Life's Handicap: Being Stories of Mine Own People Read online

  THE WANDERING JEW

  [Footnote: Copyright, 1891, by Macmillan & Co.]

  'If you go once round the world in an easterly direction, you gain oneday,' said the men of science to John Hay. In after years John Hay wenteast, west, north, and south, transacted business, made love, and begata family, as have done many men, and the scientific information aboverecorded lay neglected in the deeps of his mind with a thousand othermatters of equal importance.

  When a rich relative died, he found himself wealthy beyond anyreasonable expectation that he had entertained in his previous career,which had been a chequered and evil one. Indeed, long before the legacycame to him, there existed in the brain of John Hay a little cloud-amomentary obscuration of thought that came and went almost before hecould realize that there was any solution of continuity. So do the batsflit round the eaves of a house to show that the darkness is falling. Heentered upon great possessions, in money, land, and houses; but behindhis delight stood a ghost that cried out that his enjoyment of thesethings should not be of long duration. It was the ghost of the richrelative, who had been permitted to return to earth to torture hisnephew into the grave. Wherefore, under the spur of this constantreminder, John Hay, always preserving the air of heavy business-likestolidity that hid the shadow on his mind, turned investments, houses,and lands into sovereigns---rich, round, red, English sovereigns, eachone worth twenty shillings. Lands may become valueless, and houses flyheavenward on the wings of red flame, but till the Day of Judgmenta sovereign will always be a sovereign--that is to say, a king ofpleasures.

  Possessed of his sovereigns, John Hay would fain have spent them one byone on such coarse amusements as his soul loved; but he was haunted bythe instant fear of Death; for the ghost of his relative stood in thehall of his house close to the hat-rack, shouting up the stairway thatlife was short, that there was no hope of increase of days, and that theundertakers were already roughing out his nephew's coffin. John Hay wasgenerally alone in the house, and even when he had company, his friendscould not hear the clamorous uncle. The shadow inside his brain grewlarger and blacker. His fear of death was driving John Hay mad.

  Then, from the deeps of his mind, where he had stowed away all hisdiscarded information, rose to light the scientific fact of the Easterlyjourney. On the next occasion that his uncle shouted up the stairwayurging him to make haste and live, a shriller voice cried, 'Who goesround the world once easterly, gains one day.'

  His growing diffidence and distrust of mankind made John Hay unwillingto give this precious message of hope to his friends. They might takeit up and analyse it. He was sure it was true, but it would pain himacutely were rough hands to examine it too closely. To him alone of allthe toiling generations of mankind had the secret of immortalitybeen vouchsafed. It would be impious--against all the designs of theCreator--to set mankind hurrying eastward. Besides, this would crowd thesteamers inconveniently, and John Hay wished of all things to be alone.If he could get round the world in two months--some one of whom he hadread, he could not remember the name, had covered the passage in eightydays--he would gain a clear day; and by steadily continuing to do it forthirty years, would gain one hundred and eighty days, or nearly the halfof a year. It would not be much, but in course of time, as civilisationadvanced, and the Euphrates Valley Railway was opened, he could improvethe pace.

  Armed with many sovereigns, John Hay, in the thirty-fifth year of hisage, set forth on his travels, two voices bearing him company fromDover as he sailed to Calais. Fortune favoured him. The Euphrates ValleyRailway was newly opened, and he was the first man who took ticketdirect from Calais to Calcutta--thirteen days in the train. Thirteendays in the train are not good for the nerves; but he covered the worldand returned to Calais from America in twelve days over the two months,and started afresh with four and twenty hours of precious time to hiscredit. Three years passed, and John Hay religiously went round thisearth seeking for more time wherein to enjoy the remainder of hissovereigns. He became known on many lines as the man who wanted to goon; when people asked him what he was and what he did, he answered--

  'I'm the person who intends to live, and I am trying to do it now.'

  His days were divided between watching the white wake spinning behindthe stern of the swiftest steamers, or the brown earth flashing pastthe windows of the fastest trains; and he noted in a pocket-book everyminute that he had railed or screwed out of remorseless eternity.

  'This is better than praying for long life,' quoth John Hay as he turnedhis face eastward for his twentieth trip. The years had done more forhim than he dared to hope.

  By the extension of the Brahmaputra Valley line to meet thenewly-developed China Midland, the Calais railway ticket held good viaKarachi and Calcutta to Hongkong. The round trip could be managed in afraction over forty-seven days, and, filled with fatal exultation,John Hay told the secret of his longevity to his only friend, thehouse-keeper of his rooms in London. He spoke and passed; but the womanwas one of resource, and immediately took counsel with the lawyers whohad first informed John Hay of his golden legacy. Very many sovereignsstill remained, and another Hay longed to spend them on things moresensible than railway tickets and steamer accommodation.

  The chase was long, for when a man is journeying literally for the dearlife, he does not tarry upon the road. Round the world Hay swept anew,and overtook the wearied Doctor, who had been sent out to look for him,in Madras. It was there that he found the reward of his toil and theassurance of a blessed immortality. In half an hour the Doctor, watchingalways the parched lips, the shaking hands, and the eye that turnedeternally to the east, won John Hay to rest in a little house close tothe Madras surf. All that Hay need do was to hang by ropes from the roofof the room and let the round earth swing free beneath him. This wasbetter than steamer or train, for he gained a day in a day, and wasthus the equal of the undying sun. The other Hay would pay his expensesthroughout eternity.

  It is true that we cannot yet take tickets from Calais to Hongkong,though that will come about in fifteen years; but men say that if youwander along the southern coast of India you shall find in a neatlywhitewashed little bungalow, sitting in a chair swung from theroof, over a sheet of thin steel which he knows so well destroys theattraction of the earth, an old and worn man who for ever faces therising sun, a stop-watch in his hand, racing against eternity. He cannotdrink, he does not smoke, and his living expenses amount to perhapstwenty-five rupees a month, but he is John Hay, the Immortal. Without,he hears the thunder of the wheeling world with which he is careful toexplain he has no connection whatever; but if you say that it is onlythe noise of the surf, he will cry bitterly, for the shadow on his brainis passing away as the brain ceases to work, and he doubts sometimeswhether the doctor spoke the truth.

  'Why does not the sun always remain over my head?' asks John Hay.