BECKWITH'S CASE
The facts were as follows. Mr. Stephen Mortimer Beckwith was a youngman living at Wishford in the Amesbury district of Wiltshire. He was aclerk in the Wilts and Dorset Bank at Salisbury, was married and hadone child. His age at the time of the experience here related wastwenty-eight. His health was excellent.
On the 30th November, 1887, at about ten o'clock at night, he wasreturning home from Amesbury where he had been spending the evening ata friend's house. The weather was mild, with a rain-bearing windblowing in squalls from the south-west. It was three-quarter moon thatnight, and although the sky was frequently overcast it was at no timedark. Mr. Beckwith, who was riding a bicycle and accompanied by hisfox-terrier Strap, states that he had no difficulty in seeing andavoiding the stones cast down at intervals by the road-menders; thatflocks of sheep in the hollows were very visible, and that, passingWilsford House, he saw a barn owl quite plainly and remarked itsheavy, uneven flight.
A mile beyond Wilsford House, Strap, the dog, broke through thequick-set hedge upon his right-hand side and ran yelping up the down,which rises sharply just there. Mr. Beckwith, who imagined that he wasafter a hare, whistled him in, presently calling him sharply, "Strap,Strap, come out of it." The dog took no notice, but ran directly to aclump of gorse and bramble half-way up the down, and stood there inthe attitude of a pointer, with uplifted paw, watching the gorseintently, and whining. Mr. Beckwith was by this time dismounted,observing the dog. He watched him for some minutes from the road. Themoon was bright, the sky at the moment free from cloud.
He himself could see nothing in the gorse, though the dog wasundoubtedly in a high state of excitement. It made frequent rushesforward, but stopped short of the object that it saw and trembled. Itdid not bark outright but rather whimpered--"a curious, shuddering,crying noise," says Mr. Beckwith. Interested by the animal'spersistent and singular behaviour, he now sought a gap in the hedge,went through on to the down, and approached the clumped bushes. Strapwas so much occupied that he barely noticed his master's coming; itseemed as if he dared not take his eyes for one second from what hesaw in there.
Beckwith, standing behind the dog, looked into the gorse. From thedistance at which he still stood he could see nothing at all. Hisbelief then was that there was either a tramp in a drunken sleep,possibly two tramps, or a hare caught in a wire, or possibly even afox. Having no stick with him he did not care, at first, to go anynearer, and contented himself with urging on his terrier. This was notvery courageous of him, as he admits, and was quite unsuccessful. Noverbal excitations would draw Strap nearer to the furze-bush. Finallythe dog threw up his head, showed his master the white arcs of hiseyes and fairly howled at the moon. At this dismal sound Mr. Beckwithowned himself alarmed. It was, as he describes it--though he is anEnglishman--"uncanny." The time, he owns, the aspect of the night,loneliness of the spot (midway up the steep slope of a chalk down),the mysterious shroud of darkness upon shadowed and distant objectsand flood of white light upon the foreground--all these circumstancesworked upon his imagination.
He was indeed for retreat; but here Strap was of a different mind.Nothing would excite him to advance, but nothing either could inducehim to retire. Whatever he saw in the furze-bush Strap must continueto observe. In the face of this Beckwith summoned up his courage, tookit in both hands and went much nearer to the furze-bushes, muchnearer, that is, than Strap the terrier could bring himself to go.Then, he tells us, he did see a pair of bright eyes far in thethicket, which seemed to be fixed upon his, and by degrees also a paleand troubled face. Here, then, was neither fox nor drunken tramp, butsome human creature, man, woman, or child, fully aware of him and ofthe dog.
Beckwith, who now had surer command of his feelings, spoke aloudasking, "What are you doing there? What's the matter?" He had noreply. He went one pace nearer, being still on his guard, and spokeagain. "I won't hurt you," he said. "Tell me what the matter is." Theeyes remained unwinkingly fixed upon his own. No movement of thefeatures could be discerned. The face, as he could now make it out,was very small--"about as big as a big wax doll's," he says, "of alongish oval, very pale." He adds, "I could see its neck now, nothicker than my wrist; and where its clothes began. I couldn't see anyarms, for a good reason. I found out afterward that they had beenbound behind its back. I should have said immediately, 'That's a girlin there,' if it had not been for one or two plain considerations. Ithad not the size of what we call a girl, nor the face of what we meanby a child. It was, in fact, neither fish, flesh, nor fowl. Strap hadknown that from the beginning, and now I was of Strap's opinionmyself."
Advancing with care, a step at a time, Beckwith presently foundhimself within touching distance of the creature. He was now standingwith furze half-way up his calves, right above it, stooping to lookclosely at it; and as he stooped and moved, now this way, now that, toget a clearer view, so the crouching thing's eyes gazed up to meethis, and followed them about, as if safety lay only in thatnever-shifting, fixed regard. He had noticed, and states in hisnarrative, that Strap had seemed quite unable, in the same way, totake his eyes off the creature for a single second.
He could now see that, of whatever nature it might be, it was, in formand features, most exactly a young woman. The features, for instance,were regular and fine. He remarks in particular upon the chin. Allabout its face, narrowing the oval of it, fell dark glossy curtains ofhair, very straight and glistening with wet. Its garment was cut in aplain circle round the neck, and short off at the shoulders, leavingthe arms entirely bare. This garment, shift, smock or gown, as heindifferently calls it, appeared thin, and was found afterward to beof a grey colour, soft and clinging to the shape. It was made loose,however, and gathered in at the waist. He could not see thecreature's legs, as they were tucked under her. Her arms, it has beenrelated, were behind her back. The only other things to be remarkedupon were the strange stillness of one who was plainly suffering, andmight well be alarmed, and appearance of expectancy, a dumb appeal;what he himself calls rather well "an ignorant sort of impatience,like that of a sick animal."
"Come," Beckwith now said, "let me help you up. You will get cold ifyou sit here. Give me your hand, will you?" She neither spoke normoved; simply continued to search his eyes. Strap, meantime, was stilltrembling and whining. But now, when he stooped yet lower to take herforcibly by the arms, she shrank back a little way and turned herhead, and he saw to his horror that she had a great open wound in theside of her neck--from which, however, no blood was issuing. Yet itwas clearly a fresh wound, recently made.
He was greatly shocked. "Good God," he said, "there's been foul playhere," and whipped out his handkerchief. Kneeling, he wound it severaltimes round her slender throat and knotted it as tightly as he could;then, without more ado, he took her up in his arms, under the kneesand round the middle, and carried her down the slope to the road. Hedescribes her as of no weight at all. He says it was "exactly likecarrying an armful of feathers about." "I took her down the hill andthrough the hedge at the bottom as if she had been a pillow."
Here it was that he discovered that her wrists were bound togetherbehind her back with a kind of plait of thongs so intricate that hewas quite unable to release them. He felt his pockets for his knife,but could not find it, and then recollected suddenly that he shouldhave a new one with him, the third prize in a whist tournament inwhich he had taken part that evening. He found it wrapped in paper inhis overcoat pocket, with it cut the thongs and set the littlecreature free. She immediately responded--the first sign of animationwhich she had displayed--by throwing both her arms about his body andclinging to him in an ecstasy. Holding him so that, as he says, hefelt the shuddering go all through her, she suddenly lowered her headand touched his wrist with her cheek. He says that instead of beingcold to the touch, "like a fish," as she had seemed to be when hefirst took her out of the furze, she was now "as warm as a toast, likea child."
So far he had put her down for "a foreigner," convenient term fordefining something which you do not quite un
derstand. She had none ofhis language, evidently; she was undersized, some three feet sixinches by the look of her,[4] and yet perfectly proportioned. She wasmost curiously dressed in a frock cut to the knee, and actually innothing else at all. It left her bare-legged and bare-armed, and wasmade, as he puts it himself, of stuff like cobweb: "those dusty,drooping kind which you put on your finger to stop bleeding." He couldnot recognise the web, but was sure that it was neither linen norcotton. It seemed to stick to her body wherever it touched a prominentpart: "you could see very well, to say nothing of feeling, that shewas well made and well nourished." She ought, as he judged, to be achild of five years old, "and a feather-weight at that"; but he feltcertain that she must be "much more like sixteen." It was that, Igather, which made him suspect her of being something outsideexperience. So far, then, it was safe to call her a foreigner: but hewas not yet at the end of his discoveries.
[Footnote 4: Her exact measurements are stated to have been asfollows: height from crown to sole, 3 feet 5 inches. Round waist, 15inches; round bust, 21 inches; round wrist, 3-1/2 inches; round neck,7-1/2 inches.]
Heavy footsteps, coming from the direction of Wishford, in due timeproved to be those of Police Constable Gulliver, a neighbour ofBeckwith's and guardian of the peace in his own village. He lifted hislantern to flash it into the traveller's eyes, and dropped it againwith a pleasant "good evening."
He added that it was inclined to be showery, which was more thantrue, as it was at the moment raining hard. With that, it seems, hewould have passed on.
But Beckwith, whether smitten by self-consciousness of having beenseen with a young woman in his arms at a suspicious hour of the nightby the village policeman, or bursting perhaps with the importance ofhis affair, detained Gulliver. "Just look at this," he said boldly."Here's a pretty thing to have found on a lonely road. Foul playsomewhere, I'm afraid," he then exhibited his burden to the lanternlight.
To his extreme surprise, however, the constable, after exploring thebeam of light and all that it contained for some time in silence,reached out his hand for the knife which Beckwith still held open. Helooked at it on both sides, examined the handle and gave it back."Foul play, Mr. Beckwith?" he said laughing. "Bless you, they usebigger tools than that. That's just a toy, the like of that. Cut yourhand with it, though, already, I see." He must have noticed thehandkerchief, for as he spoke the light from his lantern shone fullupon the face and neck of the child, or creature, in the young man'sarms, so clearly that, looking down at it, Beckwith himself could seethe clear grey of its intensely watchful eyes, and the very pupils ofthem, diminished to specks of black. It was now, therefore, plain tohim that what he held was a foreigner indeed, since the parishconstable was unable to see it. Strap had smelt it, then seen it, andhe, Beckwith, had seen it; but it was invisible to Gulliver. "I feltnow," he says in his narrative, "that something was wrong. I did notlike the idea of taking it into the house; but I intended to make onemore trial before I made up my mind about that. I said good night toGulliver, put her on my bicycle and pushed her home. But first of allI took the handkerchief from her neck and put it in my pocket. Therewas no blood upon it, that I could see."
His wife, as he had expected, was waiting at the gate for him. Sheexclaimed, as he had expected, upon the lateness of the hour. Beckwithstood for a little in the roadway before the house, explaining thatStrap had bolted up the hill and had had to be looked for and fetchedback. While speaking he noticed that Mrs. Beckwith was as insensibleto the creature on the bicycle as Gulliver the constable had been.Indeed, she went much further to prove herself so than he, for sheactually put her hand upon the handle-bar of the machine, and in orderto do that drove it right through the centre of the girl crouchingthere. Beckwith saw that done. "I declare solemnly upon my honour," hewrites, "that it was as if Mary had drilled a hole clean through themiddle of her back. Through gown and skin and bone and all her armwent; and how it went I don't know. To me it seemed that her hand wason the handle-bar, while her upper arm, to the elbow, was in betweenthe girl's shoulders. There was a gap from the elbow downwards whereMary's arm was inside the body; then from the creature's diaphragm herlower arm, wrist and hand came out. And all the time we were speakingthe girl's eyes were on my face. I was now quite determined that Iwouldn't have her in the house for a mint of money."
He put her, finally, in the dog-kennel. Strap, as a favourite, livedin the house; but he kept a greyhound in the garden, in a kennelsurrounded by a sort of run made of iron poles and galvanised wire. Itwas roofed in with wire also, for the convenience of stretching atarpaulin in wet weather. Here it was that he bestowed the strangebeing rescued from the down.
It was clever, I think, of Beckwith to infer that what Strap had shownrespect for would be respected by the greyhound, and certainly bold ofhim to act upon his inference. However, events proved that he had beenperfectly right. Bran, the greyhound, was interested, highlyinterested in his guest. The moment he saw his master he saw what hewas carrying. "Quiet, Bran, quiet there," was a very unnecessaryadjuration. Bran stretched up his head and sniffed, but went nofurther; and when Beckwith had placed his burden on the straw insidethe kennel, Bran lay down, as if on guard, outside the opening and puthis muzzle on his forepaws. Again Beckwith noticed that curiousappearance of the eyes which the fox-terrier's had made already.Bran's eyes were turned upward to show the narrow arcs of white.
Before he went to bed, he tells us, but not before Mrs. Beckwith hadgone there, he took out a bowl of bread and milk to his patient. Branhe found to be still stretched out before the entry; the girl wasnestled down in the straw, as if asleep or prepared to be so, with herface upon her hand. Upon an after-thought he went back for a cleanpocket handkerchief, warm water and a sponge. With these, by the lightof a candle, he washed the wound, dipped the rag in hazeline, andapplied it. This done, he touched the creature's head, nodded a goodnight and retired. "She smiled at me very prettily," he says. "Thatwas the first time she did it."
There was no blood on the handkerchief which he had removed.
Early in the morning following upon the adventure Beckwith was out andabout. He wished to verify the overnight experiences in the light ofrefreshed intelligence. On approaching the kennel he saw at once thatit had been no dream. There, in fact, was the creature of hisdiscovery playing with Bran the greyhound, circling sedately abouthim, weaving her arms, pointing her toes, arching her graceful neck,stooping to him, as if inviting him to sport, darting away--"like afairy," says Beckwith, "at her magic, dancing in a ring." Bran, heobserved, made no effort to catch her, but crouched rather than sat,as if ready to spring. He followed her about with his eyes as far ashe could; but when the course of her dance took her immediately behindhim he did not turn his head, but kept his eye fixed as far backwardas he could, against the moment when she should come again into thescope of his vision. "It seemed as important to him as it had the daybefore to Strap to keep her always in his eye. It seemed--and alwaysseemed so long as I could study them together--intensely important."Bran's mouth was stretched to "a sort of grin"; occasionally hepanted. When Beckwith entered the kennel and touched the dog (whichtook little notice of him) he found him trembling with excitement. Hisheart was beating at a great rate. He also drank quantities of water.
Beckwith, whose narrative, hitherto summarised, I may now quote, tellsus that the creature was indescribably graceful and light-footed."You couldn't hear the fall of her foot: you never could. Her dancingand circling about the cage seemed to be the most important businessof her life; she was always at it, especially in bright weather. Ishouldn't have called it restlessness so much as busyness. It reallyseemed to mean more to her than exercise or irritation at confinement.It was evident also that she was happy when so engaged. She used tosing. She sang also when she was sitting still with Bran; but not withsuch exhilaration.
"Her eyes were bright--when she was dancing about--with mischief anddevilry. I cannot avoid that word, though it does not describe what Ireally mean. She looked wild and outla
ndish and full of fun, as if sheknew that she was teasing the dog, and yet couldn't help herself. Whenyou say of a child that he looks wicked, you don't mean it literally;it is rather a compliment than not. So it was with her and herwickedness. She did look wicked, there's no mistake--able and willingto do wickedly; but I am sure she never meant to hurt Bran. They werealways firm friends, though the dog knew very well who was master.
"When you looked at her you did not think of her height. She was socomplete; as well made as a statuette. I could have spanned her waistwith my two thumbs and middle fingers, and her neck (very nearly)with one hand. She was pale and inclined to be dusky in complexion,but not so dark as a gipsy; she had grey eyes, and dark-brown hair,which she could sit upon if she chose. Her gown you could have swornwas made of cobweb; I don't know how else to describe it. As I hadsuspected, she wore nothing else, for while I was there that firstmorning, so soon as the sun came up over the hill she slipped it offher and stood up dressed in nothing at all. She was a regular littleVenus--that's all I can say. I never could get accustomed to thatweakness of hers for slipping off her frock, though no doubt it wasvery absurd. She had no sort of shame in it, so why on earth should I?
"The food, I ought to mention, had disappeared: the bowl was empty.But I know now that Bran must have had it. So long as she remained inthe kennel or about my place she never ate anything, nor drank either.If she had I must have known it, as I used to clean the run out everymorning. I was always particular about that. I used to say that youcouldn't keep dogs too clean. But I tried her, unsuccessfully, withall sorts of things: flowers, honey, dew--for I had read somewherethat fairies drink dew and suck honey out of flowers. She used to lookat the little messes I made for her, and when she knew me betterwould grimace at them, and look up in my face and laugh at me.
"I have said that she used to sing sometimes. It was like nothing thatI can describe. Perhaps the wind in the telegraph wire comes nearestto it, and yet that is an absurd comparison. I could never catch anywords; indeed I did not succeed in learning a single word of herlanguage. I doubt very much whether they have what we call alanguage--I mean the people who are like her, her own people. Theycommunicate with each other, I fancy, as she did with my dogs,inarticulately, but with perfect communication and understanding oneither side. When I began to teach her English I noticed that she hada kind of pity for me, a kind of contempt perhaps is nearer the mark,that I should be compelled to express myself in so clumsy a way. I amno philosopher, but I imagine that our need of putting one word afteranother may be due to our habit of thinking in sequence. If there isno such thing as Time in the other world it should not be necessarythere to frame speech in sentences at all. I am sure that Thumbeline(which was my name for her--I never learned her real name) spoke withBran and Strap in flashes which revealed her whole thought at once. Soalso they answered her, there's no doubt. So also she contrived totalk with my little girl, who, although she was four years old and agreat chatterbox, never attempted to say a single word of her ownlanguage to Thumbeline, yet communicated with her by the hourtogether. But I did not know anything of this for a month or more,though it must have begun almost at once.
"I blame myself for it, myself only. I ought, of course, to haveremembered that children are more likely to see fairies thangrown-ups; but then--why did Florrie keep it all secret? Why did shenot tell her mother, or me, that she had seen a fairy in Bran'skennel? The child was as open as the day, yet she concealed herknowledge from both of us without the least difficulty. She seemed thesame careless, laughing child she had always been; one could not havesupposed her to have a care in the world, and yet, for nearly sixmonths she must have been full of care, having daily secretintercourse with Thumbeline and keeping her eyes open all the timelest her mother or I should find her out. Certainly she could havetaught me something in the way of keeping secrets. I know that I keptmine very badly, and blame myself more than enough for keeping it atall. God knows what we might have been spared if, on the night Ibrought her home, I had told Mary the whole truth! And yet--how couldI have convinced her that she was impaling some one with her armwhile her hand rested on the bar of the bicycle? Is not that anabsurdity on the face of it? Yes, indeed; but the sequel is noabsurdity. That's the terrible fact.
"I kept Thumbeline in the kennel for the whole winter. She seemedhappy enough there with the dogs, and, of course, she had had Florrie,too, though I did not find that out until the spring. I don't doubt,now, that if I had kept her in there altogether she would have beenperfectly contented.
"The first time I saw Florrie with her I was amazed. It was a Sundaymorning. There was our four-year-old child standing at the wire,pressing herself against it, and Thumbeline close to her. Their facesalmost touched; their fingers were interlaced; I am certain that theywere speaking to each other in their own fashion, by flashes, withoutwords. I watched them for a bit; I saw Bran come and sit up on hishaunches and join in. He looked from one to another, and all about;and then he saw me.
"Now that is how I know that they were all three in communication;because, the very next moment, Florrie turned round and ran to me, andsaid in her pretty baby-talk, 'Talking to Bran. Florrie talking toBran.' If this was wilful deceit it was most accomplished. It couldnot have been better done. 'And who else were you talking to,Florrie?' I said. She fixed her round blue eyes upon me, as if inwonder, then looked away and said shortly, 'No one else.' And I couldnot get her to confess or admit then or at any time afterward that shehad any cognisance at all of the fairy in Bran's kennel, althoughtheir communications were daily, and often lasted for hours at a time.I don't know that it makes things any better, but I have thoughtsometimes that the child believed me to be as insensible to Thumbelineas her mother was. She can only have believed it at first, of course,but that may have prompted her to a concealment which she did notafterwards care to confess to.
"Be this as it may, Florrie, in fact, behaved with Thumbeline exactlyas the two dogs did. She made no attempt to catch her at her circlingsand wheelings about the kennel, nor to follow her wonderful dances,nor (in her presence) to imitate them. But she was (like the dogs)aware of nobody else when under the spell of Thumbeline's personality;and when she had got to know her she seemed to care for nobody else atall. I ought, no doubt, to have foreseen that and guarded against it.
"Thumbeline was extremely attractive. I never saw such eyes as hers,such mysterious fascination. She was nearly always good-tempered,nearly always happy; but sometimes she had fits of temper and keptherself to herself. Nothing then would get her out of the kennel,where she would lie curled up like an animal with her knees to herchin and one arm thrown over her face. Bran was always wretched atthese times, and did all he knew to coax her out. He ceased to carefor me or my wife after she came to us, and instead of being wild atthe prospect of his Saturday and Sunday runs, it was hard to get himalong. I had to take him on a lead until we had turned to go home;then he would set off by himself, in spite of hallooing and scolding,at a long steady gallop and one would find him waiting crouched at thegate of his run, and Thumbeline on the ground inside it, with her legscrossed like a tailor, mocking and teasing him with her wonderfulshining eyes. Only once or twice did I see her worse than sick orsorry; then she was transported with rage and another personaltogether. She never touched me--and why or how I had offended her Ihave no notion[5]--but she buzzed and hovered about me like an angrybee. She appeared to have wings, which hummed in their furiousmovement; she was red in the face, her eyes burned; she grinned at meand ground her little teeth together. A curious shrill noise camefrom her, like the screaming of a gnat or hoverfly; but no words,never any words. Bran showed me his teeth too, and would not look atme. It was very odd.
[Footnote 5: "I have sometimes thought," he adds in a note, "that itmay have been jealousy. My wife had been with me in the garden and hadstuck a daffodil in my coat."]
"When I looked in, on my return home, she was as merry as usual, andas affectionate. I think she had no memory.
"I
am trying to give all the particulars I was able to gather fromobservation. In some things she was difficult, in others very easy toteach. For instance, I got her to learn in no time that she ought towear her clothes, such as they were, when I was with her. Shecertainly preferred to go without them, especially in the sunshine;but by leaving her the moment she slipped her frock off I soon madeher understand that if she wanted me she must behave herself accordingto my notions of behaviour. She got that fixed in her little head, buteven so she used to do her best to hoodwink me. She would slip out oneshoulder when she thought I wasn't looking, and before I knew where Iwas half of her would be gleaming in the sun like satin. Directly Inoticed it I used to frown, and then she would pretend to be ashamedof herself, hang her head, and wriggle her frock up to its placeagain. However, I never could teach her to keep her skirts about herknees. She was as innocent as a baby about that sort of thing.
"I taught her some English words, and a sentence or two. That wastoward the end of her confinement to the kennel, about March. I usedto touch parts of her, or of myself, or Bran, and peg away at thenames of them. Mouth, eyes, ears, hands, chest, tail, back, front: shelearned all those and more. Eat, drink, laugh, cry, love, kiss, thosealso. As for kissing (apart from the word) she proved herself to be anexpert. She kissed me, Florrie, Bran, Strap indifferently, one as soonas another, and any rather than none, and all four for choice.
"I learned some things myself, more than a thing or two. I don't mindowning that one thing was to value my wife's steady and triedaffection far above the wild love of this unbalanced, unearthly littlecreature, who seemed to be like nothing so much as a woman with theconscience left out. The conscience, we believe, is the still smallvoice of the Deity crying to us in the dark recesses of the body;pointing out the path of duty; teaching respect for the opinion of theworld, for tradition, decency and order. It is thanks to consciencethat a man is true and a woman modest. Not that Thumbeline could becalled immodest, unless a baby can be so described, or an animal. Butcould I be called 'true'? I greatly fear that I could not--in fact, Iknow it too well. I meant no harm; I was greatly interested; andthere was always before me the real difficulty of making Maryunderstand that something was in the kennel which she couldn't see. Itwould have led to great complications, even if I had persuaded her ofthe fact. No doubt she would have insisted on my getting rid ofThumbeline--but how on earth could I have done that if Thumbeline hadnot chosen to go? But for all that I know very well that I ought tohave told her, cost what it might. If I had done it I should havespared myself lifelong regret, and should only have gone without a fewweeks of extraordinary interest which I now see clearly could not havebeen good for me, as not being founded upon any revealed Christianprinciple, and most certainly were not worth the price I had to payfor them.
"I learned one more curious fact which I must not forget. Nothingwould induce Thumbeline to touch or pass over anything made ofzinc.[6] I don't know the reason of it; but gardeners will tell youthat the way to keep a plant from slugs is to put a zinc collar roundit. It is due to that I was able to keep her in Bran's run withoutdifficulty. To have got out she would have had to pass zinc. The wirewas all galvanised.
[Footnote 6: This is a curious thing, unsupported by any otherevidence known to me. I asked Despoina about it, but she would not, orshe did not, answer. She appeared not to understand what zinc was, andI had none handy.]
"She showed her dislike of it in numerous ways: one was her care toavoid touching the sides or top of the enclosure when she was at hergambols. At such times, when she was at her wildest, she was all overthe place, skipping high like a lamb, twisting like a leveret,wheeling round and round in circles like a young dog, or skimming,like a swallow on the wing, above ground. But she never made amistake; she turned in a moment or flung herself backward if there wasthe least risk of contact. When Florrie used to converse with her fromoutside, in that curious silent way the two had, it would always bethe child that put its hands through the wire, never Thumbeline. Ionce tried to put her against the roof when I was playing with her.She screamed like a shot hare and would not come out of the kennel allday. There was no doubt at all about her feelings for zinc. All othermetals seemed indifferent to her.
"With the advent of spring weather Thumbeline became not only morebeautiful, but wilder, and exceedingly restless. She now coaxed me tolet her out, and against my judgment I did it; she had to be carriedover the entry; for when I had set the gate wide open and pointed herthe way into the garden she squatted down in her usual attitude ofattention, with her legs crossed, and watched me, waiting. I wanted tosee how she would get through the hateful wire, so went away and hidmyself, leaving her alone with Bran. I saw her creep to the entry andpeer at the wire. What followed was curious. Bran came up wagging histail and stood close to her, his side against her head; he lookeddown, inviting her to go out with him. Long looks passed between them,and then Bran stooped his head, she put her arms around his neck,twined her feet about his foreleg, and was carried out. Then shebecame a mad thing, now bird, now moth; high and low, round and round,flashing about the place for all the world like a humming-bird moth,perfectly beautiful in her motions (whose ease always surprised me),and equally so in her colouring of soft grey and dusky-rose flesh.Bran grew a puppy again and whipped about after her in great circlesround the meadow. But though he was famous at coursing, and has killedhis hares single-handed, he was never once near Thumbeline. It was awonderful sight and made me late for business.
"By degrees she got to be very bold, and taught me boldness too, and(I am ashamed to say) greater degrees of deceit. She came freely intothe house and played with Florrie up and down stairs; she got on myknee at meal-times, or evenings when my wife and I were together. Finetricks she played me, I must own. She spilled my tea for me, brokecups and saucers, scattered my Patience cards, caught poor Mary'sknitting wool and rolled it about the room. The cunning littlecreature knew that I dared not scold her or make any kind of fuss. Sheused to beseech me for forgiveness occasionally when I looked veryglum, and would touch my cheek to make me look at her imploring eyes,and keep me looking at her till I smiled. Then she would put her armsround my neck and pull herself up to my level and kiss me, and thennestle down in my arms and pretend to sleep. By-and-by, when myattention was called off her, she would pinch me, or tweak my necktie,and make me look again at her wicked eye peeping out from under myarm. I had to kiss her again, of course, and at last she might go tosleep in earnest. She seemed able to sleep at any hour or in anyplace, just like an animal.
"I had some difficulty in arranging for the night when once she hadmade herself free of the house. She saw no reason whatever for ourbeing separated; but I circumvented her by nailing a strip of zinc allround the door; and I put one round Florrie's too. I pretended to mywife that it was to keep out draughts. Thumbeline was furious when shefound out how she had been tricked. I think she never quite forgave mefor it. Where she hid herself at night I am not sure. I think on thesitting-room sofa; but on mild mornings I used to find her out-doors,playing round Bran's kennel.
"Strap, our fox-terrier, picked up some rat poison towards the end ofApril and died in the night. Thumbeline's way of taking that was verycurious. It shocked me a good deal. She had never been so friendlywith him as with Bran, though certainly more at ease in his companythan in mine. The night before he died I remember that she and Branand he had been having high games in the meadow, which had ended bytheir all lying down together in a heap, Thumbeline's head on Bran'sflank, and her legs between his. Her arm had been round Strap's neckin a most loving way. They made quite a picture for a RoyalAcademician; 'Tired of Play,' or 'The End of a Romp,' I can fancy hewould call it. Next morning I found poor old Strap stiff and staring,and Thumbeline and Bran at their games just the same. She actuallyjumped over him and all about him as if he had been a lump of earth ora stone. Just some such thing he was to her; she did not seem able torealise that there was the cold body of her friend. Bran just sniffedhim over and left him, but Th
umbeline showed no consciousness that hewas there at all. I wondered, was this heartlessness or obliquity? ButI have never found the answer to my question.[7]
[Footnote 7: I have observed this frequently for myself, and cananswer Beckwith's question for him. I would refer the reader in thefirst place to my early experience of the boy (to call him so) withthe rabbit in the wood. There was an act of shocking cruelty, doneidly, almost unconsciously. I was not shocked at all, child as I was,and quickly moved to pity and terror, because I knew that the creaturewas not to be judged by our standards. From this and other things ofthe sort which I have observed, and from this tale of Beckwith's, Ijudge, that, to the fairy kind, directly life ceases to be lived atthe full, the object, be it fairy, or animal, or vegetable, is notperceived by the other to exist. Thus, if a fairy should die, theothers would not know that its accidents were there; if a rabbit (asin the case cited) should be caught it would therefore cease to berabbit. We ourselves have very much the same habit of regard towardplant life. Our attitude to a tree or a growing plant ceases themoment that plant is out of the ground. It is then, as we say,_dead_--that is, it ceases to be a plant. So also we never scruple topluck the flowers, or the whole flower-scape from a plant, to put itin our buttonhole or in the bosom of our friend, and thereafter tocease our interest in the plant as such. It now becomes a memory, a_gage d'amour_, a token or a sudden glory--what you will. This is thehabit of mankind; but I know of rare ones, both men and women, whonever allow dead flowers to be thrown into the draught, but alwaysgive them decent burial, either cremation or earth to earth. I findthat admirable, yet don't condemn their neighbours, nor considerfairies cruel who torture the living and disregard the maimed or thedead.]
"Now I come to the tragical part of my story, and wish with all myheart that I could leave it out. But beyond the full confession I havemade to my wife, the County Police and the newspapers, I feel that Ishould not shrink from any admission that may be called for of howmuch I have been to blame. In May, on the 13th of May, Thumbeline,Bran, and our only child, Florrie, disappeared.
"It was a day, I remember well, of wonderful beauty. I had left themall three together in the water meadow, little thinking of what was instore for us before many hours. Thumbeline had been crowning Florriewith a wreath of flowers. She had gathered cuckoo-pint and marshmarigolds and woven them together, far more deftly than any of uscould have done, into a chaplet. I remember the curious winding,wandering air she had been singing (without any words, as usual) overher business, and how she touched each flower first with her lips, andthen brushed it lightly across her bosom before she wove it in. Shehad kept her eyes on me as she did it, looking up from under herbrows, as if to see whether I knew what she was about.
"I don't doubt now but that she was bewitching Florrie by this curiousperformance, which every flower had to undergo separately; but, foolthat I was, I thought nothing of it at the time, and bicycled off toSalisbury leaving them there.
"At noon my poor wife came to me at the Bank distracted with anxietyand fatigue. She had run most of the way, she gave me to understand.Her news was that Florrie and Bran could not be found anywhere. Shesaid that she had gone to the gate of the meadow to call the child in,and not seeing her, or getting any answer, she had gone down to theriver at the bottom. Here she had found a few picked wild flowers, butno other traces. There were no footprints in the mud, either of childor dog. Having spent the morning with some of the neighbours in afruitless search, she had now come to me.
"My heart was like lead, and shame prevented me from telling her thetruth as I was sure it must be. But my own conviction of it cloggedall my efforts. Of what avail could it be to inform the police ororganise search-parties, knowing what I knew only too well? However, Idid put Gulliver in communication with the head-office in Sarum, andeverything possible was done. We explored a circuit of six miles aboutWishford; every fold of the hills, every spinney, every hedgerow wasthoroughly examined. But that first night of grief had broken down myshame: I told my wife the whole truth in the presence of ReverendRichard Walsh, the Congregational minister, and in spite of herabsolute incredulity, and, I may add, scorn, next morning I repeatedit to Chief Inspector Notcutt of Salisbury. Particulars got into thelocal papers by the following Saturday; and next I had to face theordeal of the _Daily Chronicle_, _Daily News_, _Daily Graphic_,_Star_, and other London journals. Most of these newspapers sentrepresentatives to lodge in the village, many of them withphotographic cameras. All this hateful notoriety I had brought uponmyself, and did my best to bear like the humble, contrite Christianwhich I hope I may say I have become. We found no trace of our dearone, and never have to this day. Bran, too, had completely vanished. Ihave not cared to keep a dog since.
"Whether my dear wife ever believed my account I cannot be sure. Shehas never reproached me for wicked thoughtlessness, that's certain.Mr. Walsh, our respected pastor, who has been so kind as to read thispaper, told me more than once that he could hardly doubt it. TheSalisbury police made no comments upon it one way or another. Mycolleagues at the Bank, out of respect for my grief and sincererepentance, treated me with a forbearance for which I can never be toograteful. I need not add that every word of this is absolutely true. Imade notes of the most remarkable characteristics of the being Icalled Thumbeline _at the time of remarking them_, and those notes arestill in my possession."
* * * * *
Here, with the exception of a few general reflections which are oflittle value, Mr. Beckwith's paper ends. It was read, I ought to say,by the Rev. Richard Walsh at the meeting of the South Wilts Folk-loreSociety and Field Club held at Amesbury in June 1892, and is to befound in the published transactions of that body (Vol. IV. New Series,pp. 305 _seq._).
Lore of Proserpine Page 10
