Title: The Flying Yorkshireman (1942)
       And nine other stories about Sam Small
Author: Eric Knight
* A Project Gutenberg Australia eBook *
eBook No.: 0800581.txt
Language:  English
Date first posted: June 2008
Date most recently updated: June 2008

This eBook was produced by: Jon Richfield

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Title: The Flying Yorkshireman (1942)
       And nine other stories about Sam Small
Author: Eric Knight


* * * * *

TO


Bob Clarke, Sam Schwab, Charlie Kapnic,
Harry Parsons, Curly Wolfe, Harry Nason,
Roy Wolfe, Hal Borland, Jack Flynn,
Warren Cawley, James O. G. Duffy

All good American newspapermen
who at some time or other sweated
over the job of trying to make me
write readable English

THIS BOOK
IS DEDICATED

* * * * *

CONTENTS

Scanner's notes
AUTHOR'S NOTE
All Yankees Are Liars
Strong In The Arms
Sam Small's Better Half
The Flying Yorkshireman
Sam Small's Tyke
Never Come Monday
Cockles For Tea
Mary Ann and The Duke
Constable Sam and the Ugly Tyke
The Truth About Rudolf Hess

* * * * *

SCANNER'S NOTES

Eric Knight was well known in my youth as the author of "Lassie Come
Home," which as it happens I have not read at the time of writing this.
It seems to be largely forgotten, though it was the basis of the "Lassie"
films, of which many were produced in the mid-to late 20th century. I
have never seen any of those and have little wish to see one; they all
seem to have been Hollywood monstrosities featuring Scotch collie males,
apparently calculated to induce a general coughing up of furballs, even
among non-pedants.

The first time I read "The Flying Yorkshireman" I was still a schoolboy
and I expected to pay dearly for re-reading kids' stuff. I owe Eric
Knight an apology; he was a far better teller of tales than I had
realised or remembered; far from perfect, but deserving of being
remembered. And his stories are well worth being read.

His spelling and a few other details are not consistent, but I avoided
avoidable editing; it is risky to meddle with anyone's rendering of
regional dialect. I recommend that the reader enjoy the stories for what
they are, and learn something about the times and places in which they
were set. I found them rewarding at several levels. And don't miss the
author's note.

Enjoy,

Jon Richfield 2008

* * * * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE

This saga of the life and times of Sam Small and his mates was mostly
written when the world was a happier place. Bits of it were published in
big and little magazines in England, the United States, Canada, and
Australia. These bits were written--or rather they made themselves up--at
various times and places; mostly when I was very homesick or feeling low
or hopeless and wanted to cheer myself up.

When a man has little else to rely on, I think he falls back on his blood
and background. And so, curiously enough, nearly all of these stories
were written five and six thousand miles away from my native Yorkshire.
It was mostly being homesick, I think.

I like to feel that these stories are original with me, but to be
truthful they were created by my blood and background. For they are just
the same kind of stories that Yorkshire people have made up to tell for
who knows how many generations.

The Yorkshire people, as you may gather from these tales, are a very
wonderful lot. (So are Texans and Nova Scotians and so on--but I'm
Yorkshire.) Yorkshire people are truly full of fine, strong virtues. Life
is often hard for them, so they cling to those virtues--courage,
patience, truth, sticking it out as best you may--and they pass them on
to their children by example and precept--and by story.

When I was young they told me a lot of stories about Sam Small. He was
fabulous--the epitome of all that was Yorkshire. He was a folk tale.

You may notice that Sam's character is quite flexible. Sometimes he is
just an ordinary mortal, limited by human abilities--and then suddenly
sometimes he seems godlike, like a dream come true. Don't let that worry
you. Fiction is just dreaming out loud, that's all. Tangle-wood Tales,
John Henry, Paul Bunyan, Superman, Sam Small--they're all the
subconscious desire of man to be nearer the angels. And Sam could do
anything in my childhood.

One day I had my first bad toothache. (We didn't go to a dentist, I don't
think there was one for miles around. ) My aunt said: "We'll rub it with
a bit o' laudanum, lad--and if tha just bides patient it'll go away."

While I bided, she told me the story about Sam Small training his
frightened pup--trying to make it into a real, fighting Yorkshire kind of
dog. He teased it so much that in desperation it bit his nose one night,
and what is more, it held on. His friend, hearing the row, came in, and
Sam roared for him to pry the dog loose.

"Nay, Sam," said the friend. "Bide it, lad, for it'll be t' makin' o' t'
pup."

You might try this story on yourself as alleviation for your next
toothache. But it's the Yorkshire way, a typical example: biding what
fate brings in undying faith that if you stick it out, there'll be better
times to come.

I suppose it was all that, the ineradicable influences during childhood,
that made up these stories. Wherever I was--under palms and blue-gum
trees in California, or looking down on the Hudson Valley where the
thunderstorms come booming along, or cooped up in some apartment in a
city, or farming in the red hills of Pennsylvania--these stories would
evolve and I'd hang them on Sam Small.

It is curious, I never made up any of them in England.

Some of them may be fantasy, and some not. I think they are just
"telling" stories, and so may not have much point or moral or sense or
continuity. In fact, I told most of these stories before I wrote them.
Sometimes they even got told three or four times before they were
written, and they'd get twisted and changed in some spots.

That's good for a story, because you try it on the dog. The parts that
don't go, or perhaps drag a bit, or that go over very well--you note all
those and adjust the story each time. You add new and funny bits at
points. The dialogue gets all straightened out.

It's a good way to build a story--you can always go on getting it more
and more nearly perfect. But the big thing is, you've got to get it down
on paper sometime. That's a hard job, because in a way the tale is dead
then. It can't grow and flower and change any more. It is over, done
with, fixed permanently.

But you've got to get them down some day and have done with them. That's
the sad part. Probably the finest stories ever made up by writers weren't
put down, and died with them.

In a way, to be born in print is a story's death. Telling them, in the
old Yorkshire way, by word of mouth, made them live much longer.

ERIC KNIGHT
Atlantic City, N. J. October, 1941

* * * * *



ADVENTURE ONE

All Yankees Are Liars


You can always tell the Irish,
You can always tell the Dutch.
You can always tell a Yankee;
But you cannot tell him much.


Mr. Smith was pleased with The Spread Eagle. He was pleased with
Polkingthorpe Brig. The village was off the beaten track--the truly rural
sort of English village the American always wants to see.

The inn was low and rambling, with great sloping roofs. Over the door
swung the sign--a darksome bird in a weather-beaten setting.

Everything justified his decision to take this bicycle trip up into the
north--the mullioned windows, the roaring fire, the Yorkshire accents of
the men who shuffled over the sanded stone floor of the low-ceilinged
room as they played darts. Mr. Smith was almost beginning to understand
what they were talking about. During his excellent high tea he had sorted
out the four men playing darts. One was Saw Cooper, a farmer; a small old
man was referred to as Sam; a young, bright-faced lad who played darts
left-handed was Gollicker Pearson; and the fourth, a huge man, was just
called Ian.

Mr. Smith watched them play, listening to the endless thwock of the darts
in the cork board as he finished his meal. The barmaid, plump,
corn-haired, came toward him, her apron rustling stiffly.

"Would there be owt else?"

"No. It was a very good meal." Mr. Smith smiled. He wanted to make the
girl talk some more. "Er--what do they do for fun in this place of an
evening?"

"Foon?" she repeated. "Well, they sit here--or o' Sat'day neights lots o'
fowk goa ovver to Wuxley to t' pictures." She waited. "They gate Boock
D'Arcy i' T' Singing Cowboy," she added suggestively.

Mr. Smith had already become acquainted with British cinemas in small
towns. Also, he was a Southern Californian, and had that familiarity with
movies that belongs to all Southern Californians. He had no inclination
to go four miles to see a last year's Class B Western. "No, I think I'll
have another ale and sit here," he said.

"If tha'll sit ovver by t' fire, Ah'll bring it to thee theer. Then Ah
can clean oop here."

Mr. Smith sat on the bench by the generous fire and nursed his ale. The
dart game came to an end with Saw Cooper losing and paying for the round.
The men brought their mugs to the fire. Mr. Smith--shifted politely. The
men, in the presence of a stranger, grew quiet. Mr. Smith decided to put
them at ease.

"Pretty chilly for an October evening, isn't it?" The men considered the
remark, as if looking at both sides of it. Finally Saw Cooper spoke.

"Aye," he said.

The others nodded. There was silence, and the five regarded the fire.
Then, suddenly, young Gollicker smiled.

"Tha shouldn't heed t' coved, being a Yankee," he said.

"Ah, but I'm not a Yankee," Mr. Smith said. They stared at him in
disbelief.

"Yankees," explained Air. Smith, "come from New England."

They looked from Air. Smith to one another. The big man named Ian took a
deep breath.

"Yankees," he said, "coom fro' t' United States."

"Well, yes. New England is a part of the United States," Mr. Smith said.
"But it's thousands of miles away from where I live. In fact, believe it
or not, I should think you're closer to the Yankees than I am. You see,
the United States is a big country. In the part where the Yankees come
from, it gets very cold in the winter. Where I am--in Southern
California--it never snows. Why, I've never known it to snow there in all
my life."

"No snow?" Gollicker breathed.

Mr. Smith smiled. For, after all, he was a Southern Californian--and they
were discussing climate. "No snow," he said. "In wintertime we have a bit
of a rainy season, but after February it clears, and then it doesn't even
rain for nine months--not a drop."

"Noa rain for a nine month--noan at all?" Saw Cooper asked.

"Not a drop. Day after day, the sun comes out, clear skies, never a drop
of rain for nine months. Never!"

"Whet do ye graw theer, lad?" Saw asked, slyly.

"Lots of things. Truck, vegetables, oranges--all kinds of things."

There was a silence again. Big Ian took a breath. "Orinjis," he said, and
then took another breath, "graw i' Spain."

He looked at Mr. Smith so emphatically that Mr. Smith nodded.

"Oh, yes," he said. "They grow in Spain, too, I understand."

"Orinjis," Ian repeated, "graw i' Spain."

That seemed to settle the question. They all looked in the fire in
silence. Saw Cooper sniffed.

"Whet else graws theer?"

"Well, I have a ranch there; we grow alfalfa."

"Whet's that off to be?"

"Alfalfa? We use it for hay. It's a desert plant originally, but it
thrives in California. We get eight cuttings a year."

"Eight cuttings o' hay a year?"

"Eight cuttings a year."

The little man, Sam, spoke for the first time: "Mister, if it doan't rain
for a nine month, how can ye get eight cuttings o' hay a year?"

"Oh, that's easy," Mr. Smith said. "We irrigate the land." He went into a
short but conclusive description of irrigating.

"Heh," Saw Cooper said. "Wheer's this here watter coom fro'?"

"In the San Fernando Valley we buy it from the water company, just like
you do in your homes."

"Wheer do they get it?"

"From reservoirs."

"If it doan't rain, where's t' reservoys get t' watter?"

"Oh, we pipe it down from five hundred miles north. It rains a lot up
there."

"And ye sprinkle t' farming land out o' t' watter tap. How mony acres
hesta?"

"It isn't like sprinkling from the tap, of course. I used that to
illustrate. The pipes are large--we have fourteen-inch valves on our
pipes. We flood the land--cover it right over with water."

Saw looked in the fire. "Does corn graw theer?

"Well, generally our land is too valuable to put into corn. But it will
grow corn fourteen feet high."

They made noises in their throats and shifted their feet.

"Fohteen foot," Saw breathed. "Eigh, ba gum!"

"Mister," Sam said, "once Ah were oop to see t' Firth o' Forth brig. Ah
suppose they hev bigger brigs i' Yankeeland?"

Mr. Smith should have touched on the new Oakland bridge, but then, he was
a Southern Californian.

"We have bridges, but they're building vehicular tunnels under the rivers
now."

"Whet for?"

"Well, there's so much motor traffic."

"How mony moatorcars goa through 'em?"

Mr. Smith lit his pipe happily. They seemed quite interested in America.

"I couldn't say. The way they turn 'em out, I should say there's hundreds
of thousands."

"How fast do they turn 'em out?" Gollicker asked. "I don't know. I think
they roll out finished at the rate of one every couple of minutes."

"And they goa i' tunnels, not i' brigs?" Sam commented.

"Oh, we have some bridges."

"Big uns, Ah suppose."

"Well," Mr. Smith said modestly, thinking of the Pulaski Skyway coming
into New York, "we have some that go right over entire towns. You're
practically on one bridge for miles."

Saw Cooper spat in the fire. "How mony fowk is there in all America?"

Mr. Smith didn't know, but he felt expansive. And after all, there was
South America too.

"A quarter of a billion, I should say," he hazarded.

"A quarter of a billion," they repeated. Then they stared at Mr. Smith,
and he became aware of their disbelief.

"Wait a moment," he said. "I think a billion is different in America from
here. It's a thousand million in America and a million million here,
isn't it?"

"A billion," said Ian slowly, "is a billion."

The others nodded, and then Ian stood. The others rose too.

"Oh--er--wait a minute. Won't you all have a drink with me?" Mr. Smith
invited.

"Us is off to play darts for a round--us four," Ian said, meaningly.

The other three laughed.

"Ah knew them theer brigs o' thine'd hev to be big," Saw Cooper said as a
parting shot as he swung over the bench. "That's so's they'd be able to
goa ovver wheat what graws fohteen foot high when ye sprinkle it fro' t'
watter tap."

He grinned at the others in victory.

"I didn't say wheat; I said corn," Mr. Smith protested.

"Same thing," Saw snapped.

"It isn't. Wheat grows in an ear. Corn grows on a cob; it has broad long
leaves."

"Heh! That's maize," Saw said.

Big Ian stepped between Saw Cooper and Mr. Smith.

"Now, lad," he said flatly, "tha said corn, and Ah heeard thee. Thee and
thy orinjis, and farming out o' t' watter tap, and brigs ovver cities,
and it nivver rains, and denying th' art a Yankee, and a billion is a
billion and yet it ain't. Tha's tripped thysen oop a dozen times, it
seems to me. Now, hesta owt to say?"

Mr. Smith looked at Big Ian, standing belligerently with legs widespread
and his thumbs in the waistband of his corduroy trousers. He looked round
and saw everyone in the inn waiting, silent.

Then a curious thing happened. In that minute the smell of soft-coal
smoke and pig-twist tobacco and ale was gone, and instead Mr. Smith was
smelling the mixed odor of sun-baked land and citrus blossom and jasmine
and eucalyptus trees, just as you smell it in the cool darkness coming
across the San Fernando Valley. And he was homesick. Suddenly it felt
unreal that he should be so far from home, sitting in an English inn with
these men about him. He looked up at the faces, forbidding in their
expression of disapproval. And he began to laugh.

It was all so unreal that he laughed until he cried. Every time he looked
up he saw the faces, now even more comical in their bewilderment than
they had been in their disapproval. They stared at him, and then Big Ian
began to laugh.

"Eigh, Ah'll be jiggered!" he roared. "Drat ma buttons if Ah won't!"

It was Mr. Smith's turn to be puzzled now.

Big Ian roared, and suddenly slapped Mr. Smith on the back so heartily
that his chin flew up in the air and then banged back on his chest. The
others looked on in amazement.

"Why, whet's oop, Ian?" Saw asked.

"Why, ye gowks!" Ian roared. "He's laughing at ye! He's been heving us
on! Sitting theer for an hour, keeping his mug straight and telling us
the tale! And us swallering it, thinking he was serious!"

"But," Mr. Smith said--"but you don't--"

"Nay, now no moar on it!" Ian roared. "Ye've codded us for fair, and done
it champion! Lewk at owd Sam's face!"

The others regarded Ian and scratched their heads and grinned sheepishly,
and finally looked at Mr. Smith in admiration.

"But--" Mr. Smith began again.

"Nay, now, ye copped us napping," Ian said, "and here's ma hand on it.
Soa we'll hew noa moar--onless ye'd like to tell us whet Yankeeland's
rightly like."

Mr. Smith drew a deep breath. "Well, what would you like to hear about?"

"About cowboys," young Gollicker breathed. "Werta ivver a cowboy?"

For a moment Mr. Smith stood on a brink, and then an imp pushed him over.

"Of course I've been a cowboy--naturally," Mr. Smith said. "What would
you like to hear about it?"

"Wait a minute," Gollicker said. They all adjusted themselves on the
bench. "Now," he went on, "tell us about a roundup--tha knaws. 'Ah'm
yeading for t' last roundup,' like Bing Crosby sings."

Mr. Smith held his mental breath and plunged.

"Ah," he said. "A roundup and the life of a cowboy. Up at the crack of
dawn, mates, and down to the corral. There you rope your horse--"

"A mustang?" Gollicker asked.

"A mustang," Mr. Smith agreed.

"A wild one off'n the prairies, happen?"

"Indeed a wild one from off the prairies," Mr. Smith agreed. "I see you
know America yourself."

Gollicker grinned modestly. "Doan't let me interrupt, measter," he
apologized.

Mr. Smith drew another breath. He saw he was up against at least one
expert, so he made it very good. Inwardly he thanked fate for what he had
hitherto regarded as two entirely misspent weeks on a Nevada dude ranch.
He gave them, in more senses than one, a moving picture of the cowboy's
life.

When he was done, Gollicker sighed and Big Ian nodded.

"Now," Sam said, "how about them bloody buffalo?"

"Ah, the buffalo," Mr. Smith said. "The thundering herd! The bison! For a
while there was danger--or thought to be--that the herds were dying out.
But now, I am glad to say--and no doubt you are just as glad to hear--the
herds are increasing, and ere long, again the crack of a rifle will bring
down a bull in full gallop."

"But how about them bloody Indians?" Saw put in.

Mr. Smith considered the Indians at the station in Santa Fe. They didn't
seem at all satisfactory. But he was inspired. He drew himself up.

"You will pardon me if I do not speak of that," he said. "We have not too
much love for the paleface who stole our lands. I say 'we,' for my mother
was Yellow Blanket, a princess of the Blackfoot tribe. Therefore, let us
not speak of the white man and the red man."

He stared into the fire--majestically, he hoped.

"Now, see what tha's done?" Ian said to Saw. "Happen it'll learn thee to
keep thy yapper shut once in a while...Tha maun excuse him, measter.
Tell us about gangsters instead. Didta ivver run into any gangsters?"

"Run into them? Why, how could you help it?" Mr. Smith asked.

Swiftly and graphically he painted for them an America in which here was
the town where the bullets of the gangs cracked day and night. Here was
the last street, and on it the last house, and beyond that was the
trackless prairie where the buffalo thundered, the cowboy rode and the
Indian ever lurked.

As he finished, he looked up. Everyone in the inn was listening. Men had
gathered behind him silently.

At the bar, the maid leaned on her elbows, entranced. "Ah, I talk too
much," Mr. Smith said.

"Nay, goa on, lad," they said. "Goa on."

"Well, it's dry work. How about a drink?"

"Champion," said Saw.

"Owd on," Big Ian said. "Us'll play darts for a round."

"Now, Ian, if the lad wants to buy--"

"Ah said," Ian repeated, "us'll play darts--onybody that wishes to be in
on t' round. And t' loser will pay."

Mr. Smith paid anyhow, for the dart game was trickier than he had
thought, and they all seemed to be experts.

He was getting very much better when the barmaid called: "Time,
gentlemen, please."

Mr. Smith was sorry. It had been a good evening. They all said good night
cheerfully. Big Ian shook him by the hand.

"Well, soa long, lad. We had a champion time. But Ah just want to say,
tha didn't fool me when tha were kidding us at first. Tha sees, for one
thing, us goal to t' pictures and so us knaws whet America's really like.
And then Ah'd allus heeard tell that all Yankees were liars."

"Yes," Mr. Smith said, regarding his conscience, "I did tell some lies."

"Aye, but Ah suppose it's a way ye Yankees hev," Ian said. "But it's all
right as long as tha told us t' trewth finally."



ADVENTURE TWO

Strong In The Arms


A Yorkshireman born
And a Yorkshireman bred:
Strong in the arms
But weak in the yead.


Polkingthorpe brig isn't such a big place, even as villages go; but by
gum, it can produce men.

In fact, for a place its size, as you might say, it has produced more
famous men, in a manner of speaking, than any other place in the world.

For instance it has Sam Small, who is famous the world over, as all men
know. And then it's got Ian Cawper.

Ian Cawper is really famous. He's the biggest and strongest lad in all
Yorkshire--which means, of course, all England. For everyone knows that
inch for inch and pound for pound a Yorkshireman's worth two from any
other county--especially Lancashire.

Of course, Ian's a little thick in the head; but they don't hold that
against a man much in Yorkshire. And, true, he's a fearful man to see
when he's angered; but that's very seldom. Most times Ian is pleasant
enough and affable enough. Whenever there's anything heavy needs lugging
in the village, the folk always get hold of a bairn and say: "Run up Ian
Cawper's cottage and tell him there's summat here that nob'dy but him
can do." Ian will conic down, generally carrying the bairn on his
shoulder, and after they've explained to him carefully what they want,
he'll move or lug or lift whatever it is, such as a walnut bureau or a
boulder or a cart stuck in the mud--and very pleasantly he'll do it,
too.

But there's a thing or two about Ian that fair puzzles the older people
in the village.

To come right out with it, the fact is that Ian doesn't look much like
any other Cawper that ever lived, not even as far back as old Capper
Wambley can remember. True, the Cawpers have always been a strong breed,
so he takes after them in that. But Ian is a blond, blue-eyed lad, while
all the Cawpers before him were very dark--so dark, in fact, that Ian's
father was know as Black Cawper. Ian's blondness couldn't have come from
his mother's side, either, for she's a Motherthwaite, and the
Motherthwaites are a darkish clan.

It's fair puzzling, indeed it is, and that's the truth, as the village
people say. Naturally, they don't say it when Ian's around, for Ian
Cawper's a fearful man when he does get angry, and could break a man in
two with his bare hands if so be he wished.

But people do talk once in a while, and one night Sam Small got talking
down at The Spread Eagle. What his story means, you must judge for
yourself. As to how true it is--well, Sam Small's as truthful a
Yorkshireman as ever blew the foam off four or five pints of good ale in
an evening.

Ian's father, Black Cawper--so goes Sam's story--was a big strong man who
was ready to fight, feast, or wrestle at the drop of a hat. He wasn't as
big as Ian has turned out to be, but he was shrewder than Ian will ever
be. And he was more given to sudden tempers and to daring other men and
showing off his strength.

Black Cawper was a favorite chap up on the moor on Sunday afternoons. For
then, as now, all the men of the village would meet up on the moor to
show off feats of nimbleness or strength, or to ask each other puzzling
questions and riddles, or to bet on their dogs. They'd run their
whippets, or hold terrier contests by putting their tykes in a barrel
with a score or so of rats to see how many the dog could kill in sixty
seconds. And sometimes, by lucky chance, they might meet a bunch of lads
from another village who would be looking for a bit of a fight. That's
the way it's always been on Sunday afternoons.

Now on this Sunday afternoon about twenty-five years ago, so Sam Small
says, a stranger came cutting across the moor who seemed by his speech to
be from over Malton way.

They asked him if he'd like to fight, and he said no; they asked him if
he wanted to buy a dog and he said no; they asked him if he'd like to
wrestle or run a race for a bit of a side-bet and he said no. They had
just about concluded he was a pawky sort of chap until he said that if it
were a matter of knerr and spell, by gum, he'd be willing to back himself
roundly to the tune of a few shillings.

Now if there's anything the lads of Polkingthorpe Brig pride themselves
on besides fighting and dogs, it's their skill at knerr and spell, a game
requiring strength, speed, and judgment. (Many years ago this game
drifted from Yorkshire up into Scotland where, in a much deteriorated and
simplified form, it became known as golf. )

So when the stranger said he'd play, he was rapidly taken up.

It turned out, however, that this lad was nobody's mug. He was a lanky,
lithe chap with a click to his wrists when he swung that sent the ball
sailing champion distances. One by one he took the money away from the
Polkingthorpe men until there was only Black Cawper left, and the light
was beginning to fade.

"All or nowt in a final match," Black Cawper offered.

The lad said it was so for his pile of sixteen shillings, and he put up
such a mighty dingdong battle that at the last stroke Black Cawper needed
the well-nigh impossible score of 262 to tie, 263 to win. But Black
Cawper only laughed and flexed the muscles in his big arms and spit on
his hands. He tapped the tip-up smartly, and when the ball rose into the
air he wrapped the springy club around his neck and swung. He hit the
ball fair just as it was beginning to fall and belted that dobbie a giant
clout such as the men there had never seen before. Away the ball went,
screaming away in a straight, rising line. Up it went, away and over a
far hilltop, out of sight.

Black Cawper laughed his hard laugh.

"Two hunned and sixty-three," he offered.

This meant that if the stranger could reach the ball in less than 263
leaping strides, the score counted to him. If he couldn't, it counted to
Black Cawper, who thereby won the match.

The Malton lad looked up at the hill and shook his head. He was a fine
judge of distances, and knew he couldn't reach the ball in the required
number.

"Tha's t' better lad o' t' two on us," he said and conceded the game. They
shook hands and paid off. The matches were over for that day.

"Well," Black Cawper said, "now let's off and find ma dobbie."

But the men all shuffled their feet and coughed and spat.

"Nay, Black," they said, "us'll away and meet thee later down at
t' Eagle."

Then Black Cawper laughed, for he knew why they were backing away as they
looked at the bleak hill, now rapidly sinking back into the evening
darkness. For over that hill was Wada's Keep.

Most everyone in Polkingthorpe Brig had seen Wada's Keep--but not after
dark.

You went up there in the daytime when you were lads. On some summer
holiday day you went--a bunch of you together, of course--and even then
it was bad enough. If you had courage, you went right up to it, plunging
through the bracken and stumbling over rocks. For the land there was no
longer flat moor, but rocky and broken into strange crags. You kept on,
being wrapped deeper in the lonesomeness and barrenness of that place.
And when you got there, you didn't dare to talk. All you did was stand by
the Keep, whose stones were damp and green with their ancient age. At
least 1200 years old it was--that's what the schoolmaster said the day he
went up there. He talked about Saxon defenders and cromlechs. That word
cromlech, it made it worse, it did.

No one needed to talk of things like that when you could stand there in
that silence and look at the round tower and its walls made of mighty
boulders that no human hands could have lifted into place. But those
boulders had been nothing for Wada, the giant. He'd lofted them up into
place as nicely as a mason these days sets in a little brick.

You knew the awe of that place when you stood there thinking things like
that, standing in the land where no living thing moved as far as you
could see down on the wide stretches. You smelled the dust of the dried
bracken and against it the damp smell of stones in unused places, and
then you'd hear the fearful, lonesome cry of a peewit, and at that you'd
shudder and start home, walking quickly and more quickly--all of you.
Until you came over the moor and could see Polkingthorpe again, and then
you slowed down and laughed and pretended you'd never walked fast with
the terror of unknown things breathing on the back of your neck.

And that was the terror all the men felt that Sunday afternoon when Black
Cawper faced toward Wada's land and said he was going there in the dusk.
He laughed in his hard, bold way, and said:

"Would ye leave a lad find his dobbie alone?" They rocked on their feet
and coughed and spat. And then Black Cawper blazed into one of his sudden
tempers--Cawper's mad higs, the men called them.

"Ba gow," he roared, "that's ma pet dobbie and Ah'm not off to lose it.
Ah'm bahn up sheer, and what's more, one on ye's cooming up wi' me to
bear witness Ah showed no fear. Here, Sam Small, tha'll coom wi' me."

"Nay, not me," Sam said, stoutly.

"Tha'll coom when Ah say," Cawper shouted. And he jumped over and caught
Sam by the scruff of his neck and slung him over his shoulder.

"Here, let me dahn, Black," Sam pleaded. "It's ma teatime, and Mully'll
be mawngier nor owd hell if Ah'm late."

Black Cawper paid no attention to Sam. Instead he swung about and faced
the hill. He shook his knerr-and-spell club and lifted his head and
shouted:

"Now giant! If so be as tha lives in them hills, clear out o' t' road! For
here cooms Black Cawper, and wi' a witness to boot!"

But when he said that, from the skyline came a quick glow of light and
then, far away, the distant rumble of thunder. And as the watching men
drew in their breath sharply, one of the dogs lifted his head and howled
in a manner like to curdle your blood. Then, like a flock of birds that
obey an unsounded signal, all the men turned about, and a mad charge of
men and dogs went stampeding off down to the village.

When they were gone Black Cawper stood a while, and then, slowly, one
foot stamping down before the other, he started up that hill with Sam
Small over his left shoulder and his knerr-and-spell club in his right
hand. At the top of the hill he lifted Sam to the ground.

"Now lad," he said, "us'll find ma dobbie. And tha'd better stick close
to me; because t' owd Nick hissen knaws what maught grab thee if tha tried
to run hoam alone this time o' neight."

He chuckled deep down in his chest, but Sam only shivered. He glanced
around fearfully, Sam did, and resolved not to be left alone that night
if he could help it. So he followed close behind Black Cawper and they
kicked at the tufts of grass and pulled aside clumps of gorse as they
looked for the ball. But nowhere was a ball to be seen.

"O' course it's not here," Black Cawper said. "It maun ha' gone far and
away down into t' valley here. For surely it were the championest clout a
lad ivver give a dobbie."

So they went deeper and deeper into the country, following the line the
ball had taken as best they could. But no ball could they find.

"Now lewk here, Black," Sam said at last. "No man can say tha hesn't
dared to hunt, but it's pitch black now and we'll noan find it in the
dark. Sitha lad, let's coom up tomort morn and lewk for it."

"Us has gate to be at t' pit and digging coal by dawn," Black said, "and
Ah'm bound Ah'm off to find ma dobbie toneight. There'll be a gradely
moon out soon."

"Nay, coom away, Black lad," Sam coaxed. "Just think, Black, it's supper
time and there'll be a nice fire i't' fireplace, and a fine, steaming pot
o' tea, and some hot toasted scones or muffins, all swimming in butter;
or a pikelet or two and some sliced ham, wi' a wedge or two o' nice cold
pork pie--or happen a bloater, all fried to a turn. Tha likes bloaters. A
knaw...

"Nay," said Black.

"Eigh, but happen there'd be a gert big foaming quart o' fine beer.
Wouldn'ta like a mug o' beer that'd mak' a chap smack his lips and...

"Nay," said Black.

"Not even if, happen, somebody were to stand thee that quart o' beer?"

"Nay!"

"Not for a quart o' beer? Not even if Ah were to say outright it'd be me
what stood the price on it for thee?"

"Ah said nay," roared Black Cawper. "Ah've said Ah'm off to find ma
dobbie, and find it Ah will--if it tak's all neight, and no matter whose
bailiwick it chances to be in."

Right when he said that Sam shivered, for Black's great voice went
rolling out into the darkness and rumbled up into the crags, and like an
echo came back a voice that boomed like a peal of thunder, saying:

"Be this what th'art looking for?"

At that moment there was a lifting light and the rising moon shot from
behind a ragged cloud. Black and Sam, standing stock-still, looked out
across the rocky hollow and saw a man standing on a flat crag--a great,
well-set-up lad he was, with a blond beard that shone in the moonlight.

For a long time they all stood without moving and the moments passed. The
first sound was when Black Cawper laughed his bold laugh.

"Tak' this," he said, and he thrust his club into Sam's hand. Sam heard
him drawing in his breath through his nose, drawing it in and filling his
chest so that it expanded, wider and wider. Then, with his head thrust
forward and his arms hanging wide from bent elbows, Black Cawper took the
first step forward. He kept on steadily, evenly, his metal-shod clogs
coming down regularly as he went forward step by step to where the man
waited.

Poor Sam's belly turned over with terror, but he felt that this was no
time for a lad to leave his chum, even if he died for it. So he scrabbled
along behind Black, gripping the club firmly.

Cawper went on until he reached the flat rock where the man waited with
his legs far apart and his thumbs hooked lightly into his waist-belt.
Within an arm's length Black Cawper halted and took the same
position--his feet planted apart and his thumbs resting inside the waist
of his corduroy trousers. Thus they stood and looked each other up and
down slowly and carefully, not saying a word.

Sam waited in fear as the minutes passed; for although Black Cawper was a
well-set man, the bearded chap was bigger by almost a foot.

They said no word, and when the time was done Black Cawper turned and
picked up the dobbie that was shining on the ground. The way he did it
was a dare-devil way, for he turned his back completely on the other man
as if he scorned him. It was a bold, contemptuous thing to do, and Sam
gripped the club firmly. But the bearded man made no move, only following
Cawper with his eyes that seemed to smile.

Cawper turned the dobbie over carefully, pretending to examine every part
of it, his back still toward the other man.

"Aye," he said finally. "This is ma dobbie."

He turned around and laughed, loudly, in the face of the stranger.

"Now, Ah gate what Ah coom for, Ah'll be off on ma road hoam," he said.

He waited patiently, but there was no answer.

"Aye, that's champion," Sam said quickly. "Thanking this lad varry
politely for his help, us'll be off." Black did not look at Sam. He
stared at the unmoving man on the rock.

"Nay, but on t' other hand," Cawper said, "Ah maught want to stay."

The other man did not move, so Black Cawper went near to him, and
squinting his eyes and looking up through his knotted eyebrows he said:

"Ah nivver turned ma back on noa man yet be-out being polite-like, as tha
maught say. Soa Ah'm axing thee: would t'a like to feight, lad?"

The blond man laughed.

"Eigh, there's all night for sport yet," he answered. "Sit thee down here
for a while--if tha hast time to spare."

"Ah've gate as much time to spare as ony other man," Cawper said, "and
brass enow to sit ony place ma feet can carry me to."

So they sat, each on a boulder, facing each other. Sam, not knowing what
to do, sat on the ground, hugging the club. For a long time nothing was
said, but Sam, knowing Black Cawper, could see he was getting ready to do
a bit of thinking. Nearly half an hour passed in silence, and then Black
said, suddenly:

"If a hen and a hawf laid an egg and a hawf in a day and a hawf, how much
would one hen lay in a week?"

He looked cunningly at the big man, for Black Cawper prided himself on
being a foxy sort of a chap at thinking. But right smack back came the
big lad:

"Four eggs and two-thirds on the way to lay another."

Sam Small drew in his breath quickly, for he knew of no stranger who'd
been able to answer that problem before. Many a pint of beer had Black
Cawper won from strangers in the inn with that one. Moreover, the answer
given was the right one, for that's what the schoolmaster had told them
was the fight solution when they'd first taken the puzzle to him to be
worked out.

When this stranger gave the right answer, Black Cawper nodded his head,
for he began to see he was up against a very unusual opponent this time.
So he went back to doing a bit of thinking again. He thought and thought
until the moon was rising up in the sky. Then he got up suddenly and
walking to Sam took the club from his hand. Looking over to see if the
stranger was watching, Black took the dobbie from his pocket. Not
speaking a word, he threw it up in the all: with a fine, careless twirl
of his hand, and then swung back with his club. The dobbie flashed up in
the moonlight and began to fall. Just when it was a little over
waist-high, Black's club came swinging round and caught that dobbie a
crack that sounded sweet and true.

Away that ball went like a line of silver. Then it was gone, slanting up
into the night. But even then they could hear it whooshing away with a
dying moan in the black quietness. For a long time they waited,
breathless, and the minutes passed. Faintly they heard at last the sound
of the dobbie tacking and tumbling on the stones far across the valley.

Then Black nodded his head in satisfaction and sat down.

The big man said never a word, but he got up and looked carefully at
Black's club. He took it in one hand and whooshed it round a few times.
Black's club was a special one, so heavy that no man but himself could
swing it with the flash of accuracy and speed that knerr and spell
demands. However, the stranger seemed amused by it and put it aside.
Instead he picked up a great ash cudgel and selected a rock. As big
around as a man's two fists, that rock was. But the big chap flipped it
up in the air and swung quickly. There was a crash as if the rock had
exploded, and Sam Small blinked as if he'd been blinded.

How far that rock went Sam never knew, for as he waited for the sound of
it falling, there came a flash of light on the horizon and a mumbling and
a bumbling of thunder far away.

"Eigh, they maun be hevin a storm up i' t' Malvern Hills," Sam said.

He felt he must say something, for the other two never spoke. They looked
at each other, and the blond man smiled. Black Cawper knotted his brows
in anger and suddenly cried:

"Ah'll run thee a race for ten bob!"

"Good! To the tower and back," the other man said. At the mention of that
tower, Sam did shiver for fair. But Black Cawper hesitated hardly a
moment. "Done," he said.

"Touch the tower wall and back to Tichie here," the stranger said.

At this Sam got fair blazing, for although he wasn't a big man, no one
had ever called him Tichie before--for that word means a dwarf man in
Yorkshire. But he consoled himself with the thought that now the stranger
would be beaten, for few light men were so fast on their feet as Black
Cawper, and surely no big man could best him in a footrace. But before he
could think much of this, Black shouted:

"Ready? Go!"

Away they went into the darkness and Sam could hear the mighty churning
and awhortling of their bodies tearing through the thick bracken and the
crashing of their feet upon the rocks. The sounds died away and then grew
again. Sam jumped to his feet to see who was first, and when they came
into view they were neck and neck. But right at the last moment the
stranger seemed to glide ahead without altering his stride and flying
past he tapped Sam with the tip of his hand.

It was only 'a light touch, yet Sam felt as if he'd been struck with a
jolt of electricity and he felt himself going rolling and abowling
arse-over-ashtip down the rocks. When he picked himself up and got back
Cawper was paying off the bet, his forehead knotted in anger.

Now that the blond man had won the footrace, Sam realized that Black
Cawper was up against something the likes of which he'd never known
before and that this night was to see a contest to be remembered. For Sam
knew that Black Cawper would never give in. And neither he did. In that
moonlight night up in Wada's country Black Cawper matched the stranger a
all the things he knew, one by one. They matched a games of cunning and
games of strength; at jumping for height and jumping for distance; at
heaving rock for yardage and heaving rocks for aim; at lifting bowlders
of greater and greater size above their heads And always the stranger
won.

Finally Black Cawper had not a farthing left to bet with. So he jumped up
in anger and tore off his coat "Now lad," he roared, "there's nobbut one
thing left. There's gate to be a feight, between me and thee!"

"For what stake?"

"Nay, Ah gate nowt left. We maun feight for t' fun on it."

"My heart is happy," the blond man said.

"That's spoken like a honest chap," Black said and tore off his shirt.

They both stripped to the waist, and knotted their neckerchiefs carefully
about their middles. Black Cawper flexed his knotty arms and lifted his
chest, all covered and matted with black hair. The other man's skin shone
in the moonlight, pink and hairless as a baby's backside.

"Now lad," Black said, "how'll us feight--standups or knockdowns? Us maun
do this reight and proper."

"Nay, the way matters not," the other replied, lightly.

Sam waited anxiously. For there are two kinds of fighting up in
Yorkshire. The standup is a softy sort of fighting that is drifting in
from the south counties in which it is very useless to knock a man down,
for all you must do then is stand back and let him get up again.

Now the knockdown is the real Yorkshire way of fighting, for if you once
strike your man down then everything else follows in a sensible sort of
way--for instance, you may jump on him, or kneel on him and batter him,
or if you think it best you may stand off and kick him sweetly. This is a
most honest way of fighting, especially since the clogs of Yorkshire have
fine, pointed toes that are capped with brass, whereas the men from the
south counties have only blunt-toed boots.

So Sam waited breathlessly, for a man who feels lie is to be beaten will
always pick the cowardly southern style which allows him to escape
whenever he wishes to lie down and fight no more. But he was proud of
Black Cawper when he roared:

"Knockdowns--onless th'art flaid!"

The blond man laughed and waved his hand to say it was all the same to
him. Then, bending, their arms hanging low, they began to circle each
other on the flat rock. For nearly five minutes they moved thus, and the
only thing heard in the clear night was the shifting of their feet on the
rock and the deep drawing of the breath into their chests.

Suddenly, without a warning, the blond man charged first. But Mack Cawper
was ready. Like the blink of an eye he swung his clogged foot and kicked
the man in the groin. So fast that you could hardly see it, he kicked
again--and a third time. Then they swung around and faced each other once
more, and Black Cawper laughed deep in his chest.

The other man should have dropped, but instead he charged in again, and
this time from the position of his feet Sam could see he was to kick at
Black's crotch. But Black knew a trick worth two of that. Without giving
ground, he half-turned in a flash, standing on one foot and holding the
other foot with his hands.

He held the foot knee-high, and with the metal-shod sole turned out. He
did it just as the other man's leg swung forward, and it was like a
shield in defense. Sam Small heard a sound as if the shin-bone were
splintering when the stranger's leg crashed against the upheld foot.

But the big man gave no sign, and instead kept coming right in and the
two locked their arms. For a time they circled, each bent over, head to
head like stags in the mating season. They pushed and swayed, each
feeling for a stronger hold and kicking at each other' legs. It seemed to
be deadlock, until Black Cawper shifted quickly and reaching under
grasped the other' beard. He pulled down with all his strength, yanking
the man's head down; and at the same time he brought up his knee with a
force that smashed it into his opponent's face and sent him staggering
back, with blood gushing from his mouth.

Without halting a second, Black put down his head and charged. He caught
his foe in the belly with his head, and the force of the butting charge
sent the mar flying back. His body went wildly through the air and
crashed onto the rocks six feet below the flat crag. Ever while it was
falling, Black was following up, and charging over the rock he leaped out
into space, meaning to come down feetfirst on the body of the man below.

But somehow the man managed to roll aside with a lightning twist, and
scrambling to his feet he locked his arms tight about his enemy. Thus
they stood, chest to chest, and Black grinned, for he had never yet met a
man who could withstand his grip. So he squeezed tighter and tighter.
Sam saw the cords and veins stand out on his neck as he put on the
pressure, but the other man only waited.

At last Black was done, and then it was the other's turn. He pressed,
tighter and tighter, seeking to crush in Black's ribs. But Black, waiting
as the other had waited, could not be beaten that way, either.

At a deadlock again, they began trying to lift each other, to pluck their
foe from his feet and throw him. But they seemed evenly matched there,
too. They swayed and staggered, crashing about and panting.

Thus, while Sam Small watched, Black Cawper and the stranger fought all
that moonlight night in the land beside Wada's Keep. They crashed over
the rocks and locked together they rolled down the slopes. They tore
themselves free and charged each other. They wrestled and struck and
kicked themselves apart and came back to the locked embrace again.

So the moon sloped over the sky and the wind blew cold and the night went
past as they fought on.

And then, slowly, Sam saw that Black Cawper was to be beaten. He charged
as courageously as ever, but his arms were lifting more slowly. And in a
final locked struggle, the bearded man at last bent Black Cawper back,
further and further. Then he lifted him from the ground and hurled him
across the rocks.

Black Cawper, his face covered with blood, lifted himself up and came
back, but again he was thrown. For a second time he lifted himself,
shaking his head savagely as if to get it clear. He charged in once more,
and once more was thrown. And this third time, try as he might, he found
himself unable to rise. He pushed with his arms upon the ground, but they
would not lift his body.

But even then he was not beaten in spirit, for as the blond man advanced,
instead of wrapping his arms about his head to protect his skull, the way
beaten men do, Black Cawper lay there proudly and defiantly, looking up
sidewise at his enemy, but without any pleading in his eyes.

The big man jumped down to where Black lay and drew back his foot. Then
he said:

"All this night we have contested, thee and me."

Black Cawper did not answer. All there was to hear was the breath coming
and going as his chest heaved for air. He tried to lift himself and
managed to push up his shoulders with his straightened arms. But he could
get no further though he tried until the beads of sweat stood out on his
forehead.

Then, with a quick movement, the blond man reached down and with a great
lift hauled him to his feet. Without saying a word he helped Black into
his shirt and coat. When that was done he lifted his head and looked
about and said:

"But a little while longer and tha wouldst have beaten me."

His voice sounded sad and far away as he went on: "Ah, and if tha nobbut
had! For when there comes another like unto me, then Ah am released and
may go ma way!"

Black sat with his head bowed. The big man looked about him, turning his
head.

"Eigh, but Ah maun go. Fare thee well, lad."

Black Cawper rose suddenly and held the other's arm. "Nay, tha maun't
go," he said. "Ah want thee to coom hoam wi' me and meet ma wife."

"Thy wife? What for?"

Black Cawper stood up firm and held the other's hand proudly.

"Well lad," he said, "Ah'm a Yorkshireman born and a Yorkshireman bred,
soa Ah can nobbut speak like a true sportsman. Tha's bested be at cunning
and tha's bested me at speed; tha's bested me at strength and tha's
bested me at feighting. Soa there's nobbut one thing left for an honest
lad to do.

"Ba gum, Ah'd like to tak' thee hoam and hev a pup off 'n thee!"

The blond man shook his head, quickly.

"Nay, Ah maun be off," he said.

He started away, and then suddenly he stopped as if struck by a
surprising idea. He spoke almost as if to himself.

"For when there is another like unto me, then am Ah released and may go
ma way," he said. "And another can guard the Keep against the invader."

Quickly, gladly, he reknotted his kerchief. He started to smile and say:
"Ah'll go wi' ye," but then faintly, yet loud as faint sounds are at
dawn, there came a cockcrow from the village far away. Sadly, sadly, the
blond man looked at the east and cried:

"Nay, nay! Ah maun go!"

He turned and raced away before they could stop him and was gone from
sight like the winking of an eye. But from the hills came his booming
voice, fading away, and Sam says he heard him call, saying:

"A month from today! Full moon! Ah'll be back and tak' ye up on that--a
mooonth from todaaay!"

Then his voice rumbled off into the hills and became one with the
muttering thunder of a dawn storm.

Now that is the story that Sam Small tells. He says he can remember the
exact date--as most men in the village can. For Sam was young then, and
worked as a collier lad. It was long before he went into the mill and
invented his famous self-doffing spindle.



And coming down from the moor that gray morning, Sam Small and Black
Cawper were so late they had no time to go home to their cottages. For
they were on the 6 A. M shift at the pit, and so they went right to work.

And that very day was the day of the big do at the Silkstone Pit Number
Two. It was the day of the disaster, when Sam, racing from his gallery,
saw Black Cawper standing like a Colossus, his great back arched and
holding up a sagging cross-timber.

Everyone knows that is true, for they still tell you about it in
Polkingthorpe Brig--how Black Cawper held up that great timber and roared
in his bull voice to the men to hurry, and how as the men in his gallery
ducked under his arched body that great timber pressed him down, lower
and lower.

Black Cawper never came out of that pit, for as Sam Small ran along
toward the shaft there came a rumble and a roar and the roof behind them
caved in. Sam Small and seven others reached the cage in safety, but in
that level sixty-seven lives were lost. Sam and the other seven came out
to tell the story.

So no one can mistake the date on which Black Cawper died. And no one can
mistake the date on which Ian Cawper was born--ten months later.

Now we are not too handy on arithmetic and such tricky matters; but, as
we say in the village, there seems to be summat varry, varry fooney
soomwheers.

But, naturally, nobody ever says anything much about it because--well,
Ian's affable enough most of the time; but if he ever got real angry, and
ever took such an idea in his big, blond head, why he could break any man
in two with his bare hands. It's almost supernatural, how strong Ian
Cawper is.



ADVENTURE THREE

Sam Small's Better Half


Here's to me
and ma wife's husband
not forgettin' masen.


"If there's one thing I'd like to do," Mully Small said, as she sat
before the hearth, "it's travel. Now we're wealthy and retired, as tha
maught say, I'd like to go round the world."

Sam ignored the gambit altogether as he put down the evening paper.

"What," he asked, rhetorically and pugnaciously, "would the British
workingman be without his pint of ale at the day's end?"

"That's something the world'll never know till one of 'em tries it,"
Mully snapped. "And as I don't suppose tha's in the mood for noble
experiments, for goodness' sake away ye go down to the pub, for I see
I'll get no peace until tha does. Although I did think, since I'm poorly,
that tha might have spent one evening at home."

Sam got up and stood undecided. Truly Mully didn't look so well, and he
wanted to stay. But he wanted his evening mug of ale, too. A sort of
short, but bitter, tug-of-war took place inside him--and the ale won.

"Now I'll not be long," he said, in a tone of hopeful appeasement.

Mully refused the scant olive branch.

"Ah'll gamble," she said sarcastically, in her broadest Yorkshire
dialect. "Chucking out time!"

"Now isn't that just like a woman's dirty suspicions, for thee?" Sam
asked the vacant air. "I'll be back long before chucking out."

At the time Sam really meant what he said--if only to prove to Mully how
grossly she wronged him with her accusations. But when he got to the pub,
unfortunately there was an argument going on. Moreover, it was just the
sort of argument that needed the sagacity, erudition, and forensic
abilities of Sam Small--and Sam Small was the best man in all Yorkshire
for giving his opinion in an argument.

"It's this way, Sam," explained Rowlie Helliker. "It says here as how a
doctor thinks this Hitler chap has got--"

He peered at the newspaper.

"--anyway, the word means a split personality, it says."

"Oh, aye," responded Sam nonchalantly. "Schizoperennial."

"What's coming off here?" asked Huckle, the publican.

"That's just the technicological name o' the disease," Sam said. "It
means a chap splits into two personalities--that's what."

"Ah've seen two personalities," offered Annie, the barmaid. "It were in
t' cinema once. One were--"

"Ah've come to a decision," interrupted Gaffer Sitherthwick. "If ye mean
to stand theer and tell me that a chap can divide into two, then what Ah
say is--it ain't human, it's just dirty propaganda."

"Hold on, Gaffer," Sam said. "Ye see, science has discovered that every
one of us is a couple of people, really. And ye can't beat science when
it comes to--to--to science, can ye?"

"Science is off to get itself into a hole some day, if it goes on
discovering things," warned Capper Wambley darkly.

"Well, ye've heard o' twins, haven't ye?" Rowlie Helliker offered.
"Happen this here schizoperennia's like that, only a chap becomes twins
after he's born instead of before."

"Nonsense," the Capper said. "Ah would have heard of it before this. Ah'm
the oldest chap here, and I never heard of that happening."

"But it's only just come out, like," Sam explained.

"Ah still don't believe a chap can split in two," roared the Gaffer.

"Nor me, nawther," agreed Capper Wambley.

"Hold on. British fair play every time," Rowlie Helliker shouted. "Two
against one. Now what I say, is this..."

And so the argument rumbled, with words flowing ponderously and sagely in
the Yorkshire way, and the white arms of Annie, the barmaid, flashing up
and down as she gave the long pull on the mild and bitter pumps. Until,
in no time whatsoever, as you might say, there rose the voice of Huckle
above the din, his voice sounding the well-known British curfew, "Time,
gentlemen, please! Time!"

Sam Small stood, like Cinderella hearing the stroke of midnight...

"Eigh, by gum," he muttered, aghast. "And I promised Mully faithful I'd
be home afore chucking out..."

Off Sam went, through the door as fast as his stubby legs would carry
him. As he skeltered up along the Green, the thought seeped into his mind
that if he got home quickly he might be able to say he had left before
closing time, but had strolled home lazily.

He began to feel guilty--not because he was preparing the evidence for
another lie, but because he had left Mully alone all evening. He wished
he hadn't done that.

He was feeling angry at himself, and then...It happened!

There was a flash, a sort of silent explosion, a whirling of planets and
comets in an endless purple void, and Sam Small found himself sitting on
the pavement, half-dazed.

"By gum," he muttered thickly. "I must have bumped into the lamppost."

But then, as he collected his senses, he saw another man, similarly
situated on the pavement.

"So--it was thee bumped into me," Sam began pugnaciously. "Why doesn't
tha look where tha's going?"

"It's six o' one and half a dozen o' t' other, lad."

"Now don't argue wi' me," Sam groaned. "Gie us a hand up."

"How about thee gi'ing me a hand up?" the other said.

"Why, I never met such a nasty, unobliging chap," Sam said. "But I've no
time to argue wi' thee. My wife's poorly and I promised to be home afore
chucking out time, and here I am..."

"Beer-swiller!" accused the other. "If thy wife's poorly, why doesn't tha
sit with her? That's what I've been doing at ma home over the Green."

"Thy home?" breathed Sam.

His voice rose in suspicion, and a chilly vibration ran up his spine. For
he had an eerie feeling that the voice of the other man was familiar--too
familiar, somehow.

"Who are ye?" Sam cried.

They both rose from the pavement, and Sam dragged the other under the
street light. Then he gasped. For Sam Small found that he was looking at
none other than himself!

For a second only was Sam nonplused, and then his brain functioned. He
grabbed the other tightly. "A blooming imposter!" he said. "I've got
thee!"

"Imposter thysen," the other said. "I'm Sam Small."

"Oooo, you liar. I'm Sam Small."

"Now, now, don't contradict. Look at me and see if I don't look like Sam
Small."

"By gum, so tha does," Sam admitted. Then he moaned, "Eigh, don't go
mixing me all up, or ye'll have me so conflummoxed I won't know what to
think. How can ye prove ye're Sam Small?"

"Well," the other began, glaring suspiciously. "I have a wife whose name
is Mully. And I have a daughter rising seventeen whose name's Vinnie,
and..."

"I'll be jiggered," Sam said. "I see tha's a very clever imposter indeed.
At least, tha's looked up all ma background. But tha's slipped up, my
lad, for I know where I have thee!"

As he spoke Sam tugged at the heavy gold chain on his waistcoat and drew
out a great turnip of a gold watch, and snapped open the back with a
gesture.

"There," he said. "Read that. For I know it by heart. It says on it, 'To
Sam Small, from his loyal wife, Millicent, on their wedding day. "'

"Well, I'll be jiggered," said the other. "For it says exactly the
same--here!"

And, with a similar gesture, tugging at a similar chain, he snapped open
the back of a similar watch.

"Oooo, by gum," Sam moaned. "I am in trouble. I must have done summat
wrong. And here I stand, not knowing whether I'm me, or tha's me--or I'm
thee--or whether us is both we."

He stood a second.

"Why, that's it," he yelped.

"What's it?"

"We're both me--both of us. It's schizoperennial. Ma personality's split
wide open, just like we've been arguing about down the pub--and I've
become two on us."

"Well, by gum. Think o' that, now," said the other. "But--but what can us
do about it?"

"Look, this is a very important happening, lad," Sam said. "And we've got
to go careful about it. I think, before anyone sees us and spoils it all,
we'd better take a walk out on the moor and discuss it proper. For the
sake of getting it straight a bit, suppose I call thee Sammywell, and
call mysen Sam? That'll get us separated for purposes o' discussion, as
ye might say."

And off they went over the moor, with Sam explaining his view of what had
happened.

"If we handle it carefully," said Sam, "there's a fortune in it. For
instance, doctors and such wi' scientific curiosity--why they'd pay a
right lot o' brass to meet a couple of chaps like us."

"I don't care for doctors, Sam. Happen they'd want to operate on us,"
Sammywell ventured.

"Aye, I don't care for 'em, either. But happen we could get a tent and
travel round wi' the feasts--we'd be champion curiosities, and people'd
pay a shilling to see us."

"I'd object to being a freak, like," Sammywell droned.

"Nay, there's nowt wrong wi' making a little honest brass, lad, and I've
not got it all worked out yet, but there's brass in the general idea.
Just look at t' brass Ah've just made off ma self-doffing spindle."

"Aye," said Sammywell, "but an invention's a fact."

"So is this a fact," Sam said. "Think on it! The Government might take an
interest in us, as tha might say. Why, if they could multiply every man
by two they could double the man power o' t' army!"

"Aye, but us can't sit out here all night, lad, while tha works it out.
There's Mully waiting up for me at home."

"Well, we can't go home," Sam expostulated, "not the two on us."

"That's so," Sammywell agreed. "But one on us could stay out here tonight
and puzzle out what's best to do. T' other can go home and say nowt to
Mully. It won't be cold sleeping out here for thee, Sam--and in the
morning I can slip out and bring thee a few licks to eat, like."

"Hold on a bit. I don't like that idea--thee going home to my wife.
It--it ain't moral!"

"But since tha explained it to me that we're both one, when I go home
it's really thee, too, tha knows," Sammywell said. "Now be sensible; one
of us has got to take a back seat for a while until we get this all
figured out. Why don't you go away for a few days and we'll both put our
thinking caps on?"

"Me go away?" echoed Sam.

Then he thought a while. He began to see possibilities in the suggestion.
If he went away he could have a right good beano.

Sam glowed inwardly. But he put on a sad face.

"Eigh, it's sad and all to think of a man giving up the rightful comfort
of his own hearth and home, and going forth, an uncherished wanderer on
the face o' t' earth, as ye might say. But for the sake of Mully and her
peace o' mind, I make the great sacrifice. Good-by."

"Where are ye going?"

"Why--I'll cut over the moor and be in Bradley by morning. Then I'll drop
in the bank and get a little cash--"

"Hey. Thee be careful wi' my savings account," Sammywell wavered.

"Our savings account, Sammywell, lad. So long." And then Sammywell was
alone.

"Sam," he shouted into the darkness. "When'll ye be back?"

"Expect me when ye see me," floated back the voice of Sam. "Keep the home
fires burning, Sammywell. Keep the home fires burning!"

"Do you want a railway ticket, lad?" asked the man behind the little bars
at the station, helpfully.

"Aye, that's it exactly," Sam said. "But Mully generally tends to all
this part of it, and I'm at a bit of a loss wi'out her. What sort o'
tickets have ye got?"

"Oh, first, third, excursion, return."

"I'll have a return."

"One return. Good. Where to?"

"Why back here, of course, gormless."

The chap, thinking Sam was kidding him, got quite upset. So the argument
began. Sam got his Yorkshire up and wouldn't be pinned down as to where
he was going.

"Now any fool can let people buy what they want," Sam pointed out. "But
I've read it takes a real saleman to sell a doubtful customer."

"But where do you want to go?"

"How would I know afore I hear what expense I'm off to run into? No
sensible man runs ahead of his brass. So cite me a few bargains."

The man blew out his breath and picked up a printed list.

"Llandudno, very special, twenty-six and six?" he offered.

"Couldn't spell it," Sam said. "I wouldn't live in a town I couldn't
spell. I'd feel all defeated, like."

"Scarborough, fifteen and--"

"Dearie, no. I had a chum went there once, broke his leg, he did. I'd be
that sad thinking on him. He was putting his trowsis on, he was, and just
toppled over and broke his leg."

"They could set it, couldn't they?"

"Aye, but his wife were that upset, 'cause his leg didn't look the same.
She were always after him to break the other. They never had a peaceful
day together after that. A plumber, he were. Name o' Billy Sandyson. Ever
meet him?"

"No!  Blackpool, twelve and six, ten-day excursion?"

"Blackpool? Now tha's getting me interested."

"Shall it be Blackpool, then?"

"Don't rush me. I were there once. I ate so many whelks wi' vinegar I
were sick on the train coming home. Eigh, I had a champion time."

"Then it'll be Blackpool?"

"Hold on a minute. If I don't use the return part in ten days, can I cash
it in on a full fare coming back?"

"Yes," sighed the man. "Yes."

"Then sold!" said Sam.

And off he went to Blackpool.

Sam did have a rare old time at Blackpool. There was so much to do that
he'd sally out each morning and never even go back to his boardinghouse
for meals. But this didn't matter as there were any number of places
where a chap could buy winkles and cockles and fried fish and pease
pudding and ices. And since it was a holiday without Mully, Sam didn't
feel so bad about flinging his money about.

And Sam winked at all the lasses there on their holidays--for though a
bit snowy in the pow, Sam was feeling quite a dog.

One day, by the bandstand, a big, fine-looking woman smiled at him. Sam
bought himself a walking cane on the strength of it. The next day she
smiled again, so he got himself a straw hat for one-and-tuppence.

Then one day it got warm, and everyone went wading on the sands. The
sands were a bit squoggy at Blackpool, but Sam, full of holiday freedom,
didn't mind. With his trousers rolled up, he paddled and splashed to his
heart's content--all through the day, until the sun began to go down,
blood-red, and a chill wind came in suddenly from the sea.

Sam Small shivered.

"Happen I got ma trowsis wet," he said to himself. "Wouldn't Mully give
me a talking-to?"

He went up higher on the sands, intending to put on his stockings and
boots, and then go by the bandstand to see what the fine-looking woman
thought of his straw hat. But somehow, when he was dressed, he didn't
feel like strolling. And yet--he wanted something.

"Now what can it be?" Sam said to himself. "Happen I want summat to eat."

So he thought of pork pies and saveloys and sausage rolls and oysters,
and all the things sold at the shops; but it wasn't any of those he
wanted.

He tried to puzzle it out, considering a walk on the promenade as against
a stroll on the pier, a look at the zoo or a go at the merry-go-round, or
perhaps the ferric wheel. But it wasn't any of these things he wanted.

As he sat the sun sank, the wet sands glowed in the dusk, and a sort of
cosmic sadness washed in from the dying day and seeped over him. The
lights in the shops behind him popped on, one by one, and the electric
signs came on to spangle the holiday front of the town, and people
laughed and screamed. And over the ocean the day ebbed away to other
lands and there was nothing left of the sea but its hushing.

Finally Sam gave up trying to puzzle it out and went back to his
boardinghouse. He was in a strange bad temper.

"I think I've copped a cold," he told his landlady.

"More like some o' the stuff tha's been eating," she said. "Tripe and
cowheel and chitterlins and eel-pies and poloney and trunnel-pies and
hokeypokey and blood pudding..."

"Are ye selling summat?" Sam said. "If I weren't upset when I come home,
I am now."

"Then I'll gie thee some lickerish powder. I allus used to give ma
husband lickerish powder. A fine chap he were..."

"Thy husband? Where's he now?"

"Eigh, he's deead."

"I tell ye, it's nowt I ate. What's more, if it were I wouldn't take
lickerish powder. I tell ye I've copped a cold."

"Then I'll fix thee a mustard footbath."

"I don't want no footbath. Mully gi's me hot rum and treacle."

"Well, I've no rum. I'll gie ye the treacle now and ye can take the rum
tomorrow."

"By gum, there's no help from women. Tha sounds like Mully hersen."

"Heaven pity her, if she has to put up wi' thee."

"By gow, I should ha' known better than to expect either sense or
sympathy i' Lancashire!"

"Huh!" snorted the landlady. "Yorkshire!"

"That's done it!" roared Sam. "That's the final insult. First thing in
the morn I'm off home to Mully." And home he went.



As Sam Small swung along by the Green in the twilight, suddenly his
happiness fled. For, as if for the first time, he remembered Sammywell.

"By gum," he breathed, "if I walk in and he's there, Mully'll find out
the whole thing, and want to know where I've been--then I'll cop Halifax.
I'd better go sly."

So Sam crept up to his cottage and looked in the window. And there he saw
Mully, knitting as she rocked in the chair before the fire, with
Sammywell reading aloud to her.

Sam felt queer and hopeless and unwanted, seeing another man before his
fire, with himself outside and tired--and badly in need of a good cup of
tea.

He retreated into the garden and began flipping bits of stone at the
window. After a long time the door opened and a beam of light poured out.
With it, from far back in the room, came Mully's voice. Sam heard it
pouring over him, like a rush of warm blood in his chest.

"If that's them Kidderley bairns again, Sam, shout out to them not to be
naughty."

"Psst," Sam hissed. "Sammywell! I want a word wi' thee. Meet me up the
Green corner."

"What is it, Sam, love?" came Mully's voice.

"Nowt," called back Sammywell. "I think I'll get ma jacket and take a
stroll, Mully--and a smoke. Then I won't choke the house up wi' baccy
smoke."

"Aye, do. A breath of air'll do thee good, Sam," said Mully's voice.

Then the door closed. Sam stalked up to the corner of the Green. Over and
over again he heard Mully's words--and the tones. Her voice had been soft
and warm. And she had called Sammywell "Sam, love." That wasn't like
Mully. She never called him "love."

By the time he saw Sammywell--approaching, Sam was fair hopping with
anger and jealousy.

"Tha's off to take a walk wi' me, lad," Sam growled. "Why, what's wrong,
Sam?"

"Never heed what's wrong. I've just decided that it's high time
I came home and took ma rightful and proper place beside my
wife--ye--ye--Judas!"

"But, Sam, I thought ye wanted to go away and have a fling."

"Well, I've flung--and now it's thy turn to go away."

"Oh, no, Sam," said Sammywell self-righteously. "I'm that comfortable. I
stay home evenings wi' Mully and--"

"Aye. I heard her gi'ing thee the soft-soap voice. An' her ma wife?"

"Our wife, Sam."

"Now don't conflummox me," Sam groaned. "Tha's had a comfortable
week--now it's ma turn. Go away for a visit."

"But Sam, tha's the one who likes to go away. I'm the one who likes to
stay home."

"Ooah, ba gum," moaned Sam. "Do I have to argue wi' thee? Look, I'm
hungry--I haven't had ma tea yet--and I've been poorly. Now hop it like a
good chap."

"Not me," said Sammywell. "My place is in the home, and that's where I'm
off right now."

"Well, I'm off wi' thee, then."

"And have her find out? Nay, I'm not bahn to have her upset."

"Now look here, Sammywell. If I know Mully, she's off to find out sooner
or later--so it might as well be sooner, and then I can have ma tea!"

"And I say ye'll not..."

But away darted Sam, full tilt. For he realized that if he got home
first, then the whole problem would be shifted onto the shoulders of
Sammywell.

Down the Green went Sam with Sammywell legging it after him. They were
both, of course, evenly matched. But unfortunately Sam had to open the
gate and the door. He managed the first all right, but before he reached
the door Sammywell grabbed him, and down they went, wrestling and
struggling. They were so intent that they hardly realized the door had
opened until they heard Mully's voice.

"What's up now?"

They stopped wrestling and blinked into the light.

So the three stood!

"Ooah, ma dear," moaned Mully. "Get in this house, here--afore anyone
sees us."

Shamefacedly the two men went into the cottage and stood on the hearth.
Mully looked at them, and then flopped into the rocking chair and began
to cry.

"Now what tricks are ye playing on me, Sam Small?" she cried. "Whichever
one on ye is Sam?"

"We're both Sam," Sammywell said.

"To think ye never told me ye had a twin brother," sobbed Mully. "But one
of ye's Sam--and when I find out which one it is--he's off to wish he'd
never been born."

"Now hold on, Mully," Sam said. "We're both us--that is, we're both me."

Then he explained as best he could about how his personality had split
the week before.

"Well, which one's been here this past week?" Mully asked.

"Me," said Sammywell, quickly. "He's been on a trip to Blackpool!"

"Ha, ye scallywag," said Mully triumphantly. "Now I know which one's Sam
Small. It's thee! So tha would go gallivanting away and leave thy true
wife wi' a stranger."

She advanced on Sam, but Sammywell interposed a hand.

"Nay, Mully," he said. "Don't be angry. Hasn't it been better with him
away? Haven't I stayed by thy side this week and nursed thee through a
cold?"

"Aye," she said. "Tha's been that considerate and kind--I knew there must
be summat wrong. I were too happy for it to be true."

She sat down and wept, and Sam stood, head hanging, and shuffled his
feet. For a while he thought, and then went to his wife.

"Mully Small," he said. "Do ye mean that? Have ye really been so happy
wi'--wi' yon, while I've been away?"

Now Mully was, after all, a woman. And she couldn't help being a bit
spiteful in her answer.

"Sam Small," she said. "I've never been so cherished in all ma born days.
It's been the best week of ma married life."

Sam stared into the fire and drew his breath.

"I see," he said softly. "Well, somehow there ain't much for a chap to
say when he finds out he's failed, is there? What I mean is--well,
'twould be a poor man who'd stand in the way of his wife's happiness, so
good-bye--and good luck, lass."

Sam turned on his heel and made for the door, while Mully watched as in a
trance. Perhaps she would have let him go, But Sammywell's voice wakened
her.

"Ye see, Sam," cried Sammywell triumphantly. "I told ye I were the man to
make her happy."



That started Mully.

"Now hold on," she said. "I've got summat to say about all this. Come
back, lad, and sit here by the hearth. If this is true about this here
split personality, what us has got to do is think it out."

"Aye, but us has done all the thinking us can. Why couldn't we all stay
here?" Sammywell suggested.

"What, me live wi' two husbands?" breathed Mully. "That's bigamy."

"But me and Sam is both the same husband," Sammy-well pointed out.

"Aye," said Mully. "We know that, because we're open-minded, but I'm
afraid the British law hasn't caught up wi' such modern things, and'll
come to the conclusion that two husbands is two."

"Hold on," said Sam. "Tha's nobbut had one marriage."

"Then one on ye's churched, and the other's unchurched, and that's still
against the law."

"Aye," Sam said.

"Don't interrupt," said Mully. "Now all keep quiet till I think this
out."

For a long time she sat, and then she sighed and rose.

"Well, I've decided," she said. "Ma mother allus used to say to me, 'When
in doubt, go to sleep.'"

"So," crooned Sammywell, smiling.

"So," she said. "I'm off to bed and go to sleep--and ye two are off
outside."

"But look here, Mully," Sammywell groaned. "I don't like--"

"Neither do I," she chipped in. "But ye doubled yoursen wi'out ma help.
Happen ye can best sort it out the same road."

And firmly she chivvied the two of them to the door and pushed them out.
Only as Sam went past, she said, quietly, "Don't come home till there's
nobbut one of ye."

Then the door closed, the bolt clicked, and the two were out in the
night.

"Now, we'd better take a walk and think some more," Sam said. "And thee
stick close to me if ye know what's good. We'll take a turn on the moor."

As the two reached the Green, they still wore the same thoughtful
expressions.

"Have ye thought of owt?" Sammywell asked. "Look, I'm fair sick to deeath
o' thee," Sam warned. "Now be quiet."

He paused and looked about. They were by the lamppost.

"Here's where we first met," Sam mused.

"If tha'd nobbut stayed away," Sammywell began.

"Now look here, ma lad," Sam burst out. "One more peep out o' thee, and
tha'll get a thick lip. Why, for two pins..."

Then, as Sam lifted his hand, he seemed to hear the words of Mully,
whispered as if for him alone, "Don't come back till there's nobbut one
of ye."

The idea raced through his brain.

"Sam Small," cried Sammywell, in terror. "Tha has murder in thy heart."

Sam smiled gently.

"Tha's ruddy right, I have," he said. "Come on, Sammywell, put up thy
dukes and stand up like a Yorkshireman."

"But I don't like brawling, Sam."

"Well, I'll sweeten ye up to it, then, Sammywell, ma lad. There!"

And Sam popped a left on one side of Sammywell's nose.

"And there!"

And he popped a right on the other side.

"Well," Sammywell said, outraged. "The Good Book says if ye're slapped on
one cheek, turn the other. But it gives no instructions what to do if
that gets slapped. However, I suppose that mean's a chap's got to use his
own judgment. So--there!"

And he banged a beautiful and righteous left smack in the middle of Sam's
nose.

"Ow," said Sam. "Here I come!"

Then, with fists flailing, the two went at each other in as strange a
fight as you could wish to see. For, both being Sam Small, they were
evenly matched as never were any two men before in prize ring history.
Each had the same strength and each mind worked exactly alike. If Sam
swung with the right, Sammywell blocked with his left. It was like boxing
before a mirror. So on and on it went, with neither gaining an advantage,
and both becoming more and more tired.

Then Sam got an inspiration.

"Thing to do next time he leads," he said to himself, "is not to block,
but to take it and just let him have one with everything I've got."

And at exactly that second, Sammywell was thinking exactly the same
thing.

The result was, they both swung, neither blocked, and then for each there
was nothing but a blinding flash, a crack, and an interstellar polka-dot
display.

Suddenly Sam felt his spirit lifting. Below him he could see the two
bodies lying, unconscious. And beside him was another soaring spirit.

"Ooah, ma gum," Sam moaned. "So now there's four on us."

"No, Sam," said Sammywell gently. "Look."

As they watched, the two bodies below slowly drifted together and began
to merge.

"Now," Sammywell said. "Come, Sam. We've both got to fit in there."

So they floated down and began to squeeze and wriggle themselves into the
body. And then Sam heard voices.

"Poor owd Sam," said someone. "He must ha' bumped into the lamppost."

Sam wanted to tell them that it had been a fight, but the words wouldn't
come out. And in what seemed to be a sort of flash-past of time, he was
in the cottage and Mully was bending over him.

"Eigh, Sam," she moaned. "T' trouble again."

"Nay, Mully," he said, thickly.

"I'm not drunk." She bent near him.

"Neither tha is," she agreed.

Sam looked into her eyes.

"I killed him," he said.

"Who?"

"Sammywell!"

"Sammywell? Sammywell who?"

Sam thought this over and began to smile.

Women--they were the wonderful ones. They knew what part of a man's life
to pretend to forget.

Sam felt a rush of warmth and love for Mully--plump Mully who was now
bathing his head with a cool damp towel.

"Dosta forgive me, Mully?"

"Eigh, Sam Small," she sighed. "I been forgiving thee so many years I
wouldn't know how to get out o' the habit now."

"Mully," said Sam. "I'm off to treat thee nicer. For one thing, I weren't
happy away at Blackpool, and for another, well--after I killed Sammywell
tonight, we sort of amalgamated. A merger, as ye might say. So now I've
got him inside me, too, and he's the good side of me--and from now on I'm
off to let my good side come to the front."

"Hush," Mully said. "If ye do ye'll be sort of anatomically twisted."

"And I'm never going down The Spread Eagle any more. I'm bahn to stay
home every evening and read to thee while tha knits."

"Heaven forbid," Mully said. "I'd never have a moment's peace then. Eigh,
I like ye jest as ye are, Sam, ye old scallywag."

"Dosta, Mully? But I'm determined--fro' now on I'm off to be more like
Sammywell; he's really ma better half."

"Nay, tha's got nobbut one better half," Mully said. "And that's me.
Upsydaisy. Up ye come to bed."



ADVENTURE FOUR

The Flying Yorkshireman


There are more things in heaven and earth,
Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.


The conviction that he could fly didn't come over Sam Small gradually. It
just hit him all of a sudden.

That night he and Mully had been down to Los Angeles to hear Sister
Minnie Tekel Upharsin Smith at the Temple. First off Sam hadn't wanted to
go, but before it was over even he agreed that it was quite a bit of a
do, and Mully had as rare a time as she'd had in all her born days.

Sister Minnie sang a hymn she had written herself, which started:

W-on't you buy my violetsss--m'dam?

When that was over she had all the people who were from California stand
up and turn round and shake hands with the people who were sitting and
who weren't from California, and say: "God Bless you, Brother or Sister,"
as the case was.

Sam felt right funny what with a stranger pumping his hand, but Mully
began to warm up to the whole thing; so that when Sister Minnie asked the
people from foreign lands to get up and say where they were from, Mully
kept nudging Sam to stand on his legs like a man and put their ha'porth
in. But Sam wasn't having any. People got up and shouted that they were
from Germany and Italy and China and Hawaii and Mexico and Canada. There
was even one chap from India.

Finally Mully couldn't stand it any longer, so she tied her bonnet tight
under her chin and got up and shouted at the top of her lungs:

"Mr. and Mrs Sammywell Small Powki'thorpe Brig, near Huddersfield,
Yorksha', England."

Then she sat down with her face all flushed, while everybody applauded
and the woman next to her, who was from the city of Ioway, struck up
acquaintance with her, and Mully decided that California was the right
nicest and friendliest place they'd struck since they'd started on that
trip around the world.

Sam tried to make out as if he didn't think much to it all, but even he
got interested when Sister Minnie tore into her sermon.

It was entitled: "Faith Will Move Mountains," and a rare champion thing
it was, too, all full of quotations and rhetoric and little halts to give
the people chance to applaud, and big halts where everyone sang the
chorus of a hymn and clapped their hands to keep time. During these long
pauses Sister Minnie would work up another store of energy and come out
for the next round fresh as a daisy.

Everything depended on Faith, she said, and for her part she believed in
it so much that she just knew that if the 5000 or so Brothers and Sisters
present tonight, Praise be to God, were to head right out of that Blessed
Temple and drive down to San Bernardino, she would bet you right now that
if they would have Faith together they could make Mount Baldy shift ten
feet toward the sea. The only thing that stopped her from putting it all
into execution, she said, was that her legal advisers had told her it
would cause too many possible suits for damages; because naturally, if
you moved a mountain ten feet there was going to be a lot of disturbance.
There'd be a ten-foot gap on one side, like as not running down through a
lot of good real estate developments, and on the other side there'd be a
churning and a whortling of the earth that wouldn't be too good for
California. People with spiteful tongues were ready enough to talk about
earthquakes anyhow, even when you could call up the Chamber of Commerce
and find out it was never a thing at all but the Battle Fleet off San
Diego in firing practice that was making the ornaments on the mantelpiece
sound like Fred Astaire in the introduction part of the Packard hour on
the radio.

But nevertheless, as she was saying, Faith was a very, very wonderful
thing, in fact, a marvelous thing, and if the Sisters and Brothers
believed in our Dear Lord Jesus and believed in the power of Faith, there
was nothing they couldn't do. Nothing!

That was the sermon on Faith, and everybody applauded and clapped their
hands in rhythm, being pleased with not only Sister Minnie's faith, but
her evident faith in their faith, and her clever explanation of why they
were not going to have to drive ninety miles on a chilly evening to do
anything about demonstrating it.

That was about the end of the do. They closed up with some more hymns,
one half the audience singing and then the other half to see who could be
loudest; then the women singing and after them the men all by themselves,
to see who could be loudest. And then it was over and everybody streaked
for the doors.

Mully had had a good time, and there was no two ways about that. When she
and Sam had pushed out through the crowd and were standing on the corner,
waiting for the Wilshire Boulevard bus, she got enough words together to
say:

"Well, Ah don't knaw how tha feels about it, Sammywell, but Ah've had a
rare good time, and Ah think this is the right nicest place us has struck
in all our travels."

Sam didn't doubt that she'd enjoyed it, but he knew, too, her remark was
all part of the campaign to keep him in California. Neither Mully nor
Lavinia, their daughter, ever missed a chance to put in a good word about
Southern California. Vinnie wanted to stay so's she could have a bit of a
dab at becoming one of these cinema stars; and Mully wanted to stay
partly because of Vinnie and partly because she could never get over it
that palm trees really grew in a white man's land. On top of that, there
was no doubt about it that Sam had given the women quite a turn with the
bad attack of bronchitis he'd had when they were visiting Vancouver.

So, of course, they never missed any opportunity now to keep after Sam
about how good California was for his chest, and how that since he now
was retired and a chap of independent means, as you might say, there was
no use leaving this sunshine to go dashing right back to England.

Now Sam knew all about the way the women were working on him, and he knew
why they were doing it. He knew, too, that it wasn't over sensible to
battle with them because probably they'd wear him down in the end. But
still and all, a chap can't help putting his ha'porth in once in a while.
So he blew his nose and said:

"Aye, taking the rough with the smooth, this ain't a bad place--for
Yankeeland, o'course. But still and all, Ah'd give ten quid, Ah would,
reight now, to be sitting back hoam i' t' Spread Eagle wi' ma chums on
either side o' me and a good pint o' Guinness's in front o' me and a nice
gert big coal fire to warm ma behind on."

Mully snorted.

"Sammywell," she said, "didn't Ah tell thee to put a clean henkercha' in
thy pocket afore tha coomed out toneight?"

Sam knew he was licked if he got drawn away from the subject into any
minor skirmishes. Everyone's cock on their own midden tip, and he wasn't
off to argue about handkerchiefs, where Mully was on her own ground. So
he just jammed his shameful bandanna into his pants pocket and kept
quiet. Mully kept on giving him a little bit of hell--the way a woman
will; and finally Sam stopped listening to her--the way a man will.

And while she barneyed on, his mind went floating away in a hazy sort of
a manner and settled on two things. First he began wishing the bus would
hurry up and come so Mully would stop talking; second he got to thinking
about Sister Minnie's sermon. He began wondering if there was anything to
it all--this Faith business. He began wondering if a whole bunch of
people, all having Faith together with a sort of yo-heave-ho effect,
really could move a mountain--if only for a matter of an inch or two.

He thought about it a long time, and decided that if a chap was going to
do anything with Faith, he'd be smart if he picked on something rather
easy at first and progressed gently to stubborn things like mountains.

Now all the time Sam had been thinking that, he'd been standing there
waiting for the bus--and it gets rare chilly in California when the sun
goes down. And that was what put the bus idea in his head. He said to
himself that if a chap decided to try moving things by Faith a bus would
be a champion thing to begin on--it having wheels which, as you might
say, would aid the whole proposition.

It was no sooner thought than done, because, as Sam said to himself, it
doesn't cost a chap a ha'penny to have Faith. Even if it doesn't work
out, what have you lost?

So Sam shut his eyes and said to himself: "Ah have Faith that by t' time
Ah open ma ee's that so-and-so bus will have arrived."

And by gum, he had no sooner said it than Mully was poking him in the
shirt ribs and saying: "Wakken up, gormless!"

And he opened his eyes, and there was the bus standing there.

Now naturally Sam was both surprised and pleased. As he said to himself,
it might have been just a bit of coincidence, but still and all, it fair
gave a chap something to think about. The best thing to do about it, he
decided, was to give it a good thinking over. So when he got himself
settled nicely on the bus he started putting his mind to thinking about
Faith, and kept at it all the way home, being only interrupted once as
the bus went past the Beverley-Wilshire and Mully said she saw Nelson
Eddy coming out of the Brown Derby.

After that Sam got back to his thinking and kept right at it until they
got to the end of the line. Then he and Mully got off right by the statue
of Santa Monica on the Beach Drive palisade, and walked slowly and
wearily along the palisade toward their boardinghouse.

They were both quite a bit played out after their exciting evening, and
they went along slowly, arm in arm. Mully always liked that good-night
walk along the alameda, because it was peaceful and romantic and so
tropical. Bordering the gravel walks there are no less than three kinds
of palms: date palms, royal palms, and palmettos. Then, too, it's on a
cliff high up over the shore, and as you walk along you can look out over
the rustic wood railing and see far out to the ocean, or you can look
straight down on the shore and see all the beach castles of the movie
stars. They are all very splendid and big, but the biggest and most
splendid one belongs to Marion Davies. It is such a sight that the
tourist buses always stop by that palisade and all the sightseers get out
and have a five-minute stop to look down on the very home that Marion
Davies lives in sometimes.

Mully never tired of looking down from that palisade. She never liked to
go to bed without a sort of good-night look at it; because she always
thought that some night she might see a light in an upstairs window, and
that would be Marion Davies going to bed, perhaps.

So when Sam and Mully got up by Marion Davies' house, they stopped and
looked over the rail. There was Mully, full up of the awe of standing
underneath a real palm tree and looking at a real cinema star's palace,
and never aware of what Sam was thinking. For Sam, now he'd stopped
walking, was able to think again. He had his pipe going good, and there
he stood, looking far out over the ocean to where the fifty-cent
all-night fishing barge lay, lit up and festooned with lights so that it
looked like a twinkling diamond brooch of a ship.

And it was there and at that moment that he first got his amazing
conviction. Perhaps it came from being so high up, together with the
sermon and the upsetting episode of the bus coming by Faith. No matter
what it was, he got the conviction as surely as, ever a man had one. What
he felt was that he could fly. That was the conviction he had. He had it
so strongly that he couldn't keep quiet about it.

"Mully," he said, "tha knaws, sometimes Ah hev a feeling that a chap
could put out his arms and launch himself off of here and fly--if he
nobbut had Faith."

"Aye. If!" Mully retorted. "And if thy aunt hed of hed you-know-whats
she'd ha' been thy uncle."

In spite of her determination to live up to the position of wife of a
rich retired man, Mully could be quite Yorkshire at times. And her last
remark wasn't calculated to help a chap who wanted to talk things over.
Not things like Faith and really moving mountains.

It really made Sam a bit mawngy. But there's one thing about a
Yorkshireman. The madder you make him, the more determined he gets. And
as Sam got undressed that night he couldn't help feeling stubborn. "Well,
at that," he said to himself, "Ah'll bet a chap could do it--if he hed
Faith enow."

He kept thinking that after he got into bed. He felt he'd like to fly,
just to show Mully that she wasn't right all the time. And as he lay
there, he had Faith, and had Faith, and then his hair almost stood on
end. For he could feel his body lifting, and lifting, until it was
completely clear of the bed beneath him.

It was so amazing that he could hardly believe it himself. So,
cautiously, he passed his hand under his body. It was true! As far as he
could reach, he was free of the bed. It was so staggering that he had to
drop back into bed to think it over. He must have been quite clear of the
bed, because when he dropped back the mattress squeaked, and Mully said,
snippily:

"Ba gum, Sammywell, if tha doesn't stop jiggling this bed Ah'm bahn to
get up and sleep on t' sofa."

But Sam hardly heard her. He was too upset at his discovery. He decided
to wait until Mully was surely asleep and try it again, but unfortunately
he fell asleep himself.

In the morning when he woke, his first thought was to tell Mully of his
wonderful discovery. But, somehow, it didn't seem too easy in the
daylight, sitting there at the breakfast table, with the California
sunshine spanking down on the tablecloth and on the tea pot and muffins
and marmalade and porridge and eggs and a little rasher of ham and cold
steak-and-kidney pie and two or three nice bloaters that Mully had bought
down in a Scotch bakery and grocery shop she'd run across down by the
Santa Monica pier.

Moreover, Lavinia came in to breakfast, and it's hard for a chap to talk
about imaginative things like flying of his own accord when right across
the table there's his own daughter with her face all cold cream and her
body wearing silk lounging pajamas that start a chap wondering if she's
really brazen enough to be walking around without her corsets on, even if
it is your own daughter.

So all Sam said was:

"Tha knaws, it's funny, Mully; but Ah dreamt last neight Ah were really
flying around. Ah were floating i' t' air like one o' them bloody
Zeppelins what come ovver i' t' wartime."

"Hmmm," said Mully. "What was it that tourist office lad said we maun ax
for in this country when us wants brimstone and treacle?"

"Sulphur and molasses, mother," Lavinia said.

"Nay now, it ent ma blood that's off," Sam protested. "This were a varry
real and onusual dream, so much so Ah still think Ah were awake."

"Oh, fawther," Laving said. "There's nothing unusual about it at all."

"Nowt onusual abaht a chap believes he were flying?"

"Of course not. It's one of the most common of dreams. It's a prenatal
memory that's left from the time when you were a foetus swimming and
floating in fluid inside your mother's womb."

"Here, here, young lady," Mully said. "What kind o' talk is that to be
using at the breakfast table? If Ah hear thee speak like that ony more,
cinema star or no cinema star, Ah'll smack thy bare backside for thee.
The idea! And of your Pa's own Ma, too; dead though she may be. Now thee
eat thy breakfast and hurry about it, too. We've got to see t' casting
director at Selznick International i' Coolver City by ten o'clock."

Sam said nothing more about flying; but he determined that the minute he
was alone he would try it again. He had quite a wait, because the minute
Mully and Lavinia were gone, the maid came in to clean up the apartment.
There was the maid, dusting and sweeping and humming to herself in a
come-day, go-day, God-send-Sunday sort of California way, and Sam thought
she'd never be through.

But at last she was. Sam shut the door, tapped out his pipe and got
ready. He lay on the sofa and willed and willed, and almost before he
could catch his breath there he was floating in the air with the greatest
of ease. For a while he just lay there, suspended in space, and amazed at
this wonderful new power. He turned his head and looked down. He was
fully a foot above the sofa. Very gently he floated to one side, where
lie was a good three feet above the floor. There could be no mistake
about it. Amazed at himself he floated back to the sofa.

"Well, Ah'll be a monkey's ooncle!" he breathed to himself. "That Ah will
indeed! Why even Ah can scarcely believe it's so."

To prove it to himself he tried it again. This time he floated up in the
air, then drifted out clean into the middle of the room. He felt quite
uncomfortable, somehow, but he thought that only natural.

Then he turned over to look down at the floor. Very slowly he began
revolving his body. And the minute he did that all feeling of awkwardness
left him. Once he was face-down toward the floor, a new and tremendous
feeling of security and power seized him.

"Why, of course," he said to himself. "Ah were upside down--like a burd
trying to fly on its back. This maun be the right way up!"

So now, imbued with a new and very great confidence, he stretched out his
arms and zoomed down toward the sofa. A foot from it, he banked with his
palms, brought his body upright, and lit on his feet as gently as a
thrush.

"Well, if this ain't a do!" he breathed.

He spread his arms again, pushed gently with the tips of his toes, and
took off again. He soared along like a glider, making a complete circle
of the room about a foot below the ceiling. As he did so he was seized
with a tremendous exhilaration. All hesitation now was gone, and he used
his new power with a fierce joy. He found flying took almost no physical
effort whatsoever. Nor did he need any conscious mental effort in
controlling himself; that is to say, he did not have to think how to do
things. When he came to a corner the muscles of his body and the delicate
distribution of his weight adjusted themselves by some instinct so that
he banked perfectly.

The world became a new place to Sam Small. To us who merely walk, the
world is a two-dimensional place; but to Sam it was now
three-dimensional.

The room in which he flew thus took on aspects unknown to us who could
only know it from a monotonous five-foot eye-level. He could see the tops
of doors and of cupboards and could get a bird's-eye view of the chairs
and table--which looked very silly pieces of furniture indeed from that
angle. He noted, too, that while the room might be clean down below, it
certainly wasn't up where he was. There were cobwebs over a closet and
dust galore atop every door.

"Ah'll just hey Mully give that maid a good talking-to," he resolved.

Then he gave himself over to the beautiful pure joy of flowing and
effortless flying. He swooped around the room, landing lightly as a
feather where he would, taking off again with the merest preliminary
drive of his toes. He practiced landings in awkward corners, to test the
range of his new abilities.

Unfortunately he was so occupied that he didn't hear Mully and Lavinia
come back; and when they walked into the room, there he happened to be,
perched atop a highboy.

"Well, Ah'll goa to Halifax," Mully snorted. "Sammywell Small! What in
the name o' God is to hiking up theer for? Coom dahn here afore tha
breaks thy bloody neck!"

Sam was so surprised and upset by being discovered that he forgot about
flying and jumped down in quite an ordinary, mortal sort of way. He
landed with a horrible crash that nearly drove his spine up into his back
teeth, and of course there was quite a bit of a do about it. Mully rubbed
Sam's back with a little Elliman's Embrocation and sailed into him so
hard that Sam got stubborn and wouldn't have told her about his new
accomplishment even if he had got a chance to get a word in edgewise.

"Sammywell Small," Mully said, "Heavens knaws Ah've swallered a lot o'
things since Ah married thee; but this caps the bloody climax, it does.
Ba gum, lad, if tha goal on like this, folk'll begin to think tha's balmy
i' t' crumpet. Eigh, sometimes Ah rue the day we took out a license."

"Aye?" Sam came back. "Well, it cost me seven and sixpence. Ah could ha'
got a dog license for t' same price."

"Aye, and there's soom days Ah wish tha'd bowt a dog," Mully rebutted.
"And today's one on 'em."

For several days after that Sam did nothing about flying. For one thing,
he was quite jarred up from his jump off the highboy. For another, Mully
gave him no chance to be alone.

But one night Sam woke up, and there was Mully sleeping as sound as an
Egyptian mummy. So Sam tiptoed out of bed in his nightshirt and took off.
For a couple of hours he flew around in the living room, zooming and
volplaning and banking to his heart's content. It was quite a sight, for
Sam was steady as an albatross in flight. Just one lift of a palm, and he
was banking; a slight bend of his knees and he zoomed. It all came
natural to him and he flew and flew with a sort of wild ecstasy.

After that, night after night, when Mully was abed, he would swoop around
the house, having great fun cutting capers and corners, sailing through
doorways, swooping within an inch of the carpet and then banking swiftly
upward again.

He began to set himself difficult tasks. For, curiously enough, although
all the movements that a bird makes normally in flight came natural to
him, he had to learn of his own accord the evolutions that an airplane
can achieve. He taught himself to loop the loop and do the barrel-roll,
the wing-over, the falling-leaf, the tail-spin. Finally he became very
proficient in this sort of thing. But it was his desire to emulate not
only a bird, but a machine, that got Sam into a bit of trouble.

He was soaring about in the dining room one night, concentrating on his
latest stunt, the Immelman turn (which is a sort of mixture of a half
inside loop and a barrel-roll, bringing you to the top of the loop the
right side up). For the first time that night Sam managed to do it right
nicely. The surging thrill of this new evolution intoxicated him, and he
sailed about the room, wildly doing Immelmann turns. Unfortunately, in
the dark, he forgot about the fine cut-glass chandelier right over the
dining room table, and crash! He went into it head first!

Sam, all tangled up in cut-glass chandelier, came down with a jangle and
a thump that would have wakened Lazarus himself.

When Mully came charging in there was a pretty sight to be seen indeed.
She switched on the light, and there she saw Sam in his nightshirt,
sitting in a welter of bits of cut glass and blood and wire and bursted
electric light bulbs.

"Eigh, bless ma heart and soul!  What's tha been oop to now?" Mully
snorted wearily.

Sam was as dizzy as a goat in spring, for he'd taken a crack on his head
that had laid about four inches of scalp open, and likely would have
split the skull of anyone else but a Yorkshireman.

"It were a forced landing," he said. "Help ma oop out o' here."

"Help thee oop! Ah should think soa! And a pretty picture indeed tha is,
Jigging there in thy nightgown and showing all tha's got! A man o' thy
age, too!"

Sam did his best to make himself decent, for just then Lavinia came
walking in, and the girl started giggling fit to die. At this Mully
turned and caught the lass a skelp over her backside that lifted her
nearly a foot in the air.

For no matter what Sam had done, Mully was determined that Lavinia should
grow up with the decent respect for parents that any good girl should
have--Hollywood or no Hollywood.

"That'll teach thee, my fine young lady, to watch thy P's and Q's," Mully
said. "Now off tha goal back to bed. Ah'll stand no sauce from thee."

She was that put out she gave Lavinia an extra clip on the lug for good
luck. Then she pulled Sam out and got him to bed, and got a doctor on the
telephone who came over and put six stitches in Sam's head. What with one
thing and another Mully had a right eventful night.



For a couple of days Sam was in bed and Mully said never a word about the
goings-on. But Sam could see by the way she held her lips tight together
that she was just saving it all up. And the day Sam got up, Mully hustled
Lavinia out of the house, and sat Sam on the sofa, and had her say.

"Now Sam," she said, "Ah want thee to bear in mind that Ah'm quite
remindful of the fact that, after all, tha did turn out to be an
inventor, what with thy self-doffing spindle and all. But what Ah say is
this, there's limits to what a man can do, even an inventor, in a manner
of speaking.

"But this much Ah will tell thee. When a chap of thy age starts gating up
in t' middle o' t' neight, and swinging in his shirt-tall from the
chandeliers like a hoorang-ootang, well, all Ah gate to say is, if tha
keeps it up they'll be sending for thee from Menston yet.

"Now Ah wean't say no moar about it, but enow's enow, so pull thysen
together, lad. And if tha wean't do it for me; at least remember tha lies
a daughter what's gate her life and career before her, as you might say."

Then Mully jumped up and went and locked herself in the kitchen and had a
champion good cry. After that she made a nice pot of tea and fixed up a
tray for Sam with a duck egg and a little bit of ham and some brown bread
and butter, and a few odds and ends of pickelets and toasted muffins and
scones and a couple of curdlemon-cheese tarts and a little pot of Stilton
cheese--just the things that Sam liked especially well. And they sat down
and had tea and never a word more was said about the chandelier.

Of course, after that tea, Sam was contrite, just as Mully had known he
would be, and he resolved to behave himself.

"Ah'm that sorry, Mully," he said. "It were just that Ah been a little
funny-like i' this land. Let's goa hoam to Yorksha."

"Now Sammywell, tha knows our Vinnie's right on the varry brink and
threshold of a cinema career. Why can'ta stay here?"

"Well, could Ah hev a tyke, then--happen just a bit of a tarrier?"

"Nay Sammywell, lad. Tha knaws t' landlady wean't have no doags i' this
house. Ah doan't see why tha can't goa out and mak friends. Goodness
knaws there's plenty of well-to-do chaps like thee that manages to find
this place interesting."

"Them? Eigh Mully, they're nowt but a lot o' mawngy owd toffs--sitting on
the park benches each day waiting for t' undertakker to coom along and
measure 'em. Ah can't mak friends wi' the like o' yon. Why, they got such
a bloody funny accent Ah gate nobbut one word i' ten o' what they're
yammering abaht. Now, if Ah nobbut hed a dog..."

"Tha can't hev noa dog!" Mully stated. And that ended it.



Sam really did put up a terrifically hard battle to keep from flying
again. But naturally it was too much for him. If you yourself were
suddenly faced by the fact that you were the first man in the history of
the whole world who had developed the power to fly by your own efforts,
you would not be able to dismiss the matter lightly. And neither could
Sam.

In the days that followed, as he sat in the sunshine on the Ocean Drive,
or walked along the paths under the palm trees, he would watch the sea
gulls, lifting and soaring in the magnificent air currents. He never got
tired of watching them. Now he was, as you might say, practically a bird
himself, Sam found himself thinking like a bird, and thinking and knowing
things that the ordinary man never gets in his head. Mostly he sensed and
felt about air currents.

There would be days when he sat there and he would be greatly troubled,
for the air currents were short and choppy--what Sam called "wivvery." He
didn't know where he got the word, but that explained it. On those days
his body would be almost torn by a sort of anguish, and he would sit
there watching the gulls fight and turn and twist and make myriad
delicate readjustments of their bodies every second as they flew. Sam
himself could feel those currents, and as each gull went by he would
squirm and twist his own body as if to help it along in its battle, just
as a crowd of people at the tense moment of a championship golf match
will twist their bodies and strain when they see an important putt going
an inch to one side of the cup, as if their straining would bend the ball
toward the cup.

After such a day Sam would go home, weary and irritable, and would only
half-listen to Mully chattering on about how their Vinnie was right on
the verge now of being given a screen test by an important company.

But then there would be other days when the air currents would be broad
and untroubled--great anthems of sweeping simplicity that came chanting
in from the Pacific. Then Sam felt at peace, for the magnificent breezes
would move in from the sea and, meeting the face of the great earthwall,
would shoot up untroubled to great heights. Especially was this so in the
late afternoons when the seldom-failing sea breeze came powerfully to the
land.

It was exactly like music, only instead of a vibration that could be
heard, it was a music that Sam could feel on the skin of his face,
thrumming and tingling so beautifully that he forgot the earth-bound
world. Then, in spirit, he was with the gulls who would come over from
feeding at the fishing boats by the breakwater. Those gulls would pick up
the air column that ran along the face of the Santa Monica pier, volplane
over the sand and then, reaching the great upcurrent at the Cliff, would
go screaming away on the moving tower. Up their bodies would shoot,
high--high! Then, quartering to the current, they would go sailing along
up the coast, over his head, all the way up to Malibu. There they flicked
their bodies and quartering the other way, came sailing back on the
lifting breeze, never moving a wing, but merely playing with their
pinions on the ecstatic air that vibrated beneath them.

Sam would sit there, and the sun would sink ruddy up the coast as the
gulls played in the evening breeze. For they did play. Sam could tell
that they were flying, not for food, but just for the pure joy they found
in that unheard music of soaring.

For it was soaring rather than flying that gripped Sam's mind. He
himself, it must be understood, never used a "wing-beat" of any kind. His
propulsion through the air came rather from a dynamic play of air
currents beneath him as he passed over. Although he could float, merely
by a lightness of his body, if he wished, he got little pleasure from
this. His great ecstasy came from the swift passing of his body over air
currents, as a soaring bird does.

He had little real interest in the swift-winging birds like the
hell-divers. He found a great deal more to his liking in the pelicans,
who were extraordinarily clever in petty currents: as going trickily over
the sea about a foot above the water so that they could catch the minute
upshoots that came as the wind drove at the back of a shore-coming
breaker. They were very clever at this, following along the line of the
wave as they went up the coast, balancing precariously on the narrow,
moving sheet of air. And, too, he gave the pelicans top score in their
ability to utilize the air currents left by another bird. That's why the
pelicans flew in formation, like a squadron of seaplanes. The leading
bird would use a vagrant, lifting current to soar for a while, the bird
behind would take advantage of the eddying air that the first bird left,
the third pelican would use the vibrating tangles left by the first two,
and so on.

Yes, Sam had a certain admiration for the pelicans, but, after all, they
were only the smalltime gamblers of the airways. His heart really was
with the gulls, plunging boldly into the great sundown air columns. He
would watch them rocketing up, borne high into the sky, there to scream
at the setting sun. And Sam would sit there, his heart lifting with the
birds far above, until Mully would come along the path.

"Eigh-oop, lad," she'd call. "Time to coom hoam afore it gates too
chilly."

They would walk home and she would tell him of Lavinia's progress, and
Sam would say aye and nay at appropriate places; but he never really
listened. His mind was half a mile up in the air.

Sam really meant to keep his promise to Mully and behave himself. Though
each day, on the palm-covered walk high up above the shore road, his
senses and muscles cried to be sporting up on the air currents, he did no
flying.

For one thing, Sam's Yorkshire practicality overcame him. As he said to
himself, it would look right queer now, if a chap were to suddenly go
sailing up and down in the air with the sea gulls in front of all those
people, sitting there on the benches and taking the nice California
sunshine. Everyone would be that capped, and likely as not there'd be all
sorts of bother afterward.

No, Sam held himself well in hand; but he couldn't help his senses
feeling as they did. The delicious play of the harmonious air currents on
his face, this new soundless music that he alone could feel, drew him in
spite of himself. And one day, he could not help leaving his bench and
walking to the edge of the palisade.

There, far down below him, was the shore road and the sands and the movie
stars' beach palaces; and the wind came thrumming up that cliffside like
a great harp struck in sweeping chords.

Sam drew nearer and nearer to the edge. He wasn't going to fly, mind you.
He only wanted to feel more awarely the heavenly play of the air. Before
he knew it, he was over the fence. No one was in sight. With a sigh of
pleasure, like a tobacco-starved man with his first cigarette in weeks,
he leaned against the upshooting current. He did not let his feet leave
the ground. He merely leaned forward on the column of air, letting it
play and vibrate about his intoxicated body.

And then he was grasped rudely. All his delicate balance was destroyed as
he was yanked over the fence, and found himself wriggling in the hands of
a policeman.

"You dizzy old--" the cop yelled. "What the hell's the idea?"

"Hey up, lad," Sam protested. "Ah weren't dewing nowt."

He struggled and struggled, but the cop held on grimly. There was no
escape.

"You'd better come along with me," the cop said.

So, of course, Mully heard about the whole thing. When she got home that
afternoon the landlady rushed up with the news that the police had
telephoned for her.

"For me?" Mully said, a little alarmed despite her free conscience. "What
in the name o' goodness would they want wi' me?"

"Well, it seems sort of like they've got your mister down there."

"Ma Sammywell!  Ooooah, fer the luv of Heaven! What in t' name o' God hez
he been up to now!"

So hardly knowing whether she was standing on her head or her feet, Mully
dashed around and got her best black gloves, and they put her in a
taxicab and off she dashed for the City Hall at Fourth and Santa Monica
Boulevard, all the time stewing and fuming and covered with shame as she
pictured Sam a criminal and either locked up behind the bars or else
sitting in a room with a white light in his face and six detectives with
their hats on and cigars in their teeth giving him the Yankee third
degree. By the time she reached the station she was about ready to write
to the British Embassy and get the Grand Fleet over to California to see
that a good British subject had his rights defended.

She was in such a stew that it made her as mad as a setting hen when she
walked in and found Sam sitting calmly in the station house, puffing on
his pipe.

"You scallywag," she cried. "And what's ta been up to now?"

"Now Mully," Sam said. "Now, now!"

"Doan't thee now-now me," she said. "What's ta been up to?"

Sam shut up in a regular stubborn Yorkshire way and wouldn't say
anything, so the police lieutenant, who turned out to be a very affable
sort of a lad, took Mully aside and explained that Sam had tried to
commit suicide by jumping off the Ocean Drive cliff.

"Suicide?" Mully said. And then the big tears began rolling down her face
and she dabbed and dabbed away.

"Now," the lieutenant said to Sam, "aren't you ashamed of yourself?
Causing all this grief to your wife there! Aren't you ashamed!"

"Eigh, doan't scold him, mister," Mully begged. "Properly it's all ma
fault. He's been feeling poorly ever since he had a touch of bronchitis
i' Vancouver, and Ah hevn't been a good wife and takken care on him like
Ah should."

"Now Mully," Sam comforted. "Doan't thee tak on. Tha hez been a good
wife--barring one or two little bits o' things, Ah couldn't ha' wished
for no better Wife."

"Well, what's tha want to goa and commit suicide for?" Mully wailed.

She was so overcome that the lieutenant invited them into his private
office and sat down and wrote on a lot of papers. Then he frowned at Sam.

"Now, Mr. Small," he said, sternly. "I want to tell you something.
Underneath this building we've got six cellars. And the further down you
go the darker it gets. And in each cellar there's sixty cells. And the
further along you go the smaller the cells get.

"Now by rights I ought to take you down into the very bottom cellar, and
take you right to the very last cell, and lock you in there, and then
come up here and throw the key away! That's what I ought to do!"

"Oh, please," Mully begged. "Doan't do that. He's gate a tarrible poor
chest. All his side of the family has. He'd dee o' pneumonia. Oh, please,
just lock him oop in a varry nice cell where he can see a little
daylight, in a manner o' speaking."

At this the lieutenant tapped his teeth with his pen, and looked at Mully
and then scowled at Sam, and finally he said:

"Mrs. Small, I'm moved to compassion by your evident love for your
husband. And don't think I'd do this if it wasn't for her," he snapped at
Sam. "But just in this case, I'm going to take a chance. I shouldn't do
it by rights, because I should put him away where the sun can't shine on
him, but I'll take a chance and release him in your custody."

"Oh no," Mully said. "Ah wouldn't want to connive at owt wrong. If the
law says he's got to go behind the bars, then tha'd better do that."

"No, I'll take the responsibility," the lieutenant said,

"Nay, now. Th' law's th' law," Mully insisted. "Hard on us as it may be,
we maun observe it."

"Now, Mully," Sam said, "if t' policeman is off to let me goa, doan't
thee upset t' applecart."

"Th' law's th' law," Mully said, stubbornly.

It took quite a while for the two of them to get Mully to give in, but
finally she did.

"I'll take care of the law; you just take care of your husband," the
lieutenant said. "Now remember," he said to Sam, "you're being released
in her custody--and any more monkey business! The very last cell in the
very lowest cellar! Now go home and behave yourself."

"Ah'll see he does," Mully said, wiping her eyes. "Coom on, Sammywell.
And just wait till Ah gate thee hoam!"



Of course, for the next week or so Sam never heard the end of it. Mully
kept her eye on him every minute of the waking day. He couldn't even take
a walk alone. Naturally, he got very fed up with this.

"Ah'm no owd codger that can't tak a walk alone," he would complain.

"That so be as it may," Mully would sniff. "But just the same, Ah'm off
to keep an ee on thee."

This, of course, meant that she had to let Lavinia make the rounds of the
studios alone. But, just to show how strange things happen, Lavinia
seemed to get along much better, and before a week was up she really had
a screen test at G-M-G Pictures, and it looked as if the cinema was going
to be interested in her after all.

The only thing, she said, that she thought was holding her back was what
she called background.

"Tha means tha's ashamed o' me and thy feyther?" Mully challenged.

"Oh no. Nothing of the sort, Mother. I mean this place here."

"What's wrang wi' this place?" Mully asked. "Ah'm sewer there's no lord
or duke or belted earl in all England's gate a kitchen that's any bonnier
looking. Indeed, Ah nivver thowt Ah'd live to t' day when Ah hed me a
kitchen wi' yaller, black, and white tiles coovering ivvery blessed inch
o' t' walls."

"I know, Mother, but it's so small--and in what a neighborhood! We ought
to have a home, not an apartment--a place where I could have a party and
receive guests--and have a cocktail party and meet influential people and
make contacts with directors and producers.

"Now I read that for two hundred and fifty dollars a month..."

"How much is that i' pounds?" Sam asked.

"Fifty pounds a month," Lavinia calculated.

"Well, Ah'll be a moonkey's ooncle," Sam gasped.

"Sitha, ma fine lady," Mully added. "That's moor 'n us ivver paid in us
lives for a whole year in a house. And if tha thinks that we got brass to
chuck away on thy fancy ideas, well tha just gate another think cooming."

At this Lavinia burst out bawling.

"Well, I don't know what you want to do with the rest of your lives, but
I know what I want to do," she sobbed. "I don't know what Father ever
wanted to invent the Small Self-Doffing Spindle for, and make a fortune
out of it, if he just wants to go right on living like a mill-worker."

"We're not bahn to move," Mully stated flatly.

"Well, Mother, you might just look at the house I saw. It's not too
grand. And it's got a beautiful garden where..."

"Tha heeard what thy mother said!" said Sam. "We're not off to move."

"Well, there's no need to bark at t' lass like that," Mully said, turning
on him. "Heavens knows she nobbut made a bit of a suggestion."

"Ah didn't bark at her," Sam said.

"Why tha did, fit to snap her yead off just because t' lass hes a desire
to improve hersen..."

"Hey, whose side is tha on i' this argument?" Sam demanded.

"Well, if tha's on one side Ah'm on t' other, for Ah nivver knew thee o'
t' reight side i' ma life," Mully came back.

"And onyhow, this place hez a gardin, and happen it'd dew thee good to do
a bit o' digging. Tha could put in reddishes an' a few swedes and some
leeks and a nice row or two o' lettis."

"Ooh drat ma blasted buttons," Sam said. "Ah wish Ah were back hoam i'
Yorksha'--that's what Ah dew!"

And, of course, the upshot was, Mully and Lavinia got the nice big house.

It was up on Pacific Palisades, just beyond where Vicki Baum and Elissa
Landi live, and it had orange trees and an avocado grove and a patio with
a fountain and an automatic, self-sprinkling lawn all complete. It was
quite a mansion.

Lavinia gave a party complete with stuffed celery and influential people,
and as luck would have it the conversation turned to flying. A transport
plane had just crashed in San Francisco bay killing all the people aboard
and everyone at Lavina's party had a new idea about why it had happened.

"Nay, ye're all wrang," Sam put in. "Like as not the reason he crashed
was because the air was wivvery."

"It was what?" asked a young woman with a cut-glass voice.

"It were wivvery," Sam said.

Everyone stopped talking and Sam, seeing he had his audience, expanded.

"It's ma own word," he said, "but Ah'll explain it to ye. Now sometimes
the air is all nice and flat as you may wish..."

"Oh Father," Lavinia cut in, "wouldn't you like to put up the ping pong
net for us?"

"I' just a minute," Sam said. "Now there's other times, when it gets all
reyther in mucky little bits, like. And that's what Ah calls wivvery. See
now, supposing Ah'm an airyoplane."

He spread his arms to show them. Everyone looked very amused, and truth
to tell, Sam did look a bit of a comic figure, what with his arms spread
and his gray head cocked on one side.

Mully saw them smiling, and she began to boil over. She walked over and
gave Sam a nudge that nearly buckled in a couple of ribs.

"Time for t' ping pong net, lad," she said with emphasis, like a villain
in the cinematographic pictures.

So Sam put up the net on the table in the patio, and all the influential
people began batting the little ball around. For a while he watched the
game, then he wandered uselessly round his fine big house. He was feeling
a bit sorry for himself, when one of the guests, a tall, likely-looking
lad, came up.

"Mr. Small," he said. "My name's Harry Hanks."

"Ah'm that pleased to meet you," Sam said, dolefully.

"Mr. Small, I was interested in what you were saying about wivvery air.
You were interrupted."

"Well," Sam said, "it's this way."

He began to stretch his arms again, but then he looked round to see if
Mully was in sight.

"Come i' t' kitchen, lad," Sam said. "We're not so liable to be
disturbed."

They got in the kitchen and Sam explained all about how the air got
wivvery at times, and how