Leaf By NIggle
He had a number of pictures on hand; most of them were too large
and ambitious for his skill. He was the sort of painter who can paint
leaves better than trees. He used to spend a long time on a single leaf,
trying to catch its shape, and its sheen, and the glistening of dewdrops
on its edges. Yet he wanted to paint a whole tree, with all of its leaves in
the same style, and all of them different.
There was one picture in particular which bothered him. It had
begun with a leaf caught in the wind, and it became a tree; and the tree
grew, sending out innumerable branches, and thrusting out the most
fantastic roots. Strange birds came and settled on the twigs and had
to be attended to. Then all round the Tree, and behind it, through the
gaps in the leaves and boughs, a country began to open out; and there
were glimpses of a forest marching over the land, and of mountains
tipped with snow. Niggle lost interest in his other pictures; or else he
took them and tacked them on to the edges of his great picture. Soon
the canvas became so large that he had to get a ladder; and he ran up
and down it, putting in a touch here, and rubbing out a patch there.
When people came to call, he seemed polite enough, though he fiddled
a little with the pencils on his desk. He listened to what they said, but
underneath he was thinking all the time about his big canvas, in the tall
shed that had been built for it out in his garden (on a plot where once he
had grown potatoes).
He could not get rid of his kind heart. ‘I wish I was more strong-
minded’ he sometimes said to himself, meaning that he wished other
people’s troubles did not make him feel uncomfortable. But for a long
time he was not seriously perturbed. ‘At any rate, I shall get this one
picture done, my real picture, before I have to go on that wretched
journey,’ he used to say. Yet he was beginning to see that he could
not put off his start indefinitely. The picture would have to stop just
growing and get finished.
One day, Niggle stood a little way off from his picture and
considered it with unusual attention and detachment. He could not
make up his mind what he thought about it, and wished he had some
friend who would tell him what to think. Actually it seemed to him
wholly unsatisfactory, and yet very lovely,
the only really beautiful picture in the world.
What he would have liked at that moment would
have been to see himself walk in, and slap him on the back and say (with
obvious sincerity): ‘Absolutely magnificent! I see exactly what you are
getting at. Do get on with it, and don’t bother about anything else! We
will arrange for a public pension, so that you need not.’
However, there was no public pension. And one thing he could
see: it would need some concentration, some work, hard uninter-
rupted work, to finish the picture, even at its present size. He rolled up
his sleeves, and began to concentrate. He tried for several days not to
bother about other things. But there came a tremendous crop of inter-
ruptions. Things went wrong in his house; he had to go and serve on
a jury in the town; a distant friend fell ill; Mr. Parish was laid up with
lumbago; and visitors kept on coming. It was springtime, and they
wanted a free tea in the country: Niggle lived in a pleasant little house,
miles away from the town. He cursed them in his heart, but he could
not deny that he had invited them himself, away back in the winter,
when he had not thought it an ‘interruption’ to visit the shops and have
tea with acquaintances in the town. He tried to harden his heart; but
it was not a success. There were many things that he had not the face
to say no to, whether he thought them duties or not; and there were
some things he was compelled to do, whatever he thought. Some of his
visitors hinted that his garden was rather neglected, and that he might
get a visit from an Inspector. Very few of them knew about his picture,
of course; but if they had known, it would not have made much differ-
ence. I doubt if they would have thought that it mattered much. I dare
say it was not really a very good picture, though it may have had some
good passages. The Tree, at any rate, was curious. Quite unique in its
way. So was Niggle; though he was also a very ordinary and rather silly
little man.
At length Niggle’s time became really precious. His acquaintances
in the distant town began to remember that the little man had got to
make a troublesome journey, and some began to calculate how long at
the latest he could put off starting. They wondered who would take his
house, and if the garden would be better kept.
The autumn came, very wet and windy. The little painter was in his
shed. He was up on the ladder, trying to catch the gleam of the wester-
ing sun on the peak of a snow-mountain, which he had glimpsed just to
the left of the leafy tip of one of the Tree’s branches. He knew that he
would have to be leaving soon: perhaps early next year. He could only
just get the picture finished, and only so so, at that: there were some
corners where he would not have time now to do more than hint at what
he wanted.
There was a knock on the door. ‘Come in!’ he said sharply, and
climbed down the ladder. He stood on the floor twiddling his brush. It
was his neighbour, Parish: his only real neighbour, all other folk lived
a long way off. Still, he did not like the man very much: partly because
he was so often in trouble and in need of help; and also because he did
not care about painting, but was very critical about gardening. When
Parish looked at Niggle’s garden (which was often) he saw mostly
weeds; and when he looked at Niggle’s pictures (which was seldom) he
saw only green and grey patches and black lines, which seemed to him
nonsensical. He did not mind mentioning the weeds (a neighbourly
duty), but he refrained from giving any opinion of the pictures. He
thought this was very kind, and he did not realise that, even if it was
kind, it was not kind enough. Help with the weeds (and perhaps praise
for the pictures) would have been better.
‘Well, Parish, what is it?’ said Niggle.
‘I oughtn’t to interrupt you, I know,’ said Parish (without a glance
at the picture). ‘You are very busy, I’m sure.’
Niggle had meant to say something like that himself, but he had
missed his chance. All he said was: ‘Yes.’
‘But I have no one else to turn to,’ said Parish.
‘Quite so,’ said Niggle with a sigh: one of those sighs that are a
private comment, but which are not made quite inaudible. ‘What can I
do for you?‘My wife has been ill for some days, and I am getting worried,’ said
Parish. ‘And the wind has blown half the tiles off my roof, and water is
pouring into the bedroom. I think I ought to get the doctor. And the
builders, too, only they take so long to come. I was wondering if you
had any wood and canvas you could spare, just to patch me up and see
me through for a day or two.’ Now he did look at the picture.
‘Dear, dear!’ said Niggle. ‘You are unlucky. I hope it is no more than
a cold that your wife has got. I’ll come round presently, and help you
move the patient downstairs.’
‘Thank you very much,’ said Parish, rather coolly. ‘But it is not a
cold, it is a fever. I should not have bothered you for a cold. And my wife
is in bed downstairs already. I can’t get up and down with trays, not
with my leg. But I see you are busy. Sorry to have troubled you. I had
rather hoped you might have been able to spare the time to go for the
doctor, seeing how I’m placed; and the builder too, if you really have no
canvas you can spare.’
‘Of course,’ said Niggle; though other words were in his heart,
which at the moment was merely soft without feeling at all kind. ‘I
could go. I’ll go, if you are really worried.’
‘I am worried, very worried. I wish I was not lame,’ said Parish.
So Niggle went. You see, it was awkward. Parish was his neighbour,
and everyone else a long way off. Niggle had a bicycle, and Parish had
not, and could not ride one. Parish had a lame leg, a genuine lame leg
which gave him a good deal of pain: that had to be remembered, as
well as his sour expression and whining voice. Of course, Niggle had a
picture and barely time to finish it. But it seemed that this was a thing
that Parish had to reckon with and not Niggle. Parish, however, did not
reckon with pictures; and Niggle could not alter that. ‘Curse it!’ he said
to himself, as he got out his bicycle.
It was wet and windy, and daylight was waning. ‘No more work for
me today!’ thought Niggle, and all the time that he was riding, he was
either swearing to himself, or imagining the strokes of his brush on the
mountain, and on the spray of leaves beside it, that he had first imag-
ined in the spring. His fingers twitched on the handlebars. Now he was
out of the shed, he saw exactly the way in which to treat that shining
spray which framed the distant vision of the mountain. But he had a
sinking feeling in his heart, a sort of fear that he would never now get a
chance to try it out.
Niggle found the doctor, and he left a note at the builder's. The
office was shut, and the builder had gone home to his fireside. Niggle
got soaked to the skin, and caught a chill himself. The doctor did not
set out as promptly as Niggle had done. He arrived next day, which was
quite convenient for him, as by that time there were two patients to deal
with, in neighbouring houses. Niggle was in bed, with a high tempera-
ture, and marvellous patterns of leaves and involved branches forming
in his head and on the ceiling. It did not comfort him to learn that Mrs.
Parish had only had a cold, and was getting up. He turned his face to the
wall and buried himself in leaves.
He remained in bed some time. The wind went on blowing. It took
away a good many more of Parish’s tiles, and some of Niggle’s as well:
his own roof began to leak. The builder did not come. Niggle did not
care; not for a day or two. Then he crawled out to look for some food
(Niggle had no wife). Parish did not come round: the rain had got into
his leg and made it ache; and his wife was busy mopping up water, and
wondering if ‘that Mr. Niggle’ had forgotten to call at the builder’s. Had
she seen any chance of borrowing any thing useful, she would have sent
Parish round, leg or no leg; but she did not, so Niggle was left to himself.
At the end of a week or so Niggle tottered out to his shed again.
He tried to climb the ladder, but it made his head giddy. He sat and
looked at the picture, but there were no patterns of leaves or visions of
mountains in his mind that day. He could have painted a far-off view of
a sandy desert, but he had not the energy.
Next day he felt a good deal better. He climbed the ladder, and
began to paint. He had just begun to get into it again, when there came
a knock on the door.
‘Damn!’ said Niggle. But he might just as well have said ‘Come in!’
politely, for the door opened all the same. This time a very tall man
came in, a total stranger.
‘This is a private studio,’ said Niggle. ‘I am busy. Go away!’‘I am an Inspector of Houses,’ said the man, holding up his appoint-
ment-card, so that Niggle on his ladder could see it.
‘Oh!’ he said.
‘Your neighbour’s house is not satisfactory at all,’ said the Inspector.
‘I know,’ said Niggle. ‘I took a note to the builder’s a long time ago,
but they have never come. Then I have been ill.’
‘I see,’ said the Inspector. ‘But you are not ill now.’
‘But I’m not a builder. Parish ought to make a complaint to the
Town Council, and get help from the Emergency Service.’
‘They are busy with worse damage than any up here,’ said the
Inspector. ‘There has been a flood in the valley, and many families are
homeless. You should have helped your neighbour to make temporary
repairs and prevent the damage from getting more costly to mend than
necessary. That is the law. There is plenty of material here: canvas,
wood, waterproof paint.’
‘Where?’ asked Niggle indignantly.
‘There!’ said the Inspector, pointing to the picture.
‘My picture!’ exclaimed Niggle.
‘I dare say it is,’ said the Inspector. ‘But houses come first. That is
the law.’
‘But I can’t . . .’ Niggle said no more, for at that moment another
man came in. Very much like the Inspector he was, almost his double:
tall, dressed all in black.
‘Come along!’ he said. ‘I am the Driver.’
Niggle stumbled down from the ladder. His fever seemed to have
come on again, and his head was swimming; he felt cold all over.
‘Driver? Driver?’ he chattered. ‘Driver of what?’
‘You, and your carriage,’ said the man. ‘The carriage was ordered
long ago. It has come at last. It’s waiting. You start today on your
journey, you know.’
‘There now!’ said the Inspector. ‘You’ll have to go; but it’s a bad way
to start on your journey, leaving your jobs undone. Still, we can at least
make some use of this canvas now.’
‘Oh dear!’ said poor Niggle, beginning to weep. ‘And it’s not even
finished!’
‘Not finished!’ said the Driver. ‘Well, it’s finished with, as far as
you’re concerned, at any rate. Come along!’
Niggle went, quite quietly. The Driver gave him no time to pack,
saying that he ought to have done that before, and they would miss the
train; so all Niggle could do was to grab a little bag in the hall. He found
that it contained only a paint-box and a small book of his own sketches:
neither food nor clothes. They caught the train all right. Niggle was
feeling very tired and sleepy; he was hardly aware of what was going on
when they bundled him into his compartment. He did not care much:
he had forgotten where he was supposed to be going, or what he was
going for. The train ran almost at once into a dark tunnel.
Niggle woke up in a very large, dim railway station. A Porter went
along the platform shouting, but he was not shouting the name of the
place; he was shouting Niggle!
Niggle got out in a hurry, and found that he had left his little bag
behind. He turned back, but the train had gone away.
‘Ah, there you are!’ said the Porter. ‘This way! What! No luggage?
You will have to go to the Work house.’
Niggle felt very ill, and fainted on the platform. They put him in an
ambulance and took him to the Workhouse Infirmary.
He did not like the treatment at all. The medicine they gave him
was bitter. The officials and attendants were unfriendly, silent, and
strict; and he never saw anyone else, except a very severe doctor, who
visited him occasionally. It was more like being in a prison than in a
hospital. He had to work hard, at stated hours: at digging, carpentry,
and painting bare boards all one plain colour. He was never allowed
outside, and the windows all looked inwards. They kept him in the dark
for hours at a stretch, ‘to do some think ing,’ they said. He lost count of
time. He did not even begin to feel better, not if that could be judged by
whether he felt any pleasure in doing anything. He did not, not even in
getting into bed
At first, during the first century or so (I am merely giving his
impressions), he used to worry aimlessly about the past. One thing he
kept on repeating to himself, as he lay in the dark: ‘I wish I had called on
Parish the first morning after the high winds began. I meant to. The first
loose tiles would have been easy to fix. Then Mrs. Parish might never
have caught cold. Then I should not have caught cold either. Then I
should have had a week longer.’ But in time he forgot what it was that he
had wanted a week longer for. If he worried at all after that, it was about
his jobs in the hospital. He planned them out, thinking how quickly he
could stop that board creaking, or rehang that door, or mend that table-
leg. Probably he really became rather useful, though no one ever told
him so. But that, of course, cannot have been the reason why they kept
the poor little man so long. They may have been waiting for him to get
better, and judging ‘better’ by some odd medical standard of their own.
At any rate, poor Niggle got no pleasure out of life, not what he had
been used to call pleasure. He was certainly not amused. But it could
not be denied that he began to have a feeling of — well, satisfaction:
bread rather than jam. He could take up a task the moment one bell
rang, and lay it aside promptly the moment the next one went, all tidy
and ready to be continued at the right time. He got through quite a lot
in a day, now; he finished small things off neatly. He had no ‘time of his
own’ (except alone in his bed-cell), and yet he was becoming master of
his time; he began to know just what he could do with it. There was no
sense of rush. He was quieter inside now, and at resting-time he could
really rest.
Then suddenly they changed all his hours; they hardly let him go
to bed at all; they took him off carpentry altogether and kept him at
plain digging, day after day. He took it fairly well. It was a long while
before he even began to grope in the back of his mind for the curses that
he had practically forgotten. He went on digging, till his back seemed
broken, his hands were raw, and he felt that he could not manage another
spadeful. Nobody thanked him. But the doctor came and looked at him.
‘Knock off!’ he said. ‘Complete rest — in the dark.’
Niggle was lying in the dark, resting completely; so that, as he had not
been either feeling or thinking at all, he might have been lying there
for hours or for years, as far as he could tell. But now he heard Voices:
not voices that he had ever heard before. There seemed to be a Medi-
cal Board, or perhaps a Court of Inquiry, going on close at hand, in an
adjoining room with the door open, possibly, though he could not see
any light.
‘Now the Niggle case,’ said a Voice, a severe voice, more severe than
the doctor’s.
‘What was the matter with him?’ said a Second Voice, a voice that
you might have called gentle, though it was not soft — it was a voice of
authority, and sounded at once hopeful and sad. ‘What was the matter
with Niggle? His heart was in the right place.’
‘Yes, but it did not function properly,’ said the First Voice. ‘And his
head was not screwed on tight enough: he hardly ever thought at all.
Look at the time he wasted, not even amusing himself! He never got
ready for his journey. He was moderately well-off, and yet he arrived
here almost destitute, and had to be put in the paupers’ wing. A bad
case, I am afraid. I think he should stay some time yet.’
‘It would not do him any harm, perhaps,’ said the Second Voice.
‘But, of course, he is only a little man. He was never meant to be
anything very much; and he was never very strong. Let us look at the
Records. Yes. There are some favourable points, you know.’
‘Perhaps,’ said the First Voice; ‘but very few that will really bear
examination.’
‘Well,’ said the Second Voice, ‘there are these. He was a painter by
nature. In a minor way, of course; still, a Leaf by Niggle has a charm
of its own. He took a great deal of pains with leaves, just for their own
sake. But he never thought that that made him important. There is no
note in the Records of his pretending, even to himself, that it excused
his neglect of things ordered by the law.’
‘Then he should not have neglected so many,’ said the First Voice.
‘All the same, he did answer a good many Calls.’
‘A small percentage, mostly of the easier sort, and he called those
‘A small percentage, mostly of the easier sort, and he called those
Interruptions. The Records are full of the word, together with a lot of
complaints and silly imprecations.’
‘True; but they looked like interruptions to him, of course, poor
little man. And there is this: he never expected any Return, as so many
of his sort call it. There is the Parish case, the one that came in later. He
was Niggle’s neighbour, never did a stroke for him, and seldom showed
any gratitude at all. But there is no note in the Records that Niggle
expected Parish’s gratitude; he does not seem to have thought about it.’
‘Yes, that is a point,’ said the First Voice; ‘but rather small. I think
you will find Niggle often merely forgot. Things he had to do for Parish
he put out of his mind as a nuisance he had done with.’
‘Still, there is this last report,’ said the Second Voice, ‘that wet
bicycle-ride. I rather lay stress on that. It seems plain that this was a
genuine sacrifice: Niggle guessed that he was throwing away his last
chance with his picture, and he guessed, too, that Parish was worrying
unnecessarily.’
‘I think you put it too strongly,’ said the First Voice. ‘But you have
the last word. It is your task, of course, to put the best interpretation on
the facts. Sometimes they will bear it. What do you propose?’
‘I think it is a case for a little gentle treatment now,’ said the Second
Voice.
Niggle thought that he had never heard anything so generous as
that Voice. It made Gentle Treatment sound like a load of rich gifts, and
a summons to a King’s feast. Then suddenly Niggle felt ashamed. To
hear that he was considered a case for Gentle Treatment overwhelmed
him, and made him blush in the dark. It was like being publicly praised,
when you and all the audience knew that the praise was not deserved.
There was a silence. Then the First Voice spoke to Niggle, quite
close. ‘You have been listening,’ it said.
‘Yes,’ said Niggle.
‘Well, what have you to say?’
‘Could you tell me about Parish?’ said Niggle. ‘I should like to see
him again. I hope he is not very ill? Can you cure his leg? It used to give
him a wretched time. And please don’t worry about him and me. He
was a very good neighbour, and let me have excellent potatoes, very
cheap, which saved me a lot of time.’
‘Did he?’ said the First Voice. ‘I am glad to hear it.’
There was another silence. Niggle heard the Voices receding. ‘Well,
I agree,’ he heard the First Voice say in the distance. ‘Let him go on to
the next stage. Tomorrow, if you like.’
Niggle woke up to find that his blinds were drawn, and his little cell was
full of sunshine. He got up, and found that some comfortable clothes
had been put out for him, not hospital uniform. After breakfast the doc-
tor treated his sore hands, putting some salve on them that healed them
at once. He gave Niggle some good advice, and a bottle of tonic (in case
he needed it). In the middle of the morning they gave Niggle a biscuit
and a glass of wine; and then they gave him a ticket.
‘You can go to the railway station now,’ said the doctor. ‘The Porter
will look after you. Goodbye.’
Niggle slipped out of the main door, and blinked a little. The sun was
very bright. Also he had expected to walk out into a large town, to
match the size of the station; but he did not. He was on the top of a hill,
green, bare, swept by a keen invigorating wind. Nobody else was about.
Away down under the hill he could see the roof of the station shining.
He walked downhill to the station briskly, but without hurry. The
Porter spotted him at once.
‘This way!’ he said, and led Niggle to a bay, in which there was a
very pleasant little local train standing: one coach, and a small engine,
both very bright, clean, and newly painted. It looked as if this was their
first run. Even the track that lay in front of the engine looked new: the
rails shone, the chairs were painted green, and the sleepers gave off a
delicious smell of fresh tar in the warm sunshine. The coach was empty.
‘Where does this train go, Porter?’ asked Niggle.
‘I don’t think they have fixed its name yet,’ said the Porter. ‘But
you’ll find it all right.’ He shut the door.
The train moved off at once. Niggle lay back in his seat. The little
engine puffed along in a deep cutting with high green banks, roofed
with blue sky. It did not seem very long before the engine gave a whistle,
and no signboard, only a flight of steps up the green embankment. At
the top of the steps there was a wicket-gate in a trim hedge. By the gate
stood his bicycle; at least, it looked like his, and there was a yellow label
tied to the bars with NIGGLE written on it in large black letters.
Niggle pushed open the gate, jumped on the bicycle, and went
bowling downhill in the spring sunshine. Before long he found that
the path on which he had started had disappeared, and the bicycle was
rolling along over a marvellous turf. It was green and close; and yet he
could see every blade distinctly. He seemed to remember having seen
or dreamed of that sweep of grass somewhere or other. The curves of
the land were familiar somehow. Yes: the ground was becoming level,
as it should, and now, of course, it was beginning to rise again. A great
green shadow came between him and the sun. Niggle looked up, and
fell off his bicycle.
Before him stood the Tree, his Tree, finished. If you could say that
of a Tree that was alive, its leaves opening, its branches growing and
bending in the wind that Niggle had so often felt or guessed, and had so
often failed to catch. He gazed at the Tree, and slowly he lifted his arms
and opened them wide.
‘It’s a gift!’ he said. He was referring to his art, and also to the result;
but he was using the word quite literally.
He went on looking at the Tree. All the leaves he had ever laboured
at were there, as he had imagined them rather than as he had made
them; and there were others that had only budded in his mind, and
many that might have budded, if only he had had time. Nothing was
written on them, they were just exquisite leaves, yet they were dated as
clear as a calendar. Some of the most beautiful — and the most char-
acteristic, the most perfect examples of the Niggle style — were seen
to have been produced in collaboration with Mr. Parish: there was no
other way of putting it.
The birds were building in the Tree. Astonishing birds: how they
sang! They were mating, hatching, growing wings, and flying away
singing into the Forest even while he looked at them. For now he saw
that the Forest was there too, opening out on either side, and marching
away into the distance. The Mountains were glimmering far away.
After a time Niggle turned towards the Forest. Not because he was
tired of the Tree, but he seemed to have got it all clear in his mind now,
and was aware of it, and of its growth, even when he was not looking at
it. As he walked away, he discovered an odd thing: the Forest, of course,
was a distant Forest, yet he could approach it, even enter it, without its
losing that particular charm. He had never before been able to walk into
the distance without turning it into mere surroundings. It really added
a considerable attraction to walking in the country, because, as you
walked, new distances opened out; so that you now had double, treble,
and quadruple distances, doubly, trebly, and quadruply enchanting.
You could go on and on, and have a whole country in a garden, or in
a picture (if you preferred to call it that). You could go on and on, but
not perhaps for ever. There were the Mountains in the background.
They did get nearer, very slowly. They did not seem to belong to the
picture, or only as a link to something else, a glimpse through the trees
of something different, a further stage: another picture.
Niggle walked about, but he was not merely pottering. He was look-
ing round carefully. The Tree was finished, though not finished with —
‘Just the other way about to what it used to be,’ he thought — but in the
Forest there were a number of inconclusive regions, that still needed
work and thought. Nothing needed altering any longer, nothing was
wrong, as far as it had gone, but it needed continuing up to a definite
point. Niggle saw the point precisely, in each case.
He sat down under a very beautiful distant tree — a variation
of the Great Tree, but quite individual, or it would be with a little more
attention — and he considered where to begin work, and where to
end it, and how much time was required. He could not quite work out
his scheme.
‘Of course!’ he said. ‘What I need is Parish. There are lots of things
about earth, plants, and trees that he knows and I don’t. This place
cannot be left just as my private park. I need help and advice: I ought to
have got it sooner.’
He got up and walked to the place where he had decided to begin
work. He took off his coat. Then, down in a little sheltered hollow hidden
from a further view, he saw a man looking round rather bewildered. He
was leaning on a spade, but plainly did not know what to do. Niggle
hailed him. ‘Parish!’ he called.
Parish shouldered his spade and came up to him. He still limped a
little. They did not speak, just nodded as they used to do, passing in the
lane, but now they walked about together, arm in arm. Without talking,
Niggle and Parish agreed exactly where to make the small house and
garden, which seemed to be required.
As they worked together, it became plain that Niggle was now the
better of the two at ordering his time and getting things done. Oddly
enough, it was Niggle who became most absorbed in building and
gardening, while Parish often wandered about looking at trees, and
especially at the Tree.
One day Niggle was busy planting a quickset hedge, and Parish was
lying on the grass near by, looking attentively at a beautiful and shapely
little yellow flower growing in the green turf. Niggle had put a lot of
Parish shouldered his spade and came up to him. He still limped a
little. They did not speak, just nodded as they used to do, passing in the
lane, but now they walked about together, arm in arm. Without talking,
Niggle and Parish agreed exactly where to make the small house and
garden, which seemed to be required.
As they worked together, it became plain that Niggle was now the
better of the two at ordering his time and getting things done. Oddly
enough, it was Niggle who became most absorbed in building and
gardening, while Parish often wandered about looking at trees, and
especially at the Tree.
One day Niggle was busy planting a quickset hedge, and Parish was
lying on the grass near by, looking attentively at a beautiful and shapely
little yellow flower growing in the green turf. Niggle had put a lot of them
Parish shouldered his spade and came up to him. He still limped a
little. They did not speak, just nodded as they used to do, passing in the
lane, but now they walked about together, arm in arm. Without talking,
Niggle and Parish agreed exactly where to make the small house and
garden, which seemed to be required.
As they worked together, it became plain that Niggle was now the
better of the two at ordering his time and getting things done. Oddly
enough, it was Niggle who became most absorbed in building and
gardening, while Parish often wandered about looking at trees, and
especially at the Tree.
One day Niggle was busy planting a quickset hedge, and Parish was
lying on the grass near by, looking attentively at a beautiful and shapely
little yellow flower growing in the green turf. Niggle had put a lot of
them among the roots of his Tree long ago. Suddenly Parish looked up:
his face was glistening in the sun, and he was smiling.
‘This is grand!’ he said. ‘I oughtn’t to be here, really. Thank you for
putting in a word for me.’
it was not nearly enough.’
‘Oh yes, it was,’ said Parish. ‘It got me out a lot sooner. That Second
Voice, you know: he had me sent here; he said you had asked to see me.
I owe it to you.’
‘No. You owe it to the Second Voice,’ said Niggle. ‘We both do.’
They went on living and working together: I do not know how long.
It is no use denying that at first they occasionally disagreed, especially
when they got tired. For at first they did sometimes get tired. They found
that they had both been provided with tonics. Each bottle had the same
label: A few drops to be taken in water from the Spring, before resting.
They found the Spring in the heart of the Forest; only once long ago
had Niggle imagined it, but he had never drawn it. Now he perceived
that it was the source of the lake that glimmered, far away and the nour-
ishment of all that grew in the country. The few drops made the waterastringent, rather bitter, but invigorating; and it cleared the head. After
drinking they rested alone; and then they got up again and things went
on merrily. At such times Niggle would think of wonderful new flow-
ers and plants, and Parish always knew exactly how to set them and
where they would do best. Long before the tonics were finished they
had ceased to need them. Parish lost his limp.
As their work drew to an end they allowed themselves more and
more time for walking about, looking at the trees, and the flowers, and
the lights and shapes, and the lie of the land. Sometimes they sang
together; but Niggle found that he was now beginning to turn his eyes,
more and more often, towards the Mountains.
The time came when the house in the hollow, the garden, the grass,
the forest, the lake, and all the country was nearly complete, in its own
proper fashion. The Great Tree was in full blossom.
‘We shall finish this evening,’ said Parish one day. ‘After that we
will go for a really long walk.’
They set out next day, and they walked until they came right through
the distances to the Edge. It was not visible, of course: there was no line,
or fence, or wall; but they knew that they had come to the margin of
that country. They saw a man, he looked like a shepherd; he was walking
towards them, down the grass-slopes that led up into the Mountains.
‘Do you want a guide?’ he asked. ‘Do you want to go on?’
For a moment a shadow fell between Niggle and Parish, for Niggle
knew that he did now want to go on, and (in a sense) ought to go on; but
Parish did not want to go on, and was not yet ready to go.
‘I must wait for my wife,’ said Parish to Niggle. ‘She’d be lonely. I
rather gathered that they would send her after me, some time or other,
when she was ready, and when I had got things ready for her. The house
is finished now, as well as we could make it; but I should like to show
it to her. She’ll be able to make it better, I expect: more homely. I hope
she’ll like this country, too.’ He turned to the shepherd. ‘Are you a
guide?’ he asked. ‘Could you tell me the name of this country?’‘Don’t you know?’ said the man. ‘It is Niggle’s Country. It is Niggle’s
Picture, or most of it: a little of it is now Parish’s Garden.’
‘Niggle’s Picture!’ said Parish in astonishment, ‘Did you think of all
this, Niggle? I never knew you were so clever. Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘He tried to tell you long ago,’ said the man, ‘but you would not
look. He had only got canvas and paint in those days, and you wanted
to mend your roof with them. This is what you and your wife used to
call Niggle’s Nonsense, or That Daubing.’
‘But it did not look like this then, not real,’ said Parish.
‘No, it was only a glimpse then,’ said the man; ‘but you might have
caught the glimpse, if you had ever thought it worth while to try.’
‘I did not give you much chance,’ said Niggle. ‘I never tried to explain.
I used to call you Old Earthgrubber. But what does it matter? We have
lived and worked together now. Things might have been different, but
they could not have been better. All the same, I am afraid I shall have to
be going on. We shall meet again, I expect: there must be many more
things we can do together. Goodbye!’ He shook Parish’s hand warmly:
a good, firm, honest hand it seemed. He turned and looked back for a
moment. The blossom on the Great Tree was shining like flame. All the
birds were flying in the air and singing. Then he smiled and nodded to
Parish and went off with the shepherd.
He was going to learn about sheep, and the high pasturages, and
look at a wider sky, and walk ever further and further towards the
Mountains, always uphill. Beyond that I cannot guess what became of
him. Even little Niggle in his old home could glimpse the Mountains
far away, and they got into the borders of his picture; but what they
are really like, and what lies beyond them only those can say who have
climbed them.
‘I think he was a silly little man,’ said Councillor Tompkins. ‘Worthless,
in fact; no use to Society at all.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Atkins, who was nobody of importance, just
a schoolmaster. ‘I am not so sure; it depends on what you mean by use.’
‘No practical or economic use,’ said Tompkins. ‘I dare say he couldhave been made into a serviceable cog of some sort, if you schoolmasters
knew your business. But you don’t, and so we get useless people of his
sort. If I ran this country I should put him and his like to some job that
they’re fit for, washing dishes in a communal kitchen or something,
and I should see that they did it properly. Or I would put them away. I
should have put him away long ago.’
‘Put him away? You mean you’d have made him start on the journey
before his time?’
‘Yes, if you must use that meaningless old expression. Push him
through the tunnel into the great Rubbish Heap: that’s what I mean.’
‘Then you don’t think painting is worth anything, not worth
preserving, or improving, or even making use of?’
‘Of course, painting has uses,’ said Tompkins. ‘But you couldn’t
make use of his painting. There is plenty of scope for bold young men
not afraid of new ideas and new methods. None for this old-fashioned
stuff. Private day-dreaming. He could not have designed a telling
poster to save his life. Always fiddling with leaves and flowers. I asked
him why, once. He said he thought they were pretty! Can you believe
it? He said pretty! “What, digestive and genital organs of plants?” I said
to him; and he had nothing to answer. Silly footler.’
‘Footler,’ sighed Atkins. ‘Yes, poor little man, he never finished
anything. Ah well, his canvases have been put to “better uses,” since
he went. But I am not so sure, Tompkins. You remember that large one,
the one they used to patch the damaged house next door to his, after
the gales and floods? I found a corner of it torn off, lying in a field. It was
damaged, but legible: a mountain-peak and a spray of leaves. I can’t get
it out of my mind.’
‘Out of your what?’ said Tompkins.
‘Who are you two talking about?’ said Perkins, intervening in the
cause of peace: Atkins had flushed rather red.
‘The name’s not worth repeating,’ said Tompkins. ‘I don’t know
why we are talking about him at all. He did not live in town.’
‘No,’ said Atkins; ‘but you had your eye on his house, all the same.
That is why you used to go and call, and sneer at him while drinking his
tea. Well, you’ve got his house now, as well as the one in town, so you
need not grudge him his name. We were talking about Niggle, if youif you
want to know, Perkins.’
‘Oh, poor little Niggle!’ said Perkins. ‘Never knew he painted.’
That was probably the last time Niggle’s name ever came up in
conversation. However, Atkins preserved the odd corner. Most of
it crumbled; but one beautiful leaf remained intact. Atkins had it
framed. Later he left it to the Town Museum, and for a long while ‘Leaf:
by Niggle’ hung there in a recess, and was noticed by a few eyes. But
eventually the Museum was burnt down, and the leaf, and Niggle, were
entirely forgotten in his old country.
‘It is proving very useful indeed,’ said the Second Voice. ‘As a holiday,
and a refreshment. It is splendid for convalescence; and not only for
that, for many it is the best introduction to the Mountains. It works
wonders in some cases. I am sending more and more there. They sel-
dom have to come back.’
‘No, that is so,’ said the First Voice. ‘I think we shall have to give the
region a name. What do you propose?’
‘The Porter settled that some time ago,’ said the Second Voice.
‘Train for Niggle’s Parish in the bay: he has shouted that for a long while
now. Niggle’s Parish. I sent a message to both of them to tell them.’
‘What did they say?’
‘They both laughed. Laughed — the Mountains rang with it!’
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