Algernon Blackwood

“ Again, with that ghostly laughter, Forden met me: “It’s the way we have to go,” he replied half under his breath. “It’s always a mistake to trouble too much about direction⁠—actual direction, that is.” And Malahide was singing to himself as though nothing mattered in the world, details as to direction least of all.⁠ ⁠... It was just after this, I remember, as our lane came to a stile and we leaned over it comfortably, all three, that the odour of burning touched my mind again, only with it, at the same time, a sight so moving, that I paused in thought, catching my breath a little. ”

“ And that vehemence, again, I did not like. “Besides,” he added sharply, pointing ahead, “there he is!”
A wave of vague emotion troubled me; for an instant I felt again that sharper air⁠—and this time in the heart.
“Who?” I asked quickly.
He replied carelessly: “The man.”
“What man?”
Malahide turned his eyes full upon my own, so that their soft blaze came over me like sunshine, almost with a sense of warmth in them. On his great face lay a singular expression. I heard Forden, who stood just behind me, laughing gently. There seemed a drift of smoke about them both. ”

“ One thing only pierced my personal mood from time to time: the picture of Malahide’s great head thrust forward a little when I glanced at him, the eyes turned upwards, carrying in them still that odd soft blaze, the glare, as I called it, now wholly gone; and that upon Forden’s delicate face was a gentle expression, curiously rapt, yet with a faint brush as of bewilderment somewhere among the peering features. This impression, however, came back to me later, rather than held my attention much at the actual moment. We moved on deeper and deeper into the lonely countryside. ”

“ He peered back at me a second through the shining flood⁠—and it was in this instant, just as I caught his turning face, that Malahide was after him. He passed me like a wave, still singing; there was a rush of power in his speed. I followed at once, unable to resist. The three of us ran like one man over and through that flood of golden buttercups, passing, as we did so, every sign the railway porter had told us to look out for: the farm, the trees, the gate, the second gate⁠—everything. ”

“ Somewhat thus, at any rate, I saw my companions, as the train jolted us that sparkling April morning, many years ago, towards Stanton, Malahide humming his mood idly through the open window, Forden lying at full length, reading the papers with listless eye. But I saw another thing as well, saw it with a limpid clearness my description may not hold: something ahead⁠—an event⁠—lay in waiting for them, something they knew about, both not desiring, yet desiring it, something inevitable as sunrise. ”

“ Unexpected touches played about it, as though a faint unknown light shone from the cloudless sky of that perfect April morning, but from beyond it. Forden, behind the transparent mask of his rather beautiful face, betrayed more than his customary absentmindedness, sometimes to a point I could have thought bewilderment. Each time I spoke to him⁠—to Malahide I did not once address a word⁠—he started a little. In him there was no attempt at adjustment, no analysis, no effort to explain or query. He asked himself, I am sure, no single question. Whatever life brought him he accepted always. ”

“ This signpost I certainly had not noticed until Forden drew my attention to it. Malahide was tapping the wooden arm with the point of his stick, reading the lettering aloud as he did so:
“Footpath From Barton,” I heard him boom. And instantly my eyes fixed tightly on it with all the concentration that was in me. Yes, Malahide had read correctly. Only, the arm now swung the other way. It pointed behind us! And I burst out laughing. Sight and memory had, indeed, fumbled badly. I felt myself for a moment “all turned round,” as the saying is. Malahide laughed too; we all laughed together. ”

“ Forden said contemptuously, “I heard them mouthing all sorts of lovely poetic phrases; yet not one of them would make the slight sacrifice of personal comfort necessary to experience that loveliness, that poetry, in themselves⁠ ⁠...”
To which Malahide, though still developing “God’s pity” and the “Devil’s admiration” in phrases packed with real feeling, contrived somehow to answer, but always simultaneously, his friend’s remark:
“They bring their own lower world,” he boomed, “even into the beauty of the mountains, then wonder that the beauty of the mountains tells them nothing. ”

“ His reaction to my sentence forced me to realise the increasing change in myself. As I uttered the words I knew their third meaning; in the plain sentences was something that equalled in value: “See! the Heavens are open. There is God!” My companions still heard this third meaning, for I saw the look of majesty in Malahide’s great eyes, the love and beauty upon Forden’s shining face. But, for myself, having spoken, there remained⁠—suddenly⁠—nothing more than a commonplace low hill upon the near horizon. The gate and farm I saw as well. ”

“ Barton itself we never reached, but we crossed the Trent on our way to a station called Attenborough, first passing a hamlet, Clifden, where, Forden informed us, he had met the girl he later made his wife.
It was a dull and uninspired expedition, Malahide voluble without being articulate, Forden rather silent on the whole⁠ ⁠... and at the home station Malahide gave us the slip without a word⁠ ⁠... but during the entire outing neither one nor other betrayed the slightest hint of familiarity with anything they had known before. In myself the memory lay mercilessly sharp and clear. ”

“ I was relieved to see them again as two friends merely, two actors, out for a country walk with me to a village called Barton-in-Fabis on a brilliant April morning.
One last flash only there was, as I followed them out, one final hint of what I have called “seeing more” of everything, seeing “differently,” rather. The three of us left the carriage as described, in sequence; yet to me it flashed with definite though illogical assurance that only one got out. Not that one was gone and two were left, but that the three of us got out as one, simultaneously. One being left that carriage. ”

“ A moment later he was beside us again, his face white, his eyes shining, his breath half-gone.
“Come on, old Fordy,” said Malahide affectionately, taking him by the arm. He, for some reason, was not affected. “It’s not going to rain, you know, and anyhow there’s no good running. Let’s sit down and eat our lunch.” And he led the way across a few furrows to the hedge.
We ate our sandwiches and cake and apples. The sun shone hotly again. None of us smoked, I remember. For myself, the smell of burning had left something so miserable in me that I dared not smell even a lighted match. ”

“ My own cry: “We are wholehearted” must betray how pitiful description is.⁠ ⁠... Thus, the lovely moment, for instance, when I first saw rivers of gold, kept repeating itself⁠—because it gave me happiness, because it moved me. That field of golden buttercups was always⁠—there. I lingered with it, came back to it, enjoyed it over and over again, yet with no sense of repetition. It was new and fresh each time. Now, Malahide and Forden, selecting other moments, chose these instead, and these, again, were moments easy to be remembered. ”

“ They had not so much as glanced in my direction.
“Signpost!” I exclaimed bluntly, looking straight at Malahide. “Why, we passed it long ago.” And as I said it, my eye again took in the figure of the man three fields away, the only living being yet seen. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him merely, and a breath of sharper air, or something like it, passed quickly over my skin. “It said ‘To Barton,’” I added, a flavour of challenge in my tone. ”

“ I gathered from one of the local supers, meant “among the beans,” and Barton was a village “with a lot of historic interest,” he informed me proudly. The name and the historic interest, evidently, had taken Malahide’s vagrant fancy. He was an incalculable fellow; but he was not a man to ply with questions. His temper was insecure as a wayward child’s. I, therefore, asked no questions. Forden, too, was an elusive creature, where questions were concerned. There are people who instinctively detest having to give definite information in reply to definite questions. ”

“ Similarly, in their daily work as actors, and uncommonly good actors, one with a streak of fine inspiration, the other, Malahide, with a touch of fiery genius, both accepted an art that both held, mournfully, and secretly rather, was not creative. They were merely interpreters of other men’s creations. ”

“ And Forden, usually timid and hesitating in his speech, though never inarticulate, now also used a flow of fearless words in answer. Yet not precisely “in answer,” for both men talked at once. They uttered simultaneously⁠—on two subjects, if not on three:
“We all deserve, maybe,” Malahide’s deep voice thundered, “a divine attention few of us receive⁠—God’s pity. We are not, alas, wholehearted. Few of us, similarly, deserve another compliment. ”

“ The odour of burning, faint but unmistakable, was never absent.⁠ ⁠...
We took single tickets to Stanton, Malahide reading a pile of papers and commenting volubly on the criticisms of the play. A porter at the station gave us confused directions. We followed faulty signposts, ancient and illegible, losing ourselves rather stupidly⁠ ⁠... and I noticed a man⁠—a farmer with a spud⁠—wandering about the fields and making thrusts from time to time at thistles. A sham storm followed a low line of hills, but no rain fell, and the brilliance of the April day was otherwise unspoilt. ”

“ Malahide’s reply came easily and naturally: “The man who plants them,” he said without a smile. “He sticks them into the ground, that fellow. He’s going about with an assortment of signposts ‘To and From Barton,’ and every now and again he plants one for us.”
“We’re standing under one now,” Forden breathed behind me in his purring way, and looking up I saw that this was true. I read in black lettering upon a white background: “To Barton.” ”

“ It is not a desire for notoriety⁠—that would shock her⁠—but it is a desire to be conspicuous. Life, which means people, did not make a fuss about her in her youth. But the law of compensation works inevitably. Late in life, you see, she means to have that fuss.”
It is the phraseology, perhaps, that enables me to remember this singular exchange. My head, of course, was spinning. For Malahide made a reply to this, while still discussing the poseurs in the Alpine hotel. And while they talked thus on two subjects simultaneously, Forden managed to chat easily too with me⁠—upon a third.⁠ ⁠... ”

“ Neither would ever see forty again, yet to me they seemed young, their careers still in front of them; and each, though without much energy, groping a way honestly toward some ultimate meaning in life that neither, I fancied, was ever likely to discover. ”

“ And thus the sequence of what followed, proved extraordinarily difficult to remember afterwards. An atmosphere of sadness, of foreboding, of premonition came over me; there was desolation in my heart; there were stabs of horrible presentiment. All these, moreover, were ever vaguely related to one thing⁠—that inexplicable faint odour of burning.⁠ ⁠... ”

“ So it was to be 10:15, with single tickets to Stanton, a walk thence to Barton among its Beans, with its old church and historic interest, and we were to “work round” to another station, and so home. Malahide had planned it all in advance. He wanted to go. Forden also wanted to go. It all seemed natural enough, ordinary, no exceptional feature anywhere about it beyond the trivial detail that Malahide did not care for walking as a rule. ”

“ Its inadequacy was painful. Its third meaning, however, in that instant blazed. “Angels” in spite of everything, remains.
And I, too, moved⁠—moved with them both, but in a way, and in a direction, I had never known before. The glove, the hand, being turned inside out, is what my pen writes down, but accurate description is not possible. I moved, at any rate, on⁠—on with my two companions towards Barton.
“It’s all one to me,” I said, perfectly aware that I suddenly used the third meaning of the phrase, and that Malahide and Forden understood. ”

“ They would find Balham on great Betelgeuse”⁠—a tremendous laugh rang out⁠—“and Clapham Junction on fiery Vega!”
“Her pity,” came Forden’s words, talking of another matter altogether, yet uttered simultaneously with his friend’s laughing rhetoric, “is self-pity merely. She does these out-of-the-way things, you see, without sufficient apparent reason. ”

“ The fingers of a hand, thus, may move and point in several directions at once, while the hand, of which they form parts, moves forward in one direction only, as a whole. The simile occurred to me.⁠ ⁠... I perceived it, moreover, through what I can only call a veil of smoke.
III “Oh, about three to four mile, maybe,” the porter was telling Malahide, “an’ you can pick up the Midland at Attenborough to get back.⁠ ⁠... Yes, it’s a nice day for a walk, I dessay.⁠ ⁠...” ”