Short Fiction

on the road by nightfall. To my alarm, he caught hold of me, crying: “You are not to go yet!” I tried to shake him off, for we had no interests in common, and his civility was becoming irksome to me. But for all my struggles the tiresome old man would not let go; and, as wrestling is not my speciality, I was obliged to follow him.

It was true that I could have never found alone the place where I came in, and I hoped that, when I had seen the other sights about which he was worrying, he would take me back to it. But I was determined not to sleep in the country, for I mistrusted it, and the people too, for all their friendliness. Hungry though I was, I would not join them in their evening meals of milk and fruit, and, when they gave me flowers, I flung them away as soon as I could do so unobserved. Already they were lying down for the night like cattle⁠—some out on the bare hillside, others in groups under the beeches. In the light of an orange sunset I hurried on with my unwelcome guide, dead tired, faint for want of food, but murmuring indomitably: “Give me life, with its struggles and victories, with its failures and hatreds, with its deep moral meaning and its unknown goal!”

At last we came to a place where the encircling moat was spanned by another bridge, and where another gate interrupted the line of the boundary hedge. It was different from the first gate; for it was half transparent like horn, and opened inwards. But through it, in the waning light, I saw again just such a road as I had left⁠—monotonous, dusty, with brown crackling hedges on either side, as far as the eye could reach.

I was strangely disquieted at the sight, which seemed to deprive me of all self-control. A man was passing us, returning for the night to the hills, with a scythe over his shoulder and a can of some liquid in his hand. I forgot the destiny of our race. I forgot the road that lay before my eyes, and I sprang at him, wrenched the can out of his hand, and began to drink.

It was nothing stronger than beer, but in my exhausted state it overcame me in a moment. As in a dream, I saw the old man shut the gate, and heard him say: “This is where your road ends, and through this gate humanity⁠—all that is left of it⁠—will come in to us.”

Though my senses were sinking into oblivion, they seemed to expand ere they reached it. They perceived the magic song of nightingales, and the odour of invisible hay, and stars piercing the fading sky. The man whose beer I had stolen lowered me down gently to sleep off its effects, and, as he did so, I saw that he was my brother.

The Eternal Moment

I

“Do you see that mountain just behind Elizabeth’s toque? A young man fell in love with me there so nicely twenty years ago. Bob your head a minute, would you, Elizabeth, kindly.”

“Yes’m,” said Elizabeth, falling forward on the box like an unstiffened doll. Colonel Leyland put on his pince-nez, and looked at the mountain where the young man had fallen in love.

“Was he a nice young man?” he asked, smiling, though he lowered his voice a little on account of the maid.

“I never knew. But it is a very gratifying incident to remember at my age. Thank you, Elizabeth.”

“May one ask who he was?”

“A porter,” answered Miss Raby in her usual tones. “Not even a certificated guide. A male person who was hired to carry the luggage, which he dropped.”

“Well! well! What did you do?”

“What a young lady should. Screamed and thanked him not to insult me. Ran, which was quite unnecessary, fell, sprained my ankle, screamed again; and he had to carry me half a mile, so penitent that I thought he would fling me over a precipice. In that state we reached a certain Mrs. Harbottle, at sight of whom I burst into tears. But she was so much stupider than I was, that I recovered quickly.”

“Of course you said it was all your own fault?”

“I trust I did,” she said more seriously. “Mrs. Harbottle, who, like most people, was always right, had warned me against him; we had had him for expeditions before.”

“Ah! I see.”

“I doubt whether you do. Hitherto he had known his place. But he was too cheap: he gave us more than our money’s worth. That, as you know, is an ominous sign in a lowborn person.”

“But how was this your fault?”

“I encouraged him: I greatly preferred him to Mrs. Harbottle. He was handsome and what I call agreeable; and he wore beautiful clothes. We lagged behind, and he picked me flowers. I held out my hand for them⁠—instead of which he seized it and delivered a love oration which he had prepared out of I Promessi Sposi.”

“Ah! an Italian.”

They were crossing the frontier at that moment. On a little bridge amid fir trees were two poles, one painted red, white and green, and the other black and yellow.

“He lived in Italia Irredenta,” said Miss Raby. “But we were to fly to the Kingdom. I wonder what would have happened if we had.”

“Good Lord!” said Colonel Leyland, in sudden disgust. On the box Elizabeth trembled.

“But it might have been a most successful match.”

She was in the habit of talking in this mildly unconventional way. Colonel Leyland, who made allowances for her brilliancy, managed to exclaim: “Rather! yes, rather!”

She turned on him with: “Do you think I’m laughing at him?”

He looked a little bewildered, smiled, and did not reply. Their carriage was now crawling round the base of the notorious mountain. The road was built over the debris which had fallen and which still fell from its sides; and it had