George Moore - "Spring Days"

Rutherford B. Hayes - "State of the Union Addresses of Rutherford B. Hayes"

William Shakespeare - "The first Part of Henry the Sixt"

Laurence Sterne - "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman"

The Extra Day

A >> Algernon Blackwood >> The Extra Day




For a moment Aunt Emily looked as rigid as the post beside a five-
barred gate. The old unbending attitude took possession of her once
again. Her eyes took on the tint of soapy water. Her elastic nose
looked round the corner. She frowned. Her black dress crackled. The
mention of a tramp and the End of the World woke all her savage
educational instincts visibly.

"He's a singing tramp and shines like a Christmas Tree," explained
Judy, "and he looks like everybody in the world. He's extror'iny." She
turned to her brother. "Doesn't he, Tim?"

Tim ran up and caught his Aunt by the umbrella hand. He saw her
stiffening. He meant to prevent it if he could.

"Everybody rolled into one," he agreed eagerly; "Daddy and Mother and
the Clergyman and you."

"And me?" she asked tremulously.

"Rather!" the boy said vehemently; "as you are now, all rabbity and
nice."

Aunt Emily slowly removed one big golosh, then waited.

"Cleaned up and young," cried Judy, "and smells delicious--like
flowers and hay--"

"And soft and warm--"

"And sings and dances--"

"And is positive that if we go on looking we shall find--exactly what
we're looking for."

Aunt Emily removed the other golosh--a shade more quickly than the
first one. She kicked it off. The stiffness melted out of her; she
smiled again.

"Well," she began--when Judy stood on tip-toe and whispered in her ear
some magic sentence.

"Dawn!" Aunt Emily whispered back. "At dawn--when the birds begin to
sing!"

Something had caught her heart and squeezed it.

Tim and Judy nodded vehemently in agreement. Aunt Emily dropped her
umbrella then. And at the same moment a singing voice became audible
in the trees behind them. The song came floating to them through the
sunlight with a sound of wind and birds. It had a marvellous quality,
very sweet and very moving. There was a lilt in it, a laughing, happy
lilt, as though the Earth herself were singing of the Spring.

And Aunt Emily made one last vain attempt: she struggled to put her
fingers in her ears. But the children held her hands. She crackled and
made various oppressive and objecting sounds, but the song poured into
her in spite of all her efforts. Her feet began to move upon the
grass. It was awful, it was shocking, it was forbidden and against all
rules and regulations: yet--Aunt Emily danced!

And a thin, plaintive voice, like the voice of her long-forgotten
youth, slipped out between her faded lips--and positively sang:

"The world is young with laughter; we can fly
Among the imprisoned hours as we choose...."

But to Tim and Judy it all seemed merely right and natural.

"Come on," cried the boy, pulling his Aunt towards the wood.

"We can look together now. You've got your sign," exclaimed Judy,
tugging at her other hand. "Everything's free and careless, and so are
we."

"Aim for a path," Tim shouted by way of a concession. "Aunty'll go
quicker on a path."

But Aunty was nothing if not decided. "I know a short-cut," she sang.
"Paths are for people who don't know the way. There's no time--to
lose. Dear me! I'm warm already!" She dropped her umbrella.

And, actually dancing and singing, she led the way into the wood,
holding the fern before her like a wand, and happy as a girl let out
of school.

But as they went, Judy, knowing suddenly another thing she didn't
know, made a discovery of her own, an immense discovery. It was bigger
than anything Tim had ever found. She felt so light and swift and
winged by it that she seemed almost to melt into the air herself.

"I say, Tim," she said.

"Yes."

She took her eyes from the sky to see what her feet were doing; Tim
lifted his from the earth to see what was going on above him in the
air.

Judy went on: "I know what," she announced.

"What?" He was not particularly interested, it seemed.

Judy paused. She dropped a little behind her dancing Aunt. Tim joined
her. It all happened as quickly as a man might snap his fingers; Aunt
Emily, her heart full of growing ferns, noticed nothing.

"We've found her out!" whispered Judy, communicating her immense
discovery. "What she really is, I mean!"

He agreed and nodded. It did not strike him as anything wonderful or
special. "Oh, yes," he answered; "rather!" He did not grasp her
meaning, perhaps.

But his sister was bursting with excitement, radiant, shivering almost
with the wonder of it.

"But don't you see? It's--a sign!" she exclaimed so loud that Aunt
Emily almost heard it. "She's found herself! She was hiding--from
herself. That's part of it all--the game. It's the biggest sign of
all!"

She was so "warm" that she burned all over.

"Oh, yes," repeated Tim. "I see!" But he was not particularly
impressed. He merely wanted his Aunt to find an enormous fern whose
roots were growing in the sweet, sticky earth _he_ loved. Her sign was
a fern; his was the ground. It made him understand Aunt Emily at last,
and therefore love her; he saw no further than that.

Judy, however, _knew_. She suddenly understood what the Tramp meant by
"deep." She also knew now why Stumper, WEEDEN, Uncle Felix too, looked
at him so strangely, with wonder, with respect, with love. Something
about the Tramp explained each one to himself. Each one found--
himself. And she--without realising it before, had acquired this power
too, though only in a small degree as yet. The Tramp believed in
everybody; she, without knowing it, believed in her Aunt. It was
another thing she didn't know she knew.

And the real, long-buried, deeply-hidden Aunt Emily had emerged
accordingly. All her life she had been hiding--from herself. She had
found herself at last. It was the biggest sign of all.

Tim caught her hand and dragged her after him. "Come on," he cried,
"we're getting frightfully warm. Look at Aunty! Listen, will you?"

Aunt Emily, a little way in front of them, was digging busily with her
dirty trowel. Her bonnet was crooked, her skirts tucked up, her white
worsted stockings splashed with mud, her elastic-sided boots scratched
and plastered. And she was singing to herself in a thin but happy
voice that was not unlike an old and throaty corncrake: "The birds are
singing....Hark! Come out and play....Life is an endless
search...._I've_ just begun...!"

They listened for a little while, and then ran headlong up to join
her.




SIGNS EVERYWHERE!

IX


And it was somewhere about here and now--the exact spot impossible to
determine, since it was obviously a circular experience without
beginning, middle or end--that the gigantic character of the Day
declared itself in all its marvellous simplicity. For as they dived
deeper and deeper towards its centre, they discovered that its centre,
being everywhere at once, existed--nowhere. The sun was always rising
--somewhere.

In other words, each seeker grasped, in his or her own separate way,
that the Splendour hiding from them lay actually both too near and far
away for any individual eye to see it with completeness. Someone,
indeed, had come; but this Someone, as Judy told herself, was "simply
all over the place." To see him "distinkly is an awful job," according
to Uncle Felix; or as Come-Back Stumper realised in the middle of
another clump of bramble bushes, "Perspective is necessary to proper
vision." "He" lay too close before their eyes to be discovered fully.
Tim had long ago described it instinctively as "an enormous hide," but
it was more than that; it was a universal hide.

Alone, perhaps, Weeden's lost optic, wandering ubiquitously and
enjoying the bird's-eye view, possessed the coveted power. But, like
the stars, though somewhat about, it was invisible. WEEDEN made no
reference to it. He attended to one thing at a time, he lived in the
present; one eye was gone; he just looked for truffles--with the
other.

Yet this did not damp their ardour in the least; increased it rather:
the gathering of the clues became more and more absorbing. Though not
seen, the hider was both known and felt; his presence was a certainty.
There was no real contradiction.

For signs grew and multiplied till the entire world seemed overflowing
with them, and hardly could the earth contain them. They brimmed the
sunny air, flooded the ponds and streams, lay thick upon the fields,
and almost choked the woods to stillness. They trickled out, leaked
through, dripped over everywhere in colour, shape, and sound. The
hider had passed everywhere, and upon everything had left his
exquisite and deathless traces. The inanimate, as well as the animate
world had known the various touch of his great passing. His trail had
blazed the entire earth about them. For the very clouds were dipped in
snow and gold, and the meanest pebble in the lane wore a self-
conscious gleam of shining silver. So-called domestic creatures also
seemed aware that a stupendous hiding-place was somewhere near--the
browsing cow, contented and at ease, the horse that nuzzled their
hands across the gate, the very pigs, grubbing eternally for food, yet
eternally unsatisfied; all these, this endless morning, wore an
unaccustomed look as though they knew, and so were glad to be alive.
Some knew more than others, of course. The cat, for instance,
defending its kittens single-pawed against the stable-dog who
pretended to be ferocious; the busy father-blackbird, passing worms to
his mate for the featherless mites, all beak and clamour in the nest;
the Clouded Yellow, sharing a spray of honeysuckle with a Bumble-bee,
and the honeysuckle offering no resistance--one and all, they also
were aware in their differing degrees. And the seekers, noting the
signs, grew warmer and ever warmer. An ordinary day these signs, owing
to their generous profusion, might have called for no remark. They
would, probably, have drawn no attention to themselves, merely lying
about unnoticed, undiscovered because familiar. But this was not an
ordinary day. It was unused, unspoilt and unrecorded. It was the Some
Day of humanity's long dream--an Extra Day. Time could not carry it
away; it could not end; all it contained was of eternity. The great
hider at the heart of it was real. These signs--deep, tender, kind and
beautiful--were part of him, and in knowing, recognising them, they
knew and recognised him too. They drew near, that is, brushed up
closer, to his hiding-place from which _he_ saw them. They approached
within knowing distance of a Reality that each in his or her
particular way had always yearned for. They held--oh, distinkly held--
that they were winning. They won the marvellous game as soon as it
began. They never had a doubt about the end.

But their supreme, superb discovery was this: They had always secretly
longed to find the elusive hider; they now realised that _he_--wanted
them to find him, and that from his hiding-place he saw them easily.
That was the most wonderful thing of all....

To describe the separate adventures of each seeker would involve a
series of bulky trilogies no bookshelves in the world could carry;
they can, besides, be adequately told in three simple words that Tim
used--shouted with intense enthusiasm when he tripped over a rabbit-
hole and tumbled headlong against that everlasting Tramp: "I'm still
looking!" He dived away into another hole. "I'm looking still." "So am
I," the Tramp answered, also in three words. "I'm _very_ warm,"
growled Stumper; "I'm getting on," Aunt Emily piped; and while Judy
was for ever shouting out "I've found him!" Uncle Felix, puffing and
panting, could only repeat with rapture each time he met another
seeker: "A lovely day! A _lovely_ day!" They said so little--
experienced and felt so much!

From time to time, too, others joined them in the tremendous game. It
seemed the personality of the Tramp attracted them. Something about
him--his sincerity, perhaps, or his simplicity--made them realise
suddenly what they were about: as though they had not noticed it
before, not understood it quite, at any rate. They found themselves.
He did and said so little. But he possessed the unique quality of a
Leader--natural persuasion.

Thompson, for instance, cleaning the silver at the pantry window,
looked up and saw them pass. They caught him unawares. His pompous
manner hung like a discarded mask on a nail beside his livery. He wore
his black and white striped waistcoat, and an apron. Of course he
looked proper, as an old family servant ought to look, but he looked
cheerful too. He was humming to himself as he polished up the covers
and the candelabra.

"Well, I never!" he exclaimed, as the line of them filed by. "I never
did. And Mr. Weeden with 'em too!"

The Tramp passed singing and looked through the open window at the
butler. No more than that. Their eyes met between the bars. They
exchanged glances. But something incalculable happened in that
instant, just as it had happened to Stumper, Aunt Emily, and the rest
of them. Thompson put several questions into his look of sheer
astonishment.

"Why not?" the Tramp replied, chuckling as he caught the butler's eye.
"It's a lovely morning. We're just looking!"

Thompson was flabbergasted--as if all the old-fashioned families of
the world had suddenly praised him. All his life he had never done
anything but his ordinary duty.

"It's 'oliday time," said Weeden, coming next, "and all my flowers and
vegitubles is a-growin' nicely." He too seemed singing, dancing.
Something had happened. The whole world seemed out and playing.

Thompson forgot himself in a most unusual way, forgot that he was an
old family servant, that the apron-string met round his middle with
difficulty, that the Authorities were away and his responsibilities
increased thereby; forgot too, that for twenty years he had been
answering bells, over-hearing conversations without pretending to do
so, and that visitors wanted hot water and early tea at "7:30 sharp."
He remembered suddenly that he was a man--and that he was very fond of
some one. The birds were singing, the sun was shining, the flowers
were out upon the lawn, and it was Spring.

An amazing longing in him woke and stirred to life. There was a
singular itching in his feet. Something in his butler-heart began to
purr. "Looking, eh!" he thought. "There's something I've been looking
for too. I'd forgot about it."

"No one can make the silver shine as I can," he mumbled, watching the
retreating figures, "but it is about finished now,"--he glanced down
at it with pride--"and fit to set on the table. Why shouldn't I take a
turn in the garden too?"

He looked out a moment. The magic of the spring came upon him suddenly
like a revelation. He knew he was alive, that there was something he
wanted somewhere, something real and satisfying--if only he could find
it--find out what it was. For twenty years he had been living
automatically. Alfred Thompson suddenly felt free and careless. The
butler--yearned!

He hesitated, gave the dish-cover an extra polish, then called through
the door to Mrs. Horton:

"There's a tramp in the garden, Bridget, and Mr. Weeden's with him.
Mr. Felix is halso taking the air, and Master Tim--"

He stopped, hearing a step in the pantry. Mrs. Horton stood behind him
with a shawl about her shoulders. Her red face was smiling.

"Alfred, let's go out and take a look," she said. "Mary can see to the
shepherd's-pie. I've been as quick as I could," she added, as if
excusing herself. Moreover, she said distinctly, "shepherd's-_poie_."

"_I_ haven't been 'calling,'" replied the butler, "except only just
now--just this minute." He spoke as though he was being scolded for
not answering a bell. But he cast an admiring glance, half wild, half
reckless, at the cook.

"An' you shouting to me to come this last 'arf hour and more!" cried
Mrs. Horton. She, too, apparently, was in a "state."

"You are mistaken, Bridget, I have been singing, as I often do when
attending to the silver, but as for--"

"You can do without a hat," she interrupted. "Come on! I want to go
and look for--for--" She broke off, taking his arm as though they were
going down the Strand or Oxford Street. Her red face beamed. She
looked very proud and happy. She wanted to look for something too, but
she could not believe the moment had really come. She had put it away
so long--like a special dish in a cupboard.

"I don't know what's come over me," she went on very confidentially,
as she moved beside him through the scullery door, "but--but I don't
feel satisfied--not satisfied with meself as I used to be."

"No, Bridget?" It was in his best "7:30" manner. There was a struggle
in him.

"No," said Mrs. Horton, with decision. "I give satisfaction--that I
know--"

"We both do that," said Thompson proudly. "And no one can do a suet
pudding to a turn as you can. Only the other day I heard Sir William
a-speaking of it--"

She held his arm more tightly. They were on the lawn by now. The flood
of sunlight caught them, showed up the worn and shabby places in his
suit of broadcloth, gleamed on her bursting shoes she "fancied" for
her kitchen work. They heard the birds, they smelt the flowers, the
air bathed them all over like a sea.

"And the silver, Alfred," she said in a lower tone. "Who in the world
can make it look as you do? But what I've been feeling lately--since
this morning, that is to say--and feeling for the first time in me
life, so to speak--"

"Bridget, dear, you've got it!" he interrupted with excitement, "I've
felt it too. Felt it this morning first, when I woke up and remembered
that nobody wanted hot-water nor early tea, and I said to myself,
'There's more than that in it. I'm not doing all this just only for a
salary. I'm doing it for something else. What is it?'"

He spoke very rapidly for a butler. He looked down at her red and
smiling face.

"What is it?" he repeated, curiously moved.

She looked up at him without a word.

"It's something 'idden," he said, after a pause. "That's what it is."

"That's it," agreed Mrs. Horton. "Like a recipe."

There was another pause. The butler broke it. They stood together in
the middle of the field, flowers and birds and sunshine all about
them.

"A mystery--inside of us," he said, "I think--"

"Yes, Alfred," the cook murmured softly.

"_I_ think," he continued, "it's a song and dance we want. A little
life." He broke off abruptly, noticing the sudden movement of her
bursting shoes. She took a long step forwards, then sideways. She
opened her arms to the air and sun. She almost pirouetted.

"Life!" she cried, "'ot and fiery. Life! That's it. Hark, Alfred, d'ye
hear that singing far away?" She felt the Irish break out of her.
"Listen!" she cried, trying to drag him faster. "Listen, will ye? It
makes me wild entirely! Give me yer hand! Come on and dance wid me!
It's in me hearrt I feel it, in me blood. To the devil with me suet
puddings and shepherd-poies--that singing's real, that's loife, that's
lovely as a dhream! It's what I've been looking for iver since I can
remember. I've got it!"

And Thompson felt himself spinning through the air. Old families were
forgotten. The world was young with laughter. They could fly. They
did.

The silver was beautifully cleaned. He had earned his holiday.

"That singing!" he gasped, feeling his heart grow big. He followed her
across the flowered world. "I believe it is a bird! It would not
surprise me to be told--"

"A birrd!" cried Mrs. Horton, turning him round and round. "It's a
birrd from Heaven then! I've heard it all the morning. It's been
singing in me heart for ages. Now it's out! Come follow it wid me!
We'll go to the end of the wurrld to foinde it."

Her kitchen energy--some called it temper--had discovered a greater
scope than puddings.

"There is no hurry," the butler panted, moving along with her, and
trying hard to keep his balance. "We'll look together. We'll find it!"
And as they raced across the field among the flowers after the line of
disappearing figures, the Tramp looked back at them and waved his
hand.

"It's a lovely morning," he said, as they came up with the rest of the
party. "So you're looking too?"

Too much out of breath to answer, they just nodded, and the group
accepted them without more to-do. Their object evidently was the same.
Aunt Emily glanced up from her ferns, nodded and said, "Good morning,
it's a lovely day"--and resumed her digging again. It was like shaking
hands! They all went forward happily, eagerly, across the wide, wide
world together.

The absence of surprise the children knew had now become a
characteristic everybody shared. All were in the same state together.
The whole day flowed, there were no limitations or conditions, least
of all surprise. Even WEEDEN had forgotten hedges and artificial
boundaries. No one, therefore, ejaculated nor exclaimed when they ran
across the Policeman. He, too, was looking for some one, but, having
mislaid his notebook and pencil stub, was unable to mention any names,
and was easily persuaded to join the body of eager seekers. Being a
policeman, he was naturally a seeker by profession; he was always
looking for somebody somewhere--somebody who was going in the wrong
direction.

"That's just it," he said, the moment he saw the Tramp, taking his
helmet off as though an odd respect was in him. "That's just what I've
always felt," he went on vaguely. "I'm looking for some one wot's
a'looking for something else--only looking wrong."

"In the wrong places," suggested Stumper, remembering his Indian
scouting days.

"In the wrong way," put in Uncle Felix, full of experience by now.

The Policeman listened attentively, as though by rights he ought to
enter these sentences laboriously in his notebook.

"That's it, per'aps," he stated. "It takes 'em longer, but they finds
out in the end. If I was to show 'em the right way of looking instead
of arresting 'em--I'd be _reel_!" And then he added, as if he were
giving evidence in a Court of Justice and before a County Magistrate,
"There's no good looking for anything where it ain't, now is there?"

"Precisely," agreed Colonel Stumper, remembering happily that his
pockets were full of snail-shells. He knew _his_ sign.

Thompson, Mrs. Horton, Weeden, and the Policeman glanced at him
gratefully. But it was the last mentioned who replied:

"Because every one," he said with conviction at last, "has his own way
of looking, and even the burgular is only looking wrong." He, too, it
seemed, had found himself.

Their search, their endless hunt, their conversation and adventures
thus might be reported endlessly, if only the book-shelves of the
world were built more stoutly, and everybody could find an Extra Day
lying about in which to read it all. Each seeker held true to his or
her first love, obeying an infallible instinct. The adventure and
romance that hid in Tim and Judy, respectively, sent them headlong
after anything that offered signs of these two common but seductive
qualities. Judy lived literally in the air, her feet, her heart,
her eyes all off the ground; Tim, filled with an equally insatiable
curiosity, found adorable danger in every rabbit-run, and rescued
things innumerable. Off the ground he felt unsafe, unsure, and lost
himself. Stumper, faithful to his scouting passion, disappeared into
all kinds of undesirable places no one else would have dreamed of
looking in, yet invariably--came back; and while Uncle Felix tried a
little of everything and found "copy" in a puddle or a dandelion,
Weeden carried his empty sack without a murmur, knowing it would be
filled with truffles at the end. Aunt Emily, exceedingly particular,
but no longer interfering with the others, was equally sure of
herself. A touch of fluid youth ran in her veins again, and in her
heart grew a fern that presently she would find everywhere outside as
well--a maiden-hair.

Each, however, in some marvellous way, shared the adventures of the
others, as though the Tramp merged all seven of them into one single
being, unified them, at any rate, into this one harmonious, common
purpose with himself. For, while everybody had a different way of
looking, everybody's way--for that particular individual--was exactly
right.

"Smell, then follow," was the secret. "Find your own sign and stick to
it," the clue. Each sign, though by different routes, led straight
towards the marvellous hiding-place. To urge one's own sign upon
another was merely to delay that other; but to point out better signs
of his own particular kind was to send him on faster than before. Thus
there was harmony among them all, for every seeker, knowing this, had
--found himself.




REALITY

X


But, while there was no hurry, no passing, and, most certainly of all,
no passing away, there was a sense of enormous interval. There were
epochs, there were interludes, there was--duration.

Though everything had only just begun, it was yet complete, if not
completed.

At any point of an adventure that adventure could be taken over from
the very start, the experience holding all the thrill and wonder of
the first time.

Cake could be had and eaten too. Tim, half-way down a rabbit-hole,
could instantly find himself at the opening again, bursting with all
the original excitement of trembling calculations. With the others it
was similar.

Copyright (c) 2007. topbookz.net. All rights reserved.