The Night Land & Other Romances Read online

  The Night Land

  and Other Perilous Romances

  Being The Fourth Volume of

  The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson

  Edited by Jeremy Lassen

  Night Shade Books • San Francisco & Portland • 2005

  This edition of The Night Lands and Other Perilous Romances

  © 2005 by Night Shade Books

  Cover and interior artwork © 2005 by Jason Van Hollander

  Layout and design by Jeremy Lassen

  Introduction © 2005 by Jeremy Lassen

  A Note On the Texts © 2005 by Jeremy Lassen

  All rights reserved.

  First Edition

  ISBN 1-892389-41-X

  E-ISBN: 9781597803700

  Night Shade Books

  Please visit us on the web at

  http://www.nightshadebooks.com

  This series is dedicated to the readers, editors, publishers and scholars who have worked tirelessly since William Hope Hodgson’s death to ensure that his work would not be lost or forgotten. Without their efforts, these volumes would not be possible.

  In particular, the editor would like to thank S. T. Joshi, Mike Ashley, Jack Adrian and George Locke for their generous support.

  A Masterpiece of sorts

  “W H. Hodgson's The Night Land would have made it in eminence from the unforgettable somber splendor of the images it presents, if it were not disfigured by a sentimental and irrelevant erotic interest and fry a foolish and flat archaism of style.” — C. S. Lewis

  “The supreme master of imaginative horror in science fiction was William Hope Hodgson and his tour de force was the apocalyptic novel The Night Land...” — Sam Moskowitz

  “…an achievement without equal... a masterpiece of sorts.” — Brian Stableford

  THE NIGHT LAND IS William Hope Hodgson's towering achievement. Awe inspiringly massive, convoluted and purposefully archaic, it is his most ambitious and influential work... a “tour de force.” Numerous writers have taken up the gauntlet thrown down by Hodgson, and engage in similar thematic endeavors, many of which far surpass Hodgson's flawed masterpiece.

  The Night Land was published in 1912 by Eveleigh Nash. This was Hodgson's first book from Eveleigh Nash, and was not particularly successful, from a commercial standpoint. It is telling that while Hodgson had four more books issued by this publisher, they were all collections, and two of them collected popular serial characters.

  Some Hodgson scholars (notably Sam Gafford in his essay “Writing Backwards: The Novels of William Hope Hodgson”) have suggested that The Night Land was the first novel written by Hodgson — that his novels were written in the opposite order in which they were published. This idea is an intriguing one, and Gafford cites certain letters written by Hodgson in 1905 which support this idea. Regardless of the order of composition, what is clear is that subsequent to the publication of The Night Land, increasingly commercial short fiction made up the bulk of Hodgson's output.

  The subtitle of The Night Land — “A Love Tale” provides the thematic glue that binds this fourth volume of his collected fiction together — Hodgson's most un-commercial “romance” is presented here with his overtly romantic “woman’s” fiction. If C. S. Lewis had a problem with the “sentimental and irrelevant erotic interest” in The Night Land, he would be horrified by the stories contained in this volume, or at the very least, consigned them to the bins of crass commercial fiction from which they sprang.

  Nash’s Magazine, The Grand Magazine, Red Magazine, and Blue Magazine all provided outlets for Hodgson's romantic work, with “The Captain of the Onion Boat” being published prior to The Night Land, in 1910. In addition to its presence in Hodgson's collection Men of Deep Waters, “The Captain of the Onion Boat” was published in the U.S. in pamphlet form in 1911.

  “The Smugglers” and “The Wailing Gully” are a bit more plot driven then the others in this volume, but they are, at their heart, tales of romance. Grand Magazine provided the commercial outlet for these stories in March and September of 1911, respectively (again, prior to The Night Land publication).

  “The Girl with the Grey Eyes” and “Kind, Kind and Gentle is

  She” were published in Red Magazine in January and April of 1913, while “Timely Escape” wasn't published until after Hodgson's death in Blue Magazine in 1922.

  Critics like Lewis single out the sentiment of The Night Land as the source of its failure. Others suggest it is the falsely archaic style, which is even more overwrought and distracting than that the affected style of The Boats of the Glen Carrig. Still others point to its ponderous length. Despite all these flaws, and perhaps because of them, the novel does succeed. The unnatural tone, the epic length, and Hodgson's sentimentality all work together in a surprising way.

  The romantic fiction in this volume (along with other sentimental stories such as "The Valley of Lost Children", and "The Sea Horses" to be presented in Volume five), as well as Hodgson's relationship to his wife, all provide insight into a man who, despite the cosmic alienation for which he is most remembered, had a profoundly sentimental side which often manifested itself in his fiction. This duality then becomes the defining contradiction of his novel, The Night Land... “A Masterpiece of sorts...”

  The Dreams that are only Dreams

  “This to be Love, that your spirit to live in a natural holiness with the Beloved, and your bodies to be a sweet and natural delight that shall be never lost of a lovely mystery. . . . And shame to be unborn, and all things to go wholesome and proper, out of an utter greatness of understanding; and the Man to be an Hero and a Child before the Woman; and the Woman to be an Holy Light of the Spirit and an Utter Companion and in the same time a glad Possession unto the Man. . . . And this doth be Human Love. . . .”

  “. . . for this to be the especial glory of Love, that it doth make unto all Sweetness and Greatness, and doth be a fire burning all Littleness; so that did all in this world to have met The Beloved, then did Wantonness be dead, and there to grow Gladness and Charity, dancing in the years.”

  The Night Land

  A Love Tale

  The Dreams that are only Dreams

  “This to be Love, that your spirit to live in a natural holiness with the Beloved, and your bodies to be a sweet and natural delight that shall be never lost of a lovely mystery. . . . And shame to be unborn, and all things to go wholesome and proper, out of an utter greatness of understanding; and the Man to be an Hero and a Child before the Woman; and the Woman to be an Holy Light of the Spirit and an Utter Companion and in the same time a glad Possession unto the Man. . . . And this doth be Human Love. . . .”

  “. . . for this to be the especial glory of Love, that it doth make unto all Sweetness and Greatness, and doth be a fire burning all Littleness; so that did all in this world to have met The Beloved, then did Wantonness be dead, and there to grow Gladness and Charity, dancing in the years.”

  I

  Mirdath the Beautiful

  “And I cannot touch her face

  And I cannot touch her hair,

  And I kneel to empty shadows--

  Just memories of her grace;

  And her voice sings in the winds

  And in the sobs of dawn

  And among the flowers at night

  And from the brooks at sunrise

  And from the sea at sunset,

  And I answer with vain callings

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .”

  It was the Joy of the Sunset that brought us to speech. I was

  gone a long way from my house, walking lonely-wise, and stopping often that I view the piling upward of
the Battlements of Evening, and to feel the dear and strange gathering of the Dusk come over all the world about me.

  The last time that I paused, I was truly lost in a solemn joy of the Glory of the Coming Night; and maybe I laughed a little in my throat, standing there alone in the midst of the Dusk upon the World. And, lo! my content was answered out of the trees that bounded the country road upon my right; and it was so as that some one had said: “And thou also!” in glad understanding, that I laughed again a little in my throat; as though I had only a half-believing that any true human did answer my laugh; but rather some sweet Delusion or Spirit that was tuned to my mood.

  But she spoke and called me by my name; and when I had gone to the side of the road, that I should see her somewhat, and discover whether I knew her, I saw that she was surely that lady, who for her beauty was known through all of that sweet County of Kent as Lady Mirdath the Beautiful; and a near neighbour to me; for the Estates of her Guardian abounded upon mine.

  Yet, until that time, I had never met her; for I had been so oft and long abroad; and so much given to my Studies and my Exercises when at home, that I had no further Knowledge of her than Rumour gave to me odd time; and for the rest, I was well content; for as I have given hint, my books held me, and likewise my Exercises; for I was always an athlete, and never met the man so quick or so strong as I did be; save in some fiction of a tale or in the mouth of a boaster.

  Now, I stood instantly with my hat in my hand; and answered her gentle bantering so well as I might, the while that I peered intent and wondering at her through the gloom; for truly Rumour had told no tale to equal the beauty of this strange maid; who now stood jesting with so sweet a spirit, and claiming kinship of Cousinhood with me, as was truth, now that I did wake to think.

  And, truly, she made no ado; but named me frank by my lad’s name, and gave laughter and right to me to name her Mirdath, and nothing less or more—at that time. And she bid me then to come up through the hedge, and make use of a gap that was her own especial secret, as she confessed, when she took odd leave with her maid to some country frolic, drest as village maids; but not to deceive many, as I dare believe.

  And I came up through the gap in the hedge and stood beside her; and tall she had seemed to me, when I looked up at her; and tall she was, in truth; but indeed I was a great head taller. And she invited me then to walk with her to the house, that I meet her Guardian and give word to my sorrow that I had so long neglected to make call upon them; and truly her eyes to shine with mischief and delight, as she named me so for my amissness.

  But, indeed, she grew sober in a moment, and she set up her finger to me to hush, as that she heard somewhat in the wood that lay all the way upon our right. And, indeed, something I heard too; for there was surely a rustling of the leaves, and anon a dead twig crackt with a sound clear and sharp in the stillness.

  And immediately there came three men running out of the wood at me; and I called to them sharply to keep off or beware of harm; and I put the maid to my back with my left hand, and had my oak staff ready for my use.

  But the three men gave out no word of reply; but ran in at me; and I saw somewhat of the gleam of knives; and at that, I moved very glad and brisk to the attack; and behind me there went shrill and sweet, the call of a silver whistle; for the Maid was whistling for her dogs; and maybe the call was also a signal to the men-servants of her house.

  Yet, truly, there was no use in help that was yet to come; for the need did be then and instant; and I nowise loath to use my strength before my sweet cousin. And I stepped forward, briskly, as I have told; and the end of my staff I drove into the body of the left-ward man, so that he dropped like a dead man. And I hit very sharply at the head of another, and surely crackt it for him; for he made instantly upon the earth; but the third man I met with my fist, and neither had he any great need of a second blow; but went instant to join his companions, and the fight thus to have ended before it was even proper begun, and I laughing a little with a proper pride, to know the bewilderment that I perceived in the way that the Lady Mirdath, my cousin, stood and regarded me through the dusk of the hushed even.

  But, indeed, there was no time left to us, before there came bounding up, three great boar-hounds, that had been loosed to her whistle; and she had some ado to keep the brutes off me; and I then to beat them off the men upon the earth, lest they maul them as they lay. And directly, there was a noise of men shouting, and the light of lanthorns in the night, and the footmen of the house to come running with lanthorns and cudgels; and knew not whether to deal with me, or not, in the first moment, even as the dogs; but when they saw the men upon the ground, and learned my name and saw me proper, they kept well their distance and had no lack of respect; but, indeed, my sweet cousin to have the most of any; only that she showed no intent to keep distance of me; but to have a new and deeper feeling of kinship than she at first had shown.

  And the men-servants asked what should be done with the foot-pads; seeing that they were now recovering. But, indeed, I left the matter, along with some silver, to the servants; and very sound justice they dealt out to the men; for I heard their cries a good while after we had gone away.

  Now, when we were come up to the Hall, my cousin must take me in to her Guardian, Sir Alfred Jarles, an old man and venerable that I knew a little in passing and because our estates abounded. And she praised me to my face, yet quaintly-wise; and the old man, her Guardian thanked me most honourably and with a nice courtesy; so that I was a welcome house-friend from that time onward.

  And I stayed all that evening, and dined, and afterward went out again into the home-grounds with the Lady Mirdath; and she more friendly to me than ever any woman had been; and seemed to me as that she had known me always. And, truly, I had the same feeling in my heart towards her; for it was, somehow, as though we knew each the way and turn of the other, and had a constant delight to find this thing and that thing to be in common; but no surprise; save that so pleasant a truth had so natural a discovery.

  And one thing there was that I perceived held the Lady Mirdath all that dear fore-night; and this was, indeed, the way that I had my pleasure so easy with the three foot-pads. And she asked me plainly whether I was not truly very strong; and when I laughed with young and natural pride, she caught my arm suddenly to discover for herself how strong I might be. And, surely, she loosed it even the more sudden, and with a little gasping of astonishment, because it was so great and hard. And afterward, she walked by me very silent, and seeming thoughtful; but she went never any great way off from me.

  And, truly, if the Lady Mirdath had a strange pleasure in my strength, I had likewise a constant wonder and marvel in her beauty, that had shown but the more lovely in the candle-light at dinner.

  But there were further delights to me in the days that came; for I had happiness in the way that she had pleasure of the Mystery of the Evening, and the Glamour of Night, and the Joy of Dawn, and all suchlike.

  And one evening, that I ever remember, as we wandered in the park-lands, she began to say—half unthinking—that it was truly an elves-night. And she stopped herself immediately; as though she thought I should have no understanding; but, indeed, I was upon mine own familiar ground of inward delight; and I replied in a quiet and usual voice, that the Towers of Sleep would grow that night, and I felt in my bones that it was a night to find the Giant’s Tomb, or the Tree with the Great Painted Head, or— And surely I stopped very sudden; for she gripped me in that moment, and her hand shook as she held me; but when I would ask her what ailed, she bid me, very breathless, to say on, to say on. And, with a half understanding, I told her that I had but meant to speak of the Moon Garden, that was an olden and happy fancy of mine.

  And, in verity, when I said that, the Lady Mirdath cried out something in a strange low voice, and brought me to a halt, that she might face me. And she questioned me very earnest; and I answered just so earnest as she; for I was grown suddenly to an excitement, in that I perceived she knew also. An
d, in verity, she told me that she had knowledge; but had thought that she was alone in the world with her knowledge of that strange land of her dreams; and now to find that I also had travelled in those dear, strange dream lands. And truly the marvel of it—the marvel of it! As she to say time and oft. And again, as we walked, she gave out word that there was little wonder she had been urged to call to me that night, as she saw me pause upon the road; though, indeed, she had learned of our cousin-ship before, having seen me go by on my horse pretty oft, and inquired concerning me; and mayhap daintily irked that I had so little heed of Lady Mirdath the Beautiful. But, indeed, I had thought of other matters; yet had been human enough, had I but met her proper before I see her.

  Now you must not think that I was not utter stirred by the wonder of this thing, that we had both a dreamful knowledge of the same matters, of which each had thought none other knew. Yet, when I questioned more, there was much that had been in my fancies that was foreign to her, and likewise much that had been familiar to her, that was of no meaning to me. But though there was this, that brought a little regret to us, there would be, time and again, some new thing that one told, that the other knew and could finish the telling of, to the gladness and amazement of both.