No More Learning

But this was a much more startling plunge into
the past. Was it possible that he had skipped half a dozen lives and was
then dimly remembering some episode of a thousand years later? It was
a maddening jumble, and the worst of it was that Charlie Mears in his
normal condition was the last person in the world to clear it up. I
could only wait and watch, but I went to bed that night full of the
wildest imaginings. There was nothing that was not possible if Charlie's
detestable memory only held good.

I might rewrite the Saga of Thorfin Karlsefne as it had never been
written before, might tell the story of the first discovery of America,
myself the discoverer. But I was entirely at Charlie's mercy, and so
long as there was a three-and-six-penny Bohn volume within his reach
Charlie would not tell. I dared not curse him openly; I hardly dared jog
his memory, for I was dealing with the experiences of a thousand years
ago, told through the mouth of a boy of today; and a boy of today is
affected by every change of tone and gust of opinion, so that he lies
even when he desires to speak the truth.

I saw no more of him for nearly a week. When next I met him it was in
Gracechurch Street with a billbook chained to his waist.

Business took him over London Bridge and I accompanied him. He was very
full of the importance of that book and magnified it.

As we passed over the Thames we paused to look at a steamer unloading
great slabs of white and brown marble. A barge drifted under the
steamer's stern and a lonely cow in that barge bellowed.

Charlie's face changed from the face of the bank-clerk to that of an
unknown and--though he would not have believed this--a much shrewder
man.
He flung out his arm across the parapet of the bridge, and laughing
very loudly, said: "When they heard our bulls bellow the Skroelings ran
away! "

I waited only for an instant, but the barge and the cow had disappeared
under the bows of the steamer before I answered.

"Charlie, what do you suppose are Skroelings? "

"Never heard of 'em before. They sound like a new kind of seagull. What
a chap you are for asking questions! " he replied. "I have to go to the
cashier of the Omnibus Company yonder. Will you wait for me and we can
lunch somewhere together? I've a notion for a poem. "

"No, thanks. I'm off. You're sure you know nothing about Skroelings? "

"Not unless he's been entered for the Liverpool Handicap. " He nodded and
disappeared in the crowd.

Now it is written in the Saga of Eric the Red or that of Thorfin
Karlsefne, that nine hundred years ago when Karlsefne's galleys came
to Leif's booths, which Leif had erected in the unknown land
called Markland, which may or may not have been Rhode Island, the
Skroelings--and the Lord He knows who these may or may not have
been--came to trade with the Vikings, and ran away because they were
frightened at the bellowing of the cattle which Thorfin had brought with
him in the ships.