne down by the gentle current, slid and grazed along the rushy bank; and when she came opposite the suspected ambush, a stream of imprecation told us that our precaution had not been wasted. We wondered, as we listened, where Farmer Larkin, who was bucolically bred and reared, had acquired such range and wealth of vocabulary. Fully realising at last that his boat was derelict, abandoned, at the mercy of wind and wave – as well as out of his reach – he strode away to the bridge, about a quarter of a mile further down; and as soon as we heard his boots clumping on the planks we nipped out, recovered the craft, pulled across, and made the faithful vessel fast to her proper moorings. Edward was anxious to wait and exchange courtesies and compliments with the disappointed farmer, when he should confront us on the opposite bank; but wiser counsels prevailed. It was possible that the piracy was not yet laid at our particular door: Ulysses, I reminded him, had reason to regret a similar act of bravado, and – were he here – would certainly advise a timely retreat. Edward held but a low opinion of me as a counsellor; but he had a very solid respect for Ulysses.