Tales Before Tolkien

by Douglas A. Anderson

  He was idle, too, during these years as far as his “schools” were concerned, but he was always very intent upon his own private business. Whenever he sat down to read, when he sprawled on the grass at river picnics, in chapel, in lecture—in short, at any moment when his body was at rest and his mind at leisure—his fancies were off on the same old path. Things had changed, however, in that country. The boyish device of a hard road running over the waters had gone, and now it was invariably a boat which he saw beached on the shingle. It differed in shape. At first it was an ugly salmon-coble, such as the fishermen used for the nets at Kinlochuna. Then it passed, by rapid transitions, through a canvas skiff which it took good watermanship to sit, a whiff, an ordinary dinghey, till at last it settled itself into a long rough boat, pointed at both ends, with oar-holes in the sides instead of row-locks. It was the devil’s own business to launch it, and launch it anew he was compelled to for every journey; for though he left it bound in a little rock hollow below the ridge after landing, yet when he returned, lo! there was the clumsy thing high and dry upon the beach.

  The odd point about the new venture was that Cuna had ceased to trouble him. As soon as he had pulled his first stroke the island disappeared, and nothing lay before him but the sea-fog. Yet, try as he might, he could come little nearer. The shores behind him might sink and lessen, but the impenetrable mist was still miles to the westward. Sometimes he rowed so far that the shore was a thin line upon the horizon, but when he turned the boat it seemed to ground in a second on the beach. The long laboured journey out and the instantaneous return puzzled him at first, but soon he became used to them. His one grief was the mist, which seemed to grow denser as he neared it. The sudden glimpse of land which he had got from the ridge of rock in the old boyish days was now denied him, and with the denial came a keener exultation in the quest. Somewhere in the west, he knew, must be land, and in this land a well of sweet water—for so he had interpreted his feverish dream. Sometimes, when the wind blew against him, he caught scents from it—generally the scent of pines, as on the little ridge on the shore behind him.

  One day on his college barge, while he was waiting for a picnic party to start, he seemed to get nearer than before. Out on that western sea, as he saw it, it was fresh, blowing weather, with a clear hot sky above. It was hard work rowing, for the wind was against him, and the sun scorched his forehead. The air seemed full of scents—and sounds, too, sounds of far-away surf and wind in trees. He rested for a moment on his oars and turned his head. His heart beat quickly, for there was a rift in the mist, and far through a line of sand ringed with snow-white foam.

  Somebody shook him roughly,—“Come on, Colin, old man. They’re all waiting for you. Do you know you’ve been half asleep?”

  Colin rose and followed silently, with drowsy eyes. His mind was curiously excited. He had looked inside the veil of mist. Now he knew what was the land he sought.

  He made the voyage often, now that the spell was broken. It was short work to launch the boat, and, whereas it had been a long pull formerly, now it needed only a few strokes to bring him to the Rim of the Mist. There was no chance of getting farther, and he scarcely tried. He was content to rest there, in a world of curious scents and sounds, till the mist drew down and he was driven back to shore.

  The change in his environment troubled him little. For a man who has been an idol at the University to fall suddenly into the comparative insignificance of town is often a bitter experience; but Colin, whose thoughts were not ambitious, scarcely noticed it. He found that he was less his own master than before, but he humbled himself to his new duties without complaint. Many of his old friends were about him; he had plenty of acquaintances; and, being “sufficient unto himself,” he was unaccustomed to ennui. Invitations showered upon him thick and fast. Match-making mothers, knowing his birth and his father’s income, and reflecting that he was the only child of his house, desired him as a son-in-law. He was bidden welcome everywhere, and the young girls, for whose sake he was thus courted, found in him an attractive mystery. The tall good-looking athlete, with the kind eyes and the preposterously nervous manner, wakened their maidenly sympathies. As they danced with him or sat next to him at dinner, they talked fervently of Oxford, of the north, of the army, of his friends. “Stupid, but nice, my dear,” was Lady Afflint’s comment; and Miss Clarissa Herapath, the beauty of the year, declared to her friends that he was a “dear boy, but so awkward.” He was always forgetful, and ever apologetic; and when he forgot the Shandwicks’ theatre-party, the Herapaths’ dance, and at least a dozen minor matters, he began to acquire the reputation of a cynic and a recluse.

  “You’re a queer chap, Col,” Lieutenant Bellew said in expostulation.

  Colin shrugged his shoulders; he was used to the description.

  “Do you know that Clara Herapath was trying all she knew to please you this afternoon, and you looked as if you weren’t listening? Most men would have given their ears to be in your place.”

  “I’m awfully sorry, but I thought I was very polite to her.”

  “And why weren’t you at the Marshams’ garden-party?”

  “Oh, I went to polo with Collinson and another man. And, I say, old chap, I’m not coming to the Logans tomorrow. I’ve got a fence on with Adair at the school.”

  Little Bellew, who was a tremendous mirror of fashion and chevalier in general, looked up curiously at his tall friend.

  “Why don’t you like the women, Col, when they’re so fond of you?”

  “They aren’t,” said Colin, hotly, “and I don’t dislike ’em. But, Lord! they bore me. I might be doing twenty things when I talk nonsense to one of ’em for an hour. I come back as stupid as an owl, and besides there’s heaps of things better sport.”

  The truth was that, while among men he was a leader and at his ease, among women his psychic balance was so oddly upset that he grew nervous and returned unhappy. The boat on the beach, ready in general to appear at the slightest call, would delay long after such experiences, and its place would be taken by some woman’s face for which he cared not a straw. For the boat, on the other hand, he cared a very great deal. In all his frank wholesome existence there was this enchanting background, this pleasure-garden which he cherished more than anything in life. He had come of late to look at it with somewhat different eyes. The eager desire to search behind the mist was ever with him, but now he had also some curiosity about the details of the picture. As he pulled out to the Rim of the Mist sounds seemed to shape themselves on his lips, which by-and-by grew into actual words in his memory. He wrote them down in scraps, and after some sorting they seemed to him a kind of Latin. He remembered a college friend of his, one Medway, now reading for the Bar, who had been the foremost scholar of his acquaintance; so with the scrap of paper in his pocket he climbed one evening to Medway’s rooms in the Temple.

  The man read the words curiously, and puzzled for a bit. “What’s made you take to Latin comps so late in life, Colin? It’s baddish, you know, even for you. I thought they’d have licked more into you at Eton.”

  Colin grinned with amusement. “I’ll tell you about it later,” he said. “Can you make out what it means?”

  “It seems to be a kind of dog-Latin or monkish Latin or something of the sort,” said Medway. “It reads like this: ’Soles occidere solent’ (that’s cribbed from Catullus, and besides it’s the regular monkish pun) . . . qua . . . then blandula something. Then there’s a lot of Choctaw, and then illæ insulæ dilectæ in quas festinant somnia animulæ gaudia. That’s pretty fair rot. Hullo, by George! here’s something better—Insula pomorum insula vitæ. That’s Geoffrey of Monmouth.”

  He made a dive to a bookcase and pulled out a battered little calf-bound duodecimo. “Here’s all about your Isle of Apple-trees. Listen. ‘Situate far out in the Western ocean, beyond the Utmost Islands, beyond even the little Isle of Sheep where the cairns of dead men are, lies the Island of Apple-trees where the heroes and princes of the nations live thei
r second life.’ ” He closed the book and put it back. “It’s the old ancient story, the Greek Hesperides, the British Avilion, and this Apple-tree Island is the northern equivalent.”

  Colin sat entranced, his memory busy with a problem. Could he distinguish the scents of apple-trees among the perfumes of the Rim of the Mist. For the moment he thought he could. He was roused by Medway’s voice asking the story of the writing.

  “Oh, it’s just some nonsense that was running in my head, so I wrote it down to see what it was.”

  “But you must have been reading. A new exercise for you, Colin?”

  “No, I wasn’t reading. Look here. You know the sort of pictures you make for yourself of places you like.”

  “Rather! Mine is a Devon moor with a little red shooting-box in the heart of it.”

  “Well, mine is different. Mine is a sort of beach with a sea and a lot of islands somewhere far out. It is a jolly place, fresh, you know, and blowing, and smells good. ‘Pon my word, now I think of it, there’s always been a scent of apples.”

  “Sort of cider-press? Well, I must be off. You’d better come round to the club and see the telegrams about the war. You should be keen about it.”

  One evening, a week later, Medway met a friend called Tillotson at the club, and, being lonely, they dined together. Tillotson was a man of some note in science, a dabbler in psychology, an amateur historian, a ripe genealogist. They talked of politics and the war, of a new book, of Mrs. Runnymede, and finally of their hobbies.

  “I am writing an article,” said Tillotson. “Craikes asked me to do it for the ‘Monthly.’ It’s on a nice point in psychics. I call it ‘The Transmission of Fallacies,’ but I do not mean the logical kind. The question is, Can a particular form of hallucination run in a family for generations. The proof must, of course, come from my genealogical studies. I maintain it can. I instance the Douglas-Ernotts, not one of whom can see straight with the left eye. That is one side. In another class of examples I take the Drapiers, who hate salt water and never go on board ship if they can help it. Then you remember the Durwards? Old Lady Balcrynie used to tell me that no one of the lot could ever stand the sight of a green frock. There’s a chance for the romancer. The Manorwaters have the same madness, only their colour is red.”

  A vague remembrance haunted Medway’s brain.

  “I know a man who might give you points from his own case. Did you ever meet a chap Raden—Colin Raden?”

  Tillotson nodded. “Long chap—in the Guards? ‘Varsity oar, and used to be a crack bowler? No, I don’t know him. I know him well by sight, and I should like to meet him tremendously—as a genealogist, of course.”

  “Why?” asked Medway.

  “Why? Because the man’s family is unique. You never hear much about them nowadays, but away up in that north-west corner of Scotland they have ruled since the days of Noah. Why, man, they were aristocrats when our Howards and Nevilles were green-grocers. I wish you would get this Raden to meet me some night.”

  “I am afraid there’s no chance of it just at present,” said Medway, taking up an evening paper. “I see that his regiment has been ordered to the front. But remind me when he comes back, and I’ll be delighted.”

  III.

  And now there began for Colin a curious divided life,—without, a constant shifting of scene, days of heat and bustle and toil,—within, a slow, tantalising, yet exquisite adventure. The Rim of the Mist was now no more the goal of his journeys, but the starting-point. Lying there, amid cool, fragrant sea-winds, his fanciful ear was subtly alert for the sounds of the dim land before him. Sleeping and waking the quest haunted him. As he flung himself on his bed the kerosene-filled air would change to an ocean freshness, the old boat would rock beneath him, and with clear eye and a boyish hope he would be waiting and watching. And then suddenly he would be back on shore, Cuna and the Acharra headland shining grey in the morning light, and with gritty mouth and sand-filled eyes he would awaken to the heat of the desert camp.

  He was kept busy, for his good-humour and energy made him a willing slave, and he was ready enough for volunteer work when others were weak with heat and despair. A thirty-mile ride left him untired; more, he followed the campaign with a sharp intelligence and found a new enthusiasm for his profession. Discomforts there might be, but the days were happy; and then—the cool land, the bright land, which was his for the thinking of it.

  Soon they gave him reconnoitring work to do, and his wits were put to the trial. He came well out of the thing, and earned golden praise from the silent colonel in command. He enjoyed it as he had enjoyed a hard race on the river or a good cricket match, and when his worried companions marvelled at his zeal he stammered and grew uncomfortable.

  “How the deuce do you keep it up, Colin?” the major asked him. “I’m an old hand at the job, and yet I’ve got a temper like devilled bones. You seem as chirpy as if you were going out to fish a chalk-stream on a June morning.”

  “Well, the fact is——” and Colin pulled himself up short, knowing that he could never explain. He felt miserably that he had an unfair advantage of the others. Poor Bellew, who groaned and swore in the heat at his side, knew nothing of the Rim of the Mist. It was really rough luck on the poor beggars, and who but himself was the fortunate man?

  As the days passed a curious thing happened. He found fragments of the Other world straying into his common life. The barriers of the two domains were falling, and more than once he caught himself looking at a steel-blue sea when his eyes should have found a mustard-coloured desert. One day, on a reconnoitring expedition, they stopped for a little on a hillock above a jungle of scrub, and, being hot and tired, scanned listlessly the endless yellow distances.

  “I suppose yon hill is about ten miles off,” said Bellew with dry lips.

  Colin looked vaguely. “I should say five.”

  “And what’s that below it—the black patch? Stones or scrub?”

  Colin was in a day-dream. “Why do you call it black? It’s blue, quite blue.”

  “Rot,” said the other. “It’s grey-black.”

  “No, it’s water with the sun shining on it. It’s blue, but just at the edges it’s very near sea-green.”

  Bellew rose excitedly. “Hullo, Col, you’re seeing the mirage! And you the fittest of the lot of us! You’ve got the sun in your head, old man!”

  “Mirage!” Colin cried in contempt. He was awake now, but the thought of confusing his own bright western sea with a mirage gave him a curious pain. For a moment he felt the gulf of separation between his two worlds, but only for a moment. As the party remounted he gave his fancies the rein, and ere he reached camp he had felt the oars in his hand and sniffed the apple-tree blossom from the distant beaches.

  The major came to him after supper.

  “Bellew told me you saw the mirage to-day, Colin,” he said. “I expect your eyes are getting a bit bad. Better get your sand-spectacles out.”

  Colin laughed. “Thanks. It’s awfully good of you to bother, but I think Bellew took me up wrong. I never was fitter in my life.”

  By-and-by the turn came for pride to be humbled. A low desert fever took him, and though he went through the day as usual, it was with dreary lassitude; and at night, with hot hands clasped above his damp hair, he found sleep a hard goddess to conquer.

  It was the normal condition of the others, so he had small cause to complain, but it worked havoc with his fancies. He had never been ill since his childish days, and this little fever meant much to one whose nature was poised on a needle-point. He found himself confronted with a hard bare world, with the gilt rubbed from its corners. The Rim of the Mist seemed a place of vague horrors; when he reached it his soul was consumed with terror; he struggled impotently to advance; behind him Cuna and the Acharra coast seemed a place of evil dreams. Again, as in his old fever, he was tormented with a devouring thirst, but the sea beside him was not fresh, but brackish as a rock-pool. He yearned for the apple-tree beaches in front; there, he kn
ew, were cold springs of water; the fresh smell of it was blown towards him in his nightmare.

  But as the days passed and the misery for all grew more intense, an odd hope began to rise in his mind. It could not last, coolness and health were waiting near, and his reason for the hope came from the odd events at the Rim of the Mist. The haze was clearing from the foreground, the surf-lined coast seemed nearer, and though all was obscure save the milk-white sand and the foam, yet here was earnest enough for him. Once more he became cheerful; weak and light-headed he rode out again; and the major, who was recovering from sunstroke, found envy take the place of pity in his soul.

  The hope was near fulfilment. One evening when the heat was changing into the cooler twilight, Colin and Bellew were sent with a small picked body to scour the foothills above the river in case of a flank attack during the night-march. It was work they had done regularly for weeks, and it is possible that precautions were relaxed. At any rate, as they turned a corner of hill, in a sandy pass where barren rocks looked down on more barren thorn thickets, a couple of rifle shots rang out from the scarp, and above them appeared a line of dark faces and white steel. A mere handful, taken at a disadvantage, they could not hope to disperse numbers, so Colin gave the word to wheel about and return. Again shots rang out, and little Bellew had only time to catch at his friend’s arm to save him from falling from the saddle.

  The word of command had scarcely left Colin’s mouth when a sharp pain went through his chest, and his breath seemed to catch and stop. He felt as in a condensed moment of time the heat, the desert smell, the dust in his eyes and throat, while he leaned helplessly forward on his horse’s mane. Then the world vanished for him. . . . The boat was rocking under him, the oars in his hand. He pulled and it moved, straight, arrow-like towards the forbidden shore. As if under a great wind the mist furled up and fled. Scents of pines, of apple-trees, of great fields of thyme and heather, hung about him; the sound of wind in a forest, of cool waters falling in showers, of old moorland music, came thin and faint with an exquisite clearness. A second and the boat was among the surf, its gunwale ringed with white foam, as it leaped to the still waters beyond. Clear and deep and still the water lay, and then the white beaches shelved downward, and the boat grated on the sand. He turned, every limb alert with a strange new life, crying out words which had shaped themselves on his lips and which an echo seemed to catch and answer. There was the green forest before him, the hills of peace, the cold white waters. With a passionate joy he leaped on the beach, his arms outstretched to this new earth, this light of the world, this old desire of the heart—youth, rapture, immortality.