There are often, however, elements in our fate, which lie, it might seem, deeper than any calculable prediction, deeper, it may be, than the influence of the most powerful supernatural agents, and these elements—unstirred by angel or devil—are sometimes roused to activity by the least expected cause. It is, at these moments, as though Fate, in the incalculable comprehensiveness of her immense designs, condescended to make use of Chance, her elfish sister, to carry out what the natural and normal stream of things would seem to have decreed as an impossibility.
Probably not a living soul who knew him,—certainly not Lacrima,—had the least expectation of any chance of change in Mr. Quincunx. But then none of these persons had really sounded the depths in the soul of the man. There were certain mysterious and unfathomable gulfs in the sea-floor of Mr. Quincunx’s being which would have exhausted all the sorceries of Witch-Bessie even to locate.
So fantastic and surprising are the ways of destiny, that,—as shall be presently seen,—what neither gods nor devils, nor men nor angels, could effect, was effected by nothing more nor less than a travelling circus.
The day of the burying of James and the confirmation of Gladys brought into Nevilton a curious cortège of popular entertainers. This cortège consisted of one of those small wandering circuses, which, during the month of August are wont to leave the towns and move leisurely among the remoter country villages, staying nowhere more than a night, and taking advantage of any local festival or club-meeting to enhance their popularity.
The circus in question,—flamingly entitled Porter’s Universal World-Show,—was owned and conducted by a certain Job Love, a shrewd and avaricious ruffian, who boasted, though with little justification, the inheritance of gipsy blood. As a matter of fact, the authentic gipsy tribes gave Mr. Love an extremely wide berth, avoiding his path as they would have avoided the path of the police. This cautious attitude was not confined, however, to gipsies. Every species of itinerant hawker and pedler avoided the path of Mr. Love, and the few toy-booths and sweet-stalls that followed his noisy roundabouts were a department of his own providing.
It was late on Tuesday night when the World-Show established itself in Nevilton Square. The sound of hammers and the barking of dogs was the last thing that the villagers heard before they slept, and the first thing they heard when they awoke.
The master of the World-Show spent the night according to his custom in solitary regal grandeur in the largest of his caravans. The sun had not, however, pierced the white mists in the Nevilton orchards before Mr. Love was up and abroad. The first thing he did, on descending the steps of his caravan, was to wash his hands and face in the basin of the stone fountain. His next proceeding was to measure out into a little metal cup which he produced from his pocket a small quantity of brandy and to pour this refreshment, diluted with water from the fountain, down his capacious throat.
Mr. Love was a lean man, of furtive and irascible appearance. His countenance, bleached by exposure into a species of motley-coloured leather, shone after its immersion in the fountain like the knob of a well-worn cudgel. His whitish hair, cut in convict style close to his head, emphasized the polished mahogany of his visage, from the upper portion of which his sky-blue eyes, small and glittering, shone out defiantly upon the world, like ominous jewels set in the forehead of an obscene and smoke-darkened idol.
Having replaced his cup and flask in his pocket, the master of the World-Show looked anxiously at the omens of the weather, snuffing the morning breeze with the air of one not lightly to be fooled either by rain or shine. Returning to the still silent circus, he knocked sharply with his knuckles at the door of the smallest of the three caravans.
“Flick!” he shouted, “let me in! Flick! Old Flick! Darn ’ee, man, for a blighting sand-louse! Open the door, God curse you! Old Flick! Old Flick! Old Flick!”