CHAPTER IV.



PAUL, FALLING IN WITH A GOODLY COMPANY OF PILGRIMS, LEARNS OF THEM THE

ROAD THAT HE MUST TRAVEL. AND MEETS THE PRINCESS OF THE GOLDEN LOCKS.



The East India Dock Road is nowadays a busy, crowded thoroughfare.

The jingle of the tram-bell and the rattle of the omnibus and cart

mingle continuously with the rain of many feet, beating ceaselessly

upon its pavements. But at the time of which I write it was an empty,

voiceless way, bounded on the one side by the long, echoing wall of

the docks and on the other by occasional small houses isolated amid

market gardens, drying grounds and rubbish heaps. Only one thing

remains--or did remain last time I passed along it, connecting it with

its former self--and that is the one-storeyed brick cottage at the

commencement of the bridge, and which was formerly the toll-house. I

remember this toll-house so well because it was there that my

childhood fell from me, and sad and frightened I saw the world beyond.



I cannot explain it better. I had been that afternoon to Plaistow on

a visit to the family dentist. It was an out-of-the-way place in which

to keep him, but there existed advantages of a counterbalancing

nature.



"Have the half-crown in your hand," my mother would direct me, while

making herself sure that the purse containing it was safe at the

bottom of my knickerbocker pocket; "but of course if he won't take it,

why, you must bring it home again."



I am not sure, but I think he was some distant connection of ours; at

all events, I know he was a kind friend. I, seated in the velvet

chair of state, he would unroll his case of instruments before me, and

ask me to choose, recommending with affectionate eulogisms the most

murderous looking.



But on my opening my mouth to discuss the fearful topic, lo! a pair

would shoot from under his coat-sleeve, and almost before I knew what

had happened, the trouble would be over. After that we would have tea

together. He was an old bachelor, and his house stood in a great

garden--for Plaistow in those days was a picturesque village--and out

of the plentiful fruit thereof his housekeeper made the most wonderful

of jams and jellies. Oh, they were good, those teas! Generally our

conversation was of my mother who, it appeared, was once a little

girl: not at all the sort of little girl I should have imagined her;

on the contrary, a prankish, wilful little girl, though good company,

I should say, if all the tales he told of her were true. And I am

inclined to think they were, in spite of the fact that my mother, when

I repeated them to her, would laugh, saying she was sure she had no

recollection of anything of the kind, adding severely that it was a

pity he and I could not find something better to gossip about. Yet

her next question would be:



"And what else did he say, if you please?" explaining impatiently when

my answer was not of the kind expected: "No, no, I mean about me."



The tea things cleared away, he would bring out his great microscope.

To me it was a peep-hole into a fairy world where dwelt strange

dragons, mighty monsters, so that I came to regard him as a sort of

harmless magician. It was his pet study, and looking back, I cannot

help associating his enthusiasm for all things microscopical with the

fact that he was an exceptionally little man himself, but one of the

biggest hearted that ever breathed.



On leaving I would formally hand him my half-crown, "with mamma's

compliments," and he would formally accept it. But on putting my hand

into my jacket pocket when outside the gate I would invariably find it

there. The first time I took it back to him, but unblushingly he

repudiated all knowledge.



"Must be another half-crown," he suggested; "such things do happen.

One puts change into a pocket and overlooks it. Slippery things,

half-crowns."



Returning home on this particular day of days, I paused upon the

bridge, and watched for awhile the lazy barges manoeuvring their way

between the piers. It was one of those hushed summer evenings when

the air even of grim cities is full of whispering voices; and as,

turning away from the river, I passed through the white toll-gate, I

had a sense of leaving myself behind me on the bridge. So vivid was

the impression, that I looked back, half expecting to see myself still

leaning over the iron parapet, looking down into the sunlit water.



It sounds foolish, but I leave it standing, wondering if to others a

like experience has ever come. The little chap never came back to me.

He passed away from me as a man's body may possibly pass away from

him, leaving him only remembrance and regret. For a time I tried to

play his games, to dream his dreams, but the substance was wanting. I

was only a thin ghost, making believe.



It troubled me for quite a spell of time, even to the point of tears,

this feeling that my childhood lay behind me, this sudden realisation

that I was travelling swiftly the strange road called growing up. I

did not want to grow up; could nothing be done to stop it? Rather

would I be always as I had been, playing, dreaming. The dark way

frightened me. Must I go forward?



Then gradually, but very slowly, with the long months and years, came

to me the consciousness of a new being, new pulsations, sensories,

throbbings, rooted in but differing widely from the old; and little

Paul, the Paul of whom I have hitherto spoken, faded from my life.



So likewise must I let him fade with sorrow from this book. But

before I part with him entirely, let me recall what else I can

remember of him. Thus we shall be quit of him, and he will interfere

with us no more.



Chief among the pictures that I see is that of my aunt Fan, crouching

over the kitchen fire; her skirt and crinoline rolled up round her

waist, leaving as sacrifice to custom only her petticoat. Up and down

her body sways in rhythmic motion, her hands stroking affectionately

her own knees; the while I, with paper knife for sword, or horse of

broomstick, stand opposite her, flourishing and declaiming. Sometimes

I am a knight and she a wicked ogre. She is slain, growling and

swearing, and at once becomes the beautiful princess that I secure and

bear away with me upon the prancing broomstick. So long as the

princess is merely holding sweet converse with me from her high-barred

window, the scene is realistic, at least, to sufficiency; but the

bearing away has to be make-believe; for my aunt cannot be persuaded

to leave her chair before the fire, and the everlasting rubbing of her

knees.



At other times, with the assistance of the meat chopper, I am an

Indian brave, and then she is Laughing Water or Singing Sunshine, and

we go out scalping together; or in less bloodthirsty moods I am the

Fairy Prince and she the Sleeping Beauty. But in such parts she is

not at her best. Better, when seated in the centre of the up-turned

table, I am Captain Cook, and she the Cannibal Chief.



"I shall skin him and hang him in the larder till Sunday week," says

my aunt, smacking her lips, "then he'll be just in right condition;

not too tough and not too high." She was always strong in detail, was

my aunt Fan.



I do not wish to deprive my aunt of any credit due to her, but the

more I exercise my memory for evidence, the more I am convinced that

her compliance on these occasions was not conceived entirely in the

spirit of self-sacrifice. Often would she suggest the game and even

the theme; in such case, casting herself invariably for what, in old

theatrical parlance, would have been termed the heavy lead, the

dragons and the wicked uncles, the fussy necromancers and the

uninvited fairies. As authoress of a new cookery book for use in

giant-land, my aunt, I am sure, would have been successful. Most

recipes that one reads are so monotonously meagre: "Boil him," "Put

her on the spit and roast her for supper," "Cook 'em in a pie--with

plenty of gravy;" but my aunt into the domestic economy of Ogredom

introduced variety and daintiness.



"I think, my dear," my aunt would direct, "we'll have him stuffed with

chestnuts and served on toast. And don't forget the giblets. They

make such excellent sauce."



With regard to the diet of imprisoned maidens she would advise:



"Not too much fish--it spoils the flesh for roasting."



The things that she would turn people into--king's sons, rightful

princesses, such sort of people--people who after a time, one would

think, must have quite forgotten what they started as. To let her

have her way was a lesson to me in natural history both present and

pre-historic. The most beautiful damsel that ever lived she would

without a moment's hesitation turn into a Glyptodon or a Hippocrepian.

Afterwards, when I could guess at the spelling, I would look these

creatures up in the illustrated dictionary, and feel that under no

circumstances could I have loved the lady ever again. Warriors and

kings she would delight in transforming into plaice or prawns, and

haughty queens into Brussels sprouts.



With gusto would she plan a complicated slaughter, paying heed to

every detail: the sharpening of the knives, the having ready of mops

and pails of water for purposes of after cleaning up. As a writer she

would have followed the realistic school.



Her death, with which we invariably wound up the afternoon, was

another conscientious effort. Indeed, her groans and writhings would

sometimes frighten me. I always welcomed the last gurgle. That

finished, but not a moment before, my aunt would let down her

skirt--in this way suggesting the fall of the curtain upon our

play--and set to work to get the tea.



Another frequently recurring picture that I see is of myself in

glazed-peaked cap explaining many things the while we walk through

dingy streets to yet a smaller figure curly haired and open eyed.

Still every now and then she runs ahead to turn and look admiringly

into my face as on the day she first became captive to the praise and

fame of me.



I was glad of her company for more reasons than she knew of. For one,

she protected me against my baser self. With her beside me I should

not have dared to flee from sudden foes. Indeed, together we courted

adventure; for once you get used to it this standing hazard of attack

adds a charm to outdoor exercise that older folk in districts better

policed enjoy not. So possibly my dog feels when together we take the

air. To me it is a simple walk, maybe a little tiresome, suggested

rather by contemplation of my waistband than by desire for walking for

mere walking's sake; to him an expedition full of danger and

surprises: "The gentleman asleep with one eye open on The Chequer's

doorstep! will he greet me with a friendly sniff or try to bite my

head off? This cross-eyed, lop-eared loafer, lurching against the

lamp-post! shall we pass with a careless wag and a 'how-do,' or become

locked in a life and death struggle? Impossible to say. This coming

corner, now, 'Ware! Is anybody waiting round there to kill me, or

not?"



But the trusting face beside me nerved me. As reward in lonely places

I would let her hold my hand.



A second advantage I derived from her company was that of being less

trampled on, less walked over, less swept aside into doorway or gutter

than when alone. A pretty, winsome face had this little maid, if

Memory plays me not kindly false; but also she had a vocabulary; and

when the blind idiot, male or female, instead of passing us by walking

round us, would, after the custom of the blind idiot, seek to gain the

other side of us by walking through us, she would use it.



"Now, then, where yer coming to, old glass-eye? We ain't sperrits.

Can't yer see us?"



And if they attempted reply, her child's treble, so strangely at

variance with her dainty appearance, would only rise more shrill.



"Garn! They'd run out of 'eads when they was making you. That's only

a turnip wot you've got stuck on top of yer!" I offer but specimens.



Nor was it of the slightest use attempting personal chastisement, as

sometimes an irate lady or gentleman would be foolish enough to do.

As well might an hippopotamus attempt to reprove a terrier. The only

result was to provide comedy for the entire street.



On these occasions our positions were reversed, I being the admiring

spectator of her prowess. Yet to me she was ever meek, almost

irritatingly submissive. She found out where I lived and would often

come and wait for me for hours, her little face pressed tight against

the iron railings, until either I came out or shook my head at her

from my bedroom window, when she would run off, the dying away into

silence of her pattering feet leaving me a little sad.



I think I cared for her in a way, yet she never entered into my

day-dreams, which means that she existed for me only in the outer

world of shadows that lay round about me and was not of my real life.



Also, I think she was unwise, introducing me to the shop, for children

and dogs--one seems unconsciously to bracket them in one's

thoughts--are snobbish little wretches. If only her father had been a

dealer in firewood I could have soothed myself by imagining mistakes.

It was a common occurrence, as I well knew, for children of quite the

best families to be brought up by wood choppers. Fairies, the best

intentioned in the world, but born muddlers, were generally

responsible for these mishaps, which, however, always became righted

in time for the wedding. Or even had he been a pork butcher, and

there were many in the neighbourhood, I could have thought of him as a

swineherd, and so found precedent for hope.



But a fishmonger--from six in the evening a fried fishmonger! I

searched history in vain. Fried fishmongers were without the pale.



So gradually our meetings became less frequent, though I knew that

every afternoon she waited in the quiet Stainsby Road, where dwelt in

semi-detached, six-roomed villas the aristocracy of Poplar, and that

after awhile, for arriving late at times I have been witness to the

sad fact, tears would trace pathetic patterns upon her

dust-besprinkled cheeks; and with the advent of the world-illuminating

Barbara, to which event I am drawing near, they ceased altogether.



So began and ended my first romance. One of these days--some quiet

summer's afternoon, when even the air of Pigott Street vibrates with

tenderness beneath the whispered sighs of Memory, I shall walk into

the little grocer's shop and boldly ask to see her. So far have I

already gone as to trace her, and often have I tried to catch sight of

her through the glass door, but hitherto in vain. I know she is the

more or less troubled mother of a numerous progeny. I am told she has

grown stout, and probable enough it is that her tongue has gained

rather than lost in sharpness. Yet under all the unrealities the

clumsy-handed world has built about her, I shall see, I know, the

lithesome little maid with fond, admiring eyes. What help they were

to me I never knew till I had lost them. How hard to gain such eyes I

have learned since. Were we to write the truth in our confession

books, should we not admit the quality we most admire in others is

admiration of ourselves? And is it not a wise selection? If you

would have me admirable, my friend, admire me, and speak your

commendation without stint that in the sunshine of your praises I may

wax. For indifference maketh an indifferent man, and contempt a

contemptible man. Come, is it not true? Does not all that is worthy

in us grow best by honour?



Chief among the remaining figures on my childhood's stage were the

many servants of our house, the "generals," as they were termed. So

rapid, as a rule, was their transit through our kitchen that only one

or two, conspicuous by reason of their lingering, remain upon my view.

It was a neighbourhood in which domestic servants were not much

required. Those intending to take up the calling seriously went

westward. The local ranks were recruited mainly from the discontented

or the disappointed, from those who, unappreciated at home, hoped from

the stranger more discernment; or from the love-lorn, the jilted and

the jealous, who took the cap and apron as in an earlier age their

like would have taken the veil. Maybe, to the comparative seclusion

of our basement, as contrasted with the alternative frivolity of shop

or factory, they felt in such mood more attuned. With the advent of

the new or the recovery of the old young man they would plunge again

into the vain world, leaving my poor mother to search afresh amid the

legions of the cursed.



With these I made such comradeship as I could, for I had no child

friends. Kind creatures were most of them, at least so I found them.

They were poor at "making believe," but would always squeeze ten

minutes from their work to romp with me, and that, perhaps, was

healthier for me. What, perhaps, was not so good for me was that,

staggered at the amount of "book-learning" implied by my conversation

(for the journalistic instinct, I am inclined to think, was early

displayed in me), they would listen open-mouthed to all my

information, regarding me as a precocious oracle. Sometimes they

would obtain permission to take me home with them to tea, generously

eager that their friends should also profit by me. Then, encouraged

by admiring, grinning faces, I would "hold forth," keenly enjoying the

sound of my own proud piping.



"As good as a book, ain't he?" was the tribute most often paid to me.



"As good as a play," one enthusiastic listener, an old greengrocer,

went so far as to say.



Already I regarded myself as among the Immortals.



One girl, a dear, wholesome creature named Janet, stayed with us for

months and might have stayed years, but for her addiction to strong

language. The only and well-beloved child of the captain of the barge

"Nancy Jane," trading between Purfleet and Ponder's End, her

conversation was at once my terror and delight.



"Janet," my mother would exclaim in agony, her hands going up

instinctively to guard her ears, "how can you use such words?"



"What words, mum?"



"The things you have just called the gas man."



"Him! Well, did you see what he did, mum? Walked straight into my

clean kitchen, without even wiping his boots, the--" And before my

mother could stop her, Janet had relieved her feelings by calling him

it--or rather them--again, without any idea that she had done aught

else than express in fitting phraseology a natural human emotion.



We were good friends, Janet and I, and therefore it was that I

personally undertook her reformation. It was not an occasion for

mincing one's words. The stake at issue was, I felt, too important.

I told her bluntly that if she persisted in using such language she

would inevitably go to hell.



"Then where's my father going?" demanded Janet.



"Does he use language?"



I gathered from Janet that no one who had enjoyed the privilege of

hearing her father could ever again take interest in the feeble

efforts of herself.



"I am afraid, Janet," I explained, "that if he doesn't give it up--"



"But it's the only way he can talk," interrupted Janet. "He don't

mean anything by it."



I sighed, yet set my face against weakness. "You see, Janet, people

who swear do go there."



But Janet would not believe.



"God send my dear, kind father to hell just because he can't talk like

the gentlefolks! Don't you believe it of Him, Master Paul. He's got

more sense."



I hope I pain no one by quoting Janet's common sense. For that I

should be sorry. I remember her words because so often, when sinking

in sloughs of childish despond, they afforded me firm foothold. More

often than I can tell, when compelled to listen to the sententious

voice of immeasurable Folly glibly explaining the eternal mysteries,

has it comforted me to whisper to myself: "I don't believe it of Him.

He's got more sense."



And about that period I had need of all the comfort I could get. As

we descend the road of life, the journey, demanding so much of our

attention, becomes of more importance than the journey's end; but to

the child, standing at the valley's gate, the terminating hills are

clearly visible. What lies beyond them is his constant wonder. I

never questioned my parents directly on the subject, shrinking as so

strangely we all do, both young and old, from discussion of the very

matters of most moment to us; and they, on their part, not guessing my

need, contented themselves with the vague generalities with which we

seek to hide even from ourselves the poverty of our beliefs. But

there were foolish voices about me less reticent; while the

literature, illustrated and otherwise, provided in those days for

serious-minded youth, answered all questionings with blunt brutality.

If you did wrong you burnt in a fiery furnace for ever and ever. Were

your imagination weak you could turn to the accompanying illustration,

and see at a glance how you yourself would writhe and shrink and

scream, while cheerful devils, well organised, were busy stoking. I

had been burnt once, rather badly, in consequence of live coals, in

course of transit on a shovel, being let fall upon me. I imagined

these burning coals, not confined to a mere part of my body, but

pressing upon me everywhere, not snatched swiftly off by loving hands,

the pain assuaged by applications of soft soap and the blue bag, but

left there, eating into my flesh and veins. And this continued for

eternity. You suffered for an hour, a day, a thousand years, and were

no nearer to the end; ten thousand, a million years, and yet, as at

the very first, it was for ever, and for ever still it would always be

for ever! I suffered also from insomnia about this period.



"Then be good," replied the foolish voices round me; "never do wrong,

and so avoid this endless agony."



But it was so easy to do wrong. There were so many wrong things to

do, and the doing of them was so natural.



"Then repent," said the voices, always ready.



But how did one repent? What was repentance? Did I "hate my sin," as

I was instructed I must, or merely hate the idea of going to hell for

it? Because the latter, even my child's sense told me, was no true

repentance. Yet how could one know the difference?



Above all else there haunted me the fear of the "Unforgivable Sin."

What this was I was never able to discover. I dreaded to enquire too

closely, lest I should find I had committed it. Day and night the

terror of it clung to me.



"Believe," said the voices; "so only shall you be saved." How

believe? How know you did believe? Hours would I kneel in the dark,

repeating in a whispered scream:



"I believe, I believe. Oh, I do believe!" and then rise with white

knuckles, wondering if I really did believe.



Another question rose to trouble me. In the course of my meanderings

I had made the acquaintance of an old sailor, one of the most

disreputable specimens possible to find; and had learned to love him.

Our first meeting had been outside a confectioner's window, in the

Commercial Road, where he had discovered me standing, my nose against

the glass, a mere palpitating Appetite on legs. He had seized me by

the collar, and hauled me into the shop. There, dropping me upon a

stool, he bade me eat. Pride of race prompted me politely to decline,

but his language became so awful that in fear and trembling I obeyed.

So soon as I was finished--it cost him two and fourpence, I

remember--we walked down to the docks together, and he told me stories

of the sea and land that made my blood run cold. Altogether, in the

course of three weeks or a month, we met about half a dozen times,

when much the same programme was gone through. I think I was a fairly

frank child, but I said nothing about him at home, feeling

instinctively that if I did there would be an end of our comradeship,

which was dear to me: not merely by reason of the pastry, though I

admit that was a consideration, but also for his wondrous tales. I

believed them all implicitly, and so came to regard him as one of the

most interesting criminals as yet unhanged: and what was sad about

the case, as I felt myself, was that his recital of his many

iniquities, instead of repelling, attracted me to him. If ever there

existed a sinner, here was one. He chewed tobacco--one of the hundred

or so deadly sins, according to my theological library--and was

generally more or less drunk. Not that a stranger would have noticed

this; the only difference being that when sober he appeared

constrained--was less his natural, genial self. In a burst of

confidence he once admitted to me that he was the biggest blackguard

in the merchant service. Unacquainted with the merchant service, as

at the time I was, I saw no reason to doubt him.



One night in a state of intoxication he walked over a gangway and was

drowned. Our mutual friend, the confectioner, seeing me pass the

window, came out to tell me so; and having heard, I walked on, heavy

of heart, and pondering.



About his eternal destination there could be no question. The known

facts precluded the least ray of hope. How could I be happy in

heaven, supposing I eventually did succeed in slipping in, knowing

that he, the lovable old scamp, was burning for ever in hell?



How could Janet, taking it that she reformed and thus escaped

damnation, be contented, knowing the father she loved doomed to

torment? The heavenly hosts, so I argued, could be composed only of

the callous and indifferent.



I wondered how people could go about their business, eat, drink and be

merry, with tremendous fate hanging thus ever suspended over their

heads. When for a little space I myself forgot it, always it fell

back upon me with increased weight.



Nor was the contemplation of heaven itself particularly attractive to

me, for it was a foolish paradise these foolish voices had fashioned

out of their folly. You stood about and sang hymns--for ever! I was

assured that my fear of finding the programme monotonous was due only

to my state of original sin, that when I got there I should discover I

liked it. But I would have given much for the hope of avoiding both

their heaven and their hell.



Fortunately for my sanity I was not left long to brood unoccupied upon

such themes. Our worldly affairs, under the sunshine of old Hasluck's

round red face, prospered--for awhile; and one afternoon my father,

who had been away from home since breakfast time, calling me into his

office where also sat my mother, informed me that the long-talked-of

school was become at last a concrete thing.



"The term commences next week," explained my father. "It is not

exactly what I had intended, but it will do--for the present. Later,

of course, you will go to one of the big public schools; your mother

and I have not yet quite decided which."



"You will meet other boys there, good and bad," said my mother, who

sat clasping and unclasping her hands. "Be very careful, dear, how

you choose your companions."



"You will learn to take your own part," said my father. "School is an

epitome of the world. One must assert oneself, or one is sat upon."



I knew not what to reply, the vista thus opened out to me was so

unexpected. My blood rejoiced, but my heart sank.



"Take one of your long walks," said my father, smiling, "and think it

over."



"And if you are in any doubt, you know where to go for guidance, don't

you?" whispered my mother, who was very grave.



Yet I went to bed, dreaming of quite other things that night: of

Queens of Beauty bending down to crown my brows with laurel: of

wronged Princesses for whose cause I rode to death or victory. For on

my return home, being called into the drawing-room by my father, I

stood transfixed, my cap in hand, staring with all my eyes at the

vision that I saw.



No such wonder had I ever seen before, at all events, not to my

remembrance. The maidens that one meets in Poplar streets may be fair

enough in their way, but their millinery displays them not to

advantage; and the few lady visitors that came to us were of a staid

and matronly appearance. Only out of pictures hitherto had such

witchery looked upon me; and from these the spell faded as one gazed.



I heard old Hasluck's smoky voice saying, "My little gell, Barbara,"

and I went nearer to her, moving unconsciously.



"You can kiss 'er," said the smoky voice again; "she won't bite." But

I did not kiss her. Nor ever felt I wanted to, upon the mouth.



I suppose she must have been about fourteen, and I a little over ten,

though tall for my age. Later I came to know she had that rare gold

hair that holds the light, so that upon her face, which seemed of

dainty porcelain, there ever fell a softened radiance as from some

shining aureole; those blue eyes where dwell mysteries, shadow veiled.

At the time I knew nothing, but that it seemed to me as though the

fairy-tales had all come true.



She smiled, understanding and well pleased with my confusion. Child

though I was--little more than child though she was, it flattered her

vanity.



Fair and sweet, you had but that one fault. Would it had been

another, less cruel to you yourself.