The Golden Age(金色时代)

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The Golden Age

By Kenneth Grahame

The Golden Age

PROLOGUE: THE OLYMPIANS

Looking back to those days of old, ere the gate shut behind me, I can

see now that to children with a proper equipment of parents these things

would have worn a different aspect. But to those whose nearest were

aunts and uncles, a special attitude of mind may be allowed. They

treated us, indeed, with kindness enough as to the needs of the flesh, but

after that with indifference (an indifference, as I recognise, the result of a

certain stupidity), and therewith the commonplace conviction that your

child is merely animal. At a very early age I remember realising in a

quite impersonal and kindly way the existence of that stupidity, and its

tremendous influence in the world; while there grew up in me, as in the

parallel case of Caliban upon Setebos, a vague sense of a ruling power,

wilful and freakish, and prone to the practice of vagaries--"just choosing

so:" as, for instance, the giving of authority over us to these hopeless and

incapable creatures, when it might far more reasonably have been given to

ourselves over them. These elders, our betters by a trick of chance,

commanded no respect, but only a certain blend of envy-- of their good

luck--and pity--for their inability to make use of it. Indeed, it was one of

the most hopeless features in their character (when we troubled ourselves

to waste a thought on them: which wasn't often) that, having absolute

licence to indulge in the pleasures of life, they could get no good of it.

They might dabble in the pond all day, hunt the chickens, climb trees in

the most uncompromising Sunday clothes; they were free to issue forth

and buy gunpowder in the full eye of the sun--free to fire cannons and

explode mines on the lawn: yet they never did any one of these things.

No irresistible Energy haled them to church o' Sundays; yet they went

there regularly of their own accord, though they betrayed no greater

delight in the experience than ourselves.

On the whole, the existence of these Olympians seemed to be entirely

void of interests, even as their movements were confined and slow, and

their habits stereotyped and senseless. To anything but appearances they

were blind. For them the orchard (a place elf-haunted, wonderful!)

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simply produced so many apples and cherries: or it didn't, when the

failures of Nature were not infrequently ascribed to us. They never set

foot within fir-wood or hazel-copse, nor dreamt of the marvels hid therein.

The mysterious sources--sources as of old Nile--that fed the duck-pond

had no magic for them. They were unaware of Indians, nor recked they

anything of bisons or of pirates (with pistols!), though the whole place

swarmed with such portents. They cared not about exploring for robbers'

caves, nor digging for hidden treasure. Perhaps, indeed, it was one of

their best qualities that they spent the greater part of their time stuffily

indoors.

To be sure, there was an exception in the curate, who would receive

unblenching the information that the meadow beyond the orchard was a

prairie studded with herds of buffalo, which it was our delight,

moccasined and tomahawked, to ride down with those whoops that

announce the scenting of blood. He neither laughed nor sneered, as the

Olympians would have done; but possessed of a serious idiosyncrasy, he

would contribute such lots of valuable suggestion as to the pursuit of this

particular sort of big game that, as it seemed to us, his mature age and

eminent position could scarce have been attained without a practical

knowledge of the creature in its native lair. Then, too, he was always

ready to constitute himself a hostile army or a band of marauding Indians

on the shortest possible notice: in brief, a distinctly able man, with talents,

so far as we could judge, immensely above the majority. I trust he is a

bishop by this time,--he had all the necessary qualifications, as we knew.

These strange folk had visitors sometimes,--stiff and colourless

Olympians like themselves, equally without vital interests and intelligent

pursuits: emerging out of the clouds, and passing away again to drag on an

aimless existence somewhere out of our ken. Then brute force was

pitilessly applied. We were captured, washed, and forced into clean

collars: silently submitting, as was our wont, with more contempt than

anger. Anon, with unctuous hair and faces stiffened in a conventional

grin, we sat and listened to the usual platitudes. How could reasonable

people spend their precious time so? That was ever our wonder as we

bounded forth at last--to the old clay-pit to make pots, or to hunt bears

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among the hazels.

It was incessant matter for amazement how these Olympians would

talk over our heads--during meals, for instance--of this or the other social

or political inanity, under the delusion that these pale phantasms of reality

were among the importances of life. We illuminati, eating silently, our

heads full of plans and conspiracies, could have told them what real life

was. We had just left it outside, and were all on fire to get back to it.

Of course we didn't waste the revelation on them; the futility of imparting

our ideas had long been demonstrated. One in thought and purpose,

linked by the necessity of combating one hostile fate, a power antagonistic

ever,--a power we lived to evade,--we had no confidants save ourselves.

This strange anaemic order of beings was further removed from us, in fact,

than the kindly beasts who shared our natural existence in the sun. The

estrangement was fortified by an abiding sense of injustice, arising from

the refusal of the Olympians ever to defend, retract, or admit themselves in

the wrong, or to accept similar concessions on our part. For instance,

whenI flung the cat out of an upper window (though I did it from no ill-

feeling, and it didn't hurt the cat), I was ready, after a moment's reflection,

to own I was wrong, as a gentleman should. But was the matter allowed

to end there? I trow not. Again, when Harold was locked up in his

room all day, for assault and battery upon a neighbour's pig,--an action he

would have scorned, being indeed on the friendliest terms with the porker

in question,--there was no handsome expression of regret on the discovery

of the real culprit. What Harold had felt was not so much the

imprisonment,--indeed he had very soon escaped by the window, with

assistance from his allies, and had only gone back in time for his release,--

as the Olympian habit. A word would have set all right; but of course

that word was never spoken.

Well! The Olympians are all past and gone. Somehow the sun does

not seem to shine so brightly as it used; the trackless meadows of old time

have shrunk and dwindled away to a few poor acres. A saddening doubt,

a dull suspicion, creeps over me. Et in Arcadia ego,--I certainly did once

inhabit Arcady. Can it be I too have become an Olympian?

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A HOLIDAY.

The masterful wind was up and out, shouting and chasing, the lord of

the morning. Poplars swayed and tossed with a roaring swish; dead

leaves sprang aloft, and whirled into space; and all the clear-swept heaven

seemed to thrill with sound like a great harp.

It was one of the first awakenings of the year. The earth stretched

herself, smiling in her sleep; and everything leapt and pulsed to the stir of

the giant's movement. With us it was a whole holiday; the occasion a

birthday--it matters not whose. Some one of us had had presents, and

pretty conventional speeches, and had glowed with that sense of heroism

which is no less sweet that nothing has been done to deserve it. But the

holiday was for all, the rapture of awakening Nature for all, the various

outdoor joys of puddles and sun and hedge-breaking for all. Colt-like I

ran through the meadows, frisking happy heels in the face of Nature

laughing responsive. Above, the sky was bluest of the blue; wide pools

left by the winter's floods flashed the colour back, true and brilliant; and

the soft air thrilled with the germinating touch that seemed to kindle

something in my own small person as well as in the rash primrose already

lurking in sheltered haunts. Out into the brimming sun- bathed world I

sped, free of lessons, free of discipline and correction, for one day at least.

My legs ran of themselves, and though I heard my name called faint and

shrill behind, there was no stopping for me. It was only Harold, I

concluded, and his legs, though shorter than mine, were good for a longer

spurt than this. Then I heard it called again, but this time more faintly,

with a pathetic break in the middle; and I pulled up short, recognising

Charlotte's plaintive note.

She panted up anon, and dropped on the turf beside me. Neither had

any desire for talk; the glow and the glory of existing on this perfect

morning were satisfaction full and sufficient.

"Where's Harold;" I asked presently.

"Oh, he's just playin' muffin-man, as usual," said Charlotte with

petulance. "Fancy wanting to be a muffin-man on a whole holiday!"

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It was a strange craze, certainly; but Harold, who invented his own

games and played them without assistance, always stuck staunchly to a

new fad, till he had worn it quite out. Just at present he was a muffin-

man, and day and night he went through passages and up and down

staircases, ringing a noiseless bell and offering phantom muffins to

invisible wayfarers. It sounds a poor sort of sport; and yet--to pass along

busy streets of your own building, for ever ringing an imaginary bell and

offering airy muffins of your own make to a bustling thronging crowd of

your own creation--there were points about the game, it cannot be denied,

though it seemed scarce in harmony with this radiant wind-swept

morning!

"And Edward, where is he?" I questioned again.

"He's coming along by the road," said Charlotte. "He'll be crouching

in the ditch when we get there, and he's going to be a grizzly bear and

spring out on us, only you mustn't say I told you, 'cos it's to be a surprise."

"All right," I said magnanimously. "Come on and let's be surprised."

But I could not help feeling that on this day of days even a grizzly felt

misplaced and common.

Sure enough an undeniable bear sprang out on us as we dropped into

the road; then ensued shrieks, growlings, revolver-shots, and unrecorded

heroisms, till Edward condescended at last to roll over and die, bulking

large and grim, an unmitigated grizzly. It was an understood thing, that

whoever took upon himself to be a bear must eventually die, sooner or

later, even if he were the eldest born; else, life would have been all strife

and carnage, and the Age of Acorns have displaced our hard-won

civilisation. This little affair concluded with satisfaction to all parties

concerned, we rambled along the road, picking up the defaulting Harold

by the way, muffinless now and in his right and social mind.

"What would you do?" asked Charlotte presently,--the book of the

moment always dominating her thoughts until it was sucked dry and cast

aside,--"what would you do if you saw two lions in the road, one on each

side, and you didn't know if they was loose or if they was chained up?"

"Do?" shouted Edward, valiantly, "I should--I should--I should--"

His boastful accents died away into a mumble: "Dunno what I

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should do."

"Shouldn't do anything," I observed after consideration; and really it

would be difficult to arrive at a wiser conclusion.

"If it came to DOING," remarked Harold, reflectively, "the lions would

do all the doing there was to do, wouldn't they?"

"But if they was GOOD lions," rejoined Charlotte, "they would do as

they would be done by."

"Ah, but how are you to know a good lion from a bad one?" said

Edward. "The books don't tell you at all, and the lions ain't marked any

different."

"Why, there aren't any good lions," said Harold, hastily.

"Oh yes, there are, heaps and heaps," contradicted Edward. "Nearly

all the lions in the story-books are good lions. There was Androcles' lion,

and St. Jerome's lion, and--and--the Lion and the Unicorn--"

"He beat the Unicorn," observed Harold, dubiously, "all round the

town."

"That PROVES he was a good lion," cried Edwards triumphantly.

"But the question is, how are you to tell 'em when you see 'em?"

"_I_ should ask Martha," said Harold of the simple creed.

Edward snorted contemptuously, then turned to Charlotte. "Look

here," he said; "let's play at lions, anyhow, and I'll run on to that corner

and be a lion,--I'll be two lions, one on each side of the road,--and you'll

come along, and you won't know whether I'm chained up or not, and that'll

be the fun!"

"No, thank you," said Charlotte, firmly; "you'll be chained up till I'm

quite close to you, and then you'll be loose, and you'll tear me in pieces,

and make my frock all dirty, and p'raps you'll hurt me as well. _I_ know

your lions!"

"No, I won't; I swear I won't," protested Edward. "I'll be quite a new

lion this time,--something you can't even imagine." And he raced off to

his post. Charlotte hesitated; then she went timidly on, at each step

growing less Charlotte, the mummer of a minute, and more the anxious

Pilgrim of all time. The lion's wrath waxed terrible at her approach; his

roaring filled the startled air. I waited until they were both thoroughly

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absorbed, and then I slipped through the hedge out of the trodden highway,

into the vacant meadow spaces. It was not that I was unsociable, nor that

I knew Edward's lions to the point of satiety; but the passion and the call

of the divine morning were high in my blood.

Earth to earth! That was the frank note, the joyous summons of the

day; and they could not but jar and seem artificial, these human

discussions and pretences, when boon Nature, reticent no more, was

singing that full-throated song of hers that thrills and claims control of

every fibre. The air was wine; the moist earth-smell, wine; the lark's

song, the wafts from the cow-shed at top of the field, the pant and smoke

of a distant train,--all were wine,--or song, was it? or odour, this unity they

all blended into? I had no words then to describe it, that earth- effluence

of which I was so conscious; nor, indeed, have I found words since. I ran

sideways, shouting; I dug glad heels into the squelching soil; I splashed

diamond showers from puddles with a stick; I hurled clods skywards at

random, and presently I somehow found myself singing. The words

were mere nonsense,-- irresponsible babble; the tune was an improvisation,

a weary, unrhythmic thing of rise and fall: and yet it seemed to me a

genuine utterance, and just at that moment the one thing fitting and right

and perfect. Humanity would have rejected it with scorn, Nature,

everywhere singing in the same key, recognised and accepted it without a

flicker of dissent.

All the time the hearty wind was calling to me companionably from

where he swung and bellowed in the tree-tops. "Take me for guide to-

day," he seemed to plead. "Other holidays you have tramped it in the

track of the stolid, unswerving sun; a belated truant, you have dragged a

weary foot homeward with only a pale, expressionless moon for company.

To-day why not I, the trickster, the hypocrite? I, who whip round corners

and bluster, relapse and evade, then rally and pursue! I can lead you the

best and rarest dance of any; for I am the strong capricious one, the lord of

misrule, and I alone am irresponsible and unprincipled, and obey no law."

And for me, I was ready enough to fall in with the fellow's humour; was

not this a whole holiday? So we sheered off together, arm-in-arm, so to

speak; and with fullest confidence I took the jigging, thwartwise course

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my chainless pilot laid for me.

A whimsical comrade I found him, ere he had done with me. Was it

in jest, or with some serious purpose of his own, that he brought me plump

upon a pair of lovers, silent, face to face o'er a discreet unwinking stile?

As a rule this sort of thing struck me as the most pitiful tomfoolery. Two

calves rubbing noses through a gate were natural and right and within the

order of things; but that human beings, with salient interests and active

pursuits beckoning them on from every side, could thus--! Well, it was a

thing to hurry past, shamed of face, and think on no more. But this

morning everything I met seemed to be accounted for and set in tune by

that same magical touch in the air; and it was with a certain surprise that I

found myself regarding these fatuous ones with kindliness instead of

contempt, as I rambled by, unheeded of them. There was indeed some

reconciling influence abroad, which could bring the like antics into

harmony with bud and growth and the frolic air.

A puff on the right cheek from my wilful companion sent me off at a

fresh angle, and presently I came in sight of the village church, sitting

solitary within its circle of elms. From forth the vestry window projected

two small legs, gyrating, hungry for foothold, with larceny--not to say

sacrilege--in their every wriggle: a godless sight for a supporter of the

Establishment. Though the rest was hidden, I knew the legs well enough;

they were usually attached to the body of Bill Saunders, the peerless bad

boy of the village. Bill's coveted booty, too, I could easily guess at that;

it came from the Vicar's store of biscuits, kept (as I knew) in a cupboard

along with his official trappings.

For a moment I hesitated; then I passed on my way. I protest I was

not on Bill's side; but then, neither was I on the Vicar's, and there was

something in this immoral morning which seemed to say that perhaps,

after all, Bill had as much right to the biscuits as the Vicar, and would

certainly enjoy them better; and anyhow it was a disputable point, and no

business of mine. Nature, who had accepted me for ally, cared little who

had the world's biscuits, and assuredly was not going to let any friend of

hers waste his time in playing policeman for Society.

He was tugging at me anew, my insistent guide; and I felt sure, as I

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rambled off in his wake, that he had more holiday matter to show me.

And so, indeed, he had; and all of it was to the same lawless tune. Like a

black pirate flag on the blue ocean of air, a hawk hung ominous; then,

plummet-wise, dropped to the hedgerow, whence there rose, thin and shrill,

a piteous voice of squealing.

By the time I got there a whisk of feathers on the turf--like scattered

playbills--was all that remained to tell of the tragedy just enacted. Yet

Nature smiled and sang on, pitiless, gay, impartial. To her, who took no

sides, there was every bit as much to be said for the hawk as for the

chaffinch. Both were her children, and she would show no preferences.

Further on, a hedgehog lay dead athwart the path--nay, more than dead;

decadent, distinctly; a sorry sight for one that had known the fellow in

more bustling circumstances. Nature might at least have paused to shed

one tear over this rough jacketed little son of hers, for his wasted aims, his

cancelled ambitions, his whole career of usefulness cut suddenly short.

But not a bit of it! Jubilant as ever, her song went bubbling on, and

"Death-in- Life," and again, "Life-in-Death," were its alternate burdens.

And looking round, and seeing the sheep-nibbled heels of turnips that

dotted the ground, their hearts eaten out of them in frost- bound days now

over and done, I seemed to discern, faintly, a something of the stern

meaning in her valorous chant.

My invisible companion was singing also, and seemed at times to be

chuckling softly to himself, doubtless at thought of the strange new

lessons he was teaching me; perhaps, too, at a special bit of waggishness

he had still in store. For when at last he grew weary of such insignificant

earthbound company, he deserted me at a certain spot I knew; then

dropped, subsided, and slunk away into nothingness. I raised my eyes,

and before me, grim and lichened, stood the ancient whipping-post of the

village; its sides fretted with the initials of a generation that scorned its

mute lesson, but still clipped by the stout rusty shackles that had tethered

the wrists of such of that generation's ancestors as had dared to mock at

order and law. Had I been an infant Sterne, here was a grand chance for

sentimental output! As things were, I could only hurry homewards, my

moral tail well between my legs, with an uneasy feeling, as I glanced back

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TheGoldenAge1TheGoldenAgeByKennethGrahameTheGoldenAge2PROLOGUE:THEOLYMPIANSLookingbacktothosedaysofold,erethegateshutbehindme,Icanseenowthattochildrenwithaproperequipmentofparentsthesethingswouldhavewornadifferentaspect.Buttothosewhosenearestwereauntsanduncles,aspecialattitudeofmindmaybeallowed.They...

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