Chapter XII: Tim's Particular Adventure

by Algernon Blackwood

　　Tim's "particular adventure" was of another kind. It was a self- repeater--of some violence, moreover, when the smallness of the hero is considered. Whether in after-life he become an astronomer-poet or a "silver-and-mechanical engineer"--both dreams of his--he will ever be sharp upon rescuing something. A lost star or a burning mine will be his objective, but with the essential condition that it be-- unattainable. Achievement would mean lost interest. For Tim's desire was, is, and ever will be insatiable. Profoundest mystery, insoluble difficulty, and endless searching were what his soul demanded of life. For him all ponds were bottomless, all gipsies older than the moon. He felt the universe within him, and was born to seek its inexplicable "explanation"--outside. The realisation of such passion, however, is not necessarily confined to writers of epics and lyrics. Tim was a man of action before he was a poet. "Forever questing" was his unacknowledged motto. Besides asking questions about stars and other inaccessible incidents of his Cosmos, he liked to "go busting about," as he called it--again with one essential condition that the thing should never come to an end by merely happening. Its mystery must remain its beauty.

　　"I want to save something from an awful, horrible death," he announced one evening, looking up from Half-hours with English Battles for a sign of beauty in distress.

　　"Not so easy," his uncle warned him, equally weary of another overrated book--his own.

　　"But I feel like it," he replied. "Come on."

　　Uncle Felix still held back. "That you feel like it doesn't prove that there's anything that wants rescuing," he objected.

　　The boy stared at him with patient tolerance and surprise.

　　"I promised," he said simply.

　　It was the other's turn to stare. "And when, pray?" They had been alone for the last half hour. It seemed strange.

　　"Oh--just now," replied the boy carelessly. "A few minutes ago-- about."

　　"Indeed!" It seemed stranger still. No one had come in. Yet Tim never prevaricated.

　　"Yes," he said, "I gave my wordy honour." It was so gravely spoken that, while pledges involving life and death were obviously not new to him, this one was of exceptional kind.

　　"Who, then, did you promise--whom, I mean?" the man demanded, fixing him with his stern blue eyes.

　　And the answer came out pat: "Myself!"

　　"Aha!" said the other, with a sigh and a raising of the eyebrows, by way of apology. "That settles it--"

　　"Of course."

　　"Because what you think and say, you must also act," the man continued. "If you promise yourself a thing, and then don't do it, you've simply told a lie." And he drew another sigh. He scented action coming.

　　"Let's go at once and find it," said Tim, putting a text-book into seven words. He hitched his belt up, and looked round to make sure his sisters were not within reach of interference. There was a moment's pause, during which Uncle Felix hitched his will up. They rose, then, standing side by side. They left the room arm in arm on their way into the garden. The dusk was already laying its first net of shadows to catch the Night.

　　"Hadn't you better change first?" asked Tim, thoughtfully, on his way down. He glanced at his companion's white flannel suit. "You're so awfully visible."

　　"Visible!" It was not his bulk. Tim was never deliberately rude. Was it the risk of staining that he meant?

　　"Any one can see you miles away like that."

　　The other understood instantly. In an adventure everything sees, everything has eyes, everything watches. The world is alive and full of eyes. He hesitated a moment.

　　"Oh, that's all right," he replied. "To be easily seen is the best way. It disarms curiosity at once. Tell all about yourself and nobody ever thinks anything. It's trying to hide that makes the world suspect you. Keep nothing back and show yourself is the best way to go about unnoticed. I've tried it."

　　"Ah," exclaimed Tim, in an eager whisper, "same as walking into the strawberry-bed without asking--"

　　"So my white clothes are just the thing," said the other, avoiding the pit laid for him.

　　"Of course, yes." Tim still chased the big idea in his mind. "Besides," he added, full of another splendid thought, "like that they won't expect you to do very much. They'll watch you instead of me."

　　There was confusion in the utterance, but things were rather crowding in upon him, to tell the truth, and imagination leaped ahead upon two trails at once. He looked at his big companion with more approval. "You'll do," he signified, pulling his cap over his eyes, thrusting both hands in his pockets, and slithering rapidly down the bannisters in advance.

　　"Thanks," said Uncle Felix, following him, three steps at a time, with effort.

　　In the hall they paused a moment--a question of doors.

　　"Back," said Uncle Felix.

　　"Front's better," decided the boy. "Then nobody'll think anything, you see." He was quick to put the new principle into practice.

　　On the lawn there was another pause, this time a question of direction.

　　"The wood, of course!" And they set off together at a steady trot. Few words were wasted when Tim went "busting about" in this way. Uncle Felix resigned himself and looked to him for guidance; there was some one to be rescued; there was danger to be run; the risk was bigger than either of them realised; but more than that he knew not.

　　"Got a handkerchief with you?" the boy asked presently.

　　"Yes, thanks; got everything," panted the other.

　　"For signalling," was offered three minutes later by way of explanation, "in case we get lost--or anything like that."

　　"Quite so."

　　"Is it a clean one?"

　　"Yes."

　　"Good!"

　　They climbed the swinging gate of iron, rushed the orchard, crossed the smaller hayfield in the open, heedless of the rabbits that rolled like fat balls into pockets made to fit them, slipped out of sight behind a stack of straw whose threatening lopsidedness seemed to support a ladder, and so eventually came to a breathless and perspiring halt upon the edges of a--wood.

　　It was a very ordinary wood, small, inconspicuous, and unimposing. No big trees towered; there was no fence of thick, black trunks. It was not mysterious, like the dense evergreens on the other side of the grounds where the west wind shook half a mile of dripping branches in stormy weather:

　　Where the yew trees are gigantic,And the yellow coast of "Spain,"Breasting on the dim "Atlantic,"Stores the undesired rain.It grew there in a kind of untidy muddle, on the very outskirts of the estate, meekly--rather disappointingly, Uncle Felix thought. There was no hint of anything haunted or terrible about it. Round rabbits fussed busily about its edges, darting as though pulled by wires, and the older wood-pigeons, no doubt, slept comfortably in its middle. But game despised it heartily, and traps were never laid. There was not even a trespassers' board, without which no wood is properly attractive. Indeed, for most people it was simply not worth the trouble of entering at all. Apparently no one ever bothered about it.

　　Yet, precisely for these very reasons, it was real. Tim described it afterwards as a "naked" wood. It had no fence to hold it together, it was not dressed up by human beings, it just grew naturally. To this very openness and want of concealment it owed its deep security, its safety was due entirely to the air of innocence it wore. But in reality it was disguised. It was a forest--without a middle, without a heart.

　　"This is our wood," announced Tim in a low voice, as they stood and mopped their faces. His tone suggested that they would enter at their peril.

　　"And is it a big wood?" the other asked with caution, as though he had not noticed it before.

　　"Much bigger than it looks," the boy replied. "You can easily get lost." Then added, with the first touch of awe about him, "It has no centre."

　　"That's the worst kind," said his companion shivering slightly. "Like a pond that has no bottom."

　　Tim nodded. His face had grown a trifle paler. He showed no immediate anxiety to make the first advance, reserving that privilege for his comrade. A breath of wind stole out and set the dry leaves rustling.

　　"We must look out," he said at length. "There'll be a sign."

　　Uncle Felix listened attentively to every word. The boy had moved up closer to him. "And if anything happens one of us must climb a tree and signal. You've got the clean handkerchief. You see, it's at the centre that it gets rather nasty--because anybody who gets there simply disappears and is never heard of again. That's why there's no centre at all really. It's a terrible rescue we've got to do."

　　The adventure fulfilled the desire of his heart, for, since there was no centre, the search would last for ever.

　　"Keep a sharp look-out for the sign," replied the man, feeling a small hand steal into his own. "We'd better go in before it gets any darker."

　　"Oh, that's nothing," was the whispered comment. "The great thing is not to lose our way. Just follow me!"

　　They then went into this wood without a centre, without a middle, without a heart. Into this heartless wood they moved stealthily, Uncle Felix singing under his breath to keep his courage up:

　　"A wood is a mysterious place, It never looks you in the face, But stares ''behind'' you all the time. Your safest plan is just to--climb! For, otherwise you lose your way, The week, the month, the time of day; It turns you round, it makes you blind, And in the end you lose your mind! Avoid the centre, If you enter! "It grows upon you--grows immense, Its peace is ''not'' indifference, It sees you--and it takes offence, It knows you're interfering. Its sleepliness is all pretence, With trunks and twigs and foliage dense It's watching you, alert, intense, It's furious; it's peering. "Upon the darkening paths below, Whichever way you try to go You'll meet with strange resistance. So climb a tree and wave your hand, The birds will see and understand, And ''may'' bring you assistance. Avoid the centre, If you enter, For once you're there You--disappear! Smothered by depth and distance!"