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[Illustration: _The Man who could talk with the Birds_]




DROLLS

FROM SHADOWLAND

BY

J. H. PEARCE

_Author of "Esther Pentreath," "Inconsequent Lives," "Jaco Treloar,"
&c._

        NEW YORK
        MACMILLAN AND CO.
        1893.

_All rights reserved._




CONTENTS.

                                          PAGE

  THE MAN WHO COINED HIS BLOOD INTO GOLD     1

  AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY                     15

  THE MAN WHO COULD TALK WITH THE BIRDS     27

  THE PURSUIT                               39

  A PLEASANT ENTERTAINMENT                  49

  THE MAN WHO DESIRED TO BE A TREE          61

  THE MAN WHO HAD SEEN                      73

  THE UNCHRISTENED CHILD                    85

  THE MAN WHO MET HATE                      95

  THE HAUNTED HOUSE                        109

  GIFTS AND AWARDS                         119

  FRIEND OR FOE?                           133

  THE FIELDS OF AMARANTH                   145

  THE COMEDY OF A SOUL                     155





THE MAN WHO COINED HIS BLOOD INTO GOLD.


THE yoke of Poverty galled him exceedingly, and he hated his
taskmistress with a most rancorous hatred.

As he climbed up or down the dripping ladders, descending from sollar to
sollar towards the level where he worked, he would set his teeth grimly
that he might not curse aloud--an oath underground being an invitation
to the Evil One--but in his heart the muffled curses were audible
enough. And when he was at work in the dreary level, with the darkness
lying on his shoulder like a hand, and the candles shining unsteadily
through the gloom, like little evil winking eyes, he brooded so moodily
over his bondage to Poverty, that he desired to break from it at any
cost.

"I'd risk a lem for its weight in gowld: darned ef I wedn'!" he muttered
savagely, as he dug at the stubborn rock with his pick.

He could hear the sounds of blasting in other levels--the explosions
travelling to him in a muffled boom--and above him, for he was working
beneath the bed of the ocean, he could faintly distinguish the grinding
of the sea as the huge waves wallowed and roared across the beach.

"I'm sick to death o' this here life," he grumbled; "I'd give a haand or
a' eye for a pot o' suvrins. Iss, I'd risk more than that," he added
darkly: letting the words ooze out as if under his breath.

At that moment his pick detached a piece of rock which came crashing
down on the floor of the level, splintering into great jagged fragments
as it fell.

He started back with an exclamation of uncontrollable surprise. The
falling rock had disclosed the interior of a cavern whose outlines were
lost in impenetrable gloom, but which here and there in a vague fashion,
as it caught the light of the candle flickering in his hat, seemed to
sparkle as if its walls were crusted with silver.

"Lor' Jimmeny, this es bra' an' queer!" he gasped.

As he leaned on his pick, peering into the cavern with covetous eyes,
but with a wildly-leaping heart, he was aware of an odd movement among
the shadows which were elusively outlined by the light of his dip.

It was almost as though some of them had an independent individuality,
and could have detached themselves from their roots if they wished.

It was certain a squat, hump-backed blotch, that was sprawling blackly
beside a misshapen block, was either wriggling on the floor as if trying
to stand upright... or else there was something wrong with his eyes.

He stared at the wavering gloom in the cavern, with its quaint, angular
splashes of glister, where heads of quartz and patches of mundic caught
the light from the unsteady flame of the candle, and presently he was
_certain_ that the shadows were alive.

Most of all he was sure that the little hump-backed oddity had risen to
its feet and was a veritable creature: an actual uncouth, shambling
grotesque, instead of a mere flat blotch of shadow.

Up waddled the little hump-back to the hole in the wall where Joel stood
staring, leaning on his pick.

"What can I do for'ee, friend?" he asked huskily: his voice sounding
faint, hoarse, and muffled, as if it were coming from an immense
distance, or as if the squat little frame had merely borrowed it for the
nonce.

Joel stared at the speaker, with his lower jaw dropping.

"What can I do for'ee, friend?" asked the hump-back; peering at the
grimy, half-naked miner, with his little ferrety eyes glowing
luminously.

Joel moistened his lips with his tongue before he answered. "Nawthin',
plaise, sir," he gasped out, quakingly.

"Nonsense, my man!" said the hump-back pleasantly, rubbing his hands
cheerfully together as he spoke. And Joel noticed that the fingers,
though long and skinny--almost wrinkled and lean enough, in fact, to
pass for claws--were adorned with several sparkling rings. "Nonsense, my
man! I'm your friend--if you'll let me be. O never mind my hump, if it's
that that's frightening you, I got that through a fall a long while
ago," and the lean brown face puckered into a smile. "Come! In what way
can I oblige'ee, friend? I can grant you any wish you like. Say the
word--and it's done! Just think what you could do if you had heaps of
money, now--piles of suvrins in that owld chest in your bedroom,
instead o' they paltry two-an'-twenty suvrins which you now got heeded
away in the skibbet."

Joel stared at the speaker with distended eyes: the great beads of
perspiration gathering on his forehead.

"How ded'ee come to knaw they was there?" he asked.

"I knaw more than that," said the hump-back, laughing. "I could tell'ee
a thing or two, b'leeve, if I wanted to. I knaw tin,[A] cumraade, as
well as the next." And with that he began to chuckle to himself.

"Wedn'ee like they two-an'-twenty suvrins in the skibbet made a
hunderd-an'-twenty?" asked the hump-back insinuatingly.

"Iss, by Gosh, I should!" said Joel.

"Then gi'me your haand on it, cumraade; an' you shall have 'em!"

"Here goes, then!" said Joel, thrusting out his hand.

The hump-back seized the proffered hand in an instant, covering the
grimy fingers with his own lean claws.

"Oh, le'go! _le'go!_" shouted Joel.

The hump-back grinned; his black eyes glittering.

"I waan't be niggardly to'ee, cumraade," said he. "Every drop o' blood
you choose to shed for the purpose shall turn into a golden suvrin
for'ee--there!"

"Darn'ee! thee ben an' run thy nails in me--see!"

And Joel shewed a drop of blood oozing from his wrist.

"Try the charm, man! Wish! Hold un out, an' say, _Wan_!"

Joel held out his punctured wrist mechanically.

"Wan!"

There was a sudden gleam--and down dropped a sovereign: a bright gold
coin that rang sharply as it fell.

"Try agen!" said the hump-back, grinning delightedly.

Joel stooped first to pick up the coin, and bit it eagerly.

"Ay, good Gosh! 'tes gowld, sure 'nuff!"

"Try agen!" said the hump-back "Make up a pile!"

Joel held out his wrist and repeated the formula.

"Wan!"

And another coin clinked at his feet.

"I needn' wait no longer, s'pose?" said the hump-back.

"Wan!" cried Joel. And a third coin dropped.

He leaned on his pick and kept coining his blood eagerly, till presently
there was quite a little pile at his feet.

The hump-back watched him intently for a time: but Joel appeared to be
oblivious of his presence; and the squat little figure stealthily
disappeared.

The falling coins kept chiming melodiously, till presently the great
stalwart miner had to lean against the wall of the level to support
himself. So tired as he was, he had never felt before. But give over his
task he either could not, or would not. The chink of the gold-pieces he
must hear if he died for it. He looked down at them greedily. "Wan!...
Wan!... Wan!..."

Presently he tottered, and fell over on his heap.

At that same moment the halting little hump-back stole out from the
shadows immediately behind him, and leaned over Joel, rubbing his hands
gleefully.

"I must catch his soul," said the little black man.

And with that he turned Joel's head round sharply, and held his hand to
the dying man's mouth.

Just then there fluttered up to Joel's lips a tiny yellow flame, which,
for some reason or other, seemed as agitated as if it had a human
consciousness. One might almost have imagined it perceived the little
hump-back, and knew full well who and what he was.

But there on Joel's lips the flame hung quivering. And now a deeper
shadow fell upon his face.

Surely the tiny thing shuddered with horror as the hump-back's black
paws closed upon it!

But, in any case, it now was safely prisoned. And the little black man
laughed long and loudly.

"Not so bad a bargain after all!" chuckled he.

FOOTNOTE:

[A] To "_knaw tin_" is among the miners of Cornwall a sign of, and a
colloquial euphemism for, _cleverness_.




AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY.


THE performance was over: the curtain had descended and the spectators
had dispersed.

There had been a slight crush at the doors of the theatre, and what with
the abrupt change from the pleasant warmth and light of the interior to
the sharp chill of the night outside, Preston shivered, and a sudden
weakness smote him at the joints.

The crowd on the pavement in front of the theatre melted away with
unexampled rapidity, in fact, seemed almost to waver and disappear as
if the _mise en scene_ had changed in some inexplicable way.

A hansom drove up, and Preston stepped into it heavily, glancing
drowsily askance at the driver as he did so.

Seated up there, barely visible in the gloom, the driver had an almost
grisly aspect, humped with waterproof capes, and with such a lean, white
face. Preston, as he glanced at him, shivered again.

The trap-door above him opened softly, and the colourless face peered
down at him curiously.

"Where to, sir?" asked the hollow voice.

Preston leaned back wearily. "Home," he replied.

It did not strike him as anything strange or unusual, that the driver
asked no questions but drove off without a word. He was very weary, and
he wanted to rest.

The sleepless hum of the city was abidingly in his ears, and the lamps
that dotted the misty pavements stared at him blinkingly all along the
route. The tall black buildings rose up grimly into the night; the faces
that flitted to and fro along the pavements, kept ever sliding past him,
melting into the darkness; and the cabs and 'buses, still astir in the
streets, had a ghostly air as they vanished in the gloom.

Preston lay back, weary in every joint, a drowsy numbness settling on
his pulse. He had faith in his driver: he would bring him safely home.

Presently they were at one of the wharves beside the river: Preston
could hear the gurgle of the water around the piles.

Not this way had he ever before gone homeward. He looked out musingly on
the