The food of the gods and how it came to earth

it-

o

= LO

-^

nr —

loo

C

t- -

100

LL

= CJ)

=o

>

=•0

I/)

!5

— ^^^

>

= CD

3 ^-

i^

=

co

I

I

Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive

in 2010 witii funding from

University of Toronto

http://www.archive.org/details/foodofgodshowitcOOwell

1

1 07/

He sat down in a garden, with his back to a house
that overlooked all London.

^0^

i-> -t-v

\^-

i..r.:i 8

...<^^;

1 U 0 0 < i/ '■

CONTENTS.

BOOK I.
THE DAWN OF THE FOOD.

I. The Discovery of the Food ... 5
II. The Experimental Farm • . . • 17

III. The Giant Rats . . . . . .53

IV. The Giant Children 92

V. The Minimificence of Mr. Bensington . 124

BOOK n.

THE FOOD IN THE VILLAGE.

L Tee Coming of the Food .... 139
n. The Brat Gigantic 161

il

CONTENTS.

BOOK III.
THE HARVEST OF THE FOOD.

i. The Altered World
n. The Giant Lovers .

III. Young Caddles in London

IV. Redwood's two Days .
V. The Giant Leaguer

183
210
231
247
269

I

BOOK I.
THE DAWN OF THE FOOD.

THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

CHAPTER THE FIRST.

THE DISCOVERY OF THE FOOD.
1.

IN the middle years of the nineteenth century there
first became abundant in this strange world of ours
a class of men, men tending for the most part to become
elderly, who are called, and who are very properly called,
but who disUke extremely to be called — " Scientists."
They disUke that word so much that from the columns
of Nature, which was from the first their distinctive and
characteristic paper, it is as carefully excluded as if it
were — that other word which is the basis of all really
bad language in this country. But the Great PubUc
and its Press know better, and " Scientists " they are,
and when they emerge to any sort of pubHcity, " dis-
tinguished scientists " and " eminent scientists " and
*' weU-known scientists " is the very least we call them.

Certainly both Mr. Bensington and Professor Red-
wood quite merited any of these terms long before they
came upon the marvellous discovery of which this story
teUs, Mr. Bensin^on was a Fellow of the Royal Society

6 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

and a former president of the Chemical Society, and
Professor Redwood was Professor of Ph)^iology in the
Bond Street College of the London University, and
he had been grossly libelled by the anti-vivisectionists
time after time. And they had led lives of academic
distinction from their very earliest youth.

They were of course quite undistinguished looking
men, as indeed all true Scientists are. There is more
personal distinction about the mildest-mannered actor
alive than there ia about the entire Royal Society. Mr.
Bensington was short and very, very bald, and he stooped
slightly ; he wore gold-rimmed spectacles and cloth boots
that were abundantly cut open because of his numerous
corns, and Professor Redwood was entirely ordinary in
his appearance. Until they happened upon the Food
of the Gods (as I must insist upon calling it) they led
lives of such eminent and studious obscurity that it is
hard to find anything whatever to tell the reader about
them.

Mr. Bensington won his spurs (if one may use such
an expression of a gentleman in boots of slashed cloth)
by his splendid researches up>on the More Toxic Alka-
loids, and Professor Redwood rose to eminence — I do
not clearly remember how he rose to eminence I I know
he was very eminent, and that's aU. Things of this sort
grow. I fancy it was a voluminous work on Reaction
Times with numerous plates of sphygmograph tracings
(I write subject to correction) and an admirable new
terminology, that did the thing for him.

The general pubhc saw little or nothing of either of
these gentlemen. Sometimes at places Uke the Royal
Institution and the Society of Arts it did in a sort of
way see Mr. Bensington, or at least his blushing bald-

THE DISCOVERY OF THE FOOD. 7

ness and something of his collar and coat, and hear
fragments of a lectm-e or paper that he imagined himself
to be reading audibly ; and once I remember — one
midday in the vanished past — when the British Associa-
tion was at Dover, coming on Section C or D, or some
such letter, which had taken up its quarters in a pubUc-
house, and following two serious-looking ladies with
paper parcels, out of mere curiosity, through a door
labelled " BiUiards " and '' Pool " into a scandalous
darkness, broken only by a magic-lantern circle of Red-
wood's tracings.

I watched the lantern sHdes come and go, and Hstened
to a voice (I forget what it was saying) which I beheve
was the voice of Professor Redwood, and there was a
sizzUng from the lantern and another sound that kept
me there, still out of curiosity, until the Hghts were
unexpectedly turned up. And then I perceived that
this sound was the sound of the munching of buns and
sandwiches and things that the assembled British Associ-
ates had come there to eat under cover of the magic-
lantem darkness.

And Redwood I remember went on talking all the
time the hghts were up and dabbing at the place where
his diagram ought to have been visible on the screen —
and so it was again so soon as the darkness was restored.
I remember him then as a most ordinary, shghtly ner-
vous-looking dark man, with an air of being preoccupied
with something else, and doing what he was doing just
then under an unaccountable sense of duty.

I heard Bensington al-^o once — in the old days — at
an educational conference in Bloomsbury. Like most
eminent chemists and botanists, Mr. Bensington was
very authoritative upon teaching — though I am certain

8 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

he would have been scared out of his wits by an average
Board School class in half-an-hour — and so far as I can
remember now, he was propounding an improvement of
Professor Armstrong's Heuristic method, whereby at the
cost of three or four hundred pounds' worth of apparatus,
a total neglect of all other studies and the undivided
attention of a teacher of exceptional gifts, an average
child might with a pecuUar sort of thumby thoroughness
learn in the course of ten or twelve years almost as much
chemistry as one could get in one of those objectionable
shilling text-books that were then so common. . . .

Quite ordinary persons you perceive, both of them,
outside their science. Or if anything on the unpractical
side of ordinary. And that you will find is the case
with " scientists " as a class all the world over. What
there is great of them is an annoyance to their fellow
scientists and a mystery to the general public, and what
is not is evident.

There is no doubt about what is not great, no race of
men have such obvious littlenesses. They Uve in a
narrow world so far as their human intercourse goes ;
their researches involve infinite attention and an almost
monastic seclusion ; and what is left over is not very
much. To witness some queer, shy, misshapen, grey-
headed, self-important, little discoverer of great dis-
coveries, ridiculously adorned with the wide ribbon of
some order of chivalry and holding a reception of his
fellov/-men, or to read the anguish of Nature at the
" neglect of science " when the angel of the birthday
honours passes the Royal Society by, or to listen to one
indefatigable lichenologist commenting on the work of
another indefatigable lichenologist, such things force one
to realise the unfaltering llttlemefw of men.

THE DISCOVERY OF THE FOOD. 9

And withal the reef of Science that these little " scien-
tists " built and are yet building Is so wonderful, so
portentous, so full of mysterious half-shapen promises
for the mighty future of man ! They do not seem to
realise the things they are doing ! No doubt long ago
even Mr. Bensington, when he chose this caUing, when
he consecrated his life to the alkaloids and their kindred
compounds, had some inkling of the vision, — more than
an inkling. Without some such inspiration, for such
glories and positions only as a " scientist " may expect,
what young man would have given his life to such work,
as young men do ? No, they must have seen the glory^
they must have had the vision, but so near that it
has bHnded them. The splendour has blinded them,
mercifully, so that for the rest of their Uves they can
hold the Ughts of knowledge in comfort — that we may
see I

And perhaps it accounts for Redwood's touch of pre-
occupation, that — there can be no doubt of it now —
he among his fellows was different, he w^as different inas-
much as something of the vision still lingered in his eyes.

II.

The Food of the Gods I call it, this substance that
Mr. Bensington and Professor Redwood made between
them ; and having regard now to what it has already
done and all that it is certainly going to do, there is
surely no exaggeration in the name. So I shall continue
to call it therefore throughout my story. But Mr. Ben-
sington would no more have called it that in cold blood
than he would have gone out from his flat in Sloane
Street clad in regal scarlet and a wreath of laurel. TTie

10 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

phrase was a mere first cry of astonishment from him.
He called it the Food of the Gods, in his enthusiasm
and for an hour or so at the most altogether. After
that he decided he was being absurd. When he first
thought of the thing he saw, as it were, a vista of enor-
mous possibilities — literally enormous possibilities; but
upon this dazzling vista, after one stare of amazement,
he resolutely shut his eyes, even as a conscientious
" scientist " should. After that, the Food of the Gods
sounded blatant to the pitch of indecency. He was
surprised he had used the expression. Yet for all that
something of that clear-eyed moment hung about him
and broke out ever and again. . . .

" Really, you know," he said, rubbing his hands
together and laughing nervously, " it has more than a
theoretical interest.

** For example," he confided, bringing his face close
to the Professor's and dropping to an undertone, " it
would perhaps, if suitably handled, sell. . . .

" Precisely," he said, walking away, — " as a Food.
Or at least a food ingredient.

" Assuming of course that it is palatable. A thing
we cannot know till we have prepared it."

He turned upon the hearthrug, and studied the care-
fully designed slits upon his cloth shoes.

" Name ? " he said, looking up in response to an
inquiry, " For my part I incline to the good old classical
allusion. It — it makes Science res — . Gives it a touch
of old-fashioned dignity. I have been thinking ... I
don't know if you will think it absurd of me. ... A
Uttle fancy is surely occasionally permissible. . . ,
Herakleophorbia. Eh ? The nutrition of a possible
Hercules ? You know it might . . .

THE DISCOVERY OF THE FOOD. ii

" Of course if you think not "

Redwood reflected with his eyes on the fire and made
no objection.

" You think it would do ? "

Redwood moved his head gravely.

" It might be Titanophorbia, you know. Food of
Titans. . . , You prefer the former ?

" You're quite sure you don't think it a Uttle too "

"No."

" Ah 1 I'm glad."

And so they called it Herakleophorbia throughout
their investigations, and In their report, — the report
that was never pubHshed, because of the unexpected
developments that upset all their arrangements, — it is
invariably written In that way. There were three kin-
dred substances prepared before they hit on the one
their speculations had foretold, and these they spoke
of as Herakleophorbia I., Herakleophorbia II., and
Herakleophorbia III. It is Herakleophorbia IV.
which I — Insisting upon Bensington's original name —
call here the Food of the Gods.

The idea was Mr. Bensington's. But as it was sug-
gested to him by one of Professor Redwood's contribu-
tions to the Philosophical Transactions, he very properly
consulted that gentleman before he carried it further.
Besides which it was, as a research, a physiological,
quite as much as a chemical inquiry.

Professor Redwood was one of those scientific men
who are addicted to tracings and curves. You are
fa,niliar--4f you are at all the sort of reader I Uke —

12 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

with the sort of scientific paper I mean. It is a paper
you cannot make head nor tail of, and at the end come
five or six long folded diagrams that open out and show
peculiar zigzag tracings, flashes of lightning overdone,
or sinuous inexplicable things called " smoothed curves "
set up on ordinates and rooting in abscissae — and things
like that. You puzzle over the thing for a long time
and end with the suspicion that not only do you not
understand it but tliat the author does not understand
it either. But really you know many of these scientific
people understand the meaning of their own papers quite
well : it is simply a defect of expression that raises the
obstacle between us.

I am inclined to think that Redwood thought in
tracings and curves. And after his monumental work
upon Reaction Times (the unscientific reader is exhorted
to stick to it for a Little bit longer and everything will
be as clear as daylight) Redwood began to turn out
smoothed curves and sphygmographeries upon GrowtJh,
and it was one of his papers upon Growth that really
gave Mr. Bensington his idea.

Redwood, you know, had been measuring growing
things of all sorts, kittens, puppies, sunflowers, mush-
rooms, bean plants, and (until his wife put a stop to it)
his baby, and he showed that growth went on, not at a
regular pace, or, as he put it, so.

but with burst*; acd intermissions of tliis sort.

THE DISCOVERY OF THE FOOD. 13

and that apparently nothing grew regularly and steadily,
and so far as he could make out nothing could grow
regularly and steadily : it was as if every Hving thing
had just to accumulate force to grow, grew with vigour
only for a time, and then had to wait for a space before
it could go on growing again. And in the mufBed and
highly technical language of the really careful " scientist,"
Redwood suggested that the process of growth probably
demanded the presence of a considerable quantity of
some necessary substance hi the blood that was only
formed very slowly, and that when this substance was
used up by growiih, it was only very slowly replaced,
and that meanwhile the organism had to mark time.
He compared his unknown substance to oil in machinery.
A growing animal was rather like an er.gine, he suggested,
that can move a certain distance and must then be oiled
before it can run again. (" But why shouldn't one oil
the engine from without ? " said Mr. Bensington, when
he read the paper.) And all this, said Redwood, with
the delightful nervous inconsecutiveness of his class-
might very probably be foimd to throw a light upon
the mystery of certain of the ductless glands. As though
they had anything to do with it at all 1

In a subsequent communication Redwood went fur-
ther. He gave a perfect Brock's benefit of diagrams
— exactly like rocket trajectories they were ; and the gist
of it — so far as it had any gist — was that the blood of
puppies and kittens and the sap of sunflowers and the
juico of mushxooms in what he called the " growing

14 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

phase " differed in the proportion of certain elements
from their blood and sap on the days when they were
not particularly growing.

And when Mr. Bensington, after holding the diagrams
sideways and upside dosvn, began to see what this differ-
ence was, a great amazement came upon him. Because,
you see, the difference might probably be due to the
presence of just the very substance he had recently been
trying to isolate in his researches upon such alkaloids
as are most stimulating to the nervous system. He put
down Redwood's paper on the patent reading-desk that
swung inconveniently from his arm-chair, took off his
gold-rinmaed spectacles, breathed on them and wiped
them very carefully,

'* By Jove ! " said Mr. Bensington.

Then replacing his spectacles again he turned to the
patent reading-desk, which immediately, as his elbow
came against its arm, gave a coquettish squeak and
deposited the paper, with all its diagrams in a dispersed
and crumpled state, on the floor. " By Jove 1 " said
Mr. Bensington, straining his stomach over the arm-
chair with a patient disregard of the habits of this con-
venience, and then, finding the pamphlet still out of
reach, he went down on all fours in pursuit. It was on
the floor that the idea of calling it the Food of the Gods
came to him. . . .

For you see, if he was right and Redwood was right,
then by injecting or administering this new substance
of his in food, he would do away with the " resting phase,"
and instead of growth going on in this fashion,

\ THE DISCOVERY OF THE FOOD.

it would (if you follow me) go thus —

15

IV.

The night after his conversation with Redwood Mr.
Bensington could scarcely sleep a wink. He did seem
once to get into a sort of doze, but it was only for a
moment, and then he dreamt he had dug a deep hole
into the earth and poured in tons and tons of the Food
of the Gods, and the earth was swelling and swelling,
and all the boundaries of the countries were bursting,
and the Royal Geographical Society was all at work
like one great guild of tailors letting out the equator. . . .

That of course was a ridiculous dream, but it shows
the state of mental excitement into which Mr. Bensing-
ton got and the real value he attached to his idea, much
better than any of the things he said or did when he was
awake and on his guard. Or I should not have men-
tioned it, because as a general rule I do not think it is
at all interesting for people to tell each other about
their dream.s.

By a singular coincidence Redwood also had a dream
that night, and his dream was this : —

i6 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

It was a diagram done in fire ujx)n a long scroll of
the abyss. And he (Redwood) was standing on a planet
before a sort of black platform lecturing about the new
sort of growth that was now possible, to the More than
Royal Institution of Primordial Forces — forces which
had always previously, even in the growth of races,
empires, planetary systems, and worlds, gone so : —

And even in some cases so

And he was explaining to them quite lucidly and
convincingly that these slow, these even retrogressive
methods would be very speedily quite put out of fashion
by his discovery.

Ridiculous of course 1 But that too shows

That either dream is to be regarded as in any way
significant or prophetic beyond what I have categorically
said, I do not for one moment suggest.

CHAPTER THE SECOND.

THE EXPERIMENTAL FARM.
I.

Mr, Bensington proposed originally to try this stuif,
so soon as he was really able to prepare it, upon tad-
poles. One always does try this sort oi thing upon
tadpoles to begin with ; this being what tadpoles are
for. And it was agreed that he should conduct the
experiments and not Redwood, because Redwood's
laboratory was occupied with the ballistic apparatus
and animals necessary for an investigation into the
Diurnal Variation in the Butting Frequency of the
Young Bull Calf, an investigation that was yielding
curves of an abnormal and very perplexing sort, and
the presence of glass globes of tadp»oles was extremely
undesirable while this particular research was in progress.
But when Mr. Bensington conveyed to his cousin
Jane something of what he had in mind, she put a
prompt veto upon the importation of any considerable
number of tadpoles, or any such experimental creatures,
into their fiat. She had no objection whatever to his
use of one of the rooms of the flat for the purposes of a
non-explosive chemistry that, so far as she was cosi-
ceraed, came to nothing ; she let him have a gas fur-
nace and a sink and a dust-tight cupboard of re^iig*.

i8 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

from the weekly storm of cleaning she would not fore-
go. And haidng known people addicted to drink, she
regarded his sohcitude for distinction in learned societies
as an excellent substitute for the coarser form of deprav-
ity. But any sort of living things in quantity, " wriggly "
as they were bound to be alive and " smelly " dead, she
could not and would not abide. She said these things
were certain to be unhealthy, and Bensington was noto-
riously a delicate man — it was nonsense to say he wasn't.
And when Bensington tried to make the enormous im-
portance of this possible discovery clear, she said that
it was all very well, but if she consented to his making
everything nasty and unwholesome in the place (and
that was what it all came to) then she was certain he
would be the first to complain.

And Mr. Bensington went up and down the room,
regardless of his corns, and spoke to her quite firmly
and angrily without the slightest effect- He said that
nothing ought to stand in the way of the Advancement
of Science, and she said that the Advancement of Science
was one thing and having a lot of tadpoles in a flat was
another ; he said that in Germany it was an ascertained
fact that a man with an idea like his would at once have
twenty thousand properly-fitted cubic feet of laboratory
placed at his disposal, and she said she was glad and
always had been glad that she was not a German ; he
said that it would make him famous for ever, and she
said it was much more likely to make him ill to have
a lot of tadpoles in a flat like theirs ; he said he was
master in his own house, and she said that rather than
wait on a lot of tadpoles she'd go as matron to a school ;
and then he asked her to be reasonable, and she asked
him to be reasonable then and give up ail tljis about

THE EXPERIMENTAL FARM. 19

tadpoles ; and he said she might respect his ideas, and
she said not if they were smelly she wouldn't, and then
he gave way comi)letely and said — in spite of the clas-
sical remarks of Huxley upon the subject — a bad word.
Not a very bad word it was, but bad enough.

And after that she was greatly offended and had to
be apologised to, and the prospect of ever trying the
Food of the Gods upon tadpoles in their fiat at any rate
vanished completely in the apology.

So Bensington had to consider some other way of
carrying out these experiments in feeding that would
be necessary to demonstrate his discovery, so soon as
he had his substance isolated and prepared. For some
days he meditated upon the possibility of boarding out
his tadpoles with some trustworthy person, and then
the chance sight of the phrase in a newspaper turned
his thoughts to an Experimental Fann.

And chicks. Directly he thought of it, he thought
of it as a poultry farm. He was suddenly taken with a
vision of wildly growing chicks. He conceived a picture
of coops and runs, outsize and still more outsize coops,
and runs progressively larger. Chicks are so accessible,
so easily fed and observed, so much drier to handle and
measure, that for his purpose tadpoles seemed to him
now, in comparison with them, quite wild and imcon-
troUable beasts. He was quite puzzled to imderstand
why he had not thought of chicks instead of tadpoles
from the beginning. Among other things it wotild have
saved all this trouble with his cousin Jane, And when
he suggested this to Redwood, Redwood quite agreed
with him.

Redwood said that in working so much upon need-
lessly small animals he was convinced experimental

20 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

physiologists made a great mistake. It is exactly like
making experiments in chemistry with an insufficient
quantity of material ; errors of observation and manipu-
lation become disproportionately large. It was of ex-
treme importance just at present that scientific men
should assert their right to have their material big.
That was why he was doing his present series of experi-
ments at the Bond Street College upon Bull Calves, in
spite of a certain amount of inconvenience to the students
and professors of other subjects caused by their inci-
dental levity in the corridors. But the curves he was
getting were quite exceptionally interesting^ and would,
when published, amply justify his choice. For his own
part, were it not for the inadequate endowment of sci-
ence in this country, he would never, if he could avoid
it, work on anything smaller than a whale. But a
Public Vivarium on a sufficient scale to render this
possible was, he feared, at present, in this country at

any rate, a Utopian demand. In Germany Etc,

As Redwood's Bull calves needed his daily attention,
the selection and equipment of the Experimental Farm
fell largely on Bensington. The entire cost also, was,
it was understood, to be defrayed by Bensington, at
least until a grant could be obtained. Accordingly he
alternated his work in the laboratory of his flat with
farm hunting up and down the lines that run south-
ward out of London, and his peering spectacles, his
simple baldness, and his lacerated cloth shoes filled the
owners of numerous undesirable properties with vain
hopes. And he advertised in several daily papers and
Nature for a responsible couple (married), punctual,
active, and used to poultry, to take entire charge ot
an Experimental Farm of three acres.

THE EXPERIMENTAL FARM. 21

He found the place he seemed in need of at Hickley-
brow, near Urshot, in Kent. It was a little queer
isolated place, in a dell surrounded by old pine woods that
were black and forbidding at night. A humped shoulder
of down cut it off from the sunset, and a gaunt well
with a shattered penthouse dwarfed the dwelling. The
little house was creeperless, several windows were broken,
and the cart shed had a black shadow at midday. It was
a mile and a half from the end house of the village, and
its loneliness was very doubtfully relieved by an am-
biguous family of echoes.

The place impressed Bensington as being eminently
adapted to the requirements of scientific research. He
walked over the premises sketching out coops and runs
with a sweeping arm,_ and he found the kitchen capable
of accommodating a series of incubators and foster
mothers with the very minimum of alteration. He took
the place there and then ; on his way back to London
he stopped at Dimton Green and closed with an eligible
couple that had answered his advertisements, and that
same evening he succeeded in isolating a sufficient quan-
tity of Herakleophorbia I. to more than justify these
engagements.

The eligible couple who were destined under Mr. Ben-
sington to be the first almoners on earth of Lhe Food of
the CsodSj were not only very perceptibly aged, but also
extremely dirty. This latter point Mr. Bensington did
not observe, because nothing destroys the powers of
general observation quite so much as a life of experi-
mental science. They were named Skinner, Mr, and
Mrs. Skinner, arid Mr. Bensington interviewed them in
a small room with hermetically sealed windov/Sj a spotted
ovennantel lookiDg-p;las«,- aiid some ailinsr c^lceolfmtis.

82 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

Mrs. Skinner was a very little old woman, capless, with
dirty white hair drawn back very very tightly from a
face that had begun by being chiefly, and was now,
through the loss of teeth and chin, and the wrinkling up
of everything else, ending by being almost exclusively
— nose. She was dressed in slate colour (so far as her
dress had any colour) slashed in one place with red
flannel. She let him in and talked to him guardedly
and peered at him round and over her nose, while Mr.
Skiimer she alleged made some alteration in his toilette.
She had one tooth that got into her articulation, and
she held her two long wrinkled hands nervously to-
gether. She told Mr, Bensington that she had man-
aged fowls for yearsj and knew all about incubators ;
in factj they themselves had run a Poultxy Farm at
one time, and it had only failed at last through the want
of pupils. " It's the pupils as pay," said Mrs. Skinner.

Mr. Skinner, when he appeared, was a large-faced
man, with a lisp and a squiiit that made him look over
the top of your head, slashed slippers that appealed to
Mr. Bensington's sympathies, and a manifest shortness
of buttons. He held his coat and shirt together with
one hand and traced patterns on the black -and -gold
tablecloth with the index finger of the other, while his
disengaged eye watched Mr. Bensington's sword of
Damocles, so to speak, with an expression of sad detach-
ment. " You don't want to nm thith Farm for profit.
No, Thir. Ith ail the thame, Thir, Ekthperimenth I
Prethithely."

He said they could go to the farm at once. He was
doing nothing at Dunton Green except a little tailoring.
" It ithn't the thmart plathe I thought it wath, and
wbat I get ithent thkaithely worth having," he said.

THE EXPERTIVIENTAL FARM. 2$

" tho that if it ith any convenienth to you for uth to
come. . . ."

And in a week Mr. and Mrs. Skinner were installed in
the farm, and the jobbing carpenter from Hickleybrow
was diversifying the task of erecting runs and henhouses
with a systematic discussion of Mr. Bensington.

" I haven't theen much of 'im yet/' said Mr. Skinner.
" But as far as I can make 'im out *e theems to be a
thtewpid o' fool."

" I thought 'e seemed a bit Dotty/' said the carpenter
from Hickleybrow.

*"E fanthieth 'imself about poultry/' said Mr. Skinner.
" O my goodneth 1 You'd think nobody knew nothin'
about poultry thept 'im."

*"E looks like a 'en/' said the carpenter from Hickley-
brow ; " what with them spectacles of 'is."

Mr. Skinner came closer to the carpenter from Hickley-
brow, and spoke in a confidential manner, and one sad
eye regarded the distant village^ and one was bright
and wicked. " Got to be meathured every blethed day
— every blethed 'en, 'e thays. Tho as to thee they grow
properly. What oh ... eh ? Every blethed 'en —
every blethed day."

And Mr. Skinner put up his hand to laugh behind it
in a refined and contagious mannerj and humped his
shoulders very much — and only the other eye of him
failed to participate in his laughter. Then doubting
if the carpenter had quite got the point of it, he repeated
ia a penetrating whisper : " Meathured ! "

" 'E's worse than our old guvnor ; I'm dratted if 'e
ain't/' said the carpenter from Hickleybrow.

24 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

II.

Experimental work is the most tedious thing in the
world (unless it be the reports of it in the Philosophical
Transactions), and it seemed a long time to Mr. Bensing-
ton before his first dream of enormous possibilities was
replaced by a crumb of realisation. He had taken the
Experimental Farm in October^ and it was May before
the first inklings of success began. Herakleophorbia I.
and II. and III. had to be tried, and failed ; there was
trouble with the rats of the Experimental Fann, and
there was trouble with the Skinners. The only way to
get Skinner to do anything he was told to do was to
dismiss him. Then he would rub his unshaven chin —
he was always unshaven most miraculously and yet
never bearded — with a flattened hand, and look at Mr.
Bensington with one eye, and over him with the other,
and say, *' Oo, of courthe, Thir — if you're theriouth ,..!'*

But at last success dawned. And its herald was a
letter in the long slender handwriting of Mr. Skinner.

" The new Brood are out,'* wrote Mr, Skinner, *' and
don't quite like the look of them. Growing very rank
— quite unlike what the similar lot was before your last
directions was given. The last, before the cat got them,
was a very nice, stocky chick, but these are Growing like
thistles. I never saw. They peck so hard, striking
above boot top, that am unable to give exact Measm*es
as requested. They are regular Giariits, and eating as
such. We shall want more corn very soon, for you
never saw such chicks to eat. Bigger than Bantams.
Going on at this rate, they ought to be a bird for show,
rank as they are, Plymouth Rocks won't be in it.

THE EXPERIMENTAL FARM. 25

Had a scare last night thinking that cat was at them,
and when I looked out at the window could have sworn
I see her getting in under the wire. The chicks was all
awake and pecking about hungry when I went out, but
could not see anything of the cat. So gave them a
peck of corn, and fastened up safe. Shall be glad to
know if the Feeding to be continued as directed. Food
you mixed is pretty near all gone, and do not hke to
mix any more myself on account of the accident with
the pudding. With best wishes from us both, and solic-
iting continuance of esteemed favours,

" Respectfully yours,
" Alfred Newton Skinner."

The allusion towards the end referred to a milk pud-
ding with which some Herakleophorbia II. had got it-
self mixed, with painful and very nearly fatal results
to the Skinners.

But Mr. Bensington, reading between the lines, saw
in this rankness of growth the attainment of his long
sought goaL The next morning he alighted at Urshot
station, and in the bag in his hand he carried, sealed
in three tins, a supply of the Food of the Gods suffi-
cient for all the chicks in Kent.

It was a bright and beautiful morning late in May,
and his corns were so much better that he resolved to
walk through Hickleybrow to his farm. It was three
miles and a half altogether, through the park and vil-
lage, and then along the green glades of the Hickleybrow
preserves. The trees were all dusted with the green
spangles of high spring, the hedges were full of stitch-
wort and campion J and the woods of blue hyacinths
and par|>le ordiid ; and everywhere there Vi'as a great

26 THE FOOD OF tHE GODS.

noise of birds — thrushes^ blackbirds, robinSj finches, and
many more — and in one warm comer of the park some
bracken was unrolling, and there was a leaping and
rushing of fallow deer.

These things brought back to Mr. Bensington his
early and forgotten delight in life ; before him the
promise of his discovery grew bright and joyful, and
it seemed to him that indeed he must have come upon
the happiest day in his Hfe. And when in the sunlit
run by the sandy bank under the shadow of the pine
trees he saw the chicks that had eaten the food he had
mixed for them^ gigantic and gawky, bigger already
than many a hen that is married and settled, and still
growing, still in their first soft yellow plumage (just
faintly marked with brown along the back), he knew
indeed that his happiest day had come.

At Mr. Skijoner's urgency he went into the run, but
after he had been pecked through the cracks in his shoes
once or twice he got out again, and watched these mon-
sters through the wire netting. He peered close to the
netting, and followed their movements as though he
had never seen a chick before in his life,

" Whath they'll be when they're grown up ith im-
pothible to think," said Mr. Skinner.

" Big as a horse/' said Mr. Bensington-

*' Pretty near," said Mr. Skinner.

" Several people could dine oj5 a wing ! " said Mr. Ben-
sington. *' They'd cut up into joints like butcher's meat."

" They won't go on growing at thith pathe though,"
said Mr. Ski-oner.

" No ? " said Mr. BejDisington.

" No," said Mr. Skinner. " I knowr thith thort. They
begin rank, but they don't go on^ bleth you I No."

THE EXPERIMENTAL FARM. VJ

There was a pause.

'* Itth mcLnagcment," said Mr. Skinner modestly.

Mr. Bensiiigiun lurned his glasses on him suddenly.

** We got 'em almoth ath big at the other plathe,"
said Mr. Skinjier, with his better eye piously uplifted
and letting himself go a little ; ** me and the mithith."

Mr. Bensington made his usual general inspection of
the premises^ but he speedily returned to the new run.
It wasj you know, in truth ever so much more than he
had dared to expect. The course of science is so tor-
tuous and so slow ; after the clear promises and before
the practical realisation arrives there comes almost
always year after year of intricate contrivance, and here
— ^here was the Foods of the Gods arriving after less
than a year of testing I It seemed too good — too good.
That Hope Deferred which is the daily food of the scien-
tific imagination was to be his no more I So at least
it seemed to him then. He came back and staired at
these stupendous chicks of his, time after time.

" Let me see/' he said. " They're ten days old. And
by the side of an cwdinary chick I should fancy — about
six or seven times as big. ..."

" Itth about time we artht for a rithe in thkrew," said
Mr. Skinner to his wife. " He'th ath pleathed ath Punth
about the way we got thothe chickth on in the further
run — pleathed ath Punth he ith."

He bent confidentially towards her. " Thinkth it'th
that old food of hith," he said behind his hand, and
made a noise of suppressed laughter in his phaiyngeal
cavity. . . .

Mr. Bensington was indeed a happy man that day.
He was in no mood to find fault with details of man-
agement. The bright day certainly brought out the

2.8 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

accumulating slovenliness of the Skinner couple more
vividly than he had ever seen it before. But his com-
ments were of the gentlest. The fencing of many of the
runs was out of order, but he seemed to consider it quite
satisfactory when Mr. Skinner explained that it was a
" fokth or a dog or thomething *' did it. He pointed
out that the incubator had not been cleaned.

" That it asnt. Sir," said Mrs. Skinner with her arms
folded, smiling coyly behind her nose. '* We don't
seem to have had time to clean it not since we been
'ere. . . r

He went upstairs to see some rat-holes that Skinner
said would justify a trap — they certainly were enormous
— and discovered that the room in which the Food of
the Gods was mixed with meal and bran was in a quite
disgraceful order. The Skinners were the sort of people
who find a use for cracked saucers and old cans and
pickle jars and mustard boxes, and the place was littered
with these. In one corner a great pile of apples that
Skijoner had saved was decaying, and from a nail in
the sloping part of the ceiling hung several rabbit skins,
upon which he proposed to test his gift iis a furrier.
('* There ithn't mutth about furth and thingth that I
don't know," said Skinner.)

Mr. Bensington certainly sniffed critically at this dis-
order, but he made no unnecessary fuss, and even when
he found a wasp regaling itself in a gallipot half full of
Herakleophorbia IV., he simply remarked mildly that
his substance was better sealed fiom the damp than
exposed to the air in that manner.

And he turned from these things at once to remark —
what had been for some time in his mind — " I think,
Skinner — you know, X shaU kill one of thcjie ciiicks — as

THE EXPERIMENTAL FARM. 29

a specimen. I think we will kill it this afternoon, and
1 will take it back with me to London."

He pretended to peer into another gallipot and then
took off his spectacles to wipe them.

'* I should like," he said, " I should like very much,
to have some reUc — ^some memento — of this particular
brood at this particular day.

" By-the-bye," he said, "you don't give those little
chicks meat ? "

" Oh I no, Thir," said Skinner, " I can athure you,
Thir, we know far too much about the management of
fowlth of all dethcriptionth to do anything of that thort."

** Quite sure you don't throw your dinner refuse

I thought I noticed the bones of a rabbit scattered about
the far comer of the run "

But when they came to look at them they found they
vvere the larger bones of a cat picked very clean and dry.

in.

" Th^'s no chick," said Mr. Bensington's cousin Jane.

*' Well, I should think 1 knew a chick when I saw it,"
said Mr. Bensington's cousin Jane hotly.

" It's too big for a chick, for one thing, and besides
you can see perfectly weU it isn't a chick.

'* It's more Hke a bustard than a chick."

" For my part," said Redwood, reluctantly allowing
Bensington to drag him into the argument, " I must
confess that, considering all the evidence "

" Oh I if you do that," said Mr. Bensington's cousin
Jane, ** instead of using your eyes like a sensible per-

son-

Well, but really. Miss Bensington !i

30 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

" Oh ! Go on I " said Cousin Jane. " You men are
aU aUke."

" Considering all the evidence, this certainly falls
within the definition — ^no doubt it's abnormal and hyper-
trophied, but still — especially since it was hatched from
the egg of a normal hen — Yes, I think, Miss Bensington,
I must admit — this, so far as one can call it anything,
is a sort of chick."

" You mean it's a chick ? " said cousin Jane.

" I think it's a chick," said Redwood.

" What NONSENSE 1 " said Mr. Bensington's cousin
Jane, and " Oh ! " directed at Redwood's head, ** I
haven't patience with you/' and then suddenly she
turned about and went out of the room with a slam.

" And it's a very great reUef for me to see it too,
Bensington," said Redwood, when the reverberation of
the slam had died away. " In spite of its being so big."

Without any urgency from Mr. Bensington he sat
down in the low arm-chaJx by the fire and confessed to
proceedings that even in an unscientific man would have
been indiscreet. " You will think it very rash of me,
Bensington, I know/' he said, *' but the fact is I put a
little — not very much of it — but some — ^into Baby's
bottle, very nearly a week ago 1 "

'* But suppose I " cried Mr. Bensington.

" I know," said Redwood, and glanced at the giant
chick upon the plate on the table.

" It's turned out all right, thank goodness," and he
felt in his pocket for his cigarettes.

He gave fragmentary details. *' Poor little chap
wasn't patting on weight . . . desperately anxious. —
Winkles, a frightful duffer . . . former pupil of mine
... no good. . . . Mrs, Redwood — ^unmitJ^ated con-

THE EXPERIMENTAL FARM. 31

fidence in Winkles. . . . You know, man with a manner
like a clift — towering. ... No confidence in me, of
course. . . . Taught Winkles. . . . Scarcely allowed in
the nursery. . . . Something had to be done. . . .
Slipped in while the nurse was at breakfast . . . got at
the bottle."

" But he'll grow," said Mr. Bensington.

**' He's growing. Twenty-seven ounces last week. . . .
You should hear Winkles. It's management, he said."

" Dear me I That's what Skinner says ! "

Redwood looked at the chick again. " The bother is
to keep it up," he said. " They won't trust me in the
nursery alone, because I tried to get a growth curve out
of Georgina PhyUis — you know — and how I'm to give
him a second dose "

" Need you ? "

" He's been crying two days — can't get on with his
ordinary food again, anyhow. He wants some more
now."

" TeU Winkles."

" Hang Winkles ! " said Redwood.

'* You might get at Winkles and give him powders
to give the child "

'* That's about what I shall have to do," said Red-
wood, resting his chin on his fist and staring into the fire.

Bensington stood for a space smoothing the down on
the breast of the giant chick. " They will be monstrous
fowls," he said.

" They will," said Redwood, stiU with his eyes on the
glow.

" Big as horses," said Bensington,

" Bigger," said Redwood. " That's just it I "

Bensington turned away from the specimen. " Red-

32 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

wood/' he said, " these fowls are going to create a
sensation."

Redwood nodded his head at the fire.

" And by Jove I " said Bensington, coming round
suddenly with a flash in his spectacles, ** so will your
little boy 1 "

" That's just what I'm thinking of/' said Redwood.

He sat back, sighed, threw his unconsumed cigarette
into the fire and thrust his hands deep into his trousers
pockets. " That's precisely what I'm thinking of. This
Herakleophorbia is going to be queer stuff to handle.
The pace that chick must have grown at 1 "

" A little boy growing at that pace," said Mr. Bensing-
ton slowly, and stared at the chick as he spoke.

" I suy ! " said Bensington, " he'U be Big."

" I shall give hun diminishing doses/' said Redwood.
** Or at any rate Winkles will."

" It's rather too much of an experiment."

" Much."

" Yet still, you know, I must confess . . . Some

baby will sooner or later have to try it."

" Oh, we'll try it on some baby — certainly."

" Exactly so," said Bensington, and came and stood
on the hearthrug and took off his spectacles to wipe them.

*' Until I saw these chicks, Redwood, I don't think
I began to reaHse — anything — of the possibihties of what
we were making. It's only beginning to dawn upon
me . . . the possible consequences. ..."

And even then, you know, Mr. Bensington was far^
trom any conception of the mine that httle train wouldi

THE EXPERIMENTAL f ARM. 33

IV.

That happened early In Jane. For some weeks Bea-
sington was kept from revisiting the Experimental Farm
by a severe Imaginary catarrh, and one necessary flymg
visit was mitdc by Redwood. He returned an even
more anxloos-iooking paient than he had gone. Alto-
gether there were seven weeks of steady, uninterrupted
growth, . . .

And then the Wasps began their career.

It was late In July and nearly a week before the hens
escaped from Hickleybraw that the first of the big
wasps was killed. The report of It appeared In several
papers, but I do not know whether the news reached
Mr. Bensington, much less whether he connected It with
the general laxity of method that prevailed In the Ex-
perimental Wairm.

There can be but little doubt now, that while Mr.
Skirmer was plying Mr. Benslngton's chicks with Herak-
leophorbla IV., a niunber of wasps were Just as industri-
ously— ^perhaps more industriously — carrying (quantities
of the sanie paste to their early siumner broods In the
^ sand-banks beyond the adjacent pine-woods. And there
can be no dispute whatever that these early broods
found just as much growth and benefit in the substance
as Mr. Bensington's hens. It is In the nature of the
wasp to attain to effective maturity before the domestic
fowl — and in fact of all the creatures that were — through
the generous carelessness of the Skinners — partaking of
the benefits Mr. Bensington heaped upon his hens, the
wasps were the first to make any sort of figure In the
world.

It was a keeper named Godfrey, on the estate of

2

34 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

Lieutenant-Colonel Rupert Hick, near Maidstone, who
encountered and had the luck to kill the first of these
monsters of whom history has any record. He was
walking knee high in bracken across an open space in
the beechwoods that diversify Lieutenant-Colonel Hick's
park, and he was carrying his gun— very fortunately
for him a double-barrelled gun— over his shoulder, when
he hrst caught sight of the thing. It was, he says,
coming do\vT. against the light, so that he could not
see it very distinctly, and as it came it made a drone
" hke a motor car/' He admits he was frightened. It
was evidently as big or bigger than a barn owl, and, to
his practised eye, its flight and particularly the misty
whirl of its wings must have seemed weirdly unbirdUke.
The instinct of self-defence, I fancy, mingled with long
habit, when, as he says, he " let iSy, right away."

The queeme^s of the experience probably affected his
aim ; at any rate most oi his shot missed, and the thing
merely dropped for a moment with an angry " Wuzzzz "
that revealed the wasp at once, and then rose agam,
with all its stripes shining against the Ught. He says
it turned on him. At any rate, he fired his second
barrel at less than twenty yards and threw down his
gun, ran a pace or so, and ducked to avoid it.

It flew, he is convinced, within a yard of him, struck
the ground, rose again, ciune down again perhaps thirty
yards away, and roUed over with its body wngglmg and
its sting stabbing out and back in its last agony. He
emptied both barrels into it agam before he ventured

to go near.

When he came to measure the thing, he found it was
twenty-seven and a half mches across its open wmgs,
and its sting was three inches long. The abdomen was

THE EXPERIMENTAL FARM. 35

blown clean off from its body, but he estimated the
length of the creature from head to sting as eighteen
inches — which is very nearly correct. Its compound
eyes were the size of penny pieces.

That is the first authenticated appearance of these
giant wasps. The day after, a cycUst riding, feet up,
down the hill between Sevenoaks and Tonbridge, very
narrowly missed running over a second of these giants
that was crawling across the roadway. His passage
seemed to alarm it, and it rose with a noise like a saw-
mill. His bicycle jumped the footpath in the emotion
of the moment, and when he could look back, the wasp
was soaring away above the woods towards Westerham.

After riding unsteadily for a little time, he put on his
brake, dismounted — he was trembling so violently that
he fell over his machine in doing so — and sat down by
the roadside to recover. He had intended to ride to
Ashford, but he did not get beyond Tonbridge that
day. . . .

After that, curiously enough, there is no record of any
big wasps being seen for three days. I find on consult-
ing the meteorological record of those days that they
were overcast and chilly with local showers, which may
perhaps account for this intermission. Then on the
fourth day came blue sky and brilliant sunshine and such
an outburst of wasps as the world had surely never seen
before.

How many big wasps came out that day it Is im-
possible to guess. There are at least fifty accounts of
their apparition. There was one victim, a grocer, who
discovered one of these mousters Sn a sugar-cask and
very rashly attacked it with a spade a.« it rose. He
struck it to the groond for a zooment, and it stung liim

36 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

through the boot as he struck at it again and cut its
body in half. He was first dead of the two. . . .

The most dramatic of the fifty appearances was cer-
tainly that of the wasp that visited the British Museum
about midday, dropping out of the blue serene upon one
of the innumerable pigeons that feed in the courtyard
of that building, and flying up to the cornice to devour
its victim at leisure. After that it crawled for a time
over the museum roof, entered the dome of the reading-
room by a skylight, buzzed about inside it for some
little time — there was a stampede among the readers —
and at last found another window and vanished again
with a sudden silence from human observation.

Most of the other reports were of mere passings or
descents. A picnic party was dispersed at Aldington
Knoll and all its sweets atnd jam consumed, and a puppy
was killed and torn to pieces near Whitstable under the
very eyes of its mistress. . . .

The streets that evening resounded with the cry, the
newspaper placards gave themselves up exclusively in
the biggest of letters to the " Gigantic Wasps in Kent."
Agitated editors and assistant editors ran up and down
tortuous staircases bawling things about " wasps/' And
Professor Redwood, emerging from bis college in Bond
Street at five, flushed from a heated discussion with his
committee about the price of bull calves, bought an
evening paper, opened it, changed colour, forgot about i
bull calves and committee forthwith, and took a hansom
headlong for Bensington's flat.

V.

The flat was occupied, it seemed to him — to the exM
elusion of all other sensible objects — by Mr. Skinuex,',

THE EXPERIMENTAL FARM. 37

and his voice, if Indeed you can call either him or it
a sensible object !

ITie voice was up very high slopping about among
the notes of anguish. " Itth impothible for uth to
thtop, Tliir. We've thtopped on hoping thingth would
get better and they've- only got worth, Thir. It ithn't
on'y the waptheth, Ttdr— theieth big earwigth, Thir—
big ath that, Thir/' (He indicated all his hand and
about tliree inches of fat dirty wrist.) '* They pretty
near give IMithith Thkinner htth, Thir. And the thting-
ing nettleth by the nmth, Thir, ihey're growing, Thir,
and the canary creeper, Thir, what we thpwed near
the think, Thir—it put itth tendril through the window
in the night, Thir, and very nearly caught Mithith
Thkinner by the legth, Thir. Itth that food of yourth,
Thir. WTierever we thplathed it about, TWr, a bit,
it'th thet everything giowing ranker, Thir, than I ever
thought anything could grow. Itth impothible to thtop
a month, Thir. Itth more than our liveth are worth,
Thir. Even if the waptheth don't thting uth, we thall
be thufiocated by the creeper, Thir. You can't imagine,

Thir— unleth you come down to thee, Thir "

He turned his superior eye to the cornice above
Redwood's head. " 'Ow do we know the ratth 'aven't
got it, Thir I That 'th what I think of motht, Thir.
I 'aven't theen any big ratth, Thir, but 'ow do I know,
Tliir. We been frightened for dayth becauth of the
earwigth we've theen— like lobthters they wath— two
of 'em, Thir— and the frightful way the canary creeper
wath growing, and directly I heard the waptheth—
directly I 'eard 'em, Thir, I underthood. I didn't wait
for nothing exthept to thow on a button I'd lortht,
and then I came on up. Even now. Thir, I'm arf wild

38 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

with angthiety, Thir. 'Ow do / know watth happeiun'
to Mithiih Thkiimer, Thir I Thereth the creeper grow-
ing ail over the plathe Uke a thnake. Thir— thwelp me
but you *ave to watch it, Thir, and jump out of itth
way !— and the earwigth gettin' bigger and bigger, and

the waptheth- . She 'athen't even got a Blue Bag,

Thir— if anything thould happen, Thir I "

" But the hens," hsdd Mr. Bensington ; " how are the

hens ? " , „ 'A A/r

'' We fed *em up to yethterday, thwelp me, said iVir.
Skinner. "* But thith iiiorning we didn't dare, Thir.
The noithe of the waptheth wath— thomething awful,
Thir They wath coining &at — dothenth. Ath big ath
'enth I thayth to 'er, I thayth you juth thow me on
a button or two, I thayth, for 1 can't go to London like
tViith, I thayth, and I'll go up to Mithter Benthington,
I thayth, and ekthpiain thingth to 'im. And you thtop
in thith room till 1 come back to you, I thayth, and
keep the windowth thhut jutht ath tight ath ever you

can, 1 thayth." „

"If you hadn't been so confoundedly untidy

began Redwood. . «« xt x

" Oh 1 don't thay that, Thir," said Skinner. Not
now Thir. Not with me tho diththrethed, Thir, about
Mithith Thkinner, Thirl Oh, don% Thirl 1 'avent
the 'eart to argue with you. Thwelp me, Tiiir, I aven 1 1
Itth the ratth I keep a thinking of-'Ow do I know they
'aven't got at Mithith Thkinner while 1 been up ere ?

" And you haven't got a soUtary measuiement of all
these beautiful growth cur^^es 1 " said Redwood. ^^

" I been too upthet, Thir," said Mr. Skmner. I
you knew what we been through-me and the mithith I
All thith latht month. We 'aven't known what to

THE EXPERIMENTAL FARM. 39

make of it, Thir. What with the heuth gettin' tho
rank, and the earwigth, and the canary creeper. I
dunno if I told you, Thir— the canary creeper . . ."

" You've told us all that," said Redwood. " The
thing is. Bensington, what are we to do ? '*

" Wliat are we to do ? " said Mr. Skinner.

'• You'll have to go back to Mrs. Skinner," said Red-
wood. " You can't leave her there alone all night."

"Not alone, Thir, I don't. Not if there wath a
dothen Mithith Thkinnerth. Itth Mithter Benthing-
ton "

" Nonsense," said Redwood. " The wasps will be all
right at night. And the earwdgs will get out of your
way "

" But about the ratth ? "

" There aren't any rats," said Redwood.

VI.

Mr. Skinner might have fore^ne his chief anxiety.
Mrs. Skinner did not stop out her day.

About eleven the canary creeper, which had been
quietly active all the morning, began to clamber over
the window and darken it very greatly, and the darker
it got the more and more clearly Mrs. Skinner perceived
that her position would speedily become untenable.
And also that she had lived many ages since Skinner
went. She peered out of the darkling window, through
the stirring tendrils, for some time, and then went
very cautiously and opened the bedroom door and
listened. , . .

Everything seemed quiet, and so, tucking her skirts
hi«h about her, Mrs, Skinner made a bolt for the bed
rocCT, and having first looked imder the bed and locked

40 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

hersell in, proceeded with the methodical rapidity oi
an experienced woman to pack for departure. The bed
had not been made, and the room was Uttered with
pieces of the creeper that Skinner had hacked ofi m order
to close the window overnight, but these disorders she
did not heed. She packed in a decent sheet. She
packed all her own wardrobe and a velveteen jacket
that Skinner wore in his finer moments, and she packed
a jar of pickles that had not be^n opened, and so far
she was justified in her packing. But she also packed
two of the hermetically closed tins containmg Herak-
leophorbia IV, that Mr. Bensington had brought on his
last visit. (She was honest, good woman--but she was
a grandmother, and her heart had burned within her to
see such good growth lavished on a lot of dratted chicks.)
And having packed all these things, she put on her
bonnet, took off her apron, tied a new boot-lace round
her umbrella, and after listening for a long time at door
and window, opened the door and sallied out Into a
perilous world. The umbrella was under her arm and
she clutched the bundle with two gnarled and resolute
hands. U was her best Sunday bonnet, and the two
poppies that reared their heads amidst Its splendours
of band and bead u^meA instinct with the same tremu-
lous courage that pf^ssessed hex.

The features about the roots of her nose wrinkled
with determination. She hax3 had enough of it 1 All
alone there 1 Skinner might come back there If he

Sh^ went out by the front door, going that way not
because she wanted to go to Hickleybrow (her goal was
Cheasing Eyebright, where her KJArrlfd daughter re-
sided), but becaasc tha bode dmt wa« topwsable on

THE EXPERIMENTAL FARM. 41

accoaat of the canary creeper that had been Rowing so
furiously ever since she upset the can of food near its
r^>>ts. She listened for a space and closed the front
door very caiefuliy behiiid her.

At the corner of the house she paused and recon-
noitred. . . .

An extensive sandy scar upon the hillside beyond
the pine-woods marked the nf?st of the giant Wasps,
and this she studied very earnestly. The coming and
going of the morning was over, not a wasp chanced to
be in sight then, and except for a sound scarcely more
perceptible than a steam Wv>od-saw at work amidst the
pines would have been, everything was still. As for
earwigs, she could see not one. Down among the
cabbage indeed something was stkring, but it might
just as probably be a cat stalking birds. She watched
this for a time.

She went a few paces past the corner, came in sight
of the run containing the giant chicks and stopped
again. " Ah ! " she said, and shook her head slowly
at the sight of them. They were at that time about
the height of emus, but of course much thicker in the
body— a larger thing altogether. They were aU hens
and hve all told, now that the two cockerels had killed
each other. She hesitated at their drooping attitudes.
II Poor dears I " she said, and put down her bundle ;
" they've got no water. And they've 'ad no food these
twenty-four hours I And such appetites, too, as they
'ave I " She put a lean finger to her lips and communed
with herself.

Then this dirty old woman did what seems to me a
quite heroic deed of mercy. She left her bundle and
umbrella in the middle of the brick path and went to

42 THE FOOD OV THE GODS.

the well and drew uo fewer than three pailfuls of water
for the chickens' erapty trough, aud theft while they
were ail crowding about that, she undid the dwr of the
rur. very softly. Alter which she became extremely
active, resumed her package, got over the hedge at the
bottom of the garden, crossed the rank meadows (m
order to avoid the wasps' nest) and toiled up the wmd-
ing path towards Cheasing Eyebright.

She panted up the hill, and as she went she paused
ever and again, to rest her bundle and get her breath
and stare back at ths little cottage beside the pine-
wood below. And when at last, when slxe was near the
crest of the hiU. she saw afar ofl three several wasps
dropping heavily westward. It helped her greatly on her

^Ihe soon got out of the open and in the high banked
lane beyond (which seemed a safer place to her), and so
UD by Hicklebrow Coombe to the downs. There at Uie
foot of the downs where a big tree gave an air of shelter
she rested for a space on a stile.
Then on again very resolutely. ...
You figure her, I hope, with her white bundle, a sort
of erect black ant, hmrying along the httle white path-
thread athwart the downland slopes under the hot sM
of the summer afternoon. On she struggled after her
resolute indefatigable nose, and the P0PP>^ '-^^t!
bomiet quivered perpetually and her spriog-side tooU
grew whiter and whiter with the downland dust Flip-
flaT flip-flap went her footfalls through the still hea^
of he day, and persistently, incurably ber umbreUa
Sught to^iip from under the elbow that reined it
The mouth wrinJkle under her n<«e was P^J« ^
extreme resolution, and ever and again she told her

THE EXPERIMENTAL FARM. 43

umbrella to come up or gave her tightly clutched bundle
a vindictive jerk. And at times her lips mumbled with
fragments of some foreseen argument between herself
and Skinner.

And far away, miles and miles away, a steeple and a
hanger grew insensibly out of the vague blue to mark
more and more distinctly the quiet comer where Cheasing
Eyebright sheltered from the tumult of the world, reck-
ing little or nothing of the Herakleophorbia concealed
in that white bundle that struggled so persistently
towards its orderly retkement.

VII.

So far as I can gather, the pullets came into Hickley-
brow about three o'clock in the afternoon. Their coming
must have been a brisk affair, though nobody was out
in the street to see it. The \aoIenf bellowing of little
Skeknersdale seems to have been the first announcement
of anything out of the way. Miss Durgan of the Post
Office was at the window as usual, a.nd saw the hen
that had caught the unhappy child, \n violent flight up
the street with its \ictim, closely pursued by two others.
You know that swinging stride of the emancipated
athletic latter-day pullet 1 You know the keen insist-
ence of the hungry hen I There was Plymouth Rock
in these birds, I am told, and even without Herakleo-
phorbia that is a gaunt and striding strain.

Probably Miss Durgan was not altogether taken by
surprise. In spite of Mr. Bensington's insistence upon
secrecy, rumours of the great chicken Mr. Skinner was
producing had been about the tillage for some weeks.
** Lor ! " she cried, " it's what I expected."

She seems to iiave behaved with great presence of

44 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

mind. She snatched up the sealed bag of letters that
was waiting to go on to Urshot, and rushed out of the
door at once. Almost simultaneously Mr. Skelmersdale
himself appeared down the viUage, gripping a watering-
pot by the spout, and very white in the face. And, of
course, in a moment or so every one m the village was
rusliing to the door or window.

The spectacle of Miss Durgan all across the road,
with the entire day's correspondence of Hickleybrow
in her hand, gave pause to the pullet in possession of
Master Skelmersdale. She halted through one instant^s
indecision and then turned for the open gates of Fulcher's
yard. That instant was fatal. The second pullet ran
in neatly, got possession of the child by a well-directed
peck, and went over the wall into the vicarage garden. ^^
" Charawk, chawk, chawk. chawk, chawk, chawk 1 "
shrieked the hindmost hen. hit smartly by the watering-
can Mr. Skehnersdale had thrown, and fluttered wildly
over Mrs. Glue's cottage and so into the doctor's field,
while the rest of those Gargantuan birds pursued the
pullet in possession of the child across the vicarage lawn.
'' Good heavens 1 " cried the Curate, or (as some say)
something much more manly, and ran. whirling his
croquet mallet and shouting, to head off the chase.

"Stop, you wretch!" cried the curate, as thougn
giant hens were the commonest facts in life.

And tlien, fijading he could not possibly intercept her,
he hurled his mallet with aU his might and main, and
out it shot in a gracious curve within a foot or so
of Master Skehnersdale's head and through the glass
lantern of the conservatory. Smash J The new con-
servatory ! The Vlcai-'s wife's beautiful new con-
ser'.'atory 1

THE EXJf'ERIMENTAL FARM. 45

It fnghtened the heii. It might have frightened any
one. She dropped her victim into a Portugal laurel
(from which he was presently extracted, disordered but,
save for his less delicate garments, uiiinjuied), made a
flapping leap for the roof of Fulcher'b stables, put her
foot through a weak place in the tiles, and descended,
so to speak, out of the infinite into the contemplative
quiet of Mr. Bumps the paralytic-— who, it is now proved
beyond all cavil, did, on this one occasion in his life,
get down the entire length of his garden and indoors
without any assistance whatever, bolt the door after
him, and immediately relapse again into Christian resig-
nation and helpless dependence upon his wife. . . .

The rest of the pullets were headed ofi by the other
croquet players, and went through the vicar's kitchen
garden into the doctor's field, to which rendezvous the
fifth also came at last, clucking disconsolately after an
unsuccessful attempt to walk on the cucumber frames
in Mr. Witherspoon's place.

They seem to have stood about in a hen -like manner
for a time, and scratched a Httle and chirrawked medita-
tively, and then one pecked at and pecked over a hive
of the doctor's bees, and after that they set ofi in a
gawky, jerky, feathery, fitful sort of way across the
fields towards Urshot, and Elickleybrow Street saw them
no more. Near Urshot they really came upon commen-
surate food in a field of swedes, and pecked for a space
with gusto, until their fame overtook them.
^ The chief immediate reaction of this astonishing irrup-
tion of gigantic poultry upon the human mind was to
arouse an extraordinary passion to whoop and run and
throw things, and in quite a little time almost all the
available manhood of Hickleybrow, and several ladies,

46 THE FOOD 07 THE GODS.

were out with a remarkable assortment of flappish and
whangable articles in hand-to conmience the scootmg
of the giant hens. They drove them into Urshot, where
there was a Rural Fete, and Urshot took them as the
crowning glory oi a happy day. They began to be shot
at near Findon Beeches, but at first only with a rook
rifle Of course birds of that size could absorb an un-
limited quantity of small shot without inconvenience.
They scattered somewhere near Sevenoaks, and near
Tonbridge one of them fled clucking for a time m ex-
cessive agitation, somewhat ahead of and parallel with
the afternoon boat express-to the great astonishment

of every one therein.

And about half-past five two of them were caught
very cleverly by a circus proprietor at Tunbridge Wells
who lured them into a cage, rendered vacant through
the death of a widowed dromedary, by scattermg cakes
and bread. • . »

vin.

When the unfortunate Skinner got out of the South-
Eastern train at Urshot that evening it was already
nearly dusk. The train was late, but not inordmately
late-and Mr. Skinner remarked as much to the station-
master. Perhaps he saw a certain pregnancy m the
station-master's eye. After the briefest hesitation and
with a confidential movement of his hand to the side
of his mouth he asked if " anything " had happened

that day-

" How d'yer mean ? " said the station-master, a man

with a hard, emphatic voice.

" Thethe 'ere waptbeth and thingth."

" We 'aven't 'ad much time to think oi waptheth,

THE EXPERIMENTAL FARM. 47

said the station-master agreeably. ** We've been too
busy with your brasted 'ens," and he broke the news
of the pullets to Mr. Skinner as one might break the
window of an adverse politician.

" You ain't 'eard anything of Mithith Thkinner ? "
asked Skinner, amidst that missile shower of pithy infor-
mation and comment.

" No fear I " said the station-master—as though even
he^drew the line somewhere in the matter of knowledge.

" I mutht make inquireth bout thith," said Mr. Skin-
ner, edging out of reach of the station-master's conclud-
ing generalisations about the responsibihty attaching to
the excessive nurture of hens. » , ,

Going through Urshot Mr, Skinner was hailed by a
lime-burner from the pits over by Hankey and asked if
he was looking for his bens.

" You ain't 'eard anything of Mithith Thkinner ? " he
asked.

The lime-burner— bis exact phrases need not concern
us— expressed his superior interest in hens. . . .

It was already dark— as dark at least as a clear night
in the English June can be— when Skinner— or his head
at any rate— came into the bar of the Jolly Drovers and
said : " Ello I You 'aven't 'eard anything of thith 'ere
thtory bout my 'enth, 'ave you ? "

" Oh, 'aven*t we ! " said Mr. Fulcher. " Why, part
of the story's been and bust into my stable roof and
one chapter smashed a 'ole in Missis Vicar's green 'ouse
— I beg 'er pardon— Conservarrctory."

Skinner came m. '* I'd like thomething a little com-
fortmg," he said, " 'ot gin and water'th about my i&gure "
and everybody began to tell him things about the pullets.
Gfoihtdh me ! " said Skinner,

48 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

" You 'aven't 'eard anything about Mithith Thkinner,
'ave you ? " he asked m a pause.

"That we 'aven't I " said Mr. Witherspoon. "We
*aven't thought of 'er. We ain't thought nothing of
either of you."

" Ain't you been 'ome to-day ? " asked Fulcher over

a tankard. ^ ^^

" If one of those bra-sted birds 'ave pecked er, began
Mr. Witherspoon, and left the full horror to their unaided
imaginations. , . »

It appeared to the meeting at the time that it would
be an interesting end to an eventful day to go on with
Skinner and see if anything had happened to Mrs. Skinner.
One never knows what luck one may have when acci-
dents are at large. But Skinner, standing at the bar
and drinking his hot gin and water, with one eye rov-
ing over the things at the back of the bar and the
other fixed on the Absolute, missed the psychological

moment.

"I thuppothe there 'athen't been any trouble with
any of thethe big waptheth to-day anywhere?" he
asked, with an elaborate detachment of manner.

" Been too busy with your 'ens," said Fulcher.

" I thuppothe they've all gone in now anyhow," said

Skinner.

"What— 4 he 'ens?"

" I wath thinking of the waptheth more particularly,

said Skinner.

And then, with an air of circumspection that wouia
have awakened suspicion in a week-old baby, and lay-
ing the accent heavily on most of the words he chose,
he asked, " I thuppothe nobody 'athn't 'eard of any other
higi tbmgth about, 'ave they? Fig dogth or caUh oi

THE EXPERIMENTAL FARM. 49

anything of thai thort ? Theerath to me if thereth big
henth and big waptheth comin' on "

He laughed with a fine pretence of talking idly.

But a brooding expression came upon the faces of the
Hickleybrow men, Fulcher was the first to give their
condensing thought the concrete shape of words.

" A cat to match them 'ens " said Fulcher.

"Ay I" said Witherspoon, "a cat to match they
'ens."

" 'Twould be a tiger/' said Fulcher.

" More'n a tiger," said Witherspoon. . . .

When at last Skinner followed the lonely footpath
over the swelling field that separated Hickleybrow from
the sombre pine-shaded hollow in whose black shadows
the gigantic canary-creeper grappled silently with the
Experimental Farm, he followed it alone.

He was distinctly seen to rise against the sky-line,
against the wann clear immensity of the northern sky
—for so far public interest followed him— and to descend
again into the night, into an obscurity from which it
would seem he will nevermore emerge. He passed—
into a mystery. No one knows to this day what hap-
pened to him after he crossed the brow. When later
on the two Fulchers and Witherspoon, moved by their
own imaginations, came up the hill and stared after
him, the night had swallowed him up altogether.

The three men stood close. There was not a sound
out of the wooded blackness that hid the Fann from
their eyes.

'* It's all right," said young Fulcher, ending a silence.

" Pon't see' any lights," said Witherspoon,

'* You wouldn't from here."

" It's misty„" siaid the elder Folciier,

50 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

They meditated for a space*

" 'E'd 'ave come back if anything was wrong," said
young Fulcher, and this seemed so obvious and con-
clusive that presently old Fulcher said, "Well," and
the three went home to bed — thoughtfully I will

admit. . » .

A shepherd out by Huckster's Farm heard a squealmg
in the night that he thought was foxes, and in the morn-
ing one of his lambs had been killed, dragged halfway
towards Hicklevb^ow and partially devoured. * . .

The inexpUcable part of it aU is the absence of an>
indisputable remains of Skinner I

Many weeks after, amidst the charred rums of the
Experimental Farm, there was found something which
may or may not have been a human shoulder-blade
and in another part of the ruins a long bone greatly
gnawed and equally doubtful. Near the stile gomg up
towards Eyebrigbt there was found a glass eye, and
many people discovered thereupon that Skinner owed
much of his personal charm to such a possession. It
stared out upon the world with that same mevitable
efiect of detachment, that same severe melancholy that
had been the redemption of his eLse worldly countenance.
And about the ruins industrious research discovered
the metal rings and charred coverings of two Imen
buttons, three shanked buttons entire, and one of that
metallic sort which is used in the less conspicuous sutures
of the human (Economy. These remains hare been
accepted by persons in authority as conclusive of a
destroyed and scattered Skinner, but for my own entire
conviction, and in view of his distinctive idiosyncrasy.
I must confess I should prefer fewer buttons and more
bones.

THE EXPERIMENTAL FARM. 51

^ The glass eye of course has an air of extreme convic-
tion, but If It really is Skiiiner's-and even Mrs. Skinner
did not certainly know if that immobile eye of his was
glass— somr^thing has changed it from a liquid brown
to a serene and confident blue. That shoulder-blade is
an extremely doubtful document, and I would like to
put It side by side with the gnawed scapulae of a few of
the commoner domestic animals before I admitted its
humanity.

And where were Skinner's boots, for example ? Per-
verted and strange as a rat's appetite must be, is it con-
ceivable that the same creatures that could leave a lamb
only half eaten, would finish up Skinner— hair, bones
teeth, and boots ? '

I have closely questioned as many as I could of those
who knew Skinner at aU intimately, and they one and
all agree that they cannot imagine anything eating him
He was the sort of man, as a retired seafaring person
hvmg m one of Mr. W. W. Jacobs' cottages at Danton
Green told me, with a guarded significance of manner
not uncommon m those parts, who would " get washed
up anyhow," and as regards the devouring element was

fit to put a fire out." He considered that Skinner
would be as safe on a raft as anywhere. The retired
seafaring man added that he wished to say nothing
whatever against Skinner ; facts were facts. And rather
than have his clothes made by Skinner, the retired sea-
larmg man remarked he would take his chance of being
locked up. These observations certainly do not pre-
sent Skinner in the light of an appetising object.

To be perfectly frank with the reader, I do not believe
he ever went back to the Experimental Farm. I beHeve
lie hovered through long hesitations about the fields of

52 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

the Hickleybrow glebe, and finally^ when that squealing
began, took the line of least resistance out of his per-
plexities into the Incognito.

And in the Incognito, whether of this or of some other
world unknown to us, he obstinately and quite indis-
putably has remained to this day. . . .

CHAPTER THE THIRD.

THE GIANT RATS.
I.

It was two nights after the disappearance of Mr. Skinner
that the Podbourne doctor was out late near Hankev
driving in his buggy. He had been up all night assist-'
iBg another undistinguished citizen into this curious
world of ours, and his tc^sk accomplished, he was driving
homeward m a drowsy mood enough. It was about two
o clock m the morning, and the waning moon wa^ rising.
Ihe summer night had gone cold, and there was a low-
lying whitish mist that made things indistinct. He was
quite alone— for his coachman was ill in bed— and there
was nothmg to be seen on either hand but a drifting
mystery of hedge miming athwart the yeUow glare of
his lamps, and nothing to hear but the clitter-clatter of
^s horse, and the gride and hedge echo of his wheels.
His horse was as trustworthy as himself, and one does
not wonder that he dozed. , „ .

You b-iow that intermittent drowsing as one sits, the
drooDmg of the head, the nodding to the rhythm of the
wheels, then chin upon tha breast, and at once the
suddeji start up agaiti.
Pitf^, liUer, paUer.
"' What \t-.is that ? *"

52 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

It seemed to the doctor he had heard a thin shriU
squeal close at hand. For a moment he was quite awake.
He said a word or two of undeserved rebuke to his horse,
and looked about him. He tried to persuade himself
that he had heard the distant squeal of a fox-^r perhaps
a young rabbit gripped by a ferret.

Swish, swish, swish, pitier, patter, swish . . .

What was that ?

He felt he was getting fanciful. He shook his shoul-
ders and told his horse to get on. He listened, and heard
nothing.

Or was it nothing ?

He had the queerest impression that somethmg had
just peeped over the hedge at him, a queer big head.
With round e^rs I He peered hard, but he could see

nothing.

" Nonsense," said he.

He sat up with an idea that he had dropped into a
nightmare, gave his horse the sUghtest touch of the
whip, spoke to it and peered again over the hedge. The
glare of his lamp, however, together with the mist,
rendered things indistinct, and he could distinguish
nothing. It came into his head, he says, that there
could be nothing there, because if there was his horse
would have shied at St. Yet for all that his »enses
remained nervously awake.

Then he heard quite distinctly a soft pattering of feet
in pursuit along the road.

He would not believe his ears about that. He could
not look round, for the road had a sinuous curve just
there. He whipped up his horse and glanced sideways
again. And then he saw quite distinctly where a ray
from hi» lamp leapt a low stretch of he^ge, tho curved

TEIE GIANT RATS. 55

back of-^me big animal, he couldn't teU what, going
along In quick convulsive leaps. ^ ^

He says he thought of the old tales of witchcraft-the
thing w^ so utterly unlike any animal he knew, and he
tightened his hold on the reins for fear of the fekr of £

nTsf . *" ^"^^t^g that his hoi^e could

Ahead, and drawing near In silhouette against the
nsmg moon, was the outline of the Uttle Wet of
Hankey. comfortmg, though it showed never rUght
and he cracked his whip and spoke again, and then in
a flash the rats were at him I 5 . <uiu men m

rat^cair/li"^''* * ^^'f' *°^ ^ '"' ^'^ '^' ^^^ fo«most
rat came leaping over Into the road. The thing sDrane

STshti^ r' '' '^'^T'^ "^'^ '""^ utmost IS
the sharp, eager, round-eared face, the long bodv ex

aggerated by its movement; and what partcuMv"

stmck hm.. the pink, webbed forefeet of the beS S

must have made ,t more horrible to him at the time w^

£w He'd^d ''r ^'^ *''"« ^" ^y createdtLrhe
toew. He did not recognise it as a rat. because of the
sue. His hoi^e gave a bound as the thi^g droned into
the road beside it. The little lane woke Lto tmult It
the report of the whip and the doctor's sloT the
whole thing suddenly went fast.
RaUle-clatler, clash, clatter.

The doctor, one gathers, stood up shouted m h,-,

and swerved most reassuringly at his blow-in the gla«
of his lamp he could see the fur furrow underthe lalh
and he slashed again and agam. heedle^a^d ti^"
of the second pureuer that gained upon his ^ si^

56 THE FOOD 05 THE GODS.

He let the reins go, and glanced back to discover the
third rat in pursuit behind. . . .

His horse bounded forward. The buggy leapt high
at a rut. For a frantic minute perhaps everything
seemed to be going in leaps and bounds. , . .

It was sheer good luck the horse came down in Hankey,
and not either before or after the houses had been passed.

No one knows how the horse came down, whether it
stumbled or whether the rat on the off side really got
home with one of those slashing down strokes of the
teeth (given with the iuU weight of the body) ; and the
doctor never discovered that he himself was bitten until
he was inside the brickmaker's house, much less did he
discover when the bite occurred, though bitten he was
and badly— a long slash Hke the slash of a double toma-
hawk that had cut two parallel ribbons of flesh from his

left shoulder.

He was standing up in his buggy at one moment, and

in the next he had leapt to the ground, with his ankle,

though he did not Imow it, badly sprained, and he was

cutting furiously at a third rat that was flying directly

at him. He scarcely remembeiB the leap he must have

made over the top of the wheel as the buggy came over,

so obUteratingly hot and swift did his impressions rush

upon him. I think myself the horse reared up with the

rat biting again at its throat, and fell sideways, and

carried the whole affair over ; and that the doctor sprang,

as it were, instinctively. As the buggy came down, the

receiver of the lamp smashed, and suddenly poured a flare

of blazing oil, a thud of white flame, into the struggle.

That was the first thing the brickmaker saw.

He had heard the clatter of the doctor's approach and
' —though the doctor's memory has nothmg of this— wild

THE GIANT RATS. 57

shouting. He had got out of bed hastily, and as he did
so came the terrific smash, and up shot the glare outside
the nsmg bhnd. " It was brighter than day," he says.
He stood, bhnd cord in hand, and stared out of the
window at a nightmare transformation of the famihar
road before him. The black figure of the doctor mth its
whirling whip danced out against the flame. The horse
kicked indistinctly, half hidden by the blaze, with a
rat at its throat. In the obscurity against the church-
yard wall, the eyes of a second monster shone wickedly.
Another— a mere dreadful blackness with red-ht eyes
and flesh-coloured hands— clutched unsteadily on the
waU coping to which it had leapt at the flash of the
explodmg lamp.

f y^"" ^"""^ ^^^ ^''° ^^^^ °^ ^ '^^^ t^^se two sharp
teeth, those pitiless eyes. Seen magnified to near six
times Its Imear dimensions, and stiU more magnified by
darkness and amazement and the leaping fancies of a
UttuI blaze. It must have been an ill sight for the brick-
maker-^till more than half asleep.

Then the doctor had grasped the opportunity, that
momentary respite the flare afforded, and was out of the
brickmakers sight below batteringHhe door with the
butt of his whip. ...

The brickmaker woald not let him in an tU be had got
a light. ^

There aie those who have blamed the man for that, but
MtU I know say own conrage better. I hesitate to ioin
their number. ■•

The doctor yelled and hammered. . .

.f S,f ^l'^^^^' '^y^ i"* "^^ weeping with terror when
at last th» door was opened.

" Bolt," said the doctor. " bolt "~he could not say

58 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

" bolt the door." He tried to help, and was of no service.
The brickmaker fastened the door, Jand the doctor had
to sit on the chair beside the clock for a space before he
could go upstairs. ...

" I don't know what they are ! " he repeated several
times. '' I don't know what they are "—-with a high
note on the " are."

The brickmaker would have got him whisky, but the
doctor would not be left alone with nothuig but a fhcker-
ing hght just then.

It was long before the brickmaker could get him to

go upstairs. ...

And when the fire was out the giant rats came back,
took the dead horse, dragged it across the churchyard
into the brickfield and ate at it until it was dawn, none
even then daring to disturb them. . « .

II.

Redwood went round to Bensington about eleven the
next morning \^ith the " second editions " of three even-
ing papers in his hand.

Bensington look^ up from a despondent meditation
over the forgotten pages of the most distracting novel
the Brompton Road Ubrarian had been able to find him.
" Anythmg fresh ? " he asked,

" Two men stung near Charlham."

" They ought to let us smoke out that nest. They
really did. It's their own fault."

" It's their own fault, certainly," said Redwood.

" Have you heard anything— about buying the farm ? "

" The House Agent," said Redwood. " is a thing with
a big mouth and made of dense wood. It pretends some

THE GIANT RATS. 5g

one else Is after the house—It always does, you know—
and won't understand there's a hurry. ' This is a matter
of hfe and death/ I jiaid. ' don't you understand ? ' It
drooped its eyes half shut and said, ' Then why don't
you go the other two hundred pounds ? ' I'd rather
hve in a world of solid wasps than give in to the stone-

waUing stupidity of that offensive creature. I "

He paused, feeling that a sentence Uke that might very
easily be spoiled by its context.

"It's too much to hope." said Bensington. " that one
of the wasps "

" The wasp has no more idea of public utiHty than a
—than a House Agent/' said Redwood.

He talked for a little while about house agents and
solicitors and people of that sort, in the unjust, unreason-
able way that so many people do somehow get to talk
of these business calculi (" Of aU the cranky things in
this crank-y world, It Is the most cranky to my mind
of all. that while we expect honour, courage, efficiency
from a doctor or a soldier as a matter of course, a soUcitor
or a house agent b not only permitted but expected to
display nothing but a sort of greedy, greasy, obstructive

over-reaching imbecihty » etc.)-and then, greatly

reheved. he went to the window and stared out at the
Sloane Street traffic.

Bensington had put the most exciting novel conceiv-
able on the little table that carried his electric standard
He joined the fingers of his opposed hands very care-
fully and regarded them. " Redwood," he said. " Do
they say much about Us ? "
" Not so much as I should expect."
" They don't denounce us at all ? "
"Not a bit. But. on the other hand, they don't

6o THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

back up what I point out must be done I've written

to the Times, you know, explaining the whole thing

" We take the Daily Chronide," said Bensington.
" And the Times has a long leader on the sub)ect-a
very high-class, well-written leader, with three pieces of
tZ^s Ltin-statu, quo is one-and it reads hke the
voke of Somebody Impersonal of the Greatest mpor-
tence suffering from Influenza Headache and talking
though sheets and sheets of felt without gettmg any
Stm it whatever. Reading between the hnes you
know, it's pretty clear that the Ttmes considers that it is
Set; to Lnce matter., and that --f -^ ('"Jf^^f,
of course) has to be done at once. Otherwise stid more
undes3le consequences-Tm.s English, you know, for
more wasps and stings. Thoroughly statesmanlike

^"tnd meanwhile this Bigness is spreading in all sorts
of ugly ways."

"'fwonder'if Skinner was right about those big

'^ " oTno 1 That would be too much," said Redwood.
He came and stood by Bensington's chair.
" Bj-the-bye." he said, with a sUghtly lowered voice.

" how does she ?

He indicated the closed door.

" Cousin lane ? She simply knows nothing about it.
DoesnTlnect us with it and won't read the articl^
• ag^tic w^ps 1 ' she says, ' I haven't patience to read

the papers.' " . , -r^ j j

"That's very fortunate/' said Redwood.

'^ I suppos(^-Mrs. Redwood ? "

" No." said Redwood, '' just at preseui it happem,---

THE GIANT RATS. 6i

she's terribly worried about the child. You know he
keeps on." '

" Growing ? "

" Yes. Put on forty-one ounces in ten days. Weighs
nearly four stone. And only six months old I Naturally
rather alarming."
" Healthy ? "

"Vigorous. His nurse is leaving because he kicks so
forcibly. And everything, of course, shockingly out-
gro^vn. Everything, you know, has had to be made
.lesh, clothes and everything. Perambulator-light
attair-broke one wheel, and the youngster had to be
brought home on the milkman's hand-truck. Yes

guite a crowd And we've put Georgina PhyUis

back mto his cot and put him into the bed of Georgina
PhyUis. His mother-naturally alarmed. Proud at
first and mcUned to praise Winkles. Not now. Feels
the thing can't be wholesome. You know."

doli ^^^""^"^ ^""^ '^^''^ ^"""^^ ^^ P^t ^^ 0° diminishing

" I tried if*

" Didn't it work ? "

"Howls In the ordinary way the cry of a child is

Z, .v i^^'m'^u ^ ' ** ^' ^^' ^^' ^^^^ «^ ^^ species
that this should be so-but since he h^ been onrthe

Herakleophorbia treatment "

" Mm," said Bensington. regarding his iingera with
more resignation than he had hitherto displayed

Practically the thing must come out. People will
hear of tkis child, comiect it up ^.dth our hens and
tluugs, aiid the whole thing will come round to my
mte.^ . . . How she v^iil take it I haven't the remotest

62 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

" It IS difficult/; said Mr. Bensington, " to forai any

plan— certainly."
He removed his glasses and wiped them carefully.
**It is another instance," he generaUsed, of the
thing that is continually happening. We-if mdeed I
may presume to the adjective-saen/t^c men-we work
of course always for a theoretical result - a purely
theoretical result. But. incidentaUy, we do set forces
in operation-n.t^ forces. We mustn't control them-^
and nobody else can. Practically, Redwood, the thmg

is out of our hands. Tf^ supply the matenal-

" And they," said Redwood, turning to the wmdow,
•' get the experience."

" So far as this trouble down in Kent goes I am not
disposed to worry further."
" Unless they worry us."

" Exactly And if they Uke to muddle about with
soUcitors and pettifoggers and legal obstructions and
weighty considerations of the tomfool order, until they
have got a nimiber of new gigantic species of vermm
weU estabUshed Things always have been m a

muddle, Redwood."

Redwood traced a twisted, tangled hue in the air. ^^
" And our real interest lies at present with your boy.
Redwood turned about and came and stared at his

collaborator. . v „ ^«n

« What do you think of him, Bensmgton ? You can
look at this business with a greater ^detachment than T
can. What am I to do about him ? '^

** Go on feeding him."

** On Herakleophorbia ? **

** On Herakleophorbia."

" And then he'U grow."

THE GIANT RATS. 63

" He'U grow, as far as I can calculate from the hens
and the wasps, to the height of about five-and-thirty
feet— with everything in proportion ''

" And then what'li he do ? "

/* J^""}:" ^^^^ ^^'' ^ensiiigton, -is just what makes the
whole thmg so interesting."

*' Confound it, man 1 Think of his clothes."

" And when he's grown ap," said Redwood, " he'll
only be one solitary Guiiiver in a pigmy world."

Mr Bensington's eye over his gold rim was pregnant
\Vhy solitary?" he said, and repeated still more
darkly, " Why solitary ? "

** But you don't propose ? "

" I said," said Mr. Beasington, with the self-compla-

''^''"^^ ""i .^rr^^ "^^^ ^^ produced a good significant
saying, " Why sohtary ? "

'' Meaning that one might bring up other children ?"

'* Meaning nothing beyond my inquiry."
Redwood began to walk about the room. '• Of course "
he said, " one might But still I What are we com-
ing to ? "

Bensington evidently enjoyed his line of high intel-
kctual detachment. - The thing that interests me most,
Redwood, of all this, is to think that his brain at the
top of hun wiU also, so far as my reasoning goes, be five-
and-thirty feet or so above our level. . . . What's the
matter ? "

Redwood stood at the window and stared at a news
placard on a paper-cart that rattled up the street
^What's the matter ? " repeated Bensington, rising.
Redwood exclaimed violently.
" What is it ? " said Bensington.
-' Get a paper," said Redwood, moving doorward.

64 TIIE FOOD OF THE GODS.

" Why ? "

" G^t a paper. Something — - I didn't quite catch
— Gigantic rats I "

" Rats ? "

" Yes, rats. Skinner was right after all I "

" ^Tiat do you mean ? "

" How the Deuce am / to know till I see a paper ?
Great Rats 1 Good Lord 1 I wonder if he's eaten I "

He glanced for his hat, and decided to go hatless.

As he rushed downstairs two steps at a time, he could
hear along the street the mighty howlings, to and fro
of the Hooligan paper-sellers making a Boom.

*€ ^Qj^ible affair in Kent — 'orrible affair in Kent.
Doctor . , . eaten by rats. 'Orrible affaii' — 'orrible af-
fair— rats — eaten by Stchewpendous rats. Full perticu-
lars— 'orrible afiair."

IIL

Cossar, the well-known civil engineer, found them in
the great doorway of the flat mansions, Redwood hold-
ing out the damp pink paper, and Bensington on tiptoe
reading over liis arm. Cossar was a large-bodied man
with gaunt inelegant Umbs casually placed at convenient
comers of his body, and a face like a carving abandoned
at an early stage as altogether too unpromising for com-
pletion. His nose had been left square, and his lower
jaw projected beyond his upper. He breathed audibly.
Few people considered him handsome. His hair was
entirely tangential, and his voice, which he used spar-
ingly, was pitched high, and had commonly a quality
of bitter protest. He wore a grey cloth jacket suit and
a silk hat on all occasions. He plumbed an abysmal
trouser pocket with a vast red hand, paid his cabman,!
and came panting resolutely up the steps, a copy of the

THE GIANT RATS. 65

pink paper clutched about the middle, like Jove's thunder-
bolt, in his hand.

" Skinner ? " Bensington was saying, regardless of his
approach.

" Nothing about him," said Redwood. " Bound to be
eaten. Both of them. It's too terrible. . . . Hullo !
Cossar 1 "

" This your stuff ? " asked Cossar, waving the paper.

" Weil, why don't you stop it ? " he demanded.

" Can't be jiggered ! " said Cossar.

'* Buy the place ? " he cried. " WTiat nonsense I Burn
it I I knew you chaps would fumble this. What are
you to do ? VVhy — what I tell you.

" You ? Do ? Why I Go up the street to the gun-
smith's, of course. Why ? For guns. Yes — there's
only one shop. Get eight guns 1 Rifles. Not elephant
guns — no 1 Too big. Not army rifles — too small. Say
it's to kill — kill a bull. Say it's to shoot buffalo I See ?
Eh ? Rats ? No I How the deuce are they to under-
stand that ? . . . Because we want eight. Get a lot of
ammunition. Don't get guns without ammunition —
No ! Take the lot in a cab to — where's the place ?
Urshot? Charing Cross, then. There's a train — Well,
the first train that starts after two. Think you can
do it ? All right. License ? Get eight at a post-ofl5ce,
of course. Gun licenses, you know. Not game. Why ?
It's rats, man.

" You — Bensington. Got a telephone ? Yes. I'll
ring up five of my chaps from Ealing. Why five ? Be-
cause it's the right number I

" Where you going, Redwood ? Get a hat 1 Non-
sense. Have mine. You want guns, man — not hats.
Got money ? Enough ? All right. So long.

3

66 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

" Where's the telephone, Bensingtun ? '*

Bensingtun wheeled aDout ubedieiitly and led the way.

Cossar used and replaced the uistrument. '' Then
there's the wasps," he said. "Sulphur and nitre '11 do
that. Obviously. Plaster of Paris. You're a chemist.
Where can I get sulphur by the ton in portable sacks ?
What for ? Why, Lord bless my heart and soul ! — to
smoke out the nest, of course ! I suppose it must be
sulphur, eh ? You're a chemist. Sulphur best, eh ? "

** Yes, I should think sulphur,"

" Nothing better ? "

" Right. That's your job. That's all right. Get as
much sulphur as you can — saltpetre to make it bum
Sent ? Charing Cross. Right away. See they do it.
Follow it up. Anything ? "

He thought a moment.

" Plaster of Paris — any sort of plaster — bung up nest
— ^holes — you know. That I'd better get."

" How much ? "

" How much what ? *'

" Sulphur."

"Ton. See?"

Bensington tightened his glasses with a hand tremulous!
with determination. " Right," he said, very curtly.

" Money in your pocket ? " asked Cossar.

" Hang cheques. They may not know you. Paj
cash. Obviously. Where's your bank ? All right. Sto]
on the way and get forty pounds — notes and gold."

Another meditation. "If we leave this job for publii
officials we shall have all Kent in tatters," said Cossar
" Now is there— anything ? No/ HI !'*

He stretched a vast hand towards a cab that becami
convulsively eager to serve him (" Cab, Sir ? " said ih\

THE GIANT RATS. 67

cabman. " Obviously," said Cossar) ; and Bensington,
still hatless, paddled down the steps and prepared to
mount.

" I think,'' he said, with his hand on the cab apron,
and a sudden glance up at the windows of his flat, " I
ought to tell my cousin Jane "

" More time to tell her when you come back," said
Cossar, thrusting him in with a vast hand expanded
over his back. . . .

" Clever chaps," remarked Cossar, " but no initiative
whatever. Cousin Jane indeed I I know her. Rot,
these Cousin Janes ! Countrj' infested with 'em. I sup-
pose I shall have to spend the wh<ile blessed night, see-
ing they do what thej' know perfectly weD they ought
to do all along. I wonder if it's Research makes 'em
hke that or Cousin Jane or what ? "

He dismissed this obscure problem, meditated for a
space upon his watch, and decided there would be just
time to drop into a restaurant and get some lunch before
he hunted up the plaster of Paris and took it to Charing
Cross.

The train started at five minutes past three, and he
arrived at Charing Cross at a quarter to three, to find
Bensington in heated argument between two policemen
and his van-driver outside, and Redwood in the luggage
office involved in some technics obscurity about this
ammunition. Everybody was pretending not to know
an>i:hing or to have any authority, in the way dear to
South-Eastern officials when they catch you in a hurry.
^ " Pity they can't shoot ail these officials and get a
new lot," remarked Cossar with a sigh. But the time
was too limited for an)i:hing fundamental, and so he
swept through these minos^ controversies, disinterrea

68 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

what may or may not have been the station-master from
some obscure hiding-place, walked about the premises
holding him and giving orders in his name, and was out
of the station with everybody and everything aboard
before that official was fully awake to the breaches in
the most sacred routines and regulations that were being
committed.

*' Who was he ? " said the high official, caressing the
arm Cossar had gripped, and smiling with knit brows.

" 'E was a gentleman. Sir," said a porter, " anyhow.
Tm and all 'is party travelled first class."

" Well, we got him and his stuff off pretty sharp—
whoever he was," said the high official, rubbing his arm
with something approaching satisfaction.

And as he walked slowly back, blinking in the un-
accustomed daylight, towards that dignified retirement
in which the higher officials at Charing Cross shelter
from the importunity of the vulgar, he smiled still at his
unaccustomed energy. It: was a very gratif5dng revela-
tion of his own possibilities, in spite of the stiffness of
his arm. He wished some of those confounded arm-
chair critics of railway management could have seen it.

IV.

By five o'clock that evening this amazing Cossar,
with no appearance of hurry at all, had got all the stuff
for his fight with insurgent Bigness out of Urshot and
on the road to Hickleybrow. Two barrels of paraffin
and a load of dry brushwood he had bought in Urshot ;
plentiful sacks of sulphur, eight big game guns and
ammunition, three light breechloaders, with small-shot
ammunition for the wasps, a hatchet, two billhooks, a

THE GIANT RATS. 69

pick and three spades, two coils of rope, some bottled
beer, soda and whisky, one gross of packets of rat poison,
and cold provisions for three days, had come down from
London. All these things he had sent on in a coal trolley
and a hay waggon in the most business-like way, except
the guns and ammunition, which were stuck under the
seat of the Red Lion waggonette appointed to bring on
Redwood and the five picked men who had come up from
Ealing at Cossar's summons.

Cossar conducted all these transactions with an in-
vincible air of commonplace, in spite of the fact that
Urshot was in a panic about the rats, and all the drivers
had to be specially paid. All the shops were shut in
the place, and scarcely a soul abroad in the street, and
when he banged at a door a window was apt to open.
He seemed to consider that the conduct of business from
open windows was an entirely legitimate and obvious
method. Finally he and Bensington got the Red Lion
dogcart and set off wdth the waggonette, to overtake the
baggage. They did this a Uttle beyond the cross-roads,
and so reached Hickleybrow first.

Bensington, with a gun between his knees, sitting
beside Cossar in the dog-cart, developed a long germinated
amazement. All they were doing was, no doubt, as

Cossar insisted, quite the obvious thing to do, only !

In England one so rarely does the obvious thhig. He
glanced from his neighbour's feet to the boldly sketched
hands upon the reins. Cossar had apparently never
driven before, and he was keeping the Hne of least resist-
ance down the middle of the road by some no doubt
quite obvious but certainly unusual light of his own.

" Why don't we all do the obvious ? " thought Ben-
sington. " How the world would travel if one did I I

yo THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

wonder for instance why I don't do sueh a lot of things
I know would be all right to do — thnigs I want to do.
Is everybody Uke that, or is it peculiar to me I *' He
plunged into obscure speculation about the Will. He
thought of the complex organised futihties of the daily
Ufe, and in contrast with them the plain and manifest
things to do, the sweet and splendid tilings to do, that
some incredible influences will never permit us to do.
Cousin Jane ? Cousin Jane he perceived was important
in the question, in some subtle and difficult way. Why
should we after all eat, drink, and sleep, remain un-
married, go here, abstain from going there, all out of
deference to Cousin Jane ? She became symbolical with-
out ceasing to be incomprehensible I . . .

A stile and a path across the fields caught his eye and
reminded him of that other bright day, so recent In time,
so remote in its emotions, when he had walked from
Urshot to the Experimental Farm to see the giant chicks

Fate pla5rs with us.

" Tcheck, tcheck," said Cossar. " Get up."

It was a hot midday afternoon, not a breath of wind,
and the dust was thick in the roads. Few people were
about, but the deer beyond the park palings browsed
in profound tranquiUity. They saw a couple of big
wasps stripping a gooseberry bush just outside Hickley-
brow, and another was crawhng up and down the front
of the Uttle grocer's shop in the village street trying to
find an entry. The grocer was dimly visible within,
with an ancient fowUng-piece in hand, watching its
endeavours. The driver of the waggonette pulled up
outside the Jolly Drovers and informed Redwood that
his part of the bargain was done. In this contention
he was presently joined by the drivers of the waggon

THE GIANT RATS. 71

and the trolley. Not only did they maintain this, but
they refused to let the horses be taken further.

" Them big rats is nuts on *orses," the trolley driver
kept on repeating.

Cossar surve3'ed the controversy for a moment.

" (ict the things out of that waggonette," he said,
and one of his men, a tall, fair, dirty engineer, obeyed.

" Gimme that shot gun," said Cossar.

He placed himself between the drivers. " We don't
want you to drive," he said.

" You can say what you hke," he conceded, " but we
want these horses."

They began to argue, but he continued speaking.

" If you try and assault us I shall, in self-defence, let
fly at your legs. The horses are going on."

He treated the incident as closed. " Get up on that
waggon, Flack," he said to a thickset, wiry Uttle man.
" Boon, take the trolley."

The two drivers blustered to Redwood.

" You've done your duty to your employers," said
Redwood. " You stop in this village until we come
back. No one will blame you, seeing we've got guns.
We've no wish to do an5rthing unjust or violent, but
this occasion is pressing. I'll pay if anything happens
to the horses, never fear."

" Thafs aU right," said Cossar, who rarely promised.

They left the waggonette behind, and the men who
were not driving went afoot. Over each shoulder sloped
a gun. It was the oddest Uttle expedition for an English
country road, more like a Yankee party, trekking west
in the good old Indian days.

They went up the road, until at the crest by the stile
they came into sight of the Experimental Farm. They

72 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

found a little group of men there with a gun or so— the
two Fulchers were among them — and one man, a stranger
from Maidstone, stood out before the others and watched
the place through an opera-glass.

These men turned about and stared at Redwood's
party.

" Anything fresh ? " said Cossar.

'* The waspses keeps a comin' and a goin*," said old
Fulcher. " Can't see as they bring anything."

*' The canary creeper's got in among the pine trees
now," said the man with the lorgnette. " It wasn't
there this morning. You can see it grow while you
watch it."

He took out a handkerchief and wiped his object-
glasses with careful deliberation.

" I reckon you're going down there," ventured Skel-
mersdale.

" Will you come ? " said Cossar.

Skelmersdale seemed to hesitate.

" It's an all-night job."

Skelmersdale decided that he wouldn't.

" Rats about ? " asked Cossar.

" One was up in the pines this morning — rabbiting,
we reckon."

Cossar slouched on to overtake his party.

Bensington, regarding the Experimental Farm under
his hand, was able to gauge now the vigour of the Food.
His first impression was that the house was smaller
than he had thought — very much smaller ; his second
was to perceive that all the vegetation between the
house and the pine-wood had become extremely large.
The roof over the well peeped amidst tussocks of grass
a good eight feet high, and the canary creeper wrapped

THE GIANT RATS. 73

about the chimney stack and gesticulated with stiff
tendrils towards the heavens. Its flowers were vivid
yellow splashes, distinctly visible as separate specks this
mile away. A great green cable had writhed across the
big wire inclosures of the giant hens' run, and flung
twining leaf stems about two outstanding pines. Fully
half as tall as these was the grove of nettles running
round behind the cart-shed. The whole prospect, as
they drew nearer, became more and more suggestive of
a raid of pigmies upon a dolls' house that has been left
in a neglected comer of some great garden.

There was a busy coming and going from the wasps'
nest, they saw. A swarm of black shapes interlaced in
the air, above the rusty hill-front beyond the pine cluster,
and ever and again one of these would dart, up into the
sky with incredible swiftness and soar off upon some
distant quest. Their humming became audible at more
than half a mile's distance from the Experimental Farm.
Once a yellow-striped monster dropped towards them
and hung for a space watching them with its great com-
pound eyes, but at an ineffectual shot from Cossar it
darted off again. Down in a comer of the field, away
to the right, several were crawling about over some
ragged bones that were probably the remains of the lamb
the rats had brought from Huxter's Farm. The horses
became very restless as they drew near these creatures.
None of the party was an expert driver, and they had
to put a man to lead each horse and encourage it with
the voice.

They could see nothing of the rats as they came up
to the house, and everything seemed perfectly still ex-
cept for the rising and falling " whoozzzzzzZZZ, whoooo-
zoo-oo " of the wasps' nest.

74 THE FOOD OF TIIE GODS.

They lei the horses into the yard, and one of Cossar's
men, seeing the door open — tht whole of the middle
portion of the door had been gnawed out — walked into
the house. Nobody nriissed him for the time, the rest
being occupied with the barrels of paraffin, and the first
intimation they had of his separation from them was
the report of his gun and the whizz of his bullet. ** Bang,
bang,*' both barrels, and his first bullet it seems went
through the cask of sulphur, smashed out a stave from
the further side, and filled the air with yellow dust.
Redwood had kept his gun in hand and let fly at some-
thing grey that leapt past him. He had a vision of the
broad hind-quarters, the long scaly tail and long soles of
the hind-feet of a rat, and fired his second barrel. He saw
Bensington drop as the beast vanished round the comer.

Then for a time everybody was busy with a gun.
For three minutes hves were cheap at the Experimental
Farm, and the banging of guns filled the air. Redwood,
careless of Bensington in his excitement, rushed in pur-
suit, and was knocked headlong by a mass of brick
fragments, mortar, plaster, and rotten lath spUnters
that came flying out at him as a bullet whacked through
the wall.

He found himself sitting on the ground with blood on
his hands and lips, and a great stillness brooded over all
about him.

Then a flattish voice from within the house remarked :
" Gee-whizz I "

" Hullo I " said Redwood.

" Hullo there 1 " answered the voice.

And then : " Did you chaps get 'im ? "

A sense of the duties of friendship returned to Red-
wood. " Is Mr. Bensington hurt ? " he said.

THK GTANTT T?ATS. 75

The man inside heard imperfertly. " No one ain't
to blame if I ain't," said the voice inside.

It became clearer to Redwood that he must have
shot Kensington. He forgot the cuts upon his face,
arose and came back to find Bensington seated on the
ground and rubbing his shoulder. Bensington looked
over his glasses. " We peppered him, Redwood," he
said, and then : " He tried to jump over me, and knocked
me down. But I let him have it with both barrels, and
my I how it has hurt my shoulder, to be sure."

A man appeared in the doorway. " I got him once
in the rhest and once in the side," he said.

" WTiere's the waggons ? " said Cossar, appearing
amidst a thicket of gigantic canary-creeper leaves.

It became evident, to Redwood's amazement, first,
that no one had been shot, and, secondly, that the trolley
and waggon had shifted fifty yards, and were now stand-
ing with interlocked wheels amidst the tangled distor-
tions of Skinner's kitchen garden. The horses had
stopped their plunging. Half-way towards them, the
burst barrel of sulphur lay in the path with a cloud of
sulphur dust above it. He indicated this to Cossar and
walked towards it. " Has any one seen that rat ? "
shouted Cossar, following. " I got him in between the
ribs once, and once in the face as he turned on me."

They were joined by two men, as they worried at the
locked wheels.

" I killed that rat," said onefef the men.

" Have they got him ? " asked Cossar.

" Jim Bates has found him, beyond the hedge. 1 got
him jest as he came round the comer, . . . Whack
behind the shoulder. . . ."

When things were a little ship-shape again Redwood

76 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

went and stared at the huge misshapen corpse. The
brute lay on its side, with its body sHghtly bent. Its
rodent teeth overhanging its receding lower jaw gave its
face a look of colossal feebleness, of weak avidity. It
seemed not in the least ferocious or terrible. Its fore-
paws reminded him of lank emaciated hands. Except
for one neat round hole with a scorched rim on either
side of its neck, the creature was absolutely intact.
He meditated over this fact for some time. " There
must have been two rats," he said at last, turning away.

** Yes. And the one that everybody hit — got away.'*

" I am certain that my own shot "

A canary-creeper leaf tendril, engaged in that mys-
terious search for a holdfast which constitutes a tendril's
career, bent itself engagingly towards his neck and made
him step aside hastily.

" Whoo-z-z z-z-z-z-2^Z-Z/* from the distant wasps'
nest, ** whoo oo zoo-oo."

V.

This incident left the party alert but not unstrung.

They got their stores into the house, which had evi-
dently been ransacked by the rats after the flight of ]\irs.
Skinner, and four of the men took the two horses back
to Hickleybrow. They dragged the dead rat through
the hedge and into a position commanded by the windows
of the house, and incidentally came upon a cluster of
giant earwigs in the ditch. These creatures dispersed
hastily, but Cossar reached out incalculable Umbs and
managed to kill several with his boots and gun-butt.
Then two of the men hacked through several of the
main stems of the canary creeper — huge cyUnders they
were, a couple of feet in diameter, that came out by the

THE GIANT RATS. 77

sink at the back ; and while Cossar set the house in order
for the night, Bensington, Redwood, and one of the
assistant electricians went cautiously round by the fowl
runs in search of the rat-holes.

They skirted the giant nettles widely, for these huge
weeds threatened them with poison-thorns a good inch
long. Then round beyond the gnawed, dismantled stile
they came abruptly on the huge cavernous throat of the
most westerly of the giant rat-holes, an evil-smelling
profundity, that drew them up into a line together.

" I hope they'll come out," said Redwood, with a
glance at the pent-house of the well.

" If they don't " reflected Bensington.

" They will," said Redwood.

They meditated.

" We shall have to rig up some sort of flare if we do
go in," said Redwood.

They went up a Uttie path of white sand through the
pine-wood and halted presently within sight of the wasp-
holes.

The sun was setting now, and the wasps were coming
home for good ; their wings in the golden Hght made
twirling haloes about them. The three men peered out
from under the trees — they did not caxe to go right to
the edge of the wood — and watched these tremendous
insects drop and crawl for a Uttle and enter and dis-
appear. " They will be still in a couple of hours from
now," said Redwood. ..." This is like being a boy
again."

" We can't miss those holes," said Bensington, " even
if the night is dark. By-the-bye — about the hght "

" FuU moon," said the electrician. " I looked it up,"

They went back and consulted with Cossar.

yS THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

He said that " obviously " they must get the sulphur,
nitre, and plaster of Paris through the wood before
twilight, and for that they broke bulk and carried the
sacks. After the necessary shouting of the preliminary
directions, never a word was spoken, and as the buzzing
of the wasps* nest died away there was scarcely a sound
in the world but the noise of footsteps, the heavy breath-
ing of burthened men, and the thud of the sacks. They
all took turns at that labour except Mr. Bensington, who
was manifestly unlit. He took post in the Skinners*
bedroom with a ritie, to watch the carcase of the dead
rat, and of the others, they took turns to rest from
sack-carrying and to keep watch two at a time upon the
rat-holes behind the nettle gruve. The pollen sacs of
the nettles were ripe, and every now and then the vigil
would be enlivened by the dehiscence of these, the burst-
ing of the sacs sounding exactly Uke the crack of a pistol,
and the pollen grains as big as buckshot pattered all
about them.

Mr. Bensington sat at his window on a hard horse-hair-
stuffed arm-chair, covered by a grubby antimacassar
that had given a touch of social distinction to the Skinners*
sitting-room for many years. His unaccustomed rifle
rested on the sill, and his spectacles anon watched the
dark bulk of the dead rat in the thickening twilight,
anon wandered about him in curious meditation. There
was a faint smell of paraffin without, for one cf^the
casks leaked, and it mingled with a less unpleasant odour
arising from the hacked and crushed creeper.

Within, when he turned his head, a blend of faint
domestic scents, beer, cheese, rotten apples, and old
boots as the leading motifs, was full of reminiscences of
the vanished Skinners. He regarded the dim room for

THE GIANT RATS. 79

a space. The funiiture had been greatly disordered —
perhaps hy some inquisitive rat — but a coat upon a
clothes-peg on the door, a razor and some dirty scraps of
paper, and a piece of soap that had hardened through
years of disuse into a horny cube, were redolent of
Skinner's distinctive personality. It came to Bensing-
ton's mind with a complete novelty of realisation that
in all probabihty the man had been killed and eaten,
at least in part, by the monster that now lay dead
there in the darkling.

To think of all that a harmless-looking discovery in
chemistry ma}^ lead to !

Here he was in homely England and yet in infinite
danger, sitting out alone with a gun in a tmlit, ruined
house, remote from ei'ery comfort, his shoulder dread-
fully bruised from a gun-kick, and — by Jove !

He grasped now how profoundly the order of the uni-
verse had changed for him. He bad come right away
to this amazing experience, withotd even saying a word
to his cousin Jane !

WTiat must she be thinking of hira ?

He tried to imagine it and he could not. He had an
extraordinary feeling that she and he were parted for
ever and would never meet again. He felt he had
taken a step and come into a world of new immensities.
V^Tiat other monsters might not those deepening shadows
hid^ ■* . . . The tips of the giant nettles came out
sharp and black against the pale green and amber of the
western sky. Everything was very still — very still
indeed. He wondered why he could not hear the
others away there round the comer of the house. Tha
shadow in the cart-shed was now an abysmal black.

8o THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

Bang . . . Bang . . . Bang.

A sequence of echoes and a shout,

A long silence.

Bang and a diminuendo of echoes.

Stillness.

Then, thank goodness ! Redwood and Cossar were
coming out of the inaudible darknesses, and Redwood
was calling " Bensington ! *'

" Bensington ! We've bagged another of the rats I "

" G)ssar's bagged another of the rats 1 "

VI.

When the Expedition had finished refreshment, the
night had fully come. The stars were at their brightest,
and a growing pallor towards Hankey heralded the
moon. The watch on the rat -holes had been maintained,
but the watchers had shifted to the hill slope above the
holes, feeling this a safer firing-point. They squatted
there in a rather abundant dew, fighting the damp with
whisky. The others rested in the house, and the three
leaders discussed the night's work with the men. The
moon rose towards midnight, and as soon as it was clear
of the downs, every one except the rat-hole sentinels
started off in single file, led by Cossar, towards the
wasps' nest.

So far as the wasps' nest went, they found their task
exceptionally easy — astonishingly easy. Except that
it was a longer labour, it was no graver affair than any
common wasps' nest might have been. Danger there
was, no doubt, danger to life, but it never so much as
thrust its head out of that portentous hillside. They
stuffed in the sulphur and nitre, they bunged the holes

THE GIANT RATS. 8i

soundly, and fired their trains. Then with a common
impulse all the party but Cossar turned and ran athwart
the long shadows of the pines, and, finding Cossai had
stayed behind, came to a halt together in a knot, a
hundred yards away, convenient to a ditch that offered
cover. Just for a minute or two the moonlit night, all
black and white, was heavy with a suffocated buzz, that
rose and mingled to a roar, a deep abundant note, and
culminated and died, and then almost incredibly the
night was still.

" By Jove 1 " said Bensington, almost in a whisper,
*' ifs do^te I "

All stood intent. The hillside above the black point-
lace of the pine shadows seemed as bright as day and
as colourless as snow. The setting plaster in the holes
positively shone. Cossar's loose framework moved to-
wards them.

" So far " said Cossar.

Crack — hang I

A shot from near the house and then — stillness.

" What's thai ? " said Bensington.

" One of the rats put its head out," suggested one of
the men.

" By-the-bye, we left our guns ud there," said Redwood.

" By the sacks."

Every one began to walk towards the hill again.

" That must be the rats," said Bensington.

'* Obviously," said Cossar, gnawing his finger nails.

Bang I

*' Hullo ? " said one of the men.

Then abruptly came a shout, two shots, a loud shout
that w^as almost a scream, three shots in rapid sacces-
sioa ajad a splintering of wood. Ail these sounds were

82 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

very clear and very small in the immense stillness of tlie
night. Then for some moments nothing but a minute
mufiQed confusion from the direction of the rat-holes,
and then again a wild yell. . . . Each man found him-
self running hard for the guns.

Two shots.

Bensington found himself, gun in hand, going hard
through the pine trees after a number of receding
backs. It is curious that the thought uppermost in
his mind at that moment was the wish that his cousin
Jane could see him. His bulbous slashed boots flew
out in wild strides, and his face was distorted into a
permanent grin, because that wrinkled his nose and
kept his glasses in place. Also he held the muzzle of
his gun projecting straight before him as he fiew through
the chequered moonlight. The man who had run away
met them full tilt — he had dropped his gun.

" Hullo," said Cossar, and caught him in his arms.
" What's this ? "

" They came out together," said the man.

" The rats ? "

" Yes, six of them."

" Where's Flack ? "

" DOWTI."

" What's he say ? " panted Bensington, coming up,
unheeded.

" Flack's down ? "

" He fell down."

" They came out one after the other."

" WTiat ? "

" Made a nish. I fired both barrels first."

" You left Flack ? "

" They were on to isa."

THE GLVNT RATS. 83

** Come on," said Cossar. " You come with us.
Wlicre s Flack ? Show us."

The whole party muved lorvs'ard. Further details of the
engagemeni dropped ii\)m the man who had run away.
The others ciasretcd about him, except Cossar, who led.

" Where aie they ? "

" Back in their holes, perhaps. I cleared. They
made a rush for their holes."

" What do you mean ? Did you get behind them ? "

'* We got dowTi by their holes. Saw 'em come out,
you know, and tried to cut 'em off. They lolloped out
— like rabbits. W^e ran down and let fly. They ran
about wild after our first shot and sudderJy came at us.
Went for us."

" How many ? "

" Six or seven."

Cossar led the way to the edge of the pine-wood and
halted.

** D'yer mean they got Flack ? " asked some one.

" One of 'em was on to him."

" Didn't you shoot ? "

" Now could I ? "

" Every one loaded ? " said Cossar over his shoulder.

There was a confirmatory movement.

" But Flack " said one.

" D'yer mean — Flack " said another.

" There's no time to lose," said Cossar, and shouted
" Flack I " as he led the way. The whole force ad-
vanced towards the rat-holes, the man who had run
away a httle to the rear. They went forward through
the rank exaggerated weeds and skirted the body of the
second dead rat. They were extended in a bunchy line,
each man with his gun pointing forward, and they peered

^4 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

about them in the clear moonlight for some crumpled
ominous shape, some crouching form. They found the
gun of the man who had run away very speedily.

" Flack 1 " cried Cossar. " Flack I "

" He ran past the nettles and fell down," volunteered
the man who ran away.

" Where ? "

" Round about there."

" Where did he fall ? "

He hesitated and led them athwart the long black
shadows for a space and turned judicially, " About
here, I think.''

" Well, he's not here now."

" But his gun ? "

'' Confound it T' swore Cossar, " where's everything got
to ? " He strode a step towards the black shadows on the
hillside that masked the holes and stood staring. Then
he swore ixgziitx. " If they have dragged him in ! "

So they hung for a space tossing each other the frag-
ments of thoughts. Bensington's glasses flashed like
diamonds as he looked from one to the other. The
men's faces changed from cold clearness to mysterious
obscurity as they turned them to or from the moon.
Every one spoke, no one completed a sentence. Then
abruptly Cossai* chose liis line. He flapped limbs this
way and that and expelled orders in pellets. It was
obvious he wanted lamps. Every one except Cossar
was moving towards the house.

** You're going into the holes ? " asked Redwood.

*' Obviously," said Cossar.

He made it clear once more that the lamps of the
cart and trolley were to be got and brought to him.

Bensington, grasping this, started off along the path

THE GIANT RATS. 85

by the well. He glanced over his shoulder, and saw
Cossar's gigantic figure standing out as if he were re-
garding the holes pensi\'ely. At the sight Bensington
halted for a moment and half turned. They were all
leaving Cossar 1

Cossar was able to take care of himself, of course I

Suddenly Bensington saw something that made him
shout a windless " Hi 1" In a second three rats had
projected themselves from the dark tangle of the creeper
towards Cossar. For three seconds Cossar stood un-
aware of them, and then he had become the most active
thing in the world. He didn't fire his gun. Apparently
he had no time to aim, or to think of aiming ; he ducked
a leapmg rat, Bensington saw, and then smashed at the
back of its head with the butt of his gun. The monster
gave one leap and fell over itself.

Cossar's form went right down out of sight among
the reedy grass, and then he rose again, running towards
another of the rats and whirling his g^xa overhead. A
faint shout came to. Bensington's ears, and then he
perceived the remaining two rats bolting divergently,
and Cossar in pursuit towards the holes.

The whole thing was an affair of misty shadows ; all
three fighting monsters were exaggerated and made
unreal by the delusive clearness of the hght. At mo-
ments Cossar was colossal, at momenta invisible. The
rats jflashed athwart the eye in sudden unexpected leaps,
or ran with a movement of the feet so swift, they seemed
to run on wheels. It was all over in half a minute. No
one saw it but Bensington. He could hear the others
behind him still receding towards the house. He
shouted something inarticulate and then ran back to-
wards Cossar, while the rats vanished^

86 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

He came up to him outside the holes. In the moon-
light the distribution of shadows that constituted
Cossar's visage intimated calm. ** Hullo," said Cossar,
" back already ? WTiere's the lamps ? They're all
back now in their hole^. One I broke the neck of as
it ran past me. , . , See ? There I " And he pointed
a gaunt finger.

Bensington was too astonished for conversation. . . .

The lamps seemed an interminable time in coming.
At last they appeared, first one unwinking luminous eye,
preceded by a swaying yellow glare, and then, winking
now and then, and then shining out again, two others.
About them came little figures with little voices, and
then enormous shadows. This group made as it were
a spot of inflammation upon the gigantic dreamland of
moonshine,

" Flack," said the voices. " Flack."

An illuminating sentence floated up. " Locked him-
self in the attic."

Cossar was continually more wonderful. He pro-
duced great handfuls of cotton wool and stuffed them
in his ears — Bensington wondered why. Then he loaded
his gun with a quarter charge of powder. Who else
could have thought of that ? Wonderland culminated
\^ith the disappearance of Cossar's twin realms of boot
sole up the central hole.

C/Ossar was on all fours with two guns, one trailing
on each side from a string under his chin, and his most
tnisted assistant, a little dark man with a grave face,
was to go in stooping behind him, holding a lantern
over his head. Ever^-lhing had been made as sane and
obvious and proper as a lunatic's dream. The wool, it
«eems, was on account of the concussion of the rifle ;

THE GIANT RATS. 87

the man had some too. Obviously 1 So long as the rats
turned tail on Cossar no haiin could come to him, and
directly they heaac\i for him he would see their eyes
and fire between them. Since they would have to come
down the cylinder of the hole, Cossar could hardly fail
to hit them. It was, Cossar inidsted, the obvious
method, a little tedious perhaps, but absolutely certain.
As the assistant stooped to enter, Bensington saw that
the end of a ball of twine had been tied to the tail of
his coat. By this he was to draw in the rope if it
should be needed to drag out the bodies of the rats.

Bensmgton perceived that the object he held in his
hand was Cossar's silk hat.

How had it got there ? . . .

It would be something to remember him by, anyhow.

At each of the adjacent holes stood a Uttle group
with a lantern on the ground shining up the hole, and
with one man kneeling and aiming at the round void
before him, waiting for anything that might emerge.

There was an interminable suspense.

Then they heard Cossar's first shot, like an explosion
in a mine. . . .

Every one's nerves and muscles tightened at that,
and bang ! bang I bang 1 the rats had tried a bolt,
and two more were dead. Then the man who held the
ball of twine reported a twitching. " He's killed one
in there," said Bensington, " and he wants the rope."

He watched the rope creep into the hole, and it
seemed as though it had become animated by a serpen-
tine intelligence — for the darkness made the twine in-
visible. At last it stopped crawling, and there was a long
pause. Then what seemed to Bensington the queerest
monster of all crept slowly from the hole, and resolved

88 THIC irOOD OW THE GODS.

itself into the little engineei. emerging backwards. After
him, and ploughing deep furrows, Cossar's boots thrust
out, and then came his lantern-illuminated back, . . .

Only one rat was left alive now, and this poor, doomed
wretch cowered in the inmost recesses until Cossar and
the lantern went in again and slew it, and finally Cossar,
that human ferret, went through all the runs to make sure.

" We got 'em," he said to his nearly awe-stricken
company at last. ** And if I hadn't been a mud-headed
mucker I should have stripped to the waist. Obviously.
Feel my sleeves, Bensington ! I'm wet through with
perspiration. Jolly hard to think of everything. Only
a halfway-up of whisky can save me from a cold."

VII.

There were moments during that wonderful night
when it seemed to Bensington that he was planned by
nature for a life of fantastic adventure. This was par-
ticularly the case for an hour or so after he had taken
a stift whisky. " Shan't go back to Sloane Street," he
confided to the tall, fair, dirty engineer.

" You won't, eh ? "

" No fear," said Bensington, nodding darkly.

The exertion of dragging the seven dead rats to the
funeral pyre by the nettle grove left him bathed in
perspiration, and Cossar pointed out the obvious physi-
cal reaction of whisky to save him from the otherwise
inevitable chill. There was a sort of brigand's supper
in the old bricked kitchen, with the row of dead rats
lying in the moonlight against the hen-runs outside,
and after thirty minutes or so of rest, Cossar roused
them all to the labours that were still to do. " Ob-
viously," as he said, they had to " wipe the place out.

THE GIANT RATS. 89

No litter — no scandal. See ? " He stirred them up to
the idea of making destruction complete. They smashed
and splintered every fragment of wood in the house ;
they built trails of chopped wood wherever big vegeta-
tion was springing ; they made a pyre for the rat bodies
and soaked them in paraffin.

Bensington worked like a conscientious navvy. He
had a sort of climax of exhilaration and energy towards
two o'clock. When in the work of destruction he
wielded an axe the bravest fled his neighbourhood.
Afterwards he was a little sobered by the temporary loss
of his spectacles, which were found for him at last in his
side coat-pocket.

Men went to and fro about him — ^grlmy, energetic
men. Cossar moved amongst them like a god.

Bensington drank that delight of human fellowship
that comes to happy armies, to sturdy expeditions —
never to those who live the life of the sober citizen in
cities. After Cossar had taken his axe away and set
him to carry wood he went to and fro, saying they
were all " good fellows." He kept on — long after he
was aware of fatigue.

At last all was ready, and the broaching of the paraffin
began. The moon, robbed now of all its meagre night
retinue of stars, shone high above the dawn.

" Bum ever5rthing," said Cossar, going to and fro —
*' bum the ground and make a clean sweep of it. See ? "

Bensington became aware of him, looking now very
gaunt and horrible in the pale beginnings of the daylight,
hurrying past with his lower jaw projected and a flaring
torch of touchwood in his hand.

" Come away 1 " said some one, pulling Bensington's
arm.

90 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

The still dawn — no birds were singing there — was
suddenly full of a tumultuous crackling ; a little dull
red flame ran about the base of the pyre, changed to
blue upon the ground, and set out to clamber, leaf by
leaf, up the stem of a giant nettle. A singing sound
mingled with the crackling. . . .

They snatched their guns from the comer of the
Skinners' living-room, and then every one was running.
Cossar came after them with hea\^ strides. . . .

Then they were standing looking back at the Experi-
mental Farm. It was boiling up ; the smoke and
flames poured out like a crowd in a panic, from doors
and windows and from a thousand cracks and cre\'ices
in the roof. Trust Cossar to build a fire 1 A great
column of smoke, shot with blood-red tongues and
darting flashes, nished up into the sky. It was like
some huge giant suddenly standing up, straining
upward and abruptly spreading his great arms out
across the sky. It cast the night back upon them,
utterly hiding and obliterating the incandescence of the
sun that rose behind it. All Hickleybrow was soon aware
of that stupendous pillar of smoke, and came out upon
the crest, in various dhhahilU, to watch them coming.

Behind, lika some fantastic fungus, this smoke pillar
swayed and fluctuated, up, up, into the sky — making
the Downs seem low and all other objects petty, and
in the foreground, led by Cossar, the makers of this
mischief followed the path, eight little black figures
coming wearily, guns shouldered, across the meadow.

As Bensington looked back there c^rae into his jaded
brain, and echoed there, a familiar formula. Wliat was
it ? " You have lit to-day ? You have lit to-
day ? "

THE GIANT RATS. 91

Then he remembered Latimer's words : " We have
lit t\iis day such a caadle in England as no man may
ever put out again *'

^\llat a man Cossar was, to be sure 1 He admired
his back view for a space, and was proud to have held
that hat. Proud I Although he was an eminent in-
vestigator and Cossar only engaged in applied science.

Suddenly he fell shivering and yawning enormously
and wishing he was warmly tucked away in bed In his
little flat that looked out upon Sioane Street. (It didn't
do even to think of Cousin Jane.) His legs became
cotton strands, his feet lead. He wondered if any one
would get them coffee la Hickleybrow. He had never
been up all night for three-and-thirty years.

\^II.

And while these eight adventurers fought with rats
about the Experimental Farm, nine miles away, in the
village of Cheasing Eyebright, an old lady with an
excessive nose struggled with great difficulties by the
light of a flickering candle. She gripped a sardine tin
opener in one gnarled hand, and in the other she held a
tin of Herakleophorbia, which she had resolved to open
or die. She struggled indefatigably, grunting at each
fresh effort, while through the flimsy partition the voice
of the Caddies infant wailed.

" Bless 'is poor 'art," said Mrs. Skinner ; and then,
with her solitary tooth biting her lip in an ecstasy of
determination, " Come up / "

And presently, " Jab I " a. fresh supply of the Food
of the Gods was let loose to wreak its powers of giantry
upon the world.

CHAPTER THE FOURTH.

THE GIANT CHILDREN.
I.

For a time at least the spreading circle of residual con-
sequences about the Experimental Farm must pass out
of the focus of our narrative — how for a long time a
power of bigness, in fungus and toadstool, in grass and
weed, radiated from that charred but not absolutely
obliterated centre. Nor can we tell here at any length
how these mournful spinsters, the two surviving hens,
made a wonder of and a show, spent their remaining
years in eggless celebrity. The reader who is hungry
for fuller details in these matters is referred to the news-
papers of the period — to the voluminous, indiscriminate
i&les of the modern Recording Angel. Our business lies
with Mr. Bensington at the focus of the disturbance.

He had come back to London to find himself a quite
terribly famous man. In a night the whole world had
changed with respect to him. Everybody understood.
Cousin Jane, it seemed, kixew all about it ; the people
in the streets knew all about it ; the newspapers all
and more. To meet Cousin Jane was terrible, of course,
but when it was over not so terrible after all. The good
woman had limits even to her power over facts ; it was

THE GIANT CHILDREN. 93

clear that she had communed with herself and accepted
the Food as something in the nature of things.

She took the hne of huffy dutifulncss. She disap-
proved highly, it was evident, but she did not prohibit.
The flight of Bensington, as she must have considered
it, may have shaken her, and her worst was to treat
him with bitter persistence for a cold he had not caught
and fatigue he had long since forgotten, and to buy
liim a new sort of hygienic all-wool combination under-
wear that was apt to get involved and turned partially
inside out and partially not, and as difficult to get
into for an absent-minded man, as — Society. And so
for a space, and as far a.s this convenience left him
leisure, he still continued to participate in the develop-
ment of this new element in human history, the Food
of the Gods.

The pubhc mind, following its own mysterious laws of
selection, had chosen him as the one and only responsible
Inventor and Promoter of this new wonder ; it would
hear nothing of Redwood, and without a protest it
allowed Cossar to follow liis natural impulse into a
terribly proUfic obscurity. Before he was aware of the
drift of these things, Mr. Bensington was, so to speak,
stark and dissected upon the hoardings. His baldness,
his curious general pinkness, and his golden spectacles
had become a national possession. Resolute young
men with large expensive-looking cameras and a general
air of complete authorisation took possession of the
flat for brief but fruitful periods, let off flash hghts in
it that filled it for days with dense, intolerable vapour,
and retired to fill the pages of the syndicated magazines
with their admirable photographs of Mr. Bensington
complete and at home in his second-best jacket and bis

94 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

slashed shoes. Other resolute-mannered persons of
various ages and sexes dropped in and told him things
about Boomfood — it was Punch first called the stuff
** Boomfood " — and afterwards reproduced what they
had said as his own original contribution to the Inter-
view. The thing became quite an obsession with Broad-
beam, the Popular Humourist. He scented another con-
founded thing he could not understand, and he fretted
dreadfully in his efforts to *' laugh the thing down."
One saw him in clubs, a great clumsy presence with the
evidences of his midnight oil burning manifest upon
his large unwholesome face, explaining to everj^ one
he could buttonhole : " Tliese Scientific chaps, you
know, haven't a Sense of Humour, you know. That's
what it is. This Science — kills it." His jests at Ben-
sington became malignant libels. . , ,

An enterprising press-cutting agency sent Bensington
a long article about himself from a sixpenny weekly,
entitled ** A New Terror," and offered to supply one
hundred snch disturbances for a guinea, and two ex-
tremely charming young ladies, totally unknown to him,
called, and, to the speechless indignation of Cousin
Jane, had tea with him and afterwards sent him their
birthday books for bis signature. He was speedily
quite hardened to seeing his name associate<i with the
most incongruous ideas in the public press, and to
discover in the reviews articles written abowt Boomfood
and himself la a tone of the utmost intimacy by people
he had never heard of. And whatever delusiom? he
may have cherished in the days of his obscurity about
the pleasaxitness of Fame were dispelled utterly and for
ever.

At first — except for Biroadbeam — the tone oi the

THE GIANT CHILDREN. 95

public mind was quite free from any touch of hostility.
It d]«J uui beein to occur to the public mind as anytliing
but a mere playtui supposition that any more Herak-
leophorbia was going to escape again. And it did not
seem to occur to the pubhc mind that the growing
little band of babies now being fed on the food would
presently be growing more " up " than most of us ever
grow. The sort of tlung that pleased the public mind
was caricatures of eminent politicians after a course of
Boom-feeding, uses of the idea on hoardings, and such
edifying exhibitioius as the dead wasps that had escaped
the fire and the remaining heixs.

Beyond that the pubhc did not care to look, until
very strenuous efforts were made to turn its eyes to the
remoter consequences, and even then for a while its
enthusiasm for action was partial. '* There's always
somethin' New/' said the public — a pubhc so glutted
with novelty that it would hear of the earth being spUt
as one splits an apple without surprise, and, " I wonder
what they'll do next."

But there were one or two people outside the public,
as it were, who did already take that further glance,
and some it seems were frightened by what they saw
there. There was young Caterham, for example, cousin
of the Earl of Pewterstone, and one of the most promis-
ing of English politicians, who, taking the risk of being
thought a faddist, wrote a long article in the Nineteenth
Century and After to suggest its total suppression. And
— in certain of his moods, there was Bensington.

" They don't seem to realise " he said to Cossar.

" No, they don't."

" And do we ? Sometimes, when I think of what it
means This poor child of Redwood's— And, of

96 THE FOOD OF HIE GODS.

cotjrse, ycrdT thtt^ . . . Fony feet high, perhaps 1 . . .
After all, oughi we to go on %1th it ? ''

" Go on with it 1 '* ciied Cossar, convulsed with inele-
gant astonishment and pitching his note higher than
ever. " Of coun0 you'll go on with it I WTiat d'you
think yoa were mad^ for ? Just to loaf about between
meal-tlines ?

" Serious conjjttqiiences/' he screamed, ** of course 1
Enormous. Obviously. Ob-viously. Why, man, it's
the only chance youfi ever get of a serious consequence !
And you waat to shirk it 1 " For a moment his indig-
nation wasi speechless- " It's downright Wicked I " he
said at last, and repeated explosively, " Wicked I "

But Bensington worked In his laboratory now with
more emotion than zest. He couldn't tell whether he
wanted serious consequences to his life or not ; he was a
man of quiet ta.^e2s. It wsl«s a marvellous discovery,

of coui-se, quite marvellous — but He had already

become the proprietor of several acres of scorched, dis-
credited profverty near Hickieybrow, at a price of nearly
£90 an acre, and at times he was disposed to think this
as serious a consequence of speculative chemistry as
any unambitious man could wish. Of course he was
Famous — terribly Famous. More than satisf3dng, alto-
gether more than satisfying, was the Fame he had
attained.

But the habit of Research was strong in him. . . .

And at moments, rare moments in the laboratory
chiefly, he would find something else than habit and
Cossar's arguments to urge him to his work. This little
spectacled man, poised perhaps with his slashed shoes
v;nrapped about the legs of his high stool and his hand
upon the tweezer of his balance weights, would have

THE GIANl CHILDREN. 97

again a flash of that axiolescent vision, would have a
moment ary perception ol the eternal uniolding of the
seed that had been sown in his brain, would see as it
were in the sky, behind the grotesque shapes and acci-
dents of the present, the coming world of giants and
all the mighty things the future has In store — vague
and splendid, like some glittering palace seen suddenly
in the passing of a sunbeam far away. . . . And pres-
ently it would be with him as though that distant
splendour had never shone upon his brain, and he would
perceive nothing ahead but sinister shadows, vast de-
cUvities and darknesses, inhospitable immensities, cold,
wild, and terrible things.

Amidst the complex and confused happenings, the
impacts from the great outer world that constituted
Mr. Bensington's fame, a shining and active figure
presently became conspicuous — became almost, as it
were, a leader and marshal of these externahties in Mr.
Bensington's eyes. This was Dr. Winkles, that con-
vincing young practitioner, who has already appeared
in this story as the means whereby Redwood was able
to convey the Food to his son. Even before the great
outbreak, it was evident that the mysterious powders
Redwood had given him had awakened this gentleman's
interest immensely, and so soon as the first wasps came
he was putting two and two together.

He was the sort of doctor that is in manners, !n morals,
i in methods and appearance, most succinctly and finally
\ expressed by the word " rising." He was large and fair,
'with a hard, alert, superficial, aluminium- coloured eye,
iand hair like chalk mud. even-featured and muscular

4

98 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

about the clean-shaven mouth, erect in figure and ener-
getic in movement, quick and bpmnuig on the heel,
and he wore long frock coatb, black silk ties and plain
gold studs and chains, and his silk hats had a special
shape and brim that made him look wiser and better
tiian anybody. He looked as young oi old as anybody
grown up. And alter that first wonderlul outbreak he
took to Bensington and Redwood and the Food ot the
Gods with such a convincing air of proprietorship, that
at times, in spite of the testimony of tne Press to the
contrary, Bensington was disposed to regard him as the
original inventor of the whole afifair.

" These accidents," said Winkles, when Bensington
hinted at the dangers of further escapes, " are nothing.
Nothing. The discovery is everything. Properly de-
veloped, suitably handled, sanely controlled, we have —
we have something very portentous indeed in this food
of ours. . - . We must keep our eye on it. , . » We
mustn't let it out of control again, and — we mustn't
let it rest."

He certainly did not mean to do that. He was at
Bensington's now almost every day. Bensington, glan-
cing from the window, would see the faultless equipage
come spanking up Sloane Street, and after an incredibly
brief interval Winkles would enter the room with a
light, strong motion, and pervade it, and protrude some
newspaper and supply information and make remarks.

" Well," he would say, rubbing his hands, ** how are
we getting on ? " and so pass to the current discussioq
about it.

" Do you see," he would say, for example, ** that
Caterham has been talking about our stufi at the Churcl^
Association ? "

THE GIANT CHILDREN. ^

" Prar mc 1 " said BcnsLngtoiij, " that's a cousin of
the Prime Minister, isn't it ? "

" Yes," said Winkles, " a very able young man — very
able. Quite wrong-beaded, you know, violently reac-
tionary— but thoroughly able. And he's evidently dis-
posed to make capital out of this stuff of ours. Takes
a very emphatic line. Talks of our proposal to use it
in the elementary schools "

" Our proposal to use it in the elementary schools I "

** / said something about that the other day — quite
in passing — little affair at a Polytechnic. Trying to
make it clear the stuff was really highly beneficial. Not
in the slightest degree dangerous, in spite of those first
little accidents. Which cannot possibly occur again. - . a

You know it would be rather good stu2 But he's

taken it up."

" What did you say ? "

** Mere obvious nothings. But as you see 1 Takes

it up with perfect gravity. Treats the thing as an
attack. Says there is already a sufficient waste of public
money in elementary schools without this. Tells the old
stories about piano lessons again — you know. No one,
he says, wishes to prevent the children of the lower classes
obtaining an education suited to their condition, but
to give them a food of this sort will be to destroy their
sense of proportion utterly. Expands the topic. WTiat
Good will it do, he asks, to make poor people six-and-
thirty feet high ? He really belie ves, you know, that
they will be thirty-six feet high,"

" So they would be," said Bensington, " if you gave
them our food at all regularly. But nobody said any-
thing "

" I said something."

100 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

" But, my dear Winkles 1 '*

" They'll be Bigg^^r^ of course," interrupted Winkles,
with an air of knowing all about it, and discouraging
the crude ideas of Bensington. " Bigger indisputably.
But listen to what he says ! Will it make them happier ?
That's his point. Curious, isn't it ? Will it make them
better ? Will they be more respectful to properly con-
stituted authority ? Is it fair to the children them-
selves j? Curious how anxious his sort are for justice —
so far as any future arrangements go. Even nowadays,
he says, the cost of feeding and clothing children is
more than many of their parents can contrive^ and if
this sort of thing is to be permitted ! Eh ?

" You see he makes my mere passing suggestion into
a positive proposal. And then he calculates how much
a pair of breeches for a growing lad of twenty feet high

or so will cost. Just as though he really believed

Ten pounds^ he reckons, for the merest decency- Curious
man, this Caterham 1 So concrete 1 The honest and
struggling ratepayer will have to contribute to that, he
says. He says we have to cx)nsider the Rights of the
Parent. It's all here. Two columns. Every Parent
has a right to have his children brought up in his own
Size. . . .

" Then comes the question of school accommodation,
cost of enlarged desks and forms for our already too
greatly burthened National Schools. And to get what ?
— a proletariat of himgry giants. Winds up with a
very serious passage, says even if this wild suggestion —
mere passing fancy of mine, you know, and misinter-
preted at that — this wild suggestion about the schools
comes to nothing, that doesxi't end the matter. This
is a strange fiood, s© strange as to seem to him almost

TIIE GIANT CHILDREN. lOl

wicked. It has been scattered recklessly — so he says —
and it may be scattered again. Once you've taken it,
it's poisun unless you go on with it. (** So it is/' said
Bensingtun.) Ajid in short he proposes the formation
of a National Society for the Preservation of the Proper
Proportiojib of Things. Odd ? Eh ? People are hang-
ing on to the idea like anything."

'* Bat what do they piopose to do ? "

Winkles shrugged his shoulders and threw out his
hands. ** Form a Society," he said, " and fuss. They
want to make it illegal to manufacture this Herakleo-
phorbia— or at any rate to circulate the knowledge of
it. I've written about a bit to show that Caterham's
idea of the stuff is very much exaggerated — very much
exaggerated indeed, but that doesn't seem to check it.
Curious how people are turning against it. And the
National Temperance Association, by-the-bycj^ has
founded a branch for Temperance in Growth."

** Mm," said Bensington, and stroked his nose.

'* After all that has happened there's bound to be this
uproar. On the face of it the thing's — startling'*

Winkles walked about the room for a time, hesitated,
and departed.

It became evident there was something at the back
of his mind, some aspect of crucial importance to him,
that he waited to display. One day, when Redwood
and Bensington were at the flat together, he gave them
a ghmpse of this something in reserve.

" How's it all going ? " he said, rubbing his hands
together.

" We're getting together a sort of report."

" For the Royal Society ? "

" Yes."

102 THE FOOD OF THE TxODS.

" Hm," said Winkles^ very profoundly, and walked
to the hearth-rug, " Hm. But- — Here's the point.
Ought you ? "

** Ought we~what ? "

" Ought you to publish ? "

" We're not in the Middle Ages," said Redwood.

" I know/'

" As Cossar says^ swapping wisdom — that's the true
scientific method/'

" In most caseSj certainlya But This is ex-
ceptional."

" We shall put the whole thing before the Royal
Society in the proper way/' said Redwood.

W%kles returned to that on a later occasion.

*' It's in many ways an Exceptional discovery.**

" That doesn't matter," said Redwood,

" It's the sort of knowledge that could easily be subject
to grave abuse — grave dangers, as Caterham puts it."

Redwood said nothing.

" Even carelessness, you know "

" If we were to fonn a committee of trustworthy
people to control the manufacture of Boomiood —
Herakleophorbia, I should say — we might "

He paused, and Redwood, with a certain private dis-
comfort, pretended that he did not see any sort of in-
terrogation. . » .

Outside the apartments of Redwood and Bensington,
WuaJdes, in spite of the incompleteness of his instruc-
tions, became a leading authority upon Boomfood. He
wrote letters defending its use ; he made notes and
articles explainmg its possibilities J he jumped up ir-
relevantly at the meetings of the scientific and medical
associations to talk about it ; he identified himself with

THE GIANT CHILDREN. 103

it. He published a pamphlet called " The Truth about
BooTTitood." in which he minimised the whole of the
Hicklfybrow affair almost to nothing. He said that it
was absurd to say Boomfood would make people thirty-
seven feet high. That was " obviously exaggerated."
It would make them Bigger, of course, but that was
aU. . . .

Within that intimate circle of two it was chiefly evident
that Winkles was extremely anxious to help in the
making of Herakleophorbia, help in correcting any
proofs there might be of any paper there might be in
preparation upon the subject — do anything indeed that
might lead up to his participation in the details of the
making of Herakleophorbia. He was continually telling
them both that he felt it was a Big Thing, that it had
big possibilities. If only they were — " safeguarded in
some way." And at last one day he asked outright
to be told just how it was made.

" I've been thinking over what you said," said Redwood.

" Weil ? " said Winkles brightly.

** It's the sort of knowledge that could easily be sub-
ject to grave abuse/' said Redwood.

** But I don't see how that applies," said Winkles.

" It does," said Redwood.

Winkles thought it over for a day or so. Then he
came to Redwood and said that he doubted if he ought
to give powders about which he knew nothing to Red-
wood's little boy i it seemed to him it was uncom-
monly like taking responsibility in the dark. That
made Redwood thoughtful.

" You've seen that the Society for the Total Suppres-
sion of Boomfood claims to have several thousand
n^mbersi" said Winkles, changing the subject.

104 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

" They've drafted a Bill," said Winkles. '* They've
got young Caterham to take it up — readily enough.
I'hey're in earnest. They're forming local committees
to injfluence candidates. They want to make it penal
to prepare and store Herakleophorbia without special
license, and felony — matter of imprisonment without
option — to administer Boomfood — that's what they call
it, you know — to any person under one-and-twenty.
But there's collateral societies, you know. All sorts of
people. The Society for the Preservation of Ancient
Statures is going to have Mr. Frederic Harrison on the
council, they say. You know he's written an essay
about it ; says it is vulgar, and entirely inharmonious
with that Revelation of Humanity tha.t is found in the
teachings of Comte. It is the sort of thing the Eighteenth
Century couldn't have produced even in its worst mo-
ment. The idea of the Food never entered the head
of Comte — which shows how wicked it really is. No
one, he saySj who really understood Comte. - . ."

" But you don't mean to say " said Redwood,

alarmed out of his disdain for Winkles.

" They'll not do all that," said Winkles. " But pubhc
opinion is public opinion, and votes are votes. Every-
body can see you are up to a disturbing thing. And the
human instinct is all against disturbance, you know.
Nobody seems to believe Caterham's idea of people
thirty-seven feet high, who won't be able to get inside
a church, or a meeting-house, or any social or human
institution. But for all that they're not so easy in
their minds about it. They see there's something —
something more than a common discovery "

" There is," said Redwood, ** in every discovery."

" Anyhow, they're getting — restive. Caterham keeps

THE GIANT CHILDREN. 105

harping on wiiat may happen if it gets loose again. I
say over and over again, it won't, and it can't. But —
there it is 1 "

And he bounced about the room for a little while as
if he meant to reopen the topic of the secret, and then
thought better of it and went.

The two scientific men looked at one another. For a
space only their eyes spoke.

" If the worst comes to the worst," said Redwood at
last, in a strenuously calm voice, " I shall give the Food
to my little Teddy with my own hands,"

III,

It was only a few days after this that Redwood opened
his paper to find that the Prime Minister had promised
a Royal Commission on Boomfood. This sent him,
newspaper in hand, round to Bensington's flat.

" Winkles, I believe, is making mischief for the stufi.
He plays into the hands of Caterham. He keeps on
talking about it, and what it is going to do, and alarm-
ing people. If he goes on, I really believe he'll hamper
our inquiries- Even as it is — with this trouble about
my little boy "

Bensington wished Winkles wouldn't.
" " Do you notice how he has dropped into the way
of calling it Boomfood ? "

" I don't like that name," said Bensington, with a
glance over his glasses.

" It is just so exactly what it is — to Winkles."

" Why does he keep on about it ? It isn't his I "

" It's something called Booming." said Redwood. " I
don't understand. If it isn't his, everybody is getting
to think it is. Not that that matters."

io6 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

'* In the event of this ignorant, this ridicnlotts agitation
becoming — Serious/' began Bensington.

" My httle boy can't get on without the stufi,** said
Redwood. " I don't see how I can help myself now.
If the worst comes to the worst -"

A slight booncmg noise proclaimed the presence of
Winkles. He became risible in the middle of tUe room
rubbing his hands together.

" I wish you'd knock/'*said Bensington, looking \'icious
over the gold rims.

Winkles was apologetic. Then he turned to Redwood.
" I'm glad to hnd you here," he began ; " the fact is "

" Have you seen about this Royal G)nmiission ? " in-
terrupted Redwood.

" Yes," said Winkles, thrown out. " Yes."

" What do you think of it ? "

" Excellent thing," said Winkles. " Bound to stop
most of this clamour. Ventilate the whole affair. Shut
up Caterham. But that's not what I came round for,
Redv/ood. The fact is "

** I don't like this Royal Commission," said Ben-
singtoiL

"I can assure you It will be all right. I may say —
I don't think it's a breach of confidence — that very
possibly / may have a place on the Commission "

*' Oom," said Redwood, looking into the fire.

" I can put the whole thing right. I can make it
perfectly clear, first, that the stuff is controllable, and,
secondly, that nothing short of a miracle is needed
before anything like that catastrophe at Hickleybrow
can iK>ssibly happen again. Tliat is just what is wanted,
an authoritative assurance. Of course, I could speak
with more confidence if I knew But that's quite

THE GIANT CHILDREN. 107

by the way. And just at present there's something
else, another little matter, upon which I'm wanting to

consult you. Ahem. The fart is Well I

happen to be in a slight difficulty, and you can help
rae nut,"

Redwood raised his eyebrows, and was secretly glad.

** The matter is — highly confidential."

" Go on," said Redwood. " Don't worry about
that."

** I have recently been entrusted with a child — the
cliild of — of an Exalted Personage."

Winkles coughed.

" You're getting on," said Redwood.

" I must confess it's largely your powders — and the

reputation of my success with your little boy There

is, I cannot disguise, a strong feeling against its use.

And yet I find that among the more intelligent ■ One

must go quietly in these things, you know — httle by
little. Still, in the case of Her Serene High — I mean
this new httle patient of mine. As a matter of fact —
the suggestion came from the parent. Or I should
never "

He struck Redwood as being embarrassed.

" I thought you had a doubt of the advisability of
using these powders," said Redwood.

" Merely a passing doubt."

" You don't propose to discontinue "

'* In the case of your Httle boy ? Certainly not 1 "

" So far as I can see, it would be murder."

" I wouldn't do it for the world."

" You shall have the powders," said Redwood.

" I suppose you couldn't "

''No fear," said Redwood, "There isn't a recipe.

io8 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

It's no good. Winkles, if you'll pardon my frankness.
I'll make you the powders myself."

*' Just as well, perhaps,'* said Winkles, after a momen-
tary hard stare at Redwood — " just as well." And
then : "I can assure you I really don't mind in the
least."

IV.

When Winkles had gone Bensington came and stood
on the hearth-rug and looked down at Redwood.

" Her Serene Highness I " he remarked.

" Her Serene Highness I " said Redwood.

" It's the Princess of Weser Dreiburg 1 "

" No further than a third cousin."

*' Redwood," said Bensington ; " it's a curious thing
to say, I know, but — do you think Winkles under-
stands ? "

" What ? "

" Just what it is we have made.

" Does he really understand," said Bensington, drop-
ping his voice and keeping his eye doorward, " that in
the Family--the Family of his new patient "

" Go on," said Redwood.

" Who have always been if anything a little under —
under "

" The Average ? ''

" Yes, And so very tactfuUy undistinguished in any
way, he is going to produce a royal personage — an out-
size royal personage — of thai size. You know, Red-
wood, I'm not sure whether there is not something
almost — treasonable ..."

He transferred his eyes from the door to Redwood.

l-'edwood fung a momentary gesture — index finger

'HIE GIANT CHILDREN. 109

erect — at the fire. " By Jove ! " he said, " he doesn't
know ! "

*' That man," said Redwood, " doesn't know anything.
That was his most exasperating quality as a student.
Nothing. He passed all his examinations, he had aLI
his facts — and he had just as much knowledge — as a
rotating bookshelf containing the Times Encyclopedia.
And he doesn't know anything now. He's Winkles, and
incapable of really assimilating anything not immediately
and directly related to his superficial self. He is utterly
void of imagination and, as a consequence, incapable of
knowledge. No one could possibly pass so many ex-
aminations and be so well dressed, so well done, and so
successful as a doctor without that precise incapacity.
That's it. And in spite of all he's seen and heard and
been told, there he is — he has no idea whatever of what
he has set going. He has got a Boom on, he's working
it well on Boomfood, and some one has let him in to
this new Royal Baby — and that's Boomier than eyer I
And the fact that Weser Dreiburg will presently have to
face the gigantic problem of a thirty-odd-foot Princess
not only hasn't entered his head, but couldn't — it
couldn't 1 "

" There'll be a fearful row," said Bensington.

" In a year or so."

" So soon as they really see she is going on growing."

" Unless after their fashion — they hush it up."

" It's a lot to hush up."

" Rather 1 "

" I wonder what they'll do ? "

" They never do anything — Royal tact"

" They're bound to do something."

" Perhaps she will"

no THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

"O Lord I Yes,"

" They'll suppress her. Such things have been
known."

Redwood burst into desperate laughter. '* The re-
dundant royalty— the bouncing babe in ilie Iron Mask ! "
he said. " They'll have to put her in tlie td,llest tower
of the old Weser Dreiburg castle and make hojds in the
ceilings as she grows from floor to floor I . * . Well, I'm
in the very same pickle. And Cossar and his three
boys. And Well, well."

*' There'll be a fearful row," Bensington repeated, not
joining in the laughter. *' A /earful row."

" I suppose," he argued, " you've really thought it
out thoroughly, Redwood. You're quite sure it wouldn't
be wiser to warn Winkles, wean your little boy gradu-
ally, and — and rely upon the Theoretical Triumph ? "

" I wish to goodness you'd spend half an hour in my
nursery when the Food's a little late," said Redwood,
with a note of exasperation in his voice ; ** then you

wouldn't talk like that, Bensington. Besides Fancy

warning Winkles 1 ... No I The tide of this thing
has caught us unawares, and whether we're frightened
or whether we're not— we've got to swim I "

" I suppose we have," said Bensington, staring at his
toes. " Yes. We've got to swim. And your boy will
have to swim, and Cossar's boys — he's given it to all
three of them. Nothing partial about G>ssar — all or
nothing 1 And Her Serene Highness. And everything.
We are going on making the Food. Cossar also. We're
only just in the dawn of the beginning, Redwood. It's
evident all sorts of things are to follow. Monstrous
great things. But I can't imagine them, Redwood.
Except "

THE GIANT CHILDREN. in

He scanned his finger nails. He looked up at Red-
wood with eyes bland through his glsLSses.

" I've half a mind," he adventured. " that Caterham
is right. At times. It's going to destroy the Propor-
tions of Things. It's going to dislocate Wliat isn't

it gomg to dislocate ? "

*' Whatever it dislocates," said Redwood, *' my little
boy must have the Food."

They heard some one falling rapidly upstairs. Then
Cossaj- put his head into the Qat. ** Hullo I " he said at
their expressions, and entering, " Well ? "

They told him about the Princess.

" Diffictdi questton I " be remarked. " Not a bit of
it. She'll grow. Your boy '11 grow. All the others you
give it to '11 grow. Everything. Like anything. What's
diJB5cult about that ? That's all right. A child could
tell you that. Where's the bother ? "

They tried to make it clear to him.

" Not go on with it I " he shrieked. " But I You

can't help yourselves now. It's what you're for. It's
what Winkles is for. It's all right. Often wondered
what Winkles was for. Now it's obvious. What's the
trouble ?

" Disturbance ? Obviously. Upsei things ? Upset
everything. Finally — upset every human concern. Plain
as a pikestaff. They're going to try and stop it, but
they're too late. It's their way to be too late. You
go on and start as much of it as you can. Thank God
He has a use for you I "

" But the conflict 1 " said Bensington, " the stress I I
don't know if you have imagined "

" You ought to have been some sort of little vege-
table. Bensii^gton," said Cossar — *' that's what you

112 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

ought to have been. Something growing over a rockery.
Here you are, fearfully and wonderfully made, and all
you think you're made for is just to sit about and take
your vittles. D'you think this world was made for old
women to mop about in ? Well, anyhow, you can't
help yourselves now — you've got to go on."

" I suppose we must," said Redwood. " Slowly "

" No 1 " said Cossar, in a huge shout. " No 1 Make
as much as you can and as soon as you can. Spread it
about I "

He was Inspired to a stroke of wit. He parodied one of
Redwood's curves with a vast upward sweep of his arm.

" Redwood I " he said, to point the allusion, " make
it SO I "

There Is, It seems, an upward limit to the pride of
maternity, and this in the case of Mrs. Redwood was
reached when her offspring completed his sixth month
of terrestrial existence, broke down his high-class
bassinet-perambulator, and was brought home, bawling,
in the milk-truck. Young Redwood at that time
weighed fifty-nine and a half pounds, measured forty-
eight inches In height, and gripped about sixty pounds.
He was carried upstairs to the nursery by the cook
and housemaid. After that, discovery was only a ques-
tion of days. One afternoon Redwood came home
from his laboratory to find his unfortunate wife deep
in the fascinating pages of The Mighty Atom, and at
the sight of him she put the book aside and ran violently
forward and burst into tears on his shoulder.

" Tell me what you have done to him," she wailed.
'* Tell me what yon hiave done."

THE GIANT CHILDREN. 113

Redwood took her hand and led lier to the sofa, while
he tried to think of a satisfactory line of defence.

' It's all right, my dear," he said ; " it's all right.
You're only a little overwrought. It's that cheap per-
ambulator. I've arranged for a bath-chair man to come
round with something stouter to-morrow "

Mrs. Redwood looked at him tearfully over the top of
her handkerchief.

" A baby in a bath-chair ? " she sobbed.

" Well, why not ? "

'* It's like a cripple."

*' It's Hke a young giant, my dear, and you've no
cause to be ashamed of him."

" You've done something to him, Dandy," she said.
" I can see it in your face."

" Well, it hasn't stopped his growth, anyhow," said
Redwood heartlessly.

" I knew,'* said Mrs. Redwood, and clenched her
pocket-handkerchief ball fashion in one hand. She
looked at him with a sudden change to severity. " What
hav^e you done to our child, Dandy ? "

*' What's wrong with him ? "

" He's so big. He's a monster."

" Nonsense. He's as straight and clean a baby as
ever a woman had. WTiat's wrong with him ? "

" Look at his size."

" That's all right. Look at the puny little brutes
about us 1 He's the finest baby "

" He's too fine," said Mrs. Redwood.

" It won't go on," said Redwood reassuringly ; " it's
just a start he's taken."

But he knew perfectly well it would go on. And it
did. By the time this baby was twelve months old be

114 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

tottered just one inch under five feet high and scaled
eight stone three ; he was as big in fact as a St. Peter's
in Vaticano cherub, and his affectionate clutch at the
hair and features of visitors became the talk of West
Kensington. They had an invalid's chair to carry him
up and down to his nursery, and his special nurse, a
muscular young person just out of training, used to
take him for his airings in a Panhard 8 h.p. hUl-cUmbing
perambulator specially made to meet his requirements.
It was Kukv in every way tbat Redwood had his expert
witness connection in addition to his professorship.

WTien one got over the shock of Utile Redwood's
enormous size, he was, I am told by people who used
to see him almost daily teufteufing slowly about Hyde
Park, a singularly bright and pretty baby. He rarely
cried or needed a comforter. Commonly he clutched a
big rattle, and sometimes he went along hailmg the
bus-drivers and policemen along the road outside the
railings as *' Dadda 1 " and " Babba ! " in a sociable,
democratic way.

" There goes that there great Boomfood baby," the
bus-driver used to say.

" Looks 'ealthy," the forward passenger would remark.

" Bottle fed," the bus-driver would explain. " They
say it 'olds a gallon and 'ad to be specially made for 'im."

** Very 'ealthy child any'ow," the forward passenger
would conclude.

When Mrs. Redwood realized that his growth was
indeed going on indefinitely and logically — and thifi she
really did for the fijst time when the motor-perambulator
arrived — she gave way to a passion of grief. She de-
clared she never wished to enter her nursery again,
wished she was dead, wished the child was dead, wished

THE GTAXT CHILDREN. 115

everybody was dead, wished, she had never married
Redwood, wished no one ever mamed anybody, Ajaxed
a htue, and leiired tu hex own ruom, where she Uved
ahiiost exclusively on chicken broth lor three days.
When Redwood came to remonstrate with her, she
banged pillows about and wept and tangled her
hail.

*' Hf's all right," said Redwood. " He's all the better
for being big. You wouldn't like him smaller than other
people's children."

** I waul him to be like other children, neither smaller
nor bigger. I wanted hun to be a nice little boy, just
as Georgina Phyliib is a nice little girl, and I wanted
to bring him up nicely in a nice way, and here he is "
— and the unfortunate woman's voice broke — " wearing
number four grov^Ti-up shoes and being wheeled about
by — booboo I — Petroleum I

" I can never love him," she wailed, '* never ! He's
too much for me 1 I caja never be a mother to him,
such as I meant to be ! "

But at last they contrived to get her into the nursery,
and there was Edward Monson Redwood {" Pantagruel "
was only a later nickname) sviinging in a specially
Strengthened rocking-chair and smiling and talking
**' goo " and " wow." And the heart of Mrs. Redwood
wanned again to her child, and she went and held him
in her arms and wept.

" They've done something to you," she sobbed, " and
you'll grow and grow, dear; but whatever I can do to
bring you up nice I'll do for you, whatever your father
may say."

And Redwood, who had helped to bring her to the
door, went down the passage much relieved.

ii6 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

(Eh ! but it's a base job this being a man — ^with
women as they are !)

VI.

Before the year was out there were, in addition to
Redwood's pioneer vehicle, quite a number of motor-
perambulators to be seen in the west of London. I
am told there were as many as eleven ; but the most
careful inquiries yield trustworthy evidence of only six
within the Metropolitan area at that time. It would
seem the stuff acted differently upon different ty^^es of
constitution. At first Herakleophorbia was not adapted
to injection, and there can be no doubt that quite a
considerable proportion of human beings are incapable
of absorbing this substance in the normal course of
digestion. It was given, for example, to Winkles*
youngest boy ; but he seems to have been as incapable
of growth as, if Redwood was right, his father was in-
capable of knowledge. Others again, according to the
Society for the Total Suppression of Boomfood, became
in some inexplicable way corrupted by it, and perished
at the onset of infantile disorders. The Cossar boys
took to it with amazing avidity.

Of course a thing of this kind never comes with
absolute simpUcity of application into the life of man ;
growth in particular is a complex thing, and all general-
isations must needs be a little inaccurate. But the
general law of the Food would seem to be this, that
when it could be taken into the system in any way it
stimulated it in very nearly the same degree in all
cases. It increased the amount of growth from six to
seven times, and it did not go beyond that, whatever
amount of the Food in excess was taken. Excess of

THE GIANT CHILDREN. 117

Herakleophorbia indeed beyond the necessary minimum
led, it was found, to morbid disturbances of nutrition,
to cancer and tumours, ossifications, and the Uke. And
once growth upon the large scale had begun, it was soon
evident that it could only continue upon that scale,
and that the continuous administration of Herakleo-
phorbia in small but sufficient doses was imperative.

If it was discontinued while growth was still going on,
there was first a vague restlessness and distress, then a
period of voracity — as in the case of the young rats at
Han key — and then the growing creature had a sort of
exaggerated anaemia and sickened and died. Plants
suffered in a similar way. This, however, applied only
to the growth period. So soon as adolescence was at-
tained— in plants this was represented by the formation
of the first flower-buds — the need and appetite for
Herakleophorbia diminished, and so soon as the plant
or animal was fully adult, it became altogether inde-
pendent of any furlier supply of the food. It was, as it
\were, completely established on the new scale. It was
so completely established on the new scale that, as the
thistles about Hickleybrow and the grass of the down
side already demonstrated, its seed produced giant off-
spring after its kind.

And presently little Redwood, pioneer of the new
race, first child of all who ate the food, was crawling
about his nursery, smashing furniture, biting hke a
horse, pinching Uke a vice, and bawUng gigantic baby
talk at his " Nanny " and " Mammy " and the rather
scared and awe-stricken " Daddy," who had set this
mischief going.

The child was bom with good intentions. " Padda
be good, be gcxKl/' he used to say as the breakables

ii8 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

flew before him. " Padda " was liis rendering of Pan-
tagruel, the nickname Redwood imposed on him. And
Cossar, disregarding certain Ancient Tights that pres-
ently led to trouble, did, after a conflict with the local
building regulations, get building on a vacant piece of
ground adjacent to Redwood's home, a comfortable
weU-lit playi-oom, schoolroom, and nursery for their
four boys — sixty feet square about this room was, and
fortj' feet high.

Redwood fell in love with that great nursery as he
and Cossar built it, and his interest in curves faded, as
he had never dreamt it could fade, before the pressing
needs of his son. " There is much," he said, " in fitting
a nursery. Much.

" The walls, the things in it, they wiU all speak to
this new mind of ours, a little more, a httle less elo-
quently, and teach it, or fail to teach it a thousand
things/*

" Obviously," said Cossar, reaching hastily for his hat.

They worked together harmoniously, but Redwood
supplied most of the educational theory required. . . .

They had the walls and woodwork painted with a
cheerful vigour ; for the most part a slightly warmed
white prevailed, but there were bands of bright clean
colour to enforce the simple lines of construction.
" Clean colours we must have," said Redwood, and in
one place bad a neat horizontal band of squares, in
which crimson and purple, orange and lemon, blues and
greens, in many hues and many shades, did themselves
honour. These squares the giant children should ar-
range and rearrange to their pleasure. ** Decorations
must follow," said Redwood ; " let them first get the
range of all the tints, and then this may go away. There

THE GTAXT CHILDREN. iig

is no reason wh}^ one. should bias tliem in favour of any
particular colour or design."

Then, " The place must be full of interest," said
Redwood. " Interest is food for a child, and blankness
torture and starvation. He must have pictures galore."
There were no pictures hung about the room for any
permanent service, however, but blank frames were
provided into which nev^ pictures would come and pass
thence into a portfolio so s(»on as their fresh interest
had passed. There was one window that looked down
the length of a street, and in addition, for an added
interest, Redwood had contrived above the roof of the
nursery a camera obscura that watched the Kensington
High Street and not a little of the Gardens.

In one corner that most worthy implement, an Abacus,
fonr teet square, a specially strengthened piece of
ironmonger) with roanded vomers, awaited the 3^oung
giants' mcipieDl computations. There were few woolly
lambs and surh-Uke idols, but instead Cossar, without
explanation, had brought one day in three four-wheelers
a grt^at number of toys (all jusi too big for the coming
children to swallow) that could be piled up, arranged
in rows, rolled at>out, bitten, made to flap and rattle,
smacked together, felt over, pulled out, o])ened, closed,
and mauled and exp<?rimented with to an interminable
extent. There were many bricks of wood in diverse
colours, oblong and cuboid, bricks of polished china,
bricks of transparent glass and bricks of india-rubber ;
there were slabs and slates ; there were cones, titmcated
cones, and cylinders ; there were oblate and prolate
spheroids, balls of varied substances, solid and hollow,
many boxes of diverse size and shape, with hinged lids
and screw lids and Etting lids, and one or two to catch

120 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

and lock ; there were bands of elastic and leatberg and
a number of rough and sturdy little objects of a size
together that could stand up steadily and suggest the
shape of a man. " Give 'em these," said Cossar. " One
at a time."

These things Redwood arranged in a locker in one
comer. Along one side of the roomj at a convenient
height for a six- or eight-foot child, there was a black-
board, on which the youngsters might flourish in white
and coloured chalk, and near by a sort of drawing block,
from which sheet after sheet might be torn, and on which
they could draw in charcoal^ and a little desk there was,
furnished with great carpenter's pencils of varying hard-
ness and a copious supply of paper^ on which the boys
might first scribble and then draw more neatly. And
moreover Redwood gave orders^ so far ahead did his
imagination go, for specially large tubes of liquid paint
and boxes of pastels against the time when they should
be needed. He laid in a cask or so of plasticine and
modelling clay. " At first he and his tutor shall model
together," he said, " and when he is more skilful he
shall copy casts and perhaps animals. And that reminds
me, I must also have made for him a box of tools I

"Then books. I shall have to look out a lot of
books to put in his way, and they'll have to be big
t5rpe. Now what sort of books will he need ? There
is his imagination to be fed. That, after all, is the
crown of every education. The crown — as sound habits
of mind and conduct are the throne. No imagination
at all is brutality ; a base imagination is lust and cow-
ardice; but a noble imagination is God walking the
tarth again. He imist dream too of a dainty fairy-land
and of all the quaint little thii;igs of liie, in d\Ui time.

THE GIANT CHILDREN. 121

But he must feed chiefly on the splendid real ; he shall
have stories of travel through all the world, travels and
adventures and how the world was won ; he shall have
stories of beasts, great books splendidly and clearly
done of animals and birds and plants and creeping things.,
great books about the deeps of the sky and the mystery
of the sea j be shall have histories and maps of all the
empires the world has seen, pictures and stories of aU
the tribes and habits and customs of men. And he
must have books and pictures to quicken his sense of
beauty, subtle Japanese pictures to make him love the
subtler beauties of bird and tendril and falling flower,
and western pictures too, pictures of gracious men and
women, sweet groupings, and broad views of land and
sea- He shall have books on the building of houses
and palaces ; he shall plan rooms and invent cities

" I think I must give him a little theatre.

'* Then there is music I "

Redwood thought that over, and decided that his
son might best begin with a very pure-sounding har-
monicon of one octave, to which afterwards there could
be an extension. " He shall play with this first, sing to
it and give names to the notes," said Redwood, " and
afterwards ? '*

He stared up at the window-sill overhead and measured
the size of the room with his eye.

" They'U have to build his piano in here," he said.
" Bring it in in pieces."

He hovered about amidst his preparations, a pensive,
dark, httle figure; If you could have seen him there he
would have looked to you like a ten -inch man amidst
common nursery things. A great rug — indeed it was a
Turkey carpet — four hundred square feet of it, upon

123 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

which young Redwood was soon to crawl — stretched
to the grill -guarded electric radiator that was to warm
the whole place. A man from Cossar's hung amidst
scaffolding overhead, fixing the great frame that was
to hold the transitory pictures. A blotting-paper book
for plant specimens as big as a house door leant agamst
the wall, and from it projected a gigantic stalk, a leaf
edge or so and one flower of chickweed, all of that
gigantic size that was soon to make Urshot famous
throughout the botanical world. . . .

A sort of incredulity came to Redwood as he stood
among these things.

'* If it really is going on " said Redwood, staring

up at the remote ceiling.

From far away came a sound like the bellowing of a
Mafficking bull; almost as if in answer.

" It's going on all right," said Redwood. " Evi-
dently."

There followed resounding blows upon a table, fol-
lowed by a vast crowing shout, *' Gooloo I Boozoo !
Bzz . . ."

" The best thing I can do/' said Redwood, following
out some divergent line of thought, " is to teach him
myself."

That beating became more insistent. For a moment
it seemed to Redwood that it caught the rhythm of an
engine's throbbing — the engine he could have imagined
of some great train of events that bore down upon him.
Then a descendant flight of sharper beats broke up that
effect, and were repeated.

** Come in," he cried, perceiving that some one rapped,
and the door that was big enough for a cathedral opened
slowly a littJe way. The new winch abased to creak.

THE GIANT CHILDREN. 123

and Bensington appeared in the crack, gleaming benevo-
lently iinder his protruded baldness and over his glasses.

" I've ventured round to see^'* he whispered in a con-
fidential!}, tunive manner.

**Cotne in," baid Redwood, and he did, shutting the
door behind him.

He walked torward, hands behind his back, advanced
a lew steps, and peered up with a bird-like movement
at the dimensions about him. He rubbed his chin
thoaghttuHy.

" li%t^>'y time I come in." he said, with a subdued note
in his voice, " it strikes me dft — * Big.' "

** Yes/' said Redwood, surveying it all again also,
as if in an endeavour to keep hold of the visible im-
pression. ** Yes. They're going to be big too, you
know."

** I know," said Bensington, with a note that was
nearly awe, " Very big."

They looked at one another, almost, as it were, ap-
prehensively.

" Very big indeed," said Bensington, stroking the
bridge of his nose, and with one eye that watched Red-
wood doubtfully for a confirmatory expression. '* All
of them, you know — fearfully big. I don't seem able
to imagine — even with this — just how big they're all
going to be."

CHAPTER THE FIFTH.

THE MINIMIFICENCE OF MR. BENSINGTON.

I.

It was while the Royal Commission on Boomfood was
preparing its report that Herakleophorbia really began
to demonstrate its capacity for leakage. And the earli-
ness ot this second outbreak was the more unfortunate,
from the point of view of Cossar at any rate, since the
draft report still in existence shows that the Commis-
sion had, under the tutelage of that most able member,
Doctor Stephen Winkles (F.R.S., M.D., F.R.C.P., D.Sc,
J. P., D.L., etc.), already quite made up its mind that
accidental leakages were impossible, and was prepared
to recommend that to entrust the preparation of Boom-
food to a qualified comxaittee (Winkles chiefly), with an
entire control over its sale, was quite enough to satisfy
all reasonable objections to its free difiusion. This
committee was to have an absolute monopoly. And it
is, no doubt, to be considered as a part of the irony of
life that the first and most alarming of this second
series of leakages occurred v/ithin fifty yards of a little
cottage at Keston occupied during the suimner months
by Doctor Winkles,

There can be little doubt now that Redwood's refusal
to acquaint Winkles witJh Hio coxnposition^of Heraklco-

MINIMIFICENCE OF MR. BENSINGTON. 125

phorbia IV. had aroused in that gentleman a novel and
intense desire towards analytical chemistry. He was
not a very expert manipulator, and for that reason
probably he saw fit to do his work not in the excellently
equipped laboratories that were at his disposal in Lon-
don, but without consulting any one, and almost with
an air of secrecy, in a rough little garden laboratory at
the Keston establishment. He does not seem to have
shown either very great energy or very great ability
in this quest ; indeed one gathers he dropped the in-
quiry after working at it intermittently for about a
month.

This garden laboratory, in which the work was done,
was very roughly equipped, supplied by a standpipe tap
with water, and draining into a pipe that ran down
into a swampy rush-bordered pool under an alder tree
in a secluded comer of the common just outside the
garden hedge. The pipe was cracked, and the residuum
of the Food of the Gods escaped through the crack into
a Little puddle amidst clumps of rushes, just in time
for the spring awakening.

Ever}i:hing was astir with life in that scummy little
comer. There was frog spawn adrift, tremulous with
tadpoles just bursting their gelatinous envelopes ; there
were little pond snails creeping out into life, and under
the green skin of the rush stems the larvae of a big Water
Beetle were stmggling out of their egg cases. I doubt
if the reader knows the larva of the beetle called (I know
not why) Dytiscus. It is a jointed, queer-looking thing,
very muscular and sudden in its movements, and given
to swimming head downward with its tail out of water i
the length of a man's top thumb joint it is, and more —
two inches, that Is for those who have not eaten the

126 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

Food — ai^ it has two sharp jaws that meet in front of
its head — tubular jaws with sharp points — tlirough
which its habit is to suck its victim's blood. . . .

The first tilings to get at the drifting grains of the
Food were the little tadpoles and the little water snails ;
the little wriggling tadpole^s in particular, once they had
the taste of it, took to it with zest. But srarcely did
one of them begin to grow into a conspicuous position
in that little tadpole world and try a smaller brother
or so as an aid to a vegetarian dietary, when nip 1 one
of the Beetle larvae had its curved bloodsucking prongs
gripping into his heart, and with that red stream went
HerakJeophorbia IV., in a state of solution, into the
being of a new client. The only thing that had a chance
with these monsters to get any share of the Food were
the rashes and slimy green scum in the water and the
seedhng weeds in the mud at the bottom. A clean up
of the study presently washed a fresh spate of the Food
into the puddle, and overflowed it, and carried all this
sinister expansion of the straggle for life into the ad-
jacent pool under the roots of the alder. . . .

The first person to discover what was going ou was a
Mr. Lukey Carrington, a special science teacher under
the London Education Board, and, in his leisure, a
specialist in fresh-water algse, and he is certainly not
to be envied his discovery. He had come down to
Keston Common for the day to fill a number of specimen
tubes for subsequent examination, and he came, with a
dozen or so of corked tubes clanking faintly in his
pocket, over the sandy crest and down towards the
pool, spiked walking stick in hand. A garden lad
standing on the top of the kitchen steps clipping Doctor
Winkles* hedge saw him in this unfrequented corner.

MIXIMIFICENCE OF MR. BENSINGTON. 127

and found him and his occupation sufficiently inexpli-
cable and interesting to watch him pretty closely.

He saw Mr. Carrington stoop down by the side of the
pool, with his hand against the old alder stem, and peer
into the water, but of course he could not appreciate
the surprise and pleasure with which Mr. Carrington
beheld the big unfamiliar-looking blobs and threads of
the algal scum at the bottom. Tliere were no tadpoles
visible-" they had all been killed by that time— and it
would seem Mr. Carrington saw nothing at all unusual
except the excessive vegetation. He bared his arm to
the elbow, leant forward, and dipped deep in pursuit of
a specimen. His seeking hand went down. Instantly
there flashed out oi the cool shadow under the tree roots
something

Flash ! It had buried its fangs deep into his arm —
a bizarre shape it was, a loot long and more, brown and
jointed like a scorpion.

Its ugly apparition and the sharp amazing painfulness
of its bite were too much for Mr. Carnugtun's equi-
librium. He felt himsell going, and yelled aloud. Over
he toppled, face foremost, splash ! into the pool.

The boy saw him vanish, and heard the splashing of
his struggle in the water. The unfortunate man emerged
again into the boy's held of vision, hatiess and streaming
with water, and screaming I

Never before had the boy heard screams from a man.

This astonishing stranger appeared to be tearing at
something on the side of his face. There appeared
streaks of blood there. He flung out his arms as if in
despair, leapt in the air like a frantic creature, ran
violently ten or twelve yards, and then fell and rolled
on the ground and over and out of sight of tlae boy.

128 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

The lad was down the steps and through the hedge in
a trice — happily with the garden shears still in hand.
As he came crashing through the gorse bushes, he says
he was half minded to turn back, fearing he had to deal
with a lunatic, but the possession ot the shears reassured
him. " I could 'ave jabbed his eyes," he explained,
' anyhow." Directly Mr. Carrington caught sight of
him, his demeanour became at once that of a sane but
desperate man. He struggled to his feet, stumbled,
stood up, and came to meet the boy.

** Look ! " he cried, " I can^t get 'em off ! "
And with a qualm of horror the boy saw that, attached
to Mr. Carrington's cheek, to his bare arm, and to his
thigh, and lashing furiously with their lithe brown
muscular bodies, were three of these horrible larvae,
their great jaws buried deep in his flesh and sucking for
dear life. They had the grip of bulldogs, and Mr. Car-
rington's efforts to detach the monsters from his face
had only served to lacerate the flesh to which it had
attached itself, and streak face and neck and coat with
living scarlet,
" I'll cut 'im," cried the boy ; " 'old on, Sir."
And with the zest of his age in such proceedings, he
severed one by one the heads from the bodies of Mr.
Carrington's assailants. "Yup," said the boy with a
wincing face as each one fell before him. Even then,
so tough and determined was their grip that the severed
heads remaiined for a space, still fiercely biting home
and still sucking, with the blood streaming out of their
necks behind. But the boy stopped that with a few
more slashes of his scissors — in one of which Mr. Car-
rington was implicated.
" I couldn't get 'em o£f I " repeated Carrington, and

MINIMIFICENCE OF MR. BENSINGTON. 129

stood for a space, swaying and bleeding profusely. He
dabbed feeble hands at his injuries and examined the
result upon his palios. Then he gave way at the knees
and fell headlong in a dead faint at the boy's feet, be-
tween the still leaping bodies of his defeated foes. Very
luckily it dichi't occur to the boy to splash water on his
face — for there were still more of these horrors under
the alder roots — and instead he passed back by the
pond and went into the garden with the intention of
calling assistance. And there he met the gardener
coachman and told him of the whole affair.

When they got back to Mr. Carriiigton he was sitting up,
dazed and weak, but able to warn them against the
danger in the pool.

II.

Such were the circumstances by which the world had
its first notification that the Food was loose again. In
another week Keston Common was in full operation as
what naturalists call a centre of distribution. This time
there were no wasps or rats, no eanvigs and no nettles,
but there were at least three water-spiders, several
dragon-fly larvas which presently became dragon-flies,
dazzling all Kent with tJieir hovering sapphire bodies,
and a nasty gelatinous, scummy growth that swelled
over the pond margin, and sent its slimy green masses
surging halfway up the garden path to Doctor Winkles's
house. And there began a growth of rushes and equi-
setum and potamogeton that ended only with the drying
of the pond.

It speedily became evident to the public mind that
this time there was not simply one -cntre of distribu-
tion, but quite a niunber of centres. There was one at

5

:c30 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

Ealing-— there can be no doubt now — and from that
came iht plague of flies and red spider ; there was one
at Sunbury, productive of ferocious great eels» that
could come ashore and kill sheep ; and there was one
in Blooms bury that gave the world a new strain of
cockroaches of a quite terrible sort — an old house it
was in Bloomsbury, and much Inhabited by undesirable
things. Abruptly the world found itself confronted with
the Hickleybrow experiences all over again, with all
sorts of queer exaggerations of familiar monsters in the
place of the giant hens and rats and wasps. Each centre
burst out with its own characteristic local fauna and
flora. . . .

We know now that every one of these centres corre-
sponded to one of the patients of Doctor Winkles, but
that was by no means apparent at the time. Doctor
Winkles was the last person to incur any odium in the
matter. There was a panic quite naturally, a passionate
indignation, but it was Indignation not against Doctor
Winkles but against the Food, and not so much against
the Food as against the unfortunate Bensington, whom
from the very j&rst the popular imagination had insisted
upon regarding as the sole and only person responsible
for this new thing.

The attempt to lynch him that followed Is just one of
those explosive events that bulk largely In history and
are in reality the least significant of occurrences.

The history of the outbreak is a mystery. The nucleus
of the crowd certainly came from an Anti-Boomfood
meeting in Hyde Park organised by extremists of the
Caterham party, but there seems no one in the world
who actually first proposed, no one who ever first hinted
a suggestion of the outrage at which so many people

MINIMIFICENCE OF MR. BENSINGTON. 131

assisted. It is a problem for M. Gustave le Bon — a
mystery' in the psychology of crowds. The fact emerges
that about three o'clock on Sunday afternoon a remark-
ably big and ugly London crowd, entirely out of hand,
came rolling down Thursday Street intent on Bensington*s
exemplary death as a warning to all scientific investi-
gators, and that it came nearer accomplishing its object
than any London crowd has ever come since the Hyde
Park railings came down in remote middle Victorian
times. This crowd came so close to its object indeed,
that for the space of an hour or more a word would
have settled the unfortunate gentleman's fate.

The first intimation he had of the thing was the noise
of the people outside. He went to the window and
peered, realising nothing of what impended. For a
minute perhaps he watched them seething about the
entrance, disposing of an ineffectual dozen of policemen
who barred their way, before he fully realised his own
importance in the aSair. It came upon him in a flash —
that that roaring, swaying multitude was after him.
He was all alone in the flat — fortunately perhaps — his
cousin Jane having gone down to Ealing to have tea
with a relation on her mother's side, and he had no
more idea of how to behave under such circumstances
than he had of the etiquette of the Day of Judgment.
He was still dashing about the flat asking his furniture
what he should do, turning keys in locks and then un-
locking them again, making darts at door and window
and bedroom — when the floor clerk came to him,

** There Isn't a moment, Sir," he said. " They've got
your number from the board in the hall I They're
coming straight up I "

He ran Mr. Bensington out into the passage, already

132 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

echoing with the approaching tumult from the great
staircase, locked the door behind them, and led the way
into the opposite flat by means of his duplicate key.

" It's our only chance now," he said.

He flung up a window which opened on a ventilating
shaft, and showed that the wall was set with iron staples
that made the rudest and most perilous of wall ladders
to serve as a fire escape from the upper flats. He
shoved Mr. Bensington out of the window, showed him
how to cling on, and pursued him up the ladder, goading
and jabbing his legs with a bunch of keys whenever he
desisted from climbing. It seemed to Bensington at
times that he must climb that vertical ladder for ever-
more. Above, the parapet was inaccessibly remote, a

mile perhaps, below He did not care to think of

things below.

" Steady on I " cried the clerk, and gripped his ankle.
It was quite horrible having his ankle gripped like that,
and Mr. Bensington tightened his hold on the iron
staple above to a drowning clutch, and gave a faint
squeal of terror.

It became evident the clerk had broken a window,
and then it seemed he had leapt a vast distance side-
ways, and there came the noise of a window-frame
sliding In its sash. He was bawling things.

Mr. Bensington moved his hea.d round cautiously until
he could see the clerk. " Come down six steps," the
clerk commanded.

All this moving about seemed very foolish, but very,
very cautiously Mr. Bensington lowered a foot.

" Don*t pull me 1 " he cried, as the clerk made to help
hJm from the open window.

It Keeiaed to him that to reach the window from the

MINIMiriCENCE OF MR. BENSINGTON. 133

ladder would be a very respectable feat for a flying
fox, and it was rather with the Idea of a decent suicide
than In any hope of accomplishing It that he made the
step at last, and quite ruthlessly the clerk pulled him
in. " You'll have to stop here/' said the clerk ; " my
keys are no good here. It's an American lock. I'll get
out and slam the door behind me and see If I can find
the man of this floor. You'll be locked In. Don't go
to the window, that's all. It's the ugliest crowd I've
ever seen. If only they think you're out they'll prob-
ably content themselves by breaking up your stuff "

" The Indicator said In," said Bensingtou.

" The devil it did I Well, anyhow, I'd better not be
found "

He vanished with a slam of the door.

Bensingtou was left to his own initiative agairu

It took him under the bed.

There presently he was found by Cossar.

Bensington was almost comatose with terror when he was
found, for Cossar had burst the door in with his shoulder
by jumping at it across the breadth of the passage.

** Come out of it, Bensington," he said. " It's all
right. It's me. We've got to get out of this. They're
setting the place on fire. The porters are all clearing
out. The servants are gone. It's lucky I caught the
man who knew.

" Look here I "

Bensington, peering from under the bed, became aware
of some unaccountable garments on Cossar's arm, and,
of all things, a black bonnet in his hand 1

" They're having a clear out," said Cossar. " If
they don't set the place on fire they'll come here. Troops
may not be here for an hour yet. Fifty per cent. Hooli-

134 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

gans in the crowd, and the more fuinished flats they
go into the better they'll Uke it. Obviously. . , . They
mean a clear out^ You put this skirt and bonnet on,
Bensington, and clear out with me/*

'* D'yon mean — ~? " began Bensington, protruding a
head, tortoise fashion*

" I mean, put 'exa on and come I Obviously." And
with a sudden vehemence he dragged Bensington from
under the bed, and began to dress him for his new im-
personation of an elderly v^oman of the people.

He rolled up his trousers and made him kick oQ his
slippersj took ofi his collar and tie and coat and vest,
slipped a black skirt over his heads and put on a red
flannel bodice and a body over the same. He made
him take oS his all too characteristic spectacles, and
clapped the bonnet on his head* " You might have
been bom an old woman," he said as he tied the strings.
Then came the spring-side boots — a terrible wrench for
corns — and the shawl, and the disguise was completCg
" Up and down," said Cossar, and Bensington obeyed.

" You'll do," said Cossar,

And in this guise it was, sttimbling awkwardly over
liis unaccustomed skirts, shouting womanly imprecations
upon his own head in a weird falsetto to sustain his
part, and to the roaring note of a crowd bent upon
lynching him, that the original discoverer of Herakleo-
phorbia IV. proceeded dowTi the corridor of Chesterfield
Mansions, mingled with that inflamed disorderly multi-
tude, and passed out altogether from the thread of
events that constitutes otu* story*

Never once after that escape did he meddle again
with the stupendous development of the Food of the
Gods he of all men had done most to begin.

MINIMIFICENCE OF MR. BENSINGTON. 135

IIT,

This little man who started the whole thing passes
out of the story, and after a time he passed altogether
out of the world of things, visible and tellable. But
because he started the whole thing it is seemly to give
his exit an intercalary page of attention. One may
picture him in his later da^^ as Tunbridge Wells came
to know him. For it was at Tunbridge Wells he re-
appeared after a temporary obscurity, so soon as he
fully realised how transitory, how quite exceptional and
unmeaning that fury of rioting was. He reappeared
mider the wing of Cousin Jane, treating himself for
nervous shock to the exclusion of all other interests,
and totally indifferent, as it seemed, to the battles that
were raging then about those new centres of distribution,
apd about the baby Children of the Food-
He took up his quarters at the Mount Glory Hydro-
therapeutic Hotel, where there are quite extraordinary
facilities for baths. Carbonated Baths, Creosote Baths,
Galvanic and Faradic Treatment, Massage, Pine Baths,
Starch and Hemlock Baths, Radium Baths, Light Baths,
Heat Baths, Bran and Needle Baths, Tar and Birdsdown
Baths, — all sorts of baths ; and he devoted liis mind
to the development of that system of curative treatment
that was still imperfect when he died. And sometimes
he woald go down in a hired vehicle and a sealskin
trimmed co*t, and sometimes, when his feet permitted,
he would walk to the Pantiles, and there he wonld sip
chalybeate water under the eye of his cousin Jane,

His stooping shoulders, his pink appearance, his beam-
ing glasses, became a " feature " of Tunbridge Wells.
No one was the least bit ankind to him, and indeed the

136 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

place and the Hotf^l seemed very glad to have the dis-
tinction of his presence. Nothing could rob him of
that distinction now. And though he preferred not to
follow the development of. his great invention in the
daily papers, yet when he crossed the Lounge of the
Hotel or walked down the Pantiles and heard the whisper,
" There he is ! That's him ! " it was not dissatisfaction
that softened kis mouth and gleamed for a moment in
h-is eye.

This Httle figure, this minute little figure, launched
the Food of the Gods upon the world I One does not
know which is the most amazing, the greatness or the
littleness of these scientific and philosophical men. You
figure him there on the Pantiles, in the overcoat trimmed
with fur. He stands under that chinaware window where
the spring spouts, and holds and sips the glass of chaly-
beate water in his hand. One bright eye over the gilt
rim is fixed, with an expression of inscrutable severity,
on Cousin Jane. " Mm," he says, and sips.

So we make our souvenir, so we focus and photograph
this discoverer of ours for the last time, and leave him.
a mere dot in our foreground, and pass to the greater
picture that has developed about him, to the story oi
his Food, how the scattered Giant Children grew up day
by day into a world that was all too small for them, and
how the net of Boomfood Laws and Boomfood Conven-
tions, which the Boomfood Commission was weaving
even then, drew closer and closer upon them with everj-
year of their growtJLi Until — -

BOCK 11.
THE FOOD IN THE VILLAGE.

CHAPTER THE FIRST.

THE COMING OF THE FOOD.
I.

Our theme, which began so compactly in Mr. Bensington's
study, has already spread and branched, until it points
this way and that, and henceforth our whole story is
one of dissemination. To follow the Food of the Gods
further is to trace the ramifications of a perpetually
branching tree ; in a little w^hile, in the quarter of a
lifetime, the Food had trickled and increased from its
first spring in the little fajm near Hickleybrow until
it had spread, — it and the report and shadow of its
power, — throughout the world. It spread beyond Eng-
land very speedily. Soon in America, all over the
continent of Europe, in Japan, in Australia, at last all
over the world, the thing was working towards its ap-
pointed end. Always it worked slowly, by Indirect
courses and against resistance. It was bigness insurgent.
In spite of prejudice, in spite of law and regulation, in
spite of all that obstinate conservatism that lies at the
base of the formal order of mankind, the Food of the
Gods, once it had been set going, pursued its subtle and
Invincible progress.

The children of the Food grew steadily through all
these years ; that was the cardinal fact of the time.

140 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

But it is the leakages make history. The child reu who
had eaten grew, and soon there were other children
growing ; and all the best intentions in the world could
not stop further leakages and still further leakages. The
Food insisted on escaping with the pertinacity of a thing
alive. Flour treated with the stuff crumbled in dr\'
weather almost as if by intention into an impalpable
powder, and would lift and travel before the Ughtest
breeze. Now it would be some fresh insect won its way
to a temporary fatal new development, now some fresh
outbreak from the sewers of rats and such-like vermin.
For some days the village of Pangboume in Berkshire
fought with giant ants. Three men were bitten and
died. There would be a panic, there would be a struggle,
and the salient evil would be fought down again, leaving
always something behind, in the obscurer things of hfe
— changed for ever. Then again another acute and
startling outbreak, a swift upgrowth of monstrous weedy
thickets, a drifting dissemination about the world of
inhumanly growing thistles, of cockroaches men fought
with shot guns, or a plague of mighty flies.

There were some strange and desperate struggles in
obscure places. The Food begot heroes in the cause of
littleness. . . .

And men took such happenings into their lives, and
met them by the expedients of the moment, and told
one another there was " no change In the essential order
of things." After the first great panic, Caterham, in
spite of his power of eloquence, became a secondary
figure in the pohtical world, remained In men's minds
as the exponent of an extreme view.

Only slowly did he win a way towards a central position
in affairs, ** There was no change in the essential order

THE COMING OF THE FOOD. 141

of things," — that eminent leader of modem thought.
Doctor Winides, was very clear upon this, — ^and the
exponents of what was called hi those days Progressive
Liberahsm grew quite sentimental upon the essential
insincerity of their progress. Their dreams, it would
appear, ran wholly on Uttle nations, httle languages,
httle households, each self-supported on its Uttle farm.
A fashion for the small and neat set in. To be big was
to be ** vulgar," and dainty, neat, mignon, miniature,
" minutely perfect," became the key-words of critical
approval. . . .

Meanwhile, quietly, taking their time as children must,
the children of the Food, growing into a world that
changed to receive them, gathered strength and stature
and knowledge, became individual and purposeful,
rose slowly towards the dimensions of their destiny.
Presently they seemed a natural part of the world ;
all these stirrings of bigness seemed a natural part of
the world, and men wondered how things had been before
their time. There came to men's ears stories of things
the giant boys could do, and they said *' Wonderful I "
— \\ithout a spark of wonder. The popular papers would
tell of the three sons of Cossar, and how these amazing
children would hft great cannons, hurl masses of iron
for hundreds of yards, and leap two hundred feet. They
were said to be digging a well, deeper than any well or
mine that man had ever made, seeking, it was said,
for treasures hidden in the earth since ever the earth
began.

These Children, said the popular magazines, wiU level
mountains, bridge seas, tunnel your earth to a honey-
comb. " Wonderful 1 " said the httle fol-ks, " isn't it ?
What a lot of conveniences we shall have I " and went

142 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

about their business as though there was no such thing
as the Food of the Gods on earth. And indeed these
things were no more than the first hints and promises
of the powers of the Children of the Food. It was still
no more thcin child's play with them, no more than the
first use of a strength in which no purpose had arisen.
They did not know themselves for what they were.
They were children — slow-growing children of a new
race. The giant strength grew day by day — the giant
will had still to grow into purpose and an aim.

Looking at it in a shortened perspective of time, those
years of transition have the quality of a single consecu-
tive occurrence ; but indeed no one saw the coming of
Bigness in the world, as no one in all the world till cen-
turies had passed saw, as one happening, the Decline
and Fall of Rome. They who lived In those days were
too much among these developments to see them to-
gether as a single thing. It seemed even to wise men
that the Food was giving the world nothing but a crop
of unmanageable, disconnected Irrelevancies, that might
shake and trouble indeed, but could do no more to the
established order and fabric of mankind.

To one observer at least the most wonderful thing
throughout that period of accimiulating stress is the
invincible inertia of the great mass of people, their quiet
persistence in all that ignored the enormous presences,
the promise of still more enormous things, that grew
among them. Just as many a stream will be at its
smoothest, will look most tranquil, running deep and
strong, at the very verge of a cataract, so all that is
most conservative in man seemed settUng quietly into a
serene ascendency during these latter days. Reaction
became popular : there was talk of the bankruptcy of

THE COMING OF THE FOOD. 143

science, of the dying of Progress, of the advent of tho
Mandarins, — talk of such things amidst the echoing foot-
steps ol the Children of the Food. The fussy pointless
Revolutions of the old time, a vast crowd of silly little
people chasing some silly Uttle monarch and the like,
had indeed died out and passed away ; but Change had
not died out. It was only Change that had changed.
The New was coming in its o^^ii fashion and beyond the
common understanding of the world.

To tell fully of its coming would be to write a great
history, but everywhere there was a parallel chain of
happenings. To tell therefore of the manner of its coming
in one place is to tell something of the whole. It chanced
one stray seed of Immensity fell into the pretty, petty
village of Cheasing Eyebright in Kent, and from the
story of its queer germination there and of the tragic
futility that ensued, one may attempt — following one
thread, as it were— -to show the direction in which the
whole great interwoven fabric of the thing rolled off the
loom of Time.

IL

Chea&ing Eyebright had of course a Vicar. There are
vicars and vicars, and of all sorts I love an innovating
vicar — a piebald progressive professional reactionary —
the least. But the Vicsj of Cheasing Eyebright was
one of the least iimovatlng of vicars, a most worthy,
plump, ripe, and conservative-minded little man. It is
becoming to go back a little In our story to tell of him.
He matched his village, and one may figure them best
together 3js they used to be. on the sunset evening when
Mrs. Skinner — you will remember her flight I — brought
the Food with her all unsuspected into these rustic
gerexjities.

144 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

The village was looking its very best just then, under
that western ligh^. . It lay down along the valley beneath
the beechwoods of the Hanger, a beading of thatched
and red-tiled cottages — cottages with trellised porches
and pyracan thus-lined faces, that clustered closer and
closer as the road dropj)ed from the yew trees by the
church towards the bridge. T*he vicarage peeped not
too ostentatiously between the trees beyond the inn, an
early Georgian front ripened by time, and the spire of
the church rose happily in the depression made by the
valley in the outline of the hills. A winding stream, a
thin intermittency of sky blue and foam, gUttered amidst
a thick margin of reeds and loosestrife and overhanging
v^illows, along the centre of a sinuous pennant of meadow.
The whole prospect had that curiously Enghsh quality
of ripened cultivation— -that look of stDl completeness
— that apes perfection, under the sunset warmth.

And the Vicar too looked mellow. He looked habitu-
ally and essentially mellow, 3S though he had been a
mellow baby bom into a mellow class, a ripe and Juicy
little boy. One could see, even before he mentioned it,
that he had gone to an Ivy-clad public school Jn its
anecdotage, with magnificent traditions^ aristocratic
associations, and no chemical laboratories, and pro-
ceeded thence to a venerable college in the veiy ripest
Gothic. Few books he had younger than a thousand
years ; of these^ Yarrow and Ellis and good pre-Methodist
sermons made the bulk. He was a man of moderate
height, a httle shortened in appearance by his equatorial
dimensions, and a face, that had been meUow from the
first was now climacterically ripe„ The beard of a David
hid his redundancy of chin ; he wore no watcJb chain
out of refinejnent„ and bis, modest ckrix^iJ garments were

THE COMING OF THE FOOD. 145

made by a West End tailor. . . . And he sat with a
hand on either shin, blinking at his village in beatific
approval. He waved a plump palm towards it. His
burthen sang out again. What more could any one
desire ?

" We are fortunately situated," he said, putting the
thing tamely.

" We are in a fastness of the hills," he expanded.

He explained himself at length. " We are out of it all."

For they had been talking, he and his friend, of the
Horrors of the Age, of Democracy, and Secular Educa-
tion, and Sky Scrapers, and Motor Cars, and the American
Invasion, the Scrappy Reading of the Public, and the
disappearance of any Taste at all.

" We are out of it all," he repeated, and even as he
spoke the footsteps of some one coming smote upon his
ear, and he rolled over and regarded her.

You figure the old woman's steadfastly tremulous
advance, the bimdle clutched in her gnarled lank hand,
her nose (which was her countenance) wrinkled with
breathless resolution. You see the poppies nodding
fatefully on her bonnet, and the dust-white spring-sided
boots beneath her skimpy skirts, pointing with an ir-
revocable slow alternation east and west. Beneath her
arm, a restive captive, waggled and slipped a scarcely
valuable umbrella. What was there to tell the Vicar
that this grotesque old figure was — so far as his village
was concerned at any rate — no less than Fruitful Chance
and the Unforeseen, the Hag weak men call Fate. But
for us. you understand, no more than Mrs. Skinner.

As she was too much encumbered for a curtsey, she
pretended not to see him and his friend at all, and so
passed, liip-jQiop, within three yards of them, onward

146 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

down towards the village. The Vicar watched her slow
transit in silence, and ripened a remark the while. . . .

The incident seemed to him of no importance what-
ever. Old womankind, aere perennius, has carried
bundles since the world began. What difference has it
made ?

" We are out of it all," said the Vicar. " We live in
an atmosphere of simple and permanent things, Birth
and Toil, simple seed-time and simple harvest. The
Uproar passes us by." He was always very great upon
what he called the permanent things. ** Things change,"
he would say, " but Humanity — aere perennius.''

Thus the Vicar. He loved a classical quotation subtly
misapplied. Below, Mrs. Skinner, inelegant but resolute,
had involved herself curiously with Wilmerding's stile.

XII*

No one knows what the Vicar made of the Giant Puff-
Balis.

No doubt he was among the first to discover them.
They were scattered at intervals up and down the path
between the near down and the village end — a path he
frequented daily in his constitutional round. Altogether,
of these abnormal fungi there were, from first to last,
quite thirty. The Vicar seems to have stared at each
severally, and to have prodded most of them with his
stick once or twice. One he attempted to measure with
his arms, but it burst at his Ixion embrace.

He spoke to several people about them, and saJd they
were " marvellous 1 " and he related to at least seven
different persons the well-known story of the flagstone)
that was lifted from the cellar floor by a growth of fungi
beueath. He looked up his Sowerby to nee ii it was

Tim COMING O? THE FOOD. 147

Lycoperdon coelatum 01 giganuum — like all his kind since
Gilbert VVliite became famous, he Gilbert- Whited. He
cherished a theory that giganteum is unfairly named.

Oae does not know if he observed that those white
spheres lay in the very track that old woman of yesterday
had followed, or If he noted that the last of the series
swelled not a score of yards from the gate of the Caddies'
cottage. If he observed these things, he made no attempt
to place his observation on record. His observation in
matters botanical was what the inferior sort of scientific
people call a *' trained observation " — you look for cer-
tain definite things and neglect everything else. And
he did nothing to link this phenomenon with the remark-
able expansion of the Caddies' baby that had been going
on now for some weeks, indeed ever since Caddies walked
over one Sunday afternoon a month or more ago to see
his mother-in-law and hear Mr. Skinner (since defimct)
brag about his management of hens.

IV.

The growth of the puff-balls following on the expan-
sion of the Caddies' baby really ought to have opened
the Vicar's eyes. The latter fact had already come
right into his arms at the christening — almost over-
poweringiy. , . »

The youngster bawled ^dth deafening violence when
the cold water that sealed its divine inheritance and its
right to the name of " Albert Edward Coddles " fell
upon its brow. It was already beyond maternal porter-
age, and Caddies, staggering indeed, but grinning tri-
umphantly at quantitatively inferior parents, bore it
back to the free-sitting occupied by his party.

" I never saw such a child I " said the Vicar.

148 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

This was the first public intimation that the Caddies*
baby, which had begun its earthly career a little under
seven pounds, did after all intend to be a credit to its
parents. Very soon it was clear it meant to be not only
a credit but a glory. And within a month their glory
shone so brightly as to be, in connection with people in
the Caddies' position, improper.

The butcher weighed the infant eleven times. He
was a man of few words, and he soon got through with
them. The first time he said, " *E's a good un ; " the
next time he said, ** My word I " the third time he said,
" Well, mum," and after that he simply blew enormously
each time, scratched his head, and looked at his scales
with an unprecedented mistrust. Every one came to
see the Big Baby — so it was called by universal consent
— and most of them said, " 'E*s a Bouncer," and almost
all remarked to him, ** Did they ? " Miss Fletcher came
and said she " never did" which was perfectly true.

Lady Wondershoot, the village tyrant, arrived the day
after the third weighing, and inspected the phenomenon
narrowly through glasses that filled it with howhng terror.
'* It's an unusually Big child," she told its mother, in
a loud instructive voice. *' You ought to take unusual
care of it, Caddies. Of course it won't go on like this,
being bottle fed, but we must do what we can for it.
I'll send you down some more flannel."

The doctor came and measured the child with a tape,
and put the figures in a notebook, and old Mr. Drift-
hassock, who farmed by Up Marden, brought a manure
traveller two miles out of their way to look at It. Tbe
traveller asked the child's age three times over, and
said finally that he was blowed. He left it to be inferred
aow and v/hy he was blowed ; apparently it was the

THE COMING OF THE FOOD. 149

child's size blowed him. He also said it ought to be put
into a baby show. And all day long, out of school hours,
little children kept coming and saying, " Please, Mrs.
Caddies, mum, may we have a look at your baby, please,
mum? " until Mrs. Caddies had to put a stop to it. And
amidst all these scenes of amazement came Mrs. Skinner,
and stood and smiled, standing somewhat in the back-
ground, with each sharp elbow in a lank gnarled hand,
and smiling, smiling under and about her nose, with a
smile of infinite profundity.

" It makes even that old wretch of a grandmother
look quite pleasant," said Lady Wondershoot. " Though
I'm sorry she's come back to the village."

Of course, as with almost all cottagers' babies, the
eleemosynary element had already come in, but the
child soon made it clear by colossal bawling, that so far
as the filling of its bottle went, it hadn't come in yet
nearly enough.

The baby was entitled to a nine days' wonder, and
every one wondered happily over its amazing growth
for twice that time and more. And then you know,
instead of its dropping into the background and giving
place to other marvels, it went on growing more than
ever I

Lady Wondershoot heard Mrs. Greenfield, her house-
keeper, with infinite amazement.

" Caddies downstairs again. No food for the child 1
My dear Greenfield, it's impossible. The creature eats
like a hippopotamus I I'm sure it can't be true."

** I'm sure I hope you're not being imposed upon, my
lady," said Mrs. Greenfield.

" It's so difficult to tell with these people," said Lady
W5>ndershoot, " Now t do v^ish, ray good Greenheid,

150 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

that you'd just go down there yourself this afternoon
and see — see it have its bottle. Big as it is, I cannot
imagine that it needs more than six pints a day."

" It hasn't no business to, my lady," said Mrs. Green-
field.

The hand of Lady Wondershoot quivered, with that
C.O.S. sort of emotion, that suspicious rage that stirs in
all true aristocrats, at the thought that possibly the
meaner classes are after all — as mean as their betters,
and — where the sting lies — scoring points in the
game.

But Mrs. Greenfield could observe no evidence of
peculation, and the order for an increasing daily supply
to the Caddies* nursery was issued. Scarcely had the
first instalment gone, when Caddies was back again at
the great house in a state abjectly apologetic.

" We took the greates' care of 'em, Mrs. Greenfield,
I do assure you, mum, but he's regular bust 'em I They
flew with such vilence, raum, that one button broke a
pane of the window, mum, and one hit roe a regular
stinger jest 'ere, mum.'*

Lady Wondershoot, when she heard that this amazing
child had positively burst out of its beautiful charity
clothes, decided that she must speak to Caddies herself.
He appeared in her presence with his hair hastily wetted
and smoothed by hand, breathless, and clinging to his
hat brim as though it was a life-belt, and he stumbled
at the carpet edge out of sheer distress of mind.

Lady Wondershoot liked bullying Caddies. Caddies
was her ideal lower-class person, dishonest, faithful,
abject, industrious, and inconceivably Incapable ot
responsibility. She told him it was a serious matter,
the way his child was going on.

THE COMING OV THE FOOD. 151

'* It's 'is appetite, my ladyship," said Caddies, with a
rising note.

" Check 'im, my ladyship, yoa can't," said Caddies.
" There 'e lies, my ladyship, and kicks out 'e does, and
'owls, that distressin'. We 'aven't the 'eart, my lady-
ship. If we 'ad — the neighbours would interfere. . . ."

Lady Wondershoot consulted the parish doctor.

" What I want to know," said Lady Wondershoot,
"is it right this child should have such an extraordinary
quantity of milk ? "

** The proper allowance for a child of that age," said
the parish doctor, " is a pint and a half to two pints in
the twenty-four hours. I don't see that you are called
upon to provide more. If you do, it is your own gener-
osity. Of course we might try the legitimate quantity
for a few days. But the child, I must admit, seems for
some reason to be physiologically difierent. Possibly
what is called a Sport. A case of General Hypertrophy."

" It isn't fair to the other parish children," said Lady
Wondershoot. " I am certain we shall have complaints
if this goes on."

*' I don't see that any one can be expected to give more
than the recognised allowance. We might Insist on its
doing with that, or ii It wouldn't, send it as a case into
the Infirmary."

" I suppose," said Lady Wondershoot, reflecting,
" that apart from the size and the appetite, you don't
find anything else abnormal — nothing monstrous ? "

" No. No, I don't. But no doubt if this growth
goes on, we shall find grave moral and intellectual
deficiencies. One might almost prophesy that from
Max Nordau's law. A most gifted and celebrated phi-
losopher, Lady Wondershoot. He discovered that the

152 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

abnormal is — abnormal, a most valuable discovery, and
well worth bearing in mind, I find it of the utmost
help in practice. ^Tien I come upon an)i:hing abnormal,
I say at once, This is abnormal." His eyes became
profound, his voice dropped, his manner verged upon
the intimately confidential. He raised one hand stiffly.
" And I treat it in that spirit," he said,

V.

" Tut, tut 1 " said the Vicar to his breakfast things —
the day after the coming of Mrs. Skinner. " Tut, tut I
what's this ? " and poised his glasses at his paper with
a general air of remonstrance.

" Giant wasps I What's the world coming to ? . . .
American journalists, I suppose 1 Hang these Novelties 1
Giant gooseberries are good enough for me.

" Nonsense I " said the Vicar, and drank off his coffee
at a gulp, eyes steadfast on the paper, and smacked his
lips incredulously.

" Bosh I " said the Vicar, rejecting the hint altogether.

But the next day there was more of it, and the light
came.

Not all at once, however. When he went for his
constitutional that day he was still chuckling at the
absurd story his paper would have had him beUeve.
Wasps indeed — killing a dog 1 Incidentally as he passed
by the site of that first crop of puff-balls he remarked
that the grass was growing very rank there, but he did
not connect that in any way with the matter of his
amusement. " We should certainly have heard some-
thing of it," he said ; " Whitstable can't be twenty
miles from here."

Beyond he found another puff-ball, one of the second

THE COMING OF THE FOOD. 153

crop, rising like a roc's egg out oi the abnormally coars-
ened turf.

The thing came upon him in a flash.

He did not take his usual round that morning. In-
stead he turned aside by the second stile and came round
to the Caddies' cottage. "Where's that baby?" he
demanded, and at the sight of it, " Goodness me 1 "

He went up the village blessing his heart, and met
the doctor full tilt coming down. He grasped his arm.
" What does this mean z' " he said. " Have you seen
fthe paper these last few days ? "

The doctor said he had.

" Well, what's the matter with that child ? What's
the matter with everything — wasps, pufi-balls, babies,
eh ? What's making them grow so big ? This is most
tunexpected. In Kent too 1 If it was America now "

** It's a httle difficult to say just what it is," said the
doctor. " So far as I can grasp the symptoms "

" Yes ? "

** It's Hj^ertrophy — General Hypertrophy."

" Hypertrophy ? "

" Yes. General — affecting all the bodily structures —
,all the organism. I may say that in my own mind,
between ourselves, I'm very nearly convinced it's that.
. . . But one has to be careful."

^* Ah," said the Vicar, a good deal relieved to find the
doctor equal to the situation, " But how is it it's break-
ing out in this fashion, all over the place ? "

" That again," said the doctor, " is difficult to say."

" Urshot. Here. It's a pretty clear case of spread-
ing."

" Yes," said the doctor. " Yes. I think so. It has
a strong resemblance at any rate to some sort of epi-

154 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

demic. Probably Epidemic Hypertrophy will meet the
case."

" Epidemic I " said the Vicar. " You don't mean it's
contagious ? "

The doctor smiled gently and rubbed one hand against
the other. " That I couldn't say," he said.

" But ! " cried the Vicar, round-eyed. " If it's

catching — it — it affects us I **

He made a stride up the road and turned about.

'' I've Just been there," he cried. *' Hadn't I

better ? I'll go home at once and have a bath

and fumigate my clothes."

The doctor regarded his retreating back for a moment,
and then turned about and went towards his own
house. . . .

But on the way he reflected that one case bad been
in the viUage a month without any one catching the
disease, and after a pause of hesitation decided to be
as brave as a doctor should be and take the risks like a
man.

And Indeed he was well advised by his second thoughts.
Growth was the last thing that could ever happen to him
again. He could have eaten — and the Vicar could have
eaten — Herakleophorbia by the truckful. For growth
had done with them. Growth had done with these two
gentlemen for evermore.

VI.

It was a day or so after this conversation — a day or
so, that is, after the burning of the Experimental Farm —
that Winkles came to Redwood and showed him an
insulting letter. It was an anonymous letter, and an
author should re,spect his character's secrets. " You are

THE COMING OF THE FOOD. 155

Only taking credit for a natural phenomenon/' said the
letter, *' and trying to advertise yourself by your letter
to the Tunes. You and your Boonifoud I Let me tell
you, tliib absurdly named food of yours has only the
most accidental connection with those big wasps and
rats. The plain fact is there is an epidemic of Hyper-
trophy— Contdgious HjT^ertrophy — Vvhich you have
about as much claim to control as you have to control
the solar system. The thing is as old as the hills. There
was Hypertrophy In the family of Anak, Quite out-
side your range, at Cheasing Eyebright, at the present
time there is a baby "

" Shaky up and down writing. Old gentleman ap-
parently," said Redwood. " But it's odd a baby "

He read a few Unes further, and had an inspiration.

** By Jove I " said he. " That's my missing Mrs.
Skinner I "

He descended upon her suddenly in the afternoon of
the following day.

She was engaged in pulling onions in the little garden
before her daughter's cottage when she saw him coming
through the garden gate. She stood for a moment
" consternated,'* as the country folks say, and then
folded her arms, and with the httle bunch of onions
held defensively under her left elbow, awaited his ap-
proach. Her mouth opened and shut several times ;
she mtmabled her remaining tooth, and once quite sud-
denly she curtsied, like the blink of an arc-light.

" I thought I should find you," said Redwood.

*' I thought you might, sir," she said, without joy.

" Where's Skinner ? "

" 'E ain't never written to me, Sir, not once, nor
come ni^h of me since I came here, Sir."

156 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

'* Don't you know what's become of him ? "

" Him not having written, no, Sir," and she edged a
step towards the left with an imperfect idea of cutting
oiS Redwood from the bam door.

" No one knows what has become of him," said
Redwood.

" I dessay 'e knows," said Mrs. Skinner.

" He doesn't tell."

" He was always a great one for looking after 'imself
and leaving them that was near and dear to 'im in
trouble, was Skiimer. Though clever as could be," said
Mrs. Skinner. . . .

" Where's this child ? " asked Redwood abruptly.

She begged his pardon.

" This child I hear about, the child you've been giving
our stuff to — the child that weighs two stone."

Mrs. Skinner's hands worked, and she dropped the
onions. " Reely, Sir," she protested, '* I don't hardly
know, Sir, what you mean. My daughter, Sir, Mrs.
Caddies, *as a baby, Sir." And she made an agitated
curtsey and tried to look innocently inquiring by tilting
her nose to one side.

" You'd better let me see that baby, Mrs. Skinner,"
said Redwood.

Mrs. Skinner unmasked an eye at him as she led the
way towards the bam. "Of course. Sir, there may
'ave been a Utile, in a Httle can of Nicey I give his father
to bring over from the farm, or a little perhaps what I
ha[)pened to bring about with me, so to speak. Me
packing in a hurry and all . . ."

" Um I " said Redwood, after he had cluckered to the
infant for a space. " Oom I "

He told Mrs. Caddies the baby was a very fine child

THE COMING OF THE FOOD. 157

indeed, a thing that was getting well home to her In-
telligence— and he ignored her altogether after that.
Presently slie left the bam — through sheer insignificance.

" Now you've started him, you'll have to keep on
with him, you know," he said to Mrs. Skinner.

He turned on her abruptly. " Don't splash it about
this time," he said.

" Splash it about. Sir ? "

" Oh 1 you know."

She indicated knowledge by convulsive gestures.

" You haven't told these people here ? The parents, the
squire and so on at the big house, the doctor, no one ? "

Mrs. Skinner shook her head.

" I wouldn't," said Redwood. . . .

He went to the door of the bam and surveyed the
world about him. The door of the bam looked between
the end of the cottage and some disused piggeries
through a five-barred gate upon the highroad. Beyond
was a high, red brick-wall rich with ivy and wallflower
and pennywort, and set along the top with broken glass.
Beyord the comer of the wall, a sunlit notice-board
amidst green and yellow branches reared itself above
the rich tones of the first fallen leaves and announced
that " Trespassers in these Woods will be Prosecuted."
The dark shadow of a gap in the hedge threw a stretch
of barbed wire into relief.

" Um," said Redwood, then in a deeper note, " Oom 1 "

There came a clatter of horses and the sound of
wheels, and Lady Wondershoot's greys came into
view. He marked the faces of coachman and foot-
man as the equipage approached. The coachman was
a very fine specimen, full and fruity, and he drove with
a sort of sacramental dignity. Others might doubt

158 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

their calling and position in the world, he at any rate
was sure — he drove her ladyship. The footman sat
beside him with folded arms and a face of inflexible
certainties. Then the great lady herself became visible,
in a hat and mantle disdainfully inelegant, peering
through her glasses. Two young ladies protruded necks
and peered also.

The Vicar passing on the other side swept off the hat
from his David's brow unheeded. . . •

Redwood remained standing in the doorway for a
long time after the carriage had passed, his hands folded
behind him. His eyes went to the green, grey upland
of down, and into the cloud-curdled sky, and came back
to the glass-set wall. He turned upon the cool shadows
within., and amidst spots and blurs of colour regarded the
giant child amidst that Rembrandtesque gloom, naked
except for a swathing of flannel, seated upon a huge
truss of straw and playing wiih its toes.

" I begin to see what we have done," he said.

He mused, and young Caddies and his own child and
Cossar's brood mingled in his musing.

He laughed abruptly. " Good Lord I " he said at
some passing thought.

He roused himself presently and addressed Mrs.
Skinner. " Anyhow he mustn't be tortured by a break
in his food. That at least we can prevent. I shall
send you a can every six months. That ought to do
for him all right."

Mrs. Skinner mumbled something about '* If you
think so. Sir," and " probably got packed by mistake.
. . . Thought no harm in giving him a little," and so
by the aid of various aspen gestures indicated that she
undeistood.

THE COMING OF THE FOOD. 159

So the child went on growing.

Arui growing.

" Practkally," said Lady Wondershoot, "he's eaten
up every calf in the place. If I have any more of this
sort of thing from that man Caddies "

VII.

But even so secluded a place as Cheasing Eyebright
could not rest foi long in the theory of Hypertrophy —
Contagious or not — in view of the growing hubbub
about the Food. In a little while there were painful
explanations for Mrs. Skinner — exijianations that reduced
her to speechless mumblings of her remaining tooth —
explanations that probed her and ransacked her and
ex|x>5>ed her — until at last she was driven to take refuge
from a universal convergence of blame in the dignity of
inconsolable widowhood. She ttimed her eye — which she
lu-onst rained to be watery — upon the angry Lady oi the
Manor, and wiped suds from her hands,

** You forget, my lady, what I'm bearing up under."

And she followed up this warning note with a slightly
dehant :

" It's 'IM I think of, my lady, night and day."

She compressed her lips, and her voice flattened and
faltered : " Bein' et, my lady."

And having established herself on these grounds, she
repeated the af&rmation her ladyship had refused before,
"I 'ad no more idea what I was giving the child, my
lady, than any one could *ave. . . ."

Her ladyship turned her mind in more hopeful direc-
tions, wigging Caddies of course tremendously by the
way. Emissaries, full of diplomatic threatenings, en-

i6o THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

tered the whirling lives of Bensington and Redwood.
They presented themselves as Parish Councillors, »tolid
and clinging phonographically to prearranged statements.
*' We hold you responsible, Mister Bensington, for the
injury inflicted upon oux parish. Sir. We hold you
responsible."

A firm of solicitors, with a snake of a style — Bang-
hurst, Brown, Flapp, Codlin, Brown, Tedder, and
Snoxton, they called themselves, and appeared invari-
ably in the form of a small rufous cunning-looking
gentleman with a pointed nose — said vague things about
damages, and there was a pohshed personage, her
ladyship's agent, who came in suddenly upon Redwood
one day and asked, " Well, Sir, and what do you propose
to do ? "

To which Redwood answered that he proposed to dis-
continue supplying the food for the child, if he or Ben-
sington were bothered any further about the matter.
" I give it for nothing as it is," he said, " and the child
will yell your village to ruins before it dies if you don't
let it have the stuiS. The child's on your hands, and
you have to keep it. Lady Wondershoot can't always
be Lady Bountiful and Earthly Providence of her
parish without sometimes meeting a responsibihty, you
know."

" The mischief's done," Lady Wondershoot decided
when they told her — ^with expurgations — what Redwood
had said.

" The mischief's done," echoed the Vicar.

Though indeed as a matter of fact the mischief was
only beginning.

CHAPTER THE SECOND.

THE BRAT GIGANTIC.
I.

The giant child was ugly — the Vicar would insist.
** He always had been ugly — as all excessive things
must be." The A'icar's views had carried him out of
sight of just judgment in this matter. The child was
much subjected to snapshots even in that rustic retire-
ment, and their net testimony is against the Vicar,
testifying that the young monster was at first almost
pretty, with a copious curl of hair reaching to his brow
and a great readiness to smile. Usually Caddies, who
was slightly built, stands smiling behind the baby,
perspective emphasising his relative smallness.

After the second year the good looks of the child
became more subtle and more contestable. He began
to grow, as tiis unfortimate grandfather would no doubt
have put it, " rank.'' He lost colour and developed an
increasing effect of being somehow, albeit colossal, yet
slight. He was vastly delicate. His eyes and some-
thing about his face grew finer — grew, as people say,
" interesting." His hair, after one cutting, began to
tangle into a mat. " It's the degenerate strain coming
out in him/' said the parish doctor, marking these
things, but just how far he was right in that, and just

6

i62 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

how far the youngster's lapse from ideal healthfuhiess
was the result of living entirely in a wnitev^'asticd bam
upon Lady Wondersnuui's sense of cliarity tempered
by justice, is open to question.

The photographs ot him that present him from three
to six show him deveiuping into a roand-eyed, flaxen-
haired youngster with a truncated nose and a friendly
stare* There lurks about his Hps that never very
remote promise of a smile that all the photographs of
the early giant children display. In summer he wears
loose gannertts of ticking tacked together with string;
there is usually one of those straw baskets upon his
head that workmen use for their tools, and he is bare-
footed. In one picture he grins broadly and holds a
bitten melon in his hand*

The winter pictures are less numerous and satisfactory.
He wears huge sabots — ^no doubt of beechwood, and (as
fragments of the inscription " John Stickells, Iping,"
show) sacks for socks, and his trousers and jacket are
immistakably cut from the remains of a gaily patterned
carpet. Underneath that there were rude swathings
of flannel ; five or six yards of flannel are tied comforter-
fashion about his neck. The thing on his head is prob-
ably another sack. He stares, sometimes smiling, some-
times a little ruefully, at the camera. Even when he
was only five years old, one sees that half whimsical
wrinkling over his soft brown eyes that characterised
his face-

He was from the first, the Vicar always declared, a
terrible nuisance about the village. He seems to have
had a proportionate impulse to play, much curiosity
and sociability, and in addition there v/as a certain
craving within hizEH^I grieve to my-^iox mom to oAt.

THE BRAT GIGANTIC. 163

111 spite of what Mrs. Greenfield called an " excessively
generous " allowance of food from Lady Wondershoot,
he displayed what the doctor perceived at once was the
*' Criminal Appetite." It carries out only too com-
pletely Lady Wondershoot's worst experiences of the
lower classes — that in spite of an allowance of nourish-
ment inordinately beyond what is known to be the
maximum necessity even of an adult human being, the
creature was found to steal. And what he stole he
ate with an inelegant voracity. His great hand would
come over garden walls ; he would covet the very bread
in the bakers' carts. Cheeses went from Marlow's store
loft, and never a pig trough was safe from him. Some
farmer walking over his field of swedes would find the
great spoor of bis feet and the evidence of his nibbling
hunger — a root picked here, a root picked there, and
the holes, with childish cunning, heavily erased. He
ate a swede as one devours a radish. He would stand
and eat apples from a tree, if no one was about, as normal
children eat blackberries from a bush* In one way at
any rate this shortness of provisions was good for the
peace of Cheasing Eyebright — for many ye^rs he ate up
every grain very nearly of the Food of the Gods that
was given him, . „ ,

Indisputably the child was troublesome and out of
place, " He was always about," the Vicar used to say.
He could not go to school ; he could not go to church
by virtue of the obvious limitatfons of its cubical con-
tent. There was some attempt to satisfy the spirit of
that " most foolish and destructive law '* — I quote the
Vicar — ^the Elementary Education Act of 1870, by
getting him to sit outside the open window while instruc-
tion was going on within. But his presence there

i64 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

destroyed the discipline of the other children. They
were always popping up and peering at him, and every
time he spoke they laughed together. His voice was
so odd I So they let him stay away.

Nor did they persist in pressing him to come to
church, for his vast proportions were of little help to
devotion. Yet there they might have had an easier
task ; there are good reasons for guessing there were
the germs of rehgious feehng somewhere in that big
carcase. The music perhaps drew him. He was often
in the churchyard on a Sunday morning, picking his
way softly among the graves after the congregation had
gone in, and he would sit the whole service out beside
the porch, Ustening as one listens outside a hive of bees.

At first he showed a certain want of tact ; the people
inside would hear his great feet crunch restlessly roiind
their place of worship, or become aware of his dim face
peering in through the stained glass, half curious, half
envious, and at times some simple hymn would catch
him unawares, and he would howl lugubriously in a
gigantic attempt at unison. Whereupon little Sloppet,
who was organ-blower and verger and beadle and sexton
and bell-ringer on Sundays, besides being postman and
chimney-sweep all the week, would go out very briskly
and valiantly and send him mournfully aWay- Sloppet,
I am glad to say, felt it — in his more thoughtful moments
at any rate. It was like sending a dog home when you
start out for a walk, he told me^

But the intellectual and moral training of young
Caddies, though fragmentary, was explicit- From the
first. Vicar, mother, and all the world» combined to
make it clear to him that his giant strength was not
for use. It waa a misfortune that he had to make the

THE BRAT GIGANTIC. 165

best of. He had to mind what was told him, do what
was set him, be careful never to break anything nor
hurt anything. Particularly he must not go treading
on things or jostling against things or jumping about.
He had to salute the gentlefolks respectful and be
grateful for the food and clothing they spared him out
of their riches. And he learnt all these things sub-
missively, being by nature and habit a teachable crea-
ture and only by food and accident gigantic.

For Lady Wondeishoot, in these early days, he dis-
played the profoundest awe. She found she could talk
to fiim best when she was in short skirts and had her
dog-whip, and she gesticulated with that and was always
a little contemptuous and shrill. But sometimes the
Vicar played master — & minute, middle-aged, rather
breathless David pelting a childish Goliath with reproof
and reproach and dictatorial command. The monster
was now so big that it seenis it was impossible for any
one to remember he was after all only a child of seven,
with aU a child's desire for notice and amusement and
fresh experience, with all a child's craving for response,
attention and afiection, and all a child's capacity for
dependence and unrestricted dulness and misery.

The Vicar, walking down the village road some simlit
morning, would encounter an ungainly eighteen feet of
the Inexplicable, as fantastic and unpleasant to bim
as some new form of Dissent, as it padded fitfully along
with craning neck, seeking, always seeking the two
primary needs of childhood — something to eat and some-
thing with which to play.

There would come a look of furtive respect into the
creatuie's eyes and an attempt to touch the matted
forelock.

i66 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

In a limited way the Vicar had an imagination— at
any rate, the remains of one — and wdth young Caddies
it took the Hne of developmg the huge pussibiHties of
personal injury such vast muscles must pu&sess. Sup-
pose a sudden madness ! Suppose a mere lapse into

disiespect 1 However, the truiy brave man is not

the man who does not feel tear but the man who over-
comes it. Every time and always the Vicar got his
imagination under. And he used always to address
young Caddies stoutly in a good clear semce tenor,
" Being a good boy, Albert Edward ? "
And the young giant, edging closer to the wall and
blushing deeply, would answer, '* Yessir — trying."

" Mind you do," said the Vicar, and would go past
him with at most a slight acceleration of his breathing.
And out of respect for his manhood he made it a rule,
whatever he might fancy, never to look back at the
danger, when once it was passed.

In a fitful manner the Vicar would give young Caddies
private tuition. He never taught the monster to read —
it was not needed ; but he taught him the more im-
portant points of the Catechism — his duty to his neigh-
bour for example, and of that Deity who would punish
Caddies with extreme vindictiveness if ever he ven-
tured to disobey the Vicar and Lady Wondershoot.
The lessons would go on in the Vicar's yard, and passers-
by would hear that great cranky childish voice droning
out the essential teachings of the Established Church.

' To onner 'n 'bey the King and allooer put 'nthority
under 'im. To s'bmit meself fall my gov'ners, teachers,
spir'shall pastors an* masters. To order myself lowly

*n rev'rently fall my betters "

Presently it became evident that the eSect of the

THE BR.\T GIGANTIC. 167

growing giant on unacrustonied horses was like that of
a camel, and he was told to keep off the highroad, not
only near the shrubbery (where the oafish smile over
the wall had exas])erated her ladysliip extremely), but
altogether. That law he never completely obeyed, be-
cause of the vast interest the highroad had for him.
But it turned what had been his constant resort into
a stolen pleasure. He was limited at last almost entirely
to old pasture and the Downs.

I do not know what he would have done if it had not
been for the Downs. There there were spaces where he
might wander for miles, and over these spaces he wan-
dered. He would pick branches from trees and make
insane vast nosegays there until he was forbidden, take
up sheep and put them in neat rows, from which they
immediately wandered (at this he Invariably laughed
very heartily), until he was forbidden, dig away the turf,
great wanton holes, until he was forbidden. . . .

He would wander over the Do\;\tis as far as the hill
above Wreckstone, but not farther, because there he
came upon cultivated land, and the people, by reason
of his depredations upon their root-crops, and inspired
moreover by a sort of hostile timidity his big unkempt
appearance frequently evoked, always came out against
him with yapping dogs to drive him away. They would
threaten him and lash at him with cart whips. I have
heard that they would sometimes fire at him with shot
guns. And In the other direction he ranged within sight
of Hickleybrow. From above Thursley Hanger he could
get a glimpse of the London, Chatham, and Dover rail-
way, but ploughed fields and a suspicious hamlet pre-
vented his nearer access.

And after a time there came boards — great boards

t68 the food of THE GODS.

with red letters that barred him in ever}' direction. He
could not read what the letters said : " Out of Hounds,"
but in a little while he understood. He was often to
be seen in those days, by the railway passengers, sitting,
chin on knees, perched up on the Down bard by the
Thursley chalk pits, where afterwards he was set work-
ing. The train seemed to inspire a dim emotion of
friendliness in him, and sometimes he would wave an
enormous hand at it, and sometimes give it a rustic
incoherent hail.

'' Big," the peering passenger would say. " One of
these Boom children. They say, Sir, quite unable to
do anything for itself — little better than an idiot in
fact, and a great burden on the locality."
" Parents quite poor, I'm told."
'' Lives on the charity of the local gentry."
Every one would stare intelligently at that distant
squatting monstrous figure for a space.

" Good thing that was put a stop to," some spacious
thinking mind would suggest. " Nice to 'ave a few
thousand of them on the rates, eh ? "

And usually there was some one v-rise enough to tell
this philosopher : " You're about Right there, Sir," in
hearty tones.

n.

He bad his bad days.

There was, for example, that trouble with the river.

He made little boats out of whole newspapers, an art
he learnt by watching the Spender boy, and he set them
saiUng down the stream — great paper cocked-hats. When
they vanished under the bridge which marks the boun-
dary of the strictly private grounds about Eyebright

THE BRAT GIGANTIC. 169

House, he would give a great shout and run round and
across Tormat's new field — Lord ! huw Tormat's pigs
did scamper, to be sure, and turn tlieir good fat into
lean muscle I — and so to meet his boats b}' the ford.
Right across the nearer lavvns these paper boats of his
used to go, right in front of Eyebright House, right under
Lady Wondershoot's e3'es I Disorganising folded news-
papers ! A pretty thing I

Gathering enteq)rise from impunity, he began babyish
hydraulic engineering. He delved a huge port for his
paper fleets with an old shed door that served him as a
spade, and, no one chancing to observe his operations
just then, he devised an ingenious canal that incidentally
flooded Lady Wondershoot's ice-house, and finally he
dammed the river. He dammed it right across with a
few vigorous doorfuls of earth — he must have worked
like an avalanche — and dowTi came a most amazing
spate through the shrubbery and washed away Miss
Spinks and her easel and the most promising water-
colour sketch she had ever begun, or, at any rate, it
washed away her easel and left her wet to the knees
and dismally tucked up in flight to the house, and thence
the waters rushed through the kitchen garden, and so
by the green door into the lane and down into the river-
bed again by Short's ditch.

Meanwhile, the Vicar, interrupted in conversation with
the blacksmith, was amazed to see distressful stranded
fish leaping out of a few residual pools, and heaped
green weed in the bed of the stream, where ten minutes
before there had been eight feet and more of clear cool
water.

After that, horrified at his own consequences, young
Caddies fled his home for two days and nights. He

170 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

returned only at the insistent call of hunger, to bear
with stoical calm an amount of violent scuiding that
was more in proportion to his size than anything else
that had ever before fallen to iiis lot in the Happy
Village.

III.

Immediately after that affair Lady Wondershoot, cast-
ing about for exemplary additions to the abuse and
fastings she had inflicted, issued a Ukase. She issued
it hist to her butier, and very suddenly, so that she
made him jump. He was clearing away the breakfast
things, and she was staring out of the tall window on the
terrace where the fawns would come to be fed. " Job-
bet," she said, in her most imperial voice — " Jobbet,
this Thing must work for its living."

And she made it quite clear not only to Jobbet (which
was easy), but to every one else in the village, including
young Caddies, that in this matter, as in all things, she
meant what she said.

" Keep him employed," said Lady Wondershoot.
" That's the tip for Master Caddies."

" It's the Tip, I fancy, for all Humanity," said the
Vicar. " The simple duties, the modest round, seed-
time and harvest "

" Exactly," said Lady Wondershoot. " What / always
say. Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to
do. At any rate among the labouring classes. We
bring up our under-housemaids on that principle, always.
What shall we set him to do ? "

That was a little difficult. They thought of many
things, and meanwhile they broke him in to labour a
bit by using him instead of a horse iaaB»e»g(5u: to caury

THE BRAT GIGANTIC. 171

telegrams and notes when extra speecl was needed, and
he also carried luggage and parking-cases and things ot
tliat sort very conveniently in a big net they found lor
him. He seemed to like employment, regarding it as a
sort of game, and Kinkle, I^dy Wondershoot's agent,
seeing him shift a rocker^' for her one day, was struck
by the brilliant idea of putting him into her chalk quarry
at Thursley Hanger, hard by Hickleybrow. This idea
was carried out, and it seemed tliey had settled his
problem.

He worked in the chalk pit, at first with the zest of a
placing child, and aftenvai'ds v^ith an effect of habit —
dehing, loading, doing all the haulage of the trucks,
running the full ones dosvn the lines towards the siding,
and hauling the empty ones up by the wire of a great
windlass — working the entire quarry at last single-
handed.

I am toid that Kinkle made a very good thing indeed
out of him for Lady Wondershoot, consuming as he
did scarcely anything but his food, though that never
restrained her denunciation of " the Creature " as a
gigantic parasite upon her charity. . . .

At that time he ased to wear a sort of smock of sack-
ing, trousers of patched leather, and iron-shod sabots.
Over his head was sometimes a queer thing — a worn-out
beehive straw chair it was, but usually he went bare-
headed. He would be moving about the pit with a
powerful deliberation, and the Vicar on his constitutional
round v/ould get there about midday to find him shame-
fully eating his vast need of food with his back to all
the world.

His food was brought to him every day, a mess ol
grain in the hu&k, in a truck — a small railway truck,

172 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

like one of the trucks he was perpetually filling with
chalk, and this load he used to char in an old limekiln
and then devour. Sometimes he would mix with it a
bag of sugar. Sometimes he would sit licking a lump
of such salt as is given to cows, or eating a huge lump
of dates, stones and all, such as one sees in London on
barrows. For drink he walked to the ri\Tilet beyond
the burnt-out site of the Experimental Farm at Hickley-
brow and put down his face to the stream. It was from
his drinking in that way after eating that the Food of
the Gods did at last get loose, spreading first of all in
huge weeds from the river-side, then in big frogs, bigger
trout and stranding carp, and at last in a fantastic
exuberance of vegetation all over the little valley.

And after a year or so the queer monstrous grub things
in the field before the blacksmith's grew so big and de-
veloped into such frightful skipjacks and cockchafers —
motor cockchafers the boys called them — that they drove
Lady Wondershoot abroad,

IV.

But soon the Food was to enter upon a new phase of
its work in him* In spite of the simple instructions of
the Vicar — instructions intended to round off the modest
natural life befitting a giant peasant, in the most com-
plete and final manner — he began to ask questions, to
inquire into things, to think. As he grew from boyhood
to adolescence it became increasingly evident that his
mind had processes of its own—out of the Vicar's control.
The Vicar did his best to ignore this distressing phe-
nomenon, but still — he could feel it there.

The young giant's materiiU for thouglvt la^: abont b?Tr>.
i^uite mvoiuiitanly, with his spaciou:i vie^\s, his consta.at

THE BR.\T GIGANTIC. 173

overlooking of things, he must have seen a good deal of
human life, and as it grew clearer to him that he too,
save for this clumsy greatness of his, was also human,
he must have come to realise more and more just how
much was shut against him by his melancholy distinc-
tion. The sociable hum of the school, the mystery of
religion that was partaken in such finery, and which
exhaled so sweet a strain of melody, the jovial chorusing
from the Inn, the warmly glowing rooms, candle-lit and
fire-ht, into which he peered out of the darkness, or again
the shouting excitement, the vigour of flannelled exer-
cise upon some imi>erfectly understood issue that centred
about the cricket-field — ail these things must have cried
aloud to his companionable heart. It would seem that
as his adolescence crept upon him, he began to take a
very considerable interest in the proceedings of lovers.
In those preferences and pairings, those close intimacies
that are so cardinal in Ufe.

One Sunday, just about that hour when the stars and
the bats and the passions of rural life come out, there
chanced to be a young couple " kissing each other a
bit " in Love Lane, the deep hedged lane that runs out
back towards the Upper Lodge. They were giving their
little emotions play, as secure in the warm still twilight
as any lovers could be. The only conceivable interrup-
tion they thought possible must come pacing \4sibly up
the lane ; the twelve-foot hedge towards the silent
Downs seemed to them an absolute guarantee.

Then suddenly — Incredibly — they were lifted and
drawn apart.

They discovered themselves held up, each with a finger
and thumb under the armpits, and with the perplexed
brown ejres of young Caddies scanning their warm flushed

174 THE FOOD OF THE GODS. ^

faces. They were naturally dumb with the emotions of
their situation.

'* Why do you like doing that ? " asked young Caddies.

I gather the embarrassment continued until the swain,
remembering his manhood, vehemently, with loud
shouts, threats, and virile blasphemies, such as became
the occasion, bade young Caddies under penalties put
them down. Whereupon young Caddies, remembering
his manners, did put them down politely and very care-
fully, and conveniently near for a resumption of their
embraces, and having hesitated above them for a while,
vanished again into the twilight. . . .

*' But I felt precious silly," the swain confided to me.
" We couldn't 'ardly look at one another — bein' caught
like that.

" Kissing we was — you know.

*' And the cur'uus thing is, she blamed it all on to
me," said the swain.

" Flew out something outrageous, and wouldn't 'ardly
speak to me all the way 'ome. ..."

The giant was embarking upon investigations, there
could be no doubt. His mind, it became manifest, was
throwing up questions. He put them to few people as
yet, but they troubled him. His mother, one gathers,
sometimes came in for cross-examination.

He used to come into the yard behind his mother's
cottage, and, after a careful inspection of the ground
for hens and chicks, he would sit do\^TX slowly with his
back against the bam. In a minute the clucks, who
liked him, would be pecking all over him at the mossy
chalk-mud in the seams of his clothing, and if it was
blowing up for wet, Mrs. Caddies' kitten, who never lost
her coxxfidence in him, would assume a sinuous form

THE BRAT GIGANTIC. 175

aid start scampering into the cottage, up to the kitchen
fender, round, out, up his leg, up his body, right up to
his shoulder, meditati\'e moment, and then scat I back
agaia, and so on. Sometimes she would stick her claws
m his face out of sheer j^aict}' of heart, but he never
dared to touch her because of the uncertain weight of
his hand upon a creature so frail. Resides, he rather
liked to be tickled. And after a time he would put
some clumsy questions to his mother.

" Mother," he would say, *' if it's good to work, why
doesn't every one work ? "

His mother would look up at him and answer, " It's
good for the likes of us."

He would meditate, " Why ? "

And going unanswered, ** \^Tiat's work for, mother ?
Why do I cut chalk and you wash clothes, day after day,
while Lady Wondershoot goes about in her carriage,
mother, and travels off to those beautiful foreign coun-
tries you and I mustn't see, mother ? "

** She's a lady," said Mrs. Caddies.

" Oh," said young Caddies, and meditated profoundly.

" If there wasn't gentlefolks to make work for us to
do," said Mrs. Caddies, " how should we poor people
get a living ? "

This had to be digested.

" Mother," he tried again ; " if there wasn't any
gentlefolks, wouldn't things belong to people like me
and you, and if they did "

" Lord sakes and drai the Boy I " Mrs. Caddies would
say — she had with the help of a good memory become
quite a florid and vigorous individuality since Mrs.
Skinner died. *' Since your poor dear grandma was
took, there's no abiding yoa. Don't you arst no que^-

176 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

tions and you won't be told no lies. If once I was to
start out answerin' you serious, y'r father 'd 'ave to go
and arst some one else for 'is supper — ^let alone finisain'
the washin'."

" All right, mother," he would say, after a wondering
stare at her. " I didn't mean to worry/'

And he would go on thinking.

V,

He was thinking too four years after, when the Vicar,
now no longer ripe but over-ripe, saw him for the last
time of all. You figure the old gentleman visibly a
little older now, slacker In his girth, a little coarsened
and a little weakened in his thought and speech, with
a quivering shakiness in his hand and a quiveiing shakj-
ness in his convictions, but his eye still bright and merry
for all the trouble the Food had caused his village and
himself. He had been frightened at times and dis-
turbed, but was he not alive still and the same still ?
and fifteen long years — a fair sample of eternity — had
turned the trouble into use and wont.

" It was a disturbance, I admit," he would say, " and
things are different — different in many ways. There was
a time when a boy could weed, but now a man must go
out with axe and crowbar — in some places down by
the thickets at least. And it's a little strange still to
us old-fashioned people for all this valley, even what used
to be the river bed before they irrigated, to be under
wheat — as it is this year — twenty-five feet high. They
used the old-fashioned scythe here twenty years ago,
and they would bring home the harvest on a wain — re-
joicing—in a simple honest fashion. A Httle simple

THE BRAT GIGANTIC. 177

dnnkenncss, a little frank love-making, to conclude. . . .
Poor dear Lady Wondershoot — she didn't like these
innovations. Ver^^ conservative, poor dear lady I A
touch of the eifrhteenth century about her, I always
said. Her lanprnage for example. . . . Bluff vigour. . . .

" She died comparatively poor. These big weeds got
into her garden. She was not one of these gardening
women, but she Uked her garden in order — things grow-
ing where they were planted and as they were planted —
under cx>ntrol. . . . The way things grew was unex-
pected— upset her ideas. . . . She didn't like the per-
petual invasion of this young monster — at last she began
to fancy he was always gaping at her over her wall. . . .
She didn't like his being nearly as high as her house.
. . . Jarred with her sense of proportion. Poor dear
lady ! I had hoped she would last my time. It was
the big cockchafers we had for a year or so that decided
her. They came from the giant larvae — nasty things
as big as rats — in the valley turf. . . .

" And the ants no doubt weighed with her also.

" Since everything was upset and there was no peace
and quietness anywhere now, she said she thought she
might just as well be at Monte Carlo as anywhere else.
And she went.

" She played pretty boldly, I'm told. Died In a
hotel there. Very sad end. . . . Exile. . . . Not — not
what one considers meet. . , . A natural leader of our
English people. . . . Uprooted. So 1 . . .

" Yet after all," harped the Vicar, " it comes to very
little. A nuisance of course. Children cannot run
about so freely as they used to do, what with ant bites
and so forth. Perhaps it's as well. . . . There used to
be talk — as though this stuff would revolutionise every-

178 THE FOOD OF THE GODS. /

thing. . . , But there is something that defies all these
forces of the New. . . I don't know of course. Tm
not one of your modern philosophers — explain every-
thing with ether and atoms. Evolution. Rubbish like
that. What I mean is something the 'Ologies don't
include. Matter of reason — not understanding. Ripe
wisdom. Human nature. Aere perennii^s. . . . Call it
what you will."

And so at last it came to the last time.

The Vicar had no intimation of what lay so close upon
him. He did his customary walk, over by Farthing
Down, as he had done it for more than a score of years,
and so to the place whence he would watch young
Caddies. He did the rise over by the chalk-pit crest
a little puffily — he had long since lost the Muscular
Christian stride of early days ; but Caddies was not at
his work, and then, as he skirted the thicket of giant
bracken that was beginning to obscure and overshadow
the Hanger, he came upon the monster's huge form
seated on the hill — brooding as it were upon the world.
Caddies' knees were drawn up, his cheek was on his
band^ his head a little aslant. He sat with Lis shoulder
towards the Vicar, so that those perplexed eyes could
not be seen. He must have been thinking very in-
tently— at any rate he was sitting very stiU. . . .

He never turned round. He never knew that the
" .car, who had played so large a part In shaping his
life, looked then at him for the very last of Innumerable
times — did not know even that he was there. {So it is
so many partings happen.) The Vicar was struck at
the time by the fact that, after all, no one on earth had
the slightest Idea of what tMs great monster thought
about when he »aw fit to -^i. • from hia labours. But

THE BRAT GKJANTIC. 179

he was too indolent to iollow up that new theme that
day ; he fell back from its suggestion into his older
grooves of thought.

** Aetd perejiHtus," he whispered, walking slowly home-
ward by a path that no longer ran straight athwart
the turf after its former fashion, but wound circuitously
to avoid new sprung tussocks of giant grass, " No 1
nothing is changed. Dimensions are nothing. The
simple round, the common way- "

And that night, quite painlessly, and all unknovidng,
he himself went the common way — out of this Mystery
of Chajigc he had spent his Hfe in denying.

They buried him in the churchyard of Cheasing Eye-
bright, near to the largest yev^, and the modest tomb-
stone bearing his epitaph — it ended with : Ui in Prin-
cipio, nunc est et semper — was almost inmiediately hidden
from the eye of man by a spread of giant, grey tasselled
grass too stout for scythe or sheep, that came sweeping
Hke a fog over the village out of the germinating moisture
of the valley meadows In which the Food of the Gods
had been working.

rV

BOOK III.
THE HARVEST OF THE FOOD.

CHAPTER THE FIRST.

THE ALTERED WORLD.
I.

Change played in its new fashion with the world for
twenty years. To most men the new things came little
by little and day by day. remarkably enough, but not
so abruptly as to overwhekn. But to one man at least
the full accumulation of those two decades of the Food's
work was to be revealed suddenly and amazingly in one
day. For our purpose it is convenient to take him for
that one day and to tell something of the things he saw.
This man was a convict, a prisoner for Ufe— his cnme
IS no concern of ours—whom the law saw fit to pardon
aiter twenty years. One smnmer morning this poor
wretch, who had left the world a young man of three-
and-twenty, found himself thrust out again from the
grey smiplicity of toU and discipline, that had become
his hfe, into a dazzling freedom. They had put un-
accustomed clothes upon him ; his hair had been growing
for some weeks, and he had parted it now for some days
and there he stood, in a sort of shabby and clumsy new-
ness of body and mind, blinking with his eyes and bhnk-
ing indeed with his soul, outside again, trying to realise
one mcredible thing, that after all he was again for a
httk wh^e in the world of lif «. aad for aU other incredibk

i84 THE FOOD OF TEE GODS.

things totaUy unprepared. He was so fortunate as to
have a brother who cared enough for their distant
common memories to come and meet him and clasp his
haad-a brother he had left a Uttle lad, and who was
now a bearded prosperous man— whose very eyes were
unfamiHar. And together he and this stranger from
his kindred came down into the town of Dover, saymg
little to one another and feeling many things.

They sat for a space in a pubUc^house, the one answer-
ing the questions of the other about this person and that,
reviving queer old i)oints of view, brushing aside endless
new aspects and new perspectives, and then it was tune
to go to the station and take the London tram. Their
names and the personal things they had to talk of do
not matter to our story, but only the changes and aU
the strangeness that this poor returning soul found in
the once familiar world.

In Dover itself he remarked Uttle except the goodne^
of beer from pewter-never before had there been such
a draught of beer, and it brought tears of gra^tude to
his eyL " Beer's as good as ever," said he, behevmg

it infinitely better. ... ^ „ x

It was only as the train rattled them past Folkestone
that he coiild look out beyond his more mimediate
emotions, to see what had happened to the world- He
peered out of the window. " It's sunny." he said for
tte twelfth time. " I cotudn't ha' had better weath^.
And then for the first time it da^vned «POf 1^™ /^^'t
there were novel disproportions in the world. Lord
sakes " he cried, sitting up and looking ammated for the
first time " but them's mortal great thissels growing
cut there on the bank by that broom. _ If so be they
be thissels ? Or 'ave I been forgetting ? "

THE ALTERED WORLD. 185

But the}' were thistles, and what he took for tall
bushes of broom was the new grass, and amidst these
things a company of British soldiers — red -coated as ever
— was skiniiisliing in accordance with the directions of
the drill book that had been partially revised after the
Boer War. Then whack I into a tunnel, and then into
Sandhng Junction, which was now embedded and dark
— its lamps were all ahght — in a great thicket of rhodo-
dendron that had crept out of some adjacent gardens
and grown enormously up the vaUey. There was a
train of trucks on the Sandgate siding piled high with
rhododendron logs, and here it was the returning citizen
heard first of Boomfood.

As they sped out into a country again that seemed
absolutely unchanged, the two brothers were hard at
their explanations. The one was full of eager, dull
questions ; the other had never thought, had never
troubled to see the thing as a single fact, and he was
allusive and difficult to follow. "It's this here Boom-
food stuff," he said, touching his bottom rock of know-
ledge. " Don't you know ? 'Aven't they told you —
any of 'em ? Boomfood 1 You know — Boomfood. What
all the election's about. Scientific sort of stuff. 'Asn't
no one ever told you ? "

He thought prison had made his brother a fearful
duffer not to know that.

They made wide shots at each other by way of ques-
tion and answer. Between these scraps of talk were
intervals of window-gazing. At first the man's interest
in things was vague and general. His imagination had
been busy with what old so-and-so would say, how so-
and-so would look, how he would say to all and sundry
certain things that would present his *' putting away "

i86 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

in a mitigated light, iliis Boomfood came in at first as
it were a thing in an odd paragraph of the newspapers,
then as a source of intellectual difficulty with his brother.
But it came to him presently that Boomfood was per-
sistently coming in upon any topic he began.

In those days the world was a patchw^ork of transition,
so that this great new fact came to him in a series of
shocks of contrast. The process of change had not been
uniform ; it had spread from one centre of distribution
here and another centre there. The country was in
patches : great areas where the Food was still to come,
and areas where it was already in the soil and in the air,
sporadic and contagious. It was a bold new motif
creeping in among ancient and venerable airs.

The contrast was very vivid indeed along the line
from Dover to London at that time. For a space they
traversed Just such a country-side as he had known
since his childhood, the small oblongs of field, hedge-
lined, of a size for pigmy horses to plough, the little roads
three cart-widths wide, the elms and oaks and poplars
dotting these fields about, little thickets of willow beside
the streams, ricks of hay no higher than a giant's knees,
dolls* cottages with diamond panes, brickfields, and
straggling village streets, the larger houses of the petty
great, flower-grown railway banks, garden-set stations,
and all the little things of the vanished nineteenth cen-
tury still holding out against Immensity. Here and
there would be a patch of wind-sown, wlnd-tattered giant
thistle defying the axe ; here and there a ten-foot puff-
ball or the ashen stems of some bumt-out patch of
monster grass ; but that was all there was to hint at
the coming of the Food.

For a couple of score of miles there was nothing else

THE ALTliRED WORLD. 187

to foreshadow In any way the strange bigness of the
wheat and of the weeds that were hidden from him
not a dozen miles from his route just over the hills in
the Chcasmg Eyebright valley. And then presently
the traces of the Food would begin. The first striking
thing W2LS the great new viaduct at Ton bridge, where
the swamp of the choked Med way (due to a giant variety
of Chura\ began in tJiose days. Then again the little
country, and then, as the petty multitudinous immensity
of London spread out under its haze, the traces of man's
fight to keep out greatness became abundant and in-
cessant.

In that south-eastern region of London at that time,
and all about where Cossar and his children lived, the
Food had become mj^teriousiy insurgent at a hundred
points ; the little life went on amidst daily portents that
only the dehberation ol their Increase, the slow parallel
growth of usage to their presence, had robbed of their
warning. But this returning citizen peered out to see
for the first time the facts of the Food strange and pre-
dominant, scarred and blackened areas, big unsightly
defences and preparations, barracks and arsenals that
this subtle, persistent influence had forced into the Ufe
of men.

Here, on an ampler scale, the experience of the first
Experimental Faim had been repeated time and again.
It had been in the inferior and accidental things of life
— under foot and in waste places, irregularly and iixele-
vantly — that the coming of a new force and new issues
had first declared itself. There were great evil-smelling
yards and enclosures where some invincible jungle of
weed furnished fuel for gigantic machinery (little cockne5rs
came to stare at its clangorous oiiiaess and tip the men

iSS THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

a sixpence) ; there were roads and tracks for big motors
and vehicles— roads made of the interwoven fibres of
hypertrophied hemp ; there were towers containhig
steam sirens that could yell at once and warn the world
against any new tnsurgence of veimin, or, what was
queerer, venerable church towers conspicuously fitted
with a mechanical scream. There were little red-painted
refuge hxitit and garrison shelters, each with its 300-yard
riiie range, where the riflemen practised daily \vith soft-
nosed ammunition at targets in the shape of monstrous
rats.

Six times since the day of the Skinners there had
been outbreaks of giant rats — each time from the south-
west I^ndon sewers, and now they were as nmch an
accepted fact there as tigers in tlie delta by Calcutta. . . .

The mian^s brother had bought a paper in a heedless
sort of way at Sandling, and at last this chanced to catch
the eye of the released man. He opened the unfamiliar
sheets—they seemed to him to be smaller, more nimier-
ous, and different in type from the papers of the times
before — and he found himself confronted with innumer-
able pictures about things so strange as to be uninterest-
ing, and with tall colunma of printed matter whose
headings, for the most part, were as unmeaning as
though they had been written in a foreign tongue —
" Great Speech by Mr. Caterham ; " ** The Boomfood
Laws."

" Who's this here Caterham ? " he asked, in an attempt
to make conversation.

" Hs's all right." said his brother.

" Ah ! Sort of politician, eh ? "

" Goin' to turn out the Government. Jolly well time
he did."

THE ALTERED WORLD. 189

" Ah ! " He rei3ected. " I suppose aU the lot / used

to know — Chamberlain, Rosebery — all that lot

What ? "

His brother had grasped his wrist and pointed out of
the window.

" That's the Cossars 1 " The eyes of the released
prisoner followed the finger's direction and saw

" My Gawd I " he cried, for the first time really over-
come with amazement. The paper dropped into final
forgottenness between his feet. Through the trees he
could see very distinctly, standing in an easy attitude,
the legs wide apart and the hand grasping a ball as if
about to throw it, a gigantic human figure a good
forty feet high. The figure glittered in the sunlight,
clad in a suit of woven white metal and belted with
a broad belt of steel. For a moment it focussed all
attention, and then the eye was wrested to another more
distant Giant who stood prepared to catch, and it be-
came apparent that the whole area of that great bay in
the hills Just north of Sevenoaks had been scarred to
gigantic ends.

A hugely banked entrenchment overhung the chalk
pit, in which stood the house, a monstrous squat Egyptian
shape that Cossar had built for his sons when the Giant
Nursery had served Its turn, and behind was a great dark
shed that might have covered a cathedral, in which a
spluttering incandescence came and went, and from out
of which came a Titanic hammering to beat upon the
ear. Then the attention leapt back to the giant as the
great ball of iron-bound timber soared up out of his
hand.

The two men stood up and stared. The ball seemed
as big as a ca^k.

igo THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

" Caught ! " cried the man from prison, as a tree
blotted out the thrower.

The train looked on these things only for the fraction
of a minute and then passed behind trees into the Chisle-
hurst tunnel. ** My Gawd I " said the man from prison
again, as the darkness closed about them. " Why !
that chap was as *igh as a 'ouse."

" That's them young Cossars," said his brother, jerk-
ing his head allusively — *'what all this trouble's
about. . . ."

They emerged again to discover more siren-surmounted
towers, more red huts, and then the clustering villas of
the outer suburbs. The art of bill-sticking had lost
nothing in the interval, and from countless tall hoard-
ings, from house ends, from paUngs, and a hundred
such points of vantage came the polychromatic appeals
of the great Boomfood election. " Caterham," " Boom-
food," and " Jack the Giant-killer " again and again and
again, and monstrous caricatures and distortions — a
hundred varieties of misrepresentations of those great
and shining figures they had passed so nearly only a few
minutes before. , o .

II.

It had been the purpose of the yoimger brother to do
a very magnificent thing, to celebrate this return to life
by a dinner at some restaurant of indisputable quahty,
a dinner that should be followed by all that gHttering
succession of impressions the Music Halls of those days
were so capable of giving. It was a worthy plan to
wipe off the more superficial stains of the prison house
by this display of free indulgence ; biJt so far as the
second it^m went the plan was changed. The dinner

TlIE ALTERED WO;vL.>. 191

stood, but there was a. desire already more powerful
thai! the appetite lor shows, already Kioie efficient in
turning the man's mind away from his grim prepossession
with his past than any theatre could be, and that was an
enormous curiosity and perplexity about this Boomlood
and these Boom children — this new portentous glantry
that seemed to dominate the world. " I 'aven't the
'ang of 'em," he said. " They disturve me."

His brother had that fineness of mind that can even
set aside a contemplated hospitality. ** It's your even-
ing, dear old boy," he said, " We'll try to get into the
mass meeting at the People's Palace."

And at last the man from prison had the luck to find
himself wedged into a packed multitude and staring from
afar at a little brightly lit platform imder an organ and
a gallery. The organist had been playing something
that had set boots tramping as the people swarmed in ;
but that was over now.

Hardly had the man from prison settled into place and
done his quarrel with an Importunate stranger who
elbowed, before Caterham came. He walked out of a
shadow towards the middle 01 the platform, the most
insignificant little pigmy, away there in the distance, a
little black figure with a pink dab for a face, — in profile
one saw his quite distinctive aquiline nose — a little
figure that trailed after it most inexplicably — a cheer.
A cheer it was that began av/ay there and grew and
spread. A little spluttering of voices about the platform
at first that suddenly leapt up into a fiame of sound and
swept athwart the whole mass of humanity within the
building and without. How they cheered ! Hooray I
Hooray !

iNo one in cUJl ihjo^e myri9>d» cheered lik& th$ m^Xi irom

192 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

prison. The tears poured down his face, and he only
stopped cheering at iasc because the thing had choked
him. You must have been in j^rison as long as he before
you can understand, or even begin to understand, what
it means to a man to let his lungs go in a crowd. (But
for all that he did not even pretend to himself that
he Imew what ail this emotion was about.) Hooray !
O God !-"Hoo-ray I

And then a sort of silence. Caterham had subsided
to a conspicuous patience, and subordinate and inaudible
persons were saying and doing formal and insignificant
things. It was like hearing voices through the noise

of leaves in spring. '* Wawawawa " What did it

matter ? People in the audience talked to one another.

" Wawawawawa " the thing w^ent on. Would that

grey-headed dufier never have done ? Interrupting ?

Of course they were interrupting, ' ' Wa, wa, wa, wa "

But shall we hear Caterham any better ?

Meanwhiie at any rate there was Caterham to stare
at, and one could stand and study the distant prospect
of the great man's features. He was easy to draw was
this man, and already the world had him to study at
leisure on lamp chinmeys and children's plates, on Anti-
Boomfood medals and Anti-Boomfood flags, on the
selvedges of Caterham silks and cottons and in the
Hnings of Good Old English Caterham hats. He per-
vades all the caricature of that time. One sees him as
a sailor standing to an old-fashioned gim, a port-fire
labelled ** New Boorafood I-aws " in his hand ; while
in the sea wallows that huge, ugly, threatening monster,
" Boomfood ; " or he is cap-dt-pie in armour, St. George's
cross on shield and helm, and a cowardly titanic CaUban
sitting amidst desecrations at the mouth of a horrid

niE ALTERED WORLD.

cave declines his gauntlet of the. " New
Regulations ; " or he comes fljang dowTi as Pei
rescues a chained and beautiful Andromeda
distinctly about her belt as " Civilisation ")
wallowing waste of sea monster bearing upon its .
necks and claws " Irreli^ion.** " Trampling Egotisru,
** Mechanism,'* '* Monstrosity," and the like. But it
was as *' Jack the Giant-killer " that the popular imagina-
tion considered Caterham most correctly cast, and it
was in the vein of a Jack the Giant-killer poster that the
man from prison enlarged that distant miniature.

The " Wawawawa " came abruptly to an end.

He's done. He's sitting down. Yes 1 No I Yes I
It's Caterham ! " Caterham ! " " Caterham I " And
then came the cheers.

It takes a multitude to make such a stillness as followed
that disorder of cheering. A man alone in a wilderness ;
— it's stillness of a sort no doubt, but he hears himself
breathe, he hears himself move, he hears all sorts of
things. Here the voice of Caterham was the one single
thing heard, a thing very bright and clear, Hke a little
Ught burning in a black velvet recess. Hear indeed I
One heard him as though he spoke at one's elbow.

It was stupendously effective to the man from prison,
that gesticulating little figure in a halo oi light, in a halo
of rich and swaying sounds ; behind it, partially effaced
as it were, sat its supporters on the platform, and in the
foreground was a wide perspective of innumerable backs
and profiles, a vast multitudinous attention. That httle
figure seemed to have absorbed the substance from
them all.

Caterham spoke of our ancient institutions. " Ear-
earear," roared the crowd. ** Ear I ear I " said the man

{E FOOD OF THE GODS.

He spoke of our ancient spirit of order and

* rCarearear I " roared the crowd. " Ear ! Ear 1 "

man from prison, deeply moved. He sjx>ke of

om of our forefathers, of the slow growth of

ae institutions, of moral and social traditions,

,c fitted our English national characteristics as the
skin fits the hand. " Ear I Ear I '' groaned the man
from prison, with tears of excitement on his cheeks.
And now all these things were to go into the melting
pot. Yes, into the melting pot 1 Because three men in
London twenty years ago had seen fit to mix something
indescribable in a bottle, all the order and sanctity of

things Cries of " No I No I "—Well, if it was not

to be so, they must exert themselves, they must say

good-bye to hesitation Here there came a gust of

cheering. They must say good-bye to hesitation and
half measures.

** We have heard, gentlemen," cried Caterham, " of
nettles that become giant nettles. At first they are no
more than other nettles — little plants that a firm hand
may grasp and wrench away ; but if you leave them — if
you leave them, they grow with such a power of poison-
ous expansion that at last you must needs have axe and
rope, you must needs have danger to life and limb, you
must needs have toil and distress — men may be killed in
their felling, men may be killed in their felling "

There came a stir and interruption, and then the man
from prison heard Caterham's voice again, ringing clear
and strong : " Learn about Boomfood from Boomfood

itself and " He paused — " Grasp your nettle before

it is too late / "

He stopped and stood wiping his lips. " A crystal,"
cried some one, " a crystal," and then came that same

THE ALTERED WORLD. 195

strange swift growth to thunderous tmnuJt, until the
whole world seemed cheering. . . .

The man from prison came out of the hall at last,
marvellously stirred, and with that in his face that
marks those who have seen a vision. He knew, every
one knew ; his ideas were no longer vague. He had
come back to a world in crisis, to the immediate decision
of a stupendous issue. He must play his part in the
great conflict like a man — hke a free, responsible man.
The antagonism presented itself as a picture. On the
one hand those easy gigantic mail-clad figures of the
morning — one saw them now in a different light — on
the other this little black-clad gesticulating creature
under the limelight^ that pigmy thing with its ordered
flow of melodious persuasion, its Uttle, marvellously pene-
trating voice, John Caterham — " Jack the Giant-killer."
They must all imite to " grasp the nettle " before it was
" too late/'

III.

The tallest and strongcist and most regarded of all
the children of the Food were the three sons of Cossar.
The mile or so of land near Sevenoaks in which their
boyhood passed became so trenched, so dug out and
twisted about, so covered with sheds and huge working
models and ail the play of their developing powers, it
was like no other place on earth. And long since it
had become too Uttle for the things they sought to do.
The eldest son was a mighty schemer of wheeled engines ;
he had made himself a sort of giant bicycle that no road
in the world had room for, no bridge could bear. There
it stood* a great thing of wheels and engines, capable of
two hundred and fifty miles an hour, useless save that

196 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

now and then he would mount it and fling himself back-
wards and forwards across that cumbered work-yard.
He had meant to go around the little world with it ;
he had made it with that intention, while he was still
no more than a dreaming boy. Now its spokes were
rusted deep red Hke wounds, wherever the enamel had
been chipped away.

** You must make a road for it first, Sonnie," Cossar
had said, " before you can do that."

So one morning about dawn the young giant and his
brothers had set to work to make a road about the world.
They seem to have had an inkhng of opposition impend-
ing, and they had worked with remarkable vigour. The
world had discovered them soon enough, driving that
road as straight as a flight of a bullet towards the English
Channel, already some miles of it levelled and made and
stamped hard. They had been stopped before midday
by a vast crowd of excited people, owners of land, land
agentSj local authorities, lawyers, policemen, soldiers
even.

" We're making a roadp" the biggest boy had ex-
plained,

" Make a road by all means," said the leading lawyer
on the ground, " but please respect the rights of other
people. You have already infringed the private rights
of twenty-seven private proprietors ; let alone the
special privileges and property of an urban district
board, nine parish councils, a coimty council, two gas-
works, and a railway company. « „ ,"

" Goodney I " said th« elder boy Cossar„

'* You will have to stop it/'

" But don't yon want a nice straight road in the place
of all these rotten rutty little lanes ? "

THE ALTERED WORLD. 197

" I won't say it wouldn't be advantageous, but "

" It isn't to be done," said the eldest Cossar boy,
picking up his tools.

*' Not in this way," said the lawyer, ** certainly,"

" How is it to be done ? "

The leading lawyer's answer had been complicated
and vague.

Cossar had come down to sec the mischief his children
had done, and reproved them severely and laughed
enormously and seemed to be extremely happy over
the afiair. " You boys must wait a bit," he shouted up
to them, " before you can do things Hke that»"

"The lawyer told us we must begin by preparing a
scheme, and getting special powers and all sorts of rot.
Said it would take us years,"

" We'll have a scheme before long, Uttle boy," cried
Cossar, hands to his mouth as he shouted, " never fear.
For a bit you'd better play about and make models
of the things you v/ant to do,"

They did as he tc^ld them like obedient sons.

But for all that the Cossar lads brooded a Httle,

" It's all very well," said the second to the first,
" but I don't always want just to play about and plan,
I want to do something real, you know. We didn't
come into this world so strong as we are, just to play
about in this messy Httle bit of ground, you know,
and take little walks and keep out of the towns " —
for by that time they were forbidden all boroughs and
urban districts, " Doing nothing's just wicked. Can't
we find out something the httle people wa7it done and
do it for them — just for the fun of doing it ?

" Lots of them haven't houses fit to Uve in," said the
second boy. " Let's go and build 'em a house close

igS THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

up to London, that will hold heaps and heaps of them
and be ever so comfortable and nice, and let's make 'em
a nice httie road to where they all go and do business —
a nice straight Httie road, and make it ail as nice as nice.
We'll make it all so clean and pretty that they won't
any of them be able to live grubby and beastly like most
of them do now. Water enough for them to wash with,
we'll have — you know they're so dirty now that nine
out of ten of their houses haven't even baths in them,
the filthy little skunks I You know, the ones that have
baths spit insults at the ones that haven't, instead of
helping them to get them — and call 'em the Great
Unwashed. — You know., Well alter all that. And
we'll make electricity light and cook and clean up for
them, and all. Fancy I They make their women —
women who are going to be mothers — crawl about and
scrub floors I

" We could make it ail beautifully. We could bank
up a valley in that range of hills over there and make a
nice reservoir, and we could make a big place here to
generate our electricity and have it all simply lovely.
Couldn't we, brother ? , , « And then perhaps they'd
let us do some other things."

*' Yes," said the elder brother, ** we could do it v^ry
nice for them."

" Then kt's," said the second brother.

" / don't mind," said the elder brother, and looked
about for a handy tool.

And that led to another dreadful bother.

Agitated multitudes were at them in no time, telling
them for a thousand reasons to stop, tellirig them to
stop for no reason at all-^babbling, confused, and
varied multitudes. The place they were building was

THE ALTERED WORLD. 199

too high — it couldn't possibly be safe. It was ugly ; it
interfered with the letting of proper-sized houses in the
neighbourhood ; it ruined the tone of the neighbour-
hood ; it was unneighbourly ; it was contrary to the
Local Building Regulations ; it infringed the right of
the local authority to muddle about with a minute
expensive electric supply of its own ; it interfered with
the concerns of the local water company.

Local Government Board clerks roused themselves
to judicial obstruction. The Uttle lawyer turned up
again to represent about a dozen threatened interests ;
local landowners appeared in opposition ; people with
mysterious claims claimed to be bought oft at exorbitant
rates ; the Trades LTnions of all the building trades
hfted up collective voices ; and a ring of dealers in all
sorts of buildmg material became a bar. Extraordinary
associations of people with prophetic visions of aesthetic
horrors rallied to protect the scenery of the place where
they would build the great house, of the valley where
they would bank up the water. These last people were
absolutely the worst asses of the lot, the Cossar boys
considered. That beautiful house of the Cossar boys
was just like a walking-stick thrust into a wasps' nest,
in no time,

*' I never did I " said ihe elder boy,

'' We can't go on," said the second brother.

" Rotten little beasts they are," said the third of the
brothers ; " we can't do anything I "

" Even when it's for their own comfort. Such a nice
place we'd have made for them too,"

**They seem to spend their silly httle lives getting
in each other's way," said the eldest boy. " Rights
and laws and regulations and rascalities i it's like a

200 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

game of spellicans. . . . Well, anyhow, they'll have to
live in their grubby, dirty, silly little houses for a bit
longer. It's very evident we can't go on with this."

And the Cossar children left that great house un-
finished, a niere hole of foundations and the beginning
of a wall, and sulked back to their big enclosure. After
a time the hole wa-s filled with water and with stagnation
and weeds, and vermin, and the Food, either dropped
there by the sons of Cossar or blowing thither as dust,
set growth going m its usual fashion. Water voles came
out over the country and did infinite havoc, and one
day a farmer caught his pigs drinking there, and in-
stantly and 'v\ith great presence of mind — for he knew
of the great hog of Oakhaxa— slew them all And from
that deep pool it was the mosquitoes cam'"^, quite terrible
mosquitoes, whose only vtitue was that the sons of
Cossar, after being bitten for a Little, could stand the
thing no longer, but chose a moonlight night when law
and order were abed and drained the water clean away
into the river by Brook,

But they left the big weeds and tJhe big water voles
and all sorts of big midesirable thiugs still Uving and
breeding on the site they had chosen — the site on which
the fair great house of the little people might have
towered to heaven, , » ■

IV.

That had been in the boyhood of the Sons, but now
they were nearly men. And the chains had been tight-
ening upon them and tightening with every year of
growth. Each year they grew, and the Food spread
and great things multipUed, each year the stress and
tension rose. The Food had been at first for the great

THE ALTERED WORLD. 201

mrss of mankind a distant marvel, and now it was
coming home to every threshold, and threatening, press-
ing against and distorting the whole order of Hfe. It
blocked this, it overturned that ; it changed natural
products, and by changing natural products it stopped
emplojTnents and threw men out of work by the hundred
thousands ; it swept over boundaries and turned the
world oi trade into a world of cataclysms : no wonder
mankind hated it.

And since it is easier to hate animate than inanimate
things, animals more than plants, and one's fellow-men
more completely than any animals, the fear and trouble
engendered by giant nettles and six-foot grass blades,
awful insects and tiger-hke vermin, grew all into one
great power of detestation that aimed, itself with a
simple directness at that scattered band of great human
beings, the Children of the Food. That hatred had
become the central force in political affairs. The old
party lines had been traversed and effaced altogether
under the insistence of these newer issues, and the con-
flict lay now with the party of the temporisers, who
were for putting little political men to control and
regulate the Food, and the party of reaction for whom
Caterham spoke, speaking always with a more sinister
ambiguity, crystallising his intention first in one threat-
ening phrase and then another, now that men must
" prune the bramble growths," now that they must
find a '* cure for elephantiasis," and at last upon
the eve of the election that they mirst " Grasp the
nettle."

One day the three sons of Cossar, who were now no
longer boys but men, sat among the masses of their
futile work and talked together after their fashion of all

202 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

these things. They had been working all day at one of
a series of great and complicated trenches their father
had bid them make, and now it was sunset, and they
sat ia the little garden space before the great house
and looked at the world and rested, until the little
servants within should say their food was ready.

You must figure these mighty forms, forty feet high
the least of them was, reclining on a patch of turf that
would have seemed a stubble of reeds to a common
man. One sat up and chipped earth from his huge
boots with an iron girder he grasped in his hand ; the
second rested on his elbow ; the third whittled a pine
tree into shape and made a smell of resin in the air.
They were clothed not in cloth but in under-garments
of woven rope and outer clothes of felted aluminium
wire ; they were shod with timber and iron, and the
links and buttons and belts of their clothing were all
of plated steel. The great single-storeyed house they
lived in, Eg3rptian in its massiveness, half built of
monstrous blocks of chalk and half excavated from the
living rock of the hill, had a front a full hundred feet
in height, and beyond, the chimneys and wheels, the
cranes and covers of their work sheds rose marvellously
against the sky. Through a circular window in the
house there was visible a spout from which some white-
hot metal dripped and dripj^ed in measured drops into
a receptacle out of sight. The place was enclosed and
rudely fortified by monstrojis banks of earth backed
with steel both over the crests of the Downs above
and across the dip of the valley. It needed something
of common size to mark the nature of the scale. The
train that came rattling from Sevenoaks athwart their
vision, and presently plunged into the tunnel out of

THE ALTERED WORLD. 203

their sight, looked by contrast with them like some
small-sized automatic toy.

" They have made all the woods this side of Ightham
out of bounds," said one, " and moved the board
that was out by Knockholt two miles and more this
way."

" It is the least they could do," said the youngest,
after a pause. " They are trying to take the wind out
of Caterham's sails."

" It's not enough for that, and — it is almost too much
for us," said the third.

" They are cutting us ofi from Brother Redwood.
Last time I went to him the red notices had crept a
mile in, either way. The road to him along the Downs
is no more than a narrow lane."

The speaker thought. '* What has come to our
brother Redwood ? *'

" Why ? " said the eldest brother.

The speaker hacked a bough from his pine. " He
was like — as though he wasn't awake. He didn't seem
to listen to what I had to say. And he said something
of— love."

The youngest tapped his girder on the edge of his
iron sole and laughed. " Brother Redwood," he said,
" has dreams."

Neither spoke for a space. Then the eldest brother
said, *' This cooping up and cooping up grows more
than I can bear. At last, I believe, they will draw a
line round our boots and tell us to live on that."

The middle brother swept aside a heap of pine boughs
with one hand and shifted his attitude. " What they
do now is nothing to what they will do when Caterham
has power.'*

204 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

" If he gets power," said the youngest brother, smiting
the ground with his girder.

" As he will," said the eldest, staring at his feet.

The middle brother ceased his lopping, and his eye
went to the great banks tliat sheltered them about.
" Then, brothers," he said, " our youth will be over,
and, as Father Redwood said to us long ago, we must
quit ourselves like men."

"Yes," said the eldest brother; "but what exactly
does that mean ? Just what does it mean — when that
day of trouble comes ? "

He too glanced at those rude vast suggestions of
entrenchment about them, looking not so much at them
as through them and over the hills to the innumerable
multitudes beyond. Something of the same sort came
into all their minds — a vision of little people coming
out to war, in a flood, the little people, inexhaustible,
incessant, malignant. . . .

'* They are little," said the youngest brother ; " but
they have numbers beyond counting, like the sands of
the sea."

" They have arms — they have weapons even, that
our brothers in Sunderland have made."

" Besides, Brothers, except for vermin, except lor
little accidents v/ith evil thinii's, what have we seen of
killing ? "

" I know," said the eldest brother. " For ali that —
we are what we ate. W\jf:T\ the day of trouble comes
we must do the thing we havli to do."

He closed tiis knSfe mih a snap—the blade was the
length of a man — and use<;l his new pine staQ to help
himself rise. He stood up and turned towards the
sqtiat grey tnunensity of the house. The crimsoTi of the

THE ALTERED WORLD, 205

sunset caught him as he rose, caught tbe mail and clasps
about his neck and the woven metal of his arins, and
to the eyes of his brother it seemed as though he was
suddenly suffused with blood. . . .

As the young giant rose a little black figure became
visible to him against that western incandescence on the
top of the embankment that towered above the summit
of the down. The black limbs waved in ungainly ges- .
tures. Something in ihe fling of the limbs suggested
haste to the young giant's mind. He waved his pine
mast m reply, hlled the whole valley with his vast
Hullo I threw a " Something's up '* to his brothers,
and set off in twenty-foot strides to meet and help his
father.

V.

It chanced too that a young man who was not a
giant was delivering his soul about these sons of Cossar
just at that same time. He had come over the hills
beyond Sevenoaks, he and his friend, and he it was did
the talking. In the hedge as they came along they
had heard a pitiful squealing, and had intervened to
rescue three nestling tits from the attack of a couple
of giant ants. That adventure it was had set him
talking.

" Reactionary ! " he was saying, as they came within
sight of the Cossar encampment. " Who wouldn't be
reactionary ? Look at that square of ground, that
space of God's earth that was once sweet and fair, torn,
desecrated, disembowelled I Those sheds ! That great
wind-wheel I That monstrous wheeled machine I Those
dykes ! Look at those three monsters squatting there.,
plotting some ugly de\ilment or other 1 Look — look at
ail the laiid I "

2o6 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

His friend glanced at his face. " You have been
listening to Caterham," he said.

*' Using my eyes. Looking a little into the peace and
order of the past we leave behind. This foul Food is
the last shape of the Devil, still set as ever upon the
ruin of our world. Think what the world must have
been before our days, what it was still when our mothers
bore us, and see it now I Think how these slopes once
smiled under the golden harvest, how the hedges, full
of sweet Uttie flowers, parted the modest portion of
this man from that, how the ruddy farmhouses dotted
the land, and the voice of the church beUs from yonder
tower stilled the whole world each Sabbath into Sabbath
prayer. And now, every year, still more and more of
monstrous weeds, of monstrous vermin, and these
giants growing all about us, straddling over us, blunder-
ing against all that is subtle and sacred in our world.
Why here — Look I "

He pointed, and his friend's eyes followed the line of
his white finger.

" One of their footmarks. See I It has smashed itself
three feet deep and more, a pitfall for horse and rider,
a trap to the unwary. There is a briar rose smashed to
death ; there is grass uprooted and a teazle crushed
aside, a farmer's drain pipe snapped and the edge of the
pathway broken down. Destruction I So they are
doing all over the world, all over the order and decency
the world of men has made. Trampling on aU things.
Reaction ! What else ? "

" But — reaction. What do you hope to do ? "

" Stop it ! " cried the young man from Oxford. " Be-
fore it is too late."

" But "

THE ALTERED WORLD. 207

" It's )wt impossible," cried the young man from
Oxford, with a jump in his voice. " We want the firm
hind ; we want the subtle plan, the resolute mind.
We have been mealy-mouthed and weak-handed ; we
hcve trifled and temporised, and the Food has grown
and grown. Yet even now "

He stopped for a moment. " This is the echo of
Caterham," said his friend.

* Even now. Even now there is hope — abundant
hope, if only we make sure of what we want and what
we mean to destroy. The mass of people are with us,
much more with us than they were a few years ago ;
the law is with us, the constitution and order of society,
the spirit of the established religions, the customs and
habits of mankind are with us — and against the Food.
Why should we temporise ? Why should we lie ? We
hate it, we don't want it; why then should we have
it ? Do you mean to just grizzle and obstruct passively
and do nothing — till the sand» are out ? "

He stopped short and turned about. '^ Look at that
grove of nettles there. In the midst of them are homes
— deserted — where once clean families ©f simple men
played out their honest lives I

" And there I " he swung round to where the young
Cossars muttered to one another of their wrongs.

" Look at them 1 And I know their father, a brute,
a sort of brute beast with an intolerant loud voice, a
creature who has run amuck in our all too merciful
world for the last thirty years and more. An engineer 1
To him all that we hold dear and sacred is nothing.
Nothing 1 The splendid traditions of our race and land,
the noble institutions, the venerable order, the broad
slow march from precedent to precedent that has made

2o8 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

our English people great and this sunny island free-
it is all an idle tale, told and done with. Some claptrap
about the Future is worth all these sacred things. . ,' .
llie sort of man who would run a tramway over llis
mother's grave if he thought that was the cheapat
hne the tramway could take. . . . And you think to
temporise, to mal^^e some scheme of compromise, that
will enable you to hve in your way while that — that
machinery — lives in its. I tell you it is hopeless —
hopeless. As weU make treaties with a tiger ! Tiey
want things monstrous — we want them sane and sweet.
It is one thing or the other."

" But what can you do ? "

" Much I All ! Stop the Food I They are still scat-
tered, these giants, still ira.mature and disunited. Chain
them, gag them, muzzle them. At any cost stop them.
It is their world or ours I Stop the Food. Shut up
these men who make it. Do anything to stop Cossar I
You don't seem t;c> remember — one generation — only one

generation needs holding down, and then Then we

could level those mounds there, fill up their footsteps,
take the ugly .sirens from our church towers, smash all
our elephant guns, and torn our faces again to the old
order, the ripe old civilisation for which the soul of man
is fitted."

" It's a mighty effort."

" For a mighty end. And if we don't ? Don't you
see the prospect before us clear as day ? Everywhere
tlie giants will increase and multiply ; ever>^where they
will make and scatter the FiX)d. Tlie grass will grow
gigantic in our fields^ the weeds in our hedges, the vermin
in the thickets, the rats In the drains. More iajid more
and more. Tiik X» oaJy a beg1ntiir*g. The !n^ct uwld

THE ALTERED WORLD. 209

will rise on us, the plant world, the very fishes in the
sea, will swamp and drown our ships. Tremendous
growths will obscure and hide our houses, smother our
churches, smash and destroy all the order of our cities,
and we shall become no more than a feeble vermin
under the heels of the new race. Mankind will be
swimped and drowned in things of its own begetting !
And all for nothing ! Size ! Mere size ! Enlargement
and da capo. Already we go picking our way among
the first beginnings of the coming time. And all we do
is 10 say * How inconvenient ! ' To grumble and do
nothing. No ! "

He raised his hand.

" Let them do the thing they have to do ! So also
will L I am for Reaction — unstinted and fearless
Reaction. Unless you mean to take this Food also,
what else is there to do in all the world ? We have
trifled in the middle waj's too long. You I Trifling in
the middle ways is your habit, your circle of existence,
your space and time. So, not I ! I am against the
Food, with aU my strength and purpose against the
Food."

He turned on his companion's grunt of dissent.
** Where are you ? "

'* It's a complicated business "

" Oh 1 — Driftwood 1 " said the young man from Ox-
ford, very bitterly, with a fling of all his Umbs. " The
middle way is nothingness. It is one tiling or the
other. Eat or destroy. Eat or destroy ! What else
is there to do ? "

CHAPTER THE SECOND.

THE GIANT LOVERS. !

I.

Now it chanced in the days when Caterham was cam-
paigning against the Boom-children before the General
Election that was — amidst the most tragic and terrible
circumstances — ^to bring him into power, that the giant
Princess, that Serene Highness whose early nutrition
had played so great a part in the brilliant career of
Doctor Winkles, had come from the kingdom of her
father to England, on an occasion that was deemed
important. She was affianced for reasons of state to
a certain Prince — and the wedding was to be made
an event of international significance. There had
arisen mysterious delays. Rumour and Imagination
collaborated in the story and many things were said.
There were suggestions of a recalcitrant Prince who
declared he would not be made to look like a fool —
at least to this extent. Pebple sympathised with him.
That is the most singificant aspect of the affair.

Now it may seem a strange thing, but it is a fact
that the giant Princess, when she came to England, knew
of no other giants whatever. She had Jived in a world
where tact is almost a passion and reservations the air
of one's life. They had kept the thing from her ; they

THE GIANT LOVERS. 211

had hedged her about from sight or suspicion of any
gigantic form, until her appointed coming to England
was due. Until she met young Redwood she had no
inkUng that there was such a thing as another giant in
the world.

In the kingdom of the father of the Princess there
were wild wastes of upland and mountains where she
had been accustomed to roam freely. She loved the
sunrise and the sunset and all the great drama of the
open heavens more than anything else in the world, but
among a people at once so democratic and so vehemently
loyal as the English her freedom was much restricted.
People came in brakes, in excursion trains, in organised
multitudes to see her ; they would cycle long distances
to stare at her, and it was necessary to rise betimes if
she would walk in peace. It was still near the dawn
that morning when young Redwood came upon her.

The Great Park near the Palace where she lodged
stretched, for a score of miles and more, west and south
of the western palace gates. The chestnut trees of its
avenues reached high above her head. Each one as she
passed it seemed to proffer a more abundant wealth of
blosscwn. For a time she was content with sight and
scent, but at last she was won over by these offers, and
set herself so busily to choose and pick that she did
not perceive young Redwood until he was close upon her.

She moved among the chestnut trees, with the destined
lover drawing near to her, unanticipated, unsuspected.
She thrust her hands in among the branches, breaking
them and gathering them. She was alone in the world.
Then

She looked up, and in that moment she was mated.

We must needs put our imaginations to his stature

212 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

to see the beauty he saw. That unapproachable great-
ness that prevents our immediate sympathy with her
did not exist for him. There she stood, a gracious girl,
the first created being that had ever seemed a mate ior
him, light and slender, Hghtly clad, the fresh breeze of
the dawn moulding the subtly folding robe upon her
against the soft strong lines of her form, and with a
great mass of blossoming chestnut branches in her hands.
The collar of her robe opened to show the whiteness of
her neck and a soft shadowed roundness that passed out
of sight towards her shoulders. The breeze had stolen
a strand or so of her hair too, and strained its red-tipped
brown across her cheek. Her eyes were open blue, and
her lips rested always in the promise of a smile as she
reached among the branches.

She turned upon him with a start, saw him, and for a
space they regarded one another. For her, the sight of
him was so amazing, so incredible, as to be, for some
moments at least, terrible. He came to her with the
shock of a supernatural apparition ; he broke all the
established law of her world. He was a youth of one-
and-twenty then, slenderly built, with his father's dark-
ness and his father's gravity. He was clad in a sober
soft brown leather, close-fitting easy garments, and in
brown hose, that shaped him bravely. His head went
uncovered in all weathers. They stood regarding one
sjiother — she incredulously' amazed, and he with his
heart beating fast. It was a moment without a prelude,
the cardinal meeting of their lives.

For him there was less surprise. He had been seeking
her, and yet his heart beat fast. He came towards her,
slowly, with his eyes upon her face.

" You are the Princess, " he said. " My father has

THE GIANT LOVERS. 213

told me. You are the Princess who was given the Food
of the Gods."

" I am the Princess — yes," she said, with eyes of
wonder. " But — what are you ? "

"I am the son of the man who made the Food of the
Gods."

" The Food of the Gods I "

" Yes, the Food of the Gods."

" But "

Her face expressed infinite perplexity.

" What ? I don't understand. The Food of the
Gods ? "

** You have not heard ? "

" The Food of the Gods ! No I "

She found herself trembUng violently. The colour
left her face. "' T did not know," she said. ** Do you
mean ? *'

He waited for her.

" Do you rriean there are other — giants ? "

He repeated, '* Did you not know ? "

And she answered, \\ith the growing amazement of
realisation, " No ! '*

The whole world and all the meauing of the world was
changing for her. A branch of chestnut slipped from
her hand. " Do you mean to say," she repeated stupidly,
" that there are other giants in the world ? That some
food ? "

He caught her amazement.

" You know nothing ? " he cried. " You have never
heard of us ? You, whom the Food has made akin to us I "

There was teixor still in the eyes that stared at him.
Her hand rose towards her throat and fell again. She
whispered, " No.*'

214 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

It seemed to her that she must weep or faint. Then
in a moment she had rule over herself and she was
speakmg and thinking clearly. " All this has been kept
from me," she said. ** It is Uke a dream. I have

dreamt I have dreamt such things. But waking

No. Tell me ! Tell me ! \\Tiat are you ? What is
tJiis Food of the Gods ? Tell me slowly — and clearly.
Why have they kept it from mCj that I am not alone ? "

II.

" Tell me," she said, and yoimg Redwood, tremulous
and excited, set himself to tell her — ^it was poor and
broken teUing for a time— of the Food of the Gods and
the giant children who were scattered over the world.

You must figure them both, flushed and startled in
their bearing, getting at one another's meaning through
endless half-heard, half-spoken phrases, repeating, mak-
ing perplexing breaks and new departures — a wonderful
talk, in which she awakened from the ignorance of all
her life. And very slowly it became clear to her that
she was no exception to the order of mankind, but one
of a scattered brotherhood, who had all eaten the Food
and grown for ever out of the Uttle limits of the folk
beneath their feet. Young Redwood spoke of his father,
of Cossar, of the Brother^ scattered throughout the
country, of the great dawn of wider meaning that had
come at last into the history of the world. " We are in
the beginning of a beginning," he said ; " this world
of theirs is only the prelude to the world the Food will
make.

'* My father believes — and I also believe — that a time
will come when Uttleness will have passed altogether out

THE GIANT LOVERS. 215

of the world of man, — when giants shall go freely about
tliis earth — their earth — doing continually greater and
more splendid things. But that — that is to come. We
are not even the first generation of that — we are the first
experiments."

" And of these things," she said, *' I knew nothing ! "

" There are times when it seems to me almost as if we
had come too soon. Some one, I suppose, had to come
first. But the world was all unprepared for our coming
and for the coming of all the lesser great things that drew
their greatness from the Food. There have been blun-
ders ; there have been conflicts. The little people hate
our kind. . . .

" They are hard towards us because they are so Uttle.
. . . And because our feet are heavy on the things that
make their lives. But at any rate they hate us now ;
they will have none of us— only if we could shrink back
to the common size of them would they begin to for-
give. . . .

" They are happy in houses that are prison cells to
us ; their cities are too small for us ; we go in misery
along their narrow ways ; we cannot worship in their
churches. . . .

" We see over their walls and over their protections ;
we look inadvertently into their upper windows ; we
look over their customs ; their laws axe no more than a
net about our feet. . . .

" Every time we stumble we hear them shouting ;
every time we blunder against their limits or stretch out
to any spacious act. . . .

'* Our easy paces are wild flights to them, and all
they deem great and wonderful no more than dolls'
pjn-amids to us. Their pettiness of method and appli-

2i6 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

ance and imagination hampers and defeats our powers.
There are no machines to the power of our hands, no
helps to fit our needs. They hold our greatness in servi-
tude by a thousand invisible bands. We are stronger,
man for man, a hundred times, but we are disarmed ;
our very greatness makes us debtors ; they claim the
land we stand upon ; they tax our ampler need of food
and shelter, and for all these things we must toil v\dth
the tools these dwarfs can make us — and to satisfy their
dwarfish fancies. . . .

" They pen us in, in every way. Even to Hve one
must cross their boundaries. Even to meet you here
to-day I have passed a limit. All that is reasonable and
desirable in life they make out of bounds lor us. We
may not go into the tovms ; we may not cross the
bridges ; we may not step on their ploughed fields or
into the harbours of the game they kill. I am cut off now
from all our Brethren except the three sons of Cossar,
and even that way the passage narrows day by day.
One could think they sought occasion against us to do
some more evil thing. . . .'*

" But we are strong," she said.

" We should be strong — yes. We feel, all of us —
you too I know must feel — that we have power, powei
to do great things, power insurgent in us. But before
we can do anything "

He flung out a hand that seemed to sweep away a
world.

" Though I thought I was alone in the world/* she
said, after a pause, *' I have thought of these things.
They have taught me always that strength was almost a
sin, that it was better to be little than great, that all
true reii^u was to shelter the weak and little, encoiu-agc

THE GIANT LOVERS. 217

flic weak and little, help them to multiply and multiply
until at last they crawled over one another, to sacrifice
all our strength in their cause. But . . . always I have
doubted the thing they taught."

" This hfe," he said, " these bodies of ours, are not for
dying."

"No."

" Nor to live in futility. But if we would not do
that, it is ah-eady plain to all our Bretliren a conflict
must come. I know not what bitterness of conflict must
presently come, before the little folks will suffer us to
live as we need to live. All the Brethren have thought
of that. Cossar. of whom I told you : he too has thought
of that."

" They are very little and weak."

'* In their way. But you know all the means of death
are in their hands, and made for their hands. For hun-
dreds of thousands of years these little people, whose
world we invade, have been learning how to kill one
another. They dse very able at that. They are able in
many ways. And besides, they can deceive and change
suddenly. ... I do not know. . . , There comes a con-
flict. You — you perhaps are different from us. For
us, assuredly, the conflict comes. . . . The thing they
call War. We know it. In a way we prepare for it.
But you know — those little people I — we do not know
how to kill, at least we do not want to kill "

'" J^ook/* she interrupted, and he heard a yelping horn.

He turned at the direction of her eyes, and found a
bright yeUow motor car, with dark goggled driver and
fur-clad passengers, whooping, throbbing, and buzzing
resentfully at his heel. He moved bis foot, and the
mechanism, with three angry snorts, resumed its ixis&y

2i8 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

way towards the town. *' Filling up the roadway ! "
floated up to him.

Then some one said, " Look ! Did you see ? There
is the monster Princess over beyond the trees ! " and
all their goggled faces came round to stare.

" I say," said another. *' That won't do. . . ."

" All this," she said, " is more amazing than I can tell."

" That they should not have told you," he said, and
left his sentence incomplete.

" Until you came upon me, I had lived in a world
where I was great — alone. I had made myself a life —
for that. I had thought I was the victim of some
strange freak of nature. And now my world has crumbled
down, in half an hour, and I see another world, othei
conditions, wider possibihties — fellowship "

" Fellowship," he answered.

" I want you to tell me more yet, and much more,"
she said. " You know this passes through my mind like
a tale that is told. You even. ... In a day perhaps,

or after several days, I shall believe in you. Now

Now I am dreaming. . . . Listen ! "

The first stroke of a clock above the palace offices far
away had penetrated to them. Each counted mechfinic-
ally " Seven."

" This," she said, " should be the hour of my return.
They will be taking the bowl of my coffee into the haU
where I sleep. The Httle ofhcials and servants — you
cannot dream how grave they are — will be stirring about
their Httle duties."

" They will wonder. . . . But I want to talk to you."

She thought. " But I want to think too. I want
now to think alone, and think out this change in things,
think away the old sohtude, and think you and those

THE GIANT LOVERS. 219

others into my world. ... I shall go. I shall go back
to-day to my place in the castle, and to-morrow, as the
dawTi comes, I shall come again — here."

" I shall be here waiting for you."

" All day I shall dream and dream of this new world
you have given me. Even now, I can scarcely believe "

She took a step back and surveyed him from the feet
to the face. Their eyes met and locked for a moment.

" Yes," she said, with a little laugh that was half a
sob. " You are real. But it is very wonderful ! Do

you think — indeed ? Suppose to-morrow I come

and find you — a pigmy like the others ! . . . Yes, I
must think. And so for to-day — as the httle people
do "

She held out her hand, and for the first time they
touched one another. Their hands clasped firmly and
their eyes met again.

" Good-bj'e," she said, " for to-day. Good-bye !
Good-bye, Brother Giant ! "

He hesitated with some unspoken thing, and at last
he answered her simply, " Good-bye."

For a space they held each other's hands, stud5ang
each the other's face. And many times after they had
parted, she looked back half doubtfully at him, standing
still in the place where they had met. . . .

She walked into her apartments across the great yard
of the Palace like one who walks in a dream, with a
vast branch of chestnut trailing from her hand.

m.

These two met altogether fourteen times before tne
; beginning of the end. They met in the Great Park

220 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

or on the heights and among the gorges of the rusty-
roaded, heathery mooriand, set with dusky pine-woods,
that stretched to the suuth-west. Twice they met in
the great avenue of chestnuts, and five times near the
broad ornamental water the king, her great-grandlather,
had made. There was a place where a great trim lawn,
fset with tall conifers, sloped graciously to the water's
edge, and there she would sit, and he would lie at her
knees and look up in her face and talk, telling of all the
things that had been, and of the work his father had set
before him, and of the great and spacious dream of what
the giant people should one day be. Commonly they
met in the early dawn, but once they met there in the
afternoon, and found presently a multitude of peering
eavesdroppers about them, cycHsts, pedestrians, peeping
from the bushes, rusthng (as spairows will rustle about
one in the London parks) amicbt the dead leaves in the
woods behind, gUding dowa the lake in boats towards a
point of view, trying to get nearer to them and hear.

It was the first hint that offered of the enormous
interest the countryside was taking in their meetings.
And once — it was the seventh time, and it precipitated
the scandal — they met out upon the breezy moorland
under a clear moonlight, and talked in whispers there,
for the night was warm and still.

Very soon they had passed from the realisation that
in them and through them a new world of giantry shaped
itself in the earth, from the contemplation of the great
struggle between big and little, in which they were clearly
destined to participate, to interests at once more personal
and more spacious. Each time they met and talked
and looked on one another, it crept a little more out of
their subconscious being towards recognition, that some-

THE GIANT LOVERS. 221

thing more dear and wonderful than friendship was
between them, and walked between them and drew
their hands together. And in a little while they came
to the word itself and found themselves lovers, the Adam
and Eve of a new race in the world.

They set foot side by side into the wonderful valley
of love, with its deep and quiet places. The world
changed about them with their changing mood, until
presently it had become, as it were, a tabemacular beauty
about their meetings, and the stars were no more than
flowers of light beneath the feet of their love, and the
dawn and sunset the coloured hangings by the way.
They ceased to be beings of flesh and blood to one another
and themselves ; they passed into a bodily texture of
tenderness and desire. They gave it first whispers and
then silence, and drew close and looked into one another's
moonlit and shadowy faces under the infinite arch of the
sky. And the still black pine-trees stood about them
like sentinels.

The beating steps of time were hushed into silence,
and it seemed to them the universe hung still. Only
their he?jts were audible, beating. They seemed to be
living together in a world where there is no death, and
indeed so it was with them then. It seemed to them
tliat they sounded, and indeed they sounded, such hidden
spleixdours in the very heart of things as none have ever
reached before. Even for mean and little souls, love is
the revelation of splendours. And these were giant lovers
who had eaten the FcK>d of the Gods. . . .
• » « «• « * *

You may imagine the spreading consternation in this
ordered world when it became known that the Princess
who* was alEanced to the Prince, the Princess, Her Serene

222 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

Highness ! with royal blood in her veins ! met, — fre-
quently met, — the hypertrophied offspring of a common
professor of chemistry, a creature of no rank, no posi-
tion, no wealth, and talked to him as though there were
no Kings and Princes, no order, no reverence — nothing
but Giants and Pigmies in the world, talked to him and,
it was only too certain, held him as her lover.

" If those newspap)er fellows get hold of it l" gasped
Sir Arthur Poodle Bootlick. . . .

" I am told " whispered the old Bishop of Frumps.

" New story upstairs," said the first footman, as he
nibbled among the dessert things. " So far as I can
make out this here giant Princess "

** They say " said the lady who kept the stationer's

shop by the main entrance to the Palace, where the
little Americans get their tickets for the State Apart-
ments, . . .

And then :

" We are authorised to deny " said " Picaroon

in Gossip.

And so the whole trouble came out.

IV.

" They say that we must part," t'ie Princess said to
her lover.

" But why ? " he cried. " What new folly have these
people got into their heads ? "

" Do you know," she asked, " that to love me — is
high treason ? "

" My dear," he cried ; " but does it matter ? What is
their right — right without a shadow of reason — and their
treason and their loyalty to us ? " 'O

ft

THE GIANT LOVERS. 223

" You shall hear," she said, and told him of the things
that had been tuld to her. •

'* It was the queerest little man who came to me with
a soft, beautifully modulated voice, a softly moving little
gentleman who sidled into the room hke a cat and put
his pretty white hand up so, whenever he had anything
significant to say. He is bald, but not of course nakedly
bald, and his nose and face are chubby rosy little things,
and his beard is trimmed to a point in quite the loveliest
way. He pretended to have emotions several times
and made his eyes shine. You know he is quite a friend
of the real royal family here, and he called me his dear
young lady and was perfectly sympathetic even from
the beginning. * My dear young lady,' he said, * you
know — you mustn't/ several times, and then, 'You owe
a duty.' "

" Where do they make such men ? "

" He likes it," she said.

" But I don't see "

" He told me serious things."

" You don't think," he said, turning on her abruptly,
" that there's anything in the sort of thing he said ? "

" There's something in it quite certainly," said she.

" You mean ? "

" I mean that without knowing it we have been tramp-
ling on the most sacred conceptions of the Uttle folks.
We who are royal are a class apart. We are worshipped
prisoners, processional toys. We pay for worship by
losing — our elementary freedom. And I was to have

married that Prince You know nothing of him

though. Well, a pigmy Prince. He doesn't matter.
, ... It seems it would have strengthened the bonds
I between my country and another. And this country

224 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

also was to profit. Imagine it ! — strengthening the
bonds ! "

" And now ? "

** They want me to go on with it — as though there
was nothing between us two."

" Nothing ! "

" Yes. But that isn't all. He said "

'* Your speciahst in Tact ? "

" Yes. He said it would be better for you, better
tor all the giants, if we two — abstained from conversa-
tion. That was how he put it."

" But what can they do if we don't ? "

" He said you might have your freedom."

" I ! "

" He said, with a stress, ' My dear young lady, it
would be better, it would be more dignified, if you
parted, willingly.* That was all he said. With a stress
on willingly."

" But ! What business is it of these little

wretches, where we love, how we love ? What have
they and their world to do with us ? "

" TTiey do not think that."

" Of course," he said, " you disregard all this."

** It seems utterly foolish to me."

" That their laws should fetter us 1 That we, at the
first spring of life, should be tripped by their old engage-
ments, their aimless institutions ! Oh I We dis-
regard it."

" I am yours. So far — yes."

" So far ? Isn't that all ? "

*' But they If they want to part us—"

" Wliat can they do ? "

" I don't know. WTiat can tliey do ? "

TilE GIANT LOVERS. 225

*• VS^o cares what they can do, or what they will do ?
I am yours and you are mine. Wliat is there more
than that ? I am yours and you aie mine — for ever.
Do you think I will stop for their little rules, for tlieir
little prohibitions, their scarlet boards indeed I — and
keep from you ? *'

" Yes. But still, what can they do ? "

" You mean,'* he said, " what are we to do ? "

" Yes."

" We ? We can go on."

" But if they seek to prevent us ? "

He clenched his hands. He looked round as if the
little people were already coming to prevent them.
Then turned away from her and looked about the world.
" Yes/' he said. " Your question was the right one.
What can they do ? "

" Here in this little land," she said, and stopped.

He seemed to survey it all. " They are everywhere."

" But we might "

" Whither ? "

" We could go. We could swim the seas together.
Beyond the seas "

" I have never been beyond the seas."

" There are great and desolate mountains amidst
which we should seem no more than little people, there
are remote and deserted valleys, there are hidden lakes
and snow-girdled uplands untrodden by the feet of men.
There "

" But to get there we must fight our way day after
day through milLi'>ns and millions of mankind."

"It is our only hope. In this crowded land there
is no fastness, no shelter. What place is there for us
among these multitudes ? They who are little can

8

226 THE FOOD OF I'HE GODS,

hide from one anothei, but where are we to hide ?
There is no place where we could eat, no place where
we could sleep. If we fled — ^night and day they would
pursue our footsteps,"

A thought came to him.

*' There is one place/' he said, " even in this island."

" Where ? "

" The place our Brothers have made over beyond
there. They have made great banks about their house,
north and south and east and west ; they have made
deep pits and hidden places, and even now — one came
over to me quite recently. He said — I did not alto-
gether heed what he said then. But he spoke of arms.
It may be — there — we should find shelter. . . .

" For many days,'' he said, after a pause, " I have not
seen our Brothers. . . . Dear I I have been dreaming,
I have been forgetting 1 The days have passed, and I
have done nothing but look to see you again. ... I
must go to them and talk to them, and tell them of yon
and of all the things that hang over us. If they will
help us, they can help us. Then indeed we might hope.
I do not know how strong their place is, but certainly
Cossar will have made it strong. Before all this —
before you came to me, I remember now — there was
trouble brewing. There was an election — when all the
httle people settle things by counting heads. It must
be over now. There were threats against all our race
— against all our race, that is, but you. I must see our
Brothers. I must tell them all that has happened
between us, and ail that threatens now."

THE GIANT LOVERS. 227

V.

He did not come to their next meeting until she had
waited some time. They were to meet that day about
midday in a great space of park that fitted into a bend
of the river, and as she waited, looking ever southward
under her hand, it came to her that the world was very
still, that indeed it was broodingly still. And then she
perceived that, spite of the lateness of the hour, her
customary retinue of voluntary spies had failed her.
Left and right, when she came to look, there was no
one in sight, and there was never a boat upon the
silver curve of the Thames. She tried to find a reason
for this strange stillness in the world. . . .

Then, a grateful sight for her, she saw young Red-
wood far away over a gap in the tree masses that bounded
her view.

Immediately the trees hid him, and presently he was
thrusting through them and In sight again. She could
see there was something different, and then she saw
that he was hurrying unusually and then that he limped.
He gestured to her, and she walked towards him. His
face became clearer, and she saw with iafinite concern
that he winced at every stride.

She ran towards him, her mind full of questions and
vague fear. He drew near to her and spoke without a
greeting.

" Are we to part ? " he panted.

"No," she answered. "Why? What is the mat-
ter?"

" But if we do not part I It is now"

" What is the matter ? "

'* I do not want to part," he said. " Only— — -"

228 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

He broke off abruptly to ask, " You will not part
from me ? ''

She met his eyes with a steadfast look. *' What has
happened ? " slie pressed.

" Not for a time ? "

" What time ? "

" Years perhaps."

"Parti Nor'

" You have thought ? " he insisted,

"I will not part.'* She took his hand. "If this
meant death, now, I would not let you go."

"If it meant death," he said, and she felt his grij)
upon her fingers.

He looked about him as if he feared to see the little
people coming as he spoke. And then : "It may mean
death."

" Nov/ tell me," she said.

" They tried to stop my coming."

" How ? "

" And as I came out of my workshop where I make
the Food of the Gods for the Cossars to store in their
camp, I found a little officer of police — a man in blue
with white clean gloves — who beckoned me to stop.
* This way is closed ! ' said he. I thought little of that ;
I went round my workshop to where another road runs
west, and there was another officer. * This road is
closed I ' he said, and added : * All the roads are closed I ' "

" And then ? "

" I argued with bira a Utile. * They are public roads 1 *
I said.

" ' That's St/ said he„ ^ You spoil them for the
public*

" ' Vftry well,' said I, ' Fll take tho fields/ and th<;i;

THE GIANT LOVERS. 22c)

up leapt others from behind a hedge and said, * These
fi'tlds are private.'

" * Cuise your public and private,' I said, ' I'm goinf,'
to my Piincess,* and I stooped down and picked liim up
very gently — kicking and shouting — and put him out of
iiiy way. In a minute all the fields about roe seemed
alive with runnirig men. I saw one on horseback gallop-
ing bebide me and reading something as he rode — shout-
ing it. He finished and turned and galloped away from
me — head do\\n. I couldn't make it out. And then
behind me I heard the crack of guns."

" Guns I "

** Guns — just as they shoot at the rats. The bullets
came through the air with a sound like things teaiing :
one stung me In the leg."

" And you ? "

" Came on to you here and left them shouting and
running and shooting behind me. And now "

" Now ? "

** It is only the beginning. They mean that we shall
part. Even now they are coming alter me."

" We will not."

" No. But if we will not part — then you must come
with me to our Brothers."

" Which way ? " she said.

" To the east. Yonder is the way my pursuers will be
coming. This then is the way we must go. Along this
avenue of trees. Let me go first, so that if they are
svaiting "

He made a stride, but she had seized his arm.

**N6," cried she. "I come close to you, holding
you. Perhaps I am royal, perhaps I am sacred. If
I hold you Would God we could fly with my

230 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

arms about you 1 — It may be, they will not shoot at
you "

She clasped his shoulder and seized his hand as she
spoke ; she pressed herself nearer to him. '* It may
be tliey will not shoot you," she repeated, and with a
sudden passion of tenderness he took her into his arms
and kissed her cheek. For a space he held her.

" Even if it is death," she whispered.

She put her hands about his neck and lifted her face
to his.

" Dearest, kiss me once more."

He drew her to him. Silently they kissed one another
on the lipSj and for another moment clung to one an-
other. Then hand in hand, and she striving always to
keep her body near to his, they set forward if haply they
might reach the camp of refuge the sons of Cossar had
made, before the pursuit of the little people overtook
them.

And as they crossed the great spaces of the park
behind the castle there came horsemen galloping out
from among the trees and vainly seeking to keep pace
with their giant strides. And presently ahead of them
were houses, and men with guns running out of the houses.
At the sight of that, though he sought to go on and was
even disposed to fight and push through, she made him
turn aside towards the south.

As they fled a buUet whipped by them overhead.

CHAPTER THE THIRD.

YOUNG CADDLES IN LONDON.
I.

All unaware of the trend of events, unaware of the
laws that were closing in upon all the Brethren, unaware
indeed that there lived a Brother for him on the earth,
young Caddies chose this time to come out of his chalk
pit and see the world. His brooding came at last to
that. There was no answer to all his questions in
Cheasing Eyebright ; the new Vicar was less luminous
even than the old, and the riddle of his pointless labour
grew at last to the dimensions of exasperation. " Why
should I work in this pit day after day ? " he asked.
" Why should I walk within bounds and be refused all
the wonders cf the world beyond there ? What have I
done, to be condemned to this ? "

And one day he stood up, straightened his back, and
said In a loud voice, " No I

" I won't," he said, and then with great vigour cursed
the pit.

Then, having few words, he sought to express his
thought In acts. He took a truck half filled with chalk,
lifted it, and flung It, smash, against another. Then he
grasped a whole row of empty trucks and spun them
down a bank. He sent a huge boulder of chalk bursting

232 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

among them, and then ripped up a dozen yards of rai
with a mighty plunge of his foot. So he commenced
the conscientious v/recking of the pit.

" Work all my days/' he said, " at this I "

It was an astonisliing five minutes for the Uttle geologist
he had, in his preoccupation, overlooked. This poor
Httle creature having dodged two boulders by a hair-
breadth, got out by the westward comer and fled athwart
the hill, with flapping rucksack and t\vinkling knicker-
bockered legs, leaving a trail of Cretaceous echinoderms
behind him; while young Caddies, satisfied with the
destruction he had achieved, came striding out to fulfil
his purpose in the world.

" Work in that old pit, until I die and rot and stink I
. . . What worm did they think was living in my giant
body ? Dig chalk for God kno^i^s what fooHsh purpose I
Not / / "

The trend of road and railway perhaps, or mere chance
it was, turned liis face to London, and thither he came
striding, over the Downs and athwart the meadows
through the hot afternoon, to the infinite amazement
of the world. It signified nothing to Iiim that torn
posters in red and white bearing various names flapped
from every wall and bam ; he knew nothing of the
electoral revolution that had flung Caterham, " Jack the
Giant-killer/' into power. It signified nothing to him
that every police station along his route had what was
known as Caterham's ukase upon its notice board that
afternoon, proclaiming that no giant, no person what-
ever over eight feet in height, should go more than five
miles from his " place of location " without a special
permission. It signified nothing to him that on bis wake
belated police ofljcers, not a iittJi^ relieved to find thoai^

YOUNG CADDLES IN LONDON. 233

selves belated, ftbook warning handbills at his retreating
back. He was going to s^c what the world had to show
him, poor incredulous blockhead, and he did not mean
that occasional spirited persons shouting " Hi 1 " at him
should stay his course. He came on down by Rochester
and Greenwich towaids an ev/ir-thickcaing aggregation
of houses, walking raiher slowly now, staring about him
and swinging his huge chopper.

People in London had heard something of him before,
how that he was idiotic but gentle, and wonderfully
managed by Lady Wondershoot's agent and the Vicar ;
how in his dull way he revered these authorities and
was grateful to them for their care of him, and so forth.
So that when they learnt from the nev/spaper placards
that afternoon that he also was '' on strike," the thing
appeared to many of them as a deliberate, concerted act.

*' They mean to try our strength," said the men in the
trains going home from busmess.

" Lucky we have Caterham."

" It's in answer to his proclamation."

The men in the clubs were better informed. They
clustered round the tape or talked in groups in their
smoidng-rooms.

" Ke has no weapons. He would have gone to Seven-
oaks if he had been put 'up to it."

" Caterhara will handle him. ..."

The shopmen told their customers. The waiters in
restaurants snatched a momciit for an evening paper
between the courses. The cabmen read it immediately
after the betting news. . . .

The placards of the chief government evening paper
were conspicuous with " Grasping the Nettle." Others
lelied for effect on : " Giant Redwood continues to meet

234 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

the Princess." The Echo struck a line of its own with :
" Rumoured Revolt of Giants in the North of England.
The Sunderland Giants start for Scotland." The West-
minster Gazetto sounded its usual warning note. " Giants
Beware," said the Wesiminster Gazette, and tried to make
a point out of it that might perhaps serve towards
uniting the Liberal party — at that time greatly torn
between seven Intensely egotistical leaders. The later
newspapers dropped into uniformity. "The Giant in
the New Kent Road," they proclaimed.

" What I want to know," said the pale young man in
the tea shop, " is why we aren't getting any news of the
yoimg Cossars. You'd think they'd be in it most of
all. . . ."

" They tell me there's another of them young giants
got loose," said the barmaid, wiping out a glass. ** I've
always said they was dangerous things to 'ave about.
Right away from the beginning. ... It ought to be
put a stop to. Any'ow, I 'ope 'e won't come along 'ere."

" I'd Uke to 'ave a bok at 'im," said the young man
at the bar recklessly, and added. " I seen the Princess."

" D'you think they'll 'urt 'im ? " said the barmaid.

" May 'ave to," said the young man at the bar, finish-
ing his glass.

Amidst a hum of ten million such sayings young Caddies
came to London. . . »

n.

I think of young Caddies always as he was seen in the
New Kent Road, the sunset warm upon his perplexed
and staring face. The Road was thick with its varied
traffic, omnibuses, trams, vans, carts, trolleys, cyclists,
motors, and a marvelling crowd — loafers, women, nurse-

YOUNG CADDLES IN LONDON. 235

maids, shopping women, children, ventuiesome hobble-
dehoys— gathered beliind his gingerly moving feet. The
hoardings were untidy everywhere with the tattered
election paper. A babblement of voices surged about
him. One sees the customers and shopmen crowding
in the doorways of the shops, the faces that came and
went at the windows, the little street boys running and
shouting, the policemen taking it all quite stifiBy and
calmly, the workmen knocking off upon scaffoldings, the
seething miscellany of the little folks. They shouted to
hhn, vague encouragement, vague insults, the imbecile
catchwords of the day, and he stared down at them,
at such a multitude of living creatures as he had never
before imagined in the world.

Now that he had fairly entered London he had had
to slacken his pace more and more, the little folks crowded
so mightily upon him. The crowd grew denser at every
step, and at last, at a comer where two great ways con-
verged, he came to a stop, and the multitude flowed
about him and closed him in.

There he stood, with his feet a little apart, his back
to a big comer gin palace that towered twice his height
and ended In a sky sign, staring down at the pigmies
and wondering — trying, I doubt not, to collate it all
with the other things of his life, with the valley among
the downlands, the nocturnal lovers, the singing In the
church, the chalk he hammered daily, and with instinct
and death and the sky, trying to see it all together
coherent and significant. His brows were knit. He put
up his huge paw to scratch his coarse hair, and groaned
aloud.

' I don't see It," he said.

His accent was unfamiliar. A great babblement went

236 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

across the open space — a babblement amidst which the
gongs of the trams, plougliing their obstinate way through
the mass, rose like red poppies amidst com. " Wlmt
did he say ? " " Said he didn't see." " Said, vdiere is
the sea ? " " Said, where is a seat ? " " He wants a
seat." " Can't the brasted fool sit on a 'ouse or some-
thin' ? "

" What are ye for, ye swarming little people ? What
are ye all doing, what are 5^e all for ?

" What are ye doing up here, ye swanning little people,
while I'm a-cuttin' chalk for ye, dov^n in the chalk pits
there ? "

Plis queer voice, the voice that had been so bad for
school discipline at Cheasing Eyebright, smote the multi-
tude to silence while it sounded and splashed them all
to tumult at the end. Some wit was audible screaming
" Speech, speech ! " " WTiat's he saying ? " was the
burthen of the public mind, and an opinion was abroad
that he was drunk. " Hi, hi, hi," bawled the omnibus-
drivers, threading a dangerous way. A drunken Ameri-
can sailor wandered about tearfully inquiring, " What's
he want anyhow ? " A leathery -faced rag-dealer upon
a little pony-drawn cart soared up over the tumult by
virtue of his voice. " Gam 'ome, you Brasted Giant 1 "
he brawled, " Gam 'Ome I You Brasted Great Danger-
ous Thing 1 Can't you see you're a-fnghtening the 'orses ?
Go "cme with you I *Asn't any one 'ad the sense to
tell you the law ? " And over all this uproar young
Caddies stared, perplexed, expectant, saying no more,

Down a side road came a little string of solemn police-
men, and threaded Jtself ingenioasly Into the traffic,
" Stand back," said the little voices ; * ■ kcei) moving.
plea.se."

YOIJKG CADDIES IN LONDON. 237

Young Ccuidlea became aware of .1 little dark blue
figure thumping at his shin. He looked down, and per-
ceived two white hands gesticulating. *' What ? " he
said, bending forward.

" Can't stand about here," shouted the inspector.

" No 1 Yoa can't stand about here," he repeated.

" But where am I to go ? "

" Back to your village. Place of location. Anyhow,
now — you've got to move on. You're obstructing the
traffic."

•' What traffic ? "

" Along the road."

" But where is it going ? Where does It come from ?
What does it mean ? They're all round me. What do
they want ? What are they doin' ? I want to under-
stand. I'm tired of cuttin' chalk and bein' all alone.
What are they doin' for me while I'm a-cuttin' chalk ?
I may just as well understand here and now as any-

where."

'* Sorry. But we aren't here to explain things of that
sort. I must arst you to move on."

" Don't you know ? "

" I must arst you to move on — if you please. . . .
I'd strongly advise you to get ofi 'ome. We've 'ad no
special instructions yet — but it's against the law. . . .
Clear away there. Clear away."

The pavement to his left became invitingly bare, and
young Caddies went slowly on his way. But now his
tongue was loosened.

" I don't understand," he muttered. " I don't under-
stand." He would appeal brokenly to the changing
crowd that ever trailed beside him and behind. " I
didn't know there were such places as this. What are

238 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

all you people doing with yourselves ? What's it all
for ? What is it all for, and where do I come in ? "

He had already begotten a new catchword. Young
men of wit and spirit addressed each other in this manner,
" Ullo 'Arry O'Cock. Wot's it aU for? Eh ? Wot's
it all bloomin* well for ? "

To v/hich there sprang up a competing variety of
repartees, for the most part impolite. The most popular
and best adapted for general use appears to have been
" Shut it," or, in a voice of scornful detachment —

" Garn t "

There were others almost equally popular.

III.

What was he seeking ? He wanted something the
pigmy world did not give, some end which the pigmy
world prevented his attaining, prevented even his seeing
clearly, which he was never to see clearly. It was the
whole gigantic social side of this lonely dumb monster
crying out for his race, for the things akin to him, for
something he might love and something he might serve,
for a purpose he might comprehend and a command he
could obey. And, you know, all this was dumb, raged
dumbly within him, could not even, had he met a fellow
giant, have found outlet and expression in speech. All
the life he knew was the dull round of the village, all
the speech he knew was the talk of the cottage, that
failed and collapsed at the bare outline of his least
gigantic need. He knew nothing of money, this mon-
strous simpleton, nothing of trade, nothing of the com-
plex pretences upon which the social fabric of the litti«

YOUNG CADDLES IN LONDON. 239

folks was built. He needed, he needed Whatever

he needed, he never found his need.

All through the day and the summer night he wan-
dered, growing hungry but as yet untired, marking the
varied traffic of the different streets, the inexplicabia
businesses of all these inJmitesimal beings. In the
aggregate it had no other colour than confusion for
him. . . .

He is said to have plucked a lady from her carriago
in Kensington, a lady in evening dress of the smartest
sort, to have scrutinised her closely, train and shoulder
blades, and to have replaced her — a little carelessly —
with the profoundest sigh. For that I cannot vouch.
For an hour or so he watched people fighting for places
in the onmi buses at the end of Piccadilly. He was
seen looming over Kennington Oval for some mo-
ments in the afternoon, but when he saw these dense
thousands were engaged with the mystery of cricket
and quite regardless of him he went his way with a
groan.

He came back to Piccadilly Circus between eleven and
twelve at night, and found a new sort of multitude.
Clearly they were very intent : full of things tbey, for
inconceivable reasons, might do, and of others they
might not do. They stared at him and jeered at him
and went their way. The cabmen, vulture-eyed, fol-
lowed one another continually along the edge of the
swarming pavement. People emerged from the restau-
rants or entered them, grave, intent, dignified, or gently
and agreeably excited or keen and vigilant — beyond the
cheating of the sharpest waiter bom. The great giant,
standing at his comer, peered at them all. " What is
it all for ? " he murmured in a mournful vast undertone.

240 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

" What is it all for ? They are all so earnest. What
is it I do not understand ? "

And none of them seemed to see, as he could do, the
drink-sodden wretchedness of the painted women at the
comer, the ragged misery that sneaked along the gutters,
the infinite futility of all this employment. The infinite
futiUty I None of them seemed to feel the shadow of
that giant's need, that shadow of the future, that lay
athwart their paths. ...

Across the road high up mysterious letters flamed and
went, that might, could he have read them, have measured
for him the dimensions of human interest, have told
him of the fundamental needs and features of life as
the little folks conceived it. First would come a flaming

T;

Then U would follow^

TU;

ThenP,

TUP;

Until at last there stood complete, across the sky, this
cheerful message to all who felt the burthen of life's
earnestness :

TUPPER'S TONIC WINE FOR VIGOUR.

Snap 1 and it had vanished into night, to be followed

in the same slow development by a second universe'

solicitude :

BEAUTY SOAP.

Not, you remark, mere cleansing chemicals, but some
thing, as they say, " ideal ; " and then, completing tbe
tripod of the little life :

YAi^KER'S YELLOW PILLS.

YOUNG CADDLES IN LONDON. 241

After that there was nothing for it but Tupper again,
in flaming crimson letters, snap, snap, across the void.

T U P P . . . .

Early in the small hours it would seem that young
Caddies came to the shadowy quiet of Regent's Park,
stepped over the railings and lay down on a grassy
slope near where the people skate in winter time, and
there he slept an hour or so. And about six o'clock in
the morning, he was talking to a draggled woman he
had found sleeping in a ditch near Hampstead Heath,
asking her very earnestly what she thought she was
for, . . .

IV.

The wandering of Caddies about London came to a
head on the second day in the morning. For then his
hunger overcame him. He hesitated where the hot-
smelling loaves were being tossed into a cart, and then
very quietly knelt down and commenced robbery. He
emptied the cart while the baker's man fled for the
police, and then his great hand came into the shop and
cleared counter and cases. Then with an armful, still
eating, he went his way looking for another shop to go
on with his meal. It happened to be one of those
seasons when work is scarce and food dear, and the
crowd in that quarter was sympathetic even with a
giant who took the food they all desired. They applauded
the second phase of his meal, and laughed at liis stupid
grimacr at the policeman.

" I wofjt hungry," he said, with his mouth full,

" Brayvo I " cried the crowd. ^* Brayvo ! *'

Tlien when hr was beginning his third baker's shQp,

242 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

he was stopped by half a dozen poiicemeu hammering
with truncheons at his shins. " Look here, my fine
giant, you come along o' me," said the officer in charge.
*' You ain't allowed away from home like this. You
come off home with me." They did their best to arrest
him. There was a trolley, I am told, chasing up and
down streets at that time, bearing rolls of chain and
ship's cable to play the part of handcuffs in that
great arrest. There was no intention then of killing
him. *' He is no party to the plot," Caterham had
said. " I will not have innocent blood upon my
hands." And added : " — until everything else has been
tried."

At first Caddies did not understand the import of these
attentions. When he did, he told the policemen not
to be fools, and set off in great strides that left them all
behind. The bakers' shops had been in the Harrow
Road, and he went through canal London to St. John's
Wood, and sat down in a private garden there to pick
his teeth and be speedily assailed by another posse of
constables.

** You lea' me alone," he growled, and slouched through
the gardens — spoiling several lawns and kicking down a
fence or so, while the energetic little policemen followed
him up, some through the gardens, some along the road
in front of the houses. Here there were one or two
with guns, but they made no use of them. When he
came out into the Edgware Road there was a new note
and a new movement in the crowd, and a mounted
policeman rode over his foot and got upset for his
pains.

" You lea' me alone," said Caddies, facing the breath-
less crowd. *' I ain't done anything to you."

YOUNG CADDLES IN LONDON. 243

At that time he was unarmed, for he had left his
chalk chop[)er in Regent's Pu.rk. But now, poor wretch,
he seems to have ftlt the need of some weapon. He
turned back towards the goods yard of the Great Western
Railway, wrenched up the standard of a tall arc light,
a formidable mace for him, and flung it over his
shoulder. And finding the police still turning up to
pester him, he went back along the Edgware Road,
towards Cricklewood, and struck off sullenly to the
north.

He wandered as far as Waltham, and then turned
back westward and then again towards London, and
came by the cemeteries and over the crest of Highgate
about midday Into view of the greatness of the city
again. He turned aside and sat down in a garden, with
his back to a house that overlooked all London. He
was breathless, and his face was lowering, and now the
people no longer crowded upon him as they had done
when first he came to London, but lurked in the ad-
jacent garden, and peeped from cautious securities.
They knew by now the thing was grimmer than they
had thought. " Why can't they lea* lae alone ? "
growled young Caddies. " I mus" eat. Why can't they
lea' me alone ? "

He sat with a darkling face, gnawing at his knucldes
and looking down over London. All the fatigiie, worry,
perplexity, and impotent wrath of his wanderings was
coming to a head in him. " They mean nothing," he
whispered. '* They mean nothing. And they won't let
me alone, and they will get in my way." And again,
over and over to himself, " Meanin' nothing.

"Ugh I the Uttle people I "

He bit harder at his knuckles and his scowl deepened.

244 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

" Cuttin* chalk for 'em," lie whispered. " And all the
world is theirs 1 / don't come ia — nowhere."

Presently with a spasm of sick anger he saw the now
familiar fonn of a policeman astride the garden wall.

" L^a* me alone," gmnted the giant. " Lea' me
alone."

" I got to do my duty," said the little policeman, with
a face that was white and resolute.

" You lea' me alone. I got to live as well as you. I
got to think. I got to eat. You lea' me alone."

** It's the Law^" said the little policeman, coming no
further. " We never made the Law."

" Nor me," said young Caddies. " You little people
made all that before I was born. You and your Law 1
What I must and what I mustn't ! No food for me to
eat unless I work a slave, no rest, no shelter, nothin*,
and you tell me "

" I ain't got no business with that," said the police-
man. " I'm not one to argue. All I got to do is to
carry out the Law." And he brought his second leg
over the wall and seemed disposed to get down. Other
policemen appeared behind him.

" I got no quarrel with you — mind," said young Caddies,
with his grip tight upon his huge mace of iron, his face
pale, and a lank explanatory^ great finger to the police-
man. " I got no quarrel with you. But — You lea' me
alone."

The policeman tried to be calm and commonplace,
with a monstrous tragedy clear before his eyes. " Give
me the proclamation," he said to some unseen follower
jind a little white paper was handed to him.

" Lea' me alone," said Caddies, scowling, tense, aac?
drawn together.

YOUNG CADDLES IN LONDON. 245

** This means/' said the policeman before he read,
" go 'ome. (to 'omc to your chalk pit. If not, you'll
be hurt.'^

Caddies gave an inarticulate growl.

Then when the proclamation had been read, the offi-
cer made a sign. Four men with rifles came into
view and took up positions of affected ease along the
wall. They wore the uniform of the rat pohce. At
the sight of the guns, young Caddies blazed Into anger.
He remembered the sting of the Wreckstone farmers'
shot guns, ** You going to shoot off those at me ? "
he said, pointing, and it seemed to the officer he roust
be afraid.

" If you don't march back to your pit "

Then In an instant the officer had slung himself back
ov^er the wall, and sixty feet above him the great elec-
tric standard whirled down to his death. Bang, bang,
bang, went the heavy guns, and smash I the shattered
wall, the soil and subsoil of the garden flew. Some-
thing flew with it, that left red drops on one of the
shooter's hands. The riflemen dodged this way and
that and turned valiantly to fire again. But young
Caddies, already shot twice through the body, had
spun about to find who it was had hit him so heavily
in the back. Bang I Bang I He had a vision of
houses and greenhouses and gardens, of people dodg-
ing at windows, the whole swaying fearfully and mys-
teriously. He seems to have made three stumbling
strides, to have raised and dropped his huge mace, and
to have clutched his chest. He was stung and wrenched
by pjLla.

Vi^liat was this, warm and wet, on his harid ? . . ,

Oup man peering from a bedroom w^iudow saw Iiis

246 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

face, saw him staring, with a grimace of weeping dismay,
at the blood upon his band, and then his knees bent
under him, and he came crashing to the earth, the first
of the giant nettles to fall to Caterham's resolute clutch,
^the very last that he had reckoned would come into
his hand.

CHAPTER THE FOURTH.
redwood's two days.

I.

So soon as Caterham knew the moment for grasping his
nettle had come, he took the law into his own hands
and sent to arrest Cossar and Redwood.

Redwood was there for the taking. He had been
undergoing an operation in the side, and the doctors had
kept all disturbing things from him until his conva-
lescence was assured. Now they had released him. He
was just out of bed, sitting In a fire- warmed room, with
a heap of newspapers about him, reading for the first
time of the agitation that had swept the country into
the hands of Caterham, and of the trouble that was
darkening over the Princess and his son. It was in the
morning of the day when young Caddies died, and when
the policeman tried to stop young Redwood on his way
to the Princess. The latest newspapers Redwood had did
but vaguely prefigure these Imminent things. He was
re-readiug these first adumbrations of disaster with a
sinking heart, reading the shadow of death more and
more perceptibly Into them, reading to occupy his mind
until further news should come. When the officers fol-
lowed the servant into his room, he looked up eagerly.

*' I thought it was an early evening paper," he said.

248 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

Thea standing isp, and with a swift change of manner :
" What's this ? . . :'

After that Redwood had no news of an5dhing for two
days.

They had come vdth a vehicle to take hiin away, but
when it became evident that he was ill, it was decided
to leave him for a day or so until he could be safely
removed, and his house was taken over by the police
and converted into a tempordvy prison. It was the
same house in which Giant Redwood had been born and
in which Herakleophorbia had for the first time been
given to a human being, and Redwood had now been
a widower and had Hved alone in it eight years.

He had become an iron-grey man, with a little pointed
grey beard and still active brown eyes. He was slender
and soft-voiced, as he had ever been, but his features
had now that indefmable quality that comes of brooding
over mighty things. To the arresting officer his appear-
ance was in impressive contrast to the enormity of his
offences. " Here's this feller/' said the officer in com-
mand, to his next subordinate, " has done bis level best
to bust up everything, and 'e's got a face like a quiet
country gentleman ; and here*s Judge Hangbrow keepin'
everything nice and in order for every one, and 'e's got
a *ead like a 'og. Then their manners 1 One all con-
sideration and the other snort and grunt. Which just
sho\^^ you, doesn't it, that appearances axen't to be
gone upon, whatever else you do."

But his praise of Redwood's consideration was pres-
ently dashed. The officers found him troublesome at
first until they had made it clear that it was useless for
him to ask questions or beg for papers. They made a
sort of inspection of his study indeed, and cleared away

REDWOOD'S TWO DAYS. 249

even the papers he had. Redwood's voice was high and
exjKDstulatory. ** But don't you sec," he said over and
over again, " it's my Son, my only Son, tliat is in this
trouble. It isn't the Food I care for, but my Son."

** I wish indeed I could tell you, Sir," said the officer.
*' But our orders are strict."

" Who gave the orders ? " cried Redwood.

'' Ah I that. Sir " said the officer, and moved to-
wards the door. , . .

'* *E's going up and do^^Tl 'is room," said the second
officer, when his superior came down. " That's all right.
He'll walk it off a bit,"

" I hope 'e will," said the chief officer. " The fact is
I didn't see it in that light before, but this here Giant
what's been going on vvith tlie Princess, you know, is
this man's .son,"

The two regarded one another and the third policeman
for a space.

" Then it is a bit rough on him," the third policeman
said.

It became evident that Redwood had still imperfectly
apprehended the fact that an iron curtain had dropped
between him and the outer world. They heard him go
to tho door, try the handle and rattle the lock, and then
tlje ^'oice of the officer who was stationed on the lianding
teiling him it was no good to do that. Then a.ftfirw?-rds
they heard him at the v/indov?-s and saw the men out-
side looking up. '* It's no good that way/' said the
second officer. Then Redwood began upon the bell.
The senior officer went up and explained very patiently
that it could do no good to ring the beU hke tJiat, and
if it was rung for nothing now it might have to be dis-
regarded presently when bje had need of sometliin g. * ' Any

250 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

reasonable attendance. Sir," the oflScer said. " But it
you ring it just by way of protest we shall be obliged.
Sir, to disconnect."

The last word the ofificer heard was Redwood's high-
pitched, " But at least you might tell me if my Son "

II.

After that Redwood spent most of his time at the
windows.

But the windows offered him littJe of the march of
events outside. It was a quiet street at all times, and
that day it was unusuaUy quiet : scarcely a cab, scarcely
a tradesman's cart passed all that morning. Now and
then men went by — without any distinctive air of events
— now and then a littie group of children, a nursemaid
and a woman going shopping, and so forth. They came
on to the stage right or left, up or down the street, with
an exasperating suggestion of indifference to any con-
cerns more spacious than their o^moL ; they would dis-
cover the police-guarded house with amazement ajid exit
in the opposite direction, v/here the great trusses of a
giant hydrangea hung across the pavement, staring back
or pointing. Now and then a man would come and ask ]
one of the pohcemen a question and get a curt reply. . . .

Opposite the houses seemed dead. A housemaid ap-
peared once at a bedroom ^^indow and stared for a
space, and it occurred to Redwood to signal to her. For
a time she watched his gestures as if with interest and
made a vague response to them, then looked over her
shoulder suddenly and turned and went away. An old
man hobbled out of Number 37 and came down the steps
and went of! to the right, altogether without looking up.

REDWOOD'S TWO DAYS. 251

For ten minutes the only occupant of the road was a
cat. . . .

With such events that Interminable momentous morn-
ing lengthened out.

About twelve there came a bawling of newsvendors
from the adjacent road ; but it passed. Contrary to
their wont they [left Redwood's street alone, and a sus-
picion dawned upon him that the poUce were guarding
the end of the street. He tried to open the window, but
this brought a policeman Into the room forthwith. . . .

The clock of the parish church struck twelve, and after
an abyss of time — one.

They mocked him with lunch.

He ate a mouthful and tumbled the food about a
Uttle in order to get it taken away, drank freely of
whisky, and then took a chair and went back to the
window. The minutes expanded into grey immensities,
and for a time perhaps he slept. . . .

He woke with a vague impression of remote concus-
sions. He perceived a rattUng of the windows Uke the
quiver of an earthquake, that lasted for a minute or so
and died away. Then after a silence it returned. . . .
Then it died away again. He fancied it might be merely
the passage of some heavy vehicle along the main road.
What else could it be ? . . .

After a time he began to doubt whether he had heard
this sound.

He began to reason Interminably with himself. Why,
after all, was he seized ? Caterham had been in ofl&ce
two days — just long enough — to grasp his Nettle I
Grasp his Nettle 1 Grasp his Giant Nettle I The refrain
once started, sang through his mind, and would not be
dismissed.

252 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

What, after all, could Caterham <3o ? He was a re-
ligious man. He was bound in a sort of way by that
not to do violeiice without a cause.

Grasp his Nettle I Perhaps, for example, the Princess
was to be seized and sent abroad. There might be

trouble with his son. In which case 1 But why had

he been arrested ? Why was it necessary to keep him
in ignorance of a thing like that ? The thing suggested
— something more extensive.

Perhaps, for example — they meant to lay all the giants
by the heels I They weie all to be arrested together.
There had been Mnts oi ih;xt in the election speeches.
And then ?

No doubt they had got Cossar also ?

Caterham was a religious maa. Redwood clung to
that. The back of his mind was a black curtain, and
on that curtain there came and went a word — a word
written in letters of lire. He struggled perpetually
against that word. It was always as it were begirming
to get written on the curtain and never getting completed.

He faced it at last. '' Massacre I " There was the
word in its full brutality.

No 1 No 1 No I It was impossible 1 Caterham was
a religious man, a civilised man. And besides after all
these years, after all these hopes I

Redwood sprang up ; he paced the room. He spoke
to himself ; he shouted.

" No I "

Mankind was surely not so mad as that — surely not !
It was impossible, it was incredible, it could not be.
What good would it do to kill the giant human when
the gigantic in all the lower things had now inevitably
come ? They could not be so mad as that I

REDWOOD'S TWO DAYS. 253

" I raust dismiss such an idea," he said aloud ; *' dis-
miss such an idea I Absolutely 1 "

He pulled up short. WHiat was that ?

Certainly the windows had rattled. He went to look
out into the street. Opposite he saw the instant con-
firmation of his ears. At a bedioom at Number 35 was
a woman, towel in hand, and at the dining-room of
Number 37 a man was visible behind a great vase of
h5rpertrophied maidenhair fern, both staring out and up,
both disquieted and curious. He could see now too,
quite clearly, that the policeman on the pavement had
heard it also. The thing was not his imagination.

He turned to the darkling room.

" Guns," he said.

He brooded.

" Guns ? "

They brought him in strong tea, such as he was accus-
tomed to have. It was evident his housekeeper had
been taken into consultation. After drinking it, he was
too restless to sit any longer at the window, and he
paced the room. His mind became more capable of
consecutive thought.

The room had been his study for four-and-twenty
years. It had been furnished at bis marriage, and all
the essential equipment dated from then, the large
complex writing-desk, the rotating chair, the easy chair
at the fire, the rotating bookcase, the fixture of indexed
pigeon-holes that filled the further recess. The vivid
Turkey carpet, the later Victorian rugs and curtains had
mellowed now to a rich dignity of effect, and copper
and brass shone warm about the open fire. Electric
h'ghts had replaced the lamp of former days ; that was
the chief alteration in the original equipment. But

254 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

among these things his connection with the Food had
left abundant traces. Along one wall, above the dado,
ran a crowded array of black-framed photographs and
photogravures, showing his son and Cossar's sons and
others of the Boom-children at various ages and amidst
various surroundings. Even young Caddies' vacant
visage had its place in that collection. In the comer
stood a sheaf of the tassels of gigantic meadow grass
from Cheasing Eyebright, and on the desk there lay
three empty poppy heads as big as hats. The curtain
rods were grass stems. And the tremendous skull of
the great hog of Oakham hung, a portentous ivory over-
mantel, with a Chinese jar in either eye socket, snout
down above the fixe. . , ,

It was to the photographs that Redwood went, and in
particular to the photographs of his son.

They brought back countless memories of things that
had passed out of his mind, of the early days of the
Food, of Bensington's timid presence, of his cousin Jane,
of Cossar and the night work at the Experimental Farm.
These things came to him now very little and bright
and distinct, like things seen tlirougb a telescope on a
sunny day. And then there was the giant nursery, the
giant childhood, the young giant's first efforts to speak,
his first clear signs of affection.

Guns ?

It flowed in on bJm, irresistibly, overwhelmingly, that
outside there, outside this accursed silence and mystery,
his son and Cossar's sons, and all these glorious first-
fruits of a greater age were even now — fighting. Fight-
ing for life 1 Even now his son might be in some dismal
quandary, cornered, wounded, overcome. . . .

He swung away from the pictures and went up aiid

REDWOOD'S TWO DAYS. 255

down the room gesticulating. " It cannot be," he cried,
" it cannot be. It cannot end like that ! "

" WTiat was that ? "

He stopped, stricken rigid.

The trembling of the windows had begun again, and
then had come a thud — a vast concussion that shook
the house. Tlie concussion seemed to last for an age.
It must have been very near. For a moment it seemed
that something had struck the house above him — an
enormous impact that broke into a tinkle of falling glass,
and then a stillness that ended at last with a minute
clear sound of running feet in the street below.

Those feet released him from his rigor. He turned
towards the window, and saw It starred and broken.

His heart beat high with a sense of crisis, of conclusive
occurrence, of release. And then again, his realisation
of impotent con&nement fell about him Hke a curtain 1

He could see nothing outside except that the small
electric lamp opposite was not lighted ; he could hear
nothing after the first suggestion of a wide alarm. He
could add nothing to interpret or enlarge that mystery
except that presently there came a reddish fluctuating
brightness in the sky towards the south-east.

This light waxed and waned. When it waned he
doubted if it had ever waxed. It had crept upon him
very gradually with the darkling. It became the pre-
dominant fact in his long night of suspense. Sometimes
it seemed to him it had the quiver one associates with
dancing flames, at others he fancied it was no more
than the normal reflection of the evening hghts. It
waxed and waned through the long hours, and only van-
ished at last when it was submerged altogether under
the rising tide of dawn. Did it mean ? What could

256 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

it mean ? Almost certainly It was some sort of fire, near
or remote, but he could not even tell whether it was
smoke or cloud drift that streamed across the sky. But
about one o'clock there began a flickermg of searchlights
athwart that ruddy tumult, a flickering that continued
for the rest of the night. That too might mean many
things ? What could it mean ? What did it mean ?
Just this stained unrestful sky he had and the suggestion
of a huge explosion to occupy his mind. There came
no further sounds, no further running, nothing but a
shouting that might have been only the distant efforts
of drunken men. ... r

He did not turn up his lights ; he stood at his draughty
broken window, a distressful, slight black outline to the ,[
officer who looked ever and again Into the room and
exhorted him to rest.

All night Redwood remained at his window peering ^
up at the ambiguous drift of the sky, and only with the
coming of the dawn did he obey his fatigue and li^^,
down upon the little bed they had prepared for hira^
between his writing-desk and the sinking fire In the
fireplace under the great hog's skull. ,j

III.

li
For thirty-six long hours did Redwood remain im-^f

prisoned, closed in and shut off from the great drama >

of the Two Days, while the little people in the dawn

of greatness fought against the Children of the Food.

Then abruptly the iron curtain rose again, and he found

himself near the very centre of the struggle. That

curtain rose as unexpectedly as it fell. In the late

afternoon he was called to the window bj!* the clatter

REDWOOD'S TWO DAYS. 257

of a cab, that stopped without. A young man de-
scended, and in another minute stood before him in the
room, a slightly built young man of thirty perhaps,
clean shaven, well dressed, well mannered.

** Mr. Redwood, Sir," he began, " would you be willing
to come to Mr. Caterham ? He needs your presence
very urgently."

" Needs my presence ! . . ." There leapt a question
into Redwood's mind, that for a moment he could not
put. He hesitated. Then in a voice that broke he
asked : " WTiat has he done to my Son ? " and stood
breathless for the reply.

" Your Son, Sir ? Your Son is doing well. So at
east we gather."

" Doing well ? "

" He was wounded, Sir, yesterday. Have you not
heard ? "

Redwood smote these pretences aside. His voice was
0 longer coloured by fear, but by anger. " You know
( have not heard. You know I have heard nothing."

" ^Ir. Caterham feared. Sir It was a time of up-

javal. Ever}' one — taken by surprise. He arrested
ou to save you. Sir, from any misadventure "

*' He arrested me to prevent my giving any wam-
ig or advice to my son. Go on. Tell me what has
.appened. Have you succeeded ? Have you killed
them all ? "

The young man made a pace or so towards the win-
dow, and turned.

" No, Sir," he said concisely.

" What have you to tell me ? "

" It's our proof, Sir, that this fighting was not planned
by us. Tliey found us . . . totally unprepared."

9

258 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

" You mean ? "

" I mean, Sir, the Giants have — ^to a certain extent —
held their own."

The world changed for Redwood. For a moment
something hke hysteria had the muscles oi his face and
throat. Then he gave vent to a profound " Ah ! " His
heart bounded towards exultation. '* The Giants have
held their own 1 "

"There has been terrible fighting — ^terrible destruc-
tion. It is all a most hideous misunderstanding. . . .
In the north and midlands Giants have been killed. . . .
Everywhere."

" They are fighting now ? "

" No, Sir. There was a flag of truce."

" From them ? "

" No, Sir. Mr. Caterham sent a flag of truce. The
whole thing is a hideous misunderstanding. That is
why he wants to talk to you, and put his case before
you. They insist, Sir, that you should intervene "

Redwood interrupted. " Do you know what hap-
pened to my Son ? " he asked.

** He was wounded."

*' Tell me 1 Tell me 1 "

" He and the Princess came — before the — the move-
ment to surround the Cossar camp was complete — the
Cossar pit at Chislehurst. They came suddenly. Sir,
crashing through a dense thicket of giant oats, near
River, upon a column of infantry. . . . Soldiers had
t)een very nervous all day, and this produced a panic."

" They shot him ? "

" No, Sir. They ran away. Some shot at him —
wildly — against orders."

Redwood gave a note of denial.

REDWOOD'S TWO DAYS. 259

** It's true. Sir. Not on account of your son, I won't
pretend, but on account of the Princess."

" Yes. That's true."

" The two Giants ran shouting towards the encamp-
ment. The soldiers ran this way and that, and then
some began firing. They say they saw him stag-
ger

" Ugh ! "

" Yes, Sir. But we know he is not badly hurt."

" How ? "

" He sent the message. Sir, that he was doing well ! "

" To me ? "

" \Mio else. Sir ? "

Redwood stood for nearly a minute with his arms
tightly folded, taking this in. Then his indignation
found a voice,

" Because you were fools in doing the thing, because
you miscalculated and blundered, you would like me to
think you axe not murderers in intention. And be-
sides The rest ? "

The young man. looked interrogation.

" The other Giants ? "

The young man made no further pretence of mis-
understanding. His tone fell. " Thirteen, Sir, are dead."

" And others wounded ? "

" Yes, Sir."

" And Caterham," he gasped^ " wants to meet me 1
. . . Wliere are the others ? "

" Some got to the encampment during the fighting,
Sir. . . . They seem to have known "

"Well, of course they did. If it hadn't been for
Cossar Cossar is there ? "

" Yes, Sir. And all the surviving Giants are there —

26o THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

the ones who didn't get to the camp in the fighting have
gone, or are going now under the flag of truce."

" That means," said Redwood, " that you are beaten."

" We are not beaten. No, Sir. You cannot say we
are beaten. But your sons have broken the niles of
war. Once last night, and now again. After our attack
had been withdrawn. This afternoon they began to
bombard London "

" That's legitimate I "

" They have been firing shells filled with — ^poison."

" Poison ? "

" Yes. Poison. The Food "

" Herakleophorbia ? "

*' Yes, Sir. Mr. Caterham, Sir "

" You are beaten 1 Of course that beats you. It's
Cossar 1 What can you hope to do now ? MHiat good
is it to do anything now ? You will breathe it in the
dust of every street. What is there to fight for more ?
Rules of war, indeed I And now Caterham wants to
humbug me to help him bargain. Good heavens, man !
Why should I come to your exploded windbag ? He has
played his game . . . murdered and muddled. Why
should I ? "

The young man stood with an air of vigilant re-
spect.

" It is a fact, Sir," he interrupted, " that the Giants
insist that they shall see you. They will have no am-
bassador but you. Unless you come to them, I am
afraid, Sir, there will be more bloodshed."

"On your side, perhaps."

*' No, Sir — on both sades. The world is resolved the
thing must end."

Redwood looked about the study. His eyes rested for

REDWOOD'S TWO DAYS. 261

a moment on the photograph of his boy. He turned
and met the expectation of the young man.
** Yes," he said at last, " I will come."

IV.

His encounter with Caterham was entirely different
from his anticipation. He had seen the man only twice
in his life, once at dinner and once in the lobby of the
House, and his imagination had been active not with the
man but with the creation oi the newspapers and cari-
caturists, the legendary Caterham, Jack the Giant-killer,
Perseus, and all the rest of it. The element of a human
personality came in to disorder all that.

Here was not the face of the caricatures and portraits,
but the face of a worn and sleepless man, lined and
drawn, yellow in the whites of the eyes, a little weakened
about the mouth. Here, indeed, were the red-brown
eyes, the black hair, the distinctive aquiline profile of
the great demagogue, but here was also something else
that smote any premeditated scorn and rhetoric aside.
This man was suffering ; be was suffering acutely ; he
was under enormous stress. From the beginning he
had an air of impersonating himself. Presently, with a
single gesture, the slightest movement, he revealed to
Redwood that he was keeping himself up with drugs.
He moved a thumb to his waistcoat pocket, and then,
after a few sentences more, threw concealment aside,
and slipped the little tabloid to his lips.

Moreover, in spite of the stresses upon him, in spite of
the fact that he was in the wrong, and Redwood's junior
by a dozen years, that strange quality in him, the some-
thing— personal magnetism one may call it for want of a

262 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

better name — that had won his way for him to this
eminence of disaster was with him still. On that also
Redwood had tailed to reckon. From the first, so far as
the course and conduct of their speech went, Caterham
prevailed over Redwood. All the quality of the hrst
phase of their meeting was determined by him, all the
tone and procedure were his. That happened as if it
was a matter of course. All Redwood's expectations
vanished at his presence. He shook hands before Red-
wood remembered that he meant to parry that famili-
arity ; he pitched the note of their conference from
the outset, sure and clear, as a search for expedients
under a common catastrophe.

If he made any mistake it was when ever and again
his fatigue got the better of his inmiediate attention,
and the habit of the public meeting carried him away.
Then he drew himself up — through all tlieir interview
both men stood — and looked away from Redwood, and
began to fence and justify. Once even he said " Gentle-
men I "

Quietly, expandingly, he began to talk. . . .
There were moments when Redwood ceased even to
feel himself an interlocutor, when he became the mere
auditor of a monologue. He became the privileged spec-
tator of an extraordinary phenomenon. He perceived
something almost like a specific difference between him-
self and this being whose beautiful voice enveloped him,
who was talking, talking. This mind before him was so
powerful and so limited. From its driving energy, its
personal weight, its invincible oblivion to certain things,
there sprang up in Redwood's mind the most grotesque
and strange of images. Instead of an antagonist who
was a fellow-creature, a man one could hold morally

REDWOOD'S TWO DAYS. 263

responsible, aiid to whom one could addiess reasonable
appeals, he saw Catcrham as something, something like
a monstrous rhinoceros, as it were, a civilised rhinoceros
begotten of tlie jungle of democratic affairs, a monster
of irresistible onset and invincible resistance. In all the
crashing conflicts of that tangle he was supreme. And
beyond ? This man was a being supremely adapted to
make his way through multitudes of men. For him
there was no fault so important as self-contradiction,
no science so significant as the reconciliation of " in-
terests." Economic realities, topographical necessities,
the barely touched mines of scientific expedients, ex-
isted for him no more than railways or rifled guns or
geographical literature exist for his animal prototype.
WTiat did exist were gatherings, and caucuses, and votes
— above all, votes. He was votes incarnate — millions of
votes.

And now in the great crisis, with the Giants broken
but not beaten, this vote-monster talked.

It was so evident that even now he had everything to
learn. He did not know there were physical laws and
economic laws, quantities and reactions that all humanity
voting nemine contradicente cannot vote away, and that
are disobeyed only at the price of destruction. He did
not know there are moral laws that cannot be bent by
any force of glamour, or are bent only to fly back with
vindictive violence. In the face of shrapnel or the
Judgment T>2iy, it was evident to Redwood that this man
would have sheltered behind some curiously dodged vote
of the House of Commons.

WTiat most concerned his mind now was not the
powers that held the fastness away there to the south,
not defeat and death, but the e£[ect of these things upon

264 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

his Majority, the cardinal reality in his life. He had
to defeat the Giants or go under. He was by no means
absolutely despairful. In this hour of his utmost failure,
witli blood and disaster upon his hands, and the rich
promise of still more horrible disaster, with the gigantic
destinies of the world towering and toppling over him,
he was cauable of a belief that by sheer exertion of liis
voice, by explaining and qualifying and restating, he
might yet reconstitute his powei'. He was puzzled and
distressed no doubt, fatigued <'md suffering, but if only
he could keep up, if only he could keep talking

As he talked he seemed to Redwood to advance and
recede, to dilate and contract. Redwood's share of the
talk was of the most subsidiary sort, wedges as it were
suddenly thrust in. " That's all nonsense." " No."
" It's no use suggesting that." " Then why did you
begin ? "

It is doubtful if Caterham really heard him at all.
Round such interpolations Caterham's speech flowed
indeed like some swift stream about a rock. There this
incredible man stood, on his official hearthrug, talking,
talking with enormous power and skill, talking as though
a pause in his talk, bis explanations, his presentation of
standpoints and lights, of considerations and expedients,
would permit some antagonistic influence to leap into
being — into vocal being, tJie only being he could com-
prehend. There he stood amidst tlie slightly faded
splendours of that ofiicial room in which one man after
another had succumbed to the belief that a certain power
of intervention was the creative control of an empire. . . .

The more he talked the more certain Redwood's sense
of stupendous futihty grew. Did this man realise that
while he stood and talked there, the whole great world

REDWOOD'S TWO DAYS. 265

was moving, that the invincible tide of growth flowed
and flowed, that there were any hours but parUamentary
hours, or any weapons in the hands of the Avengers of
Blood ? Outside, darkling the whole room, a single leaf
of giant Virginian creeper tapped unJiceded on the pane.

Redwood became anxious to end this amazing mono-
logue, to escape to sanity and judgment, to that be-
leaguered camp, the fastness of the future, where, at
the very nucleus of greatness, the Sons were gathered
together. Fur that this talking was endured. He had
a curious impression that unless this monologue ended
he would presently find himselt carried awa\^ by it, that
he must fight against Caterham's voice as one fights
against a drug. Facts had altered and were altering
beneath that spell.

What was the man sajring ?

Since Redwood had to report it to the Children of
the Food, in a sort of way he perceived it did matter.
He would have to listen and guard his sense of realities
as well as he could.

Much about bloodguiltiness. That was eloquence.
That didn't matter. Next ?

He was suggesting a convention I

He was suggesting that the surviving Children of the
Food should capitulate and go apart and form a com-
munity of their own. There were precedents, he said,
for this. " We would assign them territory "

" Where ? " interjected Redwood, stooping to argue.

Caterham snatched at that concession. He turned
his face to Redwood's, and his voice fell to a persuasive
reasonableness. That cotild be determined. That, uc
contended, was a quite subsidiary question. Then he
went on to stipulate : " And except ior them and where

266 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

they are we must have absolute control, the Food and
all the Fruits of the Food must be stamped out "

Redwood found himself bargaining : '* The Princess ? '*

" She stands apart."

" No," said Redwood, struggling to get back to the
old footing. *' That's absurd."

" That afterwards. At any rate we are agreed that
the making of the Food must stop "

" I have agreed to nothing. I have said nothing "

" But on one planet, to have two races of men, one
great, one small 1 Consider what has happened ! Con-
sider that is but a little foretaste of what might presently
happen if this Food has its way 1 Consider all you have
already brought upon this world 1 It there is to be a
race of Giants, increasing and multiplying "

" It is not for me to argue," said Redwood. " I must
go to our sons. I want to go to my son. That is why
I have come to you. Tell me exactly what you ofier."

Caterham made a speech upon his terms.

The Children of the Food were to be given a great
reservation — in North America perhaps or Africa — in
which they might live out their lives in their own fashion.

" But it's nonsense," said Redwood. " There are
other Giants now abroad. All over Europe — ^here and
there 1 "

" There could be an international convention. It's
not impossible. Something of the sort indeed has already
been spoken of. . . . But in this reservation they can
live out their own lives in their own way. They may
do what they like ; they may make what they like.
We shall be glad if they will make us things. They
may be happy. Think I "

" Provided there are no more Children."

REDWOOD'S TWO DAYS. 267

" Precisely. The Children are for us. And so, Sir,
we shall save the world, we shall save it absolutely from
the fmits of your terrible discover)'. It is not too late
for us. Only we are eaG:cr to temper expediency with
mercy. Even now we are burninp and searing the places
their shells hit yesterday. We ran get it under. Trust
me we shall get it under. But in that way, without
cruelty, without injustice **

" And suppose the Children do not agree ? *'

For the first time Caterham looked Redwood fully in
the face.

" They must ! *'

" I don't think they will.*'

" WTiy should they not agree ? " he asked, in richly
toned amazement.

" Suppose they don't ? "

" What can it be but war ? We cannot have the
thing go on. We cannot, Sir. Have you scientific men
no imagination ? Have you no mercy ? We carmot
have our world trampled under a growing herd of such
monsters and monstrous growths as your Food has
made. We cannot and we cannot I I ask you. Sir,
what can it be but war ? And remember — this tliat has
happened is only a beginning I This was a skirmish.
A mere affair of police. BeUeve me, a mere affair of
police. Do not be cheated by perspective, by the imme-
diate bigness of these newer things. Behind us is the
nation — ^is humanity. Behind the thousands who have
died there are millions. Were it not for the fear of
bloodshed. Sir, behind oar first attacks there would be
forming other attacks, even now. Whether we can kill
this Food or not, most assuredly we can kill your sons 1
You reckon too much on the things of yesterday, on the

268 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

happenings of a mere score of years, on one battle. You
have no sense of the slow course of history. I offer this
convention for the sake of Uves, not because it can
change the inevitable end. If you think that your poor
two dozen of Giants can resist aiJ the forces of our people
and of all the alien peoples who will come to our aid ; if
you think you can change Humanity at a blow, in a
single generation, and alter the nature and stature of
Man '*

He flung out an arm. "Go to them now, Sir 1 See
them, for aU the evil they have done, crouching among
their wounded "

He stopped, as though he had glanced at Redwood's
son by chance.

There came a pause.

" Go to them," he said.

" That is what I want to do."

" Then go now. . . ."

He turned and pressed the button of a bell ; without,
in inamediate response, came a sound of opening doors
and hastening feet.

The talk was at an end. The display was over.
Abruptly Caterham seemed to contract, to shrivel up
into a yellow-faced, fagged-out, middle-sized, middle-
aged man. He stepped forw^ard, as if he were stepping
out of a picture, and with a complete assumption of that
friendliness that lies behind all the pubUc conflicts of
our race, he held out his hand to Redwood.

As if it were a matter of course, Redwood shook hands
with him for tlie second time.

CHAPTER THE FIFTH.

THE GIANT LEAGUER.

L

Presently Redwood found himself in a train going south
over the Thames. He had a brief vision of the river
shining under its lights, and of the smoke still going up
from the place where the shell had fallen on the north
bank, and where a vast multitude of men had been
organised to bum the Herakleophorbia out of the ground.
The southern bank was dark, for some reason even the
streets were not lit, all that was clearly visible was the
outlines of the tall alarm-towers and the dark bulks of
flats and schools, and after a minute of peering scrutiny
he turned his back on the window and sank into thought.
There was nothing more to see or do until he saw the
Sons. . . .

He was fatigued by the stresses of the last two dsLys ;
it seemed to him that his emotions must needs be ex-
hausted, but he had fortified himself with strong coffee
before starting, and his thoughts ran thin and clear. His
mind touched many things. He reviewed again, but
now in the enlightenment of accomplished events, the
manner in which the Food had entered and unfolded
itself in the world.

" Bensington thought it might be aii excellent food

2fO THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

for infants," he whispered to himself, with a faint smile.
Then thtre came inti> Lis mind as vivid as if the}' were
still unsettled his own horrible doubts after he had com-
mitted himself by giving it to his own son. From tnat,
with a steady unfaltering expansion, in spite of every
effort of men to help and hinder, the Food had spread
through the whule world of man. And now ?

" Even if they idll them all," Redwood whispered,
" the thing is done."

The secret of its making was known far and wide.
That had been his own work. Plants, animals, a multi-
tude of distressful growing children would conspire irre-
sistibly to force the world to revert again to the Food,
whatever happened in the present struggle. " The thing
is done," he said, with his mind swinging round beyond
all his controlling to rest upon the present fate of the
Children and his son. Would he find them exhausted
by the efforts of the battle, wounded, starving, on the
verge of defeat, or would he find them still stout and
hopeful, ready for the still grimmer conflict of the
morrow ? . . . His son was woimded ! But he had sent
a message I

His mind came back to his interview with Caterham.

He was roused from his thoughts by the stopping of
his train in Chislehurst station. He recognised the place
by the huge rat alarm-tower that crested Camden Hill,
eind the row of blossoming giant hemlocks that lined
the road. . . .

Caterham's private secretary came to him from the
other carriage and told him that hsdf a mile farther the
line had been wrecked, and that the rest of the journey
was to be made in a motor car. Redwood descended
upon a platform lit only by a hand lantern and swept

THE GIANT LEAGUER. 271

by the cool iiight breeze. The quiet of that derehct,
wood-set, weed-embedded suburb^for all the inhabitants
had taken refuge in London at the outbreak of yester-
day's conflict — became instantly impressive. His con-
ductor took him down the stt^ps to where a motor car
was waiting with blazing hghts — the only hghts to be
seen — handed him over to the care of the driver and
bade him farewell.

" You vnR do your best for us," he said, with an imita-
tion of his master's manner, as he held Redwood's hand.

So soon as Redwood could be wrapped about they
started out into the night. At one moment they stood
still, and then the motor car was rushing softly and
swiftly down the station incline. They turned one comer
and another, followed the windings of a lane of villas,
and then before them stretched the road. The motor
droned up to its topmost speed, and the black night
swept past them. Everything was very dark under the
starUght, and the whole world crouched mysteriously
and was gone without a sound. Not a breath stirred
the flying things by the wayside ; the deserted, palHd
white villas on either hand, with their black unUt windows,
reminded him of a noiseless procession of skulls. The
driver beside him was a silent man, or stricken into
silence by the conditions of his journey. He answered
Ked wood's brief questions in monosyllables, and gruffly.
Athwart the southern sky the beams of searchUghts
waved noiseless passes ; the sole strange evidences of
hfe they seemed in all that derelict world about the
hurrying machine.

The road was presently bordered on either side by
gigantic blackthorn shoots that made it very dark, and
by tall grass and big campions, huge giant dead-nettles

272 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

as high as trees, flickering past darkly in silhouette over-
head. Beyond Keston they came to a rising hill, and
the driver went slow. At the crest he stopped. Tlie
engine throbbed and became still. ** There," he said,
and his big gloved finger pointed, a black misshapen
thing before Redwood's eyes.

Far away as it seemed, the great embankment, crested
by the blaze from which the searchlights sprang, rose
up against the sky. Those beams went and came among
the clouds and the hilly land about them as if they traced
mysterious incantations.

" I don't know," said the driver at last, and it was
clear he was afraid to go on.

Presently a searchlight swept down the sky to them,
stopped as it were with a start, scrutinised them,
a blinding stare confused rather than mitigated by an
intervening monstrous weed stem or so. They sat with
their gloves held over their eyes, trying to look under
them and meet that light.

" Go on," said Redwood after a while.

The driver still had his doubts ; he tried to express
them, and died down to " I don't know " again.

At last he ventured on. " Here goes," he said, and
roused his machinery to motion again, followed intently
by that great white eye.

To Redwood it seemed for a long time they were no
longer on earth, but in a state of palpitating hurry
through a luminous cloud. Teuf, teuf, teuf, teuf, went
the machine, and ever and again — obeying I know not
what nervous impulse — the driver sounded his horn.

They passed Into the welcome darkness of a high-
fenced lane, and down into a hoUow and past some
houses into that blinding stare again, llien for a space

THE GTANT J.KAGUER. 273

the road ran naked across a down, and they seemed to
hang throbbing in inim(msity. Once more giant weeds
rose about them and whirled past. Then quite abruptly
close upon them loomed the figure of a giant, shining
brightl)^ where the searchlight caught him below, and
black against the sky above. " Hullo there 1 " he cried,
and " stop ! There's no more road beyond. ... Is that
Father Redwood ? "

Redwood stood up and gave a vague shout by way
of answer, and then Cossar was in the road beside him,
gripping both hands with both of his and pulling hun
out of the car.

*' Wh.2Lt of my son ? " asked Redwood.

" He's all right," said Cossar. " They've hurt notliing
serious in him.**

" And your lads ? "

" Well. All of them, well. But we've had to make a
fight for It."

The Giant was sajdng something to the motor driver.
Redwood stood aside as the machine wheeled round, and
then suddenly Cossar vanished, everything vanished,
and he was in absolute darkness for a space. The glare
was following the motor back to the crest of the Keston
hill. He watched the little conveyance receding in that
white halo. It had a curious effect, as though it was
not moving at aU and the halo was. A group of war-
blasted Giant elders flashed into gaunt scarred gesticula-
tions and were swallowed again by the night. . . . Red-
wood turned to Cossar's dim outline again and clasped
his hand. " I have been shut up and kept in ignorance,"
he said, " for two whole days."

" We fired the Food at them," said Cossar. " Obvi-
ously I Tnlrty shots. Eb I "

274 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

" I come from Caterham.'

'' I know you do." He laughed with a note of bitter-
ness. " I suppose he's wiping it up,"

II.

" Where is my son ? " said Redwood.

*' He is all right. The Giants are waiting for your
message."

*' Yes, but my son ..."

He passed with Cossar down a long slanting tunnel
that was Ut red for a moment and then became dark
again, and came out presently into the great pit of
shelter the Giants had made.

Redwood's first impression was of an enormous arena
bounded by very high cliSs and with its floor greatly
encumbered. It was in darkness save for the passing
reflections of the watchman's searchUghts that whirled
perpetually high overhead, and for a red glow that came
and went from a distant comer where two Giants worked
together amidst a metallic clangour. Agarast the sky,
as the glare came about, his eye caught the famihar
outlines of the old worksheds and playsheds that were
made for the Cossar boys. They were hanging now, as
it were, at a cliff brow, and strangely twisted and dis-
torted with the guns of Caterham's bombardment*
There were suggestions of huge gun emplacements above
there, and nearer were piles of mighty cylinders that
were perhaps ammunition* All about the wide space
below, the forms of great engines and incomprehensible
bulks were scattered in vague disorder. The Giants ap-
peared and vanished among these masses and in the
uncertain light I great shapes they were, not dispro-

THE GIANT LEAGUER. 275

portionate to the things amidst which they moved.
Some were actively employed, some sitting and lying
as it they courted sleep, and one near at hand, whose
body wab bandaged, lay on a rough litter of pine boughs
and was certaiidy asleep. Redwood peered at these
dim iomis ; his eyes went from one stirring outline to
another.

" Where is my son, Cx^ssar ? "

Then he saw him.

His son was sitting under the shadow of a great wall
of steel. He presented himself as a black shape recog-
nisable only by his pose, — his features were invisible.
He sat chin upon hand, as though weary or lost in
thought. Beside him Redwood discovered the figure of
the Princess, the dark suggestion of her merely, and
then, as the glow from the distant iron returned, he
saw for an instant, red Ut and tender, the infinite kindH-
ness of her shadowed face. She stood looking down
upon her lover with her hand resting against the steel.
It seemed that she whispered to him.

Redwood would have gone towards them.

" Presently," said Cossar. " First there is your mes-
sage."

" Yes," said Redwood, " but "

He stopped. His son was now looking up and speak-
ing to the Princess, but in too low a tone for them to
hear. Young Redwood raised his face, and she bent
down towards him, and glanced aside before she spoke.

'* But if we are beaten," they heard the whispered
voice of young Redwood.

She paused, and the red blaze showed her eyes bright
with unshed tears. She bent nearer him and spoke stiU
lower. There was something so intimate and private

276 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

in their bearing, in their soft tones, that Redwood —
Redwood who had thought for two whole days of noth-
ing but his son—felt himself intrusive, there. Abruptly
he was checked. For the first time in his life perhaps
he realised how much more a son may be to his father
than a father can ever be to a son ; he realised the full
predominance of the future over the past. Here be-
tween these two he had no part. His part was played.
He turned to Cossar, in the instant realisation. 'Jlieir
eyes met. His voice was changed to the tone of a grey
resolve.

" I will dehver my message now/' he said. ** After-
wards . ™ , It will be soon enough then."

The pit was so enormous and so encmnbered that it
was a long and tortuous route to the place from which
Redwood could speak to them ail.

He and Cossar followed a steeply descending way that
passed beneath an arch of interlocking machinery, and
so came into a vast deep gangway that ran athwart the
bottom of the pit. This gangway, wide and vacant, and
yet relatively narrow, conspired with everything about
it to enhance Redwood's sense of his own httleness.
It became, as it were, an excavated gorge. High over-
head, separated from him by cMs of darkness, the
searchhghts wheeled and blazed, and the shining shapes
went to and fro. Giant voices called to one another
above there, calling the Giants together to the Council
of War, to hear the terms that Caterham had sent. The
gangway still inclined downward towards black vast-
nesses, towards shadows and mysteries and inconceivable
things, into which Redwood went slowly with reluctant
footsteps and Cossar with a confident stride. . . «

Redwood's thoughts were busy.

THE GIANT LEAGUER. 277

The two men passed into the completest darkness,
and Cossar took his companion's wiist. They went now
slowly perforce.

Redwood was moved to speak. " All this/' he said,
*' is strange."

" Big," said Cossar.

" Strange. And strange that it should be strange to
me — Ij who am, in a sense, the beginning of it all.
It's "

He stoppedj wrestling with his elusive meaning, and
threw an unseen gesture at the cliff.

** I have not thought of it before. I have been busy,

and the years have passed. But here I see It is

a new generation, Cossar, and new emotions and new
needs. All this, Cossar "

Cossar saw now his dim gesture to the things about
them.

" All this is Youth."

Cossar made no answer, and his irregular footfalls
went striding on-

" It isn't our youth, Cossar. They are taking things
over. They are beginning upon their own emotions,
their own experiences, their own way. We have made
a new world, and it isn't ours. It isn't even — sym-
pathetic. This great place "

" I planned it," said Cossar, his face close.

" But now ? "

" Ah ! I have given it to my sons."

Redwood could feel the loose wave of the arm that
he could not see.

" That is it. We are over — or almost over."

" Your message ! "

"Yes. And then "

278 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

" We're over "

- Well ? "

" Of course we are out of it, we two old men," said
Cossar, with his familiar note of sudden anger. " Of
course we are. Obviously. Each man for his own
time. And now — it's their time beginning. That's all
right. Excavator's gang. We do our job and go.
See ? That is what death is for. We work out all our
Uttle brains and all our little emotions, and then this
lot begins afresh. Fresh and fresh ! Perfectly simple.
What's the trouble ? "

He paused to guide Redwood to some steps.

" Yes," said Redwood, ** but one feels "

He left his sentence incomplete.

" That is what Death is for/' He heard Cossar below
him insisting J " How else could the thing be done ?
That is what Death is for."

Ill,

After devious windings and ascents they came out
upon a projecting ledge from which it was possible to
see over the greater extent of the Giants' pit, and from
which Redwood might make himself heard by the whole
of their assembly. The Giants were already gathered
below and about him at different levels, to hear the
message he had to deliver. The eldest son of Cossar
stood on the bank overhead watching the revelations
of the searchlights, for they feared a breach of the truce.
The workers at the great apparatus in the comer stood
out cleajT In their own light ; they were near stripped ;
they turned their faces towards Redwood, but with a
watchful reference ever and again to the castings that

THE GIANT LEAGUER. 279

they could not leave. Ht saw these nearer figures with
a fluctuating indistinctness, by lights that came and
went, and the remoter ones still less distinctly. They
came trom and vanished again into the depths of great
obscurities. For these Giants had no more light than
they could help in the pit, that their eyes might be ready
to see effectually any attacking iorce that might spring
upon them out of the darknesses around.

Ever and again some chance glare would pick out and
display this group or that of taU and powerful forms,
the Giants irom Sunderland clothed in overlapping metal
plates, and the others clad in leather, in woven rope or
in woven metal, as their conditions had determined.
They sat amidst or rested their hands upon, or stood
erect among machines and weapons as mighty as them-
selves, and all their faces, as they came and went from
visible to invisible, had steadfast eyes.

He made an efiort to begin and did not do so. Then
for a moment his son's face glowed out in a hot in-
surgence of the fire, his son's face looking up to him,
tender as well as strong ; and at that he found a voice
to reach them all, speaking across a gulf, as it were, to
his son.

" I come from Caterham," he said. " He sent me to
you, to tell you the terms he offers."

He paused. " They are impossible terms, I know, now
that I see you here all together ; they are impossible
terms, but I brought them to you, because I wanted
to see you all — and my son. Once more, . ■ h I wanted
to see my son. , , ,"

" Tell them the terms," said Cossar.

" This is what Caterham offers. He wants you to go
apart and leave his world ! "

28o THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

'* Wliere ? "

*' He does not know. Vaguely somewhere in the world
a great regioxi is to be set apart. . . . And you are to
make no more of. the Food, to have no children of your
own, to live in your own way tor your own time, and
then to end for ever/'

He stopped.

" And that is all ? "

" That is ail."

There followed a great stillness. The darkness that
veiled the Giants seemed to look thoughtfully at him.

He iclt a touch at his elbow, and Cossar was holding
a chair for him. — a queer fragment of doll's furniture
amidst these piled immensities. He sat down and
crossed his legs, and then put one across the knee of
the other, and clutched his boot nervously, and felt
small and self-conscious and acutely visible and ab-
surdly placed.

Then at the sound of a voice he forgot himself again.

** You have heard, Brothers," said this voice out of
the shadows.

And another answered, *' We have heard."

" And the answer, Brothers ? "

" To Caterham ? "

" Is No ! "

" And then ? "

There was a silence for the space of some seconds.

Then a voice said : ** These people are right. After
their lights, that is. They have been right in killmg all
that grew larger than its kind — beast and plant and all
manner of great tilings that arose. They were right in
trying to massacre us. They are right now in sajdng
we must not marry our kind. According to their lights

6S

L

THE GIANT LEAGUER. 281

they are right. Thoy know — it is time that we also
icncw — that you cannot have pigmies and giants in one
world together. Caterham has said that again and
again — clearly — ^their world or ours."

" We are not half a hundred now," said another,
** and they are endless millions."

" So it may be. But the thing is as I have said."

Then another long silence.

** And are we to die then ? "

" God forbid I "

" Are they ? "

" No."

" But that is what Caterham says I He would have
us live out our lives, die one by one, till only one remains,
and that one at last would die also, and they would cut
down all the giant plants and weeds, kill all the giant
under-life, bum out the traces of the Food — make an
end to us and to the Food for ever. Then the httle
pigmy world would be safe. They would go on — safe
for ever, Hving their Httle pigmy lives, doing pigmy
kindnesses and pigmy cruelties each to the other ; they
might even perhaps attain a sort of pigmy millennium,
make an end to war, make an end to over-population,
sit down in a world-wide city to practise pigmy arts,
worshipping one another till the world begins to
freeze. ..."

In the comer a sheet of iron fell in thunder to the
ground.

" Brothers, we know what we mean to do."

In a spluttering of light from the searchlights Red-
wood saw earnest youthful faces tuming to his son.

" It is easy now to make the Food. It would be easy
for us to make Food for all the worlds"

282 THE FOOD OF THE GODS. |

" You mean, Brother Redwood," said a voice out oi
the darkness, " that it is for the little people to eat the
Food."

'* What else is there to do ? "

"We are not half a hundred and they are many
millions,"

" But we held our owna."

" So far."

" If it is God's will, we may still hold our own,"

" Yes, But think of the dead ! "

Another voice took up the strain. "The dead," it
said, " Think of the unborn, . , ,"

" Brothers," came the voice of young Redwood, " what
can we do but fight them, and if we beat them, make
them take the Food ? They cannot help but take the
Food now* Suppose we were to resign our heritage and
do this folly that Caterham suggests ! Suppose we
could I Suppose we give up this great thing that stirs
within us, repudiate this thing our fathers did for us —
that you. Father, did for us — and pass, when our time
has' come, into decay and nothingness ! What then ?
Will this little world of theirs be as it was before ? They
may fight against greatness in us who are the children
of men, but can they conquer ? Even if they should
destroy us every one, what then ? Would it save them ?
No ! For greatness is abroad, not only in us, not only
in the Food, but in the purpose of all things I It is in
the nature of all things ; it is part of space and time. To
grow and still to grow ; from first to last that is Being —
that is the law of Ufe, What other law can there be ? "

" To help others ? "

" To grow. It is still, to grow. Unless we help them
to fail. . . ."

Il

THE GIANT LEAGUER. 283

Mthc

li

J

**They will light hard to overcome us," said a voice.

And another, *' What of that ? "

*" They will fight," said young Redwood. '* li we refuse

hese terms, I doubt not they will fight. Indeed I hope

ey will be open and fight. If after all they offer peace,

it will be only the better to catch us unawares. Make no

mistake. Brothers ; in some way or other they will

^fight. The war has begtin, and we must fight to the

end. Unless we are wise, we may find presently we

have lived only to make them better weapons against

our children and our kind< This, so far, has been only

ithe dawn of battle. All our lives will be a battle. Some

'of us will be killed in battle, some of us will be waylaid.

j There is no easy victory — no victory whatever that is

^Jnot more than half defeat for us. Be sure of that.

^K What of that ? If only we keep a foothold, if only we

Hj leave behind us a growing host to fight when we are

"gone!"

" And to-morrow ? "

" We will scatter the Food ; we will saturate the
world with the Food."

" Suppose they come to terms ? "
" Our terms axe the Food. It is not as though little
and great could live together in any perfection ot com-
promise. It is one thing or the other. What right have
parents to say, My child shall have no light but the light
I have had, shall grow no greater than the greatness to
which I have grown ? Do I speak for you. Brothers ? "
Assenting murmurs answered him.
" And to the children who will be women as well as
to the cmldren who will be men," said a voice from the
darkness.

" Even more so — to be mothers of a new race. ..."

284 THE FOOD OF THE GODS. |

" But for the next generation there mast be greain
little," said Redwood, vvith his eyes on his son's fac

" For many generations. And the little mil ha
the great and the gteat press upon the Uttle. i\l
must needs be, father."

'* There will be conflict."

" Endless conflict. Endless misunderstanding, jm
life is that. Great and Httle cannot understandp
another. But in every child bom of man. Father k
wood, lurks some seed of greatness — waiting foijie
Food."

" Then I am to go to Caterham again and tell him-^

" You will stay with us, F'ather Redwt)od.
answer goes to Caterharn at dawn."

" He says that he will fight. ..."

"So be it," said young Redwood, and his bretjen
murmm'ed assent. 1

" The iron waits/* cried a voice, and the two giants L
were working in the comer began a rhythmic hamlr-
ing that made a mighty music to the scene. I'he real
glowed out far more brightly than it had done bele
and gave Redwood a clearer view of the encampnji
than had yet come to him. He saw the oblong sj;(
to ita full extent, with the great engines of warfare rar ;
ready to hand. Beyond, and at a higher level, the h(
of the Cossars stood. About him were the young gia
huge and beautiful, gUttering in their mail, amidst ie
preparations for the morrow. The sight of them hid
his heart. They were so easily powerful I They wen o
tall and gracious I They were so steadfast in tljr
movements 1 There was his son amongst them, and te
first of aJl giant women, the Princess, . . .

There leapt into his mind the oddest contrastik

THE GIANT LEAGUER. 285

' lemory of Bensington, very bright and little — Bensingtoii

svith his hand amidst the soft breast feathers of that

]^ first great chick, standing in that conventionaUy furnished

room of his, peering over his spectacles dubiously as

cousin Jane banged the door. . . .

It had all happened in a yesterday of one-and-twenty

years.

^ Then suddenly a strange doubt took hold of him :

that this place and present greatness were but the tex-

^ ture of a dream ; that he was dreaming, and would in

-> -^n instant wake to find himself in his study again, the

ints slaughtered, the Food suppressed, and himself a

isoner locked in. What else indeed was Ufe but that

-always to be a prisoner locked in I This was the

culmination and end of his dream. He would wake

^ through bloodshed and battle, to find his Food the most

fooUsh of fancies, and his hopes and faith of a greater

^ world to come no more than the coloured film upon a

' pool of bottomless decay. Littleness invincible I . . .

So strong and deep was this wave of despondency,

his suggestion of impending disillusionment, that he

Parted to his feet. He stood and pressed his clenched

^sts ipto his eyes, and so for a moment remained, fear-

ig to open them again and see, lest the dream should

^^jready have passed away. . . .

*" The voice of the giant children spoke to one another,
an undertone to that clangorous melody of the smiths.
His tide of doubt ebbed. He heard the giant voices ;
he heard their movements about him still. It was real,
surely it was real — as real as spiteful acts I More real,
for these great things, it may be, are the coming things,
and the littleness, bestiality, and mfirraity of men are
the things that go. He opened his eyes.

tlie

286 THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

1

" Done," cried one of the two ironworkers, and th
flung their hammers down.

A voice sounded above. The son of Cossar, standi
on the great embankment, had turned and was nc
speaking to them all,

"It is not that we would oust the little people ire
the world/' he said, " in order that we, who are no mn
than one step upwards from their Uttleness, may ho
their world for ever. It is the step we fight for ai
not ourselves. . . . We are here, Brothers, to what enc
To serve the spirit and the purpose that has been breath
into our lives. We fight not for ourselves — for we a
but the momentary hands and eyes of the Life of t
World, So you, Father Redwood, taught us. Throuj
us and through the Httle folk the Spirit looks and lean]
From us by word and birth and act it must pass —
still greater lives. This earth is no resting place ; tt|
earth is no playing place, else indeed we might put o\
throats to the little people's knife, having no greater rig]
to live than they. And they in their turn might yie
to the ants and vermin. We fight not for ourselves bi
for growth -growth that goes on for ever. To-morro\
whether we Uve or die, growth will conquer through ul
That is the law of the spirit for ever more. To gro
according to the will of God ! To grow out of the^
cracks and crannies, out of these shadows and dar]
nesses, into greatness and the light I Greater," he sail
speaking with slow deUberation, " greater, my Brothers
And then — still greater. To grow, and again — to grow. T
grow at last into the fellowship and understanding of Go<
Growing. . . , TiJJ the earth is no more than a footstool. .
Till the spirit shall have driven fear into nothingness, an
spread. ..." He swung his arm heavenward : ~" Thsrt !

THE GIANT LEAGUER. 287

His voice ceased. The white glare of one of the
earchlights wheeled about, and for a moment fell upon
lim, standing out gigantic with hand upraised against
'%e sky.

For one instant he shone, looking up fearlessly into the

litany deeps, mail-clad, young and strong, resolute and

itill. Then the Ught had passed, and he was no more

..ihan a great black outUne against the starry sky — a

T

iq

jreat black outline that threatened with one mighty
gesture the firmament of heaven and all its multitude
Df stars.

THE END.

OTHER BOOKS BY

H. G. WELLS.

^w and Popular editions.
Uniform with this Volume.

Kipps.

The Story of a Simple Soul.

No more original or delightful story the)
'' Kipps " has been published in our day.

Love and
Mr. Lewisham

T. NELSON AND SONS.

^^ %

♦4

° .^^i io»

Is'

108104815043

PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY

PR Wells, Herbert George

5774 The food of the crods

?6

1909
Sig.Sam.

SIGMUND SAMUEL LIBRARY