by G.K. Chesterton (whom did you expect?)

There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.

For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.

Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.

A child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost---how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky's dome.

This world is wild as an old wife's tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.

To an open house in the evening
Home shall all men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.

Jenny tagged me. I have beaten this dead horse long enough, I am sure, but here it goes again: another glimpse of The Brew. I mean to do a post very like this on my latest blight of a story, but I have not had enough time to spend on it and so this will have to suffice. If you are very tired of Falcon and company, I am sorry.

Ingrid Brewster: writer and typist. Darjeeling Falcon: Government Investigator, and Ingrid's employer and oldest friend. Lady Jane Grey: The Woman Who Has Disappeared, thus creating a Case and a Plot and all sorts of conundrumish things.



It started with a whimsical idea of a falcon named Darjeeling, a hound named Ceylon, and a stallion named Yorkshire Gold. Then it turned into a series of silly tales involving animals who talked (all named after tea) and a girl named Jane. That story supplied a vignette or two and then stalled for many moons. But! On a day full of fate (and many other things which would be much more interesting to mention but entirely irrelevant), I was watching a hawk and trying to glean inspiration when the animals turned into people, and something entirely Other was born. That something entirely Other is... this. 


It's how I write, that's what it is. 



Who knows more of mystery - the detective or the writer? No, what I mean to say is, forget the cigar ash, Holmes, and pay attention to the story. And keep an eye out for the barber; he'll be back. 

I don't know about the funniest, but I find Darjeeling's mother rather amusing. I have good fun with her heavily-italicized lectures.





Paper cuts and carpal tunnel. Writing is a desperate, dangerous business.



(Dum dum DUM...!)


York, bless his literary hooves! I can't tell you exactly why; that would spoil it. Suffice it to say he's one of those chaps who doesn't get the best lines but manages to burst in and do all the right things anyway.


I'm afraid it's probably a shameless mixture of Sayers' Wimsey, Chesterton's Syme, and A.A. Milne's Winnie-ther-Pooh.


Oh, bother! If I thought it was destined to become a book on tape, I would not write it. Seriously; I have a general apathy bordering on aversion to most audiobooks, but in this particular instance a man's voice reading Ingrid's perspective would be rubbish, and the idea of a woman reading any of the lads' lines is ridiculous.

Lady Jane thought this a rather silly reason 

to insist on the one term over the other, 

but four hooves seemed quite a large number to argue with 

over trifles.

 

A thick, wet wind beat against the pane of the front window of The Crown & Scepter, its fury matching the scowl on the face of the tavern’s only other patron. Mr. Nathaniel Haywood sat at the table in the window brooding over his mug of cocoa. He said nothing to me as I entered; he did not appear to notice me at all. 

“Never had a gentleman ask for a cup of chocolate before.” The red-haired waitress lingering near Haywood’s table gestured to the mug before him. She laughed a little self-consciously, resting an empty tray against one hip and a slim hand on the other. “Not that that means much! I’ve just started this job three days ago. I didn’t know we had cocoa. ‘Twas Mr. Crown, the proprietor, who took it as an impertinence regarding the establishment’s cellars. I knew no better.” 

“A man ought to keep a clear mind.” Nathaniel held fast to his terseness, obviously hoping the lady would take a hint.   

“If by that you mean you ought to do so, why come to an establishment that serves alcohol in the first place?” she persisted. “Anyway, you don’t look respectable enough to worry about a few drinks.” 

“Don’t I?” queried Nathaniel. “No, don’t apologize. I understand. I suppose I do look like a scoundrel. Believe me when I tell you, a year ago today, you would not have found me thus. I don’t wonder you find me quite the ruffian, seeing that I lack the indispensable mark of every respectable gentleman.” 

She cast a doubtful eye over the dilapidated state of his coat and trousers and frowned. “That indispensable mark being…?” 

“How can you ask such a question?” The man stared incredulously. “My head, woman! I lack a hat! Do not say you did not notice my hatless state! So!” He gestured from his empty head to the bare hat-peg beside the door behind him. “Why have I no hat?” 

The girl laughed and threw up her hands good-naturedly. “I don’t know! Why have you no hat?” 

“Stolen!” thundered Nathaniel, and the sky outside echoed with a resounding peal. He seized his mug and swallowed half its contents in apparent fury. The heat of it took him by surprise, and he choked desperately for several minutes. The lack of oxygen had its quieting effect on him, and, when he could breathe again, he continued more calmly. “Yes, someone stole my hat, in this very room. Truly, it made a beautiful hat; you could hardly not know it if you saw it. The body of it consisted of a green felt, softened by years of my silly habit of playing with it. It had a brown band with gold-brown feathers tucked in on one side. The brim gave just the right amount of shade, without falling too far over my eyes. And – the color suited me, or so some said.” 

Here his voice faded wistfully into silence, and he stared out the window. Though he kept his back to me, I fancied I saw the bittersweet fondness in his eyes, reflected in the rain-soaked pane. Then he seemed to collect himself, cleared his throat gruffly, and finished. “In short, it seemed to me perfection embodied in a hat. It made me feel quite the gentleman. To even consider replacing it feels like betrayal.” 

“Who stole it?” 

“Some ill-favored idiot who frequented here at least once,” growled Nathaniel, suddenly glaring at his apron-wearing companion as if she had perpetrated the crime. “Once was enough. I know not who; I drank overmuch, and it happened as I slept in my chair. Your Mr. Crown said he did not know who had taken it. Some day, I tell myself, the thief will think I have forgotten and wear it. But I do not forget, and I watch and wait. I come every Tuesday, as I cannot come every night; ‘twas taken on a Tuesday, and so I have kept watch here the last fifty-two Tuesdays together.” 

The barmaid thumped the table with her tray and snorted. “Fifty-two? Do you mean to tell me that you have spent a year waiting for a hat?”  She winked at me sharply, and I felt myself ignorant of some enormous joke, as if I had put on my suspenders backwards and forgotten to laugh about it.

“I do not mean anything; I tell you plainly. A crazy idea, I suppose—fitting for a crazy man, as you must think me.” As the man spoke, I remembered the wet coat on my back and turned to remove and place it on the stand, but I kept stealing a glance or two at the pair, for they had taken my interest.    

“Aye, I think you a crazy man,” laughed she, “but not for the hat. I will tell you why I think you mad. Here you sit, having waited for a year and perhaps preparing to wait another five for a hat to walk in here on the head of some bloke. Who knows? It might come tonight, and you would prepare for such a meeting tonight by filling your belly with cocoa!” The waitress tossed her head, and I wondered if the man had yet noticed how her red hair fell past her shoulders and her eyes held sparks of amber. “I would say that no drink on earth could muddy your mind any more than you have already muddied it. Stop your sulking, and have you a drink.” She seized her tray and spun back around toward the kitchen. “The house will afford you the first; after that, I cannot promise.” 

Nathaniel sat a moment in silence. “Maybe she speaks rightly,” he said aloud to himself at last. “Better a little bravado than a dull mind; mine will not clear, anyway.” Then, as if with sudden resolution, he seized his mug and rose, tossing its contents over his back toward the open doorway—that is, towards me. Before I had time to recover, the tepid liquid hit the threshold floor at my feet, splashing cocoa all over my shoes and trousers. My hat, newly removed from my head, flew from my startled fingers and fell at the feet of the pretty red-haired barmaid, where it lay in a heap of worn green felt and golden-brown feathers.

An apology dead on his lips, Nathaniel Haywood replaced the cocoa mug on the table with a gentle click and turned from the doorway and the girl to the storm-filled window. A strange look of satisfaction came over his face. Only the eyes in his reflection remained bright with the great clarity of irony. 

“Aha,” I heard him say. 

Then he turned again to face me. 

there's thunder in the sunset's rays:
bluster, blunder, slate-and-fire,
spinning, giddy, grey-sky days
punctuated by the steeple-spire - 

autumn leaves.