The Man Whom the Trees Loved | Page 9

yet laughing only with his lips.
"Exactly," was the quick, emphatic reply. "They seek to blend with
something they feel instinctively to be good for them, helpful to their
essential beings, encouraging to their best expression--their life."
"Good Lord, Sir!" Bittacy heard himself saying, "but you're putting my
own thoughts into words. D'you know, I've felt something like that for
years. As though--" he looked round to make sure his wife was not
there, then finished the sentence--"as though the trees were after me!"
"'Amalgamate' seems the best word, perhaps," said Sanderson slowly.
"They would draw you to themselves. Good forces, you see, always
seek to merge; evil to separate; that's why Good in the end must always
win the day--everywhere. The accumulation in the long run becomes
overwhelming. Evil tends to separation, dissolution, death. The
comradeship of trees, their instinct to run together, is a vital symbol.
Trees in a mass are good; alone, you may take it generally, are--well,
dangerous. Look at a monkey-puzzler, or better still, a holly. Look at it,
watch it, understand it. Did you ever see more plainly an evil thought
made visible? They're wicked. Beautiful too, oh yes! There's a strange,
miscalculated beauty often in evil--"
"That cedar, then--?"
"Not evil, no; but alien, rather. Cedars grow in forests all together. The
poor thing has drifted, that is all."
They were getting rather deep. Sanderson, talking against time, spoke
so fast. It was too condensed. Bittacy hardly followed that last bit. His
mind floundered among his own less definite, less sorted thoughts, till
presently another sentence from the artist startled him into attention
again.
"That cedar will protect you here, though, because you both have
humanized it by your thinking so lovingly of its presence. The others
can't get past it, as it were."

"Protect me!" he exclaimed. "Protect me from their love?"
Sanderson laughed. "We're getting rather mixed," he said; "we're
talking of one thing in the terms of another really. But what I mean
is--you see--that their love for you, their 'awareness' of your personality
and presence involves the idea of winning you--across the border--into
themselves--into their world of living. It means, in a way, taking you
over."
The ideas the artist started in his mind ran furious wild races to and fro.
It was like a maze sprung suddenly into movement. The whirling of the
intricate lines bewildered him. They went so fast, leaving but half an
explanation of their goal. He followed first one, then another, but a new
one always dashed across to intercept before he could get anywhere.
"But India," he said, presently in a lower voice, "India is so far
away--from this little English forest. The trees, too, are utterly different
for one thing?"
The rustle of skirts warned of Mrs. Bittacy's approach. This was a
sentence he could turn round another way in case she came up and
pressed for explanation.
"There is communion among trees all the world over," was the strange
quick reply. "They always know."
"They always know! You think then--?"
"The winds, you see--the great, swift carriers! They have their ancient
rights of way about the world. An easterly wind, for instance, carrying
on stage by stage as it were--linking dropped messages and meanings
from land to land like the birds--an easterly wind--"
Mrs. Bittacy swept in upon them with the tumbler--
"There, David," she said, "that will ward off any beginnings of attack.
Just a spoonful, dear. Oh, oh! not all !" for he had swallowed half the
contents at a single gulp as usual; "another dose before you go to bed,
and the balance in the morning, first thing when you wake."
She turned to her guest, who put the tumbler down for her upon a table
at his elbow. She had heard them speak of the east wind. She
emphasized the warning she had misinterpreted. The private part of the
conversation came to an abrupt end.
"It is the one thing that upsets him more than any other--an east wind,"
she said, "and I am glad, Mr. Sanderson, to hear you think so too."

III A deep hush followed, in the middle of which an owl was heard
calling its muffled note in the forest. A big moth whirred with a soft
collision against one of the windows. Mrs. Bittacy started slightly, but
no one spoke. Above the trees the stars were faintly visible. From the
distance came the barking of a dog.
Bittacy, relighting his cigar, broke the little spell of silence that had
caught all three.
"It's rather a comforting thought," he said, throwing the match out of
the window, "that life is about us everywhere, and that there is really no
dividing line between what we call organic and inorganic."
"The universe, yes," said Sanderson, "is all