Vol. VI No. 1 - Modernist Magazines Project

THE BERMONDSEY BOOK
from the audience , it swelled to a roar as they called his name and
louder still as there came no response.
"Let him dance to-morrow night!" The ladies cried, and the men
shouted "Encore! At last the Weaver has given us something newj let's
see him again."
But the little dwarf did not appear. When they went to look for
him he was nowhere to be found. The Weaver had left the hostel too,
but to his disappearances, so rapid and so unexpected, they had grown
accustomed. In vain they searched the main streets and the alleys, the
houses and even the steeple tower—hollo how they might, their
plaything had eluded them.
Out into the night, dazed and amazed, he rushed, away from the
laughing throng, from the shouts of applause and the clapping of
hands. Another moment and it had seemed as if the very walls would
fall upon him and stifle him. His silk coat was wet with the perspiration
of his terror, the lace at his throat choked him and his feathered hat
weighed as heavy as lead. Only to escape, be free once more to wander
at will and call the little bit of him that was his soul his own! Where
was the forest now, his doublet and hose and the ever-merry bells?
He must find the high-roads and go back to them. The Stranger had
lied j he was very, very miserable.
Running blindly, he knew not whither, he came upon the gates of the
City and beyond them the road gleamed white and straight. Like a
shadow of the night, he crept unnoticed past the f ortressed walls to take
the path that led him, as by instinct, to the well-remembered haunts.
Until the dawn he trudged, nor stopped for bite or sup upon the way.
As the first pale streaks of light lit the eastern sky the dark lines of the
forest loomed upon his left and with a weary sigh he sank upon the
grass by the roadside to wait half-waking, half-sleeping, till the sun
had risen red behind the trees.
As the warm rays shone down in silver shafts upon thesleepingearth,
the little dwarf rose, feeling strangely old and sad, and made his way to
where, in the heart of the forest, the gloom was deepest and the peace
was whitest. In days gone by he had sat here, listening to the secrets the
wind told the leaves, or blowing the hours away in down from a dande-
92