



Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
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                         _By the same Author._

                           A LITTLE PILGRIM:

                            In the Unseen.

                          Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.

                      MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON.




                         THE LAND OF DARKNESS

                       [Illustration: colophon]




                                  THE

                           LAND OF DARKNESS

                            ALONG WITH SOME

                  FURTHER CHAPTERS IN THE EXPERIENCES

                                  OF

                          THE LITTLE PILGRIM

                                London

                           MACMILLAN AND CO.

                             AND NEW YORK
                                 1888

                         _All rights reserved_




CONTENTS


                                              PAGE

THE LAND OF DARKNESS                             1

THE LITTLE PILGRIM                             127

ON THE DARK MOUNTAINS                          177




I

THE LAND OF DARKNESS


I found myself standing on my feet, with the tingling sensation of
having come down rapidly upon the ground from a height. There was a
similar feeling in my head, as of the whirling and sickening sensation
of passing downward through the air, like the description Dante gives of
his descent upon Geryon. My mind, curiously enough, was sufficiently
disengaged to think of that, or at least to allow swift passage for the
recollection through my thoughts. All the aching of wonder, doubt, and
fear which I had been conscious of a little while before was gone. There
was no distinct interval between the one condition and the other, nor
in my fall (as I supposed it must have been) had I any consciousness of
change. There was the whirling of the air, resisting my passage, yet
giving way under me in giddy circles, and then the sharp shock of once
more feeling under my feet something solid, which struck yet sustained.
After a little while the giddiness above and the tingling below passed
away, and I felt able to look about me and discern where I was. But not
all at once: the things immediately about me impressed me first--then
the general aspect of the new place.

First of all the light, which was lurid, as if a thunderstorm were
coming on. I looked up involuntarily to see if it had begun to rain; but
there was nothing of the kind, though what I saw above me was a lowering
canopy of cloud, dark, threatening, with a faint reddish tint diffused
upon the vaporous darkness. It was, however, quite sufficiently clear to
see everything, and there was a good deal to see. I was in a street of
what seemed a great and very populous place. There were shops on either
side, full apparently of all sorts of costly wares. There was a
continual current of passengers up and down on both sides of the way,
and in the middle of the street carriages of every description, humble
and splendid. The noise was great and ceaseless, the traffic continual.
Some of the shops were most brilliantly lighted, attracting one’s eyes
in the sombre light outside, which, however, had just enough of day in
it to make these spots of illumination look sickly; most of the places
thus distinguished were apparently bright with the electric or some
other scientific light; and delicate machines of every description,
brought to the greatest perfection, were in some windows, as were also
many fine productions of art, but mingled with the gaudiest and coarsest
in a way which struck me with astonishment. I was also much surprised by
the fact that the traffic, which was never stilled for a moment, seemed
to have no sort of regulation. Some carriages dashed along, upsetting
the smaller vehicles in their way, without the least restraint or order,
either, as it seemed, from their own good sense, or from the laws and
customs of the place. When an accident happened, there was a great
shouting, and sometimes a furious encounter--but nobody seemed to
interfere. This was the first impression made upon me. The passengers on
the pavement were equally regardless. I was myself pushed out of the
way, first to one side, then to another, hustled when I paused for a
moment, trodden upon and driven about. I retreated soon to the doorway
of a shop, from whence with a little more safety I could see what was
going on. The noise made my head ring. It seemed to me that I could not
hear myself think. If this were to go on for ever, I said to myself, I
should soon go mad.

‘Oh no,’ said some one behind me, ‘not at all; you will get used to it;
you will be glad of it. One does not want to hear one’s thoughts; most
of them are not worth hearing.’

I turned round and saw it was the master of the shop, who had come to
the door on seeing me. He had the usual smile of a man who hoped to sell
his wares; but to my horror and astonishment, by some process which I
could not understand, I saw that he was saying to himself, ‘What a d----
d fool! here’s another of those cursed wretches, d---- him!’ all with
the same smile. I started back, and answered him as hotly, ‘What do you
mean by calling me a d----d fool?--fool yourself, and all the rest of
it. Is this the way you receive strangers here?’

‘Yes,’ he said, with the same smile, ‘this is the way; and I only
describe you as you are, as you will soon see. Will you walk in and look
over my shop? Perhaps you will find something to suit you if you are
just setting up, as I suppose.’

I looked at him closely, but this time I could not see that he was
saying anything beyond what was expressed by his lips, and I followed
him into the shop, principally because it was quieter than the street,
and without any intention of buying--for what should I buy in a strange
place where I had no settled habitation, and which probably I was only
passing through?

‘I will look at your things,’ I said, in a way which I believe I had, of
perhaps undue pretension. I had never been over-rich, or of very
elevated station; but I was believed by my friends (or enemies) to have
an inclination to make myself out something more important than I was.
‘I will look at your things, and possibly I may find something that may
suit me; but with all the _ateliers_ of Paris and London to draw from,
it is scarcely to be expected that in a place like this----’

Here I stopped to draw my breath, with a good deal of confusion; for I
was unwilling to let him see that I did not know where I was.

‘A place like this,’ said the shopkeeper, with a little laugh which
seemed to me full of mockery, ‘will supply you better, you will find,
than--any other place. At least you will find it the only place
practicable,’ he added. ‘I perceive you are a stranger here.’

‘Well--I may allow myself to be so--more or less. I have not had time to
form much acquaintance with--the place: what--do you call the
place?--its formal name, I mean,’ I said, with a great desire to keep up
the air of superior information. Except for the first moment I had not
experienced that strange power of looking into the man below the surface
which had frightened me. Now there occurred another gleam of insight,
which gave me once more a sensation of alarm. I seemed to see a light of
hatred and contempt below his smile, and I felt that he was not in the
least taken in by the air which I assumed.

‘The name of the place,’ he said, ‘is not a pretty one. I hear the
gentlemen who come to my shop say that it is not to be named to ears
polite; and I am sure your ears are very polite.’ He said this with the
most offensive laugh, and I turned upon him and answered him, without
mincing matters, with a plainness of speech which startled myself, but
did not seem to move him, for he only laughed again. ‘Are you not
afraid,’ I said, ‘that I will leave your shop and never enter it more?’

‘Oh, it helps to pass the time,’ he said; and without any further
comment began to show me very elaborate and fine articles of furniture.
I had always been attracted to this sort of thing, and had longed to buy
such articles for my house when I had one, but never had it in my power.
Now I had no house, nor any means of paying so far as I knew, but I felt
quite at my ease about buying, and inquired into the prices with the
greatest composure.

‘They are just the sort of thing I want. I will take these, I think;
but you must set them aside for me, for I do not at the present moment
exactly know----’

‘You mean you have got no rooms to put them in,’ said the master of the
shop. ‘You must get a house directly, that’s all. If you’re only up to
it, it is easy enough. Look about until you find something you like, and
then--take possession.’

‘Take possession’--I was so much surprised that I stared at him with
mingled indignation and surprise--‘of what belongs to another man?’ I
said.

I was not conscious of anything ridiculous in my look. I was indignant,
which is not a state of mind in which there is any absurdity; but the
shopkeeper suddenly burst into a storm of laughter. He laughed till he
seemed almost to fall into convulsions, with a harsh mirth which
reminded me of the old image of the crackling of thorns, and had neither
amusement nor warmth in it; and presently this was echoed all around,
and looking up, I saw grinning faces full of derision, bent upon me
from every side, from the stairs which led to the upper part of the
house and from the depths of the shop behind--faces with pens behind
their ears, faces in workmen’s caps, all distended from ear to ear, with
a sneer and a mock and a rage of laughter which nearly sent me mad. I
hurled I don’t know what imprecations at them as I rushed out, stopping
my ears in a paroxysm of fury and mortification. My mind was so
distracted by this occurrence that I rushed without knowing it upon some
one who was passing, and threw him down with the violence of my exit;
upon which I was set on by a party of half a dozen ruffians, apparently
his companions, who would, I thought, kill me, but who only flung me,
wounded, bleeding, and feeling as if every bone in my body had been
broken, down on the pavement--when they went away, laughing too.

I picked myself up from the edge of the causeway, aching and sore from
head to foot, scarcely able to move, yet conscious that if I did not get
myself out of the way one or other of the vehicles which were dashing
along would run over me. It would be impossible to describe the
miserable sensations, both of body and mind, with which I dragged myself
across the crowded pavement, not without curses and even kicks from the
passers-by; and, avoiding the shop from which I still heard those
shrieks of devilish laughter, gathered myself up in the shelter of a
little projection of a wall, where I was for the moment safe. The pain
which I felt was as nothing to the sense of humiliation, the
mortification, the rage with which I was possessed. There is nothing in
existence more dreadful than rage which is impotent, which cannot punish
or avenge, which has to restrain itself and put up with insults showered
upon it. I had never known before what that helpless, hideous
exasperation was; and I was humiliated beyond description, brought
down--I, whose inclination it was to make more of myself than was
justifiable--to the aspect of a miserable ruffian beaten in a brawl,
soiled, covered with mud and dust, my clothes torn, my face bruised and
disfigured: all this within half an hour or thereabout of my arrival in
a strange place where nobody knew me or could do me justice! I kept
looking out feverishly for some one with an air of authority to whom I
could appeal. Sooner or later somebody must go by, who, seeing me in
such a plight, must inquire how it came about, must help me and
vindicate me. I sat there for I cannot tell how long, expecting every
moment that, were it but a policeman, somebody would notice and help me.
But no one came. Crowds seemed to sweep by without a pause--all
hurrying, restless: some with anxious faces, as if any delay would be
mortal; some in noisy groups intercepting the passage of the others.
Sometimes one would pause to point me out to his comrades, with a shout
of derision at my miserable plight; or if by a change of posture I got
outside the protection of my wall, would kick me back with a coarse
injunction to keep out of the way. No one was sorry for me--not a