The Crimson Daw.

Otago Witness, Issue 3327, 19 December 1917, Page 63

The Crimson Daw.

By E. M. Story

Ten days to Christmas, and all over upland and lowland the charm of the yellow broom; the hillsides dight with flowers, and the air fragrant with happiness. I write that deliberately, so that it may be definitely stated that happiness emits an odour, and, I would add, one so subtle that even tropical heat cannot destroy it, and the snows of " bonnie Scotland " affect the fragrance not at all. I wish \you could see the gullies as. I see them in the afterglow of memory! In the dear Homeland Christmas time is not a time of flowers. We have the gay holly berries and the bays and laurels, but there are no flowers. But here in New Zealand Christmas wears the mantle of summer, and it is wonderfully becomingWhen the New Zealand boys at the front think of Christmas at home it will be in quite a different setting from that of the Home lads, yet Christmas for all that; for, whether' amid the golden glory of the broom and radiant with flowerblossom or amid the glistening white of the purest snows, Christmas carries its own vivifying principle which directs its special energies. The carol of Christmas is something other than articulated song. But old Franks was counting his fingers and checking off past Christmases. He sat on the end seat of the Triangle, that seat near the gate, where the disconsolate slip in and out when the " dis" is more felt than usual. There was nobody else that he could see on that seat at the moment, so he muttered to himself: " Leeds, Brum, Warwick, London, Bristol, London, Manchester, Shanklin "—- here he paused, and repeated "Shanklin." He saw again clearly v the Old Village, and he focused his lens until the quaint thatched cottages and the beautiful evergreen hedges were as near and clear to him as the shrubs of the Triangle. Then he resumed his checking-off: "Glasgow, Edinburgh, Rothesay, Kyles o' Bute. . . . Lord, the Kyles o' Bute!" His hands slid down, and he gave himself up to the luxury of memory., " I've had a life," he repeated; "in everyone o' the places I was happy. It was happiness piled on happiness and peaks of happiness." A sigh of bliss-in-remembrance served as a spiritual " Amen." " Those people that are always busy chasing happiness know nothing about, it." Everybody "knows" Old Pranks —that is to say, eyerybody knows a few facts that are a part of his actual story : " Queer old chap; not a bad sort. Widower . . . lost his wife while he was away gold-digging on West Coast.' Had six sons—lost three in Flanders, two on Gallipoli, and the other a prisoner in Germany. Has one married daughter and a drunken son-in-law; two young grandchildren; and, in the Old Country, two aged brothers."- Quite commonplace facts that might belong to anv man of Franks's age. Not much here calculated to make Franks particularly happy, one would say; but the truth is that that is just his trouble—he is as happy as the blue bird herself. He filled his'pipe, rammed down the tobacco with the third finger of his left hand, and drew out a match, struck it and applied the light. "Odd, flame!" he thought. "Here a dull, dead-looking thing enough; I draw it along this box . . . and its ... resistance . .' . well, it bursts out into light' and heat! . . . and there you are!" Then he flung the match ..down. "Ten days to Christmas. . . . Out here still. Why, I swore I'd be Home . . . with the boys." He was very quiet, very still, when he remembered them. He sat thinking deeply. He was not mourning; there was no tear in his heart, no bitterness in his soul; he simply knew that the boys were not extinct. Their actual physical bodies were "dead," but the boys, "they are just where they've always been," he thought. " I saw them in many different lights; I see them still; I heard their voices—l hear them yet; as of tan as I think of them . . . they're with me. It wasn't their bodies I kept in my mind, but certain ideas of them . . . memories. . . . Well, it'd take a sight more power than Germany can show to kill that." He smiled : "Good •lads," he said, "good, dear lads!" By the time he had finished his pipe he had decided how to spend his Christmas holidays. The decision was a little odd even for Franks. He would make ten days' journev through the South Island with a definite purpose--that of hunting out, finding, Misery—absolute Misery. " I've never come across her yet," he thought. "What she may be like, if I find her, God alone knows."

He was gratified by his whimsy, and, taking an envelope from his pocket, he wrote on it with his stumpy, pointless pencil—the same piece he had. used on the goM-diggings —the words " The Crimson Daw." Then he chuckled, as he looked at the writing. " Wonder where she nests !" The fancy pleased him. To get tidings of her he would go search out the miserable. He was not quite sure where to begin his search. His trend was towards the railway .station. The Christchurch train was about due. "One sees odd people and happenings at a railway station," he reflected, "and takes part in them, too." A happy memory arose, and waved her hand to him. She recalled himself at thirty, when passing through the gate at St. Enoch Railway Station, Glasgow, knocking down the rough-tongued " bully of a ticketcollector" for his insolent behaviour to a white-haired, frail, little woman, who appeared to be friendless. What, joy the indulgence of that sudden chivalrous impulse had given him! True, it had cost him five pounds; but he counted the luxury cheap at the price, and the little old lady—well, she had her waning faith in knights restored. He didn't look much

like a knight: but then neither did they; yet all the slain acknowledged them!

The train was in, and the station was as black with smoke as Dunedin. can be. He couldn't see the train just at first, but his faith was sufficient to believe that she was behind the smoke. Smoke-boxes are useful—to the enemy; or in a proper place—say, off Jutland. He found her behind the smoke curtain. On the platform, near the left-luggage depot, he noticed a fine, big man in civilian dress. There was that in the man's attitude that caused Franks to look at him twice. The expression on his face was indescribably wistful. Franks felt sure he required help of some kind. He spoke to him. " Can I help vou?" There was no answer. Then he touched him. " I'm deaf and blind," said the man. " Shock . . . I am waiting for someone to meet me. If you, friend, can take me to this address, put youx hand on mine." Franks read the card held out to him, and placed his hand as directed. "I know nobody here. . . . My only relative, a brother, was killed . . . but Are both lived here when we were lads together, so I thought I'd come on." It was useless to talk to a deaf man, so Franks pressed his hand. "People are very good," said the stranger. I had to go to the battlefield and come back like this before I found it out, though. You'd never believe how good they are. I 'can tell you, sir, that I've never seen such wonderful dawns and sun-, sets as since I've lost my sight!" Franks touched the man's ears softly, intending to ask if he heard better now that he was deaf. The man at once understood. "I never hear a word or tone that . . . troubles me," he said. Franks nodded. "No crimson daw yet," he thought. He left the stranger with kind people at the address given, and himself walked into the favourite tea room for a cup of tea. The waitress who took his order looked unhappy. " You are not going to tell me you are happy?" he said. "No! I can't hate my friends or love my enemies," she said. "Then give up trying," he replied. " Then indeed I should be miserable. Why, it's the trying that keeps me up.""What's the trouble?" he asked. She looked at him for & moment, then a shy tear fell, and she turned away. He felt sure that it was not a tear of Misery. When she brought his tea he asked" her again what troubled her. "It's Christmas being so close," she said. "I come from Home . . . did you know . . . and I do miss them all at this time." Then she told him of her struggle to save money to send to her old mother, and how the thought of the help she was able to give her cheered her and kept her going. " You should see my mother!" she said. "You would love her; she has the kindest heart in the world." So here was a girl who had the privilege of working for the kindest heart in a world of kindness. What could she know of the Crimson Daw? He left her laughing at the shedding of a tear. "He rose early on the morrow and set out for the West Coast of his gold-dig-ging days. He had an inkling that the bird he sought might be found-in that direction. The • ranges and their gorges were resplendent with native bush in the glory of bloom. Range behind range, showing spurs and caves and peaks, softened by a haze, and capped with, filmy clouds, and shaded here and there with ruddy brown, stretched into lengthy and fantastic outlines, captivating and holding him spellbound. The small towns, engirdled with the hills, touched with blues and golden browns, and deepest purple shading to black, were thrown into relief by light and shadow, the .clouds, the hills, the fields, and trees revealing a perfect panorama of colour and tint. Everywhere rata. The mountains aflame with it, ablaze with scarlet glory. ~ . Here surely the Crimson Daw might hide. The rata blossoms were bursting forth from their setting of green leaves, and, growing out from the mountain-sides, making of the cliffs a wild profusion of richest loveliness and beauty. Up at the top of the high mountain range, more than two thousand feet above sea-level, with cliffs rent into canyons and ravines, and stretching out huge spurs, down Which the running streamlets at frequent intervals have worn gullies, and over which Nature has spread from base to summit a gorgeous mantle of trailing native bush, cluster,the houses of a township, the home of nearly a thousand families, for the most part men from the Old Country—colliers. Scores of the younger men were gone to Flanders, and Franks found in every little home he visited war-maps pinned to the walls, and in many instances battle-spots were denoted by flags. He spoke to men and women in scores of homes. All were friendly and hospitable; all had war-tales to tell him, and all spoke of their "boys" with a memory touched by love and reverence. None alluded to "difficulties" they had had with them; all were happy and tender in their memories.

" Can you direct me to the most miserable man or woman of this toAvnship," Franks asked an old collier. " The most miserable !" The man stared at him .for a moment, then he asked, " Be you a parson or a •bookmaker?" " Neither one nor the other," he answered ; " but my business is to seek out the unhappy--those who" are in sheer misery."

" A" rum occupation for Christmas', beant, it?" asked the old Englishman with a twinkle in his eye. " We'ro all sorts here from Solomons to village idiots, but I misdoubt me if you'll find any so bad as that! Stay a minute, though. There's a Avoman lives OA-er there Avho is as near tlie object you're looking for as I know. If you can get a pleasant note out of

her—well, you can get music out of any old thing." Franks thanked him and made his way to the cottage. He tapped softly. There was no answer. He tapped again. The door was opened a narrow distance, and. a handsome, defiant face looked at him. ".Are you Mrs Stand?" he asked. "Ye 3; what do you want?" " May I come in and speak with you ?" "I can hear you where you are," flhe said. " Could you kindly tell me of two women in this village?" he asked. " What two women. What are their names?" "I don't know." " Then how can I tell you of them?" " It's not by their names I can describe them to you, but by their ' happiness' and 'misery.' " "You must be drunk," she said. " Not at all. I am going to ask you to make ma some tea." "You can ask," she said. " Will Mrs Stand make a cup of tea for a thirsty man?" "Not I," she answered. " Will Mrs Stand give him a cup of cold water ?'' Where had she heard of the refusal of a "cup of cold water"? She moved slowly from the door, and, filling a cup with water, brought it to him. " Here's Christmas greetings to you and yours," he said. "And who may 'you and yours' be?" she asked him. " My name is Franks. I live in Dunedin, and my wife and sons are dead—but one, the youngest, and he's a prisoner in Germany. I'm trying to find the Crimson Daw.' " "' Poor fellow! So much trouble has turned your mind." He smiled and thanked her for the water. " What's that you want to know of the two Avomen ?" " May I come in a minute or tAvo and talk?" "Well," she said, "since A-ou're so set on it." And he entered. The cottage was clean as a Bank of England note. "That's him," she said, pointing to a photograph on the Avail, "and that's the other," intimating a second photographj " and that is she." " Your children?" he asked. She stared at him. " Then you don't knoav anyth 'tag. f" "Nothing," he assured her. A sloav, deep colour suffused her cheeks, and her dark eyes became a judgment seat. " " It's fiA'e years ago this Christmas," she said. "Tell me," h& petitioned. " That's the girl they both loved. One hrother killed the other, and was—hanged," she said sloavlv, "and the girl married a stranger within three months." The Avoman stood upright and stretched out her arm as though she Avere indicting Fate. For once the man found his Avords frozen before his tongue could move to shape them. " Other mothers lose their sons in battle. I . My boys! My sons! T aan the mother of a murderer —a fratricide," she said. " What was that you asked .me of tAA-o wobkii ? One ". How could Franks repeat his question to her. and yet there was that in this woman's face that informed him that he must look beyond her and' her home for the " Crimson Daw." "HaA'e you any thought that comforts you in all this terrible Avoe ?" he asked. "Yes," she said —"oh. \-es!"» " What—tell me what'?'' " They both found —peace —and goodAvill," she said softly. He was intensely astonished. "They both loved. It was not a sordid crime, done for money or material gain. They both lived long enough to forgive each other, and he who killed his brother Avas thankful that he, too, must die. But I—l—hoAv shall I find anything in ' peace and goodAvill' while that woman liA-es?" "And yet both your sons loved her," said Franks in a low tone, "and both died for IoA r e of her!'' The woman let herself down into an old armchair. " To think of it," she whispered at last, "and all these year's I've missed that truth." When, later, Franks left the cottage she shut the door after him, saying\ as she closed it, " it was I who drank the cup of cold Avater." The man walked slowly down the hill, unobservant of what he' passed until a brilliant flare of colour from a small " front garden " attracted his notice.' He stopped to look at the blaze. An elderly man was busy among the plants. "Good day to you," said Franks. "Your flowers are very fine." "•I think so," said the man. as though someone else had contested the assertion. "I've not seen such a shoAv anywhere here." said Franks. "Well, this isn't Hampton Coui't," he replied. "No. So you knoAv Hampton Court?" "KnoAv Hampton Court!" repeated the man. "I knoAv that . . . traitor's garden." Franks understood that,for this cottager there Avas a dark memory connected with Hamnton. " 'Traitor's garden.' " he repeated. "Do you mean . . . Cardinal Wolsey?" "No: .. . . he Avas no traitor." "Who was the traitor?" "Come in." said the man as he opened the gate "I'm not going to tell you the story ... it concerns my life . . . but I'll toll you of the flowers here. . . . After my betrayal, when the light of reason flickered . . . when all Avas stonegrey ... I saw her once again, as I had first seen her, with the Avonderful flowers all around . . . not a.s on that flowerlers winter dav . . . and I made it .nil out again in the flower?. I remembered . . . pee here, they are the same . . . English flower?. They are planted. a 9 T msiv say, on a grave . . I send some of them to

the church up there and some to the hospital, for, cut them as I may, I've always some to spare; the teacher likes a few . . . and one or two bedridden folk ... I always send them from 'her'; but they don't know that ... of course ... for I don't say so . . . but you're a stranger to these parts, so it's for yourself I'm speaking. I live the bright nours over again with the scents and the colours . . . this kind was her favourite," and he plucked a lovely scarlet clove . . . "I've holly berries too . . . she decorated: my hat with them one Christmas day. . . . I've never missed since . . . besides, they're a weed-killer." Franks refrained from questions; and he fancied that he caught an orange glow from the berries, and a memory of "peaco and goodwill" seemed to radiate from out the aureole. "Since you're so friendly I should like to tell you why I'm- here," said Franks. "I know this West Coast very well; I spent time here on the diggings . . . but just now I'm on holiday, looking . . , well . . . for the Crimson Daw ... a bird) I've never seen, but which I'm told ia often seen about. . . . I'm doubtful myself, but I'm trying to get on her" track." "I'm not* an ornithologist," said he of the garden. "Is she anything like the red parrot?" "Couldn't say. Part of my quest is to find out the most miserable man or woman I can. ..." "You're not ill?" asked the horticul-: turist dubiously. \, Franks laughed. "A further tribute to my lack of imitation," he said. "Do you ) know of a downright miserable body?" i "Only in the Litany," he answered'! )■ "there's a fair number of the gloomy . . . and of the unhappy ... of those who can't see blue anywhere . . . but i . . . yes . . . stay a minute . . . see i that wee one-room whare up yonder?" V and he pointed to the hill-top. " Well, | don't say that I told you of it . '. • . ? but there's a miserable body lives there."- > "Old or young?" ' "Middlin'." "What's her trouble?" "You'd best ask her that." \ Franks set out on his hill-climb without loss of time. In three-quarters of an hour ''" he stood before its door and knocked. I The small windows were closely curtained, ! j and there was not a sound within that '■ he could detect. He waited a few minutes and tapped lightly again. He noticed that the grass in the front was rank, and that there was an absence of the flowers. Ho saw without surprise a money-box in the porch, and he noticed that it was fastened to the woodwork. He was looking at it intently when a doleful voice asked him, "How much did you put in?" He thrust his hand quickly into his pocket and drew forth a shilling, and, stooping, slipped it into the box. The woman slipped a small key into the lock and, opening the box, picked up the shilling. Her face was stolid. f "May I come in and talk with you a few moments?" he asked. She grudg- ; ingly assented. He entered a dim little room, and when he was able to see clearly he observed that the walls were papered with advertisements all cut from New Zealand neAvspapers; hff further discovered that they were all advertising one article —babies." The gist of them was, "Wanted someone to adopt a healthy baby child a few months old." Many sioecified the sex of the child: many added, "complete I possession given." Some stated the colour of the eyes, some of the hair; "but the ', story of each advertisement -was a baby, to' be disposed of to any •'kind person" . who would take it away. In not a few instances a premium was offered with the "healthy baby boy." The woman saw him reading her walk paper. "I've covered these three walk as yet," she said. For full two minutes Franks was dumb, and his hostess stood silent beside him. Then he asked, with a sweep of his arm wallwards, "And how,_. . .'where .. . - did you get all these?" F "The advertisements? . . . Through A *■ press-cutting agency. . . . Your shilling . will go towards the coit . . . they send ythem or. £o me once a month." ', "My. God!" exclaimed Franks. ! "Baby life wasted,' muttered the woman. "But you . . . Why do you do this?"; he asked. p t \ "Lest I should forget," she said. . . . "Come here," she continued, and she beckoned him over to one of the corners of the room, and, striking a match, bade him stoop and read. He with difficulty deciphered an advertisement set out in old style. It read: "Baby boy, blue eyes, healthy, strong. Wanted some person to adopt." Premium offered, £SO. Full possession given." She watched him while he read. "Mine," she said. "He would have been thirty come Christmas Day." "He . . . died, then?" "Six weeks after the fifty pounds had been paid ... he wasted away . • - so many do . . . he. was born healthy and strong," she said. _ j "You could not have kept him with you?" "It was the disgrace, you see . . . I was very young then. . . . My little baby ... I killed him. I sent him away." There was no passion in_ the woman's voice. She. spoke almost in a monotone. "Sometimes, at niprht, the house is full of them: the air is alive; I see them . . . hear them crying, calling-; . . and at Christmas time they cry worse . . . and I sing them lullaby-songs carrols ... I call them. Look . . .: read . . . there's one here. She'd be twenty on Christmas Day, if she were alive;' but she isn't." Franks read as directed: "Girl, of gentle birth; lovely curls: three teeth; dimple: sweet nature. Will anyone adont?' Premium. £30." "And you . - ■ expect to cover . . t the four walls?" "Tt won't take long now," she said. "And then?"

"And then I shall take the babies about the country." "The- babies?" ' "Their little life-and-death stories . . ." "How?" "This room cf wood is movable. I shall take it about ail over New Zealand on a cart ... a lorry . . . and people . . . will see . . . see the dear little lost babies ... oh, surely they will see!" She raised her voice slightly. "I shall start out on Christmas Day . . . the children's festival . . '. my own baby's birthday. This is his room, you know. ■I gave it him ... on his first anniversary." "And you've lived here ever since?" "Yes, in this room, ever since . . . but I've been working through, a press agency for ten years only. The older advertisements I got as I could." Franks wondered if she'd money. He concluded she had, but had kept the fact from her neighbours. She seemed to divine his thought. "When the war is over I shall built a home for little children," she said ; "but I want the women . '. . all the women ... all the people ... to know of the babies . . . those who- ought to be with us this Christmas ..." To Frahks's amazement he saw a tear roll down her cheek, and his own eyes moistened. Not yet had he found the Crimson Daw. In this woman's misery there was hope and the promise of sweet service. Franks left for Greymouth early the next morn•i,!g. He was convinced that the bird of utter misery was not in that township of a thousand souls. Arrived in Greymouth, he found his way to the little homely huts of the diggers. One old gold-digger, four years short, of ninety, at once recognised him and called to him. Franks went to him. "Geer.iie," he said, "I'm looking for the most abject of God's creatures, a man or woman of utter misery. I want to find the Crimson Daw." "If finding the bird depends on finding a man or woman suoh as you describe you'll be looking until Judgment Day," said Geordie. "I thought I was that man once, but it turned out a mistake. Bless me, that must be- well over sixty years ago.'' Franks sat down beside him. " Spin me a yarn, Geordie. Tell me about that oldtime misery." " I'd been in a Durham bank just ten years," said Geordie. " I had been married a year when the devil took me on to the mountain-top to try his skill. He's clever, you know. He soon had me. My wife was a beautiful girl of twenty-one, pretty beyond any I had ever seen. Her hair was" like the finest burnished gold, and she had a mantle of it, almost down to her feet. The tones of her voices—well, I hear them now when I sit down and listen, and she was just as good as ever woman lived. But she had a brother, who was a strong fellow. He was vexed with his sister that she'd married a bank clerk, when he fancied she Avas going to make his fortune by marrying money. He had a knack of saying the most stingingly sarcastic things, and they hurt me. Now, I'm not going to make any excuses, nor to clear myself by smirching him, yet I want you to know the truth as far as I can give it you. It was Christmas-time, ai>d we'd been married a year. Money was very scarce, for I'd only a small salary, though I'd been ten years with the bank. Well, this brother came to our house, and, as usual, he began his gibes and taunts. I'd stood it a fair time, and I could feel I was. getting worked up a bit. He must have seen it, too. " 'Can you lend me five hundred pounds, Geordie,' he said. " 'How soon do you want ibV I asked —I who hadn't five" hundred pence of my own. " ' Oh, a day or two before Christmas,' he said. " ' Very well.' I said. ' You shall have it.' " He stared at me, and my wife looked, too. " ' Why, I never knew you were so well off,' and he sniggered. '-' 'There's ulenty more where that comes from,' I said. " ' By Jove! there is. Then make it a thousand, Geordie,' he said. " ' It's all the same to me.' I answered lightiy as Jhough I ran the bank. • •" You can guess the rest". He got his thousand—thn bank was that short, and I-—well, when I came out she was dead. A son had been born to me. He was dcsid. ft wasi then you might have found w'hnt von're leaking for if you'd found me. I walked about the town. I took train to London. I lost myself in the city. I tiiopt anywhere I could. I never went Inxiie a house. ' She is dead,' I told myself. 'I shall never see her again.' Dwd. and I didn't know of it until six months after it had happened. All my gates were closed. My occupation was gone—my honour, my wife, my child. What cared I for life ! I would open one gate, that cf death, and so to her "I well remember that night when T walked in the Strand, and then on to Waterloo bridge. I was going over it—there was no mistake about it. Talk of misery ! My God. I was miserable. I shall never forget that Christmas. I was ready for my plunjje, when a woman's voice came to me—her vo ; ce. No mistake that it was hers. T knew the tones. ' Geordie. lift up our honour,' she said. ■' Win back the cold and pay the bank.' I shook like a leaf in the breeze. I felt cold as ice, and yet mv heart trammed in my side. 'Geordie, give me this for Christmas Dav,' and T did. I've paid it all back. She's been with me all these years. She's never left me. She's ready for me. Maybe in another Christmas or two, if I'm lucky, we'll both be home." Franks left old Geordie. He worked Greymouth, Hokitika. Westport, and all the West Coast in his Christmas search for the Crimson Daw. I heard of him in London a year ago. He was very busy in the East End, then

in the West. He visited palaces and cots; it was ever the same—always the Crimson Daw eluded him. He came constantly on the blue bird, but never her crimson rival. It was in Scotland, quite close to the hamlet of Ecclefechan, that he met an aged man who told him that he knew of a bird with plumage that, seen in one light, was scarlet, but in another light a beautiful blue, and Franks regards that as a clue. He is following it. He says he will not desist until he can prove his theory that the Crimson Daw and the blue bird arc one. He has collected valuable evidence. His latest is from Browning's Star that "dartles the red and the blue." If a star, why not a bird seen in the Christmas lights?