Surreptitiously, as though half ashamed of it, he

The Man Whom The Trees had kept alive a sense of beauty that hardly
Loved belonged to his type, and was unusual for its vital-
ity. Trees, in particular, nourished it. He, also,
understood trees, felt a subtle sense of communion
by Algernon Blackwood
with them, born perhaps of those years he had lived
in caring for them, guarding, protecting, nursing,
I years of solitude among their great shadowy pres-
He painted trees as by some special divining ences. He kept it largely to himself, of course,
instinct of their essential qualities. He understood because he knew the world he lived in. He also kept
them. He knew why in an oak forest, for instance, it from his wife—to some extent. He knew it came
each individual was utterly distinct from its fellows, between them, knew that she feared it, was
and why no two beeches in the whole world were opposed. But what he did not know, or realize at
alike. People asked him down to paint a favorite any rate, was the extent to which she grasped the
lime or silver birch, for he caught the individuality power which they wielded over his life. Her fear, he
of a tree as some catch the individuality of a horse. judged, was simply due to those years in India,
How he managed it was something of a puzzle, for when for weeks at a time his calling took him away
he never had painting lessons, his drawing was from her into the jungle forests, while she remained
often wildly inaccurate, and, while his perception of at home dreading all manner of evils that might
a Tree Personality was true and vivid, his rendering befall him. This, of course, explained her instinctive
of it might almost approach the ludicrous. Yet the opposition to the passion for woods that still influ-
character and personality of that particular tree enced and clung to him. It was a natural survival of
stood there alive beneath his brush—shining, those anxious days of waiting in solitude for his safe
frowning, dreaming, as the case might be, friendly return.
or hostile, good or evil. It emerged. For Mrs. Bittacy, daughter of an evangelical
There was nothing else in the wide world that clergy-man, was a self-sacrificing woman, who in
he could paint; flowers and landscapes he only most things found a happy duty in sharing her hus-
muddled away into a smudge; with people he was band’s joys and sorrows to the point of self-oblitera-
helpless and hopeless; also with animals. Skies he tion. Only in this matter of the trees she was less
could sometimes manage, or effects of wind in successful than in others. It remained a problem
foliage, but as a rule he left these all severely alone. difficult of compromise.
He kept to trees, wisely following an instinct that He knew, for instance, that what she objected to
was guided by love. It was quite arresting, this way in this portrait of the cedar on their lawn was really
he had of making a tree look almost like a being— not the price he had given for it, but the unpleasant
alive. It approached the uncanny. way in which the transaction emphasized this
“Yes, Sanderson knows what he’s doing when he breach between their common interests—the only
paints a tree!” thought old David Bittacy, C.B., late one they had, but deep.
of the Woods and Forests. “Why, you can almost Sanderson, the artist, earned little enough
hear it rustle. You can smell the thing. You can hear money by his strange talent; such checks were few
the rain drip through its leaves. You can almost see and far between. The owners of fine or interesting
the branches move. It grows.” For in this way some- trees who cared to have them painted singly were
what he expressed his satisfaction, half to persuade rare indeed, and the “studies” that he made for his
himself that the twenty guineas were well spent own delight he also kept for his own delight. Even
(since his wife thought otherwise), and half to were there buyers, he would not sell them. Only a
explain this uncanny reality of life that lay in the few, and these peculiarly intimate friends, might
fine old cedar framed above his study table. even see them, for he disliked to hear the undis-
Yet in the general view the mind of Mr. Bittacy cerning criticisms of those who did not understand.
was held to be austere, not to say morose. Few Not that he minded laughter at his craftsmanship—
divined in him the secretly tenacious love of nature he admitted it with scorn—but that remarks about
that had been fostered by years spent in the forests the personality of the tree itself could easily wound
and jungles of the eastern world. It was odd for an or anger him. He resented slighting observations
Englishman, due possibly to that Eurasian ancestor. concerning them, as though insults offered to per-

THE MAN WHOM THE TREES LOVED — 1 of 32

sonal friends who could not answer for themselves. “You’re as full of dreams as ever,” she said gen-
He was instantly up in arms. tly, “and I don’t regret the check a bit—really. Only
“It really is extraordinary,” said a Woman who it would have been more real if it had been the orig-
Understood, “that you can make that cypress seem inal tree, wouldn’t it?”
an individual, when in reality all cypresses are so “That was blown down years ago. I passed the
exactly alike.” place last year, and there’s not a sign of it left,” he
And though the bit of calculated flattery had replied tenderly. And presently, when he released
come so near to saying the right, true, thing, her from his side, she went up to the wall and care-
Sanderson flushed as though she had slighted a fully dusted the picture Sanderson had made of the
friend beneath his very nose. Abruptly he passed in cedar on their present lawn. She went all round the
front of her and turned the picture to the wall. frame with her tiny handkerchief, standing on tip-
“Almost as queer,” he answered rudely, copying toe to reach the top rim.
her silly emphasis, “as that you should have imag- “What I like about it,” said the old fellow to
ined individuality in your husband, Madame, when himself when his wife had left the room, “is the way
in reality all men are so exactly alike!” he has made it live. All trees have it, of course, but a
Since the only thing that differentiated her hus- cedar taught it to me first—the ‘something’ trees
band from the mob was the money for which she possess that make them know I’m there when I
had married him, Sanderson’s relations with that stand close and watch. I suppose I felt it then
particular family terminated on the spot, chance of because I was in love, and love reveals life every-
prospective orders with it. His sensitiveness, per- where.” He glanced a moment at the Lebanon
haps, was morbid. At any rate the way to reach his looming gaunt and somber through the gathering
heart lay through his trees. He might be said to love dusk. A curious wistful expression danced a
trees. He certainly drew a splendid inspiration from moment through his eyes. “Yes, Sanderson has seen
them, and the source of a man’s inspiration, be it it as it is,” he murmured, “solemnly dreaming there
music, religion, or a woman, is never a safe thing to its dim hidden life against the Forest edge, and as
criticize. different from that other tree in Kent as I am from
“I do think, perhaps, it was just a little extrava- —from the vicar, say. It’s quite a stranger, too. I
gant, dear,” said Mrs. Bittacy, referring to the cedar don’t know anything about it really. That other
check, “when we want a lawnmower so badly too. cedar I loved; this old fellow I respect. Friendly
But, as it gives you such pleasure—” though—yes, on the whole quite friendly. He’s
“It reminds me of a certain day, Sophia,” replied painted the friendliness right enough. He saw that.
the old gentleman, looking first proudly at herself, I’d like to know that man better,” he added. “I’d like
then fondly at the picture, “now long gone by. It to ask him how he saw so clearly that it stands
reminds me of another tree—that Kentish lawn in there between this cottage and the Forest—yet
the spring, birds singing in the lilacs, and some one somehow more in sympathy with us than with the
in a muslin frock waiting patiently beneath a cer- mass of woods behind—a sort of go-between. That I
tain cedar—not the one in the picture, I know, but never noticed before. I see it now—through his
—” eyes. It stands there like a sentinel—protective
“I was not waiting,” she said indignantly, “I was rather.”
picking fir-cones for the schoolroom fire—” He turned away abruptly to look through the
“Fir-cones, my dear, do not grow on cedars, and window. He saw the great encircling mass of gloom
schoolroom fires were not made in June in my that was the Forest, fringing their little lawn. It
young days.” pressed up closer in the darkness. The prim garden
“And anyhow it isn’t the same cedar.” with its formal beds of flowers seemed an imperti-
“It has made me fond of all cedars for its sake,” nence almost—some little colored insect that
he answered, “and it reminds me that you are the sought to settle on a sleeping monster—some
same young girl still—” gaudy fly that danced impudently down the edge of
She crossed the room to his side, and together a great river that could engulf it with a toss of its
they looked out of the window where, upon the smallest wave. That Forest with its thousand years
lawn of their Hampshire cottage, a ragged Lebanon of growth and its deep spreading being was some
stood in a solitary state. such slumbering monster, yes. Their cottage and
garden stood too near its running lip. When the

THE MAN WHOM THE TREES LOVED — 2 of 32

winds were strong and lifted its shadowy skirts of ror of devastating Man afflict it with the dread of
black and purple.... He loved this feeling of the For- premature death. It knew itself supreme; it spread
est Personality; he had always loved it. and preened itself without concealment. It set no
“Queer,” he reflected, “awfully queer, that trees spires to carry warnings, for no wind brought mes-
should bring me such a sense of dim, vast living! I sages of alarm as it bulged outwards to the sun and
used to feel it particularly, I remember, in India; in stars.
Canadian woods as well; but never in little English But, once its leafy portals left behind, the trees
woods till here. And Sanderson’s the only man I of the countryside were otherwise. The houses
ever knew who felt it too. He’s never said so, but threatened them; they knew themselves in danger.
there’s the proof,” and he turned again to the pic- The roads were no longer glades of silent turf, but
ture that he loved. A thrill of unaccustomed life ran noisy, cruel ways by which men came to attack
through him as he looked. “I wonder; by Jove, I them. They were civilized, cared for—but cared for
wonder,” his thoughts ran on, “whether a tree—er in order that some day they might be put to death.
—in any lawful meaning of the term can be—alive. Even in the villages, where the solemn and
I remember some writing fellow telling me long ago immemorial repose of giant chestnuts aped secu-
that trees had once been moving things, animal rity, the tossing of a silver birch against their mass,
organisms of some sort, that had stood so long impatient in the littlest wind, brought warning.
feeding, sleeping, dreaming, or something, in the Dust clogged their leaves. The inner humming of
same place, that they had lost the power to get their quiet life became inaudible beneath the
away...!” scream and shriek of clattering traffic. They longed
Fancies flew pell-mell about his mind, and, and prayed to enter the great Peace of the Forest
lighting a cheroot, he dropped into an armchair yonder, but they could not move. They knew,
beside the open window and let them play. Outside moreover, that the Forest with its august, deep
the blackbirds whistled in the shrubberies across splendor despised and pitied them. They were a
the lawn. He smelt the earth and trees and flowers, thing of artificial gardens, and belonged to beds of
the perfume of mown grass, and the bits of open flowers all forced to grow one way....
heath-land far away in the heart of the woods. The “I’d like to know that artist fellow better,” was
summer wind stirred very faintly through the the thought upon which he returned at length to
leaves. But the great New Forest hardly raised her the things of practical life. “I wonder if Sophia
sweeping skirts of black and purple shadow. would mind him for a bit—?” He rose with the
Mr. Bittacy, however, knew intimately every sound of the gong, brushing the ashes from his
detail of that wilderness of trees within. He knew all speckled waistcoat. He pulled the waistcoat down.
the purple coombs splashed with yellow waves of He was slim and spare in figure, active in his move-
gorse; sweet with juniper and myrtle, and gleaming ments. In the dim light, but for that silvery mous-
with clear and dark-eyed pools that watched the tache, he might easily have passed for a man of
sky. There hawks hovered, circling hour by hour, forty.
and the flicker of the peewit’s flight with its “I’ll suggest it to her anyhow,” he decided on his
melancholy, petulant cry, deepened the sense of way upstairs to dress. His thought really was that
stillness. He knew the solitary pines, dwarfed, Sanderson could probably explain his world of
tufted, vigorous, that sang to every lost wind, trav- things he had always felt about—trees. A man who
elers like the gypsies who pitched their bush-like could paint the soul of a cedar in that way must
tents beneath them; he knew the shaggy ponies, know it all.
with foals like baby centaurs; the chattering jays, “Why not?” she gave her verdict later over the
the milky call of the cuckoos in the spring, and the bread-and-butter pudding; “unless you think he’d
boom of the bittern from the lonely marshes. The find it dull without companions.”
undergrowth of watching hollies, he knew too, “He would paint all day in the Forest, dear. I’d
strange and mysterious, with their dark, suggestive like to pick his brains a bit, too, if I could manage
beauty, and the yellow shimmer of their pale it.”
dropped leaves. “You can manage anything, David,” was what
Here all the Forest lived and breathed in safety, she answered, for this elderly childless couple used
secure from mutilation. No terror of the axe could an affectionate politeness long since deemed old-
haunt the peace of its vast subconscious life, no ter- fashioned. The remark, however, displeased her,

THE MAN WHOM THE TREES LOVED — 3 of 32

making her feel uneasy, and she did not notice his reflected the images of others’ thinking which she
rejoinder, smiling his pleasure and content had learned to see. So, wise in his knowledge of
—“Except yourself and our bank account, my dear.” human nature, old David Bittacy accepted the pain
This passion of his for trees was of old a bone of of being obliged to keep a portion of his inner life
contention, though very mild contention. It fright- shut off from the woman he deeply loved. He
ened her. That was the truth. The Bible, her regarded her little biblical phrases as oddities that
Baedeker for earth and heaven, did not mention it. still clung to a rather fine, big soul—like horns and
Her husband, while humoring her, could never alter little useless things some animals have not yet lost
that instinctive dread she had. He soothed, but in the course of evolution while they have outgrown
never changed her. She liked the woods, perhaps as their use.
spots for shade and picnics, but she could not, as he “My dear, what is it? You frightened me!” She
did, love them. asked it suddenly, sitting up so abruptly that her
And after dinner, with a lamp beside the open cap dropped sideways almost to her ear. For David
window, he read aloud from The Times the evening Bittacy behind his crackling paper had uttered a
post had brought, such fragments as he thought sharp exclamation of surprise. He had lowered the
might interest her. The custom was invariable, sheet and was staring at her over the tops of his
except on Sundays, when, to please his wife, he gold glasses.
dozed over Tennyson or Farrar as their mood might “Listen to this, if you please,” he said, a note of
be. She knitted while he read, asked gentle ques- eagerness in his voice, “listen to this, my dear
tions, told him his voice was a “lovely reading Sophia. It’s from an address by Francis Darwin
voice,” and enjoyed the little discussions that occa- before the Royal Society. He is president, you know,
sions prompted because he always let her with and son of the great Darwin. Listen carefully, I beg
them with “Ah, Sophia, I had never thought of it you. It is most significant.”
quite in that way before; but now you mention it I “I am listening, David,” she said with some
must say I think there’s something in it....” astonishment, looking up. She stopped her knitting.
For David Bittacy was wise. It was long after For a second she glanced behind her. Something
marriage, during his months of loneliness spent had suddenly changed in the room, and it made her
with trees and forests in India, his wife waiting at feel wide awake, though before she had been almost
home in the Bungalow, that his other, deeper side dozing. Her husband’s voice and manner had intro-
had developed the strange passion that she could duced this new thing. Her instincts rose in warning.
not understand. And after one or two serious “Do read it, dear.” He took a deep breath, looking
attempts to let her share it with him, he had given first again over the rims of his glasses to make quite
up and learned to hide it from her. He learned, that sure of her attention. He had evidently come across
is, to speak of it only casually, for since she knew it something of genuine interest, although herself she
was there, to keep silence altogether would only often found the passages from these “Addresses”
increase her pain. So from time to time he skimmed somewhat heavy.
the surface just to let her show him where he was In a deep, emphatic voice he read aloud:
wrong and think she won the day. It remained a ‘”It is impossible to know whether or not plants
debatable land of compromise. He listened with are conscious; but it is consistent with the doctrine
patience to her criticisms, her excursions and of continuity that in all living things there is some-
alarms, knowing that while it gave her satisfaction, thing psychic, and if we accept this point of view
it could not change himself. The thing lay in him —’”
too deep and true for change. But, for peace’ sake, “If,” she interrupted, scenting danger.
some meeting-place was desirable, and he found it He ignored the interruption as a thing of slight
thus. value he was accustomed to.
It was her one fault in his eyes, this religious ‘”If we accept this point of view,’” he continued,
mania carried over from her upbringing, and it did ‘”we must believe that in plants there exists a faint
no serious harm. Great emotion could shake it copy of what we know as consciousness in our-
sometimes out of her. She clung to it because her selves .’”
father taught it her and not because she had He laid the paper down and steadily stared at
thought it out for herself. Indeed, like many her. Their eyes met. He had italicized the last
women, she never really thought at all, but merely phrase.

THE MAN WHOM THE TREES LOVED — 4 of 32

 For a minute or two his wife made no reply or wonderful tangled network of roots and branches,
comment. They stared at one another in silence. He delicate shaking leaves, and its millions of spires
waited for the meaning of the words to reach her that caught the sun and wind and rain. Its very
understanding with full import. Then he turned right to existence seemed in question.
and read them again in part, while she, released
from that curious driving look in his eyes, instinc- II
tively again glanced over her shoulder round the Sanderson accordingly came down, and on the
room. It was almost as if she felt some one had whole his short visit was a success. Why he came at
come in to them unnoticed. all was a mystery to those who heard of it, for he
“We must believe that in plants there exists a never paid visits and was certainly not the kind of
faint copy of what we know as consciousness in man to court a customer. There must have been
ourselves.” something in Bittacy he liked.
“If,” she repeated lamely, feeling before the stare Mrs. Bittacy was glad when he left. He brought
of those questioning eyes she must say something, no dress-suit for one thing, not even a dinner-
but not yet having gathered her wits together quite. jacket, and he wore very low collars with big bal-
“Consciousness,” he rejoined. And then he loon ties like a Frenchman, and let his hair grow
added gravely: “That, my dear, is the statement of a longer than was nice, she felt. Not that these things
scientific man of the Twentieth Century.” were important, but that she considered them
Mrs. Bittacy sat forward in her chair so that her symptoms of something a little disordered. The ties
silk flounces crackled louder than the newspaper. were unnecessarily flowing.
She made a characteristic little sound between snif- For all that he was an interesting man, and, in
fling and snorting. She put her shoes closely spite of his eccentricities of dress and so forth, a
together, with her hands upon her knees. gentleman. “Perhaps,” she reflected in her gen-
“David,” she said quietly, “I think these scien- uinely charitable heart, “he had other uses for the
tific men are simply losing their heads. There is twenty guineas, an invalid sister or an old mother
nothing in the Bible that I can remember about any to support!” She had no notion of the cost of
such thing whatsoever.” brushes, frames, paints, and canvases. Also she for-
“Nothing, Sophia, that I can remember either,” gave him much for the sake of his beautiful eyes
he answered patiently. Then, after a pause, he and his eager enthusiasm of manner. So many men
added, half to himself perhaps more than to her: of thirty were already blasé.
“And, now that I come to think about it, it seems Still, when the visit was over, she felt relieved.
that Sanderson once said something to me that was She said nothing about his coming a second time,
similar. and her husband, she was glad to notice, had like-
“Then Mr. Sanderson is a wise and thoughtful wise made no suggestion. For, truth to tell, the way
man, and a safe man,” she quickly took up, “if he the younger man engrossed the older, keeping him
said that.” out for hours in the Forest, talking on the lawn in
For she thought her husband referred to her the blazing sun, and in the evenings when the
remark about the Bible, and not to her judgment of damp of dusk came creeping out from the sur-
the scientific men. And he did not correct her mis- rounding woods, all regardless of his age and usual
take. habits, was not quite to her taste. Of course, Mr.
“And plants, you see, dear, are not the same as Sanderson did not know how easily those attacks of
trees,” she drove her advantage home, “not quite, Indian fever came back, but David surely might
that is.” have told him.
“I agree,” said David quietly; “but both belong to They talked trees from morning to night. It
the great vegetable kingdom.” stirred in her the old subconscious trail of dread, a
There was a moment’s pause before she trail that led ever into the darkness of big woods;
answered. and such feelings, as her early evangelical training
“Pah! The vegetable kingdom, indeed!” She taught her, were temptings. To regard them in any
tossed her pretty old head. And into the words she other way was to play with danger.
put a degree of contempt that, could the vegetable Her mind, as she watched these two, was
kingdom have heard it, might have made it feel charged with curious thoughts of dread she could
ashamed for covering a third of the world with its not understand, yet feared the more on that

THE MAN WHOM THE TREES LOVED — 5 of 32

account. The way they studied that old mangy “The damp is so very penetrating, even in
cedar was a trifle unnecessary, unwise, she felt. It summer,” she murmured when they came obedi-
was disregarding the sense of proportion which ently. She was half surprised at her open audacity,
deity had set upon the world for men’s safe guid- half repentant. They came so meekly at her call.
ance. “And my husband is sensitive to fever from the
Even after dinner they smoked their cigars upon East. No, please do not throw away your cigars. We
the low branches that swept down and touched the can sit by the open window and enjoy the evening
lawn, until at length she insisted on their coming while you smoke.”
in. Cedars, she had somewhere heard, were not safe She was very talkative for a moment; subcon-
after sundown; it was not wholesome to be too near scious excitement was the cause.
them; to sleep beneath them was even dangerous, “It is so still—so wonderfully still,” she went on,
though what the precise danger was she had forgot- as no one spoke; “so peaceful, and the air so very
ten. The upas was the tree she really meant. sweet ... and God is always near to those who need
At any rate she summoned David in, and His aid.” The words slipped out before she realized
Sanderson came presently after him. quite what she was saying, yet fortunately, in time
For a long time, before deciding on this to lower her voice, for no one heard them. They
peremptory step, she had watched them surrepti- were, perhaps, an instinctive expression of relief. It
tiously from the drawing-room window—her hus- flustered her that she could have said the thing at
band and her guest. The dusk enveloped them with all.
its damp veil of gauze. She saw the glowing tips of Sanderson brought her shawl and helped to
their cigars, and heard the drone of voices. Bats flit- arrange the chairs; she thanked him in her old-
ted overhead, and big, silent moths whirred softly fashioned, gentle way, declining the lamps which
over the rhododendron blossoms. And it came sud- he had offered to light. “They attract the moths and
denly to her, while she watched, that her husband insects so, I think!”
had somehow altered these last few days—since Mr. The three of them sat there in the gloaming.
Sanderson’s arrival in fact. A change had come over Mr. Bittacy’s white moustache and his wife’s yellow
him, though what it was she could not say. She shawl gleaming at either end of the little horseshoe,
hesitated, indeed, to search. That was the instinc- Sanderson with his wild black hair and shining eyes
tive dread operating in her. Provided it passed she midway between them. The painter went on talking
would rather not know. Small things, of course, she softly, continuing evidently the conversation begun
noticed; small outward signs. He had neglected The with his host beneath the cedar. Mrs. Bittacy, on
Times for one thing, left off his speckled waistcoats her guard, listened—uneasily.
for another. He was absent-minded sometimes; “For trees, you see, rather conceal themselves in
showed vagueness in practical details where hith- daylight. They reveal themselves fully only after
erto he showed decision. And—he had begun to sunset. I never know a tree,” he bowed here slightly
talk in his sleep again. towards the lady as though to apologize for some-
These and a dozen other small peculiarities thing he felt she would not quite understand or
came suddenly upon her with the rush of a com- like, “until I’ve seen it in the night. Your cedar, for
bined attack. They brought with them a faint dis- instance,” looking towards her husband again so
tress that made her shiver. Momentarily her mind that Mrs. Bittacy caught the gleaming of his turned
was startled, then confused, as her eyes picked out eyes, “I failed with badly at first, because I did it in
the shadowy figures in the dusk, the cedar covering the morning. You shall see to-morrow what I mean
them, the Forest close at their backs. And then, —that first sketch is upstairs in my portfolio; it’s
before she could think, or seek internal guidance as quite another tree to the one you bought. That
her habit was, this whisper, muffled and very hur- view”—he leaned forward, lowering his voice—”I
ried, ran across her brain: “It’s Mr. Sanderson. Call caught one morning about two o’clock in very faint
David in at once!” moonlight and the stars. I saw the naked being of
And she had done so. Her shrill voice crossed the thing—”
the lawn and died away into the Forest, quickly “You mean that you went out, Mr. Sanderson, at
smothered. No echo followed it. The sound fell that hour?” the old lady asked with astonishment
dead against the rampart of a thousand listening and mild rebuke. She did not care particularly for
trees. his choice of adjectives either.

THE MAN WHOM THE TREES LOVED — 6 of 32

 “I fear it was rather a liberty to take in another’s
house, perhaps,” he answered courteously. “But, Not to the staring Day,
having chanced to wake, I saw the tree from my For all the importunate questionings he pursues
window, and made my way downstairs.” In his big, violent voice,
“It’s a wonder Boxer didn’t bit you; he sleeps Shall those mild things of bulk and multitude,
The trees—God’s sentinels …
loose in the hall,” she said.
Yield of their huge, unutterable selves
“On the contrary. The dog came out with me. I . . .
hope,” he added, “the noise didn’t disturb you, But at the word
though it’s rather late to say so. I feel quite guilty.” Of the ancient, sacerdotal Night,
His white teeth showed in the dusk as he smiled. A Night of many secrets, whose effect—
smell of earth and flowers stole in through the win- Transfiguring, hierophantic, dread—
dow on a breath of wandering air. Themselves alone may fully apprehend,
Mrs. Bittacy said nothing at the moment. “We They tremble and are changed:
both sleep like tops,” put in her husband, laughing. In each the uncouth, individual soul
“You’re a courageous man, though, Sanderson, and, Looms forth and glooms
Essential, and, their bodily presences
by Jove, the picture justifies you. Few artist would
Touched with inordinate significance,
have taken so much trouble, though I read once Wearing the darkness like a livery
that Holman Hunt, Rossetti, or some one of that Of some mysterious and tremendous guild,
lot, painted all night in his orchard to get an effect They brood—they menace—they appall.
of moonlight that he wanted.”
He chattered on. His wife was glad to hear his The voice of Mrs. Bittacy presently broke the
voice; it made her feel more easy in her mind. But silence that followed.
presently the other held the floor again, and her “I like that part about God’s sentinels,” she mur-
thoughts grew darkened and afraid. Instinctively mured. There was no sharpness in her tone; it was
she feared the influence on her husband. The mys- hushed and quiet. The truth, so musically uttered,
tery and wonder that lie in woods, in forests, in muted her shrill objections though it had not less-
great gatherings of trees everywhere, seemed so real ened her alarm. Her husband made no comment;
and present while he talked. his cigar, she noticed, had gone out.
“The Night transfigures all things in a way,” he “And old trees in particular,” continued the
was saying; “but nothing so searchingly as trees. artist, as though to himself, “have very definite per-
From behind a veil that sunlight hangs before them sonalities. You can offend, wound, please them; the
in the day they emerge and show themselves. Even moment you stand within their shade you feel
buildings do that—in a measure—but trees particu- whether they come out to you, or whether they
larly. In the daytime they sleep; at night they wake, withdraw.” He turned abruptly towards his host.
they manifest, turn active—live. You remember,” “You know that singular essay of Prentice Mul-
turning politely again in the direction of his host- ford’s, no doubt ‘God in the Trees’—extravagant
ess, “how clearly Henley understood that?” perhaps, but yet with a fine true beauty in it?
“That socialist person, you mean?” asked the You’ve never read it, no?” he asked.
lady. Her tone and accent made the substantive But it was Mrs. Bittacy who answered; her hus-
sound criminal. It almost hissed, the way she band keeping his curious deep silence.
uttered it. “I never did!” It fell like a drip of cold water
“The poet, yes,” replied the artist tactfully, “the from the face muffled in the yellow shawl; even a
friend of Stevenson, you remember, Stevenson who child could have supplied the remainder of the
wrote those charming children’s verses.” unspoken thought.
He quoted in a low voice the lines he meant. It “Ah,” said Sanderson gently, “but there is ‘God’
was, for once, the time, the place, and the setting all in the trees. God in a very subtle aspect and some-
together. The words floated out across the lawn times—I have known the trees express it too—that
towards the wall of blue darkness where the big which is not God—dark and terrible. Have you ever
Forest swept the little garden with its league-long noticed, too, how clearly trees show what they want
curve that was like the shore-line of a sea. A wave of —choose their companions, at least? How beeches,
distant sound that was like surf accompanied his for instance, allow no life too near them—birds or
voice, as though the wind was fain to listen too: squirrels in their boughs, nor any growth beneath?

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The silence in the beech wood is quite terrifying “Trees love you, that’s the fact,” he said
often! And how pines like bilberry bushes at their earnestly. “Your service to them all these years
feet and sometimes little oaks—all trees making a abroad has made them know you.”
clear, deliberate choice, and holding firmly to it? “Know me?”
Some trees obviously—it’s very strange and marked “Made them, yes,”—he paused a moment, then
—seem to prefer the human.” added,—”made them aware of your presence; aware
The old lady sat up crackling, for this was more of a force outside themselves that deliberately seeks
than she could permit. Her stiff silk dress emitted their welfare, don’t you see?”
little sharp reports. “By Jove, Sanderson—!” This put into plain lan-
“We know,” she answered, “that He was said to guage actual sensations he had felt, yet had never
have walked in the garden in the cool of the dared to phrase in words before. “They get into
evening”—the gulp betrayed the effort that it cost touch with me, as it were?” he ventured, laughing at
her—“but we are nowhere told that He hid in the his own sentence, yet laughing only with his lips.
trees, or anything like that. Trees, after all, we must “Exactly,” was the quick, emphatic reply. “They
remember, are only large vegetables.” seek to blend with something they feel instinctively
“True,” was the soft answer, “but in everything to be good for them, helpful to their essential
that grows, has life, that is, there’s mystery past all beings, encouraging to their best expression—their
finding out. The wonder that lies hidden in our own life.”
souls lies also hidden, I venture to assert, in the stu- “Good Lord, Sir!” Bittacy heard himself saying,
pidity and silence of a mere potato.” “but you’re putting my own thoughts into words.
The observation was not meant to be amusing. D’you know, I’ve felt something like that for years.
It was not amusing. No one laughed. On the con- As though—” he looked round to make sure his
trary, the words conveyed in too literal a sense the wife was not there, then finished the sentence—“as
feeling that haunted all that conversation. Each one though the trees were after me!”
in his own way realized—with beauty, with wonder, “’Amalgamate’ seems the best word, perhaps,”
with alarm—that the talk had somehow brought said Sanderson slowly. “They would draw you to
the whole vegetable kingdom nearer to that of man. themselves. Good forces, you see, always seek to
Some link had been established between the two. It merge; evil to separate; that’s why Good in the end
was not wise, with that great Forest listening at must always win the day—everywhere. The accu-
their very doors, to speak so plainly. The forest mulation in the long run becomes overwhelming.
edged up closer while they did so. Evil tends to separation, dissolution, death. The
And Mrs. Bittacy, anxious to interrupt the hor- comradeship of trees, their instinct to run together,
rid spell, broke suddenly in upon it with a matter- is a vital symbol. Trees in a mass are good; alone,
of-fact suggestion. She did not like her husband’s you may take it generally, are—well, dangerous.
prolonged silence, stillness. He seemed so negative Look at a monkey-puzzler, or better still, a holly.
—so changed. Look at it, watch it, understand it. Did you ever see
“David,” she said, raising her voice, “I think more plainly an evil thought made visible? They’re
you’re feeling the dampness. It’s grown chilly. The wicked. Beautiful too, oh yes! There’s a strange,
fever comes so suddenly, you know, and it might be miscalculated beauty often in evil—”
wide to take the tincture. I’ll go and get it, dear, at “That cedar, then—?”
once. It’s better.” And before he could object she “Not evil, no; but alien, rather. Cedars grow in
had left the room to bring the homeopathic dose forests all together. The poor thing has drifted, that
that she believed in, and that, to please her, he is all.”
swallowed by the tumbler-full from week to week. They were getting rather deep. Sanderson, talk-
And the moment the door closed behind her, ing against time, spoke so fast. It was too con-
Sanderson began again, though now in quite a dif- densed. Bittacy hardly followed that last bit. His
ferent tone. Mr. Bittacy sat up in his chair. The two mind floundered among his own less definite, less
men obviously resumed the conversation—the real sorted thoughts, till presently another sentence
conversation interrupted beneath the cedar—and from the artist startled him into attention again.
left aside the sham one which was so much dust “That cedar will protect you here, though,
merely thrown in the old lady’s eyes. because you both have humanized it by your think-

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ing so lovingly of its presence. The others can’t get “It is the one thing that upsets him more than
past it, as it were.” any other—an east wind,” she said, “and I am glad,
“Protect me!” he exclaimed. “Protect me from Mr. Sanderson, to hear you think so too.”
their love?”
Sanderson laughed. “We’re getting rather III
mixed,” he said; “we’re talking of one thing in the A deep hush followed, in the middle of which
terms of another really. But what I mean is—you an owl was heard calling its muffled note in the for-
see—that their love for you, their ‘awareness’ of est. A big moth whirred with a soft collision against
your personality and presence involves the idea of one of the windows. Mrs. Bittacy started slightly,
winning you—across the border—into themselves but no one spoke. Above the trees the stars were
—into their world of living. It means, in a way, tak- faintly visible. From the distance came the barking
ing you over.” of a dog.
The ideas the artist started in his mind ran furi- Bittacy, relighting his cigar, broke the little spell
ous wild races to and fro. It was like a maze sprung of silence that had caught all three.
suddenly into movement. The whirling of the intri- “It’s rather a comforting thought,” he said,
cate lines bewildered him. They went so fast, leav- throwing the match out of the window, “that life is
ing but half an explanation of their goal. He fol- about us everywhere, and that there is really no
lowed first one, then another, but a new one always dividing line between what we call organic and
dashed across to intercept before he could get any- inorganic.”
where. “The universe, yes,” said Sanderson, “is all one,
“But India,” he said, presently in a lower voice, really. We’re puzzled by the gaps we cannot see
“India is so far away—from this little English forest. across, but as a fact, I suppose, there are no gaps at
The trees, too, are utterly different for one thing?” all.”
The rustle of skirts warned of Mrs. Bittacy’s Mrs. Bittacy rustled ominously, holding her
approach. This was a sentence he could turn round peace meanwhile. She feared long words she did
another way in case she came up and pressed for not understand. Beelzebub lay hid among too many
explanation. syllables.
“There is communion among trees all the world “In trees and plants especially, there dreams an
over,” was the strange quick reply. “They always exquisite life that no one yet has proved uncon-
know.” scious.”
“They always know! You think then—?” “Or conscious either, Mr. Sanderson,” she neatly
“The winds, you see—the great, swift carriers! interjected. “It’s only man that was made after His
They have their ancient rights of way about the image, not shrubberies and things....”
world. An easterly wind, for instance, carrying on Her husband interposed without delay.
stage by stage as it were—linking dropped messages “It is not necessary,” he explained suavely, “to
and meanings from land to land like the birds—an say that they’re alive in the sense that we are alive.
easterly wind—” At the same time,” with an eye to his wife, “I see no
Mrs. Bittacy swept in upon them with the harm in holding, dear, that all created things con-
tumbler— tain some measure of His life Who made them. It’s
“There, David,” she said, “that will ward off any only beautiful to hold that He created nothing
beginnings of attack. Just a spoonful, dear. Oh, oh! dead. We are not pantheists for all that!” he added
Not all!” for he had swallowed half the contents at a soothingly.
single gulp as usual; “another dose before you go to “Oh, no! Not that, I hope!” The word alarmed
bed, and the balance in the morning, first thing her. It was worse than pope. Through her puzzled
when you wake.” mind stole a stealthy, dangerous thing … like a pan-
She turned to her guest, who put the tumbler ther.
down for her upon a table at his elbow. She had “I like to think that even in decay there’s life,”
heard them speak of the east wind. She emphasized the painter murmured. “The falling apart of rotten
the warning she had misinterpreted. The private wood breeds sentiency, there’s force and motion in
part of the conversation came to an abrupt end. the falling of a dying leaf, in the breaking up and
crumbling of everything indeed. And take an inert
stone: it’s crammed with heat and weight and

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potencies of all sorts. What holds its particles immense whirlpool of its own vast dreaming life.
together indeed? We understand it as little as grav- The pull of a big forest on a man can be tremen-
ity or why a needle always turns to the ‘North.’ Both dous and utterly overwhelming.”
things may be a mode of life....” The mouth of Mrs. Bittacy was heard to close
“You think a compass has a soul, Mr. Sander- with a snap. Her shawl, and particularly her crack-
son?” exclaimed the lady with a crackling of her silk ling dress, exhaled the protest that burned within
flounces that conveyed a sense of outrage even her like a pain. She was too distressed to be over-
more plainly than her tone. The artist smiled to awed, but at the same time too confused ‘mid the
himself in the darkness, but it was Bittacy who has- litter of words and meanings half understood, to
tened to reply. find immediate phrases she could use. Whatever
“Our friend merely suggests that these mysteri- the actual meaning of his language might be, how-
ous agencies,” he said quietly, “may be due to some ever, and whatever subtle dangers lay concealed
kind of life we cannot understand. Why should behind them meanwhile, they certainly wove a kind
water only run downhill? Why should trees grow at of gentle spell with the glimmering darkness that
right angles to the surface of the ground and held all three delicately enmeshed there by that
towards the sun? Why should the worlds spin for open window. The odors of dewy lawn, flowers,
ever on their axes? Why should fire change the trees, and earth formed part of it.
form of everything it touches without really “The moods,” he continued, “that people waken
destroying them? To say these things follow the law in us are due to their hidden life affecting our own.
of their being explains nothing. Mr. Sanderson Deep calls to sleep. A person, for instance, joins you
merely suggests—poetically, my dear, of course— in an empty room: you both instantly change. The
that these may be manifestations of life, though life new arrival, though in silence, has caused a change
at a different stage to ours.” of mood. May not the moods of Nature touch and
“The ‘breath of life,’ we read, ‘He breathed into stir us in virtue of a similar prerogative? The sea,
them. These things do not breathe.” She said it with the hills, the desert, wake passion, joy, terror, as the
triumph. case may be; for a few, perhaps,” he glanced signifi-
Then Sanderson put in a word. But he spoke cantly at his host so that Mrs. Bittacy again caught
rather to himself or to his host than by way of seri- the turning of his eyes, “emotions of a curious,
ous rejoinder to the ruffled lady. flaming splendor that are quite nameless. Well ...
“But plants do breathe too, you know,” he said. whence come these powers? Surely from nothing
“They breathe, they eat, they digest, they move that is ... dead! Does not the influence of a forest, its
about, and they adapt themselves to their environ- sway and strange ascendancy over certain minds,
ment as men and animals do. They have a nervous betray a direct manifestation of life? It lies other-
system too... at least a complex system of nuclei wise beyond all explanation, this mysterious ema-
which have some of the qualities of nerve cells. nation of big woods. Some natures, of course, delib-
They may have memory too. Certainly, they know erately invite it. The authority of a host of trees,”—
definite action in response to stimulus. And though his voice grew almost solemn as he said the words
this may be physiological, no one has proved that it —“is something not to be denied. One feels it here,
is only that, and not—psychological.” I think, particularly.”
He did not notice, apparently, the little gasp There was considerable tension in the air as he
that was audible behind the yellow shawl. Bittacy ceased speaking. Mr. Bittacy had not intended that
cleared his throat, threw his extinguished cigar the talk should go so far. They had drifted. He did
upon the lawn, crossed and recrossed his legs. not wish to see his wife unhappy or afraid, and he
“And in trees,” continued the other, “behind a was aware—acutely so—that her feelings were
great forest, for instance,” pointing towards the stirred to a point he did not care about. Something
woods, “may stand a rather splendid Entity that in her, as he put it, was “working up” towards
manifests through all the thousand individual trees explosion.
—some huge collective life, quite as minutely and He sought to generalize the conversation, dilut-
delicately organized as our own. It might merge and ing this accumulated emotion by spreading it.
blend with ours under certain conditions, so that “The sea is His and He made it,” he suggested
we could understand it by being it, for a time at vaguely, hoping Sanderson would take the hint,
least. It might even engulf human vitality into the “and with the trees it is the same....”

THE MAN WHOM THE TREES LOVED — 10 of 32

 “The whole gigantic vegetable kingdom, yes,” to the Forest.” It sank to a whisper, shaking. She
the artist took him up, “all at the service of man, for repeated, with a great dropping sigh of relief
food, for shelter and for a thousand purposes of his —”Thank God! I thought ... at first ... it was coming
daily life. Is it not striking what a lot of the globe here ... to us!... David ... to you!”
they cover ... exquisitely organized life, yet station- She stepped back from the window, her move-
ary, always ready to our had when we want them, ments confused, feeling in the darkness for the sup-
never running away? But the taking them, for all port of a chair, and finding her husband’s out-
that, not so easy. One man shrinks from picking stretched hand instead. “Hold me, dear, hold me,
flowers, another from cutting down trees. And, it’s please ... tight. Do not let me go.” She was in what
curious that most of the forest tales and legends are he called afterwards “a regular state.” He drew her
dark, mysterious, and somewhat ill-omened. The firmly down upon her chair again.
forest-beings are rarely gay and harmless. The for- “Smoke, Sophie, my dear,” he said quickly, try-
est life was felt as terrible. Tree-worship still sur- ing to make his voice calm and natural. “I see it,
vives to-day. Wood-cutters... those who take the life yes. It’s smoke blowing over from the gardener’s
of trees... you see a race of haunted men....” cottage....”
He stopped abruptly, a singular catch in his “But, David,”—and there was a new horror in
voice. Bittacy felt something even before the sen- her whisper now—“it made a noise. It makes it still.
tences were over. His wife, he knew, felt it still I hear it swishing.” Some such word she used—
more strongly. For it was in the middle of the heavy swishing, sishing, rushing, or something of the
silence following upon these last remarks, that Mrs. kind. “David, I’m very frightened. It’s something
Bittacy, rising with a violent abruptness from her awful! That man has called it out...!”
chair, drew the attention of the others to something “Hush, hush,” whispered her husband. He
moving towards them across the lawn. It came stroked her trembling hand beside him.
silently. In outline it was large and curiously spread. “It is in the wind,” said Sanderson, speaking for
It rose high, too, for the sky above the shrubberies, the first time, very quietly. The expression on his
still pale gold from the sunset, was dimmed by its face was not visible in the gloom, but his voice was
passage. She declared afterwards that it move in soft and unafraid. At the sound of it, Mrs. Bittacy
“looping circles,” but what she perhaps meant to started violently again. Bittacy drew his chair a little
convey was “spirals.” forward to obstruct her view of him. He felt bewil-
She screamed faintly. “It’s come at last! And it’s dered himself, a little, hardly knowing quite what to
you that brought it!” say or do. It was all so very curious and sudden.
She turned excitedly, half afraid, half angry, to But Mrs. Bittacy was badly frightened. It
Sanderson. With a breathless sort of gasp she said seemed to her that what she saw came from the
it, politeness all forgotten. “I knew it ... if you went enveloping forest just beyond their little garden. It
on. I knew it. Oh! Oh!” And she cried again, “Your emerged in a sort of secret way, moving towards
talking has brought it out!” The terror that shook them as with a purpose, stealthily, difficultly. Then
her voice was rather dreadful. something stopped it. It could not advance beyond
But the confusion of her vehement words the cedar. The cedar—this impression remained
passed unnoticed in the first surprise they caused. with her afterwards too—prevented, kept it back.
For a moment nothing happened. Like a rising sea the Forest had surged a moment in
“What is it you think you see, my dear?” asked their direction through the covering darkness, and
her husband, startled. Sanderson said nothing. All this visible movement was its first wave. Thus to
three leaned forward, the men still sitting, but Mrs. her mind it seemed... like that mysterious turn of
Bittacy had rushed hurriedly to the window, placing the tide that used to frighten and mystify her in
herself of a purpose, as it seemed, between her hus- childhood on the sands. The outward surge of some
band and the lawn. She pointed. Her little hand enormous Power was what she felt... something to
made a silhouette against the sky, the yellow shawl which every instinct in her being rose in opposition
hanging from the arm like a cloud. because it threatened her and hers. In that moment
“Beyond the cedar—between it and the lilacs.” she realized the Personality of the Forest... menac-
The voice had lost its shrillness; it was thin and ing.
hushed. “There ... now you see it going round upon In the stumbling movement that she made away
itself again—going back, thank God!... going back from the window and towards the bell she barely

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caught the sentence Sanderson—or was it her She peered close into his face through the
husband?—murmured to himself: “It came because gloom, and said a curious thing. “I thought, David,
we talked of it; our thinking made it aware of us for a moment... you seemed... different. My nerves
and brought it out. But the cedar stops it. It cannot are all on edge to-night.” She made no further refer-
cross the lawn, you see....” ence to her husband’s visitor.
All three were standing now, and her husband’s A sound of footsteps from the lawn warned of
voice broke in with authority while his wife’s fingers Sanderson’s return, as he answered quickly in a
touched the bell. lowered tone—“There’s no need to be afraid on my
“My dear, I should not say anything to Thomp- account, dear girl. There’s nothing wrong with me. I
son.” The anxiety he felt was manifest in his voice, assure you; I never felt so well and happy in my
but his outward composure had returned. “The gar- life.”
dener can go....” Thompson came in with the lamps and bright-
Then Sanderson cut him short. “Allow me,” he ness, and scarcely had she gone again when Sander-
said quickly. “I’ll see if anything’s wrong.” And son in turn was seen climbing through the window.
before either of them could answer or object, he “There’s nothing,” he said lightly, as he closed it
was gone, leaping out by the open window. They behind him. “Somebody’s been burning leaves, and
saw his figure vanish with a run across the lawn the smoke is drifting a little through the trees. The
into the darkness. wind,” he added, glancing at his host a moment
A moment later the maid entered, in answer to significantly, but in so discreet a way that Mrs. Bit-
the bell, and with her came the loud barking of the tacy did not observe it, “the wind, too, has begun to
terrier from the hall. roar... in the Forest...further out.”
“The lamps,” said her master shortly, and as she But Mrs. Bittacy noticed about him two things
softly closed the door behind her, they heard the which increased her uneasiness. She noticed the
wind pass with a mournful sound of singing round shining of his eyes, because a similar light had sud-
the outer walls. A rustle of foliage from the distance denly come into her husband’s; and she noticed,
passed within it. too, the apparent depth of meaning he put into
“You see, the wind is rising. It was the wind!” those simple words that “the wind had begun to
He put a comforting arm about her, distressed to roar in the Forest...further out.” Her mind retained
feel that she was trembling. But he knew that he the disagreeable impression that he meant more
was trembling too, though with a kind of odd ela- than he said. In his tone lay quite another implica-
tion rather than alarm. “And it was smoke that you tion. It was not actually “wind” he spoke of, and it
saw coming from Stride’s cottage, or from the rub- would not remain “further out”...rather, it was com-
bish heaps he’s been burning in the kitchen garden. ing in. Another impression she got too—still more
The noise we heard was the branches rustling in the unwelcome—was that her husband understood his
wind. Why should you be so nervous?” hidden meaning.
A thin whispering voice answered him:
“I was afraid for you, dear. Something fright- IV
ened me for you. That man makes me feel so uneasy “David, dear,” she observed gently as soon as
and uncomfortable for his influence upon you. It’s they were alone upstairs, “I have a horrible uneasy
very foolish, I know. I think... I’m tired; I feel so feeling about that man. I cannot get rid of it.” The
overwrought and restless.” The words poured out in tremor in per voice caught all his tenderness.
a hurried jumble and she kept turning to the win- He turned to look at her. “Of what kind, my
dow while she spoke. dear? You’re so imaginative sometimes, aren’t you?”
“The strain of having a visitor,” he said sooth- “I think,” she hesitated, stammering a little,
ingly, “has taxed you. We’re so unused to having confused, still frightened, “I mean—isn’t he a hyp-
people in the house. He goes to-morrow.” He notist, or full of those theosophical ideas, or some-
warmed her cold hands between his own, stroking thing of the sort? You know what I mean—”
them tenderly. More, for the life of him, he could He was too accustomed to her little confused
not say or do. The joy of a strange, internal excite- alarms to explain them away seriously as a rule, or
ment made his heart beat faster. He knew not what to correct her verbal inaccuracies, but to-night he
it was. He knew only, perhaps, whence it came. felt she needed careful, tender treatment. He
soothed her as best he could.

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 “But there’s no harm in that, even if he is,” he lying awake by his side, still frightened. He put his
answered quietly. “Those are only new names for head up in the darkness.
very old ideas, you know, dear.” There was no trace “Sophie,” he said softly, “you must remember,
of impatience in his voice. too, that in any case between us and—and all that
“That’s what I mean,” she replied, the texts he sort of thing—there is a great gulf fixed, a gulf that
dreaded rising in an unuttered crowd behind the cannot be crossed—er—while we are still in the
words. “He’s one of those things that we are warned body.”
would come—one of those Latter-Day things.” For And hearing no reply, he satisfied himself that
her mind still bristled with the bogeys of the she was already asleep and happy. But Mrs. Bittacy
Antichrist and Prophecy, and she had only escaped was not asleep. She heard the sentence, only she
the Number of the Beast, as it were, by the skin of said nothing because she felt her thought was bet-
her teeth. The Pope drew most of her fire usually, ter unexpressed. She was afraid to hear the words in
because she could understand him; the target was the darkness. The Forest outside was listening and
plain and she could shoot. But this tree-and-forest might hear them too—the Forest that was “roaring
business was so vague and horrible. It terrified her. further out.”
“He makes me think,” she went on, “of Principali- And the thought was this: That gulf, of course,
ties and Powers in high places, and of things that existed, but Sanderson had somehow bridged it.
walk in the darkness. I did not like the way he
spoke of trees getting alive in the night, and all that; It was much later than night when she awoke
it made me think of wolves in sheep’s clothing. And out of troubled, uneasy dreams and heard a sound
when I saw that awful thing in the sky above the that twisted her very nerves with fear. It passed
lawn—” immediately with full waking, for, listen as she
But he interrupted her at once, for that was might, there was nothing audible but the inarticu-
something he had decided it was best to leave late murmur of the night. It was in her dreams she
unmentioned. Certainly it was better not discussed. heard it, and the dreams had vanished with it. But
“He only meant, I think, Sophie,” he put in the sound was recognizable, for it was that rushing
gravely, yet with a little smile, “that trees may have noise that had come across the lawn; only this time
a measure of conscious life—rather a nice idea on closer. Just above her face while she slept had
the whole, surely,—something like that bit we read passed this murmur as of rustling branches in the
in the Times the other night, you remember—and very room, a sound of foliage whispering. “A going
that a big forest may possess a sort of Collective in the tops of the mulberry trees,” ran through her
Personality. Remember, he’s an artist, and poetical.” mind. She had dreamed that she lay beneath a
“It’s dangerous,” she said emphatically. “I feel spreading tree somewhere, a tree that whispered
it’s playing with fire, unwise, unsafe—” with ten thousand soft lips of green; and the dream
“Yet all to the glory of God,” he urged gently. continued for a moment even after waking.
“We must not shut our ears and eyes to knowledge She sat up in bed and stared about her. The
—of any kind, must we?” window was open at the top; she saw the stars; the
“With you, David, the wish is always farther door, she remembered, was locked as usual; the
than the thought,” she rejoined. For, like the child room, of course, was empty. The deep hush of the
who thought that “suffered under Pontius Pilate” summer night lay over all, broken only by another
was “suffered under a bunch of violets,” she heard sound that now issued from the shadows close
her proverbs phonetically and reproduced them beside the bed, a human sound, yet unnatural, a
thus. She hoped to convey her warning in the quo- sound that seized the fear with which she had
tation. “And we must always try the spirits whether waked and instantly increased it. And, although it
they be of God,” she added tentatively. was one she recognized as familiar, at first she
“Certainly, dear, we can always do that,” he could not name it. Some seconds certainly passed—
assented, getting into bed. and, they were very long ones—before she under-
But, after a little pause, during which she blew stood that it was her husband talking in his sleep.
the light out, David Bittacy settling down to sleep The direction of the voice confused and puzzled
with an excitement in his blood that was new and her, moreover, for it was not, as she first supposed,
bewilderingly delightful, realized that perhaps he beside her. There was distance in it. The next
had not said quite enough to comfort her. She was minute, by the light of the sinking candle flame, she

THE MAN WHOM THE TREES LOVED — 13 of 32

saw his white figure standing out in the middle of to things within the room, he lay down, his purpose
the room, half-way towards the window. The can- suddenly changed. And that change was horrible as
dle-light slowly grew. She saw him move then well, more horrible, perhaps, because of its revela-
nearer to the window, with arms outstretched. His tion of another detailed world he moved in far away
speech was low and mumbled, the words running from her.
together too much to be distinguishable. The singular phrase chilled her blood, for a
And she shivered. To her, sleep-talking was moment she was utterly terrified. That tone of the
uncanny to the point of horror; it was like the talk- somnambulist, differing so slightly yet so distress-
ing of the dead, mere parody of a living voice, ingly from normal, waking speech, seemed to her
unnatural. somehow wicked. Evil and danger lay waiting thick
“David!” she whispered, dreading the sound of behind it. She leaned against the window-sill, shak-
her own voice, and half afraid to interrupt him and ing in every limb. She had an awful feeling for a
see his face. She could not bear the sight of the moment that something was coming in to fetch
wide-opened eyes. “David, you’re walking in your him.
sleep. Do—come back to bed, dear, please!” “Not yet, then,” she heard in a much lower voice
Her whisper seemed so dreadfully loud in the from the bed, “but later. It will be better so... I shall
still darkness. At the sound of her voice he paused, go later....”
then turned slowly round to face her. His widely- The words expressed some fringe of these
opened eyes stared into her own without recogni- alarms that had haunted her so long, and that the
tion; they looked through her into something arrival and presence of Sanderson seemed to have
beyond; it was as though he knew the direction of brought to the very edge of a climax she could not
the sound, yet cold not see her. They were shining, even dare to think about. They gave it form; they
she noticed, as the eyes of Sanderson had shone brought it closer; they sent her thoughts to her
several hours ago; and his face was flushed, dis- Deity in a wild, deep prayer for help and guidance.
traught. Anxiety was written upon every feature. For here was a direct, unconscious betrayal of a
And, instantly, recognizing that the fever was world of inner purposes and claims her husband
upon him, she forgot her terror temporarily in prac- recognized while he kept them almost wholly to
tical considerations. He came back to bed without himself.
waking. She closed his eyelids. Presently he com- By the time she reached his side and knew the
posed himself quietly to sleep, or rather to deeper comfort of his touch, the eyes had closed again, this
sleep. She contrived to make him swallow some- time of their own accord, and the head lay calmly
thing from the tumbler beside the bed. back upon the pillows. She gently straightened the
Then she rose very quietly to close the window, bed clothes. She watched him for some minutes,
feeling the night air blow in too fresh and keen. She shading the candle carefully with one hand. There
put the candle where it could not reach him. The was a smile of strangest peace upon the face.
sight of the big Baxter Bible beside it comforted her Then, blowing out the candle, she knelt down
a little, but all through her under-being ran the and prayed before getting back into bed. But no
warnings of a curious alarm. And it was while in the sleep came to her. She lay awake all night thinking,
act of fastening the catch with one hand and wondering, praying, until at length with the chorus
pulling the string of the blind with the other, that of the birds and the glimmer of the dawn upon the
her husband sat up again in bed and spoke in words green blind, she fell into a slumber of complete
this time that were distinctly audible. The eyes had exhaustion.
opened wide again. He pointed. She stood stock But while she slept the wind continued roaring
still and listened, her shadow distorted on the in the Forest further out. The sound came closer—
blind. He did not come out towards her as at first sometimes very close indeed.
she feared.
The whispering voice was very clear, horrible, V
too, beyond all she had ever known. With the departure of Sanderson the signifi-
“They are roaring in the Forest further out... and cance of the curious incidents waned, because the
I... must go and see.” He stared beyond her as he moods that had produced them passed away. Mrs.
said it, to the woods. “They are needing me. They Bittacy soon afterwards came to regard them as
sent for me....” Then his eyes wandering back again some growth of disproportion that had been very

THE MAN WHOM THE TREES LOVED — 14 of 32

largely, perhaps, in her own mind. It did not strike about the south of England brushed the whole
her that this change was sudden for it came about country into dancing movement. They swept the
quite naturally. For one thing her husband never woods magnificently, and kept them roaring with a
spoke of the matter, and for another she remem- perpetual grand voice. Their deepest notes seemed
bered how many things in life that had seemed never to leave the sky. They sang and shouted, and
inexplicable and singular at the time turned out torn leaves raced and fluttered through the air long
later to have been quite commonplace. before their usually appointed time. Many a tree,
Most of it, certainly, she put down to the pres- after days of roaring and dancing, fell exhausted to
ence of the artist and to his wild, suggestive talk. the ground. The cedar on the lawn gave up two
With his welcome removal, the world turned ordi- limbs that fell upon successive days, at the same
nary again and safe. The fever, though it lasted as hour too—just before dusk. The wind often makes
usual a short time only, had not allowed of her hus- its most boisterous effort at that time, before it
band’s getting up to say good-bye, and she had con- drops with the sun, and these two huge branches
veyed his regrets and adieux. In the morning Mr. lay in dark ruin covering half the lawn. They spread
Sanderson had seemed ordinary enough. In his across it and towards the house. They left an ugly
town hat and gloves, as she saw him go, he seemed gaping space upon the tree, so that the Lebanon
tame and unalarming. looked unfinished, half destroyed, a monster shorn
“After all,” she thought as she watched the of its old-time comeliness and splendor. Far more
pony-cart bear him off, “he’s only an artist!” What of the Forest was now visible than before; it peered
she had thought he might be otherwise her slim through the breach of the broken defenses. They
imagination did not venture to disclose. Her change could see from the windows of the house now—
of feeling was wholesome and refreshing. She felt a especially from the drawing-room and bedroom
little ashamed of her behavior. She gave him a smile windows—straight out into the glades and depths
—genuine because the relief she felt was genuine— beyond.
as he bent over her hand and kissed it, but she did Mrs. Bittacy’s niece and nephew, who were stay-
not suggest a second visit, and her husband, she ing on a visit at the time, enjoyed themselves
noted with satisfaction and relief, had said nothing immensely helping the gardeners carry off the frag-
either. ments. It took two days to do this, for Mr. Bittacy
The little household fell again into the normal insisted on the branches being moved entire. He
and sleepy routine to which it was accustomed. The would not allow them to be chopped; also, he
name of Arthur Sanderson was rarely if ever men- would not consent to their use as firewood. Under
tioned. Nor, for her part, did she mention to her his superintendence the unwieldy masses were
husband the incident of his walking in his sleep and dragged to the edge of the garden and arranged
the wild words he used. But to forget it was equally upon the frontier line between the Forest and the
impossible. Thus it lay buried deep within her like a lawn. The children were delighted with the scheme.
center of some unknown disease of which it was a They entered into it with enthusiasm. At all costs
mysterious symptom, waiting to spread at the first this defense against the inroads of the Forest must
favorable opportunity. She prayed against it every be made secure. They caught their uncle’s earnest-
night and morning: prayed that she might forget it ness, felt even something of a hidden motive that
—that God would keep her husband safe from he had; and the visit, usually rather dreaded,
harm. became the visit of their lives instead. It was Aunt
For in spite of much surface foolishness that Sophia this time who seemed discouraging and
many might have read as weakness. Mrs. Bittacy dull.
had balance, sanity, and a fine deep faith. She was “She’s got so old and funny,” opined Stephen.
greater than she knew. Her love for her husband But Alice, who felt in the silent displeasure of
and her God were somehow one, an achievement her aunt some secret thing that alarmed her, said:
only possible to a single-hearted nobility of soul. “I think she’s afraid of the woods. She never
There followed a summer of great violence and comes into them with us, you see.”
beauty; of beauty, because the refreshing rains at “All the more reason then for making this wall
night prolonged the glory of the spring and spread impreg—all fat and thick and solid,” he concluded,
it all across July, keeping the foliage young and unable to manage the longer word. “Then nothing
sweet; of violence, because the winds that tore —simply nothing—can get through. Can’t it, Uncle

THE MAN WHOM THE TREES LOVED — 15 of 32

David?” And Mr. Bittacy, jacket discarded and betrayed it most unpleasantly, and, doubtless, more
working in his speckled waistcoat, went puffing to than he was aware.
their aid, arranging the massive limb of the cedar She watched his grave and serious face as he
like a hedge. worked there with the children, and as she watched
“Come on,” he said, “whatever happens, you she felt afraid. It vexed her that the children worked
know, we must finish before it’s dark. Already the so eagerly. They unconsciously supported him. The
wind is roaring in the Forest further out.” And Alice thing she feared she would not even name. But it
caught the phrase and instantly echoed it. “Stevie,” was waiting.
she cried below her breath, “look sharp, you lazy Moreover, as far as her puzzled mind could deal
lump. Didn’t you hear what Uncle David said? It’ll with a dread so vague and incoherent, the collapse
come in and catch us before we’ve done!” of the cedar somehow brought it nearer. The fact
They worked like Trojans, and, sitting beneath that, all so ill-explained and formless, the thing yet
the wisteria tree that climbed the southern wall of lay in her consciousness, out of reach but moving
the cottage, Mrs. Bittacy with her knitting watched and alive, filled her with a kind of puzzled, dreadful
them, calling from time to time insignificant mes- wonder. Its presence was so very real, its power so
sages of counsel and advice. The messages passed, gripping, its partial concealment so abominable.
of course, unheeded. Mostly, indeed, they were Then, out of the dim confusion, she grasped one
unheard, for the workers were too absorbed. She thought and saw it stand quite clear before her
warned her husband not to get too hot, Alice not to eyes. She found difficulty in clothing it in words,
tear her dress, Stephen not to strain his back with but its meaning perhaps was this: That cedar stood
pulling. Her mind hovered between the homeo- in their life for something friendly; its downfall
pathic medicine-chest upstairs and her anxiety to meant disaster; a sense of some protective influence
see the business finished. about the cottage, and about her husband in par-
For this breaking up of the cedar had stirred ticular, was thereby weakened.
again her slumbering alarms. It revived memories “Why do you fear the big winds so?” he had
of the visit of Mr. Sanderson that had been sinking asked her several days before, after a particularly
into oblivion; she recalled his queer and odious way boisterous day; and the answer she gave surprised
of talking, and many things she hoped forgotten her while she gave it. One of those heads poked up
drew their heads up from that subconscious region unconsciously, and let slip the truth.
to which all forgetting is impossible. They looked at “Because, David, I feel they—bring the Forest
her and nodded. They were full of life; they had no with them,” she faltered. “They blow something
intention of being pushed aside and buried perma- from the trees—into the mind—into the house.”
nently. “Now look!” they whispered, “didn’t we tell He looked at her keenly for a moment.
you so?” They had been merely waiting the right “That must be why I love them then,” he
moment to assert their presence. And all her former answered. “They blow the souls of the trees about
vague distress crept over her. Anxiety, uneasiness the sky like clouds.”
returned. That dreadful sinking of the heart came The conversation dropped. She had never heard
too. him talk in quite that way before.
This incident of the cedar’s breaking up was And another time, when he had coaxed her to
actually so unimportant, and yet her husband’s atti- go with him down one of the nearer glades, she
tude towards it made it so significant. There was asked why he took the small hand-axe with him,
nothing that he said in particular, or did, or left and what he wanted it for.
undone that frightened, her, but his general air of “To cut the ivy that clings to the trunks and
earnestness seemed so unwarranted. She felt that takes their life away,” he said.
he deemed the thing important. He was so exer- “But can’t the verdurers do that?” she asked.
cised about it. This evidence of sudden concern and “That’s what they’re paid for, isn’t it?”
interest, buried all the summer from her sight and Whereupon he explained that ivy was a parasite
knowledge, she realized now had been buried pur- the trees knew not how to fight alone, and that the
posely, he had kept it intentionally concealed. verdurers were careless and did not do it thor-
Deeply submerged in him there ran this tide of oughly. They gave a chop here and there, leaving
other thoughts, desires, hopes. What were they? the tree to do the rest for itself if it could.
Whither did they lead? The accident to the tree

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 “Besides, I like to do it for them. I love to help Thus, in guise of some faint, distressing com-
them and protect,” he added, the foliage rustling all promise, the matter shaped itself for her perplexed
about his quiet words as they went. mind in the terms of conflict. A silent, hidden battle
And these stray remarks, as his attitude towards raged, but as yet raged far away. The breaking of
the broken cedar, betrayed this curious, subtle the cedar was a visible outward fragment of a dis-
change that was going forward to his personality. tant and mysterious encounter that was coming
Slowly and surely all the summer it had increased. daily closer to them both. The wind, instead of
It was growing—the thought startled her hor- roaring in the Forest further out, now cam nearer,
ribly—just as a tree grows, the outer evidence from booming in fitful gusts about its edge and frontiers.
day to day so slight as to be unnoticeable, yet the Meanwhile the summer dimmed. The autumn
rising tide so deep and irresistible. The alteration winds went sighing through the woods, leaves
spread all through and over him, was in both mind turned to golden red, and the evenings were draw-
and actions, sometimes almost in his face as well. ing in with cozy shadows before the first sign of
Occasionally, thus, it stood up straight outside him- anything seriously untoward made its appearance.
self and frightened her. His life was somehow It came then with a flat, decided kind of violence
becoming linked so intimately with trees, and with that indicated mature preparation beforehand. It
all that trees signified. His interests became more was not impulsive nor ill-considered. In a fashion it
and more their interests, his activity combined with seemed expected, and indeed inevitable. For within
theirs, his thoughts and feelings theirs, his purpose, a fortnight of their annual change to the little vil-
hope, desire, his fate— lage of Seillans above St. Raphael—a change so reg-
His fate! The darkness of some vague, enormous ular for the past ten years that it was not even dis-
terror dropped its shadow on her when she thought cussed between them—David Bittacy abruptly
of it. Some instinct in her heart she dreaded infin- refused to go.
itely more than death—for death meant sweet Thompson had laid the tea-table, prepared the
translation for his soul—came gradually to asso- spirit lamp beneath the urn, pulled down the blinds
ciate the thought of him with the thought of trees, in that swift and silent way she had, and left the
in particular with these Forest trees. Sometimes, room. The lamps were still unlit. The fire-light
before she could face the thing, argue it away, or shone on the chintz armchairs, and Boxer lay asleep
pray it into silence, she found the thought of him on the black horse-hair rug. Upon the walls the gilt
running swiftly through her mind like a thought of picture frames gleamed faintly, the pictures them-
the Forest itself, the two most intimately linked and selves indistinguishable. Mrs. Bittacy had warmed
joined together, each a part and complement of the the teapot and was in the act of pouring the water
other, one being. in to heat the cups when her husband, looking up
The idea was too dim for her to see it face to from his chair across the hearth, made the abrupt
face. Its mere possibility dissolved the instant she announcement:
focused it to get the truth behind it. It was too “My dear,” he said, as though following a train
utterly elusive, made, protaean. Under the attack of of thought of which she only heard this final
even a minute’s concentration the very meaning of phrase, “it’s really quite impossible for me to go.”
it vanished, melted away. And so abrupt, inconsequent, it sounded that
The idea lay really behind any words that she she at first misunderstood. She thought he meant
could ever find, beyond the touch of definite to go out into the garden or the woods. But her
thought. Her mind was unable to grapple with it. heart leaped all the same. The tone of his voice was
But, while it vanished, the trail of its approach and ominous.
disappearance flickered a moment before her shak- “Of course not,” she answered, “it would be
ing vision. The horror certainly remained. most unwise. Why should you—?” She referred to
Reduced to the simple human statement that the mist that always spread on autumn nights upon
her temperament sought instinctively, it stood per- the lawn, but before she finished the sentence she
haps at this: Her husband loved her, and he loved knew that he referred to something else. And her
the trees as well; but the trees came first, claimed heart then gave its second horrible leap.
parts of him she did not know. She loved her God “David! You mean abroad?” she gasped.
and him. He loved the trees and her. “I mean abroad, dear, yes.”

THE MAN WHOM THE TREES LOVED — 17 of 32

 It reminded her of the tone he used when say- times fancied, stretched one way—towards their
ing good-bye years ago, before one of those jungle tiny cottage and garden, as though it sought to
expeditions she dreaded. His voice then was so draw them in and merge them in itself. Its great,
serious, so final. It was serious and final now. For deep-breathing soul resented the mockery, the
several moments she could think of nothing to say. insolence, the irritation of the prim garden at its
She busied herself with the teapot. She had filled very gates. It would absorb and smother them if it
one cup with hot water till it overflowed, and she could. And every wind that blew its thundering
emptied it slowly into the slop-basin, trying with all message over the huge sounding-board of the mil-
her might not to let him see the trembling of her lion, shaking trees conveyed the purpose that it
hand. The firelight and the dimness of the room had. They had angered its great soul. At its heart
both helped her. But in any case he would hardly was this deep, incessant roaring.
have noticed it. His thoughts were far away.... All this she never framed in words, the sub-
tleties of language lay far beyond her reach. But
VI instinctively she felt it; and more besides. It trou-
Mrs. Bittacy had never liked their present home. bled her profoundly. Chiefly, moreover, for her hus-
She preferred a flat, more open country that left band. Merely for herself, the nightmare might have
approaches clear. She liked to see things coming. left her cold. It was David’s peculiar interest in the
This cottage on the very edge of the old hunting trees that gave the special invitation.
grounds of William the Conqueror had never satis- Jealousy, then, in its most subtle aspect came to
fied her ideal of a safe and pleasant place to settle strengthen this aversion and dislike, for it came in a
down in. The sea-coast, with treeless downs behind form that no reasonable wife could possibly object
and a clear horizon in front, as at Eastbourne, say, to. Her husband’s passion, she reflected, was natu-
was her ideal of a proper home. ral and inborn. It had decided his vocation, fed his
It was curious, this instinctive aversion she felt ambition, nourished his dreams, desires, hopes. All
to being shut in—by trees especially; a kind of his best years of active life had been spent in the
claustrophobia almost; probably due, as has been care and guardianship of trees. He knew them,
said, to the days in India when the trees took her understood their secret life and nature, “managed”
husband off and surrounded him with dangers. In them intuitively as other men “managed” dogs and
those weeks of solitude the feeling had matured. horses. He could not live for long away from them
She had fought it in her fashion, but never con- without a strange, acute nostalgia that stole his
quered it. Apparently routed, it had a way of creep- peace of mind and consequently his strength of
ing back in other forms. In this particular case, body. A forest made him happy and at peace; it
yielding to his strong desire, she thought the battle nursed and fed and soothed his deepest moods.
won, but the terror of the trees came back before Trees influenced the sources of his life, lowered or
the first month had passed. They laughed in her raised the very heart-beat in him. Cut off from them
face. he languished as a lover of the sea can droop
She never lost knowledge of the fact that the inland, or a mountaineer may pine in the flat
leagues of forest lay about their cottage like a monotony of the plains.
mighty wall, a crowding, watching, listening pres- This she could understand, in a fashion at least,
ence that shut them in from freedom and escape. and make allowances for. She had yielded gently,
Far from morbid naturally, she did her best to deny even sweetly, to his choice of their English home;
the thought, and so simple and unartificial was her for in the little island there is nothing that suggests
type of mind that for weeks together she would the woods of wilder countries so nearly as the New
wholly lose it. Then, suddenly it would return upon Forest. It has the genuine air and mystery, the
her with a rush of bleak reality. It was not only in depth and splendor, the loneliness, and there and
her mind; it existed apart from any mere mood; a there the strong, untamable quality of old-time
separate fear that walked alone; it came and went, forests as Bittacy of the Department knew them.
yet when it went—went only to watch her from In a single detail only had he yielded to her
another point of view. It was in abeyance—hidden wishes. He consented to a cottage on the edge,
round the corner. instead of in the heart of it. And for a dozen years
The Forest never let her go completely. It was now they had dwelt in peace and happiness at the
ever ready to encroach. All the branches, she some- lips of this great spreading thing that covered so

THE MAN WHOM THE TREES LOVED — 18 of 32

many leagues with its tangle of swamps and moors gravity of his expression and the shining of his
and splendid ancient trees. steady eyes.
Only with the last two years or so—with his “David, you feel it as strongly as that!” she said,
own increasing age, and physical decline perhaps— forgetting the tea things altogether.
had come this marked growth of passionate interest “Yes,” he replied, “I do. And it’s not of the body
in the welfare of the Forest. She had watched it only, I feel it in my soul.”
grow, at first had laughed at it, then talked sympa- The reality of what he hinted at crept into that
thetically so far as sincerity permitted, then had shadow-covered room like an actual Presence and
argued mildly, and finally come to realize that its stood beside them. It came not by the windows or
treatment lay altogether beyond her powers, and so the door, but it filled the entire space between the
had come to fear it with all her heart. walls and ceiling. It took the heat from the fire
before her face. She felt suddenly cold, confused a
The six weeks they annually spent away from little, frightened. She almost felt the rush of foliage
their English home, each regarded very differently, in the wind. It stood between them.
of course. For her husband it meant a painful exile “There are things—some things,” she faltered,
that did his health no good; he yearned for his trees “we are not intended to know, I think.” The words
—the sight and sound and smell of them; but for expressed her general attitude to life, not alone to
herself it meant release from a haunting dread— this particular incident.
escape. To renounce those six weeks by the sea on And after a pause of several minutes, disregard-
the sunny, shining coast of France, was almost ing the criticism as though he had not heard it—“I
more than this little woman, even with her cannot explain it better than that, you see,” his
unselfishness, could face. grave voice answered. “There is this deep, tremen-
After the first shock of the announcement, she dous link,—some secret power they emanate that
reflected as deeply as her nature permitted, prayed, keeps me well and happy and—alive. If you cannot
wept in secret—and made up her mind. Duty, she understand, I feel at least you may be able to—for-
felt clearly, pointed to renouncement. The disci- give.” His tone grew tender, gentle, soft. “My self-
pline would certainly be severe—she did not dream ishness, I know, must seem quite unforgivable. I
at the moment how severe!—but this fine, consis- cannot help it somehow; these trees, this ancient
tent little Christian saw it plain; she accepted it, Forest, both seem knitted into all that makes me
too, without any sighing of the martyr, though the live, and if I go—”
courage she showed was of the martyr order. Her There was a little sound of collapse in his voice.
husband should never know the cost. In all but this He stopped abruptly, and sank back in his chair.
one passion his unselfishness was ever as great as And, at that, a distinct lump came up into her
her own. The love she had borne him all these throat which she had great difficulty in managing
years, like the love she bore her anthropomorphic while she went over and put her arms about him.
deity, was deep and real. She loved to suffer for “My dear,” she murmured, “God will direct. We
them both. Besides, the way her husband had put it will accept His guidance. He has always shown the
to her was singular. It did not take the form of a way before.”
mere selfish predilection. Something higher than “My selfishness afflicts me—” he began, but she
two wills in conflict seeking compromise was in it would not let him finish.
from the beginning. “David, He will direct. Nothing shall harm you.
“I feel, Sophia, it would be really more than I You’ve never once been selfish, and I cannot bear to
could manage,” he said slowly, gazing into the fire hear you say such things. The way will open that is
over the tops of his stretched-out muddy boots. best for you—for both of us.” She kissed him, she
“My duty and my happiness lie here with the Forest would not let him speak; her heart was in her
and with you. My life is deeply rooted in this place. throat, and she felt for him far more than for her-
Something I can’t define connects my inner being self.
with these trees, and separation would make me ill And then he had suggested that she should go
—might even kill me. My hold on life would alone perhaps for a shorter time, and stay in her
weaken; here is my source of supply. I cannot brother’s villa with the children, Alice and Stephen.
explain it better than that.” He looked up steadily It was always open to her as she well knew.
into her face across the table so that she saw the

THE MAN WHOM THE TREES LOVED — 19 of 32

 “You need the change,” he said, when the lamps VII
had been lit and the servant had gone out again; This was at the end of summer, but the autumn
“you need it as much as I dread it. I could manage followed close. The conversation really marked the
somehow until you returned, and should feel hap- threshold between the two seasons, and marked at
pier that way if you went. I cannot leave this Forest the same time the line between her husband’s nega-
that I love so well. I even feel, Sophie dear”—he sat tive and aggressive state. She almost felt she had
up straight and faced her as he half whispered it done wrong to yield; he grew so bold, concealment
—”that I can never leave it again. My life and happi- all discarded. He went, that is, quite openly to the
ness lie here together.” woods, forgetting all his duties, all his former occu-
And even while scorning the idea that she could pations. He even sought to coax her to go with him.
leave him alone with the Influence of the Forest all The hidden thing blazed out without disguise. And,
about him to have its unimpeded way, she felt the while she trembled at his energy, she admired the
pangs of that subtle jealousy bite keen and close. virile passion he displayed. Her jealousy had long
He loved the Forest better than herself, for he ago retired before her fear, accepting the second
placed it first. Behind the words, moreover, hid the place. Her one desire now was to protect. The wife
unuttered thought that made her so uneasy. The turned wholly mother.
terror Sanderson had brought revived and shook its He said so little, but—he hated to come in.
wings before her very eyes. For the whole conver- From morning to night he wandered in the Forest;
sation, of which this was a fragment, conveyed the often he went out after dinner; his mind was
unutterable implication that while he could not charged with trees—their foliage, growth, devel-
spare the trees, they equally could not spare him. opment; their wonder, beauty, strength; their lone-
The vividness with which he managed to conceal liness in isolation, their power in a herded mass. He
and yet betray the fact brought a profound distress knew the effect of every wind upon them; the dan-
that crossed the border between presentiment and ger from the boisterous north, the glory from the
warning into positive alarm. west, the eastern dryness, and the soft, moist ten-
He clearly felt that the trees would miss him— derness that a south wind left upon their thinning
the trees he tended, guarded, watched over, loved. boughs. He spoke all day of their sensations: how
“David, I shall stay here with you. I think you they drank the fading sunshine, dreamed in the
need me really,—don’t you?” Eagerly, with a touch moonlight, thrilled to the kiss of stars. The dew
of heart-felt passion, the words poured out. could bring them half the passion of the night, but
“Now more than ever, dear. God bless you for frost sent them plunging beneath the ground to
you sweet unselfishness. And your sacrifice,” he dwell with hopes of a later coming softness in their
added, “is all the greater because you cannot under- roots. They nursed the life they carried—insects,
stand the thing that makes it necessary for me to larvae, chrysalis—and when the skies above them
stay.” melted, he spoke of them standing “motionless in
“Perhaps in the spring instead—” she said, with an ecstasy of rain,” or in the noon of sunshine “self-
a tremor in the voice. poised upon their prodigy of shade.”
“In the spring—perhaps,” he answered gently, And once in the middle of the night she woke at
almost beneath his breath. “For they will not need the sound of his voice, and heard him—wide awake,
me then. All the world can love them in the spring. not talking in his sleep—but talking towards the
It’s in the winter that they’re lonely and neglected. I window where the shadow of the cedar fell at noon:
wish to stay with them particularly then. I even feel
I ought to—and I must.” O art thou sighing for Lebanon
And in this way, without further speech, the In the long breeze that streams to thy delicious East?
Sighing for Lebanon,
decision was made. Mrs. Bittacy, at least, asked no Dark cedar;
more questions. Yet she could not bring herself to
show more sympathy than was necessary. She felt, and, when, half charmed, half terrified, she turned
for one thing, that if she did, it might lead him to and called to him by name, he merely said—
speak freely, and to tell her things she could not “My dear, I felt the loneliness—suddenly real-
possibly bear to know. And she dared not take the ized it—the alien desolation of that tree, set here
risk of that. upon our little lawn in England when all her East-
ern brothers call her in sleep.” And the answer

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seemed so queer, so “un-evangelical,” that she hollies where the gypsies camped. Nothing else
waited in silence till he slept again. The poetry would grow there, but the hollies thrive upon the
passed her by. It seemed unnecessary and out of stony soil.
place. It made her ache with suspicion, fear, jeal- “David, the beech is all right and safe.” She had
ousy. learned his phraseology a little, made clever out of
The fear, however, seemed somehow all lapped due season by her love. “There’s no wind to-night.”
up and banished soon afterwards by her unwilling “But it’s rising,” he answered, “rising in the east.
admiration of the rushing splendor of her hus- I heard it in the bare and hungry larches. They need
band’s state. Her anxiety, at any rate, shifted from the sun and dew, and always cry out when the
the religious to the medical. She thought he might wind’s upon them from the east.”
be losing his steadiness of mind a little. How often She sent a short unspoken prayer most swiftly
in her prayers she offered thanks for the guidance to her deity as she heard him say it. For every time
that had made her stay with him to help and watch now, when he spoke in this familiar, intimate way
is impossible to say. It certainly was twice a day. of the life of the trees, she felt a sheet of cold fasten
She even went so far once, when Mr. Mortimer, tight against her very skin and flesh. She shivered.
the vicar, called, and brought with him a more or How could he possibly know such things?
less distinguished doctor—as to tell the profes- Yet, in all else, and in the relations of his daily
sional man privately some symptoms of her hus- life, he was sane and reasonable, loving, kind and
band’s queerness. And his answer that there was tender. It was only on the subject of the trees he
“nothing he could prescribe for” added not a little seemed unhinged and queer. Most curiously it
to her sense of unholy bewilderment. No doubt Sir seemed that, since the collapse of the cedar they
James had never been “consulted” under such both loved, though in different fashion, his depar-
unorthodox conditions before. His sense of what ture from the normal had increased. Why else did
was becoming naturally overrode his acquired he watch them as a man might watch a sickly child?
instincts as a skilled instrument that might help the Why did he hunger especially in the dusk to catch
race. their “mood of night” as he called it? Why think so
“No fever, you think?” she asked insistently with carefully upon them when the frost was threatening
hurry, determined to get something from him. or the wind appeared to rise?
“Nothing that I can deal with, as I told you, As she put it so frequently now herself—How
Madam,” replied the offended allopathic Knight. could he possibly know such things?
Evidently he did not care about being invited to He went. As she closed the front door after him
examine patients in this surreptitious way before a she heard the distant roaring in the Forest. …
teapot on the lawn, chance of a fee most problemat-
ical. He liked to see a tongue and feel a thumping And then it suddenly struck her: How could she
pulse; to know the pedigree and bank account of know them too?
his questioner as well. It was most unusual, in It dropped upon her like a blow that she felt at
abominable taste besides. Of course it was. But the once all over, upon body, heart and mind. The dis-
drowning woman seized the only straw she could. covery rushed out from its ambush to overwhelm.
For now the aggressive attitude of her husband The truth of it, making all arguing futile, numbed
overcame her to the point where she found it diffi- her faculties. But though at first it deadened her,
cult even to question him. Yet in the house he was she soon revived, and her being rose into aggressive
so kind and gentle, doing all he could to make her opposition. A wild yet calculated courage like that
sacrifice as easy as possible. which animates the leaders of splendid forlorn
“David, you really are unwise to go out now. hopes flamed in her little person—flamed grandly,
The night is damp and very chilly. The ground is and invincible. While knowing herself insignificant
soaked in dew. You’ll catch your death of cold.” and weak, she knew at the same time that power at
His face lightened. “Won’t you come with me, her back which moves the worlds. The faith that
dear,—just for once? I’m only going to the corner of filled her was the weapon in her hands, and the
the hollies to see the beech that stands so lonely by right by which she claimed it; but the spirit of utter,
itself.” selfless sacrifice that characterized her life was the
She had been out with him in the short dark means by which she mastered its immediate use.
afternoon, and they had passed that evil group of For a kind of white and faultless intuition guided

THE MAN WHOM THE TREES LOVED — 21 of 32

her to the attack. Behind her stood her Bible and Immediately upon its heels, then, came another
her God. truth, with a close reality that shocked her. She saw
How so magnificent a divination came to her at that jealousy was not confined to the human and
all may well be a matter for astonishment, though animal world alone, but ran though all creation.
some clue of explanation lies, perhaps, in the very The Vegetable Kingdom knew it too. So-called
simpleness of her nature. At any rate, she saw quite inanimate nature shared it with the rest. Trees felt
clearly certain things; saw them in moments only— it. This Forest just beyond the window—standing
after prayer, in the still silence of the night, or when there in the silence of the autumn evening across
left alone those long hours in the house with her the little lawn—this Forest understood it equally.
knitting and her thoughts—and the guidance which The remorseless, branching power that sought to
then flashed into her remained, even after the man- keep exclusively for itself the thing it loved and
ner of its coming was forgotten. needed, spread like a running desire through all its
They came to her, these things she saw, form- million leaves and stems and roots. In humans, of
less, wordless; she could not put them into any kind course, it was consciously directed; in animals it
of language; but by the very fact of being uncaught acted with frank instinctiveness; but in trees this
in sentences they retained their original clear vigor. jealousy rose in some blind tide of impersonal and
Hours of patient waiting brought the first, and unconscious wrath that would sweep opposition
the others followed easily afterwards, by degrees, from its path as the wind sweeps powdered snow
on subsequent days, a little and a little. Her hus- from the surface of the ice. Their number was a
band had been gone since early morning, and had host with endless reinforcements, and once it real-
taken his luncheon with him. She was sitting by the ized its passion was returned the power increased....
tea things, the cups and teapot warmed, the Her husband loved the trees.... They had become
muffins in the fender keeping hot, all ready for his aware of it.... They would take him from her in the
return, when she realized quite abruptly that this end....
thing which took him off, which kept him out so Then, while she heard his footsteps in the hall
many hours day after day, this thing that was and the closing of the front door, she saw a third
against her own little will and instincts—was enor- thing clearly;—realized the widening of the gap
mous as the sea. It was no mere prettiness of single between herself and him. This other love had made
Trees, but something massed and mountainous. it. All these weeks of the summer when she felt so
About her rose the wall of its huge opposition to close to him, now especially when she had made
the sky, its scale gigantic, its power utterly prodi- the biggest sacrifice of her life to stay by his side
gious. What she knew of it hitherto as green and and help him, he had been slowly, surely—drawing
delicate forms waving and rustling in the winds was away. The estrangement was here and now—a fact
but, as it were the spray of foam that broke into accomplished. It had been all this time maturing;
sight upon the nearer edge of viewless depths far, there yawned this broad deep space between them.
far away. The trees, indeed, were sentinels set visi- Across the empty distance she saw the change in
bly about the limits of a camp that itself remained merciless perspective. It revealed his face and fig-
invisible. The awful hum and murmur of the main ure, dearly-loved, once fondly worshipped, far on
body in the distance passed into that still room the other side in shadowy distance, small, the back
about her with the firelight and hissing kettle. Out turned from her, and moving while she watched—
yonder—in the Forest further out—the thing that moving away from her.
was ever roaring at the center was dreadfully They had their tea in silence then. She asked no
increasing. questions, he volunteered no information of his
The sense of definite battle, too—battle day. The heart was big within her, and the terrible
between herself and the Forest for his soul—came loneliness of age spread through her like a rising icy
with it. Its presentiment was as clear as though mist. She watched him, filling all his wants. His hair
Thompson had come into the room and quietly told was untidy and his boots were caked with blackish
her that the cottage was surrounded. “Please, mud. He moved with a restless, swaying motion
ma’am, there are trees come up about the house,” that somehow blanched her cheek and sent a miser-
she might have suddenly announced. And equally able shivering down her back. It reminded her of
might have heard her own answer: “It’s all right, trees. His eyes were very bright.
Thompson. The main body is still far away.”

THE MAN WHOM THE TREES LOVED — 22 of 32

 He brought in with him an odor of the earth branches just as he did: to be there when he was
and forest that seemed to choke her and make it there, even though not together. For it had come to
difficult to breathe; and—what she noticed with a her that she might thus share with him for once
climax of almost uncontrollable alarm—upon his this horrible mighty life and breathing of the trees
face beneath the lamplight shone traces of a mild, he loved. In winter, he had said, they needed him
faint glory that made her think of moonlight falling particularly, and winter now was coming. Her love
upon a wood through speckled shadows. It was his must bring her something of what he felt himself—
new-found happiness that shone there, a happiness the huge attraction, the suction and the pull of all
uncaused by her and in which she had no part. the trees. Thus, in some vicarious fashion, she
In his coat was a spray of faded yellow beech might share, though unknown to himself, this very
leaves. “I brought this from the Forest to you,” he thing that was taking him away from her. She might
said, with all the air that belonged to his little acts thus even lessen its attack upon himself.
of devotion long ago. And she took the spray of The impulse came to her clairvoyantly, and she
leaves mechanically with a smile and a murmured obeyed without a sign of hesitation. Deeper com-
“thank you, dear,” as though he had unknowingly prehension would come to her of the whole awful
put into her hands the weapon for her own destruc- puzzle. And come it did, yet not in the way she
tion and she had accepted it. imagined and expected.
And when the tea was over and he left the The air was very still, the sky a cold pale blue,
room, he did not go to his study, or to change his but cloudless. The entire Forest stood silent, at
clothes. She heard the front door softly shut behind attention. It knew perfectly well that she had come.
him as he again went out towards the Forest. It knew the moment when she entered; watched
A moment later she was in her room upstairs, and followed her; and behind her something
kneeling beside the bed—the side she slept on— dropped without a sound and shut her in. Her feet
and praying wildly through a flood of tears that God upon the glades of mossy grass fell silently, as the
would save and keep him to her. Wind brushed the oaks and beeches shifted past in rows and took up
window panes behind her while she knelt. their positions at her back. It was not pleasant, this
way they grew so dense behind her the instant she
VIII had passed. She realized that they gathered in an
One sunny November morning, when the strain ever-growing army, massed, herded, trooped,
had reached a pitch that made repression almost between her and the cottage, shutting off escape.
unmanageable, she came to an impulsive decision, They let her pass so easily, but to get out again she
and obeyed it. Her husband had again gone out would know them differently—thick, crowded,
with luncheon for the day. She took adventure in branches all drawn and hostile. Already their
her hands and followed him. The power of seeing- increasing numbers bewildered her. In front, they
clear was strong upon her, forcing her up to some looked so sparse and scattered, with open spaces
unnatural level of understanding. To stay indoors where the sunshine fell; but when she turned it
and wait inactive for his return seemed suddenly seemed they stood so close together, a serried army,
impossible. She meant to know what he knew, feel darkening the sunlight. They blocked the day, col-
what he felt, put herself in his place. She would lected all the shadows, stood with their leafless and
dare the fascination of the Forest—share it with forbidding rampart like the night. They swallowed
him. It was greatly daring; but it would give her down into themselves the very glade by which she
greater understanding how to help and save him came. For when she glanced behind her—rarely—
and therefore greater Power. She went upstairs a the way she had come was shadowy and lost.
moment first to pray. Yet the morning sparkled overhead, and a
In a thick, warm skirt, and wearing heavy boots glance of excitement ran quivering through the
—those walking boots she used with him upon the entire day. It was what she always knew as “chil-
mountains about Seillans—she left the cottage by dren’s weather,” so clear and harmless, without a
the back way and turned towards the Forest. She sign of danger, nothing ominous to threaten or
could not actually follow him, for he had started off alarm. Steadfast in her purpose, looking back as lit-
an hour before and she knew not exactly his direc- tle as she dared, Sophia Bittacy marched slowly and
tion. What was so urgent in her was the wish to be deliberately into the heart of the silent woods,
with him in the woods, to walk beneath leafless deeper, ever deeper.

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 And then, abruptly, in an open space where the size of so vast a movement. They had turned in her
sunshine fell unhindered, she stopped. It was one of direction. That was it. They saw her.
the breathing places of the forest. Dead, withered In this way the change expressed itself in her
bracken lay in patches of unsightly grey. There were groping, terrified thought. Till now it had been
bits of heather too. All round the trees stood look- otherwise: she had looked at them from her own
ing on—oak, beech, holly, ash, pine, larch, with point of view; now they looked at her from theirs.
here and there small groups of juniper. On the lips They stared her in the face and eyes; they stared at
of this breathing space of the woods she stopped to her all over. In some unkind, resentful, hostile way,
rest, disobeying her instinct for the first time. For they watched her. Hitherto in life she had watched
the other instinct in her was to go on. She did not them variously, in superficial ways, reading into
really want to rest. them what her own mind suggested. Now they read
This was the little act that brought it to her— into her the things they actually were, and not
the wireless message from a vast Emitter. merely another’s interpretations of them.
“I’ve been stopped,” she thought to herself with They seemed in their motionless silence there
a horrid qualm. instinct with life, a life, moreover, that breathed
She looked about her in this quiet, ancient about her a species of terrible soft enchantment
place. Nothing stirred. There was no life nor sign of that bewitched. It branched all through her, climb-
life; no birds sang; no rabbits scuttled off at her ing to the brain. The Forest held her with its huge
approach. The stillness was bewildering, and gravity and giant fascination. In this secluded breathing
hung down upon it like a heavy curtain. It hushed spot that the centuries had left untouched, she had
the heart in her. Could this be part of what her hus- stepped close against the hidden pulse of the whole
band felt—this sense of thick entanglement with collective mass of them. They were aware of her
stems, boughs, roots, and foliage? and had turned to gaze with their myriad, vast sight
“This has always been as it is now,” she thought, upon the intruder. They shouted at her in the
yet not knowing why she thought it. “Ever since the silence. For she wanted to look back at them, but it
Forest grew it has been still and secret here. It has was like staring at a crowd, and her glance merely
never changed.” The curtain of silence drew closer shifted from one tree to another, hurriedly, finding
while she said it, thickening round her. “For a thou- in none the one she sought. They saw her so easily,
sand years—I’m here with a thousand years. And each and all. The rows that stood behind her also
behind this place stand all the forests of the world!” stared. But she could not return the gaze. Her hus-
So foreign to her temperament were such band, she realized, could. And their steady stare
thoughts, and so alien to all she had been taught to shocked her as though in some sense she knew that
look for in Nature, that she strove against them. she was naked. They saw so much of her: she saw of
She made an effort to oppose. But they clung and them—so little.
haunted just the same; they refused to be dispersed. Her efforts to return their gaze were pitiful. The
The curtain hung dense and heavy as though its constant shifting increased her bewilderment. Con-
texture thickened. The air with difficulty came scious of this awful and enormous sight all over her,
through. she let her eyes first rest upon the ground, and then
And then she thought that curtain stirred. she closed them altogether. She kept the lids as
There was movement somewhere. That obscure tight together as ever they would go.
dim thing which ever broods behind the visible But the sight of the trees came even into that
appearances of trees came nearer to her. She caught inner darkness behind the fastened lids, for there
her breath and stared about her, listening intently. was no escaping it. Outside, in the light, she still
The trees, perhaps because she saw them more in knew that the leaves of the hollies glittered
detail now, it seemed to her had changed. A vague, smoothly, that the dead foliage of the oaks hung
faint alteration spread over them, at first so slight crisp in the air about her, that the needles of the lit-
she scarcely would admit it, then growing steadily, tle junipers were pointing all one way. The spread
though still obscurely, outwards. “They tremble and perception of the Forest was focused on herself, and
are changed,” flashed through her mind the horrid no mere shutting of the eyes could hide its scat-
line that Sanderson had quoted. Yet the change was tered yet concentrated stare—the all-inclusive
graceful for all the uncouthness attendant upon the vision of great woods.

THE MAN WHOM THE TREES LOVED — 24 of 32

 There was no wind, yet here and there a single the branches drop about his steps and hid him. His
leaf hanging by its dried-up stalk shook all alone figure faded out among the speckled shade and
with great rapidity—rattling. It was the sentry sunlight. The trees covered him. The tide just took
drawing attention to her presence. And then, again, him, all unresisting and content to go. Upon the
as once long weeks before, she felt their Being as a bosom of the green soft sea he floated away beyond
tide about her. The tide had turned. That memory her reach of vision. Her eyes could follow him no
of her childhood sands came back, when the nurse longer. He was gone.
said, “The tide has turned now; we must go in,” and And then for the first time she realized, even at
she saw the mass of piled-up waters, green and that distance, that the look upon his face was one of
heaped to the horizon, and realized that it was peace and happiness—rapt, and caught away in joy,
slowly coming in. The gigantic mass of it, too vast a look of youth. That expression now he never
for hurry, loaded with massive purpose, she used to showed to her. But she had known it. Years ago, in
feel, was moving towards herself. The fluid body of the early days of their married life, she had seen it
the sea was creeping along beneath the sky to the on his face. Now it no longer obeyed the summons
very spot upon the yellow sands where she stood of her presence and her love. The woods alone
and played. The sight and thought of it had always could call it forth; it answered to the trees; the For-
overwhelmed her with a sense of awe—as though est had taken every part of him—from her—his
her puny self were the object of the whole sea’s very heart and soul....
advance. “The tide has turned; we had better now Her sight that had plunged inwards to the fields
go in.” of faded memory now came back to outer things
This was happening now about her—the same again. She looked about her, and her love, returning
thing was happening in the woods—slow, sure, and empty-handed and unsatisfied, left her open to the
steady, and its motion as little discernible as the invading of the bleakest terror she had ever known.
sea’s. The tide had turned. The small human pres- That such things could be real and happen found
ence that had ventured among its green and moun- her helpless utterly. Terror invaded the quietest
tainous depths, moreover, was its objective. corners of her heart, that had never yet known
That all was clear within her while she sat and quailing. She could not—for moments at any rate—
waited with tight-shut lids. But the next moment reach either her Bible or her God. Desolate in an
she opened her eyes with a sudden realization of empty world of fear she sat with eyes too dry and
something more. The presence that it sought was hot for tears, yet with a coldness as of ice upon her
after all not hers. It was the presence of some one very flesh. She stared, unseeing, about her. That
other than herself. And then she understood. Her horror which stalks in the stillness of the noonday,
eyes had opened with a click, it seemed, but the when the glare of an artificial sunshine lights up the
sound, in reality, was outside herself. Across the motionless trees, moved all about her. In front and
clearing where the sunshine lay so calm and still, behind she was aware of it. Beyond this stealthy
she saw the figure of her husband moving among silence, just within the edge of it, the things of
the trees—a man, like a tree, walking. another world were passing. But she could not
With hands behind his back, and head uplifted, know them. Her husband knew them, knew their
he moved quite slowly, as though absorbed in his beauty and their awe, yes, but for her they were out
own thoughts. Hardly fifty paces separated them, of reach. She might not share with him the very
but he had no inkling of her presence there so near. least of them. It seemed that behind and through
With mind intent and senses all turned inwards, he the glare of this wintry noonday in the heart of the
marched past her like a figure in a dream, and like a woods there brooded another universe of life and
figure in a dream she saw him go. Love, yearning, passion, for her all unexpressed. The silence veiled
pity rose in a storm within her, but as in nightmare it, the stillness hid it; but he moved with it all and
she found no words or movement possible. She sat understood. His love interpreted it.
and watched him go—go from her—go into the She rose to her feet, tottered feebly, and col-
deeper reaches of the green enveloping woods. lapsed again upon the moss. Yet for herself she felt
Desire to save, to bid him stop and turn, ran in a no terror; no little personal fear could touch her
passion through her being, but there was nothing whose anguish and deep longing streamed all out to
she could do. She saw him go away from her, go of him whom she so bravely loved. In this time of
his own accord and willingly beyond her; she saw utter self-forgetfulness, when she realized that the

THE MAN WHOM THE TREES LOVED — 25 of 32

battle was hopeless, thinking she had lost even her made all simple for her. The branches almost urged
God, she found Him again quite close beside her her out.
like a little Presence in this terrible heart of the hos- But behind her, as she left the shadowed
tile Forest. But at first she did not recognize that He precincts, she felt as though some towering Angel
was there; she did not know Him in that strangely of the Woods let fall across the threshold the flam-
unacceptable guise. For He stood so very close, so ing sword of a countless multitude of leaves that
very intimate, so very sweet and comforting, and formed behind her a barrier, green, shimmering,
yet so hard to understand—as Resignation. and impassable. Into the Forest she never walked
again.
Once more she struggled to her feet, and this . . .
time turned successfully and slowly made her way
along the mossy glade by which she came. And at And she went about her daily duties with a calm
first she marveled, though only for a moment, at and quietness that was a perpetual astonishment
the ease with which she found the path. For a even to herself, for it hardly seemed of this world at
moment only, because almost at once she saw the all. She talked to her husband when he came in for
truth. The trees were glad that she should go. They tea—after dark. Resignation brings a curious large
helped her on her way. The Forest did not want her. courage—when there is nothing more to lose. The
The tide was coming in, indeed, yet not for her. soul takes risks, and dares. Is it a curious short-cut
And so, in another of those flashes of clear- sometimes to the heights?
vision that of late had lifted life above the normal “David, I went into the Forest, too, this morn-
level, she saw and understood the whole terrible ing, soon after you I went. I saw you there.”
thing complete. “Wasn’t it wonderful?” he answered simply,
Till now, though unexpressed in thought or inclining his head a little. There was no surprise or
language, her fear had been that the woods her hus- annoyance in his look; a mild and gentle ennui
band loved would somehow take him from her—to rather. He asked no real question. She thought of
merge his life in theirs—even to kill him on some some garden tree the wind attacks too suddenly,
mysterious way. This time she saw her deep mis- bending it over when it does not want to bend—the
take, and so seeing, let in upon herself the fuller mild unwillingness with which it yields. She often
agony of horror. For their jealousy was not the petty saw him this way now, in the terms of trees.
jealousy of animals or humans. They wanted him “It was very wonderful indeed, dear, yes,” she
because they loved him, but they did not want him replied low, her voice not faltering though indis-
dead. Full charged with his splendid life and enthu- tinct. “But for me it was too—too strange and big.”
siasm they wanted him. They wanted him—alive. The passion of tears lay just below the quiet
It was she who stood in their way, and it was voice all unbetrayed. Somehow she kept them back.
she whom they intended to remove. There was a pause, and then he added:
This was what brought the sense of abject help- “I find it more and more so every day.” His voice
lessness. She stood upon the sands against an entire passed through the lamp-lit room like a murmur of
ocean slowly rolling in against her. For, as all the the wind in branches. The look of youth and happi-
forces of a human being combine unconsciously to ness she had caught upon his face out there had
eject a grain of sand that has crept beneath the skin wholly gone, and an expression of weariness was in
to cause discomfort, so the entire mass of what its place, as of a man distressed vaguely at finding
Sanderson had called the Collective Consciousness himself in uncongenial surroundings where he is
of the Forest strove to eject this human atom that slightly ill at ease. It was the house he hated—com-
stood across the path of its desire. Loving her hus- ing back to rooms and walls and furniture. The ceil-
band, she had crept beneath its skin. It was her they ings and closed windows confined him. Yet, in it,
would eject and take away; it was her they would no suggestion that he found her irksome. Her pres-
destroy, not him. Him, whom they loved and ence seemed of no account at all; indeed, he hardly
needed, they would keep alive. They meant to take noticed her. For whole long periods he lost her, did
him living. not know that she was there. He had no need of
She reached the house in safety, though she her. He lived alone. Each lived alone.
never remembered how she found her way. It was The outward signs by which she recognized that
the awful battle was against her and the terms of

THE MAN WHOM THE TREES LOVED — 26 of 32

surrender accepted were pathetic. She put the humankind, something alien and not commonly
medicine-chest away upon the shelf; she gave the recognized. There was a gulf fixed between the two,
orders for his pocket-luncheon before he asked; she and Mr. Sanderson had bridged it, by his talk, his
went to bed alone and early, leaving the front door explanations, his attitude of mind. Through these
unlocked, with milk and bread and butter in the her husband had found the way into it. His temper-
hall beside the lamp—all concessions that she felt ament and natural passion for the woods had pre-
impelled to make. For more and more, unless the pared the soul in him, and the moment he saw the
weather was too violent, he went out after dinner way to go he took it—the line of least resistance.
even, staying for hours in the woods. But she never Life was, of course, open to all, and her husband
slept until she heard the front door close below, had the right to choose it where he would. He had
and knew soon afterwards his careful step come chosen it—away from her, away from other men,
creeping up the stairs and into the room so softly. but not necessarily away from God. This was an
Until she heard his regular deep breathing close enormous concession that she skirted, never really
beside her, she lay awake. All strength or desire to faced; it was too revolutionary to face. But its possi-
resist had gone for good. The thing against her was bility peeped into her bewildered mind. It might
too huge and powerful. Capitulation was complete, delay his progress, or it might advance it. Who
a fact accomplished. She dated it from the day she could know? And why should God, who ordered all
followed him to the Forest. things with such magnificent detail, from the path-
Moreover, the time for evacuation—her own way of a sun to the falling of a sparrow, object to his
evacuation—seemed approaching. It came stealth- free choice, or interfere to hinder him and stop?
ily ever nearer, surely and slowly as the rising tide She came to realize resignation, that is, in
she used to dread. At the high-water mark she another aspect. It gave her comfort, if not peace.
stood waiting calmly—waiting to be swept away. She fought against all belittling of her God. It was,
Across the lawn all those terrible days of early win- perhaps, enough that He—knew.
ter the encircling Forest watched it come, guiding “You are not alone, dear in the trees out there?”
its silent swell and currents towards her feet. Only she ventured one night, as he crept on tiptoe into
she never once gave up her Bible or her praying. the room not far from midnight. “God is with you?”
This complete resignation, moreover, had somehow “Magnificently,” was the immediate answer,
brought to her a strange great understanding, and if given with enthusiasm, “for He is everywhere. And I
she could not share her husband’s horrible aban- only wish that you—”
donment to powers outside himself, she could, and But she stuffed the clothes against her ears.
did, in some half-groping way grasp at shadowy That invitation on his lips was more than she could
meanings that might make such abandonment— bear to hear. It seemed like asking her to hurry to
possible, yes, but more than merely possible—in her own execution. She buried her face among the
some extraordinary sense not evil. sheets and blankets, shaking all over like a leaf.
Hitherto she had divided the beyond-world into
two sharp halves—spirits good or spirits evil. But IX
thoughts came to her now, on soft and very tenta- And so the thought that she was the one to go
tive feet, like the footsteps of the gods which are on remained and grew. It was, perhaps, first sign of
wool, that besides these definite classes, there that weakening of the mind which indicated the
might be other Powers as well, belonging definitely singular manner of her going. For it was her mental
to neither one nor other. Her thought stopped dead opposition, the trees felt, that stood in their way.
at that. But the big idea found lodgment in her little Once that was overcome, obliterated, her physical
mind, and, owing to the largeness of her heart, presence did not matter. She would be harmless.
remained there unejected. It even brought a certain Having accepted defeat, because she had come
solace with it. to feel that his obsession was not actually evil, she
The failure—or unwillingness, as she preferred accepted at the same time the conditions of an
to state it—of her God to interfere and help, that atrocious loneliness. She stood now from her hus-
also she came in a measure to understand. For here, band farther than from the moon. They had no visi-
she found it more and more possible to imagine, tors. Callers were few and far between, and less
was perhaps no positive evil at work, but only encouraged than before. The empty dark of winter
something that usually stands away from was before them. Among the neighbors was none in

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whom, without disloyalty to her husband, she could had furnished for him. Never for a single instant
confide. Mr. Mortimer, had he been single, might was he cut off from it. She gazed at the newspaper
have helped her in this desert of solitude that spread before his face and knees, saw the smoke of
preyed upon her mind, but his wife was there the his cheroot curl up above the edge, noticed the lit-
obstacle; for Mrs. Mortimer wore sandals, believed tle hole in his evening socks, and listened to the
that nuts were the complete food of man, and paragraphs he read aloud as of old. But this was all
indulged in other idiosyncrasies that classed her a veil he spread about himself of purpose. Behind it
inevitably among the “latter signs” which Mrs. Bit- —he escaped. It was the conjurer’s trick to divert
tacy had been taught to dread as dangerous. She the sight to unimportant details while the essential
stood most desolately alone. thing went forward unobserved. He managed
Solitude, therefore, in which the mind unhin- wonderfully; she loved him for the pains he took to
dered feeds upon its own delusions, was the assign- spare her distress; but all the while she knew that
able cause of her gradual mental disruption and the body lolling in that armchair before her eyes
collapse. contained the merest fragment of his actual self. It
With the definite arrival of the colder weather was little better than a corpse. It was an empty
her husband gave up his rambles after dark; shell. The essential soul of him was out yonder with
evenings were spent together over the fire; he read the Forest—farther out near that ever-roaring heart
The Times; they even talked about their postponed of it.
visit abroad in the coming spring. No restlessness And, with the dark, the Forest came up boldly
was on him at the change; he seemed content and and pressed against the very walls and windows,
easy in his mind; spoke little of the trees and peering in upon them, joining hands above the
woods; enjoyed far better health than if there had slates and chimneys. The winds were always walk-
been change of scene, and to herself was tender, ing on the lawn and gravel paths; steps came and
kind, solicitous over trifles, as in the distant days of went and came again; some one seemed always
their first honeymoon. talking in the woods, some one was in the building
But this deep calm could not deceive her; it too. She passed them on the stairs, or running soft
meant, she fully understood, that he felt sure of and muffled, very large and gentle, down the pas-
himself, sure of her, and sure of the trees as well. It sages and landings after dusk, as though loose frag-
all lay buried in the depths of him, too secure and ments of the Day had broken off and stayed there
deep, too intimately established in his central being caught among the shadows, trying to get out. They
to permit of those surface fluctuations which betray blundered silently all about the house. They waited
disharmony within. His life was hid with trees. Even till she passed, then made a run for it. And her hus-
the fever, so dreaded in the damp of winter, left band always knew. She saw him more than once
him free. She now knew why: the fever was due to deliberately avoid them—because she was there.
their efforts to obtain him, his efforts to respond More than once, too, she saw him stand and listen
and go—physical results of a fierce unrest he had when he thought she was not near, then heard her-
never understood till Sanderson came with his self the long bounding stride of their approach
wicked explanations. Now it was otherwise. The across the silent garden. Already he had heard them
bridge was made. And—he had gone. in the windy distance of the night, far, far away.
And she, brave, loyal, and consistent soul, They sped, she well knew, along that glade of mossy
found herself utterly alone, even trying to make his turf by which she last came out; it cushioned their
passage easy. It seemed that she stood at the bot- tread exactly as it had cushioned her own.
tom of some huge ravine that opened in her mind, It seemed to her the trees were always in the
the walls whereof instead of rock were trees that house with him, and in their very bedroom. He wel-
reached enormous to the sky, engulfing her. God comed them, unaware that she also knew, and
alone knew that she was there. He watched, per- trembled.
mitted, even perhaps approved. At any rate—He One night in their bedroom it caught her
knew. unawares. She woke out of deep sleep and it came
During those quiet evenings in the house, upon her before she could gather her forces for con-
moreover, while they sat over the fire listening to trol.
the roaming winds about the house, her husband The day had been wildly boisterous, but now
knew continual access to the world his alien love the wind had dropped, only its rags went fluttering

THE MAN WHOM THE TREES LOVED — 28 of 32

through the night. The rays of the full moon fell in form and substance filled the room. There was a
a shower between the branches. Overhead still rush of silent movement, as the Presences drew
raced the scud and wrack, shaped like hurrying past her through the air,—and they were gone.
monsters; but below the earth was quiet. Still and But, clearest of all, she saw the manner of their
dripping stood the hosts of trees. Their trunks going; for she recognized in their tumult of escape
gleamed wet and sparkling where the moon caught by the window open at the top, the same wide
them. There was a strong smell of mould and fallen “looping circles”—spirals as it seemed—that she
leaves. The air was sharp—heavy with odor. had seen upon the lawn those weeks ago when
And she knew all this the instant that she woke; Sanderson had talked. The room once more was
for it seemed to her that she had been elsewhere— empty.
following her husband—as though she had been In the collapse that followed, she heard her hus-
out! There was no dream at all, merely the definite, band’s voice, as though coming from some great
haunting certainty. It dived away, lost, buried in the distance. Her own replies she heard as well. Both
night. She sat upright in bed. She had come back. were so strange and unlike their normal speech, the
The room shone pale in the moonlight reflected very words unnatural.
through the windows, for the blinds were up, and “What is it, dear? Why do you wake me now?”
she saw her husband’s form beside her, motionless And his voice whispered it with a sighing sound,
in deep sleep. But what caught her unawares was like wind in pine boughs.
the horrid thing that by this fact of sudden, unex- “A moment since something went past me
pected waking she had surprised these other things through the air of the room. Back to the night out-
in the room, beside the very bed, gathered close side it went.” Her voice, too, held the same note as
about him while he slept. It was their dreadful of wind entangled among too many leaves.
boldness—herself of no account as it were—that “My dear, it was the wind.”
terrified her into screaming before she could collect “But it called, David. It was calling you—by
her powers to prevent. She screamed before she name!”
realized what she did—a long, high shriek of terror “The stir of the branches, dear, was what you
that filled the room, yet made so little actual sound. heard. Now, sleep again, I beg you, sleep.”
For wet and shimmering presences stood grouped “It had a crowd of eyes all through and over it—
all round that bed. She saw their outline under- before and behind—” Her voice grew louder. But
neath the ceiling, the green, spread bulk of them, his own in reply sank lower, far away, and oddly
their vague extension over walls and furniture. They hushed.
shifted to and fro, massed yet translucent, mild yet “The moonlight, dear, upon the sea of twigs and
thick, moving and turning within themselves to a boughs in the rain, was what you saw.”
hushed noise of multitudinous soft rustling. In their “But it frightened me. I’ve lost my God—and
sound was something very sweet and sinning that you—I’m cold as death!”
fell into her with a spell of horrible enchantment. “My dear, it is the cold of the early morning
They were so mild, each one alone, yet so terrific in hours. The whole world sleeps. Now sleep again
their combination. Cold seized her. The sheets yourself.”
against her body had turned to ice. He whispered close to her ear. She felt his hand
She screamed a second time, though the sound stroking her. His voice was soft and very soothing.
hardly issued from her throat. The spell sank But only a part of him was there; only a part of him
deeper, reaching to the heart; for it softened all the was speaking; it was a half-emptied body that lay
currents of her blood and took life from her in a beside her and uttered these strange sentences,
stream—towards themselves. Resistance in that even forcing her own singular choice of words. The
moment seemed impossible. horrible, dim enchantment of the trees was close
Her husband then stirred in his sleep, and about them in the room—gnarled, ancient, lonely
woke. And, instantly, the forms drew up, erect, and trees of winter, whispering round the human life
gathered themselves in some amazing way they loved.
together. They lessened in extent—then scattered “And let me sleep again,” she heard him mur-
through the air like an effect of light when shadows mur as he settled down among the clothes, “sleep
seek to smother it. It was tremendous, yet most back into that deep, delicious peace from which you
exquisite. A sheet of pale-green shadow that yet had called me.”

THE MAN WHOM THE TREES LOVED — 29 of 32

 His dreamy, happy tone, and that look of youth long dark tunnel. Through the arch at the far end
and joy she discerned upon his features even in the lay a brilliant picture of the violet sea sparkling on
filtered moonlight, touched her again as with the the coast of France. There lay safety and escape for
spell of those shining, mild green presences. It sank both of them, could she but hold on. Behind her the
down into her. She felt sleep grope for her. On the trees blocked up the other entrance. She never once
threshold of slumber one of those strange vagrant looked back.
voices that loss of consciousness lets loose cried She drooped. Vitality passed from her, drawn
faintly in her heart— out and away as by some steady suction. Immense
“There is joy in the Forest over one sinner that and incessant was this sensation of her powers
—” draining off. The taps were all turned on. Her per-
Then sleep took her before she had time to real- sonality, as it were, streamed steadily away, coaxed
ize even that she was vilely parodying one of her outwards by this Power that never wearied and
most precious texts, and that the irreverence was seemed inexhaustible. It won her as the full moon
ghastly.... wins the tide. She waned; she faded; she obeyed.
And though she quickly slept again, her sleep At first she watched the process, and recognized
was not as usual, dreamless. It was not woods and exactly what was going on. Her physical life, and
trees she dreamed of, but a small and curious that balance of mind which depends on physical
dream that kept coming again and again upon her; well-being, were being slowly undermined. She saw
that she stood upon a wee, bare rock in the sea, and that clearly. Only the soul, dwelling like a star apart
that the tide was rising. The water first came to her from these and independent of them, lay safe
feet, then to her knees, then to her waist. Each time somewhere—with her distant God. That she knew
the dream returned, the tide seemed higher. Once —tranquilly. The spiritual love that linked her to
it rose to her neck, once even to her mouth, cover- her husband was safe from all attack. Later, in His
ing her lips for a moment so that she could not good time, they would merge together again
breathe. She did not wake between the dreams; a because of it. But meanwhile, all of her that had
period of drab and dreamless slumber intervened. kinship with the earth was slowly going. This sepa-
But, finally, the water rose above her eyes and face, ration was being remorselessly accomplished. Every
completely covering her head. part of her the trees could touch was being steadily
And then came explanation—the sort of expla- drained from her. She was being—removed.
nation dreams bring. She understood. For, beneath After a time, however, even this power of real-
the water, she had seen the world of seaweed rising ization went, so that she no longer “watched the
from the bottom of the sea like a forest of dense process” or knew exactly what was going on. The
green-long, sinuous stems, immense thick one satisfaction she had known—the feeling that it
branches, millions of feelers spreading through the was sweet to suffer for his sake—went with it. She
darkened watery depths the power of their ocean stood utterly alone with this terror of the trees ...
foliage. The Vegetable Kingdom was even in the mid the ruins of her broken and disordered mind.
sea. It was everywhere. Earth, air, and water helped She slept badly; woke in the morning with hot
it, way of escape there was none. and tired eyes; her head ached dully; she grew con-
And even underneath the sea she heard that fused in thought and lost the clues of daily life in
terrible sound of roaring—was it surf or wind or the most feeble fashion. At the same time she lost
voices?—further out, yet coming steadily towards sight, too, of that brilliant picture at the exist of the
her. tunnel; it faded away into a tiny semicircle of pale
light, the violet sea and the sunshine the merest
And so, in the loneliness of that drab English point of white, remote as a star and equally inacces-
winter, the mind of Mrs. Bittacy, preying upon sible. She knew now that she could never reach it.
itself, and fed by constant dread, went lost in dis- And through the darkness that stretched behind,
proportion. Dreariness filled the weeks with dismal, the power of the trees came close and caught her,
sunless skies and a clinging moisture that knew no twining about her feet and arms, climbing to her
wholesome tonic of keen frosts. Alone with her very lips. She woke at night, finding it difficult to
thoughts, both her husband and her God with- breathe. There seemed wet leaves pressing against
drawn into distance, she counted the days to her mouth, and soft green tendrils clinging to her
Spring. She groped her way, stumbling down the neck. Her feet were heavy, half rooted, as it were, in

THE MAN WHOM THE TREES LOVED — 30 of 32

deep, thick earth. Huge creepers stretched along Alone in a shaking world, it seemed, she lay and
the whole of that black tunnel, feeling about her listened. That storm interpreted for her mind the
person for points where they might fasten well, as climax. The Forest bellowed out its victory to the
ivy or the giant parasites of the Vegetable Kingdom winds; the winds in turn proclaimed it to the Night.
settle down on the trees themselves to sap their life The whole world knew of her complete defeat, her
and kill them. loss, her little human pain. This was the roar and
Slowly and surely the morbid growth possessed shout of victory that she listened to.
her life and held her. She feared those very winds For, unmistakably, the trees were shouting in
that ran about the wintry forest. They were in the dark. These were sounds, too, like the flapping
league with it. They helped it everywhere. of great sails, a thousand at a time, and sometimes
“Why don’t you sleep, dear?” It was her hus- reports that resembled more than anything else the
band now who played the role of nurse, tending her distant booming of enormous drums. The trees
little wants with an honest care that at least aped stood up—the whole beleaguering host of them
the services of love. He was so utterly unconscious stood up—and with the uproar of their million
of the raging battle he had caused. “What is it keeps branches drummed the thundering message out
you so wide awake and restless?” across the night. It seemed as if they had all broken
“The winds,” she whispered in the dark. For loose. Their roots swept trailing over field and
hours she had been watching the tossing of the hedge and roof. They tossed their bushy heads
trees through the blindless windows. “They go beneath the clouds with a wild, delighted shuffling
walking and talking everywhere to-night, keeping of great boughs. With trunks upright they raced
me awake. And all the time they call so loudly to leaping through the sky. There was upheaval and
you.” adventure in the awful sound they made, and their
And his strange whispered answer appalled her cry was like the cry of a sea that has broken through
for a moment until the meaning of it faded and left its gates and poured loose upon the world....
her in a dark confusion of the mind that was now Through it all her husband slept peacefully as
becoming almost permanent. though he heard it not. It was, as she well knew, the
“The trees excite them in the night. The winds sleep of the semi-dead. For he was out with all that
are the great swift carriers. Go with them, dear— clamoring turmoil. The part of him that she had
and not against. You’ll find sleep that way if you lost was there. The form that slept so calmly at her
do.” side was but the shell, half emptied.
“The storm is rising,” she began, hardly know- And when the winter’s morning stole upon the
ing what she said. scene at length, with a pale, washed sunshine that
“All the more then—go with them. Don’t resist. followed the departing tempest, the first thing she
They’ll take you to the trees, that’s all.” saw, as she crept to the window and looked out,
Resist! The word touched on the button of some was the ruined cedar lying on the lawn. Only the
text that once had helped her. gaunt and crippled trunk of it remained. The single
“Resist the devil and he will flee from you,” she giant bough that had been left to it lay dark upon
heard her whispered answer, and the same second the grass, sucked endways towards the Forest by a
had buried her face beneath the clothes in a flood great wind eddy. It lay there like a mass of drift-
of hysterical weeping. wood from a wreck, left by the ebbing of a high
But her husband did not seem disturbed. Per- spring-tide upon the sands—remnant of some
haps he did not hear it, for the wind ran just then friendly, splendid vessel that once sheltered men.
against the windows with a booming shout, and the And in the distance she heard the roaring of the
roaring of the Forest farther out came behind the Forest further out. Her husband’s voice was in it.
blow, surging into the room. Perhaps, too, he was
already asleep again. She slowly regained a sort of
dull composure. Her face emerged from the tangle Source:
of sheets and blankets. With a growing terror over Project Gutenberg
her—she listened. The storm was rising. It came http://www.gutenberg.org/
with a sudden and impetuous rush that made all
Reader’s Digest Book-of-the-Month Club 1992
further sleep for her impossible.
Tales of the Uncanny and Supernatural.

THE MAN WHOM THE TREES LOVED — 31 of 32

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