DREAM DAYS(做梦的日子)

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DREAM DAYS

BY KENNETH GRAHAME

DREAM DAYS

THE TWENTY-FIRST OF

OCTOBER

In the matter of general culture and attainments, we youngsters stood

on pretty level ground. True, it was always happening that one of us

would be singled out at any moment, freakishly, and without regard to his

own preferences, to wrestle with the inflections of some idiotic language

long rightly dead; while another, from some fancied artistic tendency

which always failed to justify itself, might be told off without warning to

hammer out scales and exercises, and to bedew the senseless keys with

tears of weariness or of revolt. But in subjects common to either sex, and

held to be necessary even for him whose ambition soared no higher than to

crack a whip in a circus-ring-- in geography, for instance, arithmetic, or

the weary doings of kings and queens--each would have scorned to excel.

And, indeed, whatever our individual gifts, a general dogged

determination to shirk and to evade kept us all at much the same dead

level,--a level of ignorance tempered by insubordination.

Fortunately there existed a wide range of subjects, of healthier tone

than those already enumerated, in which we were free to choose for

ourselves, and which we would have scorned to consider education; and in

these we freely followed each his own particular line, often attaining an

amount of special knowledge which struck our ignorant elders as simply

uncanny. For Edward, the uniforms, accoutrements, colours, and mottoes

of the regiments composing the British Army had a special glamour. In

the matter of facings he was simply faultless; among chevrons, badges,

medals, and stars, he moved familiarly; he even knew the names of most

of the colonels in command; and he would squander sunny hours prone on

the lawn, heedless of challenge from bird or beast, poring over a tattered

Army List. My own accomplishment was of another character--took, as

it seemed to me, a wider and a more untrammelled range. Dragoons

might have swaggered in Lincoln green, riflemen might have donned

sporrans over tartan trews, without exciting notice or comment from me.

DREAM DAYS

But did you seek precise information as to the fauna of the American

continent, then you had come to the right shop. Where and why the

bison "wallowed"; how beaver were to be trapped and wild turkeys stalked;

the grizzly and how to handle him, and the pretty pressing ways of the

constrictor,--in fine, the haunts and the habits of all that burrowed, strutted,

roared, or wriggled between the Atlantic and the Pacific,--all this

knowledge I took for my province. By the others my equipment was

fully recognized. Supposing a book with a bear-hunt in it made its way

into the house, and the atmosphere was electric with excitement; still, it

was necessary that I should first decide whether the slot had been properly

described and properly followed up, ere the work could be stamped with

full approval. A writer might have won fame throughout the civilized

globe for his trappers and his realistic backwoods, and all went for nothing.

If his pemmican were not properly compounded I damned his achievement,

and it was heard no more of.

Harold was hardly old enough to possess a special subject of his own.

He had his instincts, indeed, and at bird's-nesting they almost amounted to

prophecy. Where we others only suspected eggs, surmised possible eggs,

hinted doubtfully at eggs in the neighbourhood, Harold went straight for

the right bush, bough, or hole as if he carried a divining-rod. But this

faculty belonged to the class of mere gifts, and was not to be ranked with

Edward's lore regarding facings, and mine as to the habits of prairie-dogs,

both gained by painful study and extensive travel in those "realms of

gold," the Army List and Ballantyne.

Selina's subject, quite unaccountably, happened to be naval history.

There is no laying down rules as to subjects; you just possess them--or

rather, they possess you--and their genesis or protoplasm is rarely to be

tracked down. Selina had never so much as seen the sea; but for that

matter neither had I ever set foot on the American continent, the by-ways

of which I knew so intimately. And just as I, if set down without warning

in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, would have been perfectly at home,

so Selina, if a genie had dropped her suddenly on Portsmouth Hard, could

have given points to most of its frequenters. From the days of Blake

down to the death of Nelson (she never condescended further) Selina had

DREAM DAYS

taken spiritual part in every notable engagement of the British Navy; and

even in the dark days when she had to pick up skirts and flee, chased by an

ungallant De Ruyter or Van Tromp, she was yet cheerful in the

consciousness that ere long she would be gleefully hammering the fleets

of the world, in the glorious times to follow. When that golden period

arrived, Selina was busy indeed; and, while loving best to stand where the

splinters were flying the thickest. she was also a careful and critical

student of seamanship and of manoeuvre. She knew the order in which

the great line-of-battle ships moved into action, the vessels they

respectively engaged, the moment when each let go its anchor, and which

of them had a spring on its cable (while not understanding the phrase, she

carefully noted the fact); and she habitually went into an engagement on

the quarter-deck of the gallant ship that reserved its fire the longest.

At the time of Selina's weird seizure I was unfortunately away from

home, on a loathsome visit to an aunt; and my account is therefore feebly

compounded from hearsay. It was an absence I never ceased to regret--

scoring it up, with a sense of injury, against the aunt. There was a

splendid uselessness about the whole performance that specially appealed

to my artistic sense. That it should have been Selina, too, who should

break out this way--Selina, who had just become a regular subscriber to

the "Young Ladies' Journal," and who allowed herself to be taken out to

strange teas with an air of resignation palpably assumed--this was a

special joy, and served to remind me that much of this dreaded convention

that was creeping over us might be, after all, only veneer. Edward also

was absent, getting licked into shape at school; but to him the loss was

nothing. With his stern practical bent he wouldn't have seen any sense in

it--to recall one of his favourite expressions. To Harold, however, for

whom the gods had always cherished a special tenderness, it was granted,

not only to witness, but also, priestlike, to feed the sacred fire itself. And

if at the time he paid the penalty exacted by the sordid unimaginative ones

who temporarily rule the roast, he must ever after, one feels sure, have

carried inside him some of the white gladness of the acolyte who, greatly

privileged, has been permitted to swing a censer at the sacring of the very

Mass.

DREAM DAYS

October was mellowing fast, and with it the year itself; full of tender

hints, in woodland and hedgerow, of a course well-nigh completed.

From all sides that still afternoon you caught the quick breathing and sob

of the runner nearing the goal. Preoccupied and possessed, Selina had

strayed down the garden and out into the pasture beyond, where, on a bit

of rising ground that dominated the garden on one side and the downs with

the old coach-road on the other, she had cast herself down to chew the cud

of fancy. There she was presently joined by Harold, breathless and very

full of his latest grievance.

"I asked him not to," he burst out. "I said if he'd only please wait a

bit and Edward would be back soon, and it couldn't matter to HIM, and the

pig wouldn't mind, and Edward'd be pleased and everybody'd be happy.

But he just said he was very sorry, but bacon didn't wait for nobody. So I

told him he was a regular beast, and then I came away. And--and I

b'lieve they're doing it now!"

"Yes, he's a beast," agreed Selina, absently. She had forgotten all

about the pig-killing. Harold kicked away a freshly thrown- up mole-hill,

and prodded down the hole with a stick. From the direction of Farmer

Larkin's demesne came a long-drawn note of sorrow, a thin cry and appeal,

telling that the stout soul of a black Berkshire pig was already faring down

the stony track to Hades.

"D'you know what day it is?" said Selina presently, in a low voice,

looking far away before her.

Harold did not appear to know, nor yet to care. He had laid open his

mole-run for a yard or so, and was still grubbing at it absorbedly.

"It's Trafalgar Day," went on Selina, trancedly; "Trafalgar Day-- and

nobody cares!"

Something in her tone told Harold that he was not behaving quite

becomingly. He didn't exactly know in what manner; still, he abandoned

his mole-hunt for a more courteous attitude of attention.

"Over there," resumed Selina--she was gazing out in the direction of

the old highroad--"over there the coaches used to go by. Uncle Thomas

was telling me about it the other day. And the people used to watch for

'em coming, to tell the time by, and p'r'aps to get their parcels. And one

DREAM DAYS

morning--they wouldn't be expecting anything different--one morning,

first there would be a cloud of dust, as usual, and then the coach would

come racing by, and THEN they would know! For the coach would be

dressed in laurel, all laurel from stem to stern! And the coachman would

be wearing laurel, and the guard would be wearing laurel; and then they

would know, then they would know!"

Harold listened in respectful silence. He would much rather have

been hunting the mole, who must have been a mile away by this time if he

had his wits about him. But he had all the natural instincts of a

gentleman; of whom it is one of the principal marks, if not the complete

definition, never to show signs of being bored.

Selina rose to her feet, and paced the turf restlessly with a short

quarter-deck walk.

"Why can't we DO something?" she burst out presently. "HE--he did

everything--why can't we do anything for him?"

"WHO did everything?" inquired Harold, meekly. It was useless

wasting further longings on that mole. Like the dead, he travelled fast.

"Why, Nelson, of course," said Selina, shortly, still looking restlessly

around for help or suggestion.

"But he's--he's DEAD, isn't he?" asked Harold, slightly puzzled.

"What's that got to do with it?" retorted his sister, resuming her caged-

lion promenade.

Harold was somewhat taken aback. In the case of the pig, for

instance, whose last outcry had now passed into stillness, he had

considered the chapter as finally closed. Whatever innocent mirth the

holidays might hold in store for Edward, that particular pig, at least, would

not be a contributor. And now he was given to understand that the

situation had not materially changed! He would have to revise his ideas,

it seemed. Sitting up on end, he looked towards the garden for assistance

in the task. Thence, even as he gazed, a tiny column of smoke rose

straight up into the still air. The gardener had been sweeping that

afternoon, and now, an unconscious priest, was offering his sacrifice of

autumn leaves to the calm-eyed goddess of changing hues and chill

forebodings who was moving slowly about the land that golden afternoon.

DREAM DAYS

Harold was up and off in a moment, forgetting Nelson, forgetting the pig,

the mole, the Larkin betrayal, and Selina's strange fever of conscience.

Here was fire, real fire, to play with, and that was even better than messing

with water, or remodelling the plastic surface of the earth. Of all the toys

the world provides for right-minded persons, the original elements rank

easily the first.

But Selina sat on where she was, her chin on her fists; and her fancies

whirled and drifted, here and there, in curls and eddies, along with the

smoke she was watching. As the quick- footed dusk of the short October

day stepped lightly over the garden, little red tongues of fire might be seen

to leap and vanish in the smoke. Harold, anon staggering under armfuls

of leaves, anon stoking vigorously, was discernible only at fitful intervals.

It was another sort of smoke that the inner eye of Selina was looking

upon,--a smoke that hung in sullen banks round the masts and the hulls of

the fighting ships; a smoke from beneath which came thunder and the

crash and the splinter-rip, the shout of the boarding party, the choking sob

of the gunner stretched by his gun; a smoke from out of which at last she

saw, as through a riven pall, the radiant spirit of the Victor, crowned with

the coronal of a perfect death, leap in full assurance up into the ether that

Immortals breathe. The dusk was glooming towards darkness when she

rose and moved slowly down towards the beckoning fire; something of the

priestess in her stride, something of the devotee in the set purpose of her

eye.

The leaves were well alight by this time, and Harold had just added an

old furze bush, which flamed and crackled stirringly.

"Go 'n' get some more sticks," ordered Selina, "and shavings, 'n'

chunks of wood, 'n' anything you can find. Look here--in the kitchen-

garden there's a pile of old pea-sticks. Fetch as many as you can carry,

and then go back and bring some more!"

"But I say,--" began Harold, amazedly, scarce knowing his sister, and

with a vision of a frenzied gardener, pea-stickless and threatening

retribution.

"Go and fetch 'em quick! " shouted Selina, stamping with impatience.

Harold ran off at once, true to the stern system of discipline in which

DREAM DAYS

he had been nurtured. But his eyes were like round O's, and as he ran he

talked fast to himself, in evident disorder of mind.

The pea-sticks made a rare blaze, and the fire, no longer smouldering

sullenly, leapt up and began to assume the appearance of a genuine bonfire.

Harold, awed into silence at first, began to jump round it with shouts of

triumph. Selina looked on grimly, with knitted brow; she was not yet

fully satisfied. "Can't you get any more sticks?" she said presently. "Go

and hunt about. Get some old hampers and matting and things out of the

tool-house. Smash up that old cucumber frame Edward shoved you into,

the day we were playing scouts and Mohicans. Stop a bit! Hooray! I

know. You come along with me."

Hard by there was a hot-house, Aunt Eliza's special pride and joy, and

even grimly approved of by the gardener. At one end, in an out-house

adjoining, the necessary firing was stored; and to this sacred fuel, of which

we were strictly forbidden to touch a stick, Selina went straight. Harold

followed obediently, prepared for any crime after that of the pea-sticks,

but pinching himself to see if he were really awake.

"You bring some coals," said Selina briefly, without any palaver or

pro-and-con discussion. "Here's a basket. I'LL manage the faggots!"

In a very few minutes there was little doubt about its being a genuine

bonfire and no paltry makeshift. Selina, a Maenad now, hatless and

tossing disordered locks, all the dross of the young lady purged out of her,

stalked around the pyre of her own purloining, or prodded it with a pea-

stick. And as she prodded she murmured at intervals, "I KNEW there

was something we could do! It isn't much--but still it's SOMETHING!"

The gardener had gone home to his tea. Aunt Eliza had driven out for

hers a long way off, and was not expected back till quite late; and this far

end of the garden was not overlooked by any windows. So the Tribute

blazed on merrily unchecked. Villagers far away, catching sight of the

flare, muttered something about "them young devils at their tricks again,"

and trudged on beer- wards. Never a thought of what day it was, never a

thought for Nelson, who preserved their honest pint-pots, to be paid for in

honest pence, and saved them from litres and decimal coinage. Nearer at

hand, frightened rabbits popped up and vanished with a flick of white tails;

DREAM DAYS

scared birds fluttered among the branches, or sped across the glade to

quieter sleeping-quarters; but never a bird nor a beast gave a thought to the

hero to whom they owed it that each year their little homes of horsehair,

wool, or moss, were safe stablished 'neath the flap of the British flag; and

that Game Laws, quietly permanent, made la chasse a terror only to their

betters. No one seemed to know, nor to care, nor to sympathise. In all

the ecstasy of her burnt- offering and sacrifice, Selina stood alone.

And yet--not quite alone! For, as the fire was roaring at its best,

certain stars stepped delicately forth on the surface of the immensity above,

and peered down doubtfully--with wonder at first, then with interest, then

with recognition, with a start of glad surprise. THEY at least knew all

about it, THEY understood. Among THEM the Name was a daily

familiar word; his story was a part of the music to which they swung,

himself was their fellow and their mate and comrade. So they peeped,

and winked, and peeped again, and called to their laggard brothers to come

quick and see.

. . . . . . .

"The best of life is but intoxication;" and Selina, who during her brief

inebriation had lived in an ecstasy as golden as our drab existence affords,

had to experience the inevitable bitterness of awakening sobriety, when

the dying down of the flames into sullen embers coincided with the

frenzied entrance of Aunt Eliza on the scene. It was not so much that she

was at once and forever disrated, broke, sent before the mast, and branded

as one on whom no reliance could be placed, even with Edward safe at

school, and myself under the distant vigilance of an aunt; that her pocket

money was stopped indefinitely, and her new Church Service, the pride of

her last birthday, removed from her own custody and placed under the

control of a Trust. She sorrowed rather because she had dragged poor

Harold, against his better judgment, into a most horrible scrape, and

moreover because, when the reaction had fairly set in, when the exaltation

had fizzled away and the young-lady portion of her had crept timorously

back to its wonted lodging, she could only see herself as a plain fool,

unjustified, undeniable, without a shadow of an excuse or explanation.

As for Harold, youth and a short memory made his case less pitiful

DREAM DAYS

than it seemed to his more sensitive sister. True, he started upstairs to his

lonely cot bellowing dismally, before him a dreary future of pains and

penalties, sufficient to last to the crack of doom. Outside his door,

however, he tumbled over Augustus the cat, and made capture of him; and

at once his mourning was changed into a song of triumph, as he conveyed

his prize into port. For Augustus, who detested above all things going to

bed with little boys, was ever more knave than fool, and the trapper who

was wily enough to ensnare him had achieved something notable.

Augustus, when he realized that his fate was sealed, and his night's

lodging settled, wisely made the best of things, and listened, with a

languorous air of complete comprehension, to the incoherent babble

concerning pigs and heroes, moles and bonfires, which served Harold for a

self-sung lullaby. Yet it may be doubted whether Augustus was one of

those rare fellows who thoroughly understood.

But Selina knew no more of this source of consolation than of the

sympathy with which the stars were winking above her; and it was only

after some sad interval oftime, and on a very moist pillow, that she drifted

into that quaint inconsequent country where you may meet your own pet

hero strolling down the road, and commit what hair-brained oddities you

like, and everybody understands and appreciates.

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DREAMDAYS1DREAMDAYSBYKENNETHGRAHAMEDREAMDAYS2THETWENTY-FIRSTOFOCTOBERInthematterofgeneralcultureandattainments,weyoungstersstoodonprettylevelground.True,itwasalwayshappeningthatoneofuswouldbesingledoutatanymoment,freakishly,andwithoutregardtohisownpreferences,towrestlewiththeinflectionsofsomeidiotic...

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