Collected Works of Algernon Blackwood

by Algernon Blackwood

  The spring wonder was melting into the peace of the long summer days when the end came. The vineyards had begun to dress themselves in green, and the forest in those soft blues when individual trees lose their outline in the general body of the mountain. The lake was indistinguishable from the sky; the Jura peaks and ridges gone a-soaring into misty distances; the white Alps withdrawn into inaccessible and remote solitudes of heaven. I was making reluctant preparations for leaving — dark London already in my thoughts — when the news came. I forget who first put it into actual words. It had been about the village all the morning, and something of it was in every face as I went down the street. But the moment I came out and saw the dog on my doorstep, looking up at me with puzzled and beseeching eyes, I knew that something untoward had happened; and when he bit at my boots and caught my trousers in his teeth, pulling me in the direction of the forest, a sudden sense of poignant bereavement shot through my heart that I found it hard to explain, and that must seem incredible to those who have never known how potent may be the conviction of a sudden intuition.

  I followed the forlorn creature whither it led, but before a hundred yards lay behind us I had learned the facts from half-a-dozen mouths. That morning, very early, before the countryside was awake, the first mountain train, swiftly descending the steep incline below Chambrelien, had caught Perret “Comment-va” just where the Mont Racine sentier crosses the line on the way to his best-beloved woods, and in one swift second had swept him into eternity. The spot was in the direct line he always took to that special woodland shrine — his Holy Place.

  And the manner of his death was characteristic of what I had divined in the man from the beginning; for he had given up his life to save his dog — this mongrel and faithful creature that now tugged so piteously at my trousers. Details, too, were not lacking; the engine-driver had not failed to tell the story at the next station, and the news had traveled up the mountainside in the way that all such news travels — swiftly.

  Moreover, the woman who lived at the hut beside the crossing, and lowered the wooden barriers at the approach of all trains, had witnessed the whole sad scene from the beginning.

  And it is soon told. Neither she nor the engine-driver knew exactly how the dog got caught in the rails, but both saw that it was caught, and both saw plainly how the figure of the half-witted wanderer, hatless as usual and with cape flying, moved deliberately across the line to release it. It all happened in a moment. The man could only have saved himself by leaving the dog to its fate. The shrieking whistle had as little effect upon him as the powerful breaks had upon the engine in those few available moments. Yet, in the fraction of a second before the engine caught them, the dog somehow leapt free, and the soul of the Man Who Played upon the Leaf passed into the presence of his God — singing.

  As soon as it realized that I followed willingly, the beastie left me and trotted on ahead, turning every few minutes to make sure that I was coming. But I guessed our destination without difficulty. We passed the Pontarlier railway first, then climbed for half-an-hour and crossed the mountain line about a mile above the scene of the disaster, and so eventually entered the region of the forest, still quivering with innumerable flowers, where in the shaded heart of trees we approached the spot of lilies that I knew — the place where a few weeks before the devout worshipper had lifted the hat from my head because the earth whereon I stood was holy ground. We stood in the pillared gateway of his Holy of Holies. The cool airs, perfumed beyond belief, stole out of the forest to meet us on the very threshold, for the trees here grew so thickly that only patches of the summer blaze found an entrance. And this time I did not wait on the outskirts, but followed my four-footed guide to a group of mossy boulders that stood in the very center of the hollow.

  And there, as the dog raised its eyes to mine, soft with the pain of its great unanswerable question, I saw in a cleft of the grey rock the ashes of many hundred fires; and, placed about them in careful array, an assortment of the sacrifices he had offered, doubtless in sharp personal deprivation, to his deity: — bits of moldy bread, half-loaves, untouched portions of cheese, salamé with the skin uncut — most of it exactly as I had left it in his hut; and last of all, wrapped in the original white paper, the piece of Colombier plume-cak and a row of ten silver francs round the edge....

  I learned afterwards, too, that among the almost unrecognizable remains on the railway, untouched by the devouring terror of the iron, they had found a hand — tightly clasping in its dead fingers a crumpled ivy leaf....

  My efforts to find a home for the dog delayed my departure, I remember, several days; but in the autumn when I returned it was only to hear that the creature had refused to stay with anyone, and finally had escaped into the forest and deliberately starved itself to death. They found its skeleton, Louis Favre told me, in a rocky hollow on the lower slopes of Mont Racine in the direction of Montmollin. But Louis Favre did not know, as I knew, that this hollow had received other sacrifices as well, and was consecrated ground.

  And somewhere, if you search well the Jura slopes between Champ du Moulin, where Jean-Jacques Rousseau had his temporary house, and Côtendard where he visited Lord Wemyss when “Milord Maréchal Keith” was Governor of the Principality of Neuchâtel under Frederic II, King of Prussia — if you look well these haunted slopes, somewhere between the vineyards and the gleaming limestone heights, you shall find the forest glade where lie the bleached bones of the mongrel dog, and the little village cemetery that holds the remains of the Man Who Played upon the Leaf to the honor of the Great God Pan.

  The Price of Wiggins’s Orgy

  I

  It happened to be a Saturday when Samuel Wiggins drew the first cash sum on account of his small legacy — some twenty pounds, ten in gold and ten in notes. It felt in his pocket like a bottled-up prolongation of life. Never before had he seen so many dreams within practical reach. It produced in him a kind of high and elusive exaltation of the spirit. From time to time he put his hand down to make the notes crackle and let his fingers play through the running sovereigns as children play through sand.

  For twenty years he had been secretary to a philanthropist interested in feeding — feeding the poor. Soup kitchens had been the keynote of those twenty years, the distribution of victuals his sole objective. And now he had his reward — a legacy of £100 a year for the balance of his days.

  To him it was riches. He wore a shortish frock-coat, a low, spreading collar, a black made-up tie, and boots with elastic sides. On this particular day he wore also a new pair of rather bright yellow leather gloves. He was unmarried, over forty, bald, plump in the body, and possessed of a simple and emotional heart almost childlike. His brown eyes shone in a face that was wrinkled and dusty — all his dreams driven inwards by the long years of uninspired toil for another.

  For the first time in his life, released from the dingy purlieus of soup kitchens and the like, he wandered towards evening among the gay and lighted streets of the “West End” — Piccadilly Circus where the flaming lamps positively hurt the eyes, and Leicester Square. It was bewildering and delightful, this freedom. It went to his head. Yet he ought to have known better.

  “I’m going to dine at a restaurant tonight, byjove,” he said to himself, thinking of the gloomy boarding-house where he usually sat between a missionary and a typewriter. He fingered his money. “I’m going to celebrate my legacy. I’ve earned it.” The thought of a motorcar flashed absurdly through his mind; it was followed by another: a holiday in Spain, Italy, Hungary — one of those sunny countries where music was cheap, in the open air, and of the romantic kind he loved. These thoughts show the kind of exaltation that possessed him.

  “It’s nearly, though not quite, £2 a week,” he repeated to himself for the fiftieth time, reflecting upon his legacy. “I simply can’t believe it!”

  After indecision that threatened to be endless, he turned at length through the swinging glass doors of a big and rather gorgeous restaurant. Only once before i
n his life had he dined at a big London restaurant — a Railway Hotel! Passing with some hesitation through the gaudy café where a number of foreigners sat drinking at little marble tables, he entered the main dining room, long, lofty, and already thronged. Here the light and noise and movement dazed him considerably, and for the life of him he could not decide upon a table. The people all looked so prosperous and important; the waiters so like gentlemen in evening dress —— the kind that came to the philanthropist’s table. The roar of voices, eating, knives and forks, rose about him and filled him with a certain dismay. It was all rather overwhelming.

  “I should have liked a smaller place better,” he murmured, “but still—” And again he fingered his money to gain confidence.

  The choice of a table was intimidating, for he was absurdly retiring, was Wiggins; more at home with papers and the reports of philanthropic societies; his holidays spent in a boarding-house at Worthing with his sister and her invalid husband. Then relief came in the form of a subhead waiter who, spying his helplessness, inquired with a bland grandeur of manner if he “looked perhaps for someone?”

  “Oh, a table, thanks, only a table—”

  The man, washing his hands in mid-air, swept down the crowded aisles and found one without the least difficulty. It emerged from nowhere so easily that Wiggins felt he had been a fool not to discover it alone. He wondered if he ought to tip the man half-a-crown now or later, but, before he could decide, another occupied his place, bland and smiling, with black eyes and plushlike hair, bending low before him and holding out a large pink program.

  He examined it, feeling that he ought to order dishes with outlandish names just to show that he knew his way about. Before he could steady his eye upon a single line, however, a third waiter, very youthful, suggested in broken English that Wiggins should leave his hat, coat and umbrella elsewhere. This he did willingly, though without grace or dispatch, for the yellow gloves stuck ridiculously to his hands. Then he sat down and turned to the menu again.

  It was a very ordinary restaurant really, in spite of the vast height of the gilded ceiling, the scale of its sham magnificence and the excessive glitter of its hundred lights. The menu, disguised by various expensive and recherche dishes (which when ordered were invariably found to be “off”), was even more ordinary than the hall. But to the dazed Wiggins the words looked like a series of death-sentences printed in different languages, but all meaning the same thing: order me - or die! That waiter standing over him was the executioner. Unless he speedily ordered something really worth the proprietor’s while to provide, the head waiter would be summoned and he, Wiggins, would be beheaded. Those stars against certain cheap dishes meant that they could only be ordered by privileged persons, and those crosses —

  “This is vairy nice this sevening, sir,” said the waiter, suddenly bending and pointing with a dirty finger to a dish that Wiggins found buried in a list uncommonly like “Voluntary Subscriptions” in his reports. It was entitled “Lancashire Hot-Pot... 2/0” — two shillings, not two pounds, as he first imagined! He leaped at it.

  “Yes, thanks; that’ll do, then — for tonight,” he said, and the waiter ambled away indifferently, looking all round the room in search of sympathy.

  By degrees, however, the other recovered his self-possession, and realized that to spend his legacy on mere Hot-Pot was to admit he knew not the values of life. He called the plush-headed waiter back and with a rush of words ordered some oysters, soup, a fried sole, and half a partridge to follow.

  “Then ze’Ot-Pot, sir?” queried the man, with respect.

  “I’ll see about that later.”

  For he was already wondering what he should drink, knowing nothing of wines and vintages. At luncheon with the philanthropist he sometimes had a glass of sherry; at Worthing with his sister he drank beer. But now he wanted something really good, something generous that would help him to celebrate. He would have ordered champagne as a conciliation to the waiter, now positively obsequious, but someone had told him once that there was not enough champagne in the world to go round, and that hotels and restaurants were supplied with “something rather bad.” Burgundy, he felt, would be more the thing — rich, sunny, full-bodied.

  He studied the wine-card till his head swam. A waiter, while he was thus engaged, sidled up and watched him from an angle. Wiggins, looking up distractedly at the same moment, caught his eye. Whew! It was the Head Waiter himself, a man of quite infinite presence, who at once bowed himself forward, and with a gentle but commanding manner drew his attention to the wines he could “especially recommend.” Something in the man’s face struck him momentarily as familiar — vaguely familiar — then passed.

  Now Wiggins, as has been said, did not know one wine from another; but the spirit of his foolish pose fairly had him by the throat at last, and each time this condescending individual indicated a new vintage he shook his head knowingly and shrugged his shoulders with the air of a connoisseur. This pantomime continued for several minutes.

  “Something really good, you know,” he mumbled after a while, determined to justify himself in the eyes of this high official who was taking such pains. “A rare wine — er — with body in it.” Then he added, with a sudden impulse of confidence, “It’s Saturday night, remember!” And he smiled knowingly, making a gesture that a man of the world was meant to understand.

  Why he should have said this remains a mystery. Perhaps it was a semi-apologetic reference to the supposed habit of men to indulge themselves on a Saturday because they need not rise early to work next day. Perhaps it was meant in some way to excuse all the trouble he was giving. In any case, there can be no question that the manner of the Head Waiter instantly changed in a subtle way difficult to describe, and from mere official politeness passed into deferential attention. He bowed slightly. He increased his distance by an inch or two. Wiggins, noticing it and slightly bewildered, repeated his remark, for want of something to say more than anything else. “It’s Saturday night, of course,” he repeated, murmuring, yet putting more meaning into the words than they could reasonably hold.

  “As Monsieur says,” the man replied, with a marked respect in his tone not there before; “and we — close early.”

  “Of course,” said the other, gaining confidence pleasantly, “you close early.”

  He had quite forgotten the fact, even if he ever knew it, but he spoke with decision. Glancing up from the wine-list, he caught the man’s eye; then instantly lowered his gaze, for the Head Waiter was staring at him in a fixed and curious manner that seemed unnecessary. And once again that passing touch of familiarity appeared upon the features and was gone.

  “Monsieur is here for the first time, if I may ask?” came next.

  “Er — yes, I am,” he replied, thinking all this attention a trifle excessive.

  “Ah, pardon, of course, I understand,” the Head Waiter added softly. “A new — a recent member, then — ?”

  A little nonplussed, a little puzzled, Wiggins agreed with a nod of the head. He did not know that head waiters referred to customers as “members.” For an instant it occurred to him that possibly he was being mistaken for somebody else. It was really — but at that moment the oysters arrived. The Head Waiter said something in rapid Italian to his subordinate — something that obviously increased that plush-headed person’s desire to please — bent over with his best manner to murmur, “And I will get monsieur the wine he will like, the right kind of wine!” and was gone.

  It was a new and delightful sensation. Wiggins, feeling proud, pleased and important under the effect of this excellent service and attention, turned to his oysters. The wine would come presently. And, meanwhile, the music had begun....

  II

  He began to enjoy himself thoroughly, and the wine — still, fragrant, soft — soon ran in his veins and drove out the last vestige of his absurd shyness. Behind the palm trees, somewhere out of sight, the orchestra played soothingly, and if the selections were somewhat bizarre it made
no difference to him. He drank in the sound just as he drank in the wine — eagerly. Both fed the consciousness that he was enjoying himself, and the Danse Macabre gave him as much pleasure as did the Bohème, the Strauss Waltz, or Donizetti. Everything — wine, music, food, people —— served to intensify his interest in himself. He examined his face in the big mirrors and realized what a dog he was and what a good time he was having. He watched the other customers, finding them splendid and distinguished. The whole place was really fine — he would come again and again, always ordering the same wine, for it was certainly an unusual wine, as the Head Waiter had called it, “the right kind.” The price of it he never asked, for in his pocket lay the price of a whole case. His hand slipped down to finger the sovereigns — hot and slippery now —— and the notes, somewhat moist and crumpled.... The needles of the big staring clock meanwhile swung onwards....

  Thus, aided by the tactful and occasional superintendence of the Head Waiter from a distance, the evening passed along in a happy rush of pleasurable emotion. The half-partridge had vanished, and Wiggins toyed now with a wonderful-looking “sweet” — the most expensive he could find. He did not eat much of it, but liked to see it on his plate. The wine helped things enormously. He had ordered another half-bottle some time ago, delighted to find that it exhilarated without confusing him. And everyone else in the place was enjoying himself in the same way. He was thrilled to discover this.