THE TREES OF PRIDE

by Gilbert K. Chesterton

THE TREES OF PRIDE:

 I. THE TALE OF THE PEACOCK TREES II. THE WAGER OF SQUIRE VANE III. THE MYSTERY OF THE WELL IV. THE CHASE AFTER THE TRUTH

THE TREES OF PRIDE

I. THE TALE OF THE PEACOCK TREES

Squire Vane was an elderly schoolboy of English education and Irishextraction. His English education, at one of the great public schools, had preserved his intellect perfectly and permanently at the stage ofboyhood. But his Irish extraction subconsciously upset in him theproper solemnity of an old boy, and sometimes gave him back the brighteroutlook of a naughty boy. He had a bodily impatience which played tricksupon him almost against his will, and had already rendered him rathertoo radiant a failure in civil and diplomatic service. Thus it is truethat compromise is the key of British policy, especially as effectingan impartiality among the religions of India; but Vane's attempt to meetthe Moslem halfway by kicking off one boot at the gates of the mosque, was felt not so much to indicate true impartiality as something thatcould only be called an aggressive indifference. Again, it is true thatan English aristocrat can hardly enter fully into the feelings of eitherparty in a quarrel between a Russian Jew and an Orthodox processioncarrying relics; but Vane's idea that the procession might carry the Jewas well, himself a venerable and historic relic, was misunderstood onboth sides. In short, he was a man who particularly prided himself onhaving no nonsense about him; with the result that he was always doingnonsensical things. He seemed to be standing on his head merely to provethat he was hard-headed. 

He had just finished a hearty breakfast, in the society of his daughter, at a table under a tree in his garden by the Cornish coast. For, having a glorious circulation, he insisted on as many outdoor meals aspossible, though spring had barely touched the woods and warmed theseas round that southern extremity of England. His daughter Barbara, agood-looking girl with heavy red hair and a face as grave as one of thegarden statues, still sat almost motionless as a statue when her fatherrose. A fine tall figure in light clothes, with his white hairand mustache flying backwards rather fiercely from a face that wasgood-humored enough, for he carried his very wide Panama hat in hishand, he strode across the terraced garden, down some stone stepsflanked with old ornamental urns to a more woodland path fringed withlittle trees, and so down a zigzag road which descended the craggy Cliffto the shore, where he was to meet a guest arriving by boat. A yachtwas already in the blue bay, and he could see a boat pulling toward thelittle paved pier. 

And yet in that short walk between the green turf and the yellowsands he was destined to find, his hard-headedness provoked into a notunfamiliar phase which the world was inclined to call hot-headedness. The fact was that the Cornish peasantry, who composed his tenantry anddomestic establishment, were far from being people with no nonsenseabout them. There was, alas! a great deal of nonsense about them;with ghosts, witches, and traditions as old as Merlin, they seemed tosurround him with a fairy ring of nonsense. But the magic circle hadone center: there was one point in which the curving conversation of therustics always returned. It was a point that always pricked the Squireto exasperation, and even in this short walk he seemed to strike iteverywhere. He paused before descending the steps from the lawn to speakto the gardener about potting some foreign shrubs, and the gardenerseemed to be gloomily gratified, in every line of his leathery brownvisage, at the chance of indicating that he had formed a low opinion offoreign shrubs. 

"We wish you'd get rid of what you've got here, sir, " he observed, digging doggedly. "Nothing'll grow right with them here. "

"Shrubs!" said the Squire, laughing. "You don't call the peacock treesshrubs, do you? Fine tall trees--you ought to be proud of them. "

"Ill weeds grow apace, " observed the gardener. "Weeds can grow as houseswhen somebody plants them. " Then he added: "Him that sowed tares in theBible, Squire. "

"Oh, blast your--" began the Squire, and then replaced the more apt andalliterative word "Bible" by the general word "superstition. " He washimself a robust rationalist, but he went to church to set his tenantsan example. Of what, it would have puzzled him to say. 

A little way along the lower path by the trees he encountered awoodcutter, one Martin, who was more explicit, having more of agrievance. His daughter was at that time seriously ill with a feverrecently common on that coast, and the Squire, who was a kind-heartedgentleman, would normally have made allowances for low spirits and lossof temper. But he came near to losing his own again when the peasantpersisted in connecting his tragedy with the traditional monomania aboutthe foreign trees. 

"If she were well enough I'd move her, " said the woodcutter, "as wecan't move them, I suppose. I'd just like to get my chopper into themand feel 'em come crashing down. "

"One would think they were dragons, " said Vane. 

"And that's about what they look like, " replied Martin. "Look at 'em!"

The woodman was naturally a rougher and even wilder figure than thegardener. His face also was brown, and looked like an antique parchment, and it was framed in an outlandish arrangement of raven beard andwhiskers, which was really a fashion fifty years ago, but might havebeen five thousand years old or older. Phoenicians, one felt, trading onthose strange shores in the morning of the world, might have combed orcurled or braided their blue-black hair into some such quaint patterns. For this patch of population was as much a corner of Cornwall asCornwall is a corner of England; a tragic and unique race, small andinterrelated like a Celtic clan. The clan was older than the Vanefamily, though that was old as county families go. For in many suchparts of England it is the aristocrats who are the latest arrivals. Itwas the sort of racial type that is supposed to be passing, and perhapshas already passed. 

The obnoxious objects stood some hundred yards away from the speaker, who waved toward them with his ax; and there was something suggestive inthe comparison. That coast, to begin with, stretching toward the sunset, was itself almost as fantastic as a sunset cloud. It was cut out againstthe emerald or indigo of the sea in graven horns and crescents thatmight be the cast or mold of some such crested serpents; and, beneath, was pierced and fretted by caves and crevices, as if by the boring ofsome such titanic worms. Over and above this draconian architecture ofthe earth a veil of gray woods hung thinner like a vapor; woods whichthe witchcraft of the sea had, as usual, both blighted and blown out ofshape. To the right the trees trailed along the sea front in a singleline, each drawn out in thin wild lines like a caricature. At the otherend of their extent they multiplied into a huddle of hunchbacked trees, a wood spreading toward a projecting part of the high coast. It was herethat the sight appeared to which so many eyes and minds seemed to bealmost automatically turning. 

Out of the middle of this low, and more or less level wood, rose threeseparate stems that shot up and soared into the sky like a lighthouseout of the waves or a church spire out of the village roofs. They formeda clump of three columns close together, which might well be the merebifurcation, or rather trifurcation, of one tree, the lower part beinglost or sunken in the thick wood around. Everything about them suggestedsomething stranger and more southern than anything even in that lastpeninsula of Britain which pushes out farthest toward Spain and Africaand the southern stars. Their leathery leafage had sprouted in advanceof the faint mist of yellow-green around them, and it was of another andless natural green, tinged with blue, like the colors of a kingfisher. But one might fancy it the scales of some three-headed dragon toweringover a herd of huddled and fleeing cattle. 

"I am exceedingly sorry your girl is so unwell, " said Vane shortly. "Butreally--" and he strode down the steep road with plunging strides. 

The boat was already secured to the little stone jetty, and the boatman, a younger shadow of the woodcutter--and, indeed, a nephew of that usefulmalcontent--saluted his territorial lord with the sullen formality ofthe family. The Squire acknowledged it casually and had soon forgottenall such things in shaking hands with the visitor who had just comeashore. The visitor was a long, loose man, very lean to be so young, whose long, fine features seemed wholly fitted together of bone andnerve, and seemed somehow to contrast with his hair, that showed invivid yellow patches upon his hollow temples under the brim of his whiteholiday hat. He was carefully dressed in exquisite taste, though he hadcome straight from a considerable sea voyage; and he carried somethingin his hand which in his long European travels, and even longer Europeanvisits, he had almost forgotten to call a gripsack. 

Mr. Cyprian Paynter was an American who lived in Italy. There was a gooddeal more to be said about him, for he was a very acute and cultivatedgentleman; but those two facts would, perhaps, cover most of the others. Storing his mind like a museum with the wonder of the Old World, but alllit up as by a window with the wonder of the New, he had fallen heir tosome thing of the unique critical position of Ruskin or Pater, andwas further famous as a discoverer of minor poets. He was a judiciousdiscoverer, and he did not turn all his minor poets into major prophets. If his geese were swans, they were not all Swans of Avon. He had evenincurred the deadly suspicion of classicism by differing from hisyoung friends, the Punctuist Poets, when they produced versificationconsisting exclusively of commas and colons. He had a more humanesympathy with the modern flame kindled from the embers of Celticmythology, and it was in reality the recent appearance of a Cornishpoet, a sort of parallel to the new Irish poets, which had brought himon this occasion to Cornwall. He was, indeed, far too well-mannered toallow a host to guess that any pleasure was being sought outside his ownhospitality. He had a long standing invitation from Vane, whom he hadmet in Cyprus in the latter's days of undiplomatic diplomacy; and Vanewas not aware that relations had only been thus renewed after the critichad read Merlin and Other Verses, by a new writer named John Treherne. Nor did the Squire even begin to realize the much more diplomaticdiplomacy by which he had been induced to invite the local bard to lunchon the very day of the American critic's arrival. 

Mr. Paynter was still standing with his gripsack, gazing in a tranceof true admiration at the hollowed crags, topped by the gray, grotesquewood, and crested finally by the three fantastic trees. 

"It is like being shipwrecked on the coast of fairyland, " he said, "I hope you haven't been shipwrecked much, " replied his host, smiling. "I fancy Jake here can look after you very well. "

Mr. Paynter looked across at the boatman and smiled also. "I am afraid, "he said, "our friend is not quite so enthusiastic for this landscape asI am. "

"Oh, the trees, I suppose!" said the Squire wearily. 

The boatman was by normal trade a fisherman; but as his house, built ofblack tarred timber, stood right on the foreshore a few yards from thepier, he was employed in such cases as a sort of ferryman. He was a big, black-browed youth generally silent, but something seemed now to stinghim into speech. 

"Well, sir, " he said, "everybody knows it's not natural. Everybodyknows the sea blights trees and beats them under, when they're only justtrees. These things thrive like some unholy great seaweed that don'tbelong to the land at all. It's like the--the blessed sea serpent got onshore, Squire, and eating everything up. "

"There is some stupid legend, " said Squire Vane gruffly. "But come upinto the garden; I want to introduce you to my daughter. "

When, however, they reached the little table under the tree, theapparently immovable young lady had moved away after all, and it wassome time before they came upon the track of her. She had risen, thoughlanguidly, and wandered slowly along the upper path of the terracedgarden looking down on the lower path where it ran closer to the mainbulk of the little wood by the sea. 

Her languor was not a feebleness but rather a fullness of life, likethat of a child half awake; she seemed to stretch herself and enjoyeverything without noticing anything. She passed the wood, into the grayhuddle of which a single white path vanished through a black hole. Alongthis part of the terrace ran something like a low rampart or balustrade, embowered with flowers at intervals; and she leaned over it, lookingdown at another glimpse of the glowing sea behind the clump of trees, and on another irregular path tumbling down to the pier and theboatman's cottage on the beach. 

As she gazed, sleepily enough, she saw that a strange figure was veryactively climbing the path, apparently coming from the fisherman'scottage; so actively that a moment afterwards it came out between thetrees and stood upon the path just below her. It was not only a figurestrange to her, but one somewhat strange in itself. It was that of aman still young, and seeming somehow younger than his own clothes, whichwere not only shabby but antiquated; clothes common enough in texture, yet carried in an uncommon fashion. He wore what was presumably a lightwaterproof, perhaps through having come off the sea; but it was held atthe throat by one button, and hung, sleeves and all, more like a cloakthan a coat. He rested one bony hand on a black stick; under the shadowof his broad hat his black hair hung down in a tuft or two. His face, which was swarthy, but rather handsome in itself, wore somethingthat may have been a slightly embarrassed smile, but had too much theappearance of a sneer. 

Whether this apparition was a tramp or a trespasser, or a friend of someof the fishers or woodcutters, Barbara Vane was quite unable to guess. He removed his hat, still with his unaltered and rather sinister smile, and said civilly: "Excuse me. The Squire asked me to call. " Here hecaught sight of Martin, the woodman, who was shifting along the path, thinning the thin trees; and the stranger made a familiar salute withone finger. 

The girl did not know what to say. "Have you--have you come aboutcutting the wood?" she asked at last. 

"I would I were so honest a man, " replied the stranger. "Martin is, Ifancy, a distant cousin of mine; we Cornish folk just round here arenearly all related, you know; but I do not cut wood. I do not cutanything, except, perhaps, capers. I am, so to speak, a jongleur. "

"A what?" asked Barbara. 

"A minstrel, shall we say?" answered the newcomer, and looked up at hermore steadily. During a rather odd silence their eyes rested on eachother. What she saw has been already noted, though by her, at any rate, not in the least understood. What he saw was a decidedly beautiful womanwith a statuesque face and hair that shone in the sun like a helmet ofcopper. 

"Do you know, " he went on, "that in this old place, hundreds of yearsago, a jongleur may really have stood where I stand, and a lady mayreally have looked over that wall and thrown him money?"

"Do you want money?" she asked, all at sea. 

"Well, " drawled the stranger, "in the sense of lacking it, perhaps, butI fear there is no place now for a minstrel, except nigger minstrel. Imust apologize for not blacking my face. "

She laughed a little in her bewilderment, and said: "Well, I hardlythink you need do that. "

"You think the natives here are dark enough already, perhaps, " heobserved calmly. "After all, we are aborigines, and are treated assuch. "

She threw out some desperate remark about the weather or the scenery, and wondered what would happen next. 

"The prospect is certainly beautiful, " he assented, in the sameenigmatic manner. "There is only one thing in it I am doubtful about. "

While she stood in silence he slowly lifted his black stick like a longblack finger and pointed it at the peacock trees above the wood. And aqueer feeling of disquiet fell on the girl, as if he were, by thatmere gesture, doing a destructive act and could send a blight upon thegarden. 

The strained and almost painful silence was broken by the voice ofSquire Vane, loud even while it was still distant. 

"We couldn't make out where you'd got to, Barbara, " he said. "This ismy friend, Mr. Cyprian Paynter. " The next moment he saw the stranger andstopped, a little puzzled. It was only Mr. Cyprian Paynter himself whowas equal to the situation. He had seen months ago a portrait of the newCornish poet in some American literary magazine, and he found himself, to his surprise, the introducer instead of the introduced. 

"Why, Squire, " he said in considerable astonishment, "don't you know Mr. Treherne? I supposed, of course, he was a neighbor. "

"Delighted to see you, Mr. Treherne, " said the Squire, recovering hismanners with a certain genial confusion. "So pleased you were able tocome. This is Mr. Paynter---my daughter, " and, turning with a certainboisterous embarrassment, he led the way to the table under the tree. 

Cyprian Paynter followed, inwardly revolving a puzzle which had takeneven his experience by surprise. The American, if intellectually anaristocrat, was still socially and subconsciously a democrat. It hadnever crossed his mind that the poet should be counted lucky to knowthe squire and not the squire to know the poet. The honest patronage inVane's hospitality was something which made Paynter feel he was, afterall, an exile in England. 

The Squire, anticipating the trial of luncheon with a strange literaryman, had dealt with the case tactfully from his own standpoint. Countysociety might have made the guest feel like a fish out of water; and, except for the American critic and the local lawyer and doctor, worthymiddle-class people who fitted into the picture, he had kept it as afamily party. He was a widower, and when the meal had been laid out onthe garden table, it was Barbara who presided as hostess. She had thenew poet on her right hand and it made her very uncomfortable. She hadpractically offered that fallacious jongleur money, and it did not makeit easier to offer him lunch. 

"The whole countryside's gone mad, " announced the Squire, by way of thelatest local news. "It's about this infernal legend of ours. "

"I collect legends, " said Paynter, smiling. 

"You must remember I haven't yet had a chance to collect yours. Andthis, " he added, looking round at the romantic coast, "is a fine theaterfor anything dramatic. "

"Oh, it's dramatic in its way, " admitted Vane, not without a faintsatisfaction. "It's all about those things over there we call thepeacock trees--I suppose, because of the queer color of the leaf, youknow, though I have heard they make a shrill noise in a high wind that'ssupposed to be like the shriek of a peacock; something like a bamboo inthe botanical structure, perhaps. Well, those trees are supposed to havebeen brought over from Barbary by my ancestor Sir Walter Vane, one ofthe Elizabethan patriots or pirates, or whatever you call them. They saythat at the end of his last voyage the villagers gathered on the beachdown there and saw the boat standing in from the sea, and the new treesstood up in the boat like a mast, all gay with leaves out of season, like green bunting. And as they watched they thought at first that theboat was steering oddly, and then that it wasn't steering at all; andwhen it drifted to the shore at last every man in that boat was dead, and Sir Walter Vane, with his sword drawn, was leaning up against thetree trunk, as stiff as the tree. "

"Now this is rather curious, " remarked Paynter thoughtfully. "I toldyou I collected legends, and I fancy I can tell you the beginning of thestory of which that is the end, though it comes hundreds of miles acrossthe sea. "

He tapped meditatively on the table with his thin, taper fingers, likea man trying to recall a tune. He had, indeed, made a hobby of suchfables, and he was not without vanity about his artistic touch intelling them. 

"Oh, do tell us your part of it?" cried Barbara Vane, whose air of sunnysleepiness seemed in some vague degree to have fallen from her. 

The American bowed across the table with a serious politeness, and thenbegan playing idly with a quaint ring on his long finger as he talked. 

"If you go down to the Barbary Coast, where the last wedge of the forestnarrows down between the desert and the great tideless sea, you willfind the natives still telling a strange story about a saint of the DarkAges. There, on the twilight border of the Dark Continent, you feel theDark Ages. I have only visited the place once, though it lies, so tospeak, opposite to the Italian city where I lived for years, and yet youwould hardly believe how the topsy-turvydom and transmigration of thismyth somehow seemed less mad than they really are, with the wood loudwith lions at night and that dark red solitude beyond. They say thatthe hermit St. Securis, living there among trees, grew to love them likecompanions; since, though great giants with many arms like Briareus, they were the mildest and most blameless of the creatures; they did notdevour like the lions, but rather opened their arms to all the littlebirds. And he prayed that they might be loosened from time to time towalk like other things. And the trees were moved upon the prayers ofSecuris, as they were at the songs of Orpheus. The men of the desertwere stricken from afar with fear, seeing the saint walking with awalking grove, like a schoolmaster with his boys. For the trees werethus freed under strict conditions of discipline. They were to return atthe sound of the hermit's bell, and, above all, to copy the wild beastsin walking only to destroy and devour nothing. Well, it is said that oneof the trees heard a voice that was not the saint's; that in the warmgreen twilight of one summer evening it became conscious of some thingsitting and speaking in its branches in the guise of a great bird, and it was that which once spoke from a tree in the guise of a greatserpent. As the voice grew louder among its murmuring leaves the treewas torn with a great desire to stretch out and snatch at the birds thatflew harmlessly about their nests, and pluck them to pieces. Finally, the tempter filled the tree-top with his own birds of pride, the starrypageant of the peacocks. And the spirit of the brute overcame the spiritof the tree, and it rent and consumed the blue-green birds till not aplume was left, and returned to the quiet tribe of trees. But they saythat when spring came all the other trees put forth leaves, but thisput forth feathers of a strange hue and pattern. And by that monstrousassimilation the saint knew of the sin, and he rooted that one tree tothe earth with a judgment, so that evil should fall on any who removedit again. That, Squire, is the beginning in the deserts of the tale thatended here, almost in this garden. "

"And the end is about as reliable as the beginning, I should say, " saidVane. "Yours is a nice plain tale for a small tea-party; a quiet littlebit of still-life, that is. "

"What a queer, horrible story, " exclaimed Barbara. "It makes one feellike a cannibal. "

"Ex Africa, " said the lawyer, smiling. "It comes from a cannibalcountry. I think it's the touch of the tar-brush, that nightmare feelingthat you don't know whether the hero is a plant or a man or a devil. Don't you feel it sometimes in 'Uncle Remus'?"

"True, " said Paynter. "Perfectly true. " And he looked at the lawyer witha new interest. The lawyer, who had been introduced as Mr. Ashe, was oneof those people who are more worth looking at than most people realizewhen they look. If Napoleon had been red-haired, and had bent all hispowers with a curious contentment upon the petty lawsuits of a province, he might have looked much the same; the head with the red hair was heavyand powerful; the figure in its dark, quiet clothes was comparativelyinsignificant, as was Napoleon's. He seemed more at ease in the Squire'ssociety than the doctor, who, though a gentleman, was a shy one, and amere shadow of his professional brother. 

"As you truly say, " remarked Paynter, "the story seems touched withquite barbarous elements, probably Negro. Originally, though, I thinkthere was really a hagiological story about some hermit, though someof the higher critics say St. Securis never existed, but was only anallegory of arboriculture, since his name is the Latin for an ax. "

"Oh, if you come to that, " remarked the poet Treherne, "you might aswell say Squire Vane doesn't exist, and that he's only an allegory fora weathercock. " Something a shade too cool about this sally drew thelawyer's red brows together. He looked across the table and met thepoet's somewhat equivocal smile. 

"Do I understand, Mr. Treherne, " asked Ashe, "that you support themiraculous claims of St. Securis in this case. Do you, by any chance, believe in the walking trees?"

"I see men as trees walking, " answered the poet, "like the man cured ofblindness in the Gospel. By the way, do I understand that you supportthe miraculous claims of that--thaumaturgist?"

Paynter intervened swiftly and suavely. "Now that sounds a fascinatingpiece of psychology. You see men as trees?"

"As I can't imagine why men should walk, I can't imagine why treesshouldn't, " answered Treherne. 

"Obviously, it is the nature of the organism", interposed the medicalguest, Dr. Burton Brown; "it is necessary in the very type of vegetablestructure. "

"In other words, a tree sticks in the mud from year's end to year'send, " answered Treherne. "So do you stop in your consulting room fromten to eleven every day. And don't you fancy a fairy, looking in at yourwindow for a flash after having just jumped over the moon and playedmulberry bush with the Pleiades, would think you were a vegetablestructure, and that sitting still was the nature of the organism?"

"I don't happen to believe in fairies, " said the doctor rather stiffly, for the argumentum ad hominem was becoming too common. A sulphuroussubconscious anger seemed to radiate from the dark poet. 

"Well, I should hope not, Doctor, " began the Squire, in his loud andfriendly style, and then stopped, seeing the other's attention arrested. The silent butler waiting on the guests had appeared behind thedoctor's chair, and was saying something in the low, level tones of thewell-trained servant. He was so smooth a specimen of the type thatothers never noticed, at first, that he also repeated the dark portrait, however varnished, so common in this particular family of Cornish Celts. His face was sallow and even yellow, and his hair indigo black. He wentby the name of Miles. Some felt oppressed by the tribal type in thistiny corner of England. They felt somehow as if all these dark faceswere the masks of a secret society. 

The doctor rose with a half apology. "I must ask pardon for disturbingthis pleasant party; I am called away on duty. Please don't let anybodymove. We have to be ready for these things, you know. Perhaps Mr. Treherne will admit that my habits are not so very vegetable, afterall. " With this Parthian shaft, at which there was some laughter, hestrode away very rapidly across the sunny lawn to where the road dippeddown toward the village. 

"He is very good among the poor, " said the girl with an honorableseriousness. 

"A capital fellow, " agreed the Squire. "Where is Miles? You will have acigar, Mr. Treherne?" And he got up from the table; the rest followed, and the group broke up on the lawn. 

"Remarkable man, Treherne, " said the American to the lawyerconversationally. 

"Remarkable is the word, " assented Ashe rather grimly. "But I don'tthink I'll make any remark about him. "

The Squire, too impatient to wait for the yellow-faced Miles, hadbetaken himself indoors for the cigars, and Barbara found herself oncemore paired off with the poet, as she floated along the terrace garden;but this time, symbolically enough, upon the same level of lawn. Mr. Treherne looked less eccentric after having shed his curious cloak, andseemed a quieter and more casual figure. 

"I didn't mean to be rude to you just now, " she said abruptly. 

"And that's the worst of it, " replied the man of letters, "for I'mhorribly afraid I did mean to be rude to you. When I looked up and sawyou up there something surged up in me that was in all the revolutionsof history. Oh, there was admiration in it too! Perhaps there wasidolatry in all the iconoclasts. "

He seemed to have a power of reaching rather intimate conversation inone silent and cat-like bound, as he had scaled the steep road, and itmade her feel him to be dangerous, and perhaps unscrupulous. She changedthe subject sharply, not without it movement toward gratifying her owncuriosity. 

"What DID you mean by all that about walking trees?" she asked. "Don'ttell me you really believe in a magic tree that eats birds!"

"I should probably surprise you, " said Treherne gravely, "more by what Idon't believe than by what I do. "

Then, after a pause, he made a general gesture toward the house andgarden. "I'm afraid I don't believe in all this; for instance, inElizabethan houses and Elizabethan families and the way estates havebeen improved, and the rest of it. Look at our friend the woodcutternow. " And he pointed to the man with the quaint black beard, who wasstill plying his ax upon the timber below. 

"That man's family goes back for ages, and it was far richer and freerin what you call the Dark Ages than it is now. Wait till the Cornishpeasant writes a history of Cornwall. "

"But what in the world, " she demanded, "has this to do with whether youbelieve in a tree eating birds?"

"Why should I confess what I believe in?" he said, a muffled drum ofmutiny in his voice. "The gentry came here and took our land and tookour labor and took our customs. And now, after exploitation, a vilerthing, education! They must take our dreams!"

"Well, this dream was rather a nightmare, wasn't it?" asked Barbara, smiling; and the next moment grew quite grave, saying almost anxiously:"But here's Doctor Brown back again. Why, he looks quite upset. "

The doctor, a black figure on the green lawn, was, indeed, coming towardthem at a very vigorous walk. His body and gait very much younger thanhis face, which seemed prematurely lined as with worry; his brow wasbald, and projected from the straight, dark hair behind it. He wasvisibly paler than when he left the lunch table. 

"I am sorry to say, Miss Vane, " he said, "that I am the bearer of badnews to poor Martin, the woodman here. His daughter died half an hourago. "

"Oh, " cried Barbara warmly, "I am SO sorry!"

"So am I, " said the doctor, and passed on rather abruptly; he ran downthe stone steps between the stone urns; and they saw him in talk withthe woodcutter. They could not see the woodcutter's face. He stood withhis back to them, but they saw something that seemed more moving thanany change of countenance. The man's hand holding the ax rose high abovehis head, and for a flash it seemed as if he would have cut down thedoctor. But in fact he was not looking at the doctor. His face was settoward the cliff, where, sheer out of the dwarf forest, rose, giganticand gilded by the sun, the trees of pride. 

The strong brown hand made a movement and was empty. The ax wentcircling swiftly through the air, its head showing like a silvercrescent against the gray twilight of the trees. It did not reach itstall objective, but fell among the undergrowth, shaking up a flyinglitter of birds. But in the poet's memory, full of primal things, something seemed to say that he had seen the birds of some pagan augury, the ax of some pagan sacrifice. 

A moment after the man made a heavy movement forward, as if to recoverhis tool; but the doctor put a hand on his arm. 

"Never mind that now, " they heard him say sadly and kindly. "The Squirewill excuse you any more work, I know. "

Something made the girl look at Treherne. He stood gazing, his head alittle bent, and one of his black elf-locks had fallen forward over hisforehead. And again she had the sense of a shadow over the grass; shealmost felt as if the grass were a host of fairies, and that the fairieswere not her friends. 

II. THE WAGER OF SQUIRE VANE

It was more than a month before the legend of the peacock trees wasagain discussed in the Squire's circle. It fell out one evening, whenhis eccentric taste for meals in the garden that gathered the companyround the same table, now lit with a lamp and laid out for dinner in aglowing spring twilight. It was even the same company, for in the fewweeks intervening they had insensibly grown more and more into eachother's lives, forming a little group like a club. The American aesthetewas of course the most active agent, his resolution to pluck out theheart of the Cornish poet's mystery leading him again and again toinfluence his flighty host for such reunions. Even Mr. Ashe, the lawyer, seemed to have swallowed his half-humorous prejudices; and the doctor, though a rather sad and silent, was a companionable and considerate man. Paynter had even read Treherne's poetry aloud, and he read admirably;he had also read other things, not aloud, grubbing up everything in theneighborhood, from guidebooks to epitaphs, that could throw a light onlocal antiquities. And it was that evening when the lamplight and thelast daylight had kindled the colors of the wine and silver on the tableunder the tree, that he announced a new discovery. 

"Say, Squire, " he remarked, with one of his rare Americanisms, "aboutthose bogey trees of yours; I don't believe you know half the tales toldround here about them. It seems they have a way of eating things. Notthat I have any ethical objection to eating things, " he continued, helping himself elegantly to green cheese. "But I have more or less, broadly speaking, an objection to eating people. "

"Eating people!" repeated Barbara Vane. 

"I know a globe-trotter mustn't be fastidious, " replied Mr. Paynter. "But I repeat firmly, an objection to eating people. The peacock treesseem to have progressed since the happy days of innocence when they onlyate peacocks. If you ask the people here--the fisherman who lives onthat beach, or the man that mows this very lawn in front of us--they'lltell you tales taller than any tropical one I brought you from theBarbary Coast. If you ask them what happened to the fisherman Peters, who got drunk on All Hallows Eve, they'll tell you he lost his wayin that little wood, tumbled down asleep under the wicked trees, andthen--evaporated, vanished, was licked up like dew by the sun. If youask them where Harry Hawke is, the widow's little son, they'll just tellyou he's swallowed; that he was dared to climb the trees and sit thereall night, and did it. What the trees did God knows; the habits of avegetable ogre leave one a little vague. But they even add the agreeabledetail that a new branch appears on the tree when somebody has peteredout in this style. "

"What new nonsense is this?" cried Vane. "I know there's some crazy yarnabout the trees spreading fever, though every educated man knows whythese epidemics return occasionally. And I know they say you can tellthe noise of them among other trees in a gale, and I dare say you can. But even Cornwall isn't a lunatic asylum, and a tree that dines on apassing tourist--"

"Well, the two tales are reconcilable enough, " put in the poet quietly. "If there were a magic that killed men when they came close, it's likelyto strike them with sickness when they stand far off. In the old romancethe dragon, that devours people, often blasts others with a sort ofpoisonous breath. "

Ashe looked across at the speaker steadily, not to say stonily. 

"Do I understand, " he inquired, "that you swallow the swallowing treestoo?"

Treherne's dark smile was still on the defensive; his fencing alwaysannoyed the other, and he seemed not without malice in the matter. 

"Swallowing is a metaphor, " he said, "about me, if not about the trees. And metaphors take us at once into dreamland--no bad place, either. Thisgarden, I think, gets more and more like a dream at this corner of theday and night, that might lead us anywhere. "

The yellow horn of the moon had appeared silently and as if suddenlyover the black horns of the seaweed, seeming to announce as nightsomething which till then had been evening. A night breeze came inbetween the trees and raced stealthily across the turf, and as theyceased speaking they heard, not only the seething grass, but the seaitself move and sound in all the cracks and caves round them and belowthem and on every side. They all felt the note that had been struck--theAmerican as an art critic and the poet as a poet; and the Squire, whobelieved himself boiling with an impatience purely rational, did notreally understand his own impatience. In him, more perhaps than theothers--more certainly than he knew himself--the sea wind went to thehead like wine. 

"Credulity is a curious thing, " went on Treherne in a low voice. "Itis more negative than positive, and yet it is infinite. Hundreds of menwill avoid walking under a ladder; they don't know where the door of theladder will lead. They don't really think God would throw a thunderboltat them for such a thing. They don't know what would happen, that isjust the point; but yet they step aside as from a precipice. So the poorpeople here may or may not believe anything; they don't go into thosetrees at night. "

"I walk under a ladder whenever I can, " cried Vane, in quite unnecessaryexcitement. 

"You belong to a Thirteen Club, " said the poet. "You walk under a ladderon Friday to dine thirteen at a table, everybody spilling the salt. Buteven you don't go into those trees at night. "

Squire Vane stood up, his silver hair flaming in the wind. 

"I'll stop all night in your tomfool wood and up your tomfool trees, "he said. "I'll do it for twopence or two thousand pounds, if anyone willtake the bet. "

Without waiting for reply, he snatched up his wide white hat and settledit on with a fierce gesture, and had gone off in great leonine stridesacross the lawn before anyone at the table could move. 

The stillness was broken by Miles, the butler, who dropped and brokeone of the plates he carried. He stood looking after his master withhis long, angular chin thrust out, looking yellower where it caught theyellow light of the lamp below. His face was thus sharply in shadow, butPaynter fancied for a moment it was convulsed by some passion passingsurprise. But the face was quite as usual when it turned, and Paynterrealized that a night of fancies had begun, like the cross purposes ofthe "Midsummer Night's Dream. "

The wood of the strange trees, toward which the Squire was walking, layso far forward on the headland, which ultimately almost overhung thesea, that it could be approached by only one path, which shone clearlylike a silver ribbon in the twilight. The ribbon ran along the edge ofthe cliff, where the single row of deformed trees ran beside it all theway, and eventually plunged into the closer mass of trees by one naturalgateway, a mere gap in the wood, looking dark, like a lion's mouth. Whatbecame of the path inside could not be seen, but it doubtless led roundthe hidden roots of the great central trees. The Squire was alreadywithin a yard or two of this dark entry when his daughter rose from thetable and took a step or two after him as if to call him back. 

Treherne had also risen, and stood as if dazed at the effect of his idledefiance. When Barbara moved he seemed to recover himself, and steppingafter her, said something which Paynter did not hear. He said itcasually and even distantly enough, but it clearly suggested somethingto her mind; for, after a moment's thought, she nodded and walked back, not toward the table, but apparently toward the house. Paynter lookedafter her with a momentary curiosity, and when he turned again theSquire had vanished into the hole in the wood. 

"He's gone, " said Treherne, with a clang of finality in his tones, likethe slamming of a door. 

"Well, suppose he has?" cried the lawyer, roused at the voice. "TheSquire can go into his own wood, I suppose! What the devil's all thefuss about, Mr. Paynter? Don't tell me you think there's any harm inthat plantation of sticks. "

"No, I don't, " said Paynter, throwing one leg over another and lightinga cigar. "But I shall stop here till he comes out. "

"Very well, " said Ashe shortly, "I'll stop with you, if only to see theend of this farce. "

The doctor said nothing, but he also kept his seat and accepted one ofthe American's cigars. If Treherne had been attending to the matter hemight have noted, with his sardonic superstition, a curious fact--that, while all three men were tacitly condemning themselves to stay out allnight if necessary, all, by one blank omission or oblivion, assumed thatit was impossible to follow their host into the wood just in front ofthem. But Treherne, though still in the garden, had wandered away fromthe garden table, and was pacing along the single line of trees againstthe dark sea. They had in their regular interstices, showing the seaas through a series of windows, something of the look of the ghost orskeleton of a cloister, and he, having thrown his coat once more overhis neck, like a cape, passed to and fro like the ghost of some not verysane monk. 

All these men, whether skeptics or mystics, looked back for the rest oftheir lives on that night as on something unnatural. They sat still orstarted up abruptly, and paced the great garden in long detours, so thatit seemed that no three of them were together at a time, and none knewwho would be his companion; yet their rambling remained within the samedim and mazy space. They fell into snatches of uneasy slumber; thesewere very brief, and yet they felt as if the whole sitting, strolling, or occasional speaking had been parts of a single dream. 

Paynter woke once, and found Ashe sitting opposite him at a tableotherwise empty; his face dark in shadow and his cigar-end like the redeye of a Cyclops. Until the lawyer spoke, in his steady voice, Paynterwas positively afraid of him. He answered at random and nodded again;when he again woke the lawyer was gone, and what was opposite him wasthe bald, pale brow of the doctor; there seemed suddenly somethingominous in the familiar fact that he wore spectacles. And yet thevanishing Ashe had only vanished a few yards away, for he turned at thatinstant and strolled back to the table. With a jerk Paynter realizedthat his nightmare was but a trick of sleep or sleeplessness, and spokein his natural voice, but rather loud. 

"So you've joined us again; where's Treherne?"

"Oh, still revolving, I suppose, like a polar bear under those trees onthe cliff, " replied Ashe, motioning with his cigar, "looking at whatan older (and you will forgive me for thinking a somewhat better) poetcalled the wine-dark sea. It really has a sort of purple shade; look atit. "

Paynter looked; he saw the wine-dark sea and the fantastic trees thatfringed it, but he did not see the poet; the cloister was already emptyof its restless monk. 

"Gone somewhere else, " he said, with futility far from characteristic. "He'll be back here presently. This is an interesting vigil, but avigil loses some of its intensity when you can't keep awake. Ah! Here'sTreherne; so we're all mustered, as the politician said when Mr. Colmancame late for dinner. No, the doctor's off again. How restless we allare!" The poet had drawn near, his feet were falling soft on the grass, and was gazing at them with a singular attentiveness. 

"It will soon be over, " he said. 

"What?" snapped Ashe very abruptly. 

"The night, of course, " replied Treherne in a motionless manner. "Thedarkest hour has passed. "

"Didn't some other minor poet remark, " inquired Paynter flippantly, "that the darkest hour before the dawn--? My God, what was that? It waslike a scream. "

"It was a scream, " replied the poet. "The scream of a peacock. "

Ashe stood up, his strong pale face against his red hair, and saidfuriously: "What the devil do you mean?"

"Oh, perfectly natural causes, as Dr. Brown would say, " repliedTreherne. "Didn't the Squire tell us the trees had a shrill note oftheir own when the wind blew? The wind's beating up again from the sea;I shouldn't wonder if there was a storm before dawn. "

Dawn indeed came gradually with a growing noise of wind, and the purplesea began to boil about the dark volcanic cliffs. The first change inthe sky showed itself only in the shapes of the wood and the singlestems growing darker but clearer; and above the gray clump, against aglimpse of growing light, they saw aloft the evil trinity of the trees. In their long lines there seemed to Paynter something faintly serpentineand even spiral. He could almost fancy he saw them slowly revolvingas in some cyclic dance, but this, again, was but a last delusion ofdreamland, for a few seconds later he was again asleep. In dreams hetoiled through a tangle of inconclusive tales, each filled with the samestress and noise of sea and sea wind; and above and outside all othervoices the wailing of the Trees of Pride. 

When he woke it was broad day, and a bloom of early light lay on woodand garden and on fields and farms for miles away. The comparativecommon sense that daylight brings even to the sleepless drew him alertlyto his feet, and showed him all his companions standing about the lawnin similar attitudes of expectancy. There was no need to ask what theywere expecting. They were waiting to hear the nocturnal experiences, comic or commonplace or whatever they might prove to be, of thateccentric friend, whose experiment (whether from some subconsciousfear or some fancy of honor) they had not ventured to interrupt. Hourfollowed hour, and still nothing stirred in the wood save an occasionalbird. The Squire, like most men of his type, was an early riser, and itwas not likely that he would in this case sleep late; it was much morelikely, in the excitement in which he had left them, that he would notsleep at all. Yet it was clear that he must be sleeping, perhaps by somereaction from a strain. By the time the sun was high in heaven Ashe thelawyer, turning to the others, spoke abruptly and to the point. 

"Shall we go into the wood now?" asked Paynter, and almost seemed tohesitate. 

"I will go in, " said Treherne simply. Then, drawing up his dark head inanswer to their glances, he added:

"No, do not trouble yourselves. It is never the believer who is afraid. "

For the second time they saw a man mount the white curling path anddisappear into the gray tangled wood, but this time they did not have towait long to see him again. 

A few minutes later he reappeared in the woodland gateway, and cameslowly toward them across the grass. He stopped before the doctor, whostood nearest, and said something. It was repeated to the others, andwent round the ring with low cries of incredulity. The others plungedinto the wood and returned wildly, and were seen speaking to othersagain who gathered from the house; the wild wireless telegraphy which isthe education of countryside communities spread it farther and fartherbefore the fact itself was fully realized; and before nightfall aquarter of the county knew that Squire Vane had vanished like a burstbubble. 

Widely as the wild story was repeated, and patiently as it was pondered, it was long before there was even the beginning of a sequel to it. Inthe interval Paynter had politely removed himself from the house ofmourning, or rather of questioning, but only so far as the village inn;for Barbara Vane was glad of the traveler's experience and sympathy, inaddition to that afforded her by the lawyer and doctor as old friends ofthe family. Even Treherne was not discouraged from his occasional visitswith a view to helping the hunt for the lost man. The five held manycounsels round the old garden table, at which the unhappy master ofthe house had dined for the last time; and Barbara wore her old mask ofstone, if it was now a more tragic mask. She had shown no passion afterthe first morning of discovery, when she had broken forth once, speakingstrangely enough in the view of some of her hearers. 

She had come slowly out of the house, to which her own or some oneelse's wisdom had relegated her during the night of the wager; and itwas clear from her face that somebody had told her the truth; Miles, thebutler, stood on the steps behind her; and it was probably he. 

"Do not be much distressed, Miss Vane, " said Doctor Brown, in a low andrather uncertain voice. "The search in the wood has hardly begun. I amconvinced we shall find--something quite simple. "

"The doctor is right, " said Ashe, in his firm tones; "I myself--"

"The doctor is not right, " said the girl, turning a white face on thespeaker, "I know better. The poet is right. The poet is always right. Oh, he has been here from the beginning of the world, and seen wondersand terrors that are all round our path, and only hiding behind a bushor a stone. You and your doctoring and your science--why, you have onlybeen here for a few fumbling generations; and you can't conquer evenyour own enemies of the flesh. Oh, forgive me, Doctor, I know you dosplendidly; but the fever comes in the village, and the people die anddie for all that. And now it's my poor father. God help us all! The onlything left is to believe in God; for we can't help believing in devils. "And she left them, still walking quite slowly, but in such a fashionthat no one could go after her. 

The spring had already begun to ripen into summer, and spread a greentent from the tree over the garden table, when the American visitor, sitting there with his two professional companions, broke the silence bysaying what had long been in his mind. 

"Well, " he said, "I suppose whatever we may think it wise to say, wehave all begun to think of a possible conclusion. It can't be put verydelicately anyhow; but, after all, there's a very necessary businessside to it. What are we going to do about poor Vane's affairs, apartfrom himself? I suppose you know, " he added, in a low voice to thelawyer, "whether he made a will?"

"He left everything to his daughter unconditionally, " replied Ashe. "Butnothing can be done with it. There's no proof whatever that he's dead. ""No legal proof?" remarked Paynter dryly. A wrinkle of irritation hadappeared in the big bald brow of Doctor Brown; and he made an impatientmovement. 

"Of course he's dead, " he said. "What's the sense of all this legalfuss? We were watching this side of the wood, weren't we? A man couldn'thave flown off those high cliffs over the sea; he could only have fallenoff. What else can he be but dead?"

"I speak as a lawyer, " returned Ashe, raising his eyebrows. "We can'tpresume his death, or have an inquest or anything till we find the poorfellow's body, or some remains that may reasonably be presumed to be hisbody. "

"I see, " observed Paynter quietly. "You speak as a lawyer; but I don'tthink it's very hard to guess what you think as a man. "

"I own I'd rather be a man than a lawyer, " said the doctor, ratherroughly. "I'd no notion the law was such an ass. What's the good ofkeeping the poor girl out of her property, and the estate all goingto pieces? Well, I must be off, or my patients will be going to piecestoo. "

And with a curt salutation he pursued his path down to the village. 

"That man does his duty, if anybody does, " remarked Paynter. "We mustpardon his--shall I say manners or manner?"

"Oh, I bear him no malice, " replied Ashe good-humoredly, "But I'm gladhe's gone, because--well, because I don't want him to know how jollyright he is. " And he leaned back in his chair and stared up at the roofof green leaves. 

"You are sure, " said Paynter, looking at the table, "that Squire Vane isdead?"

"More than that, " said Ashe, still staring at the leaves. "I'm sure ofhow he died. "

"Ah!" said the American, with an intake of breath, and they remained fora moment, one gazing at the tree and the other at the table. 

"Sure is perhaps too strong a word, " continued Ashe. "But my convictionwill want some shaking. I don't envy the counsel for the defense. "

"The counsel for the defense, " repeated Paynter, and looked up quicklyat his companion. He was struck again by the man's Napoleonic chin andjaw, as he had been when they first talked of the legend of St. Securis. 

"Then, " he began, "you don't think the trees--"

"The trees be damned!" snorted the lawyer. "The tree had two legs onthat evening. What our friend the poet, " he added, with a sneer, "would call a walking tree. Apropos of our friend the poet, you seemedsurprised that night to find he was not walking poetically by the seaall the time, and I fear I affected to share your ignorance. I was notso sure then as I am now. "

"Sure of what?" demanded the other. 

"To begin with, " said Ashe, "I'm sure our friend the poet followed Vaneinto the wood that night, for I saw him coming out again. "

Paynter leaned forward, suddenly pale with excitement, and struck thewooden table so that it rattled. 

"Mr. Ashe, you're wrong, " he cried. "You're a wonderful man and you'rewrong. You've probably got tons of true convincing evidence, and you'rewrong. I know this poet; I know him as a poet; and that's just what youdon't. I know you think he gave you crooked answers, and seemed to beall smiles and black looks at once; but you don't understand the type. I know now why you don't understand the Irish. Sometimes you thinkit's soft, and sometimes sly, and sometimes murderous, and sometimesuncivilized; and all the time it's only civilized; quivering with thesensitive irony of understanding all that you don't understand. "

"Well, " said Ashe shortly, "we'll see who's right. "

"We will, " cried Cyprian, and rose suddenly from the table. All thedrooping of the aesthete had dropped from him; his Yankee accent rosehigh, like a horn of defiance, and there was nothing about him but theNew World. 

"I guess I will look into this myself, " he said, stretching his longlimbs like an athlete. "I search that little wood of yours to-morrow. It's a bit late, or I'd do it now. "

"The wood has been searched, " said the lawyer, rising also. 

"Yes, " drawled the American. "It's been searched by servants, policemen, local policeman, and quite a lot of people; and do you know I have anotion that nobody round here is likely to have searched it at all. "

"And what are you going to do with it?" asked Ashe. 

"What I bet they haven't done, " replied Cyprian. "I'm going to climb atree. "

And with a quaint air of renewed cheerfulness he took himself away at arapid walk to his inn. 

He appeared at daybreak next morning outside the Vane Arms with all theair of one setting out on his travels in distant lands. He had a fieldglass slung over his shoulder, and a very large sheath knife buckled bya belt round his waist, and carried with the cool bravado of the bowieknife of a cowboy. But in spite of this backwoodsman's simplicity, orperhaps rather because of it, he eyed with rising relish the picturesqueplan and sky line of the antiquated village, and especially the woodensquare of the old inn sign that hung over his head; a shield, of whichthe charges seemed to him a mere medley of blue dolphins, gold crosses, and scarlet birds. The colors and cubic corners of that paintedboard pleased him like a play or a puppet show. He stood staring andstraddling for some moments on the cobbles of the little market place;then he gave a short laugh and began to mount the steep streets towardthe high park and garden beyond. From the high lawn, above the tree andtable, he could see on one side the land stretch away past the houseinto a great rolling plain, which under the clear edges of the dawnseemed dotted with picturesque details. The woods here and there onthe plain looked like green hedgehogs, as grotesque as the incongruousbeasts found unaccountably walking in the blank spaces of mediaevalmaps. The land, cut up into colored fields, recalled the heraldry of thesignboard; this also was at once ancient and gay. On the other side theground to seaward swept down and then up again to the famous or infamouswood; the square of strange trees lay silently tilted on the slope, alsosuggesting, if not a map, or least a bird's-eye view. Only the triplecenterpiece of the peacock trees rose clear of the sky line; and thesestood up in tranquil sunlight as things almost classical, a triangulartemple of the winds. They seemed pagan in a newer and more placidsense; and he felt a newer and more boyish curiosity and courage for theconsulting of the oracle. In all his wanderings he had never walked solightly, for the connoisseur of sensations had found something to do atlast; he was fighting for a friend. 

He was brought to a standstill once, however, and that at the verygateway of the garden of the trees of knowledge. Just outside the blackentry of the wood, now curtained with greener and larger leafage, hecame on a solitary figure. 

It was Martin, the woodcutter, wading in the bracken and looking abouthim in rather a lost fashion. The man seemed to be talking to himself. 

"I dropped it here, " he was saying. "But I'll never work with it again Ireckon. Doctor wouldn't let me pick it up, when I wanted to pick it up;and now they've got it, like they've got the Squire. Wood and iron, woodand iron, but eating it's nothing to them. "

"Come!" said Paynter kindly, remembering the man's domestic trouble. "Miss Vane will see you have anything you want, I know. And lookhere, don't brood on all those stories about the Squire. Is there theslightest trace of the trees having anything to do with it? Is thereeven this extra branch the idiots talked about?"

There had been growing on Paynter the suspicion that the man before himwas not perfectly sane; yet he was much more startled by the sudden andcold sanity that looked for an instant out of the woodman's eyes, as heanswered in his ordinary manner. 

"Well, sir, did you count the branches before?"

Then he seemed to relapse; and Paynter left him wandering and waveringin the undergrowth; and entered the wood like one across whose sunnypath a shadow has fallen for an instant. 

Diving under the wood, he was soon threading a leafy path which, evenunder that summer sun, shone only with an emerald twilight, as if itwere on the floor of the sea. It wound about more shakily than he hadsupposed, as if resolved to approach the central trees as if they werethe heart of the maze at Hampton Court. They were the heart of the mazefor him, anyhow; he sought them as straight as a crooked road wouldcarry him; and, turning a final corner, he beheld, for the first time, the foundations of those towers of vegetation he had as yet only seenfrom above, as they stood waist-high in the woodland. He found thesuspicion correct which supposed the tree branched from one greatroot, like a candelabrum; the fork, though stained and slimy with greenfungoids, was quite near the ground, and offered a first foothold. Heput his foot in it, and without a flash of hesitation went aloft, likeJack climbing the Bean stalk. 

Above him the green roof of leaves and boughs seemed sealed like afirmament of foliage; but, by bending and breaking the branches toright and left he slowly forced a passage upward; and had at last, andsuddenly, the sensation coming out on the top of the world. He feltas if he had never been in the open air before. Sea and land lay in acircle below and about him, as he sat astride a branch of the tall tree;he was almost surprised to see the sun still comparatively low in thesky; as if he were looking over a land of eternal sunrise. 

"Silent upon a peak in Darien, " he remarked, in a needlessly loud andcheerful voice; and though the claim, thus expressed, was illogical, itwas not inappropriate. He did feel as if he were a primitive adventurerjust come to the New World, instead of a modern traveler just come fromit. 

"I wonder, " he proceeded, "whether I am really the first that ever burstinto this silent tree. It looks like it. Those--"

He stopped and sat on his branch quite motionless, but his eyes wereturned on a branch a little below it, and they were brilliant with avigilance, like those of a man watching a snake. 

What he was looking at might, at first sight, have been a large whitefungus spreading on the smooth and monstrous trunk; but it was not. 

Leaning down dangerously from his perch, he detached it from the twig onwhich it had caught, and then sat holding it in his hand and gazing atit. It was Squire Vane's white Panama hat, but there was no Squire Vaneunder it. Paynter felt a nameless relief in the very fact that there wasnot. 

There in the clear sunlight and sea air, for an instant, all thetropical terrors of his own idle tale surrounded and suffocated him. Itseemed indeed some demon tree of the swamps; a vegetable serpent thatfed on men. Even the hideous farce in the fancy of digesting a whole manwith the exception of his hat, seemed only to simplify the nightmare. And he found himself gazing dully at one leaf of the tree, whichhappened to be turned toward him, so that the odd markings, whichhad partly made the legend, really looked a little like the eye in apeacock's feather. It was as if the sleeping tree had opened one eyeupon him. 

With a sharp effort he steadied himself in mind and posture on thebough; his reason returned, and he began to descend with the hat in histeeth. When he was back in the underworld of the wood, he studied thehat again and with closer attention. In one place in the crown there wasa hole or rent, which certainly had not been there when it had last lainon the table under the garden tree. He sat down, lit a cigarette, andreflected for a long time. 

A wood, even a small wood, is not an easy thing to search minutely;but he provided himself with some practical tests in the matter. In onesense the very density of the thicket was a help; he could at least seewhere anyone had strayed from the path, by broken and trampled growthsof every kind. After many hours' industry, he had made a sort of new mapof the place; and had decided beyond doubt that some person or personshad so strayed, for some purpose, in several defined directions. Therewas a way burst through the bushes, making a short cut across a loopof the wandering path; there was another forking out from it as analternative way into the central space. But there was one especiallywhich was unique, and which seemed to him, the more he studied it, topoint to some essential of the mystery. 

One of these beaten and broken tracks went from the space under thepeacock trees outward into the wood for about twenty yards and thenstopped. Beyond that point not a twig was broken nor a leaf disturbed. It had no exit, but he could not believe that it had no goal. After somefurther reflection, he knelt down and began to cut away grass and claywith his knife, and was surprised at the ease with which they detachedthemselves. In a few moments a whole section of the soil lifted like alid; it was a round lid and presented a quaint appearance, like a flatcap with green feathers. For though the disc itself was made of wood, there was a layer of earth on it with the live grass still growingthere. And the removal of the round lid revealed a round hole, black asnight and seemingly bottomless. Paynter understood it instantly. It wasrather near the sea for a well to be sunk, but the traveler had knownwells sunk even nearer. He rose to his feet with the great knife in hishand, a frown on his face, and his doubts resolved. He no longer shrankfrom naming what he knew. This was not the first corpse that had beenthrown down a well; here, without stone or epitaph, was the grave ofSquire Vane. In a flash all the mythological follies about saints andpeacocks were forgotten; he was knocked on the head, as with a stoneclub, by the human common sense of crime. 

Cyprian Paynter stood long by the well in the wood, walked round it inmeditation, examined its rim and the ring of grass about it, searchedthe surrounding soil thoroughly, came back and stood beside the wellonce more. His researches and reflections had been so long that he hadnot realized that the day had passed and that the wood and the worldround it were beginning already to be steeped in the enrichment ofevening. The day had been radiantly calm; the sea seemed to be as stillas the well, and the well was as still as a mirror. And then, quitewithout warning, the mirror moved of itself like a living thing. 

In the well, in the wood, the water leapt and gurgled, with a grotesquenoise like something swallowing, and then settled again with a secondsound. Cyprian could not see into the well clearly, for the opening, from where he stood, was an ellipse, a mere slit, and half masked bythistles and rank grass like a green beard. For where he stood now wasthree yards away from the well, and he had not yet himself realizedthat he had sprung back all that distance from the brink when the waterspoke. 

III. THE MYSTERY OF THE WELL

Cyprian Paynter did not know what he expected to see rise out ofthe well--the corpse of the murdered man or merely the spirit of thefountain. Anyhow, neither of them rose out of it, and he recognizedafter an instant that this was, after all, perhaps the more naturalcourse of things. Once more he pulled himself together, walked to theedge of the well and looked down. He saw, as before, a dim glimmer ofwater, at that depth no brighter than ink; he fancied he still hearda faint convulsion and murmur, but it gradually subsided to an utterstillness. Short of suicidally diving in, there was nothing to bedone. He realized that, with all his equipment, he had not even broughtanything like a rope or basket, and at length decided to return forthem. As he retraced his steps to the entrance, he recurred to, and tookstock of, his more solid discoveries. Somebody had gone into the wood, killed the Squire and thrown him down the well, but he did not admit fora moment that it was his friend the poet; but if the latter had actuallybeen seen coming out of the wood the matter was serious. As he walkedthe rapidly darkening twilight was cloven with red gleams, that made himalmost fancy for a moment that some fantastic criminal had set fire tothe tiny forest as he fled. A second glance showed him nothing but oneof those red sunsets in which such serene days sometimes close. 

As he came out of the gloomy gate of trees into the full glow he saw adark figure standing quite still in the dim bracken, on the spot wherehe had left the woodcutter. It was not the woodcutter. 

It was topped by a tall black hat of a funeral type, and the wholefigure stood so black against the field of crimson fire that edged thesky line that he could not for an instant understand or recall it. Whenhe did, it was with an odd change in the whole channel of his thoughts. 

"Doctor Brown!" he cried. "Why, what are you doing up here?"

"I have been talking to poor Martin, " answered the doctor, and madea rather awkward movement with his hand toward the road down to thevillage. Following the gesture, Paynter dimly saw another dark figurewalking down in the blood-red distance. He also saw that the handmotioning was really black, and not merely in shadow; and, comingnearer, found the doctor's dress was really funereal, down to the detailof the dark gloves. It gave the American a small but queer shock, as ifthis were actually an undertaker come up to bury the corpse that couldnot be found. 

"Poor Martin's been looking for his chopper, " observed Doctor Brown, "but I told him I'd picked it up and kept it for him. Between ourselves, I hardly think he's fit to be trusted with it. " Then, seeing the glanceat his black garb, he added: "I've just been to a funeral. Did you knowthere's been another loss? Poor Jake the fisherman's wife, down in thecottage on the shore, you know. This infernal fever, of course. "

As they both turned, facing the red evening light, Paynter instinctivelymade a closer study, not merely of the doctor's clothes, but of thedoctor. Dr. Burton Brown was a tall, alert man, neatly dressed, whowould otherwise have had an almost military air but for his spectaclesand an almost painful intellectualism in his lean brown face and baldbrow. The contrast was clinched by the fact that, while his face was ofthe ascetic type generally conceived as clean-shaven, he had a strip ofdark mustache cut too short for him to bite, and yet a mouth that oftenmoved as if trying to bite it. He might have been a very intelligentarmy surgeon, but he had more the look of an engineer or one of thoseservices that combine a military silence with a more than militaryscience. Paynter had always respected something ruggedly reliable aboutthe man, and after a little hesitation he told him all the discoveries. 

The doctor took the hat of the dead Squire in his hand, and examined itwith frowning care. He put one finger through the hole in the crown andmoved it meditatively. And Paynter realized how fanciful his own fatiguemust have made him; for so silly a thing as the black finger wagglingthrough the rent in that frayed white relic unreasonably displeased him. The doctor soon made the same discovery with professional acuteness, and applied it much further. For when Paynter began to tell him ofthe moving water in the well he looked at him a moment through hisspectacles, and then said:

"Did you have any lunch?"

Paynter for the first time realized that he had, as a fact, worked andthought furiously all day without food. 

"Please don't fancy I mean you had too much lunch, " said the medicalman, with mournful humor. "On the contrary, I mean you had too little. I think you are a bit knocked out, and your nerves exaggerate things. Anyhow, let me advise you not to do any more to-night. There's nothingto be done without ropes or some sort of fishing tackle, if with that;but I think I can get you some of the sort of grappling irons thefishermen use for dragging. Poor Jake's got some, I know; I'll bringthem round to you tomorrow morning. The fact is, I'm staying there fora bit as he's rather in a state, and I think is better for me to ask forthe things and not a stranger. I am sure you'll understand. "

Paynter understood sufficiently to assent, and hardly knew why he stoodvacantly watching the doctor make his way down the steep road to theshore and the fisher's cottage. Then he threw off thoughts he had notexamined, or even consciously entertained, and walked slowly and ratherheavily back to the Vane Arms. 

The doctor, still funereal in manner, though no longer so in costume, appeared punctually under the wooden sign next morning, laden with whathe had promised; an apparatus of hooks and a hanging net for hoistingup anything sunk to a reasonable depth. He was about to proceed on hisprofessional round, and said nothing further to deter the American fromproceeding on his own very unprofessional experiment as a detective. That buoyant amateur had indeed recovered most, if not all, ofyesterday's buoyancy, was now well fitted to pass any medicalexamination, and returned with all his own energy to the scene ofyesterday's labors. 

It may well have brightened and made breezier his second day's toil thathe had not only the sunlight and the bird's singing in the little wood, to say nothing of a more scientific apparatus to work with, but alsohuman companionship, and that of the most intelligent type. Afterleaving the doctor and before leaving the village he had bethoughthimself of seeking the little court or square where stood the quietbrown house of Andrew Ashe, solicitor, and the operations of draggingwere worked in double harness. Two heads were peering over the well inthe wood: one yellow-haired, lean and eager; the other redhaired, heavyand pondering; and if it be true that two heads are better than one, itis truer that four hands are better than two. In any case, their unitedand repeated efforts bore fruit at last, if anything so hard and meagerand forlorn can be called a fruit. It weighed loosely in the net asit was lifted, and rolled out on the grassy edge of the well; it was abone. 

Ashe picked it up and stood with it in his hand, frowning. 

"We want Doctor Brown here, " he said. "This may be the bone of someanimal. Any dog or sheep might fall into a hidden well. " Then he brokeoff, for his companion was already detaching a second bone from the net. 

After another half hour's effort Paynter had occasion to remark, "Itmust have been rather a large dog. " There were already a heap of suchwhite fragments at his feet. 

"I have seen nothing yet, " said Ashe, speaking more plainly. "That iscertainly a human bone. " "I fancy this must be a human bone, " said theAmerican. 

And he turned away a little as he handed the other a skull. 

There was no doubt of what sort of skull; there was the one unique curvethat holds the mystery of reason, and underneath it the two black holesthat had held human eyes. But just above that on the left was anotherand smaller black hole, which was not an eye. 

Then the lawyer said, with something like an effort: "We may admit itis a man without admitting it is--any particular man. There may besomething, after all, in that yarn about the drunkard; he may havetumbled into the well. Under certain conditions, after certain naturalprocesses, I fancy, the bones might be stripped in this way, evenwithout the skill of any assassin. We want the doctor again. "

Then he added suddenly, and the very sound of his voice suggested thathe hardly believed his own words. 

"Haven't you got poor Vane's hat there?"

He took it from the silent American's hand, and with a sort of hurryfitted it on the bony head. 

"Don't!" said the other involuntarily. 

The lawyer had put his finger, as the doctor had done, through the holein the hat, and it lay exactly over the hole in the skull. 

"I have the better right to shrink, " he said steadily, but in a vibrantvoice. "I think I am the older friend. "

Paynter nodded without speech, accepting the final identification. The last doubt, or hope, had departed, and he turned to the draggingapparatus, and did not speak till he had made his last find. 

The singing of the birds seemed to grow louder about them, and the danceof the green summer leaves was repeated beyond in the dance of the greensummer sea. Only the great roots of the mysterious trees could be seen, the rest being far aloft, and all round it was a wood of little, livelyand happy things. They might have been two innocent naturalists, or eventwo children fishing for eels or tittlebats on that summer holiday whenPaynter pulled up something that weighed in the net more heavily thanany bone. It nearly broke the meshes, and fell against a mossy stonewith a clang. 

"Truth lies at the bottom of a well, " cried the American, with lift inhis voice. "The woodman's ax. "

It lay, indeed, flat and gleaming in the grasses by the well in thewood, just as it had lain in the thicket where the woodman threw it inthe beginning of all these things. But on one corner of the bright bladewas a dull brown stain. 

"I see, " said Ashe, "the woodman's ax, and therefore the Woodman. Yourdeductions are rapid. "

"My deductions are reasonable, " said Paynter, "Look here, Mr. Ashe; Iknow what you're thinking. I know you distrust Treherne; but I'msure you will be just for all that. To begin with, surely the firstassumption is that the woodman's ax is used by the Woodman. What haveyou to say to it?"

"I say 'No' to it, " replied the lawyer. "The last weapon a woodman woulduse would be a woodman's ax; that is if he is a sane man. "

"He isn't, " said Paynter quietly; "you said you wanted the doctor'sopinion just now. The doctor's opinion on this point is the same as myown. We both found him meandering about outside there; it's obvious thisbusiness has gone to his head, at any rate. If the murderer were aman of business like yourself, what you say might be sound. But thismurderer is a mystic. He was driven by some fanatical fad about thetrees. It's quite likely he thought there was something solemn andsacrificial about the ax, and would have liked to cut off Vane's headbefore a crowd, like Charles I's. He's looking for the ax still, andprobably thinks it a holy relic. "

"For which reason, " said Ashe, smiling, "he instantly chucked it down awell. "

Paynter laughed. 

"You have me there certainly, " he said. "But I think you have somethingelse in your mind. You'll say, I suppose, that we were all watching thewood; but were we? Frankly, I could almost fancy the peacock trees didstrike me with a sort of sickness--a sleeping sickness. "

"Well, " admitted Ashe, "you have me there too. I'm afraid I couldn'tswear I was awake all the time; but I don't put it down to magictrees--only to a private hobby of going to bed at night. But look here, Mr. Paynter; there's another and better argument against any outsiderfrom the village or countryside having committed the crime. Granted hemight have slipped past us somehow, and gone for the Squire. But whyshould he go for him in the wood? How did he know he was in the wood?You remember how suddenly the poor old boy bolted into it, on what amomentary impulse. It's the last place where one would normally look forsuch a man, in the middle of the night. No, it's an ugly thing to say, but we, the group round that garden table, were the only people whoknew. Which brings me back to the one point in your remarks which Ihappen to think perfectly true. "

"What was that?" inquired the other. 

"That the murderer was a mystic, " said Ashe. "But a cleverer mystic thanpoor old Martin. "

Paynter made a murmur of protest, and then fell silent. 

"Let us talk plainly, " resumed the lawyer. "Treherne had all those madmotives you yourself admit against the woodcutter. He had the knowledgeof Vane's whereabouts, which nobody can possibly attribute to thewoodcutter. But he had much more. Who taunted and goaded the Squire togo into the wood at all? Treherne. Who practically prophesied, like aninfernal quack astrologer, that something would happen to him if he didgo into the wood? Treherne. Who was, for some reason, no matter what, obviously burning with rage and restlessness all that night, kickinghis legs impatiently to and fro on the cliff, and breaking out with wildwords about it being all over soon? Treherne. And on top of all this, when I walked closer to the wood, whom did I see slip out of it swiftlyand silently like a shadow, but turning his face once to the moon? On myoath and on my honor--Treherne. "

"It is awful, " said Paynter, like a man stunned. "What you say is simplyawful. "

"Yes, " said Ashe seriously, "very awful, but very simple. Treherne knewwhere the ax was originally thrown. I saw him, on that day he lunchedhere first, watching it like a wolf, while Miss Vane was talking to him. On that dreadful night he could easily have picked it up as he went intothe wood. He knew about the well, no doubt; who was so likely to knowany old traditions about the peacock trees? He hid the hat in the trees, where perhaps he hoped (though the point is unimportant) that nobodywould dare to look. Anyhow, he hid it, simply because it was the onething that would not sink in the well. Mr. Paynter, do you think I wouldsay this of any man in mere mean dislike? Could any man say it of anyman unless the case was complete, as this is complete?"

"It is complete, " said Paynter, very pale. "I have nothing left againstit but a faint, irrational feeling; a feeling that, somehow or other, ifpoor Vane could stand alive before us at this moment he might tell someother and even more incredible tale. "

Ashe made a mournful gesture. 

"Can these dry bones live?" he said. 

"Lord Thou knowest, " answered the other mechanically. "Even these drybones--"

And he stopped suddenly with his mouth open, a blinding light of wonderin his pale eyes. 

"See here, " he said hoarsely and hastily. "You have said the word. Whatdoes it mean? What can it mean? Dry? Why are these bones dry?"

The lawyer started and stared down at the heap. 

"Your case complete!" cried Paynter, in mounting excitement. "Where isthe water in the well? The water I saw leap like a flame? Why did itleap? Where is it gone to? Complete! We are buried under riddles. "

Ashe stooped, picked up a bone and looked at it. 

"You are right, " he said, in a low and shaken voice: "this bone is asdry--as a bone. "

"Yes, I am right, " replied Cyprian. "And your mystic is still asmysterious as a mystic. "

There was a long silence. Ashe laid down the bone, picked up the axand studied it more closely. Beyond the dull stain at the corner of thesteel there was nothing unusual about it save a broad white rag wrappedround the handle, perhaps to give a better grip. The lawyer thought itworth noting, however, that the rag was certainly newer and cleaner thanthe chopper. But both were quite dry. 

"Mr. Paynter, " he said at last, "I admit you have scored, in the spiritif not in the letter. In strict logic, this greater puzzle is not areply to my case. If this ax has not been dipped in water, it hasbeen dipped in blood; and the water jumping out of the well is notan explanation of the poet jumping out of the wood. But I admit thatmorally and practically it does make a vital difference. We are notfaced with a colossal contradiction, and we don't know how far itextends. The body might have been broken up or boiled down to its bonesby the murderer, though it may be hard to connect it with the conditionsof the murder. It might conceivably have been so reduced by someproperty in the water and soil, for decomposition varies vastly withthese things. I should not dismiss my strong prima facie case againstthe likely person because of these difficulties. But here we havesomething entirely different. That the bones themselves should remaindry in a well full of water, or a well that yesterday was full ofwater--that brings us to the edge of something beyond which we can makeno guess. There is a new factor, enormous and quite unknown. While wecan't fit together such prodigious facts, we can't fit together a caseagainst Treherne or against anybody. No; there is only one thing to bedone now. Since we can't accuse Treherne, we must appeal to him. Wemust put the case against him frankly before him, and trust he has anexplanation--and will give it. I suggest we go back and do it now. "

Paynter, beginning to follow, hesitated a moment, and then said:"Forgive me for a kind of liberty; as you say, you are an older friendof the family. I entirely agree with your suggestion, but before you acton your present suspicions, do you know, I think Miss Vane ought to bewarned a little? I rather fear all this will be a new shock to her. "

"Very well, " said Ashe, after looking at him steadily for an instant. "Let us go across to her first. "

From the opening of the wood they could see Barbara Vane writing at thegarden table, which was littered with correspondence, and the butlerwith his yellow face waiting behind her chair. As the lengths of grasslessened between them, and the little group at the table grew larger andclearer in the sunlight, Paynter had a painful sense of being part of anembassy of doom. It sharpened when the girl looked up from the table andsmiled on seeing them. 

"I should like to speak to you rather particularly if I may, " said thelawyer, with a touch of authority in his respect; and when the butlerwas dismissed he laid open the whole matter before her, speakingsympathetically, but leaving out nothing, from the strange escape of thepoet from the wood to the last detail of the dry bones out of the well. No fault could be found with any one of his tones or phrases, and yetCyprian, tingling in every nerve with the fine delicacy of his nationabout the other sex, felt as if she were faced with an inquisitor. Hestood about uneasily, watched the few colored clouds in the clear skyand the bright birds darting about the wood, and he heartily wishedhimself up the tree again. 

Soon, however, the way the girl took it began to move him to perplexityrather than pity. It was like nothing he had expected, and yet hecould not name the shade of difference. The final identification of herfather's skull, by the hole in the hat, turned her a little pale, butleft her composed; this was, perhaps, explicable, since she had from thefirst taken the pessimistic view. But during the rest of the tale thererested on her broad brows under her copper coils of hair, a broodingspirit that was itself a mystery. He could only tell himself that shewas less merely receptive, either firmly or weakly, than he would haveexpected. It was as if she revolved, not their problem, but her own. Shewas silent a long time, and said at last:

"Thank you, Mr. Ashe, I am really very grateful for this. After all, itbrings things to the point where they must have come sooner or later. "She looked dreamily at the wood and sea, and went on: "I've not only hadmyself to consider, you see; but if you're really thinking THAT, it's time I spoke out, without asking anybody. You say, as if it weresomething very dreadful, 'Mr. Treherne was in the wood that night. 'Well, it's not quite so dreadful to me, you see, because I know he was. In fact, we were there together. "

"Together!" repeated the lawyer. 

"We were together, " she said quietly, "because we had a right to betogether. "

"Do you mean, " stammered Ashe, surprised out of himself, "that you wereengaged?"

"No, no, " she said. "We were married. "

Then, amid a startled silence, she added, as a kind of afterthought:

"In fact, we are still. "

Strong as was his composure, the lawyer sat back in his chair with asort of solid stupefaction at which Paynter could not help smiling. 

"You will ask me, of course, " went on Barbara in the same measuredmanner, "why we should be married secretly, so that even my poor fatherdid not know. Well, I answer you quite frankly to begin with; because, if he had known, he would certainly have cut me off with a shilling. Hedid not like my husband, and I rather fancy you do not like him either. And when I tell you this, I know perfectly well what you will say--theusual adventurer getting hold of the usual heiress. It is quitereasonable, and, as it happens, it is quite wrong. If I had deceivedmy father for the sake of the money, or even for the sake of a man, Ishould be a little ashamed to talk to you about it. And I think you cansee that I am not ashamed. "

"Yes, " said the American, with a grave inclination, "yes, I can seethat. "

She looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, as if seeking words for anobscure matter, and then said:

"Do you remember, Mr. Paynter, that day you first lunched here and toldus about the African trees? Well, it was my birthday; I mean my firstbirthday. I was born then, or woke up or something. I had walked inthis garden like a somnambulist in the sun. I think there are many suchsomnambulists in our set and our society; stunned with health, druggedwith good manners, fitting their surroundings too well to be alive. Well, I came alive somehow; and you know how deep in us are the thingswe first realize when we were babies and began to take notice. I beganto take notice. One of the first things I noticed was your own story, Mr. Paynter. I feel as if I heard of St. Securis as children hear ofSanta Claus, and as if that big tree were a bogey I still believed in. For I do still believe in such things, or rather I believe in themmore and more; I feel certain my poor father drove on the rocks bydisbelieving, and you are all racing to ruin after him. That is why Ido honestly want the estate, and that is why I am not ashamed of wantingit. I am perfectly certain, Mr. Paynter, that nobody can save thisperishing land and this perishing people but those who understand. Imean who understand a thousand little signs and guides in the very soiland lie of the land, and traces that are almost trampled out. My husbandunderstands, and I have begun to understand; my father would never haveunderstood. There are powers, there is the spirit of a place, there arepresences that are not to be put by. Oh, don't fancy I am sentimentaland hanker after the good old days. The old days were not all good; thatis just the point, and we must understand enough to know the good fromthe evil. We must understand enough to save the traces of a saint or asacred tradition, or, where a wicked god has been worshiped, to destroyhis altar and to cut down his grove. "

"His grove, " said Paynter automatically, and looked toward the littlewood, where the sunbright birds were flying. 

"Mrs. Treherne, " said Ashe, with a formidable quietness, "I am not sounsympathetic with all this as you may perhaps suppose. I will not evensay it is all moonshine, for it is something better. It is, if I may sayso, honeymoonshine. I will never deny the saying that it makes the worldgo round, if it makes people's heads go round too. But there are othersentiments, madam, and other duties. I need not tell you your father wasa good man, and that what has befallen him would be pitiable, even asthe fate of the wicked. This is a horrible thing, and it is chieflyamong horrors that we must keep our common sense. There are reasons foreverything, and when my old friend lies butchered do not come to mewith even the most beautiful fairy tales about a saint and his enchantedgrove. "

"Well, and you!" she cried, and rose radiantly and swiftly. "With whatkind of fairy tales do you come to me? In what enchanted groves are YOUwalking? You come and tell me that Mr. Paynter found a well wherethe water danced and then disappeared; but of course miracles are allmoonshine! You tell me you yourself fished bones from under the samewater, and every bone was as dry as a biscuit; but for Heaven's sake letus say nothing that makes anybody's head go round! Really, Mr. Ashe, youmust try to preserve your common sense!"

She was smiling, but with blazing eyes; and Ashe got to his feet with aninvoluntary laugh of surrender. 

"Well, we must be going, " he said. "May I say that a tribute is reallydue to your new transcendental training? If I may say so, I always knewyou had brains; and you've been learning to use them. "

The two amateur detectives went back to the wood for the moment, thatAshe might consider the removal of the unhappy Squire's remains. As hepointed out, it was now legally possible to have an inquest, and, evenat that early stage of investigations, he was in favor of having it atonce. 

"I shall be the coroner, " he said, "and I think it will be a case of'some person or persons unknown. ' Don't be surprised; it is often doneto give the guilty a false security. This is not the first time thepolice have found it convenient to have the inquest first and theinquiry afterward. "

But Paynter had paid little attention to the point; for his great giftof enthusiasm, long wasted on arts and affectations, was lifted toinspiration by the romance of real life into which he had just walked. He was really a great critic; he had a genius for admiration, and hisadmiration varied fittingly with everything he admired. 

"A splendid girl and a splendid story, " he cried. "I feel as if I werein love again myself, not so much with her as with Eve or Helen of Troy, or some such tower of beauty in the morning of the world. Don't you loveall heroic things, that gravity and great candor, and the way she tookone step from a sort of throne to stand in a wilderness with a vagabond?Oh, believe me, it is she who is the poet; she has the higher reason, and honor and valor are at rest in her soul. "

"In short, she is uncommonly pretty, " replied Ashe, with some cynicism. "I knew a murderess rather well who was very much like her, and had justthat colored hair. "

"You talk as if a murderer could be caught red-haired instead ofred-handed, " retorted Paynter. "Why, at this very minute, you could becaught red-haired yourself. Are you a murderer, by any chance?"

Ashe looked up quickly, and then smiled. 

"I'm afraid I'm a connoisseur in murderers, as you are in poets, " heanswered, "and I assure you they are of all colors in hair as wellas temperament. I suppose it's inhumane, but mine is a monstrouslyinteresting trade, even in a little place like this. As for that girl, of course I've known her all her life, and--but--but that is just thequestion. Have I known her all her life? Have I known her at all? Wasshe even there to be known? You admire her for telling the truth; and soshe did, by God, when she said that some people wake up late, who havenever lived before. Do we know what they might do--we, who have onlyseen them asleep?"

"Great heavens!" cried Paynter. "You don't dare suggest that she--"

"No, I don't, " said the lawyer, with composure, "but there are otherreasons. .. . I don't suggest anything fully, till we've had our interviewwith this poet of yours. I think I know where to find him. "

They found him, in fact, before they expected him, sitting on the benchoutside the Vane Arms, drinking a mug of cider and waiting forthe return of his American friend; so it was not difficult to openconversation with him. Nor did he in any way avoid the subject of thetragedy; and the lawyer, seating himself also on the long bench thatfronted the little market place, was soon putting the last developmentsas lucidly as he had put them to Barbara. 

"Well, " said Treherne at last, leaning back and frowning at thesignboard, with the colored birds and dolphins, just about his head;"suppose somebody did kill the Squire. He'd killed a good many peoplewith his hygiene and his enlightened landlordism. "

Paynter was considerably uneasy at this alarming opening; but the poetwent on quite coolly, with his hands in his pockets and his feet thrustout into the street. 

"When a man has the power of a Sultan in Turkey, and uses it with theideas of a spinster in Tooting, I often wonder that nobody puts a knifein him. I wish there were more sympathy for murderers, somehow. I'm verysorry the poor old fellow's gone myself; but you gentlemen always seemto forget there are any other people in the world. He's all right;he was a good fellow, and his soul, I fancy, has gone to the happiestparadise of all. "

The anxious American could read nothing of the effect of this in thedark Napoleonic face of the lawyer, who merely said: "What do you mean?"

"The fool's paradise, " said Treherne, and drained his pot of cider. 

The lawyer rose. He did not look at Treherne, or speak to him; butlooked and spoke straight across him to the American, who found theutterance not a little unexpected. 

"Mr. Paynter, " said Ashe, "you thought it rather morbid of me to collectmurderers; but it's fortunate for your own view of the case that Ido. It may surprise you to know that Mr. Treherne has now, in my eyes, entirely cleared himself of suspicion. I have been intimate with severalassassins, as I remarked; but there's one thing none of them ever did. Inever knew a murderer to talk about the murder, and then at once denyit and defend it. No, if a man is concealing his crime, why should he goout of his way to apologize for it?"

"Well, " said Paynter, with his ready appreciation, "I always said youwere a remarkable man; and that's certainly a remarkable idea. "

"Do I understand, " asked the poet, kicking his heels on the cobbles, "that both you gentlemen have been kindly directing me toward thegallows?"

"No, " said Paynter thoughtfully. "I never thought you guilty; and evensupposing I had, if you understand me, I should never have thought itquite so guilty to be guilty. It would not have been for money or anymean thing, but for something a little wilder and worthier of a man ofgenius. After all, I suppose, the poet has passions like great unearthlyappetites; and the world has always judged more gently of his sins. But now that Mr. Ashe admits your innocence, I can honestly say I havealways affirmed it. "

The poet rose also. "Well, I am innocent, oddly enough, " he said. "Ithink I can make a guess about your vanishing well, but of the death anddry bones I know no more than the dead; if so much. And, by the way, mydear Paynter"--and he turned two bright eyes on the art critic--"I willexcuse you from excusing me for all the things I haven't done; andyou, I hope, will excuse me if I differ from you altogether about themorality of poets. As you suggest, it is a fashionable view, but Ithink it is a fallacy. No man has less right to be lawless than a man ofimagination. For he has spiritual adventures, and can take his holidayswhen he likes. I could picture the poor Squire carried off to elflandwhenever I wanted him carried off, and that wood needed no crime to makeit wicked for me. That red sunset the other night was all that a murderwould have been to many men. No, Mr. Ashe; show, when next you sitin judgment, a little mercy to some wretched man who drinks and robsbecause he must drink beer to taste it, and take it to drink it. Havecompassion on the next batch of poor thieves, who have to hold things inorder to have them. But if ever you find ME stealing one small farthing, when I can shut my eyes and see the city of El Dorado, then"--and helifted his head like a falcon--"show me no mercy, for I shall deservenone. "

"Well, " remarked Ashe, after a pause, "I must go and fix things up forthe inquest. Mr. Treherne, your attitude is singularly interesting; Ireally almost wish I could add you to my collection of murderers. Theyare a varied and extraordinary set. "

"Has it ever occurred to you, " asked Paynter, "that perhaps the men whohave never committed murder are a varied and very extraordinary set?Perhaps every plain man's life holds the real mystery, the secret ofsins avoided. "

"Possibly, " replied Ashe. "It would be a long business to stop the nextman in the street and ask him what crimes he never committed and whynot. And I happen to be busy, so you'll excuse me. "

"What, " asked the American, when he and the poet were alone, "is thisguess of yours about the vanishing water?"

"Well, I'm not sure I'll tell you yet, " answered Treherne, somethingof the old mischief coming back into his dark eyes. "But I'll tell yousomething else, which may be connected with it; something I couldn'ttell until my wife had told you about our meeting in the wood. " His facehad grown grave again, and he resumed after a pause:

"When my wife started to follow her father I advised her to go backfirst to the house, to leave it by another door and to meet me in thewood in half an hour. We often made these assignations, of course, and generally thought them great fun, but this time the question wasserious, and I didn't want the wrong thing done in a hurry. It was aquestion whether anything could be done to undo an experiment weboth vaguely felt to be dangerous, and she especially thought, afterreflection, that interference would make things worse. She thought theold sportsman, having been dared to do something, would certainly notbe dissuaded by the very man who had dared him or by a woman whom heregarded as a child. She left me at last in a sort of despair, but Ilingered with a last hope of doing something, and drew doubtfully nearto the heart of the wood; and there, instead of the silence I expected, I heard a voice. It seemed as if the Squire must be talking to himself, and I had the unpleasant fancy that he had already lost his reason inthat wood of witchcraft. But I soon found that if he was talking he wastalking with two voices. Other fancies attacked me, as that the otherwas the voice of the tree or the voices of the three trees talkingtogether, and with no man near. But it was not the voice of the tree. The next moment I knew the voice, for I had heard it twenty times acrossthe table. It was the voice of that doctor of yours; I heard it ascertainly as you hear my voice now. "

After a moment's silence, he resumed: "I left the wood, I hardly knewwhy, and with wild and bewildered feelings; and as I came out into thefaint moonshine I saw that old lawyer standing quietly, but staring atme like an owl. At least, the light touched his red hair with fire, buthis square old face was in shadow. But I knew, if I could have read it, that it was the face of a hanging judge. "

He threw himself on the bench again, smiled a little, and added: "Only, like a good many hanging judges, I fancy, he was waiting patiently tohang the wrong man. "

"And the right man--" said Paynter mechanically. Treherne shrugged hisshoulders, sprawling on the ale bench, and played with his empty pot. 

IV. THE CHASE AFTER THE TRUTH

Some time after the inquest, which had ended in the inconclusive verdictwhich Mr. Andrew Ashe had himself predicted and achieved, Paynter wasagain sitting on the bench outside the village inn, having on the littletable in front of it a tall glass of light ale, which he enjoyed muchmore as local color than as liquor. He had but one companion on thebench, and that a new one, for the little market place was empty atthat hour, and he had lately, for the rest, been much alone. He wasnot unhappy, for he resembled his great countryman, Walt Whitman, incarrying a kind of universe with him like an open umbrella; but he wasnot only alone, but lonely. For Ashe had gone abruptly up to London, and since his return had been occupied obscurely with legal matters, doubtless bearing on the murder. And Treherne had long since taken uphis position openly, at the great house, as the husband of the greatlady, and he and she were occupied with sweeping reforms on the estate. The lady especially, being of the sort whose very dreams "drive atpractice, " was landscape gardening as with the gestures of a giantess. It was natural, therefore, that so sociable a spirit as Paynter shouldfall into speech with the one other stranger who happened to be stayingat the inn, evidently a bird of passage like himself. This man, who wassmoking a pipe on the bench beside him, with his knapsack before him onthe table, was an artist come to sketch on that romantic coast; a tallman in a velvet jacket, with a shock of tow-colored hair, a long fairbeard, but eyes of dark brown, the effect of which contrast remindedPaynter vaguely, he hardly knew why, of a Russian. The stranger carriedhis knapsack into many picturesque corners; he obtained permission toset up his easel in that high garden where the late Squire had held hisal fresco banquets. But Paynter had never had an opportunity of judgingof the artist's work, nor did he find it easy to get the artist even totalk of his art. Cyprian himself was always ready to talk of any art, and he talked of it excellently, but with little response. He gave hisown reasons for preferring the Cubists to the cult of Picasso, but hisnew friend seemed to have but a faint interest in either. He insinuatedthat perhaps the Neo-Primitives were after all only thinning their line, while the true Primitives were rather tightening it; but the strangerseemed to receive the insinuation without any marked reaction offeeling. When Paynter had even gone back as far into the past as thePost-Impressionists to find a common ground, and not found it, othermemories began to creep back into his mind. He was just reflecting, rather darkly, that after all the tale of the peacock trees needed amysterious stranger to round it off, and this man had much the air ofbeing one, when the mysterious stranger himself said suddenly:

"Well, I think I'd better show you the work I'm doing down here. "

He had his knapsack before him on the table, and he smiled rather grimlyas he began to unstrap it. Paynter looked on with polite expressions ofinterest, but was considerably surprised when the artist unpacked andplaced on the table, not any recognizable works of art, even of the mostCubist description, but (first) a quire of foolscap closely writtenwith notes in black and red ink, and (second), to the American's extremeamazement, the old woodman's ax with the linen wrapper, which he hadhimself found in the well long ago. 

"Sorry to give you a start, sir, " said the Russian artist, with amarked London accent. "But I'd better explain straight off that I'm apoliceman. "

"You don't look it, " said Paynter. 

"I'm not supposed to, " replied the other. "Mr. Ashe brought me down herefrom the Yard to investigate; but he told me to report to you when I'dgot anything to go on. Would you like to go into the matter now?

"When I took this matter up, " explained the detective, "I did it at Mr. Ashe's request, and largely, of course, on Mr. Ashe's lines. Mr. Asheis a great criminal lawyer; with a beautiful brain, sir, as full as theNewgate Calendar. I took, as a working notion, his view that only youfive gentlemen round the table in the Squire's garden were acquaintedwith the Squire's movements. But you gentlemen, if I may say so, havea way of forgetting certain other things and other people which we arerather taught to look for first. And as I followed Mr. Ashe's inquiriesthrough the stages you know already, through certain suspicions Ineedn't discuss because they've been dropped, I found the thing shapingafter all toward something, in the end, which I think we should haveconsidered at the beginning. Now, to begin with, it is not true thatthere were five men round the table. There were six. "

The creepy conditions of that garden vigil vaguely returned uponPaynter; and he thought of a ghost, or something more nameless than aghost. But the deliberate speech of the detective soon enlightened him. 

"There were six men and five gentlemen, if you like to put it so, " heproceeded. "That man Miles, the butler, saw the Squire vanish as plainlyas you did; and I soon found that Miles was a man worthy of a good dealof attention. "

A light of understanding dawned on Paynter's face. "So that was it, wasit!" he muttered. 

"Does all our mythological mystery end with a policeman collaring abutler? Well, I agree with you he is far from an ordinary butler, evento look at; and the fault in imagination is mine. Like many faults inimagination, it was simply snobbishness. "

"We don't go quite so fast as that, " observed the officer, in animpassive manner. "I only said I found the inquiry pointing to Miles;and that he was well worthy of attention. He was much more in the oldSquire's confidence than many people supposed; and when I cross-examinedhim he told me a good deal that was worth knowing. I've got it all downin these notes here; but at the moment I'll only trouble you withone detail of it. One night this butler was just outside the Squire'sdining-room door, when he heard the noise of a violent quarrel. TheSquire was a violent gentleman, from time to time; but the curious thingabout this scene was that the other gentleman was the more violent ofthe two. Miles heard him say repeatedly that the Squire was a publicnuisance, and that his death would be a good riddance for everybody. Ionly stop now to tell you that the other gentleman was Dr. Burton Brown, the medical man of this village. 

"The next examination I made was that of Martin, the woodcutter. Uponone point at least his evidence is quite clear, and is, as you willsee, largely confirmed by other witnesses. He says first that the doctorprevented him from recovering his ax, and this is corroborated by Mr. And Mrs. Treherne. But he says further that the doctor admitted havingthe thing himself; and this again finds support in other evidence by thegardener, who saw the doctor, some time afterward, come by himself andpick up the chopper. Martin says that Doctor Brown repeatedly refused togive it up, alleging some fanciful excuse every time. And, finally, Mr. Paynter, we will hear the evidence of the ax itself. "

He laid the woodman's tool on the table in front of him, and began torip up and unwrap the curious linen covering round the handle. 

"You will admit this is an odd bandage, " he said. "And that's just theodd thing about it, that it really is a bandage. This white stuff is thesort of lint they use in hospitals, cut into strips like this. But mostdoctors keep some; and I have the evidence of Jake the fisherman, withwhom Doctor Brown lived for some time, that the doctor had this usefulhabit. And, last, " he added, flattening out a corner of the rag on thetable, "isn't it odd that it should be marked T. B. B. ?"

The American gazed at the rudely inked initials, but hardly saw them. What he saw, as in a mirror in his darkened memory, was the black figurewith the black gloves against the blood-red sunset, as he had seen itwhen he came out of the wood, and which had always haunted him, he knewnot why. 

"Of course, I see what you mean, " he said, "and it's very painful forme, for I knew and respected the man. But surely, also, it's very farfrom explaining everything. If he is a murderer, is he a magician? Whydid the well water all evaporate in a night, and leave the dead man'sbones dry as dust? That's not a common operation in the hospitals, isit?"

"As to the water, we do know the explanation, " said the detective. "Ididn't tumble to it at first myself, being a Cockney; but a little talkwith Jake and the other fisherman about the old smuggling days put mestraight about that. But I admit the dried remains still stump us all. All the same--"

A shadow fell across the table, and his talk was sharply cut short. Ashewas standing under the painted sign, buttoned up grimly in black, andwith the face of the hanging judge, of which the poet had spoken, plainthis time in the broad sunlight. Behind him stood two big men in plainclothes, very still; but Paynter knew instantly who they were. 

"We must move at once, " said the lawyer. "Dr. Burton Brown is leavingthe village. "

The tall detective sprang to his feet, and Paynter instinctivelyimitated him. 

"He has gone up to the Trehernes possibly to say good-by, " went on Asherapidly. "I'm sorry, but we must arrest him in the garden there, if necessary. I've kept the lady out of the way, I think. Butyou"--addressing the factitious landscape painter--"must go up at onceand rig up that easel of yours near the table and be ready. We willfollow quietly, and come up behind the tree. We must be careful, forit's clear he's got wind of us, or he wouldn't be doing a bolt. "

"I don't like this job, " remarked Paynter, as they mounted toward thepark and garden, the detective darting on ahead. 

"Do you suppose I do?" asked Ashe; and, indeed, his strong, heavy facelooked so lined and old that the red hair seemed unnatural, like a redwig. "I've known him longer than you, though perhaps I've suspected himlonger as well. "

When they topped the slope of the garden the detective had alreadyerected his easel, though a strong breeze blowing toward the sea rattledand flapped his apparatus and blew about his fair (and false) beardin the wind. Little clouds curled like feathers, were scudding seawardacross the many-colored landscape, which the American art critic hadonce surveyed on a happier morning; but it is doubtful if the landscapepainter paid much attention to it. Treherne was dimly discernible in thedoorway of what was now his house; he would come no nearer, for hehated such a public duty more bitterly than the rest. The others postedthemselves a little way behind the tree. Between the lines of thesemasked batteries the black figure of the doctor could be seen comingacross the green lawn, traveling straight, as a bullet, as he had donewhen he brought the bad news to the woodcutter. To-day he was smiling, under the dark mustache that was cut short of the upper lip, thoughthey fancied him a little pale, and he seemed to pause a moment and peerthrough his spectacles at the artist. 

The artist turned from his easel with a natural movement, and then in aflash had captured the doctor by the coat collar. 

"I arrest you--" he began; but Doctor Brown plucked himself free withstartling promptitude, took a flying leap at the other, tore off hissham beard, tossing it into the air like one of the wild wisps of thecloud; then, with one wild kick, sent the easel flying topsy-turvy, andfled like a hare for the shore. Even at that dazzling instant Paynterfelt that this wild reception was a novelty and almost an anticlimax;but he had no time for analysis when he and the whole pack had to followin the hunt; even Treherne bringing up the rear with a renewed curiosityand energy. 

The fugitive collided with one of the policemen who ran to head himoff, sending him sprawling down the slope; indeed, the fugitive seemedinspired with the strength of a wild ape. He cleared at a bound therampart of flowers, over which Barbara had once leaned to look at herfuture lover, and tumbled with blinding speed down the steep path upwhich that troubadour had climbed. Racing with the rushing wind they allstreamed across the garden after him, down the path, and finally on tothe seashore by the fisher's cot, and the pierced crags and caverns theAmerican had admired when he first landed. The runaway did not, however, make for the house he had long inhabited, but rather for the pier, as ifwith a mind to seize the boat or to swim. Only when he reached the otherend of the small stone jetty did he turn, and show them the pale facewith the spectacles; and they saw that it was still smiling. 

"I'm rather glad of this, " said Treherne, with a great sigh. "The man ismad. "

Nevertheless, the naturalness of the doctor's voice, when he spoke, startled them as much as a shriek. 

"Gentleman, " he said, "I won't protract your painful duties by askingyou what you want; but I will ask at once for a small favor, which willnot prejudice those duties in any way. I came down here rather ina hurry perhaps; but the truth is I thought I was late for anappointment. " He looked dispassionately at his watch. "I find there isstill some fifteen minutes. Will you wait with me here for that shorttime; after which I am quite at your service. "

There was a bewildered silence, and then Paynter said: "For my part, Ifeel as if it would really be better to humor him. "

"Ashe, " said the doctor, with a new note of seriousness, "for oldfriendship, grant me this last little indulgence. It will make nodifference; I have no arms or means of escape; you can search me if youlike. I know you think you are doing right, and I also know you will doit as fairly as you can. Well, after all, you get friends to help you;look at our friend with the beard, or the remains of the beard. Whyshouldn't I have a friend to help me? A man will be here in a fewminutes in whom I put some confidence; a great authority on thesethings. Why not, if only out of curiosity, wait and hear his view of thecase?"

"This seems all moonshine, " said Ashe, "but on the chance of any lighton things--well, from the moon--I don't mind waiting a quarter of anhour. Who is this friend, I wonder; some amateur detective, I suppose. "

"I thank you, " said the doctor, with some dignity. "I think you willtrust him when you have talked to him a little. And now, " he added withan air of amiably relaxing into lighter matters, "let us talk about themurder. 

"This case, " he said in a detached manner, "will be found, I suspect, to be rather unique. There is a very clear and conclusive combination ofevidence against Thomas Burton Brown, otherwise myself. But there is onepeculiarity about that evidence, which you may perhaps have noticed. It all comes ultimately from one source, and that a rather unusual one. Thus, the woodcutter says I had his ax, but what makes him think so? Hesays I told him I had his ax; that I told him so again and again. Oncemore, Mr. Paynter here pulled up the ax out of the well; but how? Ithink Mr. Paynter will testify that I brought him the tackle for fishingit up, tackle he might never have got in any other way. Curious, isit not? Again, the ax is found to be wrapped in lint that was in mypossession, according to the fisherman. But who showed the lint to thefisherman? I did. Who marked it with large letters as mine? I did. Whowrapped it round the handle at all? I did. Rather a singular thing todo; has anyone ever explained it?"

His words, which had been heard at first with painful coldness werebeginning to hold more and more of their attention. 

"Then there is the well itself, " proceeded the doctor, with the same airof insane calm. "I suppose some of you by this time know at least thesecret of that. The secret of the well is simply that it is not a well. It is purposely shaped at the top so as to look like one, but it isreally a sort of chimney opening from the roof of one of those cavesover there; a cave that runs inland just under the wood, and indeed ISconnected by tunnels and secret passages with other openings miles andmiles away. It is a sort of labyrinth used by smugglers and such peoplefor ages past. This doubtless explains many of those disappearances wehave heard of. But to return to the well that is not a well, in casesome of you still don't know about it. When the sea rises very high atcertain seasons it fills the low cave, and even rises a little way inthe funnel above, making it look more like a well than ever. The noiseMr. Paynter heard was the natural eddy of a breaker from outside, andthe whole experience depended on something so elementary as the tide. "

The American was startled into ordinary speech. 

"The tide!" he said. "And I never even thought of it! I guess that comesof living by the Mediterranean. "

"The next step will be obvious enough, " continued the speaker, "to alogical mind like that of Mr. Ashe, for instance. If it be asked why, even so, the tide did not wash away the Squire's remains that had lainthere since his disappearance, there is only one possible answer. Theremains had NOT lain there since his disappearance. The remains had beendeliberately put there in the cavern under the wood, and put there AFTERMr. Paynter had made his first investigation. They were put there, inshort, after the sea had retreated and the cave was again dry. That iswhy they were dry; of course, much drier than the cave. Who put themthere, I wonder?"

He was gazing gravely through his spectacles over their heads intovacancy, and suddenly he smiled. 

"Ah, " he cried, jumping up from the rock with alacrity, "here is theamateur detective at last!"

Ashe turned his head over his shoulder, and for a few seconds did notmove it again, but stood as if with a stiff neck. In the cliff justbehind him was one of the clefts or cracks into which it was everywherecloven. Advancing from this into the sunshine, as if from a narrow door, was Squire Vane, with a broad smile on his face. 

The wind was tearing from the top of the high cliff out to sea, passingover their heads, and they had the sensation that everything was passingover their heads and out of their control. Paynter felt as if his headhad been blown off like a hat. But none of this gale of unreason seemedto stir a hair on the white head of the Squire, whose bearing, thoughself-important and bordering on a swagger, seemed if anything morecomfortable than in the old days. His red face was, however, burnt likea sailor's, and his light clothes had a foreign look. 

"Well, gentlemen, " he said genially, "so this is the end of the legendof the peacock trees. Sorry to spoil that delightful traveler's tale, Mr. Paynter, but the joke couldn't be kept up forever. Sorry to put astop to your best poem, Mr. Treherne, but I thought all this poetry hadbeen going a little too far. So Doctor Brown and I fixed up a littlesurprise for you. And I must say, without vanity, that you look a littlesurprised. "

"What on earth, " asked Ashe at last, "is the meaning of all this?"

The Squire laughed pleasantly, and even a little apologetically, "I'm afraid I'm fond of practical jokes, " he said, "and this I supposeis my last grand practical joke. But I want you to understand that thejoke is really practical. I flatter myself it will be of very practicaluse to the cause of progress and common sense, and the killing of suchsuperstitions everywhere. The best part of it, I admit, was the doctor'sidea and not mine. All I meant to do was to pass a night in the trees, and then turn up as fresh as paint to tell you what fools you were. ButDoctor Brown here followed me into the wood, and we had a little talkwhich rather changed my plans. He told me that a disappearance for a fewhours like that would never knock the nonsense on the head; most peoplewould never even hear of it, and those who did would say that one nightproved nothing. He showed me a much better way, which had been tried inseveral cases where bogus miracles had been shown up. The thing to dowas to get the thing really believed everywhere as a miracle, and thenshown up everywhere as a sham miracle. I can't put all the arguments aswell as he did, but that was the notion, I think. "

The doctor nodded, gazing silently at the sand; and the Squire resumedwith undiminished relish. 

"We agreed that I should drop through the hole into the cave, and makemy way through the tunnels, where I often used to play as a boy, tothe railway station a few miles from here, and there take a trainfor London. It was necessary for the joke, of course, that I shoulddisappear without being traced; so I made my way to a port, and put ina very pleasant month or two round my old haunts in Cyprus and theMediterranean. There's no more to say of that part of the business, except that I arranged to be back by a particular time; and here I am. But I've heard enough of what's gone on round here to be satisfied thatI've done the trick. Everybody in Cornwall and most people in SouthEngland have heard of the Vanishing Squire; and thousands of noodleshave been nodding their heads over crystals and tarot cards at thismarvelous proof of an unseen world. I reckon the Reappearing Squire willscatter their cards and smash their crystals, so that such rubbish won'tappear again in the twentieth century. I'll make the peacock trees thelaughing stock of all Europe and America. "

"Well, " said the lawyer, who was the first to rearrange his wits, "I'msure we're all only too delighted to see you again, Squire; and I quiteunderstand your explanation and your own very natural motives in thematter. But I'm afraid I haven't got the hang of everything yet. Grantedthat you wanted to vanish, was it necessary to put bogus bones in thecave, so as nearly to put a halter round the neck of Doctor Brown? Andwho put it there? The statement would appear perfectly maniacal; but sofar as I can make head or tail out of anything, Doctor Brown seems tohave put it there himself. "

The doctor lifted his head for the first time. 

"Yes; I put the bones there, " he said. "I believe I am the first son ofAdam who ever manufactured all the evidence of a murder charge againsthimself. "

It was the Squire's turn to look astonished. The old gentleman lookedrather wildly from one to the other. 

"Bones! Murder charge!" he ejaculated. "What the devil is all this?Whose bones?"

"Your bones, in a manner of speaking, " delicately conceded the doctor. "I had to make sure you had really died, and not disappeared by magic. "

The Squire in his turn seemed more hopelessly puzzled than the wholecrowd of his friends had been over his own escapade. "Why not?" hedemanded. "I thought it was the whole point to make it look like magic. Why did you want me to die so much?"

Doctor Brown had lifted his head; and he now very slowly lifted hishand. He pointed with outstretched arm at the headland overhanging theforeshore, just above the entrance to the cave. It was the exact part ofthe beach where Paynter had first landed, on that spring morning whenhe had looked up in his first fresh wonder at the peacock trees. But thetrees were gone. 

The fact itself was no surprise to them; the clearance had naturallybeen one of the first of the sweeping changes of the Treherne regime. But though they knew it well, they had wholly forgotten it; and itssignificance returned on them suddenly like a sign in heaven. 

"That is the reason, " said the doctor. "I have worked for that forfourteen years. "

They no longer looked at the bare promontory on which the feathery treeshad once been so familiar a sight; for they had something else to lookat. Anyone seeing the Squire now would have shifted his opinion aboutwhere to find the lunatic in that crowd. It was plain in a flash thatthe change had fallen on him like a thunderbolt; that he, at least, hadnever had the wildest notion that the tale of the Vanishing Squire hadbeen but a prelude to that of the vanishing trees. The next half hourwas full of his ravings and expostulations, which gradually died awayinto demands for explanation and incoherent questions repeated againand again. He had practically to be overruled at last, in spite of therespect in which he was held, before anything like a space and silencewere made in which the doctor could tell his own story. It was perhaps asingular story, of which he alone had ever had the knowledge; and thoughits narration was not uninterrupted, it may be set forth consecutivelyin his own words. 

"First, I wish it clearly understood that I believe in nothing. I donot even give the nothing I believe a name; or I should be an atheist. I have never had inside my head so much as a hint of heaven and hell. Ithink it most likely we are worms in the mud; but I happen to be sorryfor the other worms under the wheel. And I happen myself to be a sortof worm that turns when he can. If I care nothing for piety, I care lessfor poetry. I'm not like Ashe here, who is crammed with criminology, buthas all sorts of other culture as well. I know nothing about culture, except bacteria culture. I sometimes fancy Mr. Ashe is as much an artcritic as Mr. Paynter; only he looks for his heroes, or villains, inreal life. But I am a very practical man; and my stepping stones havebeen simply scientific facts. In this village I found a fact--a fever. I could not classify it; it seemed peculiar to this corner of the coast;it had singular reactions of delirium and mental breakdown. I studied itexactly as I should a queer case in the hospital, and corresponded andcompared notes with other men of science. But nobody had even a workinghypothesis about it, except of course the ignorant peasantry, who saidthe peacock trees were in some wild way poisonous. 

"Well, the peacock trees were poisonous. The peacock trees did producethe fever. I verified the fact in the plain plodding way required, comparing all the degrees and details of a vast number of cases;and there were a shocking number to compare. At the end of it I haddiscovered the thing as Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood. Everybody was the worse for being near the things; those who cameoff best were exactly the exceptions that proved the rule, abnormallyhealthy and energetic people like the Squire and his daughter. In otherwords, the peasants were right. But if I put it that way, somebody willcry: 'But do you believe it was supernatural then?' In fact, that's whatyou'll all say; and that's exactly what I complain of. I fancy hundredsof men have been left dead and diseases left undiscovered, by thissuspicion of superstition, this stupid fear of fear. Unless you seedaylight through the forest of facts from the first, you won't ventureinto the wood at all. Unless we can promise you beforehand that thereshall be what you call a natural explanation, to save your preciousdignity from miracles, you won't even hear the beginning of the plaintale. Suppose there isn't a natural explanation! Suppose there is, andwe never find it! Suppose I haven't a notion whether there is or not!What the devil has that to do with you, or with me in dealing withthe facts I do know? My own instinct is to think there is; that if myresearches could be followed far enough it would be found that somehorrible parody of hay fever, some effect analogous to that of pollen, would explain all the facts. I have never found the explanation. WhatI have found are the facts. And the fact is that those trees on thetop there dealt death right and left, as certainly as if they had beengiants, standing on a hill and knocking men down in crowds with a club. It will be said that now I had only to produce my proofs and have thenuisance removed. Perhaps I might have convinced the scientific worldfinally, when more and more processions of dead men had passedthrough the village to the cemetery. But I had not got to convince thescientific world, but the Lord of the Manor. The Squire will pardon mysaying that it was a very different thing. I tried it once; I lostmy temper, and said things I do not defend; and I left the Squire'sprejudices rooted anew, like the trees. I was confronted with onecolossal coincidence that was an obstacle to all my aims. One thing madeall my science sound like nonsense. It was the popular legend. 

"Squire, if there were a legend of hay fever, you would not believe inhay fever. If there were a popular story about pollen, you would saythat pollen was only a popular story. I had something against me heavierand more hopeless than the hostility of the learned; I had the supportof the ignorant. My truth was hopelessly tangled up with a tale thatthe educated were resolved to regard as entirely a lie. I never tried toexplain again; on the contrary, I apologized, affected a conversion tothe common-sense view, and watched events. And all the time the lines ofa larger, if more crooked plan, began to get clearer in my mind. I knewthat Miss Vane, whether or no she were married to Mr. Treherne, as Iafterward found she was, was so much under his influence that the firstday of her inheritance would be the last day of the poisonous trees. But she could not inherit, or even interfere, till the Squire died. Itbecame simply self-evident, to a rational mind, that the Squire mustdie. But wishing to be humane as well as rational, I desired his deathto be temporary. 

"Doubtless my scheme was completed by a chapter of accidents, but I waswatching for such accidents. Thus I had a foreshadowing of how the axwould figure in the tale when it was first flung at the trees; it wouldhave surprised the woodman to know how near our minds were, and how Iwas but laying a more elaborate siege to the towers of pestilence. Butwhen the Squire spontaneously rushed on what half the countryside wouldcall certain death, I jumped at my chance. I followed him, and told himall that he has told you. I don't suppose he'll ever forgive me now, butthat shan't prevent me saying that I admire him hugely for being whatpeople would call a lunatic and what is really a sportsman. It takesrather a grand old man to make a joke in the grand style. He came downso quick from the tree he had climbed that he had no time to pull hishat off the bough it had caught in. 

"At first I found I had made a miscalculation. I thought hisdisappearance would be taken as his death, at least after a little time;but Ashe told me there could be no formalities without a corpse. Ifear I was a little annoyed, but I soon set myself to the duty ofmanufacturing a corpse. It's not hard for a doctor to get a skeleton;indeed, I had one, but Mr. Paynter's energy was a day too early for me, and I only got the bones into the well when he had already found it. Hisstory gave me another chance, however; I noted where the hole was in thehat, and made a precisely corresponding hole in the skull. The reasonfor creating the other clews may not be so obvious. It may not yet bealtogether apparent to you that I am not a fiend in human form. I couldnot substantiate a murder without at least suggesting a murderer, andI was resolved that if the crime happened to be traced to anybody, itshould be to me. So I'm not surprised you were puzzled about thepurpose of the rag round the ax, because it had no purpose, except toincriminate the man who put it there. The chase had to end with me, andwhen it was closing in at last the joke of it was too much for me, andI fear I took liberties with the gentleman's easel and beard. I was theonly person who could risk it, being the only person who could at thelast moment produce the Squire and prove there had been no crime at all. That, gentlemen, is the true story of the peacock trees; and thatbare crag up there, where the wind is whistling as it would over awilderness, is a waste place I have labored to make, as many men havelabored to make a cathedral. 

"I don't think there is any more to say, and yet something moves inmy blood and I will try to say it. Could you not have trusted a littlethese peasants whom you already trust so much? These men are men, andthey meant something; even their fathers were not wholly fools. If yourgardener told you of the trees you called him a madman, but he didnot plan and plant your garden like a madman. You would not trust yourwoodman about these trees, yet you trusted him with all the others. Haveyou ever thought what all the work of the world would be like if thepoor were so senseless as you think them? But no, you stuck to yourrational principle. And your rational principle was that a thing mustbe false because thousands of men had found it true; that BECAUSE manyhuman eyes had seen something it could not be there. "

He looked across at Ashe with a sort of challenge, but though thesea wind ruffled the old lawyer's red mane, his Napoleonic mask wasunruffled; it even had a sort of beauty from its new benignity. 

"I am too happy just now in thinking how wrong I have been, " heanswered, "to quarrel with you, doctor, about our theories. And yet, injustice to the Squire as well as myself, I should demur to your sweepinginference. I respect these peasants, I respect your regard for them; buttheir stories are a different matter. I think I would do anything forthem but believe them. Truth and fancy, after all, are mixed in them, when in the more instructed they are separate; and I doubt if you haveconsidered what would be involved in taking their word for anything. Half the ghosts of those who died of fever may be walking by now; andkind as these people are, I believe they might still burn a witch. No, doctor, I admit these people have been badly used, I admit they are inmany ways our betters, but I still could not accept anything in theirevidence. "

The doctor bowed gravely and respectfully enough, and then, for the lasttime that day, they saw his rather sinister smile. 

"Quite so, " he said. "But you would have hanged me on their evidence. "

And, turning his back on them, as if automatically, he set his facetoward the village, where for so many years he had gone his round.