The Ghost Ship

by Richard Middleton

  The Poet's Allegory

  I

  The boy came into the town at six o'clock in the morning, but thebaker at the corner of the first street was up, as is the way ofbakers, and when he saw the boy passing, he hailed him with a jollyshout.

  "Hullo, boy! What are you after?"

  "I'm going about my business," the boy said pertly.

  "And what might that be, young fellow?"

  "I might be a good tinker, and worship god Pan, or I might grindscissors as sharp as the noses of bakers. But, as a matter of fact,I'm a piper, not a rat-catcher, you understand, but just a simplesinger of sad songs, and a mad singer of merry ones."

  "Oh," said the baker dully, for he had hoped the boy was in search ofwork. "Then I suppose you have a message."

  "I sing songs," the boy said emphatically. "I don't run errandsfor anyone save it be for the fairies."

  "Well, then, you have come to tell us that we are bad, that our livesare corrupt and our homes sordid. Nowadays there's money in that ifyou can do it well."

  "Your wit gets up too early in the morning for me, baker," said theboy. "I tell you I sing songs."

  "Aye, I know, but there's something in them, I hope. Perhaps youbring news. They're not so popular as the other sort, but still, aslong as it's bad news--"

  "Is it the flour that has changed his brains to dough, or the heat ofthe oven that has made them like dead grass?"

  "But you must have some news----?"

  "News! It's a fine morning of summer, and I saw a kingfisher acrossthe watermeadows coming along. Oh, and there's a cuckoo back in thefir plantation, singing with a May voice. It must have been asleepall these months."

  "But, my dear boy, these things happen every day. Are there nobattles or earthquakes or famines in the world? Has no manmurdered his wife or robbed his neighbour? Is no one oppressed bytyrants or lied to by their officers."

  The boy shrugged his shoulders.

  "I hope not," he said. "But if it were so, and I knew, I should nottell you. I don't want to make you unhappy."

  "But of what use are you then, if it be not to rouse in us thediscontent that is alone divine? Would you have me go fat and happy,listening to your babble of kingfishers and cuckoos, while mybrothers and sisters in the world are starving?"

  The boy was silent for a moment.

  "I give my songs to the poor for nothing," he said slowly. "Certainlythey are not much use to empty bellies, but they are all I have togive. And I take it, since you speak so feelingly, that you, too, doyour best. And these others, these people who must be reminded hourlyto throw their crusts out of window for the poor--would you have mesing to them? They must be told that life is evil, and I find itgood; that men and women are wretched, and I find them happy; thatfood and cleanliness, order and knowledge are the essence ofcontent while I only ask for love. Would you have me lie to cheatmean folk out of their scraps?"

  The baker scratched his head in astonishment.

  "Certainly you are very mad," he said. "But you won't get much moneyin this town with that sort of talk. You had better come in and havebreakfast with me."

  "But why do you ask me?" said the boy, in surprise.

  "Well, you have a decent, honest sort of face, although your tongueis disordered."

  "I had rather it had been because you liked my songs," said the boy,and he went in to breakfast with the baker.

  II

  Over his breakfast the boy talked wisely on art, as is the wont ofyoung singers, and afterwards he went on his way down the street.

  "It's a great pity," said the baker; "he seems a decent young chap."

  "He has nice eyes," said the baker's wife.

  As the boy passed down the street he frowned a little.

  "What is the matter with them?" he wondered. "They're pleasant peopleenough, and yet they did not want to hear my songs."

  Presently he came to the tailor's shop, and as the tailor had sharpereyes than the baker, he saw the pipe in the boy's pocket.

  "Hullo, piper!" he called. "My legs are stiff. Come and sing us asong!"

  The boy looked up and saw the tailor sitting cross-legged in the openwindow of his shop.

  "What sort of song would you like?" he asked.

  "Oh! the latest," replied the tailor. "We don't want any old songshere." So the boy sung his new song of the kingfisher in thewater-meadow and the cuckoo who had overslept itself.

  "And what do you call that?" asked the tailor angrily, when the boyhad finished.

  "It's my new song, but I don't think it's one of my best." But in hisheart the boy believed it was, because he had only just made it.

  "I should hope it's your worst," the tailor said rudely. "What sortof stuff is that to make a man happy?"

  "To make a man happy!" echoed the boy, his heart sinking within him.

  "If you have no news to give me, why should I pay for your songs! Iwant to hear about my neighbours, about their lives, and their wivesand their sins. There's the fat baker up the street--they say hecheats the poor with light bread. Make me a song of that, and I'llgive you some breakfast. Or there's the magistrate at the top of thehill who made the girl drown herself last week. That's a poeticsubject."

  "What's all this!" said the boy disdainfully. "Can't you make dirtenough for yourself!"

  "You with your stuff about birds," shouted the tailor; "you're a rankimpostor! That's what you are!"

  "They say that you are the ninth part of a man, but I find that theyhave grossly exaggerated," cried the boy, in retort; but he hada heavy heart as he made off along the street.

  By noon he had interviewed the butcher, the cobbler, the milkman, andthe maker of candlesticks, but they treated him no better than thetailor had done, and as he was feeling tired he went and sat downunder a tree.

  "I begin to think that the baker is the best of the lot of them," hesaid to himself ruefully, as he rolled his empty wallet between hisfingers.

  Then, as the folly of singers provides them in some measure with aphilosophy, he fell asleep.

  III

  When he woke it was late in the afternoon, and the children, freshfrom school, had come out to play in the dusk. Far and near, acrossthe town-square, the boy could hear their merry voices, but he feltsad, for his stomach had forgotten the baker's breakfast, and he didnot see where he was likely to get any supper. So he pulled out hispipe, and made a mournful song to himself of the dancing gnatsand the bitter odour of the bonfires in the townsfolk's gardens. Andthe children drew near to hear him sing, for they thought his songwas pretty, until their fathers drove them home, saying, "That stuffhas no educational value."

  "Why haven't you a message?" they asked the boy.

  "I come to tell you that the grass is green beneath your feet andthat the sky is blue over your heads."

  "Oh I but we know all that," they answered.

  "Do you! Do you!" screamed the boy. "Do you think you could stopover your absurd labours if you knew how blue the sky is? You wouldbe out singing on the hills with me!"

  "Then who would do our work?" they said, mocking him.

  "Then who would want it done?" he retorted; but it's ill arguing onan empty stomach.

  But when they had tired of telling him what a fool he was, and goneaway, the tailor's little daughter crept out of the shadows andpatted him on the shoulder.

  "I say, boy!" she whispered. "I've brought you some supper. Fatherdoesn't know." The boy blessed her and ate his supper while shewatched him like his mother and when he had done she kissed him onthe lips.

  "There, boy!" she said.

  "You have nice golden hair," the boy said.

  "See! it shines in the dusk. It strikes me it's the only gold I shallget in this town."

  "Still it's nice, don't you think?" the girl whispered in his ear.She had her arms round his neck.

  "I love it," the boy said joyfully; "and you like my songs, don'tyou?"

&
nbsp; "Oh, yes, I like them very much, but I like you better."

  The boy put her off roughly.

  "You're as bad as the rest of them," he said indignantly. "I tell youmy songs are everything, I am nothing."

  "But it was you who ate my supper, boy," said the girl.

  The boy kissed her remorsefully. "But I wish you had liked me for mysongs," he sighed. "You are better than any silly old songs!"

  "As bad as the rest of them," the boy said lazily, "but somehowpleasant."

  The shadows flocked to their evening meeting in the square, andoverhead the stars shone out in a sky that was certainly exceedinglyblue.

  IV

  Next morning they arrested the boy as a rogue and a vagabond, and inthe afternoon they brought him before the magistrate.

  "And what have you to say for yourself!" said the magistrate to theboy, after the second policeman, like a faithful echo, had finishedreading his notes.

  "Well," said the boy, "I may be a rogue and a vagabond. Indeed, Ithink that I probably am; but I would claim the license that hasalways been allowed to singers."

  "Oh!" said the magistrate. "So you are one of those, are you! Andwhat is your message!"

  "I think if I could sing you a song or two I could explain myselfbetter," said the boy.

  "Well," replied the magistrate doubtfully, "you can try if you like,but I warn you that I wrote songs myself when I was a boy, so that Iknow something about it."

  "Oh, I'm glad of that," said the boy, and he sang his famous song ofthe grass that is so green, and when he had finished the magistratefrowned.

  "I knew that before," he said.

  So then the boy sang his wonderful song of the sky that is so blue.And when he had finished the magistrate scowled. "And what are we tolearn from that!" he said.

  So then the boy lost his temper and sang some naughty doggerel hehad made up in his cell that morning. He abused the town andtownsmen, but especially the townsmen. He damned their morals, theircustoms, and their institutions. He said that they had ugly faces,raucous voices, and that their bodies were unclean. He said theywere thieves and liars and murderers, that they had no ear for musicand no sense of humour. Oh, he was bitter!

  "Good God!" said the magistrate, "that's what I call real improvingpoetry. Why didn't you sing that first? There might have been amiscarriage of justice."

  Then the baker, the tailor, the butcher, the cobbler, the milkman,and the maker of candlesticks rose in court and said--

  "Ah, but we all knew there was something in him."

  So the magistrate gave the boy a certificate that showed that he wasa real singer, and the tradesmen gave him a purse of gold, but thetailor's little daughter gave him one of her golden ringlets. "Youwon't forget, boy, will you?" she said.

  "Oh, no," said the boy; "but I wish you had liked my songs."

  Presently, when he had come a little way out of the town, he put hishand in his wallet and drew out the magistrate's certificate and toreit in two; and then he took out the gold pieces and threw them intothe ditch, and they were not half as bright as the buttercups. Butwhen he came to the ringlet he smiled at it and put it back.

  "Yet she was as bad as the rest of them," he thought with a sigh.

  And he went across the world with his songs.