Classic Audiobook Collection - A Moment of Time by Richard Hughes ~ Full Audiobook [horror]

Episode Date: July 8, 2025

A Moment of Time by Richard Hughes audiobook. Genre: horror A Moment of Time is Richard Hughes's early collection of short fiction, where everyday life in coastal towns, rural lanes, and cramped lodging houses can tilt, in an instant, into the uncanny. Moving between wry observation and gothic unease, Hughes follows ordinary people as they stumble into moments that refuse to stay ordinary: a journey that turns unsettling, a quiet night made strange by a presence that cannot be explained away, a memory that sharpens into obsession, or a casual encounter that suddenly carries the weight of fate. Across stories such as 'Locomotive' and 'A Night at a Cottage,' the prose is crisp, musical, and edged with humor, but it is the atmosphere that lingers most - the sense that beneath familiar speech and local custom lies something older, darker, and watchful. Some tales lean toward romance or tragedy, others toward outright supernatural chill, yet all are linked by Hughes's fascination with how a single choice, glance, or coincidence can alter a life. This is a book about thresholds: between safety and danger, skepticism and belief, and the brief, irreversible instant when time seems to hold its breath. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (01:08:10) Chapter 02 (01:23:50) Chapter 03 (01:32:07) Chapter 04 (01:42:06) Chapter 05 (02:17:55) Chapter 06 (02:25:48) Chapter 07 (02:28:56) Chapter 08 (02:36:07) Chapter 09 (02:41:50) Chapter 10 (02:46:06) Chapter 11 (02:58:40) Chapter 12 (03:06:11) Chapter 13 (03:13:07) Chapter 14 (03:24:43) Chapter 15 (03:35:59) Chapter 16 (03:43:02) Chapter 17 (04:18:24) Chapter 18 (04:25:57) Chapter 19 (04:33:15) Chapter 20 (04:39:44) Chapter 21 (04:44:22) Chapter 22 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Section 1. Of a Moment of Time by Richard Hughes Lakenvarovic, a romantic story. 1. For weeks often, after autumn has definitely taken hold of the Balkan uplands, summer still lingers on the low shores of the Adriatic. Even Triesta still keeps a semblance of summer, though Triesta is now far too melancholy a town to be able to do much with it. Up in the Julien Alps, it is almost winter,

on the bare limestone levels of the karst, a steady and biting wind, makes a real hardship of sleeping in the open. But once one has dived over the almost precipitous ledge of the plateau that overhangs the city, one is once more able to feel the hot dust of the roadway blowing up against one's hands, and to sit for hours on the mole, staring at the wish-wash of the sea, or at the other people sitting there staring. But that is really another story. It is not my present purpose to explain why I found my mind. self in Triesta. The story is concerned with a rather remarkable love affair, of which I would

have known nothing if it had not happened that I was practically destitute at that time. I took a bed in a common lodging house, in a row of other beds, and used to buy my food cheap in the market. It was cheap because it certainly would not have been saleable the next day, and go to bed as late as possible in my clothes. The end of it all was that I started off on a long expedition with Mitre Lakhunvariv, but neither of us emerged from me. Neither of us emerged from it much richer. It was his idea, and quite a good one. He was distinctly clever, and as loyal a friend as one could hope for, and a very good shot with an automatic, which he much preferred to a knife. But the whole thing broke down because his health was giving way, as generally come sooner rather than

later to men who lead such a hard life as he had led. Indeed, I doubt whether he is still alive. He had long ceased to draw any satisfaction from smoking, and when I gave him a cigarette, used to rip it up with his thumbnail and eat the tobacco. He had suffered from chronic heartburn for years, he told me, and unless he had plenty to drink, his hand shook so that he could hardly control it. His bed was next to mine. On the other side of me was a young Sudanese Negro,

who was always too dead drunk to be of much use for social purposes. Miter kept a walking stick of Napoleons under his bed, wrapped up in newspaper, and he showed it me one morning by way of fraternization. The emperor had sent him. it as a present to some Montenegrin lady. Mitre had kept the letter which accompanied it, too. He never told me how he came by them,

nor how he came by the great seal of that once glorious rival to Venice, the Republic of Ragusa, which he carried in his waistcoat pocket. In another pocket of his waistcoat was some very old cheese and some Greek and Roman coins. It is true that he had been a brigand when he was quite a lad, but I think he acquired these things later. Indeed, he did not make much out of brigandage, or he would not have become an ironmonger, which he did in desperation, he told me. Despair of making a living by more normal means.

But he presently gave up trade and became a spy in the Turkish Secret Service. At last he was caught by the Greeks, court-martialed, and rather badly shot, so that he had a different scar to ache for every possible change in the weather. Indeed, for several years after his execution, he was too crippled for a very active life. However, he managed to extract quite a credible living from the white slave traffic, which tidied him over till the Great War came, when he obtained a responsible position in the administration of an American Relief Fund in the Balkans. At the time I met him, he had developed an excellent scheme for smuggling opium into the United

States. It was very ingenious, because it was so contrived that there was no possible chance of getting imprisoned. The only difficulty lay in making the American buyer pay up. As a second string, he was blackmailing his brother officers of the Relief Fund, who were mostly very well off by now. But in spite of all these resources, he had got himself landed in Triesta in a destitute condition. We used to go and sup together at a little Allum wine shop where he was allowed credit,

and sit there afterwards drinking the filthy ink they called Vino Nero in Triesta, or Slivavica, which is a spirit extracted from plums. Sometimes he would pull out the Great Seal and expatiate on the, the glories of the dead republic. Or tell rather fabulous stories about King Ducklidgen, the first, who was, he explained the earliest king there ever was in the world, and seemed somehow mixed up with the Ducalion, or vague and misty stories about being shot and knifed and knifed and strangled and raped,

or of having one's eyes put out before one was crucified, which is the Macedonian custom. But one evening he explored in the lining of his coat and brought out a woman's photograph, which he handed to me to look at. It was a bad photograph, but it was enough to convince me that I had never seen so beautiful a woman, and probably never would see. Miter took it from my hands and stared at it doggedly. Then he hiccoughed, sighed, and replaced it in his pocket.

Two. Love at first sighed is a strange and beautiful invention of the deity. It is curiously discreet. That is to say, it bears little relation or resemblance to anything else in the universe. A kind of hint that God is not reasonable by necessity, but because he perfect. first to be, an everlasting reminder of the sort of universe he could have created had he preferred to be absurd. Of course, looking at it after the event, one can shake one's head and point out this or that reason why it should have occurred, contributive causes, as it were. But one can never

say that, given such and such circumstances, it will occur. One might shake one's head and say that, given an almost oriental upbringing, in other words, having never seen any man except her father and brothers at close quarters, Natcha was bound to fall head over hills with the first man she should meet, provided, of course, that he was not her lawfully intended husband. And yet one could not be sure, or one might say that given such a beautiful girl as Natcha, and given romantic circumstances, given sufficient difficulty in attaining her, an adventurous and inflammable man like Miter was bound to fall in love with her the moment he saw her. One might go further. One might argue that though Miter can never

have been in his person particularly striking, yet the glory of a perfectly colorless American uniform, for it was during the relief fund phase, would single him out to her from among the bright-colored costumes she was used to. One might say that while in her case she had seen so few men that she might fall in love with anyone, he had seen so many women that he would be able to appreciate how far above other women she was, that while her eye would have the primitive keenness of its appetite completely unspoilt, his would have the added and truer keenness of the connoisseur, like the man who found the treasure in the field, and sold all that he had to buy it. Those at any rate are the arguments one might set out, if one was told that Mitre went to

Natcha's home to borrow a wheelbarrow in the name of the United States of America, and that by some incredible happening he was met at the door by Natcha herself, eye to eye. Miter borrowed the will-barrow. and then with all the dignity of an American officer in his bearing trundled it off down the little sandy road to his quarters in the village of de Broca. Of course it was not very long before Natchez's mother guessed there was something in the wind. Young girls do not, except on the stage, lean out of their windows night after night talking only to the moon. However, fond they may be of their houses and their gardens, they do not pour into the dark bushes beneath quite such a flood of endearments as Natcha, constant voids. voiced as the nightingale used to shower down into the darkness from her little casement each night.

And if it had not been that the moonlight lit up the whole white wall of the house, so that if the mother had herself lent from her window she would have been visible from below, she might have heard that these outpourings were no mere monologue. Constant, as the nightingale song from above, there came from the bushes below a murmur, like the unstillable sea, a thrilling voice that rose to Notches' window more persistently, more intoxicatingly, more overpoweringly, than all the musky perfumes of the garden. If her mother had dared to lean out, she might have seen a little silk kerchief flutter down into the darkness, which mighter caught and folded neatly, and placed in his pocketbook together with the notes he kept,

against a rainy day of his brother's embezzlements. And presently she might have seen a long ribbon to let down, and then drawing up a small heavy object tied to it, the great seal of the Republic of Ragusa, which Notcha quickly hid between her two little breasts. Moreover, she could not fail to notice that Notcha by day was changed, that when she should have been industriously embroidering shirts for her brothers, she used instead to lie on her back on her bed, staring vaguely at the ceiling and occasionally touching with the very tips of her fingers, the little lump between her breasts.

No more could Major Thuddy fail to notice that Mitre was changed, that when he should have been standing. and the hot sun distributing hand-knitted mittens to starving refugees, he would lie instead, sound asleep in his bunk till nearly dusk. You might have thought it was Major Thuddy's duty to reprimand Miter, as it was certainly Notchia's mother's duty to reprimand her daughter, but Major Thuddy was more than a little afraid of Miter. Major Thuddy was an honest man,

but he was also, in the American sense, an idealist. The good name of his relief fund and of the United States was dear to him. He deprecated very much the way his son. subordinates had of selling to the refugees for their own pocket stores they were supposed to distribute free. But to bring dishonor on his country by exposing the practice was a crime to so good a patriot quite unthinkable. It was consequently a matter of considerable anxiety to him to notice that mitre, whose idealism he had no reason to respect and who was not an American citizen, was scrupulously honest in all his dealings. He felt, and rightly, that the good name of America was

somehow imperiled by this honesty, and though he had not the acumen to realize just how Miter was investing his renunciation of his present chances for the support of his old age, though he did not suspect the existence of Miter's little sheaf of notes, nor the use he intended to put them to. Yet he could not but feel that the presence of a man as honest as himself, but without his saving grace of idealism, was somehow dangerous. And if Miter lay a bed and did nothing, well, all the better. But Natcha's mother had no such reason for silence. She took an early opportunity of coming into Natcha's room

and sitting on Natcha's bed and telling her in as calm a voice as possible that all was discovered, that the young man would certainly be shot at the first opportunity. By this means, she hoped to terrify the child into a complete confession that would include the identity of her lover, for all was not discovered. The old lady had not.

not the least idea who the nightly visitant was, and it is difficult to arrange for the unobtrusive assassination of a man you have not yet identified. The course of laying an ambush and shooting him under her daughter's window was to be avoided if possible, owing to the way tongues would certainly wag. A dead man, at such a time and in such a place, would quite belie the proverb, would tell a very obvious tale. Now at the calm way her mother exploded her bomb at Natcha, who had all a child's belief in the intuitive, omniscience of its mother was nearly terrified out of her young life. And the great seal of Ragusa, that before had almost seemed to flutter like a live bird against her skin,

suddenly seemed to crush through her flesh like a millstone. She was seized with a lively sense of the futility of ever attempting to hide anything from one's mother, who knows everything about one by light of nature. But fortunately this sad conviction did not prevent her lying to her mother with skill and coolness, Although having no hope whatever of success, she lied as a matter of principle. Her mother, who had started so calmly not through calmness of nature, but because she had an unconscious appreciation of the value of crescendo when making a scene, gradually increased in fury and sound.

And as her passion increased, her discretion decreased, until Notcha, while outwardly growing more and more stricken by her mother's wrath, inwardly became more and more elated, for she soon discovered that in the first place her mother did not know who her visitor was, and in the second that her father had not yet been told, but only was about to be. She resolved immediately that wild horses should not drag her lover's name from her, but at the same time she realized what a valuable weapon it was in making terms for herself. By mildness, tempered by maidenly grief and pity,

by abandonment of all defiance and promising always to reveal the great secret in a day or two, she might get the game into her own hands, for as long as they thought they were likely to worm her lover's name out of her, so long would they be unable to take drastic measures on her own person. Quite suddenly the storm ceased, long before it had run its natural course. Possibly there was enough foundation for Notia's belief in her mother's intuition for the latter to have realized that her wrath was not having the effect it appeared to have, but that inwardly Natcha was greatly cheered by it. So, she too dissolved in tears and kissed her daughter very lovingly, and told her in a sad, melancholy way, what rosy hopes she had for her future.

This was more than poor Natia had bargained for. She was still a child in many ways, and it was difficult to harden herself against the fountainhead of all the loves she had ever known. Far harder than to harden herself against the same person when regarded simply as the fountainhead of authority. However, for the moment being she succeeded, and her mother left her at last, bearing away no more information than she brought with her. Indeed, she had only shown her own hand, and consequently had little hope even of taking the young man in an ambush. For she was sensible enough to realize that if Natcha were locked up in an iron box and she sat on the lid day and night, the girl would still find some means of conveying a warning to her lover. And so she left, somewhat downcast, but subconsciously,

determined, if need should arise to worry herself onto a sick bed. If her little Natcha could stand against that, she reflected, she was not her little Natcha. She did not consider that little Natcha was no longer holy and only her little Natcha. As she expected, Natcha immediately set about sending a message to her lover to warn him of the danger of coming to see her. Dear one, she began to compose in her head, you must never try and see me again, or you will certainly be shot. In her heart of hearts she was singularly well pleased. This was a love affair with a vengeance. And then her blood ran cold.

Suppose her hero laughed at warnings and came and was shot dead from a window as cats are shot when they yowl in the night. And then her blood ran colder. Suppose he took her warning and never did come to see her again. Both possibilities were equally unthinkable. Ergo, she would not think of them. She went on composing her message in her head. She had wholly overlooked till this moment one sovereign fact. Wild horses certainly could not drag his name from her, for she did not know it.

Among all the hundred thousand things she had said to him, she had entirely forgotten to ask him who he was. And therefore she could not send him a message, for she could hardly write a letter to be pinned up in the American mess, a sort of battalion orders. Officers will cease to visit Natcha Perunuch by night, as arrangements have been made to assassinate them. so though her brain went round in her head like a wheel

no way of identifying him could she contrive well it could not be helped he must come once more and take his chance after all it was quite impossible that so glorious and wonderful a person as he was could be laid low by an ordinary bullet love stories simply do not end that way and at any rate it removed the awful possibility of his not coming at all

but natio with her mind full of these stupendous happenings in her heart bubbling over with its single stupendous emotion. Little knew what a matter of touch and go it was, whether she would ever see Miter again. I have shown, in an entirely convincing fashion, how certain it was that these two should fall in love with each other. So convincing indeed were the arguments that Miter never had the least doubt about it.

It was, he realized, quite inevitable, that he should fall in love with Natcha, for he had a logical mind, as well as considerable experience of the subject, and always bowed to the dictates of his own. reason. Notcha might fall in love without in the least knowing why, but for mitre who did know why and was fully acquiesced in it, assurance was doubly sure. It was accordingly without the least hesitation that he flung himself into the affair with absolute singleness of mind, absolute conviction of the stupendous nature of his own emotions. Each night, as he thrilled to the very core at the recital of his own devotion, it became more and more plain to him

that he could not fail to be madly in love with this marvelous creature, whose passion for him was so wonderful and so complete. So that when his heart, every now and then, protested somewhat grumpily that it was not in love with her in the least, his head told it quite flatly that it did not know what it was talking about, that it was in love with her without knowing it, that it knew it was in love with her and was simply being contrary, that outsiders see most of the game and that it lay with head as an intelligent spectator, to decide whether Hart was in love, not with Heart itself at all, that presently Hart would be, repenting its willfulness in the flames of such a consuming passion

as it had never felt before. But Stillhart protested, with all the obstinacy of which that organ is capable, and it was not in love with Notia Perunuch. Whereupon Head, realizing the futility of logical argument, tried to work upon Hart's feelings. It, Head, had done everything for Hart the latter could wish, had even sacrificed time that should have been given to the elaboration of that little notebook, had risked career, personal safety, everything, and its readiness to follow the dictates of heart,

and now heart repaid it by having no dictates at all. But still heart persisted that that was as it might be, but that it was not in love with Notja Prunyuk. Very well then, said Head, your obstinacy has got us into the soup. For that we have between us worked the poor girl into a pretty state, of passion, there can be no doubt. An organ of your sensibility surely cannot propose that we should now desert her. All I ask of you is to suspend judgment. We owe it to her to go through with this business as we have begun, and I have no doubt whatever that the time will come when you will thank me, when you will be madly in love with her, and will be extremely grateful that I have

refused to listen to you now. That is, as it may be, replied Hart. The future is not my province, and you can act as you like. My only duty is to record the state of my feelings at the present moment, and the long and the short of it is that I am not in love with Natia Perunuch. It must not be supposed that this dialogue actually took place, or that mighter argue to doubt clearly at all. It is simply an analysis for the reader's benefit of the generally uneasy state of mind in which he found himself,

now deciding to carry her off to the other side of the world, now deciding never to go near her again, and absolutely refusing to admit to himself that he, he was not in love with Nachia Perunuch. Moreover, it was only natural that to a man of his mature senses, there should be something unsatisfactory in such a love-making, with the two persons as securely separated by the barrier of ten vertical feet of air as they would have been by ten horizontal feet of adamant. It was therefore, as I have said, touch and go whether Nacho would ever see her ardent lover

again, just as it was touch and go whether he would ever see the light of day again if she did. but it was inevitable that in a man of mitre's type, as the reader will have guessed from the details of his past and his future which I have given, that unselfishness should ultimately conquer, that the thought of leaving a girl so extremely lovely to pine for him unrequited would be ultimately put out of court, one must on these occasions occasionally sacrifice one's own feelings. Accordingly, before setting out he provided himself with a rope

long enough and strong enough to overcome the ten-foot airy barrier he found so irksome, and resolved to see Natchapronyik once and for all. The next night then found him once more at his place in the bushes, bubbling his devotions into the air like a garden fountain, where they met and mingled with the sighs and protestations of the maiden so far over his head, for just as he found it quite impossible to tell her, so unselfish he was, that all he said was said, so to speak, through his hat, so Natia, in her unselfishness, found it quite impossible to shatter his happiness

and interrupt the flow by rude news of the imminent personal danger to which it exposed him. Mitre, with the whole night before him and a nice sense of the pleasures of anticipation, was in no hurry to broach his project, and so an hour passed, and still the rope remained coiled under his coat. But at length he resolved to act, and without for a moment interrupting the scintillation of his love-making, uncoiled it, ready to throw. And now at last little Natia leant from the window as far as she could, hands outstretched to catch the line, and mitre stood below an act to throw.

A large and quite unprepossessing hand appeared in the moonlight over Natcha's head and twined itself very firmly in her hair. One tug, one scream, and where before her arms and cheek had gleamed in the moonlight, now nothing was visible except the spouts of two rifles that poked out a few inches from the sill like the little lead-sistern overflow pipes in the wall of an English villa. Nor were they long in discharging their accumulation of wrath into the garden, and very near that cat came, who had so long, yowled unmolested through the night, to a mortal soaking.

But Mitre was more adapted to making quick decisions, acting on the merits of the situation without undue delay, than are most officials in charge of the distribution of charitable funds, At the first gleam of those fingers in the moonlight, Midor, all his eloquence checked, was crawling away on his stomach through the shrubbery, dragging his ridiculous tin-foot tail wriggling behind him. 3. After this incident, it was only natural

that head should somewhat weaken in the opposition it raised to heart. It is all very well to run risks when one is madly infatuated, but deliberately to get oneself shot in a shrubbery in the cause of an unselfishness that amounted a little more than a point. of punctilio is altogether absurd, while the sole very moderate personal satisfaction with which mitre had intended to reward himself could be purchased in any town of considerable size with perfect safety for about four lear. And it only shows the perverseness of heart that it too began to weaken

in its opposition to head, that after a week of enforced separation it was no longer at all so firm in its conviction that it was not in the least in love with not yet perunuch. However, in this contest of adaptability to the opposite point of view. It was head, which ultimately carried the day, being even more ready to give up the whole affair than heart was to continue it. It is highly probable that the two lovers would never have seen each other again if it had not been for Zedinka, who now enters the story in the role of fairy godmother, or Diabolus X. Makana, whichever way you like to look at it. Zadinka was the assistant in the photographic studio which some enterprising person had established in Dubroca.

It was only a small wooden shanty, but excellently equipped, being furnished with a red plush sofa, a plaster balustrade with no behind to it, a white calico screen, and a monochrome landscape background of Fifth Avenue. There was, of course, no camera. On its first establishment it had actually done a little business with the American relief workers,

but after they had been photographed in every possible position and in every combination and permutation of grouping, business languished. Most of the village, after being photographed at one age and one position made that last lifetime. In consequence, the proprietor had been compelled to dismount his machine from its complicated stand and now earned a precarious living by touring the country, photographing atrocities for sale to the propaganda departments of all the belligerent governments.

And also by photographing politicians, surrounded by thousands of their supporters, which they bought by the gross at little more than cost price to distribute among their opponents. Meanwhile, Zedinka remained in charge of the studio, nominally at any rate, to make appointments for the proprietor if ever he should happen to pass that way. It will therefore be seen that Zodinka, being a new woman with a profession of her own, possessed a great deal more freedom of movement than a nicely brought up girl like Natcha would ever be allowed. Hitherto, Natcha had felt nothing but contempt for those Hoytons who struggled in the outer darkness of life, instead of vegetating in the inner light of seclusion. Her attitude towards Zedinka had been friendly, but decidedly superior, but now she found herself greatly envying that freedom which formerly had so shocked her.

For it must not be imagined that having her hair nearly pulled out by the roots was the chief of the unpleasantnesses she had to endure during the next few days. And if her family failed to proceed to extreme measures, it was only for two reasons. In the first place, they had still failed to identify her lover and still hope. hope to worm the secret out of her. In the second, it was less than a month now from the date of her wedding, and it is unbecoming in a bride to be black and blue. Although this matter of her wedding certainly saved Natcha from a good deal of physical discomfort,

she nevertheless found herself anticipating it with more and more annoyance. Under ordinary circumstances, it would have seemed to her quite in the course of nature that she should be married to a man she had never seen. But now she found herself regarding the prospect almost with aversion. For the betrothal customs of Western and Eastern Europe, although they coincide in the Maine, have one important difference. It is a matter of philosophy, the opposition of the idealistic and the realistic. In Eastern Europe, when a girl is still a very small child, her parents choose for her a husband, and the betrothal is fixed. And this may be said for the plan, that if the girl has never seen her intended husband, at least her parents have.

But in Western Europe, while she is still a child or even before she is born, her parents choose for her an imaginary husband, and in their minds betroth her to him quite as irrevocably as do Balkan parents, an idea, say, of a sober businessman, handsome but steady, clever at his work but without any taint of inquiry in his mind. So that in Western Europe, when the child betrothal takes place, not only has the girl never seen her intended husband, but her parents have not either. In Natchez's case, it was a prominent director of the Escompany Bank at Zagreb, to whom she was betrothed, a man of quite respectable means, and some intelligence, and a fair allowance of years, called Dr. Pidar Sridic, and it was very wrong of Natcha to repine against so excellent a husband. Nevertheless, an almost unheard-of project began to suggest itself to her. She would run away with Miter to America. For several days, after that disgraceful incident, of course, she was not allowed to,

out to see anyone at all. But it was not long before she obtained leave to see her friend Zadinka. And it was not long before Zadinka, having with difficulty identified him, began to pass on mysterious messages to Mitre. They proved very disturbing to his peace of mind, for he had hardly come to the decision never to see Natchya again when those devoted little communications from her began to leak through, telling him how she languished, what she suffered for his sake, begging him to come and see her once again, if only once.

messages which almost fired him to forget his new resolution. But each time when he almost decided to go, the memory of those two little overflow pipes projecting from the wall was too much for him. Try as he would he could not go. Meanwhile, he was quite sensible of a new danger. If he did not go, Zedinka might suspect him of being a coward and a deceiver, and if she got angry with him, she might give away the whole affair to Natchez's parents, which would be disastrous.

In consequence, he took the most elaborate pains with his excuses and made them so specious and convincing that for a time they failed to arouse the suspicions, not only of the ingenuous Natchia, but even of the more worldly wise Zedinka. It is improbable, however, that this could have lasted. The crisis would have been bound to be precipitated, were it not for a fortunate occurrence. A fortnight before her marriage, Natcha got leave to go and be photographed. The proprietor was spending a few hours in Debroca to collect some plates which Zedinka had developed. And an appointment was arranged.

Zedinka hurried with the news to Miter, so he was concealed in a cupboard ready to step out the moment the proprietor left. Small wonder if Natcha were even more nervous than girls usually are, when they pose for their photographs, knowing that Miter was watching her through the keyhole of the tall cupboard in the corner. As a matter of fact, he was not. The cupboard was so tightly sealed that he put his nose, not his eye, to the only aperture. But at last the sitting was over, and the proprietor bundled out of the studio, and Zedinka on guard at the door, and on the red plush sofa, witnessed only by the plaster balustrade that had no behind,

and the faint, fantastic shadow of Fifth Avenue, Mitre and Notchia conducted their first proper love-making. As soon as she was able sufficiently to collect her wits, Natcha broke to Mitre the news that she intended to elope with him, He was to come once more with his rope to her window, but in perfect silence this time. She would climb down, and together they would fly to America. When she first told him of her imminent marriage, he was torn by conflicting emotions, unable to decide whether he was more desolated to lose her,

or more rejoiced at this ready-made solution of a position grown impossible. But when she suggested elopement, his mind was made up at once, duly and firmly married to Dr. Schridic she must be. This did not, of course, prevent him welcoming the notion with every expression of joy, and by the time their short hour was up, he had promised to make all arrangements for flight and to call for Notcha within the next three days.

Needless to say, he did not. Now, for the first time, Zedenko began to reproach him. But there were so many difficulties, he urged, and plenty of time, plenty of time. Natcha would not be married for a whole week, or later for three days, at length even, why she will not be married till tomorrow what more suitable night than to-night to carry her off. Zedinka shook her head unappeased.

She had by now more than grave doubts of mitre's intentions. She urged him at least to go and see the poor girl once more, even if he could not save her from the imminent ceremony. Why, of course I shall, he answered. I shall go to-night, with my rope and have a car waiting. After tonight you will never hear of either of us again. But Zedinka still shook her head, and Mitre, feeling himself to be quite unconvincing, went out and got very drunk indeed

in order to forget all about it. Four. The wedding procession started out the next morning at six, and Notcha, who had sat the whole night by her window in growing despair, looked the most pinched and peaked and hollow-eyed and unhappy young bride. Dr. Shritik was second cousin to a bishop, and so it was towards the little cathedral city of Vajvadoo that the wedding procession set out so early. laughing and chaffing with the prospect of half a day's drive through the mountains ahead of them,

and much merry-making at the end of it, and return in the evening. They passed up the street of De Broca, the highly decorated little carts jingling as they went, the men calling and guffawing, the women singing and giggling, the bride quietly sobbing to herself. They passed right under Mitre's window. But he was far too sound asleep to be woken by so slight a disturbance. He slept on, the deep and innocent sleep. of the intoxicated. When he did wake, his head was awful.

It was nine o'clock. The blinding sun shone straight in at his window. He sat up, clutching at his brows. It is an unjust god who has decreed that man should purchase oblivion and irresponsibility at such a price. His skull seemed to come to pieces in his hands like a cup in the grasp of a housemaid. It was agony. It felt as if someone with a Victorian sense of humor had wittily attempted to saw his head in two while he slept, and being surprised at the task had left his saw wedged in the cleft.

Midor pressed his hands to his eyeballs and staggered across the room groping for his belt and boots, then out into the blinding street and across to the cafe, where he sank into a little green chair and ordered a whole bottle of slova visa by way of a hair of the dog that had bitten him. Ten o'clock, Natcha would have started four hours ago. For a moment the pain lulled, and when it lulled he began to remember, which was highly annoying. He tackled the Sliva Viso seriously.

Determined that the return of the wedding party should find him as paralytically unconscious and incapable as had its departure. But after all, why should he worry? Brazen little minks. It had all been on her side. She had entrapped him. He had never been in love with her in the least. And hadn't he nearly got himself shot just to gratify her whims? His hair bristled uncomfortably at the thought of her two fierce brothers.

their incredibly long mustaches, those two little overflow pipes. Question. What right has a girl to fall in love with a man? Answer, none if it is going to cause him danger and inconvenience. That gave place to a more placid mood in which he congratulated himself on the part he had played. Management of a difficult situation which, for skill, tact, and moral rectitude could hardly be excelled. He really came out of it all very well. gradually his headache softened under the bite of the spirit,

and soon everything receded from him in a beautific way, just as the world of sense ought to recede from the spiritual man. He gradually melted into the infinite. Already his bodily senses were left behind, or at any rate all mixed up, so that the little green tables of the cafe only penetrated to him as a tinkling arpeggio to the blaring base of the sunlight, the booming sky outside,

while the rattle of a passing bullock cart was translated into a series of vivid flashes of color and the discomfort of the rickety chair he sat on smelt bitter in his nostrils. But something was pushing him, shoving up against him, prodding him in his nirvana. That was monstrous. He pulled himself together just enough to ascertain through which of his senses the attack was really directed.

Finally, he traced it to his ears. Yes, someone was shouting at him, and his bottle had been removed. With great difficulty he focused his eyes on the scene around him, and at last discovered Zedinka, standing over him, covering him with abuse from head to foot. But she did more than that. Seizing a carafe of iced water from a table nearby,

she poured half of it over his head, and then deliberately tipped the rest, lumps of ice and all, down the back of his neck, holding away the collar of his tunic with her hand. The remedy was drastic, but it certainly made him better able to listen to what she had to say, He even succeeded in asking her what the devil she meant by it.

You wicked liar, making poor little notcha fall in love with you. You to promise to run away with her, and then to sit there drinking like an owl while the poor child is being married to old Shritic. You to call yourself a brigand, you to call yourself an officer, you to call yourself a male man at all. But my dear little girl, what is all the fuss? You don't dare to suggest I'm a coward that I'm not going to run away? But you great embroidered he-liar, she's halfway to Vodavido by now. There's plenty of time, my child. Plenty of time.

She won't be married for a couple of hours yet. Must have a drink before starting. But she's 20 miles ahead of you by now. There's plenty of time. overtakings are in the hands of God. He staggered out of his chair. He had caught sight of one of the Relief Fund fords, which Major Thuddy had left standing outside the mess with the engine running.

as he climbed into the driver's seat he turned to repeat solemnly to the astonished Zedinka. In the hands of God. Then he accidentally trod on the gear pedal and began zigzagging erratically up the street in low gear, like a lamed rocket clinging sideways to the steering wheel. What the ice down his back had begun, the fresh air continued. By the time he had destroyed a fruit stall and left a mudguard as a sort of pious offering on the corner of the church, he was beginning to drive fairly credibly. At any rate, he sat facing in the right direction, and had succeeded in getting into top gear.

Moreover, he had all the drunk man's feeling of confidence in his own skill. He felt that never had he driven so well before. He also had the drunk man's luck, for he drove as hard as he could pelt and missed destruction by inches, yet for the present, at any rate, missed it. Soon he was eating up the miles to Vodhavidu, and all the fire in his blood was stirred at his romantic quest. Notcha, notcha! Her name sang in his ears like a choir of birds. Her lovely face danced in front of him, all up the road.

Gone was his terror for her villainous brothers, her father, the whole pack of them. He would snatch her from them, carry off his beloved from the altar steps, true love and constancy. Youth, and the beautiful dreams of youth, should conquer in the end as they always conquered. His name would go down to posterity among the names of great lovers. His exploit would be celebrated in poems and plays, along with the heroic elopements of antiquity, as indeed, leaving out the little matter of his mental indecision,

of which no one need ever know, leaving out the part played by Zedinka with the kharov of iced water, and the amount of stimulant he had consumed before starting on his heroic expedition and various details of his private life, such as the little notebook, all of which a romantic writer with an eye to a good story would quite certainly suppress,

taking the plain, staring facts of the story, and asking no awkward questions about mental processes, employing in short an artist's undoubted right of selection. There was no reason whatever why it should not. Who knows why Paris ran off with Helen, or what crossed Leander's mind as he swam the hellspont? Who would be fool enough not to accept these stories at their face value when their face value was so stirring?

Then, who would dare to suggest that mitre who had braved death to visit his notia, and now charged recklessly across the mountains to snatch her from the altar steps, was not the most romantic lover of them all. For it must not be imagined that there was anything comic in the turn affairs had taken. Miter might be drunk, but he was not ignorant of the difficulty of his task. And being accustomed to danger, he had also a remarkable power of forcing his mind to sober itself when action was necessary. To carry Notcha off from her own house would have been comparatively easy.

To carry her off at the church door, when all the wedding guests would have rifles, and would certainly shoot him at sight if they had the least inkling that he was Notcha's anonymous lover, was a very serious matter, requiring all the daring and all the coolness he could muster, that it was la Mor-proper, rather than Le Mor, which prompted the adventure did not affect its dangerousness a wit. Mitre was no romantic townling, battened on picture plays and fiction magazines,

he was a man who all his life had lived face to face with danger. and if that gave him the necessary practice and skill with which alone such an enterprise could be successfully carried out, it also meant that he knew very well how difficult it all was. As he drove his for all it was worth in the direction of Vajvadu, he knew, with a certainty no mere amateur adventurer could have had, how slender were the chances of his ever coming back alive, and yet he was still so drunk that he could hardly cling to the will. Poor Notcha, she had almost given up hope, as the cathedral, drew nearer, hope sank lower. She began to envisage the old bishop

as if he were some kind of inexorable ogre. Presently the whole party stopped at a little wayside inn for lunch, dived under the low vine-covered door, and groped themselves formally round the bare trestle tables. Notcha tried to eat with the rest, but all the time her eye was fixed on the door or on the window.

She hardly heard what they said to her. He cometh not. And yet, what would be the good? Could he venture right into the lion's in. A long, drawn-out, grinding squeak proclaimed that a car had pulled up outside. And presently the door was darkened by the figure of an American officer. Notcha dropped her spoon, gazing a moment with popping eyes. Then she recovered herself. No one had noticed. Miter came in and sat down in a corner and ordered food. Notcha could not bear to look at him.

He had come. But why had he come? Was it to gaze his last at her? Or was it to carry her off? And why was he pretending to be drunk? Was that a piece of cunning on his part? So the meal went on. The wedding party, eating heartily, Notcha, eating nothing at all. Mitre, eating as well as the state of his stomach would allow.

It was over. The wedding party adjourned to their carts. Miter did not move. He sat there, as if there was no hurry, and never once looked at Notcha. So that looking could not be his purpose and coming. It was not till they were mounting once more into their seats that they discovered how near an accident they must have been. The axle pin had come out of the wheel of one of the carts.

The wheel itself had been wrenched crooked by the strain. The whole party conferred over it a while and came to the conclusion that nothing could be done. The vehicle must be left behind. But all the other carts were packed. What about its passengers? They looked round and there was the American officer's motor car. And inside the inn, the American officer was dawdling. over his lunch. The solution was obvious. So old Perunuch, Natia's father, took the negotiations

on his own shoulders. He wandered aimlessly back into the inn, began an aimless conversation with the innkeeper, aimlessly trod on Mitre's toe, and overwhelmed himself with apologies. From that to an equally aimless conversation with a stranger was a short step, and purely in order to make conversation he recited the story of their mishap. Miter, who knew perfectly well what coming was laconic and no more helpful than necessary, and it must be confessed that, though he expressed sympathy at the mishap, inwardly it caused him little surprise. So when the moment was ripe, he suggested that, as he also was going to Vajvedu to buy eggs for the relief fund, could he give any of them a lift? Would the bride and her mother honor

him? The old man was grateful and astonished. Such an idea would never have entered his head, but since the nobleman was so kind. He went out to tell the others of his success, and Notcha, with as little haste as she could contrive, began to climb down again from her seat. Meanwhile, they were stripping the derelict vehicle of its decorations and draping the old Ford in proper bridal manner to take its place in the procession,

while Mitre stood in the door of the inn with a bored and superior, if still rather intoxicated air. All were ready to start, all but the bride's mother, who, still sat in her cart. So they explained to her that she was to ride in the car. Now, whether her famous intuition had begun to work or whether it was sheer fright, I do not know, but she flatly refused. She never had ridden in a car, and she never would ride in a car. They were inventions of the devil as well as being highly unsafe, and to be terrified out of her life on the day of her daughter's

wedding was not at all her idea of pleasure. Why, she would hardly feel Nacho was properly married if the girl rode to her wedding in such a thing. Ah, as indeed was highly probable. In short, she refused outright, and there was nothing for it but for Nautia to climb down yet again and back into the cart, and instead of being able to carry off his lady, Maiter had to be content to take his place meekly in her wedding procession with four of the bridegroom's caterwauling younger brothers in the car beside him.

So do the plans, even of heroic lovers, gang all awry. How often it is that our patron saint looks after us, in a way that at first makes us livid with rage, only afterwards we realize his kindly offices and are properly grateful. As they left, the little inn, Miter inwardly abused his patron by every name his spiritual tongue could curl round. But as they neared Vajvedu, sobriety gradually returned to him, and he was overcome with astonishment at the part he had set out to play. He, to run off with another man's affianz bride? And she a girl with whom he was not in love in the least? all because of the sharp tongue of a wretched photographer's assistant.

He thanked his saint with proper fervor as they entered the narrow streets of Vajvadoo for saving him from so monstrous and so extremely unsafe an act, and he deposited the wedding guests at the door of the cathedral with all unction, promising to call for them in a couple of hours, while he set off to the market to buy two gross of excusatory eggs. If one were buying two gross of eggs for oneself in the market of Vodgavidu, two hours would certainly not be enough for the necessary bargaining. But buying them with the public money was a different matter,

and in less than 30 minutes they were all stowed in the bedizened ford, and Mitre found himself with nothing to do. For a moment he thought of going to the cathedral to see the wedding, but his innate tact revolted against this. Moreover, he reflected the actual ceremony would be over by now. Then he thought longingly of the wedding feast, so longingly that he turned into a little Gastilna, determined to celebrate the occasion of Natchez wedding by himself over a bottle or two of his favorite liqueur.

But as the flames of habitual Slivovica mounted to his head, they wrought a decided change of mind. In the first place it is well known that intoxication like sleep loosens the tongue of the subconscious, and deep in his subconscious, however positively head and heart might agree to the contrary, there lurched a certain regret for the lovely girl. Call it love or not as you like, for the stirrings of the the subconscious are used to hard names by now. In the second place, a man may get drunk overnight and drunk again the morning after without much happening. But if he deliberately gets drunk the following afternoon as well, something is bound to give somewhere. Discretion and reason go completely

by the board, and whether he wins the Victoria Cross or finds himself sentenced to several years, hard labor, or matter for the sexton, will be purely a question of the circumstances in which he is situated. All this mitre should have known, and gone easy with the bottle, but he did not go easy, and that is how it came to pass that his ambition to become the subject of song and story was fulfilled. By the time he went to pick up the returning wedding guests, they were fairly uproariously drunk, but he was drunk with a superlative drunkenness, as different from theirs as cheese from chalk, a cold, mad drunkenness that left him fairly well able to walk and talk, but cut off all memory and all prescience, as with a knife.

He had no past and no future, only a vivid present with which he grappled with the energy of a tiger. I have seen a man in this state make his teeth meet through another man's leg. I have myself walked round a high building on a lead gutter that sagged in festoons under my weight. But it is rare, this true, bachic frenzy, and only those who have seen it can realize how far removed from the ordinary puerile bravado of intoxication it is.

but of all this mitre as is the way in such cases gave no hint till the moment was ripe they were on the homeward journey the narrow road passing between the rock and a terrific precipice Midder had drawn a little ahead of the others with his four young men, and as he rounded a bend he suddenly drew up. Then he pulled out a couple of automatics, and covering his astonished passengers with one hand, trained the other on the bend behind him, determined to shoot if necessary, the whole wedding party, 30 or 40 of them. As the first cart came in sight, he fired.

His aim, always good, was now deadly. Three men dropped. The horses were mad with confusion. Other men sprang to their heads to force them back into cover. miter fired again. A rifle volley replied, but they aimed high in order to miss their relatives in the back seat, and mitre volleied another three or four shots. Then silence, his clip was empty. He lifted his other gun, alternately firing and covering the terrified four, all the while feeling desperately in his pocket for a spare clip to charge his empty gun. He was not firing aimlessly, be it understood. Notcha, her mother, and the other women were as safe as they had been when in the cathedral itself. But one man after another dropped on the narrow road. Only Dr. Shriddick himself, lying flat on his stomach at his bride's feet, Miter could not reach.

By the time he had fired his last shot, the two families of Perunuch and Shritik were both reduced by about one half, but if anything, the family of Perunuch had suffered most. In order to redress the balance, Miter loosened the brake, and deliberately drove his car with himself and his four passengers straight over the edge of the cliff. But his patron saint, who had fought,

formerly saved him from indiscretion, now saved him in indiscretion. As the car healed over sideways, he was flung out, and somehow caught with both hands at a tamarisk bush, some four feet below the edge. But the bestreamered car and the four young men and the two gross of eggs turned over and over and over on their 800-foot drop into the ravine beneath. As he hung there, Mitrely regretted those eggs. But then he reflected one cannot make so grand an omelet without the breaking of eggs. As the astonished wedding party craned their necks over the cliff, they were just in time

to see the ford, now grown minute and distant, come finally to rest. But they did not see a pair of hands twined firmly in a tamarisk bush, a few feet below their noses. Presently they were on their way, considerably chastened in their merrymaking, it is true. But it must not be imagined that the incident seemed to them so unusual, or of quite so much importance, as it would be to the guests at one of our Western weddings. Only Dr. Shredik himself, who, from as many years as a Zagreb banker, had grown used to the ways of comparative security, considered it a matter of great import.

He had always wondered what to do with his four turbulent younger brothers. Five. It must be confessed, against Notius' Count, that she did not treat her husband with that politeness or consideration one civilized being owes to another, let alone a wedded wife to her husband. Once she had ensconced herself in her bedroom She produced a small but very sharp stiletto of Sheffield steel

And told him she would kill him if he came inside the door She was wild with grief and love at Mitre's heroic end And determined to have her cry out in private Without the intrusion of a husband Pidar Shridic was not very much impressed by her stiletto For there are more ways than one of disarming a woman But his residence in Zagreb In contact with that Western world whose outpost it was

had taught him that the marriage customs of his native country were more than a little barbarous, and though he had followed them in form, for he was a true conservative, he was quite ready, now that Natcha and he were married, to give her time for them to get acquainted, even to go through an abridged form of courtship in deference to Western opinion. He was quite prepared to let her have her own willful way, say, for three days, by which time, if she did not surrender willingly, his conscience would no longer reproach him for taking his rights by force. One day for them to get to know each other, one for him to make love to her, and one for her to fall in love with him. It was a generous allowance.

Meanwhile, Natcha sat on her bed day and night, without food or sleep, nursing her little steel imp, with which she more than once decided to kill herself. Of this, Shredik had no inkling, for it had not occurred to Natcha's mother, let alone her husband, who of course had not been told, to connect the uncertain temper of the American officer in the Ford with Notch's secret love affair. They all put it down to the natural vagaries of a man who had taken too much to drink and thought no more about it. Two days passed, and time brought no alleviation to Nach's sorrow. Two days, and still she loved Mitre, still mourned his death in the abysm of despair. Piddar's program had to be abandoned, owing to her peevish conduct, for when he came to the door she used to go to the window and threaten to the door.

to throw herself down into the stone courtyard below if he so much as entered the room. Love-making and even acquaintance were thus indefinitely postponed. Till presently, Pader lost his temper and told her that if she could not even treat him with common politeness, she should get no more law but be strapped to the bed. Notcha, being no more moved by his threats than his cajoleries, determined at last to make an end of herself. Life without mitre was unbearable. Life with Peder was unbearable.

Life must end. Perhaps she might be allowed to meet her lover in purgatory. Indeed, her only dread was that, so angelic a man could scarcely be kept there for more than a week or two at most. She shuddered to think of the eons she might have to spin there alone. And so the story winds to a tragic close, for mighter that she believed dead was alive and well, and even now making plans for her ultimate abduction. There were many reasons why he had not acted at once on his return to De Broca. In the first place, it took a couple of days' sleep to restore him to passable health. In the second, he had to explain to Major Thuddy the loss of the car and the eggs,

but Major Thuddy was so used by now to fantastic explanations of the loss of government property that it was not a very difficult matter. And in the third place, it took him a little while to make up his mind. But he soon realized that what he had begun, he must finish, that the new respect with which Zadinka treated him would be forfeit if he confined his exploits to a mere meat omelet, and did not carry the girl off in the end at all. So at last he started off for Shriddick's country house,

bowling along and yet another stolen ford with a rope ladder under the seat. His heart was as full of hope as natias of despair, but the scene with its fitful moon-splash-sky was all set for tragedy. For the night she had finally chosen for suicide was the self-same night he had fixed on for their elopement. And as her lover drove carelessly, through the darkness, Natcha lay on the great walnut bed for the last time in her life, dressed in her bridal gown, feeling with the point of her stiletto for the right spot between her ribs.

The sudden ping of a pebble on her window so startled her that she actually pricked herself. But it was too late. There came another ping. Hardly knowing what she was doing, she rose and opened the casement. Out of the darkness below floated the incredible voice of her beloved. Her long hair rose away from her head like a mane, the little scratch on her breast. smarted. Was it so simple, then? Was she already dead? Had he risen from the grave to summon her to join him there? Then the end of a rope ladder floated up into sight, and mechanically she caught it. That reassured her. One does not need a ladder to descend into the grave. Mitre and Notchio were together at last. The last barrier down, driving away through the night,

their happiness at last in their own hands. Notchia full of love and trust in her hero, mitre full of satisfaction in the accomplishment of his task, and a growing uneasiness as to what should be done with the girl now he had got her. For that they were irrevocably committed to each other he could not deny. Of one thing only he was absolutely certain, that he was not in the least in love with Notia Sridic. Most assuredly the story was winding to a tragic close. Gone was even that little thread of Sheffield steel

by which it had so nearly been avoided. Miter drove straight to the house of a married sister of his, who lived some 40 miles from De Brookha, and just had time to dump Natcha at the door and drive like hell back to his quarters if he was to be in before it was light. But he knew very well that could be only a temporary expedient. 6.

When Natchie's flight was discovered, Dr. Shredick was annoyed almost beyond words. It was not merely the loss of his newly wet wife, for her beauty hardly compensated for her uncompromising temper. It was the social consequences which so exercised him. Dr. Shreddick, as I have shown, was a man of humane and advanced views, caught in the toils of a conservative etiquette, against which he had not the courage to revolt. Now, immemorial etiquette dictated that, in a case like this, the injured husband should telegraph for his wife's nearest male relations, and on their arrival should avenge the insult that had been offered him by shooting them dead. etiquette was equally firm that the unhappy father and brother should accept the invitation,

as if they were ignorant of its import, and allow themselves to be shot with expressions of polite, if fictitious surprise. Then, and not till then, the ball was open, and that mortal catch-as-catch-can called a blood-fewed would begin between the two families until one or the other was exterminated. Now it may well be imagined that an enlightened and peaceable banker like Dr. Schradic was much embarrassed at the demands made of him by this social code. Little as he wished to shoot old proeneic in his sons, he had even less desire to expose himself to the subsequent bullets of their relations,

especially since the loss of his four younger brothers whose usefulness he now for the first time recognized. He spent several sleepless nights trying to think of a way out, but there was no way out. Etiquette was inexorable. With a heavy heart, therefore, he sent the wire, and then sat down to clean an old rusty rifle that he, had not handled since he was a boy. If Dr. Shredek was reluctant to send the wire, it was nothing to the despondency of the Perunuch family on its receipt. If Dr. Shredik had debated for three nights before sending it, they debated for six before replying. But it is a sign of true

breeding to know when to wave etiquette, and where the banker had failed, they succeeded. They found a way by which honor would be satisfied, and instead of accepting the invitation for himself and his sons, old Perunyuk sent his wife and daughters-in-law. At this, no one was more overjoyed than Shredik himself, for he was under no obligation to shoot the women. Instead, they were able to sit down quietly together and hold a family parliament. It was Natcha's mother who put two and two together, and confessed the story of Natcha's clandestine visitor,

and finally drew the thread through the irascible American officer, of whose miraculous escape they had just heard, to her ultimate disappearance. It was now Shredek's, plain duty to set off for de Broca and shoot mitre in the street. But so far had he wandered from the paths of the strict morality of his fathers, that he was singularly loathed even to do this. Degenerate times, indeed, when a husband could so shirk his responsibilities.

The position, he explained, was extremely difficult. He had what they, of course, had not some knowledge of international affairs, and he assured the eager women that if he were to shoot under whatever provocation an American officer, and more especially an officer engaged in the charitable relief of their country, there would be, diplomatically speaking, the devil to pay. The Americans, he explained, are a people with a very weak moral sense, and so far from recognizing the justice of his action would be certain not only to hang him, but to visit their wrath on the entire countryside.

Even if he himself escaped, the Catholic outpouring of their wrath would only be all the fiercer. The whole nation would be made to suffer. for it if he allowed himself the luxury of following the dictates of his conscience. Difficult as the women found it to realize that a great people could be so unenlightened, so lost to all sense of moral fitness, they had to admit that in questions of the outside world they knew very much less than Pader. They had to accept his judgment. Then there was only one thing to be done. They must call in the bishop, he the bishop of Vajvadoo, Shritik's cousin, who had officiated at the ceremony. It was for him,

him to visit the American, for they were unaware how slender were Miter's claims to that title, and to reason with him. It only shows how far gone they were in laxity, how quickly and harmfully the smallest breach of etiquette widens, that they should be so easily driven to have recourse to reason. All this time, of course, Miter went about in a state of double uneasiness. He was extremely worried as to what was to be done with Natcha, and he was not at all sure that he might not be shot at any hour of the day or night. Then came the news that the bishop wished to see him, and in some trepidation he went. At first it seemed incredible that the enemy should have been reduced to so mild a form of retaliation as mere talk, but that this was the case the older man made clear.

My son, he began, you are in danger of hell, you are living in adultery with another man's wife. Miter, with an air of great innocence, asked, Who's? With Natchia, the wife of Dr. Pils. Hedar Shritic. Mitre's countenance expressed relief. It was untrue, he explained. Madam Shritic was staying in the mountains with a married sister of his,

and he had not himself been near the place. The bishop had to admit that this was true, and that it was hardly the conduct of the usual adulterer. At any rate, he went on, You are conniving at keeping a married woman forcibly from her husband. I am not, said Miter, for, as Shritic himself will tell you, she won't go within ten miles of him.

The old man was not used to being answered back. He decided to clinch the matter. Well, my son, whatever you are doing, you have got to stop it. But Midr was by no means cowed. He explained, gently and respectfully, that he had no intention of stopping it. The old man was overcome by amazement. Then what do you intend to do? That was the one question Maiter could not easily answer,

but in a flash he made up his mind. I intend to marry her. But, the bishop gasped. She is married already. True, said Mitre gently. She has been married according to the rights of the church. But according to the Constitution of January last, it is only the civil ceremony which is valid in law,

and the civil ceremony had not, in this case, yet taken place. I shall depart with her to Belgrade and marry her in a registry office. The bishop shook with rage. But do you imagine that such a crime would be tolerated? Do you think when the law was framed it was ever thought such a situation would arise? It was simply to ensure the proper registration of marriages, impossible otherwise in a state where there are so many religions. Why, it is an insult to Mother Church, a downright insult, sir. Mitre leant back, and his expression was certainly insulting.

Yes, he said, I am afraid it will be a little awkward for Mother Church. What will she do about it? It would be excommunicated. but the crime cannot be allowed to be committed. I am not much worried by the prospect of excommunication, and I certainly intend to carry out my proposition, as soon as I can get three days leave. I repeat, what will Mother Church do about it?

And then, before the bishop could reply, Miter leaned forward and continued, There is only one thing she can do if the so-called insult is to be avoided. You must annul the former marriage. Find out that you made a mistake, that Natcha was never properly married to Shritic at all. Then she and I can be married by church and state both, and no insult, no awkward precedent will have occurred. Without a word, the bishop rose and left the room.

For nine sleepless nights he tried to discover a way out. Degenerate days indeed when morality, etiquette, even the church, could be openly defied. He found none. The only thing that he found was a flaw in the ceremony that he had himself, conducted. He had to break it to Shredik that he and Natcha had never been properly married at all, at which the good banker heaved a sigh of relief. For now he was free of the whole affair, unless the pig-headed old Perunuch should take it into his head to shoot him for living with his daughter when they were not properly married. On the whole, it seemed best to avoid all complications

by returning at once to Zagreb. And so the last obstacle was down, and the romantic story of Natcha and Maiter, which already had begun to circulate through the marketplaces, in the mouths of ballad singers and storytellers ended at the altar to which Notcha was led for the second time in a month. Compared with it, the stories of Paris and Helen or of Hero and Leander paled.

It was told and sung with such a wealth of detail, such fervor, such gallantry, such romance, such bravery, such exaltation of the divine spirit of love as never were heard in any story before. In short, it was told exactly as Notia herself. believed it all to have happened. And as I should have believed it to have happened, if the story had been told me by Natcha herself, or even by some outsider, by anyone except

Maitar Lakinvarivik, himself, in the little Triesta wine shop, where he was too drunk to remember to be discreet. But the tragic ending, the shattering of all poor little Natcha's dreams and illusions, the perpetual exasperation of Miter forced to pretend love and the glare of publicity to a woman for whom he did not care to pens, the horror of an innocent girl when she discovered what manner of man he was. I have said that the ways of love are inscrutable, that no man can prophesy them. Miter, whose heart had remained hard when he had every reason to love Notcha, was no sooner married to her, no sooner had every reason to hate and loathe her, than he saw her, as he put it, with clear eyes for the first time.

In other words, fell as madly in love with her as she had with him. I cannot explain it, I can only state it. They had three children to whom Mitre proved a devoted father. When he was forced for financial reasons to leave home, he carried the photograph taken of her on that memorable occasion in Zedinka's studio everywhere he went. And all the time he and I were together, he never failed to write to her at least once a day.

This, after they had been married for over five years. It only shows how important it is. Once one has set one's hand to the plow, never to look back on any excuse, whatever. End of Section 1. Lockenvarivik. Section 2 of A Moment of Time by Robert Hughes. This is a Librevox recording.

All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Read by Ben Tucker. A Moment of Time by Richard Hughes. The Stranger 1. The street in Sylphant was so steep that if you took a middling jump from the top of the village, you would not touch ground again until you reached the bottom,

but you would probably hurt yourself. The houses sat each on others' left shoulder, all the way up, so that the smoke from Mrs. Grocery Jones' chimney blew in at Mrs. Boot Jones' basement, and out through her top windows into the cellar of the post office, and out through the post office daughter's little bedroom casement into that of the butchery aunt,

who was paralyzed and lived downstairs, and so on up the whole line like a flu, till it left soot on the stomachs of the sheep grazing on the hillside, above. But that does not explain why the stranger came to Silfant Village, unless it was through curiosity, nor indeed what he was doing in such a Sabbath-keeping little Anabaptist Hamlet at all, where he might have known he would meet with an accident, nor what he was doing so far from home. Mr. Williams was the rector of Sylphent, and perhaps thirty miles round, such an old fat man that he had difficulty in walking between his different churches on Sundays. His face was heavy, his eyes small,

but with a dream in them, and he kept sticky, sweet things ready in his pocket. He was stone-deaf so that now he roared like a bull, now whispered like a young lover. He might be heard roaring across a valley. He had one black suit with patches on it, and one surplus that he had darned sometimes. He lived by letting the rectory in the summer, and when the disestablishment bill wiped away his stipend of eight pounds, he made up for it by taking in washing. You would see him in front of the rectory, legs, set well apart, both heavy arms plunged up to the elbows and suds, a towel-pin to each shoulder

to save his black coat, roaring a greeting to all who might pass. Silfant was very proud of the smallness of his congregation, for in Wales to have many church people in a village is a great disgrace. They are always the scallywags, the folk who have been expelled from their chapels, and who hope, even if they cannot expect heaven, that things will not be quite so uncomfortable for them in the next world as if they gave up religion altogether. There were only three families except for the squire's governess that ever came to sylph and church. Mr. Williams hated verse, but he preached them pure poetry. He had such an imagination that if he meditated on the anatomy of angels, there seemed to be strange flying things about his

head, and the passionate roaring and whispering of his voice could hang Christ even on the polished brass altar cross. Presently he married the girl who played the harmonium, but she had one leg. It was she, many, that took in the stranger. They were sitting one night in the rectory parlor, and Mr. Williams was reading a book of sermons with great fixity of mind in order to forget his loss. For that day the little ring on his watch chain had opened, and he had lost the gold cross that he had always carried.

Many was sure that it had been there when they started to climb the village. But there had been no lantern. The wind was a fleet howling darkness, so they could not search till the morning, even if it lay on their very doorstep. Mr. Williams read three sermons at a gulp, and close the book. It was always a thing of amazement that a man who read such dull sermons with such avidity could put so much thrill and beauty, so little of the morality, into his own

preaching. He shut the book, and giving a great sigh, puffed out his cheeks, while he squinted along the broad shirt-front under his chin. Many went to turn down the lamp, as she always did, for reasons of thrift, when her husband was not actually reading. And all at once, she heard a cry in the night, sharp as a child's, and full of terror and innocence. She opened the door, and saw a small huddled figure in the roadway. There was a little light shining from it, bluish and fitful, and she knew at once it was something more than natural.

She set her wooden leg firmly against the doorstep, and, bending down, caught the stranger up in her arms and lifted him over the threshold. He lay there, blinking in the lamplight, a grotesque thing, with misshapen ears, and a broad, flat nose. His limbs were knotted, but the skin at his joints was yellow,

and delicate as a snake's belly. He had crumpled wings, as fine as petrol upon water. Even thus battered their beauty could not be but seen. He seemed in pain, and there was a small cross-shaped wheel burnt on his side. As if he had stumbled on a little red-hot iron. Poor little thing, said Mr. Williams,

looking at it sideways from his chair. What is it? It is more ugly than anything I have ever seen, said many. Perhaps it is an angel, for it was never born of woman. We should be more. humble, Minnie, said her husband, Who are we that God should send his angels to try us? At any rate, I think it is not, said Minnie.

We will see. She took up the book of sermons and touched him on the forehead with it. He gave a shrill yell of pain. God forgive me for my cruelty, she exclaimed. It must be a... It is a stranger, said Mr. Williams quickly. Many turned and looked at him. What shall we do?

She shouted in his ear, for if we harbor it we shall surely be damned. We must not help God's enemies. We are taught to love our enemies, whispered Mr. Williams, and who is God's enemy is ours too. But it can feel no gratitude, said many. It will return us evil for good. If we do good in the hope of gratitude, we have our reward, roared Mr. Williams.

You mean you will keep him, said many. I mean, the old man groaned, I do not know what to do, indeed whatever. But the visitor settled that question for him himself. He crawled over to the fireplace, and sitting himself on one of the reddest coals, smiled at them with a grin that stretched from ear to ear. Two.

That was how the little devil came to sylphent rectory. He had a great natural charm, and when the cross-shaped wheel on his side was better, for it had healed quickly under the action of fire, fire, his spirits returned to him. One was led to forget the grotesque beauty of his form by the generous amiability of his expression. He took to the old rector at once, and Mr. Williams himself could not but feel a secret liking for him. That night he followed them up to bed. Mr. Williams had to shut and lock the bedroom door on him, but hardly were they inside when they saw a bluish light

on the panel, and presently the little devil was sitting perched upon the bedrail, watching with a sober interest, many unstrap her wooden leg. And even when she said her prayers, which she did in shamefast fashion for fear of giving him pain. He showed no embarrassment, whatever. When they were both fast asleep, he took down Minnie's old peg from the shelf, where she had laid it and did something to it in the corner. He then laid down in a pool of moonlight, and was still sleeping soundly when the rector heaved himself out of bed in the morning. The old man woke Minnie, who scrambled out of bed, and began to strap on her leg preparatory to getting the breakfast. But a wonderful thing happened. For no sooner had she fitted her scarred stump into the leather socket, then the leather

change to flesh, and the wood to flesh. And there she was with the most elegant and seductive leg that ever troubled a man's eye. And moreover, there was a silk stocking on it, and a high-heel pair of shoe on it, before she could recover her surprise. As she drew on her old ringed black and white cotton oddment over the other stocky red ankle, she thought that never had such a pair of legs been seen together on one body. She looked round in a guilty fashion, but her husband was balanced in front of the looking glass, shaving himself. He had not seen. She pulled on her dress all in a hurry and danced away downstairs. She let up the blinds and swept the floor, and all the time her new leg behaved as well as if she had known it all her life. But directly, she flung open

the front door to shake the mat. It began all at once to drag and jib. She got pins and needles in it. It jumped and kicked like a thing quite out of control, and she saw the reason. For there in the roadway where she had found the stranger the night before, was the rector's gold, cross. There is no mistaking, said Minnie to herself, where that leg came from. And indeed there was not. She sidled up to the cross with difficulty and recovered it, and all at once heard steps on the cobbles. It was Scraggy Evan, the postman. Many's first thought was to hide the leg, for it would take some explaining away, but it would not be hidden. The shameless thing thrust the delicate turn of its ankle right under Scraggy Evans' nose. Scraggy's cheery,

Borda! was lost in a gasp, and poor Minnie fled and the house Scarlet with shame, the damnable leg, giving coquettish little kicks into the air as she went. What Scraggy told the village we can only guess, but he must have told them something, or why should Mrs. Williams have received so many callers that morning? The first came when breakfast was hardly over, and the stranger was sitting quietly on the hob picking his teeth with his tail. Many had great presence of mind. She ran to her workbox, and taking it from a red flannel pettico that she had been mending, wrapped the stranger in it, and crammed him quickly into a wooden box. begging him in a staccato whisper to lie still.

Upon the face of Mr. Williams there was a look of much courage and resignation. Devil or no, he was prepared to justify his guest to all comers. Many opened the door, and Mrs. Grocery Jones stood there. Good morning, said she. I was calling to ask if you're driving over to Inneslin Better Back to Drith Jerylind today. She paused and sniffed, then sniffed again. There was no doubt of it. Somewhere, sulfur was burning.

We are not, said many. You're too busy here, indeed, with the plague-y wasps. Mr. Williams has hardly smoked out one nest, but bad are they as they were before, indeed. Mrs. Jones gave a gasp of surprise. Wasp is in the wintertime, she said. I did not say wasps, said many. I said the wallpaper, which the doctor thinks may have the scarlet fever lurking in it. So have we fumigated the whole house?

It was lucky, thought many, that her husband was so deaf. He would never have forgiven her. "'Well, good gracious,' said Mrs. Jones. "'As her eyes got used to the dim light, "'she caught sight of a broad head with two beady yellow eyes "'peering at her from a soapbox. "'And is that a cat you have there, Mrs. Williams?' "'It is a pig,' she cried with sudden heat,

"'for her new leg showed an obvious desire "'to kick Mrs. Jones out of the house. "'It has the wind,' she explained, "'so we thought it would be best in the house, indeed.' "'Well, good gracious me,' repeated Mrs. Jones. Minnie's leg was quivering, but she managed to control it. Mrs. Jones was staring past her at the pig as if she could not take her eyes off it, as indeed she could not.

For suddenly she shot half across the road, backwards with the force of a bullet. And when released, she scrambled down the street, as she herself explained it, as if the devil was after me. And there was the stranger, wrapped still in the red flannel petticoat, sitting on the window-sill and grinning amiably at her back. Three. If Mr. Williams had lived longer, A few curious things might have happened in Sylphant Village, but he did not.

There was a buzzing feeling in his head all that day, and when he went to bed at night he lay quietly on his back, staring at the ceiling. It had turned a bright green. Presently, with his eyes open still, he began to snore. Many did not notice anything queer, and in the small hours of the morning, after two or three loud snorts, he stopped altogether. When he felt better, he found that his soul was outside his body. It was not at all the kind of thing he had expected it to be, but was fairly round and made of some stuff like white of egg. He gathered it gently into his arms and began to float about. His body had disappeared.

Presently he was aware that the stranger was still watching him. You'll be damned for this. Double damned even for giving place to the devil. And you a priest. He sighed. It is so hard, he went on seriously. Even for devils to conquer their better nature. Oh, I try hard enough.

I surely try. The seeds of goodness have lurked in us ever since the fall. Try as we will, they sprout. With a fork drive, nature out, she will ever yet return. Temptation is always lurking ready for us. It is a long and hard fight. The forces of evil against the forces of good. But we shall conquer in the end. With wrong on our side, we must conquer. There was an elation in his face that transcended all earthly ugliness. At last. He went on. I have done a really immoral act, an act with no trace of good in it,

either in motive or effect. You will be damned, and many will be damned, too, even if she has to hop to hell on the leg I gave her. But it was hard, hard. Old Williams floated over, on to the other side. I am a sinful man, he said. A very sinful man. Heaven was never my desserts, whatever.

The devil looked at him in some sort of. surprise. Oh, you are not, he said earnestly. Indeed, you are not. You were the truest. He stopped suddenly. Williams was aware of the presence of some very unpleasant personality. He looked round, and behind him stood a tall figure with thin, tight lips and watery eyes, who began speaking at once, rapidly, as if my wrote. As a matter of form, said he, I claim this soul. As a matter of form, replied the devil in a sing-song voice. He is mine.

The angel rapped out. Decoa-cosa. Deiablo consultando. Chanted the little devil, an even worse Latin. Quay sit evidentia. Tuos voculus, Ipsos. Quad vidi vero at qua, affirmo, satis, continued the angel. Tumst!

And he turned to go. Stop! cried the stranger suddenly, all his bad resolutions breaking down. Stop! He cried and began speaking. rapidly. I'm a backslider, I know. But the strain is too much. There's no true devilry in me. Take him. Take him. There was never better Christian in Wales. I swear it. And to that alone, his damnation is due. Pure charity.

What are you talking about? snapped the angel petulantly. The case is settled. I have withdrawn my claim. So do I, cried the devil excitedly. I withdraw mine. The angel shrugged his wings. What's the use making a scene? He said, "'Never in all my office have I known a fiend "'break down and forget himself like this before.

"'You were making an exhibition of yourself, sir. "'Besides, if we both withdraw, he can't go anywhere. "'It's none of my business.' "'He shrugged his wings and soared away. "'Heaven or hell or the land of Whippurgyny,' "'murred Williams to himself, "'vake memories of Nash rising to the surface of his astonishment. "'Together they watched the angel's purple pinions

"'bearing him from sight. The stranger cocked a snook at his straight back. Where now? asked the rector. Where now? Heaven. Wait till he's out of sight. He turned and winked broadly at Williams, making a motion on his bare shanks as if to thrust his hand in a pocket. You come with me, he said. I know how I can get things fixed for you. End of Section 2. The Stranger. Section 3 of A Moment of Time by Richard Hughes.

This is a Libervox recording. All Liberbox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Read by Ben Tucker. A moment of time by Richard Hughes. Locomotive Perhaps the signals were to blame. Certainly not able,

for there never was a more conscientious engine driver-born, a very proper union man, bred of sound locomotive stock and steady with his wages, a man, moreover, in spite of his passion for bright shining brass, with a soul and an ambition that always flickered ahead of him between the plates, like a demure person, keeping his two eyes glued to the little glass window in front of his cabin. So it certainly could not have been Abel's fault. Not even when his soul beckoned ever so alluringly in front of him,

down the permanent way. Did he let his train draw a few bare seconds ahead of time? It must have been the signals that were to blame. the crash came, Abel was flung violently from his feet. He had just time to see his ambition give a terrified, desperate leap into the darkness. And the night express at his back, with the clatter and den of half-dome's day, vaulted into the air like a buck rabbit in spring. Abel did not feel much hurt, whoever else was, and his senses returned to him almost at once. Indeed, he did not feel hurt at all. It surprised him that his engine seemed still

upright on its eight round wheels. But its behavior was odd, for it was leaping into the air like a young thing, till Abel had to heave hold of all the knobs and gadgets within reach to keep his balance, nor could he for the life of him stretch out to let off steam. The bats and the owls and the plovers were weaving such a net of swoopings round him that Abel's head seemed spinning on his shoulders. Still, the engine rollicked ecstatically on its bogies. And then of a sudden it darted straight across the field taking one of Horlick's gigantic hoarding cows in its full stride and bearing it clean away, then crashed through a young spinny, waking the thick scents of crushed spring bank at its back and out on to the road. There it straddled monstrously from ditch to ditch, dribbling hot cinders

onto the tarred macadim. Behind him, through the spinny, by the permanent way, Abel could see fire and smoke, and screams were rising faint and far off, and as if from a derailed engine steam was gushing out with a great wail. Far away down the road, the two headlights of a car were widening fast, and presently Abel saw the driver straining his eyes toward the accident, straining so fixedly that he seemed unaware of the locomotive blocking the roadway. So Abel blew three shrieking blasts on the whistle, for the pace of the car was terrible, but the driver seemed not to hear, kept straight on, nearer rushed and suddenly nearer, till his headlights blinded full in Abel's eyes. Yet there was no expected crash, only a rush of air with dust rising, and Abel saw the taillight

dwindling on the other side. Presently the motorist drew up, and ran across the field to the wreckage. A little cloud of dust, as if it were ghostly dust, seemed still rising through the footplates of Abel's cabin, which was rocking slightly. The smell of oil grew fainter in his nose. But dawn was already creeping among the hen-roosts, and with the first cock-crow the great engine glided forward, seeming to tread delicately as a bird, for whereas before it had cut pungent ruin through the spinny, now it hardly spread awake through the hay at its back,

nor awoke the ants in their hills, nor harassed the spider at his morning loom. The west wind blew through the glass into Abel's face, so thin that it never stirred his hair, and the furnace glowered faintly through the filled mists. The fires burnt still untended, For John Stoker was gone, When and Howl, Abel might not remember.

He took up the shovel and flung coal into them himself. At the same time it seemed to gather speed, But advanced steady now as if on a main line, Growing faster till tree and coppice were whipping past, Farms scattering to rearward, All obstacles melted as if before ghosts. And it was an odd thing, But whenever Abel looked, there was a faint streaky glimmer.

the glimmer of light on the rails of a permanent way, that seemed to form a few sleeper spans ahead of him, cutting through trees, houses, hills, and dying out behind as these ordinary things closed up again like a wall after him. Soon he was climbing more slowly up the incline of a wooded hill, and presently a gypsy fire twinkled ahead, some five sleepers round it. The wonder of the thing had ceased to appall him.

He never thought of need to give them warning, when the whole world seemed grown unsubstantial, Four of them slept on safe, but one sat up suddenly with a slurring cry, his face drawn with nightmare, his arms thrust out stiffly till the clinking bogey wheels caught them and beat them down under without a jolt, and the rest never stirred in their sleep, for the engine scarcely brushed their faces, and it was then second cockcrow, with a faint greenness in the air. Again after second cockcrow, there was a child who woke and waved her hand to him as he passed,

awkwardly for standing on the window-sill she could hardly reach her arm through the top of the sash. Then there were women who woke and cried out names to him, as if they saw a husband or brother or child riding in a train behind him. But Abel knew that he and his engine were alone. What was it they saw? The shadowy carriages of Anwen? Souls pilgriming to Hades. The fiery chariots of heaven. I do not say, but perhaps each differently.

and some nothing. There were three men sitting on the hard stone of a field roller, one night and small hours by the roadside at the top of Heddington Hill. Tubal Kane had a dancing shoe in each side pocket, and Surud had his bagpipes, and the dewy hair of all of them hung forward over their eyes. Seth was laying glowworms on the flat white front of his shirt, and Surud was carefully cleaning the reeds in the drone of his pipes.

There was a single chaffinch, challenging, in the hedgerow when it should not. Two-ball Cain tumbled asleep in the long grass, and they all wanted to go home, but were not able. Surud put each reed in place with a sigh, and rose to his feet unsteadily, set elbow to bag, and fingers to chanter, and foot to the road, playing up and down in front of them.

Ten yards each way, then back again, strutting carefully with legs apart, till the unending rigameral of his piping brought Cain to sitting up on his haunches. From Oxford, Seth, heard an engine whistle thinly, and presently the clanking of its pistons beat heavily even through the piping, though there is no railroad within many miles. Surud turned and piped back again.

The slow rhythm of a train drew nearer. He thought it was a goods train. Sirud stopped piping suddenly so that the air filtered dolefully through the drones. A train! he cried. Seth, Cain, let's board her! There are no trains pass here, said Seth. Why not? said Surud.

It is an echo, said Seth, listening. What are you talking about? said Tubal Kane. Suddenly Abel's great engine swung by them in the dark. A shadowy string of trucks at its tail. Seth saw Surud carefully wait his chance, then fling himself pipes and all on one of them. Kane did not see this. He saw Seth presently balance himself,

then spring suddenly up, grasping at nothing at all, fall through on his face in the road's middle. Moreover, he saw that Surud, had vanished. But Seth, his chin grazed in the road's dust, heard Surud's terrible piping dwindling fast towards Beckley. Then came third cockcrow, and the night was silent. End of Section 3. Locomotive. Read by Valeria Aetra, A Moment of Time by Richard Hughes. Lloyd The mountain seemed knotted and climbing on one another's backs,

stretching their rocky fingers up to heaven, who sat mockingly like a vast boy blew astride the roof ridge of the world. The backs were rugged, lumpy with rough patches of bilberry, Their heads were grey, hairy with distant shoots of shale, but their black, gnarled fingers clutched among the white unsubstantial clouds, straining up without movement. And the clouds sailed quietly over like silent argosies, blasted with thunder, sounding the plain with a long shadow, or anchored with a silver chain of rain. the thin breeze would fill their mainsail and fore top sail, and they would slide quietly

on, breasting the crested hills. There were not many people lived so high as the clouds, a few scattered farms where nothing great, where everyone was born old, where children, monstrous through inbreeding, gaped with vague eyes and mouthed for travellers, a land of strudbrugs. On the Craig Drake, said legend, lived once an old lady saint and now she haunts it. If you do not throw a stone on her grave as you pass, she leaps upon you, as ugly as sin. Lloyd was born in the Guma, a small grey house with thick walls and grew with a clouded brain. Every Sunday his father and mother became very grim and fierce and tramped ten miles to hear the thundrings of their gout.

where Lloyd used to creep out into the farmyard and build queer things out of mud, or creep away into the hills and listen for the Jehan. Sometimes he heard them. One night he woke up in tingling terror while the trumpet of Anand played thinly across the valley, but he never told his parents about the Shillan or the trumpet. The shapples do no hold with fairies, but the old women's whisper tales secretly to the children and the children tiptoe away and whisper more secrets among themselves so the legends go on. Lloyd did not go to school because he was too amazed. He could not understand

the simplest things, even the Bible. But he loved to finger smooth round objects such as china nest eggs and to hear the harmonium. Brass he did not like, partly because it's showing, partly because it was not pleasant touch. He's culled whenever there was brass in the room. One day when he could bathe brice-shining warming pans and the bright copper candlesticks in the brass candlesticks and the copper jam boilers no more. He crept quietly up the hill to a little three-cornered cave where sheep sheltered and began to talk. Manet, he whispered, Manet, once or twice. Manet was the first fairy who had grown into his brain. She slid quietly across the clear, diamond-like regions of his mind

where the clouds had not yet rolled. She had no form, but was nevertheless very dear to him. So was Mugan. Morgan, too, had no form, but in nature he was par-man, pa-shaggy, kindly dog. Of the real he was half afraid, she was cold and fair, and in his queer craze way, he always, thought of her as something to do with smooth stones. She never came, like Manette or Morgan,

to his call. But now Manette slid into his mind, and he lay very happily close to the turf, talking to her in his head. When she was there, and Morgan, he had never any fear of the wicked old saint of Craig Drake and her ghastly sucking stone. Then in the night a storm of ghosts sputtered their fingers against the window pain, Lloyd would call silently for Morgan, and Morgan would cross the moonlight with unheard barking, and then the fire would burn bright again. But when he was very calm and still, the Will would slide suddenly across his dreams like a cool fish. But this day he went and lay in the three-honoured cave, and Manet became suddenly real to him. He began to ask how many clouded questions in his mind, questions that most small children ask and the nurse's answer for them, incomprehensibly, before they are five years old and before many more years they give up, asking them.

All the big questions beginning with why. But Lloyd had never asked a question aloud in his life. When he said why, to Manette, she would tell him inarticulately all the secrets of the world so that he felt very why. Why is the even than the small green elephant that the poet saw following the feet of magicians about their attics? Then he would try and frame this too great wisdom in a thought, but his poor brain always failed him when he tried to think, and he would go sorrowfully back to his mud-pahang in the farmyard. But today, he tried to fit the crooked key of Manate's answerings into the rusty lock of his own brain. But, try as he would, it could never agree.

it could never go through the narrow keyhole. Far below him in the valley, under the black crack of Craig Drake, a small silver stream, like spilt mercury, glittered on the rocks. Far both two reeling buzzards started jealously across each other's hunting ground. Lloyd wanted to know its meaning and why it made him sometimes glad and sometimes melancholy. He jumped suddenly to his feet, hammering, as it were, with both hands. on the doors of knowledge, yelling for admittance, till the ecstatic snub-nosed slums stopped and stared at this new surprise. Then, coward, Lloyd turned and walked back to the farm aimlessly,

on indeterminate legs. There was nothing on his idiot face to show what had been happening. In a sort of wild resentment, he caught a shrieking chicken in the yard, then vague memories of beatings made him look round in lunatic fear and let it go. He hid behind the bracken sledge while one of his brothers passed and kept his hand over his face. David had never hit him, but he was afraid. As he slipped into the house, he met his father and caught at his coat in a sudden resolve and tried to question him. His father shook him roughly. "'Sharon!' cried old Evan. Who was telling you lives about them, indeed?

For, as I said, the shapels do not hold with fairies. Then and there, Ivan took and ran his son into the parlour, where the sun filtered through red and yellow stained glass, onto the springless sofa and the tudor-dresser, with its willow patterned plates, and onto the heated brass, while Ivan opened a Bible and preached the fiercest and most elegant sermon he had ever preached in his life. His voice, like that of most Welsh preachers, soon rose to a sing-song-sibilant wail. Cold fear rippled over Lloyd in waves, little bits of what his father was saying contrived to trickle through the defence of his idiocy.

Terrors of hell took hold of him, burst on him in a sudden huge wave of semi-understanding. He got hold of the table and screamed till his father stopped. Ivan took breath and went on again with the wonderful eloquence, harsh chanting, harsh shouting, telling him this and that. Lloyd became dully silent and listened, relentlessly his father mapped out the universe in God and hell, and the why and the wherefore, and idols and punishment, and Amalekites, and the beast and the angels out of Ezekiel, till Lloyd saw a vast mountain-grade plain, where all these things,

advanced upon him like a patchwork army, clear and sharp. While Jehovah chanted a strange pain from the belly of the beast, then black thunder clouds from Sinai rolled down his mind, and the three fairies, fleeing before them, vanished into the vague work of Ezekiel. The black thunder clouds rolled, roaring down into the plain, and the clear diamond-like spaces in his mind were clouded and plotted out forever. Jehovah's sands, pain faded to a wine and Lloyd crept out to sit in the muddy farmyard. The three fairies were lost forever in the fiery mark of Izekiel, and the black thunder-clouds from Sinai grew solid as rock, crushing in with their weight the three-cornered cave in the hills,

blocking him in from his imaginations with their eternal adamant. End of Section 4. Section 5 of A Moment of Time. This is a Libravox recording. all Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org. Recording by Rita Boutros. A Moment of Time by Richard Hughes Poor Man's Inn Scattered up and down the main English roads,

there are certain caves, barns, empty cottages, and other places of shelter that all tramps know of. You will tell them. probably by seeing a few lousy rags hanging on bushes near, but they are surprisingly well hidden as a rule. Once inside, more inadequate bits of rag and tins for cooking, and the remains of the last fire, a shapeless candle end on a bit of slate, a crust or two, perhaps, and a smell of mice. One night in a rough spring that I was wet through to the tail of my shirt, walking in the forest of Klun on the Welsh marches, I left the road by a narrow

gate on the right and turned into a quarry. Clun is one of the oldest oak forests in Britain, very steep, wild country, not very far from Ludlow, a curious town crowded on a hilltop round the Red Castle where Comus was first acted. This quarry was of the same red stone. Once off the road it bends to the left. You are at the bottom of a sort of shaft, roofed very far up with dripping oak leaves, and on one side the rock caves in, leaving room for a dozen men or more to shelter on a ledge of sandstone.

I felt my way in with both hands, for the night was black enough outside. The wind in the trees above roared, and every few moments as they swayed, the branches unburdened themselves of rain like a wave-breaking. Then the wind lulled, and from the sheltered ledge I heard a snoring, almost as loud as of a man in a fit. Then there were steps behind me, the clank of iron on stone. I crept my way into shelter, a voice behind me, "'Hist, who's there? All right, friend!'

A burly figure followed me in. I could hear an iron foot clink on the stone, and answered his greeting. He fumbled for a match and struck it, but the wind blew it out. I had a glimpse of a huge body, one of the broadest men I have ever seen, queerly dressed. Behind me the other lodger snored stertorously. The newcomer felt his way past me. breathing heavily and clicking his tongue in a hollow tooth.

Paper rustled. Silly blighter, is drunk as a lord. Ralled himself in newspaper too to keep the cold out. Guess it will serve our return, friend. He stripped off the drunkard's covering, who never stirred, and must miraculously have found some dry wood in a recess of the cave, for I could hear him moving heavily about, still clicking his tongue in his tooth,

and then he shielded the flame of another match in his cap and lit a fire. Its little flames flickered desperately at first, then suddenly it blazed up, lighting the cave like a furnace mouth, where the three of us were set like the three children. The flames made rubies of the nearer rain, the smoke sucked a little,

battered down by the cold air outside, and wandered off towards the other end of the ledge. The firelighter crouched over his fire. He was an immense man, not tall, but with long arms, a mountainous chest, and a broad flat face like a savage, though it was more cheerful in expression. He had a knotted kerchief round his neck, and wore a sleeveless coat of lion-skin,

bare arms with raindrops still glistening on the tattoo, two marks, baggy sailor's trousers that half hid his iron foot, held up by a leather belt decorated with strips of tiger and python skin. By the fire he had set down a heavy bag that clinked with metal. Rainwater was running out of its bottom. He blew out his cheeks and warmed his hands, thrusting them right into the smoke. It's a cruel night for sleeping rough. God knows why I ever took to it. I've got a tough little circus of my own night up in London, waiting for the money to start it,

and here I am walking the road like any poor bloomin' lug-biter. How long have you been on the road, friend? Look at him now, a nice sociable, matey sort of chap to spend a night with ain'ty. He picked up a small piece of rock and heaved it onto the sleeping man's stomach, who hiccoughed suddenly, and then went on snoring.

Wake up, you silly blighter. Can't you see there's two gentlemen wanting to have a chat with you? Wake up! The coppers after you. It's close in time. Wake up. Coo, I can't understand a chap like that, what drinks himself silly.

Let's have a look at him. He heaved over onto one hand and held a burning branch over the sleeper's face. I know him, too. A chap called Lenora. I done him down last Worcester races. When five pounds he did. Oh, he was roaring drunk that day.

I fetched an old monkey's skull what I'd got in my pack, curio-like. I wired it onto a haddock's backbone and told him it was a mermaid's anatomy. Young one. He gave me four pound for it, he did. He's been looking for me ever since, they tell me. But I don't care. Wake up, yes, skunk. Don't you remember all.

Bill, what sold you the anatomy? You been looking for me, have you? Hey, wake up! But Mr. Lenora was dead to the world. Bill chuckled. Look at that now. Born to be hanged, he is. See them eyebrows, mating?

Born to be hanged, that means. I ain't a bit religious, but I'm very superstitious, you know. Not Jesusy, but I do believe in a bit of luck. See them bits of snake-skin? do you think they're lucky eh i do holy they are holy snake i got em out in malay same as where i learnt tattooin and the magic coffin trick but i ain't had a bit o luck not since are you married no that's right friend don't you be neither it's a dirty duck what paddles always in the same puddle i say i am what married but i'm through with it look at that he rummaged inside his shirt and pulled out an old pocket-book full of cuttings and photographs see that that's me slung up in chains sixty feet above deck and seven pair of regulation handcuffs see all the passengers watching i got out in four minutes same as i said i would that's me as a little boy you're

You can guess I had a good home, white collar and doll. Ah, that's the one. He handed me a creased photograph of a young woman in the conscious splendor of Sunday black, standing in front of a balustrade. One hand rested firmly on an aspedistra pot on a fancy stand. Now would you call her ansome? I examined it carefully. I would. He seemed disappointed. you? I wouldn't. Not real, handsome. Not like one of them flash girls. That's my wife, Irish girl. Irish Temper, too. Blummy. Lord alone knows what I wanted to do it for. We were married proper, you know, registry and all. Nor her either. She'd got birth and she'd got education. Red easy as winking she could. She hadn't got no business to marry a chap like.

me ought to know better she did mr lenora stirred and muttered something unintelligible that was smothered in another snore bill turned on him his face all comical with mock indignation now then ye low fellow will you kindly not interrupt he said this in an astonishingly good parody of an oxford accent or i'll roll you out in the ruddy rain He added in his own voice and chuckled. He clicked his tongue in his tooth once or twice meditatively. But I'm through with it, he went on. Cool, lemmy, what a life! Hello, who goes there? There was a sound of more footsteps through the rain,

a man's cautious plodding through the dark, and the clip-clap of a loose soul on the shoe of the woman who followed him. Walk up, walk up! cried bill cheerily but the stranger was unresponsive he was a small man with that roundness of figure and thinness of limb that often come of having too little to eat as he paused at the edge of the firelight he blew through his moustache so that the raindrops tumbled out of it but the oddest thing about him was his nose he had a nervous trick of twitching it like a rabbit he sat down with a grunt taking not the slightest notice of the girl at his heels. She had pulled her skirt up to hood her head. Her muddy petticoat flapped against her legs.

She took equally little notice of him, and sat down too a little way off, swathed like a mummy, half in the firelight and half in the shadow. Full bar to-night, gentlemen! Bill went on jocularly. A pint of old and mild, old round, please, Joe. "'Koo, I could do with a bit of grog inside me to-night.

"'Cruel ain't it, Mr. Parker?' "'My name ain't Parker,' said this stranger sullenly, his nose twitching. "'It's Spencer. What do you call me Parker for?' Bill looked at him and shook with mirth. "'Coo, I don't know. I can't think. "'Now why ever should I go and call him Parker, eh, friend?' "'He dug me in the ribs and went off into fresh peels of mirth.

Don't take no offense, he went on. I ain't a fighting men. I ain't that sort of chap. If a man wants to quarrel with me, I don't hit him, not I. He began to chuckle in anticipation of his little joke. I'd just go up to him,

friendly like, and bite a piece right out of his blooming face. Mr. Spencer snorted. All right, I ain't going to have a pull out of your mug you needn't worry. Suddenly he spun round with incredible swiftness and thrust his face close up against the strangers, pressing his own nose with his finger.

It had no bone in it and went absolutely flat, like a piece of India rubber. Mr. Spencer tumbled over in consternation. "'See now,' said Bill. "'That choke him! It always shakes him,' he added innocently, as if it were a habit of social intercourse with him. It shook Nell.

I done it in the registry office. It shook the register. He told me to remember it was a solemn occasion. Cool. You'd be a nice sort of chap to be married, too, you would? said Mr. Spencer, slowly and provocatively. So I was, said Bill impressively. But as I've just been telling this gentleman,

gentleman here, I'm through with it. I left Nell back at Oxford. Months ago that was—Mindjai was a good husband to her? What was you doing in Oxford, I asked. Exercise in my profession? Getting out a seven pair of handcuffs, 35 feet a chain, and a straight waistcoat in four minutes. While Nell took the hat round, I got handcuffs here. He tapped his sack of all the agents. I got a pair with teethanum, same as was used by the savage Romans, and the ancient mammoths of the Bohemian Desert. I've studied them. See here? He put his hand to his capacious nose, and brought out of it a small instrument like a whistle.

See that? That's a master key to all the handcuffs of Europe. Studied for that I did, made it myself. He put it back in his own. his nose where he seemed able to carry it in perfect comfort. As I was saying, we had a good week of it. They're a bit of all right, them, Oxford Police. But I didn't leave her, not till she come out of their firmery. I was always a good husband to her, careful like,

I hung on till she was right again. Nobody can't say I wasn't a good husband to her. What was the matter with her? I asked. well you see we had a bit of a row too many girls you know she used to get wild if i brought em into the house threatened to kill me she used to only her temper you know she didn't mean nothin by it she was a good girl at art i just took up the poker not to beat her you know just to learn her and she tripped up and broke her poor bloomin ankle much she was in the firmery mr spencer snorted again and took off his boots. He ostentatiously poured the water out of them onto the fire to see it go up in steam. Then he began to examine the condition of his feet. But Bill went on,

undisturbed. Pretty thin time of it I had. My show was stale, oughtn't never to do it more than a week. I didn't get more than a tan or a night, nor I couldn't change it easy. I was used to do the magic coffin trick, shove Nell in a coffin, padlocked Edd in foot each end, then saw it through the middle. That always fetched them, but I couldn't do it without Nell. You can't do it with any girl, you see. She's got to be made that way like Nell was. Nor I hadn't got my electrocutin' chair.

That always fetched them, but you couldn't lug it around with you. Nor I couldn't think of any new trick. you know how it is when you're in luck you can think of half a dozen no stunts but when you're down on it you just can't think of nothin cool lummy i remember up landudna way once i got a bit of wood and i nailed thousands of lug worms on to it so as you couldn't see the wood for the worms then i put it in a tank and exhibited it as a marine monster pride of the ocean when the silly worms waggled you see you see it in a tank and exhibited it as a marine monster pride of the ocean when the silly worms waggled you see they swum it about i took pounds on pounds out of that gate money stuff in the papers there was a known monster captured at landudnall the johnny came down from the aquarium he wanted to buy it that put the wind up me that did i broke it up said i'd throwed it back in the native ocean i did bill chuckled He offered a reward to anyone who could catch it again. They was all out fishing for weeks they were.

Cool, let me. But as I was saying, I couldn't think of nothing. I couldn't do a bit of house breaking, because I hadn't got no money. You must have something if you're gone to win. I got the brains and I got the experience. But I hadn't got the capital. There wasn't nothing for it but fire-eaten.

I done it. but it's terrible ard on the kidneys that is i was awful bad inside no one can't do it more than six months even one's what's used to it when nell was comin out i hadn't got no more than half a crown so the day before i shoves a bob into her bed and i beat it did she know you was goin i asked now made a scene she would have she was real fond o me i was a good husband to her i don't suppose she's got over it yet proper terrible fond she was mr spencer was puffing with anger his nose twitching up and down as if he had the ague that's a nice edifying little story to tell a party of strangers washing your dirty linen in public dirty linen said bill in genuine amazement said bill in genuine amazement why I don't see. He paused, and Mr. Spencer fidgeted nervously all over. You're as bad as a divorce court, you're, as bad as a divorce courtier.

You ought to be in jail you did. The girl, sitting huddled away from the fire, was shivering with cold, her teeth chattering with cold. Suddenly she threw the skirt back off her head. The light shone on a face of quite delicate beauty. now marred and twisted with rage her great eyes glittered in her head like fire her lips were drawn back tightly from her shining teeth bill stared at her stupidly slowly his expression changed to one of delight and an extraordinary tenderness well i'm he began her hand was hidden in a fold of her dress there was the sudden crack of a revolver and then and Bill pitched right over sideways onto his face. Mr. Spencer turned towards her, seemed to tower over

her. "'Whatever have you been and gone and done?' he said very slowly. Nell took no notice of him. The passion of her face had changed to a sort of impersonal hardness. She rose on to one knee, her loose wet hair blowing against the roof of the cave. She threw the revolver down. It glanced on a stone and skittered down the slope to where Mr. Lenora was still sleeping, the man born to be hanged. Mr. Spencer still stared at her fixedly. Crikey, he said presently, crikey, several times, with increasing emphasis. Suddenly he let out a funny little screech in the back of his throat. His eyes were starting like a pug-dogs. Then he said,

Lomi! Then he caught up his two boots and floundered suddenly out of the cave, crashing through the bushes to the road. I could hear him hollering with terror as he ran, till his breath gave out. Nell spoke for the first time. She had never taken her eyes off Bill, not for a moment. That'll learn him, she said in a matter-of-fact tone. He won't do that again. Then she turned towards me, the soft Irish in her voice gradually increasing. Stranger, she said, this is none of your business. It is not, said I.

You'd better be going, said she. She did not seem to have noticed Lenora lying there with the pistol by him, but was looking at me. She was very beautiful. I jerked my head towards the road. "'That one's gone,' I said. "'A's gone, surely.' "'Would you come along of me a bit?' I suggested diffidently. "'Boy, wouldn't you be frightened out of your life, to be with such as me?'

"'I'd not be afraid. Brave boy!' She spoke with a sarcasm that was shattering, which moved me to sulkiness. "'I'd—I'd not ask nothing of you.' For a moment the strange, statuesque woman seemed to flicker into life. Them as don't ask, don't get. Will you come then, Nell? Do you want me? Certain? I rushed on, heedless of her strange tone.

You're a grand woman. I couldn't kill a man like that, and not turn a hair. Her sarcasm flashed out again. She stared at me slowly from head to foot. No, I think you could not. I looked at Lenora, still sleeping drunkenly, with the revolver at his side. He was born to be hanged anyhow.

If I could get the girl away, no one would ever suspect her. Wouldn't you be afraid? I burst out, to be walking alone at night, with the memory of that. And I touched the giant with a bit my toe. Walk in, she said, and began to laugh, gently at first, and then like a cataract.

It's a walk, shall I be? She bowed her head forward and shook with peel upon peel of laughter. Suddenly flung her head up and laughed till the quarry echoed with it. Her hair came right down, her eyes streamed with tears, but still she laughed. My hair prickled on. My hair prickled on. I to its ends with horror. God, go with you, you poor woman, I said hastily, for I dare not. The rain had ceased. High up among the treetops,

the moon raced through the clouds. As suddenly as she had begun, she grew calm again. No, she said slowly, and with great emphasis. No, that you daren't. She began to plate up her hair over her shoulder,

coiled it round her head and pinned it. Suddenly she fell forward on the ground, scratching at it with her fingernails, crying, Bill, Bill! In a little husky voice like a child's, it was not a sight I could bear. I sat there biting at the back of my hand, staring at the dying fire, the moon, anything. Then again she stood up, breathing calmly and deeply, patted her hair once or twice, and like a shadow slipped out of the cave. She was gone.

Bill sat up. Wished, is she gone, friend? Cool, lummy, that shook her. He chuckled happily. I stiffened up where I still sat, cracking my head on the cave's roof. Are you hurt, man? I stuttered.

Hurt, Lord, no! He chuckled. Take it from me, friend. Give a woman a gun, and she'll miss you at six inches. But give her a knife, and she'll never go wrong, never. But that'll learn her not to go killing me. He added half fiercely. That ought to be a lesson to her, eh, friend?

Lord, she was pretty near mad she was. She loved me that cruel. You thought you'd go off with her, did you? Cool, lummy, what a joke! You are a caution. He roared with her. the laughter, slapping his huge thighs. Then he heaved over to one side and picked up the revolver. "'Tisn't your time yet, my friend?' he said soberly enough, leaning over Mr. Lenora,

whose face was twitching with some discomfort as he slept. "'Though you haven't got this cove to thank, you didn't wake up and clink tomorrow? Lomi, they'd have strung him sure. What with his threatening me and all. But Mr. Lenora slept on. Bill chuckled again. Though I'm not saying it wouldn't be better for him if they did, it's got to come some time. You can't go against a sure sign like them eyebrows,

and it would be better for his soul to be hanged when he hadn't done nothing, then wait until he had, wouldn't it, friend? You're right there, mister, I answered conciliatingly, but he suddenly swung round with incredible rapidity and covered me with his gun. His cheerful face was twisted with ferocity. So you thought you'd go off with her, did you?

I, I didn't mean anything. Oh, you didn't, didn't you? Going with a married woman. His mouth was still set like a wild beast, but there was a gleam in his eye, and I banked on it. "'She wasn't a married woman, Mr. She was a widow.' He burst out laughing and thrust the revolver into his side pocket. "'Bless you, I hadn't no cause to worry. I know Nell.'

"'I don't know about you,' said I. "'But my legs are stiff as a board with wet and colt, and there's a good moon. "'Let's walk on a mile or two before dawn.' "'Sure,' said Bill, and swung his huge sack. Together we found our way out onto the road. No, friend, as I was saying, began Bill sententiously. There was Nell huddled at the road's side half in the moonlight. Bill touched her.

She was quite dead, stabbed through the heart. Bill's face went gray, his lip dropped. Lomi, he said. I hadn't counted on that. In a sudden temper with him, I buried. burst into Welsh. "'Yeren ill ofrudity!' I cried. "'Yerin!'

Then he dropped on his knees, caught up her staring head in his arms. "'That was the end of the world,' he said and sighed. "'It's all gone, finished.' "'I had not noticed it,' said I. The eyes that regarded me were flecked with brown in the iris. "'No, no, perhaps some wouldn't, "'But there is no more space, no time, no matter.' "'But there is,' said I.

"'I can see a sunset in the sky, "'and there is a smoky mist in the hollows.' "'There is not,' said he. "'And I can hear that lame mare, knicker?' "'You cannot,' said he. "'And the bank soaks through me, breeches.' "'It does not,' said he. "'But today is Friday?'

"'It is not.' said he yet you're still biting your black fingernails i am not said he and talking to me i am not said he how could i be talking to you the world is ended then what is it i am seeing am i like a man struck blind who carries under his lids what he last set eyes on all your senses are clean cut off you like limbs and you have only the illusion of them as men do who have lost a leg or an arm at that i was dismayed because i have always taken a great delight in my senses then a little melancholy wandering smell whisked down the road partly bitter from the scent of a horse in it and some new whitewash i don't believe you i cried suddenly you do not said he for you are destroyed too well yen's fur i cried in sudden panic using his his bardic name yensfer if it's all illusion are you also destroyed what are you well i am not you deny that you exist then i do not deny it for if i do not exist how can i deny then that many-colored goat from hafoduchaf got upwind from me i could see him and the wind brought him and his small feet climbed on the rock Somewhere very high up, the lambs were yelling because of the frost between their two toes.

Steadily the tide of mist rose, while the sun went down in a glory of cloudlets, like little green fish scales. I don't believe you, I cried again. It's real, I tell you, real. Have you never said to yourself in a dream, now I really am awake? Yes, but why should I dream all this? this. Why are dreams ever dreamt? They say to save the mind from some shock too terrible for it. And what shock could be more terrible than the ending of all things? The heavens are rolled up as a scroll, and the twinkling of an eye the earth, and all that in it is consumed us with fire.

What shock could be more violent than that? My hair tingled on to its ends with horror. I will not dream, I cry. if i am a naked soul lost in the absolute at least i will know it i dare not love dream with the love i've given to the real world i will count three and wake one two you cannot said yinsfer three so i opened my eyes darkness was quietly settling down among the hills where the voices of plovers floated then i lay down on my face and rubbed it in the wet grit of the road i will wake up i cried you'll dream that your forehead is all bloody said will but how will that wake ye if there is no more time there is no future therefore you can never wake I wiped the misty glass of my watch with my thumb. It's ten minutes since you told me that the world was ended. The action of a dream may cover many weeks,

and yet the dream itself only last a few seconds. How long am I then dreaming this? One moment a time, the moment of the world's ending. And how long will the action of the dream last? Forever. If there is no time, eternity coincides with a moment. You can never cease dreaming. But if I suffer illusion, I exist, if I dream I am,

I cannot be cheated into a belief that I exist. Suppose that you exist. Then you, have you no existence outside my dream? If I have, it is in utter isolation. There is no more space. Therefore there can be no proximity, no communication, only utter isolation, for no soul can any other soul exist? If I do exist in this isolation, how can I say yes?

The communicative me, you only dream? The moisture from the mist collected on my hair and two drops rolled over the dried blood on my cheek, What you have been saying is a pack of paradox, said I. Nothing can both be and not be. on the contrary it is on the exact balance of being and not being that existence depends i will show it all things all time all space all mind perish if time could survive the destruction of mind then it would be possible for the act of destruction to become complete then would mind have perished but because time cannot survive it the existence of all minds must staying forever poised on a mind moment, the moment of their destruction. Dreaming that time and space still are, exactly balanced

in an eternal deadlock, between being and not being. That is the infinite deadlock, causing the infinite, convincing dream of men. And so an illusion a time of space, of self, as still existent, arises. In fact, the end of the world has made no difference whatever to anything, said I. Since it is impossible to know that it has ended, everything goes on exactly as before. I might prove conclusively in some paper that the world had ended,

and myself in that paper with it, three issues before. It makes absolutely no difference to you, said Yen's four, since you can't believe it. Man, man, I cried, suddenly raging. What do you want to make me believe it for? If you know it is ended, why can't you keep silent?

It is the truth. But you'll never convince anyone. Never. But if we shall never know, it makes very little difference whether it be true or false. No, no, perhaps not, to you? The scratches on my face were smarting. Not now, I said. Now?

He played with the word as if to remind me that it was meaningless. Then a young girl trotted by on a gray mare, nervous of the lurking night. I stood up and fitted my pipe to my teeth. I must get on with my dream, I said, and left him. End of Section 5. Section 6 of Moment of Time by Richard Hughes. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public,

domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. Read by Ben Tucker. A Moment of Time by Richard Hughes. A moment of time. That was the end of the world, he said, and sighed. It's all gone. Finished. I had not noticed it, said I. The eyes that regarded me were flecked with brown and the iris.

No. No, perhaps some wouldn't, but there is no more space, no time, no matter. But there is, said I. I can see a sunset in the sky, and there is a smoky mist in the hollows. There is not, said he. And I can hear that lame mare knicker. You cannot, said he, and the bank soaks through my breeches. It does not, said he.

But today is Friday. It is not, said he. Yet you are still biting your black fingernails. I am not, said he, and talking to me. I am not, said he. How could I be talking to you? The world has ended. Then what is it I am seeing?

Am I like a man struck blind who carries under his lids what he last set eyes on? All your senses are clean cut off you like limbs. and you have only the illusion of them, as men do who have lost a leg or an arm. At that I was dismayed, because I have always taken a great delight in my senses. Then a little melancholy, wandering smell whisked down the road, partly bitter from the scent of a horse in it and some new whitewash. I don't believe you, I cried suddenly. You do not, said he, for you are destroyed too.

Will, Ennisphor, I cried in sudden panic, using his bardic name. Inesphor, if it's all an illusion, are you also destroyed? What are you, Will? I am not. You deny that you exist, then? I do not deny it, for if I do not exist, how can I deny? Then that many-colored goat from Hafford Uchoff got up wind from me. I could see him, and the wind brought him, and his small,

feet clicked on the rock. Somewhere very high up, the lambs were yelling because of the frost between their two toes. Steadily the tide of mist rose, while the sun went down in a glory of cloudlets like little green fish scales. I don't believe you, I cried again. It's real, I tell you, real! Have you never said to yourself in a dream, now I really am awake? Yes, but why should I dream all this? Why are dreams ever dreamed? They say to save the mind from some shock too terrible for it. And what shock could be more terrible than the ending of all things? The heavens are rolled up as a scroll, in the twinkling of an eye, the earth, and all that in it is consumed as with fire. What shock could be more violent than that? My hair tingled on to its ends with horror.

I will not dream, I cried. If I am a naked soul lost in the absolute, at least I will know it. I dare not love dream with the love I have given to the real world. I will count three and wake. One, two, you cannot, said Ennis for. Three. So I opened my eyes. Darkness was quietly settling down among the hills where the voices of plovers floated.

Then, then I lay down on my face and rubbed it in the wet grit of the road. I WILL WAKE up, I cried. You will dream that your forehead is all bloody, said Will, but how will that wake you? If there is no more time, there is no future. Therefore you can never wake. I wiped the misty glass of my watch with my thumb. It is ten minutes since you told me that the world was ended. The action of a dream may cover many weeks, and yet the dream itself only lasts a few seconds.

How long am I then? dreaming this. One moment of time. The moment of the world's ending. And how long will the action of the dream last? Forever. If there is no time, eternity coincides with a moment. You can never cease dreaming. But if I suffer illusion, I exist. If I dream I am, I cannot be cheated into a belief that I exist. Suppose that you exist. Then you, have you no existence outside. my dream? If I have it is an utter isolation. There is no more space.

Therefore there can be no proximity, no communication, only utter isolation. For no soul can any other soul exist. If I do exist in this isolation, how can I say yes? The communicative me you only dream. The moisture from the mist collected on my hair and two drops rolled over the dried blood on my cheek. What you have been saying is a pack of paradox, said I. Nothing can both be and not be. On the contrary, it is on the exact balance of being and not being that existence depends. I will show it. All things, all time, all space, all mind, perish. If time could survive the

destruction of mind, then it would be possible for the act of destruction to become complete. Then would mind have perished. But because time cannot survive it, the existence of all minds must hang forever poised on a moment, the moment of their destruction, dreaming that time and space still are exactly balanced in an eternal deadlock between being and not being. That is the infinite deadlock, causing the infinite convincing dream of men. And so an illusion of time, of space, of self, as still existent arises. In fact, the end of the world has made no difference whatever to anything, said I. Since it is impossible to know that it has ended, everything goes on exactly as before.

I might prove conclusively in some paper that the world had ended, and myself in that paper with it three issues before. It makes absolutely no difference to you, said Innesphor, since you can't believe it. Man, man, I cried suddenly raging. What do you want to make me? believe it for if you know it is ended why can't you keep silent it is the truth but you will never convince anyone never but if we shall never know it makes very little difference whether it be true or false no no perhaps not to you the scratches on my face were smarting not now i said now

he played with the word as if to remind me that it was me meaningless. Then a young girl trotted by on a gray mare, nervous of the lurking night. I stood up and fitted my pipe to my teeth. I must get on with my dream, I said, and left him. End of Section 6. A Moment of Time. Section 7 of A Moment of Time by Richard Hughes. This is a Libervox recording. All Libervox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org.

Read by Ben Tucker A Moment of Time by Richard Hughes She caught hold of the toe. Joseph was eight, Nellie, seven. Nellie found time hanging on a beach bow in the wood behind the house. She mistook it for a stocking and plunged her arm into it to see what was inside. There was nothing, so she caught hold of the toe and turned it inside out. Just then Joseph came running up.

They sat down on the trunk of a tree. Joseph was minded seriously. Nellie, he said, We are very young now, only a few years of past remain behind us. What they hold for us, I cannot tell. But one thing is certain, at the other end lies birth.

Nellie shivered slightly. How can you remind me? She said, I swear to you I don't feel a bit younger than I shall at forty. And what is gained by brooding on birth? One cannot alter the inevitable. Joseph smiled.

Why, Nellie, I swear you, you look as old to me as when I shall see you for the last time. Ah, I remember as clearly as if it were tomorrow the day of your funeral. A windy, drizzly day. Lord, what a cold I shall catch. I shall die soon after myself. Ah, how it all comes forward to me. Dear, dear, ah me, forty years of happy married life. There is little behind us now, my dear, but what a comfort to the young is the memory of a happy future. You forget the earlier time twenty years ahead of us. What a struggle. we shall have to pay our bills. Well, yes, I suppose it is a symptom of youth.

But memory is always clearest of that which is most distant, why I can recall every detail of the day they will make me Lord Mayor. I remember. And so he rambled on. But the past, the mysterious past. Don't talk about the past, it frightens me, said Nellie. Who can tell, even young as we are, what has happened to him? What misfortune lies behind him?

We must trust in God. said Joseph gently, if he thinks fit to bring calamity upon us, that all may have been right in the beginning. Amen, my dear, and yet, if only one's eyes could pierce just a little into the mysterious past, even from one moment to the one before, I should feel less frightened of birth, I think, if I knew just when it had happened, that I might be post-paired to meet it. My dear, we are not meant to see the past. We should accept it dutifully as it goes. sufficient to the day why trouble then about a yesterday that once was even as to-morrow nellie rose and walked over to the tree where time was hanging what are you doing with that stocking i am turning it right side out said nelly end of section seven she caught hold of the toe section eight of a moment in time by richard hughes this is a libervox recording all livervox recordings are in the public domain

For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. Read by Ben Tucker. A moment of time by Richard Hughes. The Vanishing Man Yerika! The professor cried and disappeared. I was hardly prepared for this. Mathematical professors are not magicians,

and have no business to vanish suddenly and without due warning. Moreover, at the moment of his disappearance, there was a curious whistling explosion, a sound like that of igniting hydrogen. of air rushing into a vacuum. The papers on his desk were caught up in a sudden whirlwind and pirouetted for several seconds over the floor. For a moment I was too dazed by the concussion to think clearly.

Then I got up and rushed rather wildly about the room, for it is difficult for any man to be sure how he would act when so astonished. But I had hardly assured myself that there was really no bodily trace of him left in the study where we were working together when I noticed a pair of boots on the hearth-rug. Now, it is one thing for an agitated man to see a pair of boots on the hearth-rug, it is a very different matter to find a pair of feet in those boots, sharply severed at the ankle, with bone, flesh, veins, skin, and sock cut as clean and clear as in a sectional diagram. For a few moments, I simply stared.

Then one of these boots moved, almost an inch. I confessed that I was very nearly frightened. I made a rush for the door, but conquered my nerves and turned back again, and low, while my back had been turned a pair of legs, trousered legs, the professor's trousers, had attached themselves to the boots, and they were growing. They were complete to the knee. The veins were welling with blood, but none spurred it out, and as I watched with fascinated eyes, I saw the cut surface gradually rise like water in a lock.

It was the most uncanny thing. I pressed my hand upon it only to feel it lifted by a gentle, even pressure, as the professor's femur extended itself. And I remember noticing that, though my thumb had stoppered a brimming artery, not a drop of blood stained it. After that, I think I must have fainted, as folk will, simply from excess of the unusual, for the next thing I remember is the professor, the whole of him, standing over me and talking excitedly. I looked up in a dazed and bewildered fashion. He was waving his arms about and crying that he had found the way. Then suddenly he thrust his hand, as it were through a hole in space, for it vanished completely.

He deliberately plunged his arm up to the elbow in nothing, and drew it out again. But it's so easy, he kept on repeating. Easy as winking, why didn't I ever think of it before? Think of what? I asked desperately. The fourth dimension, he answered. Now, I ought to mention that we were together writing a book on multidimensional perspective.

Here we have been fooling around after imaginary roots and functions trying to mop up the mess Einstein is made, when all the time the fourth dimension was no different and kind from the other three that we are familiar with. But I don't see. I began. No, of course you don't. He barked and settled into the full stride of his lecture room manner. My assumptions that the fourth dimension is just another dimension, no more different and kind from length, say, than length is from breath and time. thickness, but perpendicular to all three. Now suppose that a being in two dimensions, a flat creature, like the moving shadows of a somatograph, were suddenly to grasp the concept of the

third dimension, and so step out of the picture. He might only move an inch, but he would vanish completely from the sight of the rest of his world. But the sections, I interrupted, why should I see you in those horrible sections? The professor raised his hand. I am coming to that, he said. Then suppose that instead of returning all at once, smack flat, which would be difficult unless he had a vacuum prepared to receive him, he inserted his feet first, and so gradually slid back into the universe. It is evident that his fellow creatures during the process would see him in ever-changing sections,

until he was once more completely back in their space. Now, I worked this much out last night in bed, and all the morning I have been cuddling my brains to grasp in which direction it could lie, this dimension at right angles to length, breadth, and thickness. But all of a sudden, I could contain myself no longer. This is wonderful, I cried. This is power. Think of it.

A step in you are invisible. No prison cells can hold you, for there is a side to you on which they are as open as a wedding ring. No safe is secured from you. You can put your hand round the corner and draw out what you like. And, of course, if you look back on the universe you had left, you would see us in sections open to you. You could place a stone or a tablet of poison right in the very bowels of your enemies. He passed his hand across his forehead. Heavens, he cried.

Could I really do all that? Of course you could, I answered excitedly. There was nothing you couldn't do, only make haste to explain to me which this new direction is and will hold the world in fee. It's... It's... He flapped his hands helplessly. How can I explain? He said.

It's just the other direction. It's there! He cried suddenly trying to point with the result that his forefinger and half his hand vanished from view. Hold my hand, he suggested, and I'll try to pull you out. I took his hand and he gradually slid feet first out of sight.

Till soon there was nothing of him left but a pulsing hand that tugged at my arm. And then catastrophe fell on us. Just what happened I shall never know, whether it was through tugging against my resistance, or whether he was too excited to notice what he was doing, or whether he simply wished to address some remark to me. But the unhappy man thrust his head back into space.

And instead of thrusting it into vacancy, he thrust it into that exact spot occupied by a heavy writing table. Now there is an axiom that two objects cannot occupy the same point in space at the same time, and the result of disobeying it was hideous. There was a terrific splintering of wood, almost an explosion. At the same time, his hand closed its grip right through my arm, vanishing from view. The whole room was littered with splinters and dust, mixed almost into a mash with blood and brains. But his body was never found.

And for all I know, it is still floating just outside our space, perhaps only a few inches from the armchair where it was used to smoke can read and theorize. End of section 8. The Vanishing Man. Section 9 of a moment of time. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain.

For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. Read by JJ. A Moment of Time by Richard Hughes. Minoculism A Fable Once Upon a Time There Was a King

Or, no, rather, once upon a time there was an eyeglass, to be more particular, a monocle. But that was in the days when even queens wore monocles, it belonged to a queen. Cats may look at kings, and smile and smile and still be cats. But more often they turned their wicked green glances against queens. So, although her eyesight was perfectly good, this queen wore a monocle, because it had a vacant, virtuous, disconcerting stare, against which few cats could long remain catish. It was very round and smooth and polished like a piece of royal green soapstone. Some people were so polite as to address it as your majesty, and even speak of it as his

Majesty the king. But this ceremony was far from universal. It was so transparent that she could see through it whenever she wished, but it always magnified things a trifle. She wore it at the end of the orthodox short silk string that the Archimandrites had woven for her, so that she might never lose it. This was the legal, spiritual bond which united them, and by virtue of which she occupied her throne. But in addition, her fairy godmother, whoever that may be, had given her a magic fastener. And whenever she let the glass dangle freely and think it was forgotten,

flashing little annoying scintillations from its two so polished faces into the eyes of the court, the secret spring would wear angrily, and the silk string grows suddenly, taught and evident. and it would be snapped back into his place somewhere near her heart. Then the queen would draw it forth with dignity, slowly and hold it up between herself and the world. As I have said, it magnified somewhat, but she drew her own conclusions. He was very round and transparent, but he was an integral part of the Constitution, and they both lived happily, well, for some time afterwards.

But one day the queen discovered that the ambassador, of a certain foreign court war in secret, of course, pinz-ness. This, besides being immoral, was and is against the laws of the kingdom. Although both these lenses were so arranged as to bring into one focus the poor lady's two divergent eyes,

and give her a very clear and stereoscopic view of things, the queen immediately demanded her recall for fear that this dreadful binocular habit might corrupt her court. The queen of the neighboring country then wrote a stately and heretical letter full of much heretical reasoning and a great deal of very sound, though heretical sense. Whereas, this letter began in gossip capitals, all creatures have two eyes, excluding polyphemous, and such like barbaric brutes, and two eyes. cannot see through one the same lens.

The binocular system must be regarded as the more in accordance with laws human and divine, for by the mutabilities of eyeless fortune, one lens may become lost or damaged, or in some other way distraught and so useless. Then how shall the widowed queen, if she have not a second lens, be able to make those dispositions of her forces that may be rendered necessary to her defense. Should you not, therefore, give immediate orders to the Archimandrites, that in future all frames and rims be constructed to hold two lenses, that both lenses be fixed by the same ceremonial and at the same convention?

Sentiments which roused this honorable princess to such a cold fury. that she nearly cut short and spoiled a perfectly good war, on which she was at the time engaged in order to attack this heretic neighbor. But when in conclusion, her royal sister went on to describe various so-called telescopic schemes, whereby the single eye, using a combination of lenses of all sizes and shapes, could attain to powers impossible without such aid. she was rather disposed to smile, as at a foolish mania, for did she not know her own eyeglass, for all his roundness and transparency, nevertheless hampered her vision somewhat by his exaggerating tendencies. How, then, could a series of glasses do other than destroy vision altogether?

added to which she was fond of asserting. It is immoral. And of course, the Archimandriites agreed with her. End of Section 9. Section 10 of a moment of time. This is the Librevox recording. All Librebox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. Read by Claire. A Moment of Time by Richard Hughes. The queen of Issaica pressed gently against the marble pillar. All the hot blood of her young heart drummed in her ears, and her knuckles gleamed white. Round in a glorious maze of scents swirled the incense from the golden brassiers. The glittering hall divided into sharp pinpoints of light,

little glittering stars of light that swelled suddenly to misty circles as her eyes filled with tears. Tears? But that is another story. Melicles of Coes came quietly through the colonnade, a dark shadow walking out of the sunlight. He saw that her eyes were wide and shining. Majesty, he began in the voice of a comforter, but his words died at the sight of her round, queenly shoulder. Eyes that come out of the sunshine pierced slowly into shadow. Melocles, unseeing, watched where she watched. Under the gloom of an alabaster fret, shining like black steel in the shadow, crouched Jaisan,

hugging his mountainous knees. Presently he shook the golden rings in his lips, and Melakley saw him. Presently he uttered some dim ancestral croon of the Congo jungle. Heavily the queen lifted her mind from its reverie and saw what her eyes had been picked upon. Jason crooned on, his yellow eyes turned upon unseen mangroves and snaky pools. Cyrano caught at her breath, listening, tapping a slight time with her fingers on the marble at her side. Out of the vast thunders of Jason's chest, the notes came quietly like the song of a Pamphelian bird, sank low and away into a solemn rumbling of beaten drums, the measured and slumberous thumping of thunderous drums.

Again, the gold twinkled on his lips. Where does it come from, this Ethiopian gold, mused Melocles. Vague memories of the Halicarnassian traveler crowded into his mind. Perhaps the one-eyed Armisoppe, purloing it from the griffins. The voice of Jaisan was weaving a solemn and tense tune out of three notes, and he beat on his thigh with his fist to its endless rhythm, leaning his head slowly from side to side. Thundrously low was the first note, booming among the pillars, and he hung upon it so that the other two notes only deepened it. Queen Serrano stood stiffly by her pillar, her pale eyelids

narrowed to a slit. Through them, she saw festooned creepers hanging from Atlantean trees and an endless pattern of apes crawling upon them. Melakles saw something fierce and ancestral creep into her face and hung back in the colonnade watching her. J. San the slave seemed to swell into an ebony god, and the remorseless booming of his voice faded to a low wind moaning. Suddenly a clear note crept in, like a flute, as if there was a dance of slim Ethiopian girls in his mind.

He straightened himself where he sat, singing clearer and wilder, his voice rising and dancing and crying higher and higher. Serrano swayed to the lilt of it, the cruel joy of it, up his voice soared into a shrill barbaric piping, and the steady drumming of his fist kept the time, till the queen saw the whirling of black limbs in the moonlight and a half-glimped distorted creature lashed to a stone. Browns swirled the dance, eyes and teeth gleaming,

rings jingling, knives shining in the pale light, and vanished like a vapor. Gisson crouched forward again, humming slowly, insistently like a snake charmer, rolling his eyes monotonously. Presently, they grew fixed in a stare, and for the first time he seemed to see the queen. She tottered forward a few paces from her pillar with a sob of her breath, hands clutched tight. Jason sprang suddenly to his feet, muscular and stark naked, towering like basalt. Melocles drew a little golden knife from his girdle and flung it.

Its jeweled handle gleamed suddenly under the negro's chin. End of Section 10. Section number 11 of a moment of time. This is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit librivox.org. Read by Alicia Wellman. A Moment of Time by Richard Hughes.

The Cart. There have not been many children with such yellow hair as Ursula Warwick. It was divided over her forehead in two like halves of a asperid an apple and stretched tight and metallic behind her ears and twisted into two tight pig tails at the back, knotted with black ribbon. The color would have looked even brighter if her face had not been so pale, and the two eyes in her face so pale too. When she was small, it had hung in ringlets. but by the time she was eight or nine the curl had left it. When she was small, her mother used to call her into the drawing room if people were come to tea to show them Ursula's ringlets,

which she would wind round her own shapely white thumb to show them off. So, when they became straight, Mrs. Wortley felt it was as a personal grievance, but she still used to call Ursula into tea. Ursula, she would say, is such a funny child, simply killing. Ursula used to hear her as she came slowly to the summons. Her cheeks would be aflame by the time she found herself at the tea table, but of affection from people she did not know. Many of Mrs. Wortley's friends were very witty people,

and to talk over a child's head and twist, recondite eccentricies out of a child's remarks is an easy chance for wit. Ursula would smile easily and with each remark flounder deeper. They would laugh at the quaintness. Down in the kitchen, things were not different. Ursula used to run there for refuge until one day Cook burst out laughing at something she said and told her she was a cure. It is possible that Mrs. Wortley twisted Ursula's hair into pig tails to increase the child's quaintness.

Ursula was passionately fond of her father, but he was generally away. She loved him mostly because he loved her seriously. He was a big man with no sense of humor and very silent. They used to go for walks when Mr. Wortley said two or three words. and Ursula two or three, and neither had need to pick them. He never told stories about her, as her mother did before her face. Ursula knew all those stories. She had seen them grow from some dropped remark, some stumble in expression,

into an elaborate fiction. She often had to clench her hands to prevent herself crying out that they were lies. She knew just when the ladies would laugh, and then turned to see if she was listening. Oh, no, she was not listening. She would be gazing at nothing. The expression of her face never changed. That child, Mrs. Wortley once said, has no feelings. She has no temperament.

Her father has no temperament, and I am afraid she takes after him. honestly believe she is incapable of affection. She treats me as if I was part of the furniture. That night, her father started abroad for a long visit on business, and when Mrs. Wortley came upstairs, she found Ursula crying into her pillow. She laughed beautifully. Ho-ha, you quaint child, she burst out, fancy crying like this. Anyone would think your father was dead. Dead? cried Ursula,

sitting bolt upright in bed. Her two pigtails stuck out behind, her eyes with terror bulged before. No, you little goose, laughed Mrs. Wortley.

Daddy's all right, and he'll be back in a few weeks. Ursula lay back in bed. She was not crying now. Her eyes were bright and hard. She was seeing a mole,

where it had lain that day in the garden path, a dank streak on the shaded softness of its side, with its four pink hands stiffed to the air and a faint smell from it. She knew it was not a mole at all, but her father. Mrs. Wortley rustled away and left her. Next day, the usual summons was sent to the nursery, and Ursula went.

from the hall she heard voices. She really is an extraordinary child. She's devoted to her father. The funny little thing got it into her head last night that he was dead, and I found her crying her eyes out. When he is at home, she follows him about like a little dog. I have watched them sometimes when they thought they were alone. They are the drollest couple.

Why listen to this? and she began to read out loud. Ursula's first thought was to rush in and tear the letter from her mother's hand. How had she got hold of it? It was one she had written, with hours of pain when her father was away the time before, had written and filched the stamp and posted it herself. It was full of those queer turns of expression that made Ursula dread her own tongue, but which were safe in her father's keeping,

but instead she stood stock still in the hall listening. Someone began to titter. Ursula turned and climbed slowly up the stairs again. Nellie, she said to the maid who was mending by the nursery fire, tell mother I won't come. Well, you are a cure, said Nellie. If neither Ursula nor her father was blessed with a temperament, Mrs. Wartley made up for it.

She was a creature of the most volatile moods. Thin she was with a rosetti bush of Auburn hair that stood out round her head. So she wore jade green or moth sometimes. She was subject to sick headaches. It was part of her temperament. And when she had one, she had no power of control, but thought she was at Jeth's door. She was constantly afraid of death.

That too was part of her temperament. When Nellie took Ursula's message, Mrs. Wortley simply shrugged her shoulders. Isn't the child strange, she said. I have no control over her, none whatsoever. I wash my hands of her. When Ursula found that no punishment followed her disobedience, she made a resolve that she would never do what her mother told her again.

But it was not a resolve she kept, even for 24 hours. It happened so. The Wortley's house was a tall Victorian one with a basement kitchen, so that when on the next day, Mrs. Wortley went to bed with one of her headaches in the room below the nursery, she was out of the servant's hearing. She called back to Nellie, but Nellie was downstairs with Cook. She called Nellie, Nellie, Nellie, with a wild panic in her voice, for her heart was leaping about in her breast like a fish. Nellie did not hear, but Ursula did, and terror in her mother's voice put terror into her own mind too. She ran down to her. Mrs. Wartley lay on her bed, gasping and rolling her eyes.

She flung the flaming bush of her hair from side to side of the pillow. Her face was very red, and she had taken her dress off. She did not seem to see Ursula and kicked with her legs. Ursula could see her legs kicking in the mirror over the bed, too. They looked unspeakably funny. Mother, she said, you do look funny. Mrs. Wortley took no notice of her, but still rolled about panting. The child took a sort of delight in watching her physical degradation.

Presently, Mrs. Wortley noticed her. Quick, she gasped. Give me some sound volatile. I am dying. All of Ursula's terror at the word returned to her. Again, she saw that beautiful day. mole. Its four pitiful hands, she could not find the bottle. Quick!

screamed her mother. I'm dying this minute. Ursula gave it up and flung herself on the bed, sobbing. Mrs. Wortley began to weep to in self-pity. She caught the child to her. You poor little thing, she said. What will you do without your mother? Will you miss her very much? Tell me you won't forget me, darling.

Ursula only went on weeping with terror, terror of death. Will you come and put flowers on my grave sometimes? Little celendines in the spring and narcissus? The picture was too pathetic for Mrs. Wortley. She almost began to howl, and presently her overwrought condition had its natural result. She feigned. She lay suddenly all white and white. still. Ursula screamed. She put her hands to her ears to stop the sound and screamed again. Then she

rushed downstairs. It was characteristic of her distrust of everyone that she never thought to tell the servants. She ran straight out of the house intent on reaching the doctor and pelted down the road. All the while, death, like a huge mole, ran at her side. A big, cart overtook her and she caught hold of the chain like a boy and swung herself into the back. It was full of long, irregular packages, done up in sacking, lumpy packages, and the cart jolted her about on them. The driver's back had a straw on it, and now and then the smoke of his pipe whisked back over his shoulder. She could see the top of his whip, too. And when the cart swung about. She was bumped and bruised. She saw those things clearly. They seemed to cut deep into her memory.

She never forgot them. She felt that death was with her somewhere in the cart, but did not dare to look for him. She was afraid of those packages, even before she saw what they were. They were sheep's carcasses. the sacking burst on one she could see right into its gutted belly. She moved and her hand slipped on a piece of suet. End of section number 11. Section 12 of a moment of time. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain.

For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. recording by rita boutros a moment of time by richard hughes the swans two ugly women in summer dresses stood under a tree a fountain of a tree with heavy scent streaming from its pink and white burden of blossoms there was dappled sunshine shifting on the lawn a nightingale singing before its time daisies and dropped flowers from the trees played at the a mask on the grass. The tall woman pulled down about towards her, hid her face a moment in the flowers, let it fly back. What is its name? I don't know. They forgot about it, not noticing the blossoms sticking to their hair. They swung their hands a little, walking away behind a dark shrubbery, not to appear again. The nightingale tuned his voice to new excellencies, and next, across the lawn a tiny boy all round and as ill-balanced on his legs as cuckoo spit on a grass-blade he ran slowly and seriously but as if to stop running were to fall like a gray woolly ball on pink stalks he too wavered round the shrubbery leaving the lawn as if empty it was set with seats some shadowed some in the sun where a few people were sitting for the

The garden was almost public. In one seat was a knitting woman. Two children in ugly skimped frocks were playing far away under the sunshine. The elder ecstatically threw an armful of moan grass into the air. It fell upon the other so that she capered about. But it was too far off to smell the steam of the grass. Then they ran both together to the knitting woman, surprising her from behind. One of them wore a dress of tight white cotton, dog-toothed at the edge, and was quite straight. She was about twelve, and had not much black hair, but she tossed it up against the breeze, and the hulls in her stockings did not show much. The other may have been ten, and though she was not so thin, was no better shaped, but wore her pink frocks stiffly as

though it were padded. They surprised the knitting woman from behind and took away from her the baby that was with her. It could toddle slowly. They lured it away with enticing, provocative sounds, telling it to catch them. They would show themselves from behind the shrubbery for a moment. The baby chuckled and began to wobble towards them. Then they would flee back like the wind, screaming in quite real terror. The baby would fall over. and when it got up start back again towards its mother they showed themselves once more and it all happened over again sometimes they would stay hidden for a long time giggling in a high tone as if concocting some wicked plot beyond the shrubbery away to the right was a small lake the trees grew down so low over it that you could only see the reflections of the people on the far side and there were two swans that broke up the reflections by leaping across the water, three quarters out of it, from side to side,

clapping their wings with a noise like a carpenter driving nails. One of them clambered out onto the further bank. It was darting its head angrily and pecking upwards as if someone unseen was teasing it. It grew very angry, ready to murder anyone small. that should pass. Meanwhile, the hopeless game of catch by the shrubbery still went on, and I was waiting to see the little one cry. Presently it would grow tired, and feel the unfairness of it all, and fall down weeping. Each time it toddled slower and slower. Then two delicate pretty little girls came into the garden, dressed one in soft white,

the other in flame. They walked the flowered grass, as if it was nothing earthly, treading with a lark's quick lightness. The baby ran towards them in mistake, and sat down suddenly once more. But the two delicate children went towards the lake, following the path that led round it to the other side, where the swan was still flashing furiously up and down in the sunlight. The baby got up no more, but lay there still and quiet. It did not cry.

and the sisters came and danced round it, making goading noises, running up to it and away again, but it lay still. So they took runs and jumped over it and over it, lower and more wildly each time. It rolled a little sometimes, and when they nearly trod on it they shrieked. But they grew tired of this and stopped. As if her ingenuity had dried up,

and she could think of nothing better to do, the pink sister began to roll about violently. The straight white one stood irresolute. Then she began to dance, not gracefully, but with great skill, turning and pirouetting, and doing most ingenious steps, in front, behind, in front, first clutching the bottom of her frock and mockery of a skirt dance, then waving her arms in the manner of a ballet.

She danced listlessly. It was a memory test, the recapitulation of a lesson once learnt. Presently the sun shone behind her, showing a quite ludicrous outline, the thick, stiff petticoat under her cotton frock. Then the pink one stood up and whirled round and about furiously, arms and ugly frills flying out grotesquely, till she grew giddy and fell disspread on the grass. But the two little girls who had stood,

started round the lake, had paused under some dark trees. Between, sunlit midges were dancing against the black background. Presently they went on. They seemed suddenly to turn black as they passed under a low stone arch, then bright again for a moment in the framed sunlight beyond it, before they disappeared. The baby began to crawl back towards the knitting woman. The elder too, to quarrel on the grass with the anger and heat of giddiness. The swans were flashing ferociously up and down in the sun, while the two little girls had passed out of sight towards them. End of Section 12.

Section 13 of A Moment of Time by Richard Hughes. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libervox. box.org. Read by Ben Tucker. A moment of time by Richard Hughes. The Ghost

He killed me quite easily by crashing my head on the cobbles. Bang! Lord, what a fool I was. All my hate went out with that first bang. A fool to have kicked up that fuss just because I had found him with another woman. And now he was doing this to me. Bang! That was the second one, and with it, everything went out.

My sleek young soul must have glistened. somewhat in the moonlight, for I saw him look up from the body in a fixed sort of way. That gave me an idea. I would haunt him. All my life I had been scared of ghosts. Now I was one myself. I would get a bit of my own back. He never was.

He said there weren't such things as ghosts. Oh, weren't there. I'd soon teach him. John stood up still staring in front of him. I could see him plainly. Gradually all my hate came back. I thrust my face close up against his, but he didn't seem to see it. He just stared.

Then he began to walk forward, as if to walk through me. And I was a feared. Silly for me, a spirit to be a feared of his solid flesh, but there you are. Fear doesn't act as you would expect ever. And I gave back before him, and slipped aside to let him pass. Almost he was lost in the street shadows before I recovered myself and followed him. And yet I don't think he could have given me the slip. There was still something between us that drew me to him.

Willie-nilly, you might say, I followed him up to High Street and down Lily Lane. Lily Lane was all shadows, but yet I could still see him as clear as if it was daylight. Then my courage came back to me. I quickened my pace till I was ahead of him, turned round, flapping my hands, and making a moaning sort of noise like the ghost did I'd read of.

He began to smile a little in a sort of satisfied way, but yet he didn't seem properly to see me. Could it be that his hard disbelief in ghosts made him so that he could, wouldn't see me. Ooh, I whistled through my small teeth. Oh, murderer, murderer! Someone flung up a top window. Who's that?

She called. What's the matter? So other people could hear at any rate. But I kept silent. I wouldn't give him away, not yet. And all the time he walked straight forward, smiling to himself. He never had any conscience, I said to myself. Here he is with new murder on his mind,

smiling as easy if it was nothing. but there was a sort of hard look about him, all the same. It was odd, my being a ghost so suddenly, when ten minutes ago I was a living woman, and now walking on air with the wind clear and wet between my shoulder blades. I gave a regular shriek and a screech of laughter. It all felt so funny. Surely John must have hurt that.

But no, he just turned the corner into Pole Street. All along Pole Street, the plain trees were shedding their leaves, and then I knew what I would do. I made those dead leaves rise up on thin edges, as if the wind was doing it. All along Pole Street they followed him, pattering on the roadway with their five dry fingers. But John just stirred among them with his feet, and went on, and I followed him, for as I said, there was still some tie between us that drew me. Once only he turned and seemed to see me. There was a sort of recognition in his face, but no fear, only triumph.

You're glad you've killed me, thought I, but I'll make you sorry. And then all at once the fit left me. A nice sort of Christian, I, scarcely fifteen minutes dead and still thinking of revenge instead of preparing to meet my lord. Some sort of voice in me seemed to say, Leave him, Millie, leave him alone before it is too late. Too late? Surely I could leave him when I wanted to.

Ghosts haunt as they like, don't they? I'd make just one more attempt at terrifying him. Then I'd give it up and think about going to heaven. He stopped and turned and faced me full. I pointed at him with both my hands. John, I cried. John, it's all very well for you to stand there and smile and stare with your great fish eyes and think you've won. But you haven't.

I'll do you. I'll finish you. I'll... I stopped and laughed a little. Windows shot up. Who's that? What's the row? And so on.

They had all heard, but he only turned and walked on. Leave him, Millie, before it is too late, the voice said. So that's what the voice meant. Leave him before I betrayed his. secret, and had the crime of revenge on my soul. Very well, I would. I'd leave him. I'd go straight to heaven before any accident happened. So I stretched up my two arms and tried to float into the air, but at once some force seized me like a great gust, and I was swept away after him down the street. There was something stirring

in me that still bound me to him. Strange that I should be so real to all those people that they thought me still a living woman, but he, who had the most reason to fear me, why It seemed doubtful whether he even saw me. And where was he going to, ride up the desolate long length of Pole Street? He turned into Rope Street. I saw a blue lamp. That was the police station. Oh, Lord, I thought. I've done it. Oh, Lord, he's going to get of himself up. You trove him to it, the voice said. You fool. Did you think he didn't see you? What did you expect? Did you think he'd shriek and gibber with fear at you? Did you think your John was a coward? Now his death is on your head.

I didn't do it, I didn't, I cried. I never wished him any harm, never, not really. I wouldn't hurt him, not for anything, I wouldn't. Oh, John, don't stare like that. There's still time, time. And all this while he stood in the door, looking at me, while the policeman came out and stood round him in a ring. He couldn't escape now.

Oh, John, I sobbed. Forgive me, I didn't mean to do it. It was jealousy, John. What did it? Because I loved you. Still, the police took note. notice of him. That's her, said one of them in a husky voice. Done it with a hammer. She done it, brained him. But Lord, isn't her face ghastly, haunted like. Look at her head, poor girl.

Looks as if she tried to do herself in with the hammer after. Then the sergeant stepped forward. Anything you say will be taken down as evidence against you. John, I cried softly and held out my arms for at last his face had softened. Holy Mary, said one policeman crossing him. himself. She's seeing him. They'll not hang her, another whispered. Did you notice her condition, poor girl? End of section 13. The Ghost. Section 14 of A Moment of Time.

This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org, recording by Rita Butros. of Time by Richard Hughes. Cornelius Cady There are fewer gypsies probably in North Wales than in any other part of Great Britain for two reasons.

It is a hard poor country, and the one true traveller can find plenty of sustenance there. For as folk know more of hunger themselves, so they grow more hospitable. It is not easy to fill nine mouths where farms are few. and moreover be jenny the mare never so sturdy she has only grass in her stomach and a heavy van at her tail that she cannot pull up a hill as steep as the side of a house nor are there many rich spots where money can be made to tide you over the barren tracks you may teach your girls to jiggle little tambourine dances on the sands at barmouth while the visitors are there and your boys to to tittle for them upon tin whistles but it is not a rich game and they charge half a crown a night for the little plot by the sea to moor your van food too is not easy to come by in a seaside town but a few gypsies there are of the poorer or the more adventurous sort one evening of a wet spring that i was climbing a hill road in the direction of abrogleslin soaked with rain and hungry inside. I came upon an untidy van by the roadside, stoppering the mouth of an old quarry.

It was a black night, the moon, though full, showing scarcely a scud through the clouds, and I saw their small window glowing many yards down the road. But I took it for a caravan. Your true gypsy calls his vehicle simply a van, in which some amateurs of the road with their primus stoves and paper serviette and other paraphernalia were kidding themselves that they were enjoying a holiday and that it was costing them less than living in a hotel. So I quickened my step, for it occurred to me that here might be the chance of a supper, which I would beg. And then, after starting on my way, I would creep back quietly and sleep fairly dryly between their wheels. But as I drew nearer, seeing the wind was in my face, my nose soon told me that these were

gypsies of the genuine sort. Within, moreover, was somebody drunk, who made such a rocketing and hullabaloo as nearly bounced the old van off its wheels. Presently I came abreast of it, and because it had been carelessly backed against the tunnel mouth, with shafts not upreared, but lying half across the road. I stumbled over them on my face in a wet puddle. Almost at the same time, the door in the back of the van opened, and from where I lay by the wheels I saw one, two, three, half-scarified figures fling out into the tunnel, and the door slammed

behind them. Then, as if more scared of the dark tunnel than the rain in the roadway, they turned like rabbits and had scuttled between the wheels by the time I had found my feet. Meanwhile, the noise was less and changed to a somnolent droning, as of one who is determined to sing hams, but has forgotten both words and tune. Next I could hear footsteps, going cloppy with a loose soul, round a bend in the road, and the child's voice humming the saucepan fauch, shush, said a voice from under the van. Is that you, Flory? J'all, you'll be wakened, Dad.

Flory stopped suddenly at the half-bar, and thinking I might fare further and worse, I drew a half-damp candle-end from my coat-lining, lit it, and crawled under the van, too. Shush you, said the same voice, or you'll be waken Dad. Dad's singing had imperceptibly changed to a snore, so no one spoke. but having a light we crept through to the stone tunnel, which was drier than most such tunnels are. Flory had a basket with her and a can of milk. She had been foraging,

and having struck lucky with an old couple at a farm in virtue of the wet night, had brought away half a loaf, a small lump of bacon of the green sort, cut from a grisly part, and a hunk of cheese, also seeing the hen-house, could not be seen from the back door she was not without eggs but neither they nor the bacon

were of much use to us without a fire so we stuck the candle end to a piece of slate in the middle and crouched round on our haunches mumbling the bread and cheese opposite me was florrie she had a face shaped like an egg tawny with jupping eyes and black hair as stiff as briar bushes crammed under a huge straw hat, garnished with pink ribbon. She had earrings, too, that glittered. In any other walk of life, you would have judged her to be eleven or twelve, but I guessed her at sixteen, though her figure was straight as a board. Next her was a smaller child, built round and firm with small eyes,

and clothed from head to foot in a green coverage coat that lapped around her nearly twice. They called her Gwynol, which in Welsh means a swallow, and is not a usual name, so that I wondered who had given it her, till Flory explained that it was the parson at Newtown who had christened her,

and that he had called her twin brother, Cornelius. Cornelius, poor little devil, sat beside me in his shirt only, his knees tucked up into the breast of it. There are no children with better manners than the gypsy, and though it was more fear than kindliness that had made them share supper with me, for it would have been a little trouble to have grabbed the lot and left them whimpering. Yet we were presently quite good friends.

Dad was called Will Katie. He had been to the army three years, which had upset his heart, and he found beer the best physic. When he could, he made things, pegs and baskets. When he couldn't, he lay in bed and roared, and drank, and roared again. This was one of his roaring nights. Mother was laid up with twins in the top bunk. When Dad was in a roaring fit, he would swear they were not his, so she tried to keep them out of his sight. Tonight, he had sworn they were none of them his, and so had kicked all the children out of the van. He had caught Cornelius a clip over the ear, from which he was still whimpering, for Cornelius was asleep when the row began. Cornelius was a queer, grotesque might.

He had a great bulgy forehead, as if his brain had water, thin yellow hair, a crooked mouth, and face so begrimed that you could hardly tell nose from cheeks, huddled inside his great grayback, he looked like a half-carven idol. Having little better to do, I pulled out a small block of paper and struggled to draw a rough sketch of Flory and Gwynall. It was so damp that the pencil often bit through the sheet. They called it a photostook, having never heard of drawing, and seemed mildly excited.

The modest-minded Gwinnel, being careful to draw down the covered coat, to hide even her stumpy young ankle. After I showed it to them, they sidled up to look at it, and were so shaken with giggles that they dared not give it more than one quick glance at a time, out of the corner of one eye. But not so, Cornelius,

he stared at it long and full, then stretched out a skinny and ricketts twisted arm for the pencil. Er, he begged, let me have a go, let me. He thoughtfully bit off the end of the lead between his teeth, and clenching the pencil in his fist, as if it were a stick, he started to trace sheet after sheet of the most astounding outlines, horses, bowls, trees, queer, slant-eyed faces, hills and clouds, flowers.

This filthy, half-witted young shrimp of a ditchling was drawing with an ease that Frith might have envied, His yellow eyes glinted among the smudges in his face. Lips parted, and a high flush in his cheeks, while his teeth chattered still with the cult, he seemed possessed. The idea had hardly occurred to me when his subject changed. To my amazement, he began drawing obscenities, of which even a gypsy could hardly have knowledge at his age. I felt as if in a dream.

Flory and Gwynel had tumbled asleep on each other in an untidy heap, and the candle gave a slow lurch and guttered out. As if the spell had been broken, Cornelius broke out whimpering again in the darkness about the welt he had had on his ear, and would not be quiet till I cursed him, and soon I too had toppled over on my side asleep. I was the first to wake, numb and stiff, agued from my wet clothes. I stretched myself in the grey cocktime, and wondered whether I had been dreaming. But the indented sheets lay round me as witness. I gathered them together and crept away softly, and examined them at leisure. To say they were high works of art would be absurd.

They were not, but the facility of their realism, their memetic character, was amazing. Whether Cornelius Katie will ever be a great artist, I don't know. Already he is a most skillful draftsman. Those last few scribbled obscenities I destroyed, and then when I next came to London, I sold the set of drawings to a dealer for more than I expected. But you may imagine that the story I spun of how I came by them was a very different one from this. End of Section 14. Section 15 of A Moment of Time. This is a Libravox recording.

All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org. Recording by Rita Butros. A Moment of Time by Richard Hughes The Sea He was vaguely aware that there were ladies in the room, that he must pull himself together. He was vaguely aware was John Anderson

that what wine he had drunk was now singing in his head like a choir of young birds. Perhaps another glass would quiet them. He reached for the champagne at his side and safely steered it to his lips. After that, heaven and earth were rolled up as a scroll. Chaos reigned.

What next he remembered was, the sound of indeterminate voices booming in his ear. He could distinguish nothing at first, but their thunderous quality hurt him. He wanted to stop his ears, but his hands seemed to have floated away somewhere far, far out of his reach. He could see them miles away, lying on the arms of his chair, and it seemed quite impossible to bring them back all that distance. A memory began to stir in his mind, the medieval story of the adder, who, not having the wherewithal to stop her ears, when the charmer charmed, ingeniously inserted the tip of her tail in one and lay upon the other in the sand. But try as he would, this was even harder than controlling those rebel fingers.

If I was a mermaid, declared John Anderson, in a voice whose loudness surprised him. If I was a mermaid, I should have a tail to stop your row with, damn you? Stop kicking and let us take you home, said one of the voices. Take me to the she, he suggested. I want to be a mermaid and go my beautiful air. They did not answer. They heaved him up by his armpits and trailed and trundled him out into the night, down the Cobbles Street of the little seaside town.

His toes ratatted on the cobbles all the way. But he could not control them those disobedient toes. He could not make them walk in a sensible fashion. Tried he ever so, but was compelled to let them trail. I want a tail, he cried desperately. I want to be a mermaid. And he fell asleep. his bearers stopped for breath and leaned him up in an angle of the wall where he remained propped forlorn and drooping his hair tussled all over his face his narrow chin making a dent in the stiff front of his shirt

They stood looking at him, panting. "'I can't stick much more of this, Charlie,' said the first, a stout and elderly man, heavy-cheeked and mustached like a colonel. The young blight was heavier than he looks. "'You ain't going to give up, are you?' said Charlie, a sallow, dark young man with ringed fingers, a ready-made tie all askew. All the power of his face had gone to his nose, which was large.

Chin and eyes were small. You ain't going to give up, are you? How often do you think you would have got home at night if the boys were afraid of a bit of flesh, eh? Doeth you'd be done by? That is me, Jameth. He drew himself up, and James sighed. Perhaps you're right, he said,

Let's heave him a bit further anyhow. So they took a fresh grip, and trundled and bumped him for another hundred yards or so. They had reached the marketplace. A raw yellow fog had come up from the sea, through which the flaring naphtha lamps of the various stalls glared eerily. Something loomed at them suddenly out of the murk.

It was the horse trough. Charlie, said James, groaning, I'm done. I can't heave this blight or another inch. They dropped him with a bump, but he did. not wake. Well, then, said Charlie, I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll shove his blasted head and air for a minute, and then perhaps he'll be able to stand on his two feet. It was not an easy matter to put a drunk man's head in a horse trough, but these were experienced. Together they hoisted their burden and suddenly plunged him head and shoulders in the trough. There was a loud explosion as all

the air in his lungs escaped with a rush, sousing both well. Damn, said James, and Charlie said, damn, too. They lifted him, then ducked him again. This time he was half awake and held his breath. Suddenly he went rigid as a poker, forcing them to set him on the ground again. There he stood, his long greased hair, streaking down his face almost to his mouth, which was smiling beatifically. His dresscoat and boiled shirt

unbelievably bedraggled, speckled with wisps of straw and other dirt that the horses had left in the water. A half-drowned great spider, thankful for this miraculous rescue, made its escape slowly across his face, then tumbled to the ground.

He stood, stalked still, his arms stretched, straight in front of him, swaying slightly. His breath still held till he could hold it no longer, and then one quick gasp. A look of utter bewilderment spread over his face. He breathed once again, tentatively, as it were, then again, and more easily. Why, he cried, it's as easy to breathe as air. He drew several deep breaths, each seeming to surprise him more than the last, he moved his arms slowly once or twice as if in breaststroke am i a moving he asked the world at large by evans cried charlie bursting into a loud laugh the silly blight you thinks he's swimming he slapped both his knees in a paroxysm of enjoyment swaying his body up and down with peal after peal of laughter till he caught a fit of coughing and had to sit down and had to sit down

on the head of the trough to nurse the joke you see anderson explained very seriously i can't manage my tail yet won't waggle properly swam in with these bloody flipperish quaito hoblish james was equally serious it is difficult he admitted till you get used to it but try leaning forward just a little and then shove off it'll soon come come to you anderson swayed forward and staggered a few paces waving his arms like wind-veins turned half left gave a sudden lurch and the fog closed behind him lard cried charlie as soon as his laughter would let him he thinks he's a fish didn't i tell you it was worth sticking to eh james and he dug james where his ribs might be supposed to lie give my love to the queen of the mermaid's he shouted and a distant call of assent was wafted back to them through the fog silence then far off a voice chanting and the landlubber schlion down below below below below and a shlan lubber shlyan down below low for a while anderson was content to float aimlessly about admiring the sights and sounds of this sub-obleau marine world. From time to time, some entrancing grotto would heave in sight through the water, lit by gorgeous and translucent jewels, that seemed imported straight out of the Arabian nights.

In front of each grotto, there would be strange, dark monsters moving. Behind in the full light were piles upon piles of treasure, with perhaps an entrancing mermaid brooding over them. Several times he tried to steer his course To the mouth of one of these caves of delight But always the currents, or some other strange influence Seem to seize him, and he would find himself swept past. Strange fish passed him too, curious gloomy monsters

That swam by him in the fog. At first he was afraid of them, for they were as big as he was, But when he found they did him no harm, he grew bolder and would keep straight on, swimming easily with great strokes of his towel, which had now become quite manageable, his arms waving gently in front of him to keep his balance. Once a great Leviathan, its two bulbous eyes brilliant with fire, came lumbering towards him over the seafloor, rocking and rattling in a way that faintly reminded him of a motor-bus, Its big luminous eyes almost fascinated him.

It was just able to stagger out of its path before it bore down upon him, and then suddenly loomed up on him through the water an octopus, a huge, monstrous, horrible creature, with one flaming eye in the middle of its belly. Anderson was almost upon it before he could check himself. He stood there transfixed with fear, and the monster stood still too, regarding him with its one unwinking eye. For a few moments they stood in silence.

Then his very fear forced Anderson to speak, to say anything to break the spell. Strange, he mumbled confidentially, Strange how she-water do fuddle head! From somewhere in the gloom above its eye the creature shot out a tentacle, and fastened it on his collar. You come with me, it said, and you come quietly. End of Section 15. Section 16.

Of a moment of time. This is a Libervox recording. All Libervox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. Read by JJ Sil. A Moment of Time. by Richard Hughes

Leaves During the summer The plain trees are one of the pleasantest things in London In the autumn all their leaves fall off The leaves grow dry and hard And when the wind stirs them They rattle in an unearthly way The sound of a company of plain leaves

Trotting along the streets On their edges is very frightening Sometimes a dozen or so of them may get entrapped in a small back court and rattle against the walls, and every now and then one of them climbs up and scrabbles with all its five long fingernails on the window. Then a steady gust makes them sound like water pouring into tins, or ice smelting. I think it was in the year 97 that Pedar Vaseek, the Montenegrin poet, whose terrible death at the hands of the party of King Nikita during the war shocked even those outrageous parts.

First came to London. He was little more than a boy then. He had been educated at Constantinople and Paris, and was still quite unknown even in his native country. But already he was an enthusiast for the Yugoslav idea, for which he afterwards did so much. And already his his love soul delighted in subtle analysis of the more melancholy aspects of the human mind. He took two rooms in the bottom of a house in Chelsea. The window of the sitting room looked on a little back court, where the autumn leaves dance like mad. He was very nearly afraid of them when he first hurt them, because the rustle was so reminiscent

of many different things, yet never exactly. liked them. He was glad the gas jets burnt brightly. He had distinguished himself in brigand scrimmages at a very early age, but this sort of thing was different. It made him feel uneasy. Then an idea came to him. What a wonderful ghastly story he could write about those leaves, about their driving somewhat insane. So he took some paper and began to play with the idea. He wrote a line or two, then stretched himself and laughed. It was too far-fetched. After all, what were they? Leaves? No one could ever really persuade himself they were anything terrible for long. It was absurd, fictitious, in the worst sense. What a pity was, he reflected, that one he had to be so far-fetched

nowadays to produce an uncanny suggestion. To be exact, those leaves had frightened him for the space of three seconds. And even then, they had not disturbed him, him. A sensitive very deeply. He imagined himself to have committed some calculated and unnameable crime. Perhaps a criminal might be hounded to confession by them. But the man who commits calculated and unnameable crimes is seldom as sensitive, and it would need a hypersensitive ever to be driven out of his reason under any circumstances by leaves.

He had a sudden revulsion of feeling against the whole artificial clap-trap of modern fiction. Outside the court, there was a sudden rash and flurry, like a pouncing cat. He shuddered. But, after all, why not? The uncanny lies in style as much as subject. If he wrote up his theme well, artificial, or no, he might make it effective. If he could succeed in making the tale weird, surely, artistically, he would be justified. He began a story, gradually thought out his plot while he composed.

The story he actually wrote was about two children, two children at night, with someone dead in their house. He was not sure who, perhaps their mother, perhaps father. He stopped to stare at the celeric script before him, frowning. How very much easier it would be in bald French, but Viseek was a patriot, and already he was absorbed in his work. Then he pictured them creeping out of their beds, stirred by the fearless curious curious. curiosity of childhood, chilling their feet on the landing oil cloth as they crept to the room

where they were not allowed to go. Then there would be a rustle of leaves in the street outside, and their little hairs would prick with fright as they huddle together. It seizes, and presently they go on, turn the handle, and are in the strange, bitter-smelling room. They creep across the taper light to the white bed, and turn back the sheet, one wondering at the white face under it, nodding and whispering to each other. Warm hands clasped together.

They have no fear of it, but by instinct they hushed their voices. Stare very seriously at this image of their mother. The tapers flicker, casting strange shadows on their face. But still, they are not afraid. Then the leaves begin again. They rattle and leap upside, climb and scrabble with their five long fingernails. on the window pane. The children start, catch the breast.

Then suddenly, they begin to scream. Vasek paused, utterly absorbed. Outside in the little square courtyard, the plain leaves began their curious trotting, round and round in circles, then swirled up, crackling angrily against the pain. Suddenly, the window burst open, the gaslight flickered and dived. Something black, huge, noiseless, flew in, darted round the room. Vaseek sprang up in terror, calling fiercely on St. Vasili, battling to keep it away from his face. It dodged him uncannily and paddled softly against his ears.

The room seemed full of shadowy winged shapes. He fought them with his hands, then lost his head and screamed aloud. But after all, it was only the leaves. End of Section 16. Section number 17 of a moment of time. This is a Libravox recording. All Liebervox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit leaprovox.org.

Read by Roslyn Carstens. A Moment of Time by Richard Hughes, Martha. Number one. There are not many streets turning off Limehouse Causeway, but there are more of them than you would think, or see unless you look carefully. One of these is called Bird Court. It is a queer cobbled alley that crawls on its stomach under a low arch and finally runs its head against the blank dock wall.

The bead-hung windows of Monsieur T. Fung and Company look upon this court. Their doors open upon the West India Dock Road, but the Chinese in these parts never have windows opening upon the same street as the door does, for quite good reasons of their own. If the houses are so built, they board up the windows or frost them over. Upon one side of the door in the dock road there is written in large white letters, Tifung and Company, English and Chinese restaurant. On the other side is a sign in Chinese. Once inside, you will see no door upon the ground floor, only steep, deal stairs. At the top of these stairs is the long low room whose windows look on Birdcourt.

It is divided up by a few bead curtains and fringes of bits of painted glass. Other doors open off this room. But the sides upon them are all Chinese. And the ostensible business of the restaurant is carried on here at rows and rows of marble-top tables, where parties of young sailors sit eating curry and rice and other dishes that are not easy to diagnose. They are surprising these young Chinamen, with their quiet, well-cut lounge suits and sleek buck hair. You will hardly see better-dressed men in Piccadilly. Lottie was a waitress at Monsieur T-Fong.

For all the waitresses there are English. She was a tall, blonde creature with peroxide and scented hair, and covered in powder from head to foot. As she came down the gangway between the tables, the Chinaman would one and all reach out and claw at her dress, trying to hold her back. Sometimes she would slap their hands. Sometimes she stopped to laugh and talk, sitting generally on the table, while the chinks would hold the ends of her apron strings, stroking them or pressing them to their cheeks, and some would stroke the line of her arm with an approving finger. Lottie was a favorite among the Chinese, but the few Europeans who came here for their meals would never look at her. Wonderful creature. She had waited at Tifongs now for ten years and had never once lost her temper.

It was not her business to lose her temper. Presently she went out for an order for chicken chestnuts and tea, and came back with a steaming dish in one hand and with the other led Martha. Martha solemnly carried a small cracked tray with the teapot in the little hand. candlest cups. She was a very solemn child with a thin wisp of dull black crinkly hair that was tied in a stiff pigtail with a twist of striped flannelette. Otherwise she wore black satin, like her mother, a frock very short and cotton-topped silk stockings full of holes and ladders. They had been meant for a longer skirt than Martha's, for the cotton began well below the knee, and they had been meant for rounder legs. Her face was thin, too, with high cheekbones. and large mouth and narrow almond eyes that betrayed her paternity. Her expression was slow and seldom changed, though her movements were quick. Children in the East End do not shrink under a blow. Either they fling themselves upon their attackers biting and scratching like desperate things, or they wriggle like eels. And Martha's home life had taught her a very great deal. She had come with

her mother to T-Fonnes ever since she could remember. And before that too, when she used to ride in on her mother's shoulder and the Chinaman would beg to be allowed to dandal her in their arms for a minute and brought her toys and later would teach her strange little songs to dance to on the daubletops. When she appeared with the tea, it was strange to see the chinks change, to see the inscrutable, dreamy look that Lottie had banished come back into their eyes. They bowed gravely to her, and ordered preserved ginger and lichies for her and talked to her with all their politeness, and yet no one would have said the poor risin little thing was an attractive child. She seemed listless, hardly to understand what they were saying. She made no response to their gentleness,

even when some reeling Scandinavian blundered by and they crooked their arms to prevent him brushing against her clothes, she did not seem to notice it. But it was not necessary. Enough that she was a child. More that half her blood was yellow. Her mother, who understood Chinaman, was satisfied. When they gave her flowers, she would smile slowly. and let them try to stick them in her hair. But there was hardly enough to hold the stocks. But she always began before long to beg for paper. And the yellow men who understood her when

used to save old sheets of it for her, folded in their pockets. When her pencil was all worn away, one of them brought her a whole stick of Chinese ink with a little brush and showed her how to mix it in a saucer. And she used it up so incredibly fast that she was always begging for more sticks of ink. A great deal of it got on her face,

or on the floor, and there were always black splashes on the walls. A number of mothers would have condemned the practice as messy, but Lottie was one of those large-minded people who did not object to dirt. Their room would have been filthy anyhow. But Lottie did object on other grounds. She thought it queer. Taint's if, she used to confide to her cronies, taint's if the kid could draw for nuts, she can't.

Carlos Lada now. Carlos Lada was certainly an amazing. amazing child. At a very early age, she had shown a wonderful power for caricature, and by the time that she was 14, she earned enough money to keep Carlo and his wife in a state of drunkenness. She made it by going to all the prize fights and drawing crude sketches for the sporting papers. But Martha couldn't do this. She very seldom drew people, and when she did, there was never a shadow of likeness in her drawings. Mainly, she would pile up odd bundles of rubbish on a table and draw them. Beer bottles, onions, and

such like, or she would draw things from unexpected angles, or make up things out of her head. As Lottie said, it was queer. But Lottie soon gave in, for she decided that Martha was altogether a bit queer. There was therefore nothing to be done, provided that the child did not become expensive, but to teach her to shop and fetch the beer and rub plates round with newspaper. That, to Lottie, comprised the art of housekeeping. Otherwise, if the child kept the chinks amused, why it did her no harm and was good for business. So presently Martha began as usual to beg for paper, and young Shantin delightedly pulled out a whole wad that he had kept for her, some of it back sheets of letters, paper bags, anything he could get. Martha smiled and personally at the sight of it,

without any attempt at thanks. But Shanting was able to produce a pencil too, so Martha soon squatted down with the pieces on the floor and began to cover them over with her strange scrawls. The serious thing about her was that she hoarded her paper like gold until it was used, but in her drawings, once done, she took no interest, whatever. Generally, she left them, crumpled, wherever she happened to have done with them. But Sean Ting and his friends crowded round her, for there was an eastern quality in her notions of design that appealed to them rather than Toulati, and yet her conventions were not in any strict sense Chinese,

because her design was not entirely in the flat but advanced and receded in a way they could not. understand. Lottie flitted on to other tables, leaving Martha to entertain the group, which she presently did in her quiet way, saying little and smiling little. She was one of those difficult people who seem entirely oblivious, whether they are caressed or beaten, but treat all folk alike with a complete detachedness. It was not usual for Europeans to take any interest in her, but presently one rose from the table where you were sitting over Tifong's wonderful tea and sponge cakes, and joined the group. Wall Henderson was a tall fellow, youngish and shabbily dressed,

like all the Europeans of the quarter, wearing a tight choker round his unshaven throat. He had the sullen look of most EastEnders, beaten, yet provocative. It would not have been easy to recognize the art student of a few years back, so completely had he gone under. He elbowed the chinks aside like a true Britisher, stood scowling down at Martha, But she drew on wholly absorbed, entirely oblivious that anything out of the ordinary was happening. Presently, he picked up one of the discarded drawings, looked at it almost with a sort of rage, and thrust it into the pocket of his coat. Then he sat down again and lit a cigarette.

Lottie came back and bore Martha away, and the group broke up. Number two. Lottie usually lay a bed till late in the morning, fed by Martha on tea and kippers. She was surprised, therefore, to hear a bang at her door at about ten o'clock. Who's that? she screamed. Something was answered in a bass voice. Well, you can't come in, she called again, and added in an undertone. Go and see what the blighter wants, Martha. There's a dearie.

So Martha slipped out of the door and found herself face to face with a sullen-looking man. Inquisitive young heads were peering at them from the stairs below. What'd you want? She drawled one hand on the doorknob for quick retreat. Want your ma, the man growled out. Martha half opened the door to shout this information through. Lottie, recognizing the inevitable, poked out a head bristling with curling pens. It did not take Wall Henderson long to explain what he wanted.

An ordinary, enough request. Someone to do for him. He lived in the next block of tenements and thought Lottie might have time to come round and swept up before going to Tifung's. Lottie thought otherwise. She was too fond of her bed, but she stopped to gossip. How's Liz? she asked. Wall shook his head slowly. Gone, he said, last month. Well, I never commented Lottie. Wall threw his head back, sucking noisily like one with a bottle. In the firmery. Well, I never. repeated Lottie.

It did her quick. Merciful quick, but she was at it a long time before I knew. Lottie wiped away a sentimental tear. A nice girl, you're Liz. Pettie she drank. Wall felt something choking in his throat and exclaimed fiercely. I'm blooming well out of it, but I ain't got no one to do for me now.

That's why I looked you up. Well, so long, miss. Lottie stopped him with a gesture. Ere, she said, afamo. What about the kid? Martha, said Wahl, looking up at her suddenly, but hiding his cunning. Yes. She ain't got no sense, said Wall.

She's more sense, nor you think, cried Lottie hotly. She'd do you all right. Wall appeared to ruminate. She might, he admitted presently. And so it was fixed up that Martha should do. do for Wall Henderson for 18 pence a week. Wall did not smile to himself as he went back to his room, because he had long given up the habit of smiling, but he felt a certain satisfaction. Presently he went to the chest of drawers that stood in the corner on one leg, like a naughty child,

leaning against the wall. With a knife, he opened the handleless top drawer and fished out various bits of paper, pieces of charcoal and pencils. He walked thoughtfully about the room, putting them here and there, stood back to watch the effect, and then went out. When Martha arrived in the morning, she knew pretty well what to do. Wall was still asleep, breathing statoriously, his lower lip drooping. Martha hunted round for the ten teapot, found it half full of stale tea, and so put it on the gas ring to heat up. There were some kippers wrapped up in newspaper, but she could not cook them till the tea was hot, and she did the tea first because she could see Henderson had been drinking the night before. Meanwhile, there was nothing to do. Martha looked round and saw paper and pencil within

reach. Almost without thinking, she began to draw. A vague sea of melancholy Chinese faces, a memory of Tifengs. Starting from the front, she also drew them one by one growing smaller and more expressionless in the distance. If you had asked her why they were melancholy, she could not have told you. It did not matter to her once they were drawn, whether they had laughed or cried. Wall's snoring had suddenly ceased, but she was too absorbed to notice it. Presently she began to frame the faces round with a heavy black line. Ear! Wall shouted out.

Drop that and get on with it. Martha jumped towards the ring. The tea had been boiling some time. A cup of it strangely seemed to improve Wall's temper, or perhaps it was the smell of the frying kippers. But while he was drinking it, she managed to finish the framing line unnoticed. Wall had a damp cloth for washing up instead of using newspaper, so Martha rubbed the cup and kept her plate both with it and left hurriedly to clean up her mother's breakfast.

When she was gone, Wall carefully drew his legs out of bed and ran a judicious thumb down his shins. They were rather badly bruised. Presently he lit his pipe and then pulled on his trousers, tied his choker, tightened the canvas belt around his waist, and put on his waistcoat. Before putting on his boots, he looked long and carefully at the drawing, and presently hid it away in a chest under his bed. So things went on for several weeks, and the pile of drawings in the chest under the bed grew.

Once, when Martha had gone, all took paper and pencil and made a series of neat little sketches. Every now and then he stopped to admire his work and then went on. When they were finished, he got out Martha's latest drawing, a straggling and unfinished design of housetops and set it beside them, scowling more and more at the comparison. The first thing he did was to scribble all across his own work, and the next was to feel a sort of jealousy, an absurd wish for revenge,

and to take out the little pile from the chest. He screwed the top one into a ball and flung it into the corner, but he repented and went after it. He flattened it out carefully, then dampened it, and went over the back with a hot iron, and put it back safely in the pile. Next day, when Mark, Martha came, she found him already up, and is breakfast eaten. Instead of setting her to clean up,

he told her to sit on the edge of the bed and made a rapid and very flattering drawing of her profile on canvas. This canvas had been an old landscape of his, but he had scrapped it and covered it over days ago with ground white ready for this. Before beginning to use any color, he called Martha over to see it, and asked her if she liked it. She shook her head. Wall clenched his fists but kept his voice in control. Ain't it pretty enough for you? Martha said it wasn't that. You just don't like it?

That's right, said Martha. Why don't you like it? Don't know. Wall felt she was right, but his jealousy grew quite out of control and he beat her soundly with a soft leather strap. She rushed to the door, but he was before her. her, finding retreat cut off, to his surprise, she remained quite passive, hardly making a sound while he hit her. His jealous fit vanished and left him in an abyss of misery. The rest of the morning he spent teaching her the use of oil paints. She got herself covered in paint from head to

foot, just like any other student. During the afternoon, he took out all his stack of pictures from the bottom drawer, and in a sort of sublime melancholy set himself to scrapping the canvases and cleaning them and preparing them afresh. This was a very hard thing for Walled to do. The first hard thing that he had done in his life was coming to live in Poplar, but that was not so hard as he had expected. He came for two reasons. The first was that there was no other place where he could afford to live and devote himself

to his art. The second was that Liz was a barmaid when he first met her, and that she would be happier there than among his friends. His love for Liz died slowly, and by the time that it was gone he was absolutely absorbed into the life of the quarter, and neither could nor wished to leave it. The second hard thing that he had done was after he discovered that Liz had another husband and that she drank. His love was by this time nearly gone,

but he kept her with him and nursed her almost until she died. The daily battle with the disgustingness of life wore away the finer side of his nature, hardened the vulgar side that had first admired Liz. Presently, he realized that it was impossible for him ever to be the artist he had dreamed of being, and that it was impossible for him to leave the life he was living. These were two hard things for Wall Henderson to swallow, especially as the latter had come about through doing what he thought to be right and through sticking to Liz.

The third hard thing was when he destroyed his own paintings in order that Martha might paint on the canvases. Martha knew nothing of this and used the materials he gave her without thought. She worked all day and worked hard at her painting. In the evening she murmured, So long, in a conventional way and slipped out. She's all brain and no heart, said Wal to himself. I've thrashed her till she was sick,

and I've given her a chance she has never had in her life before, and she doesn't care for me either way, more than a doorpost. So long, she had said, just the same as the first day that she had fried his kippers. But meanwhile, his soul and face danced before her all the way home, and she beat her clenched fists together to stop herself from crying. Wall began to dream of the day when he should take a few of her drawings to a gallery, and an exhibition should be arranged,

and the whole world should go mad about this pearl he had found in the gutter. He saw himself in the role of her guardian and protector, and incidentally, her business manager. He saw the honors due to a discoverer paid to him, and the memory of Martha's s' long interrupted him. She'd throw him away like a worn shoe when she had no more need of him, he felt, but his queerly devotional attitude to art rose up to comfort him. The latent passionateness and sensitiveness of his nature

were in strange contrast to her impassivity. It was the merely artistic temperament in contrast to the temperament of a real artist, he decided. He took her canvas and set them carefully by the window to dry. Number three. One night, Wall came home more drunk than usual. He had met an old friend of the days when he had first begun to draw. They had but the vaguest memory of each other,

for Wall had never been to an art school. They had only met occasionally in odd bohemian attics, where Penelis fellows talked wonderfully of the pictures they were going to paint some day, and then had come soon the time, when Wall went under, and his friends saw him no more. But the fellow had resisted all Wall's attempts to escape him, and borne him off to a disreputable and so-called bohemian gathering, where his own appearance was in no way out of place. There, they had made Wall very drunk, chiefly uncrimmed a mint, and when he stumbled into his bed, the whole world seemed suddenly

to reel out of his ken, and he slept like a log. He did not wake till very late. Martha was sitting by him with a cup of tea watching him. When he woke, she put down the tea and mixed him some salts. He drank them, and, because his head was so painful, cursed her, and she hurried away without doing any painting that day. Wall went to sleep again and slept until midday. At midday, he woke a second time and felt in his pockets for his pipe, for he was fully dressed, wanting badly to smoke.

But instead of it, his fingers closed on a bit of pasteboard. He drew it out and examined it half-consciously. Edward McIntyre, the Surrey Galleries. Vag memories of the night before elbowed and jostled each other in his mind. Who was McIntyre? He must have been the fair Jew fellow with a weak mustache. They had been drinking port when the man arrived, but he had asked for beer. And so they had all had a pint to keep him company,

and then a gin to settle it before going on to the crem de mint. The others had got noisy during the evening, but McIntyre had sat quiet, and it was not till the party broke up that he had shown how very drunk he was. He had been sitting on a sofa, one arm hung caressingly over the end, apparently talking to himself, when he tried to stand his legs gave way, and he sat in the middle of the floor laughing weakly. They bore him off, and Wall, who could still stand and had a few wits left, offered to see him home in a cab. McIntyre had insisted on giving him his card before they parted, someone having mentioned that Wall was an artist. Now he staggered out of bed and tried to collect his wits, could not, and spent a miserable afternoon loafing along the docks in the cool air. In the evening, he came back and varnished some pictures. He took the pasteboard carefully out of his pocket, cleaned it with India rubber, and set it under a tobacco box.

The next day, he felt more capable of dealing with things. He said nothing to Martha when she came, but after she had wiped the breakfast things, told her that he was going to take her out of doors to paint. She made no objection, and he found her a quiet corner where she could sketch unmolested, a corner overlooking the pool. In the foreground was a Norwegian timber vessel, and the little police boats were fussing in and out of the shipping. To his surprise, she steadily refused to draw.

He was furious. He had found her a subject and taken all the trouble of bringing her there, but no, she would not. And recognizing the truth of the proverb about the horse in the water, he did not even hit her. Presently she moved a few yards, the obstinate little wretch, and sat down quite contentedly with her notebook to draw something else. As soon as she was thus settled, Wall went home and took the packet of drawings from under his bed, chose out the best of the oils, and did them up in a parcel together. He put on his collar and took a bus for Oxford Street, stopped at the Surrey Galleries, and gave McIntyre's card to the man at the door, with his own name scrawled across the

back. The man looked at him doubtfully, but took the card, and presently Wall Henderson found himself talking to Edward McIntyre, saying he hardly knew what. And so it was arranged that there should be an exhibition of drawings and paintings by Walter Henderson at the Surrey Galleries in the following January. Number four. Wall staggered out into the sunshine, still slightly dazed from the night before the last. How had it happened? He did not know.

McIntyre had taken it for granted that this was his own work, and of course Martha never bothered to sign things. It would not occur to her, nor did she ever bother to inquire what became of her drawings after they were done. Wall went home and found she had been making a careful drawing of a blind puppy, almost in one line, but neither a touch wasted nor a touch lacking, and there was no background whatever. Wall wrote W.H. in the corner, bled his thumb, and set its mark above. Then he went through all the drawings and paintings, signing them with his initials and his thumb mark. The final step was

taken. He was surprised to find how easy it was, when a thing had happened half by accident, the very idea of which in cold blood he would have dismissed. He felt no remorse, whatever. No inclination to go back to McIntyre and explain his mistake. Fate gave him a shove, and he slid smoothly. It was not long before Wall managed to get a check for McIntyre on account and took to shaving again every day and wearing the collar. It was not long either before Lottie began to get rest of

and wonder that Martha should be absent all day. And never come with her to T-phones as she used. used. Yang Shang Ting and his friends used to inquire after her, and when she still did not appear, neither did they come to Teufung so often, for Lottie's own popularity was waning. It did not occur to her that anything might be amiss, for after all, Martha was barely 12 years old. It was only that she thought Henderson was getting more than 18 pence worth of work out of her in a week, as indeed he was. But when she questioned the child, and Martha told her that Henderson let her sit in his room and draw. She grumbled at it as queer, but did not think much more about the matter. A few days after that,

Mr. Tifong summoned her to his office, and she wondered why. He loomed in front of her threateningly, a great dark mountain of a chink, girt always with a blue bays apron. I hear, he said slowly, that you are insolent. Lottie did not protest. She knew it to be his invariable formula, that protest was hopeless. people do not stand insolence you are dismissed but lottie hardly heard him you are old were the words ringing in her head as she crept out again she was badly shaken but a little crude rum made her feel better she began to think things over dispassionately and yet found it hard to admit that she was old and yet it was true that her ascendancy over the chinese had gone she had to recognize that things were not the same as a in the old days when Martha used to come with her to Tiefongs. Her mind clung to this explanation in despair.

She hated to admit that she was old. She would not admit it, and put it all down absurdly to Martha. Lottie paid for her drink in a dazed fashion and stumbled home in her high-heeled, overtrodden shoes. When Martha came in, she flung a torrent of abuse at her, of which Martha understood not one jot, blaming her for all the misfortunes that had ever befallen them. then she ended up saying that she should go to Henderson's no more and that Martha understood

but said nothing. Lottie went to bed debating in her mind whether to send Martha to a factory or to try and find some other more lucrative job poorer, for Lottie had no intention of entering a factory herself. Presently she decided to try the factory and then fell asleep, but when she awoke, Martha was already dressed and gone. Gone. Lottie was in a gripping. rage. Gone without even getting her breakfast? That was a dutiful child, and when she had spent half the night scheming for her future, too. Lottie jumped out of bed earlier than usual, and hurried through a toilet preparatory to learning them both. Wall had been out late the night before, and slept late. He had been dining with McIntyre, and they discussed the exhibition,

which was just about to open. McIntyre had made him feel a little. little uncomfortable. McIntyre was a master of the art of boom, whereas of the other arts, he was only a very shrewd critic. During the last month, he had given many quiet dinners to really good fellows, fellows who edited papers or wrote art criticisms, or were well known as collectors. Then, a report, he would quite casually bring out a few of Wals' sketches, and that's their opinion of them, generally adding that they were never likely to be popular, of course, but he would spread his hands with a shrug, implying that one had sometimes to run an unpopular exhibition for art's sake, showing that he was a good fellow also. All the real people, of course, would recognize

their genius, and probably run the show down so as to buy Henderson's work cheap. Then the other good fellows would protest, and say that they at least would stand by him and expose any such wickedness. All through December, therefore, there were veiled references to the coming exhibition in the papers, dark hints about its excellencies, darker hints about the characters of any who should dare to introduce it. All this McIntyre, contrary to his use, told Wall, for he was surprised to find him more sensible than the average unknown genius, a man after his own heart. And he ended up by saying half laughing, the only pity, Henderson, is that you aren't an infant as well as a genius. If you were a young guttersnip, now it would just account for.

for those queer immaturities and unintentional crudities that I'm afraid of people falling foul of. Wall, who was drinking his third glass of port, spilt it. And so he had come home late, and feeling a little uncomfortable, and did not wake till he heard a terrific banging on the door. Martha was standing close by his pillow, pale and frightened, clutching hold of his blanket, and the door was locked. "'Who's there?' he shouted, and recognized Lottie's voice in the words that fall.

He jumped out of bed and pulled on his trousers, then opened the door, nearly as angry as lot of yourself. Martha ran behind him and flung her arms tight round his waist. Come along out of that, you little devil you. Didn't I tell you you wasn't coming here anymore? Wall could feel the child sobbing against the small of his back, and his veins ran with a queer pride. What you've been doing to the kid? he clamored. What have you been doing to her? cried Lottie.

That's what I want to know. Ain't I her mother? Fat Lada mother, you. What you've been doing to her. I'll get you lock up, I will, chasing the poor thing till she thinks you're ready to murder her. Lottie answered slowly and dramatically. Oos her mother.

You or me. Tell me that, Mr. Henderson. Who feeds her? Who looks after her all day? Who does she love? He added triumphantly, bending back an arm to touch the child's shoulder. Lottie stared weakly. Who's been father and mother to her both all this last month while you were blueing yourself at T-phones?

Tell me that, miss. You say you're her mother. Who was her father then? Some sonny chink? Tell me that! Before you go hollering about your mother's rights. Martha, said Lottie impressively, I've been a good mother, two-year.

Martha sobbed louder. Ain't you coming along of your mother? Blotty clung to the word desperately, like a talisman. She wanted the child, according to her lights. She was a good mother. Martha clung tighter. No, she ain't, said Wall.

I don't know what you've been doing to make a kid leave its own mar, but that's what you done. And I guess it must have been something terrible, hard. Ain't you afraid of hell for doing that dirty on a kid, you devil? She ain't done nothing, said Martha. Only she said

I wasn't coming here anymore, she wailed. Lottie stood limply and pathetically like a dog unreasonably beaten. For God's sake, she whispered, let me have her back. No, I won't, said Wall. He felt so completely

in the right, such a disinterested champion of defenseless childhood. Lottie sprang forward, babbling furiously. What do you want her for? What you've been doing to her, you lousy you? I tell you it ain't right for a kid of her age to be away from her mom. I ain't done nothing, he said slowly, and I ain't going to do nothing, except I ain't going to turn away a kid what comes to me for help. I ain't that sort of fellow. Why, you think I can get out of her? Why nothing? Only I ain't going to let her turn back. act to be bullied by you, not if it cost me every penny I got to feed her.

You mean it? That's right. Martha, are you coming along me? Or along a wall? For a reply, Martha pressed her straight face harder in Wall's coat. Lottie rubbed desperately at her eyes, tottered a few steps towards them, then turned to begin to stumble down the stairs. Oh, God, she was muttering. Martha relaxed her hold and sank on to the the bed, hiccuffing from her long, sobbing, her eyes red and puffed. She lay there longing for Wall's comfort, but he stood motionless in the middle of the door, hating himself. Bit by bit, things broke loose in his mind, each with a sudden sledgehammer blow, memories of the early past, then memories of all he had meant to do for Martha, then the thought of that exhibition of pictures

by Walter Henderson. Then the memory of Lottie stumbling, child, Wildless, blindly out onto the stairs, all the pains of Judas took hold of him. He writhed as if he was caught in a net of cords, struggling to escape from what he had done. Suddenly he turned on Martha, and his face was livid as with rage. Get out of this, he screamed. Out of it! Out of it! Martha sprang to her feet in Tara.

Out of it, damn you, he cried. Go to your mother. You can't stay here. I tell you, out of it, curse you. He took her by the shoulders and half threw her out of the door so that she fell all the spread on the landing. Hurry, he was saying, get a move on, you little devil, and take all this truck along of you. He bundled up paints and brushes and a bit of sacking and flung them after her. She lay huddled and ungainly and pathetic on the landing, not even sobbing.

The paint spilled all around her and he half kicked her across to the top of the stairs. He slammed the door. She's free of me now, he thought, forever. Things had come to such a pass that he could wish her nothing better. End of Section 17. Chapter 18 of a moment of time. This is a Libravox recording. All Liberox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Read by Agnes Robert Bear.

A Moment of Time. The chest. Beyond the lodge gate was the old walled garden, the height of whose ramparts had once so awed him. Now there were bald footholds in the ivy, where boys had climbed over for what little loot remained. Trust Sussex boys for that. But there was little need, for as he passed up the drive he came to a place where a great piece of brickwork had broken away, making an uncouth frame to the tank. of jungleed grass within. The plow still stood rusted into the earth where they had left it, when the last effort at gardening failed. He remembered finding them at it, old star who had once been a steeple-chaser, tugging nervously and ineffectually. Laura and Josephine trying to steer the plow,

he had laughed them out of it. Now all was wilderness, grass everywhere, and broken box edges, bedraggled lilac, roses crawling along the ground like worms without flowers. A clump of deep crimson polyanthus, it leaves pale and elongated in the search for light. He stepped through the gap, exploring timorously, a scent everywhere of flowers and soaked dead leaves. In the broken greenhouse, unpruned peaches were setting, and on the potting shelf was a silk dancing shoe full of water. It would not have been an unexpected thing to find that any time. But the chest in which he must look was at the house. He went on up the drive, almost shutting his eyes and ears.

The place had been so many years dying, had lingered on in dwindling occupation for so long that it was hard to believe that now it was really empty. As he passed the tennis court, where of late years Starr had been paddocked, he looked involuntarily for the mare, at not seeing her. Imagine that he almost expected to hear Josephine come galloping her down the drive, though he did not really.

And to the house, which he entered by the gun-room door, the key of which alone was not lost. He passed through the silent hall, its floor cleared to furniture as if fur dance. He slid his foot on it. It was sticky, it wanted chalk. A green mildew-limbed deer, the features of the grotesques, carved into the black oak fireplace, and light flooded in, now that the tall window curtains were gone. They had been of flame-colored silk, a present from a

Chinese emperor. He remembered that the third stair creaked, when one tried to tiptoe up to bed silently. Josephine the youngest had always stayed up last, dancing, or sometimes would get up in the middle of the night, when the others, who were near to being grown up, were thinking of bed and calm down in her dressing down and dance for a couple of hours or so, our start on a moonlight walk over the downs and dressing gown and silk slippers. That stare creaked now. The damp had come through the wall and spread over the amethyst paper like a yellow leprosy. Bits of paper hung away from the wall, showing their underside. It was like a disease. The chest was in a top attic, a sort of box room that he did not remember ever to have been in.

But the next room was Laura's. That had always been tidy, whatever chaos left it round. Now, like the others, it was bare. He had sat there for hours once, while Laura had played Mendelsohn on the gramophone, and Ursula commented, Listen now, and you'll hear real waves. There they are. Golly, it's wonderful. It was the next room to that, which had been Josephine's. In the perpetual aimless general post of the bedrooms, it was there she had generally slept. And he looked in now, he almost expected to see her, sitting up in bed with a toothache, her deep orange hair spreading over a pink lace-fringed dressing-gown, her clothes all over the floor. This room, too, was bare.

But for an iron mattress, stood up against the wall. back to the box room. The chest was a huge thing, made of pine wood, about nine feet by six. The lid was not properly shut. The leg of a toy horse stuck out. He lifted it. Here, as in geological strata, lay all the history of the sisters, all their discarded clothes and oddments from the last 15 years. Right on top was the peacock-colored evening frock that Laura had made for Josephine's 15th birthday. She had wanted to dance in that one night. A month later he had found her playing tennis in it. With it were a pair of combinations, that it had been too much trouble to mend.

A tull of a riding boot poked up through more silk frogs. He moved these things about, groping blindly in his search. A little way down he came on their stays, discarded when stays went out of fashion. A little lower the trunk of a huge elephant, morocan and leaking sawdust. projected between a sponge and one of Ursula's ridiculous white fur coats. He pulled out one riding boot. It seemed a tiny thing. Perched there on his palm, the beautiful soft leather worn as supple as a glove. Underneath was a heather mixture tweed skirt. At first he could not remember, but something was

struggling back. Then he got it. Once for half a day, a vague disquiet had rippled the tranquil laps of the sisters. He had said he liked it, and Joseph, Josephine had put it on, and there had been a faint uneasiness in the air dissipated after a few hours. It reached to her ankles almost then. How small it was. People grow. The further he groped, the smaller the things got, the stranger the fashions, he no longer found things he had ever seen. That extraordinary evening dress, could their aunt ever have worn it?

Then he remembered the photograph there used to be in the drawing room. Down at the bottom of all were two white baby's polices, with white down-frilled silk bonnets, and the awning of a perambulator. He lifted it out, and suddenly threw it down. Little squirming baby mice fell from every fold. They had made a nest in it, eaten a hole right through the middle. When he had found what he searched for, and come down to the hall again, he crooked his arm as if round a partner's waist, and whirled once or twice about the floor, in an ecstasy of sentiment. The last five years had tumbled out of the chest,

as if from Pandora's box, all that beauty, youngness, sensitiveness, delicacy, freedom, blessed freedom, from many thought and emotion, the tranquil lapse. Presently, he had conjured the place so full of ghost that he stopped, frightened. End of Chapter 18.

Section 19 of a moment of time. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Read by April 6090. A Moment of Time by Richard Hughes, The Devil Stick. If you take the road north from Ludlow, that curious town, and follow its dull pavement till the hills close in on it, you come presently to a wooded valley. then if it is raining you will be well advised to turn into the wood by a little gate as i did when i walked that road for hidden in the wood there is an old quarry

the sky was a brown yellow and the river a yellow-brown and the rain when it came so blue as almost to make me believe the impressionists who are as a rule incredible people here i perched dryly under a ledge of old sandstone the quarry was full of the distant echo of trains that went on murmuring and whispering all the long time from one train to the next. And then there were two day-dazed owls that circled about silently in the rain, and jays that screamed in the patter of the rain very far up among the branches. But presently I lit a fire, and made a stir about of rising currents, which are both light things on the back, though heavy in the stomach. Then I rummaged out my pipe from the lining of my coat, and lay back very contented, watching the blue clouds float out of the cave till the sudden wind caught them and twisted them out of sight.

Musing thus aimlessly, I got to thinking of long Jonathan and his devil stick, which he had taken from a drunken nigger in the West India Dock Road. The nigger was so drunk that he had butted a lamp post in mistake for a policeman, and was lying in the gutter clutching his devil's stick when Jonathan had found him. And as often happens, I had hardly begun to think of Jonathan when he himself came scuttling and swearing into the quarry, with a wild haggard look on his face, and the rain leaving smutty tracks on the backs of his hands.

We nodded together as old comrades, but he burst out chattering at once. Look! he said, Looky at the dibs! And he began tearing half, sought in wads of notes from his hat, his coat, his boots. He seemed half drunk with folly, for I could have pocketed half of them without him taking notice, or clubbed him and had the lot for very little more trouble. But curiosity and a few suspicions held me, so that I only kept

asking for his tail. Tell me, I said, what have you robbed, long, Jonathan? For you've made a good enough job of it. Or are you in the spoof trade? He shoveled them up in an untidy heap and began cramming them back. It's the stick, he said, drawing the little carved ivory baton from his coat, fixed his crazy Jew eyes upon it. I knew it would bring me luck, and now it has, for when I went to the war-shed erases, I had not but a shilling lifted, out of a peddler's pocket. And then this stick, he up and spoke right out loud to the skies, telling me to lay the tail of my shirt, and on Lady Candy, which I did and won, and won it ten times over again, too. The stick spoke?

said I incredulously. The little man seemed half delirious. His tobacco-stained mustache was all whisked in the rain, and his pale rabbit face flushed. Spoke! he cried. Poked its head out of my pocket and fair shouted in my ear. Jonathan! It said presently, you've gotten enough. Have done with the betting, and sure enough, the booky-lawful.

lit for the Welsh hills before another race was frown. Now I had barely pulled out into the town that night for arousal, when two tofts come up and addressed me in the friendliest wanting a little loan, they said to help them in what they called a small venture. Said I, I'd see them to hell first, and so I would, the whole long way, if the devil stick hadn't come out and whispered to me to get inside a pub, as I was going to feel uncommon dry, before ten minutes

was out. But the very moment I'd twisted on my heels, these two johnnies had their pistols on me, and were trusting me up like a burst pipe. They shoved me into a car and soon had every cent stripped off my skin, telling me all the time

that they were gentlemen, and I should never have reason to regret the temporary embarrassment. Lord, I blasphemed till my teeth shook, and all the time the devil stick never said a word. They drew up soon at a county house and whipped me into a room, where they untied me, and there one of them sat talking sarcastic and filling me whiskeys, with a pistol in his off grip and an eye on the clock. I was still cussing myself and him and my luck, and the devil

stick that had let me in for this, when the other Johnny came back at about four o'clock. But, said my man, cocking his gun at me. "'Bot?' says the other. "'Bot and sold.' "'Then we need to detain our friend any longer,' said the first. "'Let's pay him his due share and say goodbye.' "'With that he started counting out notes. "'He gave me my own, and as much again for interest.'

"'Gentlemen,' says I, "'you're very good, elf, "'and may I ask how you done it?' "'Sir,' says one of them. "'You're very good elf, and you mayn't.' with that they shoveled me up like a sack of coals and tied my eyes for it was getting light and carried me off in the car they didn't talk another word but just pitched me out in a ditch and were gone before i could get my eyes uncovered when i found they had carried me half-way to tinberry jonathan says this little stick get up and run like hell so i ran like hell and fetched into ludlow that night he stopped to fill his pipe yes i said that's a good yarn jonathan and does you credit but who did this i fetched out the day's paper and showed him a paragraph it described a country bank robbery and described long jonathan too pretty minutely he grinned his appreciation of my price and read it carefully

"'Country holiday, what?' he said. "'Yes,' said I, and a good long one, too. "'That's a good yarn, but a bit too good for the gentlemen.' He gathered himself together and hurried off. But I heard afterwards that he was arrested at Bishop's Castle, where he was telling a whole barful of folk how he had, on the devil's sticks advice, just made his fortune out of a Welsh gold mine.

Any bulk of money always goes to long Jonathan's hay. End of Section 19 Read by April 6090 Section 20 of A Moment of Time by Richard Hughes This is a Libervox recording All Librevox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer Please visit Librevox.org

Read by Ben Tucker A Moment of Time by Richard Hughes A Night at a Cottage On the evening that I am considering I passed by some ten or twenty cozy barns and sheds without finding one to my liking, for Worcester Shire lanes are devious and muddy, and it was nearly dark when I found an empty cottage set back from the road in a little bedraggled garden. There had been heavy rain earlier in the day, and the straggling fruit trees still wept over it.

But the roof looked sound, there seemed to no reason why it should not be fairly dry inside, as dry at any rate as I was likely to find anywhere. I decided, and with a long look up the road, and a long look down the road. I drew an iron bar from the lining of my coat and forced the door, which was only held by a padlock and two staples. Inside the darkness was damp and heavy. I struck a match,

and with its haloed light I saw the black mouth of a passage somewhere ahead of me. And then it spluttered out. So I closed the door carefully, though I had little reason to fear passers-by at such a dismal hour in so remote a lane. In lighting another match, I crept down this passage to a little room at the far end, where the air was a bit clearer, for all that the window was boarded across.

Moreover, there was a little rusted stove in this room, and thinking it too dark for any to see the smoke, I ripped up part of the wainscot with my knife, and soon was boiling my tea over a bright, small fire, and drying some of the day's rain out of my steamy clothes. Presently I piled the stove with wood to its top bar, and setting my boots where they would best dry, I stretched my body out to sleep. I cannot have slept very long, for when I awoke the fire was still burning brightly. It is not easy to sleep for long together on the level boards of a floor, for the limbs grow numb, and any movement wakes. I turned over and was about to go again to sleep when I was startled to hear steps in the passage. As I have said, the window was boarded,

and there was no other door from the little room, no cupboard even, in which to hide. It occurred to me rather grimly that there was nothing to do but to sit up and face the music, and that would probably mean being hailed back to Worcester jail, which I'd left two bare days before, and where, for various reasons, I had no anxiety to be seen again. The stranger did not hurry himself, but presently walked slowly down the passage, attracted by the light of the fire, and when he came in, he did not seem to notice me where I lay huddled in a corner, but walked straight over to the stove and warmed his hands at it. He was dripping wet, wetter than I should have thought it possible for a man to get,

even on such a rainy night, and his clothes were old and worn. The water dripped from him on to the floor. He wore no hat in the straight hair over his eyes dripped water that sizzled spitefully on the embers. It occurred to me at once that he was no lawful citizen but another wanderer like myself, a gentleman of the road, so I gave him some sort of greeting, and we were presently in conversation. He complained much of the cold and the wet, and huddled himself over the fire, his teeth chattering in his face and ill-white.

No, I said, it is no decent weather for the road this, but I wonder this cottage isn't more frequented, for it's a tidy little bit of a cottage. Outside the pale dead sunflowers and giant weeds stirred in the rain. Time was, he answered, there wasn't a tighter little cot in the county, nor a purdier garden,

a regular little parlor she was, but now no folk will live in it, and there's very few tramps will stop here either. There was none of the rags and tins and broken food about that you find in a place where many beggars are used to stay. Why is that? I asked. It gave a very troubled sigh before answering. Ghosts, he said. Ghosts. Him that lived here. It is a mighty sad tale, and I'll not tell it, you. But the upshot of it was that he drowned himself down to the mill pond. All slimy he was and floating when they pulled him out of it.

There are folks of seen and floating on the pond, and folks have seen and set around the corner of the school, waiting for his children. Seems as if he had forgotten, like how they were all gone dead, and the why he drowned himself. But there are some say he walks up and down this cottage, up and down, like when the smallpox had him, and when they couldn't sleep. But if they heard his feet going up and down by their doors, drowned himself down to the pond, he did, and now he's. He walks. The stranger sighed again, and I could hear the water squelch in his boots as he moved himself. But it doesn't do for the like of us to get superstitious, I answered. It wouldn't do for us to get seeing ghosts, or many as the wet night we'd be lying in the roadway.

No, he said. No, it wouldn't do at all. I never had belief in walks myself. I laughed. Nor I that, I said. I never see ghosts. whoever may. He looked at me again in his queer, melancholy fashion.

No, he said. Expect you don't ever. Some folk don't. It's hard enough for poor fellows to have no money into their lodging, apart from ghosts scaring them. It's the coppers, not spooks, make me sleep uneasy, said I. Well, with coppers and meddlesome-minded folk, it isn't easy to get a night's rest nowadays.

The water was still oozing from his clothes, all about the floor, and a dink smell went up from him. "'God, man,' I cried. "'Can't you never get dry?' "'Dry,' he made a little coughing laughter. "'Dry? I shan't never be dry. "'Cousn't the likes of us that ever get dry. "'Beet wet or fine.

"'Winter or summer. See that?' "'He thrust his muddy hands up to the wrist in the fire, "'glowering over it fiercely and madly. but I caught up my two boots and ran crying out into the night. End of Section 20, A Night in the Cottage. Section 21 of a moment of time. This is a Librevox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain.

For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. Read by Agnes Robert Bear. A Moment of Time by Richard Hughes. The Victorian Room and James. The night is dark and gloomy, said James in a pompous voice. Let us be banal. That means, said Janet, that you have a ghost story you want to tell us. James sat up suddenly instead at her in mock consternation.

Then he sank back again on the hearth rug. You are right, he admitted. We composed ourselves since apocrylant. The night was dark and gloomy. He began. Cut that right out. We sang in a crescendo chorus. The night was clear and cheerful. At any rate, it was night. He paused. Go on. I was staying with my old friend. Thingamee. James, he said, you won't mind sleeping in the haunted room, will you? And I answered. Yes, we all know what you answered. Janet interrupted, that of course you weren't afraid and didn't believe in ghosts. There, you are wrong, said James. I begged him with tears to put me

in another room and told him that I was scared to death of them. So he rang for the 13th butler, and told him to put me in the Victorian room. That sounded quite modern, and sort of homely, so although my teeth chattered loudly all along the passages, I felt quite reassured when I got there and found all the usual bell-poles and red plush curtains and things. Brained furniture, too. I could see it through the dressing-room door, so I hung my little glass up

and put my razor into hot water and prepared to shave. Here James stood up and struck a dramatic attitude and continued in a sing-song cantilation. To help him out, we kept up an accompaniment of gentle groans. I had hardly set my hand to the razor to lift it out. When, happening to glance up, I saw in the glass, on my bed, a joculated corpse. Blood oozed over the pillows and sheets. Horror rippled over me in waves, for I saw that the grinning, twisted mask of a face on the pillow, was my own.

Accompient here, FF. The room swam around me in great sweeping spirals. I tried to turn, to let go of my razor, to shriek, but I was paralyzed. Roans here in a sympathetic, P.P. The impotence of nightmare was on me. My eyes were glued to the horrid distorted sight in the glass. The thing on the bed had me in thrall. I could not scream.

I could not let go of the razor. I could not move it in the water. All at once, I felt the force that held it there relax. It suddenly seemed to be lifted out, without my aid. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the white, strained face in the glass. Fear made the likeness to the thing on the bed more ghastly. I stood impotent. A diabolical a force gripped me. Slowly I felt my right hand being raised. My muscles grew tense and quivered under the strain. Slowly, and surely the razor was lifted towards my throat. My hair rippled on to its ends, prickling like a cap of nettles. Fear went over me in great waves till I seemed drowning. Then my hand was drawn back over my shoulder, as if for a terrific slash. I found myself

praying to be allowed to do it quickly. James paused again, and we urged him to go on. Well, that's really all. There was one little fact that both I and the ghost had rather overlooked, and which saved the situation. Thank heaven it was a safety razor Janet had given me last Christmas. End of Section 21. Section 22 of A Moment of Time. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org. Recording by Rita Boutros A Moment of Time by Richard Hughes. The Diary of a Steeridge Passenger. Monday. This is Babel. Except for German, I do not even know what languages I am hearing.

Early in the morning, we filed through a little hole in the ship's rusty sign. and filtered gradually through dark passages into our proper quarters. Mine were in a little cubicle, barely six feet always, with bunks in it for three other men. There were three rows of these cubicles, each side of the ship, with a shaft leading down to the hold in the middle. And having the good fortune to be birthed in one of the outermost of these, we enjoyed the luxury of ventilation,

having a port-hole to ourselves. The British passengers, of whom there were not many, were birthed together right aft, and the foreigners' quarters were not quite so commodious. We were close down to the water-line, and there was a noise and a throbbing underneath, as if we were living over a water-mill. The lights were not yet turned on, and in the dark passages there was a sort of mosh of small children. You felt their hands warding you off as you went by. On deck there were others, and boys and old women in curious peasant dresses. The boat was still loading, desiccated coconut chiefly, I think, and netload after netload of passengers' luggage, so there was not much room on deck, and a great deal of din and dirt. And having breakfasted

at six, I was hungry enough for dinner when the time came, as it did as soon as we had cast off from the dock. I offended against etiquette that day by going into dinner without my cap. It should not be removed till the soup arrives, I found, and put on again to show the steward you have finished. The food was unpleasant but plentiful. The cigarette, too, should be worn behind the ear during meals, but it should be more carefully extinguished than mine was. The dining room had all the appearances of luxury. I could imagine it making a most effective photograph when empty, with its beautiful white tablecloths and paneled walls,

but crammed full of passengers after several days at sea, with the portholes shut to keep the fog out, I could guess it would seem a very different affair. At present everything seemed to be. very clean, but not likely to remain so long. Most of the foreigners were of the peasant class, and though they were incomprehensible, I found them generally naive and charming, but most of the Britishers came of the respectable class and were very ugly. However, I liked a rotund old cowboy who was ready to weep at the indignity of vaccination. Just as if I was a babby, he said,

They took and did it to him in the customs shed before they would let him on board. And though he had done his best to explain that he was a returning Canadian citizen, he was too roaring drunk at the time to be able to make them understand. So when I found him, he was spitting on his arm and rubbing it vigorously with a red cotton handkerchief in the hope that the vaccine would not take. As for the doctor who had done it, there was no. hope for him at all, neither in this life nor the next. When I next met old Dad, as he soon got named on the ship, he was sober.

And when sober, there was something peculiarly sinister and malevolent about him. He had the power of being able to say, second class only here, in some nine or ten languages, and so procured himself quite illegitimate elbow-room. Later I was specially warned against him, they said he was a wrongin, and a hard nut to crack, and didn't give nothing for nobody. But as he was never sober again during the trip, I only saw the better side of his character. In general shape and feature, though not of course an expression, he was rather reminiscent of the picture of W.H. Davies by Laura Knight,

especially he had the same erect forelock, and he had a genius for Wangle, being an especial favorite with the stewards and officials. He had no legs, not real ones, that is to say, but a very efficient artificial pair, having lost them in the war. I soon began to pick out other interesting passengers. A little Mexican boy with a sailor cap marked Hibana, who had already spat on three, Rie stewards undetected. I wondered if he would be caught before he reached Mexico, and indeed I think he was not, for he was still alive when we got to New York, though I had seen him spit on the chief officer himself, for he was very clever at it and could spit in any direction, even over his shoulder without looking round. I wonder. It is true that I had dined today, but that

does not render fate powerless at sea, especially if the weather is at all choppy, as several folk were already beginning to find out. When I went to bed, I was confronted by a notice in many tongues that the fine for seduction was a hundred dollars. Tuesday Who are the honestest people in the world? asked the superior English lady at breakfast, thinking she knew the answer. "'All foreigners, ma'am?' answered the steward.

The old women sit round the deck on their blankets, reading their bibles, singing hymns, or moping in silence. Why was it Ray Macker moved us so with his drawings of refugees during the war? These have all that sullen, dynastic look. They are refugees of a sort, too, from the peace. They are crotes mostly, and Czechs, and Slovaks, and Slovaks, and Slovenians and Slavonians and Ruthenians and other remnants of the old Austrian Empire, with a sprinkling of Poles, Danes, Greeks, French, Romanians, Germans, Russians, and I know not what else.

German was the language talked most, with Hungarian a good second. The sunshine on that first morning at sea was blazing on the Gauls' wings, and France was already a purple mist. We had woken in Cherbourg Harbor, and after breakfast, mooched about the deck, watching the rest of the passengers come aboard, and the little harbor steamers. There was one right under our stern.

You could see the screw through the clear water begin to twist, and then a few seconds later it was hidden by this sudden volcano of water. Our own screws, when we started away, set up such a boiling and turmoil that it looked as if the swooping gulls would be caught and drowned in it there were more central and eastern europeans who came on board here and among them herbert an austrian jew he was one of the most dapper little men i have ever seen most beautifully dressed with a little neat beard and a monocle and with him were two dark frizz-haired flapper daughters in high tan boots. Directly he got aboard. He lay down on his back on a hatchway and went to sleep.

A white silk handkerchief spread over his face. The rest were chiefly old women and children, and one of the latter, for they began to play about almost at once, presently fell right upon Herr Burkhart's stomach. He sat up with a great yell, and, taking no notice of the child, fetched out a little pocket mirror and began to comb his beard and mustache, quite oblivious of people's laughter, which shows what sort of a man he was,

and he was popular for the rest of the trip. After we had passed the Channel Islands, I talked, for want of better to do, to a young man in a purple tweed cap, who was being sent out to an uncle in Canada. He was deploring that his uncle would not pay for, for him to go second. It's all right for those that are used to hogging it he confided to me, but for a chap like me to get taken out of his class like this is blooming awful. His name was Harold. Later he came back quite jubilant. He had climbed through the barrier and sat in the second-class lounge for fully half an hour, without anyone suspecting I didn't

belong there. I think he felt better after that. race feeling at this time seemed to run pretty high the few britishers would make a frightful shindy if they were put to feed at the same table as the dagoes and if the dago could talk english naturally the shindy was doubled harold of the purple cap was especially loud and most of the women were at great pains to explain that they didn't hold with foreigners the interpreter had the life plagued out of the woman had the life plagued out of the women were at great pains to explain that they didn't hold with foreigners The interpreter had the life plagued out of him. By diving through sundry tunnels among the engines, I worked my way forward, and found my way up in the boughs, where is a second deck,

where the near-easterns and central Europeans chiefly congregated. There you would find Huns in an old Austrian tunic in cap, and the tragic old women being seasick, and children singing doleful, endless part-songs. Before tea there was a fat steward. I discovered afterwards that he was weak in the head, who came on deck and made horrible faces at the children till they grew a little friendly,

though, of course, they couldn't understand a word of his banter. One little girl even fitted a tin moustache to him. I gave them a few sweets which frightened them very much. They made little Bob curtsies when they took the stuff, and I had to demonstrate to them, that it was meant to be eaten. But after that, they often used to run after me, calling out for Zoker. It was all gone then, but how could I explain? They must have thought me very stony-hearted. I sat writing this up in the boughs, perched on an iron girder. Beneath me, Serbia and Austria

waged internecine war, their long-range spitting being very effective. Then they were interrupted by an woman who deemed the battlefield the only place where she could be comfortably ill. I wish the poor things were not so easily affected. The sea was like an egg, but I suppose it was the ground swell that did it. When they felt it coming on, they took out hembooks and sang till it happened. It was a wonderful evening, 120 miles from land, and the gulls going home, and a tired bird roosting in the rigging, and suddenly a school of porpoises, "'Wasis das? Itel, Sonia,' calls Hans,

"'fish, fish! And they all stampede, crying, ah, ah, at every leap. I had become acquainted by the Esperanto of Zoker with two little Serbian girls, and I watched them playing a new game. One would cover her head with some of her many colored petticoats, and the other tried to wipe her nose on it without being caught. Generally they burst out into laughter before they got within effective range, but sometimes they were lucky. Somewhere undercover, there sat a party of amorous lets, drinking and chanting dolefully. And later they came out and danced slowly but extravagantly on the deck. There was not a cloud near the sky, and the low sun chiseling a silver line to our starboard bow.

The sea a blue black, and the sky the palest blue, but a cool breeze blowing. How I was enjoying it! But at times I got struck with a quite unreasoning terror, which was absurd. I suppose it was the feeling that I could not get out and walk, and also the uncanny dumb feeling of being alone among foreigners, of whose tongues I hardly knew the names even. Wednesday. As I had expected, the dirt was already beginning to settle. This was an old boat, only fit, some say, for cargo.

I was told that on a recent trip they took 1,200 third-class passengers, and that typhus was the result. The whole ship had to be fumigated as best they could. indeed we shall be lucky if we don't get an outbreak of some sort this trip for you can't pack even so many of the unfortunates of the shadier races of Europe into an old and poisoned tin with impunity but the fallacy of hearsay upon shipboard is notorious and at least i accept no responsibility for this or any other rumor I may quote. So far the weather had been good, but the sight and smell of the open decks made me dread to think what life would be like if the weather forced us all to stay below.

I went early that morning for a bath, but found it lined with a thick black grease, thick as tar, that I could not wash off my fingers, so I gave it up. My birth was rather stuffy in spite of the porthole, and I was a little bit of the porthole, and I was a lot of the porthole, and I could not wash off my fingers, I had woken with a headache. This morning, however, we were all officially bathed and searched for lice. It took most of the day. Our bodies were carefully examined with a strong light, and our heads supposed to be scrubbed with soft soap and paraffin. Meanwhile, the men who did it told us terrible tales of the horrors of Ellis Island. Ellis Island had become the bogey of this boat. Everywhere you would hear it discussed, and we were divided into two classes, those who believed

that we should be put there, and those who did not. No one really knew, and at the time I thought the tales I heard about it, unbelievable. I think I could tell a few myself now. But even the worst rumor-mongers regarded it as something of a joke. I remember hearing one woman telling her little girl that if she wasn't good, Mommy would send her to Ellis Island. That was how we most of us looked on it, rather as the modern Christian thinks of hell. There was a great treat today, tripe for tea. The company began to look up in their passengers' estimation. Considering that our fare had cost us nearly 20 pounds a good deal more than the pre-war first-class charge, I think we had a right to such little amenities.

After tea, I went forward with a young factory hand, Moore, and we played Puss in the corner with the Czechoslovaks, with a Canadian-Yugoslav girl as interpreter. Then a young fireman brought his mandolin on deck and sat up against a capistan with it, while the young folk danced, and the old ones sat round clapping the time. They did waltzes and one-steps, but in a style very different to the English,

and several curious dances that I had not seen before. There were two yellow-haired Hungarian flappers there, Marxin and Rossi, with their brother Sandor, who had been a prisoner in Russia most of the war, and Finns and Danes and Dutch, and two tiny Romanians who ran about rolled in their blankets, with the Yugoslav girl, Thonka, acting as interpreter and general MC. Rotsie and Marksa had each a red cotton tock on her head. When they grew tired of dancing, we all crowded round the musical firemen,

and each sang the songs of his own Jerusalem. Presently he struck up some songs that all knew. If it was a national anthem, everyone sang it with equal zest, Even the Marseillaise and God Save the King, though of the latter the English sailors sang some curious parody of their own. At first I was not sure how deep this apparent internationalism went. The English, especially the women, treated all square heads as dirt,

to which they showed no apparent resentment. But I did not imagine that they would prevent them hating us at bottom. but after all once through the purgatory of ellis island did not all alike expect to assume the halo of good americans what feeling there is the more intelligent of them such as marxa thanka and the rest deplored and the absolute peasants found the whole life on the boat one of such luxury that it would take more than an occasional kick to disturb their delight in the halfpence after our evening's biscuits, we sang more songs round an old cracked piano, till the stewards drove us out. Thursday. We woke the next morning with a gray fog, whispering through the portholes. The air was warm and sticky, and the decks and all ironwork streamed with moisture. I got up at half-past five as usual, and went for a bath, which had been cleaned. My hair had grown stiff as quills with all

this salt water, but your polyglot is inclined to rub off, so I used to wash whenever possible. Though there were several hundred of us steerage passengers on board, I never found the bathroom occupied when I wanted to use it. Everything is done to bells. At 6.30, a bell to wake us. At 7.30, breakfast. At 12, dinner. At 5.T. A separate bell for each sitting. Tea was the last meal of the day for us, so I often felt pretty empty by breakfast time. The fog kept on all the morning. Our hooter jammed, so we had to go dead slow. But at noon it cleared, everything dried up, and we had a fine afternoon with a rising wind.

At tea I found a flea in the salt, at which Harold laughed loudly. But almost at once he found a cockroach in his tea, so the laugh went against him. After tea, I went forward where the Hungarians were playing forfeits, to try and pick up a little Magyar. This became my first introduction to Sari, a Hungarian village girl of curiously attractive ways, but no sense at all,

only 17 years old, and traveling alone from Budapest to Pittsburgh. As I was standing by, Sandor ordered her by way of four. to beg, borrow, or steal my cigarette, then smoke it through. It had to be done in dumb show, for she knew not a word of German, and I at that time only two or three. Afterwards I sat talking to the interpreting girl Thunka, and to her cousin Pally, a funny little lad of sixteen, very dapper, but with a good sense of humor, to whom I talked Latin, Greek, and German

mixed, for he was a student. At nine all women had to go to their quarters, so I went aft with more. He wanted me to come up onto the saloon deck with him, and watch two card-sharpers he knew of, but I let him go alone, for he is a quarrelsome fellow when roused, and there was likely to be more trouble than I felt at the moment inclined for. Friday Next day the decks were clearer, after a fairly rough night that lengthened the casualty list considerably. In the morning it rained heavily, so that I sat for some time on the foxill hatch yarning with a deckhand, partly about my chances of working my passage back, partly about the white slave traffic. A number of the women on board, he volunteered the information, though I don't know where he got it,

were bound for Buenos Aires in the latter end. Some were being lured over with promises of employment. Others had been behind the red lamp before. He told me which, and this at any rate, I afterwards found to be true. It is dangerous to believe a sailor when he is sober without verification, since prostitutes are an obsession with him.

There is a little room fitted like the inside of a bus, and much the same size which is called the third-class lounge the crew he said used to meet their women there at night since there was a way into it both from the deck and from the day goes quarters The master at arms is supposed to be responsible for preventing this sort of thing, but after all he is a sailor himself. I found the dining room much emptier, but my own appetite was still dangerously increasing. I had got used to eating all sorts of wholesome and unappetizing things, such as cockroach tea.

I heard that two cases of measles had broken out, and one of some kind of fever, so that we were in danger of quarantine. There was a hot outer darkness between the engine room and the refrigerator engines that was called the square. And here I went after dinner. The only light was from a few dingy electric bulbs, so dim that their rays could hardly struggle from one to the other.

Across the ceiling ran fat hot water pipes, bearing steam to the winches for and aft. These leaked, so that in many places there was a little jet of scalding water, and everywhere a cloud of steam. At one end the children were squabbling round the ice-pins. In another corner were the kennels, and you would have smelt the lavatories and wash-houses round worse, if they had not been overpowered by the human stench and the garlic. But in bad weather it was the only place to go.

for the little lounge was hopelessly inadequate. There I found Thonka, and there too was Sari. Sari was crying, and Sandoor, who was a good-looking enough young fellow, was comforting her. Soon she dried her eyes, and they began to play, very prettily like two kittens, while I talked to Thonka, and threw her to Sandoor's two sisters, Rasi and Marksa. Sometimes Sari pretended to run over to someone else, as if to make Sandoor jealous. She sat on my knee for a while, but he was too cunning to resent it. And presently she ran right away with him in pursuit, and I went and ate a great and glorious tea,

two rank stockfish cakes, a huge plate of culled roast leather, and lots of bread, butter and jam. It was still raining, so after tea, Moore found me in my haunt on the foxel hatch, and we gathered with Thanka, Marxa, and Rotsie in the square, where we got on very well, until Moore declared that he hated the Germans, which the girls took to mean all German-speaking folk, and were accordingly offended. But reconciliation came soon, and I had a lesson both in the offending language and in Hungarian. Saturday. I slept late. When I went after breakfast to get a bath, I found all the hot taps and the plugs carefully removed, Kismet. I had a cold one instead, with my heels stuck in the waste pipe. The rest of the day I saw,

spent on the language question, an hour's Danish, and the rest German and Hungarian. In German, I could soon make myself understood, but Hungarian I found rather a tongue-twister, so that I made slow progress, though Sari had a Magyar-English phrase-book, as well as highly expressive eyes. Just before tea, a fireman and I played games with some of the raggeder children, and then I went down to tea to find a battle royal raging, Harold and company objecting to them filthy foreigners standing at the door and putting him off his foot. He told the interpreter to send them away,

and because the interpreter refused, there was a flare-up. Finally, one of the stewards kicked them out, but the interpreter isn't very bad odor as a result. As for the children, they can't make us out. Some of us play with them, and some of us catch them a cloud, and they don't understand it. I was not sorry to go away forward again, and talk broken German to little Herr Burkhard, and then make an amusing attempt to teach English to sari over cocoa and ship's biscuit in the dining-room. Sunday

Yesterday's entry was meager enough. two days more so, for I began to feel that the eventual stage of the voyage was over. It had ceased to be an experiment. I knew the people, and I knew what to expect. The morning I spent talking German and Greek, I had to write the latter to be at all intelligible. Of Hungarian, I had learnt enough to greet my friends. Danish I had let drop. The children have now lost all their shyness. It is amazing that they could change so quickly, and I was very soon tired out by them. T. Another treat to-day, sauerkraut, which I rather liked. It is no wonder that America considers herself a nation. All these people, bar a few superior Britishers, are Americans already. An old filthy Greek, wearing a diamond ring of great value, explained it to me. speak me likey me likey you serbish duchis english americano yes that is just about what it comes to at night we all assembled in the square a various crew crowded and crushed in the semi-darkness of the low open space the engines roaring and the pipes steaming worse than ever somewhere in the crowd were two sailors with a mandolin and a banjo

A tiny space was cleared where we danced, Marxa and Rotsie, Sari, Sandoor, and the Dre-Englander, Moore, a mate of Moor's cornet, and myself. The dancing was difficult, for one could not stand upright, and, moreover, I did not know the Hungarian style of dancing, which has plenty of swing and jerk. Nor my partner is the English, though Rotsy is evidently graceful, and had thoughts of becoming a ballerina if sandor would have allowed it and sari could make nothing of it at nine when the women were ordered below we had not had enough so went aft where was a young polish jew his face yellow and effortless and the whole trips stubble upon his chin, writhing an accordion, while the stewards jazzed with each other.

I wish the girls had been there to have seen what English dancing was like. Monday Tragedy The Little Sari She had been asking Marxa questions about Sandor, and Marxa had had to tell her that, of course, he was not serious, that he was engaged already, in fact. So when I went up forward to watch the whales spouting in the evening sunshine,

I found her crying. That was not uncommon, but later I found her in a corner with Marksson, explaining vociferously in Hungarian, and Rotsie explaining, and Sandor explaining. So I asked Thanka for the rights of it. There was not one of us who had guessed she took him seriously, for she was always wanted to have a dozen young polyglots hanging round her, and in their case it meant nothing.

She had one of those faces which are pretty by being mobile, sensitive, faces not so much of character as of sensibility, and like all young Hungarians, she had shapely and ivory shoulders. She was both too pretty and too silly to cross the world alone. She knew not a word of English or German, and seemed incapable of learning either, nothing but Magyar and a smattering of Serbian which would not carry her much further than the boat. But one could hardly call Sandor to blame. It was a game, a pretty game.

Tuesday. The next day was loaded with that atmosphere of slow sentiment, with which all such last days are oppressed, for we expected to reach Halifax within 24 hours, and there lose most of our friends. In the morning we saw nothing of Marksa and Rotsie, for it was their turn to be loused. And when they reappeared, their hair was so full of paraffin, one could not go very close. So we all sat about in the square, very dejected. Presently their past through a party of second-class passengers, specially conducted, brought round to see how the lower orders lived. They had their handkerchiefs to their noses, for which I could hardly blame them, and they did not quite seem to know whether to be bored or disgusted. Moreover, they commented on us without any pretense at

lowering their voices. Lord, how we did hate them! I did not see one of them who had the delicacy of voice or expression of even the dirtiest peasant on our deck. They were ugly to a fault, vulgar and Bored. Bored. There was one fat man with a patent cigar, an American saloon-keeper, I believe he was, and he rolled it expressively from one mouth corner to the other, who lingered behind to roll his eyes at Sari. So Moore and I jabbered some sort of bat to each other as if we were quarreling about her, and presently pulled out knives and pretended to fight, on which he went hastily away. Then, to our surprise, up jumps Marxa, scarlet in the face and rushes off. What was it? We sent Thanka to her, and Thonka came back to say that Marxa had sworn never to speak to us again.

She got it into her head that we were ashamed to be heard talking German by the saloon passengers, and no other explanation of what was meant as quite a harmless trick which she exclaimed. At first, Ratsy thought the same, but her Thonka managed to persuade. In the afternoon it was Thonka's turn for the paraffin bath, so the rest of us were left to our own wits without an interpreter, and we managed fairly well. When Thonka came back, we discussed the Balkans and projected a visit for me there. Presently one of the crew produced a pair of boxing gloves, and we made a little ring, on the deck. The old women and the children cheered with delight, for there were some cunning

boxers among the firemen, as well as men of great strength. The old women sat in tears on the hatchways in their curious, brilliant clothes, and the little boys swarmed in the rigging. I had a couple of rounds with more, but we were not near enough of a weight, and Sandor could not box. But presently they took two of the small Serbian boys and set them two fighting together, which was one of the funniest things I have seen. But it was not till after supper that the fun really began when we went aft and danced to the Jews accordion. The women were allowed on deck for an extra hour, and after a while we persuaded little Herr Berkhard to do jigs with his fris-haired daughter, and presently Sari emerged from hiding, and did an exhibition one step with one

of her more objectionable flames. I danced with Rotsie chiefly, but with Sandor himself once, who was excellent, and though the space on the deck was hardly twenty feet by five, and studded with iron rings, and the ship was pitching, we managed to enjoy ourselves considerably, but Marksa would not appear. Wednesday. We ran into a fog in the night, which lasted nearly all day, and made it impossible to get into Halifax before the next night. So the intolerable process of farewell was prolonged for another day.

The afternoon wound itself slowly undone, alternate sunshine and fog, boredom and flirtation. The children were bored too. and I got far too hot playing with them. Only once did anything amusing a car, and that, not till after tea, when a game was organized, primitive, but not without a spice of excitement. One man had to bend down,

and guess who it was in the crowd that spanked him. If he was right, the other fellow took his place. A chap from the saloon deck leaned over the rail and spanked Sandor with a long board, but he did not draw it up again in time, and Sandor spotted him. He was made to come down and take his turn. Then Tiny the champion Stoker, seven feet, seventeen stone of bone and muscle, smote him, and with one blow, split his trousers in three places, for he had the hand of a hippopotamus. crude, perhaps, but we could not easily help enjoying it, though the poor fellow had to be helped away.

Thursday I woke at three to find us moored in Halifax Harbor, a big, dingy expanse of water, with natural breakwaters, where factories and pine trees fought each other. We breakfasted at six, and at nine the Yugoslav girls went to shore and Sandor. So, goodbye to them, and away south in a dense fog that we found waiting for us as soon as we got to see. Halifax docks are a thing of horror, but the south of the harbor, which is several miles out, is quite pleasant, low rocky headlands covered in pines, with jolly little sailing boats and canoes going about amongst them. I had now the luxury of my cubicle to myself, for my birthing companions had gone ashore, but Moore and Cornette, and Sari too, were still on board.

Friday During the night we made quite good time, but were put back for hours by boiler trouble again. The morning was gorgeous, sun, a high wind, and a high sea. Both continued to rise till the waves were breaking right up on to the deck. I saw one catch the interpreter and soak him through. Then later I was caught by one myself, coming aft from sitting at the foxhill hatch,

so I had to spend the afternoon drying myself in the sun and wind, for I had not a change of clothes. After lunch we passed through a little fishing fleet. They were bobbing on the water like wee leaves. This is a steady boat. It is about her only virtue, but she bopped now like a stallion. I fell to wondering what sort of a chance a man overboard would get this weather. The curlers from our bows showed six feet deep of roaring green foam with the spring of a tiger.

Saturday. This afternoon at last we reached New York. late even for this old tub. First we moored on the quarantine ground, and the doctors came on board. We were all stripped to the waist on the after-deck, examined, formed in line, marched past and re-examined. Presently they passed the ship, and we steamed, oh mockery, passed the Statue of Liberty to the docks. There, the second-class passengers and the few American citizens among the third, went on shore in the evening. We were berthed in a narrow dock, with a customs shed one side, and a few feet off on the other an Italian boat that had already been stewing there several days,

waiting its turn for Ellis Island. The immigrants on board it gave us an ironical welcome as we arrived. We were all in the last stages of depression, so near and yet liable to be held up Sinidae. Sunday. The night was as hot as hell. In my bunk I could not bear a rag of clothing on me, and sat all day in a shirt and trousers, unable almost to move.

The stewards and crew got some sort of pleasure from swimming about the dock, but the water was thick and stinking with the drainage from two such big boats, and for bathing raft, moreover, they used a coal barge. In the evening some of us went on shore for a few hours. There are two ways of compassing this, one the difficult and expensive way of bribery, the other, which is neater, safer and cheaper alike, for quite obvious reasons I cannot explain here, for it depends on

an accidental oversight of the authorities which they could easily rectify. One of the sailors gave me the hint, when he explained. how they had once smuggled a young American ashore who had lost his citizenship by serving in the British army. The risk of detection was not very great, but the penalty likely to be severe. But the rest of us were too hot for even so much display of energy. I doubt if I have ever been so hot in my life before. With the dock on one side and the Italian steamer the other, not a breath of air could reach the portholes.

From nine till five you could not bear yourself, and in the dining-room the air was such that you could hardly eat and needed a rub-down after every meal. The feeding, moreover, deteriorated as soon as we got into dock. Every day we were kept on board was dead loss to the company, and they let us know it. The stewards were, on the whole, a very nice lot of felon. but naturally they could not help being a bit surly at being kept on board to look after us the evening biscuits were knocked off which left us with absolutely no food between tea and breakfast fourteen hours

i had this morning the pleasure of assisting at the smuggling of a little whiskey assisting in the french sense it is no easy matter for not only would the authorities not allow you to send any anything on shore, but they would not even allow messages, letters, or telegrams to be brought on board, so that the wretched prisoners on the boat could not even communicate with their friends to let them know they had arrived and get themselves claimed at the island. The afternoon I spent writing, and so passed it fairly quickly, though I was sweating on to the pages and getting bitten by all manner of mosquitoes and flies. monday another boiling day and things if anything worse as they were culling the ship one side unlating it the other we were crowded together on a small part of the deck with the coal dust drifting over us and the mosquitoes biting madly not a breath of air nor room to breathe it if i was to call it hell i should be understating the case to be accurate it would be necessary to

to pick my words. The decks were not cleaned when the calling was ended for the night. They were left covered with the debris of three days. How could I write up my diary properly? I could do nothing, not even think or get angry. I was just comatose. The children were wonderful. I suppose it is their hard upbringing, but I did not see one of them out of patience, nor fractious the whole of the trip, Not one of the foreign children, that is to say. Most of the English children these days, there were not many English still on board, had to be smacked into a state of stupor. Tuesday.

This last was the hottest night of all. I got up soon after four, and at six we breakfasted. The room already as hot as a bread oven. By 7.30 we were sitting on our baggage in the customs shed. but the inspectors arrived late, so we were held up again. That business over, we were herded into a sort of two-story cattle boat, and the doors locked. There we were left for some time, but presently a tug arrived and towed us over to Ellis Island. As we started, that's a dandy load of manure you got today, Pete, said a friend to the tugman,

and that is pretty well what we felt like. a crime to want to enter the United States. And by that time, I was beginning to feel that it was also a lunacy. At any rate, you are treated as a criminal, and we were already so thoroughly cowed by the treatment we had had, that we were ready to accept anybody's estimate of us without rancor. On the island itself, they do not waste words. If they want you to do anything or go anywhere, they pull, hit, or kick you accordingly. Of most of the immigration officials I came across, I could not find anything too bad to say, even allowing for the unpleasant nature of their job. There are, of course, exceptions. I am speaking of the general run of them. Some of them seemed

hardly to be able to talk English, or at any rate, talked it with an almost unintelligible Italian or German accent. First, we were made to strip, and were medically examined again. Then, before we had time to put our clothes on properly, we were knocked into a large central hall, where we sat melodiously till noon, when we were given a little coffee and a ham sandwich, very good indeed, but small. And at one o'clock I was examined. I had no difficulty in getting past. They then lay me and chucked me here and there a while, finally back into the cattle-boat affair, and I was again ferried to the docks and locked into a shed to wait for a train. But at three a large fat silent man came for me, looked at my label, led me to a railway station,

and put me on one of their comic trains. Free at last. It started, and I grew amazed simply by looking through the windows. I must have gaped like a zany. At the slap-dash houses, the odd flowers, the promiscuous way the train had of running through any and everything without fences or gates, and most of all, the glass insulators

on the telegraph posts. And so I arrived at last. But meanwhile, X, with whom I was to stay, had been spending the last few days in New York trying to meet me, unable to get news of me, or even to get a message on board to me at the docks, and not allowed on to Ellis Island, until the day after I left it. I think he had a worse time waiting about than I had. I shall not easily forget the last sight I had of the island, not the front view

which the postcards show you, but the back view from the ferry-boat, looking across ash piles to a vast window where there were immigrants waiting to be deported in hundreds, among the latest additions to whom was poor little sorry. With most of them, their only crime was that they exceeded their country's immigration ration for the current month. As for the country, I found it difficult to believe at first that I was in America. It only seemed a place where there were a few more Americans than there are in other parts of the world. End of Section 22. End of.

A Moment of Time. By Richard Hughes.