"'[Illustration: He sat down in a garden, with his back to a house that\noverlooked all London.]\n\nTHE FOOD OF THE GODS AND HOW IT CAME TO EARTH\n\nH.G. WELLS\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\nBOOK I.\n\nTHE DAWN OF THE FOOD.\n\nI. THE DISCOVERY OF THE FOOD\n\nII. THE EXPERIMENTAL FARM\n\nIII. THE GIANT RATS\n\nIV. THE GIANT CHILDREN\n\nV. THE MINIMIFICENCE OF MR. BENSINGTON\n\n\nBOOK II.\n\nTHE FOOD IN THE VILLAGE.\n\nI. THE COMING OF THE FOOD\n\nII. THE BRAT GIGANTIC\n\n\nBOOK III.\n\nTHE HARVEST OF THE FOOD.\n\nI. THE ALTERED WORLD\n\nII. THE GIANT LOVERS\n\nIII. YOUNG CADDLES IN LONDON\n\nIV. REDWOOD\'S TWO DAYS\n\nV. THE GIANT LEAGUER\n\n\n\n\nBOOK I.\n\nTHE DAWN OF THE FOOD.\n\n\n\n\nTHE FOOD OF THE GODS.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE FIRST.\n\nTHE DISCOVERY OF THE FOOD.\n\n\nI.\n\nIn the middle years of the nineteenth century there first became\nabundant in this strange world of ours a class of men, men tending for\nthe most part to become elderly, who are called, and who are very\nproperly called, but who dislike extremely to be called--\"Scientists.\"\nThey dislike that word so much that from the columns of _Nature_, which\nwas from the first their distinctive and characteristic paper, it is as\ncarefully excluded as if it were--that other word which is the basis of\nall really bad language in this country. But the Great Public and its\nPress know better, and \"Scientists\" they are, and when they emerge to\nany sort of publicity, \"distinguished scientists\" and \"eminent\nscientists\" and \"well-known scientists\" is the very least we call them.\n\nCertainly both Mr. Bensington and Professor Redwood quite merited any of\nthese terms long before they came upon the marvellous discovery of which\nthis story tells. Mr. Bensington was a Fellow of the Royal Society and\na former president of the Chemical Society, and Professor Redwood was\nProfessor of Physiology in the Bond Street College of the London\nUniversity, and he had been grossly libelled by the anti-vivisectionists\ntime after time. And they had led lives of academic distinction from\ntheir very earliest youth.\n\nThey were of course quite undistinguished looking men, as indeed all\ntrue Scientists are. There is more personal distinction about the\nmildest-mannered actor alive than there is about the entire Royal\nSociety. Mr. Bensington was short and very, very bald, and he stooped\nslightly; he wore gold-rimmed spectacles and cloth boots that were\nabundantly cut open because of his numerous corns, and Professor Redwood\nwas entirely ordinary in his appearance. Until they happened upon the\nFood of the Gods (as I must insist upon calling it) they led lives of\nsuch eminent and studious obscurity that it is hard to find anything\nwhatever to tell the reader about them.\n\nMr. Bensington won his spurs (if one may use such an expression of a\ngentleman in boots of slashed cloth) by his splendid researches upon the\nMore Toxic Alkaloids, and Professor Redwood rose to eminence--I do not\nclearly remember how he rose to eminence! I know he was very eminent,\nand that\'s all. Things of this sort grow. I fancy it was a voluminous\nwork on Reaction Times with numerous plates of sphygmograph tracings (I\nwrite subject to correction) and an admirable new terminology, that did\nthe thing for him.\n\nThe general public saw little or nothing of either of these gentlemen.\nSometimes at places like the Royal Institution and the Society of Arts\nit did in a sort of way see Mr. Bensington, or at least his blushing\nbaldness and something of his collar and coat, and hear fragments of a\nlecture or paper that he imagined himself to be reading audibly; and\nonce I remember--one midday in the vanished past--when the British\nAssociation was at Dover, coming on Section C or D, or some such letter,\nwhich had taken up its quarters in a public-house, and following two,\nserious-looking ladies with paper parcels, out of mere curiosity,\nthrough a door labelled \"Billiards\" and \"Pool\" into a scandalous\ndarkness, broken only by a magic-lantern circle of Redwood\'s tracings.\n\nI watched the lantern slides come and go, and listened to a voice (I\nforget what it was saying) which I believe was the voice of Professor\nRedwood, and there was a sizzling from the lantern and another sound\nthat kept me there, still out of curiosity, until the lights were\nunexpectedly turned up. And then I perceived that this sound was the\nsound of the munching of buns and sandwiches and things that the\nassembled British Associates had come there to eat under cover of the\nmagic-lantern darkness.\n\nAnd Redwood I remember went on talking all the time the lights were up\nand dabbing at the place where his diagram ought to have been visible on\nthe screen--and so it was again so soon as the darkness was restored. I\nremember him then as a most ordinary, slightly nervous-looking dark man,\nwith an air of being preoccupied with something else, and doing what he\nwas doing just then under an unaccountable sense of duty.\n\nI heard Bensington also once--in the old days--at an educational\nconference in Bloomsbury. Like most eminent chemists and botanists, Mr.\nBensington was very authoritative upon teaching--though I am certain he\nwould have been scared out of his wits by an average Board School class\nin half-an-hour--and so far as I can remember now, he was propounding an\nimprovement of Professor Armstrong\'s Heuristic method, whereby at the\ncost of three or four hundred pounds\' worth of apparatus, a total\nneglect of all other studies and the undivided attention of a teacher of\nexceptional gifts, an average child might with a peculiar sort of thumby\nthoroughness learn in the course of ten or twelve years almost as much\nchemistry as one could get in one of those objectionable shilling\ntext-books that were then so common....\n\nQuite ordinary persons you perceive, both of them, outside their\nscience. Or if anything on the unpractical side of ordinary. And that\nyou will find is the case with \"scientists\" as a class all the world\nover. What there is great of them is an annoyance to their fellow\nscientists and a mystery to the general public, and what is not is\nevident.\n\nThere is no doubt about what is not great, no race of men have such\nobvious littlenesses. They live in a narrow world so far as their human\nintercourse goes; their researches involve infinite attention and an\nalmost monastic seclusion; and what is left over is not very much. To\nwitness some queer, shy, misshapen, grey-headed, self-important, little\ndiscoverer of great discoveries, ridiculously adorned with the wide\nribbon of some order of chivalry and holding a reception of his\nfellow-men, or to read the anguish of _Nature_ at the \"neglect of\nscience\" when the angel of the birthday honours passes the Royal Society\nby, or to listen to one indefatigable lichenologist commenting on the\nwork of another indefatigable lichenologist, such things force one to\nrealise the unfaltering littleness of men.\n\nAnd withal the reef of Science that these little \"scientists\" built and\nare yet building is so wonderful, so portentous, so full of mysterious\nhalf-shapen promises for the mighty future of man! They do not seem to\nrealise the things they are doing! No doubt long ago even Mr.\nBensington, when he chose this calling, when he consecrated his life to\nthe alkaloids and their kindred compounds, had some inkling of the\nvision,--more than an inkling. Without some such inspiration, for such\nglories and positions only as a \"scientist\" may expect, what young man\nwould have given his life to such work, as young men do? No, they _must_\nhave seen the glory, they must have had the vision, but so near that it\nhas blinded them. The splendour has blinded them, mercifully, so that\nfor the rest of their lives they can hold the lights of knowledge in\ncomfort--that we may see!\n\nAnd perhaps it accounts for Redwood\'s touch of preoccupation,\nthat--there can be no doubt of it now--he among his fellows was\ndifferent, he was different inasmuch as something of the vision still\nlingered in his eyes.\n\n\nII.\n\nThe Food of the Gods I call it, this substance that Mr. Bensington and\nProfessor Redwood made between them; and having regard now to what it\nhas already done and all that it is certainly going to do, there is\nsurely no exaggeration in the name. So I shall continue to call it\ntherefore throughout my story. But Mr. Bensington would no more have\ncalled it that in cold blood than he would have gone out from his flat\nin Sloane Street clad in regal scarlet and a wreath of laurel. The\nphrase was a mere first cry of astonishment from him. He called it the\nFood of the Gods, in his enthusiasm and for an hour or so at the most\naltogether. After that he decided he was being absurd. When he first\nthought of the thing he saw, as it were, a vista of enormous\npossibilities--literally enormous possibilities; but upon this dazzling\nvista, after one stare of amazement, he resolutely shut his eyes, even\nas a conscientious \"scientist\" should. After that, the Food of the Gods\nsounded blatant to the pitch of indecency. He was surprised he had used\nthe expression. Yet for all that something of that clear-eyed moment\nhung about him and broke out ever and again....\n\n\"Really, you know,\" he said, rubbing his hands together and laughing\nnervously, \"it has more than a theoretical interest.\n\n\"For example,\" he confided, bringing his face close to the Professor\'s\nand dropping to an undertone, \"it would perhaps, if suitably handled,\n_sell_....\n\n\"Precisely,\" he said, walking away,--\"as a Food. Or at least a food\ningredient.\n\n\"Assuming of course that it is palatable. A thing we cannot know till we\nhave prepared it.\"\n\nHe turned upon the hearthrug, and studied the carefully designed slits\nupon his cloth shoes.\n\n\"Name?\" he said, looking up in response to an inquiry. \"For my part I\nincline to the good old classical allusion. It--it makes Science res--.\nGives it a touch of old-fashioned dignity. I have been thinking ... I\ndon\'t know if you will think it absurd of me.... A little fancy is\nsurely occasionally permissible.... Herakleophorbia. Eh? The nutrition\nof a possible Hercules? You know it _might_ ...\n\n\"Of course if you think _not_--\"\n\nRedwood reflected with his eyes on the fire and made no objection.\n\n\"You think it would do?\"\n\nRedwood moved his head gravely.\n\n\"It might be Titanophorbia, you know. Food of Titans.... You prefer the\nformer?\n\n\"You\'re quite sure you don\'t think it a little _too_--\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Ah! I\'m glad.\"\n\nAnd so they called it Herakleophorbia throughout their investigations,\nand in their report,--the report that was never published, because of\nthe unexpected developments that upset all their arrangements,--it is\ninvariably written in that way. There were three kindred substances\nprepared before they hit on the one their speculations had foretolds and\nthese they spoke of as Herakleophorbia I, Herakleophorbia II, and\nHerakleophorbia III. It is Herakleophorbia IV. which I--insisting upon\nBensington\'s original name--call here the Food of the Gods.\n\n\nIII.\n\nThe idea was Mr. Bensington\'s. But as it was suggested to him by one of\nProfessor Redwood\'s contributions to the Philosophical Transactions, he\nvery properly consulted that gentleman before he carried it further.\nBesides which it was, as a research, a physiological, quite as much as a\nchemical inquiry.\n\nProfessor Redwood was one of those scientific men who are addicted to\ntracings and curves. You are familiar--if you are at all the sort of\nreader I like--with the sort of scientific paper I mean. It is a paper\nyou cannot make head nor tail of, and at the end come five or six long\nfolded diagrams that open out and show peculiar zigzag tracings, flashes\nof lightning overdone, or sinuous inexplicable things called \"smoothed\ncurves\" set up on ordinates and rooting in abscissae--and things like\nthat. You puzzle over the thing for a long time and end with the\nsuspicion that not only do you not understand it but that the author\ndoes not understand it either. But really you know many of these\nscientific people understand the meaning of their own papers quite well:\nit is simply a defect of expression that raises the obstacle between us.\n\nI am inclined to think that Redwood thought in tracings and curves. And\nafter his monumental work upon Reaction Times (the unscientific reader\nis exhorted to stick to it for a little bit longer and everything will\nbe as clear as daylight) Redwood began to turn out smoothed curves and\nsphygmographeries upon Growth, and it was one of his papers upon Growth\nthat really gave Mr. Bensington his idea.\n\nRedwood, you know, had been measuring growing things of all sorts,\nkittens, puppies, sunflowers, mushrooms, bean plants, and (until his\nwife put a stop to it) his baby, and he showed that growth went out not\nat a regular pace, or, as he put it, so,\n\n \/\n \/\n \/\n \/\n \/\n \/\n \/\n \/\n \/\n \/\n \/\n\nbut with bursts and intermissions of this sort,\n\n _____\n \/\n \/\n _____\/\n \/\n \/\n _____\/\n \/\n \/\n \/\n\nand that apparently nothing grew regularly and steadily, and so far as\nhe could make out nothing could grow regularly and steadily: it was as\nif every living thing had just to accumulate force to grow, grew with\nvigour only for a time, and then had to wait for a space before it could\ngo on growing again. And in the muffled and highly technical language of\nthe really careful \"scientist,\" Redwood suggested that the process of\ngrowth probably demanded the presence of a considerable quantity of some\nnecessary substance in the blood that was only formed very slowly, and\nthat when this substance was used up by growth, it was only very slowly\nreplaced, and that meanwhile the organism had to mark time. He compared\nhis unknown substance to oil in machinery. A growing animal was rather\nlike an engine, he suggested, that can move a certain distance and must\nthen be oiled before it can run again. (\"But why shouldn\'t one oil the\nengine from without?\" said Mr. Bensington, when he read the paper.) And\nall this, said Redwood, with the delightful nervous inconsecutiveness of\nhis class, might very probably be found to throw a light upon the\nmystery of certain of the ductless glands. As though they had anything\nto do with it at all!\n\nIn a subsequent communication Redwood went further. He gave a perfect\nBrock\'s benefit of diagrams--exactly like rocket trajectories they were;\nand the gist of it--so far as it had any gist--was that the blood of\npuppies and kittens and the sap of sunflowers and the juice of mushrooms\nin what he called the \"growing phase\" differed in the proportion of\ncertain elements from their blood and sap on the days when they were not\nparticularly growing.\n\nAnd when Mr. Bensington, after holding the diagrams sideways and upside\ndown, began to see what this difference was, a great amazement came upon\nhim. Because, you see, the difference might probably be due to the\npresence of just the very substance he had recently been trying to\nisolate in his researches upon such alkaloids as are most stimulating to\nthe nervous system. He put down Redwood\'s paper on the patent\nreading-desk that swung inconveniently from his arm-chair, took off his\ngold-rimmed spectacles, breathed on them and wiped them very carefully.\n\n\"By Jove!\" said Mr. Bensington.\n\nThen replacing his spectacles again he turned to the patent\nreading-desk, which immediately, as his elbow came against its arm, gave\na coquettish squeak and deposited the paper, with all its diagrams in a\ndispersed and crumpled state, on the floor. \"By Jove!\" said Mr.\nBensington, straining his stomach over the arm-chair with a patient\ndisregard of the habits of this convenience, and then, finding the\npamphlet still out of reach, he went down on all fours in pursuit. It\nwas on the floor that the idea of calling it the Food of the Gods came\nto him....\n\nFor you see, if he was right and Redwood was right, then by injecting or\nadministering this new substance of his in food, he would do away with\nthe \"resting phase,\" and instead of growth going on in this fashion,\n\n _____\n \/\n \/\n _____\/\n \/\n \/\n _____\/\n \/\n \/\n \/\n\nit would (if you follow me) go thus--\n\n \/\n \/\n \/\n \/\n \/\n \/\n \/\n \/\n \/\n \/\n \/\n\n\nIV.\n\nThe night after his conversation with Redwood Mr. Bensington could\nscarcely sleep a wink. He did seem once to get into a sort of doze, but\nit was only for a moment, and then he dreamt he had dug a deep hole into\nthe earth and poured in tons and tons of the Food of the Gods, and the\nearth was swelling and swelling, and all the boundaries of the countries\nwere bursting, and the Royal Geographical Society was all at work like\none great guild of tailors letting out the equator....\n\nThat of course was a ridiculous dream, but it shows the state of mental\nexcitement into which Mr. Bensington got and the real value he attached\nto his idea, much better than any of the things he said or did when he\nwas awake and on his guard. Or I should not have mentioned it, because\nas a general rule I do not think it is at all interesting for people to\ntell each other about their dreams.\n\nBy a singular coincidence Redwood also had a dream that night, and his\ndream was this:--\n\n |\n |\n |\n |\n |\n |\n |\n |\n |\n |\n\nIt was a diagram done in fire upon a long scroll of the abyss. And he\n(Redwood) was standing on a planet before a sort of black platform\nlecturing about the new sort of growth that was now possible, to the\nMore than Royal Institution of Primordial Forces--forces which had\nalways previously, even in the growth of races, empires, planetary\nsystems, and worlds, gone so:--\n\n _____\n \/\n _____\/\n \/\n _____\/\n \/\n \/\n\nAnd even in some cases so:--\n\n\n\n ____\n \/ \\\n _____\/\n \/\n \/\n\nAnd he was explaining to them quite lucidly and convincingly that these\nslow, these even retrogressive methods would be very speedily quite put\nout of fashion by his discovery.\n\nRidiculous of course! But that too shows--\n\nThat either dream is to be regarded as in any way significant or\nprophetic beyond what I have categorically said, I do not for one moment\nsuggest.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE SECOND.\n\nTHE EXPERIMENTAL FARM.\n\n\nI.\n\nMr. Bensington proposed originally to try this stuff, so soon as he was\nreally able to prepare it, upon tadpoles. One always does try this sort\nof thing upon tadpoles to begin with; this being what tadpoles are for.\nAnd it was agreed that he should conduct the experiments and not\nRedwood, because Redwood\'s laboratory was occupied with the ballistic\napparatus and animals necessary for an investigation into the Diurnal\nVariation in the Butting Frequency of the Young Bull Calf, an\ninvestigation that was yielding curves of an abnormal and very\nperplexing sort, and the presence of glass globes of tadpoles was\nextremely undesirable while this particular research was in progress.\n\nBut when Mr. Bensington conveyed to his cousin Jane something of what he\nhad in mind, she put a prompt veto upon the importation of any\nconsiderable number of tadpoles, or any such experimental creatures,\ninto their flat. She had no objection whatever to his use of one of the\nrooms of the flat for the purposes of a non-explosive chemistry that, so\nfar as she was concerned, came to nothing; she let him have a gas\nfurnace and a sink and a dust-tight cupboard of refuge from the weekly\nstorm of cleaning she would not forego. And having known people addicted\nto drink, she regarded his solicitude for distinction in learned\nsocieties as an excellent substitute for the coarser form of depravity.\nBut any sort of living things in quantity, \"wriggly\" as they were bound\nto be alive and \"smelly\" dead, she could not and would not abide. She\nsaid these things were certain to be unhealthy, and Bensington was\nnotoriously a delicate man--it was nonsense to say he wasn\'t. And when\nBensington tried to make the enormous importance of this possible\ndiscovery clear, she said that it was all very well, but if she\nconsented to his making everything nasty and unwholesome in the place\n(and that was what it all came to) then she was certain he would be the\nfirst to complain.\n\nAnd Mr. Bensington went up and down the room, regardless of his corns,\nand spoke to her quite firmly and angrily without the slightest effect.\nHe said that nothing ought to stand in the way of the Advancement of\nScience, and she said that the Advancement of Science was one thing and\nhaving a lot of tadpoles in a flat was another; he said that in Germany\nit was an ascertained fact that a man with an idea like his would at\nonce have twenty thousand properly-fitted cubic feet of laboratory\nplaced at his disposal, and she said she was glad and always had been\nglad that she was not a German; he said that it would make him famous\nfor ever, and she said it was much more likely to make him ill to have a\nlot of tadpoles in a flat like theirs; he said he was master in his own\nhouse, and she said that rather than wait on a lot of tadpoles she\'d go\nas matron to a school; and then he asked her to be reasonable, and she\nasked _him_ to be reasonable then and give up all this about tadpoles;\nand he said she might respect his ideas, and she said not if they were\nsmelly she wouldn\'t, and then he gave way completely and said--in spite\nof the classical remarks of Huxley upon the subject--a bad word. Not a\nvery bad word it was, but bad enough.\n\nAnd after that she was greatly offended and had to be apologised to, and\nthe prospect of ever trying the Food of the Gods upon tadpoles in their\nflat at any rate vanished completely in the apology.\n\nSo Bensington had to consider some other way of carrying out these\nexperiments in feeding that would be necessary to demonstrate his\ndiscovery, so soon as he had his substance isolated and prepared. For\nsome days he meditated upon the possibility of boarding out his tadpoles\nwith some trustworthy person, and then the chance sight of the phrase in\na newspaper turned his thoughts to an Experimental Farm.\n\nAnd chicks. Directly he thought of it, he thought of it as a poultry\nfarm. He was suddenly taken with a vision of wildly growing chicks. He\nconceived a picture of coops and runs, outsize and still more outsize\ncoops, and runs progressively larger. Chicks are so accessible, so\neasily fed and observed, so much drier to handle and measure, that for\nhis purpose tadpoles seemed to him now, in comparison with them, quite\nwild and uncontrollable beasts. He was quite puzzled to understand why\nhe had not thought of chicks instead of tadpoles from the beginning.\nAmong other things it would have saved all this trouble with his cousin\nJane. And when he suggested this to Redwood, Redwood quite agreed with\nhim.\n\nRedwood said that in working so much upon needlessly small animals he\nwas convinced experimental physiologists made a great mistake. It is\nexactly like making experiments in chemistry with an insufficient\nquantity of material; errors of observation and manipulation become\ndisproportionately large. It was of extreme importance just at present\nthat scientific men should assert their right to have their material\n_big_. That was why he was doing his present series of experiments at\nthe Bond Street College upon Bull Calves, in spite of a certain amount\nof inconvenience to the students and professors of other subjects caused\nby their incidental levity in the corridors. But the curves he was\ngetting were quite exceptionally interesting, and would, when published,\namply justify his choice. For his own part, were it not for the\ninadequate endowment of science in this country, he would never, if he\ncould avoid it, work on anything smaller than a whale. But a Public\nVivarium on a sufficient scale to render this possible was, he feared,\nat present, in this country at any rate, a Utopian demand. In\nGermany--Etc.\n\nAs Redwood\'s Bull calves needed his daily attention, the selection and\nequipment of the Experimental Farm fell largely on Bensington. The\nentire cost also, was, it was understood, to be defrayed by Bensington,\nat least until a grant could be obtained. Accordingly he alternated his\nwork in the laboratory of his flat with farm hunting up and down the\nlines that run southward out of London, and his peering spectacles, his\nsimple baldness, and his lacerated cloth shoes filled the owners of\nnumerous undesirable properties with vain hopes. And he advertised in\nseveral daily papers and _Nature_ for a responsible couple (married),\npunctual, active, and used to poultry, to take entire charge of an\nExperimental Farm of three acres.\n\nHe found the place he seemed in need of at Hickleybrow, near Urshot, in\nKent. It was a little queer isolated place, in a dell surrounded by old\npine woods that were black and forbidding at night. A humped shoulder of\ndown cut it off from the sunset, and a gaunt well with a shattered\npenthouse dwarfed the dwelling. The little house was creeperless,\nseveral windows were broken, and the cart shed had a black shadow at\nmidday. It was a mile and a half from the end house of the village, and\nits loneliness was very doubtfully relieved by an ambiguous family of\nechoes.\n\nThe place impressed Bensington as being eminently adapted to the\nrequirements of scientific research. He walked over the premises\nsketching out coops and runs with a sweeping arm, and he found the\nkitchen capable of accommodating a series of incubators and foster\nmothers with the very minimum of alteration. He took the place there and\nthen; on his way back to London he stopped at Dunton Green and closed\nwith an eligible couple that had answered his advertisements, and that\nsame evening he succeeded in isolating a sufficient quantity of\nHerakleophorbia I. to more than justify these engagements.\n\nThe eligible couple who were destined under Mr. Bensington to be the\nfirst almoners on earth of the Food of the Gods, were not only very\nperceptibly aged, but also extremely dirty. This latter point Mr.\nBensington did not observe, because nothing destroys the powers of\ngeneral observation quite so much as a life of experimental science.\nThey were named Skinner, Mr. and Mrs. Skinner, and Mr. Bensington\ninterviewed them in a small room with hermetically sealed windows, a\nspotted overmantel looking-glass, and some ailing calceolarias.\n\nMrs. Skinner was a very little old woman, capless, with dirty white hair\ndrawn back very very tightly from a face that had begun by being\nchiefly, and was now, through the loss of teeth and chin, and the\nwrinkling up of everything else, ending by being almost\nexclusively--nose. She was dressed in slate colour (so far as her dress\nhad any colour) slashed in one place with red flannel. She let him in\nand talked to him guardedly and peered at him round and over her nose,\nwhile Mr. Skinner she alleged made some alteration in his toilette. She\nhad one tooth that got into her articulations and she held her two long\nwrinkled hands nervously together. She told Mr. Bensington that she had\nmanaged fowls for years; and knew all about incubators; in fact, they\nthemselves had run a Poultry Farm at one time, and it had only failed at\nlast through the want of pupils. \"It\'s the pupils as pay,\" said Mrs.\nSkinner.\n\nMr. Skinner, when he appeared, was a large-faced man, with a lisp and a\nsquint that made him look over the top of your head, slashed slippers\nthat appealed to Mr. Bensington\'s sympathies, and a manifest shortness\nof buttons. He held his coat and shirt together with one hand and traced\npatterns on the black-and-gold tablecloth with the index finger of the\nother, while his disengaged eye watched Mr. Bensington\'s sword of\nDamocles, so to speak, with an expression of sad detachment. \"You don\'t\nwant to run thith Farm for profit. No, Thir. Ith all the thame, Thir.\nEkthperimenth! Prethithely.\"\n\nHe said they could go to the farm at once. He was doing nothing at\nDunton Green except a little tailoring. \"It ithn\'t the thmart plathe I\nthought it wath, and what I get ithent thkarthely worth having,\" he\nsaid, \"tho that if it ith any convenienth to you for uth to come....\"\n\nAnd in a week Mr. and Mrs. Skinner were installed in the farm, and the\njobbing carpenter from Hickleybrow was diversifying the task of erecting\nruns and henhouses with a systematic discussion of Mr. Bensington.\n\n\"I haven\'t theen much of \'im yet,\" said Mr. Skinner. \"But as far as I\ncan make \'im out \'e theems to be a thtewpid o\' fool.\"\n\n\"_I_ thought \'e seemed a bit Dotty,\" said the carpenter from\nHickleybrow.\n\n\"\'E fanthieth \'imself about poultry,\" said Mr. Skinner. \"O my goodneth!\nYou\'d think nobody knew nothin\' about poultry thept \'im.\"\n\n\"\'E _looks_ like a \'en,\" said the carpenter from Hickleybrow; \"what with\nthem spectacles of \'is.\"\n\nMr. Skinner came closer to the carpenter from Hickleybrow, and spoke in\na confidential manner, and one sad eye regarded the distant village, and\none was bright and wicked. \"Got to be meathured every blethed day--every\nblethed \'en, \'e thays. Tho as to thee they grow properly. What oh ...\neh? Every blethed \'en--every blethed day.\"\n\nAnd Mr. Skinner put up his hand to laugh behind it in a refined and\ncontagious manner, and humped his shoulders very much--and only the\nother eye of him failed to participate in his laughter. Then doubting if\nthe carpenter had quite got the point of it, he repeated in a\npenetrating whisper; \"_Meathured_!\"\n\n\"\'E\'s worse than our old guvnor; I\'m dratted if \'e ain\'t,\" said the\ncarpenter from Hickleybrow.\n\n\nII.\n\nExperimental work is the most tedious thing in the world (unless it be\nthe reports of it in the _Philosophical Transactions_), and it seemed a\nlong time to Mr. Bensington before his first dream of enormous\npossibilities was replaced by a crumb of realisation. He had taken the\nExperimental Farm in October, and it was May before the first inklings\nof success began. Herakleophorbia I. and II. and III. had to be tried,\nand failed; there was trouble with the rats of the Experimental Farm,\nand there was trouble with the Skinners. The only way to get Skinner to\ndo anything he was told to do was to dismiss him. Then he would nib his\nunshaven chin--he was always unshaven most miraculously and yet never\nbearded--with a flattened hand, and look at Mr. Bensington with one eye,\nand over him with the other, and say, \"Oo, of courthe, Thir--if you\'re\n_theriouth_!\"\n\nBut at last success dawned. And its herald was a letter in the long\nslender handwriting of Mr. Skinner.\n\n\"The new Brood are out,\" wrote Mr. Skinner, \"and don\'t quite like the\nlook of them. Growing very rank--quite unlike what the similar lot was\nbefore your last directions was given. The last, before the cat got\nthem, was a very nice, stocky chick, but these are Growing like\nthistles. I never saw. They peck so hard, striking above boot top, that\nam unable to give exact Measures as requested. They are regular Giants,\nand eating as such. We shall want more com very soon, for you never saw\nsuch chicks to eat. Bigger than Bantams. Going on at this rate, they\nought to be a bird for show, rank as they are. Plymouth Rocks won\'t be\nin it. Had a scare last night thinking that cat was at them, and when I\nlooked out at the window could have sworn I see her getting in under the\nwire. The chicks was all awake and pecking about hungry when I went out,\nbut could not see anything of the cat. So gave them a peck of corn, and\nfastened up safe. Shall be glad to know if the Feeding to be continued\nas directed. Food you mixed is pretty near all gone, and do not like to\nmix any more myself on account of the accident with the pudding. With\nbest wishes from us both, and soliciting continuance of esteemed\nfavours,\n\n\"Respectfully yours,\n\n\"ALFRED NEWTON SKINNER.\"\n\n\nThe allusion towards the end referred to a milk pudding with which some\nHerakleophorbia II. had got itself mixed with painful and very nearly\nfatal results to the Skinners.\n\nBut Mr. Bensington, reading between the lines saw in this rankness of\ngrowth the attainment of his long sought goal. The next morning he\nalighted at Urshot station, and in the bag in his hand he carried,\nsealed in three tins, a supply of the Food of the Gods sufficient for\nall the chicks in Kent.\n\nIt was a bright and beautiful morning late in May, and his corns were so\nmuch better that he resolved to walk through Hickleybrow to his farm. It\nwas three miles and a half altogether, through the park and villages and\nthen along the green glades of the Hickleybrow preserves. The trees were\nall dusted with the green spangles of high spring, the hedges were full\nof stitchwort and campion and the woods of blue hyacinths and purple\norchid; and everywhere there was a great noise of birds--thrushes,\nblackbirds, robins, finches, and many more--and in one warm corner of\nthe park some bracken was unrolling, and there was a leaping and rushing\nof fallow deer.\n\nThese things brought back to Mr. Bensington his early and forgotten\ndelight in life; before him the promise of his discovery grew bright and\njoyful, and it seemed to him that indeed he must have come upon the\nhappiest day in his life. And when in the sunlit run by the sandy bank\nunder the shadow of the pine trees he saw the chicks that had eaten the\nfood he had mixed for them, gigantic and gawky, bigger already than many\na hen that is married and settled and still growing, still in their\nfirst soft yellow plumage (just faintly marked with brown along the\nback), he knew indeed that his happiest day had come.\n\nAt Mr. Skinner\'s urgency he went into the runs but after he had been\npecked through the cracks in his shoes once or twice he got out again,\nand watched these monsters through the wire netting. He peered close to\nthe netting, and followed their movements as though he had never seen a\nchick before in his life.\n\n\"Whath they\'ll be when they\'re grown up ith impothible to think,\" said\nMr. Skinner.\n\n\"Big as a horse,\" said Mr. Bensington.\n\n\"Pretty near,\" said Mr. Skinner.\n\n\"Several people could dine off a wing!\" said Mr. Bensington. \"They\'d cut\nup into joints like butcher\'s meat.\"\n\n\"They won\'t go on growing at thith pathe though,\" said Mr. Skinner.\n\n\"No?\" said Mr. Bensington.\n\n\"No,\" said Mr. Skinner. \"I know thith thort. They begin rank, but they\ndon\'t go on, bleth you! No.\"\n\nThere was a pause.\n\n\"Itth management,\" said Mr. Skinner modestly.\n\nMr. Bensington turned his glasses on him suddenly.\n\n\"We got \'em almoth ath big at the other plathe,\" said Mr. Skinner, with\nhis better eye piously uplifted and letting himself go a little; \"me and\nthe mithith.\"\n\nMr. Bensington made his usual general inspection of the premises, but he\nspeedily returned to the new run. It was, you know, in truth ever so\nmuch more than he had dared to expect. The course of science is so\ntortuous and so slow; after the clear promises and before the practical\nrealisation arrives there comes almost always year after year of\nintricate contrivance, and here--here was the Foods of the Gods arriving\nafter less than a year of testing! It seemed too good--too good. That\nHope Deferred which is the daily food of the scientific imagination was\nto be his no more! So at least it seemed to him then. He came back and\nstared at these stupendous chicks of his, time after time.\n\n\"Let me see,\" he said. \"They\'re ten days old. And by the side of an\nordinary chick I should fancy--about six or seven times as big....\"\n\n\"Itth about time we artht for a rithe in thkrew,\" said Mr. Skinner to\nhis wife. \"He\'th ath pleathed ath Punth about the way we got thothe\nchickth on in the further run--pleathed ath Punth he ith.\"\n\nHe bent confidentially towards her. \"Thinkth it\'th that old food of\nhith,\" he said behind his hands and made a noise of suppressed laughter\nin his pharyngeal cavity....\n\nMr. Bensington was indeed a happy man that day. He was in no mood to\nfind fault with details of management. The bright day certainly brought\nout the accumulating slovenliness of the Skinner couple more vividly\nthan he had ever seen it before. But his comments were of the gentlest.\nThe fencing of many of the runs was out of order, but he seemed to\nconsider it quite satisfactory when Mr. Skinner explained that it was a\n\"fokth or a dog or thomething\" did it. He pointed out that the incubator\nhad not been cleaned.\n\n\"That it _asn\'t_, Sir,\" said Mrs. Skinner with her arms folded, smiling\ncoyly behind her nose. \"We don\'t seem to have had time to clean it not\nsince we been \'ere....\"\n\nHe went upstairs to see some rat-holes that Skinner said would justify a\ntrap--they certainly were enormous--and discovered that the room in\nwhich the Food of the Gods was mixed with meal and bran was in a quite\ndisgraceful order. The Skinners were the sort of people who find a use\nfor cracked saucers and old cans and pickle jars and mustard boxes, and\nthe place was littered with these. In one corner a great pile of apples\nthat Skinner had saved was decaying, and from a nail in the sloping part\nof the ceiling hung several rabbit skins, upon which he proposed to test\nhis gift as a furrier. (\"There ithn\'t mutth about furth and thingth that\n_I_ don\'t know,\" said Skinner.)\n\nMr. Bensington certainly sniffed critically at this disorder, but he\nmade no unnecessary fuss, and even when he found a wasp regaling itself\nin a gallipot half full of Herakleophorbia IV, he simply remarked mildly\nthat his substance was better sealed from the damp than exposed to the\nair in that manner.\n\nAnd he turned from these things at once to remark--what had been for\nsome time in his mind--\"I _think_, Skinner--you know, I shall kill one\nof these chicks--as a specimen. I think we will kill it this afternoon,\nand I will take it back with me to London.\"\n\nHe pretended to peer into another gallipot and then took off his\nspectacles to wipe them.\n\n\"I should like,\" he said, \"I should like very much, to have some\nrelic--some memento--of this particular brood at this particular day.\"\n\n\"By-the-bye,\" he said, \"you don\'t give those little chicks meat?\"\n\n\"Oh! _no_, Thir,\" said Skinner, \"I can athure you, Thir, we know far too\nmuch about the management of fowlth of all dethcriptionth to do anything\nof that thort.\"\n\n\"Quite sure you don\'t throw your dinner refuse--I thought I noticed the\nbones of a rabbit scattered about the far corner of the run--\"\n\nBut when they came to look at them they found they were the larger bones\nof a cat picked very clean and dry.\n\n\nIII.\n\n\"_That\'s_ no chick,\" said Mr. Bensington\'s cousin Jane.\n\n\"Well, I should _think_ I knew a chick when I saw it,\" said Mr.\nBensington\'s cousin Jane hotly.\n\n\"It\'s too big for a chick, for one thing, and besides you can _see_\nperfectly well it isn\'t a chick.\n\n\"It\'s more like a bustard than a chick.\"\n\n\"For my part,\" said Redwood, reluctantly allowing Bensington to drag him\ninto the argument, \"I must confess that, considering all the evidence--\"\n\n\"Oh I if you do _that_,\" said Mr. Bensington\'s cousin Jane, \"instead of\nusing your eyes like a sensible person--\"\n\n\"Well, but really, Miss Bensington--!\"\n\n\"Oh! Go _on!_\" said Cousin Jane. \"You men are all alike.\"\n\n\"Considering all the evidence, this certainly falls within the\ndefinition--no doubt it\'s abnormal and hypertrophied, but\nstill--especially since it was hatched from the egg of a normal\nhen--Yes, I think, Miss Bensington, I must admit--this, so far as one\ncan call it anything, is a sort of chick.\"\n\n\"You mean it\'s a chick?\" said cousin Jane.\n\n\"I _think_ it\'s a chick,\" said Redwood.\n\n\"What NONSENSE!\" said Mr. Bensington\'s cousin Jane, and \"Oh!\" directed\nat Redwood\'s head, \"I haven\'t patience with you,\" and then suddenly she\nturned about and went out of the room with a slam.\n\n\"And it\'s a very great relief for me to see it too, Bensington,\" said\nRedwood, when the reverberation of the slam had died away. \"In spite of\nits being so big.\"\n\nWithout any urgency from Mr. Bensington he sat down in the low arm-chair\nby the fire and confessed to proceedings that even in an unscientific\nman would have been indiscreet. \"You will think it very rash of me,\nBensington, I know,\" he said, \"but the fact is I put a little--not very\nmuch of it--but some--into Baby\'s bottle, very nearly a week ago!\"\n\n\"But suppose--!\" cried Mr. Bensington.\n\n\"I know,\" said Redwood, and glanced at the giant chick upon the plate on\nthe table.\n\n\"It\'s turned out all right, thank goodness,\" and he felt in his pocket\nfor his cigarettes.\n\nHe gave fragmentary details. \"Poor little chap wasn\'t putting on\nweight... desperately anxious.--Winkles, a frightful duffer ... former\npupil of mine ... no good.... Mrs. Redwood--unmitigated confidence in\nWinkles.... _You_ know, man with a manner like a cliff--towering.... No\nconfidence in _me_, of course.... Taught Winkles.... Scarcely allowed in\nthe nursery.... Something had to be done.... Slipped in while the nurse\nwas at breakfast ... got at the bottle.\"\n\n\"But he\'ll grow,\" said Mr. Bensington.\n\n\"He\'s growing. Twenty-seven ounces last week.... You should hear\nWinkles. It\'s management, he said.\"\n\n\"Dear me! That\'s what Skinner says!\"\n\nRedwood looked at the chick again. \"The bother is to keep it up,\" he\nsaid. \"They won\'t trust me in the nursery alone, because I tried to get\na growth curve out of Georgina Phyllis--you know--and how I\'m to give\nhim a second dose--\"\n\n\"Need you?\"\n\n\"He\'s been crying two days--can\'t get on with his ordinary food again,\nanyhow. He wants some more now.\"\n\n\"Tell Winkles.\"\n\n\"Hang Winkles!\" said Redwood.\n\n\"You might get at Winkles and give him powders to give the child--\"\n\n\"That\'s about what I shall have to do,\" said Redwood, resting his chin\non his fist and staring into the fire.\n\nBensington stood for a space smoothing the down on the breast of the\ngiant chick. \"They will be monstrous fowls,\" he said.\n\n\"They will,\" said Redwood, still with his eyes on the glow.\n\n\"Big as horses,\" said Bensington.\n\n\"Bigger,\" said Redwood. \"That\'s just it!\"\n\nBensington turned away from the specimen. \"Redwood,\" he said, \"these\nfowls are going to create a sensation.\"\n\nRedwood nodded his head at the fire.\n\n\"And by Jove!\" said Bensington, coming round suddenly with a flash in\nhis spectacles, \"so will your little boy!\"\n\n\"That\'s just what I\'m thinking of,\" said Redwood.\n\nHe sat back, sighed, threw his unconsumed cigarette into the fire and\nthrust his hands deep into his trousers pockets. \"That\'s precisely what\nI\'m thinking of. This Herakleophorbia is going to be queer stuff to\nhandle. The pace that chick must have grown at--!\"\n\n\"A little boy growing at that pace,\" said Mr. Bensington slowly, and\nstared at the chick as he spoke.\n\n\"I _Say_!\" said Bensington, \"he\'ll be Big.\"\n\n\"I shall give him diminishing doses,\" said Redwood. \"Or at any rate\nWinkles will.\"\n\n\"It\'s rather too much of an experiment.\"\n\n\"Much.\"\n\n\"Yet still, you know, I must confess--... Some baby will sooner or later\nhave to try it.\"\n\n\"Oh, we\'ll try it on _some_ baby--certainly.\"\n\n\"Exactly so,\" said Bensington, and came and stood on the hearthrug and\ntook off his spectacles to wipe them.\n\n\"Until I saw these chicks, Redwood, I don\'t think I _began_ to\nrealise--anything--of the possibilities of what we were making. It\'s\nonly beginning to dawn upon me ... the possible consequences....\"\n\nAnd even then, you know, Mr. Bensington was far from any conception of\nthe mine that little train would fire.\n\n\nIV.\n\nThat happened early in June. For some weeks Bensington was kept from\nrevisiting the Experimental Farm by a severe imaginary catarrh, and one\nnecessary flying visit was made by Redwood. He returned an even more\nanxious-looking parent than he had gone. Altogether there were seven\nweeks of steady, uninterrupted growth....\n\nAnd then the Wasps began their career.\n\nIt was late in July and nearly a week before the hens escaped from\nHickleybrow that the first of the big wasps was killed. The report of it\nappeared in several papers, but I do not know whether the news reached\nMr. Bensington, much less whether he connected it with the general\nlaxity of method that prevailed in the Experimental Farm.\n\nThere can be but little doubt now, that while Mr. Skinner was plying Mr.\nBensington\'s chicks with Herakleophorbia IV, a number of wasps were just\nas industriously--perhaps more industriously--carrying quantities of the\nsame paste to their early summer broods in the sand-banks beyond the\nadjacent pine-woods. And there can be no dispute whatever that these\nearly broods found just as much growth and benefit in the substance as\nMr. Bensington\'s hens. It is in the nature of the wasp to attain to\neffective maturity before the domestic fowl--and in fact of all the\ncreatures that were--through the generous carelessness of the\nSkinners--partaking of the benefits Mr. Bensington heaped upon his hens,\nthe wasps were the first to make any sort of figure in the world.\n\nIt was a keeper named Godfrey, on the estate of Lieutenant-Colonel\nRupert Hick, near Maidstone, who encountered and had the luck\nto kill the first of these monsters of whom history has any\nrecord. He was walking knee high in bracken across an open space in the\nbeechwoods that diversify Lieutenant-Colonel Hick\'s park, and he was\ncarrying his gun--very fortunately for him a double-barrelled gun--over\nhis shoulder, when he first caught sight of the thing. It was, he says,\ncoming down against the light, so that he could not see it very\ndistinctly, and as it came it made a drone \"like a motor car.\" He admits\nhe was frightened. It was evidently as big or bigger than a barn owl,\nand, to his practised eye, its flight and particularly the misty whirl\nof its wings must have seemed weirdly unbirdlike. The instinct of\nself-defence, I fancy, mingled with long habit, when, as he says, he\n\"let fly, right away.\"\n\nThe queerness of the experience probably affected his aim; at any rate\nmost of his shot missed, and the thing merely dropped for a moment with\nan angry \"Wuzzzz\" that revealed the wasp at once, and then rose again,\nwith all its stripes shining against the light. He says it turned on\nhim. At any rate, he fired his second barrel at less than twenty yards\nand threw down his gun, ran a pace or so, and ducked to avoid it.\n\nIt flew, he is convinced, within a yard of him, struck the ground, rose\nagain, came down again perhaps thirty yards away, and rolled over with\nits body wriggling and its sting stabbing out and back in its last\nagony. He emptied both barrels into it again before he ventured to go\nnear.\n\nWhen he came to measure the thing, he found it was twenty-seven and a\nhalf inches across its open wings, and its sting was three inches long.\nThe abdomen was blown clean off from its body, but he estimated the\nlength of the creature from head to sting as eighteen inches--which is\nvery nearly correct. Its compound eyes were the size of penny pieces.\n\nThat is the first authenticated appearance of these giant wasps. The day\nafter, a cyclist riding, feet up, down the hill between Sevenoaks and\nTonbridge, very narrowly missed running over a second of these giants\nthat was crawling across the roadway. His passage seemed to alarm it,\nand it rose with a noise like a sawmill. His bicycle jumped the footpath\nin the emotion of the moment, and when he could look back, the wasp was\nsoaring away above the woods towards Westerham.\n\nAfter riding unsteadily for a little time, he put on his brake,\ndismounted--he was trembling so violently that he fell over his machine\nin doing so--and sat down by the roadside to recover. He had intended to\nride to Ashford, but he did not get beyond Tonbridge that day....\n\nAfter that, curiously enough, there is no record of any big wasps being\nseen for three days. I find on consulting the meteorological record of\nthose days that they were overcast and chilly with local showers, which\nmay perhaps account for this intermission. Then on the fourth day came\nblue sky and brilliant sunshine and such an outburst of wasps as the\nworld had surely never seen before.\n\nHow many big wasps came out that day it is impossible to guess. There\nare at least fifty accounts of their apparition. There was one victim, a\ngrocer, who discovered one of these monsters in a sugar-cask and very\nrashly attacked it with a spade as it rose. He struck it to the ground\nfor a moment, and it stung him through the boot as he struck at it\nagain and cut its body in half. He was first dead of the two....\n\nThe most dramatic of the fifty appearances was certainly that of the\nwasp that visited the British Museum about midday, dropping out of the\nblue serene upon one of the innumerable pigeons that feed in the\ncourtyard of that building, and flying up to the cornice to devour its\nvictim at leisure. After that it crawled for a time over the museum\nroof, entered the dome of the reading-room by a skylight, buzzed about\ninside it for some little time--there was a stampede among the\nreaders--and at last found another window and vanished again with a\nsudden silence from human observation.\n\nMost of the other reports were of mere passings or descents. A picnic\nparty was dispersed at Aldington Knoll and all its sweets and jam\nconsumed, and a puppy was killed and torn to pieces near Whitstable\nunder the very eyes of its mistress....\n\nThe streets that evening resounded with the cry, the newspaper placards\ngave themselves up exclusively in the biggest of letters to the\n\"Gigantic Wasps in Kent.\" Agitated editors and assistant editors ran up\nand down tortuous staircases bawling things about \"wasps.\" And Professor\nRedwood, emerging from his college in Bond Street at five, flushed from\na heated discussion with his committee about the price of bull calves,\nbought an evening paper, opened it, changed colour, forgot about bull\ncalves and committee forthwith, and took a hansom headlong for\nBensington\'s flat.\n\n\nV.\n\nThe flat was occupied, it seemed to him--to the exclusion of all other\nsensible objects--by Mr. Skinner and his voice, if indeed you can call\neither him or it a sensible object!\n\nThe voice was up very high slopping about among the notes of anguish.\n\"Itth impothible for uth to thtop, Thir. We\'ve thtopped on hoping\nthingth would get better and they\'ve only got worth, Thir. It ithn\'t\non\'y the waptheth, Thir--thereth big earwigth, Thir--big ath that,\nThir.\" (He indicated all his hand and about three inches of fat dirty\nwrist.) \"They pretty near give Mithith Thkinner fitth, Thir. And the\nthtinging nettleth by the runth, Thir, _they\'re_ growing, Thir, and the\ncanary creeper, Thir, what we thowed near the think, Thir--it put itth\ntendril through the window in the night, Thir, and very nearly caught\nMithith Thkinner by the legth, Thir. Itth that food of yourth, Thir.\nWherever we thplathed it about, Thir, a bit, it\'th thet everything\ngrowing ranker, Thir, than I ever thought anything could grow. Itth\nimpothible to thtop a month, Thir. Itth more than our liveth are worth,\nThir. Even if the waptheth don\'t thting uth, we thall be thuffocated by\nthe creeper, Thir. You can\'t imagine, Thir--unleth you come down to\nthee, Thir--\"\n\nHe turned his superior eye to the cornice above Redwood\'s head. \"\'Ow do\nwe know the ratth \'aven\'t got it, Thir! That \'th what I think of motht,\nThir. I \'aven\'t theen any big ratth, Thir, but \'ow do I know, Thir. We\nbeen frightened for dayth becauth of the earwigth we\'ve theen--like\nlobthters they wath--two of \'em, Thir--and the frightful way the canary\ncreeper wath growing, and directly I heard the waptheth--directly I\n\'eard \'em, Thir, I underthood. I didn\'t wait for nothing exthept to thow\non a button I\'d lortht, and then I came on up. Even now, Thir, I\'m arf\nwild with angthiety, Thir. \'Ow do _I_ know watth happenin\' to Mithith\nThkinner, Thir! Thereth the creeper growing all over the plathe like a\nthnake, Thir--thwelp me but you \'ave to watch it, Thir, and jump out of\nitth way!--and the earwigth gettin\' bigger and bigger, and the\nwaptheth--. She \'athen\'t even got a Blue Bag, Thir--if anything thould\nhappen, Thir!\"\n\n\"But the hens,\" said Mr. Bensington; \"how are the hens?\"\n\n\"We fed \'em up to yethterday, thwelp me,\" said Mr. Skinner, \"But thith\nmorning we didn\'t _dare_, Thir. The noithe of the waptheth\nwath--thomething awful, Thir. They wath coming ont--dothenth. Ath big\nath \'enth. I thayth, to \'er, I thayth you juth thow me on a button or\ntwo, I thayth, for I can\'t go to London like thith, I thayth, and I\'ll\ngo up to Mithter Benthington, I thayth, and ekthplain thingth to \'im.\nAnd you thtop in thith room till I come back to you, I thayth, and keep\nthe windowth thhut jutht ath tight ath ever you can, I thayth.\"\n\n\"If you hadn\'t been so confoundedly untidy--\" began Redwood.\n\n\"Oh! don\'t thay _that_, Thir,\" said Skinner. \"Not now, Thir. Not with me\ntho diththrethed, Thir, about Mithith Thkinner, Thir! Oh, _don\'t,_ Thir!\nI \'aven\'t the \'eart to argue with you. Thwelp me, Thir, I \'aven\'t! Itth\nthe ratth I keep a thinking of--\'Ow do I know they \'aven\'t got at\nMithith Thkinner while I been up \'ere?\"\n\n\"And you haven\'t got a solitary measurement of all these beautiful\ngrowth curves!\" said Redwood.\n\n\"I been too upthet, Thir,\" said Mr. Skinner. \"If you knew what we been\nthrough--me and the mithith! All thith latht month. We \'aven\'t known\nwhat to make of it, Thir. What with the henth gettin\' tho rank, and the\nearwigth, and the canary creeper. I dunno if I told you, Thir--the\ncanary creeper ...\"\n\n\"You\'ve told us all that,\" said Redwood. \"The thing is, Bensington, what\nare we to do?\"\n\n\"What are _we_ to do?\" said Mr. Skinner.\n\n\"You\'ll have to go back to Mrs. Skinner,\" said Redwood. \"You can\'t leave\nher there alone all night.\"\n\n\"Not alone, Thir, I don\'t. Not if there wath a dothen Mithith\nThkinnerth. Itth Mithter Benthington--\"\n\n\"Nonsense,\" said Redwood. \"The wasps will be all right at night. And the\nearwigs will get out of your way--\"\n\n\"But about the ratth?\"\n\n\"There aren\'t any rats,\" said Redwood.\n\n\nVI.\n\nMr. Skinner might have foregone his chief anxiety. Mrs. Skinner did not\nstop out her day.\n\nAbout eleven the canary creeper, which had been quietly active all the\nmorning, began to clamber over the window and darken it very greatly,\nand the darker it got the more and more clearly Mrs. Skinner perceived\nthat her position would speedily become untenable. And also that she had\nlived many ages since Skinner went. She peered out of the darkling\nwindow, through the stirring tendrils, for some time, and then went very\ncautiously and opened the bedroom door and listened....\n\nEverything seemed quiet, and so, tucking her skirts high about her, Mrs.\nSkinner made a bolt for the bedroom, and having first looked under the\nbed and locked herself in, proceeded with the methodical rapidity of an\nexperienced woman to pack for departure. The bed had not been made, and\nthe room was littered with pieces of the creeper that Skinner had hacked\noff in order to close the window overnight, but these disorders she did\nnot heed. She packed in a decent sheet. She packed all her own wardrobe\nand a velveteen jacket that Skinner wore in his finer moments, and she\npacked a jar of pickles that had not been opened, and so far she was\njustified in her packing. But she also packed two of the hermetically\nclosed tins containing Herakleophorbia IV. that Mr. Bensington had\nbrought on his last visit. (She was honest, good woman--but she was a\ngrandmother, and her heart had burned within her to see such good growth\nlavished on a lot of dratted chicks.)\n\nAnd having packed all these things, she put on her bonnet, took off her\napron, tied a new boot-lace round her umbrella, and after listening for\na long time at door and window, opened the door and sallied out into a\nperilous world. The umbrella was under her arm and she clutched the\nbundle with two gnarled and resolute hands. It was her best Sunday\nbonnet, and the two poppies that reared their heads amidst its\nsplendours of band and bead seemed instinct with the same tremulous\ncourage that possessed her.\n\nThe features about the roots of her nose wrinkled with determination.\nShe had had enough of it! All alone there! Skinner might come back there\nif he liked.\n\nShe went out by the front door, going that way not because she wanted to\ngo to Hickleybrow (her goal was Cheasing Eyebright, where her married\ndaughter resided), but because the back door was impassable on account\nof the canary creeper that had been growing so furiously ever since she\nupset the can of food near its roots. She listened for a space and\nclosed the front door very carefully behind her.\n\nAt the corner of the house she paused and reconnoitred....\n\nAn extensive sandy scar upon the hillside beyond the pine-woods marked\nthe nest of the giant Wasps, and this she studied very earnestly. The\ncoming and going of the morning was over, not a wasp chanced to be in\nsight then, and except for a sound scarcely more perceptible than a\nsteam wood-saw at work amidst the pines would have been, everything was\nstill. As for earwigs, she could see not one. Down among the cabbage\nindeed something was stirring, but it might just as probably be a cat\nstalking birds. She watched this for a time.\n\nShe went a few paces past the corner, came in sight of the run\ncontaining the giant chicks and stopped again. \"Ah!\" she said, and shook\nher head slowly at the sight of them. They were at that time about the\nheight of emus, but of course much thicker in the body--a larger thing\naltogether. They were all hens and five all told, now that the two\ncockerels had killed each other. She hesitated at their drooping\nattitudes. \"Poor dears!\" she said, and put down her bundle; \"they\'ve got\nno water. And they\'ve \'ad no food these twenty-four hours! And such\nappetites, too, as they \'ave!\" She put a lean finger to her lips and\ncommuned with herself.\n\nThen this dirty old woman did what seems to me a quite heroic deed of\nmercy. She left her bundle and umbrella in the middle of the brick path\nand went to the well and drew no fewer than three pailfuls of water for\nthe chickens\' empty trough, and then while they were all crowding about\nthat, she undid the door of the run very softly. After which she became\nextremely active, resumed her package, got over the hedge at the bottom\nof the garden, crossed the rank meadows (in order to avoid the wasps\'\nnest) and toiled up the winding path towards Cheasing Eyebright.\n\nShe panted up the hill, and as she went she paused ever and again, to\nrest her bundle and get her breath and stare back at the little cottage\nbeside the pine-wood below. And when at last, when she was near the crest\nof the hill, she saw afar off three several wasps dropping heavily\nwestward, it helped her greatly on her way.\n\nShe soon got out of the open and in the high banked lane beyond (which\nseemed a safer place to her), and so up by Hickleybrow Coombe to the\ndowns. There at the foot of the downs where a big tree gave an air of\nshelter she rested for a space on a stile.\n\nThen on again very resolutely....\n\nYou figure her, I hope, with her white bundle, a sort of erect black\nant, hurrying along the little white path-thread athwart the downland\nslopes under the hot sun of the summer afternoon. On she struggled after\nher resolute indefatigable nose, and the poppies in her bonnet quivered\nperpetually and her spring-side boots grew whiter and whiter with the\ndownland dust. Flip-flap, flip-flap went her footfalls through the still\nheat of the day, and persistently, incurably, her umbrella sought to\nslip from under the elbow that retained it. The mouth wrinkle under her\nnose was pursed to an extreme resolution, and ever and again she told\nher umbrella to come up or gave her tightly clutched bundle a\nvindictive jerk. And at times her lips mumbled with fragments of some\nforeseen argument between herself and Skinner.\n\nAnd far away, miles and miles away, a steeple and a hanger grew\ninsensibly out of the vague blue to mark more and more distinctly the\nquiet corner where Cheasing Eyebright sheltered from the tumult of the\nworld, recking little or nothing of the Herakleophorbia concealed in\nthat white bundle that struggled so persistently towards its orderly\nretirement.\n\n\nVII.\n\nSo far as I can gather, the pullets came into Hickleybrow about three\no\'clock in the afternoon. Their coming must have been a brisk affair,\nthough nobody was out in the street to see it. The violent bellowing of\nlittle Skelmersdale seems to have been the first announcement of\nanything out of the way. Miss Durgan of the Post Office was at the\nwindow as usual, and saw the hen that had caught the unhappy child, in\nviolent flight up the street with its victim, closely pursued by two\nothers. You know that swinging stride of the emancipated athletic\nlatter-day pullet! You know the keen insistence of the hungry hen! There\nwas Plymouth Rock in these birds, I am told, and even without\nHerakleophorbia that is a gaunt and striding strain.\n\nProbably Miss Durgan was not altogether taken by surprise. In spite of\nMr. Bensington\'s insistence upon secrecy, rumours of the great chicken\nMr. Skinner was producing had been about the village for some weeks.\n\"Lor!\" she cried, \"it\'s what I expected.\"\n\nShe seems to have behaved with great presence of mind. She snatched up\nthe sealed bag of letters that was waiting to go on to Urshot, and\nrushed out of the door at once. Almost simultaneously Mr. Skelmersdale\nhimself appeared down the village, gripping a watering-pot by the spout,\nand very white in the face. And, of course, in a moment or so every one\nin the village was rushing to the door or window.\n\nThe spectacle of Miss Durgan all across the road, with the entire day\'s\ncorrespondence of Hickleybrow in her hand, gave pause to the pullet in\npossession of Master Skelmersdale. She halted through one instant\'s\nindecision and then turned for the open gates of Fulcher\'s yard. That\ninstant was fatal. The second pullet ran in neatly, got possession of\nthe child by a well-directed peck, and went over the wall into the\nvicarage garden.\n\n\"Charawk, chawk, chawk, chawk, chawk, chawk!\" shrieked the hindmost hen,\nhit smartly by the watering-can Mr. Skelmersdale had thrown, and\nfluttered wildly over Mrs. Glue\'s cottage and so into the doctor\'s\nfield, while the rest of those Gargantuan birds pursued the pullet, in\npossession of the child across the vicarage lawn.\n\n\"Good heavens!\" cried the Curate, or (as some say) something much more\nmanly, and ran, whirling his croquet mallet and shouting, to head off\nthe chase.\n\n\"Stop, you wretch!\" cried the curate, as though giant hens were the\ncommonest facts in life.\n\nAnd then, finding he could not possibly intercept her, he hurled his\nmallet with all his might and main, and out it shot in a gracious curve\nwithin a foot or so of Master Skelmersdale\'s head and through the glass\nlantern of the conservatory. Smash! The new conservatory! The Vicar\'s\nwife\'s beautiful new conservatory!\n\nIt frightened the hen. It might have frightened any one. She dropped her\nvictim into a Portugal laurel (from which he was presently extracted,\ndisordered but, save for his less delicate garments, uninjured), made a\nflapping leap for the roof of Fulcher\'s stables, put her foot through a\nweak place in the tiles, and descended, so to speak, out of the infinite\ninto the contemplative quiet of Mr. Bumps the paralytic--who, it is now\nproved beyond all cavil, did, on this one occasion in his life, get down\nthe entire length of his garden and indoors without any assistance\nwhatever, bolt the door after him, and immediately relapse again into\nChristian resignation and helpless dependence upon his wife....\n\nThe rest of the pullets were headed off by the other croquet players,\nand went through the vicar\'s kitchen garden into the doctor\'s field, to\nwhich rendezvous the fifth also came at last, clucking disconsolately\nafter an unsuccessful attempt to walk on the cucumber frames in Mr.\nWitherspoon\'s place.\n\nThey seem to have stood about in a hen-like manner for a time, and\nscratched a little and chirrawked meditatively, and then one pecked at\nand pecked over a hive of the doctor\'s bees, and after that they set off\nin a gawky, jerky, feathery, fitful sort of way across the fields\ntowards Urshot, and Hickleybrow Street saw them no more. Near Urshot\nthey really came upon commensurate food in a field of swedes; and pecked\nfor a space with gusto, until their fame overtook them.\n\nThe chief immediate reaction of this astonishing irruption of gigantic\npoultry upon the human mind was to arouse an extraordinary passion to\nwhoop and run and throw things, and in quite a little time almost all\nthe available manhood of Hickleybrows and several ladies, were out with\na remarkable assortment of flappish and whangable articles in hand--to\ncommence the scooting of the giant hens. They drove them into Urshot,\nwhere there was a Rural Fete, and Urshot took them as the crowning glory\nof a happy day. They began to be shot at near Findon Beeches, but at\nfirst only with a rook rifle. Of course birds of that size could absorb\nan unlimited quantity of small shot without inconvenience. They\nscattered somewhere near Sevenoaks, and near Tonbridge one of them fled\nclucking for a time in excessive agitation, somewhat ahead of and\nparallel with the afternoon boat express--to the great astonishment of\nevery one therein.\n\nAnd about half-past five two of them were caught very cleverly by a\ncircus proprietor at Tunbridge Wells, who lured them into a cage,\nrendered vacant through the death of a widowed dromedary, by scattering\ncakes and bread....\n\n\nVIII.\n\nWhen the unfortunate Skinner got out of the South-Eastern train at\nUrshot that evening it was already nearly dusk. The train was late, but\nnot inordinately late--and Mr. Skinner remarked as much to the\nstation-master. Perhaps he saw a certain pregnancy in the\nstation-master\'s eye. After the briefest hesitation and with a\nconfidential movement of his hand to the side of his mouth he asked if\n\"anything\" had happened that day.\n\n\"How d\'yer _mean_?\" said the station-master, a man with a hard, emphatic\nvoice.\n\n\"Thethe \'ere waptheth and thingth.\"\n\n\"We \'aven\'t \'ad much time to think of _waptheth_,\" said the\nstation-master agreeably. \"We\'ve been too busy with your brasted \'ens,\"\nand he broke the news of the pullets to Mr. Skinner as one might break\nthe window of an adverse politician.\n\n\"You ain\'t \'eard anything of Mithith Thkinner?\" asked Skinner, amidst\nthat missile shower of pithy information and comment.\n\n\"No fear!\" said the station-master--as though even he drew the line\nsomewhere in the matter of knowledge.\n\n\"I mutht make inquireth bout thith,\" said Mr. Skinner, edging out of\nreach of the station-master\'s concluding generalisations about the\nresponsibility attaching to the excessive nurture of hens....\n\nGoing through Urshot Mr. Skinner was hailed by a lime-burner from the\npits over by Hankey and asked if he was looking for his hens.\n\n\"You ain\'t \'eard anything of Mithith Thkinner?\" he asked.\n\nThe lime-burner--his exact phrases need not concern us--expressed his\nsuperior interest in hens....\n\nIt was already dark--as dark at least as a clear night in the English\nJune can be--when Skinner--or his head at any rate--came into the bar of\nthe Jolly Drovers and said: \"Ello! You \'aven\'t \'eard anything of thith\n\'ere thtory bout my \'enth, \'ave you?\"\n\n\"Oh, _\'aven\'t_ we!\" said Mr. Fulcher. \"Why, part of the story\'s been and\nbust into my stable roof and one chapter smashed a \'ole in Missis\nVicar\'s green \'ouse--I beg \'er pardon--Conservarratory.\"\n\nSkinner came in. \"I\'d like thomething a little comforting,\" he said,\n\"\'ot gin and water\'th about my figure,\" and everybody began to tell him\nthings about the pullets.\n\n\"_Grathuth_ me!\" said Skinner.\n\n\"You \'aven\'t \'eard anything about Mithith Thkinner, \'ave you?\" he asked\nin a pause.\n\n\"That we \'aven\'t!\" said Mr. Witherspoon. \"We \'aven\'t thought of \'er. We\nain\'t thought nothing of either of you.\"\n\n\"Ain\'t you been \'ome to-day?\" asked Fulcher over a tankard.\n\n\"If one of those brasted birds \'ave pecked \'er,\" began Mr. Witherspoons\nand left the full horror to their unaided imaginations....\n\nIt appeared to the meeting at the time that it would be an interesting\nend to an eventful day to go on with Skinner and see if anything _had_\nhappened to Mrs. Skinner. One never knows what luck one may have when\naccidents are at large. But Skinner, standing at the bar and drinking\nhis hot gin and water, with one eye roving over the things at the back\nof the bar and the other fixed on the Absolute, missed the psychological\nmoment.\n\n\"I thuppothe there \'athen\'t been any trouble with any of thethe big\nwaptheth to-day anywhere?\" he asked, with an elaborate detachment of\nmanner.\n\n\"Been too busy with your \'ens,\" said Fulcher.\n\n\"I thuppothe they\'ve all gone in now anyhow,\" said Skinner.\n\n\"What--the \'ens?\"\n\n\"I wath thinking of the waptheth more particularly,\" said Skinner.\n\nAnd then, with, an air of circumspection that would have awakened\nsuspicion in a week-old baby, and laying the accent heavily on most of\nthe words he chose, he asked, \"I _thuppothe nobody_ \'athn\'t \'_eard_ of\nany other _big_ thingth, about, \'ave they? Big _dogth_ or _catth_ or\nanything of _that_ thort? Theemth to me if thereth big henth and big\nwaptheth comin\' on--\"\n\nHe laughed with a fine pretence of talking idly.\n\nBut a brooding expression came upon the faces of the Hickleybrow men.\nFulcher was the first to give their condensing thought the concrete\nshape of words.\n\n\"A cat to match them \'ens--\" said Fulcher.\n\n\"Ay!\" said Witherspoon, \"a cat to match they \'ens.\"\n\n\"\'Twould be a tiger,\" said Fulcher.\n\n\"More\'n a tiger,\" said Witherspoon....\n\nWhen at last Skinner followed the lonely footpath over the swelling\nfield that separated Hickleybrow from the sombre pine-shaded hollow in\nwhose black shadows the gigantic canary-creeper grappled silently with\nthe Experimental Farm, he followed it alone.\n\nHe was distinctly seen to rise against the sky-line, against the warm\nclear immensity of the northern sky--for so far public interest followed\nhim--and to descend again into the night, into an obscurity from which\nit would seem he will nevermore emerge. He passed--into a mystery. No\none knows to this day what happened to him after he crossed the brow.\nWhen later on the two Fulchers and Witherspoon, moved by their own\nimaginations, came up the hill and stared after him, the flight had\nswallowed him up altogether.\n\nThe three men stood close. There was not a sound out of the wooded\nblackness that hid the Farm from their eyes.\n\n\"It\'s all right,\" said young Fulcher, ending a silence.\n\n\"Don\'t see any lights,\" said Witherspoon.\n\n\"You wouldn\'t from here.\"\n\n\"It\'s misty,\" said the elder Fulcher.\n\nThey meditated for a space.\n\n\"\'E\'d \'ave come back if anything was wrong,\" said young Fulcher, and\nthis seemed so obvious and conclusive that presently old Fulcher said,\n\"Well,\" and the three went home to bed--thoughtfully I will admit....\n\nA shepherd out by Huckster\'s Farm heard a squealing in the night that he\nthought was foxes, and in the morning one of his lambs had been killed,\ndragged halfway towards Hickleybrow and partially devoured....\n\nThe inexplicable part of it all is the absence of any indisputable\nremains of Skinner!\n\nMany weeks after, amidst the charred ruins of the Experimental Farm,\nthere was found something which may or may not have been a human\nshoulder-blade and in another part of the ruins a long bone greatly\ngnawed and equally doubtful. Near the stile going up towards Eyebright\nthere was found a glass eye, and many people discovered thereupon that\nSkinner owed much of his personal charm to such a possession. It stared\nout upon the world with that same inevitable effect of detachment, that\nsame severe melancholy that had been the redemption of his else worldly\ncountenance.\n\nAnd about the ruins industrious research discovered the metal rings and\ncharred coverings of two linen buttons, three shanked buttons entire,\nand one of that metallic sort which is used in the less conspicuous\nsutures of the human Oeconomy. These remains have been accepted by\npersons in authority as conclusive of a destroyed and scattered Skinner,\nbut for my own entire conviction, and in view of his distinctive\nidiosyncrasy, I must confess I should prefer fewer buttons and more\nbones.\n\nThe glass eye of course has an air of extreme conviction, but if it\nreally _is_ Skinner\'s--and even Mrs. Skinner did not certainly know if\nthat immobile eye of his was glass--something has changed it from a\nliquid brown to a serene and confident blue. That shoulder-blade is an\nextremely doubtful document, and I would like to put it side by side\nwith the gnawed scapulae of a few of the commoner domestic animals\nbefore I admitted its humanity.\n\nAnd where were Skinner\'s boots, for example? Perverted and strange as a\nrat\'s appetite must be, is it conceivable that the same creatures that\ncould leave a lamb only half eaten, would finish up Skinner--hair,\nbones, teeth, and boots?\n\nI have closely questioned as many as I could of those who knew Skinner\nat all intimately, and they one and all agree that they cannot imagine\n_anything_ eating him. He was the sort of man, as a retired seafaring\nperson living in one of Mr. W.W. Jacobs\' cottages at Dunton Green told\nme, with a guarded significance of manner not uncommon in those parts,\nwho would \"get washed up anyhow,\" and as regards _the_ devouring element\nwas \"fit to put a fire out.\" He considered that Skinner would be as safe\non a raft as anywhere. The retired seafaring man added that he wished to\nsay nothing whatever against Skinner; facts were facts. And rather than\nhave his clothes made by Skinner, the retired seafaring man remarked he\nwould take his chance of being locked up. These observations certainly\ndo not present Skinner in the light of an appetising object.\n\nTo be perfectly frank with the reader, I do not believe he ever went\nback to the Experimental Farm. I believe he hovered through long\nhesitations about the fields of the Hickleybrow glebe, and finally,\nwhen that squealing began, took the line of least resistance out of his\nperplexities into the Incognito.\n\nAnd in the Incognito, whether of this or of some other world unknown to\nus, he obstinately and quite indisputably has remained to this day....\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE THIRD.\n\nTHE GIANT RATS.\n\n\nI.\n\nIt was two nights after the disappearance of Mr. Skinner that the\nPodbourne doctor was out late near Hankey, driving in his buggy. He had\nbeen up all night assisting another undistinguished citizen into this\ncurious world of ours, and his task accomplished, he was driving\nhomeward in a drowsy mood enough. It was about two o\'clock in the\nmorning, and the waning moon was rising. The summer night had gone cold,\nand there was a low-lying whitish mist that made things indistinct. He\nwas quite alone--for his coachman was ill in bed--and there was nothing\nto be seen on either hand but a drifting mystery of hedge running\nathwart the yellow glare of his lamps, and nothing to hear but the\nclitter-clatter of his horses and the gride and hedge echo of his\nwheels. His horse was as trustworthy as himself, and one does not wonder\nthat he dozed....\n\nYou know that intermittent drowsing as one sits, the drooping of the\nhead, the nodding to the rhythm of the wheels then chin upon the breast,\nand at once the sudden start up again.\n\n_Pitter, litter, patter_.\n\n\"What was that?\"\n\nIt seemed to the doctor he had heard a thin shrill squeal close at hand.\nFor a moment he was quite awake. He said a word or two of undeserved\nrebuke to his horse, and looked about him. He tried to persuade himself\nthat he had heard the distant squeal of a fox--or perhaps a young rabbit\ngripped by a ferret.\n\n_Swish, swish, swish, pitter, patter, swish_--...\n\nWhat was that?\n\nHe felt he was getting fanciful. He shook his shoulders and told his\nhorse to get on. He listened, and heard nothing.\n\nOr was it nothing?\n\nHe had the queerest impression that something had just peeped over the\nhedge at him, a queer big head. With round ears! He peered hard, but he\ncould see nothing.\n\n\"Nonsense,\" said he.\n\nHe sat up with an idea that he had dropped into a nightmare, gave his\nhorse the slightest touch of the whip, spoke to it and peered again over\nthe hedge. The glare of his lamp, however, together with the mist,\nrendered things indistinct, and he could distinguish nothing. It came\ninto his head, he says, that there could be nothing there, because if\nthere was his horse would have shied at it. Yet for all that his senses\nremained nervously awake.\n\nThen he heard quite distinctly a soft pattering of feet in pursuit along\nthe road.\n\nHe would not believe his ears about that. He could not look round, for\nthe road had a sinuous curve just there. He whipped up his horse and\nglanced sideways again. And then he saw quite distinctly where a ray\nfrom his lamp leapt a low stretch of hedge, the curved back of--some\nbig animal, he couldn\'t tell what, going along in quick convulsive\nleaps.\n\nHe says he thought of the old tales of witchcraft--the thing was so\nutterly unlike any animal he knew, and he tightened his hold on the\nreins for fear of the fear of his horse. Educated man as he was, he\nadmits he asked himself if this could be something that his horse could\nnot see.\n\nAhead, and drawing near in silhouette against the rising moon, was the\noutline of the little hamlet of Hankey, comforting, though it showed\nnever a light, and he cracked his whip and spoke again, and then in a\nflash the rats were at him!\n\nHe had passed a gate, and as he did so, the foremost rat came leaping\nover into the road. The thing sprang upon him out of vagueness into the\nutmost clearness, the sharp, eager, round-eared face, the long body\nexaggerated by its movement; and what particularly struck him, the pink,\nwebbed forefeet of the beast. What must have made it more horrible to\nhim at the time was, that he had no idea the thing was any created beast\nhe knew. He did not recognise it as a rat, because of the size. His\nhorse gave a bound as the thing dropped into the road beside it. The\nlittle lane woke into tumult at the report of the whip and the doctor\'s\nshout. The whole thing suddenly went fast.\n\n_Rattle-clatter, clash, clatter_.\n\nThe doctor, one gathers, stood up, shouted to his horse, and slashed\nwith all his strength. The rat winced and swerved most reassuringly at\nhis blow--in the glare of his lamp he could see the fur furrow under the\nlash--and he slashed again and again, heedless and unaware of the second\npursuer that gained upon his off side.\n\nHe let the reins go, and glanced back to discover the third rat in\npursuit behind....\n\nHis horse bounded forward. The buggy leapt high at a rut. For a frantic\nminute perhaps everything seemed to be going in leaps and bounds....\n\nIt was sheer good luck the horse came down in Hankey, and not either\nbefore or after the houses had been passed.\n\nNo one knows how the horse came down, whether it stumbled or whether the\nrat on the off side really got home with one of those slashing down\nstrokes of the teeth (given with the full weight of the body); and the\ndoctor never discovered that he himself was bitten until he was inside\nthe brickmaker\'s house, much less did he discover when the bite\noccurred, though bitten he was and badly--a long slash like the slash of\na double tomahawk that had cut two parallel ribbons of flesh from his\nleft shoulder.\n\nHe was standing up in his buggy at one moment, and in the next he had\nleapt to the ground, with his ankle, though he did not know it, badly\nsprained, and he was cutting furiously at a third rat that was flying\ndirectly at him. He scarcely remembers the leap he must have made over\nthe top of the wheel as the buggy came over, so obliteratingly hot and\nswift did his impressions rush upon him. I think myself the horse reared\nup with the rat biting again at its throat, and fell sideways, and\ncarried the whole affair over; and that the doctor sprang, as it were,\ninstinctively. As the buggy came down, the receiver of the lamp smashed,\nand suddenly poured a flare of blazing oil, a thud of white flame, into\nthe struggle.\n\nThat was the first thing the brickmaker saw.\n\nHe had heard the clatter of the doctor\'s approach and--though the\ndoctor\'s memory has nothing of this--wild shouting. He had got out of\nbed hastily, and as he did so came the terrific smash, and up shot the\nglare outside the rising blind. \"It was brighter than day,\" he says. He\nstood, blind cord in hand, and stared out of the window at a nightmare\ntransformation of the familiar road before him. The black figure of the\ndoctor with its whirling whip danced out against the flame. The horse\nkicked indistinctly, half hidden by the blaze, with a rat at its throat.\nIn the obscurity against the churchyard wall, the eyes of a second\nmonster shone wickedly. Another--a mere dreadful blackness with red-lit\neyes and flesh-coloured hands--clutched unsteadily on the wall coping to\nwhich it had leapt at the flash of the exploding lamp.\n\nYou know the keen face of a rat, those two sharp teeth, those pitiless\neyes. Seen magnified to near six times its linear dimensions, and still\nmore magnified by darkness and amazement and the leaping fancies of a\nfitful blaze, it must have been an ill sight for the brickmaker--still\nmore than half asleep.\n\nThen the doctor had grasped the opportunity, that momentary respite the\nflare afforded, and was out of the brickmaker\'s sight below battering\nthe door with the butt of his whip....\n\nThe brickmaker would not let him in until he had got a light.\n\nThere are those who have blamed the man for that, but until I know my\nown courage better, I hesitate to join their number.\n\nThe doctor yelled and hammered....\n\nThe brickmaker says he was weeping with terror when at last the door was\nopened.\n\n\"Bolt,\" said the doctor, \"bolt\"--he could not say \"bolt the door.\" He\ntried to help, and was of no service. The brickmaker fastened the door,\nand the doctor had to sit on the chair beside the clock for a space\nbefore he could go upstairs....\n\n\"I don\'t know what they _are_!\" he repeated several times. \"I don\'t know\nwhat they _are_\"--with a high note on the \"are.\"\n\nThe brickmaker would have got him whisky, but the doctor would not be\nleft alone with nothing but a flickering light just then.\n\nIt was long before the brickmaker could get him to go upstairs....\n\nAnd when the fire was out the giant rats came back, took the dead horse,\ndragged it across the churchyard into the brickfield and ate at it until\nit was dawn, none even then daring to disturb them....\n\n\nII.\n\nRedwood went round, to Bensington about eleven the next morning with the\n\"second editions\" of three evening papers in his hand.\n\nBensington looked up from a despondent meditation over the forgotten\npages of the most distracting novel the Brompton Road librarian had been\nable to find him. \"Anything fresh?\" he asked.\n\n\"Two men stung near Chartham.\"\n\n\"They ought to let us smoke out that nest. They really did. It\'s their\nown fault.\"\n\n\"It\'s their own fault, certainly,\" said Redwood.\n\n\"Have you heard anything--about buying the farm?\"\n\n\"The House Agent,\" said Redwood, \"is a thing with a big mouth and made\nof dense wood. It pretends someone else is after the house--it always\ndoes, you know--and won\'t understand there\'s a hurry. \'This is a matter\nof life and death,\' I said, \'don\'t you understand?\' It drooped its eyes\nhalf shut and said, \'Then why don\'t you go the other two hundred\npounds?\' I\'d rather live in a world of solid wasps than give in to the\nstonewalling stupidity of that offensive creature. I--\"\n\nHe paused, feeling that a sentence like that might very easily be\nspoiled by its context.\n\n\"It\'s too much to hope,\" said Bensington, \"that one of the wasps--\"\n\n\"The wasp has no more idea of public utility than a--than a House\nAgent,\" said Redwood.\n\nHe talked for a little while about house agents and solicitors and\npeople of that sort, in the unjust, unreasonable way that so many people\ndo somehow get to talk of these business calculi (\"Of all the cranky\nthings in this cranky world, it is the most cranky to my mind of all,\nthat while we expect honour, courage, efficiency, from a doctor or a\nsoldier as a matter of course, a solicitor or a house agent is not only\npermitted but expected to display nothing but a sort of greedy, greasy,\nobstructive, over-reaching imbecility--\" etc.)--and then, greatly\nrelieved, he went to the window and stared out at the Sloane Street\ntraffic.\n\nBensington had put the most exciting novel conceivable on the little\ntable that carried his electric standard. He joined the fingers of his\nopposed hands very carefully and regarded them. \"Redwood,\" he said. \"Do\nthey say much about _Us_?\"\n\n\"Not so much as I should expect.\"\n\n\"They don\'t denounce us at all?\"\n\n\"Not a bit. But, on the other hand, they don\'t back up what I point out\nmust be done. I\'ve written to the _Times_, you know, explaining the\nwhole thing--\"\n\n\"We take the _Daily Chronicle_,\" said Bensington.\n\n\"And the _Times_ has a long leader on the subject--a very high-class,\nwell-written leader, with three pieces of _Times_ Latin--_status quo_ is\none--and it reads like the voice of Somebody Impersonal of the Greatest\nImportance suffering from Influenza Headache and talking through sheets\nand sheets of felt without getting any relief from it whatever. Reading\nbetween the lines, you know, it\'s pretty clear that the _Times_\nconsiders that it is useless to mince matters, and that something\n(indefinite of course) has to be done at once. Otherwise still more\nundesirable consequences--_Times_ English, you know, for more wasps and\nstings. Thoroughly statesmanlike article!\"\n\n\"And meanwhile this Bigness is spreading in all sorts of ugly ways.\"\n\n\"Precisely.\"\n\n\"I wonder if Skinner was right about those big rats--\"\n\n\"Oh no! That would be too much,\" said Redwood.\n\nHe came and stood by Bensington\'s chair.\n\n\"By-the-bye,\" he said, with a slightly lowered voice, \"how does\n_she_--?\"\n\nHe indicated the closed door.\n\n\"Cousin Jane? She simply knows nothing about it. Doesn\'t connect us with\nit and won\'t read the articles. \'Gigantic wasps!\' she says, \'I haven\'t\npatience to read the papers.\'\"\n\n\"That\'s very fortunate,\" said Redwood.\n\n\"I suppose--Mrs. Redwood--?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Redwood, \"just at present it happens--she\'s terribly worried\nabout the child. You know, he keeps on.\"\n\n\"Growing?\"\n\n\"Yes. Put on forty-one ounces in ten days. Weighs nearly four stone. And\nonly six months old! Naturally rather alarming.\"\n\n\"Healthy?\"\n\n\"Vigorous. His nurse is leaving because he kicks so forcibly. And\neverything, of course, shockingly outgrown. Everything, you know, has\nhad to be made fresh, clothes and everything. Perambulator--light\naffair--broke one wheel, and the youngster had to be brought home on the\nmilkman\'s hand-truck. Yes. Quite a crowd.... And we\'ve put Georgina\nPhyllis back into his cot and put him into the bed of Georgina Phyllis.\nHis mother--naturally alarmed. Proud at first and inclined to praise\nWinkles. Not now. Feels the thing _can\'t_ be wholesome. _You_ know.\"\n\n\"I imagined you were going to put him on diminishing doses.\"\n\n\"I tried it.\"\n\n\"Didn\'t it work?\"\n\n\"Howls. In the ordinary way the cry of a child is loud and distressing;\nit is for the good of the species that this should be so--but since he\nhas been on the Herakleophorbia treatment---\"\n\n\"Mm,\" said Bensington, regarding his fingers with more resignation than\nhe had hitherto displayed.\n\n\"Practically the thing _must_ come out. People will hear of this child,\nconnect it up with our hens and things, and the whole thing will come\nround to my wife.... How she will take it I haven\'t the remotest idea.\"\n\n\"It _is_ difficult,\" said Mr. Bensington, \"to form any plan--certainly.\"\n\nHe removed his glasses and wiped them carefully.\n\n\"It is another instance,\" he generalised, \"of the thing that is\ncontinually happening. We--if indeed I may presume to the\nadjective--_scientific_ men--we work of course always for a theoretical\nresult--a purely theoretical result. But, incidentally, we do set forces\nin operation--_new_ forces. We mustn\'t control them--and nobody else\n_can_. Practically, Redwood, the thing is out of our hands. _We_ supply\nthe material--\"\n\n\"And they,\" said Redwood, turning to the window, \"get the experience.\"\n\n\"So far as this trouble down in Kent goes I am not disposed to worry\nfurther.\"\n\n\"Unless they worry us.\"\n\n\"Exactly. And if they like to muddle about with solicitors and\npettifoggers and legal obstructions and weighty considerations of the\ntomfool order, until they have got a number of new gigantic species of\nvermin well established--Things always _have_ been in a muddle,\nRedwood.\"\n\nRedwood traced a twisted, tangled line in the air.\n\n\"And our real interest lies at present with your boy.\"\n\nRedwood turned about and came and stared at his collaborator.\n\n\"What do you think of him, Bensington? You can look at this business\nwith a greater detachment than I can. What am I to do about him?\"\n\n\"Go on feeding him.\"\n\n\"On Herakleophorbia?\"\n\n\"On Herakleophorbia.\"\n\n\"And then he\'ll grow.\"\n\n\"He\'ll grow, as far as I can calculate from the hens and the wasps, to\nthe height of about five-and-thirty feet--with everything in\nproportion---\"\n\n\"And then what\'ll he do?\"\n\n\"That,\" said Mr. Bensington, \"is just what makes the whole thing so\ninteresting.\"\n\n\"Confound it, man! Think of his clothes.\"\n\n\"And when he\'s grown up,\" said Redwood, \"he\'ll only be one solitary\nGulliver in a pigmy world.\"\n\nMr. Bensington\'s eye over his gold rim was pregnant.\n\n\"Why solitary?\" he said, and repeated still more darkly, \"_Why_\nsolitary?\"\n\n\"But you don\'t propose---?\"\n\n\"I said,\" said Mr. Bensington, with the self-complacency of a man who\nhas produced a good significant saying, \"Why solitary?\"\n\n\"Meaning that one might bring up other children---?\"\n\n\"Meaning nothing beyond my inquiry.\"\n\nRedwood began to walk about the room. \"Of course,\" he said, \"one\nmight--But still! What are we coming to?\"\n\nBensington evidently enjoyed his line of high intellectual detachment.\n\"The thing that interests me most, Redwood, of all this, is to think\nthat his brain at the top of him will also, so far as my reasoning goes,\nbe five-and-thirty feet or so above our level.... What\'s the matter?\"\n\nRedwood stood at the window and stared at a news placard on a paper-cart\nthat rattled up the street.\n\n\"What\'s the matter?\" repeated Bensington, rising.\n\nRedwood exclaimed violently.\n\n\"What is it?\" said Bensington.\n\n\"Get a paper,\" said Redwood, moving doorward.\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Get a paper. Something--I didn\'t quite catch--Gigantic rats--!\"\n\n\"Rats?\"\n\n\"Yes, rats. Skinner was right after all!\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"How the Deuce am _I_ to know till I see a paper? Great Rats! Good Lord!\nI wonder if he\'s eaten!\"\n\nHe glanced for his hat, and decided to go hatless.\n\nAs he rushed downstairs two steps at a time, he could hear along the\nstreet the mighty howlings, to and fro of the Hooligan paper-sellers\nmaking a Boom.\n\n\"\'Orrible affair in Kent--\'orrible affair in Kent. Doctor ... eaten by\nrats. \'Orrible affair--\'orrible affair--rats--eaten by Stchewpendous\nrats. Full perticulars--\'orrible affair.\"\n\n\nIII.\n\nCossar, the well-known civil engineer, found them in the great doorway\nof the flat mansions, Redwood holding out the damp pink paper, and\nBensington on tiptoe reading over his arm. Cossar was a large-bodied man\nwith gaunt inelegant limbs casually placed at convenient corners of his\nbody, and a face like a carving abandoned at an early stage as\naltogether too unpromising for completion. His nose had been left\nsquare, and his lower jaw projected beyond his upper. He breathed\naudibly. Few people considered him handsome. His hair was entirely\ntangential, and his voice, which he used sparingly, was pitched high,\nand had commonly a quality of bitter protest. He wore a grey cloth\njacket suit and a silk hat on all occasions. He plumbed an abysmal\ntrouser pocket with a vast red hand, paid his cabman, and came panting\nresolutely up the steps, a copy of the pink paper clutched about the\nmiddle, like Jove\'s thunderbolt, in his hand.\n\n\"Skinner?\" Bensington was saying, regardless of his approach.\n\n\"Nothing about him,\" said Redwood. \"Bound to be eaten. Both of them.\nIt\'s too terrible.... Hullo! Cossar!\"\n\n\"This your stuff?\" asked Cossar, waving the paper.\n\n\"Well, why don\'t you stop it?\" he demanded.\n\n\"_Can\'t_ be jiggered!\" said Cossar.\n\n\"_Buy the place_?\" he cried. \"What nonsense! Burn it! I knew you chaps\nwould fumble this. _What are you to do_? Why--what I tell you.\n\n\"_You_? Do? Why! Go up the street to the gunsmith\'s, of course. _Why_?\nFor guns. Yes--there\'s only one shop. Get eight guns! Rifles. Not\nelephant guns--no! Too big. Not army rifles--too small. Say it\'s to\nkill--kill a bull. Say it\'s to shoot buffalo! See? Eh? Rats? No! How the\ndeuce are they to understand that? Because we _want_ eight. Get a lot of\nammunition. Don\'t get guns without ammunition--No! Take the lot in a cab\nto--where\'s the place? _Urshot_? Charing Cross, then. There\'s a\ntrain---Well, the first train that starts after two. Think you can do\nit? All right. License? Get eight at a post-office, of course. Gun\nlicenses, you know. Not game. Why? It\'s rats, man.\n\n\"You--Bensington. Got a telephone? Yes. I\'ll ring up five of my chaps\nfrom Ealing. _Why_ five? Because it\'s the right number!\n\n\"Where you going, Redwood? Get a hat! _Nonsense_. Have mine. You want\nguns, man--not hats. Got money? Enough? All right. So long.\n\n\"Where\'s the telephone, Bensington?\"\n\nBensington wheeled about obediently and led the way.\n\nCossar used and replaced the instrument. \"Then there\'s the wasps,\" he\nsaid. \"Sulphur and nitre\'ll do that. Obviously. Plaster of Paris. You\'re\na chemist. Where can I get sulphur by the ton in portable sacks? _What_\nfor? Why, Lord _bless_ my heart and soul!--to smoke out the nest, of\ncourse! I suppose it must be sulphur, eh? You\'re a chemist. Sulphur\nbest, eh?\"\n\n\"Yes, I should _think_ sulphur.\"\n\n\"Nothing better?\"\n\n\"Right. That\'s your job. That\'s all right. Get as much sulphur as you\ncan--saltpetre to make it burn. Sent? Charing Cross. Right away. See\nthey do it. Follow it up. Anything?\"\n\nHe thought a moment.\n\n\"Plaster of Paris--any sort of plaster--bung up nest--holes--you know.\nThat _I\'d_ better get.\"\n\n\"How much?\"\n\n\"How much what?\"\n\n\"Sulphur.\"\n\n\"Ton. See?\"\n\nBensington tightened his glasses with a hand tremulous with\ndetermination. \"Right,\" he said, very curtly.\n\n\"Money in your pocket?\" asked Cossar.\n\n\"Hang cheques. They may not know you. Pay cash. Obviously. Where\'s your\nbank? All right. Stop on the way and get forty pounds--notes and gold.\"\n\nAnother meditation. \"If we leave this job for public officials we shall\nhave all Kent in tatters,\" said Cossar. \"Now is there--anything? _No!\nHI_!\"\n\nHe stretched a vast hand towards a cab that became convulsively eager to\nserve him (\"Cab, Sir?\" said the cabman. \"Obviously,\" said Cossar); and\nBensington, still hatless, paddled down the steps and prepared to mount.\n\n\"I _think_,\" he said, with his hand on the cab apron, and a sudden\nglance up at the windows of his flat, \"I _ought_ to tell my cousin\nJane--\"\n\n\"More time to tell her when you come back,\" said Cossar, thrusting him\nin with a vast hand expanded over his back....\n\n\"Clever chaps,\" remarked Cossar, \"but no initiative whatever. Cousin\nJane indeed! I know her. Rot, these Cousin Janes! Country infested with\n\'em. I suppose I shall have to spend the whole blessed night, seeing\nthey do what they know perfectly well they ought to do all along. I\nwonder if it\'s Research makes \'em like that or Cousin Jane or what?\"\n\nHe dismissed this obscure problem, meditated for a space upon his watch,\nand decided there would be just time to drop into a restaurant and get\nsome lunch before he hunted up the plaster of Paris and took it to\nCharing Cross.\n\nThe train started at five minutes past three, and he arrived at Charing\nCross at a quarter to three, to find Bensington in heated argument\nbetween two policemen and his van-driver outside, and Redwood in the\nluggage office involved in some technical obscurity about this\nammunition. Everybody was pretending not to know anything or to have any\nauthority, in the way dear to South-Eastern officials when they catch\nyou in a hurry.\n\n\"Pity they can\'t shoot all these officials and get a new lot,\" remarked\nCossar with a sigh. But the time was too limited for anything\nfundamental, and so he swept through these minor controversies,\ndisinterred what may or may not have been the station-master from some\nobscure hiding-place, walked about the premises holding him and giving\norders in his name, and was out of the station with everybody and\neverything aboard before that official was fully awake to the breaches\nin the most sacred routines and regulations that were being committed.\n\n\"Who _was_ he?\" said the high official, caressing the arm Cossar had\ngripped, and smiling with knit brows.\n\n\"\'E was a gentleman, Sir,\" said a porter, \"anyhow. \'Im and all \'is party\ntravelled first class.\"\n\n\"Well, we got him and his stuff off pretty sharp--whoever he was,\" said\nthe high official, rubbing his arm with something approaching\nsatisfaction.\n\nAnd as he walked slowly back, blinking in the unaccustomed daylight,\ntowards that dignified retirement in which the higher officials at\nCharing Cross shelter from the importunity of the vulgar, he smiled\nstill at his unaccustomed energy. It was a very gratifying revelation of\nhis own possibilities, in spite of the stiffness of his arm. He wished\nsome of those confounded arm-chair critics of railway management could\nhave seen it.\n\n\nIV.\n\nBy five o\'clock that evening this amazing Cossar, with no appearance of\nhurry at all, had got all the stuff for his fight with insurgent Bigness\nout of Urshot and on the road to Hickleybrow. Two barrels of paraffin\nand a load of dry brushwood he had bought in Urshot; plentiful sacks of\nsulphur, eight big game guns and ammunition, three light breechloaders,\nwith small-shot ammunition for the wasps, a hatchet, two billhooks, a\npick and three spades, two coils of rope, some bottled beer, soda and\nwhisky, one gross of packets of rat poison, and cold provisions for\nthree days, had come down from London. All these things he had sent on\nin a coal trolley and a hay waggon in the most business-like way, except\nthe guns and ammunition, which were stuck under the seat of the Red Lion\nwaggonette appointed to bring on Redwood and the five picked men who had\ncome up from Ealing at Cossar\'s summons.\n\nCossar conducted all these transactions with an invincible air of\ncommonplace, in spite of the fact that Urshot was in a panic about the\nrats, and all the drivers had to be specially paid. All the shops were\nshut in the place, and scarcely a soul abroad in the street, and when he\nbanged at a door a window was apt to open. He seemed to consider that\nthe conduct of business from open windows was an entirely legitimate and\nobvious method. Finally he and Bensington got the Red Lion dog-cart and\nset off with the waggonette, to overtake the baggage. They did this a\nlittle beyond the cross-roads, and so reached Hickleybrow first.\n\nBensington, with a gun between his knees, sitting beside Cossar in the\ndog-cart, developed a long germinated amazement. All they were doing\nwas, no doubt, as Cossar insisted, quite the obvious thing to do,\nonly--! In England one so rarely does the obvious thing. He glanced from\nhis neighbour\'s feet to the boldly sketched hands upon the reins. Cossar\nhad apparently never driven before, and he was keeping the line of least\nresistance down the middle of the road by some no doubt quite obvious\nbut certainly unusual light of his own.\n\n\"Why don\'t we all do the obvious?\" thought Bensington. \"How the world\nwould travel if one did! I wonder for instance why I don\'t do such a\nlot of things I know would be all right to do--things I _want_ to do. Is\neverybody like that, or is it peculiar to me!\" He plunged into obscure\nspeculation about the Will. He thought of the complex organised\nfutilities of the daily life, and in contrast with them the plain and\nmanifest things to do, the sweet and splendid things to do, that some\nincredible influences will never permit us to do. Cousin Jane? Cousin\nJane he perceived was important in the question, in some subtle and\ndifficult way. Why should we after all eat, drink, and sleep, remain\nunmarried, go here, abstain from going there, all out of deference to\nCousin Jane? She became symbolical without ceasing to be\nincomprehensible!\n\nA stile and a path across the fields caught his eye and reminded him of\nthat other bright day, so recent in time, so remote in its emotions,\nwhen he had walked from Urshot to the Experimental Farm to see the giant\nchicks.\n\nFate plays with us.\n\n\"Tcheck, tcheck,\" said Cossar. \"Get up.\"\n\nIt was a hot midday afternoon, not a breath of wind, and the dust was\nthick in the roads. Few people were about, but the deer beyond the park\npalings browsed in profound tranquillity. They saw a couple of big wasps\nstripping a gooseberry bush just outside Hickleybrow, and another was\ncrawling up and down the front of the little grocer\'s shop in the\nvillage street trying to find an entry. The grocer was dimly visible\nwithin, with an ancient fowling-piece in hand, watching its endeavours.\nThe driver of the waggonette pulled up outside the Jolly Drovers and\ninformed Redwood that his part of the bargain was done. In this\ncontention he was presently joined by the drivers of the waggon and the\ntrolley. Not only did they maintain this, but they refused to let the\nhorses be taken further.\n\n\"Them big rats is nuts on \'orses,\" the trolley driver kept on repeating.\n\nCossar surveyed the controversy for a moment.\n\n\"Get the things out of that waggonette,\" he said, and one of his men, a\ntall, fair, dirty engineer, obeyed.\n\n\"Gimme that shot gun,\" said Cossar.\n\nHe placed himself between the drivers. \"We don\'t want _you_ to drive,\"\nhe said.\n\n\"You can say what you like,\" he conceded, \"but we want these horses.\"\n\nThey began to argue, but he continued speaking.\n\n\"If you try and assault us I shall, in self-defence, let fly at your\nlegs. The horses are going on.\"\n\nHe treated the incident as closed. \"Get up on that waggon, Flack,\" he\nsaid to a thickset, wiry little man. \"Boon, take the trolley.\"\n\nThe two drivers blustered to Redwood.\n\n\"You\'ve done your duty to your employers,\" said Redwood. \"You stop in\nthis village until we come back. No one will blame you, seeing we\'ve got\nguns. We\'ve no wish to do anything unjust or violent, but this occasion\nis pressing. I\'ll pay if anything happens to the horses, never fear.\"\n\n\"_That\'s_ all right,\" said Cossar, who rarely promised.\n\nThey left the waggonette behind, and the men who were not driving went\nafoot. Over each shoulder sloped a gun. It was the oddest little\nexpedition for an English country road, more like a Yankee party,\ntrekking west in the good old Indian days.\n\nThey went up the road, until at the crest by the stile they came into\nsight of the Experimental Farm. They found a little group of men there\nwith a gun or so--the two Fulchers were among them--and one man, a\nstranger from Maidstone, stood out before the others and watched the\nplace through an opera-glass.\n\nThese men turned about and stared at Redwood\'s party.\n\n\"Anything fresh?\" said Cossar.\n\n\"The waspses keeps a comin\' and a goin\',\" said old Fulcher. \"Can\'t see\nas they bring anything.\"\n\n\"The canary creeper\'s got in among the pine trees now,\" said the man\nwith the lorgnette. \"It wasn\'t there this morning. You can see it grow\nwhile you watch it.\"\n\nHe took out a handkerchief and wiped his object-glasses with careful\ndeliberation.\n\n\"I reckon you\'re going down there,\" ventured Skelmersdale.\n\n\"Will you come?\" said Cossar.\n\nSkelmersdale seemed to hesitate.\n\n\"It\'s an all-night job.\"\n\nSkelmersdale decided that he wouldn\'t.\n\n\"Rats about?\" asked Cossar.\n\n\"One was up in the pines this morning--rabbiting, we reckon.\"\n\nCossar slouched on to overtake his party.\n\nBensington, regarding the Experimental Farm under his hand, was able to\ngauge now the vigour of the Food. His first impression was that the\nhouse was smaller than he had thought--very much smaller; his second was\nto perceive that all the vegetation between the house and the pine-wood\nhad become extremely large. The roof over the well peeped amidst\ntussocks of grass a good eight feet high, and the canary creeper\nwrapped about the chimney stack and gesticulated with stiff tendrils\ntowards the heavens. Its flowers were vivid yellow splashes, distinctly\nvisible as separate specks this mile away. A great green cable had\nwrithed across the big wire inclosures of the giant hens\' run, and flung\ntwining leaf stems about two outstanding pines. Fully half as tall as\nthese was the grove of nettles running round behind the cart-shed. The\nwhole prospect, as they drew nearer, became more and more suggestive of\na raid of pigmies upon a dolls\' house that has been left in a neglected\ncorner of some great garden.\n\nThere was a busy coming and going from the wasps\' nest, they saw. A\nswarm of black shapes interlaced in the air, above the rusty hill-front\nbeyond the pine cluster, and ever and again one of these would dart up\ninto the sky with incredible swiftness and soar off upon some distant\nquest. Their humming became audible at more than half a mile\'s distance\nfrom the Experimental Farm. Once a yellow-striped monster dropped\ntowards them and hung for a space watching them with its great compound\neyes, but at an ineffectual shot from Cossar it darted off again. Down\nin a corner of the field, away to the right, several were crawling about\nover some ragged bones that were probably the remains of the lamb the\nrats had brought from Huxter\'s Farm. The horses became very restless as\nthey drew near these creatures. None of the party was an expert driver,\nand they had to put a man to lead each horse and encourage it with the\nvoice.\n\nThey could see nothing of the rats as they came up to the house, and\neverything seemed perfectly still except for the rising and falling\n\"whoozzzzzzZZZ, whoooo-zoo-oo\" of the wasps\' nest.\n\nThey led the horses into the yard, and one of Cossar\'s men, seeing the\ndoor open--the whole of the middle portion of the door had been gnawed\nout--walked into the house. Nobody missed him for the time, the rest\nbeing occupied with the barrels of paraffin, and the first intimation\nthey had of his separation from them was the report of his gun and the\nwhizz of his bullet. \"Bang, bang,\" both barrels, and his first bullet it\nseems went through the cask of sulphur, smashed out a stave from the\nfurther side, and filled the air with yellow dust. Redwood had kept his\ngun in hand and let fly at something grey that leapt past him. He had a\nvision of the broad hind-quarters, the long scaly tail and long soles of\nthe hind-feet of a rat, and fired his second barrel. He saw Bensington\ndrop as the beast vanished round the corner.\n\nThen for a time everybody was busy with a gun. For three minutes lives\nwere cheap at the Experimental Farm, and the banging of guns filled the\nair. Redwood, careless of Bensington in his excitement, rushed in\npursuit, and was knocked headlong by a mass of brick fragments, mortar,\nplaster, and rotten lath splinters that came flying out at him as a\nbullet whacked through the wall.\n\nHe found himself sitting on the ground with blood on his hands and lips,\nand a great stillness brooded over all about him.\n\nThen a flattish voice from within the house remarked: \"Gee-whizz!\"\n\n\"Hullo!\" said Redwood.\n\n\"Hullo there!\" answered the voice.\n\nAnd then: \"Did you chaps get \'im?\"\n\nA sense of the duties of friendship returned to Redwood. \"Is Mr.\nBensington hurt?\" he said.\n\nThe man inside heard imperfectly. \"No one ain\'t to blame if I ain\'t,\"\nsaid the voice inside.\n\nIt became clearer to Redwood that he must have shot Bensington. He\nforgot the cuts upon his face, arose and came back to find Bensington\nseated on the ground and rubbing his shoulder. Bensington looked over\nhis glasses. \"We peppered him, Redwood,\" he said, and then: \"He tried to\njump over me, and knocked me down. But I let him have it with both\nbarrels, and my! how it has hurt my shoulder, to be sure.\"\n\nA man appeared in the doorway. \"I got him once in the chest and once in\nthe side,\" he said.\n\n\"Where\'s the waggons?\" said Cossar, appearing amidst a thicket of\ngigantic canary-creeper leaves.\n\nIt became evident, to Redwood\'s amazement, first, that no one had been\nshot, and, secondly, that the trolley and waggon had shifted fifty\nyards, and were now standing with interlocked wheels amidst the tangled\ndistortions of Skinner\'s kitchen garden. The horses had stopped their\nplunging. Half-way towards them, the burst barrel of sulphur lay in the\npath with a cloud of sulphur dust above it. He indicated this to Cossar\nand walked towards it. \"Has any one seen that rat?\" shouted Cossar,\nfollowing. \"I got him in between the ribs once, and once in the face as\nhe turned on me.\"\n\nThey were joined by two men, as they worried at the locked wheels.\n\n\"I killed that rat,\" said one of the men.\n\n\"Have they got him?\" asked Cossar.\n\n\"Jim Bates has found him, beyond the hedge. I got him jest as he came\nround the corner.... Whack behind the shoulder....\"\n\nWhen things were a little ship-shape again Redwood went and stared at\nthe huge misshapen corpse. The brute lay on its side, with its body\nslightly bent. Its rodent teeth overhanging its receding lower jaw gave\nits face a look of colossal feebleness, of weak avidity. It seemed not\nin the least ferocious or terrible. Its fore-paws reminded him of lank\nemaciated hands. Except for one neat round hole with a scorched rim on\neither side of its neck, the creature was absolutely intact. He\nmeditated over this fact for some time. \"There must have been two rats,\"\nhe said at last, turning away.\n\n\"Yes. And the one that everybody hit--got away.\"\n\n\"I am certain that my own shot--\"\n\nA canary-creeper leaf tendril, engaged in that mysterious search for a\nholdfast which constitutes a tendril\'s career, bent itself engagingly\ntowards his neck and made him step aside hastily.\n\n\"Whoo-z-z z-z-z-z-Z-Z-Z,\" from the distant wasps\' nest, \"whoo oo\nzoo-oo.\"\n\n\nV.\n\nThis incident left the party alert but not unstrung.\n\nThey got their stores into the house, which had evidently been ransacked\nby the rats after the flight of Mrs. Skinner, and four of the men took\nthe two horses back to Hickleybrow. They dragged the dead rat through\nthe hedge and into a position commanded by the windows of the house, and\nincidentally came upon a cluster of giant earwigs in the ditch. These\ncreatures dispersed hastily, but Cossar reached out incalculable limbs\nand managed to kill several with his boots and gun-butt. Then two of the\nmen hacked through several of the main stems of the canary creeper--huge\ncylinders they were, a couple of feet in diameter, that came out by the\nsink at the back; and while Cossar set the house in order for the night,\nBensington, Redwood, and one of the assistant electricians went\ncautiously round by the fowl runs in search of the rat-holes.\n\nThey skirted the giant nettles widely, for these huge weeds threatened\nthem with poison-thorns a good inch long. Then round beyond the gnawed,\ndismantled stile they came abruptly on the huge cavernous throat of the\nmost westerly of the giant rat-holes, an evil-smelling profundity, that\ndrew them up into a line together.\n\n\"I _hope_ they\'ll come out,\" said Redwood, with a glance at the\npent-house of the well.\n\n\"If they don\'t--\" reflected Bensington.\n\n\"They will,\" said Redwood.\n\nThey meditated.\n\n\"We shall have to rig up some sort of flare if we _do_ go in,\" said\nRedwood.\n\nThey went up a little path of white sand through the pine-wood and\nhalted presently within sight of the wasp-holes.\n\nThe sun was setting now, and the wasps were coming home for good; their\nwings in the golden light made twirling haloes about them. The three men\npeered out from under the trees--they did not care to go right to the\nedge of the wood--and watched these tremendous insects drop and crawl\nfor a little and enter and disappear. \"They will be still in a couple of\nhours from now,\" said Redwood.... \"This is like being a boy again.\"\n\n\"We can\'t miss those holes,\" said Bensington, \"even if the night is\ndark. By-the-bye--about the light--\"\n\n\"Full moon,\" said the electrician. \"I looked it up.\"\n\nThey went back and consulted with Cossar.\n\nHe said that \"obviously\" they must get the sulphur, nitre, and plaster\nof Paris through the wood before twilight, and for that they broke bulk\nand carried the sacks. After the necessary shouting of the preliminary\ndirections, never a word was spoken, and as the buzzing of the wasps\'\nnest died away there was scarcely a sound in the world but the noise of\nfootsteps, the heavy breathing of burthened men, and the thud of the\nsacks. They all took turns at that labour except Mr. Bensington, who was\nmanifestly unfit. He took post in the Skinners\' bedroom with a rifle, to\nwatch the carcase of the dead rat, and of the others, they took turns to\nrest from sack-carrying and to keep watch two at a time upon the\nrat-holes behind the nettle grove. The pollen sacs of the nettles were\nripe, and every now and then the vigil would be enlivened by the\ndehiscence of these, the bursting of the sacs sounding exactly like the\ncrack of a pistol, and the pollen grains as big as buckshot pattered all\nabout them.\n\nMr. Bensington sat at his window on a hard horse-hair-stuffed arm-chair,\ncovered by a grubby antimacassar that had given a touch of social\ndistinction to the Skinners\' sitting-room for many years. His\nunaccustomed rifle rested on the sill, and his spectacles anon watched\nthe dark bulk of the dead rat in the thickening twilight, anon wandered\nabout him in curious meditation. There was a faint smell of paraffin\nwithout, for one of the casks leaked, and it mingled with a less\nunpleasant odour arising from the hacked and crushed creeper.\n\nWithin, when he turned his head, a blend of faint domestic scents, beer,\ncheese, rotten apples, and old boots as the leading _motifs_, was full\nof reminiscences of the vanished Skinners. He regarded the dim room for\na space. The furniture had been greatly disordered--perhaps by some\ninquisitive rat--but a coat upon a clothes-peg on the door, a razor and\nsome dirty scraps of paper, and a piece of soap that had hardened\nthrough years of disuse into a horny cube, were redolent of Skinner\'s\ndistinctive personality. It came to Bensington\'s mind with a complete\nnovelty of realisation that in all probability the man had been killed\nand eaten, at least in part, by the monster that now lay dead there in\nthe darkling.\n\nTo think of all that a harmless-looking discovery in chemistry may lead\nto!\n\nHere he was in homely England and yet in infinite danger, sitting out\nalone with a gun in a twilit, ruined house, remote from every comfort,\nhis shoulder dreadfully bruised from a gun-kick, and--by Jove!\n\nHe grasped now how profoundly the order of the universe had changed for\nhim. He had come right away to this amazing experience, _without even\nsaying a word to his cousin Jane_!\n\nWhat must she be thinking of him?\n\nHe tried to imagine it and he could not. He had an extraordinary feeling\nthat she and he were parted for ever and would never meet again. He felt\nhe had taken a step and come into a world of new immensities. What other\nmonsters might not those deepening shadows hide? The tips of the giant\nnettles came out sharp and black against the pale green and amber of the\nwestern sky. Everything was very still--very still indeed. He wondered\nwhy he could not hear the others away there round the corner of the\nhouse. The shadow in the cart-shed was now an abysmal black.\n\n * * * * *\n\n_Bang ... Bang ... Bang_.\n\nA sequence of echoes and a shout.\n\nA long silence.\n\n_Bang_ and a _diminuendo_ of echoes.\n\nStillness.\n\nThen, thank goodness! Redwood and Cossar were coming out of the\ninaudible darknesses, and Redwood was calling \"Bensington!\"\n\n\"Bensington! We\'ve bagged another of the rats!\"\n\n\"Cossar\'s bagged another of the rats!\"\n\n\nVI.\n\nWhen the Expedition had finished refreshment, the night had fully come.\nThe stars were at their brightest, and a growing pallor towards Hankey\nheralded the moon. The watch on the rat-holes had been maintained, but\nthe watchers had shifted to the hill slope above the holes, feeling this\na safer firing-point. They squatted there in a rather abundant dew,\nfighting the damp with whisky. The others rested in the house, and the\nthree leaders discussed the night\'s work with the men. The moon rose\ntowards midnight, and as soon as it was clear of the downs, every one\nexcept the rat-hole sentinels started off in single file, led by Cossar,\ntowards the wasps\' nest.\n\nSo far as the wasps\' nest went, they found their task exceptionally\neasy--astonishingly easy. Except that it was a longer labour, it was no\ngraver affair than any common wasps\' nest might have been. Danger there\nwas, no doubt, danger to life, but it never so much as thrust its head\nout of that portentous hillside. They stuffed in the sulphur and nitre,\nthey bunged the holes soundly, and fired their trains. Then with a\ncommon impulse all the party but Cossar turned and ran athwart the long\nshadows of the pines, and, finding Cossar had stayed behind, came to a\nhalt together in a knot, a hundred yards away, convenient to a ditch\nthat offered cover. Just for a minute or two the moonlit night, all\nblack and white, was heavy with a suffocated buzz, that rose and mingled\nto a roar, a deep abundant note, and culminated and died, and then\nalmost incredibly the night was still.\n\n\"By Jove!\" said Bensington, almost in a whisper, \"_it\'s done!_\"\n\nAll stood intent. The hillside above the black point-lace of the pine\nshadows seemed as bright as day and as colourless as snow. The setting\nplaster in the holes positively shone. Cossar\'s loose framework moved\ntowards them.\n\n\"So far--\" said Cossar.\n\nCrack--_bang_!\n\nA shot from near the house and then--stillness.\n\n\"What\'s _that_?\" said Bensington.\n\n\"One of the rats put its head out,\" suggested one of the men.\n\n\"By-the-bye, we left our guns up there,\" said Redwood.\n\n\"By the sacks.\"\n\nEvery one began to walk towards the hill again.\n\n\"That must be the rats,\" said Bensington.\n\n\"Obviously,\" said Cossar, gnawing his finger nails.\n\n_Bang_!\n\n\"Hullo?\" said one of the men.\n\nThen abruptly came a shout, two shots, a loud shout that was almost a\nscream, three shots in rapid succession and a splintering of wood. All\nthese sounds were very clear and very small in the immense stillness of\nthe night. Then for some moments nothing but a minute muffled confusion\nfrom the direction of the rat-holes, and then again a wild yell ... Each\nman found himself running hard for the guns.\n\nTwo shots.\n\nBensington found himself, gun in hand, going hard through the pine trees\nafter a number of receding backs. It is curious that the thought\nuppermost in his mind at that moment was the wish that his cousin Jane\ncould see him. His bulbous slashed boots flew out in wild strides, and\nhis face was distorted into a permanent grin, because that wrinkled his\nnose and kept his glasses in place. Also he held the muzzle of his gun\nprojecting straight before him as he flew through the chequered\nmoonlight. The man who had run away met them full tilt--he had dropped\nhis gun.\n\n\"Hullo,\" said Cossar, and caught him in his arms. \"What\'s this?\"\n\n\"They came out together,\" said the man.\n\n\"The rats?\"\n\n\"Yes, six of them.\"\n\n\"Where\'s Flack?\"\n\n\"Down.\"\n\n\"What\'s he say?\" panted Bensington, coming up, unheeded.\n\n\"Flack\'s down?\"\n\n\"He fell down.\"\n\n\"They came out one after the other.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Made a rush. I fired both barrels first.\"\n\n\"You left Flack?\"\n\n\"They were on to us.\"\n\n\"Come on,\" said Cossar. \"You come with us. Where\'s Flack? Show us.\"\n\nThe whole party moved forward. Further details of the engagement dropped\nfrom the man who had run away. The others clustered about him, except\nCossar, who led.\n\n\"Where are they?\"\n\n\"Back in their holes, perhaps. I cleared. They made a rush for their\nholes.\"\n\n\"What do you mean? Did you get behind them?\"\n\n\"We got down by their holes. Saw \'em come out, you know, and tried to\ncut \'em off. They lolloped out--like rabbits. We ran down and let fly.\nThey ran about wild after our first shot and suddenly came at us. _Went_\nfor us.\"\n\n\"How many?\"\n\n\"Six or seven.\"\n\nCossar led the way to the edge of the pine-wood and halted.\n\n\"D\'yer mean they _got_ Flack?\" asked some one.\n\n\"One of \'em was on to him.\"\n\n\"Didn\'t you shoot?\"\n\n\"How _could_ I?\"\n\n\"Every one loaded?\" said Cossar over his shoulder.\n\nThere was a confirmatory movement.\n\n\"But Flack--\" said one.\n\n\"D\'yer mean--Flack--\" said another.\n\n\"There\'s no time to lose,\" said Cossar, and shouted \"Flack!\" as he led\nthe way. The whole force advanced towards the rat-holes, the man who had\nrun away a little to the rear. They went forward through the rank\nexaggerated weeds and skirted the body of the second dead rat. They were\nextended in a bunchy line, each man with his gun pointing forward, and\nthey peered about them in the clear moonlight for some crumpled,\nominous shape, some crouching form. They found the gun of the man who\nhad run away very speedily.\n\n\"Flack!\" cried Cossar. \"Flack!\"\n\n\"He ran past the nettles and fell down,\" volunteered the man who ran\naway.\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"Round about there.\"\n\n\"Where did he fall?\"\n\nHe hesitated and led them athwart the long black shadows for a space and\nturned judicially. \"About here, I think.\"\n\n\"Well, he\'s not here now.\"\n\n\"But his gun---?\"\n\n\"Confound it!\" swore Cossar, \"where\'s everything got to?\" He strode a\nstep towards the black shadows on the hillside that masked the holes and\nstood staring. Then he swore again. \"If they _have_ dragged him in---!\"\n\nSo they hung for a space tossing each other the fragments of thoughts.\nBensington\'s glasses flashed like diamonds as he looked from one to the\nother. The men\'s faces changed from cold clearness to mysterious\nobscurity as they turned them to or from the moon. Every one spoke, no\none completed a sentence. Then abruptly Cossar chose his line. He\nflapped limbs this way and that and expelled orders in pellets. It was\nobvious he wanted lamps. Every one except Cossar was moving towards the\nhouse.\n\n\"You\'re going into the holes?\" asked Redwood.\n\n\"Obviously,\" said Cossar.\n\nHe made it clear once more that the lamps of the cart and trolley were\nto be got and brought to him.\n\nBensington, grasping this, started off along the path by the well. He\nglanced over his shoulder, and saw Cossar\'s gigantic figure standing out\nas if he were regarding the holes pensively. At the sight Bensington\nhalted for a moment and half turned. They were all leaving Cossar---!\n\nCossar was able to take care of himself, of course!\n\nSuddenly Bensington saw something that made him shout a windless \"HI!\"\nIn a second three rats had projected themselves from the dark tangle of\nthe creeper towards Cossar. For three seconds Cossar stood unaware of\nthem, and then he had become the most active thing in the world. He\ndidn\'t fire his gun. Apparently he had no time to aim, or to think of\naiming; he ducked a leaping rat, Bensington saw, and then smashed at the\nback of its head with the butt of his gun. The monster gave one leap and\nfell over itself.\n\nCossar\'s form went right down out of sight among the reedy grass, and\nthen he rose again, running towards another of the rats and whirling his\ngun overhead. A faint shout came to Bensington\'s ears, and then he\nperceived the remaining two rats bolting divergently, and Cossar in\npursuit towards the holes.\n\nThe whole thing was an affair of misty shadows; all three fighting\nmonsters were exaggerated and made unreal by the delusive clearness of\nthe light. At moments Cossar was colossal, at moments invisible. The\nrats flashed athwart the eye in sudden unexpected leaps, or ran with a\nmovement of the feet so swift, they seemed to run on wheels. It was all\nover in half a minute. No one saw it but Bensington. He could hear the\nothers behind him still receding towards the house. He shouted something\ninarticulate and then ran back towards Cossar, while the rats vanished.\nHe came up to him outside the holes. In the moonlight the distribution\nof shadows that constituted Cossar\'s visage intimated calm. \"Hullo,\"\nsaid Cossar, \"back already? Where\'s the lamps? They\'re all back now in\ntheir holes. One I broke the neck of as it ran past me ... See? There!\"\nAnd he pointed a gaunt finger.\n\nBensington was too astonished for conversation ...\n\nThe lamps seemed an interminable time in coming. At last they appeared,\nfirst one unwinking luminous eye, preceded by a swaying yellow glare,\nand then, winking now and then, and then shining out again, two others.\nAbout them came little figures with little voices, and then enormous\nshadows. This group made as it were a spot of inflammation upon the\ngigantic dreamland of moonshine.\n\n\"Flack,\" said the voices. \"Flack.\"\n\nAn illuminating sentence floated up. \"Locked himself in the attic.\"\n\nCossar was continually more wonderful. He produced great handfuls of\ncotton wool and stuffed them in his ears--Bensington wondered why. Then\nhe loaded his gun with a quarter charge of powder. Who else could have\nthought of that? Wonderland culminated with the disappearance of\nCossar\'s twin realms of boot sole up the central hole.\n\nCossar was on all fours with two guns, one trailing on each side from a\nstring under his chin, and his most trusted assistant, a little dark man\nwith a grave face, was to go in stooping behind him, holding a lantern\nover his head. Everything had been made as sane and obvious and proper\nas a lunatic\'s dream. The wool, it seems, was on account of the\nconcussion of the rifle; the man had some too. Obviously! So long as\nthe rats turned tail on Cossar no harm could come to him, and directly\nthey headed for him he would see their eyes and fire between them. Since\nthey would have to come down the cylinder of the hole, Cossar could\nhardly fail to hit them. It was, Cossar insisted, the obvious method, a\nlittle tedious perhaps, but absolutely certain. As the assistant stooped\nto enter, Bensington saw that the end of a ball of twine had been tied\nto the tail of his coat. By this he was to draw in the rope if it should\nbe needed to drag out the bodies of the rats.\n\nBensington perceived that the object he held in his hand was Cossar\'s\nsilk hat.\n\nHow had it got there?\n\nIt would be something to remember him by, anyhow.\n\nAt each of the adjacent holes stood a little group with a lantern on the\nground shining up the hole, and with one man kneeling and aiming at the\nround void before him, waiting for anything that might emerge.\n\nThere was an interminable suspense.\n\nThen they heard Cossar\'s first shot, like an explosion in a mine....\n\nEvery one\'s nerves and muscles tightened at that, and bang! bang! bang!\nthe rats had tried a bolt, and two more were dead. Then the man who held\nthe ball of twine reported a twitching. \"He\'s killed one in there,\" said\nBensington, \"and he wants the rope.\"\n\nHe watched the rope creep into the hole, and it seemed as though it had\nbecome animated by a serpentine intelligence--for the darkness made the\ntwine invisible. At last it stopped crawling, and there was a long\npause. Then what seemed to Bensington the queerest monster of all crept\nslowly from the hole, and resolved itself into the little engineer\nemerging backwards. After him, and ploughing deep furrows, Cossar\'s\nboots thrust out, and then came his lantern-illuminated back....\n\nOnly one rat was left alive now, and this poor, doomed wretch cowered in\nthe inmost recesses until Cossar and the lantern went in again and slew\nit, and finally Cossar, that human ferret, went through all the runs to\nmake sure.\n\n\"We got \'em,\" he said to his nearly awe-stricken company at last. \"And\nif I hadn\'t been a mud-headed mucker I should have stripped to the\nwaist. Obviously. Feel my sleeves, Bensington! I\'m wet through with\nperspiration. Jolly hard to think of everything. Only a halfway-up of\nwhisky can save me from a cold.\"\n\n\nVII.\n\nThere were moments during that wonderful night when it seemed to\nBensington that he was planned by nature for a life of fantastic\nadventure. This was particularly the case for an hour or so after he had\ntaken a stiff whisky. \"Shan\'t go back to Sloane Street,\" he confided to\nthe tall, fair, dirty engineer.\n\n\"You won\'t, eh?\"\n\n\"No fear,\" said Bensington, nodding darkly.\n\nThe exertion of dragging the seven dead rats to the funeral pyre by the\nnettle grove left him bathed in perspiration, and Cossar pointed out the\nobvious physical reaction of whisky to save him from the otherwise\ninevitable chill. There was a sort of brigand\'s supper in the old\nbricked kitchen, with the row of dead rats lying in the moonlight\nagainst the hen-runs outside, and after thirty minutes or so of rest,\nCossar roused them all to the labours that were still to do.\n\"Obviously,\" as he said, they had to \"wipe the place out. No litter--no\nscandal. See?\" He stirred them up to the idea of making destruction\ncomplete. They smashed and splintered every fragment of wood in the\nhouse; they built trails of chopped wood wherever big vegetation was\nspringing; they made a pyre for the rat bodies and soaked them in\nparaffin.\n\nBensington worked like a conscientious navvy. He had a sort of climax of\nexhilaration and energy towards two o\'clock. When in the work of\ndestruction he wielded an axe the bravest fled his neighbourhood.\nAfterwards he was a little sobered by the temporary loss of his\nspectacles, which were found for him at last in his side coat-pocket.\n\nMen went to and fro about him--grimy, energetic men. Cossar moved\namongst them like a god.\n\nBensington drank that delight of human fellowship that comes to happy\narmies, to sturdy expeditions--never to those who live the life of the\nsober citizen in cities. After Cossar had taken his axe away and set him\nto carry wood he went to and fro, saying they were all \"good fellows.\"\nHe kept on--long after he was aware of fatigue.\n\nAt last all was ready, and the broaching of the paraffin began. The\nmoon, robbed now of all its meagre night retinue of stars, shone high\nabove the dawn.\n\n\"Burn everything,\" said Cossar, going to and fro--\"burn the ground and\nmake a clean sweep of it. See?\"\n\nBensington became aware of him, looking now very gaunt and horrible in\nthe pale beginnings of the daylight, hurrying past with his lower jaw\nprojected and a flaring torch of touchwood in his hand.\n\n\"Come away!\" said some one, pulling Bensington\'s arm.\n\nThe still dawn--no birds were singing there--was suddenly full of a\ntumultuous crackling; a little dull red flame ran about the base of the\npyre, changed to blue upon the ground, and set out to clamber, leaf by\nleaf, up the stem of a giant nettle. A singing sound mingled with the\ncrackling....\n\nThey snatched their guns from the corner of the Skinners\' living-room,\nand then every one was running. Cossar came after them with heavy\nstrides....\n\nThen they were standing looking back at the Experimental Farm. It was\nboiling up; the smoke and flames poured out like a crowd in a panic,\nfrom doors and windows and from a thousand cracks and crevices in the\nroof. Trust Cossar to build a fire! A great column of smoke, shot with\nblood-red tongues and darting flashes, rushed up into the sky. It was\nlike some huge giant suddenly standing up, straining upward and abruptly\nspreading his great arms out across the sky. It cast the night back upon\nthem, utterly hiding and obliterating the incandescence of the sun that\nrose behind it. All Hickleybrow was soon aware of that stupendous pillar\nof smoke, and came out upon the crest, in various _deshabille_, to watch\nthem coming.\n\nBehind, like some fantastic fungus, this smoke pillar swayed and\nfluctuated, up, up, into the sky--making the Downs seem low and all\nother objects petty, and in the foreground, led by Cossar, the makers of\nthis mischief followed the path, eight little black figures coming\nwearily, guns shouldered, across the meadow.\n\nAs Bensington looked back there came into his jaded brain, and echoed\nthere, a familiar formula. What was it? \"You have lit to-day--? You have\nlit to-day--?\" Then he remembered Latimer\'s words: \"We have lit this day\nsuch a candle in England as no man may ever put out again--\"\n\nWhat a man Cossar was, to be sure! He admired his back view for a space,\nand was proud to have held that hat. Proud! Although he was an eminent\ninvestigator and Cossar only engaged in applied science.\n\nSuddenly he fell shivering and yawning enormously and wishing he was\nwarmly tucked away in bed in his little flat that looked out upon Sloane\nStreet. (It didn\'t do even to think of Cousin Jane.) His legs became\ncotton strands, his feet lead. He wondered if any one would get them\ncoffee in Hickleybrow. He had never been up all night for\nthree-and-thirty years.\n\n\nVIII.\n\nAnd while these eight adventurers fought with rats about the\nExperimental Farm, nine miles away, in the village of Cheasing\nEyebright, an old lady with an excessive nose struggled with great\ndifficulties by the light of a flickering candle. She gripped a sardine\ntin opener in one gnarled hand, and in the other she held a tin of\nHerakleophorbia, which she had resolved to open or die. She struggled\nindefatigably, grunting at each fresh effort, while through the flimsy\npartition the voice of the Caddles infant wailed.\n\n\"Bless \'is poor \'art,\" said Mrs. Skinner; and then, with her solitary\ntooth biting her lip in an ecstasy of determination, \"Come _up_!\"\n\nAnd presently, \"_Jab_!\" a fresh supply of the Food of the Gods was let\nloose to wreak its powers of giantry upon the world.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE FOURTH.\n\nTHE GIANT CHILDREN.\n\n\nI.\n\nFor a time at least the spreading circle of residual consequences about\nthe Experimental Farm must pass out of the focus of our narrative--how\nfor a long time a power of bigness, in fungus and toadstool, in grass\nand weed, radiated from that charred but not absolutely obliterated\ncentre. Nor can we tell here at any length how these mournful spinsters,\nthe two surviving hens, made a wonder of and a show, spent their\nremaining years in eggless celebrity. The reader who is hungry for\nfuller details in these matters is referred to the newspapers of the\nperiod--to the voluminous, indiscriminate files of the modern Recording\nAngel. Our business lies with Mr. Bensington at the focus of the\ndisturbance.\n\nHe had come back to London to find himself a quite terribly famous man.\nIn a night the whole world had changed with respect to him. Everybody\nunderstood. Cousin Jane, it seemed, knew all about it; the people in the\nstreets knew all about it; the newspapers all and more. To meet Cousin\nJane was terrible, of course, but when it was over not so terrible after\nall. The good woman had limits even to her power over facts; it was\nclear that she had communed with herself and accepted the Food as\nsomething in the nature of things.\n\nShe took the line of huffy dutifulness. She disapproved highly, it was\nevident, but she did not prohibit. The flight of Bensington, as she must\nhave considered it, may have shaken her, and her worst was to treat him\nwith bitter persistence for a cold he had not caught and fatigue he had\nlong since forgotten, and to buy him a new sort of hygienic all-wool\ncombination underwear that was apt to get involved and turned partially\ninside out and partially not, and as difficult to get into for an\nabsent-minded man, as--Society. And so for a space, and as far as this\nconvenience left him leisure, he still continued to participate in the\ndevelopment of this new element in human history, the Food of the Gods.\n\nThe public mind, following its own mysterious laws of selection, had\nchosen him as the one and only responsible Inventor and Promoter of this\nnew wonder; it would hear nothing of Redwood, and without a protest it\nallowed Cossar to follow his natural impulse into a terribly prolific\nobscurity. Before he was aware of the drift of these things, Mr.\nBensington was, so to speak, stark and dissected upon the hoardings. His\nbaldness, his curious general pinkness, and his golden spectacles had\nbecome a national possession. Resolute young men with large\nexpensive-looking cameras and a general air of complete authorisation\ntook possession of the flat for brief but fruitful periods, let off\nflash lights in it that filled it for days with dense, intolerable\nvapour, and retired to fill the pages of the syndicated magazines with\ntheir admirable photographs of Mr. Bensington complete and at home in\nhis second-best jacket and his slashed shoes. Other resolute-mannered\npersons of various ages and sexes dropped in and told him things about\nBoomfood--it was _Punch_ first called the stuff \"Boomfood\"--and\nafterwards reproduced what they had said as his own original\ncontribution to the Interview. The thing became quite an obsession with\nBroadbeam, the Popular Humourist. He scented another confounded thing he\ncould not understand, and he fretted dreadfully in his efforts to \"laugh\nthe thing down.\" One saw him in clubs, a great clumsy presence with the\nevidences of his midnight oil burning manifest upon his large\nunwholesome face, explaining to every one he could buttonhole: \"These\nScientific chaps, you know, haven\'t a Sense of Humour, you know. That\'s\nwhat it is. This Science--kills it.\" His jests at Bensington became\nmalignant libels....\n\nAn enterprising press-cutting agency sent Bensington a long article\nabout himself from a sixpenny weekly, entitled \"A New Terror,\" and\noffered to supply one hundred such disturbances for a guinea, and two\nextremely charming young ladies, totally unknown to him, called, and, to\nthe speechless indignation of Cousin Jane, had tea with him and\nafterwards sent him their birthday books for his signature. He was\nspeedily quite hardened to seeing his name associated with the most\nincongruous ideas in the public press, and to discover in the reviews\narticles written about Boomfood and himself in a tone of the utmost\nintimacy by people he had never heard of. And whatever delusions he may\nhave cherished in the days of his obscurity about the pleasantness of\nFame were dispelled utterly and for ever.\n\nAt first--except for Broadbeam--the tone of the public mind was quite\nfree from any touch of hostility. It did not seem to occur to the public\nmind as anything but a mere playful supposition that any more\nHerakleophorbia was going to escape again. And it did not seem to occur\nto the public mind that the growing little band of babies now being fed\non the food would presently be growing more \"up\" than most of us ever\ngrow. The sort of thing that pleased the public mind was caricatures of\neminent politicians after a course of Boom-feeding, uses of the idea on\nhoardings, and such edifying exhibitions as the dead wasps that had\nescaped the fire and the remaining hens.\n\nBeyond that the public did not care to look, until very strenuous\nefforts were made to turn its eyes to the remoter consequences, and even\nthen for a while its enthusiasm for action was partial. \"There\'s always\nsomethin\' New,\" said the public--a public so glutted with novelty that\nit would hear of the earth being split as one splits an apple without\nsurprise, and, \"I wonder what they\'ll do next.\"\n\nBut there were one or two people outside the public, as it were, who did\nalready take that further glance, and some it seems were frightened by\nwhat they saw there. There was young Caterham, for example, cousin of\nthe Earl of Pewterstone, and one of the most promising of English\npoliticians, who, taking the risk of being thought a faddist, wrote a\nlong article in the _Nineteenth Century and After_ to suggest its total\nsuppression. And--in certain of his moods, there was Bensington.\n\n\"They don\'t seem to realise--\" he said to Cossar.\n\n\"No, they don\'t.\"\n\n\"And do we? Sometimes, when I think of what it means--This poor child of\nRedwood\'s--And, of course, your three... Forty feet high, perhaps!\nAfter all, _ought_ we to go on with it?\"\n\n\"Go on with it!\" cried Cossar, convulsed with inelegant astonishment and\npitching his note higher than ever. \"Of _course_ you\'ll go on with it!\nWhat d\'you think you were made for? Just to loaf about between\nmeal-times?\n\n\"Serious consequences,\" he screamed, \"of course! Enormous. Obviously.\nOb-viously. Why, man, it\'s the only chance you\'ll ever get of a serious\nconsequence! And you want to shirk it!\" For a moment his indignation was\nspeechless, \"It\'s downright Wicked!\" he said at last, and repeated\nexplosively, \"Wicked!\"\n\nBut Bensington worked in his laboratory now with more emotion than zest.\nHe couldn\'t, tell whether he wanted serious consequences to his life or\nnot; he was a man of quiet tastes. It was a marvellous discovery, of\ncourse, quite marvellous--but--He had already become the proprietor of\nseveral acres of scorched, discredited property near Hickleybrow, at a\nprice of nearly Ł90 an acre, and at times he was disposed to think this\nas serious a consequence of speculative chemistry as any unambitious\nman, could wish. Of course he was Famous--terribly Famous. More than\nsatisfying, altogether more than satisfying, was the Fame he had\nattained.\n\nBut the habit of Research was strong in him....\n\nAnd at moments, rare moments in the laboratory chiefly, he would find\nsomething else than habit and Cossar\'s arguments to urge him to his\nwork. This little spectacled man, poised perhaps with his slashed shoes\nwrapped about the legs of his high stool and his hand upon the tweezer\nof his balance weights, would have again a flash of that adolescent\nvision, would have a momentary perception of the eternal unfolding of\nthe seed that had been sown in his brain, would see as it were in the\nsky, behind the grotesque shapes and accidents of the present, the\ncoming world of giants and all the mighty things the future has in\nstore--vague and splendid, like some glittering palace seen suddenly in\nthe passing of a sunbeam far away.... And presently it would be with him\nas though that distant splendour had never shone upon his brain, and he\nwould perceive nothing ahead but sinister shadows, vast declivities and\ndarknesses, inhospitable immensities, cold, wild, and terrible things.\n\n\nII.\n\nAmidst the complex and confused happenings, the impacts from the great\nouter world that constituted Mr. Bensington\'s fame, a shining and active\nfigure presently became conspicuous--became almost, as it were, a leader\nand marshal of these externalities in Mr. Bensington\'s eyes. This was\nDr. Winkles, that convincing young practitioner, who has already\nappeared in this story as the means whereby Redwood was able to convey\nthe Food to his son. Even before the great outbreak, it was evident that\nthe mysterious powders Redwood had given him had awakened this\ngentleman\'s interest immensely, and so soon as the first wasps came he\nwas putting two and two together.\n\nHe was the sort of doctor that is in manners, in morals, in methods and\nappearance, most succinctly and finally expressed by the word \"rising.\"\nHe was large and fair, with a hard, alert, superficial,\naluminium-coloured eye, and hair like chalk mud, even-featured and\nmuscular about the clean-shaven mouth, erect in figure and energetic in\nmovement, quick and spinning on the heel, and he wore long frock coats,\nblack silk ties and plain gold studs and chains and his silk hats had a\nspecial shape and brim that made him look wiser and better than anybody.\nHe looked as young or old as anybody grown up. And after that first\nwonderful outbreak he took to Bensington and Redwood and the Food of the\nGods with such a convincing air of proprietorship, that at times, in\nspite of the testimony of the Press to the contrary, Bensington was\ndisposed to regard him as the original inventor of the whole affair.\n\n\"These accidents,\" said Winkles, when Bensington hinted at the dangers\nof further escapes, \"are nothing. Nothing. The discovery is everything.\nProperly developed, suitably handled, sanely controlled, we have--we\nhave something very portentous indeed in this food of ours.... We must\nkeep our eye on it ... We mustn\'t let it out of control again, and--we\nmustn\'t let it rest.\"\n\nHe certainly did not mean to do that. He was at Bensington\'s now almost\nevery day. Bensington, glancing from the window, would see the faultless\nequipage come spanking up Sloane Street and after an incredibly brief\ninterval Winkles would enter the room with a light, strong motion, and\npervade it, and protrude some newspaper and supply information and make\nremarks.\n\n\"Well,\" he would say, rubbing his hands, \"how are we getting on?\" and so\npass to the current discussion about it.\n\n\"Do you see,\" he would say, for example, \"that Caterham has been talking\nabout our stuff at the Church Association?\"\n\n\"Dear me!\" said Bensington, \"that\'s a cousin of the Prime Minister,\nisn\'t it?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Winkles, \"a very able young man--very able. Quite\nwrong-headed; you know, violently reactionary--but thoroughly able. And\nhe\'s evidently disposed to make capital out of this stuff of ours. Takes\na very emphatic line. Talks of our proposal to use it in the elementary\nschools---\"\n\n\"Our proposal to use it in the elementary schools!\"\n\n\"_I_ said something about that the other day--quite in passing--little\naffair at a Polytechnic. Trying to make it clear the stuff was really\nhighly beneficial. Not in the slightest degree dangerous, in spite of\nthose first little accidents. Which cannot possibly occur again.... You\nknow it _would_ be rather good stuff--But he\'s taken it up.\"\n\n\"What did you say?\"\n\n\"Mere obvious nothings. But as you see---! Takes it up with perfect\ngravity. Treats the thing as an attack. Says there is already a\nsufficient waste of public money in elementary schools without this.\nTells the old stories about piano lessons again--_you_ know. No one; he\nsays, wishes to prevent the children of the lower classes obtaining an\neducation suited to their condition, but to give them a food of this\nsort will be to destroy their sense of proportion utterly. Expands the\ntopic. What Good will it do, he asks, to make poor people six-and-thirty\nfeet high? He really believes, you know, that they _will_ be thirty-six\nfeet high.\"\n\n\"So they would _be_,\" said Bensington, \"if you gave them our food at all\nregularly. But nobody said anything---\"\n\n\"_I_ said something.\"\n\n\"But, my dear Winkles--!\"\n\n\"They\'ll be Bigger, of course,\" interrupted Winkles, with an air of\nknowing all about it, and discouraging the crude ideas of Bensington.\n\"Bigger indisputably. But listen to what he says! Will it make them\nhappier? That\'s his point. Curious, isn\'t it? Will it make them better?\nWill they be more respectful to properly constituted authority? Is it\nfair to the children themselves?? Curious how anxious his sort are for\njustice--so far as any future arrangements go. Even nowadays, he says,\nthe cost, of feeding and clothing children is more than many of their\nparents can contrive, and if this sort of thing is to be permitted--!\nEh?\n\n\"You see he makes my mere passing suggestion into a positive proposal.\nAnd then he calculates how much a pair of breeches for a growing lad of\ntwenty feet high or so will cost. Just as though he really believed--Ten\npounds, he reckons, for the merest decency. Curious this Caterham! So\nconcrete! The honest, and struggling ratepayer will have to contribute\nto that, he says. He says we have to consider the Rights of the Parent.\nIt\'s all here. Two columns. Every Parent has a right to have, his\nchildren brought up in his own Size....\n\n\"Then comes the question of school accommodation, cost of enlarged desks\nand forms for our already too greatly burthened National Schools. And to\nget what?--a proletariat of hungry giants. Winds up with a very serious\npassage, says even if this wild suggestion--mere passing fancy of mine,\nyou know, and misinterpreted at that--this wild suggestion about the\nschools comes to nothing, that doesn\'t end the matter. This is a strange\nfood, so strange as to seem to him almost wicked. It has been scattered\nrecklessly--so he says--and it may be scattered again. Once you\'ve taken\nit, it\'s poison unless you go on with it. \'So it is,\' said Bensington.\nAnd in short he proposes the formation of a National Society for the\nPreservation of the Proper Proportions of Things. Odd? Eh? People are\nhanging on to the idea like anything.\"\n\n\"But what do they propose to do?\"\n\nWinkles shrugged his shoulders and threw out his hands. \"Form a\nSociety,\" he said, \"and fuss. They want to make it illegal to\nmanufacture this Herakleophorbia--or at any rate to circulate the\nknowledge of it. I\'ve written about a bit to show that Caterham\'s idea\nof the stuff is very much exaggerated--very much exaggerated indeed, but\nthat doesn\'t seem to check it. Curious how people are turning against\nit. And the National Temperance Association, by-the-bye, has founded a\nbranch for Temperance in Growth.\"\n\n\"Mm,\" said Bensington and stroked his nose.\n\n\"After all that has happened there\'s bound to be this uproar. On the\nface of it the thing\'s--_startling_.\"\n\nWinkles walked about the room for a time, hesitated, and departed.\n\nIt became evident there was something at the back of his mind, some\naspect of crucial importance to him, that he waited to display. One day,\nwhen Redwood and Bensington were at the flat together he gave them a\nglimpse of this something in reserve.\n\n\"How\'s it all going?\" he said; rubbing his hands together.\n\n\"We\'re getting together a sort of report.\"\n\n\"For the Royal Society?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Hm,\" said. Winkles, very profoundly, and walked to the hearth-rug.\n\"Hm. But--Here\'s the point. _Ought_ you?\"\n\n\"Ought we--what?\"\n\n\"Ought you to publish?\"\n\n\"We\'re not in the Middle Ages,\" said Redwood.\n\n\"I know.\"\n\n\"As Cossar says, swapping wisdom--that\'s the true scientific method.\"\n\n\"In most cases, certainly. But--This is exceptional.\"\n\n\"We shall put the whole thing before the Royal Society in the proper\nway,\" said Redwood.\n\nWinkles returned to that on a later occasion.\n\n\"It\'s in many ways an Exceptional discovery.\"\n\n\"That doesn\'t matter,\" said Redwood.\n\n\"It\'s the sort of knowledge that could easily be subject to grave\nabuse--grave dangers, as Caterham puts it.\"\n\nRedwood said nothing.\n\n\"Even carelessness, you know--\"\n\n\"If we were to form a committee of trustworthy people to control the\nmanufacture of Boomfood--Herakleophorbia, I _should_ say--we might--\"\n\nHe paused, and Redwood, with a certain private discomfort, pretended\nthat he did not see any sort of interrogation....\n\nOutside the apartments of Redwood and Bensington, Winkle, in spite of\nthe incompleteness of his instructions, became a leading authority upon\nBoomfood. He wrote letters defending its use; he made notes and articles\nexplaining its possibilities; he jumped up irrelevantly at the meetings\nof the scientific and medical associations to talk about it; he\nidentified himself with it. He published a pamphlet called \"The Truth\nabout Boomfood,\" in which he minimised the whole of the Hickleybrow\naffair almost to nothing. He said that it was absurd to say Boomfood\nwould make people thirty-seven feet high. That was \"obviously\nexaggerated.\" It would make them Bigger, of course, but that was all....\n\nWithin that intimate circle of two it was chiefly evident that Winkles\nwas extremely anxious to help in the making of Herakleophorbia, help in\ncorrecting any proofs there might be of any paper there might be in\npreparation upon the subject--do anything indeed that might lead up to\nhis participation in the details of the making of Herakleophorbia. He\nwas continually telling them both that he felt it was a Big Thing, that\nit had big possibilities. If only they were--\"safeguarded in some way.\"\nAnd at last one day he asked outright to be told just how it was made.\n\n\"I\'ve been thinking over what you said,\" said Redwood.\n\n\"Well?\" said Winkles brightly.\n\n\"It\'s the sort of knowledge that could easily be subject to grave\nabuse,\" said Redwood.\n\n\"But I don\'t see how that applies,\" said Winkles.\n\n\"It does,\" said Redwood.\n\nWinkles thought it over for a day or so. Then he came to Redwood and\nsaid that he doubted if he ought to give powders about which he knew\nnothing to Redwood\'s little boy; it seemed to him it was uncommonly like\ntaking responsibility in the dark. That made Redwood thoughtful.\n\n\"You\'ve seen that the Society for the Total Suppression of Boomfood\nclaims to have several thousand members,\" said Winkles, changing the\nsubject. \"They\'ve drafted a Bill,\" said Winkles. \"They\'ve got young\nCaterham to take it up--readily enough. They\'re in earnest. They\'re\nforming local committees to influence candidates. They want to make it\npenal to prepare and store Herakleophorbia without special license, and\nfelony--matter of imprisonment without option--to administer\nBoomfood--that\'s what they call it, you know--to any person under\none-and-twenty. But there\'s collateral societies, you know. All sorts of\npeople. The Society for the Preservation of Ancient Statures is going to\nhave Mr. Frederic Harrison on the council, they say. You know he\'s\nwritten an essay about it; says it is vulgar, and entirely inharmonious\nwith that Revelation of Humanity that is found in the teachings of\nComte. It is the sort of thing the Eighteenth Century _couldn\'t_ have\nproduced even in its worst moments. The idea of the Food never entered\nthe head of Comte--which shows how wicked it really is. No one, he says,\nwho really understood Comte....\"\n\n\"But you don\'t mean to say--\" said Redwood, alarmed out of his disdain\nfor Winkles.\n\n\"They\'ll not do all that,\" said Winkles. \"But public opinion is public\nopinion, and votes are votes. Everybody can see you are up to a\ndisturbing thing. And the human instinct is all against disturbance, you\nknow. Nobody seems to believe Caterham\'s idea of people thirty-seven\nfeet high, who won\'t be able to get inside a church, or a meeting-house,\nor any social or human institution. But for all that they\'re not so easy\nin their minds about it. They see there\'s something--something more than\na common discovery--\"\n\n\"There is,\" said Redwood, \"in every discovery.\"\n\n\"Anyhow, they\'re getting--restive. Caterham keeps harping on what may\nhappen if it gets loose again. I say over and over again, it won\'t, and\nit can\'t. But--there it is!\"\n\nAnd he bounced about the room for a little while as if he meant to\nreopen the topic of the secret, and then thought better of it and went.\n\nThe two scientific men looked at one another. For a space only their\neyes spoke.\n\n\"If the worst comes to the worst,\" said Redwood at last, in a\nstrenuously calm voice, \"I shall give the Food to my little Teddy with\nmy own hands.\"\n\n\nIII.\n\nIt was only a few days after this that Redwood opened his paper to find\nthat the Prime Minister had promised a Royal Commission on Boomfood.\nThis sent him, newspaper in hand, round to Bensington\'s flat.\n\n\"Winkles, I believe, is making mischief for the stuff. He plays into the\nhands of Caterham. He keeps on talking about it, and what it is going to\ndo, and alarming people. If he goes on, I really believe he\'ll hamper\nour inquiries. Even as it is--with this trouble about my little boy--\"\n\nBensington wished Winkles wouldn\'t.\n\n\"Do you notice how he has dropped into the way of calling it Boomfood?\"\n\n\"I don\'t like that name,\" said Bensington, with a glance over his\nglasses.\n\n\"It is just so exactly what it is--to Winkles.\"\n\n\"Why does he keep on about it? It isn\'t his!\"\n\n\"It\'s something called Booming,\" said Redwood. \"_I_ don\'t understand. If\nit isn\'t his, everybody is getting to think it is. Not that _that_\nmatters.\"\n\n\"In the event of this ignorant, this ridiculous agitation\nbecoming--Serious,\" began Bensington.\n\n\"My little boy can\'t get on without the stuff,\" said Redwood. \"I don\'t\nsee how I can help myself now. If the worst comes to the worst--\"\n\nA slight bouncing noise proclaimed the presence of Winkles. He became\nvisible in the middle of the room rubbing his hands together.\n\n\"I wish you\'d knock,\" said Bensington, looking vicious over the gold\nrims.\n\nWinkles was apologetic. Then he turned to Redwood. \"I\'m glad to find you\nhere,\" he began; \"the fact is--\"\n\n\"Have you seen about this Royal Commission?\" interrupted Redwood.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Winkles, thrown out. \"Yes.\"\n\n\"What do you think of it?\"\n\n\"Excellent thing,\" said Winkles. \"Bound to stop most of this clamour.\nVentilate the whole affair. Shut up Caterham. But that\'s not what I came\nround for, Redwood. The fact is--\"\n\n\"I don\'t like this Royal Commission,\" said Bensington.\n\n\"I can assure you it will be all right. I may say--I don\'t think it\'s a\nbreach of confidence--that very possibly _I_ may have a place on the\nCommission--\"\n\n\"Oom,\" said Redwood, looking into the fire.\n\n\"I can put the whole thing right. I can make it perfectly clear, first,\nthat the stuff is controllable, and, secondly, that nothing short of a\nmiracle is needed before anything like that catastrophe at Hickleybrow\ncan possibly happen again. That is just what is wanted, an authoritative\nassurance. Of course, I could speak with more confidence if I knew--But\nthat\'s quite by the way. And just at present there\'s something else,\nanother little matter, upon which I\'m wanting to consult you. Ahem. The\nfact is--Well--I happen to be in a slight difficulty, and you can help\nme out.\"\n\nRedwood raised his eyebrows, and was secretly glad.\n\n\"The matter is--highly confidential.\"\n\n\"Go on,\" said Redwood. \"Don\'t worry about that.\"\n\n\"I have recently been entrusted with a child--the child of--of an\nExalted Personage.\"\n\nWinkles coughed.\n\n\"You\'re getting on,\" said Redwood.\n\n\"I must confess it\'s largely your powders--and the reputation of my\nsuccess with your little boy--There is, I cannot disguise, a strong\nfeeling against its use. And yet I find that among the more\nintelligent--One must go quietly in these things, you know--little by\nlittle. Still, in the case of Her Serene High--I mean this new little\npatient of mine. As a matter of fact--the suggestion came from the\nparent. Or I should never--\"\n\nHe struck Redwood as being embarrassed.\n\n\"I thought you had a doubt of the advisability of using these powders,\"\nsaid Redwood.\n\n\"Merely a passing doubt.\"\n\n\"You don\'t propose to discontinue--\"\n\n\"In the case of your little boy? Certainly not!\"\n\n\"So far as I can see, it would be murder.\"\n\n\"I wouldn\'t do it for the world.\"\n\n\"You shall have the powders,\" said Redwood.\n\n\"I suppose you couldn\'t--\"\n\n\"No fear,\" said Redwood. \"There isn\'t a recipe. It\'s no good, Winkles,\nif you\'ll pardon my frankness. I\'ll make you the powders myself.\"\n\n\"Just as well, perhaps,\" said Winkles, after a momentary hard stare at\nRedwood--\"just as well.\" And then: \"I can assure you I really don\'t mind\nin the least.\"\n\n\nIV.\n\nWhen Winkles had gone Bensington came and stood on the hearth-rug and\nlooked down at Redwood.\n\n\"Her Serene Highness!\" he remarked.\n\n\"Her Serene Highness!\" said Redwood.\n\n\"It\'s the Princess of Weser Dreiburg!\"\n\n\"No further than a third cousin.\"\n\n\"Redwood,\" said Bensington; \"it\'s a curious thing to say, I know,\nbut--do you think Winkles understands?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Just what it is we have made.\n\n\"Does he really understand,\" said Bensington, dropping his voice and\nkeeping his eye doorward, \"that in the Family--the Family of his new\npatient--\"\n\n\"Go on,\" said Redwood.\n\n\"Who have always been if anything a little _under_--_under_--\"\n\n\"The Average?\"\n\n\"Yes. And so _very_ tactfully undistinguished in _any_ way, he is going\nto produce a royal personage--an outsize royal personage--of _that_\nsize. You know, Redwood, I\'m not sure whether there is not something\nalmost--_treasonable_ ...\"\n\nHe transferred his eyes from the door to Redwood.\n\nRedwood flung a momentary gesture--index finger erect--at the fire. \"By\nJove!\" he said, \"he _doesn\'t_ know!\"\n\n\"That man,\" said Redwood, \"doesn\'t know anything. That was his most\nexasperating quality as a student. Nothing. He passed all his\nexaminations, he had all his facts--and he had just as much\nknowledge--as a rotating bookshelf containing the _Times Encyclopedia_.\nAnd he doesn\'t know anything _now_. He\'s Winkles, and incapable of\nreally assimilating anything not immediately and directly related to his\nsuperficial self. He is utterly void of imagination and, as a\nconsequence, incapable of knowledge. No one could possibly pass so many\nexaminations and be so well dressed, so well done, and so successful as\na doctor without that precise incapacity. That\'s it. And in spite of all\nhe\'s seen and heard and been told, there he is--he has no idea whatever\nof what he has set going. He has got a Boom on, he\'s working it well on\nBoomfood, and some one has let him in to this new Royal Baby--and that\'s\nBoomier than ever! And the fact that Weser Dreiburg will presently have\nto face the gigantic problem of a thirty-odd-foot Princess not only\nhasn\'t entered his head, but couldn\'t--it couldn\'t!\"\n\n\"There\'ll be a fearful row,\" said Bensington.\n\n\"In a year or so.\"\n\n\"So soon as they really see she is going on growing.\"\n\n\"Unless after their fashion--they hush it up.\"\n\n\"It\'s a lot to hush up.\"\n\n\"Rather!\"\n\n\"I wonder what they\'ll do?\"\n\n\"They never do anything--Royal tact.\"\n\n\"They\'re bound to do something.\"\n\n\"Perhaps _she_ will.\"\n\n\"O Lord! Yes.\"\n\n\"They\'ll suppress her. Such things have been known.\"\n\nRedwood burst into desperate laughter. \"The redundant royalty--the\nbouncing babe in the Iron Mask!\" he said. \"They\'ll have to put her in\nthe tallest tower of the old Weser Dreiburg castle and make holes in the\nceilings as she grows from floor to floor! Well, I\'m in the very same\npickle. And Cossar and his three boys. And--Well, well.\"\n\n\"There\'ll be a fearful row,\" Bensington repeated, not joining in the\nlaughter. \"A _fearful_ row.\"\n\n\"I suppose,\" he argued, \"you\'ve really thought it out thoroughly,\nRedwood. You\'re quite sure it wouldn\'t be wiser to warn Winkles, wean\nyour little boy gradually, and--and rely upon the Theoretical Triumph?\"\n\n\"I wish to goodness you\'d spend half an hour in my nursery when the\nFood\'s a little late,\" said Redwood, with a note of exasperation in his\nvoice; \"then you wouldn\'t talk like that, Bensington. Besides--Fancy\nwarning Winkles... No! The tide of this thing has caught us unawares,\nand whether we\'re frightened or whether we\'re not--_we\'ve got to swim!_\"\n\n\"I suppose we have,\" said Bensington, staring at his toes. \"Yes. We\'ve\ngot to swim. And your boy will have to swim, and Cossar\'s boys--he\'s\ngiven it to all three of them. Nothing partial about Cossar--all or\nnothing! And Her Serene Highness. And everything. We are going on making\nthe Food. Cossar also. We\'re only just in the dawn of the beginning,\nRedwood. It\'s evident all sorts of things are to follow. Monstrous great\nthings. But I can\'t imagine them, Redwood. Except--\"\n\nHe scanned his finger nails. He looked up at Redwood with eyes bland\nthrough his glasses.\n\n\"I\'ve half a mind,\" he adventured, \"that Caterham is right. At times.\nIt\'s going to destroy the Proportions of Things. It\'s going to\ndislocate--What isn\'t it going to dislocate?\"\n\n\"Whatever it dislocates,\" said Redwood, \"my little boy must have the\nFood.\"\n\nThey heard some one falling rapidly upstairs. Then Cossar put his head\ninto the fiat. \"Hullo!\" he said at their expressions, and entering,\n\"Well?\"\n\nThey told him about the Princess.\n\n\"_Difficult question!_\" he remarked. \"Not a bit of it. _She\'ll_ grow.\nYour boy\'ll grow. All the others you give it to \'ll grow. Everything.\nLike anything. What\'s difficult about that? That\'s all right. A child\ncould tell you that. Where\'s the bother?\"\n\nThey tried to make it clear to him.\n\n\"_Not go on with it!_\" he shrieked. \"But--! You can\'t help yourselves\nnow. It\'s what you\'re for. It\'s what Winkles is for. It\'s all right.\nOften wondered what Winkles was for. _Now_ it\'s obvious. What\'s the\ntrouble?\n\n\"_Disturbance_? Obviously. _Upset things_? Upset everything.\nFinally--upset every human concern. Plain as a pikestaff. They\'re going\nto try and stop it, but they\'re too late. It\'s their way to be too late.\nYou go on and start as much of it as you can. Thank God He has a use for\nyou!\"\n\n\"But the conflict!\" said Bensington, \"the stress! I don\'t know if you\nhave imagined--\"\n\n\"You ought to have been some sort of little vegetable, Bensington,\" said\nCossar--\"that\'s what you ought to have been. Something growing over a\nrockery. Here you are, fearfully and wonderfully made, and all you think\nyou\'re made for is just to sit about and take your vittles. D\'you think\nthis world was made for old women to mop about in? Well, anyhow, you\ncan\'t help yourselves now--you\'ve _got_ to go on.\"\n\n\"I suppose we must,\" said Redwood. \"Slowly--\"\n\n\"No!\" said Cossar, in a huge shout. \"No! Make as much as you can and as\nsoon as you can. Spread it about!\"\n\nHe was inspired to a stroke of wit. He parodied one of Redwood\'s curves\nwith a vast upward sweep of his arm.\n\n\"Redwood!\" he said, to point the allusion, \"make it SO!\"\n\n\nV.\n\nThere is, it seems, an upward limit to the pride of maternity, and this\nin the case of Mrs. Redwood was reached when her offspring completed his\nsixth month of terrestrial existence, broke down his high-class\nbassinet-perambulator, and was brought home, bawling, in the milk-truck.\nYoung Redwood at that time weighed fifty-nine and a half pounds,\nmeasured forty-eight inches in height, and gripped about sixty pounds.\nHe was carried upstairs to the nursery by the cook and housemaid. After\nthat, discovery was only a question of days. One afternoon Redwood came\nhome from his laboratory to find his unfortunate wife deep in the\nfascinating pages of _The Mighty Atom_, and at the sight of him she put\nthe book aside and ran violently forward and burst into tears on his\nshoulder.\n\n\"Tell me what you have _done_ to him,\" she wailed. \"Tell me what you\nhave done.\" Redwood took her hand and led her to the sofa, while he\ntried to think of a satisfactory line of defence.\n\n\"It\'s all right, my dear,\" he said; \"it\'s all right. You\'re only a\nlittle overwrought. It\'s that cheap perambulator. I\'ve arranged for a\nbath-chair man to come round with something stouter to-morrow--\"\n\nMrs. Redwood looked at him tearfully over the top of her handkerchief.\n\n\"A baby in a bath-chair?\" she sobbed.\n\n\"Well, why not?\"\n\n\"It\'s like a cripple.\"\n\n\"It\'s like a young giant, my dear, and you\'ve no cause to be ashamed of\nhim.\"\n\n\"You\'ve done something to him, Dandy,\" she said. \"I can see it in your\nface.\"\n\n\"Well, it hasn\'t stopped his growth, anyhow,\" said Redwood heartlessly.\n\n\"I _knew_,\" said Mrs. Redwood, and clenched her pocket-handkerchief ball\nfashion in one hand. She looked at him with a sudden change to severity.\n\"What have you done to our child, Dandy?\"\n\n\"What\'s wrong with him?\"\n\n\"He\'s so big. He\'s a monster.\"\n\n\"Nonsense. He\'s as straight and clean a baby as ever a woman had. What\'s\nwrong with him?\"\n\n\"Look at his size.\"\n\n\"That\'s all right. Look at the puny little brutes about us! He\'s the\nfinest baby--\"\n\n\"He\'s _too_ fine,\" said Mrs. Redwood.\n\n\"It won\'t go on,\" said Redwood reassuringly; \"it\'s just a start he\'s\ntaken.\"\n\nBut he knew perfectly well it would go on. And it did. By the time this\nbaby was twelve months old he tottered just one inch under five feet\nhigh and scaled eight stone three; he was as big in fact as a St.\nPeter\'s _in Vaticano_ cherub, and his affectionate clutch at the hair\nand features of visitors became the talk of West Kensington. They had an\ninvalid\'s chair to carry him up and down to his nursery, and his special\nnurse, a muscular young person just out of training, used to take him\nfor his airings in a Panhard 8 h.p. hill-climbing perambulator specially\nmade to meet his requirement. It was lucky in every way that Redwood had\nhis expert witness connection in addition to his professorship.\n\nWhen one got over the shock of little Redwood\'s enormous size, he was, I\nam told by people who used to see him almost daily teufteufing slowly\nabout Hyde Park, a singularly bright and pretty baby. He rarely cried or\nneeded a comforter. Commonly he clutched a big rattle, and sometimes he\nwent along hailing the bus-drivers and policemen along the road outside\nthe railings as \"Dadda!\" and \"Babba!\" in a sociable, democratic way.\n\n\"There goes that there great Boomfood baby,\" the bus-driver used to say.\n\n\"Looks \'ealthy,\" the forward passenger would remark.\n\n\"Bottle fed,\" the bus-driver would explain. \"They say it \'olds a gallon\nand \'ad to be specially made for \'im.\"\n\n\"Very \'ealthy child any\'ow,\" the forward passenger would conclude.\n\nWhen Mrs. Redwood realized that his growth was indeed going on\nindefinitely and logically--and this she really did for the first time\nwhen the motor-perambulator arrived--she gave way to a passion of grief.\nShe declared she never wished to enter her nursery again, wished she was\ndead, wished the child was dead, wished everybody was dead, wished she\nhad never married Redwood, wished no one ever married anybody, Ajaxed a\nlittle, and retired to her own room, where she lived almost exclusively\non chicken broth for three days. When Redwood came to remonstrate with\nher, she banged pillows about and wept and tangled her hair.\n\n\"_He\'s_ all right,\" said Redwood. \"He\'s all the better for being big.\nYou wouldn\'t like him smaller than other people\'s children.\"\n\n\"I want him to be _like_ other children, neither smaller nor bigger. I\nwanted him to be a nice little boy, just as Georgina Phyllis is a nice\nlittle girl, and I wanted to bring him up nicely in a nice way, and here\nhe is\"--and the unfortunate woman\'s voice broke--\"wearing number four\ngrown-up shoes and being wheeled about by--booboo!--Petroleum!\n\n\"I can never love him,\" she wailed, \"never! He\'s too much for me! I can\nnever be a mother to him, such as I meant to be!\"\n\nBut at last, they contrived to get her into the nursery, and there was\nEdward Monson Redwood (\"Pantagruel\" was only a later nickname) swinging\nin a specially strengthened rocking-chair and smiling and talking \"goo\"\nand \"wow.\" And the heart of Mrs. Redwood warmed again to her child, and\nshe went and held him in her arms and wept.\n\n\"They\'ve done something to you,\" she sobbed, \"and you\'ll grow and grow,\ndear; but whatever I can do to bring you up nice I\'ll do for you,\nwhatever your father may say.\"\n\nAnd Redwood, who had helped to bring her to the door, went down the\npassage much relieved. (Eh! but it\'s a base job this being a man--with\nwomen as they are!)\n\n\nVI.\n\nBefore the year was out there were, in addition to Redwood\'s pioneer\nvehicle, quite a number of motor-perambulators to be seen in the west of\nLondon. I am told there were as many as eleven; but the most careful\ninquiries yield trustworthy evidence of only six within the Metropolitan\narea at that time. It would seem the stuff acted differently upon\ndifferent types of constitution. At first Herakleophorbia was not\nadapted to injection, and there can be no doubt that quite a\nconsiderable proportion of human beings are incapable of absorbing this\nsubstance in the normal course of digestion. It was given, for example,\nto Winkles\' youngest boy; but he seems to have been as incapable of\ngrowth as, if Redwood was right, his father was incapable of knowledge.\nOthers again, according to the Society for the Total Suppression of\nBoomfood, became in some inexplicable way corrupted by it, and perished\nat the onset of infantile disorders. The Cossar boys took to it with\namazing avidity.\n\nOf course a thing of this kind never comes with absolute simplicity of\napplication into the life of man; growth in particular is a complex\nthing, and all generalisations must needs be a little inaccurate. But\nthe general law of the Food would seem to be this, that when it could be\ntaken into the system in any way it stimulated it in very nearly the\nsame degree in all cases. It increased the amount of growth from six to\nseven times, and it did not go beyond that, whatever amount of the Food\nin excess was taken. Excess of Herakleophorbia indeed beyond the\nnecessary minimum led, it was found, to morbid disturbances of\nnutrition, to cancer and tumours, ossifications, and the like. And once\ngrowth upon the large scale had begun, it was soon evident that it could\nonly continue upon that scale, and that the continuous administration of\nHerakleophorbia in small but sufficient doses was imperative.\n\nIf it was discontinued while growth was still going on, there was first\na vague restlessness and distress, then a period of voracity--as in the\ncase of the young rats at Hankey--and then the growing creature had a\nsort of exaggerated anaemia and sickened and died. Plants suffered in a\nsimilar way. This, however, applied only to the growth period. So soon\nas adolescence was attained--in plants this was represented by the\nformation of the first flower-buds--the need and appetite for\nHerakleophorbia diminished, and so soon as the plant or animal was fully\nadult, it became altogether independent of any further supply of the\nfood. It was, as it were, completely established on the new scale. It\nwas so completely established on the new scale that, as the thistles\nabout Hickleybrow and the grass of the down side already demonstrated,\nits seed produced giant offspring after its kind.\n\nAnd presently little Redwood, pioneer of the new race, first child of\nall who ate the food, was crawling about his nursery, smashing\nfurniture, biting like a horse, pinching like a vice, and bawling\ngigantic baby talk at his \"Nanny\" and \"Mammy\" and the rather scared and\nawe-stricken \"Daddy,\" who had set this mischief going.\n\nThe child was born with good intentions. \"Padda be good, be good,\" he\nused to say as the breakables flew before him. \"Padda\" was his\nrendering of Pantagruel, the nickname Redwood imposed on him. And\nCossar, disregarding certain Ancient Lights that presently led to\ntrouble, did, after a conflict with the local building regulations, get\nbuilding on a vacant piece of ground adjacent to Redwood\'s home, a\ncomfortable well-lit playroom, schoolroom, and nursery for their four\nboys--sixty feet square about this room was, and forty feet high.\n\nRedwood fell in love with that great nursery as he and Cossar built it,\nand his interest in curves faded, as he had never dreamt it could fade,\nbefore the pressing needs of his son. \"There is much,\" he said, \"in\nfitting a nursery. Much.\n\n\"The walls, the things in it, they will all speak to this new mind of\nours, a little more, a little less eloquently, and teach it, or fail to\nteach it a thousand things.\"\n\n\"Obviously,\" said Cossar, reaching hastily for his hat.\n\nThey worked together harmoniously, but Redwood supplied most of the\neducational theory required ...\n\nThey had the walls and woodwork painted with a cheerful vigour; for the\nmost part a slightly warmed white prevailed, but there were bands of\nbright clean colour to enforce the simple lines of construction. \"Clean\ncolours we _must_ have,\" said Redwood, and in one place had a neat\nhorizontal band of squares, in which crimson and purple, orange and\nlemon, blues and greens, in many hues and many shades, did themselves\nhonour. These squares the giant children should arrange and rearrange to\ntheir pleasure. \"Decorations must follow,\" said Redwood; \"let them first\nget the range of all the tints, and then this may go away. There is no\nreason why one should bias them in favour of any particular colour or\ndesign.\"\n\nThen, \"The place must be full of interest,\" said Redwood. \"Interest is\nfood for a child, and blankness torture and starvation. He must have\npictures galore.\" There were no pictures hung about the room for any\npermanent service, however, but blank frames were provided into which\nnew pictures would come and pass thence into a portfolio so soon as\ntheir fresh interest had passed. There was one window that looked down\nthe length of a street, and in addition, for an added interest, Redwood\nhad contrived above the roof of the nursery a camera obscura that\nwatched the Kensington High Street and not a little of the Gardens.\n\nIn one corner that most worthy implement, an Abacus, four feet square, a\nspecially strengthened piece of ironmongery with rounded corners,\nawaited the young giants\' incipient computations. There were few woolly\nlambs and such-like idols, but instead Cossar, without explanation, had\nbrought one day in three four-wheelers a great number of toys (all just\ntoo big for the coming children to swallow) that could be piled up,\narranged in rows, rolled about, bitten, made to flap and rattle, smacked\ntogether, felt over, pulled out, opened, closed, and mauled and\nexperimented with to an interminable extent. There were many bricks of\nwood in diverse colours, oblong and cuboid, bricks of polished china,\nbricks of transparent glass and bricks of india-rubber; there were slabs\nand slates; there were cones, truncated cones, and cylinders; there were\noblate and prolate spheroids, balls of varied substances, solid and\nhollow, many boxes of diverse size and shape, with hinged lids and screw\nlids and fitting lids, and one or two to catch and lock; there were\nbands of elastic and leather, and a number of rough and sturdy little\nobjects of a size together that could stand up steadily and suggest the\nshape of a man. \"Give \'em these,\" said Cossar. \"One at a time.\"\n\nThese things Redwood arranged in a locker in one corner. Along one side\nof the room, at a convenient height for a six-or eight-foot child, there\nwas a blackboard, on which the youngsters might flourish in white and\ncoloured chalk, and near by a sort of drawing block, from which sheet\nafter sheet might be torn, and on which they could draw in charcoal, and\na little desk there was, furnished with great carpenter\'s pencils of\nvarying hardness and a copious supply of paper, on which the boys might\nfirst scribble and then draw more neatly. And moreover Redwood gave\norders, so far ahead did his imagination go, for specially large tubes\nof liquid paint and boxes of pastels against the time when they should\nbe needed. He laid in a cask or so of plasticine and modelling clay. \"At\nfirst he and his tutor shall model together,\" he said, \"and when he is\nmore skilful he shall copy casts and perhaps animals. And that reminds\nme, I must also have made for him a box of tools!\n\n\"Then books. I shall have to look out a lot of books to put in his way,\nand they\'ll have to be big type. Now what sort of books will he need?\nThere is his imagination to be fed. That, after all, is the crown of\nevery education. The crown--as sound habits of mind and conduct are the\nthrone. No imagination at all is brutality; a base imagination is lust\nand cowardice; but a noble imagination is God walking the earth again.\nHe must dream too of a dainty fairy-land and of all the quaint little\nthings of life, in due time. But he must feed chiefly on the splendid\nreal; he shall have stories of travel through all the world, travels and\nadventures and how the world was won; he shall have stories of beasts,\ngreat books splendidly and clearly done of animals and birds and plants\nand creeping things, great books about the deeps of the sky and the\nmystery of the sea; he shall have histories and maps of all the empires\nthe world has seen, pictures and stories of all the tribes and habits\nand customs of men. And he must have books and pictures to quicken his\nsense of beauty, subtle Japanese pictures to make him love the subtler\nbeauties of bird and tendril and falling flower, and western pictures\ntoo, pictures of gracious men and women, sweet groupings, and broad\nviews of land and sea. He shall have books on the building of houses and\npalaces; he shall plan rooms and invent cities--\n\n\"I think I must give him a little theatre.\n\n\"Then there is music!\"\n\nRedwood thought that over, and decided that his son might best begin\nwith a very pure-sounding harmonicon of one octave, to which afterwards\nthere could be an extension. \"He shall play with this first, sing to it\nand give names to the notes,\" said Redwood, \"and afterwards--?\"\n\nHe stared up at the window-sill overhead and measured the size of the\nroom with his eye.\n\n\"They\'ll have to build his piano in here,\" he said. \"Bring it in in\npieces.\"\n\nHe hovered about amidst his preparations, a pensive, dark, little\nfigure. If you could have seen him there he would have looked to you\nlike a ten-inch man amidst common nursery things. A great rug--indeed it\nwas a Turkey carpet--four hundred square feet of it, upon which young\nRedwood was soon to crawl--stretched to the grill-guarded electric\nradiator that was to warm the whole place. A man from Cossar\'s hung\namidst scaffolding overhead, fixing the great frame that was to hold the\ntransitory pictures. A blotting-paper book for plant specimens as big as\na house door leant against the wall, and from it projected a gigantic\nstalk, a leaf edge or so and one flower of chickweed, all of that\ngigantic size that was soon to make Urshot famous throughout the\nbotanical world ...\n\nA sort of incredulity came to Redwood as he stood among these things.\n\n\"If it really _is_ going on--\" said Redwood, staring up at the remote\nceiling.\n\nFrom far away came a sound like the bellowing of a Mafficking bull,\nalmost as if in answer.\n\n\"It\'s going on all right,\" said Redwood. \"Evidently.\"\n\nThere followed resounding blows upon a table, followed by a vast crowing\nshout, \"Gooloo! Boozoo! Bzz ...\"\n\n\"The best thing I can do,\" said Redwood, following out some divergent\nline of thought, \"is to teach him myself.\"\n\nThat beating became more insistent. For a moment it seemed to Redwood\nthat it caught the rhythm of an engine\'s throbbing--the engine he could\nhave imagined of some great train of events that bore down upon him.\nThen a descendant flight of sharper beats broke up that effect, and were\nrepeated.\n\n\"Come in,\" he cried, perceiving that some one rapped, and the door that\nwas big enough for a cathedral opened slowly a little way. The new winch\nceased to creak, and Bensington appeared in the crack, gleaming\nbenevolently under his protruded baldness and over his glasses.\n\n\"I\'ve ventured round to _see_,\" he whispered in a confidentially furtive\nmanner.\n\n\"Come in,\" said Redwood, and he did, shutting the door behind him.\n\nHe walked forward, hands behind his back, advanced a few steps, and\npeered up with a bird-like movement at the dimensions about him. He\nrubbed his chin thoughtfully.\n\n\"Every time I come in,\" he said, with a subdued note in his voice, \"it\nstrikes me as--\'_Big_.\'\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Redwood, surveying it all again also, as if in an endeavour\nto keep hold of the visible impression. \"Yes. They\'re going to be big\ntoo, you know.\"\n\n\"I know,\" said Bensington, with a note that was nearly awe. \"_Very_\nbig.\"\n\nThey looked at one another, almost, as it were, apprehensively.\n\n\"Very big indeed,\" said Bensington, stroking the bridge of his nose, and\nwith one eye that watched Redwood doubtfully for a confirmatory\nexpression. \"All of them, you know--fearfully big. I don\'t seem able to\nimagine--even with this--just how big they\'re all going to be.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE FIFTH.\n\nTHE MINIMIFICENCE OF MR. BENSINGTON.\n\n\nI.\n\nIt was while the Royal Commission on Boomfood was preparing its report\nthat Herakleophorbia really began to demonstrate its capacity for\nleakage. And the earliness of this second outbreak was the more\nunfortunate, from the point of view of Cossar at any rate, since the\ndraft report still in existence shows that the Commission had, under the\ntutelage of that most able member, Doctor Stephen Winkles (F.R.S. M.D.\nF.R.C.P. D. Sc. J.P. D.L. etc.), already quite made up its mind that\naccidental leakages were impossible, and was prepared to recommend that\nto entrust the preparation of Boomfood to a qualified committee (Winkles\nchiefly), with an entire control over its sale, was quite enough to\nsatisfy all reasonable objections to its free diffusion. This committee\nwas to have an absolute monopoly. And it is, no doubt, to be considered\nas a part of the irony of life that the first and most alarming of this\nsecond series of leakages occurred within fifty yards of a little\ncottage at Keston occupied during the summer months by Doctor Winkles.\n\nThere can be little doubt now that Redwood\'s refusal to acquaint Winkles\nwith the composition of Herakleophorbia IV. had aroused in that\ngentleman a novel and intense desire towards analytical chemistry. He\nwas not a very expert manipulator, and for that reason probably he saw\nfit to do his work not in the excellently equipped laboratories that\nwere at his disposal in London, but without consulting any one, and\nalmost with an air of secrecy, in a rough little garden laboratory at\nthe Keston establishment. He does not seem to have shown either very\ngreat energy or very great ability in this quest; indeed one gathers he\ndropped the inquiry after working at it intermittently for about a\nmonth.\n\nThis garden laboratory, in which the work was done, was very roughly\nequipped, supplied by a standpipe tap with water, and draining into a\npipe that ran down into a swampy rush-bordered pool under an alder tree\nin a secluded corner of the common just outside the garden hedge. The\npipe was cracked, and the residuum of the Food of the Gods escaped\nthrough the crack into a little puddle amidst clumps of rushes, just in\ntime for the spring awakening.\n\nEverything was astir with life in that scummy little corner. There was\nfrog spawn adrift, tremulous with tadpoles just bursting their\ngelatinous envelopes; there were little pond snails creeping out into\nlife, and under the green skin of the rush stems the larvae of a big\nWater Beetle were struggling out of their egg cases. I doubt if the\nreader knows the larva of the beetle called (I know not why) Dytiscus.\nIt is a jointed, queer-looking thing, very muscular and sudden in its\nmovements, and given to swimming head downward with its tail out of\nwater; the length of a man\'s top thumb joint it is, and more--two\ninches, that is for those who have not eaten the Food--and it has two\nsharp jaws that meet in front of its head--tubular jaws with sharp\npoints--through which its habit is to suck its victim\'s blood ...\n\nThe first things to get at the drifting grains of the Food were the\nlittle tadpoles and the little water snails; the little wriggling\ntadpoles in particular, once they had the taste of it, took to it with\nzest. But scarcely did one of them begin to grow into a conspicuous\nposition in that little tadpole world and try a smaller brother or so as\nan aid to a vegetarian dietary, when nip! one of the Beetle larva had\nits curved bloodsucking prongs gripping into his heart, and with that\nred stream went Herakleophorbia IV, in a state of solution, into the\nbeing of a new client. The only thing that had a chance with these\nmonsters to get any share of the Food were the rushes and slimy green\nscum in the water and the seedling weeds in the mud at the bottom. A\nclean up of the study presently washed a fresh spate of the Food into\nthe puddle, and overflowed it, and carried all this sinister expansion\nof the struggle for life into the adjacent pool under the roots of the\nalder...\n\nThe first person to discover what was going on was a Mr. Lukey\nCarrington, a special science teacher under the London Education Board,\nand, in his leisure, a specialist in fresh-water algae, and he is\ncertainly not to be envied his discovery. He had come down to Keston\nCommon for the day to fill a number of specimen tubes for subsequent\nexamination, and he came, with a dozen or so of corked tubes clanking\nfaintly in his pocket, over the sandy crest and down towards the pool,\nspiked walking stick in hand. A garden lad standing on the top of the\nkitchen steps clipping Doctor Winkles\' hedge saw him in this\nunfrequented corner, and found him and his occupation sufficiently\ninexplicable and interesting to watch him pretty closely.\n\nHe saw Mr. Carrington stoop down by the side of the pool, with his hand\nagainst the old alder stem, and peer into the water, but of course he\ncould not appreciate the surprise and pleasure with which Mr. Carrington\nbeheld the big unfamiliar-looking blobs and threads of the algal scum at\nthe bottom. There were no tadpoles visible--they had all been killed by\nthat time--and it would seem Mr. Carrington saw nothing at all unusual\nexcept the excessive vegetation. He bared his arm to the elbow, leant\nforward, and dipped deep in pursuit of a specimen. His seeking hand went\ndown. Instantly there flashed out of the cool shadow under the tree\nroots something--\n\nFlash! It had buried its fangs deep into his arm--a bizarre shape it\nwas, a foot long and more, brown and jointed like a scorpion.\n\nIts ugly apparition and the sharp amazing painfulness of its bite were\ntoo much for Mr. Carrington\'s equilibrium. He felt himself going, and\nyelled aloud. Over he toppled, face foremost, splash! into the pool.\n\nThe boy saw him vanish, and heard the splashing of his struggle in the\nwater. The unfortunate man emerged again into the boy\'s field of vision,\nhatless and streaming with water, and screaming!\n\nNever before had the boy heard screams from a man.\n\nThis astonishing stranger appeared to be tearing at something on the\nside of his face. There appeared streaks of blood there. He flung out\nhis arms as if in despair, leapt in the air like a frantic creature, ran\nviolently ten or twelve yards, and then fell and rolled on the ground\nand over and out of sight of the boy. The lad was down the steps and\nthrough the hedge in a trice--happily with the garden shears still in\nhand. As he came crashing through the gorse bushes, he says he was half\nminded to turn back, fearing he had to deal with a lunatic, but the\npossession of the shears reassured him. \"I could \'ave jabbed his eyes,\"\nhe explained, \"anyhow.\" Directly Mr. Carrington caught sight of him, his\ndemeanour became at once that of a sane but desperate man. He struggled\nto his feet, stumbled, stood up, and came to meet the boy.\n\n\"Look!\" he cried, \"I can\'t get \'em off!\"\n\nAnd with a qualm of horror the boy saw that, attached to Mr.\nCarrington\'s cheek, to his bare arm, and to his thigh, and lashing\nfuriously with their lithe brown muscular bodies, were three of these\nhorrible larvae, their great jaws buried deep in his flesh and sucking\nfor dear life. They had the grip of bulldogs, and Mr. Carrington\'s\nefforts to detach the monsters from his face had only served to lacerate\nthe flesh to which it had attached itself, and streak face and neck and\ncoat with living scarlet.\n\n\"I\'ll cut \'im,\" cried the boy; \"\'old on, Sir.\"\n\nAnd with the zest of his age in such proceedings, he severed one by one\nthe heads from the bodies of Mr. Carrington\'s assailants. \"Yup,\" said\nthe boy with a wincing face as each one fell before him. Even then, so\ntough and determined was their grip that the severed heads remained for\na space, still fiercely biting home and still sucking, with the blood\nstreaming out of their necks behind. But the boy stopped that with a few\nmore slashes of his scissors--in one of which Mr. Carrington was\nimplicated.\n\n\"I couldn\'t get \'em off!\" repeated Carrington, and stood for a space,\nswaying and bleeding profusely. He dabbed feeble hands at his injuries\nand examined the result upon his palms. Then he gave way at the knees\nand fell headlong in a dead faint at the boy\'s feet, between the still\nleaping bodies of his defeated foes. Very luckily it didn\'t occur to the\nboy to splash water on his face--for there were still more of these\nhorrors under the alder roots--and instead he passed back by the pond\nand went into the garden with the intention of calling assistance. And\nthere he met the gardener coachman and told him of the whole affair.\n\nWhen they got back to Mr. Carrington he was sitting up, dazed and weak,\nbut able to warn them against the danger in the pool.\n\n\nII.\n\nSuch were the circumstances by which the world had its first\nnotification that the Food was loose again. In another week Keston\nCommon was in full operation as what naturalists call a centre of\ndistribution. This time there were no wasps or rats, no earwigs and no\nnettles, but there were at least three water-spiders, several dragon-fly\nlarvae which presently became dragon-flies, dazzling all Kent with their\nhovering sapphire bodies, and a nasty gelatinous, scummy growth that\nswelled over the pond margin, and sent its slimy green masses surging\nhalfway up the garden path to Doctor Winkles\'s house. And there began a\ngrowth of rushes and equisetum and potamogeton that ended only with the\ndrying of the pond.\n\nIt speedily became evident to the public mind that this time there was\nnot simply one centre of distribution, but quite a number of centres.\nThere was one at Ealing--there can be no doubt now--and from that came\nthe plague of flies and red spider; there was one at Sunbury, productive\nof ferocious great eels, that could come ashore and kill sheep; and\nthere was one in Bloomsbury that gave the world a new strain of\ncockroaches of a quite terrible sort--an old house it was in Bloomsbury,\nand much inhabited by undesirable things. Abruptly the world found\nitself confronted with the Hickleybrow experiences all over again, with\nall sorts of queer exaggerations of familiar monsters in the place of\nthe giant hens and rats and wasps. Each centre burst out with its own\ncharacteristic local fauna and flora....\n\nWe know now that every one of these centres corresponded to one of the\npatients of Doctor Winkles, but that was by no means apparent at the\ntime. Doctor Winkles was the last person to incur any odium in the\nmatter. There was a panic quite naturally, a passionate indignation, but\nit was indignation not against Doctor Winkles but against the Food, and\nnot so much against the Food as against the unfortunate Bensington, whom\nfrom the very first the popular imagination had insisted upon regarding\nas the sole and only person responsible for this new thing.\n\nThe attempt to lynch him that followed is just one of those explosive\nevents that bulk largely in history and are in reality the least\nsignificant of occurrences.\n\nThe history of the outbreak is a mystery. The nucleus of the crowd\ncertainly came from an Anti-Boomfood meeting in Hyde Park organised by\nextremists of the Caterham party, but there seems no one in the world\nwho actually first proposed, no one who ever first hinted a suggestion\nof the outrage at which so many people assisted. It is a problem for M.\nGustave le Bon--a mystery in the psychology of crowds. The fact emerges\nthat about three o\'clock on Sunday afternoon a remarkably big and ugly\nLondon crowd, entirely out of hand, came rolling down Thursday Street\nintent on Bensington\'s exemplary death as a warning to all scientific\ninvestigators, and that it came nearer accomplishing its object than any\nLondon crowd has ever come since the Hyde Park railings came down in\nremote middle Victorian times. This crowd came so close to its object\nindeed, that for the space of an hour or more a word would have settled\nthe unfortunate gentleman\'s fate.\n\nThe first intimation he had of the thing was the noise of the people\noutside. He went to the window and peered, realising nothing of what\nimpended. For a minute perhaps he watched them seething about the\nentrance, disposing of an ineffectual dozen of policemen who barred\ntheir way, before he fully realised his own importance in the affair. It\ncame upon him in a flash--that that roaring, swaying multitude was after\nhim. He was all alone in the flat--fortunately perhaps--his cousin Jane\nhaving gone down to Ealing to have tea with a relation on her mother\'s\nside, and he had no more idea of how to behave under such circumstances\nthan he had of the etiquette of the Day of Judgment. He was still\ndashing about the flat asking his furniture what he should do, turning\nkeys in locks and then unlocking them again, making darts at door and\nwindow and bedroom--when the floor clerk came to him.\n\n\"There isn\'t a moment, Sir,\" he said. \"They\'ve got your number from the\nboard in the hall! They\'re coming straight up!\"\n\nHe ran Mr. Bensington out into the passage, already echoing with the\napproaching tumult from the great staircase, locked the door behind\nthem, and led the way into the opposite flat by means of his duplicate\nkey.\n\n\"It\'s our only chance now,\" he said.\n\nHe flung up a window which opened on a ventilating shaft, and showed\nthat the wall was set with iron staples that made the rudest and most\nperilous of wall ladders to serve as a fire escape from the upper flats.\nHe shoved Mr. Bensington out of the window, showed him how to cling on,\nand pursued him up the ladder, goading and jabbing his legs with a bunch\nof keys whenever he desisted from climbing. It seemed to Bensington at\ntimes that he must climb that vertical ladder for evermore. Above, the\nparapet was inaccessibly remote, a mile perhaps, below--He did not care\nto think of things below.\n\n\"Steady on!\" cried the clerk, and gripped his ankle. It was quite\nhorrible having his ankle gripped like that, and Mr. Bensington\ntightened his hold on the iron staple above to a drowning clutch, and\ngave a faint squeal of terror.\n\nIt became evident the clerk had broken a window, and then it seemed he\nhad leapt a vast distance sideways, and there came the noise of a\nwindow-frame sliding in its sash. He was bawling things.\n\nMr. Bensington moved his head round cautiously until he could see the\nclerk. \"Come down six steps,\" the clerk commanded.\n\nAll this moving about seemed very foolish, but very, very cautiously Mr.\nBensington lowered a foot.\n\n\"Don\'t pull me!\" he cried, as the clerk made to help him from the open\nwindow.\n\nIt seemed to him that to reach the window from the ladder would be a\nvery respectable feat for a flying fox, and it was rather with the idea\nof a decent suicide than in any hope of accomplishing it that he made\nthe step at last, and quite ruthlessly the clerk pulled him in. \"You\'ll\nhave to stop here,\" said the clerk; \"my keys are no good here. It\'s an\nAmerican lock. I\'ll get out and slam the door behind me and see if I can\nfind the man of this floor. You\'ll be locked in. Don\'t go to the window,\nthat\'s all. It\'s the ugliest crowd I\'ve ever seen. If only they think\nyou\'re out they\'ll probably content themselves by breaking up your\nstuff--\"\n\n\"The indicator said In,\" said Bensington.\n\n\"The devil it did! Well, anyhow, I\'d better not be found--\"\n\nHe vanished with a slam of the door.\n\nBensington was left to his own initiative again.\n\nIt took him under the bed.\n\nThere presently he was found by Cossar.\n\nBensington was almost comatose with terror when he was found, for Cossar\nhad burst the door in with his shoulder by jumping at it across the\nbreadth of the passage.\n\n\"Come out of it, Bensington,\" he said. \"It\'s all right. It\'s me. We\'ve\ngot to get out of this. They\'re setting the place on fire. The porters\nare all clearing out. The servants are gone. It\'s lucky I caught the man\nwho knew.\n\n\"Look here!\"\n\nBensington, peering from under the bed, became aware of some\nunaccountable garments on Cossar\'s arm, and, of all things, a black\nbonnet in his hand!\n\n\"They\'re having a clear out,\" said Cossar, \"If they don\'t set the place\non fire they\'ll come here. Troops may not be here for an hour yet. Fifty\nper cent. Hooligans in the crowd, and the more furnished flats they go\ninto the better they\'ll like it. Obviously.... They mean a clear out.\nYou put this skirt and bonnet on, Bensington, and clear out with me.\"\n\n\"D\'you _mean_--?\" began Bensington, protruding a head, tortoise fashion.\n\n\"I mean, put \'em on and come! Obviously,\" And with a sudden vehemence he\ndragged Bensington from under the bed, and began to dress him for his\nnew impersonation of an elderly woman of the people.\n\nHe rolled up his trousers and made him kick off his slippers, took off\nhis collar and tie and coat and vest, slipped a black skirt over his\nhead, and put on a red flannel bodice and a body over the same. He made\nhim take off his all too characteristic spectacles, and clapped the\nbonnet on his head. \"You might have been born an old woman,\" he said as\nhe tied the strings. Then came the spring-side boots--a terrible wrench\nfor corns--and the shawl, and the disguise was complete. \"Up and down,\"\nsaid Cossar, and Bensington obeyed.\n\n\"You\'ll do,\" said Cossar.\n\nAnd in this guise it was, stumbling awkwardly over his unaccustomed\nskirts, shouting womanly imprecations upon his own head in a weird\nfalsetto to sustain his part, and to the roaring note of a crowd bent\nupon lynching him, that the original discoverer of Herakleophorbia IV.\nproceeded down the corridor of Chesterfield Mansions, mingled with that\ninflamed disorderly multitude, and passed out altogether from the thread\nof events that constitutes our story.\n\nNever once after that escape did he meddle again with the stupendous\ndevelopment of the Food of the Gods he of all men had done most to\nbegin.\n\n\nIII.\n\nThis little man who started the whole thing passes out of the story, and\nafter a time he passed altogether out of the world of things, visible\nand tellable. But because he started the whole thing it is seemly to\ngive his exit an intercalary page of attention. One may picture him in\nhis later days as Tunbridge Wells came to know him. For it was at\nTunbridge Wells he reappeared after a temporary obscurity, so soon as he\nfully realised how transitory, how quite exceptional and unmeaning that\nfury of rioting was. He reappeared under the wing of Cousin Jane,\ntreating himself for nervous shock to the exclusion of all other\ninterests, and totally indifferent, as it seemed, to the battles that\nwere raging then about those new centres of distribution, and about the\nbaby Children of the Food.\n\nHe took up his quarters at the Mount Glory Hydrotherapeutic Hotel, where\nthere are quite extraordinary facilities for baths, Carbonated Baths,\nCreosote Baths, Galvanic and Faradic Treatment, Massage, Pine Baths,\nStarch and Hemlock Baths, Radium Baths, Light Baths, Heat Baths, Bran\nand Needle Baths, Tar and Birdsdown Baths,--all sorts of baths; and he\ndevoted his mind to the development of that system of curative treatment\nthat was still imperfect when he died. And sometimes he would go down in\na hired vehicle and a sealskin trimmed coat, and sometimes, when his\nfeet permitted, he would walk to the Pantiles, and there he would sip\nchalybeate water under the eye of his cousin Jane.\n\nHis stooping shoulders, his pink appearance, his beaming glasses, became\na \"feature\" of Tunbridge Wells. No one was the least bit unkind to him,\nand indeed the place and the Hotel seemed very glad to have the\ndistinction of his presence. Nothing could rob him of that distinction\nnow. And though he preferred not to follow the development of his great\ninvention in the daily papers, yet when he crossed the Lounge of the\nHotel or walked down the Pantiles and heard the whisper, \"There he is!\nThat\'s him!\" it was not dissatisfaction that softened his mouth and\ngleamed for a moment in his eye.\n\nThis little figure, this minute little figure, launched the Food of the\nGods upon the world! One does not know which is the most amazing, the\ngreatness or the littleness of these scientific and philosophical men.\nYou figure him there on the Pantiles, in the overcoat trimmed with fur.\nHe stands under that chinaware window where the spring spouts, and holds\nand sips the glass of chalybeate water in his hand. One bright eye over\nthe gilt rim is fixed, with an expression of inscrutable severity, on\nCousin Jane, \"Mm,\" he says, and sips.\n\nSo we make our souvenir, so we focus and photograph this discoverer of\nours for the last time, and leave him, a mere dot in our foreground, and\npass to the greater picture that, has developed about him, to the story\nof his Food, how the scattered Giant Children grew up day by day into a\nworld that was all too small for them, and how the net of Boomfood Laws\nand Boomfood Conventions, which the Boomfood Commission was weaving even\nthen, drew closer and closer upon them with every year of their growth,\nUntil--\n\n\n\n\nBOOK II\n\nTHE FOOD IN THE VILLAGE.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE FIRST.\n\nTHE COMING OF THE FOOD.\n\n\nI.\n\nOur theme, which began so compactly in Mr. Bensington\'s study, has\nalready spread and branched, until it points this way and that, and\nhenceforth our whole story is one of dissemination. To follow the Food\nof the Gods further is to trace the ramifications of a perpetually\nbranching tree; in a little while, in the quarter of a lifetime, the\nFood had trickled and increased from its first spring in the little farm\nnear Hickleybrow until it had spread,--it and the report and shadow of\nits power,--throughout the world. It spread beyond England very\nspeedily. Soon in America, all over the continent of Europe, in Japan,\nin Australia, at last all over the world, the thing was working towards\nits appointed end. Always it worked slowly, by indirect courses and\nagainst resistance. It was bigness insurgent. In spite of prejudice, in\nspite of law and regulation, in spite of all that obstinate conservatism\nthat lies at the base of the formal order of mankind, the Food of the\nGods, once it had been set going, pursued its subtle and invincible\nprogress.\n\nThe children of the Food grew steadily through all these years; that was\nthe cardinal fact of the time. But it is the leakages make history. The\nchildren who had eaten grew, and soon there were other children growing;\nand all the best intentions in the world could not stop further leakages\nand still further leakages. The Food insisted on escaping with the\npertinacity of a thing alive. Flour treated with the stuff crumbled in\ndry weather almost as if by intention into an impalpable powder, and\nwould lift and travel before the lightest breeze. Now it would be some\nfresh insect won its way to a temporary fatal new development, now some\nfresh outbreak from the sewers of rats and such-like vermin. For some\ndays the village of Pangbourne in Berkshire fought with giant ants.\nThree men were bitten and died. There would be a panic, there would be a\nstruggle, and the salient evil would be fought down again, leaving\nalways something behind, in the obscurer things of life--changed for\never. Then again another acute and startling outbreak, a swift upgrowth\nof monstrous weedy thickets, a drifting dissemination about the world of\ninhumanly growing thistles, of cockroaches men fought with shot guns, or\na plague of mighty flies.\n\nThere were some strange and desperate struggles in obscure places. The\nFood begot heroes in the cause of littleness ...\n\nAnd men took such happenings into their lives, and met them by the\nexpedients of the moment, and told one another there was \"no change in\nthe essential order of things.\" After the first great panic, Caterham,\nin spite of his power of eloquence, became a secondary figure in the\npolitical world, remained in men\'s minds as the exponent of an extreme\nview.\n\nOnly slowly did he win a way towards a central position in affairs.\n\"There was no change in the essential order of things,\"--that eminent\nleader of modern thought, Doctor Winkles, was very clear upon this,--and\nthe exponents of what was called in those days Progressive Liberalism\ngrew quite sentimental upon the essential insincerity of their progress.\nTheir dreams, it would appear, ran wholly on little nations, little\nlanguages, little households, each self-supported on its little farm. A\nfashion for the small and neat set in. To be big was to be \"vulgar,\" and\ndainty, neat, mignon, miniature, \"minutely perfect,\" became the\nkey-words of critical approval....\n\nMeanwhile, quietly, taking their time as children must, the children of\nthe Food, growing into a world that changed to receive them, gathered\nstrength and stature and knowledge, became individual and purposeful,\nrose slowly towards the dimensions of their destiny. Presently they\nseemed a natural part of the world; all these stirrings of bigness\nseemed a natural part of the world, and men wondered how things had been\nbefore their time. There came to men\'s ears stories of things the giant\nboys could do, and they said \"Wonderful!\"--without a spark of wonder.\nThe popular papers would tell of the three sons of Cossar, and how these\namazing children would lift great cannons, hurl masses of iron for\nhundreds of yards, and leap two hundred feet. They were said to be\ndigging a well, deeper than any well or mine that man had ever made,\nseeking, it was said, for treasures hidden in the earth since ever the\nearth began.\n\nThese Children, said the popular magazines, will level mountains, bridge\nseas, tunnel your earth to a honeycomb. \"Wonderful!\" said the little\nfolks, \"isn\'t it? What a lot of conveniences we shall have!\" and went\nabout their business as though there was no such thing as the Food of\nthe Gods on earth. And indeed these things were no more than the first\nhints and promises of the powers of the Children of the Food. It was\nstill no more than child\'s play with them, no more than the first use of\na strength in which no purpose had arisen. They did not know themselves\nfor what they were. They were children--slow-growing children of a new\nrace. The giant strength grew day by day--the giant will had still to\ngrow into purpose and an aim.\n\nLooking at it in a shortened perspective of time, those years of\ntransition have the quality of a single consecutive occurrence; but\nindeed no one saw the coming of Bigness in the world, as no one in all\nthe world till centuries had passed saw, as one happening, the Decline\nand Fall of Rome. They who lived in those days were too much among these\ndevelopments to see them together as a single thing. It seemed even to\nwise men that the Food was giving the world nothing but a crop of\nunmanageable, disconnected irrelevancies, that might shake and trouble\nindeed, but could do no more to the established order and fabric of\nmankind.\n\nTo one observer at least the most wonderful thing throughout that period\nof accumulating stress is the invincible inertia of the great mass of\npeople, their quiet persistence in all that ignored the enormous\npresences, the promise of still more enormous things, that grew among\nthem. Just as many a stream will be at its smoothest, will look most\ntranquil, running deep and strong, at the very verge of a cataract, so\nall that is most conservative in man seemed settling quietly into a\nserene ascendency during these latter days. Reaction became popular:\nthere was talk of the bankruptcy of science, of the dying of Progress,\nof the advent of the Mandarins,--talk of such things amidst the echoing\nfootsteps of the Children of the Food. The fussy pointless Revolutions\nof the old time, a vast crowd of silly little people chasing some silly\nlittle monarch and the like, had indeed died out and passed away; but\nChange had not died out. It was only Change that had changed. The New\nwas coming in its own fashion and beyond the common understanding of the\nworld.\n\nTo tell fully of its coming would be to write a great history, but\neverywhere there was a parallel chain of happenings. To tell therefore\nof the manner of its coming in one place is to tell something of the\nwhole. It chanced one stray seed of Immensity fell into the pretty,\npetty village of Cheasing Eyebright in Kent, and from the story of its\nqueer germination there and of the tragic futility that ensued, one may\nattempt--following one thread, as it were--to show the direction in\nwhich the whole great interwoven fabric of the thing rolled off the loom\nof Time.\n\n\nII.\n\nCheasing Eyebright had of course a Vicar. There are vicars and vicars,\nand of all sorts I love an innovating vicar--a piebald progressive\nprofessional reactionary--the least. But the Vicar of Cheasing Eyebright\nwas one of the least innovating of vicars, a most worthy, plump, ripe,\nand conservative-minded little man. It is becoming to go back a little\nin our story to tell of him. He matched his village, and one may figure\nthem best together as they used to be, on the sunset evening when Mrs.\nSkinner--you will remember her flight!--brought the Food with her all\nunsuspected into these rustic serenities.\n\nThe village was looking its very best just then, under that western\nlight. It lay down along the valley beneath the beechwoods of the\nHanger, a beading of thatched and red-tiled cottages--cottages with\ntrellised porches and pyracanthus-lined faces, that clustered closer and\ncloser as the road dropped from the yew trees by the church towards the\nbridge. The vicarage peeped not too ostentatiously between the trees\nbeyond the inn, an early Georgian front ripened by time, and the spire\nof the church rose happily in the depression made by the valley in the\noutline of the hills. A winding stream, a thin intermittency of sky blue\nand foam, glittered amidst a thick margin of reeds and loosestrife and\noverhanging willows, along the centre of a sinuous pennant of meadow.\nThe whole prospect had that curiously English quality of ripened\ncultivation--that look of still completeness--that apes perfection,\nunder the sunset warmth.\n\nAnd the Vicar too looked mellow. He looked habitually and essentially\nmellow, as though he had been a mellow baby born into a mellow class, a\nripe and juicy little boy. One could see, even before he mentioned it,\nthat he had gone to an ivy-clad public school in its anecdotage, with\nmagnificent traditions, aristocratic associations, and no chemical\nlaboratories, and proceeded thence to a venerable college in the very\nripest Gothic. Few books he had younger than a thousand years; of these,\nYarrow and Ellis and good pre-Methodist sermons made the bulk. He was a\nman of moderate height, a little shortened in appearance by his\nequatorial dimensions, and a face that had been mellow from the first\nwas now climacterically ripe. The beard of a David hid his redundancy of\nchin; he wore no watch chain out of refinements and his modest clerical\ngarments were made by a West End tailor.... And he sat with a hand on\neither shin, blinking at his village in beatific approval. He waved a\nplump palm towards it. His burthen sang out again. What more could any\none desire?\n\n\"We are fortunately situated,\" he said, putting the thing tamely.\n\n\"We are in a fastness of the hills,\" he expanded.\n\nHe explained himself at length. \"We are out of it all.\"\n\nFor they had been talking, he and his friend, of the Horrors of the Age,\nof Democracy, and Secular Education, and Sky Scrapers, and Motor Cars,\nand the American Invasion, the Scrappy Reading of the Public, and the\ndisappearance of any Taste at all.\n\n\"We are out of it all,\" he repeated, and even as he spoke the footsteps\nof some one coming smote upon his ear, and he rolled over and regarded\nher.\n\nYou figure the old woman\'s steadfastly tremulous advance, the bundle\nclutched in her gnarled lank hand, her nose (which was her countenance)\nwrinkled with breathless resolution. You see the poppies nodding\nfatefully on her bonnet, and the dust-white spring-sided boots beneath\nher skimpy skirts, pointing with an irrevocable slow alternation east\nand west. Beneath her arm, a restive captive, waggled and slipped a\nscarcely valuable umbrella. What was there to tell the Vicar that this\ngrotesque old figure was--so far as his village was concerned at any\nrate--no less than Fruitful Chance and the Unforeseen, the Hag weak men\ncall Fate. But for us, you understand, no more than Mrs. Skinner.\n\nAs she was too much encumbered for a curtsey, she pretended not to see\nhim and his friend at all, and so passed, flip-flop, within three yards\nof them, onward down towards the village. The Vicar watched her slow\ntransit in silence, and ripened a remark the while....\n\nThe incident seemed to him of no importance whatever. Old womankind,\n_aere perennius_, has carried bundles since the world began. What\ndifference has it made?\n\n\"We are out of it all,\" said the Vicar. \"We live in an atmosphere of\nsimple and permanent things, Birth and Toil, simple seed-time and simple\nharvest. The Uproar passes us by.\" He was always very great upon what he\ncalled the permanent things. \"Things change,\" he would say, \"but\nHumanity--_aere perennius_.\"\n\nThus the Vicar. He loved a classical quotation subtly misapplied. Below,\nMrs. Skinner, inelegant but resolute, had involved herself curiously\nwith Wilmerding\'s stile.\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\n\nNo one knows what the Vicar made of the Giant Puff-Balls.\n\nNo doubt he was among the first to discover them. They were scattered at\nintervals up and down the path between the near down and the village\nend--a path he frequented daily in his constitutional round. Altogether,\nof these abnormal fungi there were, from first to last, quite thirty.\nThe Vicar seems to have stared at each severally, and to have prodded\nmost of them with his stick once or twice. One he attempted to measure\nwith his arms, but it burst at his Ixion embrace.\n\nHe spoke to several people about them, and said they were \"marvellous!\"\nand he related to at least seven different persons the well-known story\nof the flagstone that was lifted from the cellar floor by a growth of\nfungi beneath. He looked up his Sowerby to see if it was _Lycoperdon\ncoelatum_ or _giganteum_--like all his kind since Gilbert White became\nfamous, he Gilbert-Whited. He cherished a theory that _giganteum_ is\nunfairly named.\n\nOne does not know if he observed that those white spheres lay in the\nvery track that old woman of yesterday had followed, or if he noted that\nthe last of the series swelled not a score of yards from the gate of the\nCaddles\' cottage. If he observed these things, he made no attempt to\nplace his observation on record. His observation in matters botanical\nwas what the inferior sort of scientific people call a \"trained\nobservation\"--you look for certain definite things and neglect\neverything else. And he did nothing to link this phenomenon with the\nremarkable expansion of the Caddles\' baby that had been going on now for\nsome weeks, indeed ever since Caddles walked over one Sunday afternoon a\nmonth or more ago to see his mother-in-law and hear Mr. Skinner (since\ndefunct) brag about his management of hens.\n\n\nIV.\n\nThe growth of the puff-balls following on the expansion of the Caddles\'\nbaby really ought to have opened the Vicar\'s eyes. The latter fact had\nalready come right into his arms at the christening--almost\nover-poweringly....\n\nThe youngster bawled with deafening violence when the cold water that\nsealed its divine inheritance and its right to the name of \"Albert\nEdward Caddles\" fell upon its brow. It was already beyond maternal\nporterage, and Caddles, staggering indeed, but grinning triumphantly at\nquantitatively inferior parents, bore it back to the free-sitting\noccupied by his party.\n\n\"I never saw such a child!\" said the Vicar. This was the first public\nintimation that the Caddles\' baby, which had begun its earthly career a\nlittle under seven pounds, did after all intend to be a credit to its\nparents. Very soon it was clear it meant to be not only a credit but a\nglory. And within a month their glory shone so brightly as to be, in\nconnection with people in the Caddles\' position, improper.\n\nThe butcher weighed the infant eleven times. He was a man of few words,\nand he soon got through with them. The first time he said, \"E\'s a good\nun;\" the next time he said, \"My word!\" the third time he said, \"_Well_,\nmum,\" and after that he simply blew enormously each time, scratched his\nhead, and looked at his scales with an unprecedented mistrust. Every one\ncame to see the Big Baby--so it was called by universal consent--and\nmost of them said, \"E\'s a Bouncer,\" and almost all remarked to him,\n\"_Did_ they?\" Miss Fletcher came and said she \"never _did_,\" which was\nperfectly true.\n\nLady Wondershoot, the village tyrant, arrived the day after the third\nweighing, and inspected the phenomenon narrowly through glasses that\nfilled it with howling terror. \"It\'s an unusually Big child,\" she told\nits mother, in a loud instructive voice. \"You ought to take unusual care\nof it, Caddles. Of course it won\'t go on like this, being bottle fed,\nbut we must do what we can for it. I\'ll send you down some more\nflannel.\"\n\nThe doctor came and measured the child with a tape, and put the figures\nin a notebook, and old Mr. Drift-hassock, who fanned by Up Marden,\nbrought a manure traveller two miles out of their way to look at it. The\ntraveller asked the child\'s age three times over, and said finally that\nhe was blowed. He left it to be inferred how and why he was blowed;\napparently it was the child\'s size blowed him. He also said it ought to\nbe put into a baby show. And all day long, out of school hours, little\nchildren kept coming and saying, \"Please, Mrs. Caddles, mum, may we have\na look at your baby, please, mum?\" until Mrs. Caddles had to put a stop\nto it. And amidst all these scenes of amazement came Mrs. Skinner, and\nstood and smiled, standing somewhat in the background, with each sharp\nelbow in a lank gnarled hand, and smiling, smiling under and about her\nnose, with a smile of infinite profundity.\n\n\"It makes even that old wretch of a grandmother look quite pleasant,\"\nsaid Lady Wondershoot. \"Though I\'m sorry she\'s come back to the\nvillage.\"\n\nOf course, as with almost all cottagers\' babies, the eleemosynary\nelement had already come in, but the child soon made it clear by\ncolossal bawling, that so far as the filling of its bottle went, it\nhadn\'t come in yet nearly enough.\n\nThe baby was entitled to a nine days\' wonder, and every one wondered\nhappily over its amazing growth for twice that time and more. And then\nyou know, instead of its dropping into the background and giving place\nto other marvels, it went on growing more than ever!\n\nLady Wondershoot heard Mrs. Greenfield, her housekeeper, with infinite\namazement.\n\n\"Caddles downstairs again. No food for the child! My dear Greenfield,\nit\'s impossible. The creature eats like a hippopotamus! I\'m sure it\ncan\'t be true.\"\n\n\"I\'m sure I hope you\'re not being imposed upon, my lady,\" said Mrs.\nGreenfield.\n\n\"It\'s so difficult to tell with these people,\" said Lady Wondershoot.\n\"Now I do wish, my good Greenfield, that you\'d just go down there\nyourself this afternoon and _see_--see it have its bottle. Big as it is,\nI cannot imagine that it needs more than six pints a day.\"\n\n\"It hasn\'t no business to, my lady,\" said Mrs. Greenfield.\n\nThe hand of Lady Wondershoot quivered, with that C.O.S. sort of emotion,\nthat suspicious rage that stirs in all true aristocrats, at the thought\nthat possibly the meaner classes are after all--as mean as their\nbetters, and--where the sting lies--scoring points in the game.\n\nBut Mrs. Greenfield could observe no evidence of peculation, and the\norder for an increasing daily supply to the Caddles\' nursery was issued.\nScarcely had the first instalment gone, when Caddles was back again at\nthe great house in a state abjectly apologetic.\n\n\"We took the greates\' care of \'em, Mrs. Greenfield, I do assure you,\nmum, but he\'s regular bust \'em! They flew with such vilence, mum, that\none button broke a pane of the window, mum, and one hit me a regular\nstinger jest \'ere, mum.\"\n\nLady Wondershoot, when she heard that this amazing child had positively\nburst out of its beautiful charity clothes, decided that she must speak\nto Caddles herself. He appeared in her presence with his hair hastily\nwetted and smoothed by hand, breathless, and clinging to his hat brim as\nthough it was a life-belt, and he stumbled at the carpet edge out of\nsheer distress of mind.\n\nLady Wondershoot liked bullying Caddles. Caddles was her ideal\nlower-class person, dishonest, faithful, abject, industrious, and\ninconceivably incapable of responsibility. She told him it was a serious\nmatter, the way his child was going on. \"It\'s \'is appetite, my\nladyship,\" said Caddles, with a rising note.\n\n\"Check \'im, my ladyship, you can\'t,\" said Caddles. \"There \'e lies, my\nladyship, and kicks out \'e does, and \'owls, that distressin\'. We \'aven\'t\nthe \'eart, my ladyship. If we \'ad--the neighbours would interfere....\"\n\nLady Wondershoot consulted the parish doctor.\n\n\"What I want to know,\" said Lady Wondershoot, \"is it _right_ this child\nshould have such an extraordinary quantity of milk?\"\n\n\"The proper allowance for a child of that age,\" said the parish doctor,\n\"is a pint and a half to two pints in the twenty-four hours. I don\'t see\nthat you are called upon to provide more. If you do, it is your own\ngenerosity. Of course we might try the legitimate quantity for a few\ndays. But the child, I must admit, seems for some reason to be\nphysiologically different. Possibly what is called a Sport. A case of\nGeneral Hypertrophy.\"\n\n\"It isn\'t fair to the other parish children,\" said Lady Wondershoot. \"I\nam certain we shall have complaints if this goes on.\"\n\n\"I don\'t see that any one can be expected to give more than the\nrecognised allowance. We might insist on its doing with that, or if it\nwouldn\'t, send it as a case into the Infirmary.\"\n\n\"I suppose,\" said Lady Wondershoot, reflecting, \"that apart from the\nsize and the appetite, you don\'t find anything else abnormal--nothing\nmonstrous?\"\n\n\"No. No, I don\'t. But no doubt if this growth goes on, we shall find\ngrave moral and intellectual deficiencies. One might almost prophesy\nthat from Max Nordau\'s law. A most gifted and celebrated philosopher,\nLady Wondershoot. He discovered that the abnormal is--abnormal, a most\nvaluable discovery, and well worth bearing in mind. I find it of the\nutmost help in practice. When I come upon anything abnormal, I say at\nonce, This is abnormal.\" His eyes became profound, his voice dropped,\nhis manner verged upon the intimately confidential. He raised one hand\nstiffly. \"And I treat it in that spirit,\" he said.\n\n\nV.\n\n\"Tut, tut!\" said the Vicar to his breakfast things--the day after the\ncoming of Mrs. Skinner. \"Tut, tut! what\'s this?\" and poised his glasses\nat his paper with a general air of remonstrance.\n\n\"Giant wasps! What\'s the world coming to? American journalists, I\nsuppose! Hang these Novelties! Giant gooseberries are good enough for\nme.\n\n\"Nonsense!\" said the Vicar, and drank off his coffee at a gulp, eyes\nsteadfast on the paper, and smacked his lips incredulously.\n\n\"Bosh!\" said the Vicar, rejecting the hint altogether.\n\nBut the next day there was more of it, and the light came.\n\nNot all at once, however. When he went for his constitutional that day\nhe was still chuckling at the absurd story his paper would have had him\nbelieve. Wasps indeed--killing a dog! Incidentally as he passed by the\nsite of that first crop of puff-balls he remarked that the grass was\ngrowing very rank there, but he did not connect that in any way with the\nmatter of his amusement. \"We should certainly have heard something of\nit,\" he said; \"Whitstable can\'t be twenty miles from here.\"\n\nBeyond he found another puff-ball, one of the second crop, rising like\na roc\'s egg out of the abnormally coarsened turf.\n\nThe thing came upon him in a flash.\n\nHe did not take his usual round that morning. Instead he turned aside by\nthe second stile and came round to the Caddles\' cottage. \"Where\'s that\nbaby?\" he demanded, and at the sight of it, \"Goodness me!\"\n\nHe went up the village blessing his heart, and met the doctor full tilt\ncoming down. He grasped his arm. \"What does this _mean_?\" he said. \"Have\nyou seen the paper these last few days?\"\n\nThe doctor said he had.\n\n\"Well, what\'s the matter with that child? What\'s the matter with\neverything--wasps, puff-balls, babies, eh? What\'s making them grow so\nbig? This is most unexpected. In Kent too! If it was America now--\"\n\n\"It\'s a little difficult to say just what it is,\" said the doctor. \"So\nfar as I can grasp the symptoms--\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"It\'s Hypertrophy--General Hypertrophy.\"\n\n\"Hypertrophy?\"\n\n\"Yes. General--affecting all the bodily structures--all the organism. I\nmay say that in my own mind, between ourselves, I\'m very nearly\nconvinced it\'s that.... But one has to be careful.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" said the Vicar, a good deal relieved to find the doctor equal to\nthe situation. \"But how is it it\'s breaking out in this fashion, all\nover the place?\"\n\n\"That again,\" said the doctor, \"is difficult to say.\"\n\n\"Urshot. Here. It\'s a pretty clear case of spreading.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said the doctor. \"Yes. I think so. It has a strong resemblance at\nany rate to some sort of epidemic. Probably Epidemic Hypertrophy will\nmeet the case.\"\n\n\"Epidemic!\" said the Vicar. \"You don\'t mean it\'s contagious?\"\n\nThe doctor smiled gently and rubbed one hand against the other. \"That I\ncouldn\'t say,\" he said.\n\n\"But---!\" cried the Vicar, round-eyed. \"If it\'s _catching_--it--it\naffects _us!_\"\n\nHe made a stride up the road and turned about.\n\n\"I\'ve just been there,\" he cried. \"Hadn\'t I better---? I\'ll go home at\nonce and have a bath and fumigate my clothes.\"\n\nThe doctor regarded his retreating back for a moment, and then turned\nabout and went towards his own house....\n\nBut on the way he reflected that one case had been in the village a\nmonth without any one catching the disease, and after a pause of\nhesitation decided to be as brave as a doctor should be and take the\nrisks like a man.\n\nAnd indeed he was well advised by his second thoughts. Growth was the\nlast thing that could ever happen to him again. He could have eaten--and\nthe Vicar could have eaten--Herakleophorbia by the truckful. For growth\nhad done with them. Growth had done with these two gentlemen for\nevermore.\n\n\nVI.\n\nIt was a day or so after this conversation--a day or so, that is, after\nthe burning of the Experimental Farm--that Winkles came to Redwood and\nshowed him an insulting letter. It was an anonymous letter, and an\nauthor should respect his character\'s secrets. \"You are only taking\ncredit for a natural phenomenon,\" said the letter, \"and trying to\nadvertise yourself by your letter to the _Times_. You and your Boomfood!\nLet me tell you, this absurdly named food of yours has only the most\naccidental connection with those big wasps and rats. The plain fact is\nthere is an epidemic of Hypertrophy--Contagious Hypertrophy--which you\nhave about as much claim to control as you have to control the solar\nsystem. The thing is as old as the hills. There was Hypertrophy in the\nfamily of Anak. Quite outside your range, at Cheasing Eyebright, at the\npresent time there is a baby--\"\n\n\"Shaky up and down writing. Old gentleman apparently,\" said Redwood.\n\"But it\'s odd a baby--\"\n\nHe read a few lines further, and had an inspiration.\n\n\"By Jove!\" said he. \"That\'s my missing Mrs. Skinner!\"\n\nHe descended upon her suddenly in the afternoon of the following day.\n\nShe was engaged in pulling onions in the little garden before her\ndaughter\'s cottage when she saw him coming through the garden gate. She\nstood for a moment \"consternated,\" as the country folks say, and then\nfolded her arms, and with the little bunch of onions held defensively\nunder her left elbow, awaited his approach. Her mouth opened and shut\nseveral times; she mumbled her remaining tooth, and once quite suddenly\nshe curtsied, like the blink of an arc-light.\n\n\"I thought I should find you,\" said Redwood.\n\n\"I thought you might, sir,\" she said, without joy.\n\n\"Where\'s Skinner?\"\n\n\"\'E ain\'t never written to me, Sir, not once, nor come nigh of me since\nI came here. Sir.\"\n\n\"Don\'t you know what\'s become of him?\"\n\n\"Him not having written, no, Sir,\" and she edged a step towards the left\nwith an imperfect idea of cutting off Redwood from the barn door.\n\n\"No one knows what has become of him,\" said Redwood.\n\n\"I dessay \'_e_ knows,\" said Mrs. Skinner.\n\n\"He doesn\'t tell.\"\n\n\"He was always a great one for looking after \'imself and leaving them\nthat was near and dear to \'im in trouble, was Skinner. Though clever as\ncould be,\" said Mrs. Skinner....\n\n\"Where\'s this child?\" asked Redwood abruptly.\n\nShe begged his pardon.\n\n\"This child I hear about, the child you\'ve been giving our stuff to--the\nchild that weighs two stone.\"\n\nMrs. Skinner\'s hands worked, and she dropped the onions. \"Reely, Sir,\"\nshe protested, \"I don\'t hardly know, Sir, what you mean. My daughter,\nSir, Mrs. Caddles, \'_as_ a baby, Sir.\" And she made an agitated curtsey\nand tried to look innocently inquiring by tilting her nose to one side.\n\n\"You\'d better let me see that baby, Mrs. Skinner,\" said Redwood.\n\nMrs. Skinner unmasked an eye at him as she led the way towards the barn.\n\"Of course, Sir, there may \'ave been a _little_, in a little can of\nNicey I give his father to bring over from the farm, or a little perhaps\nwhat I happened to bring about with me, so to speak. Me packing in a\nhurry and all ...\"\n\n\"Um!\" said Redwood, after he had cluckered to the infant for a space.\n\"Oom!\"\n\nHe told Mrs. Caddles the baby was a very fine child indeed, a thing\nthat was getting well home to her intelligence--and he ignored her\naltogether after that. Presently she left the barn--through sheer\ninsignificance.\n\n\"Now you\'ve started him, you\'ll have to keep on with him, you know,\" he\nsaid to Mrs. Skinner.\n\nHe turned on her abruptly. \"Don\'t splash it about _this_ time,\" he said.\n\n\"Splash it about, Sir?\"\n\n\"Oh! _you_ know.\"\n\nShe indicated knowledge by convulsive gestures.\n\n\"You haven\'t told these people here? The parents, the squire and so on\nat the big house, the doctor, no one?\"\n\nMrs. Skinner shook her head.\n\n\"I wouldn\'t,\" said Redwood....\n\nHe went to the door of the barn and surveyed the world about him. The\ndoor of the barn looked between the end of the cottage and some disused\npiggeries through a five-barred gate upon the highroad. Beyond was a\nhigh, red brick-wall rich with ivy and wallflower and pennywort, and set\nalong the top with broken glass. Beyond the corner of the wall, a sunlit\nnotice-board amidst green and yellow branches reared itself above the\nrich tones of the first fallen leaves and announced that \"Trespassers in\nthese Woods will be Prosecuted.\" The dark shadow of a gap in the hedge\nthrew a stretch of barbed wire into relief.\n\n\"Um,\" said Redwood, then in a deeper note, \"Oom!\"\n\nThere came a clatter of horses and the sound of wheels, and Lady\nWondershoot\'s greys came into view. He marked the faces of coachman and\nfootman as the equipage approached. The coachman was a very fine\nspecimen, full and fruity, and he drove with a sort of sacramental\ndignity. Others might doubt their calling and position in the world, he\nat any rate was sure--he drove her ladyship. The footman sat beside him\nwith folded arms and a face of inflexible certainties. Then the great\nlady herself became visible, in a hat and mantle disdainfully inelegant,\npeering through her glasses. Two young ladies protruded necks and peered\nalso.\n\nThe Vicar passing on the other side swept off the hat from his David\'s\nbrow unheeded....\n\nRedwood remained standing in the doorway for a long time after the\ncarriage had passed, his hands folded behind him. His eyes went to the\ngreen, grey upland of down, and into the cloud-curdled sky, and came\nback to the glass-set wall. He turned upon the cool shadows within, and\namidst spots and blurs of colour regarded the giant child amidst that\nRembrandtesque gloom, naked except for a swathing of flannel, seated\nupon a huge truss of straw and playing with its toes.\n\n\"I begin to see what we have done,\" he said.\n\nHe mused, and young Caddles and his own child and Cossar\'s brood mingled\nin his musing.\n\nHe laughed abruptly. \"Good Lord!\" he said at some passing thought.\n\nHe roused himself presently and addressed Mrs. Skinner. \"Anyhow he\nmustn\'t be tortured by a break in his food. That at least we can\nprevent. I shall send you a can every six months. That ought to do for\nhim all right.\"\n\nMrs. Skinner mumbled something about \"if you think so, Sir,\" and\n\"probably got packed by mistake.... Thought no harm in giving him a\nlittle,\" and so by the aid of various aspen gestures indicated that she\nunderstood.\n\nSo the child went on growing.\n\nAnd growing.\n\n\"Practically,\" said Lady Wondershoot, \"he\'s eaten up every calf in the\nplace. If I have any more of this sort of thing from that man Caddles--\"\n\n\nVII.\n\nBut even so secluded a place as Cheasing Eyebright could not rest for\nlong in the theory of Hypertrophy--Contagious or not--in view of the\ngrowing hubbub about the Food. In a little while there were painful\nexplanations for Mrs. Skinner--explanations that reduced her to\nspeechless mumblings of her remaining tooth--explanations that probed\nher and ransacked her and exposed her--until at last she was driven to\ntake refuge from a universal convergence of blame in the dignity of\ninconsolable widowhood. She turned her eye--which she constrained to be\nwatery--upon the angry Lady of the Manor, and wiped suds from her hands.\n\n\"You forget, my lady, what I\'m bearing up under.\"\n\nAnd she followed up this warning note with a slightly defiant:\n\n\"It\'s \'IM I think of, my lady, night _and_ day.\"\n\nShe compressed her lips, and her voice flattened and faltered: \"Bein\'\net, my lady.\"\n\nAnd having established herself on these grounds, she repeated the\naffirmation her ladyship had refused before. \"I \'ad no more idea what I\nwas giving the child, my lady, than any one _could_ \'ave....\"\n\nHer ladyship turned her mind in more hopeful directions, wigging Caddles\nof course tremendously by the way. Emissaries, full of diplomatic\nthreatenings, entered the whirling lives of Bensington and Redwood.\nThey presented themselves as Parish Councillors, stolid and clinging\nphonographically to prearranged statements. \"We hold you responsible,\nMister Bensington, for the injury inflicted upon our parish, Sir. We\nhold you responsible.\"\n\nA firm of solicitors, with a snake of a style--Banghurst, Brown, Flapp,\nCodlin, Brown, Tedder, and Snoxton, they called themselves, and appeared\ninvariably in the form of a small rufous cunning-looking gentleman with\na pointed nose--said vague things about damages, and there was a\npolished personage, her ladyship\'s agent, who came in suddenly upon\nRedwood one day and asked, \"Well, Sir, and what do you propose to do?\"\n\nTo which Redwood answered that he proposed to discontinue supplying the\nfood for the child, if he or Bensington were bothered any further about\nthe matter. \"I give it for nothing as it is,\" he said, \"and the child\nwill yell your village to ruins before it dies if you don\'t let it have\nthe stuff. The child\'s on your hands, and you have to keep it. Lady\nWondershoot can\'t always be Lady Bountiful and Earthly Providence of her\nparish without sometimes meeting a responsibility, you know.\"\n\n\"The mischief\'s done,\" Lady Wondershoot decided when they told her--with\nexpurgations--what Redwood had said.\n\n\"The mischief\'s done,\" echoed the Vicar.\n\nThough indeed as a matter of fact the mischief was only beginning.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE SECOND.\n\nTHE BRAT GIGANTIC.\n\n\nI.\n\nThe giant child was ugly--the Vicar would insist. \"He always had been\nugly--as all excessive things must be.\" The Vicar\'s views had carried\nhim out of sight of just judgment in this matter. The child was much\nsubjected to snapshots even in that rustic retirement, and their net\ntestimony is against the Vicar, testifying that the young monster was at\nfirst almost pretty, with a copious curl of hair reaching to his brow\nand a great readiness to smile. Usually Caddles, who was slightly built,\nstands smiling behind the baby, perspective emphasising his relative\nsmallness.\n\nAfter the second year the good looks of the child became more subtle and\nmore contestable. He began to grow, as his unfortunate grandfather would\nno doubt have put it, \"rank.\" He lost colour and developed an increasing\neffect of being somehow, albeit colossal, yet slight. He was vastly\ndelicate. His eyes and something about his face grew finer--grew, as\npeople say, \"interesting.\" His hair, after one cutting, began to tangle\ninto a mat. \"It\'s the degenerate strain coming out in him,\" said the\nparish doctor, marking these things, but just how far he was right in\nthat, and just how far the youngster\'s lapse from ideal healthfulness\nwas the result of living entirely in a whitewashed barn upon Lady\nWondershoot\'s sense of charity tempered by justice, is open to question.\n\nThe photographs of him that present him from three to six show him\ndeveloping into a round-eyed, flaxen-haired youngster with a truncated\nnose and a friendly stare. There lurks about his lips that never very\nremote promise of a smile that all the photographs of the early giant\nchildren display. In summer he wears loose garments of ticking tacked\ntogether with string; there is usually one of those straw baskets upon\nhis head that workmen use for their tools, and he is barefooted. In one\npicture he grins broadly and holds a bitten melon in his hand.\n\nThe winter pictures are less numerous and satisfactory. He wears huge\nsabots--no doubt of beechwoods and (as fragments of the inscription\n\"John Stickells, Iping,\" show) sacks for socks, and his trousers and\njacket are unmistakably cut from the remains of a gaily patterned\ncarpet. Underneath that there were rude swathings of flannel; five or\nsix yards of flannel are tied comforter-fashion about his neck. The\nthing on his head is probably another sack. He stares, sometimes\nsmiling, sometimes a little ruefully, at the camera. Even when he was\nonly five years old, one sees that half whimsical wrinkling over his\nsoft brown eyes that characterised his face.\n\nHe was from the first, the Vicar always declared, a terrible nuisance\nabout the village. He seems to have had a proportionate impulse to play,\nmuch curiosity and sociability, and in addition there was a certain\ncraving within him--I grieve to say--for more to eat. In spite of what\nMrs. Greenfield called an \"_excessively_ generous\" allowance of food\nfrom Lady Wondershoot, he displayed what the doctor perceived at once\nwas the \"Criminal Appetite.\" It carries out only too completely Lady\nWondershoot\'s worst experiences of the lower classes--that in spite of\nan allowance of nourishment inordinately beyond what is known to be the\nmaximum necessity even of an adult human being, the creature was found\nto steal. And what he stole he ate with an inelegant voracity. His great\nhand would come over garden walls; he would covet the very bread in the\nbakers\' carts. Cheeses went from Marlow\'s store loft, and never a pig\ntrough was safe from him. Some farmer walking over his field of swedes\nwould find the great spoor of his feet and the evidence of his nibbling\nhunger--a root picked here, a root picked there, and the holes, with\nchildish cunning, heavily erased. He ate a swede as one devours a\nradish. He would stand and eat apples from a tree, if no one was about,\nas normal children eat blackberries from a bush. In one way at any rate\nthis shortness of provisions was good for the peace of Cheasing\nEyebright--for many years he ate up every grain very nearly of the Food\nof the Gods that was given him....\n\nIndisputably the child was troublesome and out of place, \"He was always\nabout,\" the Vicar used to say. He could not go to school; he could not\ngo to church by virtue of the obvious limitations of its cubical\ncontent. There was some attempt to satisfy the spirit of that \"most\nfoolish and destructive law\"--I quote the Vicar--the Elementary\nEducation Act of 1870, by getting him to sit outside the open window\nwhile instruction was going on within. But his presence there destroyed\nthe discipline of the other children. They were always popping up and\npeering at him, and every time he spoke they laughed together. His voice\nwas so odd! So they let him stay away.\n\nNor did they persist in pressing him to come to church, for his vast\nproportions were of little help to devotion. Yet there they might have\nhad an easier task; there are good reasons for guessing there were the\ngerms of religious feeling somewhere in that big carcase. The music\nperhaps drew him. He was often in the churchyard on a Sunday morning,\npicking his way softly among the graves after the congregation had gone\nin, and he would sit the whole service out beside the porch, listening\nas one listens outside a hive of bees.\n\nAt first he showed a certain want of tact; the people inside would hear\nhis great feet crunch restlessly round their place of worship, or become\naware of his dim face peering in through the stained glass, half\ncurious, half envious, and at times some simple hymn would catch him\nunawares, and he would howl lugubriously in a gigantic attempt at\nunison. Whereupon little Sloppet, who was organ-blower and verger and\nbeadle and sexton and bell-ringer on Sundays, besides being postman and\nchimney-sweep all the week, would go out very briskly and valiantly and\nsend him mournfully away. Sloppet, I am glad to say, felt it--in his\nmore thoughtful moments at any rate. It was like sending a dog home when\nyou start out for a walk, he told me.\n\nBut the intellectual and moral training of young Caddles, though\nfragmentary, was explicit. From the first, Vicar, mother, and all the\nworld, combined to make it clear to him that his giant strength was not\nfor use. It was a misfortune that he had to make the best of. He had to\nmind what was told him, do what was set him, be careful never to break\nanything nor hurt anything. Particularly he must not go treading on\nthings or jostling against things or jumping about. He had to salute the\ngentlefolks respectful and be grateful for the food and clothing they\nspared him out of their riches. And he learnt all these things\nsubmissively, being by nature and habit a teachable creature and only by\nfood and accident gigantic.\n\nFor Lady Wondershoot, in these early days, he displayed the profoundest\nawe. She found she could talk to him best when she was in short skirts\nand had her dog-whip, and she gesticulated with that and was always a\nlittle contemptuous and shrill. But sometimes the Vicar played master--a\nminute, middle-aged, rather breathless David pelting a childish Goliath\nwith reproof and reproach and dictatorial command. The monster was now\nso big that it seems it was impossible for any one to remember he was\nafter all only a child of seven, with all a child\'s desire for notice\nand amusement and fresh experience, with all a child\'s craving for\nresponse, attention and affection, and all a child\'s capacity for\ndependence and unrestricted dulness and misery.\n\nThe Vicar, walking down the village road some sunlit morning, would\nencounter an ungainly eighteen feet of the Inexplicable, as fantastic\nand unpleasant to him as some new form of Dissent, as it padded fitfully\nalong with craning neck, seeking, always seeking the two primary needs\nof childhood--something to eat and something with which to play.\n\nThere would come a look of furtive respect into the creature\'s eyes and\nan attempt to touch the matted forelock.\n\nIn a limited way the Vicar had an imagination--at any rate, the remains\nof one--and with young Caddles it took the line of developing the huge\npossibilities of personal injury such vast muscles must possess. Suppose\na sudden madness--! Suppose a mere lapse into disrespect--! However, the\ntruly brave man is not the man who does not feel fear but the man who\novercomes it. Every time and always the Vicar got his imagination under.\nAnd he used always to address young Caddles stoutly in a good clear\nservice tenor.\n\n\"Being a good boy, Albert Edward?\"\n\nAnd the young giant, edging closer to the wall and blushing deeply,\nwould answer, \"Yessir--trying.\"\n\n\"Mind you do,\" said the Vicar, and would go past him with at most a\nslight acceleration of his breathing. And out of respect for his manhood\nhe made it a rule, whatever he might fancy, never to look back at the\ndanger, when once it was passed.\n\nIn a fitful manner the Vicar would give young Caddles private tuition.\nHe never taught the monster to read--it was not needed; but he taught\nhim the more important points of the Catechism--his duty to his\nneighbour for example, and of that Deity who would punish Caddles with\nextreme vindictiveness if ever he ventured to disobey the Vicar and Lady\nWondershoot. The lessons would go on in the Vicar\'s yard, and passers-by\nwould hear that great cranky childish voice droning out the essential\nteachings of the Established Church.\n\n\"To onner \'n \'bey the King and allooer put \'nthority under \'im. To\ns\'bmit meself t\'all my gov\'ners, teachers, spir\'shall pastors an\'\nmasters. To order myself lowly \'n rev\'rently t\'all my betters--\"\n\nPresently it became evident that the effect of the growing giant on\nunaccustomed horses was like that of a camel, and he was told to keep\noff the highroad, not only near the shrubbery (where the oafish smile\nover the wall had exasperated her ladyship extremely), but altogether.\nThat law he never completely obeyed, because of the vast interest the\nhighroad had for him. But it turned what had been his constant resort\ninto a stolen pleasure. He was limited at last almost entirely to old\npasture and the Downs.\n\nI do not know what he would have done if it had not been for the Downs.\nThere there were spaces where he might wander for miles, and over these\nspaces he wandered. He would pick branches from trees and make insane\nvast nosegays there until he was forbidden, take up sheep and put them\nin neat rows, from which they immediately wandered (at this he\ninvariably laughed very heartily), until he was forbidden, dig away the\nturf, great wanton holes, until he was forbidden....\n\nHe would wander over the Downs as far as the hill above Wreckstone, but\nnot farther, because there he came upon cultivated land, and the people,\nby reason of his depredations upon their root-crops, and inspired\nmoreover by a sort of hostile timidity his big unkempt appearance\nfrequently evoked, always came out against him with yapping dogs to\ndrive him away. They would threaten him and lash at him with cart whips.\nI have heard that they would sometimes fire at him with shot guns. And\nin the other direction he ranged within sight of Hickleybrow. From above\nThursley Hanger he could get a glimpse of the London, Chatham, and Dover\nrailway, but ploughed fields and a suspicious hamlet prevented his\nnearer access.\n\nAnd after a time there came boards--great boards with red letters that\nbarred him in every direction. He could not read what the letters said:\n\"Out of Bounds,\" but in a little while he understood. He was often to be\nseen in those days, by the railway passengers, sitting, chin on knees,\nperched up on the Down hard by the Thursley chalk pits, where afterwards\nhe was set working. The train seemed to inspire a dim emotion of\nfriendliness in him, and sometimes he would wave an enormous hand at it,\nand sometimes give it a rustic incoherent hail.\n\n\"Big,\" the peering passenger would say. \"One of these Boom children.\nThey say, Sir, quite unable to do anything for itself--little better\nthan an idiot in fact, and a great burden on the locality.\"\n\n\"Parents quite poor, I\'m told.\"\n\n\"Lives on the charity of the local gentry.\"\n\nEvery one would stare intelligently at that distant squatting monstrous\nfigure for a space.\n\n\"Good thing that was put a stop to,\" some spacious thinking mind would\nsuggest. \"Nice to \'ave a few thousand of _them_ on the rates, eh?\"\n\nAnd usually there was some one wise enough to tell this philosopher:\n\"You\'re about Right there, Sir,\" in hearty tones.\n\n\nII.\n\nHe had his bad days.\n\nThere was, for example, that trouble with the river.\n\nHe made little boats out of whole newspapers, an art he learnt by\nwatching the Spender boy, and he set them sailing down the stream--great\npaper cocked-hats. When they vanished under the bridge which marks the\nboundary of the strictly private grounds about Eyebright House, he\nwould give a great shout and run round and across Tormat\'s new\nfield--Lord! how Tormat\'s pigs did scamper, to be sure, and turn their\ngood fat into lean muscle!--and so to meet his boats by the ford. Right\nacross the nearer lawns these paper boats of his used to go, right in\nfront of Eyebright House, right under Lady Wondershoot\'s eyes!\nDisorganising folded newspapers! A pretty thing!\n\nGathering enterprise from impunity, he began babyish hydraulic\nengineering. He delved a huge port for his paper fleets with an old shed\ndoor that served him as a spade, and, no one chancing to observe his\noperations just then, he devised an ingenious canal that incidentally\nflooded Lady Wondershoot\'s ice-house, and finally he dammed the river.\nHe dammed it right across with a few vigorous doorfuls of earth--he must\nhave worked like an avalanche--and down came a most amazing spate\nthrough the shrubbery and washed away Miss Spinks and her easel and the\nmost promising water-colour sketch she had ever begun, or, at any rate,\nit washed away her easel and left her wet to the knees and dismally\ntucked up in flight to the house, and thence the waters rushed through\nthe kitchen garden, and so by the green door into the lane and down into\nthe riverbed again by Short\'s ditch.\n\nMeanwhile, the Vicar, interrupted in conversation with the blacksmith,\nwas amazed to see distressful stranded fish leaping out of a few\nresidual pools, and heaped green weed in the bed of the stream, where\nten minutes before there had been eight feet and more of clear cool\nwater.\n\nAfter that, horrified at his own consequences, young Caddles fled his\nhome for two days and nights. He returned only at the insistent call of\nhunger, to bear with stoical calm an amount of violent scolding that was\nmore in proportion to his size than anything else that had ever before\nfallen to his lot in the Happy Village.\n\n\nIII.\n\nImmediately after that affair Lady Wondershoot, casting about for\nexemplary additions to the abuse and fastings she had inflicted, issued\na Ukase. She issued it first to her butler, and very suddenly, so that\nshe made him jump. He was clearing away the breakfast things, and she\nwas staring out of the tall window on the terrace where the fawns would\ncome to be fed. \"Jobbet,\" she said, in her most imperial voice--\"Jobbet,\nthis Thing must work for its living.\"\n\nAnd she made it quite clear not only to Jobbet (which was easy), but to\nevery one else in the village, including young Caddles, that in this\nmatter, as in all things, she meant what she said.\n\n\"Keep him employed,\" said Lady Wondershoot. \"That\'s the tip for Master\nCaddles.\"\n\n\"It\'s the Tip, I fancy, for all Humanity,\" said the Vicar. \"The simple\nduties, the modest round, seed-time and harvest--\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" said Lady Wondershoot. \"What _I_ always say. Satan finds some\nmischief still for idle hands to do. At any rate among the labouring\nclasses. We bring up our under-housemaids on that principle, always.\nWhat shall we set him to do?\"\n\nThat was a little difficult. They thought of many things, and meanwhile\nthey broke him in to labour a bit by using him instead of a horse\nmessenger to carry telegrams and notes when extra speed was needed, and\nhe also carried luggage and packing-cases and things of that sort very\nconveniently in a big net they found for him. He seemed to like\nemployment, regarding it as a sort of game, and Kinkle, Lady\nWondershoot\'s agent, seeing him shift a rockery for her one day, was\nstruck by the brilliant idea of putting him into her chalk quarry at\nThursley Hanger, hard by Hickleybrow. This idea was carried out, and it\nseemed they had settled his problem.\n\nHe worked in the chalk pit, at first with the zest of a playing child,\nand afterwards with an effect of habit--delving, loading, doing all the\nhaulage of the trucks, running the full ones down the lines towards the\nsiding, and hauling the empty ones up by the wire of a great\nwindlass--working the entire quarry at last single-handed.\n\nI am told that Kinkle made a very good thing indeed out of him for Lady\nWondershoot, consuming as he did scarcely anything but his food, though\nthat never restrained her denunciation of \"the Creature\" as a gigantic\nparasite upon her charity....\n\nAt that time he used to wear a sort of smock of sacking, trousers of\npatched leather, and iron-shod sabots. Over his head was sometimes a\nqueer thing--a worn-out beehive straw chair it was, but usually he went\nbareheaded. He would be moving about the pit with a powerful\ndeliberation, and the Vicar on his constitutional round would get there\nabout midday to find him shamefully eating his vast need of food with\nhis back to all the world.\n\nHis food was brought to him every day, a mess of grain in the husk, in a\ntruck--a small railway truck, like one of the trucks he was perpetually\nfilling with chalk, and this load he used to char in an old limekiln and\nthen devour. Sometimes he would mix with it a bag of sugar. Sometimes he\nwould sit licking a lump of such salt as is given to cows, or eating a\nhuge lump of dates, stones and all, such as one sees in London on\nbarrows. For drink he walked to the rivulet beyond the burnt-out site of\nthe Experimental Farm at Hickleybrow and put down his face to the\nstream. It was from his drinking in that way after eating that the Food\nof the Gods did at last get loose, spreading first of all in huge weeds\nfrom the river-side, then in big frogs, bigger trout and stranding carp,\nand at last in a fantastic exuberance of vegetation all over the little\nvalley.\n\nAnd after a year or so the queer monstrous grub things in the field\nbefore the blacksmith\'s grew so big and developed into such frightful\nskipjacks and cockchafers--motor cockchafers the boys called them--that\nthey drove Lady Wondershoot abroad.\n\n\nIV.\n\nBut soon the Food was to enter upon a new phase of its work in him. In\nspite of the simple instructions of the Vicar--instructions intended to\nround off the modest natural life befitting a giant peasant, in the most\ncomplete and final manner--he began to ask questions, to inquire into\nthings, to _think_. As he grew from boyhood to adolescence it became\nincreasingly evident that his mind had processes of its own--out of the\nVicar\'s control. The Vicar did his best to ignore this distressing\nphenomenon, but still--he could feel it there.\n\nThe young giant\'s material for thought lay about him. Quite\ninvoluntarily, with his spacious views, his constant overlooking of\nthings, he must have seen a good deal of human life, and as it grew\nclearer to him that he too, save for this clumsy greatness of his, was\nalso human, he must have come to realise more and more just how much was\nshut against him by his melancholy distinction. The sociable hum of the\nschool, the mystery of religion that was partaken in such finery, and\nwhich exhaled so sweet a strain of melody, the jovial chorusing from the\nInn, the warmly glowing rooms, candle-lit and fire-lit, into which he\npeered out of the darkness, or again the shouting excitement, the vigour\nof flannelled exercise upon some imperfectly understood issue that\ncentred about the cricket-field--all these things must have cried aloud\nto his companionable heart. It would seem that as his adolescence crept\nupon him, he began to take a very considerable interest in the\nproceedings of lovers, in those preferences and pairings, those close\nintimacies that are so cardinal in life.\n\nOne Sunday, just about that hour when the stars and the bats and the\npassions of rural life come out, there chanced to be a young couple\n\"kissing each other a bit\" in Love Lane, the deep hedged lane that runs\nout back towards the Upper Lodge. They were giving their little emotions\nplay, as secure in the warm still twilight as any lovers could be. The\nonly conceivable interruption they thought possible must come pacing\nvisibly up the lane; the twelve-foot hedge towards the silent Downs\nseemed to them an absolute guarantee.\n\nThen suddenly--incredibly--they were lifted and drawn apart.\n\nThey discovered themselves held up, each with a finger and thumb under\nthe armpits, and with the perplexed brown eyes of young Caddles scanning\ntheir warm flushed faces. They were naturally dumb with the emotions of\ntheir situation.\n\n\"_Why_ do you like doing that?\" asked young Caddles.\n\nI gather the embarrassment continued until the swain remembering his\nmanhood, vehemently, with loud shouts, threats, and virile blasphemies,\nsuch as became the occasion, bade young Caddles under penalties put them\ndown. Whereupon young Caddles, remembering his manners, did put them\ndown politely and very carefully, and conveniently near for a resumption\nof their embraces, and having hesitated above them for a while, vanished\nagain into the twilight ...\n\n\"But I felt precious silly,\" the swain confided to me. \"We couldn\'t\n\'ardly look at one another--bein\' caught like that.\n\n\"Kissing we was--_you_ know.\n\n\"And the cur\'ous thing is, she blamed it all on to me,\" said the swain.\n\n\"Flew out something outrageous, and wouldn\'t \'ardly speak to me all the\nway \'ome....\"\n\nThe giant was embarking upon investigations, there could be no doubt.\nHis mind, it became manifest, was throwing up questions. He put them to\nfew people as yet, but they troubled him. His mother, one gathers,\nsometimes came in for cross-examination.\n\nHe used to come into the yard behind his mother\'s cottage, and, after a\ncareful inspection of the ground for hens and chicks, he would sit down\nslowly with his back against the barn. In a minute the chicks, who liked\nhim, would be pecking all over him at the mossy chalk-mud in the seams\nof his clothing, and if it was blowing up for wet, Mrs. Caddles\' kitten,\nwho never lost her confidence in him, would assume a sinuous form and\nstart scampering into the cottage, up to the kitchen fender, round, out,\nup his leg, up his body, right up to his shoulder, meditative moment,\nand then scat! back again, and so on. Sometimes she would stick her\nclaws in his face out of sheer gaiety of heart, but he never dared to\ntouch her because of the uncertain weight of his hand upon a creature so\nfrail. Besides, he rather liked to be tickled. And after a time he would\nput some clumsy questions to his mother.\n\n\"Mother,\" he would say, \"if it\'s good to work, why doesn\'t every one\nwork?\"\n\nHis mother would look up at him and answer, \"It\'s good for the likes of\nus.\"\n\nHe would meditate, \"_Why_?\"\n\nAnd going unanswered, \"What\'s work _for_, mother? Why do I cut chalk and\nyou wash clothes, day after day, while Lady Wondershoot goes about in\nher carriage, mother, and travels off to those beautiful foreign\ncountries you and I mustn\'t see, mother?\"\n\n\"She\'s a lady,\" said Mrs. Caddles.\n\n\"Oh,\" said young Caddles, and meditated profoundly.\n\n\"If there wasn\'t gentlefolks to make work for us to do,\" said Mrs.\nCaddles, \"how should we poor people get a living?\"\n\nThis had to be digested.\n\n\"Mother,\" he tried again; \"if there wasn\'t any gentlefolks, wouldn\'t\nthings belong to people like me and you, and if they did--\"\n\n\"Lord sakes and _drat_ the Boy!\" Mrs. Caddles would say--she had with\nthe help of a good memory become quite a florid and vigorous\nindividuality since Mrs. Skinner died. \"Since your poor dear grandma was\ntook, there\'s no abiding you. Don\'t you arst no questions and you won\'t\nbe told no lies. If once I was to start out answerin\' you _serious_, y\'r\nfather \'d \'ave to go\' and arst some one else for \'is supper--let alone\nfinishing the washin\'.\"\n\n\"All right, mother,\" he would say, after a wondering stare at her. \"I\ndidn\'t mean to worry.\"\n\nAnd he would go on thinking.\n\n\nV.\n\nHe was thinking too four years after, when the Vicar, now no longer ripe\nbut over-ripe, saw him for the last time of all. You figure the old\ngentleman visibly a little older now, slacker in his girth, a little\ncoarsened and a little weakened in his thought and speech, with a\nquivering shakiness in his hand and a quivering shakiness in his\nconvictions, but his eye still bright and merry for all the trouble the\nFood had caused his village and himself. He had been frightened at times\nand disturbed, but was he not alive still and the same still? and\nfifteen long years--a fair sample of eternity--had turned the trouble\ninto use and wont.\n\n\"It was a disturbance, I admit,\" he would say, \"and things are\ndifferent--different in many ways. There was a time when a boy could\nweed, but now a man must go out with axe and crowbar--in some places\ndown by the thickets at least. And it\'s a little strange still to us\nold-fashioned people for all this valley, even what used to be the river\nbed before they irrigated, to be under wheat--as it is this\nyear--twenty-five feet high. They used the old-fashioned scythe here\ntwenty years ago, and they would bring home the harvest on a\nwain--rejoicing--in a simple honest fashion. A little simple\ndrunkenness, a little frank love-making, to conclude ... poor dear Lady\nWondershoot--she didn\'t like these Innovations. Very conservative, poor\ndear lady! A touch of the eighteenth century about her, I always Said.\nHer language for example ... Bluff vigour ...\n\n\"She died comparatively poor. These big weeds got into her garden. She\nwas not one of these gardening women, but she liked her garden in\norder--things growing where they were planted and as they were\nplanted--under control ... The way things grew was unexpected--upset her\nideas ... She didn\'t like the perpetual invasion of this young\nmonster--at last she began to fancy he was always gaping at her over her\nwall ... She didn\'t like his being nearly as high as her house ...\nJarred with her sense of proportion. Poor dear lady! I had hoped she\nwould last my time. It was the big cockchafers we had for a year or so\nthat decided her. They came from the giant larvae--nasty things as big\nas rats--in the valley turf ...\n\n\"And the ants no doubt weighed with her also.\n\n\"Since everything was upset and there was no peace and quietness\nanywhere now, she said she thought she might just as well be at Monte\nCarlo as anywhere else. And she went.\n\n\"She played pretty boldly, I\'m told. Died in a hotel there. Very sad\nend... Exile... Not--not what one considers meet... A natural leader of\nour English people... Uprooted. So I...\n\n\"Yet after all,\" harped the Vicar, \"it comes to very little. A nuisance\nof course. Children cannot run about so freely as they used to do, what\nwith ant bites and so forth. Perhaps it\'s as well ... There used to be\ntalk--as though this stuff would revolutionise everything ... But there\nis something that defies all these forces of the New ... I don\'t know\nof course. I\'m not one of your modern philosophers--explain everything\nwith ether and atoms. Evolution. Rubbish like that. What I mean is\nsomething the \'Ologies don\'t include. Matter of reason--not\nunderstanding. Ripe wisdom. Human nature. _Aere perennius._ ... Call it\nwhat you will.\"\n\nAnd so at last it came to the last time.\n\nThe Vicar had no intimation of what lay so close upon him. He did his\ncustomary walk, over by Farthing Down, as he had done it for more than a\nscore of years, and so to the place whence he would watch young Caddles.\nHe did the rise over by the chalk-pit crest a little puffily--he had\nlong since lost the Muscular Christian stride of early days; but Caddles\nwas not at his work, and then, as he skirted the thicket of giant\nbracken that was beginning to obscure and overshadow the Hanger, he came\nupon the monster\'s huge form seated on the hill--brooding as it were\nupon the world. Caddles\' knees were drawn up, his cheek was on his hand,\nhis head a little aslant. He sat with his shoulder towards the Vicar, so\nthat those perplexed eyes could not be seen. He must have been thinking\nvery intently--at any rate he was sitting very still ...\n\nHe never turned round. He never knew that the Vicar, who had played so\nlarge a part in shaping his life, looked then at him for the very last\nof innumerable times--did not know even that he was there. (So it is so\nmany partings happen.) The Vicar was struck at the time by the fact\nthat, after all, no one on earth had the slightest idea of what this\ngreat monster thought about when he saw fit to rest from his labours.\nBut he was too indolent to follow up that new theme that day; he fell\nback from its suggestion into his older grooves of thought.\n\n\"_Aere-perennius,\"_ he whispered, walking slowly homeward by a path that\nno longer ran straight athwart the turf after its former fashion, but\nwound circuitously to avoid new sprung tussocks of giant grass. \"No!\nnothing is changed. Dimensions are nothing. The simple round, the common\nway--\"\n\nAnd that night, quite painlessly, and all unknowing, he himself went the\ncommon way--out of this Mystery of Change he had spent his life in\ndenying.\n\nThey buried him in the churchyard of Cheasing Eyebright, near to the\nlargest yew, and the modest tombstone bearing his epitaph--it ended\nwith: _Ut in Principio, nunc est et semper_--was almost immediately\nhidden from the eye of man by a spread of giant, grey tasselled grass\ntoo stout for scythe or sheep, that came sweeping like a fog over the\nvillage out of the germinating moisture of the valley meadows in which\nthe Food of the Gods had been working.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK III.\n\nTHE HARVEST OF THE FOOD.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE FIRST.\n\nTHE ALTERED WORLD.\n\n\nI.\n\nChange played in its new fashion with the world for twenty years. To\nmost men the new things came little by little and day by day, remarkably\nenough, but not so abruptly as to overwhelm. But to one man at least the\nfull accumulation of those two decades of the Food\'s work was to be\nrevealed suddenly and amazingly in one day. For our purpose it is\nconvenient to take him for that one day and to tell something of the\nthings he saw. This man was a convict, a prisoner for life--his crime is\nno concern of ours--whom the law saw fit to pardon after twenty years.\nOne summer morning this poor wretch, who had left the world a young man\nof three-and-twenty, found himself thrust out again from the grey\nsimplicity of toil and discipline, that had become his life, into a\ndazzling freedom. They had put unaccustomed clothes upon him; his hair\nhad been growing for some weeks, and he had parted it now for some days,\nand there he stood, in a sort of shabby and clumsy newness of body and\nmind, blinking with his eyes and blinking indeed with his soul,\n_outside_ again, trying to realise one incredible thing, that after all\nhe was again for a little while in the world of life, and for all other\nincredible things, totally unprepared. He was so fortunate as to have a\nbrother who cared enough for their distant common memories to come and\nmeet him and clasp his hand--a brother he had left a little lad, and who\nwas now a bearded prosperous man--whose very eyes were unfamiliar. And\ntogether he and this stranger from his kindred came down into the town\nof Dover, saying little to one another and feeling many things.\n\nThey sat for a space in a public-house, the one answering the questions\nof the other about this person and that, reviving queer old points of\nview, brushing aside endless new aspects and new perspectives, and then\nit was time to go to the station and take the London train. Their names\nand the personal things they had to talk of do not matter to our story,\nbut only the changes and all the strangeness that this poor returning\nsoul found in the once familiar world.\n\nIn Dover itself he remarked little except the goodness of beer from\npewter--never before had there been such a draught of beer, and it\nbrought tears of gratitude to his eyes. \"Beer\'s as good as ever,\" said\nhe, believing it infinitely better....\n\nIt was only as the train rattled them past Folkestone that he could look\nout beyond his more immediate emotions, to see what had happened to the\nworld. He peered out of the window. \"It\'s sunny,\" he said for the\ntwelfth time. \"I couldn\'t ha\' had better weather.\" And then for the\nfirst time it dawned upon him that there were novel disproportions in\nthe world. \"Lord sakes,\" he cried, sitting up and looking animated for\nthe first time, \"but them\'s mortal great thissels growing out there on\nthe bank by that broom. If so be they _be_ thissels? Or \'ave I been\nforgetting?\" But they were thistles, and what he took for tall bushes\nof broom was the new grass, and amidst these things a company of British\nsoldiers--red-coated as ever--was skirmishing in accordance with the\ndirections of the drill book that had been partially revised after the\nBoer War. Then whack! into a tunnel, and then into Sandling Junction,\nwhich was now embedded and dark--its lamps were all alight--in a great\nthicket of rhododendron that had crept out of some adjacent gardens and\ngrown enormously up the valley. There was a train of trucks on the\nSandgate siding piled high with rhododendron logs, and here it was the\nreturning citizen heard first of Boomfood.\n\nAs they sped out into a country again that seemed absolutely unchanged,\nthe two brothers were hard at their explanations. The one was full of\neager, dull questions; the other had never thought, had never troubled\nto see the thing as a single fact, and he was allusive and difficult to\nfollow. \"It\'s this here Boomfood stuff,\" he said, touching his bottom\nrock of knowledge. \"Don\'t you know? \'Aven\'t they told you--any of \'em?\nBoomfood! You know--Boomfood. What all the election\'s about. Scientific\nsort of stuff. \'Asn\'t no one ever told you?\"\n\nHe thought prison had made his brother a fearful duffer not to know\nthat.\n\nThey made wide shots at each other by way of question and answer.\nBetween these scraps of talk were intervals of window-gazing. At first\nthe man\'s interest in things was vague and general. His imagination had\nbeen busy with what old so-and-so would say, how so-and-so would look,\nhow he would say to all and sundry certain things that would present his\n\"putting away\" in a mitigated light. This Boomfood came in at first as\nit were a thing in an odd paragraph of the newspapers, then as a source\nof intellectual difficulty with his brother. But it came to him\npresently that Boomfood was persistently coming in upon any topic he\nbegan.\n\nIn those days the world was a patchwork of transition, so that this\ngreat new fact came to him in a series of shocks of contrast. The\nprocess of change had not been uniform; it had spread from one centre of\ndistribution here and another centre there. The country was in patches:\ngreat areas where the Food was still to come, and areas where it was\nalready in the soil and in the air, sporadic and contagious. It was a\nbold new motif creeping in among ancient and venerable airs.\n\nThe contrast was very vivid indeed along the line from Dover to London\nat that time. For a space they traversed just such a country-side as he\nhad known since his childhood, the small oblongs of field, hedge-lined,\nof a size for pigmy horses to plough, the little roads three cart-widths\nwide, the elms and oaks and poplars dotting these fields about, little\nthickets of willow beside the streams; ricks of hay no higher than a\ngiant\'s knees, dolls\' cottages with diamond panes, brickfields, and\nstraggling village streets, the larger houses of the petty great,\nflower-grown railway banks, garden-set stations, and all the little\nthings of the vanished nineteenth century still holding out against\nImmensity. Here and there would be a patch of wind-sown, wind-tattered\ngiant thistle defying the axe; here and there a ten-foot puff-ball or\nthe ashen stems of some burnt-out patch of monster grass; but that was\nall there was to hint at the coming of the Food.\n\nFor a couple of score of miles there was nothing else to foreshadow in\nany way the strange bigness of the wheat and of the weeds that were\nhidden from him not a dozen miles from his route just over the hills in\nthe Cheasing Eyebright valley. And then presently the traces of the Food\nwould begin. The first striking thing was the great new viaduct at\nTonbridge, where the swamp of the choked Medway (due to a giant variety\nof _Chara_) began in those days. Then again the little country, and\nthen, as the petty multitudinous immensity of London spread out under\nits haze, the traces of man\'s fight to keep out greatness became\nabundant and incessant.\n\nIn that south-eastern region of London at that time, and all about where\nCossar and his children lived, the Food had become mysteriously\ninsurgent at a hundred points; the little life went on amidst daily\nportents that only the deliberation of their increase, the slow parallel\ngrowth of usage to their presence, had robbed of their warning. But this\nreturning citizen peered out to see for the first time the facts of the\nFood strange and predominant, scarred and blackened areas, big unsightly\ndefences and preparations, barracks and arsenals that this subtle,\npersistent influence had forced into the life of men.\n\nHere, on an ampler scale, the experience of the first Experimental Farm\nhad been repeated time and again. It had been in the inferior and\naccidental things of life--under foot and in waste places, irregularly\nand irrelevantly--that the coming of a new force and new issues had\nfirst declared itself. There were great evil-smelling yards and\nenclosures where some invincible jungle of weed furnished fuel for\ngigantic machinery (little cockneys came to stare at its clangorous\noiliness and tip the men a sixpence); there were roads and tracks for\nbig motors and vehicles--roads made of the interwoven fibres of\nhypertrophied hemp; there were towers containing steam sirens that could\nyell at once and warn the world against any new insurgence of vermin,\nor, what was queerer, venerable church towers conspicuously fitted with\na mechanical scream. There were little red-painted refuge huts and\ngarrison shelters, each with its 300-yard rifle range, where the\nriflemen practised daily with soft-nosed ammunition at targets in the\nshape of monstrous rats.\n\nSix times since the day of the Skinners there had been outbreaks of\ngiant rats--each time from the south-west London sewers, and now they\nwere as much an accepted fact there as tigers in the delta by\nCalcutta....\n\nThe man\'s brother had bought a paper in a heedless sort of way at\nSandling, and at last this chanced to catch the eye of the released man.\nHe opened the unfamiliar sheets--they seemed to him to be smaller, more\nnumerous, and different in type from the papers of the times before--and\nhe found himself confronted with innumerable pictures about things so\nstrange as to be uninteresting, and with tall columns of printed matter\nwhose headings, for the most part, were as unmeaning as though they had\nbeen written in a foreign tongue--\"Great Speech by Mr. Caterham\"; \"The\nBoomfood Laws.\"\n\n\"Who\'s this here Caterham?\" he asked, in an attempt to make\nconversation.\n\n\"_He\'s_ all right,\" said his brother.\n\n\"Ah! Sort of politician, eh?\"\n\n\"Goin\' to turn out the Government. Jolly well time he did.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" He reflected. \"I suppose all the lot _I_ used to\nknow--Chamberlain, Rosebery--all that lot--_What_?\"\n\nHis brother had grasped his wrist and pointed out of the window.\n\n\"That\'s the Cossars!\" The eyes of the released prisoner followed the\nfinger\'s direction and saw--\n\n\"My Gawd!\" he cried, for the first time really overcome with amazement.\nThe paper dropped into final forgottenness between his feet. Through the\ntrees he could see very distinctly, standing in an easy attitude, the\nlegs wide apart and the hand grasping a ball as if about to throw it, a\ngigantic human figure a good forty feet high. The figure glittered in\nthe sunlight, clad in a suit of woven white metal and belted with a\nbroad belt of steel. For a moment it focussed all attention, and then\nthe eye was wrested to another more distant Giant who stood prepared to\ncatch, and it became apparent that the whole area of that great bay in\nthe hills just north of Sevenoaks had been scarred to gigantic ends.\n\nA hugely banked entrenchment overhung the chalk pit, in which stood the\nhouse, a monstrous squat Egyptian shape that Cossar had built for his\nsons when the Giant Nursery had served its turn, and behind was a great\ndark shed that might have covered a cathedral, in which a spluttering\nincandescence came and went, and from out of which came a Titanic\nhammering to beat upon the ear. Then the attention leapt back to the\ngiant as the great ball of iron-bound timber soared up out of his hand.\n\nThe two men stood up and stared. The ball seemed as big as a cask.\n\n\"Caught!\" cried the man from prison, as a tree blotted out the thrower.\n\nThe train looked on these things only for the fraction of a minute and\nthen passed behind trees into the Chislehurst tunnel. \"My Gawd!\" said\nthe man from prison again, as the darkness closed about them. \"Why! that\nchap was as \'igh as a \'ouse.\"\n\n\"That\'s them young Cossars,\" said his brother, jerking his head\nallusively--\"what all this trouble\'s about....\"\n\nThey emerged again to discover more siren-surmounted towers, more red\nhuts, and then the clustering villas of the outer suburbs. The art of\nbill-sticking had lost nothing in the interval, and from countless tall\nhoardings, from house ends, from palings, and a hundred such points of\nvantage came the polychromatic appeals of the great Boomfood election.\n\"Caterham,\" \"Boomfood,\" and \"Jack the Giant-killer\" again and again and\nagain, and monstrous caricatures and distortions--a hundred varieties of\nmisrepresentations of those great and shining figures they had passed so\nnearly only a few minutes before....\n\n\nII.\n\nIt had been the purpose of the younger brother to do a very magnificent\nthing, to celebrate this return to life by a dinner at some restaurant\nof indisputable quality, a dinner that should be followed by all that\nglittering succession of impressions the Music Halls of those days were\nso capable of giving. It was a worthy plan to wipe off the more\nsuperficial stains of the prison house by this display of free\nindulgence; but so far as the second item went the plan was changed. The\ndinner stood, but there was a desire already more powerful than the\nappetite for shows, already more efficient in turning the man\'s mind\naway from his grim prepossession with his past than any theatre could\nbe, and that was an enormous curiosity and perplexity about this\nBoomfood and these Boom children--this new portentous giantry that\nseemed to dominate the world. \"I \'aven\'t the \'ang of \'em,\" he said.\n\"They disturve me.\"\n\nHis brother had that fineness of mind that can even set aside a\ncontemplated hospitality. \"It\'s _your_ evening, dear old boy,\" he said.\n\"We\'ll try to get into the mass meeting at the People\'s Palace.\"\n\nAnd at last the man from prison had the luck to find himself wedged into\na packed multitude and staring from afar at a little brightly lit\nplatform under an organ and a gallery. The organist had been playing\nsomething that had set boots tramping as the people swarmed in; but that\nwas over now.\n\nHardly had the man from prison settled into place and done his quarrel\nwith an importunate stranger who elbowed, before Caterham came. He\nwalked out of a shadow towards the middle of the platform, the most\ninsignificant little pigmy, away there in the distance, a little black\nfigure with a pink dab for a face,--in profile one saw his quite\ndistinctive aquiline nose--a little figure that trailed after it most\ninexplicably--a cheer. A cheer it was that began away there and grew and\nspread. A little spluttering of voices about the platform at first that\nsuddenly leapt up into a flame of sound and swept athwart the whole mass\nof humanity within the building and without. How they cheered! Hooray!\nHooray!\n\nNo one in all those myriads cheered like the man from prison. The tears\npoured down his face, and he only stopped cheering at last because the\nthing had choked him. You must have been in prison as long as he before\nyou can understand, or even begin to understand, what it means to a man\nto let his lungs go in a crowd. (But for all that he did not even\npretend to himself that he knew what all this emotion was about.)\nHooray! O God!--Hoo-ray!\n\nAnd then a sort of silence. Caterham had subsided to a conspicuous\npatience, and subordinate and inaudible persons were saying and doing\nformal and insignificant things. It was like hearing voices through the\nnoise of leaves in spring. \"Wawawawa---\" What did it matter? People in\nthe audience talked to one another. \"Wawawawawa---\" the thing went on.\nWould that grey-headed duffer never have done? Interrupting? Of course\nthey were interrupting. \"Wa, wa, wa, wa---\" But shall we hear Caterham\nany better?\n\nMeanwhile at any rate there was Caterham to stare at, and one could\nstand and study the distant prospect of the great man\'s features. He was\neasy to draw was this man, and already the world had him to study at\nleisure on lamp chimneys and children\'s plates, on Anti-Boomfood medals\nand Anti-Boomfood flags, on the selvedges of Caterham silks and cottons\nand in the linings of Good Old English Caterham hats. He pervades all\nthe caricature of that time. One sees him as a sailor standing to an\nold-fashioned gun, a port-fire labelled \"New Boomfood Laws\" in his hand;\nwhile in the sea wallows that huge, ugly, threatening monster,\n\"Boomfood;\" or he is _cap-a-pie_ in armour, St. George\'s cross on shield\nand helm, and a cowardly titanic Caliban sitting amidst desecrations at\nthe mouth of a horrid cave declines his gauntlet of the \"New Boomfood\nRegulations;\" or he comes flying down as Perseus and rescues a chained\nand beautiful Andromeda (labelled distinctly about her belt as\n\"Civilisation\") from a wallowing waste of sea monster bearing upon its\nvarious necks and claws \"Irreligion,\" \"Trampling Egotism,\" \"Mechanism,\"\n\"Monstrosity,\" and the like. But it was as \"Jack the Giant-killer\" that\nthe popular imagination considered Caterham most correctly cast, and it\nwas in the vein of a Jack the Giant-killer poster that the man from\nprison, enlarged that distant miniature.\n\nThe \"Wawawawa\" came abruptly to an end.\n\nHe\'s done. He\'s sitting down. Yes! No! Yes! It\'s Caterham! \"Caterham!\"\n\"Caterham!\" And then came the cheers.\n\nIt takes a multitude to make such a stillness as followed that disorder\nof cheering. A man alone in a wilderness;--it\'s stillness of a sort no\ndoubt, but he hears himself breathe, he hears himself move, he hears all\nsorts of things. Here the voice of Caterham was the one single thing\nheard, a thing very bright and clear, like a little light burning in a\nblack velvet recess. Hear indeed! One heard him as though he spoke at\none\'s elbow.\n\nIt was stupendously effective to the man from prison, that gesticulating\nlittle figure in a halo of light, in a halo of rich and swaying sounds;\nbehind it, partially effaced as it were, sat its supporters on the\nplatform, and in the foreground was a wide perspective of innumerable\nbacks and profiles, a vast multitudinous attention. That little figure\nseemed to have absorbed the substance from them all.\n\nCaterham spoke of our ancient institutions. \"Earearear,\" roared the\ncrowd. \"Ear! ear!\" said the man from prison. He spoke of our ancient\nspirit of order and justice. \"Earearear!\" roared the crowd. \"Ear! Ear!\"\ncried the man from prison, deeply moved. He spoke of the wisdom of our\nforefathers, of the slow growth of venerable institutions, of moral and\nsocial traditions, that fitted our English national characteristics as\nthe skin fits the hand. \"Ear! Ear!\" groaned the man from prison, with\ntears of excitement on his cheeks. And now all these things were to go\ninto the melting pot. Yes, into the melting pot! Because three men in\nLondon twenty years ago had seen fit to mix something indescribable in a\nbottle, all the order and sanctity of things--Cries of \"No! No!\"--Well,\nif it was not to be so, they must exert themselves, they must say\ngood-bye to hesitation--Here there came a gust of cheering. They must\nsay good-bye to hesitation and half measures.\n\n\"We have heard, gentlemen,\" cried Caterham, \"of nettles that become\ngiant nettles. At first they are no more than other nettles--little\nplants that a firm hand may grasp and wrench away; but if you leave\nthem--if you leave them, they grow with such a power of poisonous\nexpansion that at last you must needs have axe and rope, you must needs\nhave danger to life and limb, you must needs have toil and distress--men\nmay be killed in their felling, men may be killed in their felling---\"\n\nThere came a stir and interruption, and then the man from prison heard\nCaterham\'s voice again, ringing clear and strong: \"Learn about Boomfood\nfrom Boomfood itself and--\" He paused--\"_Grasp your nettle before it is\ntoo late!_\"\n\nHe stopped and stood wiping his lips. \"A crystal,\" cried some one, \"a\ncrystal,\" and then came that same strange swift growth to thunderous\ntumult, until the whole world seemed cheering....\n\nThe man from prison came out of the hall at last, marvellously stirred,\nand with that in his face that marks those who have seen a vision. He\nknew, every one knew; his ideas were no longer vague. He had come back\nto a world in crisis, to the immediate decision of a stupendous issue.\nHe must play his part in the great conflict like a man--like a free,\nresponsible man. The antagonism presented itself as a picture. On the\none hand those easy gigantic mail-clad figures of the morning--one saw\nthem now in a different light--on the other this little black-clad\ngesticulating creature under the limelight, that pigmy thing with its\nordered flow of melodious persuasion, its little, marvellously\npenetrating voice, John Caterham--\"Jack the Giant-killer.\" They must all\nunite to \"grasp the nettle\" before it was \"too late.\"\n\n\nIII.\n\nThe tallest and strongest and most regarded of all the children of the\nFood were the three sons of Cossar. The mile or so of land near\nSevenoaks in which their boyhood passed became so trenched, so dug out\nand twisted about, so covered with sheds and huge working models and all\nthe play of their developing powers, it was like no other place on\nearth. And long since it had become too little for the things they\nsought to do. The eldest son was a mighty schemer of wheeled engines; he\nhad made himself a sort of giant bicycle that no road in the world had\nroom for, no bridge could bear. There it stood, a great thing of wheels\nand engines, capable of two hundred and fifty miles an hour, useless\nsave that now and then he would mount it and fling himself backwards\nand forwards across that cumbered work-yard. He had meant to go around\nthe little world with it; he had made it with that intention, while he\nwas still no more than a dreaming boy. Now its spokes were rusted deep\nred like wounds, wherever the enamel had been chipped away.\n\n\"You must make a road for it first, Sonnie,\" Cossar had said, \"before\nyou can do that.\"\n\nSo one morning about dawn the young giant and his brothers had set to\nwork to make a road about the world. They seem to have had an inkling of\nopposition impending, and they had worked with remarkable vigour. The\nworld had discovered them soon enough, driving that road as straight as\na flight of a bullet towards the English Channel, already some miles of\nit levelled and made and stamped hard. They had been stopped before\nmidday by a vast crowd of excited people, owners of land, land agents,\nlocal authorities, lawyers, policemen, soldiers even.\n\n\"We\'re making a road,\" the biggest boy had explained.\n\n\"Make a road by all means,\" said the leading lawyer on the ground, \"but\nplease respect the rights of other people. You have already infringed\nthe private rights of twenty-seven private proprietors; let alone the\nspecial privileges and property of an urban district board, nine parish\ncouncils, a county council, two gasworks, and a railway company....\"\n\n\"Goodney!\" said the elder boy Cossar.\n\n\"You will have to stop it.\"\n\n\"But don\'t you want a nice straight road in the place of all these\nrotten rutty little lanes?\"\n\n\"I won\'t say it wouldn\'t be advantageous, but--\"\n\n\"It isn\'t to be done,\" said the eldest Cossar boy, picking up his tools.\n\n\"Not in this way,\" said the lawyer, \"certainly.\"\n\n\"How is it to be done?\"\n\nThe leading lawyer\'s answer had been complicated and vague.\n\nCossar had come down to see the mischief his children had done, and\nreproved them severely and laughed enormously and seemed to be extremely\nhappy over the affair. \"You boys must wait a bit,\" he shouted up to\nthem, \"before you can do things like that.\"\n\n\"The lawyer told us we must begin by preparing a scheme, and getting\nspecial powers and all sorts of rot. Said it would take us years.\"\n\n\"_We\'ll_ have a scheme before long, little boy,\" cried Cossar, hands to\nhis mouth as he shouted, \"never fear. For a bit you\'d better play about\nand make models of the things you want to do.\"\n\nThey did as he told them like obedient sons.\n\nBut for all that the Cossar lads brooded a little.\n\n\"It\'s all very well,\" said the second to the first, \"but I don\'t always\nwant just to play about and plan, I want to do something _real_, you\nknow. We didn\'t come into this world so strong as we are, just to play\nabout in this messy little bit of ground, you know, and take little\nwalks and keep out of the towns\"--for by that time they were forbidden\nall boroughs and urban districts, \"Doing nothing\'s just wicked. Can\'t we\nfind out something the little people _want_ done and do it for\nthem--just for the fun of doing it?\n\n\"Lots of them haven\'t houses fit to live in,\" said the second boy,\n\"Let\'s go and build \'em a house close up to London, that will hold\nheaps and heaps of them and be ever so comfortable and nice, and let\'s\nmake \'em a nice little road to where they all go and do business--nice\nstraight little road, and make it all as nice as nice. We\'ll make it all\nso clean and pretty that they won\'t any of them be able to live grubby\nand beastly like most of them do now. Water enough for them to wash\nwith, we\'ll have--you know they\'re so dirty now that nine out of ten of\ntheir houses haven\'t even baths in them, the filthy little skunks! You\nknow, the ones that have baths spit insults at the ones that haven\'t,\ninstead of helping them to get them--and call \'em the Great\nUnwashed--_-You_ know. We\'ll alter all that. And we\'ll make electricity\nlight and cook and clean up for them, and all. Fancy! They make their\nwomen--women who are going to be mothers--crawl about and scrub floors!\n\n\"We could make it all beautifully. We could bank up a valley in that\nrange of hills over there and make a nice reservoir, and we could make a\nbig place here to generate our electricity and have it all simply\nlovely. Couldn\'t we, brother? And then perhaps they\'d let us do some\nother things.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said the elder brother, \"we could do it _very_ nice for them.\"\n\n\"Then _let\'s,\"_ said the second brother.\n\n\"_I_ don\'t mind,\" said the elder brother, and looked about for a handy\ntool.\n\nAnd that led to another dreadful bother.\n\nAgitated multitudes were at them in no time, telling them for a thousand\nreasons to stop, telling them to stop for no reason at all--babbling,\nconfused, and varied multitudes. The place they were building was too\nhigh--it couldn\'t possibly be safe. It was ugly; it interfered with the\nletting of proper-sized houses in the neighbourhood; it ruined the tone\nof the neighbourhood; it was unneighbourly; it was contrary to the Local\nBuilding Regulations; it infringed the right of the local authority to\nmuddle about with a minute expensive electric supply of its own; it\ninterfered with the concerns of the local water company.\n\nLocal Government Board clerks roused themselves to judicial obstruction.\nThe little lawyer turned up again to represent about a dozen threatened\ninterests; local landowners appeared in opposition; people with\nmysterious claims claimed to be bought off at exorbitant rates; the\nTrades Unions of all the building trades lifted up collective voices;\nand a ring of dealers in all sorts of building material became a bar.\nExtraordinary associations of people with prophetic visions of aesthetic\nhorrors rallied to protect the scenery of the place where they would\nbuild the great house, of the valley where they would bank up the water.\nThese last people were absolutely the worst asses of the lot, the Cossar\nboys considered. That beautiful house of the Cossar boys was just like a\nwalking-stick thrust into a wasps\' nest, in no time.\n\n\"I never did!\" said the elder boy.\n\n\"We can\'t go on,\" said the second brother.\n\n\"Rotten little beasts they are,\" said the third of the brothers; \"we\ncan\'t do _anything!_\"\n\n\"Even when it\'s for their own comfort. Such a _nice_ place we\'d have\nmade for them too.\"\n\n\"They seem to spend their silly little lives getting in each other\'s\nway,\" said the eldest boy, \"Rights and laws and regulations and\nrascalities; it\'s like a game of spellicans.... Well, anyhow, they\'ll\nhave to live in their grubby, dirty, silly little houses for a bit\nlonger. It\'s very evident _we_ can\'t go on with this.\"\n\nAnd the Cossar children left that great house unfinished, a mere hole of\nfoundations and the beginning of a wall, and sulked back to their big\nenclosure. After a time the hole was filled with water and with\nstagnation and weeds, and vermin, and the Food, either dropped there by\nthe sons of Cossar or blowing thither as dust, set growth going in its\nusual fashion. Water voles came out over the country and did infinite\nhavoc, and one day a farmer caught his pigs drinking there, and\ninstantly and with great presence of mind--for he knew: of the great hog\nof Oakham--slew them all. And from that deep pool it was the mosquitoes\ncame, quite terrible mosquitoes, whose only virtue was that the sons of\nCossar, after being bitten for a little, could stand the thing no\nlonger, but chose a moonlight night when law and order were abed and\ndrained the water clean away into the river by Brook.\n\nBut they left the big weeds and the big water voles and all sorts of big\nundesirable things still living and breeding on the site they had\nchosen--the site on which the fair great house of the little people\nmight have towered to heaven ...\n\n\nIV.\n\nThat had been in the boyhood of the Sons, but now they were nearly men,\nAnd the chains had been tightening upon them and tightening with every\nyear of growth. Each year they grew, and the Food spread and great\nthings multiplied, each year the stress and tension rose. The Food had\nbeen at first for the great mass of mankind a distant marvel, and now\nIt was coming home to every threshold, and threatening, pressing against\nand distorting the whole order of life. It blocked this, it overturned\nthat; it changed natural products, and by changing natural products it\nstopped employments and threw men out of work by the hundred thousands;\nit swept over boundaries and turned the world of trade into a world of\ncataclysms: no wonder mankind hated it.\n\nAnd since it is easier to hate animate than inanimate things, animals\nmore than plants, and one\'s fellow-men more completely than any animals,\nthe fear and trouble engendered by giant nettles and six-foot grass\nblades, awful insects and tiger-like vermin, grew all into one great\npower of detestation that aimed itself with a simple directness at that\nscattered band of great human beings, the Children of the Food. That\nhatred had become the central force in political affairs. The old party\nlines had been traversed and effaced altogether under the insistence of\nthese newer issues, and the conflict lay now with the party of the\ntemporisers, who were for putting little political men to control and\nregulate the Food, and the party of reaction for whom Caterharn spoke,\nspeaking always with a more sinister ambiguity, crystallising his\nintention first in one threatening phrase and then another, now that men\nmust \"prune the bramble growths,\" now that they must find a \"cure for\nelephantiasis,\" and at last upon the eve of the election that they must\n\"Grasp the nettle.\"\n\nOne day the three sons of Cossar, who were now no longer boys but men,\nsat among the masses of their futile work and talked together after\ntheir fashion of all these things. They had been working all day at one\nof a series of great and complicated trenches their father had bid them\nmake, and now it was sunset, and they sat in the little garden space\nbefore the great house and looked at the world and rested, until the\nlittle servants within should say their food was ready.\n\nYou must figure these mighty forms, forty feet high the least of them\nwas, reclining on a patch of turf that would have seemed a stubble of\nreeds to a common man. One sat up and chipped earth from his huge boots\nwith an iron girder he grasped in his hand; the second rested on his\nelbow; the third whittled a pine tree into shape and made a smell of\nresin in the air. They were clothed not in cloth but in under-garments\nof woven rope and outer clothes of felted aluminium wire; they were\nshod with timber and iron, and the links and buttons and belts of their\nclothing were all of plated steel. The great single-storeyed house they\nlived in, Egyptian in its massiveness, half built of monstrous blocks of\nchalk and half excavated from the living rock of the hill, had a front a\nfull hundred feet in height, and beyond, the chimneys and wheels, the\ncranes and covers of their work sheds rose marvellously against the sky.\nThrough a circular window in the house there was visible a spout from\nwhich some white-hot metal dripped and dripped in measured drops into a\nreceptacle out of sight. The place was enclosed and rudely fortified by\nmonstrous banks of earth, backed with steel both over the crests of the\nDowns above and across the dip of the valley. It needed something of\ncommon size to mark the nature of the scale. The train that came\nrattling from Sevenoaks athwart their vision, and presently plunged into\nthe tunnel out of their sight, looked by contrast with them like some\nsmall-sized automatic toy.\n\n\"They have made all the woods this side of Ightham out of bounds,\" said\none, \"and moved the board that was out by Knockholt two miles and more\nthis way.\"\n\n\"It is the least they could do,\" said the youngest, after a pause. \"They\nare trying to take the wind out of Caterham\'s sails.\"\n\n\"It\'s not enough for that, and--it is almost too much for us,\" said the\nthird.\n\n\"They are cutting us off from Brother Redwood. Last time I went to him\nthe red notices had crept a mile in, either way. The road to him along\nthe Downs is no more than a narrow lane.\"\n\nThe speaker thought. \"What has come to our brother Redwood?\"\n\n\"Why?\" said the eldest brother.\n\nThe speaker hacked a bough from his pine. \"He was like--as though he\nwasn\'t awake. He didn\'t seem to listen to what I had to say. And he said\nsomething of--love.\"\n\nThe youngest tapped his girder on the edge of his iron sole and laughed.\n\"Brother Redwood,\" he said, \"has dreams.\"\n\nNeither spoke for a space. Then the eldest brother said, \"This cooping\nup and cooping up grows more than I can bear. At last, I believe, they\nwill draw a line round our boots and tell us to live on that.\"\n\nThe middle brother swept aside a heap of pine boughs with one hand and\nshifted his attitude. \"What they do now is nothing to what they will do\nwhen Caterham has power.\"\n\n\"If he gets power,\" said the youngest brother, smiting the ground with\nhis girder.\n\n\"As he will,\" said the eldest, staring at his feet.\n\nThe middle brother ceased his lopping, and his eye went to the great\nbanks that sheltered them about. \"Then, brothers,\" he said, \"our youth\nwill be over, and, as Father Redwood said to us long ago, we must quit\nourselves like men.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said the eldest brother; \"but what exactly does that mean? Just\nwhat does it mean--when that day of trouble comes?\"\n\nHe too glanced at those rude vast suggestions of entrenchment about\nthem, looking not so much at them as through them and over the hills to\nthe innumerable multitudes beyond. Something of the same sort came into\nall their minds--a vision of little people coming out to war, in a\nflood, the little people, inexhaustible, incessant, malignant....\n\n\"They are little,\" said the youngest brother; \"but they have numbers\nbeyond counting, like the sands of the sea.\"\n\n\"They have arms--they have weapons even, that our brothers in Sunderland\nhave made.\"\n\n\"Besides, Brothers, except for vermin, except for little accidents with\nevil things, what have we seen of killing?\"\n\n\"I know,\" said the eldest brother. \"For all that--we are what we are.\nWhen the day of trouble comes we must do the thing we have to do.\"\n\nHe closed his knife with a snap--the blade was the length of a man--and\nused his new pine staff to help himself rise. He stood up and turned\ntowards the squat grey immensity of the house. The crimson of the\nsunset caught him as he rose, caught the mail and clasps about his neck\nand the woven metal of his arms, and to the eyes of his brother it\nseemed as though he was suddenly suffused with blood ...\n\nAs the young giant rose a little black figure became visible to him\nagainst that western incandescence on the top of the embankment that\ntowered above the summit of the down. The black limbs waved in ungainly\ngestures. Something in the fling of the limbs suggested haste to the\nyoung giant\'s mind. He waved his pine mast in reply, filled the whole\nvalley with his vast Hullo! threw a \"Something\'s up\" to his brothers,\nand set off in twenty-foot strides to meet and help his father.\n\n\nV.\n\nIt chanced too that a young man who was not a giant was delivering his\nsoul about these sons of Cossar just at that same time. He had come over\nthe hills beyond Sevenoaks, he and his friend, and he it was did the\ntalking. In the hedge as they came along they had heard a pitiful\nsquealing, and had intervened to rescue three nestling tits from the\nattack of a couple of giant ants. That adventure it was had set him\ntalking.\n\n\"Reactionary!\" he was saying, as they came within sight of the Cossar\nencampment. \"Who wouldn\'t be reactionary? Look at that square of ground,\nthat space of God\'s earth that was once sweet and fair, torn,\ndesecrated, disembowelled! Those sheds! That great wind-wheel! That\nmonstrous wheeled machine! Those dykes! Look at those three monsters\nsquatting there, plotting some ugly devilment or other! Look--look at\nall the land!\"\n\nHis friend glanced at his face. \"You have been listening to Caterham,\"\nhe said.\n\n\"Using my eyes. Looking a little into the peace and order of the past we\nleave behind. This foul Food is the last shape of the Devil, still set\nas ever upon the ruin of our world. Think what the world must have been\nbefore our days, what it was still when our mothers bore us, and see it\nnow! Think how these slopes once smiled under the golden harvest, how\nthe hedges, full of sweet little flowers, parted the modest portion of\nthis man from that, how the ruddy farmhouses dotted the land, and the\nvoice of the church bells from yonder tower stilled the whole world each\nSabbath into Sabbath prayer. And now, every year, still more and more of\nmonstrous weeds, of monstrous vermin, and these giants growing all about\nus, straddling over us, blundering against all that is subtle and sacred\nin our world. Why here--Look!\"\n\nHe pointed, and his friend\'s eyes followed the line of his white finger.\n\n\"One of their footmarks. See! It has smashed itself three feet deep and\nmore, a pitfall for horse and rider, a trap to the unwary. There is a\nbriar rose smashed to death; there is grass uprooted and a teazle\ncrushed aside, a farmer\'s drain pipe snapped and the edge of the pathway\nbroken down. Destruction! So they are doing all over the world, all over\nthe order and decency the world of men has made. Trampling on all\nthings. Reaction! What else?\"\n\n\"But--reaction. What do you hope to do?\"\n\n\"Stop it!\" cried the young man from Oxford. \"Before it is too late.\"\n\n\"But---\"\n\n\"It\'s _not_ impossible,\" cried the young man from Oxford, with a jump\nin his voice. \"We want the firm hand; we want the subtle plan, the\nresolute mind. We have been mealy-mouthed and weak-handed; we have\ntrifled and temporised and the Food has grown and grown. Yet even now--\"\n\nHe stopped for a moment. \"This is the echo of Caterham,\" said his\nfriend.\n\n\"Even now. Even now there is hope--abundant hope, if only we make sure\nof what we want and what we mean to destroy. The mass of people are with\nus, much more with us than they were a few years ago; the law is with\nus, the constitution and order of society, the spirit of the established\nreligions, the customs and habits of mankind are with us--and against\nthe Food. Why should we temporise? Why should we lie? We hate it, we\ndon\'t want it; why then should we have it? Do you mean to just grizzle\nand obstruct passively and do nothing--till the sands are out?\"\n\nHe stopped short and turned about. \"Look at that grove of nettles there.\nIn the midst of them are homes--deserted--where once clean families of\nsimple men played out their honest lives!\n\n\"And there!\" he swung round to where the young Cossars muttered to one\nanother of their wrongs.\n\n\"Look at them! And I know their father, a brute, a sort of brute beast\nwith an intolerant loud voice, a creature who has ran amuck in our all\ntoo merciful world for the last thirty years and more. An engineer! To\nhim all that we hold dear and sacred is nothing. Nothing! The splendid\ntraditions of our race and land, the noble institutions, the venerable\norder, the broad slow march from precedent to precedent that has made\nour English people great and this sunny island free--it is all an idle\ntale, told and done with. Some claptrap about the Future is worth all\nthese sacred things.... The sort of man who would run a tramway over his\nmother\'s grave if he thought that was the cheapest line the tramway\ncould take.... And you think to temporise, to make some scheme of\ncompromise, that will enable you to live in your way while that--that\nmachinery--lives in its. I tell you it is hopeless--hopeless. As well\nmake treaties with a tiger! They want things monstrous--we want them\nsane and sweet. It is one thing or the other.\"\n\n\"But what can you do?\"\n\n\"Much! All! Stop the Food! They are still scattered, these giants; still\nimmature and disunited. Chain them, gag them, muzzle them. At any cost\nstop them. It is their world or ours! Stop the Food. Shut up these men\nwho make it. Do anything to stop Cossar! You don\'t seem to remember--one\ngeneration--only one generation needs holding down, and then--Then we\ncould level those mounds there, fill up their footsteps, take the ugly\nsirens from our church towers, smash all our elephant guns, and turn our\nfaces again to the old order, the ripe old civilisation for which the\nsoul of man is fitted.\"\n\n\"It\'s a mighty effort.\"\n\n\"For a mighty end. And if we don\'t? Don\'t you see the prospect before us\nclear as day? Everywhere the giants will increase and multiply;\neverywhere they will make and scatter the Food. The grass will grow\ngigantic in our fields, the weeds in our hedges, the vermin in the\nthickets, the rats in the drains. More and more and more. This is only a\nbeginning. The insect world will rise on us, the plant world, the very\nfishes in the sea, will swamp and drown our ships. Tremendous growths\nwill obscure and hide our houses, smother our churches, smash and\ndestroy all the order of our cities, and we shall become no more than a\nfeeble vermin under the heels of the new race. Mankind will be swamped\nand drowned in things of its own begetting! And all for nothing! Size!\nMere size! Enlargement and _da capo_. Already we go picking our way\namong the first beginnings of the coming time. And all we do is to say\n\'How inconvenient!\' To grumble and do nothing. _No_!\"\n\nHe raised his hand.\n\n\"Let them do the thing they have to do! So also will I. I am for\nReaction--unstinted and fearless Reaction. Unless you mean to take this\nFood also, what else is there to do in all the world? We have trifled in\nthe middle ways too long. You! Trifling in the middle ways is your\nhabit, your circle of existence, your space and time. So, not I! I am\nagainst the Food, with all my strength and purpose against the Food.\"\n\nHe turned on his companion\'s grunt of dissent. \"Where are you?\"\n\n\"It\'s a complicated business---\"\n\n\"Oh!--Driftwood!\" said the young man from Oxford, very bitterly, with a\nfling of all his limbs. \"The middle way is nothingness. It is one thing\nor the other. Eat or destroy. Eat or destroy! What else is there to\ndo?\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE SECOND.\n\nTHE GIANT LOVERS.\n\n\nI.\n\nNow it chanced in the days when Caterham was campaigning against the\nBoom-children before the General Election that was--amidst the most\ntragic and terrible circumstances--to bring him into power, that the\ngiant Princess, that Serene Highness whose early nutrition had played so\ngreat a part in the brilliant career of Doctor Winkles, had come from\nthe kingdom of her father to England, on an occasion that was deemed\nimportant. She was affianced for reasons of state to a certain\nPrince--and the wedding was to be made an event of international\nsignificance. There had arisen mysterious delays. Rumour and Imagination\ncollaborated in the story and many things were said. There were\nsuggestions of a recalcitrant Prince who declared he would not be made\nto look like a fool--at least to this extent. People sympathised with\nhim. That is the most significant aspect of the affair.\n\nNow it may seem a strange thing, but it is a fact that the giant\nPrincess, when she came to England, knew of no other giants whatever.\nShe had lived in a world where tact is almost a passion and reservations\nthe air of one\'s life. They had kept the thing from her; they had\nhedged her about from sight or suspicion of any gigantic form, until her\nappointed coming to England was due. Until she met young Redwood she had\nno inkling that there was such a thing as another giant in the world.\n\nIn the kingdom of the father of the Princess there were wild wastes of\nupland and mountains where she had been accustomed to roam freely. She\nloved the sunrise and the sunset and all the great drama of the open\nheavens more than anything else in the world, but among a people at once\nso democratic and so vehemently loyal as the English her freedom was\nmuch restricted. People came in brakes, in excursion trains, in\norganised multitudes to see her; they would cycle long distances to\nstare at her, and it was necessary to rise betimes if she would walk in\npeace. It was still near the dawn that morning when young Redwood came\nupon her.\n\nThe Great Park near the Palace where she lodged stretched, for a score\nof miles and more, west and south of the western palace gates. The\nchestnut trees of its avenues reached high above her head. Each one as\nshe passed it seemed to proffer a more abundant wealth of blossom. For a\ntime she was content with sight and scent, but at last she was won over\nby these offers, and set herself so busily to choose and pick that she\ndid not perceive young Redwood until he was close upon her.\n\nShe moved among the chestnut trees, with the destined lover drawing near\nto her, unanticipated, unsuspected. She thrust her hands in among the\nbranches, breaking them and gathering them. She was alone in the world.\nThen---\n\nShe looked up, and in that moment she was mated.\n\nWe must needs put our imaginations to his stature to see the beauty he\nsaw. That unapproachable greatness that prevents our immediate sympathy\nwith her did not exist for him. There she stood, a gracious girl, the\nfirst created being that had ever seemed a mate for him, light and\nslender, lightly clad, the fresh breeze of the dawn moulding the subtly\nfolding robe upon her against the soft strong lines of her form, and\nwith a great mass of blossoming chestnut branches in her hands. The\ncollar of her robe opened to show the whiteness of her neck and a soft\nshadowed roundness that passed out of sight towards her shoulders. The\nbreeze had stolen a strand or so of her hair too, and strained its\nred-tipped brown across her cheek. Her eyes were open blue, and her lips\nrested always in the promise of a smile as she reached among the\nbranches.\n\nShe turned upon him with a start, saw him, and for a space they regarded\none another. For her, the sight of him was so amazing, so incredible, as\nto be, for some moments at least, terrible. He came to her with the\nshock of a supernatural apparition; he broke all the established law of\nher world. He was a youth of one-and-twenty then, slenderly built, with\nhis father\'s darkness and his father\'s gravity. He was clad in a sober\nsoft brown leather, close-fitting easy garments, and in brown hose, that\nshaped him bravely. His head went uncovered in all weathers. They stood\nregarding one another--she incredulously amazed, and he with his heart\nbeating fast. It was a moment without a prelude, the cardinal meeting of\ntheir lives.\n\nFor him there was less surprise. He had been seeking her, and yet his\nheart beat fast. He came towards her, slowly, with his eyes upon her\nface.\n\n\"You are the Princess,\" he said. \"My father has told me. You are the\nPrincess who was given the Food of the Gods.\"\n\n\"I am the Princess--yes,\" she said, with eyes of wonder. \"But--what are\nyou?\"\n\n\"I am the son of the man who made the Food of the Gods.\"\n\n\"The Food of the Gods!\"\n\n\"Yes, the Food of the Gods.\"\n\n\"But--\"\n\nHer face expressed infinite perplexity.\n\n\"What? I don\'t understand. The Food of the Gods?\"\n\n\"You have not heard?\"\n\n\"The Food of the Gods! _No_!\"\n\nShe found herself trembling violently. The colour left her face. \"I did\nnot know,\" she said. \"Do you mean--?\"\n\nHe waited for her.\n\n\"Do you mean there are other--giants?\"\n\nHe repeated, \"Did you not know?\"\n\nAnd she answered, with the growing amazement of realisation, \"_No!_\"\n\nThe whole world and all the meaning of the world was changing for her. A\nbranch of chestnut slipped from her hand. \"Do you mean to say,\" she\nrepeated stupidly, \"that there are other giants in the world? That some\nfood--?\"\n\nHe caught her amazement.\n\n\"You know nothing?\" he cried. \"You have never heard of us? You, whom the\nFood has made akin to us!\"\n\nThere was terror still in the eyes that stared at him. Her hand rose\ntowards her throat and fell again. She whispered, \"_No_.\"\n\nIt seemed to her that she must weep or faint. Then in a moment she had\nrule over herself and she was speaking and thinking clearly. \"All this\nhas been kept from me,\" she said. \"It is like a dream. I have\ndreamt--have dreamt such things. But waking--No. Tell me! Tell me! What\nare you? What is this Food of the Gods? Tell me slowly--and clearly. Why\nhave they kept it from me, that I am not alone?\"\n\n\nII.\n\n\"Tell me,\" she said, and young Redwood, tremulous and excited, set\nhimself to tell her--it was poor and broken telling for a time--of the\nFood of the Gods and the giant children who were scattered over the\nworld.\n\nYou must figure them both, flushed and startled in their bearing;\ngetting at one another\'s meaning through endless half-heard, half-spoken\nphrases, repeating, making perplexing breaks and new departures--a\nwonderful talk, in which she awakened from the ignorance of all her\nlife. And very slowly it became clear to her that she was no exception\nto the order of mankind, but one of a scattered brotherhood, who had all\neaten the Food and grown for ever out of the little limits of the folk\nbeneath their feet. Young Redwood spoke of his father, of Cossar, of the\nBrothers scattered throughout the country, of the great dawn of wider\nmeaning that had come at last into the history of the world. \"We are in\nthe beginning of a beginning,\" he said; \"this world of theirs is only\nthe prelude to the world the Food will make.\n\n\"My father believes--and I also believe--that a time will come when\nlittleness will have passed altogether out of the world of man,--when\ngiants shall go freely about this earth--their earth--doing continually\ngreater and more splendid things. But that--that is to come. We are not\neven the first generation of that--we are the first experiments.\"\n\n\"And of these things,\" she said, \"I knew nothing!\"\n\n\"There are times when it seems to me almost as if we had come too soon.\nSome one, I suppose, had to come first. But the world was all unprepared\nfor our coming and for the coming of all the lesser great things that\ndrew their greatness from the Food. There have been blunders; there have\nbeen conflicts. The little people hate our kind....\n\n\"They are hard towards us because they are so little.... And because our\nfeet are heavy on the things that make their lives. But at any rate they\nhate us now; they will have none of us--only if we could shrink back to\nthe common size of them would they begin to forgive....\n\n\"They are happy in houses that are prison cells to us; their cities are\ntoo small for us; we go in misery along their narrow ways; we cannot\nworship in their churches....\n\n\"We see over their walls and over their protections; we look\ninadvertently into their upper windows; we look over their customs;\ntheir laws are no more than a net about our feet....\n\n\"Every time we stumble we hear them shouting; every time we blunder\nagainst their limits or stretch out to any spacious act....\n\n\"Our easy paces are wild flights to them, and all they deem great and\nwonderful no more than dolls\' pyramids to us. Their pettiness of method\nand appliance and imagination hampers and defeats our powers. There are\nno machines to the power of our hands, no helps to fit our needs. They\nhold our greatness in servitude by a thousand invisible bands. We are\nstronger, man for man, a hundred times, but we are disarmed; our very\ngreatness makes us debtors; they claim the land we stand upon; they tax\nour ampler need of food and shelter, and for all these things we must\ntoil with the tools these dwarfs can make us--and to satisfy their\ndwarfish fancies ...\n\n\"They pen us in, in every way. Even to live one must cross their\nboundaries. Even to meet you here to-day I have passed a limit. All that\nis reasonable and desirable in life they make out of bounds for us. We\nmay not go into the towns; we may not cross the bridges; we may not step\non their ploughed fields or into the harbours of the game they kill. I\nam cut off now from all our Brethren except the three sons of Cossar,\nand even that way the passage narrows day by day. One could think they\nsought occasion against us to do some more evil thing ...\"\n\n\"But we are strong,\" she said.\n\n\"We should be strong--yes. We feel, all of us--you too I know must\nfeel--that we have power, power to do great things, power insurgent in\nus. But before we can do anything--\"\n\nHe flung out a hand that seemed to sweep away a world.\n\n\"Though I thought I was alone in the world,\" she said, after a pause, \"I\nhave thought of these things. They have taught me always that strength\nwas almost a sin, that it was better to be little than great, that all\ntrue religion was to shelter the weak and little, encourage the weak\nand little, help them to multiply and multiply until at last they\ncrawled over one another, to sacrifice all our strength in their cause.\nBut ... always I have doubted the thing they taught.\"\n\n\"This life,\" he said, \"these bodies of ours, are not for dying.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Nor to live in futility. But if we would not do that, it is already\nplain to all our Brethren a conflict must come. I know not what\nbitterness of conflict must presently come, before the little folks will\nsuffer us to live as we need to live. All the Brethren have thought of\nthat. Cossar, of whom I told you: he too has thought of that.\"\n\n\"They are very little and weak.\"\n\n\"In their way. But you know all the means of death are in their hands,\nand made for their hands. For hundreds of thousands of years these\nlittle people, whose world we invade, have been learning how to kill one\nanother. They are very able at that. They are able in many ways. And\nbesides, they can deceive and change suddenly.... I do not know....\nThere comes a conflict. You--you perhaps are different from us. For us,\nassuredly, the conflict comes.... The thing they call War. We know it.\nIn a way we prepare for it. But you know--those little people!--we do\nnot know how to kill, at least we do not want to kill--\"\n\n\"Look,\" she interrupted, and he heard a yelping horn.\n\nHe turned at the direction of her eyes, and found a bright yellow motor\ncar, with dark goggled driver and fur-clad passengers, whooping,\nthrobbing, and buzzing resentfully at his heel. He moved his foot, and\nthe mechanism, with three angry snorts, resumed its fussy way towards\nthe town. \"Filling up the roadway!\" floated up to him.\n\nThen some one said, \"Look! Did you see? There is the monster Princess\nover beyond the trees!\" and all their goggled faces came round to stare.\n\n\"I say,\" said another. \"_That_ won\'t do ...\"\n\n\"All this,\" she said, \"is more amazing than I can tell.\"\n\n\"That they should not have told you,\" he said, and left his sentence\nincomplete.\n\n\"Until you came upon me, I had lived in a world where I was\ngreat--alone. I had made myself a life--for that. I had thought I was\nthe victim of some strange freak of nature. And now my world has\ncrumbled down, in half an hour, and I see another world, other\nconditions, wider possibilities--fellowship--\"\n\n\"Fellowship,\" he answered.\n\n\"I want you to tell me more yet, and much more,\" she said. \"You know\nthis passes through my mind like a tale that is told. You even ... In a\nday perhaps, or after several days, I shall believe in you. Now--Now I\nam dreaming.... Listen!\"\n\nThe first stroke of a clock above the palace offices far away had\npenetrated to them. Each counted mechanically \"Seven.\"\n\n\"This,\" she said, \"should be the hour of my return. They will be taking\nthe bowl of my coffee into the hall where I sleep. The little officials\nand servants--you cannot dream how grave they are--will be stirring\nabout their little duties.\"\n\n\"They will wonder ... But I want to talk to you.\"\n\nShe thought. \"But I want to think too. I want now to think alone, and\nthink out this change in things, think away the old solitude, and think\nyou and those others into my world.... I shall go. I shall go back\nto-day to my place in the castle, and to-morrow, as the dawn comes, I\nshall come again--here.\"\n\n\"I shall be here waiting for you.\"\n\n\"All day I shall dream and dream of this new world you have given me.\nEven now, I can scarcely believe--\"\n\nShe took a step back and surveyed him from the feet to the face. Their\neyes met and locked for a moment.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said, with a little laugh that was half a sob. \"You are real.\nBut it is very wonderful! Do you think--indeed--? Suppose to-morrow I\ncome and find you--a pigmy like the others... Yes, I must think. And so\nfor to-day--as the little people do--\"\n\nShe held out her hand, and for the first time they touched one another.\nTheir hands clasped firmly and their eyes met again.\n\n\"Good-bye,\" she said, \"for to-day. Good-bye! Good-bye, Brother Giant!\"\n\nHe hesitated with some unspoken thing, and at last he answered her\nsimply, \"Good-bye.\"\n\nFor a space they held each other\'s hands, studying each the other\'s\nface. And many times after they had parted, she looked back half\ndoubtfully at him, standing still in the place where they had met....\n\nShe walked into her apartments across the great yard of the Palace like\none who walks in a dream, with a vast branch of chestnut trailing from\nher hand.\n\n\nIII.\n\nThese two met altogether fourteen times before the beginning of the end.\nThey met in the Great Park or on the heights and among the gorges of\nthe rusty-roaded, heathery moorland, set with dusky pine-woods, that\nstretched to the south-west. Twice they met in the great avenue of\nchestnuts, and five times near the broad ornamental water the king, her\ngreat-grandfather, had made. There was a place where a great trim lawn,\nset with tall conifers, sloped graciously to the water\'s edge, and there\nshe would sit, and he would lie at her knees and look up in her face and\ntalk, telling of all the things that had been, and of the work his\nfather had set before him, and of the great and spacious dream of what\nthe giant people should one day be. Commonly they met in the early dawn,\nbut once they met there in the afternoon, and found presently a\nmultitude of peering eavesdroppers about them, cyclists, pedestrians,\npeeping from the bushes, rustling (as sparrows will rustle about one in\nthe London parks) amidst the dead leaves in the woods behind, gliding\ndown the lake in boats towards a point of view, trying to get nearer to\nthem and hear.\n\nIt was the first hint that offered of the enormous interest the\ncountryside was taking in their meetings. And once--it was the seventh\ntime, and it precipitated the scandal--they met out upon the breezy\nmoorland under a clear moonlight, and talked in whispers there, for the\nnight was warm and still.\n\nVery soon they had passed from the realisation that in them and through\nthem a new world of giantry shaped itself in the earth, from the\ncontemplation of the great struggle between big and little, in which\nthey were clearly destined to participate, to interests at once more\npersonal and more spacious. Each time they met and talked and looked on\none another, it crept a little more out of their subconscious being\ntowards recognition, that something more dear and wonderful than\nfriendship was between them, and walked between them and drew their\nhands together. And in a little while they came to the word itself and\nfound themselves lovers, the Adam and Eve of a new race in the world.\n\nThey set foot side by side into the wonderful valley of love, with its\ndeep and quiet places. The world changed about them with their changing\nmood, until presently it had become, as it were, a tabernacular beauty\nabout their meetings, and the stars were no more than flowers of light\nbeneath the feet of their love, and the dawn and sunset the coloured\nhangings by the way. They ceased to be beings of flesh and blood to one\nanother and themselves; they passed into a bodily texture of tenderness\nand desire. They gave it first whispers and then silence, and drew close\nand looked into one another\'s moonlit and shadowy faces under the\ninfinite arch of the sky. And the still black pine-trees stood about\nthem like sentinels.\n\nThe beating steps of time were hushed into silence, and it seemed to\nthem the universe hung still. Only their hearts were audible, beating.\nThey seemed to be living together in a world where there is no death,\nand indeed so it was with them then. It seemed to them that they\nsounded, and indeed they sounded, such hidden splendours in the very\nheart of things as none have ever reached before. Even for mean and\nlittle souls, love is the revelation of splendours. And these were giant\nlovers who had eaten the Food of the Gods ...\n\n * * * * *\n\nYou may imagine the spreading consternation in this ordered world when\nit became known that the Princess who was affianced to the Prince, the\nPrincess, Her Serene Highness! with royal blood in her veins!\nmet,--frequently met,--the hypertrophied offspring of a common professor\nof chemistry, a creature of no rank, no position, no wealth, and talked\nto him as though there were no Kings and Princes, no order, no\nreverence--nothing but Giants and Pigmies in the world, talked to him\nand, it was only too certain, held him as her lover.\n\n\"If those newspaper fellows get hold of it!\" gasped Sir Arthur Poodle\nBootlick ...\n\n\"I am told--\" whispered the old Bishop of Frumps.\n\n\"New story upstairs,\" said the first footman, as he nibbled among the\ndessert things. \"So far as I can make out this here giant Princess--\"\n\n\"They say--\" said the lady who kept the stationer\'s shop by the main\nentrance to the Palace, where the little Americans get their tickets for\nthe State Apartments ...\n\nAnd then:\n\n\"We are authorised to deny--\" said \"Picaroon\" in _Gossip_.\n\nAnd so the whole trouble came out.\n\n\nIV.\n\n\"They say that we must part,\" the Princess said to her lover.\n\n\"But why?\" he cried. \"What new folly have these people got into their\nheads?\"\n\n\"Do you know,\" she asked, \"that to love me--is high treason?\"\n\n\"My dear,\" he cried; \"but does it matter? What is their right--right\nwithout a shadow of reason--and their treason and their loyalty to us?\"\n\n\"You shall hear,\" she said, and told him of the things that had been\ntold to her.\n\n\"It was the queerest little man who came to me with a soft, beautifully\nmodulated voice, a softly moving little gentleman who sidled into the\nroom like a cat and put his pretty white hand up so, whenever he had\nanything significant to say. He is bald, but not of course nakedly bald,\nand his nose and face are chubby rosy little things, and his beard is\ntrimmed to a point in quite the loveliest way. He pretended to have\nemotions several times and made his eyes shine. You know he is quite a\nfriend of the real royal family here, and he called me his dear young\nlady and was perfectly sympathetic even from the beginning. \'My dear\nyoung lady,\' he said, \'you know--_you mustn\'t,\'_ several times, and\nthen, \'You owe a duty.\'\"\n\n\"Where do they make such men?\"\n\n\"He likes it,\" she said.\n\n\"But I don\'t see--\"\n\n\"He told me serious things.\"\n\n\"You don\'t think,\" he said, turning on her abruptly, \"that there\'s\nanything in the sort of thing he said?\"\n\n\"There\'s something in it quite certainly,\" said she.\n\n\"You mean--?\"\n\n\"I mean that without knowing it we have been trampling on the most\nsacred conceptions of the little folks. We who are royal are a class\napart. We are worshipped prisoners, processional toys. We pay for\nworship by losing--our elementary freedom. And I was to have married\nthat Prince--You know nothing of him though. Well, a pigmy Prince. He\ndoesn\'t matter.... It seems it would have strengthened the bonds between\nmy country and another. And this country also was to profit. Imagine\nit!--strengthening the bonds!\"\n\n\"And now?\"\n\n\"They want me to go on with it--as though there was nothing between us\ntwo.\"\n\n\"Nothing!\"\n\n\"Yes. But that isn\'t all. He said--\"\n\n\"Your specialist in Tact?\"\n\n\"Yes. He said it would be better for you, better for all the giants, if\nwe two--abstained from conversation. That was how he put it.\"\n\n\"But what can they do if we don\'t?\"\n\n\"He said you might have your freedom.\"\n\n\"_I!_\"\n\n\"He said, with a stress, \'My dear young lady, it would be better, it\nwould be more dignified, if you parted, willingly.\' That was all he\nsaid. With a stress on willingly.\"\n\n\"But--! What business is it of these little wretches, where we love, how\nwe love? What have they and their world to do with us?\"\n\n\"They do not think that.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" he said, \"you disregard all this.\"\n\n\"It seems utterly foolish to me.\"\n\n\"That their laws should fetter us! That we, at the first spring of life,\nshould be tripped by their old engagements, their aimless institutions!\nOh--! We disregard it.\"\n\n\"I am yours. So far--yes.\"\n\n\"So far? Isn\'t that all?\"\n\n\"But they--If they want to part us--\"\n\n\"What can they do?\"\n\n\"I don\'t know. What _can_ they do?\"\n\n\"Who cares what they can do, or what they will do? I am yours and you\nare mine. What is there more than that? I am yours and you are mine--for\never. Do you think I will stop for their little rules, for their little\nprohibitions, their scarlet boards indeed!--and keep from _you_?\"\n\n\"Yes. But still, what can they do?\"\n\n\"You mean,\" he said, \"what are we to do?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"We? We can go on.\"\n\n\"But if they seek to prevent us?\"\n\nHe clenched his hands. He looked round as if the little people were\nalready coming to prevent them. Then turned away from her and looked\nabout the world. \"Yes,\" he said. \"Your question was the right one. What\ncan they do?\"\n\n\"Here in this little land,\" she said, and stopped.\nHe seemed to survey it all. \"They are everywhere.\"\n\n\"But we might--\"\n\n\"Whither?\"\n\n\"We could go. We could swim the seas together. Beyond the seas--\"\n\n\"I have never been beyond the seas.\"\n\n\"There are great and desolate mountains amidst which we should seem no\nmore than little people, there are remote and deserted valleys, there\nare hidden lakes and snow-girdled uplands untrodden by the feet of men.\n_There_--\"\n\n\"But to get there we must fight our way day after day through millions\nand millions of mankind.\"\n\n\"It is our only hope. In this crowded land there is no fastness, no\nshelter. What place is there for us among these multitudes? They who are\nlittle can hide from one another, but where are we to hide? There is no\nplace where we could eat, no place where we could sleep. If we\nfled--night and day they would pursue our footsteps.\"\n\nA thought came to him.\n\n\"There is one place,\" he said, \"even in this island.\"\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"The place our Brothers have made over beyond there. They have made\ngreat banks about their house, north and south and east and west; they\nhave made deep pits and hidden places, and even now--one came over to me\nquite recently. He said--I did not altogether heed what he said then.\nBut he spoke of arms. It may be--there--we should find shelter....\n\n\"For many days,\" he said, after a pause, \"I have not seen our\nBrothers... Dear! I have been dreaming, I have been forgetting! The days\nhave passed, and I have done nothing but look to see you again ... I\nmust go to them and talk to them, and tell them of you and of all the\nthings that hang over us. If they will help us, they can help us. Then\nindeed we might hope. I do not know how strong their place is, but\ncertainly Cossar will have made it strong. Before all this--before you\ncame to me, I remember now--there was trouble brewing. There was an\nelection--when all the little people settle things, by counting heads.\nIt must be over now. There were threats against all our race--against\nall our race, that is, but you. I must see our Brothers. I must tell\nthem all that has happened between us, and all that threatens now.\"\n\nV.\n\nHe did not come to their next meeting until she had waited some time.\nThey were to meet that day about midday in a great space of park that\nfitted into a bend of the river, and as she waited, looking ever\nsouthward under her hand, it came to her that the world was very still,\nthat indeed it was broodingly still. And then she perceived that, spite\nof the lateness of the hour, her customary retinue of voluntary spies\nhad failed her. Left and right, when she came to look, there was no one\nin sight, and there was never a boat upon the silver curve of the\nThames. She tried to find a reason for this strange stillness in the\nworld....\n\nThen, a grateful sight for her, she saw young Redwood far away over a\ngap in the tree masses that bounded her view.\n\nImmediately the trees hid him, and presently he was thrusting through\nthem and in sight again. She could see there was something different,\nand then she saw that he was hurrying unusually and then that he limped.\nHe gestured to her, and she walked towards him. His face became clearer,\nand she saw with infinite concern that he winced at every stride.\n\nShe ran towards him, her mind full of questions and vague fear. He drew\nnear to her and spoke without a greeting.\n\n\"Are we to part?\" he panted.\n\n\"No,\" she answered. \"Why? What is the matter?\"\n\n\"But if we do not part--! It is _now_.\"\n\n\"What is the matter?\"\n\n\"I do not want to part,\" he said. \"Only--\" He broke off abruptly to\nask, \"You will not part from me?\"\n\nShe met his eyes with a steadfast look. \"What has happened?\" she\npressed.\n\n\"Not for a time?\"\n\n\"What time?\"\n\n\"Years perhaps.\"\n\n\"Part! No!\"\n\n\"You have thought?\" he insisted.\n\n\"I will not part.\" She took his hand. \"If this meant death, _now_, I\nwould not let you go.\"\n\n\"If it meant death,\" he said, and she felt his grip upon her fingers.\n\nHe looked about him as if he feared to see the little people coming as\nhe spoke. And then: \"It may mean death.\"\n\n\"Now tell me,\" she said.\n\n\"They tried to stop my coming.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"And as I came out of my workshop where I make the Food of the Gods for\nthe Cossars to store in their camp, I found a little officer of\npolice--a man in blue with white clean gloves--who beckoned me to stop.\n\'This way is closed!\' said he. I thought little of that; I went round my\nworkshop to where another road runs west, and there was another officer.\n\'This road is closed!\' he said, and added: \'All the roads are closed!\'\"\n\n\"And then?\"\n\n\"I argued with him a little. \'They are public roads!\' I said.\n\n\"\'That\'s it,\' said he. \'You spoil them for the public.\'\n\n\"\'Very well,\' said I, \'I\'ll take the fields,\' and then, up leapt others\nfrom behind a hedge and said, \'These fields are private.\'\n\n\"\'Curse your public and private,\' I said, \'I\'m going to my Princess,\'\nand I stooped down and picked him up very gently--kicking and\nshouting--and put him out of my way. In a minute all the fields about me\nseemed alive with running men. I saw one on horseback galloping beside\nme and reading something as he rode--shouting it. He finished and turned\nand galloped away from me--head down. I couldn\'t make it out. And then\nbehind me I heard the crack of guns.\"\n\n\"Guns!\"\n\n\"Guns--just as they shoot at the rats. The bullets came through the air\nwith a sound like things tearing: one stung me in the leg.\"\n\n\"And you?\"\n\n\"Came on to you here and left them shouting and running and shooting\nbehind me. And now--\"\n\n\"Now?\"\n\n\"It is only the beginning. They mean that we shall part. Even now they\nare coming after me.\"\n\n\"We will not.\"\n\n\"No. But if we will not part--then you must come with me to our\nBrothers.\"\n\n\"Which way?\" she said.\n\n\"To the east. Yonder is the way my pursuers will be coming. This then is\nthe way we must go. Along this avenue of trees. Let me go first, so that\nif they are waiting--\"\n\nHe made a stride, but she had seized his arm.\n\n\"No,\" cried she. \"I come close to you, holding you. Perhaps I am royal,\nperhaps I am sacred. If I hold you--Would God we could fly with my arms\nabout you!--it may be, they will not shoot at you--\"\n\nShe clasped his shoulder and seized his hand as she spoke; she pressed\nherself nearer to him. \"It may be they will not shoot you,\" she\nrepeated, and with a sudden passion of tenderness he took her into his\narms and kissed her cheek. For a space he held her.\n\n\"Even if it is death,\" she whispered.\n\nShe put her hands about his neck and lifted her face to his.\n\n\"Dearest, kiss me once more.\"\n\nHe drew her to him. Silently they kissed one another on the lips, and\nfor another moment clung to one another. Then hand in hand, and she\nstriving always to keep her body near to his, they set forward if haply\nthey might reach the camp of refuge the sons of Cossar had made, before\nthe pursuit of the little people overtook them.\n\nAnd as they crossed the great spaces of the park behind the castle there\ncame horsemen galloping out from among the trees and vainly seeking to\nkeep pace with their giant strides. And presently ahead of them were\nhouses, and men with guns running out of the houses. At the sight of\nthat, though he sought to go on and was even disposed to fight and push\nthrough, she made him turn aside towards the south.\n\nAs they fled a bullet whipped by them overhead.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE THIRD.\n\nYOUNG CADDLES IN LONDON.\n\n\nI.\n\nAll unaware of the trend of events, unaware of the laws that were\nclosing in upon all the Brethren, unaware indeed that there lived a\nBrother for him on the earth, young Caddles chose this time to come out\nof his chalk pit and see the world. His brooding came at last to that.\nThere was no answer to all his questions in Cheasing Eyebright; the new\nVicar was less luminous even than the old, and the riddle of his\npointless labour grew at last to the dimensions of exasperation. \"Why\nshould I work in this pit day after day?\" he asked. \"Why should I walk\nwithin bounds and be refused all the wonders of the world beyond there?\nWhat have I done, to be condemned to this?\"\n\nAnd one day he stood up, straightened his back, and said in a loud\nvoice, \"No!\n\n\"I won\'t,\" he said, and then with great vigour cursed the pit.\n\nThen, having few words, he sought to express his thought in acts. He\ntook a truck half filled with chalk, lifted it, and flung it, smash,\nagainst another. Then he grasped a whole row of empty trucks and spun\nthem down a bank. He sent a huge boulder of chalk bursting among them,\nand then ripped up a dozen yards of rail with a mighty plunge of his\nfoot. So he commenced the conscientious wrecking of the pit.\n\n\"Work all my days,\" he said, \"at this!\"\n\nIt was an astonishing five minutes for the little geologist he had, in\nhis preoccupation, overlooked. This poor little creature having dodged\ntwo boulders by a hairbreadth, got out by the westward corner and fled\nathwart the hill, with flapping rucksack and twinkling knicker-bockered\nlegs, leaving a trail of Cretaceous echinoderms behind him; while young\nCaddles, satisfied with the destruction he had achieved, came striding\nout to fulfil his purpose in the world.\n\n\"Work in that old pit, until I die and rot and stink!... What worm did\nthey think was living in my giant body? Dig chalk for God knows what\nfoolish purpose! Not _I!_\"\n\nThe trend of road and railway perhaps, or mere chance it was, turned his\nface to London, and thither he came striding; over the Downs and athwart\nthe meadows through the hot afternoon, to the infinite amazement of the\nworld. It signified nothing to him that torn posters in red and white\nbearing various names flapped from every wall and barn; he knew nothing\nof the electoral revolution that had flung Caterham, \"Jack the\nGiant-killer,\" into power. It signified nothing to him that every police\nstation along his route had what was known as Caterham\'s ukase upon its\nnotice board that afternoon, proclaiming that no giant, no person\nwhatever over eight feet in height, should go more than five miles from\nhis \"place of location\" without a special permission. It signified\nnothing to him that on his wake belated police officers, not a little\nrelieved to find themselves belated, shook warning handbills at his\nretreating back. He was going to see what the world had to show him,\npoor incredulous blockhead, and he did not mean that occasional spirited\npersons shouting \"Hi!\" at him should stay his course. He came on down by\nRochester and Greenwich towards an ever-thickening aggregation of\nhouses, walking rather slowly now, staring about him and swinging his\nhuge chopper.\n\nPeople in London had heard something of him before, how that he was\nidiotic but gentle, and wonderfully managed by Lady Wondershoot\'s agent\nand the Vicar; how in his dull way he revered these authorities and was\ngrateful to them for their care of him, and so forth. So that when they\nlearnt from the newspaper placards that afternoon that he also was \"on\nstrike,\" the thing appeared to many of them as a deliberate, concerted\nact.\n\n\"They mean to try our strength,\" said the men in the trains going home\nfrom business.\n\n\"Lucky we have Caterham.\"\n\n\"It\'s in answer to his proclamation.\"\n\nThe men in the clubs were better informed. They clustered round the tape\nor talked in groups in their smoking-rooms.\n\n\"He has no weapons. He would have gone to Sevenoaks if he had been put\nup to it.\"\n\n\"Caterham will handle him....\"\n\nThe shopmen told their customers. The waiters in restaurants snatched a\nmoment for an evening paper between the courses. The cabmen read it\nimmediately after the betting news....\n\nThe placards of the chief government evening paper were conspicuous with\n\"Grasping the Nettle.\" Others relied for effect on: \"Giant Redwood\ncontinues to meet the Princess.\" The _Echo_ struck a line of its own\nwith: \"Rumoured Revolt of Giants in the North of England. The Sunderland\nGiants start for Scotland.\" The, _Westminster Gazette_ sounded its usual\nwarning note. \"Giants Beware,\" said the _Westminster Gazette_, and tried\nto make a point out of it that might perhaps serve towards uniting the\nLiberal party--at that time greatly torn between seven intensely\negotistical leaders. The later newspapers dropped into uniformity. \"The\nGiant in the New Kent Road,\" they proclaimed.\n\n\"What I want to know,\" said the pale young man in the tea shop, \"is why\nwe aren\'t getting any news of the young Cossars. You\'d think they\'d be\nin it most of all ...\"\n\n\"They tell me there\'s another of them young giants got loose,\" said the\nbarmaid, wiping out a glass. \"I\'ve always said they was dangerous things\nto \'ave about. Right away from the beginning ... It ought to be put a\nstop to. Any\'ow, I \'ope \'e won\'t come along \'ere.\"\n\n\"I\'d like to \'ave a look at \'im,\" said the young man at the bar\nrecklessly, and added, \"I _seen_ the Princess.\"\n\n\"D\'you think they\'ll \'urt \'im?\" said the barmaid.\n\n\"May \'ave to,\" said the young man at the bar, finishing his glass.\n\nAmidst a hum of ten million such sayings young Caddles came to London...\n\n\nII.\n\nI think of young Caddles always as he was seen in the New Kent Road, the\nsunset warm upon his perplexed and staring face. The Road was thick with\nits varied traffic, omnibuses, trams, vans, carts, trolleys, cyclists,\nmotors, and a marvelling crowd--loafers, women, nurse-maids, shopping\nwomen, children, venturesome hobble-dehoys--gathered behind his\ngingerly moving feet. The hoardings were untidy everywhere with the\ntattered election paper. A babblement of voices surged about him. One\nsees the customers and shopmen crowding in the doorways of the shops,\nthe faces that came and went at the windows, the little street boys\nrunning and shouting, the policemen taking it all quite stiffly and\ncalmly, the workmen knocking off upon scaffoldings, the seething\nmiscellany of the little folks. They shouted to him, vague\nencouragement, vague insults, the imbecile catchwords of the day, and he\nstared down at them, at such a multitude of living creatures as he had\nnever before imagined in the world.\n\nNow that he had fairly entered London he had had to slacken his pace\nmore and more, the little folks crowded so mightily upon him. The crowd\ngrew denser at every step, and at last, at a corner where two great ways\nconverged, he came to a stop, and the multitude flowed about him and\nclosed him in.\n\nThere he stood, with his feet a little apart, his back to a big corner\ngin palace that towered twice his height and ended In a sky sign,\nstaring down at the pigmies and wondering--trying, I doubt not, to\ncollate it all with the other things of his life, with the valley among\nthe downlands, the nocturnal lovers, the singing in the church, the\nchalk he hammered daily, and with instinct and death and the sky, trying\nto see it all together coherent and significant. His brows were knit. He\nput up his huge paw to scratch his coarse hair, and groaned aloud.\n\n\"I don\'t see It,\" he said.\n\nHis accent was unfamiliar. A great babblement went across the open\nspace--a babblement amidst which the gongs of the trams, ploughing their\nobstinate way through the mass, rose like red poppies amidst corn. \"What\ndid he say?\" \"Said he didn\'t see.\" \"Said, where is the sea?\" \"Said,\nwhere is a seat?\" \"He wants a seat.\" \"Can\'t the brasted fool sit on a\n\'ouse or somethin\'?\"\n\n\"What are ye for, ye swarming little people? What are ye all doing, what\nare ye all for?\n\n\"What are ye doing up here, ye swarming little people, while I\'m\na-cuttin\' chalk for ye, down in the chalk pits there?\"\n\nHis queer voice, the voice that had been so bad for school discipline at\nCheasing Eyebright, smote the multitude to silence while it sounded and\nsplashed them all to tumult at the end. Some wit was audible screaming\n\"Speech, speech!\" \"What\'s he saying?\" was the burthen of the public\nmind, and an opinion was abroad that he was drunk. \"Hi, hi, hi,\" bawled\nthe omnibus-drivers, threading a dangerous way. A drunken American\nsailor wandered about tearfully inquiring, \"What\'s he want anyhow?\" A\nleathery-faced rag-dealer upon a little pony-drawn cart soared up over\nthe tumult by virtue of his voice. \"Garn \'ome, you Brasted Giant!\" he\nbrawled, \"Garn \'Ome! You Brasted Great Dangerous Thing! Can\'t you see\nyou\'re a-frightening the \'orses? Go _\'ome_ with you! \'Asn\'t any one \'ad\nthe sense to tell you the law?\" And over all this uproar young Caddles\nstared, perplexed, expectant, saying no more.\n\nDown a side road came a little string of solemn policemen, and threaded\nitself ingeniously into the traffic. \"Stand back,\" said the little\nvoices; \"keep moving, please.\"\n\nYoung Caddles became aware of a little dark blue figure thumping at his\nshin. He looked down, and perceived two white hands gesticulating.\n\"_What_?\" he said, bending forward.\n\n\"Can\'t stand about here,\" shouted the inspector.\n\n\"No! You can\'t stand about here,\" he repeated.\n\n\"But where am I to go?\"\n\n\"Back to your village. Place of location. Anyhow, now--you\'ve got to\nmove on. You\'re obstructing the traffic.\"\n\n\"What traffic?\"\n\n\"Along the road.\"\n\n\"But where is it going? Where does it come from? What does it mean?\nThey\'re all round me. What do they want? What are they doin\'? I want to\nunderstand. I\'m tired of cuttin\' chalk and bein\' all alone. What are\nthey doin\' for me while I\'m a-cuttin\' chalk? I may just as well\nunderstand here and now as anywhere.\"\n\n\"Sorry. But we aren\'t here to explain things of that sort. I must arst\nyou to move on.\"\n\n\"Don\'t you know?\"\n\n\"I must arst you to move on--_if_ you please ... I\'d strongly advise you\nto get off \'ome. We\'ve \'ad no special instructions yet--but it\'s against\nthe law ... Clear away there. Clear away.\"\n\nThe pavement to his left became invitingly bare, and young Caddles went\nslowly on his way. But now his tongue was loosened.\n\n\"I don\'t understand,\" he muttered. \"I don\'t understand.\" He would appeal\nbrokenly to the changing crowd that ever trailed beside him and behind.\n\"I didn\'t know there were such places as this. What are all you people\ndoing with yourselves? What\'s it all for? What is it all for, and where\ndo I come in?\"\n\nHe had already begotten a new catchword. Young men of wit and spirit\naddressed each other in this manner, \"Ullo \'Arry O\'Cock. Wot\'s it all\n_for_? Eh? Wot\'s it all bloomin\' well _for_?\"\n\nTo which there sprang up a competing variety of repartees, for the most\npart impolite. The most popular and best adapted for general use appears\nto have been \"_Shut_ it,\" or, in a voice of scornful\ndetachment--\"_Garn!_\"\n\nThere were others almost equally popular.\n\n\nIII.\n\nWhat was he seeking? He wanted something the pigmy world did not give,\nsome end which the pigmy world prevented his attaining, prevented even\nhis seeing clearly, which he was never to see clearly. It was the whole\ngigantic social side of this lonely dumb monster crying out for his\nrace, for the things akin to him, for something he might love and\nsomething he might serve, for a purpose he might comprehend and a\ncommand he could obey. And, you know, all this was _dumb_, raged dumbly\nwithin him, could not even, had he met a fellow giant, have found outlet\nand expression in speech. All the life he knew was the dull round of the\nvillage, all the speech he knew was the talk of the cottage, that failed\nand collapsed at the bare outline of his least gigantic need. He knew\nnothing of money, this monstrous simpleton, nothing of trade, nothing of\nthe complex pretences upon which the social fabric of the little folks\nwas built. He needed, he needed--Whatever he needed, he never found his\nneed.\n\nAll through the day and the summer night he wandered, growing hungry but\nas yet untired, marking the varied traffic of the different streets, the\ninexplicable businesses of all these infinitesimal beings. In the\naggregate it had no other colour than confusion for him....\n\nHe is said to have plucked a lady from her carriage in Kensington, a\nlady in evening dress of the smartest sort, to have scrutinised her\nclosely, train and shoulder blades, and to have replaced her--a little\ncarelessly--with the profoundest sigh. For that I cannot vouch. For an\nhour or so he watched people fighting for places in the omnibuses at the\nend of Piccadilly. He was seen looming over Kennington Oval for some\nmoments in the afternoon, but when he saw these dense thousands were\nengaged with the mystery of cricket and quite regardless of him he went\nhis way with a groan.\n\nHe came back to Piccadilly Circus between eleven and twelve at night\nand found a new sort of multitude. Clearly they were very intent: full\nof things they, for inconceivable reasons, might do, and of others they\nmight not do. They stared at him and jeered at him and went their way.\nThe cabmen, vulture-eyed, followed one another continually along the\nedge of the swarming pavement. People emerged from the restaurants or\nentered them, grave, intent, dignified, or gently and agreeably excited\nor keen and vigilant--beyond the cheating of the sharpest waiter born.\nThe great giant, standing at his corner, peered at them all. \"What is it\nall for?\" he murmured in a mournful vast undertone, \"What is it all\nfor? They are all so earnest. What is it I do not understand?\"\n\nAnd none of them seemed to see, as he could do, the drink-sodden\nwretchedness of the painted women at the corner, the ragged misery that\nsneaked along the gutters, the infinite futility of all this employment.\nThe infinite futility! None of them seemed to feel the shadow of that\ngiant\'s need, that shadow of the future, that lay athwart their paths...\n\nAcross the road high up mysterious letters flamed and went, that might,\ncould he have read them, have measured for him the dimensions of human\ninterest, have told him of the fundamental needs and features of life as\nthe little folks conceived it. First would come a flaming\n\nT;\n\nThen U would follow,\n\nTU;\n\nThen P,\n\nTUP;\n\nUntil at last there stood complete, across the sky, this cheerful\nmessage to all who felt the burthen of life\'s earnestness:\n\nTUPPER\'S TONIC WINE FOR VIGOUR.\n\nSnap! and it had vanished into night, to be followed in the same slow\ndevelopment by a second universal solicitude:\n\nBEAUTY SOAP.\n\nNot, you remark, mere cleansing chemicals, but something, as they say,\n\"ideal;\" and then, completing the tripod of the little life:\n\nTANKER\'S YELLOW PILLS.\n\nAfter that there was nothing for it but Tupper again, in naming crimson\nletters, snap, snap, across the void.\n\nT U P P....\n\nEarly in the small hours it would seem that young Caddles came to the\nshadowy quiet of Regent\'s Park, stepped over the railings and lay down\non a grassy slope near where the people skate in winter time, and there\nhe slept an hour or so. And about six o\'clock in the morning, he was\ntalking to a draggled woman he had found sleeping in a ditch near\nHampstead Heath, asking her very earnestly what she thought she was\nfor....\n\n\nIV.\n\nThe wandering of Caddles about London came to a head on the second day\nin the morning. For then his hunger overcame him. He hesitated where the\nhot-smelling loaves were being tossed into a cart, and then very\nquietly knelt down and commenced robbery. He emptied the cart while the\nbaker\'s man fled for the police, and then his great hand came into the\nshop and cleared counter and cases. Then with an armful, still eating,\nhe went his way looking for another shop to go on with his meal. It\nhappened to be one of those seasons when work is scarce and food dear,\nand the crowd in that quarter was sympathetic even with a giant who took\nthe food they all desired. They applauded the second phase of his meal,\nand laughed at his stupid grimace at the policeman.\n\n\"I woff hungry,\" he said, with his mouth full.\n\n\"Brayvo!\" cried the crowd. \"Brayvo!\"\n\nThen when he was beginning his third baker\'s shop, he was stopped by\nhalf a dozen policemen hammering with truncheons at his shins. \"Look\nhere, my fine giant, you come along o\' me,\" said the officer in charge.\n\"You ain\'t allowed away from home like this. You come off home with me.\"\nThey did their best to arrest him. There was a trolley, I am told,\nchasing up and down streets at that time, bearing rolls of chain and\nship\'s cable to play the part of handcuffs in that great arrest. There\nwas no intention then of killing him. \"He is no party to the plot,\"\nCaterham had said. \"I will not have innocent blood upon my hands.\" And\nadded: \"--until everything else has been tried.\"\n\nAt first Caddles did not understand the import of these attentions. When\nhe did, he told the policemen not to be fools, and set off in great\nstrides that left them all behind. The bakers\' shops had been in the\nHarrow Road, and he went through canal London to St. John\'s Wood, and\nsat down in a private garden there to pick his teeth and be speedily\nassailed by another posse of constables.\n\n\"You lea\' me alone,\" he growled, and slouched through the\ngardens--spoiling several lawns and kicking down a fence or so, while\nthe energetic little policemen followed him up, some through the\ngardens, some along the road in front of the houses. Here there were one\nor two with guns, but they made no use of them. When he came out into\nthe Edgware Road there was a new note and a new movement in the crowd,\nand a mounted policeman rode over his foot and got upset for his pains.\n\n\"You lea\' me alone,\" said Caddles, facing the breathless crowd. \"I ain\'t\ndone anything to you.\" At that time he was unarmed, for he had left his\nchalk chopper in Regent\'s Park. But now, poor wretch, he seems to have\nfelt the need of some weapon. He turned back towards the goods yard of\nthe Great Western Railway, wrenched up the standard of a tall arc light,\na formidable mace for him, and flung it over his shoulder. And finding\nthe police still turning up to pester him, he went back along the\nEdgware Road, towards Cricklewood, and struck off sullenly to the north.\n\nHe wandered as far as Waltham, and then turned back westward and then\nagain towards London, and came by the cemeteries and over the crest of\nHighgate about midday into view of the greatness of the city again. He\nturned aside and sat down in a garden, with his back to a house that\noverlooked all London. He was breathless, and his face was lowering, and\nnow the people no longer crowded upon him as they had done when first he\ncame to London, but lurked in the adjacent garden, and peeped from\ncautious securities. They knew by now the thing was grimmer than they\nhad thought. \"Why can\'t they lea\' me alone?\" growled young Caddles. \"I\n_mus\'_ eat. Why can\'t they lea\' me alone?\"\n\nHe sat with a darkling face, gnawing at his knuckles and looking down\nover London. All the fatigue, worry, perplexity, and impotent wrath of\nhis wanderings was coming to a head in him. \"They mean nothing,\" he\nwhispered. \"They mean nothing. And they _won\'t_ let me alone, and they\n_will_ get in my way.\" And again, over and over to himself, \"Meanin\'\nnothing.\n\n\"Ugh! the little people!\"\n\nHe bit harder at his knuckles and his scowl deepened. \"Cuttin\' chalk\nfor \'em,\" he whispered. \"And all the world is theirs! _I_ don\'t come\nin--nowhere.\"\n\nPresently with a spasm of sick anger he saw the now familiar form of a\npoliceman astride the garden wall.\n\n\"Lea\' me alone,\" grunted the giant. \"Lea\' me alone.\"\n\n\"I got to do my duty,\" said the little policeman, with a face that was\nwhite and resolute.\n\n\"You lea\' me alone. I got to live as well as you. I got to think. I got\nto eat. You lea\' me alone.\"\n\n\"It\'s the Law,\" said the little policeman, coming no further. \"We never\nmade the Law.\"\n\n\"Nor me,\" said young Caddles. \"You little people made all that before I\nwas born. You and your Law! What I must and what I mustn\'t! No food for\nme to eat unless I work a slave, no rest, no shelter, nothin\', and you\ntell me--\"\n\n\"I ain\'t got no business with that,\" said the policeman. \"I\'m not one to\nargue. All I got to do is to carry out the Law.\" And he brought his\nsecond leg over the wall and seemed disposed to get down. Other\npolicemen appeared behind him.\n\n\"I got no quarrel with _you_--mind,\" said young Caddles, with his grip\ntight upon his huge mace of iron, his face pale, and a lank explanatory\ngreat finger to the policeman. \"I got no quarrel with you. But--_You\nlea\' me alone.\"_\n\nThe policeman tried to be calm and commonplace, with a monstrous tragedy\nclear before his eyes. \"Give me the proclamation,\" he said to some\nunseen follower, and a little white paper was handed to him.\n\n\"Lea\' me alone,\" said Caddles, scowling, tense, and drawn together.\n\n\"This means,\" said the policeman before he read, \"go \'ome. Go \'ome to\nyour chalk pit. If not, you\'ll be hurt.\"\n\nCaddles gave an inarticulate growl.\n\nThen when the proclamation had been read, the officer made a sign. Four\nmen with rifles came into view and took up positions of affected ease\nalong the wall. They wore the uniform of the rat police. At the sight of\nthe guns, young Caddles blazed into anger. He remembered the sting of\nthe Wreckstone farmers\' shot guns. \"You going to shoot off those at me?\"\nhe said, pointing, and it seemed to the officer he must be afraid.\n\n\"If you don\'t march back to your pit--\"\n\nThen in an instant the officer had slung himself back over the wall, and\nsixty feet above him the great electric standard whirled down to his\ndeath. Bang, bang, bang, went the heavy guns, and smash! the shattered\nwall, the soil and subsoil of the garden flew. Something flew with it,\nthat left red drops on one of the shooter\'s hands. The riflemen dodged\nthis way and that and turned valiantly to fire again. But young Caddles,\nalready shot twice through the body, had spun about to find who it was\nhad hit him so heavily in the back. Bang! Bang! He had a vision of\nhouses and greenhouses and gardens, of people dodging at windows, the\nwhole swaying fearfully and mysteriously. He seems to have made three\nstumbling strides, to have raised and dropped his huge mace, and to have\nclutched his chest. He was stung and wrenched by pain.\n\nWhat was this, warm and wet, on his hand?\n\nOne man peering from a bedroom window saw his face, saw him staring,\nwith a grimace of weeping dismay, at the blood upon his hand, and then\nhis knees bent under him, and he came crashing to the earth, the first\nof the giant nettles to fall to Caterham\'s resolute clutch, the very\nlast that he had reckoned would come into his hand.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE FOURTH.\n\nREDWOOD\'S TWO DAYS.\n\n\nI.\n\nSo soon as Caterham knew the moment for grasping his nettle had come, he\ntook the law into his own hands and sent to arrest Cossar and Redwood.\n\nRedwood was there for the taking. He had been undergoing an operation in\nthe side, and the doctors had kept all disturbing things from him until\nhis convalescence was assured. Now they had released him. He was just\nout of bed, sitting in a fire-warmed room, with a heap of newspapers\nabout him, reading for the first time of the agitation that had swept\nthe country into the hands of Caterham, and of the trouble that was\ndarkening over the Princess and his son. It was in the morning of the\nday when young Caddles died, and when the policeman tried to stop young\nRedwood on his way to the Princess. The latest newspapers Redwood had\ndid but vaguely prefigure these imminent things. He was re-reading these\nfirst adumbrations of disaster with a sinking heart, reading the shadow\nof death more and more perceptibly into them, reading to occupy his mind\nuntil further news should come. When the officers followed the servant\ninto his room, he looked up eagerly.\n\n\"I thought it was an early evening paper,\" he said. Then standing up,\nand with a swift change of manner: \"What\'s this?\"\n\nAfter that Redwood had no news of anything for two days.\n\nThey had come with a vehicle to take him away, but when it became\nevident that he was ill, it was decided to leave him for a day or so\nuntil he could be safely removed, and his house was taken over by the\npolice and converted into a temporary prison. It was the same house in\nwhich Giant Redwood had been born and in which Herakleophorbia had for\nthe first time been given to a human being, and Redwood had now been a\nwidower and had lived alone in it eight years.\n\nHe had become an iron-grey man, with a little pointed grey beard and\nstill active brown eyes. He was slender and soft-voiced, as he had ever\nbeen, but his features had now that indefinable quality that comes of\nbrooding over mighty things. To the arresting officer his appearance was\nin impressive contrast to the enormity of his offences. \"Here\'s this\nfeller,\" said the officer in command, to his next subordinate, \"has done\nhis level best to bust up everything, and \'e\'s got a face like a quiet\ncountry gentleman; and here\'s Judge Hangbrow keepin\' everything nice and\nin order for every one, and \'e\'s got a \'ead like a \'og. Then their\nmanners! One all consideration and the other snort and grunt. Which just\nshows you, doesn\'t it, that appearances aren\'t to be gone upon, whatever\nelse you do.\"\n\nBut his praise of Redwood\'s consideration was presently dashed. The\nofficers found him troublesome at first until they had made it clear\nthat it was useless for him to ask questions or beg for papers. They\nmade a sort of inspection of his study indeed, and cleared away even\nthe papers he had. Redwood\'s voice was high and expostulatory. \"But\ndon\'t you see,\" he said over and over again, \"it\'s my Son, my only Son,\nthat is in this trouble. It isn\'t the Food I care for, but my Son.\"\n\n\"I wish indeed I could tell you, Sir,\" said the officer. \"But our orders\nare strict.\"\n\n\"Who gave the orders?\" cried Redwood.\n\n\"Ah! _that_, Sir---\" said the officer, and moved towards the door....\n\n\"\'E\'s going up and down \'is room,\" said the second officer, when his\nsuperior came down. \"That\'s all right. He\'ll walk it off a bit.\"\n\n\"I hope \'e will,\" said the chief officer. \"The fact is I didn\'t see it\nin that light before, but this here Giant what\'s been going on with the\nPrincess, you know, is this man\'s son.\"\n\nThe two regarded one another and the third policeman for a space.\n\n\"Then it is a bit rough on him,\" the third policeman said.\n\nIt became evident that Redwood had still imperfectly apprehended the\nfact that an iron curtain had dropped between him and the outer world.\nThey heard him go to the door, try the handle and rattle the lock, and\nthen the voice of the officer who was stationed on the landing telling\nhim it was no good to do that. Then afterwards they heard him at the\nwindows and saw the men outside looking up. \"It\'s no good that way,\"\nsaid the second officer. Then Redwood began upon the bell. The senior\nofficer went up and explained very patiently that it could do no good to\nring the bell like that, and if it was rung for nothing now it might\nhave to be disregarded presently when he had need of something. \"Any\nreasonable attendance, Sir,\" the officer said. \"But if you ring it just\nby way of protest we shall be obliged, Sir, to disconnect.\"\n\nThe last word the officer heard was Redwood\'s high-pitched, \"But at\nleast you might tell me if my Son--\"\n\n\nII.\n\nAfter that Redwood spent most of his time at the windows.\n\nBut the windows offered him little of the march of events outside. It\nwas a quiet street at all times, and that day it was unusually quiet:\nscarcely a cab, scarcely a tradesman\'s cart passed all that morning. Now\nand then men went by--without any distinctive air of events--now and\nthen a little group of children, a nursemaid and a woman going shopping,\nand so forth. They came on to the stage right or left, up or down the\nstreet, with an exasperating suggestion of indifference to any concerns\nmore spacious than their own; they would discover the police-guarded\nhouse with amazement and exit in the opposite direction, where the great\ntrusses of a giant hydrangea hung across the pavement, staring back or\npointing. Now and then a man would come and ask one of the policemen a\nquestion and get a curt reply ...\n\nOpposite the houses seemed dead. A housemaid appeared once at a bedroom\nwindow and stared for a space, and it occurred to Redwood to signal to\nher. For a time she watched his gestures as if with interest and made a\nvague response to them, then looked over her shoulder suddenly and\nturned and went away. An old man hobbled out of Number 37 and came down\nthe steps and went off to the right, altogether without looking up. For\nten minutes the only occupant of the road was a cat....\n\nWith such events that interminable momentous morning lengthened out.\n\nAbout twelve there came a bawling of newsvendors from the adjacent road;\nbut it passed. Contrary to their wont they left Redwood\'s street alone,\nand a suspicion dawned upon him that the police were guarding the end of\nthe street. He tried to open the window, but this brought a policeman\ninto the room forthwith....\n\nThe clock of the parish church struck twelve, and after an abyss of\ntime--one.\n\nThey mocked him with lunch.\n\nHe ate a mouthful and tumbled the food about a little in order to get it\ntaken away, drank freely of whisky, and then took a chair and went back\nto the window. The minutes expanded into grey immensities, and for a\ntime perhaps he slept....\n\nHe woke with a vague impression of remote concussions. He perceived a\nrattling of the windows like the quiver of an earthquake, that lasted\nfor a minute or so and died away. Then after a silence it returned....\nThen it died away again. He fancied it might be merely the passage of\nsome heavy vehicle along the main road. What else could it be?\n\nAfter a time he began to doubt whether he had heard this sound.\n\nHe began to reason interminably with himself. Why, after all, was he\nseized? Caterham had been in office two days--just long enough--to grasp\nhis Nettle! Grasp his Nettle! Grasp his Giant Nettle! The refrain once\nstarted, sang through his mind, and would not be dismissed.\n\nWhat, after all, could Caterham do? He was a religious man. He was\nbound in a sort of way by that not to do violence without a cause.\n\nGrasp his Nettle! Perhaps, for example, the Princess was to be seized\nand sent abroad. There might be trouble with his son. In which case--!\nBut why had he been arrested? Why was it necessary to keep him in\nignorance of a thing like that? The thing suggested--something more\nextensive.\n\nPerhaps, for example--they meant to lay all the giants by the heels!\nThey were all to be arrested together. There had been hints of that in\nthe election speeches. And then?\n\nNo doubt they had got Cossar also?\n\nCaterham was a religious man. Redwood clung to that. The back of his\nmind was a black curtain, and on that curtain there came and went a\nword--a word written in letters of fire. He struggled perpetually\nagainst that word. It was always as it were beginning to get written on\nthe curtain and never getting completed.\n\nHe faced it at last. \"Massacre!\" There was the word in its full\nbrutality.\n\nNo! No! No! It was impossible! Caterham was a religious man, a civilised\nman. And besides after all these years, after all these hopes!\n\nRedwood sprang up; he paced the room. He spoke to himself; he shouted.\n\n\"_No!_\"\n\nMankind was surely not so mad as that--surely not! It was impossible, it\nwas incredible, it could not be. What good would it do to kill the giant\nhuman when the gigantic in all the lower things had now inevitably come?\nThey could not be so mad as that! \"I must dismiss such an idea,\" he\nsaid aloud; \"dismiss such an idea! Absolutely!\"\n\nHe pulled up short. What was that?\n\nCertainly the windows had rattled. He went to look out into the street.\nOpposite he saw the instant confirmation of his ears. At a bedroom at\nNumber 35 was a woman, towel in hand, and at the dining-room of Number\n37 a man was visible behind a great vase of hypertrophied maidenhair\nfern, both staring out and up, both disquieted and curious. He could see\nnow too, quite clearly, that the policeman on the pavement had heard it\nalso. The thing was not his imagination.\n\nHe turned to the darkling room.\n\n\"Guns,\" he said.\n\nHe brooded.\n\n\"Guns?\"\n\nThey brought him in strong tea, such as he was accustomed to have. It\nwas evident his housekeeper had been taken into consultation. After\ndrinking it, he was too restless to sit any longer at the window, and he\npaced the room. His mind became more capable of consecutive thought.\n\nThe room had been his study for four-and-twenty years. It had been\nfurnished at his marriage, and all the essential equipment dated from\nthen, the large complex writing-desk, the rotating chair, the easy chair\nat the fire, the rotating bookcase, the fixture of indexed pigeon-holes\nthat filled the further recess. The vivid Turkey carpet, the later\nVictorian rugs and curtains had mellowed now to a rich dignity of\neffect, and copper and brass shone warm about the open fire. Electric\nlights had replaced the lamp of former days; that was the chief\nalteration in the original equipment. But among these things his\nconnection with the Food had left abundant traces. Along one wall, above\nthe dado, ran a crowded array of black-framed photographs and\nphotogravures, showing his son and Cossar\'s sons and others of the\nBoom-children at various ages and amidst various surroundings. Even\nyoung Caddles\' vacant visage had its place in that collection. In the\ncorner stood a sheaf of the tassels of gigantic meadow grass from\nCheasing Eyebright, and on the desk there lay three empty poppy heads as\nbig as hats. The curtain rods were grass stems. And the tremendous skull\nof the great hog of Oakham hung, a portentous ivory overmantel, with a\nChinese jar in either eye socket, snout down above the fire....\n\nIt was to the photographs that Redwood went, and in particular to the\nphotographs of his son.\n\nThey brought back countless memories of things that had passed out of\nhis mind, of the early days of the Food, of Bensington\'s timid presence,\nof his cousin Jane, of Cossar and the night work at the Experimental\nFarm. These things came to him now very little and bright and distinct,\nlike things seen through a telescope on a sunny day. And then there was\nthe giant nursery, the giant childhood, the young giant\'s first efforts\nto speak, his first clear signs of affection.\n\nGuns?\n\nIt flowed in on him, irresistibly, overwhelmingly, that outside there,\noutside this accursed silence and mystery, his son and Cossar\'s sons,\nand all these glorious first-fruits of a greater age were even\nnow--fighting. Fighting for life! Even now his son might be in some\ndismal quandary, cornered, wounded, overcome....\n\nHe swung away from the pictures and went up and down the room\ngesticulating. \"It cannot be,\" he cried, \"it cannot be. It cannot end\nlike that!\"\n\n\"What was that?\"\n\nHe stopped, stricken rigid.\n\nThe trembling of the windows had begun again, and then had come a\nthud--a vast concussion that shook the house. The concussion seemed to\nlast for an age. It must have been very near. For a moment it seemed\nthat something had struck the house above him--an enormous impact that\nbroke into a tinkle of falling glass, and then a stillness that ended at\nlast with a minute clear sound of running feet in the street below.\n\nThose feet released him from his rigor. He turned towards the window,\nand saw it starred and broken.\n\nHis heart beat high with a sense of crisis, of conclusive occurrence, of\nrelease. And then again, his realisation of impotent confinement fell\nabout him like a curtain!\n\nHe could see nothing outside except that the small electric lamp\nopposite was not lighted; he could hear nothing after the first\nsuggestion of a wide alarm. He could add nothing to interpret or enlarge\nthat mystery except that presently there came a reddish fluctuating\nbrightness in the sky towards the south-east.\n\nThis light waxed and waned. When it waned he doubted if it had ever\nwaxed. It had crept upon him very gradually with the darkling. It became\nthe predominant fact in his long night of suspense. Sometimes it seemed\nto him it had the quiver one associates with dancing flames, at others\nhe fancied it was no more than the normal reflection of the evening\nlights. It waxed and waned through the long hours, and only vanished at\nlast when it was submerged altogether under the rising tide of dawn. Did\nit mean--? What could it mean? Almost certainly it was some sort of\nfire, near or remote, but he could not even tell whether it was smoke or\ncloud drift that streamed across the sky. But about one o\'clock there\nbegan a flickering of searchlights athwart that ruddy tumult, a\nflickering that continued for the rest of the night. That too might mean\nmany things? What could it mean? What did it mean? Just this stained\nunrestful sky he had and the suggestion of a huge explosion to occupy\nhis mind. There came no further sounds, no further running, nothing but\na shouting that might have been only the distant efforts of drunken\nmen...\n\nHe did not turn up his lights; he stood at his draughty broken window, a\ndistressful, slight black outline to the officer who looked ever and\nagain into the room and exhorted him to rest.\n\nAll night Redwood remained at his window peering up at the ambiguous\ndrift of the sky, and only with the coming of the dawn did he obey his\nfatigue and lie down upon the little bed they had prepared for him\nbetween his writing-desk and the sinking fire in the fireplace under the\ngreat hog\'s skull.\n\n\nIII.\n\nFor thirty-six long hours did Redwood remain imprisoned, closed in and\nshut off from the great drama of the Two Days, while the little people\nin the dawn of greatness fought against the Children of the Food. Then\nabruptly the iron curtain rose again, and he found himself near the very\ncentre of the struggle. That curtain rose as unexpectedly as it fell. In\nthe late afternoon he was called to the window by the clatter of a cab,\nthat stopped without. A young man descended, and in another minute stood\nbefore him in the room, a slightly built young man of thirty perhaps,\nclean shaven, well dressed, well mannered.\n\n\"Mr. Redwood, Sir,\" he began, \"would you be willing to come to Mr.\nCaterham? He needs your presence very urgently.\"\n\n\"Needs my presence!\" There leapt a question into Redwood\'s mind, that\nfor a moment he could not put. He hesitated. Then in a voice that broke\nhe asked: \"What has he done to my Son?\" and stood breathless for the\nreply.\n\n\"Your Son, Sir? Your Son is doing well. So at least we gather.\"\n\n\"Doing well?\"\n\n\"He was wounded, Sir, yesterday. Have you not heard?\"\n\nRedwood smote these pretences aside. His voice was no longer coloured by\nfear, but by anger. \"You know I have not heard. You know I have heard\nnothing.\"\n\n\"Mr. Caterham feared, Sir--It was a time of upheaval. Every one--taken\nby surprise. He arrested you to save you, Sir, from any misadventure--\"\n\n\"He arrested me to prevent my giving any warning or advice to my son. Go\non. Tell me what has happened. Have you succeeded? Have you killed them\nall?\"\n\nThe young man made a pace or so towards the window, and turned.\n\n\"No, Sir,\" he said concisely.\n\n\"What have you to tell me?\"\n\n\"It\'s our proof, Sir, that this fighting was not planned by us. They\nfound us ... totally unprepared.\"\n\n\"You mean?\"\n\n\"I mean, Sir, the Giants have--to a certain extent--held their own.\"\n\nThe world changed, for Redwood. For a moment something like hysteria had\nthe muscles of his face and throat. Then he gave vent to a profound\n\"Ah!\" His heart bounded towards exultation. \"The Giants have held their\nown!\"\n\n\"There has been terrible fighting--terrible destruction. It is all a\nmost hideous misunderstanding ... In the north and midlands Giants have\nbeen killed ... Everywhere.\"\n\n\"They are fighting now?\"\n\n\"No, Sir. There was a flag of truce.\"\n\n\"From them?\"\n\n\"No, Sir. Mr. Caterham sent a flag of truce. The whole thing is a\nhideous misunderstanding. That is why he wants to talk to you, and put\nhis case before you. They insist, Sir, that you should intervene--\"\n\nRedwood interrupted. \"Do you know what happened to my Son?\" he asked.\n\n\"He was wounded.\"\n\n\"Tell me! Tell me!\"\n\n\"He and the Princess came--before the--the movement to surround the\nCossar camp was complete--the Cossar pit at Chislehurst. They came\nsuddenly, Sir, crashing through a dense thicket of giant oats, near\nRiver, upon a column of infantry ... Soldiers had been very nervous all\nday, and this produced a panic.\"\n\n\"They shot him?\"\n\n\"No, Sir. They ran away. Some shot at him--wildly--against orders.\"\n\nRedwood gave a note of denial. \"It\'s true, Sir. Not on account of your\nson, I won\'t pretend, but on account of the Princess.\"\n\n\"Yes. That\'s true.\"\n\n\"The two Giants ran shouting towards the encampment. The soldiers ran\nthis way and that, and then some began firing. They say they saw him\nstagger--\"\n\n\"Ugh!\"\n\n\"Yes, Sir. But we know he is not badly hurt.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"He sent the message, Sir, that he was doing well!\"\n\n\"To me?\"\n\n\"Who else, Sir?\"\n\nRedwood stood for nearly a minute with his arms tightly folded, taking\nthis in. Then his indignation found a voice.\n\n\"Because you were fools in doing the thing, because you miscalculated\nand blundered, you would like me to think you are not murderers in\nintention. And besides--The rest?\"\n\nThe young man looked interrogation.\n\n\"The other Giants?\"\n\nThe young man made no further pretence of misunderstanding. His tone\nfell. \"Thirteen, Sir, are dead.\"\n\n\"And others wounded?\"\n\n\"Yes, Sir.\"\n\n\"And Caterham,\" he gasped, \"wants to meet me! Where are the others?\"\n\n\"Some got to the encampment during the fighting, Sir ... They seem to\nhave known--\"\n\n\"Well, of course they did. If it hadn\'t been for Cossar--Cossar is\nthere?\"\n\n\"Yes, Sir. And all the surviving Giants are there--the ones who didn\'t\nget to the camp in the fighting have gone, or are going now under the\nflag of trace.\"\n\n\"That means,\" said Redwood, \"that you are beaten.\"\n\n\"We are not beaten. No, Sir. You cannot say we are beaten. But your sons\nhave broken the rules of war. Once last night, and now again. After our\nattack had been withdrawn. This afternoon they began to bombard\nLondon--\"\n\n\"That\'s legitimate!\"\n\n\"They have been firing shells filled with--poison.\"\n\n\"Poison?\"\n\n\"Yes. Poison. The Food--\"\n\n\"Herakleophorbia?\"\n\n\"Yes, Sir. Mr. Caterham, Sir--\"\n\n\"You are beaten! Of course that beats you. It\'s Cossar! What can you\nhope to do now? What good is it to do anything now? You will breathe it\nin the dust of every street. What is there to fight for more? Rules of\nwar, indeed! And now Caterham wants to humbug me to help him bargain.\nGood heavens, man! Why should I come to your exploded windbag? He has\nplayed his game ... murdered and muddled. Why should I?\"\n\nThe young man stood with an air of vigilant respect.\n\n\"It is a fact, Sir,\" he interrupted, \"that the Giants insist that they\nshall see you. They will have no ambassador but you. Unless you come to\nthem, I am afraid, Sir, there will be more bloodshed.\"\n\n\"On _your_ side, perhaps.\"\n\n\"No, Sir--on both sides. The world is resolved the thing must end.\"\n\nRedwood looked about the study. His eyes rested for a moment on the\nphotograph of his boy. He turned and met the expectation of the young\nman. \"Yes,\" he said at last, \"I will come.\"\n\n\nIV.\n\nHis encounter with Caterham was entirely different from his\nanticipation. He had seen the man only twice in his life, once at dinner\nand once in the lobby of the House, and his imagination had been active\nnot with the man but with the creation of the newspapers and\ncaricaturists, the legendary Caterham, Jack the Giant-killer, Perseus,\nand all the rest of it. The element of a human personality came in to\ndisorder all that.\n\nHere was not the face of the caricatures and portraits, but the face of\na worn and sleepless man, lined and drawn, yellow in the whites of the\neyes, a little weakened about the mouth. Here, indeed, were the\nred-brown eyes, the black hair, the distinctive aquiline profile of the\ngreat demagogue, but here was also something else that smote any\npremeditated scorn and rhetoric aside. This man was suffering; he was\nsuffering acutely; he was under enormous stress. From the beginning he\nhad an air of impersonating himself. Presently, with a single gesture,\nthe slightest movement, he revealed to Redwood that he was keeping\nhimself up with drugs. He moved a thumb to his waistcoat pocket, and\nthen, after a few sentences more, threw concealment aside, and slipped\nthe little tabloid to his lips.\n\nMoreover, in spite of the stresses upon him, in spite of the fact that\nhe was in the wrong, and Redwood\'s junior by a dozen years, that strange\nquality in him, the something--personal magnetism one may call it for\nwant of a better name--that had won his way for him to this eminence of\ndisaster was with him still. On that also Redwood had failed to reckon.\nFrom the first, so far as the course and conduct of their speech went,\nCaterham prevailed over Redwood. All the quality of the first phase of\ntheir meeting was determined by him, all the tone and procedure were\nhis. That happened as if it was a matter of course. All Redwood\'s\nexpectations vanished at his presence. He shook hands before Redwood\nremembered that he meant to parry that familiarity; he pitched the note\nof their conference from the outset, sure and clear, as a search for\nexpedients under a common catastrophe.\n\nIf he made any mistake it was when ever and again his fatigue got the\nbetter of his immediate attention, and the habit of the public meeting\ncarried him away. Then he drew himself up--through all their interview\nboth men stood--and looked away from Redwood, and began to fence and\njustify. Once even he said \"Gentlemen!\"\n\nQuietly, expandingly, he began to talk....\n\nThere were moments when Redwood ceased even to feel himself an\ninterlocutor, when he became the mere auditor of a monologue. He became\nthe privileged spectator of an extraordinary phenomenon. He perceived\nsomething almost like a specific difference between himself and this\nbeing whose beautiful voice enveloped him, who was talking, talking.\nThis mind before him was so powerful and so limited. From its driving\nenergy, its personal weight, its invincible oblivion to certain things,\nthere sprang up in Redwood\'s mind the most grotesque and strange of\nimages. Instead of an antagonist who was a fellow-creature, a man one\ncould hold morally responsible, and to whom one could address\nreasonable appeals, he saw Caterham as something, something like a\nmonstrous rhinoceros, as it were, a civilised rhinoceros begotten of the\njungle of democratic affairs, a monster of irresistible onset and\ninvincible resistance. In all the crashing conflicts of that tangle he\nwas supreme. And beyond? This man was a being supremely adapted to make\nhis way through multitudes of men. For him there was no fault so\nimportant as self-contradiction, no science so significant as the\nreconciliation of \"interests.\" Economic realities, topographical\nnecessities, the barely touched mines of scientific expedients, existed\nfor him no more than railways or rifled guns or geographical literature\nexist for his animal prototype. What did exist were gatherings, and\ncaucuses, and votes--above all, votes. He was votes incarnate--millions\nof votes.\n\nAnd now in the great crisis, with the Giants broken but not beaten, this\nvote-monster talked.\n\nIt was so evident that even now he had everything to learn. He did not\nknow there were physical laws and economic laws, quantities and\nreactions that all humanity voting _nemine contradicente_ cannot vote\naway, and that are disobeyed only at the price of destruction. He did\nnot know there are moral laws that cannot be bent by any force of\nglamour, or are bent only to fly back with vindictive violence. In the\nface of shrapnel or the Judgment Day, it was evident to Redwood that\nthis man would have sheltered behind some curiously dodged vote of the\nHouse of Commons.\n\nWhat most concerned his mind now was not the powers that held the\nfastness away there to the south, not defeat and death, but the effect\nof these things upon his Majority, the cardinal reality in his life. He\nhad to defeat the Giants or go under. He was by no means absolutely\ndespairful. In this hour of his utmost failure, with blood and disaster\nupon his hands, and the rich promise of still more horrible disaster,\nwith the gigantic destinies of the world towering and toppling over him,\nhe was capable of a belief that by sheer exertion of his voice, by\nexplaining and qualifying and restating, he might yet reconstitute his\npower. He was puzzled and distressed no doubt, fatigued and suffering,\nbut if only he could keep up, if only he could keep talking--\n\nAs he talked he seemed to Redwood to advance and recede, to dilate and\ncontract. Redwood\'s share of the talk was of the most subsidiary sort,\nwedges as it were suddenly thrust in. \"That\'s all nonsense.\" \"No.\" \"It\'s\nno use suggesting that.\" \"Then why did you begin?\"\n\nIt is doubtful if Caterham really heard him at all. Round such\ninterpolations Caterham\'s speech flowed indeed like some swift stream\nabout a rock. There this incredible man stood, on his official\nhearthrug, talking, talking with enormous power and skill, talking as\nthough a pause in his talk, his explanations, his presentation of\nstandpoints and lights, of considerations and expedients, would permit\nsome antagonistic influence to leap into being--into vocal being, the\nonly being he could comprehend. There he stood amidst the slightly faded\nsplendours of that official room in which one man after another had\nsuccumbed to the belief that a certain power of intervention was the\ncreative control of an empire....\n\nThe more he talked the more certain Redwood\'s sense of stupendous\nfutility grew. Did this man realise that while he stood and talked\nthere, the whole great world was moving, that the invincible tide of\ngrowth flowed and flowed, that there were any hours but parliamentary\nhours, or any weapons in the hands of the Avengers of Blood? Outside,\ndarkling the whole room, a single leaf of giant Virginian creeper tapped\nunheeded on the pane.\n\nRedwood became anxious to end this amazing monologue, to escape to\nsanity and judgment, to that beleaguered camp, the fastness of the\nfuture, where, at the very nucleus of greatness, the Sons were gathered\ntogether. For that this talking was endured. He had a curious impression\nthat unless this monologue ended he would presently find himself carried\naway by it, that he must fight against Caterham\'s voice as one fights\nagainst a drug. Facts had altered and were altering beneath that spell.\n\nWhat was the man saying?\n\nSince Redwood had to report it to the Children of the Food, in a sort of\nway he perceived it did matter. He would have to listen and guard his\nsense of realities as well as he could.\n\nMuch about bloodguiltiness. That was eloquence. That didn\'t matter.\nNext?\n\nHe was suggesting a convention!\n\nHe was suggesting that the surviving Children of the Food should\ncapitulate and go apart and form a community of their own. There were\nprecedents, he said, for this. \"We would assign them territory--\"\n\n\"Where?\" interjected Redwood, stooping to argue.\n\nCaterham snatched at that concession. He turned his face to Redwood\'s,\nand his voice fell to a persuasive reasonableness. That could be\ndetermined. That, he contended, was a quite subsidiary question. Then he\nwent on to stipulate: \"And except for them and where they are we must\nhave absolute control, the Food and all the Fruits of the Food must be\nstamped out--\"\n\nRedwood found himself bargaining: \"The Princess?\"\n\n\"She stands apart.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Redwood, struggling to get back to the old footing. \"That\'s\nabsurd.\"\n\n\"That afterwards. At any rate we are agreed that the making of the Food\nmust stop--\"\n\n\"I have agreed to nothing. I have said nothing--\"\n\n\"But on one planet, to have two races of men, one great, one small!\nConsider what has happened! Consider that is but a little foretaste of\nwhat might presently happen if this Food has its way! Consider all you\nhave already brought upon this world! If there is to be a race of\nGiants, increasing and multiplying--\"\n\n\"It is not for me to argue,\" said Redwood. \"I must go to our sons. I\nwant to go to my son. That is why I have come to you. Tell me exactly\nwhat you offer.\"\n\nCaterham made a speech upon his terms.\n\nThe Children of the Food were to be given a great reservation--in North\nAmerica perhaps or Africa--in which they might live out their lives in\ntheir own fashion.\n\n\"But it\'s nonsense,\" said Redwood. \"There are other Giants now abroad.\nAll over Europe--here and there!\"\n\n\"There could be an international convention. It\'s _not_ impossible.\nSomething of the sort indeed has already been spoken of ... But in this\nreservation they can live out their own lives in their own way. They may\ndo what they like; they may make what they like. We shall be glad if\nthey will make us things. They may be happy. Think!\"\n\n\"Provided there are no more Children.\"\n\n\"Precisely. The Children are for us. And so, Sir, we shall save the\nworld, we shall save it absolutely from the fruits of your terrible\ndiscovery. It is not too late for us. Only we are eager to temper\nexpediency with mercy. Even now we are burning and searing the places\ntheir shells hit yesterday. We can get it under. Trust me we shall get\nit under. But in that way, without cruelty, without injustice--\"\n\n\"And suppose the Children do not agree?\"\n\nFor the first time Caterham looked Redwood fully in the face.\n\n\"They must!\"\n\n\"I don\'t think they will.\"\n\n\"Why should they not agree?\" he asked, in richly toned amazement.\n\n\"Suppose they don\'t?\"\n\n\"What can it be but war? We cannot have the thing go on. We cannot. Sir.\nHave you scientific men _no_ imagination? Have you no mercy? We cannot\nhave our world trampled under a growing herd of such monsters and\nmonstrous growths as your Food has made. We cannot and we cannot! I ask\nyou, Sir, what can it be but war? And remember--this that has happened\nis only a beginning! _This_ was a skirmish. A mere affair of police.\nBelieve me, a mere affair of police. Do not be cheated by perspective,\nby the immediate bigness of these newer things. Behind us is the\nnation--is humanity. Behind the thousands who have died there are\nmillions. Were it not for the fear of bloodshed, Sir, behind our first\nattacks there would be forming other attacks, even now. Whether we can\nkill this Food or not, most assuredly we can kill your sons! You reckon\ntoo much on the things of yesterday, on the happenings of a mere score\nof years, on one battle. You have no sense of the slow course of\nhistory. I offer this convention for the sake of lives, not because it\ncan change the inevitable end. If you think that your poor two dozen of\nGiants can resist all the forces of our people and of all the alien\npeoples who will come to our aid; if you think you can change Humanity\nat a blow, in a single generation, and alter the nature and stature of\nMan--\"\n\nHe flung out an arm. \"Go to them now, Sir. I see them, for all the evil\nthey have done, crouching among their wounded--\"\n\nHe stopped, as though he had glanced at Redwood\'s son by chance.\n\nThere came a pause.\n\n\"Go to them,\" he said.\n\n\"That is what I want to do.\"\n\n\"Then go now....\"\n\nHe turned and pressed the button of a bell; without, in immediate\nresponse, came a sound of opening doors and hastening feet.\n\nThe talk was at an end. The display was over. Abruptly Caterham seemed\nto contract, to shrivel up into a yellow-faced, fagged-out,\nmiddle-sized, middle-aged man. He stepped forward, as if he were\nstepping out of a picture, and with a complete assumption of that\nfriendliness that lies behind all the public conflicts of our race, he\nheld out his hand to Redwood.\n\nAs if it were a matter of course, Redwood shook hands with him for the\nsecond time.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE FIFTH.\n\nTHE GIANT LEAGUER.\n\n\nI.\n\nPresently Redwood found himself in a train going south over the Thames.\nHe had a brief vision of the river shining under its lights, and of the\nsmoke still going up from the place where the shell had fallen on the\nnorth bank, and where a vast multitude of men had been organised to burn\nthe Herakleophorbia out of the ground. The southern bank was dark, for\nsome reason even the streets were not lit, all that was clearly visible\nwas the outlines of the tall alarm-towers and the dark bulks of flats\nand schools, and after a minute of peering scrutiny he turned his back\non the window and sank into thought. There was nothing more to see or do\nuntil he saw the Sons....\n\nHe was fatigued by the stresses of the last two days; it seemed to him\nthat his emotions must needs be exhausted, but he had fortified himself\nwith strong coffee before starting, and his thoughts ran thin and clear.\nHis mind touched many things. He reviewed again, but now in the\nenlightenment of accomplished events, the manner in which the Food had\nentered and unfolded itself in the world.\n\n\"Bensington thought it might be an excellent food for infants,\" he\nwhispered to himself, with a faint smile. Then there came into his mind\nas vivid as if they were still unsettled his own horrible doubts after\nhe had committed himself by giving it to his own son. From that, with a\nsteady unfaltering expansion, in spite of every effort of men to help\nand hinder, the Food had spread through the whole world of man. And now?\n\n\"Even if they kill them all,\" Redwood whispered, \"the thing is done.\"\n\nThe secret of its making was known far and wide. That had been his own\nwork. Plants, animals, a multitude of distressful growing children would\nconspire irresistibly to force the world to revert again to the Food,\nwhatever happened in the present struggle. \"The thing is done,\" he said,\nwith his mind swinging round beyond all his controlling to rest upon the\npresent fate of the Children and his son. Would he find them exhausted\nby the efforts of the battle, wounded, starving, on the verge of defeat,\nor would he find them still stout and hopeful, ready for the still\ngrimmer conflict of the morrow? His son was wounded! But he had sent a\nmessage!\n\nHis mind came back to his interview with Caterham.\n\nHe was roused from his thoughts by the stopping of his train in\nChislehurst station. He recognised the place by the huge rat alarm-tower\nthat crested Camden Hill, and the row of blossoming giant hemlocks that\nlined the road....\n\nCaterham\'s private secretary came to him from the other carriage and\ntold him that half a mile farther the line had been wrecked, and that\nthe rest of the journey was to be made in a motor car. Redwood descended\nupon a platform lit only by a hand lantern and swept by the cool night\nbreeze. The quiet of that derelict, wood-set, weed-embedded suburb--for\nall the inhabitants had taken refuge in London at the outbreak of\nyesterday\'s conflict--became instantly impressive. His conductor took\nhim down the steps to where a motor car was waiting with blazing\nlights--the only lights to be seen--handed him over to the care of the\ndriver and bade him farewell.\n\n\"You will do your best for us,\" he said, with an imitation of his\nmaster\'s manner, as he held Redwood\'s hand.\n\nSo soon as Redwood could be wrapped about they started out into the\nnight. At one moment they stood still, and then the motor car was\nrushing softly and swiftly down the station incline. They turned one\ncorner and another, followed the windings of a lane of villas, and then\nbefore them stretched the road. The motor droned up to its topmost\nspeed, and the black night swept past them. Everything was very dark\nunder the starlight, and the whole world crouched mysteriously and was\ngone without a sound. Not a breath stirred the flying things by the\nwayside; the deserted, pallid white villas on either hand, with their\nblack unlit windows, reminded him of a noiseless procession of skulls.\nThe driver beside him was a silent man, or stricken into silence by the\nconditions of his journey. He answered Redwood\'s brief questions in\nmonosyllables, and gruffly. Athwart the southern sky the beams of\nsearchlights waved noiseless passes; the sole strange evidences of life\nthey seemed in all that derelict world about the hurrying machine.\n\nThe road was presently bordered on either side by gigantic blackthorn\nshoots that made it very dark, and by tail grass and big campions, huge\ngiant dead-nettles as high as trees, flickering past darkly in\nsilhouette overhead. Beyond Keston they came to a rising hill, and the\ndriver went slow. At the crest he stopped. The engine throbbed and\nbecame still. \"There,\" he said, and his big gloved finger pointed, a\nblack misshapen thing before Redwood\'s eyes.\n\nFar away as it seemed, the great embankment, crested by the blaze from\nwhich the searchlights sprang, rose up against the sky. Those beams went\nand came among the clouds and the hilly land about them as if they\ntraced mysterious incantations.\n\n\"I don\'t know,\" said the driver at last, and it was clear he was afraid\nto go on.\n\nPresently a searchlight swept down the sky to them, stopped as it were\nwith a start, scrutinised them, a blinding stare confused rather than\nmitigated by an intervening monstrous weed stem or so. They sat with\ntheir gloves held over their eyes, trying to look under them and meet\nthat light.\n\n\"Go on,\" said Redwood after a while.\n\nThe driver still had his doubts; he tried to express them, and died down\nto \"I don\'t know\" again.\n\nAt last he ventured on. \"Here goes,\" he said, and roused his machinery\nto motion again, followed intently by that great white eye.\n\nTo Redwood it seemed for a long time they were no longer on earth, but\nin a state of palpitating hurry through a luminous cloud. Teuf, teuf,\nteuf, teuf, went the machine, and ever and again--obeying I know not\nwhat nervous impulse--the driver sounded his horn.\n\nThey passed into the welcome darkness of a high-fenced lane, and down\ninto a hollow and past some houses into that blinding stare again. Then\nfor a space the road ran naked across a down, and they seemed to hang\nthrobbing in immensity. Once more giant weeds rose about them and\nwhirled past. Then quite abruptly close upon them loomed the figure of a\ngiant, shining brightly where the searchlight caught him below, and\nblack against the sky above. \"Hullo there!\" he cried, and \"stop! There\'s\nno more road beyond ... Is that Father Redwood?\"\n\nRedwood stood up and gave a vague shout by way of answer, and then\nCossar was in the road beside him, gripping both hands with both of his\nand pulling him out of the car.\n\n\"What of my son?\" asked Redwood.\n\n\"He\'s all right,\" said Cossar. \"They\'ve hurt nothing serious in _him_.\"\n\n\"And your lads?\"\n\n\"Well. All of them, well. But we\'ve had to make a fight for it.\"\n\nThe Giant was saying something to the motor driver. Redwood stood aside\nas the machine wheeled round, and then suddenly Cossar vanished,\neverything vanished, and he was in absolute darkness for a space. The\nglare was following the motor back to the crest of the Keston hill. He\nwatched the little conveyance receding in that white halo. It had a\ncurious effect, as though it was not moving at all and the halo was. A\ngroup of war-blasted Giant elders flashed into gaunt scarred\ngesticulations and were swallowed again by the night ... Redwood turned\nto Cossar\'s dim outline again and clasped his hand. \"I have been shut up\nand kept in ignorance,\" he said, \"for two whole days.\"\n\n\"We fired the Food at them,\" said Cossar. \"Obviously! Thirty shots. Eh!\"\n\n\"I come from Caterham.\"\n\n\"I know you do.\" He laughed with a note of bitterness. \"I suppose he\'s\nwiping it up.\"\n\n\nII.\n\n\"Where is my son?\" said Redwood.\n\n\"He is all right. The Giants are waiting for your message.\"\n\n\"Yes, but my son--...\"\n\nHe passed with Cossar down a long slanting tunnel that was lit red for a\nmoment and then became dark again, and came out presently into the great\npit of shelter the Giants had made.\n\nRedwood\'s first impression was of an enormous arena bounded by very high\ncliffs and with its floor greatly encumbered. It was in darkness save\nfor the passing reflections of the watchman\'s searchlights that whirled\nperpetually high overhead, and for a red glow that came and went from a\ndistant corner where two Giants worked together amidst a metallic\nclangour. Against the sky, as the glare came about, his eye caught the\nfamiliar outlines of the old worksheds and playsheds that were made for\nthe Cossar boys. They were hanging now, as it were, at a cliff brow, and\nstrangely twisted and distorted with the guns of Caterham\'s bombardment.\nThere were suggestions of huge gun emplacements above there, and nearer\nwere piles of mighty cylinders that were perhaps ammunition. All about\nthe wide space below, the forms of great engines and incomprehensible\nbulks were scattered in vague disorder. The Giants appeared and vanished\namong these masses and in the uncertain light; great shapes they were,\nnot disproportionate to the things amidst which they moved. Some were\nactively employed, some sitting and lying as if they courted sleep, and\none near at hand, whose body was bandaged, lay on a rough litter of pine\nboughs and was certainly asleep. Redwood peered at these dim forms; his\neyes went from one stirring outline to another.\n\n\"Where is my son, Cossar?\"\n\nThen he saw him.\n\nHis son was sitting under the shadow of a great wall of steel. He\npresented himself as a black shape recognisable only by his pose,--his\nfeatures were invisible. He sat chin upon hand, as though weary or lost\nin thought. Beside him Redwood discovered the figure of the Princess,\nthe dark suggestion of her merely, and then, as the glow from the\ndistant iron returned, he saw for an instant, red lit and tender, the\ninfinite kindliness of her shadowed face. She stood looking down upon\nher lover with her hand resting against the steel. It seemed that she\nwhispered to him.\n\nRedwood would have gone towards them.\n\n\"Presently,\" said Cossar. \"First there is your message.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Redwood, \"but--\"\n\nHe stopped. His son was now looking up and speaking to the Princess, but\nin too low a tone for them to hear. Young Redwood raised his face, and\nshe bent down towards him, and glanced aside before she spoke.\n\n\"But if we are beaten,\" they heard the whispered voice of young Redwood.\n\nShe paused, and the red blaze showed her eyes bright with unshed tears.\nShe bent nearer him and spoke still lower. There was something so\nintimate and private in their bearing, in their soft tones, that\nRedwood--Redwood who had thought for two whole days of nothing but his\nson--felt himself intrusive there. Abruptly he was checked. For the\nfirst time in his life perhaps he realised how much more a son may be to\nhis father than a father can ever be to a son; he realised the full\npredominance of the future over the past. Here between these two he had\nno part. His part was played. He turned to Cossar, in the instant\nrealisation. Their eyes met. His voice was changed to the tone of a grey\nresolve.\n\n\"I will deliver my message now,\" he said. \"Afterwards--... It will be\nsoon enough then.\"\n\nThe pit was so enormous and so encumbered that it was a long and\ntortuous route to the place from which Redwood could speak to them all.\n\nHe and Cossar followed a steeply descending way that passed beneath an\narch of interlocking machinery, and so came into a vast deep gangway\nthat ran athwart the bottom of the pit. This gangway, wide and vacant,\nand yet relatively narrow, conspired with everything about it to enhance\nRedwood\'s sense of his own littleness. It became, as it were, an\nexcavated gorge. High overhead, separated from him by cliffs of\ndarkness, the searchlights wheeled and blazed, and the shining shapes\nwent to and fro. Giant voices called to one another above there, calling\nthe Giants together to the Council of War, to hear the terms that\nCaterham had sent. The gangway still inclined downward towards black\nvastnesses, towards shadows and mysteries and inconceivable things, into\nwhich Redwood went slowly with reluctant footsteps and Cossar with a\nconfident stride....\n\nRedwood\'s thoughts were busy. The two men passed into the completest\ndarkness, and Cossar took his companion\'s wrist. They went now slowly\nperforce.\n\nRedwood was moved to speak. \"All this,\" he said, \"is strange.\"\n\n\"Big,\" said Cossar.\n\n\"Strange. And strange that it should be strange to me--I, who am, in a\nsense, the beginning of it all. It\'s--\"\n\nHe stopped, wrestling with his elusive meaning, and threw an unseen\ngesture at the cliff.\n\n\"I have not thought of it before. I have been busy, and the years have\npassed. But here I see--It is a new generation, Cossar, and new emotions\nand new needs. All this, Cossar--\"\n\nCossar saw now his dim gesture to the things about them.\n\n\"All this is Youth.\"\n\nCossar made no answers and his irregular footfalls went striding on.\n\n\"It isn\'t _our_ youth, Cossar. They are taking things over. They are\nbeginning upon their own emotions, their own experiences, their own way.\nWe have made a new world, and it isn\'t ours. It isn\'t even--sympathetic.\nThis great place--\"\n\n\"I planned it,\" said Cossar, his face close.\n\n\"But now?\"\n\n\"Ah! I have given it to my sons.\"\n\nRedwood could feel the loose wave of the arm that he could not see.\n\n\"That is it. We are over--or almost over.\"\n\n\"Your message!\"\n\n\"Yes. And then--\"\n\n\"We\'re over.\"\n\n\"Well--?\"\n\n\"Of course we are out of it, we two old men,\" said Cossar, with his\nfamiliar note of sudden anger. \"Of course we are. Obviously. Each man\nfor his own time. And now--it\'s _their_ time beginning. That\'s all\nright. Excavator\'s gang. We do our job and go. See? That is what death\nis for. We work out all our little brains and all our little emotions,\nand then this lot begins afresh. Fresh and fresh! Perfectly simple.\nWhat\'s the trouble?\"\n\nHe paused to guide Redwood to some steps.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Redwood, \"but one feels--\"\n\nHe left his sentence incomplete.\n\n\"That is what Death is for.\" He heard Cossar below him insisting, \"How\nelse could the thing be done? That is what Death is for.\"\n\n\nIII.\n\nAfter devious windings and ascents they came out upon a projecting ledge\nfrom which it was possible to see over the greater extent of the Giants\'\npit, and from which Redwood might make himself heard by the whole of\ntheir assembly. The Giants were already gathered below and about him at\ndifferent levels, to hear the message he had to deliver. The eldest son\nof Cossar stood on the bank overhead watching the revelations of the\nsearchlights, for they feared a breach of the truce. The workers at the\ngreat apparatus in the corner stood out clear in their own light; they\nwere near stripped; they turned their faces towards Redwood, but with a\nwatchful reference ever and again to the castings that they could not\nleave. He saw these nearer figures with a fluctuating indistinctness, by\nlights that came and went, and the remoter ones still less distinctly.\nThey came from and vanished again into the depths of great obscurities.\nFor these Giants had no more light than they could help in the pit, that\ntheir eyes might be ready to see effectually any attacking force that\nmight spring upon them out of the darknesses around.\n\nEver and again some chance glare would pick out and display this group\nor that of tall and powerful forms, the Giants from Sunderland clothed\nin overlapping metal plates, and the others clad in leather, in woven\nrope or in woven metal, as their conditions had determined. They sat\namidst or rested their hands upon, or stood erect among machines and\nweapons as mighty as themselves, and all their faces, as they came and\nwent from visible to invisible, had steadfast eyes.\n\nHe made an effort to begin and did not do so. Then for a moment his\nson\'s face glowed out in a hot insurgence of the fire, his son\'s face\nlooking up to him, tender as well as strong; and at that he found a\nvoice to reach them all, speaking across a gulf, as it were, to his son.\n\n\"I come from Caterham,\" he said. \"He sent me to you, to tell you the\nterms he offers.\"\n\nHe paused. \"They are impossible terms, I know, now that I see you here\nall together; they are impossible terms, but I brought them to you,\nbecause I wanted to see you all--and my son. Once more ... I wanted to\nsee my son....\"\n\n\"Tell them the terms,\" said Cossar.\n\n\"This is what Caterham offers. He wants you to go apart and leave his\nworld!\"\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"He does not know. Vaguely somewhere in the world a great region is to\nbe set apart.... And you are to make no more of the Food, to have no\nchildren of your own, to live in your own way for your own time, and\nthen to end for ever.\"\n\nHe stopped.\n\n\"And that is all?\"\n\n\"That is all.\"\n\nThere followed a great stillness. The darkness that veiled the Giants\nseemed to look thoughtfully at him.\n\nHe felt a touch at his elbow, and Cossar was holding a chair for him--a\nqueer fragment of doll\'s furniture amidst these piled immensities. He\nsat down and crossed his legs, and then put one across the knee of the\nother, and clutched his boot nervously, and felt small and\nself-conscious and acutely visible and absurdly placed.\n\nThen at the sound of a voice he forgot himself again.\n\n\"You have heard, Brothers,\" said this voice out of the shadows.\n\nAnd another answered, \"We have heard.\"\n\n\"And the answer, Brothers?\"\n\n\"To Caterham?\"\n\n\"Is No!\"\n\n\"And then?\"\n\nThere was a silence for the space of some seconds.\n\nThen a voice said: \"These people are right. After their lights, that is.\nThey have been right in killing all that grew larger than its\nkind--beast and plant and all manner of great things that arose. They\nwere right in trying to massacre us. They are right now in saying we\nmust not marry our kind. According to their lights they are right. They\nknow--it is time that we also knew--that you cannot have pigmies and\ngiants in one world together. Caterham has said that again and\nagain--clearly--their world or ours.\"\n\n\"We are not half a hundred now,\" said another, \"and they are endless\nmillions.\"\n\n\"So it may be. But the thing is as I have said.\"\n\nThen another long silence.\n\n\"And are we to die then?\"\n\n\"God forbid!\"\n\n\"Are they?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"But that is what Caterham says! He would have us live out our lives,\ndie one by one, till only one remains, and that one at last would die\nalso, and they would cut down all the giant plants and weeds, kill all\nthe giant under-life, burn out the traces of the Food--make an end to us\nand to the Food for ever. Then the little pigmy world would be safe.\nThey would go on--safe for ever, living their little pigmy lives, doing\npigmy kindnesses and pigmy cruelties each to the other; they might even\nperhaps attain a sort of pigmy millennium, make an end to war, make an\nend to over-population, sit down in a world-wide city to practise pigmy\narts, worshipping one another till the world begins to freeze....\"\n\nIn the corner a sheet of iron fell in thunder to the ground.\n\n\"Brothers, we know what we mean to do.\"\n\nIn a spluttering of light from the searchlights Redwood saw earnest\nyouthful faces turning to his son.\n\n\"It is easy now to make the Food. It would be easy for us to make Food\nfor all the world.\"\n\n\"You mean, Brother Redwood,\" said a voice out of the darkness, \"that it\nis for the little people to eat the Food.\"\n\n\"What else is there to do?\"\n\n\"We are not half a hundred and they are many millions.\"\n\n\"But we held our own.\"\n\n\"So far.\"\n\n\"If it is God\'s will, we may still hold our own.\"\n\n\"Yes. But think of the dead!\"\n\nAnother voice took up the strain. \"The dead,\" it said. \"Think of the\nunborn....\"\n\n\"Brothers,\" came the voice of young Redwood, \"what can we do but fight\nthem, and if we beat them, make them take the Food? They cannot help but\ntake the Food now. Suppose we were to resign our heritage and do this\nfolly that Caterham suggests! Suppose we could! Suppose we give up this\ngreat thing that stirs within us, repudiate this thing our fathers did\nfor us--that _you_, Father, did for us--and pass, when our time has\ncome, into decay and nothingness! What then? Will this little world of\ntheirs be as it was before? They may fight against greatness in us who\nare the children of men, but can they conquer? Even if they should\ndestroy us every one, what then? Would it save them? No! For greatness\nis abroad, not only in us, not only in the Food, but in the purpose of\nall things! It is in the nature of all things; it is part of space and\ntime. To grow and still to grow: from first to last that is Being--that\nis the law of life. What other law can there be?\"\n\n\"To help others?\"\n\n\"To grow. It is still, to grow. Unless we help them to fail....\"\n\n\"They will fight hard to overcome us,\" said a voice.\n\nAnd another, \"What of that?\"\n\n\"They will fight,\" said young Redwood. \"If we refuse these terms, I\ndoubt not they will fight. Indeed I hope they will be open and fight. If\nafter all they offer peace, it will be only the better to catch us\nunawares. Make no mistake, Brothers; in some way or other they will\nfight. The war has begun, and we must fight, to the end. Unless we are\nwise, we may find presently we have lived only to make them better\nweapons against our children and our kind. This, so far, has been only\nthe dawn of battle. All our lives will be a battle. Some of us will be\nkilled in battle, some of us will be waylaid. There is no easy\nvictory--no victory whatever that is not more than half defeat for us.\nBe sure of that. What of that? If only we keep a foothold, if only we\nleave behind us a growing host to fight when we are gone!\"\n\n\"And to-morrow?\"\n\n\"We will scatter the Food; we will saturate the world with the Food.\"\n\n\"Suppose they come to terms?\"\n\n\"Our terms are the Food. It is not as though little and great could live\ntogether in any perfection of compromise. It is one thing or the other.\nWhat right have parents to say, My child shall have no light but the\nlight I have had, shall grow no greater than the greatness to which I\nhave grown? Do I speak for you, Brothers?\"\n\nAssenting murmurs answered him.\n\n\"And to the children who will be women as well as to the children who\nwill be men,\" said a voice from the darkness.\n\n\"Even more so--to be mothers of a new race ...\"\n\n\"But for the next generation there must be great and little,\" said\nRedwood, with his eyes on his son\'s face.\n\n\"For many generations. And the little will hamper the great and the\ngreat press upon the little. So it must needs be, father.\"\n\n\"There will be conflict.\"\n\n\"Endless conflict. Endless misunderstanding. All life is that. Great and\nlittle cannot understand one another. But in every child born of man,\nFather Redwood, lurks some seed of greatness--waiting for the Food.\"\n\n\"Then I am to go to Caterham again and tell him--\"\n\n\"You will stay with us, Father Redwood. Our answer goes to Caterham at\ndawn.\"\n\n\"He says that he will fight....\"\n\n\"So be it,\" said young Redwood, and his brethren murmured assent.\n\n\"_The iron waits_,\" cried a voice, and the two giants who were working\nin the corner began a rhythmic hammering that made a mighty music to the\nscene. The metal glowed out far more brightly than it had done before,\nand gave Redwood a clearer view of the encampment than had yet come to\nhim. He saw the oblong space to its full extent, with the great engines\nof warfare ranged ready to hand. Beyond, and at a higher level, the\nhouse of the Cossars stood. About him were the young giants, huge and\nbeautiful, glittering in their mail, amidst the preparations for the\nmorrow. The sight of them lifted his heart. They were so easily\npowerful! They were so tall and gracious! They were so steadfast in\ntheir movements! There was his son amongst them, and the first of all\ngiant women, the Princess....\n\nThere leapt into his mind the oddest contrast, a memory of Bensington,\nvery bright and little--Bensington with his hand amidst the soft breast\nfeathers of that first great chick, standing in that conventionally\nfurnished room of his, peering over his spectacles dubiously as cousin\nJane banged the door....\n\nIt had all happened in a yesterday of one-and-twenty years.\n\nThen suddenly a strange doubt took hold of him: that this place and\npresent greatness were but the texture of a dream; that he was dreaming,\nand would in an instant wake to find himself in his study again, the\nGiants slaughtered, the Food suppressed, and himself a prisoner locked\nin. What else indeed was life but that--always to be a prisoner locked\nin! This was the culmination and end of his dream. He would wake through\nbloodshed and battle, to find his Food the most foolish of fancies, and\nhis hopes and faith of a greater world to come no more than the coloured\nfilm upon a pool of bottomless decay. Littleness invincible!\n\nSo strong and deep was this wave of despondency, this suggestion of\nimpending disillusionment, that he started to his feet. He stood and\npressed his clenched fists into his eyes, and so for a moment remained,\nfearing to open them again and see, lest the dream should already have\npassed away....\n\nThe voice of the giant children spoke to one another, an undertone to\nthat clangorous melody of the smiths. His tide of doubt ebbed. He heard\nthe giant voices; he heard their movements about him still. It was real,\nsurely it was real--as real as spiteful acts! More real, for these great\nthings, it may be, are the coming things, and the littleness,\nbestiality, and infirmity of men are the things that go. He opened his\neyes. \"Done,\" cried one of the two ironworkers, and they flung their\nhammers down.\n\nA voice sounded above. The son of Cossar, standing on the great\nembankment, had turned and was now speaking to them all.\n\n\"It is not that we would oust the little people from the world,\" he\nsaid, \"in order that we, who are no more than one step upwards from\ntheir littleness, may hold their world for ever. It is the step we fight\nfor and not ourselves.... We are here, Brothers, to what end? To serve\nthe spirit and the purpose that has been breathed into our lives. We\nfight not for ourselves--for we are but the momentary hands and eyes of\nthe Life of the World. So you, Father Redwood, taught us. Through us and\nthrough the little folk the Spirit looks and learns. From us by word and\nbirth and act it must pass--to still greater lives. This earth is no\nresting place; this earth is no playing place, else indeed we might put\nour throats to the little people\'s knife, having no greater right to\nlive than they. And they in their turn might yield to the ants and\nvermin. We fight not for ourselves but for growth--growth that goes on\nfor ever. To-morrow, whether we live or die, growth will conquer through\nus. That is the law of the spirit for ever more. To grow according to\nthe will of God! To grow out of these cracks and crannies, out of these\nshadows and darknesses, into greatness and the light! Greater,\" he said,\nspeaking with slow deliberation, \"greater, my Brothers! And then--still\ngreater. To grow, and again--to grow. To grow at last into the\nfellowship and understanding of God. Growing.... Till the earth is no\nmore than a footstool.... Till the spirit shall have driven fear into\nnothingness, and spread....\" He swung his arm heavenward:--\"_There!\"_\nHis voice ceased. The white glare of one of tho searchlights wheeled\nabout, and for a moment fell upon him, standing out gigantic with hand\nupraised against the sky.\n\nFor one instant he shone, looking up fearlessly into the starry deeps,\nmail-clad, young and strong, resolute and still. Then the light had\npassed, and he was no more than a great black outline against the starry\nsky--a great black outline that threatened with one mighty gesture the\nfirmament of heaven and all its multitude of stars.\n\n\nTHE END.'"