“What are you panickin’ at?” said
Hinchcliffe. “I’ve been seein’
zebra for the last two minutes, but I ’aven’t
complained.”
He pointed behind us, and I beheld a superb painted
zebra (Burchell’s, I think), following our track
with palpitating nostrils. The car stopped, and
it fled away.
There was a little pond in front of us from which
rose a dome of irregular sticks crowned with a blunt-muzzled
beast that sat upon its haunches.
“Is it catching?” said Pyecroft.
“Yes. I’m seeing beaver,” I
replied.
“It is here!” said Kysh, with the air
and gesture of Captain Nemo, and half turned.
“No—no—no! For ’Eaven’s
sake—not ’ere!” Our guest gasped
like a sea-bathed child, as four efficient hands
swung him far out-board on to the turf. The car
ran back noiselessly down the slope.
“Look! Look! It’s sorcery!”
cried Hinchcliffe.
There was a report like a pistol shot as the beaver
dived from the roof of his lodge, but we watched our
guest. He was on his knees, praying to kangaroos.
Yea, in his bowler hat he kneeled before kangaroos—gigantic,
erect, silhouetted against the light—four
buck-kangaroos in the heart of Sussex!
And we retrogressed over the velvet grass till our
hind-wheels struck well-rolled gravel, leading us
to sanity, main roads, and, half an hour later, the
“Grapnel Inn” at Horsham.
* * * *
*
After a great meal we poured libations and made burnt-offerings
in honour of Kysh, who received our homage graciously,
and, by the way, explained a few things in the natural
history line that had puzzled us. England is a
most marvellous country, but one is not, till one knows
the eccentricities of large land-owners, trained to
accept kangaroos, zebras, or beavers as part of its
landscape.
When we went to bed Pyecroft pressed my hand, his
voice thick with emotion.
“We owe it to you,” he said. “We
owe it all to you. Didn’t I say we never
met in pup-pup-puris naturalibus, if I may so
put it, without a remarkably hectic day ahead of us?”
“That’s all right,” I said.
“Mind the candle.” He was tracing
smoke-patterns on the wall.
“But what I want to know is whether we’ll
succeed in acclimatisin’ the blighter, or whether
Sir William Gardner’s keepers ’ll kill
’im before ’e gets accustomed to ’is
surroundin’s?”
Some day, I think, we must go up the Linghurst Road
and find out.
“WIRELESS”
(From the Swedish of Stagnelius.)
Eyes aloft, over dangerous places,
The children follow where
Psyche flies,
And, in the sweat of their upturned faces,
Slash with a net at the empty
skies.
So it goes they fall amid brambles,
And sting their toes on the
nettle-tops,
Till after a thousand scratches and scrambles
They wipe their brows, and
the hunting stops.
