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THE GOLDEN AGE




_COMPANION VOLUME TO THIS BOOK_

DREAM DAYS

BY

KENNETH GRAHAME

_PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED BY MAXFIELD PARRISH_

[Illustration: '_Onto the garden wall, which led in its turn to the roof
of an out-house_']




'_The Golden Age_'




THE GOLDEN AGE

BY KENNETH GRAHAME

ILLUSTRATED By MAXFIELD PARRISH


          JOHN LANE.
          THE BODLEY HEAD
          LONDON AND NEW YORK
          1900




          _Copyright, 1899_
          BY JOHN LANE


          _Copyright, 1904_
          BY JOHN LANE




CONTENTS


          PAGE
          PROLOGUE: THE OLYMPIANS        3
          A HOLIDAY                     13
          A WHITE-WASHED UNCLE          29
          ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS        39
          THE FINDING OF THE PRINCESS   53
          SAWDUST AND SIN               67
          'YOUNG ADAM CUPID'            79
          THE BURGLARS                  93
          A HARVESTING                 107
          SNOWBOUND                    121
          WHAT THEY TALKED ABOUT       133
          THE ARGONAUTS                143
          THE ROMAN ROAD               161
          THE SECRET DRAWER            179
          'EXIT TYRANNUS'              193
          THE BLUE ROOM                205
          A FALLING OUT                225
          'LUSISTI SATIS'              239




PUBLISHER'S NOTE


          The publication of this new edition of "The Golden
          Age," the favourite amongst Mr. Kenneth Grahame's
          favoured books, with the illustrations by Mr.
          Maxfield Parrish reproduced in photogravure, was
          accomplished through the kindness of the various
          owners, who gave access to the originals in their
          respective collections. The publisher begs
          gratefully to acknowledge this courtesy, with
          special thanks also to Mr. Frederick Keppel and
          Mr. Fitzroy Carrington for their kind
          co-operation.




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                              PAGE

          'Onto the garden wall, which led in
              its turn to the roof of an out-house'       _Frontispiece_

          'The Golden Age'                                   _Title_

          'For them the orchard (a place elf-haunted,
              wonderful!) simply'                         _Facing_ 6

          'Out into the brimming sun-bathed world I
              sped'                                           "   14

          '"I took the old fellow to the station"'            "   34

          'Once more were damsels rescued, dragons
              disembowelled, and giants'                      "   42

          'Lulled by the trickle of water, I slipped
              into dreamland'                                 "   62

          'It was easy... to transport yourself in
              a trice to the heart of a tropical forest'      "   68

          'Who would have thought... that only two
              short days ago we had confronted each
              other on either side of a hedge'                "   86

          'A great book open on his knee... a score or
              so disposed within easy reach'                  "  114

          'But yester-eve and the mummers were here!'         "  122

          '"They make me walk behind, 'cos they say
              I'm too little, and mustn't hear"'              "  138

          '"I'm Jason... and this is the Argo...
              and we're just going through the Hellespont"'   "  146

          '"You haven't been to Rome, have you?"'             "  166

          'I drew it out and carried it to the window,
              to examine it in the failing light'             "  188

          'At breakfast Miss Smedley behaved in a
              most mean and uncalled-for manner'              "  196

          'The procession passing solemnly across the
              moon-lit Blue Room'                             "  218

          '"Why, Master Harold! whatever be the matter?
              Baint runnin' away, be ee?"'                    "  232

          'Finally we found ourselves sitting silent on
              an upturned wheelbarrow'                        "  250




PROLOGUE: THE OLYMPIANS


LOOKING back to those days of old, ere the gate shut to behind me, I can
see now that to children with a proper equipment of parents these things
would have worn a different aspect. But to those whose nearest were
aunts and uncles, a special attitude of mind may be allowed. They
treated us, indeed, with kindness enough as to the needs of the flesh,
but after that with indifference (an indifference, as I recognise, the
result of a certain stupidity), and therewith the commonplace conviction
that your child is merely animal. At a very early age I remember
realising in a quite impersonal and kindly way the existence of that
stupidity, and its tremendous influence in the world; while there grew
up in me, as in the parallel case of Caliban upon Setebos, a vague sense
of a ruling power, wilful, and freakish, and prone to the practice of
vagaries--'just choosing so': as, for instance, the giving of authority
over us to these hopeless and incapable creatures, when it might far
more reasonably have been given to ourselves over them. These elders,
our betters by a trick of chance, commanded no respect, but only a
certain blend of envy--of their good luck--and pity--for their inability
to make use of it. Indeed, it was one of the most hopeless features in
their character (when we troubled ourselves to waste a thought on them:
which wasn't often) that, having absolute licence to indulge in the
pleasures of life, they could get no good of it. They might dabble in
the pond all day, hunt the chickens, climb trees in the most
uncompromising Sunday clothes; they were free to issue forth and buy
gunpowder in the full eye of the sun--free to fire cannons and explode
mines on the lawn: yet they never did any one of these things. No
irresistible Energy haled them to church o' Sundays; yet they went there
regularly of their own accord, though they betrayed no greater delight
in the experience than ourselves.

On the whole, the existence of these Olympians seemed to be entirely
void of interests, even as their movements were confined and slow, and
their habits stereotyped and senseless. To anything but appearances they
were blind. For them the orchard (a place elf-haunted, wonderful!)
simply produced so many apples and cherries: or it didn't--when the
failures of Nature were not infrequently ascribed to us. They never set
foot within fir-wood or hazel-copse, nor dreamt of the marvels hid
therein. The mysterious sources, sources as of old Nile, that fed the
duck-pond had no magic for them. They were unaware of Indians, nor
recked they anything of bisons or of pirates (with pistols!), though the
whole place swarmed with such portents. They cared not to explore for
robbers' caves, nor dig for hidden treasure. Perhaps, indeed, it was one
of their best qualities that they spent the greater part of their time
stuffily indoors.

[Illustration: '_For them the orchard (a place elf-haunted, wonderful!)
simply_']

To be sure there was an exception in the curate, who would receive,
unblenching, the information that the meadow beyond the orchard was a
prairie studded with herds of buffalo, which it was our delight,
moccasined and tomahawked, to ride down with those whoops that announce
the scenting of blood. He neither laughed nor sneered, as the Olympians
would have done; but, possessed of a serious idiosyncrasy, he would
contribute such lots of valuable suggestion as to the pursuit of this
particular sort of big game that, as it seemed to us, his mature age and
eminent position could scarce have been attained without a practical
knowledge of the creature in its native lair. Then, too, he was always
ready to constitute himself a hostile army or a band of marauding
Indians on the shortest possible notice: in brief, a distinctly able
man, with talents, so far as we could judge, immensely above the
majority. I trust he is a bishop by this time. He had all the necessary
qualifications, as we knew.

These strange folk had visitors sometimes--stiff and colourless
Olympians like themselves, equally without vital interests and
intelligent pursuits: emerging out of the clouds, and passing away again
to drag on an aimless existence somewhere beyond our ken. Then
brute force was pitilessly applied. We were captured, washed, and forced
into clean collars: silently submitting as was our wont, with more
contempt than anger. Anon, with unctuous hair and faces stiffened in a
conventional grin, we sat and listened to the usual platitudes. How
could reasonable people spend their precious time so? That was ever our
wonder as we bounded forth at last: to the old clay-pit to make pots, or
to hunt bears among the hazels.

It was perennial matter for amazement how these Olympians would talk
over our heads--during meals, for instance--of this or the other social
or political inanity, under the delusion that these pale phantasms of
reality were among the importances of life. We _illuminati_, eating
silently, our heads full of plans and conspiracies, could have told them
what real life was. We had just left it outside, and were all on fire to
get back to it. Of course we didn't waste the revelation on them: the
futility of imparting our ideas had long been demonstrated. One in
thought and purpose, linked by the necessity of combating one hostile
fate, a power antagonistic ever--a power we lived to evade--we had no
confidants save ourselves. This strange anaemic order of beings was
further removed from us, in fact, than the kindly beasts who shared our
natural existence in the sun. The estrangement was fortified by an
abiding sense of injustice, arising from the refusal of the Olympians
ever to defend, to retract, to admit themselves in the wrong, or to
accept similar concessions on our part. For instance, when I flung the
cat out of an upper window (though I did it from no ill-feeling, and it
didn't hurt the cat), I was ready, after a moment's reflection, to own I
was wrong, as a gentleman should. But was the matter allowed to end
there? I trow not. Again, when Harold was locked up in his room all day,
for assault and battery upon a neighbour's pig--an action he would have
scorned: being indeed on the friendliest terms with the porker in
question--there was no handsome expression of regret on the discovery of
the real culprit. What Harold had felt was not so much the
imprisonment--indeed, he had very soon escaped by the window, with
assistance from his allies, and had only gone back in time for his
release--as the Olympian habit. A word would have set all right; but of
course that word was never spoken.

Well! The Olympians are all past and gone. Somehow the sun does not seem
to shine so brightly as it used; the trackless meadows of old time have
shrunk and dwindled away to a few poor acres. A saddening doubt, a dull
suspicion, creeps over me. _Et in Arcadia ego_--I certainly did once
inhabit Arcady. Can it be that I also have become an Olympian?

[Illustration]




A HOLIDAY


THE masterful wind was up and out, shouting and chasing, the lord of the
morning. Poplars swayed and tossed with a roaring swish; dead leaves
sprang aloft, and whirled into space; and all the clear-swept heaven
seemed to thrill with sound like a great harp. It was one of the first
awakenings of the year. The earth stretched herself, smiling in her
sleep; and everything leapt and pulsed to the stir of the giant's
movement. With us it was a whole holiday; the occasion a birthday--it
matters not whose. Some one of us had had presents, and pretty
conventional speeches, and had glowed with that sense of heroism which
is no less sweet that nothing has been done to deserve it. But the
holiday was for all, the rapture of awakening Nature for all, the
various outdoor joys of puddles and sun and hedge-breaking for all.
Colt-like I ran through the meadows, frisking happy heels in the face of
Nature laughing responsive. Above, the sky was bluest of the blue; wide
pools left by the winter's floods flashed the colour back, true and
brilliant; and the soft air thrilled with the germinating touch that
seems to kindle something in my own small person as well as in the rash
primrose already lurking in sheltered haunts. Out into the brimming
sun-bathed world I sped, free of lessons, free of discipline and
correction, for one day at least. My legs ran of themselves, and though
I heard my name called faint and shrill behind, there was no stopping
for me. It was only Harold, I concluded, and his legs, though shorter
than mine, were good for a longer spurt than this. Then I heard it
called again, but this time more faintly, with a pathetic break in the
middle; and I pulled up short, recognising Charlotte's plaintive note.

[Illustration: '_Out into the brimming sun-bathed world I sped_']

She panted up anon, and dropped on the turf beside me. Neither had any
desire for talk; the glow and the glory of existing on this perfect
morning were satisfaction full and sufficient.

'Where's Harold?' I asked presently.

'Oh, he's just playin' muffin-man, as usual,' said Charlotte with
petulance. 'Fancy wanting to be a muffin-man on a whole holiday!'

It was a strange craze, certainly; but Harold, who invented his own
games and played them without assistance, always stuck staunchly to a
new fad, till he had worn it quite out. Just at present he was a
muffin-man, and day and night he went through passages and up and down
staircases, ringing a noiseless bell and offering phantom muffins to
invisible wayfarers. It sounds a poor sort of sport; and yet--to pass
along busy streets of your own building, for ever ringing an imaginary
bell and offering airy muffins of your own make to a bustling thronging
crowd of your own creation--there were points about the game, it cannot
be denied, though it seemed scarce in harmony with this radiant
wind-swept morning!

'And Edward, where is he?' I questioned again.

'He's coming along by the road,' said Charlotte. 'He'll be crouching in
the ditch when we get there, and he's going to be a grizzly bear and
spring out on us, only you mustn't say I told you, 'cos it's to be a
surprise.'

'All right,' I said magnanimously. 'Come on and let's be surprised.' But
I could not help feeling that on this day of days even a grizzly felt
misplaced and common.

Sure enough an undeniable bear sprang out on us as we dropped into the
road; then ensued shrieks, growlings, revolver-shots, and unrecorded
heroisms, till Edward condescended at last to roll over and die, bulking
large and grim, an unmitigated grizzly. It was an understood thing, that
whoever took upon himself to be a bear must eventually die, sooner or
later, even if he were the eldest born; else, life would have been all
strife and carnage, and the Age of Acorns have displaced our hard-won
civilisation. This little affair concluded with satisfaction to all
parties concerned, we rambled along the road, picking up the defaulting
Harold by the way, muffinless now and in his right and social mind.

'What would you do?' asked Charlotte presently--the book of the moment
always dominating her thoughts until it was sucked dry and cast
aside,--'What would you do if you saw two lions in the road, one on each
side, and you didn't know if they was loose or if they was chained up?'

'Do?' shouted Edward valiantly, 'I should--I should--I should--' His
boastful accents died away into a mumble: 'Dunno what I should do.'

'Shouldn't do anything,' I observed after consideration; and, really, it
would be difficult to arrive at a wiser conclusion.

'If it came to _doing_,' remarked Harold reflectively, 'the lions would
do all the doing there was to do, wouldn't they?'

'But if they was _good_ lions,' rejoined Charlotte, 'they would do as
they would be done by.'

'Ah, but how are you to know a good lion from a bad one?' said Edward.
'The books don't tell you at all, and the lions ain't marked any
different.'

'Why, there aren't any good lions,' said Harold hastily.

'O yes, there are, heaps and heaps,' contradicted Edward. 'Nearly all
the lions in the story-books are good lions. There was Androcles' lion,
and St. Jerome's lion, and--and--and the Lion and the Unicorn----'

'He beat the Unicorn,' observed Harold dubiously, 'all round the town.'

'That _proves_ he was a good lion,' cried Edward triumphantly. 'But the
question is, how are you to tell 'em when you see 'em?'

'_I_ should ask Martha,' said Harold of the simple creed.

Edward snorted contemptuously, then turned to Charlotte. 'Look here,' he
said; 'let's play at lions, anyhow, and I'll run on to that corner and
be a lion,--I'll be two lions, one on each side of the road,--and you'll
come along, and you won't know whether I'm chained up or not, and
that'll be the fun!'

'No, thank you,' said Charlotte firmly; 'you'll be chained up till I'm
quite close to you, and then you'll be loose, and you'll tear me in
pieces, and make my frock all dirty, and p'raps you'll hurt me as well.
_I_ know your lions!'

'No, I won't, I swear I won't,' protested Edward. 'I'll be quite a new
lion this time--something you can't even imagine.' And he raced off to
his post. Charlotte hesitated--then she went timidly on, at each step
growing less Charlotte, the mummer of a minute, and more the anxious
Pilgrim of all time. The lion's