This, obviously, must have been a dream, hallucination only, as I was lying on my back and my eyes were directed towards the bottom of the bed, and the coverlet and blankets and sheet intervened between my eyes and my side. But in fever one sees without eyes, and in every direction, and through all obstructions.
Roused thoroughly by an excruciating twinge, I tried to cry out, and succeeded in throwing myself over on my right side, that which was in pain. At once I felt the thing withdrawn that was awling – if I may use the word – in between my ribs.
And now I saw, standing beside the bed, a figure that had its arm under the bedclothes, and was slowly removing it. The hand was leisurely drawn from under the coverings and rested on the eider-down coverlet, with the forefinger extended.
The figure was that of a man, in shabby clothes, with a sallow, mean face, a retreating forehead, with hair cut after the French fashion, and a moustache, dark. The jaws and chin were covered with a bristly growth, as if shaving had been neglected for a fortnight. The figure did not appear to be thoroughly solid, but to be of the consistency of curd, and the face was of the complexion of curd. As I looked at this object it withdrew, sliding backward in an odd sort of manner, and as though overweighted by the hand, which was the most substantial, indeed the only substantial portion of it. Though the figure retreated stooping, yet it was no longer huddled along by the finger, as if it had no material existence. If the same, it had acquired a consistency and a solidity which it did not possess before.
How it vanished I do not know, nor whither it went. The door opened, and Square came in.
"What!" he exclaimed with cheery voice; "influenza is it?"
"I don't know – I think it's that finger again."
IV
"Now, look here," said Square, "I'm not going to have that cuss at its pranks any more. Tell me all about it."
I was now so exhausted, so feeble, that I was not able to give a connected account of what had taken place, but Square put to me just a few pointed questions and elicited the main facts. He pieced them together in his own orderly mind, so as to form a connected whole. "There is a feature in the case," said he, "that strikes me as remarkable and important. At first – a finger only, then a hand, then a nebulous figure attached to the hand, without backbone, without consistency. Lastly, a complete form, with consistency and with backbone, but the latter in a gelatinous condition, and the entire figure overweighted by the hand, just as hand and figure were previously overweighted by the finger. Simultaneously with this compacting and consolidating of the figure, came your degeneration and loss of vital force and, in a word, of health. What you lose, that object acquires, and what it acquires, it gains by contact with you. That's clear enough, is it not?"
"I dare say. I don't know. I can't think."
"I suppose not; the faculty of thought is drained out of you. Very well, I must think for you, and I will. Force is force, and see if I can't deal with your visitant in such a way as will prove just as truly a moral dissuasive as that employed on the union men on strike in – never mind where it was. That's not to the point."
"Will you kindly give me some lime-juice?" I entreated.
I sipped the acid draught, but without relief. I listened to Square, but without hope. I wanted to be left alone. I was weary of my pain, weary of everything, even of life. It was a matter of indifference to me whether I recovered or slipped out of existence.
"It will be here again shortly," said the engineer. "As the French say, l'appetit vient en mangeant. It has been at you thrice, it won't be content without another peck. And if it does get another, I guess it will pretty well about finish you."
Mr. Square rubbed his chin, and then put his hands into his trouser pockets. That also was a trick acquired in the States, an inelegant one. His hands, when not actively occupied, went into his pockets, inevitably they gravitated thither. Ladies did not like Square; they said he was not a gentleman. But it was not that he said or did anything "off colour," only he spoke to them, looked at them, walked with them, always with his hands in his pockets. I have seen a lady turn her back on him deliberately because of this trick.
Standing now with his hands in his pockets, he studied my bed, and said contemptuously: "Old-fashioned and bad, fourposter. Oughtn't to be allowed, I guess; unwholesome all the way round."
I was not in a condition to dispute this. I like a fourposter with curtains at head and feet; not that I ever draw them, but it gives a sense of privacy that is wanting in one of your half-tester beds.
If there is a window at one's feet, one can lie in bed without the glare in one's eyes, and yet without darkening the room by drawing the blinds. There is much to be said for a fourposter, but this is not the place in which to say it.
Mr. Square pulled his hands out of his pockets and began fiddling with the electric point near the head of my bed, attached a wire, swept it in a semicircle along the floor, and then thrust the knob at the end into my hand in the bed.
"Keep your eye open," said he, "and your hand shut and covered. If that finger comes again tickling your ribs, try it with the point. I'll manage the switch, from behind the curtain."
Then he disappeared.
I was too indifferent in my misery to turn my head and observe where he was. I remained inert, with the knob in my hand, and my eyes closed, suffering and thinking of nothing but the shooting pains through my head and the aches in my loins and back and legs.
Some time probably elapsed before I felt the finger again at work at my ribs; it groped, but no longer bored. I now felt the entire hand, not a single finger, and the hand was substantial, cold, and clammy. I was aware, how, I know not, that if the finger-point reached the region of my heart, on the left side, the hand would, so to speak, sit down on it, with the cold palm over it, and that then immediately my heart would cease to beat, and it would be, as Square might express it, "gone coon" with me.
In self-preservation I brought up the knob of the electric wire against the hand – against one of the ringers, I think – and at once was aware of a rapping, squealing noise. I turned my head languidly, and saw the form, now more substantial than before, capering in an ecstasy of pain, endeavouring fruitlessly to withdraw its arm from under the bedclothes, and the hand from the electric point.
At the same moment Square stepped from behind the curtain, with a dry laugh, and said: "I thought we should fix him. He has the coil about him, and can't escape. Now let us drop to particulars. But I shan't let you off till I know all about you."
The last sentence was addressed, not to me, but to the apparition.
Thereupon he bade me take the point away from the hand of the figure – being – whatever it was, but to be ready with it at a moment's notice. He then proceeded to catechise my visitor, who moved restlessly within the circle of wire, but could not escape from it. It replied in a thin, squealing voice that sounded as if it came from a distance, and had a querulous tone in it. I do not pretend to give all that was said. I cannot recollect everything that passed. My memory was affected by my illness, as well as my body. Yet I prefer giving the scraps that I recollect to what Square told me he had heard.
"Yes – I was unsuccessful, always was. Nothing answered with me. The world was against me. Society was. I hate Society. I don't like work neither, never did. But I like agitating against what is established. I hate the Royal Family, the landed interest, the parsons, everything that is, except the people – that is, the unemployed. I always did. I couldn't get work as suited me. When I died they buried me in a cheap coffin, dirt cheap, and gave me a nasty grave, cheap, and a service rattled away cheap, and no monument. Didn't want none. Oh! there are lots of us. All discontented. Discontent! That's a passion, it is – it gets into the veins, it fills the brain, it occupies the heart; it's a sort of divine cancer that takes possession of the entire man, and makes him dissatisfied with everything, and hate everybody. But we must have our share of happiness at some time. We all crave for it in one way or other. Some think there's a future state of blessedness and so have hope, and look to attain to it, for hope is a cable and anchor that attaches to what is real. But when you have no hope of that sort, don't believe in any future state, you must look for happiness in life here. We didn't get it when we were alive, so we seek to procure it after we are dead. We can do it, if we can get out of our cheap and nasty coffins. But not till the greater part of us is mouldered away. If a finger or two remains, that can work its way up to the surface, those cheap deal coffins go to pieces quick enough. Then the only solid part of us left can pull the rest of us that has gone to nothing after it. Then we grope about after the living. The well-to-do if we can get at them – the honest working poor if we can't – we hate them too, because they are content and happy. If we reach any of these, and can touch them, then we can draw their vital force out of them into ourselves, and recuperate at their expense. That was about what I was going to do with you. Getting on famous. Nearly solidified into a new man; and given another chance in life. But I've missed it this time. Just like my luck. Miss everything. Always have, except misery and disappointment. Get plenty of that."
"What are you all?" asked Square. "Anarchists out of employ?"
"Some of us go by that name, some by other designations, but we are all one, and own allegiance to but one monarch – Sovereign discontent. We are bred to have a distaste for manual work; and we grow up loafers, grumbling at everything and quarrelling with Society that is around us and the Providence that is above us."
"And what do you call yourselves now?"
"Call ourselves? Nothing; we are the same, in another condition, that is all. Folk called us once Anarchists, Nihilists, Socialists, Levellers, now they call us the Influenza. The learned talk of microbes, and bacilli, and bacteria. Microbes, bacilli, and bacteria be blowed! We are the Influenza; we the social failures, the generally discontented, coming up out of our cheap and nasty graves in the form of physical disease. We are the Influenza."
"There you are, I guess!" exclaimed Square triumphantly. "Did I not say that all forces were correlated? If so, then all negations, deficiencies of force are one in their several manifestations. Talk of Divine discontent as a force impelling to progress! Rubbish, it is a paralysis of energy. It turns all it absorbs to acid, to envy, spite, gall. It inspires nothing, but rots the whole moral system. Here you have it – moral, social, political discontent in another form, nay aspect – that is all. What Anarchism is in the body Politic, that Influenza is in the body Physical. Do you see that?"
"Ye-e-s-e-s," I believe I answered, and dropped away into the land of dreams.
I recovered. What Square did with the Thing I know not, but believe that he reduced it again to its former negative and self-decomposing condition.
BLACK RAM
I do not know when I had spent a more pleasant evening, or had enjoyed a dinner more than that at Mr. Weatherwood's hospitable house. For one thing, the hostess knew how to keep her guests interested and in good-humour. The dinner was all that could be desired, and so were the wines. But what conduced above all to my pleasure was that at table I sat by Miss Fulton, a bright, intelligent girl, well read and entertaining. My wife had a cold, and had sent her excuses by me. Miss Fulton and I talked of this, that, and every thing. Towards the end of dinner she said: "I shall be obliged to run away so soon as the ladies leave the room to you and your cigarettes and gossip. It is rather mean, but Mrs. Weatherwood has been forewarned, and understands. To-morrow is our village feast at Marksleigh, and I have a host of things on my hand. I shall have to be up at seven, and I do object to cut a slice off my night's rest at both ends."
"Rather an unusual time of the year for a village feast," said I. "These things are generally got over in the summer."
"You see, our church is dedicated to St. Mark, and to-morrow is his festival, and it has been observed in one fashion or another in our parish from time immemorial. In your parts have they any notions about St. Mark's eve?"
"What sort of notions?"
"That if you sit in the church porch from midnight till the clock strikes one, you will see the apparitions pass before you of those destined to die within the year."
"I fancy our good people see themselves, and nothing but themselves, on every day and hour throughout the twelvemonth."
"Joking apart, have you any such superstition hanging on in your neighbourhood?"
"Not that I am aware of. That sort of thing belonged to the Golden Age that has passed away. Board schools have reduced us to that of lead."
"At Marksleigh the villagers believe in it, and recently their faith has received corroboration."
"How so?" I asked.
"Last year, in a fit of bravado, a young carpenter ventured to sit in the porch at the witching hour, and saw himself enter the church. He came home, looking as blank as a sheet, moped, lost flesh, and died nine months later."
"Of course he died, if he had made up his mind to do so."
"Yes – that is explicable. But how do you account for his having seen his double?"
"He had been drinking at the public-house. A good many people see double after that."
"It was not so. He was perfectly sober at the time."
"Then I give it up."
"Would you venture on a visit to a church porch on this night – St. Mark's eve?"
"Certainly I would, if well wrapped up, and I had my pipe."
"I bar the pipe," said Miss Fulton. "No apparition can stand tobacco smoke. But there is Lady Eastleigh rising. When you come to rejoin the ladies, I shall be gone."
I did not leave the house of the Weatherwoods till late. My dogcart was driven by my groom, Richard. The night was cold, or rather chilly, but I had my fur-lined overcoat, and did not mind that. The stars shone out of a frosty sky. All went smoothly enough till the road dipped into a valley, where a dense white fog hung over the river and the water-meadows. Anyone who has had much experience in driving at night is aware that in such a case the carriage lamps are worse than useless; they bewilder the horse and the driver. I cannot blame Dick if he ran his wheel over a heap of stones that upset the trap. We were both thrown out, and I fell on my head. I sang out: "Mind the cob, Dick; I am all right."
The boy at once mastered the horse. I did not rise immediately, for I had been somewhat jarred by the fall; when I did I found Dick engaged in mending a ruptured trace. One of the shafts was broken, and a carriage lamp had been shattered.
"Dick," said I, "there are a couple of steep hills to descend, and that is risky with a single shaft. I will lighten the dogcart by walking home, and do you take care at the hills."
"I think we can manage, sir."
"I should prefer to walk the rest of the way. I am rather shaken by my fall, and a good step out in the cool night will do more to put me to rights than anything else. When you get home, send up a message to your mistress that she is not to expect me at once. I shall arrive in due time, and she is not to be alarmed."
"It's a good trudge before you, sir. And I dare say we could get the shaft tied up at Fifewell."
"What – at this time of night? No, Dick, do as I say."
Accordingly the groom drove off, and I started on my walk. I was glad to get out of the clinging fog, when I reached higher ground. I looked back, and by the starlight saw the river bottom filled with the mist, lying apparently dense as snow.
After a swinging walk of a quarter of an hour I entered the outskirts of Fifewell, a village of some importance, with shops, the seat of the petty sessions, and with a small boot and shoe factory in it.
The street was deserted. Some bedroom windows were lighted, for our people have the habit of burning their paraffin lamps all night. Every door was shut, no one was stirring.
As I passed along the churchyard wall, the story of the young carpenter, told by Miss Fulton, recurred to me.
"By Jove!" thought I, "it is now close upon midnight, a rare opportunity for me to see the wonders of St. Mark's eve. I will go into the porch and rest there for a few minutes, and then I shall be able, when I meet that girl again, to tell her that I had done what she challenged me to do, without any idea that I would take her challenge up."
I turned in at the gate, and walked up the pathway. The headstones bore a somewhat ghostly look in the starlight. A cross of white stone, recently set up, I supposed, had almost the appearance of phosphorescence. The church windows were dark.
I seated myself in the roomy porch on a stone bench against the wall, and felt for my pipe. I am not sure that I contemplated smoking it then and there, partly because Miss Fulton had forbidden it, but also because I felt that it was not quite the right thing to do on consecrated ground. But it would be a satisfaction to finger it, and I might plug it, so as to be ready to light up so soon as I left the churchyard. To my vexation I found that I had lost it. The tobacco-pouch was there, and the matches. My pipe must have fallen out of my pocket when I was pitched from the trap. That pipe was a favourite of mine.
"What a howling nuisance," said I. "If I send Dick back over the road to-morrow morning, ten chances to one if he finds it, for to-morrow is market-day, and people will be passing early."
As I said this, the clock struck twelve.
I counted each stroke. I wore my fur-lined coat, and was not cold – in fact, I had been too warm walking in it. At the last stroke of twelve I noticed lines of very brilliant light appear about the door into the church. The door must have fitted well, as the light did no more than show about it, and did not gush forth at all the crevices. But from the keyhole shot a ray of intense brilliancy.
Whether the church windows were illumined I did not see – in fact, it did not occur to me to look, either then or later – but I am pretty certain that they were not, or the light streaming from them would have brought the gravestones into prominence. When you come to think of it, it was remarkable that the light of so dazzling a nature should shine through the crannies of the door, and that none should issue, as far as I could see, from the windows. At the time I did not give this a thought; my attention was otherwise taken up. For I saw distinctly Miss Venville, a very nice girl of my acquaintance, coming up the path with that swinging walk so characteristic of an English young lady.
How often it has happened to me, when I have been sitting in a public park or in the gardens of a Cursaal abroad, and some young girls have passed by, that I have said to my wife: "I bet you a bob those are English."
"Yes, of course," she has replied; "you can see that by their dress."
"I don't know anything about dress," I have said; "I judge by the walk."
Well, there was Miss Venville coming towards the porch.
"This is a joke," said I. "She is going to sit here on the look-out for ghosts, and if I stand up or speak she will be scared out of her wits. Hang it, I wish I had my pipe now; if I gave a whiff it would reveal the presence of a mortal, without alarming her. I think I shall whistle."
I had screwed up my lips to begin "Rocked in the cradle of the deep" – that is my great song I perform whenever there is a village concert, or I am asked out to dinner, and am entreated afterwards to sing – I say I had screwed up my lips to whistle, when I saw something that scared me so that I made no attempt at the melody.
The ray of light through the keyhole was shut off, and I saw standing in the porch before me the form of Mrs. Venville, the girl's mother, who had died two years before. The ray of white light arrested by her filled her as a lamp – was diffused as a mild glow from her.
"Halloo, mother, what brings you here?" asked the girl.
"Gwendoline, I have come to warn you back. You cannot enter; you have not got the key."
"The key, mother?"
"Yes, everyone who would pass within must have his or her own key."
"Well, where am I to get one?"
"It must be forged for you, Gwen. You are wholly unfit to enter. What good have you ever done to deserve it?"
"Why, mother, everyone knows I'm an awfully good sort."
"No one in here knows it. That is no qualification."
"And I always dressed in good taste."
"Nor is that."
"And I was splendid at lawn tennis."
Her mother shook her head.
"Look here, little mummy. I won a brooch at the archery match."
"That will not do, Gwendoline. What good have you ever done to anyone else beside yourself?"
The girl considered a minute, then laughed, and said: "I put into a raffle at a bazaar – no, it was a bran-pie for an orphanage – and I drew out a pair of braces. I had rare fun over those braces, I sold them to Captain Fitzakerly for half a crown, and that I gave to the charity."
"You went for what you could get, not what you could give."
Then the mother stepped on one side, and the ray shot directly at the girl. I saw that it had something of the quality of the X-ray. It was not arrested by her garments, or her flesh or muscles. It revealed in her breast, in her brain – penetrating her whole body – a hard, dark core.
"Black Ram, I bet," said I.
Now Black Ram is the local name for a substance found in our land, especially in the low ground that ought to be the most fertile, but is not so, on account of this material found in it.
The substance lies some two or three feet below the surface, and forms a crust of the consistency of cast iron. No plough can possibly be driven through it. No water can percolate athwart it, and consequently where it is, there the superincumbent soil is resolved into a quagmire. No tree can grow in it, for the moment the taproot touches the Black Ram the tree dies.
Of what Black Ram consists is more than I can say; the popular opinion is that it is a bastard manganese. Now I happen to own several fields accursed with the presence in them of Black Ram – fields that ought to be luxuriant meadows, but which, in consequence of its presence, are worth almost nothing at all.
"No, Gwen," said her mother, looking sorrowfully at her, "there is not a chance of your admission till you have got rid of the Black Ram that is in you."
"Sure," said I, as I slapped my knee, "I thought I knew the article, and now my opinion has been confirmed."
"How can I get rid of it?" asked the girl.
"Gwendoline, you will have to pass into little Polly Finch, and work it out of your system. She is dying of scarlet fever, and you must enter into her body, and so rid yourself in time of the Black Ram."
"Mother! – the Finches are common people."
"So much the better chance for you."
"And I am eighteen, Polly is about ten."
"You will have to become a little child if you would enter her."
"I don't like it. What is the alternative?"
"To remain without in the darkness till you come to a better mind. And now, Gwen, no time is to be lost; you must pass into Polly Finch's body before it grows cold."
"Well, then – here goes!"
Gwen Venville turned, and her mother accompanied her down the path. The girl moved reluctantly, and pouted. Passing out of the churchyard, both traversed the street and disappeared within a cottage, from the upper window of which light from behind a white blind was diffused.
I did not follow, I leaned back against the wall. I felt that my head was throbbing. I was a little afraid lest my fall had done more injury than I had at first anticipated. I put my hand to my head, and held it there for a moment.
Then it was as though a book were opened before me – the book of the life of Polly Finch – or rather of Gwendoline's soul in Polly Finch's body. It was but one page that I saw, and the figures in it were moving.
The girl was struggling under the burden of a heavy baby brother. She coaxed him, she sang to him, she played with him, talked to him, broke off bits of her bread and butter, given to her for breakfast, and made him eat them; she wiped his nose and eyes with her pocket-handkerchief, she tried to dance him in her arms. He was a fractious urchin, and most exacting, but her patience, her good-nature, never failed. The drops stood on her brow, and her limbs tottered under the weight, but her heart was strong, and her eyes shone with love.
I drew my hand from my head. It was burning. I put my hand to the cold stone bench to cool it, and then applied it once more to my brow.
Instantly it was as though another page were revealed. I saw Polly in her widowed father's cottage. She was now a grown girl; she was on her knees scrubbing the floor. A bell tinkled. Then she put down the soap and brush, turned down her sleeves, rose and went into the outer shop to serve a customer with half a pound of tea. That done, she was back again, and the scrubbing was renewed. Again a tinkle, and again she stood up and went into the shop to a child who desired to buy a pennyworth of lemon drops.
On her return, in came her little brother crying – he had cut his finger. Polly at once applied cobweb, and then stitched a rag about the wounded member.
"There, there, Tommy! don't cry any more. I have kissed the bad place, and it will soon be well."
"Poll! it hurts! it hurts!" sobbed the boy.
"Come to me," said his sister. She drew a low chair to the fireside, took Tommy on her lap, and began to tell him the story of Jack the Giant-killer.
I removed my hand, and the vision was gone.
I put my other hand to my head, and at once saw a further scene in the life-story of Polly.
She was now a middle-aged woman, and had a cottage of her own. She was despatching her children to school. They had bright, rosy faces, their hair was neatly combed, their pinafores were white as snow. One after another, before leaving, put up the cherry lips to kiss mammy; and when they were gone, for a moment she stood in the door looking after them, then sharply turned, brought out a basket, and emptied its contents on the table. There were little girls' stockings with "potatoes" in them to be darned, torn jackets to be mended, a little boy's trousers to be reseated, pocket-handkerchiefs to be hemmed. She laboured on with her needle the greater part of the day, then put away the garments, some finished, others to be finished, and going to the flour-bin took forth flour and began to knead dough, and then to roll it out to make pasties for her husband and the children.
"Poll!" called a voice from without; she ran to the door.
"Back, Joe! I have your dinner hot in the oven."
"I must say, Poll, you are the best of good wives, and there isn't a mother like you in the shire. My word! that was a lucky day when I chose you, and didn't take Mary Matters, who was setting her cap at me. See what a slattern she has turned out. Why, I do believe, Poll, if I'd took her she'd have drove me long ago to the public-house."
I saw the mother of Gwendoline standing by me and looking out on this scene, and I heard her say: "The Black Ram is run out, and the key is forged."
All had vanished. I thought now I might as well rise and continue my journey. But before I had left the bench I observed the rector of Fifewell sauntering up the path, with uncertain step, as he fumbled in his coat-tail pockets, and said: "Where the deuce is the key?"
The Reverend William Hexworthy was a man of good private means, and was just the sort of man that a bishop delights to honour. He was one who would never cause him an hour's anxiety; he was not the man to indulge in ecclesiastical vagaries. He flattered himself that he was strictly a via media man. He kept dogs, he was a good judge of horses, was fond of sport. He did not hunt, but he shot and fished. He was a favourite in Society, was of irreproachable conduct, and was a magistrate on the bench.
As the ray from the keyhole smote on him he seemed to be wholly dark, – made up of nothing but Black Ram. He came on slowly, as though not very sure of his way.
"Bless me! where can be the key?" he asked.
Then from out of the graves, and from over the wall of the churchyard, came rushing up a crowd of his dead parishioners, and blocked his way to the porch.
"Please, your reverence!" said one, "you did not visit me when I was dying."
"I sent you a bottle of my best port," said the parson.
"Ay, sir, and thank you for it. But that went into my stomick, and what I wanted was medicine for my soul. You never said a prayer by me. You never urged me to repentance for my bad life, and you let me go out of the world with all my sins about me."
"And I, sir," said another, thrusting himself before Mr. Hexworthy – "I was a young man, sir, going wild, and you never said a word to restrain me; never sent for me and gave me a bit of warning and advice which would have checked me. You just shrugged your shoulders and laughed, and said that a young chap like me must sow his wild oats."
"And we," shouted the rest – "we were never taught by you anything at all."
"Now this is really too bad," said the rector. "I preached twice every Sunday."
"Oh, yes – right enough that. But precious little good it did when nothing came out of your heart, and all out of your pocket – and that you did give us was copied in your library. Why, sir, not one of your sermons ever did anybody a farthing of good."
"We were your sheep," protested others, "and you let us wander where we would! You didn't seem to know yourself that there was a fold into which to draw us."
"And we," said others, "went off to chapel, and all the good we ever got was from the dissenting minister – never a mite from you."