The Algernon Blackwood Collection

by Algernon Blackwood

  “Signs!” she repeated, in a voice that was gentler than they had ever known it. There was almost a sound of youth in it. Judy suddenly realised that Aunt Emily had once been a girl. A softer look shone in the colourless eyes. The lips relaxed. In a hat she might have been even pretty. No one in a bonnet could be jolly. “Signs!” she repeated; “deep and beautiful! Whatever in the world—?”

  She stopped abruptly, started by the exquisite trilling of a bird that was perched upon a branch quite close behind her. The liquid notes poured out in a stream of music, so rich, so lovely that it seemed as if no bird had ever sung before and that they were the first persons in the world who had ever heard it.

  “My sign!” cried Judy, dancing round her disconcerted and bewildered relative. “One of my signs—that!”

  “Mine is rabbits and rats and badgers,” Tim called out with ungrammatical emphasis. “Anything that likes the earth are mine.” He looked about him as if to point one out to her. “They’re everywhere, all over the place,” he added, seeing none at the moment. “Aunty, what’s yours? Do tell us, because then we can go and look together.”

  “It’s much more fun than looking alone,” declared Judy.

  No answer came. But, caught by the astounding magic of the singing bird, Aunt Emily had turned, and in doing so the hand behind her back became visible for the first time since their meeting. The children saw it simultaneously. They nudged each other, but they said no word. The same moment, having failed to discover the bird, Aunt Emily turned back again. She looked caught, they thought. But, also she looked as if she had found something herself. The secret joy she tried to hide from them by swallowing it, rose to her wrinkled cheeks and shone in both her eyes, then overflowed and rippled down towards her trembling mouth. The lips were trembling. She smiled, but so softly, sweetly, that ten years dropped from her like a dissolving shadow. And the hand she had so long kept hidden behind her back stole forth slowly into view.

  “How did you guess that I was looking for anything?” she inquired plaintively in an excited yet tremulous tone. “I thought no one knew it.” She seemed genuinely surprised, yet unbelievably happy too. A great sigh of relief escaped her.

  “We’re all the same,” one of them informed her; “so you are too! Everybody’s looking.” And they crowded round to examine the objects in her hand—a dirty earth-stained trowel and a fern. They knew she collected ferns on the sly, but never before had they seen her bring home such a prize. Usually she found only crumpled things like old bits of wrinkled brown paper which she called “specimens.” This one was marvellously beautiful. It had a dainty, slender stalk of ebony black, and its hundred tiny leaves quivered like a shower of green water-drops in the air. There was actual joy in every trembling bit of it.

  “That’s my sign,” announced Aunt Emily with pride: “Maidenhair! It’ll grow again. I’ve got the roots.” And she said it as triumphantly as Stumper had said “snail-shell.”

  “Of course, Aunty,” Judy cried, yet doubtfully. “You ought to know.” She twiddled it round in her fingers till the quivering fronds emitted a tiny sound. “And you can use it as a feather too.” She lowered her head to listen.

  “We’ve each got a feather,” mentioned Tim. “It’s a compass. Shows the way, you know. You hear him calling—that way.”

  “The Tramp explained that,” Judy added. “He’s Leader. Come on, Aunty. We ought to be off; the others went ages ago. We’re going to the End of the World, and they’ve already started.”

  For a moment Aunt Emily looked as rigid as the post beside a five-barred gate. The old unbending attitude took possession of her once again. Her eyes took on the tint of soapy water. Her elastic nose looked round the corner. She frowned. Her black dress crackled. The mention of a tramp and the End of the World woke all her savage educational instincts visibly.

  “He’s a singing tramp and shines like a Christmas Tree,” explained Judy, “and he looks like everybody in the world. He’s extror’iny.” She turned to her brother. “Doesn’t he, Tim?”

  Tim ran up and caught his Aunt by the umbrella hand. He saw her stiffening. He meant to prevent it if he could.

  “Everybody rolled into one,” he agreed eagerly; “Daddy and Mother and the Clergyman and you.”

  “And me?” she asked tremulously.

  “Rather!” the boy said vehemently; “as you are now, all rabbity and nice.”

  Aunt Emily slowly removed one big golosh, then waited.

  “Cleaned up and young,” cried Judy, “and smells delicious—like flowers and hay—”

  “And soft and warm—”

  “And sings and dances—”

  “And is positive that if we go on looking we shall find—exactly what we’re looking for.”

  Aunt Emily removed the other golosh—a shade more quickly than the first one. She kicked it off. The stiffness melted out of her; she smiled again.

  “Well,” she began—when Judy stood on tip-toe and whispered in her ear some magic sentence.

  “Dawn!” Aunt Emily whispered back. “At dawn—when the birds begin to sing!”

  Something had caught her heart and squeezed it.

  Tim and Judy nodded vehemently in agreement. Aunt Emily dropped her umbrella then. And at the same moment a singing voice became audible in the trees behind them. The song came floating to them through the sunlight with a sound of wind and birds. It had a marvellous quality, very sweet and very moving. There was a lilt in it, a laughing, happy lilt, as though the Earth herself were singing of the Spring.

  And Aunt Emily made one last vain attempt: she struggled to put her fingers in her ears. But the children held her hands. She crackled and made various oppressive and objecting sounds, but the song poured into her in spite of all her efforts. Her feet began to move upon the grass. It was awful, it was shocking, it was forbidden and against all rules and regulations: yet—Aunt Emily danced!

  And a thin, plaintive voice, like the voice of her long-forgotten youth, slipped out between her faded lips—and positively sang:

  “The world is young with laughter; we can fly

  Among the imprisoned hours as we choose….”

  But to Tim and Judy it all seemed merely right and natural.

  “Come on,” cried the boy, pulling his Aunt towards the wood.

  “We can look together now. You’ve got your sign,” exclaimed Judy, tugging at her other hand. “Everything’s free and careless, and so are we.”

  “Aim for a path,” Tim shouted by way of a concession. “Aunty’ll go quicker on a path.”

  But Aunty was nothing if not decided. “I know a short-cut,” she sang.

  “Paths are for people who don’t know the way. There’s no time—to lose.

  Dear me! I’m warm already!” She dropped her umbrella.

  And, actually dancing and singing, she led the way into the wood, holding the fern before her like a wand, and happy as a girl let out of school.

  But as they went, Judy, knowing suddenly another thing she didn’t know, made a discovery of her own, an immense discovery. It was bigger than anything Tim had ever found. She felt so light and swift and winged by it that she seemed almost to melt into the air herself.

  “I say, Tim,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  She took her eyes from the sky to see what her feet were doing; Tim lifted his from the earth to see what was going on above him in the air.

  Judy went on: “I know what,” she announced.

  “What?” He was not particularly interested, it seemed.

  Judy paused. She dropped a little behind her dancing Aunt. Tim joined her. It all happened as quickly as a man might snap his fingers; Aunt Emily, her heart full of growing ferns, noticed nothing.

  “We’ve found her out!” whispered Judy, communicating her immense discovery. “What she really is, I mean!”

  He agreed and nodded. It did not strike him as anything wonderful or special. “Oh, yes,” he answered; “rather!” He did not grasp her meaning
, perhaps.

  But his sister was bursting with excitement, radiant, shivering almost with the wonder of it.

  “But don’t you see? It’s—a sign!” she exclaimed so loud that Aunt Emily almost heard it. “She’s found herself! She was hiding—from herself. That’s part of it all—the game. It’s the biggest sign of all!”

  She was so “warm” that she burned all over.

  “Oh, yes,” repeated Tim. “I see!” But he was not particularly impressed. He merely wanted his Aunt to find an enormous fern whose roots were growing in the sweet, sticky earth he loved. Her sign was a fern; his was the ground. It made him understand Aunt Emily at last, and therefore love her; he saw no further than that.

  Judy, however, knew. She suddenly understood what the Tramp meant by “deep.” She also knew now why Stumper, WEEDEN, Uncle Felix too, looked at him so strangely, with wonder, with respect, with love. Something about the Tramp explained each one to himself. Each one found—himself. And she—without realising it before, had acquired this power too, though only in a small degree as yet. The Tramp believed in everybody; she, without knowing it, believed in her Aunt. It was another thing she didn’t know she knew.

  And the real, long-buried, deeply-hidden Aunt Emily had emerged accordingly. All her life she had been hiding—from herself. She had found herself at last. It was the biggest sign of all.

  Tim caught her hand and dragged her after him. “Come on,” he cried, “we’re getting frightfully warm. Look at Aunty! Listen, will you?”

  Aunt Emily, a little way in front of them, was digging busily with her dirty trowel. Her bonnet was crooked, her skirts tucked up, her white worsted stockings splashed with mud, her elastic-sided boots scratched and plastered. And she was singing to herself in a thin but happy voice that was not unlike an old and throaty corncrake: “The birds are singing….Hark! Come out and play….Life is an endless search….I’ve just begun…!”

  They listened for a little while, and then ran headlong up to join her.

  SIGNS EVERYWHERE!

  ..................

  IX

  AND IT WAS SOMEWHERE ABOUT here and now—the exact spot impossible to determine, since it was obviously a circular experience without beginning, middle or end—that the gigantic character of the Day declared itself in all its marvellous simplicity. For as they dived deeper and deeper towards its centre, they discovered that its centre, being everywhere at once, existed—nowhere. The sun was always rising—somewhere.

  In other words, each seeker grasped, in his or her own separate way, that the Splendour hiding from them lay actually both too near and far away for any individual eye to see it with completeness. Someone, indeed, had come; but this Someone, as Judy told herself, was “simply all over the place.” To see him “distinkly is an awful job,” according to Uncle Felix; or as Come-Back Stumper realised in the middle of another clump of bramble bushes, “Perspective is necessary to proper vision.” “He” lay too close before their eyes to be discovered fully. Tim had long ago described it instinctively as “an enormous hide,” but it was more than that; it was a universal hide.

  Alone, perhaps, Weeden’s lost optic, wandering ubiquitously and enjoying the bird’s-eye view, possessed the coveted power. But, like the stars, though somewhat about, it was invisible. WEEDEN made no reference to it. He attended to one thing at a time, he lived in the present; one eye was gone; he just looked for truffles—with the other.

  Yet this did not damp their ardour in the least; increased it rather: the gathering of the clues became more and more absorbing. Though not seen, the hider was both known and felt; his presence was a certainty. There was no real contradiction.

  For signs grew and multiplied till the entire world seemed overflowing with them, and hardly could the earth contain them. They brimmed the sunny air, flooded the ponds and streams, lay thick upon the fields, and almost choked the woods to stillness. They trickled out, leaked through, dripped over everywhere in colour, shape, and sound. The hider had passed everywhere, and upon everything had left his exquisite and deathless traces. The inanimate, as well as the animate world had known the various touch of his great passing. His trail had blazed the entire earth about them. For the very clouds were dipped in snow and gold, and the meanest pebble in the lane wore a self-conscious gleam of shining silver. So-called domestic creatures also seemed aware that a stupendous hiding-place was somewhere near—the browsing cow, contented and at ease, the horse that nuzzled their hands across the gate, the very pigs, grubbing eternally for food, yet eternally unsatisfied; all these, this endless morning, wore an unaccustomed look as though they knew, and so were glad to be alive. Some knew more than others, of course. The cat, for instance, defending its kittens single-pawed against the stable-dog who pretended to be ferocious; the busy father-blackbird, passing worms to his mate for the featherless mites, all beak and clamour in the nest; the Clouded Yellow, sharing a spray of honeysuckle with a Bumble-bee, and the honeysuckle offering no resistance—one and all, they also were aware in their differing degrees. And the seekers, noting the signs, grew warmer and ever warmer. An ordinary day these signs, owing to their generous profusion, might have called for no remark. They would, probably, have drawn no attention to themselves, merely lying about unnoticed, undiscovered because familiar. But this was not an ordinary day. It was unused, unspoilt and unrecorded. It was the Some Day of humanity’s long dream—an Extra Day. Time could not carry it away; it could not end; all it contained was of eternity. The great hider at the heart of it was real. These signs—deep, tender, kind and beautiful—were part of him, and in knowing, recognising them, they knew and recognised him too. They drew near, that is, brushed up closer, to his hiding-place from which he saw them. They approached within knowing distance of a Reality that each in his or her particular way had always yearned for. They held—oh, distinkly held—that they were winning. They won the marvellous game as soon as it began. They never had a doubt about the end.

  But their supreme, superb discovery was this: They had always secretly longed to find the elusive hider; they now realised that he—wanted them to find him, and that from his hiding-place he saw them easily. That was the most wonderful thing of all….

  To describe the separate adventures of each seeker would involve a series of bulky trilogies no bookshelves in the world could carry; they can, besides, be adequately told in three simple words that Tim used—shouted with intense enthusiasm when he tripped over a rabbit-hole and tumbled headlong against that everlasting Tramp: “I’m still looking!” He dived away into another hole. “I’m looking still.” “So am I,” the Tramp answered, also in three words. “I’m very warm,” growled Stumper; “I’m getting on,” Aunt Emily piped; and while Judy was for ever shouting out “I’ve found him!” Uncle Felix, puffing and panting, could only repeat with rapture each time he met another seeker: “A lovely day! A lovely day!” They said so little—experienced and felt so much!

  From time to time, too, others joined them in the tremendous game. It seemed the personality of the Tramp attracted them. Something about him—his sincerity, perhaps, or his simplicity—made them realise suddenly what they were about: as though they had not noticed it before, not understood it quite, at any rate. They found themselves. He did and said so little. But he possessed the unique quality of a Leader—natural persuasion.

  Thompson, for instance, cleaning the silver at the pantry window, looked up and saw them pass. They caught him unawares. His pompous manner hung like a discarded mask on a nail beside his livery. He wore his black and white striped waistcoat, and an apron. Of course he looked proper, as an old family servant ought to look, but he looked cheerful too. He was humming to himself as he polished up the covers and the candelabra.

  “Well, I never!” he exclaimed, as the line of them filed by. “I never did. And Mr. Weeden with ‘em too!”

  The Tramp passed singing and looked through the open window at the butler. No more than that. Their eyes met between the bars. They exchange
d glances. But something incalculable happened in that instant, just as it had happened to Stumper, Aunt Emily, and the rest of them. Thompson put several questions into his look of sheer astonishment.

  “Why not?” the Tramp replied, chuckling as he caught the butler’s eye.

  “It’s a lovely morning. We’re just looking!”

  Thompson was flabbergasted—as if all the old-fashioned families of the world had suddenly praised him. All his life he had never done anything but his ordinary duty.

  “It’s ‘oliday time,” said Weeden, coming next, “and all my flowers and vegitubles is a-growin’ nicely.” He too seemed singing, dancing. Something had happened. The whole world seemed out and playing.

  Thompson forgot himself in a most unusual way, forgot that he was an old family servant, that the apron-string met round his middle with difficulty, that the Authorities were away and his responsibilities increased thereby; forgot too, that for twenty years he had been answering bells, over-hearing conversations without pretending to do so, and that visitors wanted hot water and early tea at “7:30 sharp.” He remembered suddenly that he was a man—and that he was very fond of some one. The birds were singing, the sun was shining, the flowers were out upon the lawn, and it was Spring.

  An amazing longing in him woke and stirred to life. There was a singular itching in his feet. Something in his butler-heart began to purr. “Looking, eh!” he thought. “There’s something I’ve been looking for too. I’d forgot about it.”

  “No one can make the silver shine as I can,” he mumbled, watching the retreating figures, “but it is about finished now,"—he glanced down at it with pride—"and fit to set on the table. Why shouldn’t I take a turn in the garden too?”

  He looked out a moment. The magic of the spring came upon him suddenly like a revelation. He knew he was alive, that there was something he wanted somewhere, something real and satisfying—if only he could find it—find out what it was. For twenty years he had been living automatically. Alfred Thompson suddenly felt free and careless. The butler—yearned!