a limitless expanse of opal sea, calm and unruffled, reflecting the crimson and gold of the sky, as the sun went down behind pine woods and moors.
a clear-cut line of cliffs, rising sheer from the stretch of golden sands.
whirling white wings, as the gulls, shrieking in hungry chorus, swooped to the fringe of the outgoing tide.
a narrow path, skirting the edge of the cliffs, all among the pungent fragrance of gorse and heather and yellow bracken.
along this path, on a warm september evening, swung a solitary figure; a man with sad eyes, feeling himself a blot upon the landscape, yet drinking in every tint of sunset glory, every wild wonder of snowy 16wings, every whiff of crushed fragrance. and, as he walked, the water down below seemed to call to him in a silent chorus of sparkling voices: “this is the way to the city of gold. leap from the cliff! take to the waters! this, and this only, is your road for home.”
it was the lonely man’s thirtieth birthday. nobody had wished him many happy returns of the day. nobody knew that it was his birthday. he would not have known it himself had it not been for the soiled and faded label which he carried in his pocket-book: glass with care printed on one side; and, on the other, returned empty. beneath the former was written, in red ink: luke xii. 6, beneath the latter: september 12, 1883.
this label had been tied to the helpless bundle left, thirty years before, on a door-step in a london suburb, one moonless october night. the man-child, wailing forlornly in the calico wrappings, was obviously a month-old baby.
17the matron of the foundlings’ institution, to which a stalwart policeman carried the bundle, after she had handed over the infant to her most capable nurse to be washed and clothed and fed, carefully proceeded to examine the wrappings and the label.
the wrappings held no clue. no laundry marks were on the strips of calico sheeting; no fair linen or fine lace pointed to a stealthy removal from a palatial mansion to the cold comfort of the suburban door-step. no jewelled locket held a young mother’s wistful face, or a tress of golden hair. the lonely baby had arrived in the coarsest of unbleached calico sheeting. “ten-three a yard,” said the matron, and took up the label.
“‘returned empty.’ well, that he undoubtedly was, bless his poor little tummy! ‘september the 12th.’ just over a month ago. that must be his birthday, poor mite! ‘glass with care.’ well, i never! they might at least have chosen a label marked 18‘perishable.’ and what’s written here? ‘luke xii. 6.’ they had better have left the bible out of their wrong-doings.”
the matron was thorough in the search for a possible clue. she fetched a bible and looked up the reference.
“are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before god?”
“well, i never!” said the matron. “so they label that bonny boy a little worthless sparrow!” the matron waxed eloquent in her indignation. “this bit of flotsam on life’s ocean, this helpless waif, flung in its cheap wrappings on the mercy of strangers, is valued by those who forsook it at less than the jewish half-farthing!”
the chaplain had preached, quite lately, on the fifth sparrow thrown in to make the bargain. so, when he came for the christening, and names must be given to the nameless, remembering the sermon and the label, the matron “named this child,” luke sparrow.
19sometimes, laughing, they called him “little glass with care,” he was so easily troubled, so sensitive to harsh sounds or roughness of touch. his baby lip quivered so readily; his dark eyes became deep pools of silent misery. and in another sense he was like a glass, during his babyhood. his beautiful little face mirrored things not seen. he would turn away from toys, and lie gazing at the sunbeams or at as much as could be seen of the sky through the high windows; and sometimes he would stretch out his arms to nothingness, and, arching his little body, lift it almost off his mattress, as if in response to some yearning call of love.
the first word he spoke was “coming.” he would shout: “coming! coming!” when nobody had called. he turned, impatient, from kind bosoms ready to cuddle him; he slipped unresponsive from laps in which he might have nestled softly, and hurled himself where only hard boards received 20him, or a cold wall bruised his baby head.
“‘now we see as in a mirror enigmas,’” quoted the matron, whose minister habitually preached from the revised version. “what are you trying to remember, you queer little bundle of mystery? who calls, when you say ‘coming’? what waiting breast which is not here, makes you bump your poor little head against the wall?”
but, by the time he was three years old, he had outlived even the matron’s tenderness. his little heart opened to none of them. his grave, sweet beauty grew repellent. his solemn eyes looked past their most persuasive danglings. poor little “returned empty”! his body throve under their care. his spirit seemed to yearn for something they could not give. he was a lonely baby.
years went by. he outgrew the nursery, and passed into the school. steadily he worked his way to the top of each class and 21stayed there. he took very little account of his school-fellows. the cruel could not hurt him; the friendly failed to reach him.
“first prize: luke sparrow.”
he made his graceful, solemn bow, and took the book; but his dark eyes, undazzled by the grand, gold chain, looked past the portly mayor, and failed to see the smile of approval on the head-master’s face; his ears were deaf to the plaudits of assembled patrons and friends. he returned to his place, hugging his book. nobody asked to see it; he shewed it to nobody. he was a lonely little boy.
he preferred study, involving solitude, to games which hurled him among companions of his own age. the chaplain took an interest in the queerly brilliant little mind, and gave the boy constant private coaching, with the result that he won a grammar school scholarship, carrying advantages which he could not have enjoyed at the foundlings’ institution.
22two passions at this time began to possess him, giving him his only thrills of pleasure. the first was his love of the water. he swam like a fish. the first time he went with the other boys to the swimming baths he stood on the edge watching the swimmers; gazing, with brooding eyes, at the water, as if striving to capture an evasive memory.
“jump in, sparrow!” shouted the young master in charge. “there must always be a beginning. don’t funk it!”
the lithe body quivered all over, a ripple of muscles under the smooth skin. he walked down the steps with the sudden alertness of one awaking from a long dream, slipped into the water, and, as it lapped around him, glided forward and swam from one end of the bath to the other, with the ease and grace of a little water animal.
they called him the frog. they called him the minnow. later on, they called him the sea-lion. it mattered nothing to him 23what they called him. he swam for the sheer joy of it. he felt more alive in the water than on land. he seemed to come nearer to finding something he had been seeking all his short life.
his first swim in the sea brought the swift resolve to eschew heaven. “why?” asked another boy, to whom in an unusual moment of expansiveness he confided, as they shared a towel, this momentous decision. “because,” said luke, “once we get there, the bible says there shall be no more sea.”
his other passion was for gazing in at windows, from the outside, after dark, when firelight gleamed fitfully on shining furniture; when unknown people sat talking, and smiling, and handing each other cups of tea; when they lighted lamps and candles, forgetting to draw the curtains and leaving the windows unshuttered.
when he left school and was launched on life, a lonely youth, to fend for himself, 24earning enough by his pen for his own modest needs, rousing himself to a few hours of brilliant work if he wanted new books, new clothes, or a complete holiday—this strange fascination grew. a hunger possessed him to look in at other people’s windows. he would walk miles to satisfy this craving. out into the country, where farm kitchens sent a ruddy glow across the fields; where cottage windows gleamed like friendly stars. he would draw near, avoiding kennels and gravel paths, and feast his eyes on cosy rooms; husbands and wives, seated in easy chairs at the end of the day’s work; fathers and mothers, among their children; comfortable cats, purring before the fire; faithful dogs, suddenly alert, ears pricking, eyes on the window pane.
he had no wish to be within. his pleasure was to look in from outside, as a being from another world, with no personal share in this life’s loves and joys, with an insatiable desire to witness them.
25sometimes the inmates of these lighted rooms chanced to look up and see the strained face and sombre eyes gazing through the window. then they would make a movement of fear or of anger; or a kindly move, as if to ask him in. in either case he would turn away quickly and disappear in the darkness. he had no wish to enter, he had no desire to share their joys. he only asked to view them from without.
yet gradually the conviction grew within him that this passion was a quest: that some day he would look through a window and see a room which should seem to him that thing he had never known—home.
grand interiors he saw, in london streets and squares; glimpses of tasteful furniture, art treasures, a suitable setting for perfectly gowned grace and beauty; swiftly concealed by the drawing of velvet curtains.
it angered him that the illusive sense of home drew nearer to him in these fitful visions of wealth and loveliness than when 26he looked into humbler and more simple houses. all his sympathies were with those who worked and toiled, living by the soil and upon it.
he liked the farmer who drank ale from a brown jug, while his pleasant wife enjoyed her dish of tea.
peering through area railings into the basement of london houses, he liked the stout cook who stood before a glowing kitchen range, toasting-fork in hand, flinging remarks over her portly print shoulder to the pretty young housemaid, perched on the kitchen table, swinging her feet and darning a stocking.
he loved the grey parrot with a naughty eye, no doubt banished from the drawing-room on account of its language, sidling up and down its perch, in the cage under the window. he felt sure it was making valuable additions to its vocabulary, what time the heat of the fire on one side and the flippant attitude of the pretty housemaid on the other, annoyed the stout cook.
27he disliked the beautiful woman in the room above, who reclined among silken cushions, giving languid orders to a deferential butler, then waved an impatient command to the footman to draw the curtains. yet the drawing of those curtains shut out the haunting sense of home, which had grown within him as he watched the woman among the silken cushions.
he returned to his solitary rooms and spent the evening writing an article in which he decried the idle rich and extolled the humble poor. yet, while he wrote, he wondered, half wistfully, who he might be who had the right to come in and fill the armchair drawn close to that couch of silken cushions. he wondered this; and wondering, ceased writing, lit his pipe and took to dreaming.
he was a lonely youth.
by degrees his gift of descriptive writing won him an acknowledged place in the world of journalism. he was trusted by 28an important newspaper to observe and record various historic scenes in the great metropolis—a royal funeral; a coronation; the city’s welcome to a famous general.
he wrote with a peculiar detachment, never obtruding his own personality; viewing events in their larger meaning, as well as in careful completeness of minor detail; yet with no throb of human sentiment, no personal touch of intimate feeling.
later on, he went in a similar capacity to india, and wrote one of the finest descriptions on record of the royal durbar.
he moved amid scenes of varied interest; he made many acquaintances, but no close friends.
his distant travels accomplished, he would return to his comfortless rooms, and work in solitude.
that within him which might have responded to love, and leapt into intimacy, seemed shut away behind prison bars. when love drew near, he could but look 29forth with haunted eyes, watching while love, rebuffed, moved sadly away.
he was a lonely man.
when he allowed himself a holiday, he packed a small knapsack, went by the fastest route possible to scotland, cornwall, devon or norfolk—anywhere where he could find a rugged coast; long stretches of gorse and heather; villages, which he could reach by nightfall.
each morning he would be on the shore at sunrise, swimming, with strong, eager strokes, up the golden path toward the dazzling glory of the rising sun. or, if he chanced, at close of day, to find himself where the coast faced westward, he would slip into the water at sunset and glide, with slow, dreamy motion and folded arms, up the crimson way toward the setting sun.
no day seemed complete to him unless it began and ended in the sea.
so, on this 12th of september, though the sun was sinking behind distant moors, 30when the waters called, he made his way down the cliff, walked half a mile or so along the shore until he found cover among rocks; then swam swiftly out to sea, recapturing the crimson ball as it disappeared behind the pine woods.
when he turned for a last sight of it, he noticed a fine old house, standing castle-like on the summit of the cliff, just above the rocks beside which he had left his clothes. it had not been in view when he had quitted the high path for the beach and the lee of the cliffs.
he swam back to the shore, dressed, lighted his pipe, and sat among the rocks till twilight fell.
the moon appeared, a huge yellow ball, rising out of the sea.
he found himself humming an old song he had picked up the year before, while on a walking tour through brittany.
“au clair de la lune,
mon ami pierrot!
prête-moi ta plume
pour écrire un mot.
31ma chandelle est morte,
je n’ai plus de feu!
ouvre-moi ta porte
pour l’amour de dieu!”
the pathetic words, and the melancholy air, seemed strangely suited to his mood and to the place.
the twilight deepened.
he rose and climbed a zigzag path leading to the top of the cliff.
“ma chandelle est morte,
je n’ai plus de feu!”
he reached the top, and passed through an iron gate.
“ouvre-moi ta porte,
pour l’amour de dieu!”
almost before he realised that he was trespassing, he was standing on the lawn of the house he had seen from the sea.
