Mr. Martindale’s Heron.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVIII, Issue 21, 20 November 1912, Page 51

Mr. Martindale’s Heron.

By

EDWARD CECIL.

eN one of the famous thoroughfares of London there lives to-day a man who spends his life stuffing birds, lie has long since handed over the animals to a younger pair of hands. But he cannot give up work. For work has become a habit with him, partly because he is that sort of man, and partly because, like many another, he has had his troubles to bury. So he still keeps for himself the lighter work—the birds. Probably when David "Miall dies his little old fashioned shop will disappear. People will send their birds and animals elsewhere to be stuffed. The big stores, doubtless, have their skilled taxidermists and people who now employ Miall, and: whose fathers very likely employed him also will get used in time to receiving typewritten letters signed by managing directors, thanking them for their vainest custom, in plate of the short notes or postcards in a crabbed handwriting, very difficult to decipher, which .Miall now sends his customers. To describe him quickly one must use a method of caricature. On a shelf near the big north window beneath which is the table at which he works, at the corner of the shelf,, catching the light, stands anil has stood for many years Miall’s companion in many solitary working bourse —a singularly hu-man-looking monkey. Once a woman's pet, it had come to Miall for preservation. But the owner dying before the commission was executed, the stuffed animal had remained in Miall’s possession. It stood there, with its wrinkled, wizened face, its oddly peering eyes, its thin, delicate miniature hands, and its stooping shoulders, a strange caricature of a human being in old age, and Miall often looked at it and reflected that he had never stuffed anything better. Did he ever reflect that had it been clothed, it would have resembled the man who had preserved it?' Yet, strange as it may seem to say so, for ten years, from the sixtieth 'to the seventieth’j-ear of his life, Miall had been growing more and more like it. lie had dried lip. Some men do. They seem to shrink within themselves. Their flesh diminishes ami their skin grows loose and wrinkles. It was thus with Miall. Always a small man, he grew smaller. His eyes became peering as his sight slowly failed. Aet they were, left the most living part of his face. His delicate, hands al-o grew very thin. Then the stoop of his shoulders increased, and the stuffed tiling on the shelf was just a caricature of the old man, who. hour after hour, worked in the clear light from the large north window at the big table covered with its litter of knives and scalpels, scissors and pliers, paint-pots and var-nish-pots,' skins and feathers. Thus it will be seen what manner of man Miall was in appearance. There is one qualification to make. It has been said that for ten years he had been growing more and more like that strange human ape of his. That is not so any longer. The peering, restless look has now receded from his face, to make room for something better. Happiness and repose have crept into it. It is a different face—the face of a different man. A change came over Miall’s life in that seventieth year of his age. Since then ho has become more human, less “dried up’’ in mind and body. Two things remain to bo told about him, before Mr. Martindale is introduced. The first testifies to the man’s absorption iii his Work. Once every month he took a day’s holiday. He went somewhere in the country to watch birds. He always considered his work needed this. Certainly his stuffed birds were more and more life-like as his knowledge “f bird-life increased. He soon ceased io he merely a taxidermist. He learned

from actual observation the habits, the nests, the life histories of birds. You see, he had no home life, no boon companions, no demands on his time, no *>' hemes for the future. His work had to be made to fill his life and occupy his thoughts. Otherwise, perhaps, thoughts best buried might arise. So he expanded his work with first-hand study of Nature. The other thing which must be told because it explains so much is this. -Miall was definitely a religious man.

He is still. But not in the same way. On Sundays, twice a day, it was his regular habit to put on a black frock-coat and go out to his place of worship. This much may be said about the sect to which Miall belonged: it has pretty strict old-fashioned views of right and wrong. It does not favour compromises and excuses. It does not try to make the unpalatable palatable. It draws its lines clear and strong, and it makes men and women rather hard. But it does give them something definite, and it must be admitted that they go to that church and sing and pray as if they meant what they were saying, despite the fact that they and their wives have got rather out of fashion. And if it be said that a hard religion is without comfort, how is it that Sunday by Sunday Miall drew comfort from his public worship? He certainly did. We come to the evening of an April day in that year in which Miall was seventy. It was, indeed, the day on which be reached three score years and ten. But. throusii living much alone, he

had forgotten that it was his birthday. All the same, that evening David Miall was in a sort of twitter of excitement. He was 'expecting a visitor. All that April day he had been looking forward to that visit “at about six o'clock.” The note he had received put it like that, a little vaguely. “Why could lie not have said six?’ Miall had reflected. "I should not have expected him to be punctual to the minute. I don’t go out much.” The note was written on-the notepaper of the Travellers’ Hotel, and it was signed “Henry Martindale. Mr. Martindale had been an exceedingly good customer for some years. That evening a box stood beside the worktable, and on it Miall had written in chalk, "Mr. Martindale's Heron.” That heron was the cause of the visit. “A trifle eccentric ami fussy, this Martindale,” thought Miall us he made spasmodic efforts to tidy his room. "As if I had never nunle n fire-screen of a heron before! Why, one might almost

say that it is what a heron is made for, from my point of view, just as an owl naturally makes a fan!” He smiled at his own humour. It seemed as if the old man was well pleased with himself that evening. What had made him so? Could it have been the prospect of seeing for the first time this Martindale, whom hitherto lie bail only known through the post? Hardly that. His cheques had been enough to see, and they had always eorne promptly. Surely, however, there was quite a simple explanation for that sense of satisfaction which the old man felt? He was going to have a visitor, possibly a visitor who would take an interest in his work and stay for an hour or so and talk. That was all. For one evening his loneliness was going to be broken. Punctually at six, a pleasant surprise after that vagueness about the time, Martindale came. Miall’s first impression of him was unfavourable. He had hoped for a man like himself, a man earcless about his clothes, a man with the appearance of a student, the sort of man who might be summed up. as to his appearance, as “untidy but interesting.” Instead of this, Martindale was well dressed and well groomed. He wore a silk hat and a black overcoat with a velvet collar. Beneath this there proved to be a fashionably ent morning-coat. There was a sort of West-end air about him. and, though the man

seemed to be in the second decade of middle age-—although it tinned out afterwards that be looked older than he was —bis beard and moustache wore very carefully trfmmed. His manner also, Alia-Il thought, was rather unnecessarily polite. “I want to make quite sure, Mr Miall,”- he explain 'd, taking off his overcoat. 'at .Miall’s request, as there was a good lire burning and the room was warm—“l want to make quite sure that the lire screen in done exactly as I want it,” ...... “Yours is quite an ordinary commission,” said Miall. “A heron naturally.makes a fire-screen, just as an owl makes a fan. I have done a. score of su<'li within —well, recent years?” "And perhaps a hundred, Mr Miall, in vour linn'?” It was >aid wry pleasantly — a tribute, in tin* way it was said, to lifelong work, The «»ld man, scnhitive enough as well utf bhrtwd, wan pleased.

“Yes,” lie said; “I’ve stuffed birds and animals fur fifty years. But now only birds.” Mr Martindale seemed very interests! in the taxidermist. Striving not to show it. he was taking stock of him carefully. “I am' glad to meet you. Mr Miall. The work you have dune for me has been splendid. Everyone says it is life-like. But I want this heron of mine done in rather a special way*, like one 1 have seen. That’s why I'm here.*’ “Yes?” “And I want the shade of grey in the plumage of the bird very carefully graded in the screen. I have tried to draw what 1 mean-” He took a jurper from his porket-liook and Miall inspected it. It proved to is* a rough sketch of the conventional heron fire-screen. The old man checked his smile and entered into the spirit of the thing. “What you want Mr Martindale,'* he said, “is the usual thing, only better. For instance, the wing feathers of a heron go from nearly b!a< k in the long ones to pear! grey in the short ones. Von do not want a black feather put against a light-grey one. Yon want them graded skilfully.” “Exactly. Yet I don't want it to appear still’ and formal.’’ Thus for a time they discussed the matter. It did not seem that Mr Martindale was in a hurry. When the nominal object of his visit was exhausted he looked round the. room with interest. “S<i you have been stulling birds all your lift*. Mr Miall Y” “Yes; birds ami animals.*’ “T am glad to have had this talk about the lire-s« re<*n. It is better than writing, eh?” Thus thev slipped into natural easy talk. And easily enough Miall became communicative about himself. 1.1 o fetched a bottle of whisky and two glasses from -a cupboard in the corner of the room“It is kind of you. sir. to stay and talk to an old man.” he said. Martindale turned his face away lest it should betray him. and poked the fire. “It is very interesting.’’ he said, lamely. It was soon evident that the old taxidermist was very lonely. Also that he had not been very lucky in life. His wife had died young. His son had not done well in the world. I hose were the two gaunt fads which wen' the keynotes to a lif«* which Martindale quickly saw contained memories best buried. “You lead a. lonely life. Mr Miall? said. Martindale, renewing the talk after a pause. “Yes; but it .has compensations. It has few expenses. ami that is a great thing with rates and taxes going up and up ami up.” “I know. Living is get l ing dearer daily.*’ “And tlie fashion for stnlled birds and animals going down’and down and down. Why. ome, sir. it was the natural thing for anvone who lost a pet to employ a taxidermist. N T ow it is the exception.” x “|)o you keep more than the one assistant who does the animals?*’ “Not regularly- \«»u sec. I work long hours. 1 like to be kept busy.” “A little judicious advertising would help you,’’ Martindale suggested. ‘ All sorts‘of jieoplo take to the country life nowadays, and country houses generally have their stalled birds sooner or later.” Miall shook his head. “I have enough to go on with,” he said. *‘A few good customers, such as you. Mr Martindale, keep me going.' “But you don’t .want to lei the business* languish for want of a little enterprise.” - “I have no one to •ome after me,” said Miall. These words startled Martindale. They were said as if the old man had a great regret hidden away in his heart, even though it might be something which had to be accepted. He said 1 hem mu* h as an Arab might say “ Kismet. Martindale di«l not. hear them nn moved. “Isn’t it rather risky. Mr Miall, your living here alone? You might Is* taken ill. I suppose you feel < ! age c reeping on ?” Miall looked at. him sharply and yejy keenly. “That is a curious question to ask me, Mr Martindale,’' ho said, rather stilly, idler his previous easy discussion id his work nnd life “a curioualj intimate sort of question.”

Five mimiteji later the easy, pleasant talk between <4d David Miall and his had given place to a feeling of constraint, which both felt. Miall was bow snspicious- Wlm> was this Martin - dale? Why did lie evince such an intimate interest in his welfare* What !Was the real object of his visit* Was the making of the tire-screen the true reason of his coming, and the doubt about its toeing so purely imaginary*

On his side Martindale had come to the moment for making the true object of his visit known. Should hr bluntly disclose it. or. profiting by what he had already learnt, should he merely bring the talk to an end in a natural way. and let things remain as they wore? It had grown late now —eight o’clock. The quietness uf evening had become perceptible. Occasionally the rumble of traffic along the big thoroughfare penetrated to that back room, but otherwise there was little sound of the noisy, active jvorld outside. A church bell near at ’lhand had rung for five minutes and then stopped. The assistant had knocked at the door, opened it, announced that lie had closed the shop, and, putting the key of the shop-door on its nail in the wall by the door, had gone home. iSo Miall and his visitor were quite alone, without, fear of being disturbed. ’And still Martindale hesitated. He jvas a little afraid. He had no definite ground for expecting that he would he successful. Better to sav nothiiu* than fail.

After a few minutes, however, without preamble. he slipped a ring oft' the little finger of his left- hand and handed it across to Miall. ‘‘Have you seen that ring before?’’ he lasked. 3The ohl man got up ami went to the gas. He adjusted his spectacles and examined the riug. He must have recognised it long before he admitted .'doing so. ’“Yes,” ho said, at last. c< lt belonged to my-wife. and she gave it to my son. The name in it is the name of her father, Ihe hair is his hair, and the date that of his death. How did it come into your possession. Air Martindale?” was given t« me.” ■' <f .By my son, I suppose. In what Jcircumstances? Do you bring me the news that he is dead?” ‘‘No, 1 do not bring you that news. It was not given to me by your son, but by my mother.” ‘ do not understand you. Mr Martin’dalc.” said Miall, trembling. ‘‘Please be inorc explicit.” g "It is quite simple. T am not Henry /Martindale. That is the name I have qgone under for twenty years. My name is Robert Miall.” yMTIio obi taxidermist took a step nearer, f “Yes,” he said, at length; ‘T see it now. I might have suspected, but I didn’t. 1 don’t doubt you. 1 know you now.” did not show any plea sue. VThew, after m time, he smiled. ' z His son, knowing that, though reoog-

<Y>n Sundays. twice a day. it Hit /Tjpilar habit to put on o black frock MM>< and yo out to hit place of worship.’’

nized, he was not going to have an easy path towards forgiveness, it" lie were going to be forgiven at all. challenged that smile. “’What amuses you in my appearance, father?” he asked. “Nothing. You are most fashionably and correctly dressed. I was only wondering whether your convict's clothes fitted you a. Hell as those you are now wearing.” It was most cruelly spoken. Robert Miall flushed. Yet it is easily possible to understand why old David Miall spoke so bitterly. His life, taken as a whole, had not lieou successful in securing happiness. Maybe he himself was to blame. But not entirely. The death of his wife was something lie had taken very hardly. The disgrace bis son had brought upon him had struck him a further blow. He had suffered himself under it and had written his son off as dead, fortifying himself by the hard self-righteousness which lie culled from his religion, and had decided that whether that son of his still lived or not he. David Miall. was childless. And now that son. an ex-convict, stood before him. “Ah,” he said. “I think I understand the glossy silk hat, the West-end elotlies, and the gold cigarette-case. You want to feci quite sure that you have got away

from the past. Your clothes give you a sense of security, don't they? Sometimes, perhaps, something reminds you of what you once were. You look at yourself in the glass, perhaps, or you pull out your gold cigarette-ease, and then you feel at once that the other thing is quite safely, buried. Isn’t it so?” It was an extraordinary shrewd piece of observation on the old man's part, and it went home. But Robert Miall had not expected an easy task. He had not forgotten what kind of man his fat hew was. “Whether what you say is true or not,” he said quietly. “I hope you will hear what 1 have got to sav.” The old man had expected a different sort of answer. a sudden flash of anger or, at least, a quick denial. He saw. however, that his son did not trouble to quarrel over words, bitter or inaccurate though they might be. And he was impressed. “Yea,” he said. “I will listen to you if afterwards you will listen to what 1 have to say.”

Robert Miall's story of himself, which was obviously true in detail as well in in substance, took a little time in the telling. Jt was the story of a man who had redeemed a mistake successfully. When n young man of twenty-four, lie had embezzled some money. He had been found out, and was tried and sen-

tenced to three years’ penal servitude. Wheu he got out of prison he was told that one hundred pounds was his if he consented never to see his father again. He had given that promise and emigrated with his capital. The rest of the story could ’be told in three words —he had prospered. But he had done more. He had learnt a lesson when in prison. He ■had lived the twenty years of his lilierty since his release iu absolute rectitude. And that night he was a man of character and moral strength as well as a man of means. When the story of his life had been rapidly told, he explained why he had sent so many birds and animals to be stuffed.

“I wanted to help you, and to pay you liaek the hundred pounds.” he said. "I thought you might be needing it, but would not take it if I sent it you in so much hard Cash. That is why 1 made myself just a good customer to you. under the name I have gone by in my new life. Then, after a time. I could not resist a certain longing to see you, and I arranged to-night's visit under the excuse of the fire-screen. I wanted to find out how it was with you. how you were, and I wanted also to find out something about myself. I did not know whether I should want to disclose my identity when I saw you. I wanted to be able to go away again if I found 1 did not want to reveal my identity. I felt that I might not feel enough af-

fection to care whether you forgave me or not. Well, 1 have found out that I do care. That is why I have told you who 1 am.” There wa-s silenee between them when Robert Miall had told his story. “And you are comfortably off?” asked his father at last. “Yes, rieh.” The old man nodded. “And you thought you would like to bribe me to forgive you for disgracing me?” “No. I thought I was in a position to help you if you needed help." “Of course, that is your way of puting it.” “No. It is quite a different thing.” The old taxidermist shrugged his shoulders. “I am too ohi to argue,” he said. ‘‘Yes. You are seventy to-day." He started. He had not remembered his birthday. Hut. of course, it was so, the sixteenth of April. “You see I remember.” his son remarked. understanding that only he had dose so. “Yea. What of tbt?”. “You are not quite alone in the world.” “But after all, you haven't really changed,” said old Miall, pursuing his own line of thought; “you are just the same in essentials as you were when you disgraced me. Why couldn't you have come to me honestly? You hare

got to know what I think and feel by a dodge, a sharp but inexcusable dodge. All that nonsense about your heron, what was it but a tissue of lies with a mean motive? You embezzled money to get rieh in a hurry when you were a young man, and now, when you are middle-aged, you make tip this deceit! Why, you are just the same as ever. I can’t forgive you. Wrong is wrong, and no amount of sentiment will make it right. You disgraced me years ago. Now you have played me a trick.”

The obstinate old man, who for years had been telling himself over and over again that he was quite right in considering himself childless, even if his son were alive in some hole or corner on the earth's surface, was simply telling himself now the same old story. His thin, old hands clenched as his anger rose. He was merely justifying himself, and twisting the plain common sense of the position into an absurd distortion of the truth. The younger man saw this and waited. He had still an argument to bring to bear. It was a little later when Robert Miall took out from his poeket-liook. a halfsheet of note-paper, folded, worn at the folds, and yellowed by age. He handed it to his father. “Do you recognise your handwriting?” he asked. How it all flooded back, swamping old Miall's thoughts with the waters of recollection! Forty-five years ago! London was very different then. There were many small shops in the great thorough fare then, not only Miall’s as now, left as a relic of former days, squeezed in between a draper's palatial shop to the right, a handsome emporium to the left, and stared at from across the road by a stationer's and fancy goods establishment which had three separate entrances. Forty-five years ago it was all very different, and young David 'Miall had just inherited the shop from his father and started business. Also he had been married more than a year, for men married earlier in those days than they do now, and were perhaps the happier. David Miall had married when lie was twenty-three. And out of that now distant time, on that April night of his seventieth birthday, there was one episode brought up vividly to old David Miall’s memory. How well he remembered the scene now it was recalled! How well he remembered writing what was written on that half-sheet of paper now again iu his hand! How well he remembered laughing as he wrote it! “Never mind,” said his girl-wife: “it will do no harm.” It had all hapened in that very room. It was their living-room then. The work had 'been done in those days at the back of the shop and in the shed in the yard. ' It had all hapened in that very room, was a bassinette by the side of the fire. Young Mrs. Miall had a foot resting lightly on one of the rockers. She was carefully stitching round the buttonholes of some tiny article of clothing. 'And in the bassinette their little 'boy, just a year old, was sleeping. “Write it down, David.” she said. “I know what you are. Then 1 shall have it in writing.” He had treated it as a joke. "Haven't I promised?" he asked. “Isn't that good enough?” But she. in earnest, had insisted. “No; let me have in writing. Thea I can keep you to it." How pretty she bad looked there in the lamplight, its glow! on the rounded profile of her face, the young mother tenderly anxious about her little son! •So to please her he had written it down; and now, after forty-five years, he read it again. How the scene lived! How the atmosphere of those old days returned! How curious that his girl-wife had divined so accurately the hard strain in his character, and taken, in such an unusual, girlish way, her precautions for that litlc son of hers who, though all that was mercifully hidden from her and. indeed, never known by her, was io become a convict! “I, David Miall,” ran the yellowed writing, “do hereby faithfully promise that if ever my son Robert Miall does serious wrong, I will forgive him the first time. Signed by nie thia Oth day of February, 1005. David Miall. Witness, Emil/ Miall."

Ko ran the paper. And. after he had signed it, she had pul down her Work, elapsed her arms round Ilia neck, and kissed him. "You will be kind to him, won't JMMb

Dave?’’ she had said. “He is sueh a dear little boy.” Just a young mother's usual fear in tliose days when, it must lie admitted fathers were perhaps, as a rule, harsher than they are to-day. "There you have it in writing,” he had said. She had taken the paper, folded, it, keep it, and, perhaps, given it to her son when she gave him his grandfather's memorial ring. "Oh, but this is fantastic,” grumbled old David Miall now, as he brushed his reverie away and fidgeted with the folded paper, before handing it back. “I had forgotten about this. It is the sort of thing a woman persuades a man to do, and he does it to please her. It is not to be taken seriously and used against his better judgment. “A lot of things women do are ‘fantastic,’ ” said Robert, quietly. "But sometimes they turn out to be good.” "Yes.” "At any rate, I hold you to your bond.” The old man looked up sharply. Was his son really serious? It seemed that he was. What a silly business it was, and yet how shrewdly it eut down into certain well-cherished memories! Yes, well-eherished, but his, and his only. He smiled incredulously. "But I did forgive you, many times, when you were a boy,” objected the old man. “ ‘Serious wrong’ is what the paper says,” his son replied. "Well, it was ‘serious wrong,’ I grant you that.” "Then I claim forgiveness.” "What if I can’t give it? A man.ean’t forgive to order!” "Ko. But you ean forgive me. Yon ean see plainly enough, if you wipe the prejudice from your eyes, that I deserve forgiveness. And you are too old and lonely not to accept my affection —and make sure of it. Think how I have shown that I have thought of you in my prosperity.” Old David Miall had no answer ready. “Are you so rich that yon think you can even buy my forgiveness?” he asked, at last. "Xo. It must be given. And I believe it will be given. If not to night, sooner or later.” He got up and put on his overcoat. He drew on his gloves, took up his hat, and smoothed the nap. "Aren’t you going to let me out?” he asked. But old Miall, gazing into the fire, had fallen again into his reverie. Once again he saw the bassinette beside that hearth, his wife sewing in the lamplight, himself in the act of writing that promise of his to forgive their litle son his first serious fault. Once again it was 1665 and not 1910: once again life was in front of him. not behind him. In the silence a church clock struck eleven. "Aren’t you going to let me out?” Robert asked. “It is getting late.” But immediately he had spoken he stepped forward. He saw a change in his father. The old man was trembling. There was a tear on his wrinkled cheek. "Xever mind,” he said. "I am an old man. Don’t go.” “I don’t want to go,” said his son, unsteadily. And from that moment dates David Miall’s new attitude towards life. He, is to-day a man whose thoughts are happy and contented.