heap, as you can see. Among them, by the way, I found this flattened and corroded bullet. That puzzled me. I think I understand it now.' Thus Borsdale, as he composedly smoked his churchwarden. 'In short, the whole affair is as mysterious-'
Here Sir Thomas raised his hand. 'Spare me the simile. I detect a vista of curious perils such as infinitely outshines verbal brilliancy. You need my aid in some insane attempt.' He considered. He said: 'So! you have been retained?'
'I have been asked to help him. Of course I did not know of what he meant to try. In short, Dr. Herrick left this manuscript, as well as certain instructions for me. The last are-well! unusual.'
'Ah, yes! You hearten me. I have long had my suspicions as to this Herrick, though… And what are we to do?'
'I really cannot inform you, sir. I doubt if I could explain in any workaday English even what we will attempt to do,' said Philip Borsdale. 'I do say this: You believe the business which we have settled, involving as it does the lives of thousands of men and women, to be of importance. I swear to you that, as set against what we will essay, all we have done is trivial. As pitted against the business we will attempt to-night, our previous achievements are suggestive of the evolutions of two sand-fleas beside the ocean. The prize at which this adventure aims is so stupendous that I cannot name it.'
'Oh, but you must, Philip. I am no more afraid of the local constabulary than I am of the local notions as to what respectability entails. I may confess, however, that I am afraid of wagering against unknown odds.'
Borsdale reflected. Then he said, with deliberation: 'Dr. Herrick's was, when you come to think of it, an unusual life. He is-or perhaps I ought to say he was-upward of eighty-three. He has lived here for over a half- century, and during that time he has never attempted to make either a friend or an enemy. He was-indifferent, let us say. Talking to Dr. Herrick was, somehow, like talking to a man in a fog… Meanwhile, he wrote his verses to imaginary women-to Corinna and Julia, to Myrha, Electra and Perilla-those lovely, shadow women who never, in so far as we know, had any real existence-'
Sir Thomas smiled. 'Of course. They are mere figments of the poet, pegs to hang rhymes on. And yet-let us go on. I know that Herrick never willingly so much as spoke with a woman.'
'Not in so far as we know, I said.' And Borsdale paused. 'Then, too, he wrote such dainty, merry poems about the fairies. Yes, it was all of fifty years ago that Dr. Herrick first appeared in print with his
The knight's face changed, a little by a little. 'I have long been an amateur of the curious,' he said, strangely quiet. 'I do not think that anything you may say will surprise me inordinately.'
'He had found in every country in the world traditions of a race who were human-yet more than human. That is the most exact fashion in which I can express his beginnings. On every side he found the notion of a race who can impinge on mortal life and partake of it-but always without exercising the last reach of their endowments. Oh, the tradition exists everywhere, whether you call these occasional interlopers fauns, fairies, gnomes, ondines, incubi, or demons. They could, according to these fables, temporarily restrict themselves into our life, just as a swimmer may elect to use only one arm-or, a more fitting comparison, become apparent to our human senses in the fashion of a cube which can obtrude only one of its six surfaces into a plane. You follow me, of course, sir?-to the triangles and circles and hexagons this cube would seem to be an ordinary square. Conceiving such a race to exist, we might talk with them, might jostle them in the streets, might even intermarry with them, sir-and always see in them only human beings, and solely because of our senses' limitations.'
'I comprehend. These are exactly the speculations that would appeal to an unbalanced mind-is that not your thought, Philip?'
'Why, there is nothing particularly insane, Sir Thomas, in desiring to explore in fields beyond those which our senses make perceptible. It is very certain these fields exist; and the question of their extent I take to be both interesting and important.'
Then Sir Thomas said: 'Like any other rational man, I have occasionally thought of this endeavor at which you hint. We exist-you and I and all the others-in what we glibly call the universe. All that we know of it is through what we entitle our five senses, which, when provoked to action, will cause a chemical change in a few ounces of spongy matter packed in our skulls. There are no grounds for believing that this particular method of communication is adequate, or even that the agents which produce it are veracious. Meanwhile, we are in touch with what exists through our five senses only. It may be that they lie to us. There is, at least, no reason for assuming them to be infallible.'
'But reflection plows a deeper furrow, Sir Thomas. Even in the exercise of any one of these five senses it is certain that we are excelled by what we vaingloriously call the lower forms of life. A dog has powers of scent we cannot reach to, birds hear the crawling of a worm, insects distinguish those rays in the spectrum which lie beyond violet and red, and are invisible to us; and snails and fish and ants-perhaps all other living creatures, indeed-have senses which man does not share at all, and has no name for. Granted that we human beings alone possess the power of reasoning, the fact remains that we invariably start with false premises, and always pass our judgments when biased at the best by incomplete reports of everything in the universe, and very possibly by reports which lie flat-footedly.'
You saw that Browne was troubled. Now he rose. 'Nothing will come of this. I do not touch upon the desirability of conquering those fields at which we dare only to hint. No, I am not afraid. I dare assist you in doing anything Dr. Herrick asks, because I know that nothing will come of such endeavors. Much is permitted us-'but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, to us who are no more than human, Ye shall not eat of it.''
'Yet Dr. Herrick, as many other men have done, thought otherwise. I, too, will venture a quotation. 'Didst thou never see a lark in a cage? Such is the soul in the body: this world is like her little turf of grass, and the heavens o'er our heads, like her looking-glass, only gives us a miserable knowledge of the small compass of our prison.' Many years ago that lamentation was familiar. What wonder, then, that Dr. Herrick should have dared to repeat it yesterday? And what wonder if he tried to free the prisoner?'
'Such freedom is forbidden,' Sir Thomas stubbornly replied. 'I have long known that Herrick was formerly in correspondence with John Heydon, and Robert Flood, and others of the Illuminated, as they call themselves. There are many of this sect in England, as we all know; and we hear much silly chatter of Elixirs and Philosopher's Stones in connection with them. But I happen to know somewhat of their real aims and tenets. I do not care to know any more than I do. If it be true that all of which man is conscious is just a portion of a curtain, and that the actual universe in nothing resembles our notion of it, I am willing to believe this curtain was placed there for some righteous and wise reason. They tell me the curtain may be lifted. Whether this be true or no, I must for my own sanity's sake insist it can never be lifted.'
'But what if it were not forbidden? For Dr. Herrick asserts he has already demonstrated that.'
Sir Thomas interrupted, with odd quickness. 'True, we must bear it in mind the man never married-Did he, by any chance, possess a crystal of Venice glass three inches square?'
And Borsdale gaped. 'I found it with his manuscript. But he said nothing of it… How could you guess?'
Sir Thomas reflectively scraped the edge of the glass with his finger-nail. 'You would be none the happier for knowing, Philip. Yes, that is a blood-stain here. I see. And Herrick, so far as we know, had never in his life loved any woman. He is the only poet in history who never demonstrably loved any woman. I think you had better read me his manuscript, Philip.'
This Philip Borsdale did.
Then Sir Thomas said, as quiet epilogue: 'This, if it be true, would explain much as to that lovely land of eternal spring and daffodils and friendly girls, of which his verses make us free. It would even explain Corinna and Herrick's rapt living without any human ties. For all poets since the time of AEschylus, who could not write until he was too drunken to walk, have been most readily seduced by whatever stimulus most tended to heighten their imaginings; so that for the sake of a song's perfection they have freely resorted to divers artificial inspirations, and very often without evincing any undue squeamishness… I spoke of AEschylus. I am sorry, Philip, that you are not familiar with ancient Greek life. There is so much I could tell you of, in that event, of the quaint cult of Kore, or Pherephatta, and of the swine of Eubouleus, and of certain ambiguous maidens, whom those old Grecians fabled- oh, very ignorantly fabled, my lad, of course-to rule in a more quietly lit and more tranquil world than we blunder about. I think I could explain much which now seems mysterious-yes, and the daffodils, also, that Herrick wrote of so constantly. But it is better not to talk of these sinister delusions of heathenry.' Sir Thomas shrugged. 'For my
