Current Shareware 1994 January/SHAR194.ISO/textfile/dunsany1.zip/MILKMAN.TXT

Text File | 1993-06-08 | 7KB | 129 lines

                  Why the Milkman Shudders
                 When He Perceives the Dawn

                       by Lord Dunsany


In the Hall of the Ancient Company of Milkmen round the
great fireplace at the end, when the winter logs are burning
and all the craft are assembled they tell to-day, as their
grandfathers told before them, why the milkman shudders when
he perceives the dawn.
   When dawn comes creeping over the edges of hills, peers
through the tree-trunks making wonderful shadows, touches
the tops of tall columns of smoke going up from awakening
cottages in the valleys, and breaks all golden over Kentish
fields, when going on tip-toe thence it comes to the walls
of London and slips all shyly up those gloomy streets the
milkman perceives it and shudders.
   A man may be a Milkman's Working Apprentice, may know
what borax is and how to mix it, yet not for that is the
story told to him.  There are five men alone that tell that
story, five men appointed by the Master of the Company, by
whom each place is filled as it falls vacant, and if you do
not hear it from one of them you hear the story from no one
and so can never know why the milkman shudders when he
perceives the dawn.
   It is the way of one of these five men, greybeards all
and milkmen from infancy, to rub his hands by the fire when
the great logs burn, and to settle himself more easily in
his chair, perhaps to sip some drink far other than milk,
then to look round to see that none are there to whom it
would not be fitting the tale should be told and, looking
from face to face and seeing none but the men of the Ancient
Company, and questioning mutely the rest of the five with
his eyes, if some of the five be there, and receiving their
permission, to cough and to tell the tale.  And a great hush
falls in the Hall of the Ancient Company, and something
about the shape of the roof and the rafters makes the tale
resonant all down the hall so that the youngest hears it far
away from the fire and knows, and dreams of the day when
perhaps he will tell himself why the milkman shudders when
he perceives the dawn.
   Not as one tells some casual fact is it told, nor is it
commented on from man to man, but it is told by that great
fire only and when the occasion and the stillness of the
room and the merit of the wine and the profit of all seem to
warrant it in the opinion of the five deputed men: then does
one of them tell it, as I have said, not heralded by any
master of ceremonies but as though it arose out of the
warmth of the fire before which his knotted hands would
chance to be; not a thing learned by rote, but told
differently by each teller, and differently according to his
mood, yet never has one of them dared to alter its salient
points, there is none so base among the Company of Milkmen.
The Company of Powderers for the Face know of this story and
have envied it, the Worthy Company of Chin-Barbers, and the
Company of Whiskerers; but none have heard it in the
Milkmen's Hall, through whose wall no rumour of the secret
goes, and though they have invented tales of their own
Antiquity mocks them.
   This mellow story was ripe with honourable years when
milkmen wore beaver hats, its origin was still mysterious
when smocks were the vogue, men asked one another when
Stuarts were on the throne (and only the Ancient Company
knew the answer) why the milkman shudders when he perceives
the dawn.  It is all for envy of this tale's reputation that
the Company of Powderers for the Face have invented the tale
that they too tell of an evening, "Why the Dog Barks when he
hears the step of the Baker"; and because probably all men
know that tale the Company of the Powderers for the Face
have dared to consider it famous.  Yet it lacks mystery and
is not ancient, is not fortified with classical allusion,
has no secret lore, is common to all who care for an idle
tale, and shares with "The Wars of the Elves," the
Calf-butcher's tale, and "The Story of the Unicorn and the
Rose," which is the tale of the Company of Horse-drivers,
their obvious inferiority.
   But unlike all these tales so new to time, and many
another that the last two centuries tell, the tale that the
milkmen tell ripples wisely on, so full of quotation from
the profoundest writers, so full of recondite allusion, so
deeply tinged with all the wisdom of man and instructive
with the experience of all times that they that hear it in
the Milkmen's Hall as they interpret allusion after allusion
and trace obscure quotation lose idle curiosity and forget
to question why the milkman shudders when he perceives the
dawn.
   You also, O my reader, give not yourself up to
curiosity.  Consider of how many it is the bane.  Would you
to gratify this tear away the mystery from the Milkmen's
Hall and wrong the Ancient Company of Milkmen?  Would they
if all the world knew it and it became a common thing to
tell that tale any more that they have told for the last
four hundred years?  Rather a silence would settle upon
their hall and a universal regret for the ancient tale and
the ancient winter evenings.  And though curiosity were a
proper consideration yet even then this is not the proper
place nor this the proper occasion for the Tale.  For the
proper place is only the Milkmen's Hall and the proper
occasion only when logs burn well and when wine has been
deeply drunken, then when the candles were burning well in
long rows down to the dimness, down to the darkness and
mystery that lie at the end of the hall, then were you one
of the Company, and were I one of the five, would I rise
from my seat by the fireside and tell you with all the
embellishments that it has gleaned from the ages that story
that is the heirloom of the milkmen.  And the long candles
would burn lower and lower and gutter and gutter away till
they liquefied in their sockets, and draughts would blow
from the shadowy end of the hall stronger and stronger till
the shadows came after them, and still I would hold you with
that treasured story, not by any wit of mine but all for the
sake of its glamour and the times out of which it came; one
by one the candles would flare and die and, when all were
gone, by the light of ominous sparks when each milkman's
face looks fearful to his fellow, you would know, as now you
cannot, why the milkman shudders when he perceives the dawn.