The Napoleon of Notting Hill
touch of the diabolic. His hair was still quite black, and his face
even paler than of old. The only spot of colour he carried was a red
star cut in some precious stone of strong tint, hung on his breast. He
belonged to the Society of the Red Star of Charity, founded on the
lamps displayed by doctors and chemists.
"A fine evening, sir," said the chemist. "Why, I can scarcely be
mistaken in supposing it to be your Majesty. Pray step inside and
share a bottle of sal-volatile, or anything that may take your fancy.
As it happens, there is an old acquaintance of your Majesty's in my
shop carousing (if I may be permitted the term) upon that beverage at
this moment."
The King entered the shop, which was an Aladdin's garden of shades and
hues, for as the chemist's scheme of colour was more brilliant than
the grocer's scheme, so it was arranged with even more delicacy and
fancy. Never, if the phrase may be employed, had such a nosegay of
medicines been presented to the artistic eye.
But even the solemn rainbow of that evening interior was rivalled or
even eclipsed by the figure standing in the centre of the shop. His
form, which was a large and stately one, was clad in a brilliant blue
velvet, cut in the richest Renaissance fashion, and slashed so as to
show gleams and gaps of a wonderful lemon or pale yellow. He had
several chains round his neck, and his plumes, which were of several
tints of bronze and gold, hung down to the great gold hilt of his long
sword. He was drinking a dose of sal-volatile, and admiring its opal
tint. The King advanced with a slight mystification towards the tall
figure, whose face was in shadow; then he said--
"By the Great Lord of Luck, Barker!"
The figure removed his plumed cap, showing the same dark head and
long, almost equine face which the King had so often seen rising out
of the high collar of Bond Street. Except for a grey patch on each
temple, it was totally unchanged.
"Your Majesty," said Barker, "this is a meeting nobly retrospective, a
meeting that has about it a certain October gold. I drink to old
days;" and he finished his sal-volatile with simple feeling.
"I am delighted to see you again, Barker," said the King. "It is
indeed long since we met. What with my travels in Asia Minor, and my
book having to be written (you have read my 'Life of Prince Albert for
Children,' of course?), we have scarcely met twice since the Great
War. That is twenty years ago."
"I wonder," said Barker, thoughtfully, "if I might speak freely to
your Majesty?"
"Well," said Auberon, "it's rather late in the day to start speaking
respectfully. Flap away, my bird of freedom."
"Well, your Majesty," replied Barker, lowering his voice, "I don't
think it will be so long to the next war."
"What do you mean?" asked Auberon.
"We will stand this insolence no longer," burst out Barker, fiercely.
"We are not slaves because Adam Wayne twenty years ago cheated us with
a water-pipe. Notting Hill is Notting Hill; it is not the world. We
in South Kensington, we also have memories--ay, and hopes. If they
fought for these trumpery shops and a few lamp-posts, shall we not
fight for the great High Street and the sacred Natural History
Museum?"
"Great Heavens!" said the astounded Auberon. "Will wonders never
cease? Have the two greatest marvels been achieved? Have you turned
altruistic, and has Wayne turned selfish? Are you the patriot, and he
the tyrant?"
"It is not from Wayne himself altogether that the evil comes,"
answered Barker. "He, indeed, is now mostly wrapped in dreams, and
sits with his old sword beside the fire. But Notting Hill is the
tyrant, your Majesty. Its Council and its crowds have been so
intoxicated by the spreading over the whole city of Wayne's old ways
and visions, that they try to meddle with every one, and rule every
one, and civilise every one, and tell every one what is good for him.
I do not deny the great impulse which his old war, wild as it seemed,
gave to the civic life of our time. It came when I was still a young
man, and I admit it enlarged my career. But we are not going to see
our own cities flouted and thwarted from day to day because of
something Wayne did for us all nearly a quarter of a century ago. I am
just waiting here for news upon this very matter. It is rumoured that
Notting Hill has vetoed the statue of General Wilson they are putting
up opposite Chepstow Place. If that is so, it is a black and white
shameless breach of the terms on which we surrendered to Turnbull
after the battle of the Tower. We were to keep our own customs and
self-government. If that is so--"
"It is so," said a deep voice; and both men turned round.
A burly figure in purple robes, with a silver eagle hung round his
neck and moustaches almost as florid as his plumes, stood in the
doorway.
"Yes," he said, acknowledging the King's start, "I am Provost Buck,
and the news is true. These men of the Hill have forgotten that we
fought round the Tower as well as they, and that it is sometimes
foolish, as well as base, to despise the conquered."
"Let us step outside," said Barker, with a grim composure.
Buck did so, and stood rolling his eyes up and down the lamp-lit
street.
"I would like to have a go at smashing all this," he muttered,
"though I am over sixty. I would like--"
His voice ended in a cry, and he reeled back a step, with his hands to
his eyes, as he had done in those streets twenty years before.
"Darkness!" he cried--"darkness again! What does it mean?"
For in truth every lamp in the street had gone out, so that they could
not see even each other's outline, except faintly. The voice of the
chemist came with startling cheerfulness out of the density.
"Oh, don't you know?" he said. "Did they never tell you this is the
Feast of the Lamps, the anniversary of the great battle that almost
lost and just saved Notting Hill? Don't you know, your Majesty, that
on this night twenty-one years ago we saw Wilson's green uniforms
charging down this street, and driving Wayne and Turnbull back upon
the gas-works, fighting with their handful like fiends from hell? And
that then, in that great hour, Wayne sprang through a window of the
gas-works, with one blow of his hand brought darkness on the whole
city, and then with a cry like a lion's, that was heard through four
streets, flew at Wilson's men, sword in hand, and swept them,
bewildered as they were, and ignorant of the map, clear out of the
sacred street again? And don't you know that upon that night every
year all lights are turned out for half an hour while we sing the
Notting Hill anthem in the darkness? Hark! there it begins."
Through the night came a crash of drums, and then a strong swell of
human voices--
"When the world was in the balance, there was night on Notting Hill,
(There was night on Notting Hill): it was nobler than the day;
On the cities where the lights are and the firesides glow,
From the seas and from the deserts came the thing we did not know,
Came the darkness, came the darkness, came the darkness on the foe,
And the old guard of God turned to bay.
For the old guard of God turns to bay, turns to bay,
And the stars fall down before it ere its banners fall to-day:
For when armies were around us as a howling and a horde,
When falling was the citadel and broken was the sword,
The darkness came upon them like the Dragon of the Lord,
When the old guard of God turned to bay."
The voices were just uplifting themselves in a second verse when they
were stopped by a scurry and a yell. Barker had bounded into the
street with a cry of "South Kensington!" and a drawn dagger. In less
time than a man could blink, the whole packed street was full of
curses and struggling. Barker was flung back against the shop-front,
but used the second only to draw his sword as well as his dagger, and
calling out, "This is not the first time I've come through the thick
of you," flung himself again into the press. It was evident that he
had drawn blood at last, for a more violent outcry arose, and many
other knives and swords were discernible in the faint light. Barker,
after having wounded more than one man, seemed on the point of being
flung back again, when Buck suddenly stepped out into the street. He
had no weapon, for he affected rather the peaceful magnificence of the
great burgher, than the pugnacious dandyism which had replaced the old
sombre dandyism in Barker. But with a blow of his clenched fist he
broke the pane of the next shop, which was the old curiosity shop,
and, plunging in his hand, snatched a kind of Japanese scimitar, and
calling out, "Kensington! Kensington!" rushed to Barker's assistance.
Barker's sword was broken, but he was laying about him with his
dagger. Just as Buck ran up, a man of Notting Hill struck Barker down,
but Buck struck the man down on top of him, and Barker sprang up
again, the blood running down his face.
Suddenly all these cries were cloven by a great voice, that seemed to
fall out of heaven. It was terrible to Buck and Barker and the King,
from its seeming to come out the empty skies; but it was more terrible
because it was a familiar voice, and one which at the same time they
had not heard for so long.
"Turn up the lights," said the voice from above them, and for a moment
there was no reply, but only a tumult.
"In the name of Notting Hill and of the great Council of the City,
turn up the lights."
There was again a tumult and a vagueness for a moment, then the whole
street and every object in it sprang suddenly out of the darkness, as
every lamp sprang into life. And looking up they saw, standing upon a
balcony near the roof of one of the highest houses, the figure and the
face of Adam Wayne, his red hair blowing behind him, a little streaked
with grey.
"What is this, my people?" he said. "Is it altogether impossible to
make a thing good without it immediately insisting on being wicked?
The glory of Notting Hill in having achieved its independence, has
been enough for me to dream of for many years, as I sat beside the
fire. Is it really not enough for you, who have had so many other
affairs to excite and distract you? Notting Hill is a nation. Why
should it condescend to be a mere Empire? You wish to pull down the
statue of General Wilson, which the men of Bayswater have so rightly
erected in Westbourne Grove. Fools! Who erected that statue? Did
Bayswater erect it? No. Notting Hill erected it. Do you not see that
it is the glory of our achievement that we have infected the other
cities with the idealism of Notting Hill? It is we who have created
not only our own side, but both sides of this controversy. O too
humble fools, why should you wish to destroy your enemies? You have
done something more to them. You have created your enemies. You wish
to pull down that gigantic silver hammer, which stands, like an
obelisk, in the centre of the Broadway of Hammersmith. Fools! Before
Notting Hill arose, did any person passing through Hammersmith
Broadway expect to see there a gigantic silver hammer? You wish to
abolish the great bronze figure of a knight standing upon the
artificial bridge at Knightsbridge. Fools! Who would have thought of
it before Notting Hill arose? I have even heard, and with deep pain I
have heard it, that the evil eye of our imperial envy has been cast
towards the remote horizon of the west, and that we have objected to
the great black monument of a crowned raven, which commemorates the
skirmish of Ravenscourt Park. Who created all these things? Were they
there before we came? Cannot you be content with that destiny which
was enough for Athens, which was enough for Nazareth? the destiny, the
humble purpose, of creating a new world. Is Athens angry because