Part 8

IN the well-ordered garden of every well-ordered house—that is, every house that numbers children in its treasury—there lies, screened perhaps by some inconvenient shrubbery but none the less patent to the stars and the winds and the polite visitor, a tormented patch of earth where sway in dubious security of tenure a number of sickly plants. For days they have lain parched and neglected in the summer sun; for days they have been beaten down into a morass by torrents poured from an excited watering-pot; their roots have regarded heaven for no less a period than their heads; and in the face of such unnatural conditions Ceres, one fancies, must have fallen back in confusion and left them to struggle on as best they can unaided. It is only the most hardy of plants that may survive the attentions of a youthful gardener, and it is a tribute to Nature’s obstinacy that any survive at all. I have in my mind a garden of this kind, and thereby hangs one of those rather tragic stories which grown-up people are apt to consider funny. The garden lay below an old brick wall, which must, I think, have faced south, for, as I remember it, it was always lit by the sun. It was the property of three children, and their separate estates were carefully marked off by decorative walls of shells and freakish pebbles. Here, early and late, two of the children waged a gallant war against Nature, thwarting and checking her with a hundred delicate attentions; but on the third had fallen that pleasant mood when it is nicer to lie in the shade and to dream of wine than to labour in the vineyard. His garden was a tangle of weeds and of healthy, neglected plants, and when the inevitable awakening came he saw that it would require days of unprofitable work to turn the wilderness into a proper garden. Yet to hear the uninformed comparisons of visitors was a shameful ordeal not to be borne. He solved the problem, I still think, in a very spirited manner. He cleared the garden by the simple process of removing plants and weeds alike, and sowed the ground with seeds, purchased alas! with a shilling extracted quite illegally from his money-box. But the secrecy of these movements had not escaped the notice of the Olympians, and later there fell on his horrified ears an entirely new and obviously truthful theory of botany; it seemed that the word “thief” could be plainly deciphered on the flowers of dishonest gardeners. There were no blossoms in that little boy’s garden that year. Like the monk in Browning’s poem, he pinched off all the buds before the sun was up.

They were simple flowers we sought to cultivate in those days, simple flowers with beautiful names. Violets and snowdrops, the reticent but cheerful pansy, otherwise known as “three faces under a hood,” love-lies-bleeding, wallflowers, stocks, and London pride, or “none so pretty”; of these and their unaffected comrades we made our gardens. Spades and pickaxes were denied us, but the simple gardening tools were ours, and he has lived in darkness who has not experienced the keen joy of smacking the earth with the convex side of a trowel. My hands tingle when I remember how sore weeding made the finger-tips, and there is something in the last ecstatic chuckle of a watering-pot as it runs dry that lingers in the ear. I am aware that there are persons of mature years who can find pleasure in the performance of simple garden tasks. But I am afraid that subconsciously it is the æsthetic aspect of flowers that attracts them, and that their gardening is only a means to an end. No such charge could be brought against our efforts. We cared little about flowers or results of any sort; we only wanted to garden, and it troubled us not at all that the labours of one day destroyed those of the day before. To dig a deep hole and to fill it with water when completed is, as far as I have observed, no part of the ordinary gardener’s daily work, but it was our favourite effort, and a share in the construction of these ornamental waters was the greatest favour that we could grant to a friend. There were always captivating insects with numerous and casual legs to be discovered in the digging, and great stones that parted from the earth as reluctantly as nuggets. And when we had hollowed a cup in the earth we would pour in the sea and set our hearts floating upon its surface in paper ships. The sides of the hole would crumble down into the water like real cliffs, and every little fall would send a real wave sparkling across the surface of the ocean. Then there were bays to be cut and canals, and soundings to be taken with pieces of knotted string weighted with stones. Water has been the friend of children ever since Moses floated in his little ark of rushes to the feet of Pharaoh’s daughter.

I question whether they know very much about this sort of gardening at Kew, a place which is, however, beloved of children for the sake of the excellent spiral staircases in the palm-houses. But every sensible child has the art at its finger-tips, and in the time that we take to reach Brighton in a fleet motor they will construct a brand new sea for themselves—a sea with harbours and islands and sunken reefs, a perfect sea of wonder and romance.

If we are prepared to set aside our preconceived ideas as to what a garden ought to be, we must own that the children are not far wrong after all. A garden is only a world in miniature, with prairies of flowers and forests of roses and gravel paths for the wide, dusty roads. When we plant flowers in our garden it is as though we added new territories to our empire, new reds and blues and purples to our treasury of colours. And so when a child has wrought a fine morning’s havoc in its little patch of ground it has added it may be an ocean, it may be only a couple of stars to the kingdom of imagination which we may no longer see. It only needs a sunny hour or two, a trowel, and a pair of dirty hands to change a few square yards of earth into a world. And the child may be considered fortunate in being able to express itself perfectly in terms of dust. Our books and pictures cumber the earth, our palaces strike the skies, and yet it is our common tragedy that we have not found expression; while down the garden behind the lilac-bushes at this very moment Milton may have developed Lycidas into a sticky marsh, and Shakespeare may have compressed Hamlet into a mud-pie. The works of the children end as they begin in dust; but we cannot pretend that ours are more permanent.

A DISTINGUISHED GUEST

I AM willing to acknowledge that until lately, when I was privileged to entertain a cat under my roof for a fortnight, my knowledge of these noble beings was only academic. I had read what the poets have to say about them—Wordsworth and Swinburne, Cowper and Gray; I knew that “cat” was the only word in the English language that had a vocative, “puss”; I knew that Southey mourned that his kitten should ever attain to cathood, that the Egyptians were very fond of cats and that Lord Roberts is not. Then I had seen cats in the street, and admired the spirit with which a homeless cat with no visible means of subsistence would put shame into the heart of a well-fed terrier. Lying awake by night I had heard their barbaric song ringing like a challenge in the ears of civilisation, and had wondered whether some unknown Strauss might not revolutionise the music of the future by aid of their passionate harmonies. But I had never moved in their society, and therefore I would not understand them. In those days I should probably have thought that the recent message of the Postmaster-General to the Press, to the effect that cats of the old General Post Office had been found comfortable homes, was trivial. And I remember with shame that I watched the malevolent antics of the caricature of a cat that appears in the “Blue Bird” without indignation.

I do not propose to give the events of the fortnight in detail, but rather to summarise them for the benefit of others who, like myself, may be called upon unexpectedly to entertain a feline guest. The name of my visitor was Kim, though I am told that most cats are called William Pitt, after the statesman. He was a short-haired tabby cat, some eighteen months old, and a fine, large fellow for his age. While he was with me he usually wore a white waistcoat, and there was a white mark on his face, as if some milk had been spilled there when he was a kitten. His eyes were very large and of the colour of stage sunlight, and they haunted me from the moment when I raised the lid of the hamper in which he arrived. They were always significant and always inscrutable, but I could not help staring into them in the hope of discovering their meaning. I think he knew they fascinated me, for he would keep them wide open and full of secrets for hours at a time.

I had been informed that his name was Kim because he was the little friend of all the world, but at the first I found him reticent and of an independent disposition. I had always believed that cats purred when you stroked them, but when I stroked him he would endure it in silence for a minute and then retire to a corner of the room and make an elaborate and, under the circumstances, uncomplimentary toilet. In my inexperience I was afraid that he had taken a dislike to me, but one evening, after he had been with me three days, he climbed into my lap and went to sleep. My pipe was on the mantelpiece, and as Kim weighed over twelve pounds my legs grew very cramped; but I knew better than to disturb him, and he slept very comfortably till two in the morning. He repeated this compliment on several occasions, but when I lifted him into my lap he always got off immediately, and made me feel that I had been ill-treating him. His choice of sleeping-places was strange. If I was reading, he waited till I laid the book down on the table and then fell asleep on top of it. When I was writing and he had grown weary of turning his head from side to side to follow the birdlike flight of the pen to the ink-pot, he loved to settle himself down on the wet manuscript and blink drowsily at my embarrassment. Once when I ventured to lift him off he sulked under the table all the afternoon, and I did not repeat the experiment. He seemed to be a very sensitive cat.

Of course he was too old to play with me, but he had famous games by himself with corks and pieces of paper. Sooner or later he would drive these under one of the bookcases, and would sit down and mew plaintively until I went and raked them out for him. Then he would get up and walk away as if such toys were beneath his dignity. The one fault I found in his character was this constant emphasis of an inferiority that I was quite willing to confess. A generous cat would have realised that I was trying to do my best, and would have pardoned my hundred errors of judgment. Kim never wearied of putting me in my place, and turned a scornful tail to my heartfelt apologies. When he was dozing in the evening on the hearthrug he was very angry if any one put coals on the fire, even though he had been warned beforehand of what was about to happen. He would look at me with an air of noble reproach and stalk away to the window, where, perched on the back of a window-seat, he would stay for hours, patiently observant of the sounds and smells of the night.

But it was at mealtimes that he made me realise most the strength of his individuality. I had imagined that all cats were fond of milk, but Kim quickly disillusioned me, and it was as the result of a series of experiments that I discovered that he would only drink new milk raised to a certain temperature, and not then if he thought I was watching him. For the first twenty-four hours after he arrived he would eat nothing, though I tried to tempt him with chicken, sardines, and fillet of sole. Once or twice he gave a little plaintive mew, but for the most part he succeeded in giving me the impression of a brave heart enduring the pangs of a consuming hunger with noble fortitude. At the end of that period, when he had reduced me to despair, he relieved himself and me by stealing a haddock. After that the task of feeding him was comparatively easy. I would prepare him a dinner and pretend to eat it myself with great enjoyment; then I would leave the room as if I had suddenly remembered an appointment. When I returned the plate would be empty—that is, as empty as a cat’s dignity will allow him to leave a plate, and a few delicate impressions of Kim’s paws on the tablecloth would tell me that all was well. The irritating motive that underlay this graceless mannerism was clear to me. He would not be beholden to me for so much as a sardine, and he was willing to steal all his meals so long as he could remain independent. I think, too, that it amused him to undermine my moral character by making me deceitful.

Incidentally, a cookery-book for cats is badly needed. Unlike dogs, they are gourmets rather than gourmands, and their appetites seem to languish if they do not have a continual change of fare. They have subtle palates; Kim liked gorgonzola cheese and curried rabbit, but he would not eat chicken in any form. I found anchovy sauce very useful to make a meal savoury that Kim had not thought palatable enough to steal, and the wise host will hold this condiment in reserve for such occasions. There is no relying on their likes or dislikes; they will eat something with avidity one day and reject it with infinite distaste the next.

On the whole it was a busy fortnight, and it was not without a certain relief that I said farewell to my emotional guest and sent him back to his owner. Designedly, as I believe, he had succeeded in making me painfully self-conscious, so that I could not do anything without being led to feel that in some way I was sinning against the laws of hospitality. It was pleasant to realise that my life was once more my own, and that I was free from the critical inspection of those significant, inscrutable eyes. I have commented on the independence of his character; it would be unjust if I failed to mention the one exception. One night I was awakened by a soft paw, a paw innocent of all claws, patting me gently on the cheek, and in the dark I was aware of Kim sitting on my pillow. I supposed that he was lonely and put up my hand to stroke him. Then for once in a way the proudest of sentient beings was pleased to drop the mask of his pride and purr loudly and without restraint. In the morning he treated me with exaggerated coldness, but I was not cheated into believing that his friendliness had been a dream. There are possibilities about Kim; and I believe that if he were to stop with me for two years we should come to a very tolerable understanding.

ON PIRATES

OF the nameless classics which were of so much concern to all of us when we were young, the most important were certainly those salt and blusterous volumes that told of pirates. It was in vain for kindly relatives to give us books on Nelson and his like; for their craft, beautiful though they might be to the eye, had ever the moralities lurking between decks, and if we met them it was only that we might make their crews walk the plank, and add new stores of guns and treasure to the crimson vessel with the sinister flag which it was our pleasure to command.

And yet the books that gave us this splendid dominion, where are they now? In truth, I cannot say. Examination of recent boys’ books has convinced me that the old spirit is lacking, for if pirates are there, it is only as the hapless victims of horrible British crews with every virtue save that one which youth should cherish most, the revolutionary spirit. Who would be a midshipman when he might be a pirate? Yet all the books would have it so, and even Mr. Kenneth Grahame, who knows everything that is worth knowing, does not always take the right side in such matters. The grown-up books are equally unsatisfactory to the inquiring mind. “Treasure Island,” which is sometimes loosely referred to as if it were a horn-book for young pirates, hardly touches the main problems of pirate life at all. Stevenson’s consideration for “youth and the fond parient” made him leave out all oaths. No ships are taken, no lovely females captured, nobody walks the plank, and Captain John Silver, for all the maimed strength and masterfulness that Henley suggested to the author, falls lamentably short of what a pirate should be. Captain Teach, of the _Sarah_, in the “Master of Ballantrae,” is better, and there were the makings of a very good pirate captain in the master himself, but this section of the book is too short to supply our requirements. The book must be all pirates. Defoe’s “Captain Singleton” repents and is therefore disqualified, and Marryat’s “Pirate” is, as Stevenson said, “written in sand with a saltspoon.” Mr. Clark Russell, in one of his romances, ingeniously melts a pirate who has been frozen for a couple of centuries into life, but though he promises well at first, his is but a torpid ferocity, and ends, as it began, in words. Nor are the histories of the pirates more satisfying. Captain Johnson’s “History of Notorious Pirates” I have not seen, but any one who wishes to lose an illusion can read the trial of William Kidd and a few of his companions in the State trials of the year 1701. The captain of the _Adventure Galley_ appears to have done little to merit the name of pirate beyond killing his gunner with a bucket, and the miserable results of his pilferings bear no relationship to the enormous hoard associated with his name in “The Gold Bug” of Poe, though there is certainly a familiar note in finding included among his captives a number of barrels of sugar-candy, which were divided in shares among the crew, the captain himself having forty shares. The Turkish pirates mentioned in “Purchas” cut a very poor figure. You can read there how four English youths overcame a prize crew of thirteen men who had been put in the ship _Jacob_. In a storm they slew the pirate captain, for with the handle of a pump “they gave him such a palt on the pate as made his brains forsake the possession of his head.” They then killed three of the other pirates with “cuttleaxes,” and brought the ship safely into Spain, “where they sold the nine Turkes for galley-slaves for a good summe of money, and as I thinke, a great deale more than they were worth.” Not thus would the chronicles have described the pirates who fought and caroused with such splendid devotion in my youth. To die beneath the handle of a pump is an unworthy end for a pirate captain. The “History of the Buccaneers of America,” written by a brother of Fanny Burney, a book which was the subject of one of Mr. Andrew Lang’s appreciative essays, is nearer the mark, for among other notable fellows mentioned therein is one François L’Olonnois, who put to death the whole crew of a Spanish ship, ninety men, by beheading them, performing himself the office of executioner. One of the gentlemen in this book turned buccaneer in order to pay his debts, while it is told of another that he shot one of his crew in church for behaving irreverently during Mass. Sir Henry Morgan and Richard Sawkins performed some pretty feats of piracy, but their main energies were concerned in the sacking of towns, and the whole book suffers from an unaccountable prejudice which the author displays against the brave and hard-working villains of whom he writes.

In truth, these real pirates are disappointing men to meet. They are usually lacking in fierceness and in fidelity to the pirate ideals of courage and faithfulness to their comrades, while the fine nobility of character which was never absent from those other pirates is unknown in the historical kind. Few, if any, of them merit the old Portuguese punishment for pirates, which consisted in hanging them from the yards of their own ship, and setting the latter to drift with the winds and waves without rudder or sails, an example for rogues and a source of considerable danger to honest mariners.

If that were a fitting end for great knaves, the meaner ruffians must be content with the pump-handle and the bucket.

It is hard if our hearts may not go out to those gloomy vessels, with their cargoes of gold and courage and rum, that sail, it seems, the mental seas of youth no more. Were they really bad for us, those sanguinary tussles, those star-lit nights of dissipation? A pinafore would wipe away a deal of blood, and the rum, though we might drink it boiling like Quilp, in no wise lessened our interest in home-made cake. But these regrets are of yesterday, and to-day I must draw what consolation I may from the kindly comment of Mr. Lang: “Alluring as the pirate’s profession is, we must not forget that it had a seamy side, and was by no means all rum and pieces-of-eight. And there is something repulsive to a generous nature in roasting men because they will not show you where to steal hogs.”

THE FLUTE-PLAYER

HE used to play to me in the magic hour before bedtime, when, in the summer, the red sun threw long shadows across the lawn, and in winter the fire burned brighter and brighter in the hearth. This was the hour when all the interminable squabbles of the schoolroom were forgotten, and even the noisiest of us would hush his voice to listen drowsily to a fairy-tale, or to watch the palaces raise aloft their minarets, and crumble to dull red ash in the heart of the fire. It was then that I would see him sitting astride of the fireguard and puffing out his cheeks over his shining flute. Even in the most thrilling moments of fairy stories, when Cinderella lost her crystal slipper or Sister Ann saw the cloud of dust from the summit of Bluebeard’s tower, his shrill melodies would ring in my ears and quicken my sleepy senses with the desire to hear more of this enchanted music. I knew that it was real magic, but I did not find it strange, because as far as I knew I had heard it all my life. Perhaps he had played to me when I yet lay in my cradle, and watched the night-light winking on the nursery ceiling; but I did not try to remember whether this was so. I was content to accept my strange musician as a fact of my existence, and to feel a sense of loss on the rare evenings when he failed me. I did not know how to dance, but sometimes I would tap my feet on the floor in time to the music, till some one would tell me not to fidget. For no one else would either see him or hear him, which proved that it was real magic, and flattered my sense of possession. It was evident that he came for me alone.