He Didn't Smile, But At Once Held Out His Open Hand.

I put some pence in it, and clutching them he murmured "Thank you," and went after the others.

XXVI

THE STORY OF A SKULL

A quarter of a century ago there were still to be seen in the outer suburbs of London many good old roomy houses, standing in their own ample and occasionally park-like grounds, which have now ceased to exist. They were old manor-houses, mostly of the Georgian period, some earlier, and some, too, were fine large farmhouses which a century or more ago had been turned into private residences of city merchants and other persons of means. Any middle-aged Londoner can recall a house or perhaps several houses of this description, and in one of those that were best known to me I met with the skull, the story of which I wish to tell.

It was a very old-looking, long, low red-brick building, with a verandah in front, and being well within the grounds, sheltered by old oak, elm, ash and beech trees, could hardly be seen from the road. The lawns and gardens were large, and behind them were two good-sized grass fields. Within the domain one had the feeling that he was far away in the country in one of its haunts of ancient peace, and yet all round it, outside of its old hedges and rows of elms, the ground had been built over, mostly with good-sized brick houses standing in their own gardens. It was a favourite suburb with well-to-do persons in the city, rents were high and the builders had long been coveting and trying to get possession of all this land which was "doing no good," in a district where haunts of ancients peace were distinctly out of place and not wanted. But the owner (aged ninety-eight) refused to sell.

Not only the builders, but his own sons and sons' sons had represented to him that the rent he was getting for this property was nothing but an old song compared to what it would bring in, if he would let it on a long building lease. There was room there for thirty or forty good houses with big gardens. And his answer invariably was: "It shan't be touched! I was born in that house, and though I'm too old ever to go and see it again, it must not be pulled down - not a brick of it, not a tree cut, while I'm alive. When I'm gone you can do what you like, because then I shan't know what you are doing."

My friends and relations, who were in occupation of the house, and loved it, hoped that he would go on living many, many years: but alas! the visit of the feared dark angel was to them and not to the old owner, who was perhaps "too old to die"; the dear lady of the house and its head was taken away and the family broken up, and from that day to this I have never ventured to revisit that sweet spot, nor sought to know what has been done to it.

At that time it used to be my week-end home, and on one of my early visits I noticed the skull of an animal nailed to the wall about a yard above the stable door. It was too high to be properly seen without getting a ladder, and when the gardener told me that it was a bulldog's skull, I thought no more about it.

One day, several months later, I took a long look at it and got the idea that it was not a bulldog's skull - that it was more like the skull of a human being of a very low type. I then asked my hostess to let me have it, and she said, "Yes, certainly, take it if you want it." Then she added, "But what in the world do you want that horrid old skull for?" I said I wanted to find out what it was, and then she told me that it was a bulldog's skull - the gardener had told her. I replied that I did not think so, that it looked to me more like the skull of a cave-man who had inhabited those parts half a million years ago, perhaps. This speech troubled her very much, for she was a religious woman, and it pained her to hear unorthodox statements about the age of man on the earth. She said that I could not have the skull, that it was dreadful to her to hear me say it might be a human skull; that she would order the gardener to take it down and bury it somewhere in the grounds at a distance from the house. Until that was done she would not go near the stables - it would be like a nightmare to see that dreadful head on the wall. I said I would remove it immediately; it was mine, as she had given it to me, and it was not a man's skull at all - I was only joking, so that she need not have any qualms about it.

That pacified her, and I took down the old skull, which looked more dreadful than ever when I climbed up to it, for though the dome of it was bleached white, the huge eye cavities and mouth were black and filled with old black mould and dead moss. Doubtless it had been very many years in that place, as the long nails used in fastening it there were eaten up with rust.

When I got back to London the box with the skull in it was put away in my book-room, and rested there forgotten for two or three years. Then one day I was talking on natural history subjects to my publisher, and he told me that his son, just returned from Oxford, had developed a keen interest in osteology and was making a collection of mammalian skulls from the whale and elephant and hippopotamus to the harvest- mouse and lesser shrew.

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