by M. P. Shiel
VII
THE ELM
Hogarth, meantime, had made his way to the front of the room, thenvomiting its throng, discovered Loveday, and, deciding to walk home,they were soon on the cliffs.
And suddenly Loveday: "To-morrow will conclude my fifth week inWestring. What, do you suppose, has made me stay?"
"I have wondered".
"I work better here...Hogarth, you inspirit me".
"Is that so?"
"It is, yes. Merely your presence is for me a freshness and anenthusiasm: I catch in the turn of your body hints of adventurousColumbuses, Drakes, nimble Achilles; and sibylline meanings in someglance of yours infect my fancy with images of Moses, blind oldHomers--prophet, lawgiver, poet--"
They were passing along a stretch of sand, with some lights of Lowestoftin sight, arm in arm; and Hogarth said: "Well, you speak some big words.But my life, you understand, has been as simple and small as possible.I will tell you: my father sent me to an extraordinary school--where hegot the coin I could never find out--Lancing College at Shoreham. ThereI did very well--only that I was continually _getting_ it! What wasthe matter with me when a boy I can't understand: I was the devil. Onesummer vacation (I was fourteen) I stole three pounds from the oldman, and ran away one Sunday night. Passed through London and soon wasapprentice in a blacksmith's shop in a Kent village called Bigham. Butin six months I had the forge at my fingers' ends, and was off: nothingcould hold me long. One day I turned up before the Recruiting Officeof Marines in Bristol--just of the right age for what they call'second-class boys'--and decided upon the sea--that sea there--which,from the moment I saw it at the age of four, caused me a swelling ofthe breast with which, to this day, it afflicts me. Well, I got thebirth-certificate of another boy, scraped through, was entered into aDistrict Ship, and finally sailed in the _St. Vincent_ to the PacificStation.
"However, my trial of His Majesty's ships was not a success: twice I wasin irons, once leapt into mid-ocean; nor could the battleship hold mewhen she had nothing to teach me; so I did to the King what I had doneto the old man--cut and ran.
"It was at Valparaiso, and I made my way across the continent to BuenosAyres.
"I forget now what took me to Bristol: but there I was one day when Ihappened to see--what do you think?--a girl--sixteen--I a stripling ofnineteen, or so--but she most precocious, spoke like a woman--a gratingin a wall between us. Ah, well, God is good, and His Mercy endureth forever. But she said it could never be--she a Jewess: though that, by theway, is nonsense, for she is a Jewess, and a Parisienne, and a Hindoo,and a Negress, and a Japanese, and the man who marries her will have aharem. My friend, I have seen her this very night!"
He was silent. Suddenly he broke out: "I came home raving! The old manwas scared out of his wits by my frenzy--I drank like ten men--in amonth was the terror of Westring. One midnight, going home through thebeech-wood--I don't know if you have noticed a hollow elm-tree whichstands to the right of the path?"
"I think I have", said Loveday.
"We shall pass near it presently; and at the moment when we approach it,I shall feel a little thrill in my back: always it is so with me. But Iwas saying: that midnight, as I passed the tree, drunk as I was, I sawa naked black man with a long beard run out; I took to my heels; he wasafter me; till I reached the bridge, when I stopped, faced him, fired ablow into his eyes, and he vanished.
"During the week I continued to see apparitions. My groans were heard inthe farm-yard: Lord have mercy upon me! Christ have mercy upon me! I wasvisited by the Methodist preacher at Thring; and finally I found solace:I became a class-member, a leader, a local preacher.
"For some time I have been conscious of dissatisfaction among the peoplewith my preaching, who say that my God 'is not a personal God', and thatmy Christianity is 'rum stuff': I am therefore meaning to give it up.But I still preach every second Thursday night.
"It was about that time that, by accident, I found out the power of myhand to cure headache, and things like that, and the sensation amongthese villagers was enormous, I can tell you, six years ago; now theycome to be touched without the slighest sense of the unusual. But what Ihave done well in was--the farming. I knew little of agriculture--"
At this point they turned into the lane to Westring: and Loveday wentwith him a little beyond Priddlestone to see the fatal elm.
