The Nature Lovers.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIV, Issue 4, 26 January 1910, Page 49

The Nature Lovers.

“T-— ANCBLOT JENKINS was a poet, nbut he was also “half-book” with a man on the Stock Exchange, which was perhaps a fortunate circumstance for Mrs. Lancelot Jenkins, a blue-eyed young lady named Lenore, who had an acquired taste for her husband’s Muse, and a natural one for pretty frocks. But, though up-to-date in the matter of modes, Lenore was old-fashioned enough to make it the first duty of her life to love, honour and obey her husband, and for three years had shared his joys, sorrows, and fads—uxincipally the lat-

ter. for until the events happened here chronicled, fortune had spared them any excess of sensation. They lived in Tooting, and were rather sought after by their set, until Lancelot weighed the social resources eif his suburb and found them wanting, and accompanied by Lenore, turned to culture. For a year they waded through much heavy reading and the study of foreign languages, but Mrs. Jenkins had a nervous breakdown, which suggested physical development as a substitute for mental, and under her husband’s tuition she grey quite efficient with French clubs, until one sad morning a club slipped from her hand and blacked his eye in passing, and she vowed with tears she would never touch them again. However, they still persisted in “deep breathing drill,” and went on the leads every morning before breakfast, and inhaled the odours from the chimneys of their neighbours, who were unfortunately addicted to the sausage habit, alternating with bloaters and bacon. But Lancelot found that, according to a medical weekly, deep breathing was apt to strain the heart, so he dropped the practice and became a Nature Lover, with the admiring and obedient Lenore still in tow. In Throg-morton-street he would suddenly lift his head to study sky effects, while Lenore felt bound to do the same thing in Tooting, so that when he said at dinner in the evening, “Did you see that nun-shaft strike a dun mass of cumulus at 2.55, and change it to molten copper!” she could reply in the affirmative. But one night he came home to find Lenore's straight, little nose cut «nd swollen, where she had run into a lamppost, the result of sky-gazing; •nd as he was getting unpopular in the City by continually leading people to believe, first that there was an airship somewhere about, and next that

he was “having” them, he decided they had better study the heavens in less congested districts. So they took the train out, and went for country tramps; but, unfortunately, the weather was bad, and Lenore caught a chill in consequence of coming home in wet boots, and while she was in bed, Lancelot went by himself to collect botanical specimens to discuss and dissect with her, and got fined twenty shillings and cost for trespassing. “The fact is,” he said bitterly, when reviewing the failure of their various attempts, “the great City is too strong

for us. It twines its tentacles round our reluctant limbs, and brings us back to bricks and mortar like boomerangs.” “Oh, no, dear! We were wet, and my fringe was out of curl, but we din’t look quite as bad as that!” protested Lenore, whose general knowledge was shaky, and who was under the impression a boomerang was a kind of ape. “Nature has many messages for me,” said Lancelot, “but how can I hear them when lam so far away? No wonder my efforts are returned,” and he looked viciously at a bundle of long envelopes on his writing-table. “They haven’t the true ring. Ah, here’s another of them, I expect,” he added, as the postman knocked at the door. But it happened to be a letter for Lenore this time, from a frivolous woman friend, who had married an artist and lived in the country. Lancelot turned away indifferently, till a little cry from his wile recalled him. and she thrust the letter in his hands, and he read as follows: — “Riverview Cottage, near Winterton, Bucks. “Dearest Lenore. — “Are you and Lancelot still nature lovers? If so, perhaps you would like to come down here for a fortnight, and keep the cottage aired for us while we arc in Paris. Otherwise we shall shut it up, so don’t feel you mu=t come to oblige us. It's a decent little place, ■with a river running at the bottom of the paddock, and not another roof to be seen for miles. That is my trouble; the country bores me to tears, and I am only too charmed to exchange its freshness. and cleanliness, and emptiness, for the life and rattie of the gay city. Tell Lancelot he can exercise his Muse undisturbed. except for the nightingales, which I think ought to be shot; they get on my nerves so terribly. The cot-

tage is fairly comfortable, but you will have to bring your maids, as we are giving ours a holiday. “Yours ever, TRIX.” “No,” said Lancelot, with a look of dreary rapture. "Maids would be out of the picture; we’ll give ours a holiday. too.” "Then shall we go?” said Lenore. “I was afraid you might not be able to get away.” “I’ll take a fortnight nt>w, and a week later —there’s nothing doing,” said Lancelot. "We will go l«ck to nature and live like the birds and flowers, and serve our own simple needs.” "Of course,” she assented, “and we can take a lot of tinned things, and it will be a rest to me to get away from the maids for a bit.” Then her face fell. “But what about the Sausage?” she said. "Well take the Sausage with us,” replied her husband, and she ran and kissed him, for a weight was lifted from her heart. The Sausage, a plump and elderly pug, had been her special pet since her thirteenth birthday, ten years ago. When Lancelot proposed to her. it was a ease of "Love me, love my dog,” -and he had obeyed, and was really quite fond .of the affectionate and wheezy little beast. "The river,” rhapsodised Lancelot, “runs at the bottom of the paddock. We will bathe when the sun is hot. and I will teach you to swim in a shadowy pool with mossy banks, and a sandy bed, while the nightingales sing around us and the sunlight dapples the water, through the whispering leaves.” “Yes,” said Lenore. “and I must put some new white braid on my scarlet bathing-dress—and, Lancelot, I shall take nothing but tub frocks to wear, saxe-blue linen ones, to blend with the summer foliage, and a broad pink ribbon for the Sausage, to match the pink-tipped daisies.” Lancelot closed his eyes. “Pink tipped daisies,” he mused, “on velvet sward sloping down to the river, which winds like a blue girdle among the silver lushes.” “And a little thatched cottage in the background,” said Lenore, “all our own for a fortnight!” And, being an imitative animal, she also closed her eyes, and leaning back her pretty head, swayed it from side to side in an ecstasey of anticipation. It wasn't thatched, however—that was the annoying part —neither was it a cottage at all according to their ideas: and they were very disconcerted when, after the short railway journey from London, they found themselves staring disconsolately at a square, solid, eight-roomed house, red-bricked and slate-roofed. And worse was to come, for inside, instead of the red-tiled kitchen ami little dimitytrimmed garret-bedroom they had fondly dreamed of. they found two luxuriously furnished sitting-rooms; white, blue, -and pink bedrooms; bath—hot and cold, elee-

trie fight, and— horror horrors! —!■ telephone in the hall. Lancelot’s lace went white with disappointment. "How shall 1 listen to Nature's voice with these obtrusive trappings of civilisation around me?” he thought. "How shall I keep it all clean?* thought Lenore. to whom, by the way, luxuries were not such bugbears ns she tried to make them. In any case, the gas stove in the kitchen was verv convenient for tea-making, for she was hot and dusty with her journey, and put the kettle on to boil, while l-amelot strode off to find the river and a bathing-pool. "1 can't find just the sort of spot I had pictured.' he said when he returned, "but I've found a pretty decent place, and when you're rested, we'll go and have a dip.” Then he glanced at the teacups; it was twelve o'clock, for they had come by an early train, and, of course, real children of nature ought not to require a pick-me-up at mid-day. Still, •as the weather was very warm and enervating. he made no objection, but refused a cup himself, though as a matter of fact he went into the next room and furtively mixed himself a whisky-and-soda. Refreshed and fueling more appreciative of their surroundings, they went outside into the garden. It was a little too conventional for their taste, being the orthodox square of green surrounded by flower-beds. But a beautiful cedar stood in the middle of the lawn, and gently sloping hills, well wooded, stretched away on either hand. In fact, when Lancelot stood with his back to the cottage and watched Lenore in her saxe-blue tub frock, with the sun shining on her fair h’air, playing under the cedar with the pink-ribboned Sausage, he began to feel the place was not so disappointing after all. But an ode to a river nymph had begun to spout in his brain, and he was anxious to get down to the water again, to collect local colour; and Iral fan hour later, in a striped stockinette confection, lie led Lenore. dainty and excited in her scarlet bathing-dress, across the paddock, followed by the Sausage, who sniffed the air suspiciously, as was natural in a dqg used to asphalt pavements all his life. "The river” was, conversely, as much a misnomer as “the cottage." for Lancelot could easily have jumped it in parts, if he had been an athlete instead of a poet, and it appeared only a few inches deep, for the muddy bottom could be plainly seen. But counselling patience to the disgusted Lenore, Lancelot led her farther on to a pool where the stream widened, and the banks grew steeper and the bottom was quite invisible. Then with grim, resolute face he stood on the bank and threw up his arms. "Don't dive,’ cried Lenore; “jump in, it's safer.” “No,” he said, “I must dive. I've got tin idea for a poem in which a shepherd plunges in the river and finds a naiad at the bottom, and I want to get local colour.” He did. and came up well plastered with it. Fortunately, he went in tbit, or

he would have broken his neck on the bottom. As it was, he got a nasty jar, <o judge from the frog-like expression €>n his romantic countenance, when he reappeared with long tangles of weed adhering to his hair and person. 1 ‘‘Come along, dear!” he gasped, wading to the scarlet-clad nahid on the hank and holding out his hand; catch hold •nd jump.” But Lenore drew back. and. shrinking from dredging operations of a personally character, she decided in favour of the shallows lower down, where the rolled religiously about among the weedy pebbles till she was wet all over. •Tin? bathe, in fact, was not an overwhelm. Qng success, but they really felt children of nature, as they ran back to the cottage through the hot sunlight, while the Sausage, relieved that their apparent attempts at suicide had failed, barked joyously at their heels. Another bath indoors was necessary, however, to cleanse the mud stains from their persons, and it was two o’clock before they sat down to lunch, and never had they enjoyed tinned food so much. *T don’t think 1 shall write my naiad poem at present.’’ said Lancelot. “I think I shall make her a dryad instead—• a woodland epic. We will go now into the woods and stay till night Pall.” ‘How lovely!” said Lenore. “I’ll get my hat.” •*Vour what?” exclaimed the poet. “A hat! ” ‘•Well, it looks inclined to rain, dear,” •aid Lenore. ‘and the damp takes my fringe out of curl.” “Oh. fetch it by all means.” he said coldly, ’’and bring *a sunshade, too.” Shamed by his scorn. Lenore brought neither, and tin* clouds, both celestial and domestic, soon passed, though a column of foul - smelling blue smoke appeared on the road before them when they started for their ramble, and round the corner they came in sight of a long line of vans of Jjamb’s Travelling ( ircus,” and saw tliat a closed van had come to grief and was being painfully extricated from the ditch by a puffing traction-engine. Disgusted at the foul fumes and language that was Foiling the rural scene, the nature lovers •crumbled up the bank, ami plunged into /the wood, ami rambled blissfully until ’4.30. when a dreadful craving tor tea attacked them both so insistently that they retraced their steps in order to satisfy it. “Of course, after a day or so,” said f Lancelot. “ we shall get out of these town-bred habits, and go from breakfast nt seven te dinner at three, and from then to a light repast after sundown, Cheerfully and with comfort.” Leonore looked a little doubtful, and troubled, but did not contradict him. “ And we will sleep.” he continued, with the rapt and dreamy expression she love*! to see in his eyes—“ we will sleep wider the cedar tree in the garden, our

roof the dome of heaven, and our lamp the silver mcon.” “You don’t mean it!’’ ejaculated Leflore. “Yes, I do,” he replied: “and while I think of it,” I’ll go down and get those two eamp bedsteads down and put them up under the tree. Shall we know Nature in her day-gown alone, and never see her in her dusky, star-spangled robe of night? As a matter of fact, I’ve got an idea for a lyrle to that effect, and the words will come naturally to my brain when we are alone with the stars.” Lenore was not in sympathy with the idea. She said it was a pity to spoil the whole holiday by getting an influenza eol<} at the start, and well she knew that when a cold entered Lancelot’s system, all the poetry went out of it. But his mind was made up. and so were the beds, and at 9.30 the nature lovers were in occupation of them, and lay silently gazing up at the “ blue vault of heaven,” though the “silver lamp” was not timed to appear for an hour or two The Sausage lay on a small rug betw. hem, and a very disgusted Sausage he »as at the turn events had taken, though he preferred company i n the open to loneliness under a strange roof. All was still and sombre and mysterious. “ Are you asleep?” said Lenore. “Asleep? No," replied Lancelot. “I’m drunk with beauty.” “Oh,” she said, "because I'm perfectly certain a large insect has just dropped on ray died from the tree. I wish you’d strike a match.” “ Oh. it won’t hurt you.” said Lancelot. “ It’s only a wood-louse. They don’t sting." Leonore gave a little shuddering shriek, and the .Sausage barked in sympathy. “ o>h, but I do loathe wood-lice,” she whined. “ Oh. my dear girl.” the poet ejaculated, "do control yourself, and try to get more in harmony with calm, brooding night. I don't believe you love nature at all.” “ Oh. yes. I do,” she cried eagerly; “ but I hate insects, and I can’t get in harmony with anything while they keep dropping on me.” “ Well, they keep dropping on me, too.” retorted Lancelot testily, “and I don’t make such a fuss. It’s sacrilege to break the stillness, not to menion my train of thought, with such puny complaints.” Lenore shut her eyes tight and snuggled down under her bedclothes, of which each had a plentiful supply, including a down counterpane. Silence reigned for several minutes; then with a noisy dapping and melancholy hoot, a large white owl floated over their heads. Ix>nore moaned. “Oih, larncelot,” <she whispered, “I don't like it. It frightens me!” “What frightens you?” said I-ancelot, in n chilly, long-suffering voice. “ The dreadful weirdness of it all.”

“ Lenore,’’ he said, sternly. “ I’m surprised at you. You are no more in touch with Nature than the Sausage. You have been deceiving me.” “ No, I haven’t dear,” she replied, re morsefully. “ I won’t be so foolish. I won’t disturb you again.” But as she spoke a loud roar reverberated through the hush of the night, and, with an uncontrollable shriek, Lenore Hew to her husband's side. “What is it? What is it?” she cried, clutching him. “What’s what?” he replied imperturbably. “That dreadful roar!” “I heard an old cow in the meadow, if that’s what you mean.” “Oh, it didn’t sound like a cow; it sounded just like feeding time at the Zoo. Lancelot. I believe it was a lion.” Lancelot got up on his elbow, and disengagegd himself from her clutch. "If you think it is a lion,” he said roughly. “ for heaven’s sake go indoors and stop there. I must really beg you not to spoil my rest and enjoyment like this.” He had never spoken roughly to her before, and she roce with dignity. “ I do not wish to spoil your enjoyment,” she said, “and I will certainly go in.” She walked across the lawn with a haughty demeanour, for her heart was hot with anger—not so hot, however, but she sent back the Sausage, who followed her. to return to the cedar tree, to afford what protection he could to her cruel husband through the unknown dangers of the night. Then she went to bed in the blue bedroom, but before she cried herself to asleep, she consigned the two outsiders into the hands of Providence. After communing with nature for about three-quarters of an hour, Lancelot also dropped off. and was awakened from his first sleep by the vague consciousness that there was something the matter with the Sausage. The moon was up and very bright, and over the rail at the foot of his bed he could see that the plump little pug was walking restlessly to and fro, sniffing the air in great agitation and trembling violently. “Lie down, Sausage!" he exclaimed fiercely. “ I wish to goodness you would go into the house, too. counfound you!”

Before his appreciative eyes the country - side lay bathed in a silvery - grey haze of moonlight. He could see the dim outline of the opposite hill and the white streak of the high road winding up it, and he eould distinctly hear the soft gurgle of the river over the ford at the bottom of the paddock. But another sound, that did not connect itself with the murmuring water, arrested his attention—a rhythmic “swish, swish,” as if some large body w-as pushing its way through the cornfield. •'lt’s that wretched cow got in the corn,” he said to himself, and turned

over to look in the direction of th* sound. The swishing ceased, and the next moment a large animal leaped over the garden paling and stood on the grey, moonlit lawn. At first he thought it was a donkey with some curious growth on its head, but next moment, as it moved, its shape was silhouetted against the large circle of the rising moon, and he saw it was a lion. “Thank heaven!" was liis first mental ejaculation, and his gratitude was not prompted by the visit of the king of beasts, but because his wife was safe indoors. Then, without the slightest hesitation or even thought, he sprang from his bed, and though he had never done any tree-climbing even as a boy. he ran up that cedar tree like a monkey, and clung convulsively to the topmost branches, attired in a picturesque pair of pink-and-lavender-striped pyjamas. “Thank heaven!” he said again, and this time it was because, after -a rapid survey of his stock of natural history, he remembered that lions do not climb trees. The lion, in fact, seemed to take small interest in his proceedings, for it lurched off to the thick bushes near the gate and disappeared. Lancelot saw the bushes shake mysteriously, but heard no sound, but that was not surprising, for the thumping of his heart and the tumultuous drumming of his pulses deafened him. The branches of the cedar tree were hard and unsympathetic to hi? lightly-clad form, yet far from being cold, the perspiration poured off him, though cold shivers went up his backbone as the bushes parted, and. with a dignified and deliberate gait, the lion slouched across the moonlit lawn again and approached the beds. He sniffed curiously at Lancelot’s hastily vacated couch, then, jumping upon it, began luxuriously treading up and down on the down counterpane with the kneading -action of a cat on a cushion. Then, while Lancelot stared at him, with distended eyes and parted lips, through which the breath came sharp and short, the lion sank slowly down on the bed—dropped his great maned head between his huge paws, and went to sleep. Meanwhile, snug and safe in the bltre room, Lenore slumbered on, unconscious

of the peril outside, though her dreams were decidedly troubled. She dreamt that she was bathing tn a pie-dish on the lawn, and that Lancelot was calling her unutterable things because she would not duck her head right under. Then the pie-dish changed quite naturally to a swimming-bath, and Lancelot ordered her to dive in from the top board. Lenore had never dived before, but such was her husband’s influence, even in dreams, that she obediently threw up her arms and sprang off, only to find when she was in mid-air that there was only half an inch of water in the bottom of the bath, and she was dashing head-

first to destruction. Just at the moment, however, when her head touched the tile**, she awoke, to find it was broad daylight, and that she was alone in a strange room and in a strange bed. The mists of sleep cleared, and she remembered who and where she was. and with a big stretch and one or two sleepy yawns, went across to the window to see how her husband had fared. A heavy dew had fallen, and the lawn, sparkling with diamonds, stretched away from beneath her window to the big cedar tree. Iler own bed was empty and tumbled as she had left it, but what -—what —WHAT was that awful shape Btretched upon Lancelot’s? Lenore neither shrieked nor fainted, she just clung to the. window-sill and stood as if turned to marble with her protruding blue eyes fixed on the recumbent figure of the lion, and her heart grew cold as a. stone, as she realised that her husband was dead, devoured, while she, who had basely deserted him, had been sleeping in security within a few yards of the awful tragedy. Then she gave a great cry, and would have dropped in a dead faint had not her closing eye caught a glimpse of a pink-and-lavender arm waving stiffly to ther from the top of the cedar. He lived, and with a sudden revulsion of feeling, Lenore uttered a peal of laughter, and for the next twenty minutes gave way to a fit of violent hysterics. But even the most genuine hysterics are apt to languish for lack of human sympathy, and Ignore wiped her eyes, and pressing her clasped hands to her throldnng bosom, returned to the window, hoping

and half believing she had been the victim of some horrid nightmare. But no, there lay the same scene stretched before her—the softly-wooded country all round, the high road winding up the nearest hill, the glint of sun on the river below the paddock, the dew-spangled lawn of the country garden—the figure an pyjamas in the cedar tree, and the lion luxuriously stretched on the bed beneath it. What could she do? She avas distracted. Her dear Lancelot, numbed and cramped, might, at any moment come crashing through the branches —and then! It was unthinkable, and she groaned aloud in her helpless anguish. All of a sudden an inspiration came to her—the telephone in the hall- that ‘‘obtrusive trapping of civilisation!” She •flew downstairs ami seized the telephone book and rang up Winterton Police Station. ‘‘Hullo! Hullo! Who are you?" came the voice the other end. “I’m Riverview Cottage,** wailed Lenore. “Oh, send help at once. There’s a lion in the garden, and it’s nearly eaten my husband.'-

The official evidently turned away to a companion, for she heard disjointed bits of conversation: “Lamb's Vireus lion"—•"accident to cage yesterday-door worked loose”,—“Riverside Cottage —ring up Lamb." “Yes, yes, madam," the official voice continued, turning to the mouthpiece again, “that will be all right—we’ll send immediately." “Oh, but make haste,” cried Lenore. “What shall I do? My husband is up the tree. He’s been there all night.” “Tell him to stay where he is," said the soothing voice. “The lion has escaped from a travelling menagerie. • I must ring up the proprietor and tell him to remove the animal. Good-morning.” The next hour was an eternity to Lenore, not to mention Lancelot. Her whole intelligence seemed reduced to three words. “Hold on tight!" and his to two, “Stop inside.” Yet there was also a question at the heart of both, that remained unspoken until Mr. Lamb, three negroes, and two cow-boys had gingerly approached and successfully lassoed the lion, and hauled the half-strangled beast! back into his cage, until, in fact, Lancelot, scrambling down, practically fell into his wife’s outstretchde arms. Then. when, the first ecstatic embrace was accomplished, they met each other’s eyes, and said in unison, “Where's the Sausage?" Where, indeed? Sadly they searched the garden, and found in the bushes by the gate where the lion had been busy during the first part of his visit, not the Sausage, but all that was left of him, the broad pink ribbon and silver bell wrenched from his silky, if shapeless, neck.

With these last sad relics in her handbag, 1-enore returned to town next day with her husband, positively refusing to stay longer in a place so full of horrors. Site diil not reproach Lancelot, but he knew, and he felt she knew, that in a sense his open-air sleeping had been the cause of the disaster. Bis long night’s vigil had made him a less self-confident and more biddable man, and like Lenore, he felt a positive repugnance to the unprotected countryside, and a relief at the proximity of bricks and mortar. It was nightfall when they stood at the door of their villa in Tooting, and Lancelot was finding the key-hole with his latch-key, when he stumbled over a bundle of something on the step. His nerves were in ribbons, and he swore the only oath he had over uttered in his wife’s presence. But she never heeded it, for with a wheezy yelp, lialf pain, half pleasure, the bundle leapt into her It was Sausage! Frightened out of his small wits by the appearance of the lion—which happily for him was already gorged with half a sheep—the Sausage had run all the way home.

“The faithful angel,” ejaculated Lenore, with happy tears, forgetful of the fact that he had left her and Lancelot to their fate. "We’ll finish our holiday at Brighton,” said Lancelot, as they- sat after dinner and listened gloatingly to the switching of the electric tram wires and the ceaseless roll of traffic on the high-road, “and we’ll stay at the Metropole,” he added. “Yes,” assented Lenore, “there’ll be no nature at Brighton, thank goodness.** She spoke boldly and he did not reprove her. “Except the sea,” he said. An apprehensive frown crossed Lenore’s face. “I’d forgotten that,” she said; “well, I shan’t let either of you oiit of my sight for a moment.” “In ease the sCa serpent might come and eat us?” laughed Lancelot. “Oh, don’t',” said Iris wife, “how can you joke about such things, for you never know w hat may happen.” And. judging from recent experience, Lancelot was inclined to agree with her.