Algernon Blackwood

Sand

Algernon Blackwood

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I

AS FELIX HENRIOT came through the streets that January night the fog

was stifling, but when he reached his little flat upon the top floor

there came a sound of wind. Wind was stirring about the world. It blew

against his windows, but at first so faintly that he hardly noticed it.

Then, with an abrupt rise and fall like a wailing voice that sought to

claim attention, it called him. He peered through the window into the

blurred darkness, listening.

There is no cry in the world like that of the homeless wind. A vague

excitement, scarcely to be analysed, ran through his blood. The curtain

of fog waved momentarily aside. Henriot fancied a star peeped down at

him.

“It will change things a bit—at last,” he sighed, settling back

into his chair. “It will bring movement!”

Already something in himself had changed. A restlessness, as of that

wandering wind, woke in his heart—the desire to be off and away. Other

things could rouse this wildness too: falling water, the singing of a

bird, an odour of wood-fire, a glimpse of winding road. But the cry of

wind, always searching, questioning, travelling the world’s great

routes, remained ever the master-touch. High longing took his mind in

hand. Mid seven millions he felt suddenly—lonely.

“I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.” [1]

He murmured the words over softly to himself. The emotion that

produced Innisfree passed strongly through him. He too would be over

the hills and far away. He craved movement, change,

adventure—somewhere far from shops and crowds and motor-‘busses. For a

week the fog had stifled London. This wind brought life.

Where should he go? Desire was long; his purse was short.

He glanced at his books, letters, newspapers. They had no interest

now. Instead he listened. The panorama of other journeys rolled in

colour through the little room, flying on one another’s heels. Henriot

enjoyed this remembered essence of his travels more than the travels

themselves. The crying wind brought so many voices, all of them

seductive.

There was a soft crashing of waves upon the Black Sea shores, where

the huge Caucasus beckoned in the sky beyond; a rustling in the

umbrella pines and cactus at Marseilles, whence magic steamers start

about the world like flying dreams. He heard the plash of fountains

upon Mount Ida’s slopes, and the whisper of the tamarisk on Marathon.

It was dawn once more upon the Ionian Sea, and he smelt the perfume of

the Cyclades. Blue-veiled islands melted in the sunshine, and across

the dewy lawns of Tempe, moistened by the spray of many waterfalls, he

saw—Great Heavens above!—the dancing of white forms … or was it

only mist the sunshine painted against Pelion? … “Methought, among

the lawns together, we wandered underneath the young grey dawn. And

multitudes of dense white fleecy clouds shepherded by the slow,

unwilling wind… .”

And then, into his stuffy room, slipped the singing perfume of a

wall-flower on a ruined tower, and with it the sweetness of hot ivy. He

heard the “yellow bees in the ivy bloom.” [2] Wind whipped over the

open hills—this very wind that laboured drearily through the London

fog.

And—he was caught. The darkness melted fro the city. The fog

whisked off into an azure sky. The roar of traffic turned into booming

of the sea.