But he always protested (and I believed him) that gain with him was a secondary consideration. It would hardly be in the public interest to disclose his modus operandi. I shall only remark that he was one of the first to realise the security and immunity afforded the artist by the conditions of modern London. Hence it happened that he usually practised in town, but spent his vacations at the country houses of such relations as were still spared him, where he was always the life and soul of the place. Unfortunately he is no longer with us, to assist in the revision of this article: nor was it permitted me to soothe his last moments. The presiding Sheriff was one of those new–fangled officials who insist on the exclusion of the public, and he declined to admit me either in the capacity of a personal connection or, though I tried my hardest, as the representative of "The National Observer." It only remains to be said of my much–tried and still lamented friend, that he left few relatives to mourn his untimely end.

But our reluctant feet must needs keep step with the imperious march of Time, and my poor friend's Art (as himself in later years would sorrowfully admit) is now almost as extinct as the glass–staining of old, or "Robbia's craft so apt and strange"; while our thin–blooded youth, too nice for the joyous old methods, are content to find sweetest revenge in severely dropping their relations. This is indeed a most effective position: it exasperates, while it is unassailable. And yet there remains a higher course, a nobler task. Not mere forgiveness: it is simple duty to forgive— even one's guardians. No young man of earnest aspirations will be content to stop there. Nay: lead them on, these lost ones, by the hand; conduct them "generously and gently, and with linking of the arm"; educate them, eradicate their false ideals, dispel their foolish prejudices; be to their faults a little blind and to their virtues very kind: in fine, realise that you have a mission— that these wretches are not here for nothing. The task will seem hard at first; but only those who have tried can know how much may be done by assiduous and kindly effort towards the chastening— ay! the final redemption even!— of the most hopeless and pig–headed of uncles.

The Fairy Wicket

From digging in the sandy, over–triturated soil of times historical, all dotted with date and number and sign, how exquisite the relief in turning to the dear days outside history— yet not so very far off neither for us nurslings of the northern sun— when kindly beasts would loiter to give counsel by the wayside, and a fortunate encounter with one of the Good People was a surer path to Fortune and the Bride than the best–worn stool that ever proved step–ladder to aspiring youth. For then the Fairy Wicket stood everywhere ajar— everywhere and to each and all. "Open, open, green hill!"— you needed no more recondite sesame than that: and, whoever you were, you might have a glimpse of the elfin dancers in the hall that is litten within by neither sun nor moon; or catch at the white horse's bridle as the Fairy Prince rode through. It has been closed now this many a year (the fairies, always strong in the field, are excellent wicket–keepers); and if it open at all, 'tis but for a moment's mockery of the material generation that so deliberately turned its back on the gap into Elf–Land— that first stage to the Beyond.

It was a wanton trick, though, that these folk of malice used to play on a small school–boy, new kicked out of his nest into the draughty, uncomfortable outer world, his unfledged skin still craving the feathers whereinto he was wont to nestle. The barrack–like school, the arid, cheerless class–rooms, drove him to Nature for redress; and, under an alien sky, he would go forth and wander along the iron road by impassive fields, so like yet so unlike those hitherto a part of him and responding to his every mood. And to him, thus loitering with overladen heart, there would come suddenly a touch of warmth, of strange surprise. The turn of the road just ahead— that, sure, is not all unfamiliar? That row of elms— it cannot entirely be accident that they range just so? And, if not accident, then round the bend will come the old duck–pond, the shoulder of the barn will top it, a few yards on will be the gate— it swings–to with its familiar click — the dogs race down the avenue— and then— and then! It is all wildly fanciful; and yet, though knowing not Tertullian, a "credo quia impossibile" is on his tongue as he quickens his pace— for what else can he do? A step, and the spell is shattered— all is cruel and alien once more; while every copse and hedge–row seems a–tinkle with faint elfish laughter. The Fairies have had their joke: they have opened the wicket one of their own hand's–breadths, and shut it in their victim's face. When next that victim catches a fairy, he purposes to tie up the brat in sight of his own green hill, and set him to draw up a practical scheme for Village Councils.

One of the many women I ever really loved, fair in the fearless old fashion, was used to sing, in the blithe, unfettered accent of the people: "I'd like to be a fairy, And dance upon my toes, I'd like to be a fairy, And wear short close!" And in later life it is to her sex that the wee (but very wise) folk sometimes delegate their power of torment. Such understudies are found to play the part exceeding well; and many a time the infatuated youth believes he sees in the depth of one sole pair of eyes— blue, brown, or green (the fairy colour)— the authentic fairy wicket standing ajar: many a time must he hear the quaint old formula, "I'm sure, if I've ever done anything to lead you to think," etc (runs it not so?), ere he shall realise that here is the gate upon no magic pleasance but on a cheap suburban villa, banging behind the wrathful rate–collector or hurled open to speed the pallid householder to the Registrar's Office. In still grosser habitations, too, they lurk, do the People of Mischief, ready to frolic out on the unsuspecting one: as in the case, which still haunts my memory, of a certain bottle of an historic Château–Yquem, hued like Venetian glass, odorous as a garden in June. Forth from out the faint perfume of this haunted drink there danced a bevy from Old France, clad in the fashion of Louis–Quinze, peach–coloured knots of ribbon bedizening apple–green velvets, as they moved in stately wise among the roses of the old garden, to the quaint music— Rameau, was it?— of a fairy cornemuse, while fairy Watteaus, Fragonards, Lancrets, sat and painted them. Alas! too shallow the bottle, too brief the brawls: not to be recalled by any quantity of Green Chartreuse.

Aboard the Galley

He was cruising in the Southern Seas (was the Ulysses who told me this tale), when there bore down upon him a marvellous strange fleet, whose like he had not before seen. For each little craft was a corpse, stiffly "marlined," or bound about with tarred rope, as mariners do use to treat plug tobacco: also ballasted, and with a fair mast and sail stepped through his midriff. These self–sufficing ships knew no divided authority: no pilot ever took the helm from the captain's hands; no mutines lay in bilboes, no passengers complained of the provisions. In a certain island to windward (the native pilot explained) it was the practice, when a man died, to bury him for the time being in dry, desiccating sand, till a chief should pass from his people, when the waiting bodies were brought out and, caulked and rigged secumdum artem, were launched with the first fair breeze, the admiral at their head, on their voyage to the Blessed Islands. And if a chief should die, and the sand should hold no store of corpses for his escort, this simple practical folk would solve the little difficulty by knocking some dozen or twenty stout fellows on the head, that the notable might voyage like a gentleman. Whence this gallant little company, running before the breeze, stark, happy, and extinct, all bound for the Isles of Light! 'Twas a sight to shame us sitters at home, who believe in those Islands, most of us, even as they, yet are content to trundle City–wards or to Margate, so long as the sorry breath is in us; and, breathless at last, to Bow or Kensal Green; without one effort, dead or alive, to reach the far–shining Hesperides.

"Dans la galère, capitane, nous étions quatre–vingt rameurs!" sang the oarsmen in the ballad; and they, though indeed they toiled on the galley–bench, were free and happy pirates, members of an honoured and liberal profession. But all we— pirates, parsons, stockbrokers, whatever our calling— are but galley–slaves of the basest sort, fettered to the oar each for his little spell.