There was an evening when young Modred, abroad with his gun, found himself benighted, a little cold, but curious, near that thicket – and suddenly a white hare slipped from the palings, and ran before him like a jumping snowball. He fired on the instant, and could have sworn his unerring eye had not failed him; but the hare ran on and melted, verily like snow, into the glooms. He was startled, awed, but not to be browbeaten by puss or devil. Another evening he sought the place, sighted his quarry, and again failed inexplicably to bring her down. Then he remembered – white hare, white witch – silver alone could prevail against the cursed thing. On the third evening therefore he loaded with a silver button from his coat, a keepsake from his maiden love, and, biding his time, let fly at the loping succuba. There was a scream like a woman’s – and the hare sped on and vanished. But she was hit at last.
The next day Modred learned that his love was dead. She had taken down her father’s gun, not knowing it was loaded, to clean, and by some means the charge had been exploded into her breast.
Hideous the tragedy; hideous the moral to be drawn from it. From that time the man went like a mad thing, his heart broken, his soul an alien from earth and heaven. That it should have been she, and her gift to him her death! But most he raved against the cynic God, who might have ordered things differently, but would have them thus and thus to make sport for himself.
And then the dead girl’s mother came to die; but she could not die; and she screamed and stormed on life to let her go; but life held her still fast in her agony. Then one day she sent for Modred.
‘Cut the cursed thing from my shoulder,’ she said, ‘and let me pass.’
‘What thing?’ he asked stupefied.
‘Your silver button,’ she said, ‘that mauled, but could not end me. It has lain there ever since, keeping me from the churchyard and my friends the outlawed dead. I killed the innocent girl myself to mislead you, and I bore the pain of this, until now I cannot bear it. Cut it out.’
Her shoulder was bare, and the button stood under the skin of it like a little blue plum. Modred, with a howl of fury, took it in his fingers and tore it away.
At that the woman screeched and fell, and out of the window leapt a white hare and vanished up the hill.
AN EDDY ON THE FLOOR
I had the pleasure of an invitation to one of those reunions or seances at the house, in a fashionable quarter, of my distant connection, Lady Barbara Grille, whereat it was my hostess’s humour to gather together those many birds of alien feather and incongruous habit that will flock from the hedgerows to the least little flattering crumb of attention. And scarce one of them but thinks the simple feast is spread for him alone. And with so cheap a bait may a title lure.
That reference to so charming a personality should be in this place is a digression. She affects my narrative only inasmuch as I happened to meet at her house a gentleman who for a time exerted a considerable influence over my fortunes.
The next morning after the séance, my landlady entered with a card, which she presented to my consideration:
MAJOR JAMES SHRIKE,
H.M. PRISON, D—
All astonishment, I bade my visitor up.
He entered briskly, fur-collared, hat in hand, and bowed as he stood on the threshold. He was a very short man – snub-nosed; rusty-whiskered; indubitably and unimpressively a cockney in appearance. He might have walked out of a Cruikshank etching.
I was beginning, ‘May I inquire—’ when the other took me up with a vehement frankness that I found engaging at once.
‘This is a great intrusion. Will you pardon me? I heard some remarks of yours last night that deeply interested me. I obtained your name and address from our hostess, and took the liberty of—’
‘Oh! pray be seated. Say no more. My kinswoman’s introduction is all-sufficient. I am happy in having caught your attention in so motley a crowd.’
‘She doesn’t – forgive the impertinence – take herself seriously enough.’
‘Lady Barbara? Then you’ve found her out?’
‘Ah! – you’re not offended?’
‘Not in the least.’
‘Good. It was a motley assemblage, as you say. Yet I’m inclined to think I found my pearl in the oyster. I’m afraid I interrupted – eh?’
‘No, no, not at all. Only some idle scribbling. I’d finished.’
‘You are a poet?’
‘Only a lunatic. I haven’t taken my degree.’
‘Ah! it’s a noble gift – the gift of song; precious through its rarity.’
I caught a note of emotion in my visitor’s voice, and glanced at him curiously.
‘Surely,’ I thought, ‘that vulgar, ruddy little face is transfigured.’
‘But,’ said the stranger, coming to earth, ‘I am lingering beside the mark. I must try to justify my solecism in manners by a straight reference to the object of my visit. That is, in the first instance, a matter of business.’
‘Business!’
‘I am a man with a purpose, seeking the hopefullest means to an end. Plainly: if I could procure you the post of resident doctor at D— gaol, would you be disposed to accept it?’
I looked my utter astonishment.
‘I can affect no surprise at yours,’ said the visitor. ‘It is perfectly natural. Let me forestall some unnecessary expression of it. My offer seems unaccountable to you, seeing that we never met until last night. But I don’t move entirely in the dark. I have ventured in the interval to inform myself as to the details of your career. I was entirely one with much of your expression of opinion as to the treatment of criminals, in which you controverted the crude and unpleasant scepticism of the lady you talked with. Combining the two, I come to the immediate conclusion that you are the man for my purpose.’
‘You have dumbfounded me. I don’t know what to answer. You have views, I know, as to prison treatment. Will you sketch them? Will you talk on, while I try to bring my scattered wits to a focus?’
‘Certainly I will. Let me, in the first instance, recall to you a few words of your own. They ran somewhat in this fashion: Is not the man of practical genius the man who is most apt at solving the little problems of resourcefulness in life? Do you remember them?’
‘Perhaps I do, in a cruder form.’
‘They attracted me at once. It is upon such a postulate I base my practice. Their moral is this: To know the antidote the moment the snake bites. That is to have the intuition of divinity. We shall rise to it some day, no doubt, and climb the hither side of the new Olympus. Who knows? Over the crest the spirit of creation may be ours.’
I nodded, still at sea, and the other went on with a smile:
‘I once knew a world-famous engineer with whom I used to breakfast occasionally. He had a patent egg-boiler on the table, with a little double-sided ladle underneath to hold the spirit. He complained that his egg was always undercooked. I said, “Why not reverse the ladle so as to bring the deeper cut uppermost?” He was charmed with my perspicacity. The solution had never occurred to him. You remember, too, no doubt, the story of Coleridge and the horse collar. We aim too much at great developments. If we cultivate resourcefulness, the rest will follow. Shall I state my system in nuce? It is to encourage this spirit of resourcefulness.’
‘Surely the habitual criminal has it in a marked degree?’
‘Yes; but abnormally developed in a single direction. His one object is to out-manoeuvre in a game of desperate and immoral chances. The tactical spirit in him has none of the higher ambition. It has felt itself in the degree only that stops at defiance.’
‘That is perfectly true.’
‘It is half self-conscious of an individuality that instinctively assumes the hopelessness of a recognition by duller intellects. Leaning to resentment through misguided vanity, it falls “all oblique”. What is the cure for this? I answer, the teaching of a divine egotism. The subject must be led to a pure devotion to self. What he wishes to respect he must be taught to make beautiful and
interesting. The policy of sacrifice to others has so long stunted his moral nature because it is an hypocritical policy. We are responsible to ourselves in the first instance; and to argue an eternal system of blind self-sacrifice is to undervalue the fine gift of individuality. In such he sees but an indefensible policy of force applied to the advantage of the community. He is told to be good – not that he may morally profit, but that others may not suffer inconvenience.’
I was beginning to grasp, through my confusion, a certain clue of meaning in my visitor’s rapid utterance. The stranger spoke fluently, but in the dry, positive voice that characterises men of will.
‘Pray go on,’ I said; ‘I am digesting in silence.’
‘We must endeavour to lead him to respect of self by showing him what his mind is capable of. I argue on no sectarian, no religious grounds even. Is it possible to make a man’s self his most precious possession? Anyhow, I work to that end. A doctor purges before building up with a tonic. I eliminate cant and hypocrisy, and then introduce self-respect. It isn’t enough to employ a man’s hands only. Initiation in some labour that should prove wholesome and remunerative is a redeeming factor, but it isn’t all. His mind must work also, and awaken to its capacities. If it rusts, the body reverts to inhuman instincts.’
‘May I ask how you—?’
‘By intercourse – in my own person or through my officials. I wish to have only those about me who are willing to contribute to my designs, and with whom I can work in absolute harmony. All my officers are chosen to that end. No doubt a dash of constitutional sentimentalism gives colour to my theories. I get it from a human trait in me that circumstances have obliged me to put a hoarding round.’
‘I begin to gather daylight.’
‘Quite so. My patients are invited to exchange views with their guardians in a spirit of perfect friendliness; to solve little problems of practical moment; to acquire the pride of self-reliance. We have competitions, such as certain newspapers open to their readers, in a simpler form. I draw up the questions myself. The answers give me insight into the mental conditions of the competitors. Upon insight I proceed. I am fortunate in private means, and I am in a position to offer modest prizes to the winners. Whenever such a one is discharged, he finds awaiting him the tools most handy to his vocation. I bid him go forth in no pharisaical spirit, and invite him to communicate with me. I wish the shadow of the gaol to extend no further than the road whereon it lies. Henceforth, we are acquaintances with a common interest at heart. Isn’t it monstrous that a state-fixed degree of misconduct should earn a man social ostracism? Parents are generally inclined to rule extra tenderness towards a child whose peccadilloes have brought him a whipping. For myself, I have no faith in police supervision. Give a culprit his term and have done with it. I find the majority who come back to me are ticket-of-leave men.
‘Have I said enough? I offer you the reversion of the post. The present holder of it leaves in a month’s time. Please to determine here and at once.’
‘Very good. I have decided.’
‘You will accept?’
‘Yes.’
With my unexpected appointment as doctor to D— gaol, I seemed to have put on the seven-league boots of success. No doubt it was an extraordinary degree of good fortune, even to one who had looked forward with a broad view of confidence; yet, I think, perhaps on account of the very casual nature of my promotion, I never took the post entirely seriously.
At the same time I was fully bent on justifying my little cockney patron’s choice by a resolute subscription to his theories of prison management.
Major James Shrike inspired me with a curious conceit of impertinent respect. In person the very embodiment of that insignificant vulgarity, without extenuating circumstances, which is the type in caricature of the ultimate cockney, he possessed a force of mind and an earnestness of purpose that absolutely redeemed him on close acquaintanceship. I found him all he had stated himself to be, and something more.
He had a noble object always in view – the employment of sane and humanitarian methods in the treatment of redeemable criminals, and he strove towards it with completely untiring devotion. He was of those who never insist beyond the limits of their own understanding, clear-sighted in discipline, frank in relaxation, an altruist in the larger sense.
His undaunted persistence, as I learned, received ample illustration some few years prior to my acquaintance with him, when – his system being experimental rather than mature – a devastating epidemic of typhoid in the prison had for the time stultified his efforts. He stuck to his post; but so virulent was the outbreak that the prison commissioners judged a complete evacuation of the building and overhauling of the drainage to be necessary. As a consequence, for some eighteen months – during thirteen of which the Governor and his household remained sole inmates of the solitary pile (so sluggishly do we redeem our condemned social bog-lands) – the ‘system’ stood still for lack of material to mould. At the end of over a year of stagnation, a contract was accepted and workmen put in, and another five months saw the prison reordered for practical purposes.
The interval of forced inactivity must have sorely tried the patience of the Governor. Practical theorists condemned to rust too often eat out their own hearts. Major Shrike never referred to this period, and, indeed, laboriously snubbed any allusion to it.
He was, I have a shrewd notion, something of an officially petted reformer. Anyhow, to his abolition of the insensate barbarism of crank and treadmill in favour of civilising methods no opposition was offered. Solitary confinement – a punishment outside all nature to a gregarious race – found no advocate in him. ‘A man’s own suffering mind,’ he argued, ‘must be, of all moral food, the most poisonous for him to feed on. Surround a scorpion with fire and he stings himself to death, they say. Throw a diseased soul entirely upon its own resources and moral suicide results.’
To sum up: his nature embodied humanity without sentimentalism, firmness without obstinacy, individuality without selfishness; his activity was boundless, his devotion to his system so real as to admit no utilitarian sophistries into his scheme of personal benevolence. Before I had been with him a week, I respected him as I had never respected man before.
One evening (it was during the second month of my appointment) we were sitting in his private study – a dark, comfortable room lined with books. It was an occasion on which a new characteristic of the man was offered to my inspection.
A prisoner of a somewhat unusual type had come in that day – a spiritualistic medium, convicted of imposture. To this person I casually referred.
‘May I ask how you propose dealing with the newcomer?’
‘On the familiar lines.’
‘But, surely – here we have a man of superior education, of imagination even?’
‘No, no, no! A hawker’s opportuneness; that describes it. These fellows would make death itself a vulgarity.’
‘You’ve no faith in their—’
‘Not a tittle. Heaven forfend! A sheet and a turnip are poetry to their manifestations. It’s as crude and sour soil for us to work on as any I know. We’ll cart it wholesale.’
‘I take you – excuse my saying so – for a supremely sceptical man.’
‘As to what?’
‘The supernatural.’
There was no answer during a considerable interval. Presently it came, with deliberate insistence:
‘It is a principle with me to oppose bullying. We are here for a definite purpose – his duty plain to any man who wills to read it. There may be disembodied spirits who seek to distress or annoy where they can no longer control. If there are, mine, which is not yet divorced from its means to material action, declines to be influenced by any irresponsible whimsey, emanating from a place whose denizens appear to be actuated by a mere frivolous antagonism to all human order and progress.’
‘But supposing you, a murderer, to be haunted by the presentment of your victim?’
‘I will imagine
that to be my case. Well, it makes no difference. My interest is with the great human system, in one of whose veins I am a circulating drop. It is my business to help to keep the system sound, to do my duty without fear or favour. If disease – say a fouled conscience – contaminates me, it is for me to throw off the incubus, not accept it, and transmit the poison. Whatever my lapses of nature, I owe it to the entire system to work for purity in my allotted sphere, and not to allow any microbe bugbear to ride me roughshod, to the detriment of my fellow drops.’
I laughed.
‘It should be for you,’ I said, ‘to learn to shiver, like the boy in the fairy-tale.’
‘I cannot,’ he answered, with a peculiar quiet smile; ‘and yet prisons, above all places, should be haunted.’
Very shortly after his arrival I was called to the cell of the medium, F—. He suffered, by his own statement, from severe pains in the head.
I found the man to be nervous, anaemic; his manner characterised by a sort of hysterical effrontery.
‘Send me to the infirmary,’ he begged. ‘This isn’t punishment, but torture.’
‘What are your symptoms?’
‘I see things; my case has no comparison with others. To a man of my super-sensitiveness close confinement is mere cruelty.’
I made a short examination. He was restless under my hands.
‘You’ll stay where you are,’ I said.
He broke out into violent abuse, and I left him.
Later in the day I visited him again. He was then white and sullen; but under his mood I could read real excitement of some sort.
‘Now, confess to me, my man,’ I said, ‘what do you see?’
He eyed me narrowly, with his lips a little shaky.
‘Will you have me moved if I tell you?’
‘I can give no promise till I know.’
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