The First Men in the Moon | Page 4

I laid in an eighteen-gallon cask of beer on credit, and a
trustful baker came each day. It was not, perhaps, in the style of Sybaris,
but I have had worse times. I was a little sorry for the baker, who was a
very decent man indeed, but even for him I hoped.
Certainly if any one wants solitude, the place is Lympne. It is in the
clay part of Kent, and my bungalow stood on the edge of an old sea
cliff and stared across the flats of Romney Marsh at the sea. In very wet
weather the place is almost inaccessible, and I have heard that at times
the postman used to traverse the more succulent portions of his route
with boards upon his feet. I never saw him doing so, but I can quite
imagine it. Outside the doors of the few cottages and houses that make
up the present village big birch besoms are stuck, to wipe off the worst
of the clay, which will give some idea of the texture of the district. I
doubt if the place would be there at all, if it were not a fading memory
of things gone for ever. It was the big port of England in Roman times,
Portus Lemanus, and now the sea is four miles away. All down the
steep hill are boulders and masses of Roman brickwork, and from it old
Watling Street, still paved in places, starts like an arrow to the north. I
used to stand on the hill and think of it all, the galleys and legions, the
captives and officials, the women and traders, the speculators like
myself, all the swarm and tumult that came clanking in and out of the
harbour. And now just a few lumps of rubble on a grassy slope, and a
sheep or two - and me And where the port had been were the levels of

the marsh, sweeping round in a broad curve to distant Jungeness, and
dotted here and there with tree clumps and the church towers of old
medical towns that are following Lemanus now towards extinction.
That outlook on the marsh was, indeed, one of the finest views I have
ever seen. I suppose Jungeness was fifteen miles away; it lay like a raft
on the sea, and farther westward were the hills by Hastings under the
setting sun. Sometimes they hung close and clear, sometimes they were
faded and low, and often the drift of the weather took them clean out of
sight. And all the nearer parts of the marsh were laced and lit by ditches
and canals.
The window at which I worked looked over the skyline of this crest,
and it was from this window that I first set eyes on Cavor. It was just as
I was struggling with my scenario, holding down my mind to the sheer
hard work of it, and naturally enough he arrested my attention.
The sun had set, the sky was a vivid tranquillity of green and yellow,
and against that he came out black - the oddest little figure.
He was a short, round-bodied, thin-legged little man, with a jerky
quality in his motions; he had seen fit to clothe his extraordinary mind
in a cricket cap, an overcoat, and cycling knickerbockers and stockings.
Why he did so I do not know, for he never cycled and he never played
cricket. It was a fortuitous concurrence of garments, arising I know not
how. He gesticulated with his hands and arms, and jerked his head
about and buzzed. He buzzed like something electric. You never heard
such buzzing. And ever and again he cleared his throat with a most
extraordinary noise.
There had been rain, and that spasmodic walk of his was enhanced by
the extreme slipperiness of the footpath. Exactly as he came against the
sun he stopped, pulled out a watch, hesitated. Then with a sort of
convulsive gesture he turned and retreated with every manifestation of
haste, no longer gesticulating, but going with ample strides that showed
the relatively large size of his feet - they were, I remember, grotesquely
exaggerated in size by adhesive clay - to the best possible advantage.

This occurred on the first day of my sojourn, when my play-writing
energy was at its height and I regarded the incident simply as an
annoying distraction - the waste of five minutes. I returned to my
scenario. But when next evening the apparition was repeated with
remarkable precision, and again the next evening, and indeed every
evening when rain was not falling, concentration upon the scenario
became a considerable effort. "Confound the man," I said, "one would
think he was learning to be a marionette!" and for several evenings I
cursed him pretty heartily. Then my annoyance