Part 5

“Look up ‘C,’ Harby, vollum six,” said the bald-headed man, rubbing his hands with much satisfaction, and then adjusting a pair of pince-nez which hung by a gold cord from his neck. “Open wound on the face.”

The woman turned sharply to the little girl.

“Come here, child,” she said. “Have I not told you to keep away from that horrid boy?”

Without paying the least attention to the woman, the little girl touched the hand of the boy with a kind of odd confidentialness.

“I yike oo velly much,” she said.

“We shall not detain you, my lady,” said the bald-headed man, bestowing a studious attention upon his diction. “But I’m afraid we must trouble you to come to see the magistrate to-morrow morning at eleven. The accused will be detained in custody. He has all the appearance of being an old hand. By to-morrow we shall hope to have found out a bit more about him.”

“Why don’t you give me my purse?” said the woman. “I can’t live without it.”

“Was a purse found on the accused, Moxon?” said the bald-headed man to the stouter of the two original constables.

“No, sir,” said Moxon, “on’y fourpence in copper and a foreign book.”

“Hand them to me,” said the bald-headed man peremptorily, “and go over him properly.”

The boy was taken by two policemen into a room close by. Immediately they began to pull off his clothes. To his extreme horror, bewilderment and shame they stripped him stark naked. They lifted up his heels and passed their fingers between his toes; they held up his arms and pressed their hands into his armpits; they ran their fingers through his hair, and placed them in his mouth.

“No purse,” they said.

They left the boy naked, with all his clothes on the floor. As the door closed behind them he fell senseless on the cold stone. A long and vague period followed, which was veiled from his consciousness by a kind of semi-darkness. During that period he seemed to find himself again in the presence of the bald-headed man, who still sat at his desk and glared at him over the rims of his gold eye-glasses.

The boy had only the haziest knowledge of that which took place; and subsequently was never able to satisfy himself as to whether or not he was again wearing clothes at this interview. At least he had no recollection of having put them on again or of any one else having done so.

The beautiful woman street-person in the gay clothes, and the little girl with golden curls, had gone away. The large and gloomy room smelt very oppressive, and seemed full of police constables.

“Have you a father?” said the bald-headed man. Although all was darkness and confusion about the boy the harsh voice seemed to cause his heart to stop beating.

The boy made some inaudible reply, which finally was taken for an answer in the affirmative.

“A mother?”

A further inaudible reply was taken to be a negative.

“What is the name of your father?”

“I--I--I d-don’t think I know, sir,” stammered the boy.

“Now then, none o’ that, or it will be ’otted up for you.”

The voice of the bald-headed man caused the boy’s teeth to chatter.

“What is your father?”

The boy lifted up his strange eyes in dumb bewilderment.

“I think he’s a little bit touched, sir,” said a very melancholy-looking police constable, tapping his head with his forefinger.

“You think nothing, Gravener,” said the bald-headed man sternly. “What right have you to think? You’ve been in the Force long enough to know that. What does your father do?” he said to the boy.

After a moment a flash of intelligence seemed to fuse the deadly pallor of the boy’s face.

“H-he keeps a lot of books,” he said, “a lot of books written by the ancient authors.”

“Vendor of old books, eh? Where does he live?”

For a moment the dark curtain of incomprehension again descended upon the boy; but quite suddenly it lifted and his mind was illumined with a ray of meaning.

“My father lives in the street of the second among the English authors,” he said.

“Now then, now then,” said the bald-headed man. “If you talk in that way I’ll promise you it will be ’otted up for you.”

“I--I know the author’s name quite well,” said the boy, disregarding this reproof, for his mind was reverting now to the little room, which already he seemed to have left an epoch ago. “The name begins with the letter M. M--Mi--Mil--it is the street of Milton!”

“Milton Street--vendor of old books in Milton Street. What number?”

“N-number!” muttered the boy blankly. “N-number. Oh yes! The number of the shop of my father is the number of the year in which Ovid was born.”

“Hovvid!” said the bald-headed man impatiently. “Who the ’ell’s Hovvid? Do you know, Harby, who Hovvid is?”

“Not I!” said a solemn, grey-headed police constable. “Do you know, Pearson?”

“Hovvid!” said a police constable with mutton-chop whiskers. “Can’t say as ’ow I do. Sounds like the name of a ’oss.”

“Do you mean, my lad,” said the bald-headed man, “the number o’ the year a ’oss o’ the name of Hovvid won the Derby?”

“A ’oss o’ the name of Hovvid never did win the Derby,” said the police constable with mutton-chop whiskers decisively.

“Ovid is one of the chief among the Roman authors,” said the boy. For the moment everything else had yielded to the astonishment he felt that all these imposing, austere, and strikingly-dressed street-persons should not know who Ovid was.

“Get the directory, Harby,” said the bald-headed man, “and look up the year in which Hovvid was born. You were right, Gravener; he is a bit touched.”

“Coorse I’m right,” said Gravener. “Anybody with ’alf a heye can see that.”

“Ovid was born in the year 43 before Christ,” said the boy. “The number of the shop of my father is forty-three.”

“Then why couldn’t you say so at first, my lad, and save all this parley?” said the bald-headed man sternly. “What’s in Number One, Harby?”

“A drunk and incapable, and a petty larceny.”

“Better put him in there for to-night.”

The boy was led into a room somewhat similar to that in which his clothes had been taken off. But this apartment seemed not only larger and more cheerless, but also very much darker. The only means by which daylight could get in was through a narrow window high up in the wall, and this was barred with iron. The few beams that were able to struggle through seemed merely to render everything malign and hideous. The boy, who from his first hour in the world had had an overpowering horror of the darkness, shuddered in every vein when he discovered that he was alone, and irrevocably committed to it for a nameless term. After the first trance of his terror had passed he was able to discern that a settle ran along the side of the wall. Hardly daring to move, he crept towards it. As he did so he stumbled over something. It was warm and soft. Something alive was lying on the floor. It was a shapeless mass. He could hear it breathing.

He sank on to the settle at the side of the wall. He was inert and stupefied. Great cold beads began to roll from his cheeks. He could see and comprehend nothing. Under the dominion of his terror he began to wish for death.

Quite suddenly a voice came out of the darkness.

“What ’ave they pinched you for, mate?” said a low growl in his ear.

He had not been conscious that any other living presence was in the dark room, except that nameless something which was lying on the floor. He was so startled that he gave a little shriek.

“Pipe up, cully,” said the low growl in his ear.

The boy’s teeth began to chatter furiously, but they emitted no sounds that were coherent.

“Off his onion!” growled the voice, together with a string of blood-curdling expressions, from which the boy was mercifully delivered comprehension.

Presently the voice growled out of the darkness again.

“Got a chew, cully?”

The faculty of speech was still denied to the boy.

Further blood-curdling expressions followed from the other occupant of the bench, who then relapsed into a morose silence.

The boy grew very cold. He trembled violently; yet his heart had almost seemed to stop beating. The darkness and the silence and the strangeness and the loneliness seemed to grow more intense. His mind would hardly submit to the question of what had happened to him. It refused to revert to his father and the little room. He felt that he was never going to see them again.

After a while he slipped from the bench involuntarily. He found himself on his knees on the cold stone floor. He clasped his hands and pressed his eyes convulsively against the piece of wood on which he had been sitting. He began to pray. There seemed to be nothing else to do.

Two hours later a police constable entered and lit a feeble gas-jet high up in the wall. It was protected by a cage of wire. He then gave a kick to the breathing, shapeless thing without a name, which lay in the middle of the stone floor.

With a leer of jocular malignity the occupant of the form pointed to the kneeling figure of the boy.

“Off his onion, mate,” he said, with a low growl and expectorating freely.

“Pity you ain’t,” said the police constable.

The occupant of the form spat upon the boots of the police constable.

The police constable approached the boy, and said, with a sort of rough kindness--

“You can have the _Christian Herald_, my lad, if you’d like it.”

The boy neither moved nor answered. He did not know that a word had been spoken to him.

“Told yer, cully,” came the rough growl from the form. “He’s up the pole.”

The police constable walked out of the cell with a greater show of delicacy than that with which he had entered it.

An hour afterwards he came in again carrying two basins of thick lukewarm gruel and a copy of the _Christian Herald_, two months out of date. He found the boy to be still on his knees in the precise attitude he was in when he entered before.

“Balmy!” growled the voice from the bench.

The police constable gave one basin of gruel to the speaker, and placed the other basin and the copy of the _Christian Herald_ at the far end of the form, well out of the reach of its occupant.

The police constable touched the boy on the shoulder gently.

“Don’t want to disturb you, my lad,” he said, “but your supper’s waiting for you when you want it. And I’ve brought you the _Christian Herald_ to cheer you up a bit.”

No sign came from the boy to suggest that he was conscious that he had been addressed.

The police constable walked out of the cell on tiptoe.

The occupant of the form devoured his basin of gruel ravenously. The sounds that he emitted in so doing were strongly reminiscent of the lower animals. He then rose and fetched the other basin of gruel from the end of the bench, together with the _Christian Herald_. He placed the _Christian Herald_ on the floor, and wiped his boots on it with an odd kind of gusto. He then proceeded to devour the second basin of gruel. Afterwards he placed his legs up on the bench, went to sleep and snored lustily.

VII

The boy had no recollection afterwards of what occurred during the long period which intervened between this hour and that remote one in which he saw again his father’s face. How long the darkness lasted and what happened in it he could not tell. He prayed continuously until his flesh ached and his mind grew frail. Yet in the midst of that which seemed to be without a limit, in the midst of an anguish that seemed to have no end, it was borne in upon him that the daylight had come back again.

Thereafter he had a vague knowledge of cold water, other rooms, other voices, more light, and more air. At last he came to understand that he was in the midst of a large place which contained many street-persons who looked very solemn and wore no hats. Far away in front of him he seemed to discern a high desk, at which was seated an elderly street-person with grey hair, a shining bald head and impressive manners. Seated on either side of him were a number of women in gay and beautiful clothes. There was also a number of those odd beings whom he had come to recognize as police constables. And then quite suddenly he saw his father’s face.

The pale, noble and serene countenance was looking up at him. It was pervaded by that secret and beautiful smile which the boy had seen so many times upon it. With a little convulsive shudder of recognition the boy started to run to his father, but as he made to do so he awoke to the discovery that he was enclosed in a kind of cage.

“My father, my father!” the boy called out.

“Keep quiet,” said a police constable beside him in a rough whisper.

The elderly grey-haired man at the high desk lifted up his head in a startled manner, and looked about him.

“Remove that man from the court,” he said.

He thrust out a finger straight at the boy’s father. With his heart beating faint and small, the boy watched his father vanish out of his ken. He passed out through a side door in the custody of two immense police constables.

“My husband, Lord Pomeroy,” said a woman who sat next to the elderly man with the grey hair and the impressive manners, “my husband, Lord Pomeroy, is much displeased that my purse has been stolen, and he would be here personally to express his displeasure had he not been commanded to Windsor unexpectedly.”

These words, very loudly spoken, seemed to provoke a kind of joyful flutter in the breasts of all present. Even in the breast of the boy it provoked a flutter, yet not perhaps of a similar kind. It was the sound of the loud and harsh voice itself which to him was of sinister omen. As in an agony of remembrance he felt what this voice denoted, the blood ran as water in his veins.

“I am sure, Lady Pomeroy,” said the man with grey hair in a most silken manner, “in your misfortune you are entitled to every sympathy from this court. May it trust that there was nothing of great value in your purse.”

“Oh dear, _dear_ no!” said the woman emotionally, “there was nothing _whatever_ in my purse, but I can’t _live_ without it.”

“Quite so, just so,” said the man with grey hair. “The court appreciates that perfectly. It feels you are entitled to every sympathy.”

“Pray what is the use of sympathy, my dear good man,” said the woman petulantly, “if it doesn’t restore my purse?”

“Precisely, dear Lady Pomeroy,” said the man with grey hair, “your concern for your purse is most natural.”

At this stage in the proceedings the man with grey hair gave a kind of benevolent signal to a sedulous-looking man, whose hair was very glossy, who sat immediately opposite to him, and who at this moment was engaged in sharpening a lead pencil.

“But, dear Lady Pomeroy,” said the man with grey hair, speaking very slowly and with his eye fixed on the man opposite, “sympathy is not necessarily barren, even if it is not fertile of visible result.”

Upon the utterance of these words, an extremely intellectual looking police constable, who was stationed in the centre of the crowded room, broke into a sudden and totally unexpected guffaw of laughter, which he turned into a cough with equal suddenness and great dexterity. His action incited the row of gaily dressed females to give vent to a little melodious cackle. These in turn seemed to incite the man who had been sharpening the lead pencil to write furiously. And all these portents having assured the man with grey hair that his memorable utterance had passed into history, he composed his features into a form of polite expostulation that words so trivial should have achieved that destiny.

Much passed between the woman with the loud voice and the man with the grey hair and the impressive manners. All, however, went unheeded by the boy; for during the whole of the time he stood clutching at the wooden rail by which he was surrounded, in order to save himself from measuring his length on the floor. To every other person in the court, however, the intercourse of the woman with the loud voice and the man with grey hair seemed to be fraught with a high significance.

Presently the constable who stood beside the boy gave him a sharp nudge.

“Now then,” he whispered truculently. “Pull yerself together. His washup is a-speaking to you.”

The boy was able to observe that the man with grey hair and impressive manners was wagging a short and fat forefinger in his direction. He also appeared to be speaking with a kind of stern deliberation, but the boy failed to appreciate a word that he said.

This homily, however, proceeded for some time; and in the course of it all present were much impressed. The man with grey hair and impressive manners concluded his discourse somewhat in this fashion: “Owing to the humane clemency which has been exhibited by Lady Pomeroy, a clemency, I may say, which is so familiar among all grades of society as to stand in need of no advertisement from this court”--(“Hear, hear,” in a suppressed but perfectly audible whisper from a voice at the back)--“there is no undue desire to press this charge. William Jordan, as this seems to be the first occasion on which you have appeared before this court, and as I am informed that no record of a previous conviction stands against your name, you will at the express desire of Lady Pomeroy”--(“Hear, hear,” from the voice at the back)--“be dealt with under the First Offenders Act. After entering into recognizances to come up for judgment if called upon, you will be discharged. It is deemed advisable, however, that you should have an interview with the police court missionary. In conclusion I hail this opportunity of tendering the most sincere thanks of the public to Lady Pomeroy”--(“Hear, hear,” from the back)--“for the public-spirited manner in which she has come forward to discharge a duty which must have been peculiarly distasteful to her.”

While the row of gaily dressed women rose wreathed in smiles, and formed a cordon round the man with grey hair and impressive manners, in order to shake hands with him, the boy was led into an adjoining room. In the next instant he was shuddering convulsively in the arms of his father.

A sad-looking man with cadaverous cheeks and sunken black eyes came up to them. With an odd kind of compunction he laid his hand on the boy’s sleeve.

“What is _he_ doing here?” he said.

The boy’s father enfolded the questioner in his secret and beautiful smile.

“You ask a question which admits of no answer,” he said.

At the sound of the voice of the boy’s father, the man with the cadaverous cheeks recoiled a step. His sallow face flushed a little. With the _naïveté_ of a child he peered into the eyes of the boy’s father.

“I think, sir,” he said, with a curiously humble gesture, “I think you are perfectly right.”

VIII

From that time forward and for many days the boy did not venture again out of the little room behind the shop. And at night he could not bear to be out of his father’s company, so that he never went to bed without him, but sat reading in the ancient authors, or staring into vacancy with his chin propped on his hands. On some evenings after the shutters of the shop had been put up at eight o’clock, and each had partaken of his frugal supper, his father would take down from the shelf on the wall the old and massive volume in which he read so diligently.

The boy had never sought to read in this volume, because although he had always viewed it with the greatest curiosity, and had even seen when it lay open for his father’s perusal, that its pages of vellum were covered in close and faded, and almost undecipherable writing in red ink, he had felt instinctively from his father’s manner in regard to it that the contents were only for his father’s eyes.

One night, however, long after the hour of midnight had chimed out from the clocks of the neighbouring churches, and his father had been reading in the old volume with a fidelity that seemed even greater than his wont, the boy could stifle his curiosity no more. This was owing to a strange incident that befell. Towards the dawn of the summer morning, his father, who had not allowed his eyes to stray from the book for many hours, rose from the table suddenly. There was an expression upon his face that the boy had never seen before.

His father went to the cupboard which was let into the wall, into which, owing to some occult reason that had never even shaped itself in his mind, the boy had never sought to peer. Therefrom he took a knife which was contained in a case that was very old and chased curiously, a chalice for the reception of ink, and a stylus.

Setting out these articles upon the table, his father took off his threadbare coat, and laid his right arm naked to the elbow. He then took the knife from the case and plunged it into the flesh. As the red blood spurted forth and dripped into the chalice, the boy gave an exclamation of horror and dismay.

“If you have not yet the power, Achilles, to withstand this spectacle,” said his father in that voice which never failed to calm his most instant fears, “pray turn your eyes away.”

Although the boy was on the verge of swooning, for such a sight bereft him of his strength, he continued to look at his father in sore distress.

After his father had allowed a quantity of blood to pass into the chalice, he swathed the wound in his arm in a linen band, opened a blank page in the book, and sat down before it, stylus in hand.

He dipped the pen in the red fluid; he poised it over the page. For a long time he maintained this attitude, yet not a mark of any kind did the fingers trace on the vellum. At last with a gesture of profound anguish, which filled the youthful witness with terror, he rose, and a kind of moan came from his lips.

“It is not to be!” he muttered.

The fire in the grate was still smouldering, and into this the boy’s father cast the contents of the chalice. Then with a religious care he cleansed each of the articles he had taken from the cupboard, and replaced them there.

“Is it that you cannot write in the book, my father?” asked the boy, whose lips were pale.

“Yes, beloved one, it is not yet given to me to write in the book,” said his father, with an expression of indescribable agony upon his face. “And yet my years are now beyond three score.”

“Is it that you have never written in the book, my father?” asked the boy in his consternation.

“I have never written in the book, Achilles,” said his father. “And I dare not measure the failures I have made.”

“Is it the book of the Fates, my father, in which every human person must write his destiny?” asked the boy.

“No, beloved one,” said his father. “It is not the book of the Fates. Only the bearers of our name can write in this book. And these have written in it for a thousand years past.”

“What is our name, my father?” said the boy. “I have been asked for it on several occasions by the persons in the streets.”

“Our name is William Jordan--yours and mine.”

“William Jordan, William Jordan,” repeated the boy softly. A look of strange disappointment crept into his face. “William Jordan!” he said, “William Jordan!”

“What’s in a name, beloved one?” said his father, with his secret and beautiful smile.

Under his father’s patient eyes the look of strange disappointment passed from the boy’s face.

“And each bearer of our name, my father, must write in this book?” said the boy.

“It is so decreed,” said his father. “And for a thousand years past each of our dynasty has done so, with the exception, Achilles, of you and me.”

The boy’s heart began to beat wildly.

“Then I, too, must write in it, my father?”

As he spoke the frail and gaunt form shook like gossamer.

“We can but fulfil our destiny, beloved one,” said the boy’s father. “And it is written that when a bearer of our name ceases to write in the Book of the Ages our dynasty is at an end.”

IX

One day the boy discovered that a small brown volume, the Phaedo of Plato, had disappeared from one of the shelves in the shop.

“I bartered it yesterday, beloved one, in exchange for seven shillings and sixpence in silver,” said his father in reply to his inquiries.