









                        Chapter XXVI

                   "Neither Trees Nor Men"


In view of the disturbance caused among the populace by the
arrest of Endymion Leer, the Senate deemed it advisable that
his trial, and that of the widow Gibberty, should take
precedence of all other legal business; so as soon as the
two important witnesses, Peter Pease and Marjory Beach,
reached Lud-in-the-Mist, it was fixed for an early date.
   Never, in all the annals of Dorimare, had a trial been
looked forward to with such eager curiosity.  It was to
begin at nine o'clock in the morning, and by seven o'clock
the hall of justice was already packed, while a seething
crowd thronged the courtyard and overflowed into the High
Street beyond.
   On the front seats sat Dame Marigold, Dame Jessamine,
Dame Dreamsweet and the other wives of magistrates; the main
body of the hall was occupied by tradesmen and their wives,
and other quiet, well-to-do members of the community, and
behind them seethed the noisy, impudent, hawking,
cat-calling riff-raff -- 'prentices, sailors, pedlars,
strumpets; showing clearly on what side were their
sympathies by such ribald remarks as, "My old granny's pet
cockatoo is terrible fond of cherries, I think we should
tell the Town Yeomanry, and have it locked up as a
smuggler," or, "Where's Mumchance!  Send for Mumchance and
the Mayor!  Two hundred years ago an old gaffer ate a gallon
of crab soup and died the same night -- arrest Dr. Leer and
hang him for it."
   But as the clocks struck nine and Master Polydore Vigil,
in his priestly-looking purple robes of office embroidered
in gold with the sun and the moon and the stars, and the
other ten judges clad in scarlet and ermine filed slowly in
and, bowing gravely to the assembly, took their seats on the
dais, silence descended on the hall; for the fear of the Law
was inbred in every Dorimarite, even the most disreputable.
   Nevertheless, there was a low hum of excitement when
Mumchance in his green uniform, carrying an axe, and two or
three others of the Town Yeomanry, marched in with the two
prisoners, who took their places in the dock.
   Though Endymion Leer had for long been one of the most
familiar figures in Lud, all eyes were turned on him with as
eager a curiosity as if he had been some savage from the 
Amber Desert, the first of his kind to be seen in Dorimare;
and such curious tricks can the limelight of the Law play on
reality that many there thought that they could see his evil
sinister life writ in clear characters on his familiar
features.
   To the less impressionable of the spectators, however, he
looked very much as usual, though perhaps a little pale and
flabby about the gills.  And he swept the hall with his
usual impudent appraising glance, as if to say,
"Linsey-woolsey, linsey-woolsey!  But one must make the best
of a poor material."
   "He's going to give the judges a run for their money!"
   "If he's got to die, he'll die game!" gleefully whispered
various of his partisans.
   As for the widow, her handsome passionate face was deadly
pale and emptied of all expression; this gave her a sort of
tragic sinister beauty, reminiscent of the faces of the
funereal statues in the Fields of Grammary.
   "Not the sort of woman I'd like to meet in a lonely lane
at night," was the general comment she aroused.
   Then the Clerk of Arraigns called out "Silence!" and in a
solemn voice, Master Polydore said, "Endymion Leer and
Clementina Gibberty, hold up your hands."  They did so. 
Whereupon, Master Polydore read the indictment, as follows:
"Endymion Leer, and Clementina Gibberty, you are accused of
having poisoned the late Jeremiah Gibberty, farmer, and
law-man of the district of Swan-on-the-Dapple, thirty-six
years ago, with a fruit known as the berries of merciful
death."
   Then the plaintiff, a fresh-faced young girl (none other,
of course, than our old friend, Hazel) knelt at the foot of
the dais and was given the great seal to kiss; upon which
the Clerk of Arraigns led her up into a sort of carved
pulpit, whence in a voice, low, but so clear as to penetrate
to the furthest corners of the hall she told, with admirable
lucidity, the story of the murder of her grandfather.
   Next, Mistress Ivy, flustered and timid, told the Judges,
in somewhat rambling fashion, what she had already told
Master Nathaniel.
   Then came the testimony of Peter Pease and Marjory Beach,
and, finally, the document of the late farmer was handed
round among the Judges.
   "Endymion Leer!" called out Master Polydore, "the Law
bids you speak, or be silent, as your conscience prompts
you."
   And as Endymion Leer rose to make his defence, the
silence of the hall seemed to be trebled in intensity.
   "My Lords Judges!" he began, "I take my stand, not high
enough, perhaps, to be out of reach of the gibbet, but well
above the heads, I fancy, of everybody here to-day.  And,
first of all, I would have you bear in mind that my life has
been spent in the service of Dorimare."  (Here there was a
disturbance at the back of the hall and shouts of "Down with
the Senators!"  "Long live the good Doctor!"  But the
would-be rioters were cowed by the thunder of the Law,
rumbling in the "Silence!" of the Clerk of Arraigns.) 
   "I have healed and preserved your bodies -- I have tried
to do the same for your souls.  First, by writing a book --
published anonymously some years ago -- in which I tried to
show the strange seeds that are sleeping in each of you. 
But the book hardly aroused the enthusiasm that it so justly
deserved" (and he gave his old dry chuckle).  "In fact, not
to put too fine a point on it, the copies were burned by the
common hangman -- and could you have found the author you
would gladly have burned him too.  I can tell you since
writing it I have gone in fear of my life, and have hardly
dared to look a red-haired man in the face -- still less a
blue cow!" and here some of his partizans at the back of the
hall laughed uproariously.
   He paused, and then went on in a graver voice, "Why have
I taken all this trouble with you?  Why have I spent my
erudition and my skill on you thus?  To speak truth, I
hardly know myself... perhaps because I like playing with
fire; perhaps because I am relentlessly compassionate.
   "My friends, you are outcasts, though you do not know it,
and you have forfeited your place on earth.  For there are
two races -- trees and man; and for each there is a
different dispensation.  Trees are silent, motionless,
serene.  They live and die, but do not know the taste of
either life or death; to them a secret has been entrusted
but not revealed.
   "But the other tribe -- the passionate, tragic, rootless
tree -- man?  Alas! he is a creature whose highest
privileges are a curse.  In his mouth is ever the
bitter-sweet taste of life and death, unknown to the trees. 
Without respite he is dragged by the two wild horses, memory
and hope; and he is tormented by a secret that he can never
tell.  For every man worthy of the name is an initiate; but
each one into different Mysteries.  And some walk among
their fellows with the pitying, slightly scornful smile, of
an adept among catechumens.  And some are confiding and
garrulous, and would so willingly communicate their own
unique secret -- in vain!  For though they shout it in the
market-place, or whisper it in music and poetry, what they
say is never the same as what they know, and they are like
ghosts charged with a message of tremendous import who can
only trail their chains and gibber.
   "Such then are the two tribes.  Citizens of
Lud-in-the-Mist, to which do you belong?  To neither; for
you are not serene, majestic, and silent, nor are you
restless, passionate, and tragic.
   "I could not turn you into trees; but I had hoped to turn
you into men.
   "I have fed and healed your bodies; and I would fain have
done the same for your souls."  (He paused to mop his brow;
clearly it was more of an effort for him to speak than one
would have guessed.  Then he went on, and his voice had in
it a strange new thrill.)  "There is a land where the sun
and the moon do not shine; where the birds are dreams, the
stars are visions, and the immortal flowers spring from the
thoughts of death.  In that land grow fruit, the juices of 
which sometimes cause madness, and sometimes manliness; for
that fruit is flavoured with life and death, and it is the
proper nourishment for the souls of man.  You have recently
discovered that for some years I have helped to smuggle that
fruit into Dorimare.  The farmer Gibberty would have
deprived you of it -- and so I prescribed for him the
berries of merciful death."  (This admission of guilt caused
another disturbance at the back of the hall, and there were
shouts of "Don't you believe him!"  "Never say die, Doctor!"
and so on.  The Yeomanry had to put out various
rough-looking men, and Master Ambrose, sitting up on the
dais, recognised among them the sailor, Sebastian Thug, whom
he and Master Nathaniel had seen in the Fields of Grammary. 
When silence and order had been restored Endymion Leer went
on.)  "Yes, I prescribed for him the berries of merciful
death.  What could it matter to the world whether he reaped
the corn-fields of Dorimare, or the fields of gillyflowers
beyond the hills?
   "And now, my Lords Judges, I will forestall your
sentence.  I have pleaded guilty, and you will send me for a
ride on what the common people call Duke Aubrey's wooden
horse; and you will think that you are sending me there
because I helped to murder the farmer Gibberty.  But, my
Lords Judges, you are purblind, and, even in spectacles, you
can only read a big coarse script.  It is not *you* that are
punishing me, but others for a spiritual sin.  During these
days of my imprisonment I have pondered much on my own life,
and I have come to see that I have sinned.  But how?  I have
prided myself on being a good chemist, and in my crucibles I
can make the most subtle sauces yield up their secret --
whether it be white arsenic, rosalgar, mercury sublimate, or
cantharides.  But where is the crucible or the chemist that
can analyse a spiritual sin?
   "But I have not lived in vain.  You will send me to ride
on Duke Aubrey's wooden horse, and, in time, the
double-faced Doctor will be forgotten; and so will you, my
Lords Judges.  But Lud-in-the-Mist will stand, and the
country of Dorimare, and the dreaded country beyond the
hills.  And the trees will continue to suck life from the
earth and the clouds, and the winds will howl o' nights, and
men will dream dreams.  And who knows?  Some day, perhaps,
my fickle bitter-sweet master, the lord of life and death,
of laughter and tears, will come dancing at the head of his
silent battalions to make wild music in Dorimare.
   "This then, my Lords Judges, is my defence," and he gave
a little bow towards the dais.
   While he had been speaking, the Judges had shown
increasing symptoms of irritation and impatience.  This was
not the language of the Law.
   As for the public -- it was divided.  One part had sat
taut with attention -- lips slightly parted, eyes dreamy, as
if they were listening to music.  But the majority -- even
though many of them were partisans of the Doctor -- felt
that they were being cheated.  They had expected that their
hero, whether guilty or not, would in his defence quite 
bamboozle the Judges by his juggling with the evidence and
brilliant casuistry.  Instead of which his speech had been
obscure, and, they dimly felt, indecent; so the girls
tittered, and the young men screwed their mouths into those
grimaces which are the comment of the vulgar on anything
they consider both ridiculous and obscene.
   "Terribly bad taste, I call it," whispered Dame
Dreamsweet to Dame Marigold (the sisters-in-law had agreed
to bury the hatchet) "you always said that little man was a
low vulgar fellow."  But Dame Marigold's only answer was a
little shrug, and a tiny sigh.
   Then came the turn of the widow Gibberty to mount the
pulpit and make her defence.
   Before she began to speak, she fixed in turn the judges,
plaintiff, and public, with an insolent scornful stare. 
Then, in her deep, almost masculine voice, she began:
"You've asked me a question to which you know the answer
well enough, else I shouldn't be standing here now.  Yes, I
murdered Gibberty -- and a good riddance too.  I was for
killing him with the sap of osiers, but the fellow you call
Endymion Leer, who was always a squeamish, tenderhearted,
sort of chap (if there was nothing to lose by it, that's to
say) got me the death-berries and made me give them to him
in a jelly, instead of the osiers."  (It was a pity Master
Nathaniel was not there to glory in his own acumen!)  "And
it was not only because they caused a painless death that he
preferred the berries.  He had never before seen them at
their work, and he was always a death-fancier -- tasting,
and smelling, and fingering death, like a farmer does
samples of grain at market.  Though, to give him his due, if
it hadn't been for him, that girl over there who has just
been standing up to denounce him and me" (and she nodded in
the direction of the pale, trembling, Hazel) "and her father
before her would long ago have gone the way of the farmer. 
And this I say in the hope that the wench's conscience may
keep her awake sometimes in the nights to come, remembering
how she dealt with the man who had saved her life.  It will
be but a small prick, doubtless; but it is the last that I
can give her.
   "And now, good people, here's a word of advice to you,
before I go my last ride, a pillion to my old friend
Endymion Leer.  Never you make a pet of a dead man.  For the
dead are dirty curs and bite the hand that has fed them";
and with an evil smile she climbed down from the pulpit,
while more than one person in the audience felt faint with
horror and would willingly have left the hall.
   There was nothing left but for Master Polydore to
pronounce the sentence; and though the accused had stolen
some of his thunder, nevertheless the solemn time-honoured
words did not fail to produce their wonted thrill:
   "Endymion Leer and Clementina Gibberty, I find you guilty
of murder, and I consign your bodies to the birds, and your
souls to whence they came.  And may all here present take
example from your fate, correcting their conduct if it needs
correction, or, if it be impeccable, keeping it so.  For
every tree can be a gallows, and every man has a neck to
hang." 
   The widow received her sentence with complete stolidity;
Endymion Leer with a scornful smile.  But as it was
pronounced there was a stir and confusion at the back of the
hall, and a grotesque frenzied figure broke loose from the
detaining grip of her neighbours, and, struggling up to the
dais, flung herself at the feet of Master Polydore.  It was
Miss Primrose Crabapple.
   "Your Worship!  Your Worship!" she cried, shrilly, "Hang
me instead of him!  My life for his!  Was it not I who gave
your daughters fairy fruit, with my eyes open!  And I glory
in the knowledge that I was made a humble instrument of the
same master whom he has served so well.  Dear Master
Polydore, have mercy on your country, spare your country's
benefactor, and if the law must have a victim let it be me
-- a foolish useless woman, whose only merit was that she
believed in loveliness though she had never seen it."
   Weeping and struggling, her face twisted into a grotesque
tragic mask, they dragged her from the hall, amid the 
laughter and ironical cheers of the public.
   That afternoon Mumchance came to Master Polydore to
inform him that a young maid-servant from the Academy had
just been to the guard-room to say that Miss Primrose
Crabapple had killed herself.
   Master Polydore at once hurried off to the scene of the
tragedy, and there in the pleasant old garden where so many
generations of Crabapple Blossoms had romped, and giggled,
and exchanged their naughty little secrets, he found Miss
Primrose, hanging stone-dead from one of her own
apple-trees.
   "Well, as the old song has it, Mumchance" said Master
Polydore -- "`Here hangs a maid who died for love.'"
   Master Polydore was noted for his dry humour.

   A gibbet had been set up in the great court of the
Guildhall, and the next day, at dawn, Endymion Leer and the
widow Gibberty were hanged by the neck till they died.
   Rumour said that as the Doctor's face was contorted in
its last grimace strange silvery peals of laughter were
heard proceeding from the room where long ago Duke Aubrey's
jester had killed himself.
