1937-06-11 — Page 25

THE CHINA MAIL FRIDAY SUPPLEMENT, JUNE, 11; 19374

THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD

"VE got to put this thing on paper. I've told the story again and again, and I find, at the finish of

that

my

are

it

best friends

to look

even

trying not

at slantwise

me.

I don't blame them. It is, as one of them said to me, "a hell of a proposition." But the way I feel is that if once I can get the thing down in black and white it won't, so to speak, be on iny mind so much. It was after I had told Bill Whiteman the story and ask- ed him the question I always ask that I got the answer which have written.

A hell of a proposition it may be and perhaps I, too, ought to be where poor Robbie McClaren is and he's been in an asylum these two years.

I'd known Robbie since the days cricket balls when we knocked through his father's cucumber frames, and then told lies about it, for Robbie's father was about sixty years out of date, and Rob- bie feared him more than he fear- ed Hell. I think if his mother had lived, or if his father had been another kind of man, Rob- bie might have been every bit as sane as the rest of us. But he was hunted literally hunted through his boyhood.

But that has nothing to do with the story. He became an ar chitect. He never did much at it. I believe his ideas were a bit impracticable, and, anyway, he wasn't long enough at the job to make his mark. He was twenty- eight when the thing happened, and I was two years his senior. Of course, I knew that Robbie was what people call "peculiar.” That is to say,

didn't fall in line with ever

else. He didn't play games, or shoot, or dance-in fact, the only thing he did do was to play the piano. His own stuff, and for all I

know

?

He chucked his hat away over a hedge and sang lewd songs at the top of his voice. But Robbie had always hated towns, and became a different creature in the coun- try. We tramped along for a couple of days, taking things easi- ly, and I must confess I never re- member such a grand time. The air was intoxicating, the turf like walking on a springboard, - and a subtle satisfying appeal was coming to us from the very earth, the appeal of being English in England. (Robbie was Scotch,

but he swore he felt it, too!) Those first two days were pure joy.

On the third we were in the Forest itself, surprising squirrels and rabbits, and once, in the even- ing, an old badger. We deviated that night, and slept at the smal- lest inn I have ever seen in a vil- ask lage of which we didn't even a the name: And, in the charming, contemptuous English way, the name not being written up for us anywhere, I do not know it to this day.

On the following morning we struck back into the Forest. And

Short Story

"Where do we turn in to-night, Robbie?""

“Oh, I know a place," he an- swered, a and I noticed --or thought

I noticed a queer constraint in his voice, as if he was facing a crisis of some sort, a crisis which he knew would come. But I was sleepy, and paid no heed to it.

"Well, anyway," I murmured, "don't let's overshoot the mark again and have an extra two miles to the village at the end of the day."

For that was what we had done before, and two unexpected miles just when you're wanting your supper seem a day's journey. Robbie's voice became suddenly quite surly.

"It abruptly.

isn't a village," he said

"Oh, look here Robbie,” I pro- tested. "If you think I'm going to doss down in some broken-down woodman's shack and go without my dinner, you're on ... horse."

“Oh,

right,"

wered

""but you never said anything about it before."

"Why should I?" he snapped, and I had no reply to that.

2

“I can't think how they carry on," I said, "marooned like that. Why, they'd never get a servant

stay in the place!"

to

He seemed to turn that over in his mind for a few seconds. Then he said, with a sort miniscent ⠀⠀_smile, family servants; there for years.”

"All the game,

gentle They're old-

been

I protested, "they may not be exactly pleased at two fellows blowing in without notice, both as hungry as hell.".

"They'll be delighted," he said earnestly,"delighted! Didn't tell you I'd known them for years?"

“Oh, well,” I answered, “it's up to you." After which we took the road again, or rather the path, the wrong for the riding had down

to a bridle-track and

He struck a match to relight. his pipe, and his hand trembled ever so little. "It's not a shack," he said. "It's anything but a

By John

were thick all round couldn't help wondering what strange sort of birds elected to live in the middle of a forest, and, with my practical, everyday sort of mind, speculating on how they ran the place. And from that I got to wondering how on earth the

Hastings Turner house came to be built, for you

then I noticed that Robbie was beginning to hurry. He set about twice the pace we had been travel- ling. When I taxed him with it he slowed down, and made some silly joke about my getting an old man. But I noticed that he seem- ed curiously embarrassed.

A strange eagerness seemed to have got hold of him. It was as if yes, almost as if he was pointing, like a dog. But at the time, though I noticed his mood, it no serious thought. Why should I? It was so like Robbie to have some unaccount- able enthusiasm.

abominable-but I liked to hea I gave

him play for all that.

Charing

I had a little flat in Cross-road, and one evening in the early summer Robbie blew in. I hadn't seen him for months, and I thought he looked rather used up. "Look here, Roger," he said, want some air.”

"You won't get it in Charing Cross-road," I answered.

"I want to go for a week

shack." He seemed to be trying to control. some intense excite- ment. He gave me

the impres sion that he was angry with me But I for asking questions. wasn't going to stand that..

It isn't good for a chap, even if he does have

given in to us and whims, to be

all the time..

I said, "Well, you needn't be so mysterious about it."

He didn't answer for a moment or two, and when he did he had his back turned to me.

"It's a house," he muttered. “A house?" I echoed. “What? Here in the middle of the Forest

We lunched a beech tree, miles from anywhere?”

and I remember green wood- pecker (shyest of birds) came and looked

us gravely from across the riding, and deciding. that we were harmless, if unusual. continued his tap-tapping without

walking-anywhere:" he went oaking any further notice. ~

"Will you come?"

It was an attractive idea. The weather seemed set fair. The country would be at its best. said I might

"When I say anywhere,” he con- tinued, "I mean the Savernake Forest."

•

"Why?" I asked.

"I'm not going at all if I don't

go there," he replied.

Well, I ought to have thought that a bit queer, I dare say, but

I didn't. Robbie had always been a creature of whims, and if he'd set his heart on the Savernake Forest, why not? It's a lovely spot.

I said I didn't care where we went, and after a bit of a ta

talk

and planning things out, we agreed to make a start the follow- ~ing Saturday.

For

miracle the weather held, and as we walked out of Want- the age, our faces set towards downs, I think we both felt about. eighteen. I can answer for my- self at least, and Robbie's high spirits were almost embarrassing.

"Yes," he said. He seemed to hate to talk about it.

"But it's impossible!" I cried. He turned then, and I saw that he was furiously angry.

"It isn't impossible," he retort- .ed. "I tell you, I know the hous When we had religiously buried and I know the people who li our empty, beer bottles and were there. I know the house well," he watching the smoke

As if he from our added in a gentler tone. pipes go spiralling up into the

was remembering tenderly some- leaves, I said casually:

thing happy about the place.

can't as far as I know, buy a plot in the middle of Savernake Forest. I even came to the point where was considering the possibility of Robbie trying to play a practical joke on me, and, by this time feel ing a bit "leggy," I thought what a rotten sort of joke it would be, and promised myself a real row with Robbie when he explod Meanwhile Robbie himsel

aster going faster and

he was racing along as were on the Stock Walk! And his face! purple with exci ment and his eyes were glitterin

a panther on the trail. I thou “Damn he's been sitting

wet grass, and he's got a chil he's feverish And I wond what on earth I'd do about it. Robbie was not strong, and was going to be ill he'd have com

anybod plications quicker than on earth.

But just as I was spett on these lines we turned a abruptly and came upon the I must confess I was re

that house. If Robbie had

(Continued on Page

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