If the months of the year are feminine, like the fleeting hours,
then the most feminine, the most variable, the greatest coquette
of the whole twelve, is that nymph whom we call May — fol qui s’y fie. She is inconstant; she never remains of the same
mind; she is faithless; she is full of whims; sometimes she is
so sweet and charming that she carries all hearts, not by savage
assault, but by the mere aspect and sight of her. Sometimes
she is so full of smiles and winning ways that men, looking
upon each other, wonder how any could be found to speak a
word in her dispraise; she sings, and laughs, and crowns herself
with flowers, and trips with light foot and careless ease
over meadows ankle-deep with buttercups. During these her
happy moods we all fall to being happy too; every poet thinks
of rhymes to fit a sonnet; every musician reaches down his
fiddle; and everywhere there is such a twanging of lyres, singing
of madrigals, dancing of ballads, warbling of ditties, and
universal chorus of praise, that it is enough to turn the head of
any goddess, to say nothing of a mere minor deity and simple
country nymph. And all in a moment — lo! — she changes; she
frowns; she is cold; she sings no longer; she puts on sad-coloured
robes; she is as forbidding as poor Miss February
with her sealskins, her red nose, her frozen toes, and the cold
in her head. Alas! poor May. Then the lyre, the theorbo,
the viol, the bagpipe, the scrannel straw, the lute, the dulcimer,
tabor and pipe are all, with one consent, silenced and put
upon the shelves; the musicians sit down, sad; the poets tear
up their unfinished lays; the songs cease; everybody goes
home; doors and windows are shut tight, and the poor maid is
left out of doors all in the cold, deploring, alone in her gloom,
to lament her caprice. Yet another hour, and she forgets her
ill-humor; we forget it too: she is once more the sweet, the
lovely, the blushing, merry, and merry-making month of May;
we are grovelling slaves again.

     
It was in the evening of, perhaps, the most lovely day that
this fickle goddess ever vouchsafed to England that four
children were playing together under the trees of an ancient
forest. The sun was going down, and the west was already
making preparations to receive him with a grand illumination.
The young leaves were at their bravest and brightest, and the
air was heavy with the fragrance of the May blossom, because
there is no such place in the world as this forest for the hawthorn.
Three of the playing children were boys of thirteen,
the fourth was a girl of about eleven. She ran, and jumped,
and played with the boys as if she were a boy herself, being, in
fact, as strong and sturdy as any boy of her age, with a length
of limb which gave goodly promise, for the future, to those who
love their mistress and queen to be tall. They had been
running and playing the whole afternoon and were now growing
a little tired. When a boy begins to feel tired he jumps
and runs harder than ever, and becomes rough, just to show
that he is not tired at all. But when a girl feels tired she
wants to sit down. Presently, therefore, this young lady, who
had been, all day long, sunshine and mirth, grew a little cross,
and began to cry fie upon the boys for their rough handling, a
fault which besets and spoils their sex, and to say severely that
she wished there were no such things as boys, and that they
ought not to have been invented — yet conscious all the time
that she preferred boys to girls as playfellows — and that she
should play no longer, but should leave them to bang each
other with their shoulders and their elbows. The sky, in fact,
became cloudy and the wind chill.

     
So she walked away, dangling her hat by the strings, in the
direction of a fallen trunk, on which sat a man thoughtfully
regarding the group, with his chin upon his hand, and a
contemplative cigarette between his lips. He rose to meet the girl,
and took both her hands in his and kissed her forehead. This
was her father.

     
He was a little man, though his daughter looked as if she
would be tall; yet not a very little man. His narrow sloping
shoulders — a feature one may remark more often in Paris than
in London — his small head, and the neatness of his figure made
him look smaller than he was. Small Englishmen — this man
was a Frenchman — are generally sturdy and broad-shouldered
and nearly always grow fat when they reach the forties. But
this was a thin man. In appearance he was extremely neat;
he wore a frock-coat buttoned tightIy; behind it was a white
waistcoat; he had a flower in his buttonhole; he wore a pink
and white necktie, very striking; his shirt-front and cuffs were
perfect; his boots were highly polished; he was five-and-forty,
but looked thirty; his hair was quite black and curly, without
a touch of white in it; he wore a small black beard; his eyes
were also black and as bright as steel. It is perhaps misleading
to compare them with steel, because it is aIways the villain
whose eye glitters like steel. Now M. Hector Philipon was
not a villain at all. By no means. The light in his eyes came
from the kindness of his heart, not from any villainous aims or
wicked passions, and, in fact, though his beard and his hair
were so very black — black of the deepest dye, such as would
have graced even a wicked uncle — he frightened nobody, not
even strangers. And of course everybody in those parts knew
very well that he was a most harmless and amiable person. He
had a voice deep and full Iike the voice of a church organ;
honey sweet too, as well as deep. And at sight of his little girl
those bright eyes became as soft as the eyes of a maiden in love.
When he spoke, although his English was fluent and correct,
you perceived a foreign accent. But he had been so long in the
country and so far away from his own countrymen that the
accent was slight. Yet he neither looked nor spoke like an
Englishman.

     
‘You are tired, Claire?’

     
‘Not much, papa, but hot with so much running. And the
boys began to push.’

     
She sat beside him, laying her hand upon his arm. Already
they were companions, this little girl and her father. Presently
there arose a great shouting of the boys; a cloud fell upon the
girl’s brow, because they had learned already to play without
her, and in half a minute she was forgotten. It was a very
white brow over a face which might become beautiful. As yet,
no one except a prophet (of whom there are lamentably few
nowadays, and those few have their hands full of other things)
could say anything about the child but that she was singularly
like her father, only, a very uncommon thing, she had deep
blue eyes, with dark eyebrows and black hair, This combination,
so far as one can learn, happens nowadays hardly anywhere
except in Tasmania, where it has been accounted for on
various scientific grounds, such as, that the soil is strongly impregnated
with phosphate — a thing in itself quite sufficient to
account for anything; and that the air is remarkably charged
with ozone — what cannot ozone effect? — and that the proximity
of the South Pole will account for everything not previously
explained. All these reasons are excellent, and enable us to
see quite satisfactorily why Tasmanian ladies get black hair and
blue eyes. But they do not apply to Mademoiselle Claire,
because she never was in Tasmania, and, I believe, is not likely
to go there. The question why she got blue eyes and black hair
may therefore be referred to the Royal Society.

     
She looked at them wrestling and running, just as happily
without her as with her, regretfully. She had thought, perhaps,
that they would follow her, and sit down on the trunk beside
her, and refuse to play any longer because she would play no
longer. At least, she did not think that they would go on just
as if she were not in existence. Boys are truly horrid creatures.
They are born with none of the finer shades. And neglect is
the greatest insult one human being can offer to another. Presently
she slipped off her seat upon the trunk and opened the
lid of a basket. They had been having a little inconsiderable
picnic a cheap picnic with cold tea in a bottle, and bread and
butter, and bread and honey, and a little fruit. The bottle
was empty, and the bread and butter and honey were all eaten
up. But there was lying, in the corner, the last of the oranges.
She took it out.

     
‘Papa,’ she said, ‘shall the boys race for it?’

     
‘They shall,’ replied her father. ‘We will finish with a
race. Boys,’ he shouted; ‘we will finish with a race — Claire
holds the prize. The course shall be — what? Then, mark it
out for yourselves.’

     
He looked on with a smiIe, which was not the smile of
benevolence, or of affection, or of good manners, or of condescension,
or of interest or anticipation, because he really did
not care about the excitement of the race at all, but of philosophy.
He smiled, because he remarked the little coquetry of
his daughter and the emulation of the boys.

     
As for Claire, the sunshine returned to her face, the sky
was clear again, the wind was warm; the boys were going to
fight for her gifts; any woman at any age appreciates this discernment
of beauty. Her eyes were bright and her black locks
were blown across her face. The boys meanwhile, as if a kingdom
depended on the result, measured the ground, pacing side
by side. When they were quite satisfied that they had got an
exact two hundred yards they stood in a line waiting the signal.

     
‘She holds,’ murmured M. Philipon, ‘the gift of the
golden apple. This was long ago the cause of discord, and she
is happy because she has it to bestow. Instead of three goddesses
I see three schoolboys; instead of a shepherd there is a
girl. Why does one think of Paris? Yet they wiIl all grow
up, and perhaps some day the golden apple will be a golden
ring, and…. aha! Claire, my angel, thou wilt be worth
many golden apples. Are you ready, brave boys? Ready all?
Go!’

     
When he dropped his handkerchief the lads started with a
rush. The biggest and tallest of them took the lead and kept
it. He was closely pressed by a slighter-built boy, who promised
to make a good second; long behind these two toiled the
third, who was of shorter frame and ran as if he were in bad
condition, panting laboriously, yet not giving in.

     
‘Will wins,’ said the philosopher. ‘Happy boy! he is
born to win everything. The world is his, because he is strong
and brave and not too clever, Those arrive — Hein? — who are
not so much cleverer than their neighbours. To have too many
ideas is to be incompris, uncomprehended; no one understood
my ideas when I was young. The world belongs to Will. No!
he loses! the boy with many thoughts wins — no — it is over — they
are even. Now, in the big race which may come afterwards,
to whom would the girl bestow the prize? An orange
or an apple may be divided in halves, but a woman? No; she
is like the Republic, One and IndivisibIe.’

     
In fact the race seemed in the first boy’s hands; he was ten
clear feet ahead, there were but twenty feet between him and
the girl, who clapped her hands and cried out; he turned to
laugh at the second; it was a sad example of pride before a fall;
his foot caught in a tuft of grass and he was grassed. He was
up in a moment, but he was already overlapped, and although
he made up the difference, it was a dead heat, and they were in
neck and neck.

     
The third boy continued the race long after it was hopeIess,
and came in with a smiling and satisfied face.

     
The Frenchman patted this boy on the head approvingly.

     
‘You did well,’ he said. ‘Never know that you are beaten.
Then you will always feel the pride of victory. My daughter,
divide the prize into four portions and give Olinthus one of the
quarters.’

     
‘I was winning easily,’ cried the tallest lad. He was as
handsome a boy as you may wish to see anywhere, with clear,
fresh complexion and brave outlook; a lad of mettle who liked
fair fighting and the rigour of the game; a boy with plenty of
ability, as was shown by his broad forehead and clear-cut nostril,
yet perhaps without the yearning for books which makes a
scholar and a writer.

     
‘Ha! ha!’ laughed the other. ‘So you were, Will; I own
that. All the better for me that you fell down.’

     
‘All fair, Allen. But it is a beastly sell.’

     
Allen laughed again. He was a much handsomer boy, but
his face wanted the strength that lay in the other’s; his eyes
were full and light, his lips were mobile, his forehead was high
rather than broad.

     
Claire hesitated between the two. While she hesitated Will
took the prize out of her hand.

     
‘We will divide it,’ he said, ‘as your father orders. And
Tommy shall have his quarter.’

     
‘The prizes of life, my sons,’ observed M. Philipon, sententiously —
he really was a most profound philosopher, and so
long as he could say what seemed a good thing was careless
whether or no it was new -— ‘the prizes of life are bestowed, not
at random, as foolish people think, but by fixed rules; they are
not given to the men who run fastest, but to those who run most
wisely. Combine, Will, prudence with swiftness. Then doubt
not the issue, but run with courage. As for Olinthus——’

     
‘Tommy was out of it from the beginning,’ said Will, interrupting
in the truthful but brutal manner common among boys.

     
‘If it had been a three-mile, or even a one-mile course,’ said
Tommy, ‘you fellows would have seen — as for your little hundred-
yard races, it is only a rush. Give me a Iong course.’

     
‘As for Olinthus,’ continued M. Philipon, ‘let him continue
to run bravely, short course or long course, and many prizes will
be his.’

     
Olinthus, commonly called Tommy, blushed to the roots of
his hair. Nobody noticed this proof of modesty, because his
face was already so red from the running that no amount of
blushes could have deepened that hue. It was a blush absolutely
wasted. At a later age, when blushes are rare, this might have
caused subsequent regret. Who would not wish to retain that
blush which adorns the cheek of youth when good deeds come
to light? Why, it is an incentive to good deeds. Titus blushed
daily. But Tommy did not mind. He was, as I have said,
short of figure and broad of shoulder, his legs were sturdy, his
face broad and rather flat, and his nose was a little turned up
at the end. Perhaps he was only a commonnlace boy to look
at. He who makes it the business of his pilgrimage to watch
his fellow men becomes something like a portrait painter, inasmuch
as he finds no one commonplace. At fourteen a face,
however plain, may mean a great many things — there are infinite
possibilities in every young face on which history has not vet
set a mark; at five-and-twenty the number of these possibilities
begins to be counted: at forty there is a stamp unon it: at
sixty there is the indelible seal of a life’s history upon it.
Tommy’s face as yet was the face of possibility, and to ordinary
observers its range, so to speak, was limited. Yet you shall
see to what heights this Tommy subsequently rose.

     
When they had eaten their orange, Claire packed up the
basket, and they all began to stroll homewards. By this time
the sun had disappeared and the evening was upon them.

     
First walked the girl between Will and Olinthus, and they
all three chattered together and pretended to know everything.
Boys of thirteen are encyclopaedias of information; like the
great mediaeval scholars, they know all that there is to know:
or, which is exactly the same thing, they know all that they
talk about, from the hyssop to the oak, and from Bunny to
Behemoth.

     
M. Philipon walked behind with AlIen.

     
When the sun had quite gone down, there fell upon the
forest an awful sense of the mysterious deepening twilight.
The three who led the way took hands and dropped into silence;
only now and then Tommv shouted, just to keen up his spirits
and to show that the more awful the outward look of things,
the higher his courage rose. AIIen was perfectly silent, and
presently his companion saw that his eyes were wide open,
luminous gazing steadily before him, yet seeing nothing, and
his lips parted. He watched the boy awhile, then spoke softly.

     
‘Boy, shall I tell your thoughts?’

     
The boy started and laughed; he was called back to himself.

     
‘If you can, sir.’

     
‘When the sun sank behind the trees, your courage fell;
you became sad; you began to long for something; you expected
something. Now the wind is like a voice to you, but
you do not know what it says; the trees beckon to you with
long arms, but you do not know why; beneath the branches in
the deep blackness are caves filled with things wonderful and
mysterious; you would wish to penetrate these dark caverns
and fight the devils which hide there, but you do not know how
to begin, nor where to begin.’

     
The boy interrupted him.

     
‘How do you know, sir?’

     
‘Because my son, I too have been a boy. There are some
boys with whom their dreams linger; mostly they die away and
are forgotten. There are other boys, but not many, whose
dreams take shape and live in words. Perhaps you may be one
of these boys. Who knows?’

     
‘And yet,’ he said to himself, ‘I suppose there will be
nothing for it but the petit commis — little clerk. Poor
boys! The pity of it!’