They were facing one another now. The doctor swallowed hard several times, and he felt the blood tingling in his temples. The dreaded moment had come. He had got to see this strange instrument that distinguished the Clockwork man from ordinary mortals. There was no shrinking from the eerie experience. Underneath that borrowed hat and wig there was somethingsomething utterly strange and outside the pale of human ingenuity. In the name of common humanity it was incumbent upon the Doctor to face the shock of this revelation, and yet he shrunk from it like a frightened child. He felt no[Pg 160] trace of curiosity, no feverish anxiety to investigate this mystery of the future. His knees trembled violently. He did not want to see the clock. He would have given a hundred pounds to be spared the ordeal before him.
He drew a long breath, murmured "My God!" and then suddenly asked "You found him so, or--?"It was a perfect fit. I wish my coats fitted as well. I looked round to see if I couldnt catch the eye of my Helper, and there wasnt a Helper there at all. I wondered if you were ill. I could think of nothing else that would have kept you away, and just said a wee bitty prayer for Helper. And then after church I heard that she had horrid old flue. And now may I make chimney smoke? Smoke not smell nasty to poor Flu-flu?
ONE:THE GREAT DAI-BOOTS. THE GREAT DAI-BOOTS.Perhaps that was the worst thing he had said yet, though, indeed, he meant but a grimly humourous observation, not perceiving nor being able to perceive in how odious a position he put his guest. But Lord Inverbrooms impenetrable armour of effortless good breeding could turn even that aside. He laughed.
TWO:"Gentlemen, I hope I'm not too officious; they say we're all going for a walk in the lily-pond woods, and I reckon you'd rather not leave these things behind."
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ONE:"They were neither of them present, Lieutenant; that hand was Miss Coralie Rothvelt's."There is no way out there, she said. Look into yourself and tell me if you really believe there is. The way is barred. You yourself bar it. How could I then pass over it?
TWO:
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ONE:"You were so anxious to get the General's letter?" I asked.He had begun to know that moment which few men of fifty, and those the luckiest of all, are unaware of. He wanted a companion, somebody who satisfied his human, not his corporal needs. While we are young, the youthful vital force feeds itself by its own excursions, satisfies itself with the fact of its travel and explorations. It is enough to go on, to lead the gipsy life and make the supper hot under the hedge-side, and sleep sound in the knowledge that next day there will be more travel and fresh horizons, and a dawn that shines on new valleys and hillsides. But when the plateau of life is reached, those are the fortunate ones who have their home already made. For thirty years he had had his own fireside and his wife, and his growing children. But never had he found his home: some spirit of the secret garden had inspired him, and now he felt mateless and all his money was dust and ashes in his mouth. Two things he wanted, one to be{121} different in breed from that which he was, the other to find a companion. The shadow of a companion lurked in his room, where were the piles of his books. Somewhere in that direction lay the lodestone.
TWO:"Anything might happen," the Clockwork man continued, plaintively, "I feel as though I might slip again, you knowslip back another thousand years or so." He turned again. "I've got to get worse before I get[Pg 159] better," he sighed, and then stopped to examine the rows of bottles arranged along the shelves.
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TWO:[Pg 78]
FORE:"We can travel by rail almost anywhere," said he, "and needn't come away from America to do so. Now, instead of going to Osaka by rail, which wouldn't be anything remarkable, suppose we go by a Japanese junk. I have been asking the hotel-keeper about it, and he says it is perfectly easy to do so, and that we can sail there with a fair wind in a few hours."He folded and docketed the sheets that showed the monthly profits, and most unusually for him at this busy hour of the morning, sat idly at his desk. The business of his stores here whirled along its course automatically, with Hugh who had been so sedulously trained in his fathers thorough-going school to look after it, and no longer needed his daily supervision. With the income which came to him from years of prudent investment he wanted no more, and he wondered whether the time was come to turn the business into a company. As vendor he would receive a considerable block of shares and yet leave the company with an excellent return for their money. Hugh would probably become general director, and he himself, secure in an ample fortune, would have all his time at his own disposal. Next year, it is true, he would be Mayor of Bracebridge, which would leave him but little leisure, for he had no notion of being anything but a hard-worked head of the towns municipal affairs, but after that he could retire from active life altogether, as far as offices and superintendence went. But he by no means looked forward to a life of well-fed,{68} well-housed idleness; the secret garden should spread its groves, he would live permanently in the busy cultivation of it. But it must spread itself considerably: he must be immersed in its atmosphere and lawns and thickets as thoroughly as, hitherto, he had been immersed in the fortunes of the Stores.
FORE:He walked a few yards up the road, and then turned through a wicket gate and mounted the hump of a meadow. The narrow path swerved slightly to right and left. Arthur fell to meditating upon paths in general and how they came into existence. Obviously, it was because people always walked in the same way. Countless footsteps, following the same line until the grass wore away. That was very odd when you came to think about it. Why didn't people choose different ways of crossing that particular meadow? Then there would[Pg 75] be innumerable paths, representing a variety of choice. It would be interesting to start a path of your own, and see how many people would follow you, even though you deliberately chose a circuitous or not obviously direct route. You could come every day until the path was made.He climbed quickly up the narrow chalky path, and at the top left it to tramp over the turf. Here he was on an eminence that commanded miles of open country, empty and yet brimful of this invasion of renewed life that combed through him like a swirl of sea-water through the thickets of subaqueous weed. His back was to the cup of hills round which Bracebridge clustered, and turning round he looked at it with a curious sense of detachment. There were the spires of the Cathedral, and hardly less prominent beside them the terra-cotta cupolas of the Stores. He wanted one as little as he wanted the other, and turned westwards, where the successive lines of downs stretched away like waves of a landless sea. Then he stopped again, for from a tussock of grass not fifty yards from him there shot up with throbbing throat and down-beating wings a solitary lark.{233} Somewhere in that tussock was the mate to whom it sang.
FORE:"Then you were thinking of me."Oh, you just wait till he does, and that wont be a very long wait, she said. You think youll be shy and nervous, but you wont when your turn comes. Ill be bound you like him well enough really.
FORE:
FORE:"You're a masterpiece," he remarked,[Pg 66] "that's what you are." This was his usual term for anything out the way. "You ain't a going to get me to believe that, not at my age.
FORE:At the first opportunity our friends paid a visit to the Chinese part of Shanghai. They found a man at the gate of the city who was ready to serve them as guide, and so they engaged him without delay. He led them through one of the principal streets, which would have been only a narrow lane or alley in America; and they had an opportunity of studying the peculiarities of the people as they had studied in the Japanese cities the people of Japan. Here is what Frank wrote down concerning his first promenade in a Chinese city:"What is the reason they don't strike the hours here as they do on land?" Frank inquired, as they reached the deck after dinner.
FORE:Have I, indeed? You must have everything your own way. And how are the bluebells getting on?
FORE:Remember! I had yet to make their discovery. But I was on the eve of making it.He shut his meaningless book, now intensely disliking the step he had taken, which at the time{290} had seemed so smart a rejoinder. Probably if at this moment Lord Inverbroom had appeared, asking him to cancel it, he would have done so. But that was exactly what it was certain Lord Inverbroom would not do. There remained Norah; he wondered whether Norah would refer to it again. Probably not: he had made clear that he thought the offering of her opinion was a great impertinence. And now to his annoyance he remembered that his wife had also considered it as such. Again she agreed with him, and again the fact of her concurrence made him lose confidence in the justice of his own view. He had instantly acquitted Norah of deliberate impertinence; now he reconsidered whether it had been an impertinence at all.... What if it was the simple desire of a friend to save a friend from a blunder, an unworthiness?
TWO:"Not now," hastily pleaded the Curate. "Some other time I should be glad to hear it. I am," his mouth opened very wide, "a great reader myself. And of course, as a professional conjurer, your interest in such a book would be two-fold."
TWO:Charles was no better next day, but merely obstinate, and went up to his work, as usual, with his sister. Keeling appeared shortly after, and, as usual, began the dictation. Now and then he gave sharp glances at Norah, and before long stopped in the middle of a letter.
"That is the case," answered the Doctor, "with us, but it is not so here. The Japanese take the moxa as calmly as we would swallow a pill, and with far less opposition than some of us make to a common blister.When I said I would try she looked distressfully unassured and I added "I'll do whatever risks no life but mine."The rest of the company were going into the house; he glanced furtively after them and grabbed my arm; you would have thought he was about to lay bare the whole tragedy in five words; "Smith,--nobody knows!"One of the most interesting street sights of their first day in Pekin was a procession carrying a dragon made of bamboo covered with painted paper. There was a great noise of tom-toms and drums to give warning of the approach of the procession, and there was the usual rabble of small boys that precedes similar festivities everywhere. The dragon was carried by five men, who held him aloft on sticks that also served to give his body an undulating motion in imitation of life. He was not pretty to look upon, and his head seemed too large for his body. The Chinese idea of the dragon is, that he is something very hideous, and they certainly succeed in representing their conception of him. Dr. Bronson explained that the dragon was frequently carried in procession at night, and on these occasions the hollow body was illuminated, so that it was more hideous, if possible, than in the daytime."But what are we to do?" said Arthur, raising his voice. "Tell us what we must do to avoid following you?""Like! Why, I'm just that dead-gone with curiosity that if I don't hear it it'll e'en a'most kill me--aw, haw! haw! haw!"