SNOWBOUND
Twelfth-night had come and gone, and life next morning seemed a
trifle flat and purposeless. But yester-eve and the mummers were
here! They had come striding into the old kitchen, powdering the
red brick floor with snow from their barbaric bedizenments; and
stamping, and crossing, and declaiming, till all was whirl and
riot and shout. Harold was frankly afraid: unabashed, he buried
himself in the cook's ample bosom. Edward feigned a manly
superiority to illusion, and greeted these awful apparitions
familiarly, as Dick and Harry and Joe. As for me, I was too big
to run, too rapt to resist the magic and surprise. Whence came
these outlanders, breaking in on us with song and ordered masque
and a terrible clashing of wooden swords? And after these, what
strange visitants might we not look for any quiet night, when the
chestnuts popped in the ashes, and the old ghost stories
drew the awe-stricken circle close? Old Merlin, perhaps, "all
furred in black sheep-skins, and a russet gown, with a bow and
arrows, and bearing wild geese in his hand!" Or stately Ogier
the Dane, recalled from Faery, asking his way to the land that
once had need of him! Or even, on some white night, the Snow-
Queen herself, with a chime of sleigh-bells and the patter of
reindeers' feet, with sudden halt at the door flung wide, while
aloft the Northern Lights went shaking attendant spears among the
quiet stars!
This morning, house-bound by the relentless, indefatigable snow,
I was feeling the reaction Edward, on the contrary, being
violently stage struck on this his first introduction to the real
Drama, was striding up and down the floor, proclaiming "Here be
I, King Gearge the Third," in a strong Berkshire accent. Harold,
accustomed, as the youngest, to lonely antics and to sports that
asked no sympathy, was absorbed in "clubmen": a performance
consisting in a measured progress round the room arm-in-arm with
an imaginary companion of reverend years, with occasional halts
at imaginary clubs, where--imaginary steps being leisurely
ascended--imaginary papers were glanced at, imaginary scandal was
discussed with elderly shakings of the head, and--regrettable to
say--imaginary glasses were lifted lipwards. Heaven only knows
how the germ of this dreary pastime first found way into his
small-boyish being. It was his own invention, and he was
proportionately proud of it. Meanwhile, Charlotte and I,
crouched in the window-seat, watched, spell-stricken, the whirl
and eddy and drive of the innumerable snow-flakes, wrapping our
cheery little world in an uncanny uniform, ghastly in line and
hue.
Charlotte was sadly out of spirits. Having "countered" Miss
Smedley at breakfast, during some argument or other, by an apt
quotation from her favourite classic (the Fairy Book) she had
been gently but firmly informed that no such things as fairies
ever really existed. "Do you mean to say it's all lies?" asked
Charlotte, bluntly. Miss Smedley deprecated the use of any such
unladylike words in any connection at all. "These stories had
their origin, my dear," she explained, "in a mistaken
anthropomorphism in the interpretation of nature. But though
we are now too well informed to fall into similar errors,
there are still many beautiful lessons to be learned from these
myths--"
"But how can you learn anything," persisted Charlotte, "from what
doesn't exist?" And she left the table defiant, howbeit
depressed.
"Don't you mind HER," I said, consolingly; "how can she know
anything about it? Why, she can't even throw a stone properly!"
"Edward says they're all rot, too," replied Charlotte,
doubtfully.
Edward says everything's rot," I explained, "now he thinks he's
going into the Army. If a thing's in a book it MUST be true,
so that settles it!"
Charlotte looked almost reassured. The room was quieter now, for
Edward had got the dragon down and was boring holes in him with a
purring sound Harold was ascending the steps of the Athenaeum
with a jaunty air--suggestive rather of the Junior Carlton.
Outside, the tall elm-tops were hardly to be seen through the
feathery storm. "The sky's a-falling," quoted Charlotte, softly;
"I must go and tell the king." The quotation suggested a fairy
story, and I offered to read to her, reaching out for the
book. But the Wee Folk were under a cloud; sceptical hints had
embittered the chalice. So I was fain to fetch Arthur--second
favourite with Charlotte for his dames riding errant, and an easy
first with us boys for his spear-splintering crash of tourney and
hurtle against hopeless odds. Here again, however, I proved
unfortunate,--what ill-luck made the book open at the sorrowful
history of Balin and Balan? "And he vanished anon," I read: "and
so he heard an horne blow, as it had been the death of a beast.
`That blast,' said Balin, `is blowen for me, for I am the prize,
and yet am I not dead.'" Charlotte began to cry: she knew the
rest too well. I shut the book in despair. Harold emerged from
behind the arm-chair. He was sucking his thumb (a thing which
members of the Reform are seldom seen to do), and he stared wide-
eyed at his tear stained sister. Edward put off his histrionics,
and rushed up to her as the consoler--a new part for him.
"I know a jolly story," he began. "Aunt Eliza told it me. It
was when she was somewhere over in that beastly abroad"--(he had
once spent a black month of misery at Dinan)--"and there was
a fellow there who had got two storks. And one stork died--it
was the she-stork." ("What did it die of?" put in Harold.) "And
the other stork was quite sorry, and moped, and went on, and got
very miserable. So they looked about and found a duck, and
introduced it to the stork. The duck was a drake, but the stork
didn't mind, and they loved each other and were as jolly as could
be. By and by another duck came along,--a real she-duck this
time,--and when the drake saw her he fell in love, and left the
stork, and went and proposed to the duck: for she was very
beautiful. But the poor stork who was left, he said nothing at
all to anybody, but just pined and pined and pined away, till one
morning he was found quite dead! But the ducks lived happily
ever afterwards!"
This was Edward's idea of a jolly story! Down again went the
corners of poor Charlotte's mouth. Really Edward's stupid
inability to see the real point in anything was TOO annoying!
It was always so. Years before, it being necessary to prepare
his youthful mind for a domestic event that might lead to awkward
questionings at a time when there was little leisure to invent
appropriate answers, it was delicately inquired of him
whether he would like to have a little brother, or perhaps a
little sister? He considered the matter carefully in all its
bearings, and finally declared for a Newfoundland pup. Any boy
more "gleg at the uptak" would have met his parents half-way, and
eased their burden. As it was, the matter had to be approached
all over again from a fresh standpoint. And now, while Charlotte
turned away sniffingly, with a hiccough that told of an
overwrought soul, Edward, unconscious (like Sir Isaac's Diamond)
of the mischief he had done, wheeled round on Harold with a
shout.
"I want a live dragon," he announced: "you've got to be my
dragon!"
"Leave me go, will you?" squealed Harold, struggling stoutly.
"I'm playin' at something else. How can I be a dragon and belong
to all the clubs?"
"But wouldn't you like to be a nice scaly dragon, all green,"
said Edward, trying persuasion, "with a curly tail and red eyes,
and breathing real smoke and fire?"
Harold wavered an instant: Pall-Mall was still strong in him.
The next he was grovelling on the floor. No saurian ever
swung a tail so scaly and so curly as his. Clubland was a
thousand years away. With horrific pants he emitted smokiest
smoke and fiercest fire.
"Now I want a Princess," cried Edward, clutching Charlotte
ecstatically; "and YOU can be the doctor, and heal me from the
dragon's deadly wound."
Of all professions I held the sacred art of healing in worst
horror and contempt. Cataclysmal memories of purge and draught
crowded thick on me, and with Charlotte--who courted no barren
honours--I made a break for the door. Edward did likewise, and
the hostile forces clashed together on the mat, and for a brief
space things were mixed and chaotic and Arthurian. The silvery
sound of the luncheon-bell restored an instant peace, even in the
teeth of clenched antagonisms like ours. The Holy Grail itself,
"sliding athwart a sunbeam," never so effectually stilled a riot
of warring passions into sweet and quiet accord.
