Tales of Wonder written by Lord Dunsany

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TALES OF WONDER

by Lord Dunsany

Preface

Ebrington Barracks

Aug. 16th 1916.

I do not know where I may be when this preface is read. As I write it
in August 1916, I am at Ebrington Barracks, Londonderry, recovering
from a slight wound. But it does not greatly matter where I am; my
dreams are here before you amongst the following pages; and writing in
a day when life is cheap, dreams seem to me all the dearer, the only
things that survive.

Just now the civilization of Europe seems almost to have ceased, and
nothing seems to grow in her torn fields but death, yet this is only
for a while and dreams will come back again and bloom as of old, all
the more radiantly for this terrible ploughing, as the flowers will
bloom again where the trenches are and the primroses shelter in
shell-holes for many seasons, when weeping Liberty has come home to
Flanders.

To some of you in America this may seem an unnecessary and wasteful
quarrel, as other people's quarrels often are; but it comes to this
that though we are all killed there will be songs again, but if we
were to submit and so survive there could be neither songs nor dreams,
nor any joyous free things any more.

And do not regret the lives that are wasted amongst us, or the work
that the dead would have done, for war is no accident that man's care
could have averted, but is as natural, though not as regular, as the
tides; as well regret the things that the tide has washed away, which
destroys and cleanses and crumbles, and spares the minutest shells.

And now I will write nothing further about our war, but offer you
these books of dreams from Europe as one throws things of value, if
only to oneself, at the last moment out of a burning house.

DUNSANY.

A Tale of London

"Come," said the Sultan to his hasheesh-eater in the very furthest
lands that know Bagdad, "dream to me now of London."

And the hasheesh-eater made a low obeisance and seated himself
cross-legged upon a purple cushion broidered with golden poppies, on
the floor, beside an ivory bowl where the hasheesh was, and having
eaten liberally of the hasheesh blinked seven times and spoke thus:

"O Friend of God, know then that London is the desiderate town even of
all Earth's cities. Its houses are of ebony and cedar which they roof
with thin copper plates that the hand of Time turns green. They have
golden balconies in which amethysts are where they sit and watch the
sunset. Musicians in the gloaming steal softly along the ways; unheard
their feet fall on the white sea-sand with which those ways are
strewn, and in the darkness suddenly they play on dulcimers and
instruments with strings. Then are there murmurs in the balconies
praising their skill, then are there bracelets cast down to them for
reward and golden necklaces and even pearls.

"Indeed but the city is fair; there is by the sandy ways a paving all
alabaster, and the lanterns along it are of chrysoprase, all night
long they shine green, but of amethyst are the lanterns of the
balconies.

"As the musicians go along the ways dancers gather about them and
dance upon the alabaster pavings, for joy and not for hire. Sometimes
a window opens far up in an ebony palace and a wreath is cast down to
a dancer or orchids showered upon them.

"Indeed of many cities have I dreamt but of none fairer, through many
marble metropolitan gates hasheesh has led me, but London is its
secret, the last gate of all; the ivory bowl has nothing more to show.
And indeed even now the imps that crawl behind me and that will not
let me be are plucking me by the elbow and bidding my spirit return,
for well they know that I have seen too much. 'No, not London,' they
say; and therefore I will speak of some other city, a city of some
less mysterious land, and anger not the imps with forbidden things. I
will speak of Persepolis or famous Thebes."

A shade of annoyance crossed the Sultan's face, a look of thunder that
you had scarcely seen, but in those lands they watched his visage
well, and though his spirit was wandering far away and his eyes were
bleared with hasheesh yet that storyteller there and then perceived
the look that was death, and sent his spirit back at once to London as
a man runs into his house when the thunder comes.

"And therefore," he continued, "in the desiderate city, in London, all
their camels are pure white. Remarkable is the swiftness of their
horses, that draw their chariots that are of ivory along those sandy
ways and that are of surpassing lightness, they have little bells of
silver upon their horses' heads. O Friend of God, if you perceived
their merchants! The glory of their dresses in the noonday! They are
no less gorgeous than those butterflies that float about their
streets. They have overcloaks of green and vestments of azure, huge
purple flowers blaze on their overcloaks, the work of cunning needles,
the centres of the flowers are of gold and the petals of purple. All
their hats are black--" ("No, no," said the Sultan)--"but irises are
set about the brims, and green plumes float above the crowns of them.

"They have a river that is named the Thames, on it their ships go up
with violet sails bringing incense for the braziers that perfume the
streets, new songs exchanged for gold with alien tribes, raw silver
for the statues of their heroes, gold to make balconies where the
women sit, great sapphires to reward their poets with, the secrets of
old cities and strange lands, the earning of the dwellers in far
isles, emeralds, diamonds, and the hoards of the sea. And whenever a
ship comes into port and furls its violet sails and the news spreads
through London that she has come, then all the merchants go down to
the river to barter, and all day long the chariots whirl through the
streets, and the sound of their going is a mighty roar all day until
evening, their roar is even like--"

"Not so," said the Sultan.

"Truth is not hidden from the Friend of God," replied the
hasheesh-eater, "I have erred being drunken with the hasheesh, for in
the desiderate city, even in London, so thick upon the ways is the
white sea-sand with which the city glimmers that no sound comes from
the path of the charioteers, but they go softly like a light
sea-wind." ("It is well," said the Sultan.) "They go softly down to
the port where the vessels are, and the merchandise in from the sea,
amongst the wonders that the sailors show, on land by the high ships,
and softly they go though swiftly at evening back to their homes.

"O would that the Munificent, the Illustrious, the Friend of God, had
even seen these things, had seen the jewellers with their empty
baskets, bargaining there by the ships, when the barrels of emeralds
came up from the hold. Or would that he had seen the fountains there
in silver basins in the midst of the ways. I have seen small spires
upon their ebony houses and the spires were all of gold, birds
strutted there upon the copper roofs from golden spire to spire that
have no equal for splendour in all the woods of the world. And over
London the desiderate city the sky is so deep a blue that by this
alone the traveller may know where he has come, and may end his
fortunate journey. Nor yet for any colour of the sky is there too
great heat in London, for along its ways a wind blows always from the
South gently and cools the city.

"Such, O Friend of God, is indeed the city of London, lying very far
off on the yonder side of Bagdad, without a peer for beauty or
excellence of its ways among the towns of the earth or cities of song;
and even so, as I have told, its fortunate citizens dwell, with their
hearts ever devising beautiful things and from the beauty of their own
fair work that is more abundant around them every year, receiving new
inspirations to work things more beautiful yet."

"And is their government good?" the Sultan said.

"It is most good," said the hasheesh-eater, and fell backwards upon
the floor.

He lay thus and was silent. And when the Sultan perceived he would
speak no more that night he smiled and lightly applauded.

And there was envy in that palace, in lands beyond Bagdad, of all that
dwell in London.

Thirteen at Table

In front of a spacious fireplace of the old kind, when the logs were
well alight, and men with pipes and glasses were gathered before it in
great easeful chairs, and the wild weather outside and the comfort
that was within, and the season of the year--for it was Christmas--and
the hour of the night, all called for the weird or uncanny, then out
spoke the ex-master of foxhounds and told this tale.

I once had an odd experience too. It was when I had the Bromley and
Sydenham, the year I gave them up--as a matter of fact it was the last
day of the season. It was no use going on because there were no foxes
left in the county, and London was sweeping down on us. You could see
it from the kennels all along the skyline like a terrible army in
grey, and masses of villas every year came skirmishing down our
valleys. Our coverts were mostly on the hills, and as the town came
down upon the valleys the foxes used to leave them and go right away
out of the county and they never returned. I think they went by night
and moved great distances. Well it was early April and we had drawn
blank all day, and at the last draw of all, the very last of the
season, we found a fox. He left the covert with his back to London and
its railways and villas and wire and slipped away towards the chalk
country and open Kent. I felt as I once felt as a child on one
summer's day when I found a door in a garden where I played left
luckily ajar, and I pushed it open and the wide lands were before me
and waving fields of corn.

We settled down into a steady gallop and the fields began to drift by
under us, and a great wind arose full of fresh breath. We left the
clay lands where the bracken grows and came to a valley at the edge of
the chalk. As we went down into it we saw the fox go up the other side
like a shadow that crosses the evening, and glide into a wood that
stood on the top. We saw a flash of primroses in the wood and we were
out the other side, hounds hunting perfectly and the fox still going
absolutely straight. It began to dawn on me then that we were in for a
great hunt, I took a deep breath when I thought of it; the taste of
the air of that perfect Spring afternoon as it came to one galloping,
and the thought of a great run, were together like some old rare wine.
Our faces now were to another valley, large fields led down to it,
with easy hedges, at the bottom of it a bright blue stream went
singing and a rambling village smoked, the sunlight on the opposite
slopes danced like a fairy; and all along the top old woods were
frowning, but they dreamed of Spring. The "field" had fallen of and
were far behind and my only human companion was James, my old first
whip, who had a hound's instinct, and a personal animosity against a
fox that even embittered his speech.

Across the valley the fox went as straight as a railway line, and
again we went without a check straight through the woods at the top. I
remember hearing men sing or shout as they walked home from work, and
sometimes children whistled; the sounds came up from the village to
the woods at the top of the valley. After that we saw no more
villages, but valley after valley arose and fell before us as though
we were voyaging some strange and stormy sea, and all the way before
us the fox went dead up-wind like the fabulous Flying Dutchman. There
was no one in sight now but my first whip and me, we had both of us
got on to our second horses as we drew the last covert.

Two or three times we checked in those great lonely valleys beyond the
village, but I began to have inspirations, I felt a strange certainty
within me that this fox was going on straight up-wind till he died or
until night came and we could hunt no longer, so I reversed ordinary
methods and only cast straight ahead and always we picked up the scent
again at once. I believe that this fox was the last one left in the
villa-haunted lands and that he was prepared to leave them for remote
uplands far from men, that if we had come the following day he would
not have been there, and that we just happened to hit off his journey.

Evening began to descend upon the valleys, still the hounds drifted
on, like the lazy but unresting shadows of clouds upon a summer's day,
we heard a shepherd calling to his dog, we saw two maidens move
towards a hidden farm, one of them singing softly; no other sounds,
but ours, disturbed the leisure and the loneliness of haunts that
seemed not yet to have known the inventions of steam and gun-powder
(even as China, they say, in some of her further mountains does not
yet know that she has fought Japan).

And now the day and our horses were wearing out, but that resolute fox
held on. I began to work out the run and to wonder where we were. The
last landmark I had ever seen before must have been over five miles
back and from there to the start was at least ten miles more. If only
we could kill! Then the sun set. I wondered what chance we had of
killing our fox. I looked at James' face as he rode beside me. He did
not seem to have lost any confidence yet his horse was as tired as
mine. It was a good clear twilight and the scent was as strong as
ever, and the fences were easy enough, but those valleys were terribly
trying and they still rolled on and on. It looked as if the light
would outlast all possible endurance both of the fox and the horses,
if the scent held good and he did not go to ground, otherwise night
would end it. For long we had seen no houses and no roads, only chalk
slopes with the twilight on them, and here and there some sheep, and
scattered copses darkening in the evening. At some moment I seemed to
realise all at once that the light was spent and that darkness was
hovering, I looked at James, he was solemnly shaking his head.
Suddenly in a little wooded valley we saw climb over the oaks the
red-brown gables of a queer old house, at that instant I saw the fox
scarcely heading by fifty yards. We blundered through a wood into full
sight of the house, but no avenue led up to it or even a path nor were
there any signs of wheel-marks anywhere. Already lights shone here and
there in windows. We were in a park, and a fine park, but unkempt
beyond credibility; brambles grew everywhere. It was too dark to see
the fox any more but we knew he was dead beat, the hounds were just
before us,--and a four-foot railing of oak. I shouldn't have tried it
on a fresh horse the beginning of a run, and here was a horse near his
last gasp. But what a run! an event standing out in a lifetime, and
the hounds close up on their fox, slipping into the darkness as I
hesitated. I decided to try it. My horse rose about eight inches and
took it fair with his breast, and the oak log flew into handfuls of
wet decay--it rotten with years. And then we were on a lawn and at the
far end of it the hounds were tumbling over their fox. Fox, hounds and
light were all done together at the of a twenty-mile point. We made
some noise then, but nobody came out of the queer old house.

I felt pretty stiff as I walked round to the hall door with the mask
and the brush while James went with the hounds and the two horses to
look for the stables. I rang a bell marvellously encrusted with rust,
and after a long while the door opened a little way revealing a hall
with much old armour in it and the shabbiest butler that I have ever
known.

I asked him who lived there. Sir Richard Arlen. I explained that my
horse could go no further that night and that I wished to ask Sir
Richard Arlen for a bed for the night.

"O, no one ever comes here, sir," said the butler.

I pointed out that I had come.

"I don't think it would be possible, sir," he said.

This annoyed me and I asked to see Sir Richard, and insisted until he
came. Then I apologised and explained the situation. He looked only
fifty, but a 'Varsity oar on the wall with the date of the early
seventies, made him older than that; his face had something of the shy
look of the hermit; he regretted that he had not room to put me up. I
was sure that this was untrue, also I had to be put up there, there
was nowhere else within miles, so I almost insisted. Then to my
astonishment he turned to the butler and they talked it over in an
undertone. At last they seemed to think that they could manage it,
though clearly with reluctance. It was by now seven o' clock and Sir
Richard told me he dined at half past seven. There was no question of
clothes for me other than those I stood in, as my host was shorter and
broader. He showed me presently to the drawing-room and there he
reappeared before half past seven in evening dress and a white
waistcoat. The drawing-room was large and contained old furniture but
it was rather worn than venerable, an Aubusson carpet flapped about
the floor, the wind seemed momently to enter the room, and old
draughts haunted corners; the stealthy feet of rats that were never at
rest indicated the extent of the ruin that time had wrought in the
wainscot; somewhere far off a shutter flapped to and fro, the
guttering candles were insufficient to light so large a room. The
gloom that these things suggested was quite in keeping with Sir
Richard's first remark to me after he entered the room: "I must tell
you, sir, that I have led a wicked life. O, a very wicked life."

Such confidences from a man much older than oneself after one has
known him for half an hour are so rare that any possible answer merely
does not suggest itself. I said rather slowly, "O, really," and
chiefly to forestall another such remark I said "What a charming house
you have."

"Yes," he said, "I have not left it for nearly forty years. Since I
left the 'Varsity. One is young there, you know, and one has
opportunities; but I make no excuses, no excuses." And the door
slipping its rusty latch, came drifting on the draught into the room,
and the long carpet flapped and the hangings upon the walls, then the
draught fell rustling away and the door slammed to again.

"Ah, Marianne," he said, "we have a guest to-night. Mr. Linton. This
is Marianne Gib." And everything became clear to me. "Mad," I said to
myself, for no one had entered the room.

The rats ran up the length of the room behind the wainscot
ceaselessly, and the wind unlatched the door again and the folds of
the carpet fluttered up to our feet and stopped there, for our weight
held it down.

"Let me introduce Mr. Linton," said my host--"Lady Mary Errinjer."

The door slammed back again. I bowed politely. Even had I been invited
I should have humoured him, but it was the very least that an
uninvited guest could do.

This kind of thing happened eleven times, the rustling, and the
fluttering of the carpet and the footsteps of the rats, and the
restless door, and then the sad voice of my host introducing me to
phantoms. Then for some while we waited while I struggled with the
situation; conversation flowed slowly. And again the draught came
trailing up the room, while the flaring candles filled it with
hurrying shadows. "Ah, late again, Cicely," said my host in his soft,
mournful way. "Always late, Cicely." Then I went down to dinner with
that man and his mind and the twelve phantoms that haunted it. I found
a long table with fine old silver on it and places laid for fourteen.
The butler was now in evening dress, there were fewer draughts in the
dining-room, the scene was less gloomy there. "Will you sit next to
Rosalind at the other end," Richard said to me. "She always takes the
head of the table, I wronged her most of all." I said, "I shall be
delighted."

I looked at the butler closely, but never did I see by any expression
of his face or by anything that he did any suggestion that he waited
upon less than fourteen people in the complete possession of all their
faculties. Perhaps a dish appeared to be refused more often than taken
but every glass was equally filled with champagne. At first I found
little to say, but when Sir Richard speaking from the far end of the
table said, "You are tired, Mr. Linton," I was reminded that I owed
something to a host upon whom I had forced myself. It was excellent
champagne and with the help of a second glass I made the effort to
begin a conversation with a Miss Helen Errold for whom the place upon
one side of me was laid. It came more easy to me very soon, I
frequently paused in my monologue, like Mark Anthony, for a reply, and
sometimes I turned and spoke to Miss Rosalind Smith. Sir Richard at
the other end talked sorrowfully on, he spoke as a condemned man might
speak to his judge, and yet somewhat as a judge might speak to one
that he once condemned wrongly. My own mind began to turn to mournful
things. I drank another glass of champagne, but I was still thirsty. I
felt as if all the moisture in my body had been blown away over the
downs of Kent by the wind up which we had galloped. Still I was not
talking enough; my host was looking at me. I made another effort,
after all I had something to talk about, a twenty-mile point is not
often seen in a lifetime, especially south of the Thames. I began to
describe the run to Rosalind Smith. I could see then that my host was
pleased, the sad look in his face gave a kind of a flicker, like mist
upon the mountains on a miserable day when a faint puff comes from the
sea and the mist would lift if it could. And the butler refilled my
glass very attentively. I asked her first if she hunted, and paused
and began my story. I told her where we had found the fox and how fast
and straight he had gone, and how I had got through the village by
keeping to the road, while the little gardens and wire, and then the
river, had stopped the rest of the field. I told her the kind of
country that we crossed and how splendid it looked in the Spring, and
how mysterious the valleys were as soon as the twilight came, and what
a glorious horse I had and how wonderfully he went. I was so fearfully
thirsty after the great hunt that I had to stop for a moment now and
then, but I went on with my description of that famous run, for I had
warmed to the subject, and after all there was nobody to tell of it
but me except my old whipper-in, and "the old fellow's probably drunk
by now," I thought. I described to her minutely the exact spot in the
run at which it had come to me clearly that this was going to be the
greatest hunt in the whole history of Kent. Sometimes I forgot
incidents that had happened as one well may in a run of twenty miles,
and then I had to fill in the gaps by inventing. I was pleased to be
able to make the party go off well by means of my conversation, and
besides that the lady to whom I was speaking was extremely pretty: I
do not mean in a flesh and blood kind of way but there were little
shadowy lines about the chair beside me that hinted at an unusually
graceful figure when Miss Rosalind Smith was alive; and I began to
perceive that what I first mistook for the smoke of guttering candles
and a table-cloth waving in the draught was in reality an extremely
animated company who listened, and not without interest, to my story
of by far the greatest hunt that the world had ever known: indeed I
told them that I would confidently go further and predict that never
in the history of the world would there be such a run again. Only my
throat was terribly dry. And then as it seemed they wanted to hear
more about my horse. I had forgotten that I had come there on a horse,
but when they reminded me it all came back; they looked so charming
leaning over the table intent upon what I said, that I told them
everything they wanted to know. Everything was going so pleasantly if
only Sir Richard would cheer up. I heard his mournful voice every now
and then--these were very pleasant people if only he would take them
the right way. I could understand that he regretted his past, but the
early seventies seemed centuries away and I felt sure that he
misunderstood these ladies, they were not revengeful as he seemed to
suppose. I wanted to show him how cheerful they really were, and so I
made a joke and they an laughed at it, and then I chaffed them a bit,
especially Rosalind, and nobody resented it in the very least. And
still Sir Richard sat there with that unhappy look, like one that has
ended weeping because it is vain and has not the consolation even of
tears.

We had been a long time there and many of the candles had burned out,
but there was light enough. I was glad to have an audience for my
exploit, and being happy myself I was determined Sir Richard should
be. I made more jokes and they still laughed good-naturedly; some of
the jokes were a little broad perhaps but no harm was meant. And
then--I do not wish to excuse myself--but I had had a harder day than
I ever had had before and without knowing it I must have been
completely exhausted; in this state the champagne had found me, and
what would have been harmless at any other time must somehow have got
the better of me when quite tired out--anyhow I went too far, I made
some joke--I cannot in the least remember what--that suddenly seemed
to offend them. I felt all at once a commotion in the air, I looked up
and saw that they had all arisen from the table and were sweeping
towards the door: I had not time to open it but it blew open on a
wind, I could scarcely see what Sir Richard was doing because only two
candles were left, I think the rest blew out when the ladies suddenly
rose. I sprang up to apologise, to assure them--and then fatigue
overcame me as it had overcome my horse at the last fence, I clutched
at the table but the cloth came away and then I fell. The fall, and
the darkness on the floor and the pent up fatigue of the day overcame
me all three together.

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