Volume 1814
Georges Dodds'
The Ape-Man: his Kith and Kin
A collection of texts which prepared the advent of Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Presents
http://www.erbzine.com/mag18/caliban.htm
In the tropics Life is supreme, and the change of day to night only shifts the scene, but does not check the drama. Life stalks across the stage, the lion of the play, followed by his shadow, the lean, hungry jackal --- Death.The morning surged along the river valley like a tidal wave, and Paul Ruefold put out the lamp, as he could now see the African village on the opposite shore. The cluster of huts with a feather work of forest at their back, the large canoes with their jagged stems in air, stood out clearly, and the scattered barking and cackling showed that the village was awake, and that the work of the day had begun. His letters were finished, and were ready for the mail-bag. In a few hours the fussy frail steam barge would come down-stream and tether to the bank. It would make up its fuel from the pile of wood and dried pods; the stern- wheel would again butt it forward on its voyage to the ocean. When the mail had been flung aboard Europe would be out of reach for another term of three weeks. Paul had risen early to write the most important of his letters in the cool of the hour before the dawn. The work was done, but it had taken his thoughts far beyond the mission compound, and as he glanced at the mirror fixed to the wall, his sight travelled behind the lean gray face reflected there to a scene of five-and-twenty years earlier. He saw a town in far- off England, where the chimneys rose thick as the stems in a bamboo-brake. It was Sunday, and the pall of smoke had lifted from the valley and suffered the hill-side to show a faded green. Paul was a young man of four-and-twenty, and with him walked a girl of his own age. They were returning from their afternoon classes at the chapel school, and were standing opposite to a vacant plot of ground. Paul could see it distinctly --- the small square piece, cut like a notch out of a world of brick. A building had been demolished and the ground was rough and uneven, with here and there a tuft of grass, an old boot, and a fragment of crockery. Yet it was an enchanted spot to him, for there he drew the girl towards him and spoke to her of his fears and hopes. He did not like his father's trade, and had resolved to be a missionary. Would she be willing to leave the comfort of Laburnum Villa, the joy of the chapel services, and the excitement of weeknight meetings, for the wildness of the African desert or the loneliness of an island in the Pacific? She would do all that for the sake of Paul, and so the betrothal was sealed. He followed the story. He offered himself to one of the great societies, and was accepted on probation. The romance of the unknown dazzled him, and the dull round of a town of forges and chimneys repelled. Now and again a breath from the stainless snow of Alpine heights awoke in him a nobler emotion. He obtained an appointment in the district of an African river. Two societies, instead of competing, had combined their forces, and they gave the head settlement the name of Union Vineyard Station. Here Paul had remained for more than twenty years, and had risen to the position of director of the district. Fever had assailed him, but he gradual1y hardened to its assaults, and although it never failed to return like old temptations, its power lacked intensity. Men died like flies about him, and others, broken by the climate, were forced to escape for their lives. Yet he remained, the master of the situation, with all the threads in his hand, the most trusted agent of the Council. The girl in the midland town was never exposed to the risk of the climate, for his letters grew fewer, and at last ceased. Perhaps it was the best for her; but her resignation was not complete until she knew, without doubt, that Paul had lost his half-caste wife after two years of married life. For of course there was another woman in the case, and the strange sad face of his long-lost wife now held the mirror. She had visited the station on her way to France from the Romanist Mission higher up the river. Paul was beguiled at the sight of her, and married her before difficulties could be raised. She had accepted marriage as a refuge from the French convent which awaited her. There was a strange story about her origin, which Paul would have forgotten had it been possible. Many years ago a party of traders had pushed up a tributary stream which came from the far north to join the great river. They never returned, and it was reported that they had all been massacred. So far the story was common enough in African exploration. But the native account described their captors as men of large stature, with straight hair and light brown skin, entirely unlike the Bantu type. They were said to have been on raid from their own land, a cleared and elevated region cut off from the world by the vast tangled forest which no white man had penetrated. It was further stated in the native account that one person had been saved, the daughter of a white trader. Ten years later a child was brought to the doors of the Catholic Mission in a native canoe. The Sisters were amazed to see a half-caste girl about five years old. The boatmen stated that they had received the child at a village far up the northern stream. The bearers of the child through the forest said that she had been given to them by a woman of a different race, with instructions to take her down to the Catholic Mission hundreds of miles to the south, which, however, she described to them. The boatmen were promised a large reward if they brought back a piece of paper, written by the Sisters in their own language, as a proof that the child had been given over safe and sound. The Sisters found a stray word or two of French embedded in the unknown language of the child. There were traces of the Lord's Prayer, and of the names of Christ and of the Virgin Mother. The Sisters could not get any account of herself from the little one. The mention of "votre mŠre" kindled a flash of remembrance, but only set free a torrent of explanation in her own wild speech. So the Sisters set to work to teach her French and English, bade her forget the past, cleared her mind of the rubbish which was useless to them, and built upon the site the clean fabric of the Catholic faith. As she grew into womanhood her beauty startled them, and they thought it wise to send her away to France that her vocation might be determined by the authorities in the mother-country. She had learned the tradition of her birth from the children of the mission school, and the sharp little imps had not failed to tell her that she was neither black nor white, and worse than either. The Sisters had striven in vain to charm the sadness out of her heart with their caresses. She was quite docile, and yet secretly resisted the proposed journey across the black water. She knew that she belonged to Africa, and yet there was no kindred with whom she could claim fellowship. But the Sisters urged her to go, as they could not do any more for her, and knew not how to shape her future. They dreaded, most of all, the impudent stare of the white traders and officials, and yet were not prepared to give her the protection of their own garb.
At the end of two years Paul was alone again, for his half-caste wife died, and their only child, a girl, was taken in charge by the wives of his fellow missionaries. As the girl developed into the early maidenhood of a tropical country she was more with him, and for the last two years had acted as the mistress of his small household. She was now a woman, and it was about her future that his thoughts had been running in his letters to England. He had no anxiety in money matters, for he was not a poor man. He had saved a little from his salary; a legacy in England had come to him; and he was not guileless of private trading. He could provide for Christina sufficiently well, but there was more that the girl now required --- the company of other young people, the refinement of a life in Europe, which neither the books nor the culture which he had been at the pains to give her could supply. She was well-educated --- he had done most of the work himself; but she must go from him for a couple of years --- perhaps never to return. To do him justice he felt the wrench acutely, but did not waver in his purpose. He might go with her if he willed it, but he shrank from an England which had grown foreign to him. He had no interest beyond seas which the budget of news did not satisfy, and he preferred to remain at his work, the model missionary. What was the worth of that work? He gave a searching look round the room. It was the dwelling of a modern Englishman, and betwixt him and the native yawned an impassable gulf. They might live side by side for centuries, but their ideas, their racial distinction, would remain. On the wooden walls of the chamber were fixed trophies of native arms and coloured pictures from the London illustrated papers. Upon a shelf squatted the latest African god, resting on its way to the missionary museum, and the Gospel of St. Luke in some outland dialect was tossed just below it. A tapering spear with a poisoned barb and a large English sunshade stood together in one corner. On the floor were strewn rush mats, made in the next village, and a carpet from Yorkshire. The higher and the lower met, but would not mingle. To Paul himself the African was still a mystery, and it was only the last man fresh from the training college who could solve the problem in six weeks. On a ledge above his desk stood a row of small bottles. They were sedatives and narcotics; but each drug stood to Paul for a human life. The men who had come out full of fervour had their hopes and purposes throttled by the fever. If they escaped from its clutch, they solaced themselves with a favourite drug at their lonely outposts, until the friend who had soothed them became a foe, that dulled their powers and slew them. He gave the name of a missionary to each little glass, and when he had gone through the line, added a spirit bottle to the list of the destroyers.
In the range of the station there were many converts from heathenism, but nearly all of them were employed either directly or indirectly by the Mission, and paid from its funds. The native teachers, whom he had trained from youth, were the most intelligent, and proved to be evangelists after a fashion; but the distant converts abated little of their natural ferocity, and joined Christian observance with Pagan rite in a bewildering confusion. Paul remembered that the great missionary of the early Church carried the new Gospel to peoples of his own grade in culture, whose religion was falling to pieces about them, Through the rents of their ruined temples it was not difficult to point them to the stars. He consoled himself in failure by thinking that St. Paul would have moved, more slowly, races whose religion, rude as it seemed, was yet alive, and the devilry of whose worship touched the supernatural. A respect for the white man, and a faculty of imitation, enabled the black man to put on the clean garment of Christianity, but the skin beneath remained unchanged. Paul had looked into the black face for twenty years without finding an answer to the riddle. Through every night the forest had moaned and muttered, and in the deeper silence of the quiet air the rapids miles away had uttered a low cry of entreaty, as if the great dumb land was straining after articulate speech with which to guide its teachers. Paul admitted to his own heart that little real work had been done, but he wrote his report and made up the statistics.
His musing was interrupted by a light step in the doorway. It was followed by other quick steps which beat a rhythm on the floor. Someone was dancing behind his chair, and, lifting his eyes to the mirror, he saw a tall, slim girl in English dress, with a short stabbing, native spear in her hand. She was treading the steps of a war dance, her body swaying to the measure of a song unsung. She twirled the spear at intervals and pointed it with a threatening movement at the wall. Paul frowned at the picture in the glass, and then, turning in his chair, said to her, "Why do you disgrace yourself, Christina, by aping these wild customs? Can you find nothing better than that horrible tool with which to give me your morning's greeting?"
The girl stopped, put down the weapon, and was kneeling by her father in a minute.
"Dear dads, I am sorry, but I meant no harm indeed. I am just like the River Queen when they stoke her furnaces and don't start right away. I am obliged to blow off some steam." His face softened, and he stroked her head.
"Chris', my child, you are a woman, and not the little dancing girl who used to delight her father with her antics. But I shall call you the daughter of Herodias if you copy dances used to excite men to bloodshed. Where do you see such things?"
"Amongst the people at holiday times."
"Surely you do not attend, Christina; you are too much in the village --- there are sights and sounds --- why does not Mrs. Tartilt warn you as I asked her to do?"
"Why, father, I am the daughter of a missionary, and it is my duty to go amongst the people. Mrs. Tartilt says she was brought up in very different scenes, but having married a missionary she can't afford to be squeamish. The blacks are not like us. I have known them all my life, of course, and look upon them, poor things, as superior animals."
"Mrs. Tartilt is a superior animal!" exclaimed Paul. "You should not attempt any work beyond the compound. There will be an end to all this very soon. I want you to go on a visit to England in six weeks."
"Why should I go?" asked Christina, with eyes wide open. "I am quite contented to stay with you. I don't want to go there or anywhere else."
"Nor do I wish to lose you, my child; but you ought to see your own land. Besides, you should learn English ways and manners."
"I know all about them, father. Let me see, Charlotte Bront‰, Mrs. Gaskell, 'John Halifax,' Anthony Trollope, Mrs. Oliphant. I could discover secrets in haunted houses, make tea for the curate, and accept an offer quite prettily if I were lucky enough to have a suitor."
"You will never get an invitation to a country house, or a chance of being haunted by the curate, if someone does not take you in hand. Now I want to tell you about your relations, and the plan I propose."
"I did not know that we had relations --- at least, Mrs. Mungrass told me that my mother's country cousins grew tails; but certainly --- of course, you must have them in England."
"Really, Christina, it is high time to send you away from the silly gossip of the Mission Station," said Paul, flushing scarlet. "The twaddling scandal of an English town is forced into rank flower in this hot soil. I propose to send you to London for a few months; you will see new faces, make new friends, and wear new dresses."
"Mrs. Tartilt has all the latest patterns in her sixpenny paper, and cuts out splendidly," said the girl, in a whisper.
"Now listen," continued Paul, without taking notice of the interruption. "I have a brother in London, a little older than I am. His name is Marcus, and he has a chapel somewhere in the East-end. He is a good man, and you should go to him in any trouble; but I do not wish you to live with him. My cousin, Gregory Fallowfett, is a lawyer in large practice, and lives in the West of London. He has a clever wife and a daughter about your own age. I have written to Fallowfett; I think he will take you, and I have asked him to be my executor. If anything happened he would look after you, and all would be well."
"What is the matter, father?" exclaimed Christina, looking closely at him. "You are not feeling ill, are you? Your hands are cold, you are not looking well. Why do you work so much at night? It is most unhealthy. Are you very tired, or have you a touch of fever again?"
"Just a touch of fever, I fancy, dear Chris'; but I shall throw it off, as I have succeeded in doing a score of times before. Let us go into the other room and have our breakfast."
The tough traveller made light of the attack; he would go out, shake himself, and so be free from his bondage. This time, however, the fever proved stubborn; the usual remedies failed, and a common complication set in. A week later Christina had kissed his cold cheek, and he had been carried to the small graveyard, thickly sown with crosses, on the neighbouring hill.
Grief is not the offspring of the accidents of life. She is only the guest of a day, and has to make room for the interests which throng the highway of the years. She makes a home amidst the wastes and ruins of existence.As the steamer made its way down the river, Mrs. Tartilt tried to comfort Christina by calling attention to the shortcoming of the mourning garments which she had hastily put together for the bereaved girl. "Black stuff, and plenty of it, we keep at the Mission, for, 'in the midst of life we are in death,' in Africa especially," she explained. "Don't let your fine friends laugh at us, but get two or three new frocks before you show yourself."
Christina murmured her indifference to the subject.
"You are indeed a lucky girl to be going to England, although I am sorry for your loss. Once I was afraid you would marry a young missionary and settle out here; but that danger is past."
"Why should I not marry a missionary?" asked Christina, a little roused. "You married one yourself, and I am the daughter of one."
"It is a poor life, without honour or reward. Some of our children go to the graveyard, and others to Europe." She hesitated, for the girl looked serious. "I know that the Gospel must be preached to all the world, but it is hard for those who have to do it. The good people at home, who give to the collections, grumble at us for not making progress," she continued. "It is easy enough to give the guinea a year, but there is no reward for the sacrifice we have to make. A missionary is always a missionary, and when he returns to England nobody wants him."
"You always appeared comfortable, Mrs. Tartilt."
"The place is tolerable," replied her companion, "and would be better if the Church of England mission families were more friendly, and the mail to England were quicker. I shall be glad enough to bid good-bye to it. Men do not suffer the trouble and inconvenience we have to endure. Coloured girls are cheap, but lazy and dirty. You could not expect a woman, born and bred in Islington, to take kindly to Africa. My hope is that my body may rest at Finchley, in my mother's
grave."
"My hope is to come back," said Christina warmly. "I belong to Africa and love her."
"Of course, my dear, I quite forgot, you are not altogether of English blood. Be careful, Christina, to keep secret that story about your mother."
"Why should I?" asked the girl, lifting her head proudly. "I am not ashamed of my mother nor of her birth. If I have some warm African blood in my veins, I am the better for it."
"That would not matter at all," replied the other. "It is not that, it is ---" and she stopped.
"That my grandfather was a light-coloured native of Africa."
"You have never been told, I see," said Mrs. Tartilt. "I hardly like to tell you myself, but you are leaving the country and, perhaps, ought to know. You might hear it accidentally away there. The story is --- I don't vouch for it --- that your mother's father cannot be called a human being."
"Is that all?" retorted Christina, with a little pout of scorn. "I have heard that over and over again. Father would hardly grant souls to some heathen tribes; he called them worse than brutes."
"Well, my dear, you can make as light of it as you like, the lighter the better, but there is a race somewhere beyond the forest who are not reckoned to belong to the human family. They are intelligent, these people, and in some respects the same as other men. That is the story told by both the Arabs and the natives. The Arabs say that once they were men, but for their wicked conduct Allah degraded them to the brute level and refused them souls. The natives pretend that they were apes who, in the course of generations, grew into men, but that they lost their way, and now are neither white nor black, man nor beast."
"A likely story to tell, Mrs. Tartilt. If there were any truth in it some traveller would have told us long ago."
"Don't look at me so angrily, Christina. I have only repeated the story as it is given round the station. No white man has ever seen them, or returned to tell the tale; they live quite off the trade routes, and there is nothing but curiosity which would tempt an explorer to look them up. You are not cross with me for repeating the rumour?"
But Christina felt hot and offended. "I knew there was a mystery," she replied, "and that I had some native blood in my veins --- I can feel it; but to believe this absurd story ---"
"My dear girl, don't believe it; put it out of your mind. Believe me, however, when I tell you that your appearance contradicts the idea of your being a quadroon. Whatever may be your ancestry, your mother's father was not of the negro type."
"How do I look?" asked Christina, turning a full face to her critic.
"Exactly like any other English girl when you are speaking," said Mrs. Tartilt; "but when your face is at rest, and you are lost in thought --- well, you are just a little uncanny. I can't describe it in any other way, Christina."
At last the steamer reached the river's mouth, and unloaded at the wooden pier that belonged to the factory. There were several warehouses --- one or two buildings flying different flags where the consuls lived or died --- and a long, low wooden house which carried the name of "Hotel." Under the verandah, which projected far in front, two or three men were sitting at a table, drinking and playing cards. Somewhere at the back there was a native town, but it was out of sight; and the only sound, besides a burst of laughter or an altercation, came from the beach a few hundred yards distant. The sharp thud of a wave, followed by the slow dreary noise of its backward sweep, told of the smashing into surf of the long ocean rollers. Looking seaward, the white water was crossing and breaking upon the shoals beyond the river mouth, and further out on the peaceful blue a great steamer rested, surrounded by native boats. As Mrs. Tartilt and Christina walked past the verandah and entered the hotel, the group of card-players gave them an uncompromising stare. In the room on the ground floor, where they rested, a lattice only divided them from the party outside. The men had interrupted their game to refill their glasses, and whilst the black waiter was going to and fro with their orders they were talking.
"Nice slim slip that; I suppose the dowdy old girl with her belongs to a Mission. Where do they come from?"
"Don't know --- up river somewhere. The she-missionary always makes paint and feathers look fashionable by contrast. I can't think what rag fair supplies them. You were telling me about your latest catch?"
"Oh, I'm always on the move: an agent for entertainments is bound to be spry. Well, you know the 'Happy Valley' in the West of London --- don't you, though; it's a sort of superior music-hall, and the upper classes go there pretty thick. Halecroft, the manager, is a friend of mine, and he says to me, 'Bullock Sopp, I want a new sensation. None of your two-headed curiosities,' he says, 'but something quite fresh. You must throw us in this time a bit of science or history. I want to rouse a discussion --- a row amongst the doctors, and such like. They must quarrel over it in the papers, and then it will draw.' I thought I could find him a new medium or spiritualist, but I could not pick up a good specimen. Then, in the very nick, a correspondent over here wrote me about a brownie who was caught young and brought up by the mission fellows. He has chucked over the parsons, got on the spree, and is going fast back to his own particular devil. He can be got cheap, and, if he can be kept sober for six months, there's money in him."
"What do you call him?"
"Let me see; here it is --- Forest Bokrie. The Dutch sold him to the mission, and they gave him his outlandish name," replied Bullock Sopp.
"Where do your science and history come in?" asked his friend.
"I forgot to tell you. The doctors, who have seen him, say that he is a bit unfinished; not got comfortably through his evolution. You see 'Discovery of the Missing Link: the Ape Man,' that will pay for posters."
"I have heard something about it," said his friend, who was a local trader, "but I don't follow out your plan quite clearly."
"You don't know the business; it can be worked up first rate. Introduce the man in European dress --- short speech, a recitation in English. Next scene, a reversion to the primitive type --- that's the phrase. Stage darkened, a forest scene, enter an ape creature which lodges in trees, and swings from bough to bough. A lecturer will give an account of its development; plenty of Darwin. Then private interviews with the doctors; they will dispute over a bone or a slope of the skull. Clergy will thunder at us, and doctors will join to fight the parsons. All this will do us good, and the turnstiles will merrily groan. I see my way distinctly."
"I daresay you do. Ta, ta; look me up on your way back; I must make up my mail."
"Be quick, Christina, the boat will be ready directly and I am sure you have had enough of this place," put in Mrs. Tartilt at this point. "God bless you, my child; you will forgive me for not seeing you on board. I do not mind going out, but I dread coming back through the surf on the top of a wave."
She --- Listen, not to the bells of cows and goats, which make a tinkling about these high pastures, but to the babbling of waterfalls in the chasms of the glacier, and to the echoing roll of ice which breaks away into the abyss. Look at those miles of snow which reach upward to the blue, hard as granite, yet as sensitive to colour change as a girl's cheek. Do not the sight and sound win you to a faith in a beautiful intelligence?The sunlight was struggling into the dining-room of a large house in a London square. It was the late autumn sunlight, chastened by mist, and had the diffused softness of an illuminated transparency. From the window a few white trees could be seen fading off into uncertain outlines. London had now her foot on the demon of noise, and from the smooth roads the muffled sound of traffic came with the softness of the mist. There was breakfast on the table, and the mistress of the house, Mrs. Fallowfett, was filling the cups. Before the fire, in a lounge-chair, sat Gregory Fallowfett, her husband, reading his letters. There was another seat placed for a member of the family who had not yet joined them. When the servant left the room Gregory pushed a letter across the table.He --- How should they touch me? A block of ice on the slab of a fishmonger's shop wastes by the same law, and has the same sympathy with colour. I do not submit to be bullied by the accident of size. The true wonder is in the capacity we bring to its enjoyment. Your imagination gives you wings, but probably the goat with her pert stare, and the cow with her soft melancholy observation, reach all the essential meaning of the scene.
"You will see that the girl will be here in a few days. I must go to Plymouth, I suppose."
"Must we really have her here?" said his wife, in reply. "Let her own people --- Marcus Ruefold, her uncle --- take her in. We can ask the girl for a visit, and can please ourselves about the length of it. If she is nice, I am sure I shall be glad to keep her for a time."
"What do you mean by nice?" asked her husband, and he picked up the letter and began reading it again. "She is a well-taught girl, and understands English manners; poor Ruefold took care of that. It was his ambition to do well for his daughter. He told me in a former letter that she was a comely lass; what more do you want?"
"We can dispense with her good looks if she does not bring any of the customs of the bush into a London drawing-room," said Mrs. Fallowfett.
"She will want all her good looks, poor child," remarked her husband.
"I hope that Vesper will take to her or it will be awkward," said Mrs. Fallowfett.
"Vesper will surely be glad of a companion. We have spoiled her, it is true. An only child is bound to be spoilt, but she is not selfish."
"Really you are as dense as the fog is this morning, Gregory. Cannot you understand that a marriageable girl does not want a good-looking friend to follow her everywhere? What advantage is there to us in bothering about this child? She is neither penniless nor friendless; if she were, I can always borrow votes for an asylum."
"You must not treat everything in life as a matter of profit and loss," returned her husband. "Ruefold was my cousin. My own mother was sister to his father. I did not care much for the man, but his death in the wilderness touched me. The only child, a girl, the same age as Vesper --- an orphan. I may be a man of the world, but I cannot harden my heart against natural emotion."
"So you will do a foolish act in order to gratify a passing spasm of feeling," said his wife. "You will be home in time for my 'evening,' I suppose. Do not forget that I have asked Sir Bathcourt Blizzard specially for you."
"What is that for?"
"He is on the other side in your big case, you said; and as he can be very disagreeable to his opponents, I thought that I might get him into a pleasant mood for you."
"How can you be so childish, Isabel, to imagine such a scheme?"
"Then the Bishop of Mercia will be here, and is anxious to know your opinion --- without fee, of course; but that is fair enough --- on the late judgment in the case of ----"
"That is enough; I will go to Plymouth, certainly."
"Yet you think I am a selfish woman when I am constantly contriving something for the good of my family."
"You ask your bishop whether you will not get a reward in his future world if you do a kind act to an orphan girl," said Gregory.
"You know quite well that I do not profess to be a religious woman --- not yet, at least, until Vesper is married, and you have got your judgeship."
"Then why ask your bishop to come here?"
"Because he is a person of position and may be of use to us. Besides, a certain respect for religion is a necessary example to servants and others. I go to church because it is seemly for your wife to do so."
"Two thousand years ago you would have worshipped the gods of the household for the same reason."
"Perhaps I should; human nature is not changed much, I should say. We must make the most of the life we live in and settle with the other life when we enter it, if we ever do."
"That is sound philosophy for a man, and I hold it as a working theory; but you women are not consistent. All of you have a secret superstition hiding round the corner. It is a survival from the ancient time of woman's subjection, when she had to 'call in a new world to redress the balance of the old.'"
"Well, I cannot be wrong in caring for the present interests of my husband and daughter," persisted Mrs. Fallowfett.
"I ought to agree to that; but we will suppose that Vesper is married and I have got my judgeship, what then? By the way, I am inclined to think that my judgeship will cost me a good slice of income. Never mind. I have lost bloom, and am too stale for the Bar, we will assume. Having hoisted me up to the Bench, what then?"
"We shall not have exhausted the interest of life even then," suggested Mrs. Fallowfett.
"Yes we shall. Like the bears at the Gardens, we shall have climbed the pole notch by notch, and at the top, with open mouth, we shall be describing languid circles in the empty air in the hope of getting something more. You will then go in for celestial buns --- I know your habit of mind --- and will reproach me for my sordid and earthly taste."
The door opened and a young girl entered with a soft and tired. step. She was certainly a pretty girl, but a little faded in her youth, and was precise and restrained even in her morning greeting to her parents. Her father touched her cheek and turned to his paper as if he were disturbed, but wished to conceal the fact. Her mother handed her the breakfast, and then asked about her night's rest. She had slept fairly well, after three o'clock. She was rather tired, but would feel better as the day advanced. Mathers took so long with her work overnight; the maid was sleepy and stupid. Yes, and the dance was a slow one; there was nobody for whom one cared. "No," with a faint blush and a quick glance at her mother, "Mr. Vincent Gracebroke was not there."
"What are you about to-day and to-morrow, Vesper?" asked her father, still looking at his papers with apparent unconcern.
"Too much, too long," he remarked, when his daughter had run through the list of her engagements by day and night. "You will lose your health and your spirits. You are working harder
than a boy would do in chambers --- for what good? You do not even enjoy the life."
"She must be seen where other people go," put in her mother.
"She will be seen where other people go --- in the coffin, if we do not mind," retorted Gregory. "Drop some of these engagements, my girl, and take Christina about town on a country cousin round."
Then he told her of the approaching arrival of their visitor at Plymouth. Vesper promised graciously to do all in her power to make London enjoyable to the cousin from Africa, and then protested against the idea that she was suffering in health. "Mamma is quite right, I am not really hurt by it; and one must follow others and be seen at the usual places. It is not all pleasure, I know; but if you do not pursue it like a profession you fall out of line, as barristers would do if they went away in term time."
At the same moment a young man was engaged at his breakfast in his rooms, overlooking a broad gravelled space. On the left, the chapel of his Inn was emerging from the sea of mist, and on the right hand an enclosure of trees and grass recalled the green meadows far away. The quadrangle was quiet enough, but on the other side of the buildings London roared along the busy street, beat against the ancient gateway, and scoured beneath the prim old windows. Vincent Gracebroke opened his letters, read them carelessly, but lingered over one which contained a card of invitation. Mrs. Gregory Fallowfett was "at home" on a certain evening, that was all. He looked at it twice, lighted his pipe, and fell into thought. He had his life before him; he was not yet five-and-twenty; fortune had favoured him; he was healthy, well-made, well-off. He had fair ability, a taste for work, and no responsibility to hamper him. No great passion had ruffled the surface of his mind or disturbed his appetite. He did not care for excess, and this had, so far, kept him virtuous. He had a theory of life, and he wanted to keep in sight of it. He could afford to take things easily for a few years, as he started with advantages which many did not possess. But he intended to play his part, to belong to the decent half of society, and to build higher on the platform from which he had started. It came home to him that he was failing to form those habits which are necessary to success. He was considering whether it would not be wise to cut off the music-hall and to cultivate the society of the best men in his own profession. It would be an easier task if he could arrange to enter the family of one of those men. He was not a conceited fellow, but he thought that Vesper Fallowfett might listen to him. He was not in any hurry, but saw that this invitation would give him the opportunity he required, and that continued delay might open the door to a rival. The confidence of youth in its capacity to do all that it proposes is the outcome of a good circulation, but contentment is nevertheless its product.
Meanwhile Gregory Fallowfett had fulfilled his intention to meet Christina at Plymouth. Mrs. Fallowfett treated her with an effusive kindness, but Christina felt by instinct that there was nothing real beneath the veil of words. The girl possessed that animal faculty of distinguishing the true friend from the false. Vesper treated her at first with a polite curiosity, but after a few days she relented towards one whose age and position were so close to her own. Vesper had imagination enough to put herself in the place of the stranger; and imagination, united to a natural goodness not yet spoiled, begot sympathy.
Our flying fancies are light and frolicsome as the winds, but love is sad and solemn, heaving with the long sweep of the grave ocean.Christina watched the guests at the Fallowfetts' with close attention. She could see that both the hosts and the guests were playing a part, and yet they lent themselves readily to the play, The interchange of superficial courtesies, the collision of ideas, the lights, the music, produced at length an excitement which was pleasurable, like in kind, but less in degree, to the African dance, which, beginning with measured paces, rises to a frenzy with the beating of the drums, the clapping of hands, and the nervous infection caught from a common movement. The music and singing charmed her, although there was a certain unreality about the finest efforts, With the recitation she was not satisfied, for she remembered black orators who had addressed the reverent circle of their tribe with a power and earnestness which the hired speaker of the evening did not approach. She pitied the performers, and imagined that they must feel hurt because the interest of the audience in them ceased with their performance. She made a timid advance of recognition to them, but her offers were rewarded with a blank stare. Evidently they looked upon her as a governess or poor relation, whose attention to them did not carry a compliment. There were also the Bishop of Mercia and the great advocate, Sir Bathcourt Blizzard, to be seen. She made a pardonable mistake in confusing these great men, as, unlearned in clerical dress, she did not observe the distinction between them. The bishop was tall and spare in figure, with an eager, dark face, and restless manner. His business ability had lifted him to the throne, and, out of earshot, his energy in conversation more betokened the restlessness of the Courts of Law than the calm atmosphere of the Episcopal Palace. On the other hand, Sir Bathcourt Blizzard was venerable in appearance. Portly in figure, he had a gentle, benevolent expression. The grey hair and precision in speech added to the ecclesiastical illusion. In the course of argument he lifted his hand and extended his fingers as if in the act of pronouncing a blessing upon his opponent, but the conversation reached Christina in a fragment or two, and she found that it concerned the merits of particular racehorses. Vesper introduced her cousin to the bishop, and then passed on to the neighbourhood of Mr. Gracebroke, placing herself within the reach of his observation, but apparently engrossed with the greeting of other friends. When he detached himself and spoke to her she received him with well-bred surprise --- as if his presence had just become known to her.
The bishop became interested in the story which Christina told him of her life in Africa. The condescending tone which he had at first adopted towards the uncovenanted service in mission work melted under the artless words in which the girl related the struggle with paganism and fever in that lonely corner of the world. He forgot the steps of rank, the shading of theology in his own land. His grasp upon the pastoral staff relaxed, and for a brief minute he threw himself into the fight, shoulder to shoulder with the other white men who were forcing the line of European morals and faith a foot forward upon the Black Continent. He was sound enough to feel the joy of mastery in the old football field rising into the heroism of the Christian athlete. He was almost ashamed of himself for the momentary illusion, when Mrs. Fallowfett broke the charm and led him away from the slip of a girl who had woven the spell about him, but he muttered to himself an apology, "out of the mouth of babes and sucklings."
Sir Bathcourt Blizzard's quick observation had already marked Christina, and he took the place of the bishop by her side. Nothing escaped the attention of that able cross-examiner, whose experience in common law was unsurpassed. He saw that there was something worthy of remark in this young girl, and to him the lowliest individual might offer points of interest. Not with the voice of the storm, which could sweep the court and shake the bench, but with those soft and melodious notes with which he drew, as by a charm, information from the most coy witness, he obtained from Christina in a short time all the facts of her life. More than that, he realised that there was a mystery behind the facts which could not be solved by ordinary legal process, but which made the recital almost romantic. He spoke a few fatherly words to her in parting, and remembered her later on. To the girl, the most pleasant companion of the evening proved to be a fuming little man who was fretting about from one frivolous group to another in the hope of catching on to a favourite topic. With the intention of keeping him quiet and contented for a short time, the host brought him to Christina, and asked her to give Professor Racer some facts about Africa.
"Where am I to begin?" asked Christina, with a smile.
"At the very beginning, my dear young lady; when you woke into existence. I mean, when you began to take notice, how did the world shape itself to you?"
Christina paused for a reply, and then said, "You have put a hard question. The earliest memories come to us only now and then, like faint clouds which melt and reappear. It is not easy to think amidst this talking and noise. Do you mind following me into the conservatory?"
"I shall be delighted," replied the professor, and he went after her through the crowded rooms, conscious of the polite surprise about them, and secretly amused.
"Here, surrounded with palms and flowers, we can let our thoughts escape from the fog of London," he added, as they found a retired corner.
"The first thing I can recall is the shining black face of my old nurse. I can feel myself rocked in her arms again as she sang me to sleep with a chant of her own village. She only turned Christian for the time she was hired, and went back to her Pagan ways afterwards. Nevertheless, she was sweet and good to me, and I cannot help loving her under any faith. Then I remember a ride in a canoe with my dear father, in a head wind, and the joy of rising and falling on the waves. Then, oh then --- I can hardly choose for you --- memories come thick and fast. White people who arrived at the station and did not stay for long; or who stayed and disappeared, and the chapel bell tolled for them. Learning my lessons on a stool at my father's feet, growing higher, sitting by him at the table, and saying grace at meals. Growing taller still, learning how to keep house, to teach the piccaninnies at the schools, to copy reports, make schedules, and so on; until father died like the others. It is not a happy place for the English, and if I had to live for a long while, I think I would rather be an African out and out, Professor Racer. They are friendly to the climate, and they spend their days and end their lives just like happy brutes." The girl had tears in her eyes as well as in her voice, and her questioner kept silent for a while. He was a man of unrest, and behind the quick, nervous action which seemed to the surface observer to show a superficial mind there lay a reserve of thought and emotion. He was the recipient of the crude doubt and struggling faith of many a youth. Although he smiled at their difficulties, the ghosts of his own doubts were continually reappearing in their questions and misgivings. He struggled for certainty, he must grasp certainty, and had given up first Christianity and then religion, only at times to swing back in a worry of doubt as to his own material opinion. The phrase which Christina had used arrested his attention. "Happy brutes" fitted exactly, and if the growth of knowledge and the widening area of experience made the brutes unhappy, that was a detail which did not touch the argument.
"You did not see any trace of soul --- spirit --- in the African, Miss Ruefold? Take them as a whole, dare you put them higher in the scale than intelligent animals? Endow a dog with speech, give him ten thousand years of experience, teach him to dance upon his hind legs, to use his fore paws in handling his food and begging for more, and there you have a good imitation of your black man. Every thought, word, and action of this animal would depend upon the suggestion of circumstance. Is it not so in the case of your African? The dark forest is full of strange sounds at night, and he peoples it with gods many. The wind sweeps over the open land, the sky quivers with lightning, and the upper world receives its share of deities. The missionary comes with his science of Europe and his creed of Jesus Christ. Under the touch of the white man the African believes and is baptised. The white man dies, and when his black convert is left alone in the bush, nature again asserts its lordship. I beg your pardon, I am afraid I have offended you."
Christina had flushed painfully, for she felt the force of the criticism upon her father's calling, and resented it.
"Look about you, professor, if you please. Do you not see in England that people are as much guided by circumstances as in Africa? I am sure that we are all acting a part, and have not even the satisfaction of pulling our own strings."
"Better and better, my dear Miss Ruefold," exclaimed the professor, laughing outright. "You have reached the conclusion before me, and I am chasing you out of breath. We are only automata, even the best of us. The doll which I tortured in early youth to plague my little sister was a simpering composition which shut its eyes when tilted. The doll which you discarded a few years ago probably walked and talked, and perhaps could be wound up to sing a snatch of a song. There you have the difference between Europe and Africa. So with our religions. They rise in rank with our rise, and in order to spare ourselves the supposed degradation of being like dumb, driven cattle, we idealise the forces which make and mar our lives. I am afraid I have said too much for your peace of mind, but you must give me credit for good intention. I am not one of those men who insult women by conceding to them the right to an unlimited illusion. Nothing is to be gained by leaving them in undisturbed possession of their emotional creeds. Better that a girl sufficiently old to think for herself should enter upon a right path of thought early in life than she should have to surrender her convictions, hardened by habit, later on, with unspeakable pain to herself, and often with damage to her character. That is the view I should take if I had daughters of my own. I am not so fortunate; I have not been married."
"Africans have souls to be saved --- at least, that is, most of them. They do say, I have heard, that there is a people of the kind you describe. They told me something about them --- men with fine bodies, but without souls. They live far away to the north, beyond our station; no one has ever returned who visited them except ---" She bit her lips in shame, for the story of her own mother had almost escaped her.
"The bourne from which no traveller returns," he said lightly, desiring to relieve her from embarrassment. "It is probably only a romance, Miss Ruefold, but it is a curious little bit of superstition. That reminds me of a paragraph I have just read in one of the society papers about the discovery of the missing link. He is expected to arrive in England in the course of a few weeks. My scientific interest was dashed by finding that he was to be exhibited at a place of entertainment called the 'Happy Valley.' The paragraph went on to speak of the great expense and difficulty involved in his education and importation, so that I am afraid the whole thing is a fraud. You cannot have heard anything of it?"
Now Christina remembered the conversation of which she had been an unwilling hearer before she embarked, but she did not like to mention it to a stranger. It was clear to her quick wits that she was expected to know nothing of the "Happy Valley." She was, however, saved from the necessity of a reply by the intrusion of two other persons upon her who had been standing for some time on the other side of the shrubs.
"Christina, we had lost you; I have been quite concerned!" exclaimed Vesper, whose eyes were brighter than usual. "Let me introduce you to another friend --- Mr. Vincent Gracebroke, Miss Ruefold. Will you take me back, Professor Racer, and find me some refreshment?"
"I hope you found the professor a pleasant companion," Vincent began, as they followed into the house.
"You know him, I see," she remarked.
"Yes, we were at Cambridge together --- that is he was a coach in those days --- he is a lot older than I am; now he has a professorship. He can talk well when he pulls up in time and does not bore. He never snubbed us as the tutors and other officials were apt to do. I suppose we deserved the snubbings, but it is pleasant to air your own opinions."
"You often changed your opinions, did you not?" suggested Christina, as she was expected to say something.
"Frequently. In fact, you really don't understand your own views until you have put them plainly to somebody else. That is the advantage of freedom of expression; you get a chance of changing your opinions before it is too late."
"When is it too late?" inquired the girl.
"You can make a change when you like --- I mean, when you find it necessary."
"Not always," said Vincent. "A fellow gets stuck up about himself, then falls into the hands of a clique, his opinions are run into their mould, and cooled down to cast-iron, He defends them through fair and foul because they are the views of his set."
"I should have thought that a sensible man would decline to be the slave of his own opinions," said Christina, with a smile.
"Exactly, and that was the value of Racer to us. He formed a society for discussion, and called it the 'Grass-green Club.' We went in for first principles and reorganised society and the universe. I believed that we were saved by our wild talk from much loose thinking afterwards."
"There is Miss Fallowfett again," put in Christina, who had found a more congenial topic than the fortunes of a Cambridge debating society. "She will understand the professor better than I can hope to do."
"Racer, yes; Mr. Fallowfett knew him before he went up. Tell me your first impression of England, Miss Ruefold," he added hurriedly; and from his wish to change the subject, Christina concluded that there was a significance in the gentle murmuring which had come to her, at intervals, in the conservatory. Her impression of England was not to be given at that moment, for a servant stood at her elbow and asked to speak with her. She went outside, and the maid told her that two persons had called and asked for her, but they had declined to give their names.
"Who are they?" asked Christina. "I do not know anyone. Are they working people or gentlefolk?"
"I do not like to say, miss. The man looks a gentleman poorly off, and the little girl wears rather common things."
"Where are they?"
"Sitting in the hall, miss; they saw the rooms were full, and the gentleman said he would not give any trouble. He did not know it was a party night, or he would not have come. He only wanted to speak to you for a minute."
A little elated with the attention she had received, and unusually excited by a scene which was altogether new to her, Christina went down the staircase, feeling slightly annoyed at the ill-timed interruption. The hall was not so well lighted as the room she had left. The house was full of noise, but the empty space at the foot of the stairs seemed lonely by contrast, and the two figures on the bench at the end looked stranded and forlorn. They turned to her as she approached them, and she saw the worn face of a man well on in middle life. His hair and beard were grey, and he was dressed in rather ill-fitting black clothes. The girl was about twelve years old, delicate, with large gray eyes, which were fixed in wonder upon the stately young woman who was approaching the pair. She stood before them, and the man rose and put out his hand with a timid respect for the girl, who had evidently surprised him by her carriage and assurance.
"I expected to meet a sickly, nervous child, who required English air to make her strong; but you are a healthy young woman, Christina, and a handsome one --- God be with you. I am your uncle Marcus, your father's brother. Today I found that you had arrived; you did not write, and we have come at once to welcome yon. I see it is an awkward moment, so we will not stay, but come and see us as soon as you are able, and our house is always your home, my child."
Christina remembered that with the heedlessness of youth she had omitted to write to her relations, and she expressed her regret. Now that she looked at him attentively she could trace her father in her uncle, but the girl was a little stranger to her.
"This is our only daughter Zephyr. The others are boys, and away in the world. Strange, is it not, that your father, his brother, and his cousin should each have one only daughter? Kiss your cousin, Zephyr."
The child looked up with some awe at the strange tall girl, but the gray eyes softened, a light came into them, and, as Christina stooped, the little one put her arms about the elder's neck and whispered, "I know I shall love you; come and see us soon." A rush of emotion swelled the heart of Christina, and she kissed the child again and again. "Kiss me also, Christina," said her uncle, and the next minute they had gone away.
When the girls had retired for the night Vesper soon dispensed with the help of her maid and opened the door which connected the two rooms. "Chris'," she said, "come here, I have something important to tell you."
Christina soon understood that the subject of importance would take some time, and the two girls settled themselves comfortably before the fire.
"What do you think of Mr Gracebroke?" began Vesper.
"In relation to me, or to yourself?" asked Christina, mischievously.
"You have guessed, I suppose. Well, he did ask me to-night. I have suspected his purpose for some weeks. I think the boy really likes me."
"You are probably right in that, as he asks you to be his wife. What answer did you give him?"
"Put him off, of course. I did not intend to spoil him by accepting him all at once. I suppose I shall do so presently."
"But you love him, Vesper?"
"You innocent child, I like him well enough, and he likes me. I daresay we shall get on together."
"But you would not marry a man you could not love, and who had not convinced you of his own affection?"
"You are not in Africa now, Miss Chris'. There it is simply a matter of so many beads or cattle, and the girl is given over. Here we have the beads or cattle under the form of settlements, but the girl has a voice in the matter. Love, in your sense of the word --- a devouring passion --- is the marriage of the circulating libraries."
"Vesper, you know that persons do marry for pure love frequently."
"Not once in twenty times, and when they do it is often a lifelong mistake. Passion is often felt for an individual with whom marriage is impossible, I admit; but girls in our position are trained to keep it under restraint. Of course there must be no repulsion; the conditions of age and position ought to suit; and a promise should not be exchanged until the girl and man know and really like each other. Sometimes that feeling ripens into passion after marriage, I am told," added Vesper discreetly.
"I am sure I wish you every happiness," said Christina, rising suddenly, wishing her cousin a good-night, and passing into her own room.
A little later, when the light was out, and the fire had dropped low, Vesper called through the open door, "You must think well of me, Chris'. I am not so hard as you take me to be. One must be sensible and worldly, if you like the word, at such an important moment in a girl's life. I like him, Chris', and I think that I --- love him. It is strange --- is it not? --- the power that we girls have to move men's hearts. We must prolong the situation as far as we can, and not give ourselves away, must we not, Chris'?" But Christina was asleep.
Will you do your work fitfully, happy when a shaft of sunlight strikes the tools, listless under a gray sky? Will the lathe and handy glue-pot tempt you to careless joinery for a quick return? Or can you toil steadily at plank and block until your purpose grows into shape, then to discover another Workman at the bench beside you, not seen before, Who will plane the harder knots for you, and who will unite your work with His own, thus lifting your ideal in the act of fulfilling it?On the day following, Gregory Fallowfett suggested to the girls a beginning of the "country cousin" round of London sights. "It will do even you good, Vesper," he remarked, "to see some of our stock shows. Those of us who are town-born know much less of our native city than the Scotsman or the intelligent foreigner. I myself have never been to the Tower or to the top of the Monument."
"Christina had better begin with the Zoo, I should say," put in Vesper. "She will be more at home with the wild animals; they will remind her of her native land."
It was a word spoken in jest, but it hid a truth. Christina was moved by the creatures who were restlessly pacing their dens. The care with which they were tended increased the pity she felt for their hopeless captivity. It was no chance of war which had made their prison, but a deliberate intention to change their lives and to thwart their instincts. She had never seen wild animals in confinement, and although she had occasionally heard the voices of the creatures of the night, and seen them dead as trophies, there was a give-and-take in the struggle between man and beast which satisfied her sense of justice. Vesper was amused at the disquiet of her companion, and joked her upon her sensitive feeling.
"If you are going to trouble yourself about these well kept brutes, you will have no compassion left for the horses and other domestic animals who have not half the attention which is shown here. I thought there were still slaves left in Africa, and that all kinds of atrocities were practised upon human beings. Is not an ill-treated man a more pitiable spectacle?"
"I do not think so," answered Christina. "The man has his intelligence; he is one in nature with his captor. He can combine to fight for freedom, and his soul will, in the worst case, escape like a bird from the snare. But these creatures surrender their all to us, and are absolutely helpless in our hands."
"I do not suppose they feel it in the manner you imagine. If they had you for two minutes, Chris', you could then judge of their sentiment towards us. We are animals too, are we not? We cannot afford to give away the supremacy which it has taken thousands of years to acquire."
"Yes, we are like them, I know, and it is just that knowledge which stirs my sympathy. I am one with them, and the fellowship is a very sad one. I cannot walk about this place any longer. Let us leave it, Vesper."
They saw London thoroughly, and at last Christina begged to be taken into the outskirts. She was oppressed by the size of the city, and by the swarming crowds.
"I learned the populations of the world in my geography book," she said, "but I never realised the meaning of four millions. The thought of them almost stifles me. Is there no wild country near to London --- no wilderness where a few people might scatter and be themselves?"
"Epping Forest," suggested Gregory Fallowfett.
"On a bank holiday," added his wife. " My dear child," she said, addressing Christina, "they will not let us run about half-clothed in England. Not even with an African sun will the police permit the cheap and ready African costume."
"You do not understand me, Mrs. Fallowfett," she replied. "I like your English ways. They are pleasant and proper, but there are times and seasons when we want to be free, to speak and act naturally, to use our limbs freely, when we are young."
"You can join a gymnastic class," said her cousin Gregory. Vesper made a small grimace at her mother.
"What freedom do you wish?" asked Mrs. Fallowfett, with genuine astonishment.
"You would not like me to run briskly along Oxford Street, or to clap my hands if my heart were filling with the joy of life," said Christina.
"Not with me, if you please," put in Vesper. "If you tried that in London, you would get caged like your brothers and sisters in the Zoo."
"It seems that a girl must not do a noble or kind action if it is peculiar and attracts attention."
"You will get over that in course of time," said Gregory. "You are new to it all, but you will find that my wife and daughter are the best people to put you right, and we, too, shall be the better for a little fresh blood."
But in spite of the good-tempered consideration which he really felt for Christina, he had to extend his sympathy to his wife when she told him that their visitor had fastened a cord to the chandelier in her room, and had used it so vigorously as a trapeze that the gas-fitting had come to ruin. There was no opposition, therefore, on the part of the family when Christina proposed to go on a visit to her relations at the other end of London.
"Would you like to take something to Mrs. Ruefold? They are quite poor and can hardly make two ends meet," said Mrs. Fallowfett, as she looked through her tablet of engagements. "I am going to the stores this afternoon and could get a present for you to take."
"Very kind of you, I am sure," said her husband, mischievously intervening; "the Ruefolds would highly appreciate your generosity."
"I was thinking that Christina would rather trust her purse to me than rely upon her own experience," replied Mrs. Fallowfett hastily, and then she muttered a remark about the numerous claims upon her.
Marcus Ruefold was the pastor of a church in the far east of London. It was a district which had seen better days, when clerks and local tradesmen lived in the houses, which still retained rough front gardens and an air of comfort. Now they had gone to live in the open country, beyond the scents of the factories. The bye-roads and garden spaces had been covered with small streets, which teemed with the factory hands. There was still plenty of air, for the houses were low, built before the age of model dwellings, and the main thoroughfare was a broad road along which the tram-cars constantly jingled. The heavy square chapel was "run" on the old lines, and had not declined to the condition which would warrant the new birth into the mission-hall. Marcus Ruefold had toiled patiently in the ancient rut, keeping the small traders and the decent poor faithful to the place, in spite of the attractions of the ritualist service and the Salvation Army trumpets on the one hand, or the Secularist orators and Sunday concerts on the other. It was hard work, and needed the grit of a man to do it. The income flickered and wavered, but he never asked for help, and no philanthropist sought him out. Now and again a "new movement" was started, and the boom of its first success rumbled through London and shook the old chapel; but the modest work held its own, whilst frequently the new movement died away into circulars. The Ruefolds lived in a plain little house in a side road, but Christina felt it was home from the moment when Zephyr, who had been watching at the window, ran to the gate, and the awkward maid opened the door of the cab. A motherly woman stood at the top of the steps and took Christina into her arms. When her uncle joined them downstairs he said, "There has not yet been an opportunity of asking you about your father and his work, Christina. It is reported that he died like a martyr at the stake. It was, his devotion, I take it, that killed him."
Christina hesitated. She loved her father, but in her own heart she knew that he fell a victim to the accident of climate, like any ordinary trader might have done.
"I know he was quite faithful to the cause," she replied, "but I don't think that he worked harder of late. When he was a young man he expected to die like the other men; but as he grew older he thought he had become salted to the climate and was safe."
"I know what you mean," replied her uncle. "His work appeared to you so homely and regular that it was easy to lose sight of the heroism. We cannot keep martyrdom at full flame, but it is none the less martyrdom because the fire is a slow one."
"You have done as much, Marcus, every bit," put in his wife. "You have sacrificed everything for your people. He has refused to leave, my dear, again and again, when most flattering offers have come to him," she interposed, addressing Christina.
"You must have a rough sort of people to deal with in these streets. They must be worse than our black folk, for they have to unlearn so much before you can get them to accept the truth."
"It is a dangerous thing to treat people as a class, my dear," replied Marcus. "No teacher can influence a class in the gross. It is only when he recognises the variety of character and temperament, when he begins to separate the mass into individual men and women, that his own influence comes into play."
"That is true," put in his wife. "You may break up a mothers' meeting into characters distinct enough to furnish a stage act."
"I shall want some more talk with you, Christina, about missionary work," said Marcus. "I have an idea that we are not altogether right in our method --- we Christian English, I mean. If I were king; if I had, not much, say two thousand pounds of my very own, we would go abroad, my dear Jane, we would try our new plan. I should be no loss to London, Christina," he continued. "Twenty preachers are ready to leap into my place here. Each of them has a brand-new way for reaching the hearts of the working men. Let them try; but give me also a chance of work under other skies and with a different race."
"Well, you can't do it yet, Marcus," said Mrs. Ruefold, who had been waiting for an opportunity. "In the first place, we have not got the two thousand pounds which you demand; in the second place, the climate would be death to Zephyr; and in the third place, tea is waiting, and we all want it."
When Marcus had retired to the little square den which was dignified by the title of "study," Mrs. Ruefold assured Christina, with that confidence which the wives and daughters of unsuccessful men always possess, that her husband was not properly appreciated, and that his abilities ranged too high for the common people. "I should prefer a black man and his idols to a dingy dock labourer, squalid in his poverty. It is the squalor which affects one more than the colour of the skin. Your uncle Marcus has a strong antipathy to the smell of fried fish. With all his philanthropy he can hardly pass a fried fish shop in the afternoon, even to do a charitable deed."
On Sunday Christina saw the chapel at its best. The walls were painted a cold French grey; the gas flared brightly in the gloom of the morning fog, as well as in the cleaner darkness of the evening. The pews were filled with a decently clad congregation. The galleries were empty, except for a few adventurous souls dotted here and there; but the galleries represented the chance members of the congregation. To the surprise of Christina, she saw Professor Racer with two ladies. She mentioned this at the brief family meal after the morning service, and was told by Mr. Ruefold that Mr. Racer frequently came to his church. "Those two ladies are his sisters; they live in the neighbourhood; their brother is their chief support, and in the vacation he is a frequent visitor at the church."
"But does he really care for the service?" asked Christina, with wondering eyes. "I have recently met him, and thought that he would never enter a church."
"Yes he will; his bark is worse than his bite. He loved his mother dearly, and at her dying request he follows the forms of religion. I hope he will be all right at the last, but you must give men like him time in which to swing round. By the way, Jane, we will ask him tonight for supper and a pipe."
"You must come and see my people, Miss Ruefold," said the professor, when he came round in the evening. "Some of our Cambridge men go in for coins or seals. I collect sisters, as a cult, you understand."
After supper the men brought out their pipes and, it must be added, sipped their whisky and water. Out of the subject of the preacher's address grew a discussion to which Christina, in a corner of the room, listened attentively.
"I am prepared to admit all you ask for," said the minister, "but I give you a different explanation to the one you proffer."
"Then let me hear it," said his companion. "If you abandon your Old Testament account of the origin of mankind, the whole religious theory tumbles to pieces. You accept an evolutionary theory of the birth of man. Very good; but having accepted it, you desire to introduce a personal Creator into the operation?"
"That is so," replied the minister, "and I think I can show you that such an intervention is really necessary. Smoke quietly for a few minutes, and I will try to demonstrate it. We must admit that the evolution of species is a gradual and selective process. Nature throws aside many broken pots before she has fired the one which is to serve as her type. In some cases her process leads to a dead-end, from which there is no escape. You will not get any further improvement out of certain insects and animals, for example, like the bee and the beaver. Now the presence of man is evidence of a selection which has been going forward through the past ages of animal life. There is indeed a purpose running through the whole process of evolution. From one animal a branch had been thrown out, giving a new type, before the first had vanished from the world. So the upward progress had been continued, until a human creature had struggled out of the mass, and taken its place as the master. Is there not in all this, guidance, control, forethought --- in other words, a Creator working patiently for a given end, and taking infinite pains and time in the process?"
The professor laid down his pipe. "Now may I speak?" he said eagerly. "Your argument would be watertight if you could show that your product man was perfect when he had emerged from the battle of the centuries. But you must bear in mind that the development has continued into historical times. It is even now proceeding slowly, in accordance with laws which have been tested under our eyes. No, yon are safer under the pages of the Book of Genesis than behind such a rampart as you are trying to throw up. There is a dignity about a Being who 'speaks and it is done,' and Who creates the world in six days. I can respect the teaching which I cannot accept. Do not ask me, however, to take in exchange for that sublime and impossible idea the figure of a Divine Workman who can make experiments, but who does not understand the material upon which He works. No, the mistakes, the misfits of life, would be a reproach to a Personal Creator. We are the more reverent who worship Force, stirring and expanding dead matter; Force as certain and relentless as a river, wearing its own crooked course along the path of least resistance; Force modified by the matter through which it drives, and breaking into a delta of many manifestations. That is the only theory of life possible at present."
"Go back to your pipe, you Sadducee, and listen to me," said Marcus. "I will accept your live force, and your dead matter; they are both part and parcel of the material universe. Leave them alone; let us watch the effect. Your live force will play with matter as a squirrel does with his revolving cage, and a meaningless revolution will be the result, or it will tumble the dead material until it is without form and void. Hush! wait a bit. Mind descends upon the chaos; the Spirit of God broods upon the living material, and a Divine purpose brings cosmos out of the confusion. But the working mind is leisurely in its progress; it guides, corrects, controls."
"Why this waste of patience and time, my dear Ruefold? Why did not the Almighty Creator mould the mass at once into the forms He required? If He wanted an Adam He could knead him out of the red clay, and the new man could call the animals about him for his company, without the thought of cousinship to make the meeting an awkward one."
"If you will attend seriously, I will tell you. Allow that matter is eternal, then the Eternal Mind deals with the co-eternal matter according to those laws which are native to the material. As a chemist can combine or decompose the natural objects he handles, calling into being new forms, yet unable to subtract from or to add to the total sum of his material, so may the Great Intelligence be limited to the processes which give certain results."
"No miracles are admitted then?" interrupted Racer.
"Of course, I do not exclude miracles. The miraculous may be a quick and unusual method of reaching a result --- a method of special application. There are plenty of alternative routes known to science. The divine idea of man worked out by the Infinite Mind produces at last a human creature, equipped in frame and brain, but without the spirit; therefore the actions of this creature are governed by circumstances and suggestion modified by inherited instinct. Unto this creature God imparts the breath of the Eternal, a quickening spirit. A new era begins, and whilst the same law is at work in the mortal body, the spiritual man comes under that lifting and refining process which, from the moment of the new birth, is seeking to complete in the creature a likeness to his Creator. The laws of the two spheres clash --- flesh and spirit are contrary the one to the other. Presently the body fulfils its fixed round and goes back to the earth, which cries out for it, from which it sprang, and to which it belongs. The spirit, with the joys and woes of its lower existence thick upon it, returns to its Maker for a new form through which it may work out its own destiny. The material falls back into the common stock, the spiritual returns literally to the God who gave it. Eternal life is the gift of the Eternal Spirit, and an individual existence must depend upon the responsible use of the gift. Here, again, we have the Highest Workman engaged. We are co-workers with God in the salvation of the individual self; grace is the supreme intelligence, labouring according to the essential laws of spirit. Creation and redemption are summed up in the sentence, 'My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.'"
"Your account is interesting," said the Professor, after a pause, "but I cannot see that it rests upon a basis of ascertained fact. The Bible does give an explanation, which is founded upon tradition, respectable on account of its antiquity. I do not accept it, but would rather swallow it whole than have to adopt a brand new theory. We run on parallel lines when we both admit the facts of evolution; but I contend that Natural Law, which you want to place under a Supreme Intelligence, is quite able to take care of itself, and to carry forward that higher mental development which you associate with the endowment of spirit. How can you separate the poetry of the Book of Genesis from the facts to which it bears witness?" answered Ruefold. "You shall not cramp me in a fortress which cannot resist modern artillery. I will descend into the plain and meet you with your own weapons, upon equal terms."
"Then you must admit the theory of intelligent men, without a share in the spirit life, having roamed the world in past ages, and that vestiges of them ought to remain?" said the Professor.
"Undoubtedly; the primeval remains scattered about the world can be explained in this way."
"And if the evolution of mankind was not from a single stock, that it is quite possible there may be still men on the earth who have not yet passed through the rudimentary stage?"
"Quite possible, and even probable," replied Ruefold.
"You are right, uncle it is true, and I know it quite well," came a voice from the dark corner.
"Miss Ruefold, I had quite forgotten your presence," said the Professor to Christina. "I hope we have not bored you with our wrangle."
A little figure appeared in the doorway. It was Zephyr, with her light hair twisted into small screws, which turned her into a weird little goat.
"If you please, Professor," she began, with the manner of a lesson committed to memory, "mother does not wish to drive you away, but she says it has struck twelve, and she is afraid your sisters will think you have come to harm."
"Bless my heart, so it is!" said the Professor, jumping up. "Well, we must be on the look- out for the possible man-creature, Ruefold," he continued, as he put on his coat.
We should look reverently upon the lowest form of organic life, for in its simple folds may lie hidden the most complex purpose of God."THE HAPPY VALLEY" is a successful music-hall and place of entertainment. It does not spare expense in advertising when it brings a novelty before the public, and the arrival of Forest Bokrie in England was announced by an artistic poster of enormous size. The scene was a tropical forest, and several armed Europeans and negro servants were cautiously approaching a creature, half-brute, half-man, who was standing at bay and brandishing a tree branch. Overhead, amongst foliage, could be partially seen the forms of like creatures, who were peering through the cover. A few gaudy birds and coloured creepers were brought in to brighten up the picture. At one corner of the sheet a portrait of the same creature was given; but although the features were the same, the figure was represented in a loud sporting suit of English cloth. The manager of "The Happy Valley" gave his own portrait at the opposite corner. At the foot of the poster ran the announcement: "The Mystery Solved; the Missing Link Found! Come and see Forest Bokrie, the Man-Ape of Africa! Twice daily, at 3 p.m. and at 8 p.m. Doctors and clergy admitted free to the private interviews after each performance." It was not long before the new sensation had found its way into Behemoth Square, and was talked over at the dinner-table of the Fallowfett family. Christina had concluded the week's visit to her East-end friends and had returned to the Fallowfetts'. Vincent Gracebroke brought the details of the new show to the girls, and was pleased particularly to watch the interest in the eyes of Vesper's foreign-looking friend. He really liked Vesper, and considered her perfectly suited to be his wife. There was a repose, a propriety about her, which harmonised with high-class furniture and good connections. But that strange, tall girl already exercised a piquant attraction for him. She had an unexpected fund of natural feeling which broke out in unaccustomed places; and although this might be embarrassing in the wife of a rising professional man, it was highly diverting to the present young gentleman without encumbrance.
"Yes, Miss Ruefold, I have really met him face to face at last," he said on one visit. "It was late last night, after the performance; the poor brute was tired and could not talk much. Oh, yes, he is as human as you or I; he speaks English fluently, with only an accent slight enough to give it a flavour. They taught him a great deal at the mission school, and he is certainly near enough to monkeydom to possess a considerable power of imitation. He could learn anything and remember it too, I should say. He actually quoted Horace to me; but the odd thing is that he can't act without a suggestion."
"If he is so clever, why do you speak of him in that tone of contemptuous pity?" inquired Christina.
"Because there is something amiss, my dear Miss Ruefold; but for the life of me I cannot tell where the difference comes in. I should guess it is some flaw in the moral quality; the mission people had awful difficulty. He was cunning enough to get all the education he could out of them, but they could not control him a bit after he became a man."
"What is he like, Mr. Gracebroke? Tell me once again."
"In his evening clothes, and with his gloves and boots on, you would only notice his great height --- about six-and-a-half feet --- a slight forward thrust of the body, and the retreating facial angle. He has a somewhat long muzzle, like a dog's jaw. His eyes are large and brown, with a big animal's unconscious stare in them. There is peculiarity about his fingers and toes. The doctors say that some are joined like a baby's glove. I really hardly know whether he possesses the traditional caudal stump; but taken altogether he is curiously near in type to a superior and highly developed animal of the ape race. He really warrants an expenditure of ha1f-a-crown for the public and five shillings for the private performance."
"I wish I could see him!" exclaimed Christina. "Are the people kind to him? Does he seem very sad?"
"Really, Christina," interposed Vesper, forcing a laugh, "don't waste your surplus emotion on a creature such as that. Buy a pug dog and pet him instead of this monster. You will have to change your name to Titania."
"I must --- I mean I should like to see him. Poor fellow; he is all alone amidst thousands of hard faces."
"You need not be uncomfortable about him, I assure you, Miss Ruefold. He is making a hatful of money, and the only danger for him is that he will throw it away in some wretched bit of folly."
"Could you take me, Mr. Gracebroke? --- or get me a ticket rather," she added, with a quick blush.
"Do you mean to the 'Happy Valley,'" asked Vesper. "Impossible; you do not understand --- you do not know the difference between places of amusement. Pray do not continue the subject; mamma will explain it to you."
"I can take care of myself," answered Christina proudly; "no one will dare offer me a word. Never mind, I will not ask you, Mr. Gracebroke; thank you for all your trouble."
"I think it might be managed," said Gracebroke, glancing at Vesper, who looked away. "Racer is going --- your friend the professor, Miss Ruefold --- and if he and I joined our forces we could carry you safely through fire and water. An afternoon performance is quite as effective as the evening in this dark weather, and you would be restored to your friends in ample time for dinner."
So it was arranged, for although Vesper showed an icy disapprobation, and Mrs. Fallowfett pitied the girl's taste, Gregory Fallowfett only laughed, and told his wife and daughter that if they pulled the reins too tightly they would drive Christina into some escapade which might compromise them all.
When they reached the "Happy Valley," Christina saw that one end of the building was filled by the stage, but round the circle of the hall there was a large free space. There were two deep galleries running the whole length, and beneath them were sundry side-shows, filling the recesses. Before and after the stage performances the mesmeric experiments, spotted ladies, and strong men could be seen in a leisurely manner, and duly appreciated. Overhead ran a tangle of rope and wire, with looped-up swings, but the gymnast just now was subordinated to other attractions. When the curtain ran up a forest scene was represented, with a clearing up to the foot-lights, and a deep glade in the rear. In the clearing a party of traders assembled; they lighted a fire, pitched their tents, and prepared to encamp for the night. There were three men and two women, and one was carrying a child. When their preparations were made they took their evening meal together, and the black porters who were with them gathered into a group and ate apart. Night was darkening, the fire was made up, a watch was set, and the party retired to sleep. There were strange noises in the forest, but for a time nothing actually disturbed the travellers. The men set to watch were overcome as well, and dropped asleep at their post. What was that figure which was stealing up to the camp as softly as a cat, sometimes erect, sometimes on all fours? It approached the party, when one of the guard awoke; there was a shout of alarm and a discharge of firearms. In the confusion the creature escaped, and after a conference in the startled camp, and a beating of the neighbouring thicket, order was restored. But high above the sleeping group the spectators observed a movement in the branches of a tall tree. Hand over hand the same creature descended; now testing the strength of a bough, now arresting his descent half-way to listen for a sound of detection from below. Sharply he turned from this side to that, horribly alive, from his ugly muzzle to his long clinging feet --- a man in form, a beast in agility. The creature reached the last support and extended its long flexible body to the full before it dropped, without a sound, on to the moss at the foot of the tree. He stopped for an instant, and then crawled on feet and hands swiftly to the tent where the women were sleeping. There was an interval of suspense, and out rushed the thing, nearly upright now, clasping in its arms the sleeping child. On, on he fled to the glade, when the child awoke and cried out. Her voice aroused the others; the mother in a frenzy started for the glade, the men pursued; but the guns might not be used for fear of hurting the child. Now a storm broke; thunder boomed, lightning darted, the rain hissed. In the midst of the tempest the party returned in detachments; the women were weeping and wringing their hands. The men hung their heads; the pursuit was in vain. Then a shout was heard; the last two men returned; they were dragging a captive between them. What was it? The mother pressed forward --- had the child been found? No, they had captured a wriggling little brute, evidently belonging to the creature who had robbed them. He had taken their child, and they had secured, in retribution, this fierce little cub, who could not keep up with the headlong flight of its parent. The curtain fell at this point upon the first scene. Of course the part of the ape- man had been played by Forest Bokrie, and a lad had been employed to represent the smaller creature. Christina had never seen a stage-play, and this dramatic scene fascinated her. The next picture was the Mission Station --- a painfully clean block of buildings with a tangled country in the background. A few men were grouped at the front in impossible black coats and white panama hats. Forest Bokrie entered dressed in a half European costume. He shook hands with the authorities, showed them by experiment his skill in gardening, and at the carpenter's bench. He was directed by them to the school-house, when a leopard in pursuit of an antelope leaped the fence. The officials fled to cover; but Bokrie, casting aside the impediment of his English dress, mastered the animal, and it slunk away. Then the curtain fell again. The third part of the entertainment was restricted to the appearance of Bokrie in evening dress, accompanied by a fluent person who gave a discourse upon the education of the captive hero, and his introduction to English manners. He touched upon the physical differences which were exciting interest, and invited the attendance of both religious and scientific men to the private discussion of these points in a room adjoining.
Christina was moved painfully at the scenes she had witnessed. It appeared to her as if the drama of ,her mother's life had been unrolled before curious eyes. She recoiled from the thought that her own mother might have begun her life in a scene like that. She was aware that the picture had been coloured and exaggerated for the purpose of effect; but she felt a dread, at that moment, to learn more about Bokrie, lest her repugnance should be deepened, and that disgust might destroy her sympathy. She shuddered at the thought that the blood of these monsters might even be throbbing in her own veins. Gracebroke was disappointed at the slight interest she showed, and imagined that the girl's delicacy of taste had been offended, and that consequently a reaction of feeling had set in. Christina pleaded a headache, and retired to her room for the rest of the evening. During the few days following she avoided a reference to her visit, and the ladies, believing that a cure for her craze was in active process, left the subject alone. But the girl was really too engrossed with the question to trust herself to argue it. She knew that she would not obtain help from her friends at home, and guessed that Gracebroke really shared in their prejudice. Yet her instinct told her that there was more behind to discover. She knew that there was a scientific puzzle which was drawing the attention of intelligent men, but as a woman she was debarred from personal investigation. To prove that this poor creature ought not to be counted as a pariah amongst men, to demonstrate that his growth of mind warranted the hope that a higher nature was ready to descend upon the afflicted body, were the objects of her secret desire. Her woman's tact suggested that the best method was to use the influence which she possessed with the professor, and thus to compensate for the restriction imposed upon her sex. She wrote to Racer, asking him as a favour to seek an interview with Bokrie, and shrewdly added that if he could arrange for a meeting apart from the showmen he was much more likely to reach the truth, for Bokrie would not then repeat the stock story which had probably been written for him. The professor crushed the innocent note in his hand, and, with that caution which marks the man who is attaining middle life without marriage, committed the discourtesy of not sending a reply.
He had a good reason for compliance with the artless request, for his own curiosity had been excited; but he was ashamed to give the countenance of a scientific interest to what might, after all, turn out to be an advertised fraud. The people in charge of Bokrie were naturally jealous of any independent visits to him; but Racer managed with a little trouble to get the number of the house in the dreary street near to the hall where Bokrie was exhibited. The unsuspecting landlady believed that she had a very tall Indian gentleman for a lodger. He was called for by a cab regularly every afternoon and evening. He did not return home until early in the morning, but he gave no trouble, as he took his meals out of the house, paid his bill weekly, and rarely spoke to anyone. He had a friend who came for him, and who frequently had to guide the latch-key at night. The faded, flyblown lodging-house rooms on the first floor were about as great a contrast to the African wilderness as could be drawn. They were empty when Racer was shown into them, with the promise that the Indian would arrive before six o'clock. After the visitor had looked about him, and found nothing to suggest the den of the wild beast, his patience gave out, and he was in the act of dropping a card upon the table-not without a flash of humour at the idea of leaving a card upon a possible ape --- when the street- door opened and there were voices in the little passage below the stairs. He waited, and in another minute was rewarded by the entrance of a thick-set, redfaced man, who advanced to the table and stared at him. Bokrie followed, and stooped as he entered the door. The first man continued to stare, and was apparently perplexed, but soon made up his mind.
"Thank 'ee, sir, I don't care for your name," he said, as Racer bowed and pushed the card across the table. "I know what you have come about, and the name doesn't signify to me. You are either the 'Golden West,' the Phonix,' or the 'Cat and Monkey;' or you have perhaps come direct from the 'Starry Splendour.' Yes, the 'Starry Splendour' bears me a grudge for bringing this gentleman to the 'Happy Valley,' and they want to cut in. All in good time, but you have got to negotiate through Bullock Sopp, all of you."
"I beg your pardon," replied the professor mildly, "but I have no stake at all in these places of entertainment --- not one single share. I really wish I had, Mr. --- I forget your name, Mr. Bullnose Hopp."
"Very neat indeed; you may not hold a share. That's quite likely; but you are paid a good 'com' on your introductions. Let's understand one another. I have no objection to your getting at the value of the article --- none in the least; but the business must pass through the hands of yours truly. Come now, if you are the 'Starry Splendour,' say so at once; it is of no use to beat about; and now to terms."
"My dear sir, I am only quite small potatoes, and there is nothing of a starry splendour about me. In my whole life I shall not earn the amount which the 'Starry Splendor' divides amongst its lucky proprietors in a single twelve months. I want to have a few minutes' chat with your friend, not with a view to any commercial speculation. I am a poor professor, employed in the University of Cambridge to teach youths who have the grace to listen. If there is anything of importance to science in your new find, I shall send a flock of visitors to swell your takings."
Here Bokrie spoke for the first time. "The man talks fair and square, Sopp; let me alone. I shall take no harm."
"Don't you trust him, the little wretch; he looks mischief," said Bullock Sopp, highly incensed at the interruption, and losing all respect for the feelings of anyone who thwarted him.
"Nonsense, Sopp, you treat me like a child; don't try that game on," replied Bokrie. This assertion of independence roused the full powers of the agent, who had visited the refreshment bar at the back of the stage more than once that afternoon. His language required some editorial control.
"You debased, chicken-hearted young nigger, are you going to teach me? Aren't I keeping you out of the nether regions every instant you are off the stage? Do you think I am doing that for the sake of the mission angels? No, it's for my own cash book, not for you, who have more tail than soul, and not enough of that to keep you going long. You wait a few months, and when the public give you up you may go to perdition for all I care. I shall have done with you --- there now."
This was an unwise outburst from Bullock Sopp, for he had brought Bokrie over, and knew the possible result of rousing his temper. He looked for the fire-irons, but Racer was standing --- an interested spectator --- before the fender, and blocked the way. The creature before them seemed to change with his fury, and to lose his human likeness. His dress, his surroundings grew incongruous, and the two men drew together in a sympathy 6f fear. Wide as was the crevasse between them in thought and feeling, a deeper chasm separated the men from this animal. His arms were raised in a threatening attitude, and his stature grew imposing as he towered above them in the shabby little room. For a second he stood irresolute, and then, pointing to the door, he shouted, "Go, go now, or I will tear you in pieces like this!" and he caught up a stick and snapped it into fragments. Sopp realised his indiscretion and the danger of the situation; so muttering something between an oath and a farewell, he dodged round the table and got away; Racer felt the risk of exposure to the wrath of a being who might not be held answerable for his actions, and was disinclined to furnish copy for the morning papers. He was a pigmy compared with this giant, but he took the position coolly, and sat down until the effervescence of the other man's anger had subsided. After taking a few strides about the room Bokrie recovered himself, and, turning to Racer, said, "Have some whisky."
"No, thank you, and if you will permit me to say a friendly word, I should advise you to keep off it yourself. You have been excited, and it won't do you any good."
"They tell me it is the brandy I ought to shun, and that the whisky won't do me much harm; but they tell me any lie which suits them; I don't know what to believe."
"The climate here is so different to that of your native country, Mr. Bokrie, and the police are at every street-corner in London. I would be most careful of my cups and of my company if I were you."
"Certainly, very good advice; sounds like the parson's talk at the Mission House. That fellow Sopp --- he tries to rule me according to his own way; makes money out of me; he is not a gentleman like you. But he wheedles me mostly, and then he does what he chooses --- all for himself, you understand; not for my good. That is my nature, in a word. You can do all you please with me if you give me kind words. I can't escape other people's influence unless I am made angry, then I can manage for myself; or I take too much drink, and then devils whisper to me, and I obey them."
"Well, sir, I am sorry for you, and I should like to help you, but I am a man of science and have only come to see you for the sake of my work. Will you sit down and tell me something about yourself?"
Bokrie eyed him doubtfully. "What do you want to know?" he asked. "Bullock Sopp gives me twenty pounds a week, but I believe he gets one hundred out of me. He says he wants the difference to pay for the expense of bringing me over. If you will allow me thirty, or even twenty-five pounds, I will throw up my contract with him, and give you a chance. He has got it on paper with little red seals, but what does that matter? I can chaw up his paper and his seals, though he does threaten me with the police-court. They would not touch me, or if they did, I am ready to die fighting."
"What can you want with the money, Mr. Bokrie?" inquired the professor.
"Nothing or everything. There are beautiful things in the shops I should like to have. Precious stones such as you will hardly see in Africa, and lots of fine things. He tells me I have not money enough to buy them, and when I go in to ask a price the shop- people lock the cases, stare at me, whisper, and laugh. Besides, he gets me to spend all I receive; I don't know exactly how it goes --- largely upon him I should say; so that I am poor at the end of each week."
"I am sorry for you, I am sure," said Racer, "but I can't undertake the charge of you at present. Does that scene at the 'Happy Valley' represent the way in which your ancestors lived in the woods?"
"That bit of lath-and-plaster tomfoolery? No, indeed. That is all got up by the manager and Bullock Sopp between them. I did not care about it, but they said it must be so. It was not the truth, they knew, but the British public did not ask for the truth. I can scarcely remember the way in which we lived; I was such a little beggar when they caught me, and I have to work back through so large a lot of information they have crammed into me to get to my earliest days. We did not live in a forest, although they dragged me through miles of it when they carried me off. Open country I can remember, with knolls rising into hills, and patches of wood here and there. Plenty of running streams, pasture, cattle, and little slips of cornland close to the villages; well-made huts, spears, and swords, kilns and forges ; so we were metal workers."
" But the people themselves?" pressed Racer, growing interested.
"They were tall and strong, something like myself. I know they must have been clever after a kind, much more skilful than the negroes. We had a greater number of animals in use than the white people have --- dogs, apes, and others --- and they worked well for us because we understood their nature. Language --- yes, of course, we talked fluently to one another, but I can only remember an odd word or two. Better than you, we knew the meaning of every sound the lower creatures make, and could imitate them; so that the animals served us well. I am sure that this knowledge had not been acquired; it was traditional, as you call it. I have put piece to piece of the fragments left in my mind, and sometimes a matter which was indistinct and blurred comes out clearly after I have been, thinking hard upon it. My people, in a remote age, must have spread over the north-west of Africa, but they had been driven out by invaders who entered the continent from the eastern side. We are only a remnant of the original people, and have found a refuge for the last few centuries in a land beyond the great forest. I believe that we are an intelligent race, yet we never combined into great kingdoms, but were always broken into village societies under temporary chiefs. We could never act together in masses as other natives have done, and this kept us weak. Then we loved life and enjoyed it too well to give it up for an idea. We know there is nothing beyond the darkness of death, and that we are only the children of the day. We require to be made very angry indeed before we will fight. Who would sell his right to the earth and air and sun for a reward which must go to other people? Your priests and rulers have persuaded you that it is a fine thing to die for your country; but the man who is befooled like that is sacrificed like a slave to the glory of his master. "
The professor had jotted down a few notes as Bokrie was speaking, and, until the man stopped of his own accord, had said nothing. "You have no spirits or gods, I suppose, as you do not believe in an after-life?"
"Not in your sense of the word --- mere dream men, or heroes of fairy stories. We see certain things round us which we cannot explain by our own experience, and we put them down to the work of living beings hidden from our eyes, but we never hold the absurd opinion that these beings live for ever, but know that they must die like every other thing. The flowers and trees have souls, which droop with the death of the plants. Animals and men have their souls also; when the soul grows old the man or animal must die, whether the body is ready or not. If the body is injured, the soul tries to repair the damage, but the body cannot help the soul, for the soul is the life."
"That is your explanation of existence," said Racer. "Well, it is more intelligible than some of the theories which are crammed down our throats when we are too young to fight against the spoon. However, if your race only follows but cannot lead, how does it come about that they have invented many things which show a high state of knowledge?"
"We are well furnished here," replied Bokrie, touching his forehead, "and we have got a great deal from the habits of other animals. We improve upon the method of the lower creatures, for when you are at work, you know, one thing suggests another, and the work grows under your fingers. Then we must have learned a little here and there from captives of other tribes and from conquering races before we escaped from them; we never forget a single thing. A fact seems to go down from father to son like the instinct which passes through the generations of the beasts."
"Thank you, Mr. Bokrie, for your interesting story. I will not keep you any longer, for you have to appear in public again tonight." The professor placed his chubby little fingers in the long, clinging hand of his friend, and felt the muscular fingers close over his own with a firm grip. "Good-bye," said Bokrie, "if you must go without the whisky. Don't repeat all that I have told you to Bullock Sopp. You may meet him outside; he always comes back."
Racer escaped the ordeal of another interview with the agent, and made his way to Behemoth Square that same evening. Casually he introduced the subject at the dinner. table, and it did not appear to have been prompted by any request from Christina. "He is an intelligent brute, if he is only a brute, and really I learned a great deal. I wish the Germans would conceive a passion for the country of these divine apes, or that somebody would start a Royal Bokrie Land Company, and get a charter to explore and annex it."
"Do you consider there is any. mystery at all about it?" asked Gregory Fallowfett. "The man is a native of Northern Africa, I suppose; but Nature has dealt rather harshly with him. If you discovered the tribe from which he has strayed, you would probably find nothing extraordinary about them."
"There is more in it than can be met by so simple an explanation," replied the professor. "Bokrie is a queer compound of common-sense and brutality; he is a sort of Marble Faun and Frankenstein rolled into one. I am sorry to say he will probably be lost to science in a few months if he goes on with his present life. He is in the hands of an agent --- a rough, cunning fellow with vulgar tastes, who tries to keep Bokrie amused and pacified by running him through the lowest round of pleasure in London. Then they both take to the bottle, and the end of it will be that Bokrie will sink below the level of the brutes from which they say he has sprung."
"We need not take that to heart," said Gracebroke, who was one of the party at dinner. "Lots of fellows are going the same road who have souls to be saved, or who think they have. We must make up our average of losses whatever the philosophers or the ministers of religion may say. Some of us are born under a lucky star," he continued, turning to Vesper. "We have a taste for the better things of life, and are attracted to books, music, and to ladies' society. Life in its best form pleases us, and we go up to the top of the class, not because we are better than the others who fail, but through the native-born disposition which is no credit to us."
"That is rather a large order to accept, is it not, Miss Fallowfett?" said the professor, also addressing Vesper. "We shall expect great things from him now, and if he fails, will have no mercy, as he has given away the virtue of his coming success."
"You seem to take a great deal of interest in a most uninviting subject, Mr. Racer," said Mrs. Fallowfett. "If this man has all the peculiarities in body and mind which are claimed for him, I cannot see that it would attract me very much. Probably the music-hall people will start something else next month, and then Mr. Bokrie will drop out of sight."
"He must not go under, Professor Racer, without one hand to help him," suddenly said Christina. "If there is no one in the whole of this great town who will make an effort, girl as I am, I will do it myself."
There was a deep silence at the table, until Gregory Fallowfett said, "Tut, tut, Do¤a Quijota, ladies can't go about redressing human wrongs unless they consent to wear the garb of a society and give their whole lives to the work."
At this moment Mrs. Fallowfett rose, and the two girls followed her out of the room.
Withhold thy pity, lest pity should tremble into affection, and an all-compelling love lift the least worthy step by step, at last to sit beside thee.Gracebroke listened to the appeal which was made to him by both the mother and the daughter. He set to work to discover more of Bokrie in his haunts. To break down the infatuation which Christina showed for the man-curiosity it would be necessary to dispel the romance and to show him in his true habits --- an object attractive to the physiologist, but disgusting to the ordinary person of healthy mind. Gracebroke was accustomed to visit a variety of entertaining places in town in order to study life, but the pursuit of this study demanded a series of repeated inquiries. He sauntered into one of these places, in a listless and casual way, on a certain evening, prepared to spend an hour there if the proceedings did not fatigue him. It was a retired spot, known only to the initiated, bearing the title of "Under the Greenwood Tree," and was approached through an alley. It was a spacious vaulted room under a large hall, and was arranged to appear as rude and rough as possible. It was practically a supper-room, and had a reputation for good food; but it combined music and entertainment with its grosser charm, and these were frequently improvised and contributed by customers. The company was fairly good, and men of letters often forsook their more refined eating-shops for the primitive manners and good cheer of the "Greenwood Tree." It happened that on this same evening Bullock Sopp had brought Bokrie there, and the two were taking supper at a table by themselves. It was not the place at which Gracebroke expected to meet them. He supposed that the savage would have required tinsel and glass, and he explained their presence by a reversion to a cave dwelling. As a fact, Sopp anticipated meeting with a dramatic critic there, and wanted to arrange for a private interview and a public paragraph. Gracebroke lost no time in seizing the opportunity. He took a seat close to the pair and introduced himself. He took stock of Sopp, and fixed his profession with fair accuracy. Then he threw out a hint that he had some slight connection with the papers, and might be of service to them. The bait took. Sopp made room for him at the table, and Gracebroke ordered his supper and a bottle of sparkling wine. He shared the wine with his friends, and it was followed by another bottle. He did not forget to fill up the glass of Bokrie again and again, so that the chilled and rather depressed demeanour of the man might be thawed. Bokrie had taken sufficient already, and of this Bullock Sopp ought to have been aware. The spirits of Bullock Sopp began to rise, and he related an anecdote or two of a broad and humorous kind about the search for Bokrie. He went off guard, and did not observe a suppressed excitement in his ward, who tried to follow the songs with snatches of incoherent imitation, and beat time with his feet to the violin and the cornet. The chairman of the evening then asked if any of the guests would favour the company, and after a short hesitation a man got up and delivered a prose dramatic piece. Now the ice had been cracked, another guest followed quickly with a comic song, and then there was a pause. Bokrie's eyes were glistening, and he had subsided into an unnatural quiet; but Bullock Sopp was deeply engaged in the history of a successful attempt to outwit a brother professional in securing a Veiled Mystery of Baghdad, and there were so many digressions incidental to a proper account of the same that Bokrie escaped his attention. The ape-man had got up, walked to the end of the room, and mounted the stage, before Sopp realised that anything unusual had happened. The chairman looked at the recruit in blank surprise, but without preface, Bokrie began to dance softly, humming and droning an unintelligible song. It was an attempt to sing something in English, but soon foreign words slipped in. He increased the pace of the dance; it grew more wild, and at last he flung himself about the platform in a frenzy. The language broke off into uncouth sounds --- a clicking and barking like a beast of prey. This caused amusement at the beginning, and called out applause, but in a short time it was clear that the man was losing control of himself, and the exhibition became painful. The chairman approached the performer and politely thanked him for his assistance, but asked him to desist, as the audience were quite satisfied. This speech was hardly heard through the noise, and Bokrie appeared to take little notice of the intervention. Two or three persons rose and left the hall, and Bullock Sopp, sobered by the disturbance, approached Bokrie quietly and tried to soothe him. It was of no use; the creature had got the mastery of the man, and the coating of a civilised education cracked and tore off in ribbons with the expansion of the brute beneath. He shook away from Sopp angrily, and when the agent laid hold of him a second time, he pitched him heavily forward on to the floor in front of the stage. Matters were growing serious, and the waiters, who were afraid to touch Bokrie, summoned the manager. He advanced, accompanied by two burly barmen as his assistants. Bokrie pretended not to see them until they were almost upon him; then seizing a chair he swung it upon the head of one of his assailants, stretching him senseless. The other two closed with him promptly, and many gathered about on the chance, when the struggling and rotating mass of arms and legs would give them an opportunity, of striking in. Gracebroke stood back and watched the turbulent scene. Most of the customers had escaped, but a few stood at the entrance, following the fight with curious eyes. Tables fell over, and crockery added to the crash, or was clinked about and ground by the feet. Bokrie roared and bellowed in some unknown tongue; the men shouted oaths and directions to each other. Once they all fell in a heap, but Bokrie was up before the bystanders could rush in, and it was then seen that the strength of the men, who were clinging to him, was giving out. His muscular power was not sufficient to dispose of them at once, but his enormous staying force was setting their utmost efforts at defiance. The police had been sent for; but before they could reach the place one of the waiters, with a bewildered remembrance of the manner in which riotous meetings are dispersed, turned off the gas. Gracebroke prudently made for the door to save both his watch and his reputation, as he did not wish to be mauled by the police, or summoned to give evidence about a disreputable row. The doorway was blocked, and as he was forcing a road for himself he felt two long hands upon his shoulders, which dug into his flesh like claws. On his neck came hot breath from someone stooping behind him, and then with a violent thrust he was driven aside. There were exclamations in front; the mass divided, and a dim form shot out. He was gone before anyone could realise it, and when the lights came and the policemen opened their note-books, Bokrie had raced beyond pursuit, and Sopp had also disappeared. People in the street had observed a flying shadow, but no clue to his line of retreat remained. The proprietor of the establishment did not care to discover the name of the disturber, and avoided the notoriety which a magistrate's investigation would have given to his premises. Gracebroke went home, satisfied that he had a story sufficiently highly coloured to produce the effect which he desired on the mind of Christina. He regretted that for one brief moment it had not been possible to have placed the girl in a position from which she might have safely observed the vagaries of her favourite specimen. For he was most anxious to divest her mind of any sympathy with Bokrie. He gave her an expurgated account of the incident; but, to his chagrin, Christina did not show the shocked surprise which he had anticipated. She remarked that it was a shame that the poor fellow had been prompted to take so much wine, and. almost implied that Gracebroke was the culprit in that matter. She fully understood the power which strong drink exercises upon the natives of Africa, and passed lightly over the peculiar manifestation which the liquor had called forth. The low grade of the man instead of provoking her abhorrence, quickened her compassion.
"'Almost a brute,' you say. If that be true, he stands the more in need of our pity." Gracebroke saw that it was useless to argue with her in her present mood, and that to win her from her fancy he must present the actual Bokrie to her.
One day, quite by accident, she met him. She had gone to a shop in Regent Street in her cousin's carriage. She was alone, and, having finished her purchase, had left the shop and was about to get into the brougham. A few doors away there was a cluster of people round a window. They were inspecting some photographs which had just been put into position, and above the pictures the words in large letters caught her attention: "New photographs of the man-ape, in various costumes." There was Bokrie, dropping hand over hand from the tree upon the sleeping camp; Bokrie carrying off the child, with the hunters in pursuit; Bokrie at the mission station; and at last the man-ape, like an English gentleman, sitting in a chair in evening dress; and again with his hat and cane, starting for a walk. She looked at the portraits, and then glanced at the crowd to see whether they were impressed. There, at the edge of the cluster of onlookers, stood the identical man, staring at his own likeness. There could be no mistake. She compared the creature and his portrait carefully; it was he without doubt. Her heart was beating quickly, but she never hesitated for one moment. He was here, within reach, and she must speak to him. The coachman had followed her progress slowly along the street, and had now drawn up at the kerb- stone. She gave no heed to the possibility of over-hearers, or to the curiosity of onlookers. She held out her hand, but he never saw and she had to touch his arm to attract his attention. "Mr. Bokrie, I believe," she said. He touched his hat, as he had been instructed to do, and looked at her with cold indifference. He had been addressed by respectable young ladies before this, and had been solicited for his autograph.
"You do not know me --- of course you cannot know me," she continued; "but I have heard of you, and have long wanted to speak to you. I am an African girl myself."
He looked in wonder at the features and straight, black hair. "I mean an English girl born in Africa. No, I am not altogether English after all; I have some points in common with you. You are being ill-treated; you are going to the bad they tell me; I will try and save you. Here is my address on this card; take it, and if you are in any trouble in the future send for me, and I will do the best I can for you."
Bokrie stood stock still; his mouth was slightly open. He stared at her stupidly, but said nothing. In a moment more she was gone; the door of the carriage closed, the carriage disappeared. He looked at the card, read the name and address three times, and put the card carefully in his pocket.
One afternoon, a few days later, Gracebroke came to Behemoth Square in great good humour. "London will soon be deprived of one of its shining lights," he remarked, after greeting the ladies, and accepting a cup of tea from the hands of Vesper.
"What is amiss?" said Mrs. Fallowfett, placidly. "Is it the Bishop of London, Sir Bathcourt Blizzard, or the Lord Chief Justice?"
"It is our friend Forest Bokrie, in whom we all take so deep an interest," replied Gracebroke carelessly, avoiding the eager glance of Christina. "I was driving along the Embankment this morning, and as I passed the Savoy there was a mob in the road and on the pavement, following a man who was in charge of several policemen. His hat had been lost in the contest which had evidently preceded his arrest. I stopped the cab, and as far as I could gather from the spectators he had been dancing and singing in front of Cleopatra's Needle, and had met the suggestion to move on by promptly knocking down the constable. I am not quite sure whether I got the true story, for a crowd, however interested in an accident or an arrest, is seldom well informed; but the conclusion of the episode went on under my own eyes. Our friend Bokrie pulled up sharp at the point where I stopped. I expect the police were giving him more assistance in his walk to the station than he cared to accept. There was a sharp tussle, and as the whistles were blown, I knew that it would end in more constables and a stretcher. Before the arrival of the reinforcement, Bokrie fastened upon one of the men and fairly worried him with his teeth and claws, as if he were, in fact, an animal fixed to his prey. It was with the greatest difficulty that he was got off, and the poor fellow --- his victim --- was terribly mangled and disfigured. I am sorry to describe such a disagreeable scene, but by my doing justice to it you will not have to waste any pity upon him when he gets the punishment which he deserves."
"Horrid wretch!" murmured Vesper, as she filled the cups, and accur