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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Cinderella in the South, by Arthur Shearly
+Cripps
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Cinderella in the South
+       Twenty-Five South African Tales 
+
+
+Author: Arthur Shearly Cripps
+
+
+
+Release Date: October 5, 2007  [eBook #22886]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CINDERELLA IN THE SOUTH***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Charles Klingman
+
+
+
+CINDERELLA IN THE SOUTH
+
+
+New York Agents
+Longmans, Green & Co.
+Fourth Avenue and 30th Street
+
+
+CINDERELLA IN THE SOUTH
+
+South African Tales
+
+by
+
+ARTHUR SHEARLY CRIPPS
+
+Author of 'Faerylands Forlorn,'
+'Lyra Evangelistica,' Etc.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Oxford
+B. H. Blackwell, Broad Street
+MCMXVIII
+
+
+
+To C. H. CRIPPS
+
+FRIEND AND KINSMAN.
+
+Grace me these veld spoils rude with name of thine!
+Mine's been the luck not thine these long years now
+To tread the veld. What other use had'st thou,
+Hunter and Horseman, made of chances mine!
+Nor horns nor heads have I to give to thee,
+Yet spoils of sorts veld spoils I bring with me.
+
+A. S. C.
+
+Eukeldoorn, Mashonaland.
+
+October 11th, 1917.
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+   PROLOGUE
+
+   THE THING THAT HATH BEEN
+
+   NEW LIGHT ON AN OLD CHAMPION
+
+   FUEL OF FIRE
+
+   'LA BELLE DAME'
+
+   THE SCENTED TOWN
+
+   THE PLACE OF PILGRIMAGE
+
+   THE LEPER WINDOWS
+
+   THE BURNT OFFERING
+
+   EIGHTY-EIGHT IN LAVENDER
+
+   DIVINATION
+
+   JULIAN
+
+   THE DOUBLE CABIN
+
+   INTELLIGENCE
+
+   A CREDIT BALANCE
+
+   MAN'S AIRY NOTIONS
+
+   PISGAH
+
+   A LION IN THE WAY
+
+   AS TREES WALKING
+
+   THE BLACK DEATH
+
+   AN OLD-WORLD SCRUPLE
+
+   FOR HIS COUNTRY'S GOOD
+
+   LE ROI EST MORT
+
+   THE RIDING OF THE RED HORSE
+
+   THREE AND AFRICA
+
+   OUR LADY OF THE LAKE
+
+   EPILOGUE
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE
+
+[AFRICA AND HER SISTERS.]
+
+Some fifteen years now I have been her guest,
+For all this land's hers, tho' she does not reign.
+She's but a ward, at what late age she'll gain
+Her freedom and her kingdom, it were best
+To risk no surmise rash. E'en now she's drest
+Sometimes in skins. Give her ground-nuts and grain,
+Cattle and thatch'd hut, then she'll not complain,
+She's happier-hearted than her Sisters blest.
+
+Her Sisters blest! Of them what shall I say?
+I like them better when they keep away,
+And toil in their own lands, not loll in hers.
+They use her ill. She's not so old as they.
+She drudges for them. But her youth confers
+A charm on her they've lost these many years.
+
+
+
+
+THE THING THAT HATH BEEN
+
+What's the good of him?' said the bar-tender to me. 'If he could
+tell us how the Ruins came he might be worth a forty-pound cheque
+every month, or at least a twenty one. But he can't.'
+
+We were discussing the new appointment of a Government Curator at
+the Mabgwe Ruins. I approved it, the bar-tender did not. I
+pleaded that he was a bit exacting, that the Curator had a very
+cold scent to puzzle out, and that he had tried plodding about
+from ruins to ruins, moling and sapping and mining, not to speak
+of writing to the Rhodesian Press. Afterwards I shouldered my
+knapsack, sought counsel with my carriers as to ways and means,
+crossed the river and took the Ruins road. A motor-car hurtled
+past me when I was within two miles. Its driver had been pointed
+out to me as a Jo'burg magnate; his passengers I did not know,
+but I was soon to know them. I was the first to reach the Ruins
+after all; for their arrival time being one o'clock, and their
+halting-place a hotel. Civilization demanded that they should
+lunch there.
+
+I drank from the fair water by the temple's western approach, and
+sat down to smoke under a tree in the precincts. The big cone of
+the main tower was just in sight. I had seen the walls before,
+and was in no analytical mood; synthesis was enough for me. I
+took in with my delighted eyes a roofless dome worthy to be a
+temple of some sort, even if it were not, a blue roof that
+bettered mere human aspiration, debris testifying to earthly
+incompleteness, a broken column with its memento mori all these
+were simmering in my vision and my judgment. I half dozed until
+the voices of the lunchers began to interest me. They were doing
+the rounds rather hastily, lunch having cut into their time, so
+short at its very best.
+
+A Church dignitary from our own territory was with them. He
+introduced himself to me, and he also introduced an engineer. He
+was a patriotic Rhodesian, that dignitary, and denounced McIver,
+who had dared to assign to the Ruins a native origin.
+
+'Such nonsense!' he said. 'Believe me, my dear sir, I know the
+natives, and I know the natives never built these walls. Poor
+creatures; they want firm handling, don't they? They're always in
+want of bossing-up. But as for this display of art, they haven't
+it in them, and they never had.'
+
+The engineer did not seem interested in what was said, or in what
+I answered. He was a man of few words. He went off to the eastern
+wall, whither we followed him. I found him poking about there
+with a stick. The Jo'burg charioteer was soon fussing along,
+hurrying on tea-time. 'He didn't want to get a dose of fever this
+trip,' he said. He had heard about our unhealthy season up north,
+and the month was now April. He wanted to be back by sunset. So
+it came to pass that his party went off to tea with but side-glances
+at the hill-fastness.
+
+'I'm neither a baboon nor a nigger,' said their host, when I
+proposed that he should go up. After all, it was good-natured of
+him to motor the dignitary out, I considered. He himself affected
+no sort of interest in antiquities, and the dignified antiquarian
+under his care was so wearily keen. I went to tea with them,
+postponing my reveries to camping time and night. It was not
+until we were eating guavas at the end of our meal that the
+engineer came in. Then the Jo'burger told him to hurry up, and
+went off to cherish his car. As to the engineer, his scanty
+tea-time was not left in peace. The dignitary lectured him on the
+true and patriotic theory of Ophir, on Astarte's worship, and
+Solomon's gold. He answered very little, but he hinted that there
+were difficulties. His lecturer glowed, and appealed to the
+Curator, who had just come in, bent and shaken with fever.
+Unhappily, yet happily for me, he trod on one of the curator's
+archaeological corns and involved himself in an apology. Before
+he was out of the wood I had asked the engineer a question or
+two.
+
+'No time to talk now,' he said, 'too much cackle. Come and see me
+in the town. Or, if I miss you there, I may see you on the road,
+mayn't I? I'm due out your way in three days.'
+
+Soon after he was petroled away. I went to camp in a clearing, to
+sup, to smoke, to read my guidebook. At last the night aged, and
+the moon rose. My carriers slept. I looked up in the night's
+starred face and beheld 'Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance'
+there. But would I ever live to trace them by 'the magic hand of
+chance,' as Keats called the grace of God? I began again to
+mumble the lines of my guide-book, and found them rather bare and
+dry. I looked up at the vast tapering walls. Why was there no
+script there? After all, that trenchant argument outweighed a
+many arguments; it scaled up like Brennus's sword, and made for a
+clear issue. I looked at the sleeping carriers. Did they hold the
+secret, not in tradition, not in history, but in the fleshy
+tables of the heart and brain and aspiration of their race? I
+went to sleep and dreamed of men building, building, building.
+They were building stone kraals for their sacred trusts of kine,
+chipping and carving away at their totem hawks and their
+crocodiles, breaking limbs and necks over a sky-high tower, with
+stones for their bricks, and no slime to make them mortar. How
+they sang over their work, and how it grew! Talk of Troy's walls;
+if only Kaffirs would start building a Troy, or a Palace of Art,
+or a Spiritual City, how the work would go forward to the music
+of them! I could hear all the parts in their melodies the
+checking and countering and refrains and responses of them. But,
+before I woke, the parts were merged in full chorus. With that
+unison music in my ears I rose and knelt and rose again hastily.
+Then I ran round to the eastern wall under the zig-zag patterns.
+I came only just in time to see the sunrise by so doing.
+
+It was three days after that I caught up Spenser, the Government
+engineer.
+
+'I have seen buildings in North Africa,' he told me. 'They
+weren't much like those at Mabgwe. In the north, if they built
+with stones they built with great slabs. But those granite flakes
+at Mabgwe were easy for a primitive people to manage a very
+primitive people. Very primitive, or why did they build on sand
+when, six inches deeper, they might have founded on bed-rock?
+They didn't understand arches, seemingly. They weren't very
+careful about bond in building, were they? Nor were they very
+careful to break joint outside, much less inside, so far as I can
+judge. And the script; where is it? And the graves; where are
+they? If they were Semites, why didn't they write? If they were
+Semites, why didn't they bury? . . . But it isn't as easy as it
+looks, the riddle. There are one or two jagged ends that conical
+tower, for instance.'
+
+We camped that evening near a Mission. I admired the oblong
+iron-roofed church there. It wasn't my style of art, but it seemed
+to me fair of its kind.
+
+'Quite good,' growled my expert friend, and he said no more at
+the time. He spoke more freely over a last pipe.
+
+'I'm sorry,' he said, 'not to take more interest in this sort of
+thing. Only, after all, it's African-built, and Europeans could
+do the thing a bit better, couldn't they? This sort of thing
+seems rather a wrong line of advance. If I hadn't seen Mabgwe so
+lately I mightn't mind so much.'
+
+They showed us to a hut, a very clean one. 'That's better; that's
+ever so much better,' he said. On the wall was a rude frieze in
+Bushman painting style, but white, not red. I enlightened him as
+to tsenza work, as to how you could use the cool watery roots
+like crayons.
+
+'Why, that's surely Jezebel looking out of that grain-bin,' he
+hazarded. 'But what are those?'
+
+'The dogs to eat her,' I answered.
+
+They were horrid little whelps with human heads. I told him about
+certain night-fears common among natives. 'It was a solid
+Christian who dared to paint these,' I surmised.
+
+'If you could only get Africans to believe what Christians
+believed in the thirteenth century you might see signs and
+wonders yet,' he said.
+
+He has not been our way again since April, but I met him at the
+Pro-Cathedral Pageant in January. It was organized by a Pageant
+Master, our mutual friend the dignitary. Therein Asia, King
+Solomon and Sheba's Queen, were represented. Africa was relegated
+to her proper Cinderella and Plantation Chorus part. 'Poor
+creatures!' Spenser said, with a grimace, and winked at me.
+
+'Come, and I will show you a thing,' he said to me afterwards; 'a
+thing I chanced on in the Christmas holidays. It's ten miles out.
+I want to inspan at six sharp to-morrow.'
+
+I was guilty of three omissions next day. I cut a clerical
+meeting; I flouted the True Romance in the shape of the Pageant's
+second performance; I also missed the bazaar of St. Uriel's
+Native Church that was held on the Pageant ground. St. Uriel's
+structure had been put out to European contract; it was a very
+didactic building, so the Pageant-Master told us. We passed it on
+our way out to the kopje country.
+
+'About as sensuously lovely as a Pills' advertisement,' was
+Spenser's comment. 'A good pity and terror purge.'
+
+I sighed indulgently.
+
+'It's very popular, I've heard, among the town boys. It's so very
+European to native eyes, so extra corrugated and angular.'
+
+We came up at last to that which we sought a huge ellipse and
+dome of stones and earth, rising and broadening under our very
+eyes. It was on a farm among the granite hills, many miles from
+Rosebery. 'It's only a glorified stone cattle-byre, and an
+intensified stone Kaffir hut,' Spenser commented. 'It's not even
+built the old Mabgwe way. These are only blocks of granite; a few
+of them broken, but not one of them dressed. And there's lots of
+mud to eke them out.'
+
+'Yet there's hope in the thing. It's not an artistic dead-end
+like Saint Uriel's,' I pleaded.
+
+One or two Europeans, very unskilled ones I could see, had
+planned this bit of work, and taken part in it. They had made
+themselves at charges for it, though African gifts had not been
+wanting. They had, so to speak, coaxed their African pack on to
+try an old scent. Now the moving European spirit was gone home
+for months to England. Before he went the former rains had ruined
+some of the work. He had been too ambitious, too scornful of
+delay. Forewarned by Africans, he had pressed to a midsummer
+disaster. Now he had left Africans in charge. He had trusted them
+to go on. One Christian, in particular, he had trusted his fellow
+and his master in building. The boy had built at a colonial's
+cattle-kraal once. His skill had multiplied as he built on at the
+great church, and now he was a master craftsman. Doggedly he was
+building up again the rain-ruined bastions. The work was going
+with a swing, if a slow one. The scent was no longer a cold one.
+The pack were belling and chiming over it, and they were running
+with their huntsman out of sight.
+
+'I don't understand this bit of work properly,' Spenser said.
+'What's made the dry bones live?'
+
+'Inspiration,' I said reverently. 'Looked at in one way it's Art.
+Looked at all ways it's Religion. It's the same sort of thing as
+went on, I suppose, when the faith of sun and moon was a power.
+Now the faith of Christ is gathering force in the land. The land
+isn't an Italy, and our twentieth century isn't that old
+thirteenth century; yet look out for the signs and wonders you
+spoke of. Likely enough they're to be expected.'
+
+We went to the Pageant Master's lecture on the Mabgwe Ruins that
+night, when we had driven back to Rosebery. It was more
+interesting to me as a subjective study than an objective display
+of learning.
+
+'Poor creatures!' the lecturer said of the natives. 'Don't put
+them in a false light. Whatever claims they may have to equable
+treatment, they have no claim to be considered romantic. The
+ancient romance of this country is the romance of a nobler race
+the romance of the Tyrian trader, Tyrian or Sabaean. Allow me but
+a trifling emendation, and Matthew Arnold's lines will serve to
+indicate that romance.' Substituting 'Zambesians' for 'Iberians,'
+he gave us the last lines of 'The Scholar Gipsy.' 'In that era of
+Tyre's trade,' he concluded, 'I place the golden age of our
+country a golden age which under our own Imperial rule begins
+anew.'
+
+'H'm,' said Spenser. 'That live Mashona building-boy's worth many
+dead Phoenicians to me, at any rate. As to defining romance, we'd
+better agree to differ. 'Do well unto thyself, and all men will
+speak well of thee,' he went on, with a tang of bitterness.
+'Jew-boys and Arabs mopped up trade when they were living, now they
+jump other men's kudos, being dead.'
+
+'Never mind.' I said. 'Art for Art's sake, aspiration for
+aspiration's, faith for faith's! And some there be which have no
+memorial; who are perished as though they had never been; and are
+become as though they had never been born; and their children
+after them.'
+
+'Never mind,' it was his turn to say. 'That granite kopje church
+is rising, and Magbwe Ruins stand the quick and the dead. These
+shall both come up for judgment and get justice. Yes, if they
+have to wait for it till the Supreme Court of Alt holds session.'
+
+
+
+NEW LIGHT ON AN OLD CHAMPION
+
+
+
+We were going on an expedition long before the morning light
+came. Our ship was an armed steamer a converted cargo boat. We
+had reinforced our naval guns' crews and our Indian ship's guard
+by taking officers and native soldiers (askaris) aboard at a
+certain bay. We had reinforced our artillery by borrowing a Maxim
+from the shore. I had a guest on board that night, a cheerful
+padre. How he seemed to relish his craft, and how able I esteemed
+him. I was very raw at the work, and he helped me to understand
+what my defects were both in nature and grace. He had the
+sort of smile, I thought the real, right sort to warm a naval
+parishioner's heart. He was very keen on the new sort of thrills
+and experiences that he had sought for himself by coming aboard.
+
+We reclined on camp beds high up on the bridge-deck, but we did
+not drop asleep when the electric light failed and faded. We
+asked each other's ages, and discussed parts of England as we had
+known them in more peaceful days; then we assured one another
+that we wanted to rise early. We were to steam off on our sudden
+raid in the dark. Coffee had been ordered about 5:30; action
+might be expected to begin not much later than 6 a.m. We speculated
+as to whether it were true that our ship would have to face an
+old field gun's fire on the morrow, as well as a Maxim's. I was
+eloquent as I told how our four-inch gun might be expected to
+shake the ship. After that, in the dimness we talked shop; we had
+neither of us possibly had many easy openings for that ravishing
+employment lately.
+
+Was it right to pray for our own side's success? I was steadfast
+in my scruples as to praying thus, my new-found friend was
+inclined to be a little scornful of them. 'Is there a God of the
+Germans fighting the English tribal God?' I asked rather
+irreverently, and my friend showed that he was shocked. I
+apologized. 'Let's leave the Supreme Power out,' I said. 'Let's
+consider the action of the saints in this war. Are they supposed
+to be scrapping like the gods in Homer English Saint George
+against German Saint Michael and so on?' But my friend did not
+seem very keen about either Homer or hagiology. He explained that
+he was a C.M.S. man, and not a medievalist. The discussion
+languished, ere he murmured 'Good night.'
+
+I slept rather fitfully. I was awake long before the ship moved
+away on her fierce errand. At last, when she had been steaming
+some while, I stole down in the dark to the bathroom. When I came
+out of it the grey twilight was beginning. I crept aft and looked
+over the bulwark, wondering how far we were away now. The shore
+Maxim was in place there with plenty of sand bags about it, but
+the officer in charge of it was still stretched abed. His friend
+the Intelligence Officer, who had messed with us last night, was
+snoring on another bed beside him. I stood looking at a dusky
+island in the moonlight, and began praying a favorite prayer of
+mine for those times, asking God to let Saint Michael cover our
+heads in the day of battle. I muttered the prayer very low, but
+it appeared that somebody heard. A slim figure, seemingly in
+khaki, that I had not noticed, rose up from a seal; on the sand
+bags.
+
+'Are you praying something about battles?' it asked. I started,
+and assented clumsily.
+
+'How does one pray about battles nowadays?' the investigator
+proceeded. He spoke in the friendliest way, and managed to set
+even me at ease. So I told him what I had prayed for.
+
+'It sounds a fair sort of prayer; better than some I've heard,'
+he allowed, as he sat down again. 'Some people seem to forget the
+last lot of the Books in the Bible when they pray nowadays.' I
+heartily agreed.
+
+'I don't believe for one,' he went on, 'that Saint Michael is
+passionately interested in wiping out either English or askaris
+or Germans. It's surely better to pray about him like you prayed.
+I should think the negative work appeals to him more than the
+positive, the salvage more than the blotting.'
+
+His voice was clear, and evidently carried. The Maxim's warden
+grumbled, and began to sit up in bed.
+
+'Possibly,' this disturber of slumber went on quite
+unconcernedly, 'Saint Michael has a clearer notion as to the real
+enemy than some clients who invoke him.'
+
+Then the officer in pyjamas accosted me, and the thread of the
+other's talk was lost. When I moved off to dress he had already
+left his perch among the sand bags. I climbed the ladder, and had
+my coffee. Soon after came the scurry to stations. We were coming
+into the bay in the glory of that morning under hangings of amber
+and rose and feathery grey. The four-inch gun's crew were in
+their places. I stood trying to read the Prayer before Action in
+its very small print. I murmured what I was doing to my cheery
+colleague, so much more enthusiastic than I was about what seemed
+to be coming. Then someone came up and spoke to me. It was surely
+my friend from the sand bags. I could see him properly now. He
+was surely an officer. He stood up slender and shapely in his
+khaki, but he was not wearing a single star or a regimental badge
+of any kind. Had he forgotten these in the hurry of this eager
+morning? With but a few words, he passed on towards the guns'
+crews. Soon our four-inch gun was shaking the ship horribly. We
+were shelling a trench that ran up a hillside, they said. I sat
+under cover of the bulwark near some kneeling riflemen, far from
+enjoying myself. Yet no gun roared back in answer to our own. It
+seemed to be one-sided enough, this operation of war.
+
+'It's a fearful weapon,' remarked my colleague rather
+complacently, as he paced towards the gun platform. One prayed
+for those who were naked to its fearsomeness up on the hill
+there, and prayed about Saint Michael's intervention to Saint
+Michael's Commander-in-Chief. The long-drawn moments slurred by
+us. A bell rang as the ship wound her way in slowly. The mournful
+cry of him who took the soundings came again and again. Then we
+stopped dead anew, and our gun's mouth roared and flamed.
+
+'Such a crowd of askaris; the hill's black with them!' So the
+signalman cried to the doctor, as he sped by on a message. I was
+interested in watching the gun-layer as he readjusted the dragon
+mouth. But what had my friend of the sand-bags to do with the
+matter? He moved among the gun's crew, and none said him nay; his
+hands were on the gun after the accredited gunlayer's. We shelled
+another position, and then another. Afterwards came a lull, and
+some of us hurried up to breakfast.
+
+There was much talk there of the possible or probable slaughter
+we had effected. Doubtless the store ship that had followed us
+and hung behind us had served us well. Those on shore Had surely
+been more disposed to hold to their positions, fearing that she
+carried troops, and meant to land them. Now she was steaming
+slowly away. How many did our bag amount to? The Intelligence
+Officer was sanguine, so was my colleague, but the gunnery
+officer was rather pessimistic. 'Two or three of those rounds
+went just wrong,' he grunted. 'We've struck a bad day.' After
+that the porridge and the bacon and the eggs were done with; we
+were soon back at our stations. Once more our gun bombarded. Once
+more no answer came. Now occurred the cruise of the motor boat;
+the best adventure of the day so far, as it seemed to me.
+
+The boat was lowered, and the shore Maxim mounted in it. Sand
+bags were piled up in plenty. A Naval Reserve officer, fair-haired
+and young faced, sprang in to join the gun's officer. There was
+also a British bluejacket ready to go, and there were African
+soldiers and sailors, as well as the two engine-men, English and
+Goanese. They were to beat up the river, and hunt down canoes,
+should any appear.
+
+My heart thrilled as I uttered God-speed to the Maxim warden. I
+think he was unmarried, but his fellow officer was both husband
+and father; they might have a fiery time in front. Last my
+graceful friend, with no stars or badges on his khaki, slipped
+into the boat. He seemed to come and go as he liked, and none
+refused his services. The boat hummed away from us, past some
+rocks, and round a headland into the unseen. Then our ship
+traveled on slowly, before she stopped and fired again. She shot
+away many rounds that time. I was sick and weary of the firing as
+I sat on the deck by the doctor's cabin. My colleague was much
+more alert and cheerful. He had secured a shell-case by the naval
+commander's bounty. 'They make such splendid trophies,' he told
+me. But I did not covet one much. I thought of how such war
+trophies were in demand for Christmas decoration vases in a
+church by the lakeside. I also thought of the quite possible
+horror and havoc of shattered askaris' bodies that those splendid
+trophies might be supposed to have wrought. How one thought
+besides of the adventurers in that whizzing motor-boat during
+that next half-hour. But as it turned out, according to their
+disappointed report, not a shot was fired at them.
+
+'We let fly with the Maxim at some natives and one European on
+shore,' the gun-worker shouted, as they drew up at the ship's
+side. 'We saw some canoes, three of them. Askaris were in them,
+and urging the paddlers on. Then, of all times, the Maxim took it
+into its head to jam badly. So we didn't get them.' I happened to
+catch my friend in khaki's eye as the other lamented. He looked
+quite cheerful about things, while the other went on, 'We'd have
+sunk the lot, if it hadn't jammed just then.'
+
+The thought flickered into my mind as to whether anybody was
+responsible for that singular coincidence. I looked in my
+friend's face with some sort of an uneasy question. But he only
+smiled. His face was strangely prepossessing, so entirely
+fearless, yet not the least truculent. His brown eyes and boy's
+lips answered my question with the most engaging of smiles. Those
+brown eyes assorted piquantly with his very fair hair. He had
+pushed his white helmet far back on his yellow head. Half an hour
+later we were in our action stations once more. Our riflemen were
+firing at individual askaris (were they all askaris, and not
+unhappy villagers?) who could be descried upon the shore. The
+signalman, passing by again, snatched a rifle and fired just
+beside me. One of the Maxims meanwhile was working away grimly,
+the officer's face was set firm as he steadied his coughing
+machine. Then it was that I saw my unattached friend step towards
+him, and take up his stand behind him. Ping! A bullet came just
+over the gun-director's head. 'That was a near shave,' the
+warrant officer told me afterwards. 'Someone aimed too high, or
+he'd have got him that worked the gun.'
+
+Yet it was a mystery to me why the bullet did not get that
+handsome head behind and above him, the head that I reflected had
+doubtless helped to draw the fire so high. He who had exposed
+himself came to me untouched. 'It looked near,' he allowed to me
+smiling. He stayed by us for the rest of that fell morning. He
+smiled, and bade me cheer up, when the naval commander went by;
+had he not twitted me for sitting safe under the bulwark and
+wincing when the four-inch gun roared? He smiled also a little
+ironically when my colleague came up, still fondling his trophy
+and dilating on its splendor. Then he smiled again and again as
+he moved behind him to and fro on the deck, watching him in the
+pitiless firing. He smiled moreover when he moved up to the gun;
+he was revising the gunlayer's work now and then, so far as I
+could make out his movements. He smiled afterwards when the
+Intelligence Officer made such sanguine estimates of the
+slaughter we had dealt out to forts and trenches. They were
+talking together, he and his comrade of the Maxim gun, discussing
+whether the bag was really a big one, the former as glib with the
+pros as the latter was with the cons. The tall listener smiled
+rather wistfully as he heard them. After the last round from the
+six-pounder had been fired, before we went to lunch, he came up
+and said farewell to me. 'But I shall see you again on board,
+shan't I?' I asked. 'We shan't put you off at the Bay till nearly
+sunset, shall we?' 'I may be getting off long before then,' he
+said, but he did not explain how. My prayer book had fallen on
+the deck, and he picked it up and gave it to me. 'Mind you keep
+to your own line,' he said. 'I like that prayer in your prayer
+book about Saint Michael. Doubtless he's covered not a few
+people's heads in this day of battle, not all of them on the one
+side. It's likely enough he has unearthly notions about war, as
+he's an unearthly being. Perhaps the dragon he makes war on, war
+to the death, is neither England nor Germany, but just the
+scrapping between them.'
+
+'What do you mean?' I asked, rather puzzled. Yet he only smiled,
+he was not very explicit.
+
+'Oh, by the way,' he said. 'They tell me you've promised to build
+a mission church to Saint Michael if you get back to the south
+safe and sound.' I wondered afterwards who they were that had
+told him.
+
+'Yes, I said, 'and if I don't, the building of it's endowed in my
+will.'
+
+'Why not take the shell-cases,' he said, 'if they offer you some?
+You needn't use them in your church as altar-vases. They'd
+make a splendid trophy under Saint Michael's feet, a gleaming,
+sleek-barreled serpent of slaughter, just the sort of dragon for
+him to tread, and delight in treading. Good-bye.'
+
+He was gone amongst the sailors, just as the steward called me up
+to the cold soup. I saw no more of him on the voyage, nor have I
+seen him since that September day. The one or two I asked about
+him seemed not to know whom I meant. I have often wondered who he
+was since then, and have framed a theory. Perhaps you can guess
+what it is without my needing to write it down.
+
+
+
+FUEL OF FIRE
+
+
+
+I was lucky to get a lift. We had risen before the moon took to
+her bed, and the sun had left his. We were driving through green
+woodlands when the light grew clear around us. A little while ago
+their graceful trees had been ruddy or bronze doubtless. Now it
+was the turn of the hill-trees on the great kopje that we passed
+within a mile, to grow bronzed and to redden. For the month of
+November had only just come in. We outspanned in a valley where
+the new green of the grass had come already. No doubt a month ago
+it had looked very black and fire-scathed. Now the showers had
+brought kind healing and amendment. We made our morning Memorial
+together (being all of us Christians bound on some sort of a
+Christian pilgrimage), and after that we breakfasted and smoked
+at ease while the mules grazed close by, and the driver boiled
+his pot, and fed it with meal, and stirred and ladled out, and
+ate in the fullness of time. My heart was very thankful. How much
+better and kindlier one's lot seemed now fallen as it was once
+again in this fair ground of a country at peace in Wartime. This
+countryside pleased me ever so much better than British East or
+German East this Mashonaland. There to north I remembered without
+enthusiasm the tropical passions of the elements, I remembered
+rather miserably some of the things that a state of war had
+meant.
+
+After breakfast, there was no hurry about our inspanning. But
+when we had once got off we were soon up level with the farmhouse
+on the hill's shoulder. We halted for friendship's sake, and
+waited for the cups of coffee that we were assured would be soon
+ready. Our host was Dutch-looking, but seemed British; I thought
+rather narrowly British in his sympathies. He discussed the War
+keenly and thoughtfully with my companion. He had two brothers in
+German East, I knew, and he was soon asking me about them. But
+our paths up that way had not converged. I could only tell him by
+hearsay about the main advance, wherein they had been sharing,
+and I had not. As I told, a dark handsome, gentle-voiced woman
+brought our coffee out. Soon a shy little girl put her head round
+the corner of the stoep, and withdrew' it again. I jumped down to
+greet her. Then she agreed to come and shake hands with us both.
+Her father colored up, and smiled as he told me of a great
+scheme. A lady in town had offered to board this child. So kind,
+wasn't it? She was of sturdy English make (her father's father
+was an Essex man. I had been told). Her hair and eyes were very
+dark; she looked ever so capable.
+
+'Yes, very kind,' I murmured, but I was reflecting that the
+lady's kindness might not be so very ill-rewarded. The child
+might prove useful and cost little. She might give the sort of
+help that is apt to be useful and costly in a country like ours.
+'Yes,' said the father smiling, 'and she may get to the day
+school that way, the lady says. We couldn't have nearly afforded
+to send her into town otherwise. But now she's got her chance of
+a regular school.' 'Oh, really,' said my friend. His kind ugly
+face looked none too pleasant as he said it, I remember noticing
+that.
+
+Then he went to his mules to 'buckle' up a strap somewhere. I was
+surprised to hear him cursing something under his breath. It was
+not his manner, I thought, to curse straps or mules. We said
+good-bye a very cordial one and then drove down towards the main
+road. It winds through a vlei towards the town. We had got almost
+to the big water-course so banked up in thirsty sand, when he
+told me what he was cursing. He repeated his words deliberately:
+'Damn it, damn it to hell,' he said. I protested faintly till he
+made it clear to me what he was damning, then I recklessly
+endorsed his damnation. For he was not cursing Heaven or
+humanity; he was cursing that blessed Anglo-Dutch, or rather
+Dutch-English, institution of South Africa, the color-bar. He had
+been told by one of the managers that should the father apply for
+admission to school on behalf of the child we had seen, he would
+be certainly refused. The father was really much too poor to send
+her away, he told me.
+
+'They're ever so honest and hard-worked. They've put up a great
+fight on mealie meal against bad seasons. They've pinched hard
+for the child's poor little outfit. He's got into debt for it.
+He's a Britisher, and has got two brothers fighting. Very
+dubious, dark children have been admitted already, as presumably
+Dutch. Dutch and colonials rule the roost here. And to leave
+Christianity alone, where does British Imperialism come in? It's
+risking spoiling a life, and the life of such a decent kid.'
+
+Thereat he certainly condemned guiltily, as he should not have
+condemned, Dutchmen and colonials, their churches, their social
+order, and their sanctimony. 'Thank God I was at plebeian
+Oxford,' he said, 'and was free to mix with colored men. This is
+far more select, this dorp academy, with its elect Principal and
+its supermen-managers.' We nearly had a row about his language.
+
+We came over a rolling down towards the commonage. 'They've kept
+free from fires here,' I said. 'Yes,' he said, 'but I'm doubtful
+if their vigilance pays, if their game's worth the candle. I mean
+if such absence of illumination is worth all their watching
+about.' 'It saves waste of life.' I said, 'animal and vegetable,
+if you can only keep the fires away.' I appealed to the wisdom of
+our laws as well as to the argument of mercy which I appealed to
+me. 'And you get that sort of thing.' he said, pointing to the
+thick brown tufts of unappetizing feed. 'That's been going more
+than a year, hasn't it? 'Oh for a wind and a fire,' say I.
+
+We passed over the commonage, which showed very black with recent
+fires. 'It looks rather knocked out,' I said. 'Yet not without
+hope,' he answered. We were driving back about the same time next
+fore-noon. A great fire was rushing wind-driven over that rolling
+upland. 'At last,' he said. I sighed. A mile further on we came
+into the smiling green vlei. 'This was black a while back,' he
+said. 'Doesn't the fire help a bit after all? Who wants that
+moldy stuffy old feed, isn't it parabolic of that fusty Dutch-Anglo
+dorp and its prejudices? What are they meant for, and it?
+'Fuel of fire,' say I.' I smiled indulgently. Since we had got
+into town things had happened. We had had our memorial services
+for the Dead that last night, and this same morning. It was the
+week of All Hallows and All Souls, a time that often tempts me to
+homesickness. One is apt to think of hazy, yellow-leaved, dreamy
+times in old England just about then not to speak of old familiar
+faces. That night of the first Service was very starry, and the
+morning of the second Service was brilliantly clear, the rain
+seemed to be very far away for the time being. People had come at
+night rather well. Not to speak of one of the school managers
+having died quite recently, news of one of our police's death out
+scouting had leaked through from German East. I preached Paradise
+to that attentive congregation in the iron-roofed church that
+natives had been so discouraged from attending. I was glad one
+straggled into the back seats I had battled for, just to
+demonstrate one's principle of barring out the color-bar. It was
+all very soul-soothing, thought I, that Memorial Evensong, the
+stars outside, and the golden evening brightening in the west of
+the hymn, and the lesson about white robes and palms, presumably
+of victory or harvest-homing. My friend waited for me outside
+under the lamp. 'Very fine,' he said in his grimmest way, 'the
+Anglican view of hopeful souls turned promiscuously into a sort
+of orchard and rose-garden with plenty of light to gild them, and
+rest to wrap them.' I smiled. 'True enough in its way,' I said.
+'There's another side doubtless, yet the preaching of that
+doesn't appeal to me particularly. I don't want to work on
+people's apprehensions. But don't let me stand in your light.
+You're a lay reader with a bishop's license. You can preach and
+welcome to-morrow morning.' 'Trust me not to refuse,' he said. 'I
+don't want to play up to apprehensions exactly. I want to state
+what seem to me to be relentless laws of cause and effect, and to
+show the only way with any sort of hope in Christ that I happen
+by faith to see.' So he had preached that morning. He preached
+quite simply on the trying of every man's work, on the burning of
+flimsy work, on the saving of the workman, yet so as by fire.
+There was a small but select gathering in the Church of Saint
+Tertullian; two of the school managers even were there. Surely I
+had baited the trap, I thought guiltily as I looked upon them,
+by my over-amiabilities of the night before.
+
+Yet that side was true enough, the side I had preached. And was
+not this side also true in its way? The preacher seemed at first
+to be referring to my own obsession with the words 'resist not
+evil,' my following of Tolstoy in my own evangel. He was warm in
+his commendation. 'And yet,' he said, 'let us remember a just
+God's resistance to evil. He resists and judges righteously,
+where we may neither resist nor judge. If we agree not to resist
+evil violently for Jesus' sake, yet ought we not to warn people
+of their God's unrelenting resistance? While we would not obscure
+the fear of our just God by the fear of us unjust men, let us
+remember our just God!' He spoke of judgment and of purgation, of
+what seemed to be indicated hereafter by the stupidity and
+cruelty of people's prejudices in South Africa. He painted quite
+luridly the purgation he anticipated as likely for such as would
+dare to wreck a child's education, and possibly her life for a
+color-scruple. He glowed and kindled. There was no mistaking his
+drift. He painted the fires of purgation. He painted, too, their
+presumable fuel, much as I believe old preachers limned the
+flames of hell and their denizens. 'And it may lengthen out into
+hell! Who knows?' he kept interjecting. 'Who knows but that that
+prejudiced spirit you play with may be a damned spirit after all,
+fuel for the fire that is not quenched, food for the worm that
+does not die?'
+
+T could not have preached happily on his lines, but for all that
+I acknowledged that the thing might well be of God this bizarre
+surprise at his preaching that was glassed in at least two of his
+listeners' eyes. Did that sermon do any good? Let me anticipate!
+The child came into town as a half-time servant. Somebody's
+letter got handed up to the Administrator, and he made a request
+to the managers. The child was clearly European by predominance
+of race. They spent five hours of their precious time in
+discussion. The officials wanted to oblige the Administrator, and
+they had their way at last. But whether the child once admitted
+will have much of a time, I am inclined to doubt, should she pass
+into the Paradise of so select an academy. I heard an ominous
+story of the Dutch minister last week, how he had threatened a
+hiding to any child of his that spoke to this forlorn little
+girl, who seems hard up for playmates. I heard yesterday that one
+of my Church magnates had asked that the child should not come up
+to play with his own. Yet the Fire of God has been preached, and
+I am willing to allow that the thing may have wanted doing rather
+badly in my amiable parish. Doesn't any real true Christian Peace
+Doctrine mean spiritual fire and sword? Doesn't it mean burning
+and fuel of fire as set against the confused noise and garments
+rolled in blood of earthly campaigns? Doesn't any real true
+Christian Imperialism mean the sword of the Spirit and the fire
+of the Gospel against South African Racialism? Perfect love
+casteth out fear, but what has Racialism to do with such a
+perfect love as will banish the fear of God?
+
+After all, can any reasonable and lively Christian Faith avail to
+find any evangelically reasonable destination short of hell for
+South African Racialists dying in their Racialism save such place
+of purgation as my friend indicated? Yes, of course, God's
+prerogative of mercy in Jesus is limitless, but are these
+Racialists so merciful to little colored children that they
+should obtain mercy without judgment from Jesus' judgment?
+
+And if the purgative fire seem so inevitable, why not warn its
+prospective fuel?
+
+Granted the Love of Jesus (Who was certainly what South Africans
+would call a Jew Boy, Who was possibly so dark that any dorp
+school would have hummed over His admission, Who enrolled Himself
+in that House of David one of Whose ancestresses was the Hamitic
+Rahab apparently, Who took Ham's curse as well as Japheth's);
+granted that that Love is the one and only supreme motive for
+Christian Reform, yet for all that, facts are facts, and it may
+be kind to tell people into what fires the fires of Racialism
+threaten to merge their selves. On the whole, I am glad that our
+lay reader preached on that bright morning that over-gloomed
+sermon, preaching from my own soothing pulpit to my startled
+congregation. They did not seem to know what to make of it. But
+the preacher himself seemed quite unrepentant about it. He was
+talking to me about it that morning when we drove home again, he
+to his farm and I with him, to walk on to my mission. We
+outspanned in a very green valley, I remember, and sat long over
+roast monkey-nuts that his driver benignantly provided.
+
+'The Lord put a word into my mouth,' my friend said quite firmly
+and simply. 'Was there not the cause the cause of a child's
+career? Didn't our Savior speak plainly as to the ugly analogy of
+the man drowned like a dog with a stone round his neck in the
+deep of the sea? Weren't His children in question when Jesus
+spoke; wasn't there a Christian child in question when I
+preached?'
+
+I thought he made out something of a case for his position as a
+preacher of fiery doom. We were sitting on a beautiful green
+carpet. The Earth there had come through her bad time. Away
+on the hillside a black forbidding patch testified to the
+unpleasantness of the remedial stage. Away in the distance was a
+beautiful tree-shaded granite hill with much show of brown
+foliage and purplish underspaces. Just beside that hill the
+flames came driving (through the old last year's feed, I
+suppose). His eyes followed mine the way of the flames. 'Hurray!'
+he said heartily. 'Now we shan't be so very long surely after
+all. Don't you see the green grass on its way? It was a snug
+corner, verily, for the old dry stuff. Look, how the flames leap
+up in the thick of it! Not very juicy browse nor tasty feed, but
+fine fuel for the fire; good for that, anyway. It was a snug
+corner, but at last the time was ripe when the fire came driving
+straight for it the fire with the wind behind. 'Which things are
+a parable,' he said, his ugly sunburnt face twitching curiously,
+his eyes quite handsome, nay, even splendid with honest scorn. He
+was shaking his fist towards the prim little dorp that we had
+left behind over the ridges. 'No doubt but ye are the people,' he
+said, 'ye that have made the freedom of England and the franchise
+of Jesus of no effect by your tradition your sacrosanct
+tradition. What's the good of the frowsy old stuff? It must be
+some good; what is it? It isn't very good pasture for sheep or
+horses, not to speak of dairy cattle, but it's noble food for
+fire, don't you think?
+
+There it lies-up so snug and sheltered and screened the old dead
+survival hidden in the prim little corrugated iron-roofed houses,
+and the narrow gumtree avenues, and the whitewashed Dutch
+tabernacle where they sing "Safe in the Arms of Jesus" (would you
+believe it?) But the time will come, it mayn't come in my day or
+in yours, but the time will come sure enough, when the Fire will
+trek dead straight for this old dead-ripe stuff, the Fire with
+the Wind behind. Then God have mercy on them whose work it was!
+For their work shall be burnt, aren't we sure of that? But as to
+they themselves being the sort to be saved so as by fire can we
+be so very sanguine? Meanwhile. . . . . . .
+
+The way he so humbly appealed to me for my opinion on that moot
+point, did much to conciliate me. He had not carried me with him
+all the while. He seemed to me a bit out of date, too like an
+ante-Christian prophet. Yet how my heart went out to him as he
+ended up so very abruptly with his 'meanwhile.' His voice broke
+queerly, and his eyes shone. 'Meanwhile they may manage to give a
+child or two a rough passage. They've got pluck enough for that,
+the blighters, haven't they?' He turned away from me with a sort
+of a sob. 'The time'll come sure enough, but it's their time now,
+and they know it,' he said. 'God pity her!'
+
+
+
+'LA BELLE DAME'
+
+
+
+Inhabiting this country you inhabit the Middle Ages, you dwell in
+the wild Marchlands without the pale of Christendom. Here a man
+may take to the forest roads in the old spirit of errantry. How
+darkly the shadow of witchcraft falls upon the path; we might be
+in Lapland or Thessaly! What strange satyr voices the drums have
+of nights! I suppose it is the reading about such things long ago
+that gives me this sense of having been here before, of having
+come back to this country!'
+
+His eyes glistened as he sat over his wine, and smoked Transvaal
+tobacco in a calabash pipe. He looked much more as he used to
+look twenty years back, I thought. I had deemed him aged almost
+out of recognition when first we sat down to dinner. He had come
+up to Mashonaland with some learned association on a holiday
+trip. His name was Gerald Browne; he had lectured on English
+literature these many years in an ancient northern university.
+
+With him came his wife, a very plain and quiet lady, and also an
+undergraduate pupil named Drayton.
+
+I was asked to meet them, and to stay in the same house with them
+by a certain minor potentate of Rosebery, who had had rooms near
+Browne's and mine in years gone by. It was Saturday night, and I
+had just come in from the veld, while Browne's party had reached
+Rosebery by the morning train. Dinner had gone rather quietly,
+and our host had looked bored, I thought. Then, when the ladies
+had left us, Browne had kindled up, and we all three had a
+glorious hour, voicing the praises of Africa in a sort of
+three-man descant or glee. Meanwhile the fourth man, Drayton, a
+dark, plump and smiling youth, listened to us with a charming air
+of respectful attention. Transvaal tobacco was good, and the talk
+was good, though I say it who should not. Drayton's silence
+was also good, a very complimentary silence with a distinct
+character, as it seemed to me. On Sunday after lunch this youth
+came for a walk with me, while the Brownes and our host reclined.
+
+'Mr. Browne's got a sort of call to the Simple Life,' he suddenly
+blurted out with a grin. 'It's even money on his selling up at
+Oxford and coming out here for good. What's going to happen to
+Mrs. Browne, I wonder?'
+
+I laughed, as I thought he expected me to do.
+
+'He seems rather smitten,' I admitted. 'He certainly raved a bit
+last night; but, then, so many people do that when they first
+come out.'
+
+Drayton looked at me as if he might have said much more. But I
+changed the subject; it never occurred to me then that it might
+be a thrilling one. I went home later on and sat on the stoep and
+talked to my host. Browne had very little to say. He went off for
+a sunset walk, and never came to church at night. We sat up in
+the moonlight waiting for him afterwards. He came in at last and
+joined us on the stoep, but he was very silent. He would not have
+any supper. He smoked away furiously till bed-time.
+
+I arranged a riding trip for all three visitors next morning.
+They were to off-saddle under some high kopjes about ten miles
+from town; they were to have a picnic and an amazing view. I
+could not go myself, as I had an appointment to keep. But I sent
+two Mashona boys to be their retinue; one of them was Johannes,
+my own right hand at home. I solemnly entrusted the strangers and
+their steeds to his keeping.
+
+When I came in about sunset that Monday evening they had not
+returned. But before the daylight failed, three of them were back
+Mrs. Browne, Drayton, and the under-boy. Where were Browne and
+Johannes? Mrs. Browne seemed to be a little uneasy, but she
+affected to make light of what had happened. She said that her
+husband had wanted to see the country beyond, so he had gone on
+with the boy. He was sure to be back to-morrow, as he had taken
+so little food with him. Drayton said nothing at the time, but
+after dinner, when we were smoking on the stoep, he began to
+quote to me:
+
+'I met a lady in the meads,
+Full beautiful a faery's child;
+Her hair was long, her foot was light,
+And her eyes were wild.'
+
+'What do you mean to insinuate?' I said.
+
+'Oh, I don't mean anything libelous. Browne hasn't gone off with
+a comely Mashona. But, for all that, I believe he's taken Africa
+much too seriously. She has a grim fascination for me, but she
+doesn't stop at that with him. She grips him and orders him to
+come along.'
+
+'Tell me about today,' I said.
+
+'Browne acknowledged a little to me three days ago,' Drayton
+said. 'He told me that this huge Tamburlaine (or rather
+Zenocrate) of a country was giving him too heady a welcome. He
+said she was still in the Middle Ages, and not only there, but
+more than half outside the pale of Christendom, such as it was
+then. So she had strange forces at work in her, and used
+incantations to allure, in prodigal variety. He talked about
+Lapland, and some footling researches he had made into the magic
+of the north. He also told me a horrible tale or two of the South
+that he had found in the Bodleian. One was a real curdler, I can
+tell you. Jerry Browne's own moustache seemed to turn up like a
+German's as he imparted it to me. You know he's romantic enough
+in his way, though he does lead such a repressed life. You should
+see him at home.'
+
+'But do tell me why he's gone off so suddenly,' said I, with some
+impatience.
+
+'I can't tell you very much,' said Drayton. 'We rode out, and
+Jerry seemed tremendously cheerful quite sportive. Anyone who'd
+only known him in Park Crescent would have been much surprised to
+watch him and listen to the things he said. Mrs. Browne seemed a
+bit puzzled, I thought, at last. Then we came to the kopjes where
+there was a consummate view. You could see a long way to the
+north across a hugely wide plain. Browne climbed up on the
+highest rock with me a sort of flat slab, whereon you might
+immolate a hecatomb. He seemed more exhilarated than ever just
+then. Soon he slipped away down the rocks and left me smoking my
+pipe on high. About five minutes after I observed him making
+tracks across the northern plain. He was cantering his dappled
+mule for all it was worth; he was carrying nothing so far as I
+could see.
+
+'I made haste down. I found that boy you said we could trust. I
+gave him two or three picnic rugs and what was left of our food
+to carry. I asked him to follow the rideaway, to stick to him,
+and to bring him back as soon as ever he could. Then I went to
+Mrs. Browne. She was sitting behind some bushes crying. She said
+Browne had said such a curious good-bye to her. He had spoken of
+riding on to see more of the country he had said he would be back
+in the morning. She had tried to dissuade him, but he seemed
+hardly to listen. She could scarcely believe that he had really
+gone without blankets or food. I reassured her, telling her that
+I had sent the boy and that you had said the boy was a good
+'un. But if she thinks, or you think, that the old man will come
+back tomorrow, I don't.'
+
+Tuesday passed anxiously both for Mrs. Browne and for me. Drayton
+was anxious in the wrong way, unless I misjudged him. I seemed to
+read triumph in his face as the hours went by and brought no
+Browne.
+
+I grew haggard when evening drew on. What was I to do? But about
+sunset tidings came. A native, who had traveled into town from
+the north, brought me a penciled note from Johannes: 'My father,
+I ask you to come to us. Let your horse make haste. The white man
+will not turn. He has finished his food. He goes to the hills, he
+says. I think that he is mad. Pray for us! Johannes.'
+
+I went to Mrs. Browne at once. I remember I found her sitting
+under a flaming hibiscus bush. She looked very pale and washed-out
+against it. I told her that her husband wanted to extend his
+tour. She burst into tears, and said she could not understand it.
+Then I told her that I meant going after him in the morning to
+try to hasten his return. She brightened up at that, and fell to
+planning what I should take with me. What comforts could she send
+Gerald in the comfortless desert without overloading me? I showed
+Johannes' note to Drayton after dinner. He whistled, and, to his
+credit, looked grave.
+
+'I'm to go after him to-morrow,' I said. 'I've thought over it,
+and I think you may as well come too. You may be useful, as
+knowing his ways.'
+
+He nodded. 'Rather bad about his running out of skoff, isn't it?'
+he asked. 'I wonder if he's out of baccy and just breaking his
+heart.' His plump face was pitiful.
+
+'Don't you fret,' I answered. 'It only means he's run out of our
+food. They'll surely buy monkey-nuts or sweet-potatoes or rice in
+the kraals. He's probably developed a passion for native food by
+now, also for native snuff. He'll be able to buy some of that,
+surely.'
+
+'Just so,' said Drayton. He began to quote again in a sort of
+droning chant as if he were a chorus recording the onsweep of a
+tragedy:
+
+'I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long,
+For sidelong would she lean, and sing A faery's song.
+
+'She found me roots of relish sweet, And honey wild, and manna-dew,
+And sure in language strange she said I love thee true.'
+
+In the morning we got a flying start after all, though Drayton
+was in bed when I came back from church. We went away at eight,
+and soon found, to our joy, that we were really well mounted. It
+was joy, too, to remember what a stubborn mule Browne had for
+pacing steed. He had not got away far, we assured ourselves. But
+we did not catch him that night.
+
+We asked at kraals as we went along, and struck a hot scent about
+three in the afternoon. A white man had passed that morning a
+white man riding a dappled mule, with a boy carrying blankets
+behind him. Straightway we gave our ponies an off-saddle.
+
+Afterwards we rode on hard in what we deemed to be the right
+direction till darkness fell: We sought shelter at a village
+then. There was no village gossip, alas! about the passing of a
+white man that day! They were good to us, though, those
+villagers, and gave us beans and monkey-nuts for supper and
+mealies for our ponies. After we had finished eating we spread
+out the rush-mat they had lent us and lay down to smoke and
+meditate and surmise as to our passionate pilgrim. They had given
+us a hut that was old and grimy with fires. Its floor teemed with
+life.
+
+Therefore we changed our resting-place and went out to camp under
+a rocky eminence. There with a bedrock of austere granite we
+slept in peace. At glimmer of dawn we were saddling up. We rode
+to another kraal, but the folk there had no news for us.
+
+We were close on the hills now at last. We came to a low river at
+the foot of them. We chose a landlocked pool that seemed to be
+immune from crocodiles, for a plunge. Next I girded myself for
+Sacrifice, and he served me. Then we made a fire and cooked a
+huge breakfast in the hungry morning air. Drayton grew quite
+lyrical as to the charm of the country before the meal was over.
+
+'Browne's not far wrong about her,' he said; 'but there's reason
+in all things.'
+
+That whole day we heard no news and found no spoor or sign. The
+hill-country gave us stiff climbing and rocky paths to ride.
+Kraals and clusters of gardens places where we might hope to hear
+tidings how few they were in that hill-country! We camped
+disconsolately at last in a forlorn garden among grey boulders
+where stumps of trees were burning. We found no trouble in
+building up a good night fire of half-burnt logs. We gave our
+ponies their nosebags and ate our own bread and bully rather
+silently. Then we surmised with some weariness and gloom over our
+pipes. At last we slept under the many eyes of the heavens.
+
+About first cock-crow, when a chill struck through my blanket, I
+opened my eyes and looked towards the fire. Someone was sitting
+beside it watching me. Now that he saw me stirring he greeted me.
+
+It was Johannes. 'I saw your fire but just now,' he said. 'Our
+fire is up there beyond great rocks. The white man has been very
+sick. I think he will come home now.'
+
+I sprang to my feet and roused Drayton. He would not get up for a
+long time. I suspect he combined breakfast and lunch fairly often
+at Oxford. But I roused him mercilessly. I told him the news.
+
+He argued in desperate fashion at first. 'How far's the sick
+bed,' he asked.
+
+'Not more than a mile or so,' said I.
+
+'Need we go till morning?' said he.
+
+'Shame!' said I.
+
+At last he sprang up.
+
+As we clambered among the boulders, piloted by Johannes, he
+droned away at his chorus part:
+
+'She took me to her elfin grot, And there she wept, and sighed
+full sore, And there I shut her wild, sad eyes With kisses four.
+
+'And there she lulled me asleep, And there I dream'd Ah woe
+betide! The latest dream I ever dream'd On the cold hill's side.'
+
+We found Browne in a nook among the rocks. A fire was burning
+beside him. He seemed to be sleeping.
+
+'He looks as if he'd been sick,' I said. 'We'd better let him
+sleep on!'
+
+'Yes; let's go to bed ourselves,' said Drayton, yawning.
+
+So we lay down on opposite sides of the fire. Such a red and
+splendid fire that cold cock-crow time!
+
+Browne kept giving sharp little moans in his sleep, just as a dog
+will do of nights.
+
+'He's started a nightmare,' said I. 'I wish we could help him to
+better dreams. I'd like to see what he sees just now.'
+
+Drayton began to drone from his side of the fire:
+
+'I saw pale kings and princes, too; Pale warriors death-pale were
+they all. They cried, "La Belle Dame sans Merci" hath thee in
+thrall.
+
+'I saw their starved lips in the gloom With horrid warning gaped
+wide, And I awoke and found me here On the cold hill's side.'
+
+I asked a question: 'What will Browne like for breakfast,
+Drayton?'
+
+'If he's come back to his civilized tastes, you'd better open
+that tin of sausages,' he said. 'You've got some squish, too,
+haven't you? Don't give him that bush-tea of yours!'
+
+I was up long before Drayton. I had secured Browne's confidences
+before the sun had been risen an hour. 'I've had a sort of
+miserable ague,' he said. 'A cold and hot fever has been plaguing
+me. Some part of this last night has been savagely horrible. But
+I've sweated pounds of my weight away, and my fever's gone.
+Strange, isn't it?'
+
+'Quite ordinary in this part of Africa,' I said, sharply and
+minimizingly. I handed him a shirt, and he doffed his drenched
+one. He did not tell me any more just then. His eyes watched me
+in a dazed, miserable way. I asked him to excuse me, and went off
+with Johannes to my service. When I came back his eyes were
+clearer, they had less of their look of wan-hope.
+
+'Sinister country, this Africa,' he said. 'I was infatuated with
+her yesterday. Today I can't understand just what the attraction
+was. Her desolate moors seemed to make me drunk. See how she's
+served me! I never felt quite so sick as I've done most of this
+last day and night. Just before I woke it seemed to me I saw them
+in my dreams tens and twenties of her victims; men she's charmed
+and led on and on, and demoralized, ruined, killed and buried,
+and helped down-hill the way of the bottomless pit. I am better
+now; but I'm shaken. How thankful I'll be if only I get out of
+her, and can only stop thinking about her after that.'
+
+I listened with grave attention. Then I gave him some bread and
+sausages, and he ate away ravenously. How ever many cups of tea
+did he drink afterwards?'
+
+The above was all the avowal that Browne made to me. I do not
+think that he said nearly as much to Drayton as he did to me.
+Drayton plied me with questions that night, and I told him too
+much, to my regret.
+
+Months afterwards a copy of an undergraduate paper, containing a
+fantasia on the events that I have recorded, reached me. It
+comprised much African coloring and some little humor. I wonder
+if it reached Browne or Mrs. Browne?
+
+We got Browne home in little over a day. He hurried on,
+oftentimes when we wanted to rest. He seemed as anxious to emerge
+from the African desert as he had been to explore the deeps of
+it. He looked rakish and wretched as he bumped about upon his
+mule. His face was livid, and his black beard, that he used to
+cut so formally, desperately out of trim. His eyes were strangely
+bloodshot.
+
+We reached home safely with our prize by noon on Saturday.
+Browne, as I have said, was all for getting on fast, and when we
+once started, his stubborn mount went well. It was won to
+emulation by the willingness of our ponies, I imagine.
+
+Mrs. Browne was delighted at her Gerald's return. Yet I think it
+must have taken some months to restore her confidence in his
+sanity. She had had a sore shock. Drayton and I, indeed, were
+both discreet in our brief narratives of what had really
+happened. But I was heedless enough to forget Johannes. I did not
+caution him in time. So Mrs. Browne gathered rather a bizarre
+account from him while we were at church on Sunday evening. It is
+to her credit that, despite her thrift, she gave the boy a whole
+gold sovereign.
+
+The three travelers left by the slow down-train on the Monday
+morning. I went to the station with them. I saw Drayton into a
+smoking-carriage, and climbed in and sat with him. There was
+still ten minutes' grace allowed us.
+
+'Where's Browne, and where's Mrs. Browne?' I asked.
+
+'Along there, ever so far!' he said; 'with Professor Ayres and
+the Misses Ayres, and all sorts of good company. But, hullo! Look
+there!'
+
+Browne was coming up the platform towards the bookstall, looking
+forlorn and sad.
+
+'Ah! what can ail thee, wretched wight, Alone and palely
+loitering?' murmured Drayton. 'It's a bad job for me, Jerry's
+getting off-color like this. How's he going to train men for
+Firsts next June, when he's gone in himself?'
+
+'Oh. he'll pick up as soon as he gets out of Africa, never fear.'
+I reassured him.
+
+Browne loitered up to the stall and amassed two month-old English
+magazines. Then he stood by the stall, looking on to the
+distances near and far behind it. Our feverish contact had not
+spoilt much of the landscape there as yet. Beyond a few railway
+sheds showed some bushes, as it were, of wild cherry-blossom,
+flaunting a true white under the sky's true blue. Spring colors
+dressed the woodland behind them red and bronze, and also the two
+famous colors of Faeryland. Behind that, again, the view was
+spread out widely diverse, certain blue hills standing up very
+delicately. Meanwhile in the near foreground some Kaffir herds
+helped the picture not a little. They were driving their flock
+between the white-blossomed bushes.
+
+Browne stood a long while and watched that landscape. I would
+have given something to have read his face all the while, but his
+back was turned to us.
+
+At last he began to pace up and down by the bookstall. Then he
+stood to gaze again, scouring, as it seemed, the far distance
+with eyes straining their utmost. Our eyes followed his.
+
+Did not some ironstone kopjes rise up dimly to the north there?
+
+Assuredly Browne saw those blue peaks and ridges, and remembered
+them.
+
+'Do you remember them?' I asked Drayton.
+
+'Don't I just?' he said.
+
+He began again in his chanting chorus tone: he was reading and
+transposing from a pocket copy of Theocritus.
+
+'They all call thee a "gipsy," gracious Africa, and "lean" and
+"sunburnt," 'tis only I that call thee "honey-pale." Yea, and the
+violet is swart, and swart the lettered hyacinth, but yet these
+flowers are chosen the first in garlands. . . . Ah, gracious
+Africa, thy feet are fashioned like carven ivory, thy voice is
+drowsy sweet, and thy ways, I cannot tell of them.'
+
+The engine whistled. Browne roused himself to my intense relief,
+and climbed into the train.
+
+'Good-bye,' I called to him as they steamed away.
+
+'Au revoir,' he called back to me.
+
+
+
+THE SCENTED TOWN (A TRIPPER'S TALE)
+
+
+
+It is now more than two years since I was invalided out of my
+country parish one bitter March, and sent on a southern voyage. I
+had ten weeks to recruit in, and I passed by the Mediterranean to
+the eastern coast of Africa. It was hard to tear myself away from
+Zanzibar, but at last I went on southward and struck up into the
+wilder country of the central tableland. I meant to take the rail
+for Cape Town when my time should be up.
+
+It happened in Easter week that I camped out disconsolately, and
+rose anxiously, having lost my way overnight. I had spent Easter
+Day in a cathedral, or pro-cathedral, town, and was now on my way
+to a certain mission. I had hoped to make it that last night
+the third night of the journey but had somehow missed it in the
+dark after a big effort. There seemed to be no native village
+near, and no passers-by. My carriers were strangers to that
+neighborhood, and I was afraid of going far past the house in
+benighted wanderings, so I bent my resolution and lay down. I
+rose just before the sun did. It was April and the dews were very
+heavy.
+
+From a rocky hill above me the baboons were barking. Just below
+us was a fair stream with a rich grove of native trees on the
+further bank. Some native gardens showed on the slope above. The
+white path wound through them, then away among boulders, some of
+them very big ones. While I watched the stream I saw a white body
+of mist mounting up. Just at that moment the sun showed. As I
+looked on the sacred sight I saw somebody coming down the path.
+It was the man whose mission station I had been looking for. He
+was coming through the long grass in a hurry. Soon he splashed
+through the drift. After that he caught sight of me, and rushed
+up to our camp, glowing. It was Leonard Reeve. He looked much the
+same as he did that day in London three years before--dark, pale,
+slight, earnest. I had been to his sendoff and gone down to
+Victoria Docks with him. I had written to tell him; I was most
+likely coming his way after Easter. He seemed ever so glad to see
+me.
+
+'But where were you off to?' I said.
+
+'It's only a mile on that I'm going,' he answered. 'There's a
+little chapel on that hill over there with some native villages
+near by. I want to have an Easter service there.'
+
+'Let me come,' said I. 'You can be back to breakfast here, can't
+you, when we've done?'
+
+He said he could. Even as he nodded I felt a little anxious when
+I remembered that we had no meat of any sort left. I took Jack,
+my head carrier, aside and asked him to do what he could while we
+were gone. Couldn't he buy some eggs for salt, or do something
+useful in the way of foraging? He said three words in kitchen
+Kaffir that sounded hopeful.
+
+Then I went on with my chill, damp little friend. One of the
+coldest ways surely of taking a bath is to tramp through the long
+grass (it is very long in that country) when it is drenched with
+dew or rain. However it is all right if you are sturdy and in
+good heart, and keep going a stirring pace, and never sit down
+till you are dry again. My companion did not seem very buoyant,
+though he made no complaint and trudged on without flagging. We
+had a glorious service in a quaint church of wattles and earth
+and grass on a hill-top. One way it looked over a great spread of
+village gardens I think there were at least three villages in
+sight. The other way it looked on some well-wooded uplands that
+the eastern sun lighted tenderly. There were only a few people in
+church at the end of the rite, though a great crowd was there at
+the outset, and the 'Kyrie' and first two hymns raised the hill
+echoes.
+
+There was no sermon. When the unbaptized were gone the tiny
+church, that had seemed so thronged and stifling, grew to be
+roomy and cool.
+
+That was to me a very beautiful rendering of the Liturgy. Yet I
+only understood a word here and there. I could follow the action
+of the Divine Pageant throughout, and I would not have had the
+mystery and aloofness of the words one whit lessened.
+
+After it was over Reeve took me across to the native teacher's
+house, where we found a very shy wife and a very composed baby to
+greet us. Meanwhile the husband bustled about and gave us tea. I
+liked his laugh and his boyish face, as well as his Biblical
+English. He did not stint the tea in his blue pot. Soon we were
+on our way back to my camp.
+
+Jack had got a real good fire now in the shelter of the rocks,
+and a hearty smell of fish frying reassured me as we drew near.
+
+Reeve, who had seemed a little tired and washed out as we came
+away from the church, now brightened up marvelously.
+
+'I declare,' he said, 'it's just like old times. You know the
+Tooting Road, where I used to work? It's just like the fried-fish
+shop there, next door to the Surrey Arms. If we'd only got the
+fog and the trams and a few of the old people here how fine it'd
+be!'
+
+We had found a subject that interested us both and lasted most of
+the breakfast-time. His enthusiasm struck me as a little too
+emphatic. I remarked that I thought he was well out of the
+Tooting Road and out under blue sky on an African moorland.
+
+'Look up there!' I said. 'That makes the Tooting Road seem rather
+monstrous when one comes to think of it.' I pointed to the many
+cattle and sheep and goats coming down to the stream at a
+swinging pace through the gleaming woodland.
+
+Two little boys were mounted on bulls; two or three others came
+rushing behind. There was a barking of dogs and an ecstasy of
+shouting.
+
+'Oh, it's all very well,' he said, and his eyes flashed a little
+scornfully.
+
+Afterwards he took me to his home. His church stood out nobly as
+we came up the path towards it. Within it was beautifully kept,
+but I confess I was disappointed. It was all very neat, but it
+suggested the skill of the church-furnishing firm too strongly. I
+sighed a little as he showed me four enormous brazen vases of a
+too familiar type. I longed for the two or three little red and
+black earthen vases that I had seen on his teacher's altar; but I
+kept my longing to myself.
+
+He was a marvelous man for method, Leonard Reeve. He seemed to me
+to organize classes with real talent anybody who came to the
+Mission at all habitually was pigeon-holed as 'Inquirer,'
+'Hearer,' 'Catechumen,' 'Under a cloud,' or something else, and
+dealt with accordingly. His work, as I watched it day by day, and
+evening by evening in church and school and villages and Mission
+farm seemed to me well-considered and painstaking. On the other
+hand he seemed to me not so happy, and not so very well.
+
+The mail came in on the Monday.
+
+I was to start the following Thursday for the railroad on my way
+to my home again. We gloated over the letters and papers that
+evening it was really a superb mail. The native boy with the bag
+(I remember he was lanky and handsome and wore a rose-and-blue
+zephyr) came up just as we stood in the avenue leading to the
+house. We were smoking our pipes and arguing. The sun was almost
+down.
+
+What were we arguing about? Oh, he was arguing rather recklessly
+about the glories of town-work. I retorted with few words, but
+strong ones, in favor of work out in the country. Once I pressed
+him rather inquisitively and mischievously as to his present work
+on the veld. 'How can you hold such views and do it?' I asked him
+point-blank. Thereat the fine side of the man showed.
+
+His face flushed and his lips quivered. 'It's my job,' he said,
+'and I'm not going to talk against it. I was arguing about
+country-work in the abstract over there in England.' Then it was
+that the boy came in sight with the letters. Reeve looked up and
+watched him with real pleasure and gratitude. He said something
+to him in the native language that seemed to amuse the boy very
+much. I had thought his manners towards his flock very courteous,
+but cold. I noticed a new tenderness now and from this night
+forward.
+
+I could read him like a book, this town-lover so I thought. He
+had said too much to me, he had avowed to me his want of
+affection for his work in so many words, and now he was on the
+watch against himself, and burning to render reparation to a very
+quick conscience.
+
+He had a big mail, but he was not communicative about it. Indeed
+we had not much time for our letters just then. We had Evensong
+soon after sunset, then there was a class for catechumens that I
+attended. I could not understand much, but it was good to watch
+how they listened, all but the vigorous mail-boy, who nodded at
+whiles unless I am mistaken. Afterwards we had a meal. It was by
+mutual agreement that we read our letters over our bread and tea
+and cheese. I read one of my letters with some indignation. It
+was a letter from my schoolmaster, who was not very encouraging
+on the subject of my locum tenens' industry.
+
+'I thought I had got a first-rate man in Cochrane,' I said aloud.
+
+'Cochrane of Peckham Downs?' asked Reeve, looking up and eyeing
+me. 'What about him? Yes, I should say he was in his way quite
+first-rate.'
+
+'I'm glad to hear it, but I wish he would find country work more
+congenial. My correspondent says he's quite got the hump about
+our village.'
+
+Leonard smiled. 'Some villages do tend to give people like
+Cochrane and me the hump,' he said. 'But of course yours is
+different.' 'Of course it is. Come and see it some day.' His
+mouth twitched. 'If I get home-leave in two years' time,' he
+said. 'I don't want to spend it in the country, not any of it,
+thank you all the same. I like the town much too well.'
+
+'The smell of the shop you named attracts you just like thyme
+does me.'
+
+'Yes,' he said, with a rather wry smile and a very real sigh.
+
+Then we went on reading till bed-time. In the morning Lorenzo,
+his house-boy, knocked me up just as the sun was rising. 'The
+father is very sick,' he said. So he was very bad indeed with
+fever, at least so it seemed to me. But I am not used to nursing
+that malady. I think his temperature was 103 that day, which may
+seem a modest figure to a pioneer, but struck a chance visitor as
+none too reassuring. However, I kept my anxieties to myself, and
+looked after him quietly. He said there was no need to worry
+about a doctor. That night he seemed to be delirious, and talking
+at large. I made up my mind I would send for the doctor in the
+morning if his symptoms should last. But they did not. He
+appeared to be quiet and sensible at sunrise, and his temperature
+was a normal one. The morning after that, again, he seemed so
+well that I left him with a fairish conscience on my return
+journey for England. I want to tell you about that anxious night.
+He gave himself away then. I don't think he remembered much
+of what he had said next morning. It seemed sad to me his
+self-revelation. He said he did not know what in the world to do,
+he felt so ill and anxious. He was a Cockney born, and he had
+loved his South London work. He really wanted to tackle the job in
+front of him here. But the romance was there behind him in that
+English city the unique sense of being in the right place the
+great adventure the gleam.
+
+Oh! why had he caught the fever? Not this fever, but the malaria
+of Imperialism, and felt drawn to go so very far afield. He
+didn't abuse the veld, the camping-out, the foot-slogging, the
+primitive people. He was a very chivalrous person even in his
+delirium.
+
+But he spoke ecstatically of the streets, the tram-roads, the
+lights of the town, the smartness of his flock, the delights of
+their up-to-date humor.
+
+The tragedy thickened. He told me of her who had promised to
+marry him by Eastertide next year. Cecilia was her name.
+
+She was a Londoner, and shared his views. 'Whatever will she
+think of this place?' he asked. My eyes wandered to the iron
+roof, to the floor-boarded walls, to the candle in a bottle that
+fought the draught so bravely. He told me about a letter of hers
+he had got by this mail. She had been working as a governess
+these last few months at a country rectory in the Berkshire
+moors. She found the village, and the neighborhood, and the life
+there in general very flat indeed. They bored her; yet she was
+keen, he said, on 'the work,' 'the work' as she had known it when
+she worked for him in London. 'Whatever will she think of this
+place?' he repeated. I looked at the floor, freshly treated with
+cow-dung, and thought again for an answer, but I could think of
+no very suitable one.
+
+'I'll give you her letter to read,' he said, in a burst of
+confidence. 'That puts it far more plainly than I can. My head's
+so bad.' He looked worried, and I thought I had better leave him.
+
+'No,' he said; 'do read to me a bit before you go.'
+
+'What shall I read?'
+
+He looked at me meditatively. 'You'll find something to the point
+in there,' he said. He reached up to the little candle-box
+bookcase over his head, and showed me a little crimson book. It
+was an anthology. I should think it might be commendably put on
+the 'Index Expurgatorius' of upcountry missionaries.
+
+It was called 'The Cheerful City,' and dwelt on the delights of
+civilization and urbanity. Doubtless it may serve a useful
+purpose, thought I, in reconciling Londoners to their wen; but,
+here, what does it spell for my delirious Cockney save only
+desiderium?
+
+I read him two or three selections obediently, but without
+enthusiasm. Were they from Herrick and Charles Lamb? I rather
+think they were.
+
+Afterwards he asked me for a few verses of the Gospel. I cheered
+up.
+
+'What would you like?'
+
+'Oh, that story at the end of St. John. I've often thought of it
+since I was so cold and wet; and got to your camp-fire. "The fire
+of coals, and fish laid thereon, and bread," that's it.'
+
+I read with a will, but rather sadly.
+
+'That's it,' he said. 'It seems to bring back the fog, and going
+to early Service past that coffee-stall, and the smell of that
+shop next to the Surrey Arms.'
+
+I thought of his homely comparison after I had left him for the
+night. It moved me strangely. I read the letter he had lent me
+the letter of Cecilia, who found the Berkshire moors so banal.
+Yes, she promised to prove a very undesirable help-meet on the
+veld, so far as I could judge. I thought over things generally
+that night, and I made up my mind to make a Quixotic offer in the
+morning. I would offer to take on Leonard's work. Let him go home
+and be happy in his scented town, with his intolerantly urban (or
+suburban) Cecilia. He was splendid stuff. He might do much,
+surely, in that quaint atmosphere of light and locomotion and
+fragrance that his sense of romance demanded. Here Cecilia would
+surely be either impossible or a very great nuisance. While, even
+without Cecilia, Leonard did not seem well suited in his sphere,
+and I judged that he would soon be rotten with fever and wouldn't
+last.
+
+As for me, I liked country life much, and roughing it a little. I
+had no particular fear of fever. I compared my physique with
+Leonard's not without complacency. I thought of the other side,
+too: the east country that village of all villages, those
+villagers of all villagers.
+
+But that night I was full of over-seas fervor. I remembered
+phrases that had rung cut finely at meetings Outpost Duty, the
+Church in Greater Britain, The White Man's Burden, In Darkest
+Africa, etc., etc. When I fell asleep there seemed to be a
+symphony in my ears sounding brass and tinkling cymbals enough
+and to spare, but flute-voices of honest pity and sympathy as
+well.
+
+In the morning I took Leonard's place in his church. We had the
+English Liturgy again. The thatched dome, with much tinier
+windows than the windows at home, but much more sun to fill them,
+seemed a sort of parable to me that morning. After I had finished
+the rite, I stayed on in the church, and spread out two letters
+before the Lord, so to speak. One was my schoolmaster's, the
+other was that one from Cecilia.
+
+It took me half an hour to feel fairly sure of my answer. But I
+felt very sure then just as sure as I had been the night before
+but the answer was different.
+
+I thought of my own fold and flock as I read my own friend's
+letter. How little the locum tenens seemed to see what I saw in
+them! I read Cecilia's letter, and compared 'her view of the
+importance of a country cure with my own. After all, I thought,
+the latter tended to be an exceptional view in our megalomaniac
+days. On the other hand, the locum tenens' view might be rather a
+normal one, and so might Cecilia's be. Cecilia's scorn, it was,
+that materially helped the answer to come as clearly as it did.
+The thought of a Cecilia reigning in that east-country vicarage
+seemed no more right than pleasant. It sounds a callous thing to
+say, but I left my lonely and convalescent friend with something
+of a sigh of relief, and no real misgiving. I felt troubled about
+his future certainly, but I saw clearly that I was not meant to
+take his place. I hoped to find the man who was meant to take it,
+however.
+
+And, by God's help, I believe that I really did find him before
+many months were over.
+
+A cousin of mine Richard East had been persuaded by a certain
+bishop to accept an urban charge.
+
+I fancy the said bishop had been reared in a rather strait school
+of enthusiasts, who regarded work in slums as ideally the best
+sphere for clerics of activity. So he had routed my cousin out of
+his west-country village, and brought him to a big town--my
+cousin, who was an outdoor man from his youth. Curiously enough,
+at Cape Town, there was a letter waiting for me from him.
+Wouldn't I tell him something about the 'great spaces washed with
+sun'? The midland town in general seemed not to have gained his
+affections, though he loved his people one by one. 'I want to
+clear out,' he wrote, 'for the parish's sake more than for my
+own, if only I can find the right place to clear to. I'm not
+a townsman, and I think by now the bishop understands my
+small-mindedness. I haven't the breadth of a good modern citizen.
+I want to go to some Little Peddlington an African village might
+suit me. No, directly the right man turns up, I don't doubt the
+bishop will want to put him here in my room. Do you know of
+anyone likely?' I did know of someone.
+
+I did not write back; I got on my boat and started off for home.
+I went down to the east country and set free the locum tenens.
+The village had a bridal look for my eyes; the red-thorn tree was
+just coming out, the roses would not be long now. I was in time
+to be at our yearly May games after all. Next day I went to the
+Midland town and saw my cousin; also, I saw his charge. I tried
+to look at it with Leonard Reeve's eyes, recalling to my
+remembrance that delirious night of his. Yes, though it was not
+South London, it had a drab look on a dull June day. There was a
+Warwick Arms, if no Surrey Arms. There was a shop with the
+authentic fragrance only two or three doors off. I knew that
+bishop, and I found him in, and in a listening mood, on the
+following day. He wanted to hear about Africa. I described
+missions and missionaries to him. Then I told him at some length
+about Leonard Reeve.
+
+'Yes, you have drawn the man convincingly,' he said. 'You didn't
+invent those touches. I think he's a man after my own heart. I
+don't understand you people that bury yourselves in little
+rose-covered, immoral, earthy country villages. But I think I do
+understand the man that you have described.' I went straight to
+the point, and spoke of my cousin's parish. He agreed that my
+cousin was a disappointment. 'He's got the same peddling way of
+looking at things as you,' he said. 'I thought he'd flourish
+after transplantation, but I admit he doesn't seem to. Yes, I
+should think a desert and a barbarous people might suit him. I
+don't deny that he has vision, but his sense of perspective seems
+to be rather ridiculous.' I tried to arrange matters there and
+then after that, but his lordship became politic, and seemed a
+little afraid that he had said too much to me.
+
+However, the business was on the way to be settled before I
+parted from him. It has been settled quite a long while now. My
+cousin, Richard East, now tramps the Kaffir paths and ministers
+in the hill chapel and in that seven-domed church at the mission
+station. I do not think that there is any Cecilia in his case,
+nor that there is likely to be one. He personifies the abstract
+too passionately to need the love of women.
+
+Africa is personified to him the Cinderella of the continents,
+the drudge with a destiny worthy of her charms and her good-temper.
+He is writing a monograph on the Song of Solomon, he tells
+me. He follows certain scholars in his conjecture that the
+Shulamite was given back to a humble shepherd by Solomon, when
+she had conquered the latter by the power of her impassioned
+chastity. But he has his own theory as well that the true lovers
+were both of African blood, that she came from the Ophir-land
+south of the Zambesi, and thither returned in peace at last from
+the foam of perilous seas. Perhaps his argument is slender; but
+it is good for him to believe in it himself, I think, for surely
+it helps his work among those that he deems her descendants.
+
+He works on out there, personifying and idealizing. I think he
+is as much in love with his country parish as I am with mine in
+England. May we both, in our placid and unfashionable ways, dream
+our dreams and see our visions! Meanwhile Leonard Reeve reigns
+in that midland town, and is treasured by the bishop who was not
+deceived when he expected a kindred spirit. He and Cecilia have
+chosen a date in this next November for their deferred marriage.
+
+Their choice of month seems to me characteristic. I do not think
+they will be disappointed if the day is a little urban in its
+murkiness.
+
+It is good for a man to be in love with his charge, is it not?
+Next time some fanatic of West-End work, or East-End work, or
+foreign mission work gets hold of you and talks excellent sense
+about discipline, and offering yourself to your bishop, and
+packing up your kit at a week's notice remember this story of
+mine!
+
+Is it not well to import something of the precise devotion of
+Holy Matrimony into the general self-oblation of Holy Orders?
+
+It is good to think that three of us friends have the very same
+sort of feeling Leonard Reeve for the crowds and the fogs and the
+odors; my cousin for the rock-sown plains and the little circles
+of thatched huts; I for the cornlands and the elm-shaded ridges
+and the cottage people.
+
+Yes, to Leonard anything grimy is just as romantic as green
+fields to me, or brown veld to my cousin.
+
+Do you know, I was asked to preach Leonard's Institution sermon
+last Whit Monday, and I dared to preach it? Cecilia, who was
+stately but really pleasant-looking, sat beneath me in the front
+pew. Leonard, in his stall, looked oppressed with the weight of
+the ceremony.
+
+But his eyes lighted up, I saw, as I gave out my text. It was
+from the end of St. John's Gospel. I preached very shortly. I
+drew for that poor and earnest-looking congregation the picture
+of a dripping missionary as I had seen him. I told of him going
+about his business at dawn, cheered by the Easter Feast in front
+at the chapel on the hill. I passed up to it by the cheery
+camp-fire. I did not forget the smell of breakfast cooking, with
+its reminder of home afterwards.
+
+Then I spoke of the charm of the town work that Leonard had been
+called to take up once again. I tried to paint it as he dreamed
+of it the crowds, the classes, the fog, the scent of the streets.
+Then I went higher to the Easter scene, the shore in the morning,
+the vision of the altar that dawns on a true man's work however
+deep the night of his failure may have been, wheresoever in all
+the world he is working.
+
+Leonard looked gratefully at me as I came down the pulpit steps.
+
+While we hurried along from the Service on our way to the station
+(Reeve was coming to see me off), I quoted some words to him. We
+were just passing that fish-shop.
+
+'Awake, O north wind, and come, thou south; blow upon my garden
+that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into
+his garden.'
+
+His eyes kindled. 'Yes, old man,' he said; 'I've come into my
+garden. How I used to dream of this sort of reek out in Africa!'
+
+I felt a gross materialist as I hurried home to my roses and
+red-thorn, leaving him to that visionary garden and those mystical
+spices.
+
+
+
+THE PLACE OF PILGRIMAGE
+
+I.
+
+'When you have set Thought free for one particular end you cannot
+bind her again as you will.' Such is the purport of a certain
+historian's dictum, and I have proved the truth of what he says.
+Edgar used to go to the Place of Pilgrimage long ago in his
+holidays, but I used not to go with him. I did not sympathize
+with his veneration overmuch in those times of long ago. But I
+respected the desire for hero-worship, and helped him thither
+each year that he wanted to visit his shrine. He used to come up
+for his long holidays every year from the colony. I had known his
+father rather well, and he had not any settled home. His mother
+was dead, as well as his father. No one now that knew him need
+know what she was like, for he took after his father almost
+unmitigatedly. His father was blonde and aggressively Saxon in
+appearance. His mother had been Dutch, semi-Dutch, of the colored
+Dutch type, as I very well knew. She came from the Western
+province, and died when he was but a year old, to be followed
+by his father some ten years later, just when he had come
+back to South Africa from England. Then I, acting on my own
+responsibility, sent him to school in the Eastern Province.
+No one seemed to bother, even if they had any inkling of his
+mother's parentage; he looked to be so completely his father's
+son.
+
+It was in Edgar's schooldays that the Place of Pilgrimage was
+inaugurated, and that a big star of hope swam into his ken. I had
+told him about Oxford before, but there had then seemed no sort
+of path open for him to go up thither. Now, in the midst of his
+schooldays, there opened out to him a path that he thought he
+might climb. It was then in the next long holiday time that he
+took his path, a curious and grateful pilgrim, to the Matopos, to
+explore the shrine and to give thanks before it.
+
+He dreamed of being a Rhodes scholar years before it came off
+that Rhodes scholarship of his. It came in the fullness of time a
+thing of many struggles and prayers, of star-led hopes and paths
+steep with uphill climbing.
+
+Then at last it was that I agreed to go with him on his yearly
+pilgrimage, in September, the month of his sailing for home. May
+used to be a Canterbury month in England, the hawthorn month that
+pricked men in their courages and sent them out on the Kentish
+road. September had been Edgar's pilgrimage month every year a
+spring month in our southern country. The masasa leaves were
+taking many tints then in Mashonaland. Speaking generally, the
+dominant note of our woodland world was rose-color as we tramped
+together to the station. Matabeleland by contrast seemed rather
+drab and drouthy, yet she was showing signs of spring. One great
+rock stood up very beautiful in a pink lichen garment. It was
+hard by the path that led to the last hill-climb, ere you reached
+the burial-place. We camped out close beside it, two Mashona boys
+who had come to seek their fortunes in Bulawayo, and Edgar and I.
+
+When the morning light came I was up. When the sun rose I had all
+but finished my service. There, on his own ground, so to speak,
+it seemed easier to pray for the Patron with a sanguine heart,
+and to give thanks for him with a clear conscience. Over our
+breakfast we sat on and talked, and looked about us. Edgar seemed
+to me to be growing in discernment. Once he had seemed so
+provocatively cock-sure about his mighty patron. To pray for him
+as we had prayed that morning in the language of a race he had
+contemned might have sounded to him in years past mere clerical
+impertinence. Now he seemed to suffer me rather gladly.
+
+But he said little. We had scant time to spare just then; there
+were so many miles to go to the railway. He was to leave for
+Oxford that very night. While the carriers were cooking their
+breakfast he came with me to the grave and knelt at the head,
+looking northwards. I said nothing aloud, nor did he. The rocks
+bulked dark in the bright air, the hills wore mystic colors, the
+sun shone passionately in a setting of tender blue. Words seemed
+a presumption just then, too much of a time or nation or age that
+passes. That which may or may not take shape in words remained
+the untied power of silent prayer. That morning among the
+many-colored hills I looked to sight the faith that can remove such
+as these. And I prayed there quietly, in prayer that seemed to
+need no words, for Edgar. I asked for him that he might see those
+visions without which! people are apt to perish.
+
+II.
+
+He did not write much, and he did not come for five years. When
+he came he was not at first communicative. He seemed to take more
+interest than he used to do in the Mission, I noticed. He had
+always been a hero among the Mashona boys: that was no new thing.
+And I was thankful indeed to see that he had not lost his old
+artless art of making friends with them. So many things might
+have conspired to rob him of it. He stayed but a month in all at
+the Mission, and he said little all that time, but his eyes were
+full of thought as I talked to him passing on to him hopes,
+disappointments, joys of battle unabating and enhanced. He was a
+good listener. I did not try to force the pace with him. But for
+all that I was eager to know his mind. And it seemed a long while
+waiting and waiting, thinking he might be going to speak day
+after day. Then at last the time did come for him to speak, but
+it was after he had left the Mission.
+
+History repeated itself, and we camped in the old place once
+more. The camp-fire shone out, and the moon rose broad and golden
+over the grave of pilgrimage. There he lay with his feet to the
+north on the height above us the founder and name-giver of our
+State. It was strange how his patronage seemed to dominate us. We
+said our evensong rather northwards than eastwards; we scanned
+the northern horizon as though seeking a sign. The wind blew that
+way as we paced to and fro afterwards, and our thoughts went the
+way of the wind.
+
+At last I broke the silence. We were resting on a ledge of rock
+then, smoking, staring away north-wards among the moonlit kopjes.
+There he sat beside me, fair-haired and tall, strong and
+rejoicing in his strength, always courteous but strangely dumb.
+He was going to-morrow. Would he go without a revealing word?
+
+'So many worlds, so much to do, So little done, such things to
+be.'
+
+I paused doubtfully.
+
+He turned to me, and his eyes sparkled as they looked into mine.
+'Listen,' he said. Then he told me his heart. Little I knew what
+it was. I trembled for my crusade, yet not without hope. I had
+preached to him little, but I had prayed for him much. Now I
+learned that his heart was as my heart, his desire as my heart's
+desire, yet, like wine to water, like sunlight to moonlight. I
+sat at his feet, so to speak, and listened on and on.
+
+III
+
+The next morning broke very brightly, yet there were clouds
+enough on high to mystify its clear shining. There had been a
+thunder-shower on the day before yesterday: our former rains had
+sent on an advance-guard. We had finished our service before the
+day grew hot, in the prime and cool of the morning. The place had
+been kept very sacred all that service-time. No hoot of a motor-car
+had scared the sleep of those lonely hills. Afterwards it was
+different. People came out in crowds from Bulawayo. There was a
+special excursion from the Transvaal, I believe, that arrived on
+that day of all days. We had breakfasted by our camp-fire. Then
+we came up the hill to the shrine once more, while the boys were
+clearing up. 'Listen,' said Edgar. A stout Bulawayo bourgeois was
+holding forth on the crankiness of Cecil Rhodes in choosing to be
+so lonely. 'He might have considered the town and trade of
+Bulawayo' seemed to be the burthen of his song. A pioneer shut
+him up rather roughly. 'He knew best,' he said. 'Where would your
+town and trade be if he hadn't cleared the path?' Edgar went up
+to the old fellow, ruddy, stalwart, more or less spirituous,
+indomitably good-humored. 'Tell me about it please, sir the
+burial; you were here for it, weren't you?' The old fellow
+complied with great goodwill.
+
+Bareheaded we stood looking north while he told us of the great
+camping-out, with the many twinkling fires, by the dam some miles
+away, on the eve of the entombment. He told, too, of the
+concourse of Matabele at the place itself next day, and of the
+auspicious climbing of the yoked cattle as they drew the body.
+'They never turned. They went straight up,' he said. 'You can see
+the track-way up the rock now. It meant luck surely, and we took
+it so, both black and white of us.'
+
+Then he told us of him who lay there, in words of rugged
+tenderness the hero of the old era who brought on the new era so
+fast; he who had tasted the old and knew the old was better,
+testifying the same by his choice of a burying-place.
+
+We were grateful, indeed, to that guide. A few yards in front of
+us two beaked Afro-Hebrews were arguing as to what the hero's
+leavings had been.
+
+'What did he die worth?' was to one of them a subject of earnest
+enquiry. A few yards in front of them again, as we passed, some
+bar-loungers foregathered. 'He stood no nonsense about niggers,'
+one was saying as we went by him. Edgar nudged me. 'We all have
+our different views of him,' he said, 'haven't we? He gave us
+views and visions. Thank God that he distrusted himself, and sent
+us straight to learn where he learned, haply to learn what he
+missed learning from Oxford, his Mistress of Vision, so far to
+the west and the north.'
+
+'You see, it's this way,' he said, when the place had grown quiet
+again in the drowsy noonday. They had gone off then, the
+Jo'burgers, three wagonettes and a motor-car crowded with them.
+'We must keep the road open to the north, mustn't we?---the way
+his feet lie, the way that goes beyond his vision into bigger
+visions.'
+
+'I'll try and do something,' I said humbly. 'There are plenty who
+want to travel far, or think they do.' I glanced at the three
+Mashonas by the fire. One was teaching the other two. They were
+spelling out Saint John's Gospel together. 'Is he one of the most
+adventurous?' Edgar asked. 'He's very willing,' I muttered. 'You
+ask him whether he'd like to go to school down south.'
+
+The boy's face lighted up when Edgar asked him. It was a rounded,
+soft-featured Mashona face with large bright eyes. The lips were
+not so very thick; the nostrils were cut like an Arab's.
+
+'Tell him I'll pay for him and for another who wants to go,'
+Edgar said. 'He's probably got a particular friend. What about
+Atiwagoni?' 'He might be keen to go,' I said, 'and he's quicker
+than most of them.'
+
+We began to smoke a last pipe silently. The time was drawing near
+to strike our camp. We must start for Bulawayo at once if we
+would catch Edgar's midnight train easily.
+
+I reached for my wallet, and brought out an Oxford anthology.
+
+I turned over the pages and began to read rather sadly
+
+Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,
+To laugh as he sits by the river,
+Making a poet out of a man:
+The true gods sigh for the cost and the pain
+For the reed which grows nevermore again
+As a reed with the reeds in the river.
+
+'There's that point of view to consider,' I said. 'I'm fond of
+Arcadia and Arcadians, and there's loss entailed if you send
+Arcadians on the way of Athens.' Edgar sighed. 'I know what you
+mean,' said he; 'and I feel it as you do. But Arcadia's got
+Lacedaemon at her throat, a southern state not much troubled with
+scruples, neither very philosophic nor very literary. The way has
+been opened by him we wot of to Oxford, to the Athens of the
+north. It was opened, as men thought, for the benefit of young
+Lacedaemonians. The man that was hand-in-glove with Africanders,
+with our Lacedaemonians of the south, did that. He imperiled
+Lacedaemonian stability by opening the way to northern stars and
+their influences to Shelley, Burke, and Mill, and to all manner
+of people dangerous to the back-veld views of Lacedaemon. He
+opened the way to Tolstoy's rediscovery of the Christian Law,
+amongst other northern treasures, didn't he? And I, with the
+Arcadian taint in my veins, saw the way open and went northwards.
+Now it has come to pass that I remember my own people as Moses
+did, and use the wisdom of Oxford as he used the wisdom of Egypt,
+to help one's own people towards a promised land. They want
+leaders, don't they? Is there not a cause? Is it healthy for
+Lacedaemon to go on as she does in Arcadia, setting aside
+Arcadia's own happiness?' 'I'll be back again next year,' Edgar
+said, 'to compare notes and report progress, should all fall
+well. If I forget thee, O my Darien-peak, let my right hand
+forget her cunning!' We knelt long at the grave with the feet of
+its sleeper laid true north; then we said 'Good-bye' to it.
+'Bless him,' Edgar said to me as we turned away.' He opened a
+wider way than he knew perchance; God prosper the Great North
+Road, the Road to Oxford rather than to Cairo!'
+
+
+
+THE LEPER WINDOWS
+
+
+
+Its Cathedral was rising at last in a small South African
+capital. For many years a pro-Cathedral of corrugated iron had
+sufficed. Now the first stage of a noble design in ruddy
+sandstone was all but completed.
+
+The new Bishop who had been called to sit in its Cape-oak throne
+was complacent of its charms. Chancel and Lady-chapel were
+provided; transepts and tower might be expected in due course of
+time. The Bishop was long and lean and dark-haired, very closely
+shaven. He came from Oxford, yet he was wise enough to obtrude
+that fact but seldom on South Africa. He watched and listened
+intently and said strangely little; nevertheless, when he did
+speak, he seemed to have no lack of things to say. His speech to
+the Cathedral Building Committee after a three months' silence
+was not without its interest. He spoke well of both design and
+execution.
+
+He turned to the shyer subject of the raising of the funds. How
+had they attained to such wealth as their secretary announced?
+Mainly by means of three fancy fairs and a cafe chantant. Alas!
+that it should be so. Yet he did not propose to hold inquests.
+Let the dead bury their dead! Let them, however, set their hearts
+as the nether millstone against the adding of transept or tower
+save only by alms made to God. He went on to ask with whose
+memory the Lady-chapel was to be associated. Was it not the fact
+that they had associated the chapel of Christ's Mother with the
+memory of a visionary statesman? There seemed to be want of
+consideration for the great dead shown in their popular decision,
+inasmuch as he had not seen his way to accept her Son. Was it not
+something of a felony to have stolen the dead man's name--a
+felony that had assisted their funds very lavishly? But, likely
+enough, the Committee had had some noble thought in mind when
+they gave to the dead such reckless honor. The last touches were
+now being given to the nave. He wished to make a personal request
+of his own. He understood that colored persons and natives were
+not to be encouraged to frequent this mother of churches. Their
+status within was, to say the least, precarious and hard to
+reconcile with due respect for the second chapter of Saint James.
+He asked to put in at his own expense five windows after the
+likeness of leper windows in England windows that colored persons
+and natives might use freely and without reproach. By this means
+someone at least of them from without the walls might be made
+free of the vision of the services within.
+
+The irony of the speech escaped its hearers for the most part.
+After the usual type of debate on such a subject as viewed in
+South African Church circles, the request was granted.
+
+Now it happened that Mr. Conyers Smythe, the most prosperous man
+in the whole community, was not present at that Committee
+meeting. He was a Master of Arts of a South African University,
+and a real scholar, not a mere qualifier. He was, moreover, both
+sufficiently educated to understand the irony of a critical
+friend, and habitually inclined to resent it. He spoke fierily to
+certain of his intimates when the Bishop's speech was reported to
+him. He went to see him himself next day in the evening time.
+
+His host came and sat with him on the stoep, lighted the lamp to
+show him a new book of his, and gave him coffee and a cigar. The
+hour was about half-past seven, and the week was Christmas week.
+There was a new moon of very dim silver in the West looking
+through the rose trellis upon them, and masses of inflammatory
+cloud were heaped about her. The host looked at the guest
+meditatively as he lighted his pipe.
+
+The guest was fair-haired and well-featured, as well as
+magnificently built; but his deep color was not exactly the hue
+of health. His eyes had been glowing when he had first come on
+the scene, prepared to open battle. But when his host masterfully
+gained an armistice they became dull and rather worn eyes, that
+seemed not to be seeing good days somehow.
+
+Their possessor only grew eager by flashes now and again as the
+Bishop showed him a second new book one that they both deemed
+highly delectable turning the passages and discussing various
+phases of its general subject the cults of the Greek States.
+
+They had come together, these two, in a very tiny and remote city
+each an enthusiast as to this same by-path of erudition.
+
+It was not until he had shown his guest the road on to a large
+extent of commonage--commonage of mutual delight that the Bishop
+led the way to a spot therein convenient for the desired
+engagement. He began to discuss the relations of Xanthos, the
+fair god, and Melanthos, the dark god, in Hellenic society.
+
+'That's the trouble here,' he said. 'I hope you won't draw the
+line even at my leper windows. They may at least ease the
+isolation of our two cults here. I find established so to speak
+in this Christian city the cult of Xanthos, tribal god of the
+fair-skins at the Cathedral, or for the present the Pro-Cathedral.
+Also I find the cult of Melanthos multiplying itself at the tin
+temple of Saint Simon the Cyrenian.'
+
+Mr. Smythe's cheeks became more deeply empurpled and his eyes
+danced.
+
+'You must know,' went on the Bishop, 'I don't believe in
+tribal-gods at this time of day. I believe in Someone bigger. So
+it was that leper windows, modeled on those of the Middle Ages,
+seemed to me possible easements. There, at least, Lazarus may feel
+at home and join in worship, as his forerunners in the Middle
+Ages did, at their own wall-slits. Thus at least one step will
+be taken towards the supercession of Xanthos. As to the cult
+of Melanthos, I hope to help to infuse more of the joy of the
+Universal into it, so help me God!!! Yes, let me hear your
+objections.'
+
+Mr. Smythe began quite conclusively. Yet there was more
+moderation and more argument in his rather indistinct beginning
+than in the flowing harangue that followed, when his voice
+cleared and his periods found their stride. The speech fell from
+level to level. Ere the end it fell to the level of that sort of
+invective against natives one hears so often where mean whites
+forgather a not very dizzy level, believe me!
+
+Finally, Mr. Smythe vowed to give no penny for the future to
+Church purposes, and never to darken the doors of the new
+Cathedral, should the concession of those leper windows be
+confirmed. He would agree to forfeit a thousand pounds should he
+break his word, he said. Thereupon they closed the subject. The
+host tried to lead back to the cults of the Greek States, but the
+guest was now too rapt and breathless to follow to much purpose.
+Soon, by mutual consent, they ended the interview, not without
+private friendliness, but with civic war at heart.
+
+This was in Christmas week, and things went much as might have
+been expected during the months that followed. The concession had
+been granted by the Committee, and the concessionaire thought it
+his duty to be grateful for that small mercy and to act upon it.
+The malcontent repeated his vow, and it rang throughout the
+village-city. A good many of the natives who worshipped at the
+tin temple managed to hear of it, and laughed to one another;
+they would watch for the darkening of the doors.
+
+The Cathedral was to be dedicated to Saint Mark as a saint who
+was martyred in Africa, but lacked a cathedral in the south.
+
+His day was chosen for the hallowing. On the eve some pomp of
+Procession, Recession, and Anthems had been prepared, and the
+Bishop was to preach. He had been away much of these last months
+to north, south, east and west. So custom had not staled his
+variety of appeal to the outer circle of citizens or villagers.
+They, as well as the devotees, thronged the nave. At the leper
+windows there were knots of dark participants in the service.
+
+The windows gave; a few the chance of sight, but they were only
+five in number, and it would seem that many had to be content
+with very scanty views. It is questionable whether a number of
+the smaller folk nurse-boys, kitchen boys and telegraph
+messengers got any sort of a glance ere the pageantry was over.
+
+The night was very clear; the autumn wind was somewhat bitter.
+
+The hymn after the Blessing had been reached 'Brief life is here
+our portion' and the banners streamed down the central aisle in
+glory. The leper windows grew very starry with observation.
+
+One boy who had come late had no chance of a view now. He was the
+Bishop's coachman, a lanky Bechuana, and he stood humming the
+hymn's air with his back to a window a window near the western
+door. Suddenly he started. Somebody was striding up to the porch.
+Surely there was no mistaking Mr. Conyers Smythe's fine shoulders
+in that figure nor the jaunty carriage of his massive head. Now
+he drew near, and the light of the porch-lamp fell upon him.
+
+The coachman caught the arm of his stable-boy, who was standing
+next to him a rather Jewish-looking Mashona.
+
+'Look! look!' he cried.
+
+They both watched the churchgoer as he passed up the steps. Then
+he was gone from their view.
+
+In the afternoon of the next day, when the triumphal services of
+Dedication were over, the Bishop was being driven to a farmhouse
+not very far distant. It was not till his mule-cart had almost
+reached home again that his driver ventured to question him. He
+had seemed rather preoccupied that driver all the dusty journey.
+Now he asked a question that was being wildly debated in native
+circles that very afternoon. 'My lord, has Mr. Smythe paid all
+the thousand pounds yet?'
+
+The Bishop started and stared; then he laughed. 'What do you know
+of Mr. Smythe's thousand pounds?' he asked. Then he answered,
+'No, Jack; why should he?'
+
+Why indeed? So Mombe, the ox-man to give him his native name was
+trying to evade his obligations, was he? Almost bursting with
+importance, Jack told his master what Jim and he had seen last
+night. The Bishop listened carefully, and asked two or three
+questions. Then he told Jack that he might want him and his
+stable-boy later on that evening. He felt sure that the story was
+no mere willful fiction. When they were home he wrote a letter to
+Smythe asking him if he could come over and smoke after dinner.
+Then he went off to his sunset Evensong.
+
+Conyers Smythe came about an hour afterwards. The Bishop and he
+had had but two bookish evenings together since that rather
+bizarre one in Christmas week. They met cordially enough on this
+April night.
+
+Smythe was looking far from well. He had been worried about his
+wife's health she was away in England. The last news of it had
+been rather disquieting. Smythe was glad enough of sympathy; he
+was in no truculent mood.
+
+They smoked by the fire in the Bishop's study as the night was
+cold. The Bishop had some new books to show and points to debate.
+
+The two began with Greek pagan cults, but passed on to Christian
+hagiology, and discussed the legend of St. Mark with a fair
+measure of agreement. Then, when the coffee had come in, and they
+had I become friends at ease and amity, the Bishop told Smythe
+the boys' tale.
+
+Smythe grew curiously white and seemed angry.
+
+Then he laughed. 'Let's have 'em in and hear their yarn!' he
+said.
+
+So Jack and Jim were sent for, and, after some slight delay,
+appeared. They were well washed and in their Sunday clothes. They
+were disposed to be deferential enough, but withal very
+confident, both of them. They cast somewhat awed glances at
+Smythe in his armchair, but they told their tale clearly on the
+whole, in fair Biblical English, Jack first, slowly, and Jim, at
+a great pace, after his superior. Smythe appeared to be busily
+consulting a reference while Jim was ending. There was a pause.
+Then the guest looked up from his book and stated his alibi: 'I
+was in my stable, sitting up with a sick horse,' he said. 'I came
+away long after the church service was over when the poor beast
+died with frothing at the nose. You can ask my stable-boy.'
+
+Jack bowed his head respectfully. 'Your stableboy, Mutenu, has
+told me so this evening,' he said. 'But, O master, why should we
+lie? Is it not known that people have been seen in two places at
+one time'?'
+
+Smythe frowned. He was not anxious to discuss hypotheses with
+natives. Then the Bishop told the boys that he had heard enough.
+Let them think that although they had spoken truth, they had been
+mistaken.
+
+'How do you explain it?' said the Bishop rather eagerly when they
+had gone out.
+
+'O,' said Smythe with a rather bitter smile, 'supposing it not to
+be a native lie--natives have been known to lie, my lord--it's
+the sort of story one reads about in the Middle Ages, the sort of
+legend likely to linger. He was seen going into a church on a
+certain ill-starred night.'
+
+The Bishop gave a start and interrupted him. 'Do you know what
+yesterday evening was? Why, it was Saint Mark's Eve.'
+
+Smythe smiled a queer livid smile. 'Yes, I thought of that all
+along, since the boy mentioned the porch,' he said. 'I've just
+been looking up the old belief in that new book of yours. I was
+seen going in, therefore I must look to go out in these next
+twelve months.
+
+A year, a month, a week, a natural day
+That Faustus may repent and save his soul!
+O lente, lente currite, noctis equi!
+The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,
+The devil will come, and Faustus will be damn'd.
+
+The Bishop smiled at the quotation, but looked anxiously at his
+guest. Was he really taking his subliminal self's choice of date
+to heart? He proceeded to recount his own unfaith in thirteen's
+black magic, also in the traditional properties of salt and
+broken mirrors. He gave instances of disproof in his own unended
+career.
+
+But Smythe, though he laughed with him, seemed rather restrained
+and silent: the last hour of that evening appeared to hang fire
+somehow. Towards the end of it, Smythe talked of his wife. 'She
+is at her old home,' he said, and mentioned a village very near
+to Oxford.
+
+'I know,' said his host, looking into the wood fire. He was
+watching the Cherwell swirl through a narrow archway. He was
+conscious of heavenly blue in the white limbo ceiling above him,
+and the cushions of his chair had a grassy feel.
+
+'She's gone home,' said Smythe, 'and she's not well, and I've not
+been well.'
+
+'You look as if you want rest and change,' said the Bishop
+uneasily.
+
+'I think of going a trip to the old country,' said Smythe. 'I was
+born out here, and haven't ever seen it. I'd like to see it
+once.'
+
+'O, do go,' said his host. 'It is worth going far. Yes, all that
+long way.'
+
+Not many minutes after they said good-night.
+
+But the Bishop did not go to bed at once after his guest had
+gone. He reached for his Keats, and read, 'The Eve of Saint
+Mark'; then he reflected.
+
+'Strange are the uses of leper windows,' he thought. 'How I
+should like to know what I may know this time next year, if only
+I didn't know I'd better not know it now! Well, be it a sign or a
+mock sign, God see him through with it!'
+
+Conyers Smythe started home by the next mail boat save one. The
+same boat carried a letter in the Bishop's handwriting to a
+pastoral divine in Oxford.
+
+'He's a sick sheep, anyhow,' said the writer, 'and I've a
+presentiment that he mayn't last out a year.'
+
+As it befell, Conyers Smythe died rather suddenly in England
+before November was over. People remarked on the dreadfulness of
+the event. But Mrs. Smythe bore the shock bravely, as if she had
+been well prepared to bear it. It seemed that she had known the
+truth about his heart-disease in May, almost as soon as he was
+told it by the London doctor. Smythe had grown to be intimate in
+those last months with two or three English scholars one was an
+expert in tribal cults, and the other was that pastoral divine.
+It was one or other of these Oxford friends of his who sent on
+his last letter to the Bishop in December after he had gone away.
+Among other messages, the letter brought this one:
+
+'There was something in that Saint Mark's Eve business I suppose.
+But I had had my warnings before of an event that is likely
+enough to occur this very week. I am glad indeed that I came home
+and saw things from other sides before the end. Perhaps those
+crowded-out Kaffirs by your leper windows hurried me up with
+their intelligence. I am grateful to them for that. Otherwise I
+might have delayed, and never started on the home voyage.
+
+'You must make some allowance for my old point of view, as I was
+born into it. But now I want to give both Transepts to the Glory
+of God on condition that colored folk and natives shall, have
+them to themselves undisturbed. Forgive my narrow-mindedness, but
+I'd rather have it so than have all races mixed up together, and
+perhaps they'd rather have it so themselves! No, I really don't
+think I'm dying in the creed of the tribal god Xanthos, but in
+the faith of Someone bigger. I can trust you to befriend me at
+some altar of His. . . . I wish I could afford the Tower.'
+
+'Alms!' said the Bishop. 'Thank God they'll not be built now by
+bazaars or fancy fairs or even by cafes-chantants. Poor base-born
+little churches out here, that one so often hears of, aren't they
+only too likely to grow up into the temples of the tribal god?'
+
+Thus the Transepts were destined to be of purer lineage than
+Chancel or Nave or Lady-chapel. Only the Leper Windows are their
+equals in descent as yet among their fellow-buildings. But there
+is good hope of an honorable birth for the yet unborn Tower.
+
+
+
+THE BURNT OFFERING A SEQUEL TO 'THE LEPER WINDOWS'
+
+
+
+['The Headman made it generally known that he expected all the
+men, both Christian and heathen, to subscribe to the funds. One
+man refused to give anything, and was taken before the Magistrate
+in consequence.' Extract from a South African Church paper,
+December 22, 1910.]
+
+
+
+The transepts had been built and blessed, the five leper windows
+were no longer over-crowded. Xanthos and Melanthos, gods of the
+fair and the swart skins, had in a measure met together, and in a
+sense kissed each other. Much remained to be achieved in the
+matter of mutual good understanding, and much more again in the
+supercession of these tribal deities by a Greater.
+
+On the other hand, something had been done to teach the devotees
+of Xanthos toleration and a spirit of alms. The Bishop now turned
+his attention towards Melanthos more particularly what could he
+do to ennoble the aims and methods of his clients? He had made a
+journey to England and back not long before the blessing of the
+transepts. He regretted leaving his flock at the time. Yet
+certain observations he had made just ere he started gave him
+much food for thought on the voyage. And when he was home in the
+old country he was glad to find time and occasion to observe
+afresh, supplementing Africa by Europe, intuitions by research.
+
+The Rev. Charles Topready, a keen missionary, had asked him to
+visit him the week before he went homewards. It was the season
+when that countryside threshed out its millet-grain in a revel
+of rhythmic labor. The Bishop delighted in some of those airs
+that the sticks beat time to. He was greedy of fantastic
+interpretations as he wrote their voweled refrains down in a
+note-book.
+
+'We may have a Harvest Thanksgiving in church, may we not, this
+coming Sunday?' he said.
+
+Now Harvest Thanksgivings were as red rags to Topready. 'Why
+should we bind upon Africa a burden that irks England?' he
+groaned. 'Surely it is a mercy that we can start afresh on the
+veld with no tradition of a Feast of Pumpkins.'
+
+The Bishop smiled and smoked and argued by the hour. His point
+was that festivals of the soil were serviceable for sons of
+the soil. That agricultural festivals were serviceable for
+husbandmen, pastoral feasts for shepherds and goat-herds, hunting
+commemorations like that of Saint Hubert, for those who hunted.
+His knowledge of Greece and Rome, pagan and Christian, of
+mediaeval England and modern Brittany helped him with many apt
+illustrations. Topready stuck out his chin and kept bravely to
+his two points the danger of materialism and the menace to the
+spiritual cults and festas of Holy Church as by law established
+in the England of to-day.
+
+'All right,' said the Bishop, 'let us have no Harvest
+Thanksgiving for the tillage of African earth. That is to say not
+this year. But keep an open mind.' Topready promised dubiously.
+
+That struggle and waiving of victory had put the Bishop on his
+mettle. He had thought out the subject to some purpose before
+they met again.
+
+Here are some pages from his English diary:
+
+Sept. 21. Preached at a Thanksgiving in Essex. 'Happy harvest
+fields,' quiet tints in the Vicarage garden. A sun that seemed to
+make better use of a short day than an African sun would of a
+long one. What a festival Topready might have just about this
+time if he only liked. The masasas tinted with copper, crimson;
+mauve, and pink, and other leaves showing faery green and gold.
+
+Saint Matthew's Day. The festival of the foolery of riches when
+Spring is everywhere and the sun is shining.
+
+Oct. (date illegible). Preached at the blessing of the boats in a
+small Sussex harbor the herring season just beginning. What
+glorious girls' names some of the boats had that we prayed for
+'Diana Elizabeth,' for instance, might have sailed out of the
+'Faerie Queene.'
+
+Nov. 1 (All Saints'). Went to church at Saint Paul's in a side
+chapel.
+
+Nov. 2 (All Souls'). Went to pray in a cemetery chapel.
+
+Both were misty mornings, but the sun each day came out before we
+had done, and broke through the dingy windows in a carnage of
+color. How fine a side of death, November, the month of the dead,
+presents here. Damp and fog and fall of the leaf doubtless the
+sorryness of the bad business of decay and punishment but on the
+other hand what bravery of sunlight at times, and what colors for
+the sun to shine upon. In Africa it's so different. There the
+month is a spring month. The gay side of death as a release from
+Africa's plentiful curses and bondages is happily prominent. All
+Saints' Day our May Day our Feast of Flora and the Rosa Mystica!
+What a day for converts suckled in animism! Let us commemorate
+the African Saints with garlands of spring flowers as well as
+with palms in their hands. Have written to Topready to suggest a
+May-Day Festival with African drums to dance to, if no English
+May-pole to plait.
+
+Jan. 21 (St. Agnes' Day). Went to a down church, where they had a
+sort of special service. Lambing-time among the South Downs just
+coming on. The sacrifice pleaded with one main request in view
+the blessing on the flocks. If they had only brought some lambs
+in! I hope to live to see some pied African lambs and kids in
+church yet.
+
+June 21. Went to Stonehenge on the longest day. Would have camped
+out there on the eve if the policeman would have let me. Took
+observations as to Flame-Stone. Compared notes with those I took
+at Zimbabwe this time last year on my way to Topready's.
+
+June 24 (Saint John). Yes, in African Mission Stations we should
+have St. John's Fires or fires corresponding to them about
+Christmas time.
+
+Then in Mashonaland, summer is at height. Yes, the other Saint
+John's Day, or its Eve, would do. Let us give thanks for the
+Light of the World and the Sun of Righteousness symbolized by
+things seen and enjoyed. What did Saint Patrick do about the
+sacred fire? He kept it going, didn't he? Let us light our
+bonfires with a good will this coming Christmastide we who live
+by sun-time so often.
+
+
+
+Back from England came the Bishop full of the lore of early
+missions. He had enriched his zeal for broad-basing the people's
+worship on their own everyday earth, and for enlightening things
+opaque with effulgences invisible. He saw his way more clearly to
+further what he had at heart. Topready had had many letters, and
+they had had their effect. But he had not capitulated yet. He
+capitulated at a price, as we shall see.
+
+'Church ready by Christmas,' wrote Topready, 'please come and
+consecrate.' 'Expect me the day after,' telegraphed the Bishop.
+He thought about a bonfire as he rode along on that Saint
+Stephen's Day. 'The kopje above the Mission!' he reflected. 'A
+magnificent place for a beacon-fire.'
+
+To his delight the new church crowned the very kopje he had been
+thinking of. There it stood on the sky-line, its gold of fresh
+thatch crowned a huge pole building, and was itself crowned by a
+white cross.
+
+'How fine!' said the Bishop to himself, 'but there's no room up
+there for a bonfire as well, alas!'
+
+Topready did not look over-cheerful when his leader greeted him
+with congratulations on the building of the church.
+
+'It's all very well, or rather it might have been ever so much
+better,' he said, as they went in.
+
+In the evening there was much time to talk. They sat on the stony
+rise above the house with a wide valley view. The starlight was
+brilliant above them eager, perfervid, passionate. They were on
+the rocks smoking, the Bishop between Topready and Manners, who
+was not a parson, but a policeman.
+
+'It's like this,' said Topready. 'Holy Innocents' is the first
+church that has been built since I came here. It was built on a
+system.'
+
+He explained roughly how it worked. The native teacher used his
+personal and official majesty for what it was worth. The people
+on the Mission ground were asked for poles, grass, work, &c.
+'These were given,' said Topready, 'or at least "given" is the
+word that I understand my predecessor would have chosen. The
+headman proclaimed that his will coincided with the will of the
+native teacher. They wanted a church built that would compare
+favorably with churches erected under the auspices of other
+native teachers and other headmen.
+
+'The contributions came in plentifully, sylvan or grassy. People
+who never come to church, heathens who do not seem much overjoyed
+with the Gospel, gave just as handsomely as Church officers. No
+one was paid. The church is cheap and big, and the headman and
+native teacher are both unhealthily contented.'
+
+'Well, what's the matter?' said Manners; 'it's the way we do
+these little things in Africa. White men don't build churches
+from base to spire on ideal principles exactly, do they. Bishop?'
+
+'At least we haven't had a cafe chantant lately,' the Bishop
+said.
+
+'Well, don't you be too sure one isn't going on in some outlying
+parish while we sit here. As it happens, I know of one advertised
+for next month.'
+
+'Be sure of your facts,' said the Bishop.
+
+'Anyhow, before you came, plenty of the society lash used to be
+applied to get church-building doles out of Europeans. Moreover,
+if you look into it, generally you'll find things at Missions
+much as you find them here. These gloriously "given" Mission
+churches on Mission lands that the home magazine ecstasizes over
+are not given so very freely, to say the least of it. They are
+put up by a sort of social pressure immensely effective,'
+Topready broke in.
+
+'They say most of the churches this side of the river are built
+the one way and I don't like the one way. Archdeacon Maynard used
+to advocate the one way, and impress it on his missionaries black
+and white. It was he who started the church-rate and debarred
+defaulters from Easter Communion. I've stopped that, and I want
+to stop the one way.'
+
+The Bishop groaned. 'Archdeacon Maynard's a vice-president of the
+Free and Open Churchmen in England. I heard him speak eloquently,
+if a little floridly, on the right of the poor to the House of
+God.'
+
+Manners chuckled. 'England's some way off,' he said.
+
+Topready spoke from his heart. 'I don't like it. I told the
+people that the proper way was for Christians and philo-Christians
+to build accordingly as they could spare money and time. But they
+said that they were too few. I answered "Then let them wait in the old
+church awhile." They said they wanted a new church this year, and that
+the heathen should be called to help the faithful as in other places.
+They said they ought to have a kraal levy as other places did it saved
+a great deal of trouble.  They thought me mad, I think. Azariah, the
+teacher, practically told me so.'
+
+The Bishop lit his pipe again.
+
+'We'll think about it,' he said. 'The consecration is fixed for
+the day after to-morrow, is it not? It was to be christened Holy
+Innocents' Church on Childermas Day, was it not? Will you have it
+consecrated on the Eve instead, Saint John's Night? Time Sunset.'
+
+Topready started. 'Rather late, is it not?' he asked.
+
+It was a great concourse that lined the hillside on the morrow
+when the sun was going down. The Bishop had spoken that morning
+in the old plain church of how he wished them to observe certain
+days of prayer and thanksgiving.
+
+He asked them to keep a festival of flocks on Saint Agnes' Day.
+
+He asked them to keep a festival of herds on Saint Luke's Day.
+
+He asked them to keep the feasts of Loaf-Mass in August and
+Wood-Mass in September as feasts of Harvest and Forestry.
+
+He asked them to keep a thanksgiving for summer after Christmas
+on the night of Saint John, if they and their priest thought
+good.
+
+He spoke of how the heathen had worshipped the sun in the grey
+northern lands. Then Christians better taught had thanked Christ,
+the Light of the World, for the glory of the sun, and lighted
+their joy-fires to a better purpose.
+
+Doubtless, some in this land long ago, not only at Zimbabwe, but
+on many hills and high places, had honored the strong sun of the
+South. He asked them as Christians to be glad for that same sun's
+blessings at Christmas time. It seemed to him good for those who
+wished it (he gave no law) for those to light their bonfires
+to-night and to thank God not only for the summer, but for the Sun
+of righteousness. He himself had a mind to light a fire on that
+Saint John's Night to the glory of God.
+
+Topready looked thoughtful after church. 'If I adopt your
+calendar loyally as far as may be, do you see your way to help me
+against the system?' he asked of a sudden. His grey-blue eyes
+were full of fight.
+
+The Bishop nodded. He talked with him quietly a little while.
+
+'The pact is made, then?' said Topready. 'No, I don't think we
+have sold our convictions, either of us. I don't feel penitent
+about my side of the bargain.'
+
+'I feel it's a holy alliance,' said the Bishop, and his face
+glowed. 'People will keep this night, and remember what was done
+on it, may be, long after we are forgotten.'
+
+That sunset a mighty crowd was there among the rocks. Much dead
+wood had been brought. Fathers, mothers, and children in costumes
+that ranged from skins to European fashions shouldered or headed
+their faggots.' A grim thought obsessed the Bishop as he watched
+them. These people, so quiet and yielding as to the selling of
+sacrament, and levying of church vote how easily they might be
+swayed to more sinister reminiscences of the Middle Ages! If he
+and Topready and Azariah and the headman enjoined it, what would
+save certain aged heathen neighbors from an auto-da-fe for
+alleged witchcraft one of these nights? Were not some of those
+old scenes at the stake much like this scene before him? Did not
+country people come together much as these, with dark impassive
+faces and bundles of firewood? Did not they listen and listen so,
+until the time came to pile faggots to the glory of God?
+
+He stood on a rock and looked down on the faces. Topready stood
+close beneath him looking cheerful, the native teacher was near
+looking dubious, next to him stood the headman with his white
+beard, looking amused. Around them the crowd poised and posed
+itself among the rocks with innate grace and imposing silence.
+Even the babies in the goatskins were quiet.
+
+The Bishop spoke of alms-giving. He said he did not like their
+plan of raising a house for Christ. Let people who loved Christ
+build churches if they wished to, but let them build churches
+according to their power to give! Let them not seek the labor or
+money of others, careless how it came! Rather let them worship in
+the old and the small, than build a new and great church anyhow!
+He, their Bishop, wished to buy their new church from them,
+paying back those who had helped to build, giving to each his
+due. He asked them, would they sell this church to him, to do
+with it as seemed to him good? If, when they built, they had
+made, as it were, a false start, let them start again, and this
+time so run that they might obtain the Promises of Christ. Would
+they sell their church to him?
+
+He waited for an answer.
+
+There was a hush. The eyes that watched him seemed almost
+overwhelming in their vigilance.
+
+His eyes went wistfully off to the sky in front of him. What
+beaches of gold and weed-tangles of rose-color those were to the
+north-west the way of England.
+
+Suddenly the silence was broken.
+
+Azariah spoke out bravely. He had heard the words of his
+herdsman, and he knew that he had' gone astray, even like a lost
+bull. As for this thatched cattle-byre that they had built, let
+him who asked for it have it! Was it not his own?
+
+One after another spoke. Their speeches all had the same import
+let the church be handed over to him that asked.
+
+A roar of acclamation worth many speeches went up from the
+hill-side Then the Bishop asked those who carried faggots to follow
+him to the consecration. His shepherd's staff went before him. An
+earthen vessel smoked with incense in front of that again. He
+followed up the steep path in his shining robes. Behind him came
+blazing grass torches, and behind them again wood-carriers. When
+they reached the hill's crown there was some delay in the
+gathering dusk. They were stacking the wood for the sacrifice. At
+last Topready turned to his chief with a happy face. All was
+prepared. The Bishop's voice rang out in one sonorous prayer of
+oblation. Then someone handed him a grass torch and he kindled
+the thatch above the altar. The church that misbegotten innocent
+flamed up toward heaven amber and grey and crimson under the
+stars.
+
+
+
+EIGHT-EIGHT IN LAVENDER
+
+
+
+Andrew Vine came out to Africa this year as a pilgrim, and was
+disappointed. He did not go about his pilgrimage in the right way
+to my thinking. For to begin with, on his own confession, he put
+himself in the hands of a born organizer, who was making up a
+party of fellow-travelers.
+
+Of course they were provided with first-class tickets for the
+boat, and enjoyed for sixteen days and more, in a same and narrow
+scene, an amplitude of the luxuries they were used to, and tired
+of. Then, dogged by a diet befitting that state to which it had
+pleased Providence to call them, they rode the Great North Road
+for some days in a northern express. Vine said that the Victoria
+Falls were all right, but that their surroundings were, many of
+them, perversely wrong. It was so very stale, the hotel business,
+with the moonlight river excursions and the Livingstone trips,
+far too much sleeked and smoothed by foresight, and tamed by
+taking of thought. If one had only traveled up with pack donkeys,
+provisioned with leathery meat and leathery damper! For Vine had
+known better times in Africa. He had known pioneer adventures in
+his headstrong youth but had fallen out of his Column after three
+crowded months. Tempted of fever, he had made a great refusal.
+And now in this year, twenty-four years after, the sense of
+having seen better days at a tithe of the expense, oppressed him.
+
+However, the tickets had been taken, and the splendidly null
+organization of their party had him in its grip. He went back
+from the Falls to Bulawayo, and was whisked out to Khami. Only an
+hour was allowed him to see the river. At the grave of the
+Matopos, he was allowed two hours. There a brooding Presence
+grappled with the languors of his pilgrimage. The demoniac
+discontent of that savage scene made great play with him, during
+the two hours he was there, but two hours are not a very long
+time. Soon they were scorching back again with an interval for
+tea at a well (or ill) appointed hotel. Vine was disposed to give
+up the dreary pilgrimage-game that very night, he told me. But
+the born organizer, coming to him after dinner, persuaded him to
+play it out. He offered to release him after the next lap the lap
+of Great Zimbabwe. When that was once finished to time, he
+proposed that the party should have a breather, a short spell of
+civilized life at Salisbury, should it so seem good to them. Vine
+could be spared for the space of that interlude. Afterwards he
+would doubtless take boat with them for a cruise up the East
+Coast. He would be sufficiently reinvigorated to rough it out
+with them rigorously to the end. The East Coast route might not
+entail quite so many hardships. Vine sighed, but he was a man of
+his word. He went to Zimbabwe without a murmur. He had longed for
+seventy-five miles of the dusty Umvuma post-cart, but alas, the
+day was the third of the new month! The railway extension to
+Victoria had been opened on the first. The organizer rubbed his
+hands as he told them the glad news: 'We can have a dining-car
+and sleeping berths now to within sixteen miles odd of the ruins.
+We shan't need to fare so ruggedly after all. A lunch at the
+"Apes and Peacocks" Hotel is about the worst of it. But we can
+take out a Fortnum and Mason's hamper in the road-car that meets
+us.'
+
+So they went to the ruins. Vine, who, as a pioneer had seen the
+'Temple's' torso shaggy in bush and long grass, hardly knew it
+again. It had been shaven and shorn rather ruthlessly. Some of
+the ruins, he noted ungratefully, were numbered to correspond
+with a catalogue. There was, moreover, the glamorous sheen of a
+wire fence about the whole place.
+
+A curator participated as guide by special arrangement. A local
+celebrity accompanied him; he stood for the faith of Ophir, and
+smote the Egyptologist adversary not once nor twice alone. He
+confessed to the ladies of the party his conviction that the
+theory of an African origin was too inconceivably squalid. He
+stood for the gorgeous East, he said, as against Kaffirdom. He
+would not insult the culture that they brought with them by
+bothering them with detailed arguments.
+
+Meanwhile another local celebrity was employed in bossing up some
+restoration work. Primitive walls were receiving trained modern
+attention, and medical attendance, regardless of expense.
+
+Vine came to me at Umvuma when the Zimbabwe visitation was over
+and done. He was seeing his party off by the Salisbury train
+when he caught sight of me on the platform. That night he smoked
+and slept by an ox-wagon. Bread was to hand in rather frugal
+measure, but there was great plenty of monkey-nuts. There was
+also bush-tea, and Vine brought much tobacco. We smoked till long
+after the moon set, and that was near midnight. He told me of
+disappointments that had come to him through his pilgrimage being
+over well-appointed.
+
+'After all,' I said, 'you might try again next year.'
+
+'But a year's a lot at my age. I was forty-five last month, and I
+don't mean coming out again.
+
+'So little done, so much to do, So many worlds, such things to
+be.'
+
+'Where shall we go to this week?' he went on. 'I've got a week
+off from the Cook's combination. You'll give me the one week,
+won't you Shall we go to Dhlo-Dhlo or Nanatali or Sinoia Caves?
+It's the curse of our Cook's tour that it's mopped up the sacred
+places I did want to see in a decent way the Grave, and the
+Temple, and the Falls.'
+
+'Yours is the very snobbery of pilgrimage,' I told him sternly.
+'There are surely shrines on the veld that have never yet got
+into a Chartered Company's guide-book.' I told him of a modest
+set of ruins out our way. I couldn't well come with him in any
+direction, north, south, or east or west, as he seemed to think I
+could. I might get in five days between Sunday and Sunday, if he
+chose our own neighborhood. He seemed glad enough to agree.
+
+We cut food down and loads, and we started. We camped within the
+precincts of the shrine, hard by a place where a fire-fused
+chalice had been dug out. Ours was a fair camping-ground. A ring
+of kopjes about it wore the sun's colors. To the east a spruit
+was in sight, overhung in that autumn month by the mists of
+morning. Within those precincts we dreamed some temple-dreams on
+two golden afternoons, and slept temple-sleep on two very shiny
+nights.
+
+'My reformed pilgrimage has justified itself,' Vine told me on
+the morning that we left, when we were making for my station.
+
+'Wait a bit,' I said. 'We are arriving if all falls well, this
+very night at another shrine. We have not done with our Pilgrims'
+Way.'
+
+That night we came to the farm-house where the Kents farmed and
+missionized. I had expected Vine to like it and them, but I had
+not guessed how much attracted he would be. The Kents were not
+up-to-date, and they dressed as some people dressed in England
+twenty-five years before in the period of their leaving home.
+
+So Mrs. Kent wore on that night a chocolate-brown Liberty costume
+of a Burne Jones pattern. Miss Kent was only twenty-two, and wore
+rose-color, but the design of her dress was her mother's own.
+Kent wore an eighties collar with old-oak plaid and a red tie, I
+did not like his taste.
+
+Vine sat and watched them with a reverential sort of gaze. He
+asked Kent when they were going home, thoughtfully. But Kent told
+him that they did not think of going home again, only up the
+coast to Zanzibar, or down to Inhambane, when they wanted change
+and holiday. 'That's splendid,' said Vine emphatically. 'Don't go
+home. It's not what it used to be. I feel sure you would not like
+it.'
+
+After supper we had music, and Kent kept on singing, at Vine's
+particular request. I did not take much notice of what he was
+singing till Vine came and spoke to me. Then I saw how excited he
+was, and I listened with attention.
+
+'Do you remember that?' he said. 'It was the song that Oriel man
+used to sing.' Then I recognized 'Our Last Waltz,' and afterwards
+'In Sweet September.' I remembered both as the songs of a man
+whose wedding we both had attended, in the very year that we went
+down.
+
+We shared a hut behind the mission homestead, and shared much
+converse before we slept.
+
+'It's purple and gold,' Vine said. 'I came out to find a beastly
+ruin.'
+
+'And you find the Victorian Sixth Decade mummified,' I said.
+
+'Don't sneer!'
+
+'Well, pressed in lavender,' I amended.
+
+For early did'st thou leave the world, with powers
+Fresh, undiverted to the world without,
+Firm to their mark, not spent on other things;
+Free from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt,
+Which much to have tried, in much been baffled, brings.
+
+'That describes Kent's Hegira, doesn't it? He's stopped where we
+two were, when we went down, in ever so many ways.'
+
+'Hurray!' cried Vine, tossing his boot up, 'I came out to find a
+beastly ruin, and I've found my lost youth, nothing more nor
+less! Bless you!'
+
+But his ecstasy was to culminate on the following morning. Kent
+had mounted him on one of his two mules, and piloted him on the
+other to see some Bush paintings three miles away.
+
+I grew a little uneasy, they were so long gone, for I knew well
+what a lot of country lay between us and my own mission station.
+I was due there by sunrise or soon after, on the morrow. Mrs.
+Kent was strumming away on the piano old dance tunes that I
+remembered barrel-organ melodies of now remote days, days when a
+bi-weekly shave sufficed me. I stood in the doorway and beat
+time. Whenever were we going to get started at this rate? At last
+the mules came cantering up the wagon-road.
+
+'Get a move on,' I shouted to Vine as he pulled up before the
+door. But just at that moment Mrs. Kent began on 'The Reign of
+the Roses.' Vine, who had kicked a foot out of its stirrup, did
+not dismount. He sat drinking in the dance-measure. Louder and
+louder she played the air, and, humming it over, he drove his
+foot home. Shaking up the reins, he cantered his mule round and
+round the sun-dial in front of the door. Round and round he went,
+still humming, while those wiry and sun-burnt wrists pounded away
+at the dance-music.
+
+'How long is this going on?' I pleaded. I began to see the humor
+of the thing when I watched our carriers. They were gaping as at
+a new kind of circus. At last Mrs. Kent gave over, not very soon,
+however; the melody was evidently a favorite of hers.
+
+'Is there not a cause?' pleaded Vine, when he had dismounted
+lingeringly, and was facing my reproaches for his wanton delay.
+He muttered something about a merry-go-round. Afterwards he
+explained, when we were making up for lost time along the big
+vlei.
+
+'It was that night when we got to Goring,' he reminded me, 'when
+we went down to Henley in that double-sculler at the end of our
+first summer term 1888, the first week in July. There was a
+village fair on that night, and we rode round on the horses, ever
+so many pennyworths. That was the tune I remembered best of all
+the tunes that the steam-organ played. Don't you remember?' And
+strange to say, I did.
+
+He played the game with the organizer, rapt though he was by his
+memory of the steam-organ, I will say that much for him. He took
+the trouble to go all the way up to Salisbury, and to beg him to
+have him excused. And he was successful. I don't quite know what
+excuse he gave. It was scarcely likely to be so crude as the
+excuse I guessed at, 'I want to marry a wife, and therefore I
+cannot go.' He unbosomed himself to me engagingly when he came
+back from Salisbury. He appealed to my compassionate sympathy.
+
+'Just fancy! Forty-five and no real home!' he said, 'And here
+I've come on pilgrimage, and found just what I've unconsciously
+craved youth and beauty up-to-date, not this date but the date of
+my own unforgotten youth 1888 in lavender, so to speak.'
+
+I wished him luck in his wooing of Miss Kent. If Mrs. Kent had
+been a widow, I should have thought her much more suitable. He
+gave the bridle-reins a shake, and rode away on an old salted
+horse he had bought, walking had grown much too slow for him.
+
+He won Joan Kent, and fixed it up with her late-Victorian parents
+to their mutual content.
+
+The wedding date is chosen already it is June 20th a day hallowed
+enough, having twice been Jubilee Day. I think Vine would have
+preferred May 24th as having been Victoria Day. But Joan objected
+to her wedding taking place in Our Lady's May month.
+
+
+
+DIVINATION
+
+
+
+I have a friend who lives some miles away, among fantastic rocks
+and crimson-flowered Kaffir trees. I was over at his homestead
+one day in Christmas week last year and found that he was absent.
+He was sleeping at a trading-station to east, the boys said, and
+would not be back for a day or so. But he had left word with them
+to give me supper should I come. So I had time to notice a
+change.
+
+Three or four very cool and fresh water-colors adorned his walls.
+They were pinned up there under a trophy of harness. Under each
+oblong of paper was a title in old English characters. One was
+named 'Sundown.' another 'Sun-up' these both showed the homestead
+not as it was now in mid-summer, but as I remembered it in late
+winter or early spring, with some of the trees in full flower.
+
+The other picture showed a charming group of children variously
+colored among the rocks. I feasted my eyes on it for quite a long
+while, noting its detail, which bewildered me. Surely no such
+scene had been witnessed lately in all South Africa. Yet I knew
+the rocks of the scene; they were close by, and the children were
+painted some of them with familiar-looking faces. The title
+underneath was 'Innocents.'
+
+I did not see my friend for a week or so after that, and when I
+did I did not think at first to ask about the pictures. However,
+he began to tell the story of them himself. He was talking about
+men on the road, a class with which he had a large acquaintance,
+having lodged many of them. 'I had one here last week,' he said,
+'a white man in clean white ducks. He stopped two nights, and
+went outside painting most of the days. He gave me three
+pictures. He could paint, couldn't he? I couldn't catch his name,
+and he said he wasn't sure where he was going to stop next. But
+he went up the Rosebery Road, and seemed to know his way about.
+He hadn't got a bag, and he traveled very light just a blanket or
+so and a loaf of bread and a cup. I shouldn't think he'd come to
+much harm, would he?' I shook my head. 'He could paint, couldn't
+he?' he said, glancing up at the pictures. I nodded. 'That's a
+fancy picture,' I said; 'that of the children a pretty fancy. I
+wonder what it means.' My friend Dick meditated. 'I don't see
+much wrong in the painting anyhow,' he said.
+
+The picture was indeed a pretty fancy there were children white
+and black in it, and lambs and kids. The white children were
+mixed up with the black curiously. One little sturdy Mashona
+carried a white child in his arms. A white boy with fair hair,
+aged nine or ten, carried a Mashona baby in a goat's skin
+strapped to his back. The light of dawn was in the picture a cool
+summer dawn. Between the rocks and the red-sprayed trees of our
+country was, as it were, a lawn, close-bit by much feeding into a
+fair copy of an English lawn. I looked hard at the picture.
+
+'Those two Mashonas are like the children that were burnt in a
+kraal this way,' I said pointing. 'I tried to dress their burns
+but they both died.' Dick looked up as I pointed, but he said
+nothing. He eschews dwelling on painful subjects very often, I
+notice. 'Don't you think that they are like?' I asked.
+
+'Kaffir children favor one another,' Dick said sagely. He stood
+watching the picture on the faded wall in silence. Then we
+dropped the subject. But the mystery of it remained for me.
+
+A week or two after, that mystery multiplied. Dick was expecting
+visitors, and he asked me over to meet them. The male visitor was
+an official I used to know of old; he was to bring his sister
+with him this time, and the sister I did not know. She was a
+charming person; one who had been in the country a long time ago
+and left it, but had come back again now to be married and to
+make a home in Rosebery. She had reached the homestead about
+mid-day, the same day that I came over in the late afternoon.
+
+After tea and before dinner we walked down to the cattle-kraal,
+all four of us. Then, when Dick and her brother were ahead she
+began to question me about that water-color on the wall. I told
+her what Dick had told me. 'He told me that himself,' she said,
+'but I didn't understand.'
+
+'I thought I knew two of the children,' I said, 'but Kaffir
+children seem much alike to our English eyes, don't they? They
+seemed to me to resemble two quite little children I used to come
+and see. They were badly burnt near here.'
+
+She started.
+
+'Did they get better?' she asked. I shook my head. She started
+again. 'Listen,' she said. 'Two children to whom I used to be
+nursery-governess were murdered in the "Rebellion" on a farm
+close to this very place. They were staying with their mother's
+elder sister. Please do try and tell me this. Why are these
+portraits, life-like portraits, of those two children in this
+picture?'
+
+I stared at her rather stupidly. Then Dick came to us we, were
+close up to the cattle-kraal and called us to come and see his
+young stock, and talked to us about them.
+
+'I don't think I'll tell the children's mother,' she said to me.
+I was then saying good-night to her in the bright moonlight
+outside the homestead door some hours afterwards. 'They live in
+the colony now, she and her husband. Telling her might reopen
+deep wounds. It wouldn't do any good at all probably, would it?'
+
+'That depends,' I said, 'on the mother's point of view. You're
+sure about the likeness?' She gave a sort of sob.
+
+'Trust me for that,' she said. 'I was very fond of them of Claude
+and Polly.'
+
+This last dry season, by the ordering of God, that mother came
+our way herself. She was on a pilgrimage of her own. Dick sent
+over a messenger hot-haste to tell me that a lady was at his
+place and had asked for me. She wanted me to spare the morning
+to-morrow if I possibly could. She would have me come on an
+expedition with her and talk over something that she had in her
+mind to do. Couldn't I sleep at Dick's homestead that night?
+
+I could. I came over about nine o'clock I suppose, walking in a
+fresh south-easter with a half-moon to light me. Dick was smoking
+outside in the yard when I came.
+
+'The lady's tired,' he told me. 'She's turned in already. She's
+got a lad with her. He's inside. Come in and have some supper.'
+
+The stranger rose up as I came in, and I greeted him. He was a
+tall, fair boy, whose face I seemed to know. He told me that he
+had driven his mother down, as I sat over my supper. I glanced up
+at the wall curiously before I had finished. The picture was not
+there.
+
+'I thought it was better out of the way,' Dick said when his
+guest had gone to bed. 'I didn't know how she might take it. It's
+the mother of those poor little Scotch children come to see the
+place. Wants to put up a gravestone or monument or something,
+poor lady!'
+
+Then I knew where I had seen the stranger boy's face. It was the
+image of his dead brother's face in the picture, the white
+piccaninny that carried the Mashona baby. I whistled softly.
+
+'Who painted that picture?' I said. 'I know all yon told me. But
+did that chap ever come down the road again? I never asked you.'
+
+'No,' said Dick, 'I don't know to this day any more about him.'
+
+I sat silent.
+
+'She wants you to go over to the place with her to-morrow,' Dick
+said. 'You know the place, don't you? It's only about three miles
+away up the old wagon road; you've been there, haven't you?'
+
+'Yes,' I said. 'There's a wooden cross where they're buried or
+should be. I had it renewed two years ago. Didn't I ever tell you
+about it? Haven't you been there yourself lately?'
+
+'No,' said Dick. 'I don't fancy the place somehow. But I was
+asking about it only this afternoon. The boys tell me there are
+some trees there still; white men's trees.'
+
+'Yes,' I said, 'yellow peach-stocks and one gumtree you get it
+against the skyline looking up from the spruit. The old pole and
+daub house dropped to pieces long ago. I do hope that cross is
+standing all right still. I blame myself for not having seen
+about it this last year or two.'
+
+The cross had fallen down and the place looked generally forlorn
+when we reached it next day. I was troubled about my companion.
+She was fair and tall and quiet. When she did talk on the way she
+talked about commonplace subjects. But when she saw the forsaken
+place and the displaced cross the veil fell. She clutched her
+son's arm hard, and I left them together. I went off with the
+Mashona boy and the mules out of the way. I had no inspiration at
+the moment what to say or what to do. I did not come back for
+half an hour.
+
+She told me on the drive back that she wanted to provide somewhat
+of a memorial. 'It's been left too long,' she said. 'But you can
+understand how sore I was before and how I shrank from coming.'
+
+She told me that one great grief of hers was that she had no good
+likeness of her children as they were at that dreadful time. I
+was embarrassed and silent. 'What can I do to help you?' I was
+thinking over and over again, 'Shall I show the picture? Yes,
+right or wrong, I must.'
+
+I didn't know how to begin to tell her about it. I prayed for
+words. Then I began in curt crisp sentences to tell her. 'You may
+not like it. You must not be disappointed,' I said. 'Why?' she
+asked. But I did not try to explain. I would let the picture
+plead its own point of view. When we were back I asked Dick for
+it, and I knocked at her room door and gave if to her.
+
+Then I went out and watched a team ploughing, till Dick called me
+in.
+
+At lunch the guests were very quiet and subdued, but seemed quite
+cheerful. Afterwards, before I started for home, she came and
+talked to me alone.
+
+'Is this the scene of the picture?' she asked me, as she led me
+across the yard. 'This grass plot between these rocks and those
+trees?'
+
+'Yes, it's just here apparently,' I said. 'You see that great
+tree there. One can hardly mistake it.'
+
+'I remember the spot long ago,' she said. 'I came down to my
+sister's to leave the children with her for a country holiday
+just before that time. We were staying at that place we went to
+this morning; they called it Happy Valley, and we drove over to
+this place where there was a store. It was only a month or two
+before the time May Day, I think. I remember my children playing
+hide-and-seek here with the piccaninnies; yes, playing other
+games too.' Her lips quivered, but she went on quite steadily.
+
+'Those piccaninnies in that picture do you know any of their
+faces?'
+
+'Yes,' I said, 'I knew two that were burnt, and did not get
+better; two I used to come and see. And Dick says he recognizes
+two or three little chaps that have died since he came here to
+live after the "Rebellion" was over.'
+
+'And how do you explain it?' she asked gently, 'this vision of
+dead children so charmingly colored, so color-blind from a South
+African point of view?'
+
+I thought before I spoke.
+
+'It is, I believe, a real Vision,' I said. 'The one who painted
+it, whoever he was, saw more than we most of us see. Possibly he
+was the seventh son of a seventh son. Very apparently he had a
+pure heart. The picture was painted on Innocents' Day. I have
+verified the date. You see he has called it "Innocents." It was
+painted in the children's old playing-place. He saw them in their
+new life with the beauty of things South African like a good
+dream about them, and the stupidity of things South African
+passed from them like a bad one.'
+
+She did not speak for quite a long time. I feared I had hurt her
+somehow. But at last she spoke and reassured me.
+
+'Yes, I think you understand how the picture came to be and what
+it means. I used to be dreadfully bitter about the Mashonas. I
+try not to be now. Couldn't you build on my account a little
+school or a little church in that forlorn place? There are some
+villages near by, aren't there? Couldn't you call it for me the
+Mission of the Innocents? I'd like to ask my host if he'll give
+you the picture for the church should you build it for me. In my
+house I should be shy about hanging it. I am afraid people might
+scoff at it behind my back in their South African way, and I
+couldn't bear that easily. I know in my heart of hearts it's true
+that Picture as true as it's beautiful. They're all happy now,
+likely enough happy together. They were not likely to have been
+happy in the same ways had they grown up in South Africa.'
+
+
+
+JULIAN
+
+I. THE SOP
+
+
+
+Julian Borne was going to leave the Mission that had been his
+home for three years. He was a spruce-looking person with quite
+pleasantly colored red hair and a turned-up moustache. A Bishop
+had commended him, and a Canon Superintendent had delighted to
+honor him. His immediate superior, a weather-beaten Missionary,
+had, however, partially dissented from the chorus of approval. He
+had discriminated. He credited Julian with fine gifts of
+organization, but he submitted that he had proved himself lacking
+in qualities of heart far too often. His discrimination had been
+received coldly by the Canon Superintendent, and liberally
+discounted on the scores of dullness, crankiness, want of vision,
+yes jealousy. Now at last something had happened to disturb the
+Canon Superintendent in his optimism, in his forecast of Julian's
+brilliant usefulness to the Mission.
+
+Julian had suddenly decided to leave his work. He had the offer
+of a congenial berth and a rising salary in the Cathedral city.
+He put the thing very kindly to the Canon Superintendent. He
+would help the Mission of course, wouldn't he just, when he
+should climb into the seats of the mighty? He would be a
+volunteer henceforward the Cause could count upon him with a
+sound commercial position for his jumping-off ground. Yet the
+fact remained that he was leaving his work, having loved this
+present world.
+
+It was the day of farewell to the surroundings of the last three
+years. Julian was to ride into town that afternoon.
+
+He went to lunch with Dick Hunter, the weather-beaten one, and
+talked to him as he imagined he wanted to be talked to. He had
+always liked his host's Bohemian ways very well, he was only
+impatient of his preoccupation with native postulants. There was
+his usual fly-swarm of them, that day as other days, about his
+threshold, and lunch was late, as usual. At last they began.
+Julian had the first two courses to himself for the most part,
+while his host was busy once again outside. Then came a third
+course. 'I had this for you,' said the host rather pathetically,
+as he settled down to his bread and cheese. 'It seemed the right
+thing for the farewell banquet of a Mission. It's the food of the
+country.'
+
+Sure enough under the cover was a platter of brown millet with a
+savory side dish of beans for relish. Julian flushed up. 'No
+thanks, I've never tried millet pap yet, and I don't mean to,' he
+said.
+
+His host smiled, 'As you will,' said he. 'You won't mind my
+having some, will you?' He helped himself sparingly, then he
+called the Mashona boy to take the dishes away. Julian the
+callous felt a shade remorseful.
+
+'Here, let me try what it's like,' he said. His host took a piece
+of the millet-food on a fork, and dipped it in the side dish. He
+gave the result to Julian on a plate. 'For old sake's sake,' he
+murmured. Julian nibbled away rather delicately. 'It's not so
+awful,' he said.
+
+He was riding into Rosebery that afternoon when the incident
+recurred to him.
+
+He had a great grip of his subjects whatever they were so long as
+they were payable propositions, to use his own phrase.
+
+The textual study of the Bible had been accounted such a
+proposition until recently. Bible-words they were now that buzzed
+in his ears.
+
+'He it is to whom I shall give the sop when I have dipped it. And
+when He had dipped the sop. . .'
+
+The sop, the dipping, yes, he remembered now. He had read the
+words in Church two or three evenings ago.
+
+'He gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon.' He started.
+'And after the sop, Satan entered.' He shuddered.
+
+He wished that incident at lunch-time had never occurred. Of
+course it was pure chance, but still it was bizarre.
+
+Was it pure chance? 'I'm not so sure,' reflected Julian. 'I wish
+Hunter'd mind his own business.'
+
+That farewell banquet at the Mount Pleasant Mission had left an
+ill taste behind.
+
+
+
+II. THE SYMBOL OF THE SPURNED
+
+
+
+Some five years after, Julian Borne came up to Rosebery by the
+early train. He awoke at dawn and threw up the window. He was
+traveling in a sleeping compartment deluxe. He had appearances to
+keep up now.
+
+The sun had tilted up a golden arc and the withered landscape
+took a lavish glory.
+
+Julian's eyes fell on some shabby thatched roofs that the blaze
+was brightening. 'Mount Pleasant Mission!' he said to himself.
+'and to think I wasted three good years of my life there. Three
+bob a day with rations and no drinks. Good Lord!' He filled his
+pipe as the poverty-stricken homestead passed out of sight. 'Yet
+it wasn't all waste,' he went on. 'I got to know the country and
+its questions. I got to know how to manage men.' He laughed a
+little to himself complacently. 'No, I couldn't manage Hunter.
+They told me last week he was nearly dead with blackwater. I
+wonder if he's dead by now. Not one head of cattle to bless
+himself with, I'll bet, and no banking account ever opened in his
+name. He was quite unmanageable.'
+
+'Ah! But I managed some of them. What about the Canon
+Superintendent?' A white-haired vision, creasy-chinned and rosy,
+passed before his eyes. 'Toad!' he muttered and kicked the
+foot-warmer. 'Even so,' he growled. 'Butter for the clergy, palm-oil
+for the laity, big stick for the incorruptible!' His face grew
+hard as he thought over some contemplated applications. His face
+was little changed in five years save for the wrinkles about the
+eyes.
+
+The train drew up at the platform. Julian found a good many
+acquaintances as he passed along it. But he was not disposed to
+make himself too cheap. Some got a wintry nod, others a summer
+smile. One high official who represented big interests got two
+minutes' talk and a drink. Then Julian jumped into his mule-cart,
+and drove away. He reflected with satisfaction on the quantity
+and quality of the greetings that morning. Meanwhile his Cape-boy
+coachman whipped up the mules and took him along the main street
+in style.
+
+Julian had not been in Rosebery for six months now. He had made
+great strides in those months the most momentous of his life.
+From being a coming man he had reached the summit of arrival. He
+had arrived without a doubt. His company's shares had risen
+super-excellently. He had made a big coup at the end of last
+year. The fullness of time had now brought to him the prospect of
+another. As he whirled on into Suburbia, he fell to considering
+relative prosperities. He set names to the houses he was passing.
+No, he wouldn't change with any one of their owners. Not one
+stood better just now. Not one was more the man of the moment. He
+could give points and a beating to how many!
+
+He drove through a gate and up a drive. He was at home again. His
+house had been enlarged and re-decorated since he was last there.
+It looked solidly prosperous. Its second floor shouted 'money'
+in a country where most houses could boast no first floor.
+Its critics might have called its colors harrowing and its
+architecture the reverse of inspired, but Julian cared not a
+jot for that sort of up-in-the-air criticism. He sat down to
+breakfast with a thankful heart, and made himself quite amiable
+to Tommy Bates.
+
+Tommy Bates was five years older than Julian, and had acted as
+his Secretary these two years past. He had small eyes set in a
+rather big pasty face. His goatee beard was trim, but scarcely
+pleasing.
+
+Julian got through his letters at breakfast and after, breakfast
+with Tommy's help. Amongst the letters was one from Mount
+Pleasant Mission enclosing a card. 'Hunter's mad,' said Julian
+crossly. He tore up the envelope viciously, but he did not tear
+up the card it contained. He placed that in his pocket-book
+carefully. Tommy looked at him in interrogation, but Julian was
+not communicative.
+
+After they had discussed a business letter or two, and had a
+drink together, Julian started for the Club. He made himself
+agreeable to one or two, and got a deal of pleasure out of
+snubbing another. Then he gathered some important news from a
+business acquaintance. It was great news. He wanted time to think
+over it. He sent off two or three wires to labor agents and one
+to a Native Commissioner.
+
+He must have boys at any cost, and quickly, to develop certain
+properties. He
+
+"... turned an easy wheel
+That set sharp racks at work, to pinch and peel."
+
+Then he interviewed an agent in an office, and did some very
+delicate work indeed in the drafting of a prospectus. He had
+earned a drink by then. His brain interested him he was inclined
+to self-analysis of a sort its chiaroscuro of limelight effects
+and faint nuances indicated rather than expressed. It was good to
+be alive to-day, and to pull as many strings as he was pulling.
+
+He did not stop at one drink; over the second, the expert made a
+proposition to him. It dazzled him, but he would not give an
+answer just then. To-morrow morning would do.
+
+After that he lunched at the Club with Sir Charles Guestling who
+was just back from England, and had brought a younger brother out
+with him to see the country. It would have been a pleasanter
+lunch without that brother, Julian thought at the time. The
+brother said nothing offensive, indeed he hardly opened his
+mouth, but his eyes embarrassed Julian strangely. He had curious
+blue-grey eyes that contrasted with his black hair, and he would
+fix Julian with these eyes just as he and Sir Charles were deep
+in shares and options and the scarcity of labor. Perhaps it was
+that Julian was overwrought with anxieties of success. The eyes
+seemed to him clairvoyant, he imagined that they saw more than
+they ought to see, when they looked him over, as he made some
+highly technical statement. It was extraordinary that a
+conventional man about town like Sir Charles should have such a
+brother.
+
+After lunch Julian relaxed.
+
+He gave himself the indulgence of a call on Mrs. Puce.
+
+He had put her husband on to a good thing or two a year ago now.
+They had been great friends, he and the wife.
+
+To-day he was a little anxious as to how she would receive him.
+Things had altered since they last met. 'He had got engaged a
+business-like engagement.
+
+But she was very gracious in her welcome. Moreover she was more
+decorous this afternoon than he remembered her a few months back.
+He told her about his contemplated coup.
+
+'I'll consult planchette for you,' said she. 'Yes, and I'll let
+you know to-night.'
+
+She was a pretty woman with rather too high a color. But she grew
+pale enough now.
+
+'I forgot, though, it's against my principles,' she said. 'I've
+given up lots of things. I'm much more particular.' Something
+roused Julian. He spoke masterfully.
+
+'Just this once,' he said, 'Let me know to-night. I may know of
+something gilt-edged that I won't keep to myself if I hear to-night
+without fail. No, I won't be refused. I want proof of good-will.'
+
+It was a sunny afternoon, with none of that southeast wind which
+is the bane of our winter. Julian told his coachman to drive him
+up to his new farm. The homestead was about five miles out of
+town in the Mount Pleasant direction.
+
+Julian drew out the draft of the prospectus, and began to work
+hard at its revision. They had stopped at the house ere he thrust
+pencil and paper into his pocket. He stepped out of El Dorado let
+himself down, not without a jar, on to more humdrum earth.
+
+The farm-house was an iron shanty newly hammered together. The
+bailiff a full-bearded Colonial stood in the front doorway.
+Julian gave him a perfunctory handshake. He talked farming
+business to him quickly. He was tired, and eager to be through
+with it.
+
+They were almost through with it in half an hour. They smoked
+their pipes and had coffee on the stoep together.
+
+'About that Mission Church,' said the Bailiff, 'You know the
+notice is just up that you gave them last year. The boy that used
+to teach there is gone, and the kraal's moving. The building
+still stands empty. They don't use it now.'
+
+Julian frowned.
+
+'Let's have a look at it,' he said. 'We can drive round that way
+when Bob's inspanned. Meanwhile let's have a drink.'
+
+The Church was very small wattle and daub. It had done three
+years' service.
+
+'No value,' pronounced Julian. He was rather angry with such a
+mere shed for wasting his valuable time.
+
+'That grass wants burning,' he muttered. 'If you set a light to
+it and the Church catches, I shouldn't think there'll be any harm
+done.'
+
+'Right,' said the bailiff. Julian stepped inside the building.
+
+'Nothing left,' he said. 'Nothing but this box. You'd better keep
+it. They can have it if they send for it.'
+
+'What's inside?'
+
+There were some red and black candlesticks and vases packed away
+in the box works of art in their way, but that way was not
+Julian's.
+
+'Cheap and nasty,' was his comment. 'Ah! What's that?'
+
+'It was on the Communion Table,' said the bailiff.
+
+Julian took up a clay cross and regarded it curiously.
+
+'A cross with a snake on it!' he exclaimed.
+
+'One of the boys said it meant the Brazen Serpent,' said the
+bailiff.
+
+'Holy Moses!' laughed Julian. 'Well I'm going to jump this, it's
+quite a curiosity. You may give the boy five bob from me if he
+asks what we've done with it.'
+
+'Right,' said the bailiff, and went off with the box to the cart.
+
+Julian looked at the twisted symbol with an intent fascination.
+'As Moses lifted up the Serpent in the Wilderness,' he murmured
+to himself. 'Even so shall the Son of Man be lifted up. How well
+I remember preaching outside a kraal, on a boulder under a
+flowering kaffir tree, on that very text. I liked preaching that
+day more than I did most days. It wasn't half bad. That's Christ
+all over that reptile that Worm and no man! The Worm that I tread
+on with impunity that's Christ! I expect Hunter might say it
+would be better for me if the Worm would turn and bite better for
+my eternal interests. Perhaps the Worm will, one of these fine
+days. It's a rather clammy notion! The notion would be rather a
+nuisance, if I believed in the Worm.'
+
+
+
+III. THIS NIGHT
+
+
+
+As he drove along the veld twenty minutes after, Julian looked
+back at the burning Church. 'What would the Canon Superintendent
+say?' he muttered with a grin. A fantastic shape started up from
+the grass in front of him. The mules shied at it, and broke into
+a gallop. 'Pull up!' he shouted. At last the mules were pulled
+up. He sprang out and walked back along the road. The figure
+stood stock-still by the road-side, as if waiting to greet him.
+
+When he came near, it came towards him, the figure of an old
+native with a ragged grey beard, all hunched up in a blanket.
+
+'Tom.' called Julian to him in his shrill voice, 'You've got to
+come down to town tonight. No, you swine, to-morrow won't do.
+Tonight before sunset, or there'll be trouble. You know what I
+want you to do, what you did last Christmas.' The drive back to
+town was uneventful.
+
+Julian sat on his stoep half an hour before dinner, smoking and
+pondering. He was anxious about that plunge he meant to make
+to-morrow. His philosophy of life, so largely commercial, found room
+for a cult or two of superstition. He had consulted Mrs. Puce's
+oracle time and time again. He had had recourse to his boy Jim's
+father, Tom Nyoka, twice before. He had got him to use for him a
+rude and illegal form of divination. He had been helped by it
+before, at least so he opined. He might be helped again. He sat
+looking at the sun dropping smoothly in a cloudless sky. As he
+watched, Jim came out to him to tell him that his father was in
+the kitchen. 'I'll come directly, Jim,' he said.
+
+The piccanin was sent off to get water, the kitchen door was
+safely locked. The throwing of the bones began, while Julian
+watched with understanding eyes. His hard grip of his subjects,
+generally, extended to this remote ritual.
+
+To-night the answer seemed to be inconclusive, but as they sought
+the answer, a clear sign appeared as it were by the way, and
+unsought. Julian was watching haggardly. He snarled a question at
+Jim. His cook-boy's big round eyes showed very big and very round
+just now. He was watching with painful intentness.
+
+'Yes,' he answered his master, 'Yes, sir, it is so.'
+
+Julian whistled and turned away moodily, with his hands in his
+pockets, staring into space.
+
+The old man the diviner was talking at large as he gathered the
+fingers of wood with their rude traceries together. Julian paid
+little heed to his words and gesticulations when he awoke from
+his day-dream.
+
+'Give him some skoff and a bit of meat, Jim,' he said. 'Tell him
+I'll give him ten bob when I've got change.'
+
+The old man was clamoring to him to make up his money to a
+sovereign, but Julian paid no heed to what he said. He swung out
+of the hut and off to wash for dinner, still brooding moodily.
+
+At dinner. Tommy Bates found Julian the reverse of good company.
+He did not keep his gloom to himself, and he snapped at any
+excuse for snapping. Tommy left as the sweets came in, with an
+excuse about meeting some friends at 8:30.
+
+'Don't be late,' said Julian peremptorily. 'I want you here at
+eleven sharp. I want to see about tomorrow's letters before I go
+to bed.'
+
+At 8:30 a pink note came in with the coffee. Mrs. Puce had sent
+it down. It contained but a few lines:
+
+DEAR JULIAN,
+
+I'm so sorry, but I couldn't make head nor tail of the answer.
+What I was told clearly was that you were likely to be in some
+trouble to-night about midnight. I don't know what sort of
+trouble, but somebody who lives at the back of your house may
+have something to do with it. Do take care of yourself. I trust
+you to do that for my sake. I think you are sensible enough to do
+it, now you are forewarned. Come up to-morrow to breakfast and
+reassure me,
+
+Yours, in ever so much of a shudder,
+
+CELIA.
+
+Julian turned rather green as he read. 'I don't like it,' he
+growled, 'Two signs, and independent ones. The one sign death. I
+saw it myself when the bones were thrown. The other sign danger.
+And Celia hasn't the sort of conscience that would let her invent
+it. I don't know what to set about doing. But I must do something
+or other.' He began to reflect. He started from the unsubstantial
+grounds of twofold superstition, and tried to be practical in his
+own defense.
+
+'About midnight,' he thought, 'Well, I can trust Jim. And I can't
+trust the other two boys that inhabit my back kitchen. Piet has
+some of his own to get back for what I did last Christmas, and
+the other boy I simply don't know. He was only sent to me to-day.
+I'll tell Jim to go over to the location and take the other two
+with him, and look after them for all of to-night. Tommy should
+be back by eleven. We two ought to be able to look after
+ourselves. Likely enough it's all moonshine this back-of-the-house
+business.' He pitied himself for his anxieties, and took an
+extra drink to dispel them. He went to the kitchen. Jim and the
+new piccanin were just discussing the movements of somebody as he
+arrived.
+
+'When was it?' asked Jim.
+
+'Just when the sun set,' the piccanin answered.
+
+'Where?' asked Jim.
+
+Then Julian cut them short, heedless of what they were saying.
+
+'Lock up at once, and go over to the location. Mind, Jim, you
+must look after the other two and see they don't come back here.
+I don't want any boys on the place to-night. D'you hear?' Julian
+proceeded to enlarge on the bigness of reward or punishment in
+certain eventualities.
+
+Julian went to his study, and put on his slippers. He called Jim
+to light the wood-fire before he left. The night seemed a bitter
+one, or was it that he had taken a chill? He took up a local
+paper when Jim was gone. 'It's been a busy day,' he reflected, as
+he straightened it out. 'Fancy my not looking at a paper of any
+sort till this time of night.'
+
+He searched the columns impatiently.
+
+'No news to speak of,' he thought. But then he cried out as his
+eye caught an out-of-the-way corner. 'Why, Hunter's dead!' The
+news seemed to take his breath like a body-blow. 'A good man!' he
+said to himself. 'The man who gave me the sop when he had dipped
+it. The best of that Church gang! A man who called me an apostate
+straight out more than once! The man who sent me that weird card
+this morning! Yes and he sent me a quaint souvenir, a sort of
+"Memento Mori," once before, last Christmas, just when my boom
+came off. I haven't forgotten the words yet. I will say to my
+soul, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take
+thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry." And God said unto him,
+"Thou fool, this night."
+
+'This night,' he muttered. 'I wish this night were well over.'
+
+IV. VICISTI GALILAEE!
+
+
+
+Julian was in a strange fit of tension when he heard Tommy Bates'
+steps coming up the garden path. They were very uncertain steps.
+
+Julian threw open his study door as the secretary reeled into the
+hall. He had longed for company this last grey craven hour or
+two, and this was all the company he was to enjoy for to-night at
+least!
+
+Humming and lurching and stinking of whisky as Tommy was, there
+was not much comfort to be sought from him.
+
+Julian swore at him sonorously then he hustled him off to bed.
+Soon he was snoring. Julian had somehow shuffled away his fear in
+his coercion of Tommy.
+
+'I'll get my blankets and pillow out of my room, and lie down in
+Tommy's. I feel I can sleep now,' he thought.
+
+He went into his room heedlessly in the dark and trod on
+something or somebody, just as he was striking a match.
+
+It was the big black snake that lived in the ant-hill at the back
+of the house whose movements Jim and the piccanin had been
+discussing. The snake dealt with Julian.
+
+Julian staggered about looking for crystals and a lancet. They
+were locked up safely and perhaps Jim, or perhaps Tommy had the
+key.
+
+Tommy would not wake to any purpose. Just as Julian was shaking
+him, the clock in the study a clock Julian had won in his
+sprinting days chimed twelve very melodiously. Everything seemed
+to be locked up. Had Jim the key of the spirit cupboard or Tommy?
+Julian was growing drowsy in his struggles against the current of
+fortune. Hadn't he better give in, and let himself be carried
+down? Almost before he knew it, he was lying on the sofa in his
+study where the lamp with the red shade was burning so cosily.
+Likely enough his eye caught a quaint ornament on his study table
+at the juncture the figure of the Serpent on the Cross.
+
+It may be too, that some sort of startled respect came to him for
+the Worm that had turned at last, not vindictively, but in the
+interests of the Commonweal.
+
+Probability points to this one fact at least, that Julian fumbled
+for something in his pocket-book ere he resigned himself finally
+to the growing torpor.
+
+A card was found on the study floor when morning came; they found
+the pocket-book itself on the conch beside him.
+
+The card was the one that had come at his last breakfast-time
+from Dick Hunter, the card that he had reserved rather indignantly
+for future consideration.
+
+On the one side of it was a color-process reproduction, very good
+of its kind Christ in Glory the Rex Tremendoe Majestatis and also
+the Fons Pietatis of the Dies Ira with tears in His Eyes and
+thorns on His Brows as He judged just judgment. On the other side
+were four lines from Browning, faithfully transcribed save for
+the change of a name. They were written in the shaking writing of
+a sick man, in Hunter's round, unformed hand:
+
+'For the main criminal I have no hope
+Except in such a suddenness of fate
+So may the truth be by one blow flashed out.
+And Julian see one instant and be saved.'
+
+There is no question as to the suddenness of the stroke of fate
+that ended Julian's career in South Africa. There is an open
+question as to the illuminative force of that blow, and we must
+wait for the answer.
+
+
+
+THE DOUBLE CABIN
+
+
+
+We had been close to a certain line of fire together, and yet we
+had not seen much fighting. That is to say, we were taking part
+in a campaign together that was for the time being an affair of
+patrols near a certain border an affair that flashed into fire
+now and then as between man and man. As between sun and man the
+firing was fairly continuous for eight hours of most days. Were
+we not within a hundred miles or so of the equator? In that
+climatic struggle (so much the more constant of the two for us
+Northerners) I on my noncombatant job came off lightly, he, as a
+combatant, suffered. He was down with malaria time and time
+again. He had it on him that night when he put me up at his place
+a night when the old year was almost out. He was then inhabiting
+a border outpost a clean little camp tucked away behind a native
+village. It was none too airy, I thought, with its heavy curtains
+of cactus hedging. He seemed a little better that next morning,
+when I said prayers, and afterwards rehearsed a certain Rite. He
+stayed to the end of my ministrations. After breakfast I started
+again on my journey, a round that took me far from the centre of
+our small world. When I touched that centre again I heard his
+news, which was not so very reassuring. He had gone down with
+blackwater, and been carried into a small hospital. There, having
+almost gone out, he had rallied enough to be put on board a ship
+crossing the lake. So he came to a greater hospital. It was
+thither that I followed him up. He had had another crisis, I
+found, but he was better again by the time I got to him. Then he
+improved a little, and seemed to be convalescing. Then malaria
+chose to interfere with the running of her sister fever's course.
+This seemed extraordinarily meddlesome, and made things hazardous
+still, though they were as well as one expected, when the time of
+my going on leave came.
+
+How glad I was to get off! My Good-byes were hurried when once
+the brown envelope had come. I saw him on the hospital stoep
+(baraza, did they call it in that alien part of Africa?) just as
+I was rushing down to the station. He had lost his blue color,
+but still looked rather flickery.
+
+'If you go to Bulawayo, you'll remember, won't you?' he said.
+'You've got the plan?'
+
+He had given me an elaborate little drawing of two streets that
+converged. His bungalow stood upon an island betwixt their
+confluence and the shading that he had marked waste ground. The
+pink paper was in my breast pocket, but, knowing my way with
+papers, I had already learned those streets' names.
+
+'All right,' I said. 'But I'm not likely to go that way. And the
+time's so short. I'll try though.'
+
+His face lit, and his eyes gleamed. 'Do try,' he said.
+
+'Don't build on it,' I entreated him. 'I'll try to write to her
+anyway.'
+
+Then he looked downcast indeed; he had fallen from such a
+confident height. But he said 'Goodbye' like a real friend.
+
+I forgot him almost completely for the next four days or so.
+There were excitements, seeing somebody at headquarters, wiring
+business wires, writing friendly letters against time, steering a
+forlorn small native and a more forlorn small dog, who were
+sharing my fortunes, down to the coast. At last I was there, and
+discussing shipping news with new-found keenness. My prospects of
+getting off with speed looked black for a bit; then came the
+flash of a fresh idea. As there was no ship for the African port
+I knew, why not book for the unknown? There were transports
+returning to a port beyond, I had heard. True, the cost of
+railway traveling thence was hard to forecast, resources were of
+a modest sort, and there were three of us to find fares for.
+
+Yet ways and means began to show their forms out of the mist
+soon. I chose to sail almost at once by the untried road, and I
+wrote to friends', telling them how I had chosen. I wrote to my
+friend in hospital, among others. I was going the Bulawayo way
+after all, and I might do what he wanted quite unbelievably
+easily. Who would have thought it when we parted? I scribbled
+down the great news against time. (I had an importunate proof to
+correct before sailing; proofs are apt to take hours, I find, and
+my sailing hour was near.) He might be expected to have my
+scribble handed to him on the hospital stoep about three days
+after. So I calculated. I flattered myself that I knew the ins
+and outs of our despatches and mail deliveries, also that I had
+allowed in my calculation for censorial delay. It was pleasant to
+think how pleased he might be expected to be. I well-wished him
+with a prayer. Then I started down the glaring white road for the
+wharf. I had dismissed him from my mind, I regret to say, for
+another three days or more.
+
+I traveled down from that east coast fighting-base on a transport
+that had brought up mules and horses. She had naturally enough,
+shipped a goodly crew of flies with them. The mules and horses
+had gone their ways, but the flies had by no means all gone with
+them. Now with no quadrupeds to be their prime care, those that
+remained were apt to obtrude themselves upon us. I deprecated at
+heart the ruthless warfare that marine authority waged upon them.
+But for all that I found my afternoon slumbers often distracted
+by the survivors. On the first and second afternoons of that
+voyage I awoke not long after I dropped off. I awoke, and thought
+about nothing in particular. On the third afternoon my waking
+thoughts took a very definite shape.
+
+I was in a cabin or stateroom that two officers had shared going
+up doubtless of the veterinary profession. Now on this return
+journey I had the place to myself. I lay in my bunk with my boots
+off, and observed the empty couch beside me.
+
+It was my friend that I thought of my friend as I had taken leave
+of him, reclining on the hospital stoep, straining with eager
+eyes at mine. It was his breathless voice that I remembered. It
+was saying over and over, 'You will go and see her, won't you?
+I'll be with you in spirit in this your trek for her and home.'
+
+Surely he was on that couch in the cabin now beside me, and
+surely he was saying the same thing over and over again, just as
+regularly and restlessly as if he were yonder electric fan
+curveting with the same sort of panting iteration.
+
+And yet, don't mistake me, I don't pretend to have seen anything
+or heard anything extraordinary in the ordinary way of seeing or
+hearing. Only I was dead sure that he was there with the same old
+entreaty. Afterwards I lighted a pipe, went above, talked to the
+skipper's wife, read, investigated my boy's and also my dog's
+welfare rather perfunctorily, settled down to saying an evening
+Office, made an end more or less of that, just as night came on,
+and then again took time to think over things. I remembered that
+he would have possibly got my letter, the letter which announced
+my sailing in this ship of the Archangel Line, just about the
+very time that he had seemed so near me. It was natural enough,
+then, that his eager mind should have embarked with me on the
+'Saint Raphael.' He knew now that I was going home, contrary to
+previous expectation, by the very way he had desired, the way to
+see his wife and tell her his news.
+
+That night, when I said my prayers, I took but a corner of that
+couch for my elbows. I gave him room, so to speak, with odd
+scrupulous courtesy, just as if he were lying there in the body.
+For I knew he was there, there by his own subtle means of
+transport. That night the wind rose, and for the next three days
+about, we were on the downgrade as regards weather. Our captain
+opined that there had been a hurricane of sorts to south-east,
+out Madagascar way. We were in the troughs of a mighty swell that
+grew in might till the third morn of its reign was over. In the
+mad tilting of my cabin floor, and the scuffling of my cabin
+accessories, that last morning, the unseen and unheard presence
+that I was now growing used to, reclined unperturbed. Elsewhere I
+would forget it lightly enough, as soon as ever I left the cabin,
+at the saloon table, where plate and cup fretted themselves up
+and down against the table frames, in the skipper's basket lounge
+chair wherein I read contrasted romances, East End and Zulu, on
+the deck where I groped from hold-by to hold-by, longing to
+change grey sky and green sea-trenches for sunshine and blue
+levels of sea and sky. The weather calmed and brightened, but the
+presence was unaffected. It remained to my perception eager and
+sanguine, no less, no more, than it had seemed at first.
+
+At last the Bluff loomed to south-east. Soon a game of pitch-and-toss
+precluded our access to harbor. At last we transshipped, all
+three of us, boy and dog and I, to a steam-launch, and were soon
+ashore. No, I won't say four of us. The presence did not make
+itself felt as taking a share in that scramble of ours. I was
+rather surprised at missing its company, when I found time to
+think about it.  I was standing at ease in the Base Office then.
+Soon I was on my way back again to the station where I had left
+my convoy. The boy was mounting guard over dog and gear. Yes,
+everything seemed all right. I turned towards the ticket office.
+As I waited for our tickets I evolved a sort of rationale of my
+consciousness of that presence. He who had accompanied me was
+very weak, distinctly convalescent. He could but make himself
+felt clinically, so to speak. When at length I was aboard the
+train I had opportunity to test my surmises. There were six
+sleeping berths in the Jo'burg second class compartment (there
+was no third class, worse luck, on that train) wherein I found
+myself. On one side slept the dark Theosophist who was to lend me
+'The Star of the East' next morning. Under him slept the
+Norwegian recruit bound for Potchefstroom. Under him again a
+fresh-colored, wizened little Colonist. On my side slept an
+Africander recruit for Potchefstroom (God love him! I hope he was
+better than his looks and conversation). I was bedded over him.
+Above me on the sixth sleeping ledge was only a certain amount of
+luggage. So we had arranged, and so my eyes assured me. But I
+became firmly conscious that the presence was reclining there.
+
+Next night I was able to travel on third class from Johannesburg
+without missing my train's connection. I had the carriage to
+myself (not without misgivings, for the guard had cleared a
+native out, and other compartments seemed likely to be rather
+crowded). I lay down somewhat prayerlessly. The last light seemed
+to have not long faded on the white mine-banks. I woke in the
+chill of the dawn. The train was nearing Mafeking. The presence I
+had been too tired to think much about last night, was assuredly
+there on the other side of the carriage. Yet there was only my
+bag to be seen on the seat, my bag that I had set there to search
+for a towel.
+
+The next night we drew near to Bulawayo. I had a Jew for
+traveling companion then. He was to get off about midnight at
+Francistown. I dropped off to sleep somehow. I don't know exactly
+how the trick was done, I was so excited at nearing my own
+country. When I awoke the Jew was gone, and the seat opposite me
+was empty, empty save for the presence which reclined there. I
+gave it a share of my attention amongst other persons and
+matters. I was far too full of plans and anticipations now to
+sleep. Yet I fought for sleep that next hour or two. Then, as the
+cocks had crowed undoubtedly, I lighted a pipe. Afterwards I
+stole out in the faint light to shave. When I returned, I was
+confronted by an old acquaintance a detective. He wanted
+information about me, naturally enough, as it was war-time. He
+sat himself down on the seat whereon the presence was. I had
+squirmed when he shook hands with me so heartily (I had twisted
+my hand, slipping on a warship's deck). I was disposed to squirm
+once again. When he sat down rudely on that seat which I knew to
+be occupied, I forgot myself at once, and drew him to a seat
+beside me. 'Can't you see what's there?' I said hastily. Of
+course he could not see, and thought me a little mad. Then, when
+I explained that the seat had been kept, he looked suspicious, If
+only he had enjoyed the same perceptiveness as myself, what pages
+he might have filled in that expensive-looking note book. I
+chuckled to myself as I thought of his description his, who had
+crossed the Rhodesian border with me at Plumtree on such special
+service. What would that note book make of him? The note book's
+master looked at me hard. Doubtless I aroused certain unnecessary
+alarums and excursions in the imagination of a useful and already
+overworked official. But I had given him nothing tangible in the
+way of incrimination. He looked at me as one who much desired to
+keep me under observation, but he said 'Goodbye!'
+
+The house answered the pink paper's description. It was on
+the verge of some waste ground. But I had expected a more
+prosperous-looking place.
+
+It had a long row of white palings that lacked repainting. The
+house itself looked rather poverty-stricken. I had hurried over
+my breakfast at the station, then I had asked my way, and found
+it. I knocked once and again. That wife, whom I had never seen
+before, came slowly to the door. He had shown me her portrait
+more than once, and I remembered it. It certainly had not
+flattered her. She was dressed in black. Her face would have been
+fresh under her bright hair, but the eyes were drawn, and the
+lips quivered that spoke to me, quivered in a pitiful fashion. I
+told her how I came from her husband. I embarked on a longish
+rigmarole as to the luck that brought me her way after all,
+against expectations. She listened without saying a word. Then I
+told her about him, and she listened patiently. 'I seem to have
+felt him with me on my way,' I said. 'He was so keen that I
+should bring you his love,' I said. Then she burst out crying.
+'It is all very interesting,' she sobbed. 'But I have got later
+news than yours.'
+
+I shuddered. 'Was there a relapse, then?' I said.
+
+'I suppose there must have been,' she murmured, steadying
+herself. 'He came to me just at sunrise,' she said, 'this
+sunrise, this very morning. I saw him so plainly coming into the
+room just after I had opened my eyes. He always said he was sure
+he would be able to come, by God's mercy, if it should come to
+that . . .' Her voice shook, and I knew what 'that' meant.
+
+No doubt they had loved one another very dearly, no doubt he had
+been able, so strong was his affection, to follow my journey
+towards her, while he was still in life. Then, at the moment of
+the great change, he had doubtless gathered strength to come to
+her and manifest himself. Such things have surely happened
+before, and are likely to happen again whilst our lives linger in
+the midst of death, and love is love.
+
+'It is just on church-time,' she said, 'all but eight o'clock. I
+was getting ready to go when you knocked. You won't mind my going
+now, will you? You won't mind my saying Good-bye?'
+
+So we said 'Good-bye' outside the church door, our ways went so
+far together. Then I went off by the station road; my train was
+to go on in another hour or so.
+
+When I got into an empty carriage I was conscious of some sense
+of forlornness. I had lost my traveling companion. Yet I was glad
+somehow to think that the strain of his interest in my journey
+was at an end. I gave thanks for that new rest of his.
+
+As for her I am glad to remember where it was that she parted
+from me so graciously. That church was a poor, corrugated iron
+structure, but I looked in and saw a gladsome light burning
+before its altar. Her eyes were on that light, I think, as she
+knelt down. Truly a sanctuary of God seemed the place of places
+to leave her in. They were so desperately fond of one another,
+and he was so devoted to his religion, as well as to her. If in
+God's sanctuary the Psalmist found most satisfaction as to his
+own riddle of the ungodly's vitality, I feel sure she found some
+comfortable answer to her own contrasted problem the mortality of
+one so dear to her and to his Lord.
+
+
+
+INTELLIGENCE
+
+
+
+I was staying with an Intelligence Officer on a certain island.
+Our people had but just succeeded in occupying it with a force of
+occupation. It was a very green and richly tropical island with
+the faults of its qualities, I should say. Most of its German
+tenants were prisoners now, a few had escaped in canoes. Their
+sergeant of askaris, a stout fellow, had passed the word of 'no
+surrender.' But for all that very few native soldiers seemed to
+be in the bush now. Most seemed to have surrendered, or to have
+transformed themselves into civilians.
+
+I had reached my host's lodging just before sundown on Saturday
+night. We dined simply, as far as courses went, but our
+conversation came easily and took many turns. There seemed to be
+something in the air that night. There were three of us at the
+table, my host and Hunter and I. Hunter was a naval man who had
+walked up with me, and was staying the night. He was very fresh
+and pleasant to look at; he seemed old for his years, which were
+few; he had a range of interests as well as powers of expression.
+Did he seem just a little conscious of his tender age? Was he not
+a bit too anxious to profess disillusion? Yes, he was cynical
+about Belgians, also about France, also about the Foreign Office.
+I suffered him thus far with a certain guilty gladness. But the
+Intelligence Officer demurred grimly. He was a patriot and a
+fighting man. They had switched a maxim on to him years before,
+but he was still going hardily, albeit he limped. He had fought
+in an irregular white corps in the present campaign; he had
+raised an irregular black corps; our adversaries were said to
+have priced his head. He had charming manners; he had befriended
+me nobly not once nor twice. He was a man surely of extraordinary
+dash and resource. I had no sort of reason to doubt the great
+stories I had heard of him, of his coolness under fire and in
+tight places. I had seen every reason to believe them. For all
+that, my affection for him was mixed with another feeling. He was
+very tall. His face wore a sort of perennial fever-flush. He was
+very dark. His eyes were fine and fierce, too; he wore a strange
+he-goat-tuft on his chin. I found myself chuckling privately that
+evening over a bizarre fancy of mine. I had remembered a certain
+mediaeval print of a famous character. Yes, there certainly was a
+likeness.
+
+We discussed Intelligence Work a branch of War Service as to
+which I am apt to be prejudiced. To my indefensible delight.
+Hunter excelled himself at giving my own views voice over the
+pudding. Never did I hear an indictment more sweeping. He spoke
+of the reading of people's letters, the bluffing of unhappy
+natives. He hinted darkly at dark methods of persuasion. He
+hammered in the debasing futility of the whole spy system, our
+own and the other side's. He ended with schoolboy personalities
+about people he had met, some of our host's own agents. His
+remarks about them were unworthy of the eloquence that had gone
+before. Our host took it all in very kindly part. He was a man of
+deeds rather than of words.
+
+'I never thought I'd come so low as I did to-day,' he admitted.
+'You heard of the German who got away with his wife and kids in
+canoes. I was turning over one of the kids' money-boxes. Just
+five rupees or so in it. But I'll try to get it back to the
+youngster. I never thought to come quite so low.'
+
+I tackled him about a horrid practice he had admitted having
+recourse to. 'Torture, or torture-witchcraft possibly! It seems a
+hopeful way of eliciting true intelligence, not to speak of
+playing the game in any sort of British sense.' He hung his head
+penitently. He pleaded that this expedient had saved an execution
+only the other day. There had been none after all. Had there
+been, as had looked likely at one time, an innocent man would
+have died.
+
+'Oh, why not be without reproach as well as without fear?' I
+pleaded.
+
+'How am I to get truth from them? It's a usage of their own.' He
+was pleading back.
+
+'Not that way.' I was inflexible in my scorn and horror, for I
+knew that I was right.
+
+By this time we had about finished dinner. Soon we were outside
+Hunter in a deck-chair, I on a box, my host on a looted camp-stool.
+We smoked on under the stars.
+
+We spoke of looting. The naval man scintillated about the conduct
+of the army at a raid on a neighboring town. I was with him most
+of the way.
+
+'So they cleared away with their swags for fear of enemy
+reinforcements. And they had a report printed that the natives
+had looted the place. That put the lid on it,' he said. But then
+came purgatory for me. The Native Question cropped up. Our host
+was away just then, conferring about chits that his spies had
+brought in. Hunter fairly coruscated with cynicism, when it came
+to the Native Question. He had expressed very different views
+upon it the last time that I had met him (the day before at
+lunchtime). Now he expressed himself cured of any sneaking wish
+to treat natives with kindness rather than kiboko. His boy, to
+whom he had granted leave of absence, had not come back to his
+day, and the whole fabric of Native sympathies, so far as he was
+concerned, had crashed to the ground. Henceforth he would know
+how to treat natives, the way to have no trouble with them. Any
+other way was not worth while. I objected, but my objections were
+as little rocks over which his periods broke in foam.
+
+They enhanced the effect. Our host came back and laughed a
+little, till he saw how little I was enjoying it. Then he rotted
+the orator on his lordly oblivion of one fact. Were there not
+limits to his experience of Africa? He himself avowed his
+sympathies with the African. If he had a hobby, it was natives.
+He wanted to win their trust for a great many reasons. It was
+worth while having it. He told a certain story and the talk
+diverged. It was quite sympathetic talk, from my point of view
+thenceforward, up till bed-time. We slept in that big room
+within, all three of us. I had brought next to no kit, and
+I had noted with some awe my naval friend's scorn of the
+ill-provided in the course of the evening. He had described how
+a Belgian he had shared a room with, lacked certain accessories
+of civilization. So I was in the mood now to feel my own
+deficiency. But the censor was not so very observant, and he
+seemed sleepy. Soon he was sleeping.
+
+My host and I exchanged a few undertones. Tomorrow was
+Whitsunday. I wanted to have Service very early. 'That'll be all
+right,' he said. Soon he put our hurricane lamp out, but I was
+not to win sleep for quite a long while. In the early morning,
+moreover, something happened. Some red-ant skirmishers were
+about, and I had a hot time in my bed on the floor. I' might well
+have felt more grateful than I did feel. Yes, had I only known
+what battalions would have engaged me, had they decided to attack
+before dawn! At dawn I was to see for myself what were the
+numbers of their host. Meanwhile, their scouts gave me trouble,
+if only a moderate amount. A cock crowed close by. Then another
+and another. The dawn was not so very far then surely. The
+thunder that had boomed when I first awoke, boomed louder. A
+rushing mighty wind seized upon the shanty where we slept, a very
+airy shanty. The fact that the Day that came was Pentecost,
+recurred to me. Then the storm broke in fury. The rain smashed
+down, and the lightning forked and flickered. The roar and tumult
+raged and swelled and thudded overhead. My host awakened.
+
+'It's near,' he said. 'Too near for me,' I murmured, as I ducked
+involuntarily when a perfervid flash came.
+
+'Look at the Navy!' he said. I looked.
+
+The cynic slept like a child. His face was very calm and
+intensely optimistic. 'He told me he had slept through big guns'
+fire on his ship,' I said admiringly. 'He has great powers.'
+
+A curious lingering flash came. It played round the sleeper's
+head. A huge peal seemed to come almost with it, the last huge
+peal ere that brief passionate storm withdrew.
+
+Then the sleeper began to talk.
+
+He talked too well too well for me to mix his actual phrases up
+with this secular story.
+
+The Intelligence man began to laugh. The thing struck him as
+funny. But suddenly I caught familiar words, and I put my finger
+on my lips. My host's black eyes looked into mine, and I saw, as
+I had never seen before, how much there was in them. First they
+kindled, and then they grew soft, and he turned his head away.
+The sleeper had been repeating the end of the fifth chapter of S.
+Matthew the bit about the God (whose sons we Christians are) that
+makes His sun to shine, and His rain to fall so impartially.
+
+He said the words very clearly, as articulately as if he were a
+child saying repetition. What made our host's eyes melt so
+curiously was what came after.
+
+The sleeper said a sort of child's prayer about sun and rain, and
+just and unjust, and good and evil, praying quite simply to God
+to bless everybody and to do the best for them English and
+Germans, black men and white.
+
+'Yes, and my boy,' he said, as if that petition furnished a sort
+of limit to the mercy he invoked. 'And the mtoto,' he added a
+minute after.
+
+'What's his name?' he asked innocently. He had forgotten the name
+of his boy's apprentice, and his forgetfulness was on his mind.
+
+The strain was a bit too much for us when it came to that
+question.
+
+We laughed rather hysterically. Then we pulled ourselves
+together, but we had not disturbed him. He spoke no more save for
+two or three detached words proper names I think. But he breathed
+long breaths peacefully.
+
+The dawn was quite near on its way now. A dove called from the
+wood to its mate. Surely it desired to tell it that morning came.
+
+'We've got some fresh Intelligence,' my host said gravely.
+
+'Pentecostal Illumination, rather,' I said.
+
+'Did you happen to remember what the Day was?'
+
+He nodded. 'We'd better not sit up talking,' he told me. 'It
+might seem to spoil it somehow. We'd better try to get a little
+sleep. Come over here out of the ants.'
+
+So we shifted my mattress.
+
+After our Pentecostal Service, and our breakfast, we compared
+notes, we two alone.
+
+Once more Hunter had talked a lot at table. It was somehow a
+little hard completely to identify the Hunter of breakfast time
+with the Hunter of cock-crow. 'Our friend was rather angelical,
+only rather,' my host said.
+
+'He was cynical about your cynical business,' I said. He laughed.
+'Have you forgotten what he said about missionaries?' he asked.
+
+I smiled ruefully. 'It certainly wasn't up to his level,' I said,
+'his cock-crow level.'
+
+'I've got a theory,' said my chin-tufted friend (I have made up
+my mind to recall Don Quixote in future when I think of him
+rather than that mediaeval print). 'The subliminal self of the
+Navy was revealed by that Pentecostal flash. Pentecost was in the
+air. We saw the real lieutenant in his sleeping sub-consciousness.
+It's a pity the real self isn't top-dog in ordinary life; it's under-dog
+for the present, worse luck!'
+
+'But in sleep he's a child still, and a good child at that,' I
+said.
+
+'Yes, or he couldn't have responded to that Pentecostal
+suggestion. You or I wouldn't have responded; anyhow, not so
+readily.'
+
+He sighed. 'It's a wicked world,' he said smiling, 'and we learn
+many tricks of our respective trades.'
+
+'Speak for yourself and your own trade,' I said sternly. Then I
+begged him to give up that unmentionable way of obtaining
+intelligence.
+
+'Let's try to live up to the cock-crow level,' I said. 'We two
+have seen what we have seen, and heard what we have heard. We
+have received unexpected Intelligence. We have got some hints as
+to self and soul, truth and falsehood.'
+
+'Yes, I'll allow that,' he admitted.
+
+
+
+A CREDIT BALANCE
+
+
+
+The siding was on such soil as recalled South Devon; flanking the
+name-board there were a few pepper-trees with dry, fern-like
+foliage, and bunches of red berries just then, the month being
+March. Alfred Home drew up before that name-board in scorching
+sunshine, wiped his face, and looked at his watch. Was he in
+time?
+
+He had heard nothing of the train yet, and it was not to be seen
+approaching. His watch told him that it had been due for ten
+minutes now. Surely it could not have gone! No, there it was. Its
+whistle sounded, and soon it came winding through the sparse
+woodlands. He gave a sigh of relief, and squatted down to wait
+for it. Soon it drew up at Pepper-tree Siding.
+
+He climbed on to a third-class carriage, which carried natives
+and colored people, also one European in lonely majesty. This
+last stood smoking a cigarette in an amber or mock-amber
+mouthpiece. He was a boy not long out of his teens, a boy with a
+dazzling complexion if, indeed, he were not a girl in a boy's
+grey suit. He introduced himself, as he ushered his fellow-traveler
+into a compartment. 'I'm the only one here,' he said. 'I've been
+alone since Mafeking. I'm George Donald, and I'm just out from
+Derry.' Home accepted the cigarette that was offered him.
+Then he wiped his face again a dark, fiercely-burnt face. He
+was a man over forty; he looked more than his age, or as if he
+had had very hard times. 'Going far?' he asked. 'Not much further
+now,' the boy said cheerfully. 'My station's fifty miles beyond
+Gwelo. I'm about sick of it. I traveled second class on the boat.
+But they never sent any money for expenses, so I've had to pig it
+on this train.' Home smiled. 'Ever been out before?' he asked.
+Donald shook his head. Then he indulged in many confidences. 'I'm
+going to be partner in a trading concern,' he said. 'Soldana's is
+the name of the place.' He went on to describe the voyage out,
+with free criticisms of the food and of fellow-passengers. They
+had had a concert or two on board, and he had recited at the
+second-class concert last week. 'What did you recite?' Home asked
+him. 'Oh, I gave them "Sir Galahad." I had to grind it up, with
+lots more of Tennyson, for an exam. You know it?' Home nodded.
+His lips moved. 'How ever does it go?' he said a moment after. 'I
+only remember tags of lines here and there "And star-like mingles
+with the stars." That's authentic, isn't it?' The boy repeated
+the stanza whence those words came. 'Would you like any more?' he
+asked. Home grinned. 'May as well have it through, if it's all
+the same to you,' he said. So the boy began at the beginning, and
+continued, and made an end, Home watching him all the while. His
+eyes had satire in them as he watched, but they had also
+admiration. Two or three hours after, they drew up at another
+siding, and Home got together his belongings. He handed them to a
+Bechuana boy who stood waiting for them outside on the step. Then
+he settled himself down again, for the engine was waiting to take
+water. He wrote a few words on a half-sheet and handed it to
+Donald. 'That's my address,' he said. 'Do write or look me up at
+my store, if I can be of any use at any time.' The reciter of
+'Sir Galahad' shook his hand warmly, promising that he would do
+so. Then Home scrambled out into the noontide heat. Soon the slow
+train woke up again, and lumbered on.
+
+It was much more than three years after when Donald came to
+Home's store. He looked fagged and weary as he came up the
+wagon-road, having done his thirty miles that day. He had a knapsack
+on his back, but that was not heavy. Home was sitting on a case
+under his verandah. The sun had just set, and he had closed the
+store for the day, just before the traveler showed in sight. Now
+that he drew near, he knew him at once. 'Hullo! I've often
+thought about you,' was his greeting. 'But what have you been
+doing with yourself?' The boy's face he looked boyish still,
+though no longer girlish was worn. He was very pale, and had blue
+marks under his eyes. 'I've had a hell of a time,' he muttered.
+'Well, come and have some skoff,' Home said. 'After that you can
+tell me about it all.' The boy ate but languidly, though he
+emptied cup after cup. He said hardly anything; he looked down on
+his luck. The zest was gone out of his talk, as the rose-pink out
+of his cheeks, since they last met.
+
+Home tried to say something cheerful. 'Do you know, if you'd come
+this day week I don't think you'd have found me here. I've sold
+this store. I'm meaning to go home, and to settle down there.'
+The boy congratulated him rather listlessly. Then he spoke with a
+sparkle of his old keenness. 'I wish I were going home,' he said.
+
+'Why don't you?'
+
+'I haven't a shilling,' the boy said; 'only minus shillings, only
+debts.' Home tried to say something pleasant about luck turning,
+but it came out flatly. After supper the boy told a story, but he
+did not seem to tell it candidly by any manner of means. The
+partnership he had gone to had been dissolved a year ago. He had
+been trading, backed up by a Jew, this last cold weather. He had
+had horrible luck; his store had been burnt down in August. It
+was November now. He had been knocking about in a certain town
+for a month or two. Then he had taken to the road. Some people
+had been kind to him as he came along; others hadn't.
+
+'What do you owe?' Home asked him abruptly. 'Oh, a pound or two,'
+he answered, coloring. 'It's more than that, isn't it?' Home said
+gently. The boy denied its being more than that. Then all of a
+sudden he owned up. 'One Jew, they were partners, said it was
+twenty-five; the other said he'd take fifteen. It wasn't really
+more than fifteen, honor bright.'
+
+'So you owe him fifteen,' Home said. 'Do you mean to pay him?'
+
+'Not unless I'm forced,' the boy said savagely. He spoke in quite
+an open way now. 'I'd rather pay him out than pay him back, the .. .'
+Home changed the subject.
+
+Just before they went to bed he recalled their brief journey
+together so long ago now. He reached a newish Tennyson down from
+his candle-box bookshelf. 'Do you mind saying that piece over
+again that piece you said in the train?' Home spoke shyly.
+
+The boy flushed up before he answered. 'I've forgotten it,' he
+said.
+
+'Well, read it, then, won't you, please? I've got it here.' The
+boy started to read the lines. He read rather badly that night,
+so Home thought to himself. He stuck in one place. 'Here, you'd
+better go on,' he said hoarsely. So Home finished the poem to the
+last line of it:
+
+Until I find the Holy Grail.
+
+'Do you know?' he said, when he had ended, 'I owe you a debt.
+You've got a big balance to draw on so far as I'm concerned. I
+bucked up a bit, beginning from that day when we met in the
+train. I'd been thinking of giving up whisky, and other things,
+before that day. But you gave me what I wanted a start. "Now or
+never," I said, having seen you coming out so fresh as you did
+yes, and heard you recite. I won't describe you as you were then;
+you may or may not remember what you were like. That bit in the
+poem about riding in lonely places through the dark caught my
+fancy. I used to think of you who had gone away in the train
+northwards. I thought of you trading on the Mashonaland veld, and
+passing unscathed and unafraid over it by night and day you that
+had nothing to be ashamed of. Thinking so helped to buck me up.
+I've done better since that train journey than I ever did before
+out here. Now I'm doing quite well, else it wouldn't be likely
+I'd be thinking of going home, as I am.'
+
+The boy looked up at him wretchedly. 'It all went wrong nearly
+from the first,' he said, 'so far as I was concerned.'
+
+'Yet all the while you helped me,' Home said. 'So I owe you a
+debt, and I mean to pay my debts, whatever you mean to do about
+yours. Come on, now. Take this bed. I'm sleeping in the store.'
+
+Thus it came about that in the morning Home, having slept upon
+his resolve, brought out some money. He stacked it on the table
+impressively. 'I'm glad I slept upon it,' he said. 'I thought
+last night that I'd give you the money to go home this year. I'd
+made up my mind almost to go next year instead of this.'
+
+The boy's eyes lighted up. Gratitude looked out of them. Then
+they changed. It seemed that gloomy Fear had taken Gratitude's
+place at the double window. Donald stammered a bit; then he spoke
+out. 'I'd like to lie to you, like I did last night; but I can't
+somehow. No, I'm going to tell you utter' truth. I'd like you to
+give me the money well enough in one way. But if you did I know
+what I'd do. You don't know how gone-in I am. If I ever got as
+far as Capetown I'd drink out what was left there, or I'd blow it
+some way. But I'd never get so far as Capetown; I'll be honest
+with you. Yet thanks all the same. You meant kindly.'
+
+'That's all right,' Home said kindly enough. 'Thanks for being
+straight. I thought over that first plan of mine last night. I
+wasn't long in chucking it for a second.' The boy listened
+languidly. 'I was going second,' Home went on; 'I was going
+second if I'd gone alone. Now let's both go together! Supposing I
+square the Jew for you probably you understated his account a bit
+(I've allowed for that) I may have enough for two thirds and
+something to spare. You won't mind my going too, and my keeping
+the bag, will you?'
+
+'Mind?' the other said. 'I shouldn't think I'd mind, seeing it's
+a one-and-only sort of chance. But I don't see why you should
+give it me.'
+
+'It's only paying you something on account,' Home said.
+'Remember, there'll be a credit balance still after the journey's
+over, but you'll give me a little time to pay off that, won't
+you?'
+
+So they went together in the following week by a slow train, the
+same sort of slow train as had carried them of old one that
+stopped at Peppertree Siding.
+
+'I'd like to refund you,' the boy said while they waited there.
+He was beginning to get a little of his own back by then, Home
+thought; Home was beginning to suffer him as an inseparable much
+more gladly. 'I've written some things that might sell,' Donald
+murmured; 'things I wrote when I was traveling in lonely places
+among the hills, or in the bush-veld, or by the river that held
+me up for three days.'
+
+'What sort of things? "Sir Galahad" sort of things?' Home asked
+with a twinkle.
+
+The boy shuddered. 'No, just the other sort of things,' he
+answered. 'Not seeing everything right because one feels right,
+but seeing everything devilish because one feels devilish.'
+
+'Hadn't you better, perhaps, burn the lot?' Home said. 'Don't
+talk about a refund to me. Why, man, I tell you I owe you quite a
+lot. Make yourself easy; you've a big credit balance to draw on.'
+
+
+
+MAN'S AIRY NOTIONS
+
+
+
+It is quaint how a catch of a song or a phrase of a lyric will
+haunt one along the lonely miles of a walk, up hill and down dale
+of one's pilgrimage. Hood found a phrase of a lyric dogging him
+down the first stages of his home-road last year. He thought
+little of the circumstance at the time, but afterwards he
+remembered it, and wondered why the thing had befallen so. The
+lines of the phrase had by that time gained meaning for him, more
+meaning than he had suspected to be in them, when he said them
+over to himself:
+
+'In a wife's lap, as in a grave,
+Man's airy notions mix with earth.' *
+
+* From 'The Splendid Spur,' by Q.
+
+He remembered saying them over and over to himself along one
+long, sandy, thirsty stretch. Then again, when he sat down by the
+drift in huge content waiting for his kettle to boil; then again
+on a certain melodramatic night as he paddled in the rain a night
+he is not likely to forget.
+
+He had been a missionary in South-Eastern Africa for ten or
+fifteen years, I forget which, and his leave that came every five
+years was once more due. He started for the railhead, some forty
+odd miles from his home, going by way of the post-town, and
+calling there for his share of the last mail.
+
+Yes, it was all right. Nothing near at hand in Africa, or far
+overseas in England, barred his home-road as far as he could
+learn. On the other hand, at least two Southern letters bade him
+go back and prosper, and a new welcome had come forward to him
+from the North in a writing that he remembered. It was posted in
+an Upper River village not many miles from Oxford, and it was a
+bidding to a meeting of Oxford contemporaries arranged for the
+coming July. They had met on about that same day (the birthday of
+the host) five years before.
+
+Hood remembered that day of meeting, as he sat by the drift,
+reading his letter, and waiting for the kettle to boil. He
+remembered walking out from the city of the spires, and the way
+the house looked as he came to it by a path through water-meadows.
+What gardens and green shades and coolness of comfort, he
+remembered, and linked with that time and that place. He
+dreamed a dream with the smell of new-turned hay in it, then
+awoke to find himself repeating that mellifluous tag of his about
+man's airy notions. The kettle had boiled.
+
+The letter of invitation was written in high spirits. It was
+sanguine as to the completeness of their numbers when they should
+meet. All but one was likely to be there if only Hood would come
+all but one who had fallen out of the ranks. Hood was, somehow, I
+think, more overcast by the thought of the one exception, than
+rejoiced by the prospect of such a noble muster. Yet, as he
+strode along the road, pondering the letter, his longing for
+England seemed to grow amazingly. His stride lengthened as his
+satisfaction deepened. Twenty miles gave him little trouble that
+March forenoon and afternoon. He crossed the wide river in a
+crazily perilous ferry-boat, forded a narrow one, and supped with
+great content on his bread and cheese.
+
+Meanwhile his carriers fell heartily to hungry men's rations of
+bully beef and millet-meal. The rains had been heavy those two or
+three days in that last week, as the rivers testified. Now the
+clouds were closing up again, and the carriers shook their heads.
+Their road was a lonely one. A kraal was some six miles ahead,
+the railhead inn was almost nine. When they had gone on for about
+a mile of their road, the rain began to come down heavily, just
+as the night began. On and on they splashed through the pools and
+currents of the wagon-way. Then the rain slackened. A red,
+elusive light shone ahead in the dip of a hollow. It seemed a
+wandering fire to Hood's eyes as the road twisted suddenly. But
+no it was a humdrum wagon-fire of logs. They clustered round it,
+chilly and dripping, his carriers and he. A voice called out to
+them from the folds of a buck-sail above. A Mashona boy was
+crouching in shelter there. He told them that his master was
+asleep on the wagon. Hood tried a greeting to this master, but it
+gained no answer. He began to take counsel with his comrades, as
+they squatted by the fire. 'Wouldn't it be fine to sleep under
+the wagon? Who wanted to tramp through a black night with perhaps
+a pouring roof of sky above, and certainly a soaked mud floor
+beneath?'
+
+The carriers and he agreed to risk the storm (threatening even
+now in the distance). Night-prayers were said by that gladsome
+fire. Still, the larger of the two muffled shapes above made no
+sign. Afterwards Hood's bed was made by the stretching out of a
+strip of sailcloth. A blanket was laid over it, and a knapsack
+crowned it as a pillow. Hood began to settle himself in with huge
+content, a pipe between his teeth. One carrier wriggled himself
+up beside him. The two others laid themselves at his feet. By
+this time the thunder was rolling up relentlessly, and the
+flashes shone green and sinister. The storm was not long in
+breaking over them. The rain swished in from the west the way of
+Hood's right side. He wrapped his head in his five-shilling
+blanket; its cotton-waste was not very waterproof. He had a few
+more draws at his pipe in the dark. Pools were filling under him.
+He put his pipe down. He made haste for the frontiers of sleep.
+He must have got some way in that direction, for he soon found
+himself in his bath on the threshold of a dream. Of course, he
+should have hardened his heart hygienically. He should have risen
+and stridden on with his retainers the miles that remained. But
+he had his vein of weakness and sloth; he took the fury of that
+night lying down.
+
+At whiles he was across the drift of Lethe in the darkness, but
+never for long together. Once he woke uneasily with a start and
+saw a flash. The crash followed as in one beat, and the rain was
+like the rain in King Lear. He was broadly awake now. Two
+carriers were nestling near him. He felt fearfully for his pipe,
+and almost mourned for it as washed away. He found it, and turned
+over with a happy sigh. 'Man's airy notions!' 'as in a grave,'
+'mix with earth' he hummed himself to sleep with that brave
+sing-song.
+
+The dawn had come ere he had roused himself again. It was good to
+find that the rain was over and the night gone, and that the fire
+was blazing. His carriers were chafing their hands and feet. His
+sleeping host bulked still as a molded shape in the buck-sail.
+Had he moved at all since last night? The big black-and-white and
+red-and-white oxen were tethered still. Would their wardens ever
+wake up and see them fed? The carriers tied up his packs, and
+moved forward with a swing. Still there was no sign from the
+buck-sail, boy and master alike were still within, though the sun
+had climbed over the hills. Hood shrugged his shoulders, and
+moved off down the west road. He left that little mystery, as he
+had left bigger riddles in Africa, utterly unsolved.
+
+Soon they dried themselves at a hospitable hut-fire in a village.
+It was Lady Day. Hood noted the seasonable blue-and-white of his
+blanket as he hung it on a rafter. He made the morning Offering
+behind that vaporous screen. Then they ate their food, and
+drugged themselves belatedly with quinine against those perils of
+the night.
+
+Hood for one felt cheerily defiant, if somewhat stiff from long
+bathing. 'This is life,' he thought as the sun came out, and they
+strode mile after mile down the valley. Afterwards came the
+shining drift, and the last climb up to the Station.
+
+When Hood reached Capetown, he found a letter awaiting him. His
+chosen traveling companion an explorer was delayed up-country.
+Hood was sorry to get that letter. Then the possibilities of a
+lonely journey struck him. He revived the remembrances of
+long-room life as an under-schoolboy. He took an open berth for a
+three weeks' voyage. Whereas, in the English public school he had
+gone to, Gentiles had been many and Jews the exception, the
+balance was now redressed.
+
+It was a good time on the whole that he had on this voyage, but
+he was glad indeed to be out of the boat and in England once
+more, his own South-country England! The spring and early summer
+were kind to Hood, then July came and brought the gathering in
+Berkshire. All the old forgatherers of five years ago were there,
+all but that one they had left behind in Africa. He had gone to
+sleep there, three long years ago in the past.
+
+'How I do miss Hunter!' confided the explorer to Hood. 'They seem
+to have aged a lot, some of the others,' he explained forlornly.
+
+Hood stared at him as he steered their boat down the river. He
+reflected.
+
+'I think you're right,' he said. 'But you haven't aged a bit. Nor
+have I. Nor has our host so very much. That's how the dividing
+line comes in. The others are all married, much married, and like
+their little comforts.'
+
+'You're right there,' said the explorer, disconsolately. 'A
+bread-and-cheese lunch in a bar parlor and a twenty-mile walk
+didn't suit Warner. He used not to be like that. If only he'd
+kept out in Africa after the war.'
+
+'Warner's better than somebody we both know,' grumbled Hood.
+'Having a car of his own hasn't made him any younger.'
+
+'Never mind,' the explorer said, 'there's two of us out in Africa
+yet, and not likely to marry. There used to be three, usedn't
+there?'
+
+'I do wish we had one to spare,' said Hood. 'It'd be rather a
+tragedy for the other one if one of us two deserted. But you'll
+try not, won't you, and I'll try too.'
+
+While they stayed with their bachelor host, friends of his,
+married and single alike, were very kind to them. The rector, who
+had only come last year, asked them to make themselves at home in
+his garden. It had a blaze of civilization in its front borders,
+now, but at the back of the house it was rather wild and very
+shady. The rector's youngest sister, Perpetua, kept house for
+him, a girl whose English coloring took a pretty and subdued
+form; Hood and the explorer were much interested in her romance.
+The curate, Warner said, was her continual worshipper. He was a
+keen sort of curate that.
+
+She had been kind to him till quite recently. Now she was
+uninterested, or seemed so.
+
+The Good-bye of the reunion came round, but the explorer and Hood
+went not with the others. The married guests went off to their
+home comforts, but these two stayed on for at least a week more.
+They became fast friends with both Perpetua and the curate, but
+they found it best for social joy not to mix them.
+
+Perpetua shared a sailing expedition with the strangers. Therein
+they explored much of the Evenlode, the hay-harvest breeze
+favoring them. Another day she went with them afoot to the
+Hinkseys. Certain moot points of poetic identification were
+hardly settled by that trip, so another followed. They came home
+by Cumner both days.
+
+'She would do for Africa,' confided the explorer to Hood one
+night. The village band had been playing, and they had thought no
+scorn of it. The groups under the dreaming garden trees, and the
+full moon, and the white evening-star' had been memorable that
+evening.
+
+'She might do for Africa,' said Hood doubtfully, 'but I wouldn't
+let her go and spoil her complexion.'
+
+'If you were the curate?' asked the explorer with a smile.
+
+'What's he to do with it?' said Hood impatiently. 'Didn't he
+almost promise he'd sail with me in two months' time? I want him
+for work.'
+
+'That's too bad,' said the explorer; 'cut that labor-agent
+business. Let him stay at home and marry Perpetua. There's a
+family living waiting for him across the river. Won't they be
+happy just?'
+
+'I don't know,' said Hood, thinking fast.
+
+Next morning the explorer had a touch of fever. The village
+doctor dropped in as an anxious friend. He mustered up his
+courage to prescribe two grains of quinine. His patient smiled,
+and promised to take them with additions. Then he went to sleep,
+and left Hood to escort Perpetua to Bab-lock-hythe. She was
+adventurous that afternoon. 'She has outgrown the curate,' Hood
+thought. The explorer's words recurred to him: 'She might do for
+Africa.' 'Not if I know it,' he answered them in his own mind.
+
+His interest in her grew that day, and the next day, when the
+explorer was convalescent. The day after that he said 'Good-bye,'
+and escorted the convalescent to Oxford.
+
+'Good luck!' said the explorer as they parted near the Martyrs'
+Memorial, each bound for his own college. 'Let's stick to our own
+way of life, we two. Don't let's get middle-aged just yet, like
+Warner and Davies. And, mind, drop that agency rot, and leave the
+curate to Perpetua. They're just the age she twenty, he twenty-five.
+You, who're forty-one, have pity!'
+
+That evening Hood smoked his pipe in a college garden. One who
+had taught him years ago was there. Hood was fairly candid as to
+his real thoughts when he talked to him. He was telling the tale
+of that rainy night, as the summer twilight darkened, 'I'm just
+forty,' he said. 'It seems as if I could hold my own a bit with
+younger men, D.G.!'
+
+His friend looked at him thoughtfully. 'It's fictitious youth, he
+said. 'Supposing you were to try marrying and settling down.
+Supposing you were to try deserting your perennially youthful
+bride the Great Adventure, or the High Romance, or the New
+Jerusalem, or whatsoever you call her. Supposing you settle down
+with an earthly bride say, a sweet-and-twenty one! Supposing you
+had to toe the line of four-meals-a-day in a country vicarage.
+You would know your age then.'
+
+Hood looked uninterested and aloof. But he recurred to the
+subject again later on, and he asked whether a certain living in
+the near neighborhood had been filled.
+
+'No,' said his friend; do you want it?'
+
+Hood flushed up. 'It's the sort of place I'd like to settle down
+in,' he said, 'if I were coming home. But why should I come?'
+
+His friend made no answer at once. The same sort of wistful look
+came into his eyes that Hood had noticed in the explorer's eyes
+that afternoon.
+
+'Why should you not?' he said at last. 'Yet I for one would like
+you not to renounce the perpetually juvenile lady. I'm not in a
+hurry to see the last of your glad, perennial youth.'
+
+That night Hood lay in his friend's spare room, looking out over
+the Gardens. He was reading in bed a college list. It had pencil
+notes of the deaths or careers of some contemporaries. Rousing
+himself from his researches, he sprang up and put the book away.
+He leaned down to the window-shelf. What was that book with the
+stained red cover! He remembered a romance that had come out in
+his college days of twenty years ago, a book by one who had had
+his own rooms before him. He took it back to bed with him, and
+turned over the pages. At last he found the lyric he sought. One
+of its verses held the tag he had remembered so often, but had
+forgotten, and wanted that evening, wanted to confirm his own
+halting decision:
+
+'In a wife's lap, as in a grave,
+Man's airy notions mix with earth.'
+
+He put down the book and switched off the electric light. He lay
+a long while in the moonlight, thinking himself far away to
+earthen walls and guttering candles. He thought of the chill
+penury of lack of blankets that he had known in winter. Also of
+the sun's summer glare on white wagon-roads and Kaffir paths.
+What wonder that wayfarers' eyes amass many wrinkles around them?
+Yet how young one had kept after all; and at what speed one would
+age here with electric light and sheets and a stately dinner to
+tempt one! 'Man's airy notions.' Yes, he had got some very airy
+notions still, whereof the earth was not worthy. Getting old
+didn't matter, of course, so much; but he wanted to stick to
+doing his own work (his Lord's work) in his own way. He didn't
+want to leave like-minded friends in the lurch either. Nor did he
+see his way to hug the shore at home with Perpetua, while the
+curate braved the 'foam of perilous seas.' Would he ever have the
+heart to watch her fresh face spoiling in Africa? Could he bear
+to see it wizened and withered in the Tropic of Capricorn? No!
+
+He was soon asleep.
+
+His first waking knowledge was of his friend's asking him the
+question, 'Are you going to apply for that living?' He had his
+'No!' ready from that last night.
+
+'I'm glad,' his friend said. '"Fly our paths, our feverish
+contact fly!" I'd like you to take my advice and be happy yes,
+and useful as well as youthful.'
+
+'All right,' smiled Hood from his pillow. 'I mean sailing next
+month.'
+
+He went to his home in Kent that same day, and rejoiced in the
+Weald. His sister and he made a pilgrimage to Canterbury before
+the month was over, from Sevenoaks by way of the Downs.
+
+'This was where Marlowe went to school,' she reminded him. 'I
+think he might have been almost as great as Shakespeare, don't
+you?'
+
+'I don't know,' Hood answered. 'He was a different sort. I can't
+imagine him settled down in middle age at Canterbury like
+Shakespeare at Stratford. "His raptures were all air and fire."
+His airy notions refused to mix with earth somehow.'
+
+The conversation was not very important, but it showed the
+continuing trend of Hood's purpose. He hardened his heart and
+went to the Upper River no more ere his sailing from Southampton,
+nor did he press the curate to sail with him. The latter wrote
+him a very dubious letter. He would make no promises about work
+in Africa now. Hood gathered that Perpetua was relenting.
+
+The explorer sailed with him, to his joy, instead of the curate.
+They went up from Capetown in continuing amity together. At last
+they parted far upcountry. Hood went on his lonely way, not
+without some retrospects and some doubts as to his decision.
+
+At a roadside station a well-tried comrade came to greet him.
+This friend had married last year, and his wife was donkey-riding
+and foot-faring with him. They were but just back from many miles
+in very wild country. Seven carriers were with them.
+
+'Heavy loads!' said Hood, shaking his head. 'So you carry chairs
+and a table into the Veld?'
+
+'Home comforts,' growled his fellow-missionary. 'Why not be
+comfortable? And why, too, didn't you bring a wife back? Some one
+said.'
+
+Hood smiled, and the missionary's wife smiled back at him. 'He's
+better as he is, dear,' said she to her grunting husband. 'He's a
+foot-slogging free-lance. We're the household heavy cavalry. He's
+different.'
+
+'Wait and see if he remains so,' rejoined her husband solemnly.
+Then the train screamed and went off.
+
+Soon Hood was landing at his own rail-head and receiving the
+greetings of many brown people. They seemed glad to see him as he
+straggled back so forlornly to them up the platform, and out of
+the station. His holiday was done.
+
+But he was soon forlorn no longer. They had so many delights and
+anxieties to share with him his traveling comrades. Soon they
+were striding away far up the remembered road together. They were
+through the drift. How low it was now in this droughty time. Then
+they wound along the valley. Hood peered curiously among the
+ruddy-leaved bushes as they came round the shoulder of a hill.
+Was the silent teamster still outspanned there? No, he was not
+there to make them welcome, or to sleep away the tyranny of their
+presence. He had fled their 4 greetings, fled their speech and
+smiles.' Never mind. If the road was lonely, Spring was in the
+land. How the trees and the bushes glowed! 'Surely no man ever in
+a land of exile found more of a warmth of welcome home!' he
+thought to himself.
+
+It was on Christmas Day (last Christmas Day) that, Hood tells me,
+a momentous letter came to hand. It was from Berkshire, and he
+did not read it till the time came for him to turn towards his
+veld-home. He had held Christmas services in various places.
+
+He was now looking forward to a rest and to supper-time. He was
+sitting outside a wayside school as he read that letter. Some
+Mashona children had brought him clay figures as Christmas
+presents. They graced the grey rock beside him one big figure and
+a little figure or two in clay skirts, also a quaint version of a
+perambulator. They showed up rather drably against the glory of
+Western sun and blue sky.
+
+The letter announced Perpetua's plighted troth. It was from the
+curate. He added that they were both looking forward to settling
+down shortly in the family living. They might be married in April
+or in June. Hood smiled and lit his pipe resignedly.
+
+'So his airy notions of Africa are mixed with earth,' he thought,
+'honest Berkshire earth, hurst sand, or down chalk, I suppose.
+No, I'm forgetting. That rectory's across the river in Bucks or
+Oxon, I forget which. Anyhow the earth's got the better of the
+air, and it's arranged that Africa's not to see him.' His eyes
+fell upon the clay family grouped beside him. 'It's good
+Perpetua's having a home and a family in prospect,' he thought.
+'One understands that there's a good deal to be said for such
+things when Christmas comes round, at any rate.'
+
+Some words came into his head, words of his favorite poet weren't
+they? 'I hope I shall never marry; the roaring wind is my wife,
+and the stars through the window-panes are my children: the
+mighty abstract idea of beauty I have in all things stifles the
+more divided and minute domestic happiness.' He looked at those
+clay grotesques rather tenderly. He was thinking of a story in a
+life of St. Francis he had read only yesterday, how he had made
+him figures of snow and called them in irony his wife and
+children and servants. 'Here is thy wife, these are thy sons and
+daughters, the other two are thy servant and thy handmaid; and
+for all these thou art bound to provide. But if the care of so
+many trouble thee, be thou careful to serve one Lord alone.'
+
+He said over to himself those unforgotten words, sadly rather
+than scornfully this time:
+
+'In a wife's lap, as in a grave,
+Man's airy notions mix with earth.'
+
+He shouldered his knapsack. Then he commended the clay figures to
+their donors; he asked them if they would mind looking after
+them. He was very grateful; he would have them kept in the school
+to remind him of things that earthy little family of his own.
+
+Then airily and fierily he splashed away down the path for home.
+Through the marshland he went, and down towards the stream. He
+forded the wagon-torn drift eagerly, climbed up out of it, and
+strode away beyond.
+
+How young and fresh he felt as he went away again on his campaign
+with earth and water! How air and fire subdued their sister
+elements to themselves!
+
+
+
+PISGAH
+
+
+
+We had been going sixteen days on the home course to England, and
+I had come to know him fairly well. He was a seaman who had
+sailed the self-same mail-boat for some years past. I remembered
+him on a brighter trip in summer-time when I was a good deal
+younger and took the languors of the voyage less slumberously.
+Now it was winter-time on the home-side of the Line, and I was
+sailing under a cloud of news grave and stern. So I was rather
+prone to see most things as much alike in a sort of dream of
+neutral colors. My seafaring friend had helped me in the sultry
+nights further south, had shown me a sleeping place high up among
+the ropes, had called me in the grey dawn, or warned me when
+lightning flashed and it seemed that a downpour threatened.
+Afterwards we had passed Madeira, a cheering vista with its white
+walls and red roofs and purple bougainvillea, and settled down
+into wintry weather and storm-vexed seas. Now the last night up
+the Channel had come, and the weather was calmer. We had seen the
+scowling Ushant coast in the sun and shower of an icy mid-day. So
+we were looking for a light to show very soon now an English
+light, a Dorset light and the pulse of our chill quickened to
+racing rhythm. 'How many voyages have you made before this one?'
+I asked my friend as we leant over a rail together. He mentioned
+an astonishing number. 'You must know a lot about the things that
+I want to know' I said, 'the going to and fro of people, their
+starting out and their coming back again. Doesn't it all seem
+pretty stale to you by now?' 'No,' he said; 'it's my living, and
+besides that it interests me watching the game. It's an
+interesting bit of the game that I see, don't you think, sir,
+coming to the fringes of two Promised Lands, and not tackling the
+job of settling down in either? I've got interests, though, in
+both of them.' He was silent, and we both filled our pipes again.
+This friend of mine interested me: his reading tastes had
+surprised me: he borrowed Mr. Masefield's works and Miss Olive
+Schreiner's, but I had not often found him communicative till
+that last night before reaching home. 'I'm better where I am
+earning a sure living,' he went on. 'I've got a boy put to school
+at Southampton; no, not mine I'm not married. But he's staying at
+school a long while. I don't particularly want him to go out to
+South Africa, speaking for myself. His father didn't do
+particularly well there as people reckon, but yet I don't know.
+He enjoyed his life in his own way, I think. I saw enough of him
+to understand that, and the boy seems bound to go back there:
+bound or tied's the very word. He was born up the country, and
+carried on a Kaffir woman's back in her goatskin, and knew more
+Kaffir than English, and wore veld-schoen when he came back on
+the boat with me.' 'When was that?' I asked. 'When his father,
+Walter Holmes, came aboard seven years ago come this next March.
+That was the second time his father traveled with me. He came on
+before, fifteen years earlier, when first he traveled to Africa,
+and I remembered him well enough. I was on the old boat. I've
+only served on the two boats all my time.' 'What did he go out to
+do?' I asked. 'Oh! he went up to join the pioneers at Kimberley.
+A counter-jumper he'd been, and he'd got his head all stuffed
+full. It was 1890, one of Rhodes' big years, the year they went
+north. It would have done you good to hear him talk. He was so
+keen, and his eyes glowed. Just like the water glows near the
+keel in the tropics.' 'That must have been a time,' I said; 'I've
+only read about it. It was before I saw the country.' The sailor
+grinned and spat. 'I reckon there hadn't been better days for
+young fellows to live in,' he said, 'not since Queen Elizabeth's
+reign. It came just between the two Jubilees the time. Kimberley
+and Rhodesia and the native wars and the Raid, and the big war
+looming on ahead for by and by. I reckon it was something like it
+was in Drake's and Hawkins' and Sir Walter's days.' That was a
+new view to me. But it sounded likely enough to hear him bring it
+out, who believed in it so evidently. 'It was all Ophir and El
+Dorado,' he went on; 'I used to hear lots of it from people to
+and fro. I'd see them going out to Africa and all the excitement
+after the lagging times along the coast, when they came with the
+dawn into Table Bay. I'd see them coming back, too, greedy enough
+to see Portland Light then, like that stout party over there.' He
+pointed to a paunchy miner who was flinging his leather cap up.
+'He's seen it,' he said; 'yes, look there! One! Two! Three!
+'Four!'
+
+My own eyes glowed and my heart hopped up and down. Yonder was a
+verity of England once more after years of absence. People came
+along to our corner of the deck and questioned and stared and
+laughed to one another. 'But I want to hear the end of that
+story,' I said, and I enticed him away with me past the wheel-house
+to a place far out of the talk and the tramping up and down.
+'How used the people to come back, did you say?' I asked him.
+'Oh! some had done fairly well,' he said, 'and some were
+broken, but it was good to see how slow they found the boat go,
+getting back again, and how they hung on the lights.' 'Yet they
+didn't stay long in England some of them?' I hazarded. 'No,' he
+said; 'I'd see some coming back, and hear of lots more. The same
+thing over again it would seem when we came into Table Bay, only
+they were a bit older.' 'But some didn't come home to England,
+did they?' I wanted him to tell me. 'No,' he said; 'you're right
+there no doubt. This friend of mine named Holmes took a long time
+coming. But I heard from him sometimes when he was up country. He
+found the business of settling Canaan rough, I gathered. I think
+I'm glad I heard about it from a distance. It mightn't have
+suited me.' 'And he got married up there, did you say?' 'Yes, his
+girl came out on this ship when he'd been out seven years or so.
+He used to write to me sometimes, and he arranged about the boat
+she came by. She was full of the farm she was going to; he had
+written about it. She seemed to think that it was a regular
+Kentish homestead. She wrote afterwards and thanked me for
+looking after her on the voyage, and said she had found two huts
+on a kopje when she got there. All their cattle died when her boy
+was about six years old. Then she died. Holmes had a lot of
+trouble that year. So he sold up and came on board the year
+after. Waited for my boat, worse luck, and contracted enteric in
+Cape Town. I thought we should lose him off Cape Verde. But it
+wasn't a clammy night the night we passed the wind blew fresh and
+we got him by. How he longed for home, for settling down in Kent.
+Rhodesia was all very well when one was young, he had said. She
+hadn't treated him so very well, but she had taught him to value
+things at home. I thought we might land him home after all, when
+we were a whole day or so past Cape Verde. But that night a
+change came and he was gone. We dropped him over at sunrise, only
+four or five hours after, so as not to cast a gloom over the
+passengers, you understand.' 'And you took on his child?' I
+asked. 'Yes, and wanted him to settle down in the south country.
+No, not Africa Kent I mean. I thought I'd settle down with him in
+the better of my two countries. For it is the better. I who've
+looked down at both, like Moses on the mountain, have found out
+that much. But it doesn't look a bit now as if he'll believe
+in my advice.' 'And if he goes out, you'll follow him?' I
+questioned. He smiled. 'I think I'll be simple enough for it,' he
+said; 'I seem to want to renew my youth. I somehow used to be
+sorry I missed my chance to follow his father up. Now that
+generation's about gone the generation of King Solomon's Mines.
+It doesn't seem like putting myself forward so much if the boy
+himself asks me to come up with him, does it, sir?' 'And you want
+to go.' 'Well if you look over Moses' Moabitish mountain long
+enough, at a promised land, so to speak, you may get a hankering
+to go in,' he said. 'It's not a better country. It's not a
+heavenly; I don't make any mistake about that. But it's a country
+that people have thought big things about, if they have carried
+them out badly. I seem to have seen something of the right and
+the wrong of it all these nights coming north to Southampton
+Water or south into Table Bay.' 'And what's the conclusion of the
+whole matter?' I said. We were almost alone on the deck now.
+(There was just one lonely, lanky passenger strolling up and
+down. I guessed that the rest were in bed, or going to bed or
+having a last drink below. We went down the deck together and
+took our stand behind that forsaken watcher of the shore-light.
+He stood at gaze, pulling deeply from his pipe and drinking in
+the four-a-time flashes with owlish contentment.) 'Oh! the
+conclusion's what Solomon said right enough,' he muttered. 'Fear
+and keep, and keep and fear. Perhaps he'd been out and visited
+the men on his mines up-country.' He paused. I seemed to hear the
+jingling of bar-glasses in a back-veld canteen as he did so. The
+thud of drums, too, from Kaffir villages seemed to bear down on
+us. The Channel breeze came to me as it were heavily laden with
+the sounding challenges of the South. 'I suppose,' I said, 'it
+makes a big difference when one loses the northern star. Those
+southern skies painted with unnumbered sparks are all very well,
+but one lacks the pole-star of honor one steered by in England.'
+'Yes,' he said, 'It's there I reckon the Southern Cross comes in,
+and people going south make a mistake not to notice it. When
+one's out of sight of the old compass-point of English opinion
+one feels the want of believing, if one's to make any sort
+of a show. It's a bad look-out if, when one lives under the
+Southern Cross, one can't understand it. Fear God and keep His
+Commandments. Do you think God would have put that cluster of
+stars to south if the South did not need it most?'
+
+
+
+A LION IN THE WAY*
+
+* This tale may seem obscure, I suppose, if read in modern
+English. It may be interpreted in the light of two ideas:
+
+(1) The African idea about leanthropy or transmutation of man
+into lion, an idea likely to linger on, I should think.
+
+(2) An idea prevalent as it seems in our Europe of old '. . . the
+idea that when a witch in animal form is wounded, say by a blow
+or a shot, the natural wound will appear on the human body when
+the witch returns to her own person.'
+
+But I have topsy-turvied (2) in my tale. A.S.C.
+
+I saw the lion with my own eyes, his shaggy head haloed by the
+rising moon. The Mashona who was with me had far sharper eyes
+than mine. He saw a dark scar across its brow. He would know that
+lion again, he told me. It was not a gun-shot wound it carried.
+Surely it was the caress of a brother lion.
+
+The trader's road led down from the half-deserted kraal to the
+drift. It forked into two wagon ways with a huge rock to part
+them. There on the rock stood the lion expectant. That may not be
+a heraldic term, but it is a true description of him as I saw
+him. We watched him from the height above for what seemed a
+longish time.
+
+Then in haste I stole back to the desolate kraal that I might
+find Trooper No. 2. Had he not the chance of his life now to
+shoot a lion? I found him in the kraal, angry with himself and
+swearing at his Black Watch boy who suffered him silently. While
+he swore at him I gave him some idea of what I was thinking, as
+to his need of humility. Had I not seen him run ten minutes
+before? All this took time. When at last his flow of words dried
+up and he came with me, we were too late. The lion was no longer
+against the sky-line. He had taken cover in the bush below. We
+heard him there once or twice, but we saw him no more. This is
+how these things came about.
+
+I had traveled into that forlorn country the day before, looking
+for Carrot. He had been a pioneer and a reputed hero, not so many
+years gone past. Now he was an Ishmael, receding and receding
+before the tide of civilization. Like the eagle in Byron's lines
+on Kirke White, he might blame himself, or at any rate credit
+himself, for the turn things had taken. He had winged the shaft
+that was draining his life, or at least his livelihood. He had
+helped to bring on a native war that had expedited matters. He
+had helped to wind it up in a very few months.
+
+So now the abomination of civilization, as he deemed it, was set
+up in high places of the land. It was increasingly hard for him
+to be a law to himself anywhere within the land's limits. He had
+retired further and further yet again into the fastnesses of the
+hill-country. Yet civilization had a graceless way of looking him
+up.
+
+He was just by the Portuguese border when I visited him. I knew
+him of old, and I wanted him to let his eldest son come to
+school. He had told me a year ago to ask again.
+
+I went through a frowning gorge of rocks to the part-deserted
+kraal, and found him sitting at his beer with three native
+courtiers. He was a tall West-countryman, with a ragged dark
+beard. His khaki was badly stained, and his hair was poking
+through his hat. He spoke the tongue of this southern country
+most volubly. He also reinforced it with ne'er-do-well words from
+Europe that did her no particular credit. Just as I came up a
+quarrel was in full swing. A free fight followed. Carrot broke a
+black earthen pot over the head of one of those three. Out came
+his swarthy wife that he had paid many cattle for, with his baby
+in a goat-skin at her back; also his other children, aged about
+eight, six, five, and four.
+
+There was much confused crying and protesting. But Carrot
+dominated the scene in the end. The courtiers retired crying
+'Shame!' and under protest. The most truculent of them was
+bleeding freely from his broken head. I followed him to their
+hamlet far down among the rocks and bandaged him. I camped
+outside the Carrot homestead that night and the next day, and
+learned something of the family's way of life.
+
+Carrot was shooting big buck sable and roan without a license, I
+gathered. He was trading cattle for most of the venison that he
+amassed. He had by now a goodly herd feeding in a green vlei near
+the border. By and by he would sell them, he thought, and set
+himself up in a wayside public-house. That was to say, if an
+ungrateful Government could be squared somehow. He chuckled at my
+protests. He had many tales in the speech of North Devon to tell
+me.
+
+Many of them concerned the police, and were not altogether
+unkindly, though disparaging. To Carrot, who could both ride and
+find his way about the veld, the police seemed often deficient as
+pathfinders and horsemen. The story he told about the five
+European members of a police camp delighted me. One had got lost.
+He who went out to look for him had got lost also. There was an
+epidemic or something of the sort just then among the native
+police, who, as a rule, piloted the troopers about and did
+nurses' work at need. One after another of the remaining three
+Europeans was engulfed in this exhaustive search. Then a grass
+fire effaced the empty police camp. Carrot ended with a
+speculation as to whether they were still looking for one another
+or whether they had begun to miss their camp yet.
+
+He was good in a feudal way, I gathered a severely feudal way to
+his retainers. He threw pots but seldom. His eldest child he
+seemed to worship in some sort of pagan fashion of his own.
+
+The boy might have sat for a child Dionysos with his leopard-skin,
+and his arm of golden copper thrown about his father's pot of
+beer; black and big that pot should be painted.
+
+No, his father wouldn't let him come away with me; at least, not
+this year. He graciously hesitated twice or thrice. But he ended
+with the same proposal each time a drink and a postponement of
+decision. I wanted neither. I would not go on wasting my days on
+postponements, and I meant to start with dawn on the second
+morning. But at sunset the night before there had been a
+surprise.
+
+Just as the sun went down a strange native appeared in hot haste
+and told a tale.
+
+Two ma-Johnnies were coming down the wagon road with five or six,
+native police and camp-followers. The Government was looking up
+Carrot once again. He had had two pots of beer that afternoon, or
+most of them, and was not quite himself, otherwise he might have
+gone his way at his ease.
+
+But as it was, a ghastly row woke the echoes, what with the
+children crying, and the father singing and swearing, and the
+mother scolding, as they tied up their bundles. Carrot kept
+untying his in good humor, and searching for patent medicines and
+a safety razor that could not be found. Then after he had started
+he came back at least twice to give me a parting word. Meanwhile
+the western glow began to be rivaled by an eastern glow. The moon
+was brimming over the horizon. The Philistines of civilization
+were almost riding into the kraal before Carrot had really gone.
+My Adullamite friend was slow indeed with his farewells. Would he
+ever be through with them? 'Good-bye!' he said. He was enjoying
+the emergency hugely now that he was sobered. 'You'd better walk
+down the road and meet 'em. Do remind 'em not to lose their mules
+this time. No, I won't worry you to see me off. They might ask
+questions. You must honor and obey the King and those who are set
+in authority. But you won't want to give me away exactly. So
+good-bye till next time!'
+
+A hundred yards from Carrot's dwelling I met Troopers 1 and 2
+Trooper No. I dusty and disheveled and livid with fever a lanky,
+dark man; Trooper No. 2 trim and ruddy. The former could hardly
+sit his mule as he trotted up to me. 'Have you seen Carrot?' he
+asked in a sort of groan. I said 'Good evening,' and passed on.
+Promptly he gasped to two native police to bring me along, and
+went his way forward to explore the ruinous kraal. He felt
+doubtful whether I was or was not Carrot, he told me afterwards.
+He went for the three Carrot huts at once and began to search
+them. There were no finds there. Then he questioned me sharply.
+Two of his black watch knew me by sight, and I was soon set free
+to go my ways. Then he gave clear decisive orders to No. 2 to
+ride for all he was worth to the drift. 'The river's the border,'
+he said; 'it's his old game to dodge across it. If he's taken his
+kids with him he can't cross anywhere. It's a big river, and
+there's only the one drift so far as I know. Go for the drift,
+man, and we'll have him yet!'
+
+So Trooper No. 2, with the glory-thirst upon him, bustled off
+with one black boy and four black men in red and blue.
+
+After he was safely out of the way Trooper No. I fainted. It had
+been hard for him to keep going so long as he had. I spread a
+blanket for him and made him a pillow. He was not long in coming
+round. Meanwhile the great moon had climbed a little. The light
+of the sunset was losing its brilliance as hers grew splendid.
+
+The sound of two shots came sharply to us. A minute or so after
+No. 2's mule was galloping wildly past us through rocks and
+ruins. A native trooper rushed for it, but missed its bridle.
+Soon after that Trooper No. 2 galloped up on his feet. I should
+judge from the pace he showed that he was a real sprinter. I had
+noted him before as a trim little man and ruddy, and a sort of
+personification of self-respect. Now he was blue and demoralized.
+
+'Have you caught my mule?' he panted anxiously.
+
+'Have you stopped our man?' Trooper No. 1 asked him coldly, his
+face set very hard.
+
+'There's a lion in the way,' gasped Trooper No. 2, quoting
+Scripture, whether he knew it or not. 'I got off my mule, I fired
+two shots. Then my mule bolted.'
+
+'And you bolted,' said No. 1 with a sneer. He took no further
+notice of him, but called the Black Watch corporal and gave him
+his orders. 'Take three men,' he said. 'Get to the drift. Run for
+your lives. Leave the path and go through the bush if there's
+really a lion.' The four Black Watch were off almost as soon as
+he had spoken.
+
+Trooper No. 2 began to explain matters at length to his senior.
+But the latter did not suffer him at all gladly. Then it was that
+I started down the drift road, asking No. 2's boy if he would
+show me the place where they had seen the lion. I asked him if he
+thought it was wounded. He answered me disdainfully. He showed me
+how Trooper No. 2 shot the panic way the way to heaven.
+
+Then we came in sight of the lion standing, haloed by the disc of
+the moon. As I have told you, I tried to give No. 2 a chance to
+wipe out his stain. I went back to fetch him; he was taking
+things hardly, doubtless, and I ought to try and do him a good
+turn. He came, but the lion did not stand still to await him. Why
+was I so glad he escaped? I don't think it was only because I was
+afraid. Yet glad I was. So we gave him up, and tramped back to
+the kraal.
+
+Soon after we were back one of the pursuers returned. He had seen
+Carrot splash through the drift. He took his time and went at it
+leisurely, I gathered, with his piccanin astride upon his
+shoulders. On the other side a crowd of natives had received him
+in triumph. They jeered at the police and shook their spears and
+knobkerries. Carrot was safely across the border and among his
+friends.
+
+'It's a lost trip,' said No. 1, and looked No. 2 up and down, as
+we sat by the camp fire. No. 2 looked injured and ashamed at one
+and the same time. He was not a hero on principle, I should
+think, and he had not risen to this occasion. Some people seem to
+hold that Britishers are heroes on principle all along our
+frontiers, and rise to all occasions. I can testify that this
+is not the truth, for I know my own deficiencies. As to No. 2,
+there is some sort of mitigating explanation of his conduct to
+be yet recounted. But no, even when I have allowed for this,
+I am not disposed to write him down heroically efficient or
+journalistically British not on that night at least. Just as
+a Colenso now and then slips into our big campaigns, so the
+monotony of our frontier triumphs gets diversified, I fear, and
+not so very seldom. No. 2. is by no means the only man of the
+diversifying type I seem to have met. I refuse to admire No. 2 as
+he was that night, though I would excuse him.
+
+For the hero of that night, let us look away from him. What a
+splendid night it was in the late autumn in the very end of May!
+Stars seemed to fall in profusion. But the steady ranks that were
+left showed no thinning to my dazzled eyes. I had much time to
+watch them, I remember.
+
+Ours was a gloomy camp among the ruins under the stars. One
+trooper was convalescent and irritable as well as disappointed.
+The other was shaken and sulky with little to say. There were
+great pauses in the talk. I thought how I congratulated Carrot,
+the cheerful and irresponsible, on his escape. Assuredly his
+would-be captors would have seemed to him dull dogs. Of course he
+would have thoroughly deserved ordinary boredom. But theirs was
+like a London fog. So it fell about that I had much time to give
+heed to the Black Watch as they chattered over their fire hard
+by. One was telling tales of lions, tales where the terror was
+glamorous and ghostly. A hint of a surmise floated to me. It
+recalled a type of mediaeval tale that had once entranced me. But
+I said nothing to those young white men beside me whose frowning
+faces were a study, and a pitiful one. I was intensely sorry for
+them both. I just smoked my pipe, and made ready to go to bed
+betimes. I was soon asleep, to dream of holy water and silver
+bullets and to wake and rise as the cock was crowing (for the
+second cock-crow I suppose) away down the hillside; I said an
+added prayer of eager devotion, feeling myself to be a postulant
+in great need of its answer. I made for the rock of vantage. I
+found the lion's spoor in the growing light, and followed it
+slowly and timorously into the bush and beyond. There had been a
+shower yesterday about noon, and it was easy enough to follow it.
+It led down and then up again. I guessed it might be leading me
+to Carrot's huts and the troopers once more. But, no, it dipped
+far down to that other group of huts wedged amongst the rocks,
+where Carrot's boon comrades lived, where I had bandaged the hurt
+head, where I had heard but just now the cock crowing. Two huts I
+could see to be empty. It did not lead to either of these. It led
+straight to the other wherein the embers of a fire shone red.
+There was no lion within. I looked for the spoor of the lion's
+exit. There was none.
+
+The retainer who had had his head broken by Carrot lay curled in
+his blanket by the fire. He was sleeping an exhausted man's
+sleep. It was hard work waking him. At last he sat up, a squat
+patriarch with grizzled bushy beard and shrewd watchful eyes. He
+was huddled in a queer parti-colored blanket purple and brown and
+orange and grey. I tried to testify to him with zeal against
+blackness of witchcraft. I told him with zest of the Light. He
+looked blank enough. Afterwards I spoke of Carrot's escape. His
+eyes underwent a change as I watched. The Light which lighteth
+every man that cometh into the world, showed in them, as it
+seemed to me. He was genuinely glad that his baas was out of the
+wood. So clear an affection for the man whose mark he was wearing
+touched me. I half emptied my tobacco bag into his hand ere I
+said Good-bye in the roaring south-easter, under the saffron
+streamered dawn.
+
+I surmised that Carrot owed his escape largely to a real hero
+ready to face fire at need, whom we white men had not recognized.
+
+A new feeling of pity for Trooper No. 2 took me. Haply he had
+miscalculated things as he pursued his unsanctified way. Haply he
+a modern, had been handicapped from his lack of equipment, lack
+of such discarded kit as I had dreamed about. Quite conceivably
+he had wrestled last night, not only against flesh and blood, but
+against principalities and powers unknown.
+
+
+
+AS TREES WALKING
+
+
+
+It was in the spring of last year that I started for a holiday
+journey towards some ruins about a hundred miles away. I had
+suffered much in the cold weather from fever and broken rest, so
+I longed to renew my strength before the heats of summer should
+be fully come.
+
+I started on a bright and calm September morning by the main
+southward track, hoping to reach a friend's Mission Station on
+the eve of the third day.
+
+I reached it then, but I had provoked my enemies by walking in
+the chilly hours, and walking to weariness. I was feverish and
+spent ere I reached Greenwood's Mission House.
+
+It stood under a towering granite kopje some ten miles only from
+the ruins. I had never entered it before. When I last visited
+Greenwood, quite two years ago, he had been working on a town
+station. He was a dark, lean, rather ascetic-looking person, not
+very talkative. I remembered the days when I had fought shy of
+him; we had seemed to disagree on so many subjects, and he had
+seemed to resent disagreement so intensely. But he had written me
+two or three most friendly letters of late, and that nigh?, when
+I came to his door so sick and sorry, he seemed to be kindness
+itself. I soon revived by his fireside, ate my supper, and smoked
+and talked with him to my great content. We were speaking about
+roughing it, and told many camp-fire and roadside tales. As I
+told and listened, I seemed to be my old self of a year ago once
+more, tough and dogged, and rather sinfully contemptuous of
+mosquitoes and malaria. Yet I had but a poor night after all, and
+the yawning and shuddering chills came on with vigor at Church in
+the early morning. I went back to my blankets after an aguish
+breakfast, and Greenwood dosed me and told me to go to sleep. He
+spoke with authority, and I obeyed. I did not wake up till the
+early afternoon. I seemed to have lost much weight in those last
+steaming hours, and also, to my joy, the fever.
+
+'I hope I'll sleep well to-night and get an early start to-morrow
+after all,' I said to Greenwood. He looked at me rather intently
+with his resolute grey eyes.
+
+'The fever is gone for the time,' he said, 'but I don't like the
+look of your eyes at all. If I were you, I'd change your room
+to-night and sleep in the Hospital.'
+
+'Where's that?' I asked.
+
+'Oh, not very far; half a mile at most. It's Saint Lucy's little
+hospice on the hill there across the valley.'
+
+Afterwards, when I went out and sat on the sunny stoep with him,
+he showed me the place. I could see a grove of trees standing up
+on a near ridge and two or three thatched buildings in among
+them; yes, and a white cross surmounting one of these.
+
+'It looks lonely over there,' I pleaded.
+
+'Oh, I'll come with you,' he said. 'I want to tell you the story
+of the place before we blow our candle out; it may help the
+cure.' So when sundown was near, he and three of his native
+retainers started with me for the Hospice of Saint Lucy, carrying
+goodly packs every one. I was rather dubious about that
+expedition.
+
+'I hope it's warm there,' grumbled I to myself. 'If Greenwood's
+as strong as a horse, I am not so just now. I wish he'd camp at
+home in peace.'
+
+However, I tried to look interested as they made ready for us to
+go and delighted, as we started away.
+
+Just as we went across the narrow valley the sun went down behind
+St. Lucy's hill, and bells or gongs answered one another from
+either side.
+
+'So you have a bell up there at the Hospital,' I said.
+
+'There's more than you expect to see at the Hospital,' said
+Greenwood mysteriously.
+
+So there was. It wasn't a Hospital at all in our wonted modern
+sense, but a rather ornate round Church. Outside, it was plain
+enough, but within it gave me a sense of studied charm and even
+costliness. No drug-covered or dispenser's table was admitted
+within its doors, though both were to be found in one of its
+neighbor buildings. The main building housed aids to recovery,
+but they were of another type. Over the Altar was a life-sized
+picture of Saint Lucy, golden-haired and blue grey-eyed, with
+great splendor of shapeliness and stature, and real English
+apple-blossom cheeks. She came along a rocky path through an
+African forest; she was smiling, and had a far-shining lantern in
+her hand. You could single out the trees in the forest, there was
+the crimson-flowered tree yet leafless, and the wild fig-tree in
+full leaf and cluster, and the wild orange-tree; the wild acacias
+and the cactus trees were growing among the stones above. Far off
+in the distance, at the back of the picture, there were dim
+cliffs and pale sands and waves breaking in the bright star-light.
+
+The time was meant to be cock-crow. At least it seemed so, for a
+red cock was perched on a tree-pole in the foreground of the
+picture, crowing with a will. In the sky were many stars. The
+quarter over the sea whence the Saint came was of excelling
+brightness. There the morning star hung in a haze of glory.
+
+The Altar itself was of granite slabs and masses. Before it burnt
+a purple-glass lamp, hung by chains of native smithy-work, rather
+incongruously heavy, I thought. But who was I to cavil at this
+jewel of a shrine in our wilderness?
+
+'Where are we to sleep?' I asked.
+
+'Here, before the Altar,' said Greenwood solemnly.
+
+Even as he spoke his house-boy came in with hushed feet, and
+began to spread out our rush mats and many-colored blankets. Then
+we went into the dispensary hut, and had our supper and many
+pipes together, while the native boys chatted and chewed roasted
+monkey-nuts in the hut beside us. I felt very hungry and happy
+and healthy generally that night, and we sat at our table long,
+and then smoked far into the hours of darkness. But, though he
+told me many tales, Greenwood would not tell me the tale of the
+place, however much I begged him to do so. That was kept for the
+Shrine itself. That was not as other tales.
+
+We kept up a good fire, for the night was a cold one.
+
+The talk turned on pilgrimages at last; we spoke of many Shrines,
+of old-time ones and of others in the heyday of their youth
+still. Greenwood talked well on that subject. Was the aura of his
+own Saint in the air of that dispensary? He talked with a
+passionate faith about more than one Shrine, that left me almost
+breathless.
+
+Then we argued about the Pilgrims' Way in Kent, as to where it
+was that most pilgrims forded the Medway, and about certain
+homely Kentish legends.
+
+Suddenly he rose and went to the door. He looked out on the
+mighty vista of sable earth and spangled sky.
+
+'The moon is just going down and you ought to be sleeping,' he
+said. 'And remember there is my tale still to tell.'
+
+So we went to the Church. We had one candle between us there.
+Moreover, the purple lamp was burning, its quaint cup of wire-gauze
+averted doom from many self-immolant flies. We knelt beneath it,
+and he said the Prayers of the Shrine, then our own prayers
+followed then he began to tell:
+
+'I was coming back from England twenty months ago and I chose to
+come by the East Coast. It is a beautiful way to come. I saw
+Zanzibar, where there are many hopes and memories. I slept two
+nights far out of the city there, in a grove of palm trees. Then
+the boat came back from the mainland and I went aboard again.
+
+'We started for a four days' voyage or so, to Beira. She came
+aboard at Zanzibar, I think. Some one told me this, when I asked
+about her afterwards. But I was never really conscious of her
+presence till the second night of our voyaging. Then we met at a
+Concert in the Third Class, that I had strolled down the deck to
+patronize. To my shame I was traveling second, while she was in
+the crowded family of the third. I went and spoke to her.
+
+'A child had had a bad fall from some steps, and she was
+mothering him. It was a lovely and pleasant thing to see how she
+did it.
+
+'He should wake up without much pain,' she said, with a smile, at
+last. She handed the boy to his own admiring mother. Then she
+turned to me, for I had been asking after him.
+
+'She began to talk about our common work. "I want to climb on a
+new boat at Chinde, and go the way of the Lakes," she said.
+
+'Are you going to teach?' I asked.
+
+'"I hope I may teach at whiles," she said, "But I am sent first
+of all to heal."
+
+'She told me about her hopes for her work.
+
+'"They tell me I have healing hands," she said. "I have a seed-grain of
+faith, I think, and that is the secret of them."
+
+'I saw her only for a few moments. I will try to tell you or
+rather to show you what she looked like, when I have ended my
+story. She enlightened me not a little. I saw how lame a thing my
+own journey was my leisurely dawdling back to my work. This girl
+came as it were on wings, with power in her heart and will, that
+would take no denial but God's. Her few words as we walked up and
+down the well-deck were words that burnt and shone in the cold
+dark. I am talking about things as I saw them just then. As a
+matter of fact, I believe it was a blazing night with a moon at
+the full, and stars dropping over one another. I remember that I
+slept on deck afterwards. I had a sort of Midsummer South African
+Christmas picnic feeling (up till cock-crow, when the fever that
+had dogged me that month came again). It was really a consummate
+night. But as she talked, she made it seem cold and dark, her
+words were so radiantly kind.
+
+'T think we talked about Saint Vincent of Paris mostly, and of
+men that had carried in their bodies the marks of the Lord Jesus;
+and of the imitation of Jesus in India and Africa. Then she said
+"Good night!" and was gone.
+
+'Next day that return of fever blurred my new visions of the
+Light. Yet I was to see her again. An hour before we came off
+Chinde, she asked leave to come up on to our second-class deck
+and to bid me "Good-bye."
+
+'I was lying in a deck-chair, my hat tilted over my eyes, under
+the morning sun. She was suddenly beside me and speaking to me.
+She gave me a watchword out of that confident ending of Saint
+Mark, to which, some people, who have their misgivings, attach so
+little credit. It was this, "They shall lay hands on the sick and
+they shall recover." Then she prayed for me, lifting up her
+healing hands. And she held out to me a tiny flask that I might
+anneal myself, "For that is your own office," she said.
+
+'My head had defied sleep, but now sleep came apace. It seemed to
+me it came breathing about me with the light gusts of wind. I
+slept, nor did I know when she said "Good-bye."
+
+'When I awoke the sun was westering. Some passengers had
+trans-shipped for Chinde four hours or more ago, a man told me.
+She was gone, and I was well. No, not well in one way, but mending.
+That is all or almost all of my tale.'
+
+He had told it reverently. Towards the end of the telling, he
+himself seemed to wander as he told.
+
+'What was she like?' I asked after a silence.
+
+'She was much like that picture of Saint Lucy,' he said.
+
+'I found a man in the third class, who had taken a really fine
+photo of her, not a little snapshot. I had helped him with a
+sketch of the voyage he was writing for some magazine, and he was
+pleased enough to print me another copy. I sent it home that
+month. A friend painted me that panel. I suggested that the name
+of the Saint should be Lucy, it was on Saint Lucy's day she had
+said "Good-bye." The picture came a day or two before this
+Midsummer. He has done wondrously well, I think, if you remember
+that he never saw her.'
+
+'How do you know that he never saw her?' I asked.
+
+'Yes, you may well say that,' he said. 'I sometimes think that he
+had seen her, even as I. He has painted something of her light
+and spirit. Look how she threads' that forest by night!' He held
+the candle near, then he pulled it away.
+
+'Forgive me! How can you see her duly by this light? You must
+have a real session before her in the morning.'
+
+I awoke early, but not too early, as it seemed to me. Dawn was
+growing very bright, and spring seemed to be in the air that came
+from the doorway. I sprang up and looked out. Light that was
+already almost flame kindled the east. The leaves of the grove
+about me had their spring colors on. There was quite enough
+illumination to show how brilliant and tender they were ruddy and
+green and mauve, and bronze that was almost gold. Day was coming
+fast and so was Spring. I turned within and lit the candles on
+the Altar. The purple lamp was burning low. I knelt down, and saw
+Dawn and Spring, aye, and Summer too, in that picture. Eastern
+light was streaming from that lantern Saint Lucy held. It was of
+coral and silver set with pearls. Eastern light was in her happy
+face. You could see even in that cock-crow dusk in the forest,
+how the fig-tree and all the trees were stirring for Spring and
+Summer. I took note now that Saint Lucy's wreath was of orchard
+leaves and blossoms. I lifted up my thanksgiving there and then,
+as the first sunbeams shone about me, for the rest and the light
+that I had found, found at last for good as I hope in sultry and
+weary Africa.
+
+Soon we were kneeling at the morning Sacrifice, then we went out
+and broke our fast in the sunshine, sitting on rocks by the wood
+fire. How hungry I was in that hill's pure air!
+
+When he had done, Greenwood showed me some of the workings of the
+Shrine. A young mother, filleted and stately, brought her baby to
+him. Almost naked but roped with beads, the boy hung in the pied
+sheep-skin at her back. Greenwood folded a handkerchief that he
+had brought from the Altar about his dusky head. It was of faded
+blue and silver. Then he said prayers to the Father and to
+Christ, and again to both of them, for the prayers of Saint Lucy
+and that other.
+
+'It is not good to drug children so young, is it? He asked the
+question as though defending himself.
+
+'I think this may soothe him better than a powder.'
+
+He told me how he had found that kerchief wrapped about his own
+head on a certain sunny day when he lay sick aboard ship. 'It was
+hers,' he said, 'handkerchiefs and aprons are Bible remedies.'
+
+Other pilgrims or patients came to him after that mother with her
+child. He persuaded three or four of them to carry letters to the
+doctor in the town. But he prayed for these too, and signed them
+with oil from the Shrine lamp, ere he trusted them to his
+friend's salves or surgery. By and by came three young men with a
+boy. He was stricken and mad, they said. He had come home from
+work in a distant town last month. Now he would stay speechless
+for hours. He would wander far by day, and brood over the fire by
+night.
+
+'Let him stay if he will,' Greenwood said. 'Let him wait in peace
+here, and eat and sleep his fill, if he so desires. If he shall
+sleep in the Holy Place a few nights, who can say what wonder
+Christ may do?'
+
+The boy seemed to be an old friend of his, and stayed quietly by
+him. His companions started off joyously down the hill, one of
+them playing on the marimba. 'This is Merrie England come again,'
+said I. 'Did not an unburnt Lollard upbraid the bagpipe din or
+other music of pilgrims long ago? Wasn't that "lewd losel" told
+by the Kentish Archbishop how useful such music might be say if a
+pilgrim struck his toe on a stone?'
+
+'There are many pilgrims at this Shrine,' said Greenwood smiling.
+'I am glad about it. I think she would be glad if she knew.'
+
+'Where is she?' I asked. 'Doesn't she know?'
+
+'I have tried hard to track her,' he said. 'Not a trace have I
+found. I have asked our missions, I have asked the White Fathers.
+I have asked Africans and Scots and Dutch and Portuguese. But she
+has gone on her way out of sight.'
+
+'She has done some work here,' I said.
+
+'Yes,' he said, 'Angel or Saint, Faith Healer or Revenante from
+Paradise, she has worked wonders here. Do you know, there is a
+simple native cure I have ever so much faith in? It comes from
+the root of a tree. Have not some men and women the same sort of
+virtue in their wills and hands that trees have in their roots? I
+seem to see men and women such as Father John of Kronstadt and
+this my Saint Lucy of the Ship even as trees walking.
+
+The outstanding virtue of my patroness was surely in her blossom,
+and in the fruit that blossom can yet bring forth. "As the apple-tree among
+the trees of the wood" I found her. I sat down under her shadow for
+those moments of time. And now, and all my days of grace, will her fruit
+be sweet to my taste.'
+
+
+
+THE BLACK DEATH
+
+
+
+This is a story of a voyage home. The boat was one of the finest
+on the line and we were not overcrowded. We had wonderful weather
+that trip, brilliant sunshine relieved by a fresh little breeze
+that kept its place, doing its duty without taking too much upon
+itself, or making itself obnoxious. In the third-class we were
+quiet on the whole, and what is called well-behaved, though
+neither with millennial serenity nor millennial sobriety.
+
+A red-cheeked gentleman took a red-cheeked married lady and her
+child under his vigilant protection. Two or three Rhodesians and
+Jo'burgers enriched the bar with faithful fondness. Cards and
+sweeps on the run of the boat and the selling of sweep-tickets
+these all stimulated the circulation of savings. Hues of language
+vied with hues of sunset not seldom of an eventide.
+
+Life was not so very thrilling on that voyage, the treading of
+'border-land dim 'twixt vice and virtue' is apt to be rather a
+dull business.
+
+There was no such incident as that which stirred us on another
+voyage the taking of a carving knife to the purser by a drunkard.
+On the other hand there was no unusual battle-noise of spiritual
+combat such as may have quickened the pulses of one or two of the
+boats the year of the English Mission.
+
+We were middling, and dull at that, on the "Sluys Castle," till
+we reached Madeira. Then the description I have given of our
+voyage ceases to apply. The two or three days after that were
+exciting enough to one or two passengers at any rate.
+
+James Carraway had come down from Kimberley, he told me. He
+was a spare, slight man, with a red moustache. He sought me
+occasionally of an eventide, and confided to me views of life
+in general, and of some of his fellow-passengers in particular.
+I remember one night especially, when the Southern Cross
+was in full view and the water about the keel splotched with
+phosphorescence. Carraway had a big grievance that night. He
+commented acridly on a colored woman that I had espied on board.
+She was not very easily visible herself, but one or two faintly
+colored children played often about the deck, and she herself
+might now and then be seen nursing a baby. I had seen her on a
+bench sometimes when I had gone to the library to change a book.
+I had seen her more rarely in the sunshine on deck, nursing the
+aforesaid baby.
+
+'One man's brought a Kaffir wife on board,' growled Carraway.
+
+I said, 'I thought she might be a nurse.'
+
+'No, she's his wife,' contended Carraway. 'It's cheek of him
+bringing her on board with the third-class passengers.'
+
+I said, 'Which is her husband?'
+
+'He's been pointed out to me,' he said. 'The other white men seem
+rather to avoid him. I don't know what your opinion on this point
+may be,' he said. 'I consider that a man who marries a Kaffir
+sinks to her status.'
+
+I said nothing. He did not like my silence much, I gathered. He
+was not so very cordial afterwards. He was a man with many
+grievances Carraway.
+
+When we were drawing close to Madeira, two nights before, on the
+Sunday, Carraway touched the subject again.
+
+The parson had preached incidentally on the advisability of being
+white--white all round. I thought he played to his gallery a bit,
+in what he said.
+
+'An excellent sermon,' said Carraway. 'Did you hear how he got at
+that josser with the Kaffir wife? That parson's a white man.'
+
+I said nothing.
+
+'What God hath divided let no man unite,' said Carraway,
+improving the occasion. 'I don't uphold Kaffirs. The white man
+must always be top dog,' etc., etc.
+
+Carraway grew greasily fluent on rather well-worn lines. I smoked
+my pipe and made no comment. By-and-bye he tired of his
+monologue.
+
+He gave me no further confidences till the night after we left
+Madeira.
+
+Then he came to me suddenly about eleven o'clock as I stood on
+the well-deck, smoking a pipe before turning in.
+
+'Come and have a walk,' he said, in a breathless sort of way.
+
+We climbed some steps and paced the upper deck towards the
+wheel-house. There were few electric lights burning now. After
+a turn or two he drew up under one of them, and looked round to
+see whether anyone listened.
+
+'Don't give me away for God's sake,' he said. He held up a hand
+towards the light pathetically. 'It's showing,' he said. 'God
+knows why. God knows what I've done to bring it.'
+
+I said nothing, but looked at him and considered him carefully.
+He certainly did not seem to be drunk.
+
+Then I examined the hand he gave me.
+
+'I don't see anything particular,' I said. 'What's wrong?'
+
+'Good Lord! The nails.'
+
+But the nails looked to me pink and healthy.
+
+'Tell me,' I said, 'What you think's wrong.'
+
+Yet he could not tell me that night. He tried to tell me. He was
+just like a little boy in most awful trepidation, trying to
+confess some big transgression. He gasped and spluttered, but he
+never got it out that night. I couldn't make head nor tail of
+what he said. After he was gone to bed it is true I put two and
+two together and guessed something. But I was fairly puzzled at
+the time.
+
+'You're a bit upset to-night,' I said. 'You're not quite
+yourself, it's the sea I suppose, or something. Come to bed and
+get a good night.' His teeth chattered as he came down the
+ladder. I got him down to his cabin.
+
+'Thanks!' he said. 'Good night! I may come all right in the
+morning. Anyhow I'll have a bath and try.'
+
+He said it so naively that I could not help laughing.
+
+'Yes, have a sea-water-bath, a jolly good idea,' I said. 'You'll
+have to be up early. There's only one and there's a run on it
+before breakfast. Goodnight!'
+
+I saw him again in the morning outside the bathroom. He came out
+in his pink-and-white pyjamas; the pink was aggressive and fought
+with the tint of his moustache. He looked very blue and wretched.
+
+'Well,' I asked, 'Have you slept it off whatever it was?'
+
+'No,' he said, 'let me tell you about it.' He began to gasp and
+splutter.
+
+Just then another postulant came up, making for the bath-room
+door.
+
+'Afterwards!' I said, 'After breakfast.' And I vanished into the
+bath-room. It was probably Carraway, I thought, that had left a
+little collection of soaps in that bath-room. He had brought a
+bucket of fresh water with him apparently to give them a fair
+trial. There was yellow soap, a pumice stone, and carbolic soap,
+and scented soap. 'I'll keep them for him,' I thought. 'Somebody
+may jump them if I leave them here. I wonder why in the world
+he's so distrait.' I had my suspicions as to the reason, and I
+laughed softly to myself.
+
+After breakfast he invited me back to the bathroom; there was no
+run on it then.
+
+'It's quiet,' he said. Then after many gasps and splutters he
+enlightened me. His nails were turning color, he told me.
+
+'Anyone would think I had Kaffir blood in me,' he said.
+
+Also his skin was giving him grave cause for solicitude. I did
+not resist the temptation to take him rather seriously. I
+administered philosophic consolation. I reminded him of Dumas and
+other serviceable colored people. I rather enjoyed his misery;
+poetic justice seemed to me to need some satisfaction. He, the
+negrophobe, who was so ultra-keen on drawing the line was now
+enjoying imaginative experiences on the far side of it.
+
+'It seems then,' I remarked, 'That you are now a person of
+color.'
+
+He nearly fainted. He did not swear. He seemed to have lost all
+his old truculence. He began to whimper like a child.
+
+'After all, I never shared your prejudices.' I said. 'Cheer up,
+old man, I won't drop you like a hot potato even if you have a
+touch of the tar brush.'
+
+He cried as if his heart would break. I saw I had gone too far.
+If was like dancing on a trodden worm.
+
+'Carraway,' I said, 'It's a pure delusion. Your nails are all
+right, and so's your skin. You're dreaming, man. You've got
+nerves or indigestion, or something. It's something inside you
+that's wrong. There's nothing outside for anyone to see.'
+
+His eyes gleamed. He shook my hand feebly. Then he held up his
+own hand to the light.
+
+'It's there,' he said wearily, after a while. 'You want to be
+kind, but you can't make black white. That's what I've always
+said. It's the Will of God, and there's nothing to gain by
+fighting it. Black will be black, and white will be white till
+crack of doom.'
+
+I told him sternly that I was going to fetch the doctor to him.
+He sprang at me and gripped my arm.
+
+'I trusted you,' he said. 'I needn't have told you. You
+promised.'
+
+So I had like a simpleton.
+
+'Only give me two days,' he said, 'then I'll go to the doctor
+myself, if nothing works in all that time.'
+
+So I said I would respect my promise loyally for those two days.
+
+'I only told you,' he said, 'because my head was splitting with
+keeping it in. It's awful to me. I thought you were a negrophile
+and wouldn't think so much of it as other fellows. But for God's
+sake don't give me away to them. There's lots of things to try
+yet. By the way, ask that parson to pray for one afflicted and
+distressed in mind, body, and estate.'
+
+He did try many sorts of things, poor fellow. He was in and out
+of that bath-room a good share of both days. He also tried drugs
+and patent medicines. I saw his cabin littered with them. He
+would sneak into meals those two days when people had almost
+finished, and gobble his food furtively.
+
+I caught him once or twice smoking his pipe in the bath-room or
+the bath-room passage. He would not venture amid the crowd on
+deck. Only when many of the passengers were in bed would he come
+up with me, and take my arm and walk up and down. That was on the
+Wednesday night.
+
+Wednesday night came, then Thursday morning. Thursday forenoon
+was long, and Thursday afternoon longer.
+
+At last the sun was low, and I began to count the hours to the
+time when I might consult the doctor.
+
+I secured an interview with Carraway in the bathroom soon after
+sunset.
+
+'Any better?' I asked for about the twentieth time.
+
+He shook his head dejectedly.
+
+'All right. We must go to the doctor to-morrow morning. But, O
+Carraway, do go to him to-night, don't be afraid. It's only
+imagination. Do go.'
+
+'I'll see,' he said in a dazed, dreary sort of way, 'I'll see,
+but I want to play the last card I have in my hand before I go.
+It's a trump card perhaps.'
+
+'On my honor,' I said, 'You're tormenting yourself for nothing.
+You're as white as ever you were.'
+
+Then I said 'Good-night.' I stopped for a moment outside the
+door, and heard him begin splashing and scrubbing. The thing was
+getting on my own nerves.
+
+I went off up on deck, and smoked hard, then I read, and wrote
+letters, and smoked again, and went to bed very late. I had
+steered clear of the bathroom and all Carraway's haunts so far as
+I could. Yes, and I had gone over to the second class, and I had
+asked the parson to do as he wanted. I had asked him the day
+before. Now I asked him over again.
+
+The steward handed me a letter when he brought me my coffee in
+the morning. I opened it and read:
+
+DEAR SIR, Perhaps my negrophoby is wrong. Anyhow, it's real to
+me. I had and have it, and see no way to get rid of it properly
+here on earth. Now God has touched me, me the negrophobe, and
+colored me. And to me the thing seems very hard to bear.
+Therefore I am trying the sea to-night.
+
+'In the bath-room there never seemed to be enough water. I want
+to try a bath with plenty of water. But I am afraid it may be
+with me as it would have been with Macbeth or Lady Macbeth. Those
+red hands of murder could not be washed white by the ocean, they
+could only "the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green
+one red." What if I cannot be decolorized by any sea? What if my
+flesh only pollutes the sea, when I plunge, and makes all black?
+God help me!!! You are a negrophile and don't half understand.
+
+'Yours truly,
+
+'J. CARRAWAY.'
+
+I questioned the steward. He had found the letter in my place at
+table.
+
+Sure enough there was a third-class passenger missing. I suppose
+Carraway had slipped off quietly in the moonlight to try his
+desperate experiment. It was a cruel business his monomania.
+
+If I had broken my promise and called the doctor earlier, could
+he have been cured? Or would he have lingered in an asylum
+shuddering over the fictitious glooming of his nails and skin,
+shaking in a long ague of negrophoby.
+
+Anyhow, I'm sorry I didn't do more for him, didn't walk him round
+the deck the last night at least, and try my best to cheer him.
+Yes, I blame myself badly for not doing that.
+
+May God who allowed his delusion pardon that last maneuver of
+his! I do not think Carraway had any clear wish to take his own
+life.
+
+I can imagine the scene so convincingly Carraway pausing,
+hesitating, then plunging into the moon-blanched water from the
+dizzy height above, eager to find which the multitudinous seas
+would do would they change his imagined color, or would they
+suddenly darken, matching in their tints his own discoloration?
+
+
+
+AN OLD-WORLD SCRUPLE
+
+
+
+'If you come back, which Heaven ordain, you'll be all the more
+use to the priesthood,' the Superintendent of Missions said. 'Go
+and serve with our fearless and faithful, approach as an acolyte
+the altar of freedom. Supposing you don't see your way to go, I
+would remind you of a certain passage about "Curse ye Meroz!" I
+need not insult your knowledge of the Scriptures by finishing my
+quotation.'
+
+Osborne listened respectfully, but his eyes were looking far
+away, with dreams of the veld in them.
+
+The Superintendent's preaching of a sort of Christian Jehad
+appealed to him infinitesimally.
+
+There was a silence. He knocked his pipe out, and offered the
+Superintendent a sundowner.
+
+'I'm glad to have had your opinion,' he said. 'I take it you
+don't want me just now as a candidate for ordination?'
+
+The Superintendent flushed and hesitated.
+
+'You mustn't put it like that,' he said almost irritably. 'The
+decision rests with you, of course. Of course we want men now and
+want them badly. Yet I wouldn't press my recruiting needs just
+now. It doesn't seem to me the right time to do so. Afterwards. . . . '
+
+He gulped and spluttered as the big words rushed so fast to his
+lips.
+
+He was enlarging on the big days for God's priesthood, when the
+war, please God, should be over. Big days, that is to say, if the
+only sort of fit and proper issue should be reached, as doubtless
+it would be before long.
+
+'You mean a complete knock-out for the other side?' his hearer
+interpolated crudely.
+
+'I mean a supreme vindication of our holy cause,' amended the
+Superintendent with conviction.
+
+Then they changed the subject.
+
+Afterwards, when they smoked late on the lamp-lit stoep,
+conversation was apt to flag a little. The layman's eyes would
+grow abstracted in the intervals of his ceremonious hospitality.
+The Superintendent watched his face intently once or twice. The
+man was a mystery to him. He had an uneasy sense that he had not
+taken his measure, and had been responsible for some sort of a
+misfit more than once in conversation. Why was he not more like
+ordinary people? Probably because he had lived a lonely life on
+the veld much too long. The Superintendent was conscious of a
+profound distrust of the untamed veld, its influence and its
+inhabitants. Yet his natural kindliness, reinforced assuredly by
+his grace of orders and Christian sense of duty, strove quite
+heroically against that distrust.
+
+David Osborne walked over to see me next week, but he did not
+find me at home; I was camping with a native teacher's wagon some
+twenty miles away.
+
+He slept at my place, and came on after me. A thirty miles' tramp
+or so it meant to overtake me, but he did not shrink from it. He
+wanted to think out things, and he liked foot-slogging on a big
+scale as a stimulus to thought. I was on a high ledge above the
+windings of the Sawi River when he found me a ledge with a great
+view of the Wedza hills. The sun was going down then, and their
+blue was just dying into purple. I got him some tea, and he drank
+and ate like a veldsman one who had broken his journey but little
+since he broke his morning fast. He told me the Superintendent's
+point of view, which I have already chronicled. 'It provides a
+certain amount of excuse,' Osborne said, 'for what I want to do.
+That's about all I can say for it.'
+
+'Then you want to go?' I asked.
+
+'I want a change,' he said, 'and adventures and all that. As to
+any war's being a holy war, that's Greek to me.' I smiled. I
+understood what he meant.
+
+I had only just come back from a limited experience of war as a
+non-combatant. 'Why don't you say outright what you think?' he
+pressed me. 'The Superintendent does do that apparently, I'll say
+that much for him. Isn't Saint Telemachus still your bright
+particular star of Christian sainthood in wartime? And isn't
+Tolstoy still in your eyes a sort of forlorn hope the most
+hopeful of modern war-time philosophers? Or have you changed all
+that?'
+
+I looked him straight in the eyes, considering.
+
+'I have changed,' I said. He looked at me hopefully. He hadn't
+seen me since I had come back from the war. 'So the holy war's
+all right?' he asked. 'And the acolyte to the altar of freedom
+and all that sort of thing? I attach some importance to your
+opinion, remember, so don't say more than you mean. Having seen
+war, which do you plump for? Tolstoy, Saint Telemachus, or the
+Superintendent? Speak now, and kiss the Book on it.'
+
+I would have liked to laugh, but I did not dare. He was in such
+desperate earnest. I answered: 'I have changed for the worse from
+the Superintendent's point of view. I am not the same as I was. I
+am more so.'
+
+He went to the war. But he went with a share of Reuben's curse
+upon him. He wrote to me quite frankly from his East African
+camps about the things that appealed to him, and the other
+things. His experience seemed to bear out my own, for the most
+part. He considered that some deplorable things had been done on
+both sides, and also some very fine things. But as to the
+efficacy of the machine guns he ministered to, in promoting the
+Kingdom of God, he was under no illusions. He was possibly
+disposed to exaggerate things, e.g., the vitiating influence of
+war upon life about one. He was certainly disposed, I think, to
+exaggerate his own coarsening, as a not very reputable campaign
+proceeded. He harped somewhat morbidly on one particular strain
+in his letters. How much better, he surmised, it would be for
+Christianity and civilization if he and others like him should
+never return to resume their places in Christian society! Some
+verses that he sent me when he was under orders to join a rather
+hazardous expedition, have, I believe, a certain sincerity in
+their ruggedness. They are not very cheerful, are they?
+
+They have a note attached to them. N.B. We had Church parade this
+morning, and the lesson was about Nebuchadnezzar's going into
+retreat.
+
+
+
+LYCANTHROPY.
+
+
+
+They drove him forth as beast and not as man
+Till seven times had pass'd. At last he came
+Back to his Babylon, but not the same.
+Nay! For he now had learn'd of Lips on high,
+Herded with cattle, 'neath a dewy sky,
+How patience cannot fail where passion can.
+But we, war's wehr-wolves, we than wolves more
+fain.
+
+(Grace-harden'd, deaf to Gospel, blind to Rood),
+Fain to seek night-long horrors of the wood
+Where the blood-trail is red, the blood-scent hot,
+Shall we return in time? God, were it not
+Best for Thy world we should not come again?
+
+But he was to come again, for all his reluctance and shrinking
+from a return. He was to come through that campaign all right,
+and back to our part of Africa that he loved so dearly.
+
+'We shall have him back, I hope, before the end of this month,'
+the Superintendent of Missions told me. 'The Bishop seems willing
+to ordain him before Christmas. He's not likely to need a long
+diaconate, is he? Our Bishop agrees with me that he's had just
+the kind of training for his priesthood that was most to be
+desired.' I nodded dubiously.
+
+We were sitting in the Superintendent's well-ordered study, which
+he preferred to call his office. Its big window took a discreet
+peep at the veld, but it was not the untamed veld, only Rosebery
+Commonage. I searched in my pockets, and after uneasy gropings,
+unearthed a crumpled letter begrimed and tobacco-dusty. 'This
+doesn't look much like his coming up for ordination,' I said. I
+read an extract: 'Please give that Chinde boy in the College at
+Cape Town a message from me. I was glad to hear from you how well
+he was doing. I always liked that boy extraordinarily, and I
+think I had a sort of glimmer of his pastoral destiny quite
+early, soon after he came our way as a straying sheep. Now, from
+what you say, he bids fair to be a quite respectable candidate
+for the native ministry. Will you please offer him two or three
+more years at the College to enable him to qualify, should that
+be his own wish. I am quite prepared to be at charges for him.
+It's a happy augury that his baptismal name happens to be
+Solomon, even as it was rather a tragic one that mine happened to
+be David. I don't see my way to building up God's House on the
+old farm now, either literally or metaphorically, in the way a
+priest should.
+
+I look on your boy at Cape Town as a likely substitute.
+Vicariously I hope to offer by his hands, since mine are now too
+stained to offer to my own satisfaction. I'll do David's part,
+please God, and help him to build up the House, in both senses,
+the house I might have built with my own hands, had they been
+otherwise occupied than they have been these last months. I am
+quite resigned now. It is all for the best, doubtless.'
+
+'What does he mean?' The Superintendent's rather assured face
+grew quite indeterminate and puzzled.
+
+'What he says, probably,' I hazarded. 'He's got a scruple an
+old-world scruple.'
+
+I picked up the Superintendent's khaki-covered Bible, and turned
+over hastily the red, blue, and white edges.
+
+'Here's the passage,' I said. 'Listen to what his namesake, the
+other David, said: "But God said unto me, 'Thou shalt not build
+an house for My Name, because thou hast been a man of war, and
+hast shed blood."'
+
+'Oh, that text!' said the Superintendent not very reverentially.
+'I don't think that it's particularly relevant.'
+
+'Isn't it what he thinks that matters?' I asked. 'No, make your
+mind up to it. When he followed your own advice and went off to
+the war, he decided. He decided to remain a layman to the end of
+his earthly days. Some of us have got our scruples. His took
+shape that way.'
+
+'I don't see why,' said the Superintendent rather piteously. He
+was genuinely disappointed. I liked him for the unconscious
+tribute he was paying to him whom we discussed.
+
+'Be consoled,' I said with a twinkle. 'His farm promises to be a
+real lay centre of Christian influence. May we not rest assured
+of that? Trust him to encourage native industries and native
+ideas; Trust him to believe in the veld. Trust him to read to his
+veld-dwellers the Sermon on the Mount; trust him to live it
+rather. Trust him to deprecate, by example, as well as precept,
+excessive care for food and raiment. Our missions are apt to be
+rather over-ecclesiastical, aren't they? Far too much of an urban
+and Europeanized type, don't you think? Be consoled, his lay
+settlement may be trusted to teach us a lot. God grant that his
+native priest-designate he has chosen to be his Solomon, may soon
+come along! Be consoled!'
+
+The Superintendent looked slightly aghast. 'I don't see where the
+consolation comes in,' he groaned.
+
+
+
+FOR HIS COUNTRY'S GOOD
+
+
+
+Percy Benson opened his eyes and looked around him. He was lying
+in a tiny grass-hut. How did he get there? He thought for a while
+slowly; his head was very hot and heavy.
+
+Of course! This must be one of the hoppers' houses, and he had
+got back into Kent or East Sussex somehow. Where had he been
+lately? Not in Kent, or even in England. He could remember only
+a confused medley of traveling by land and water, and a huge
+home-sickness. Never mind, all's well that ends well. Here he was
+back in Kent surely, and in a hoppers' house. What time of year
+was it? That rather puzzled him. For was not that a mass of
+cherry-blossom not twenty yards from the tiny doorway? Why should
+they put up a hoppers' house before September? Why in the world
+should they put it up when cherries were in flower?
+
+Never mind, he was in Kent; he would sleep ever so much better
+now for knowing that. He put the cup of water that he found
+beside him to his lips. Then he closed his eyes and slept anew.
+When he woke again, hours after, a big man in flannel shirt and
+wide-brimmed grey hat was standing by a wood fire outside the
+doorway. It seemed to be just growing dark. The man was cooking
+something in a pan over the fire. As he turned, Benson knew his
+face. This was his old school and City friend John Haslar. He had
+not seen him for years he could not remember how many.
+
+'Hullo, Jack!' he said.
+
+'Hullo!' said John with a start. 'That's much better. You've
+slept well this last time! How do you feel now?'
+
+'Oh, better, much better,' said Benson. 'But I've had it badly.
+Influenza, isn't it?'
+
+John looked at him with a question in his eyes, but did not
+answer. 'I think you'll do now,' he said. 'You must take some
+nourishment and your medicine, and then try to sleep again. I'm
+your man for a talk in the morning, if only you get a good night.
+I didn't come eighty miles to see you for nothing, I can tell
+you.'
+
+Benson felt weak and weary, and did as he was told. Just as he
+closed his eyes he said, 'I'm glad to be back in Kent ever so
+glad.' He sighed a little sigh of relief. 'I can't think where
+I've been all this time. I am really back again, am I not?' He
+did not wait for an answer, but fell asleep.
+
+He woke up once in the night, and saw John sitting by the fire
+and smoking his pipe.
+
+"This is a hoppers' house, isn't it?" he began.
+
+John turned round and looked at him with interest and pity. 'It
+looks very much like it,' he said.
+
+Benson gave a contented sigh, and turned over on his side again.
+
+When he awoke in the morning his strength was really beginning to
+come again. He was hungry for breakfast. He caught sight of a
+dark, tall form by the fire on waking. But a minute or two after
+it was gone, and John was back again.
+
+'Ready for breakfast?' he asked.
+
+Benson was soon at his porridge, and debating as to whether he
+should finish with eggs or chops.
+
+'You'd better have what you really care for,' said John, and
+stepped outside and gave a call.
+
+'Who's that gypsy-looking fellow?' asked Benson.
+
+'Oh, he helps me,' said John. 'He's all right.' He went out of
+the hut and received a dish from somebody as he spoke.
+
+It was after breakfast that Benson made a request. 'I believe I
+know where I am,' he said. 'Though I'm not quite sure, because my
+head's still dizzy. I believe I'm back again in High Wood, just
+near Hawkenbury, not two miles from my old home. What do you
+think?'
+
+'I don't think I know that country,' said John, looking
+uncomfortable. 'And I'm sure I've never been here before.'
+
+'I remember,' Percy Benson said, 'there used to be a little
+grocer's shop down in Hawkenbury Street, where they sold mixed
+biscuits, with lots of pink and white and yellow sugar, and
+glass-stoppered ginger-beer. I haven't forgotten the taste,
+though it's years ago. Do you think you could go down there, or
+send somebody, and get me a bottle of ginger-beer and a pound of
+biscuits. They're just what I'd fancy.'
+
+John looked doubtful. 'I know a place that isn't so very far off,
+where they keep groceries,' he said. 'But I don't know whether
+they keep ginger-beer in glass-stoppered bottles, or if they keep
+that particular sort of biscuits. However, we'll try.'
+
+Benson slept a good deal that day. He talked between whiles
+rather feverishly about the place, and how glad he was to be back
+there again. John said very little, but that seemed not to
+matter. Benson was glad enough to ramble on and on. He did not
+appear to take much notice whether you answered his questions or
+not. He was ecstatic rather than curious.
+
+The biscuits came and were a fair success.
+
+'Not quite so good as they used to be, but very good,' said
+Benson. 'I like these sugar ones immensely; the ones with the
+pink sugar are the pick.' But the ginger-beer was not of the
+time-honored brand. It was drinkable enough, but it had a cork
+tied, instead of a long cool mouth with a glass stopper.
+
+'I must walk down and do some shopping for myself to-morrow,'
+Benson said. 'What a summer we're having. Did you ever see such
+blue sky as we've had yesterday and to-day?'
+
+Next morning he was much better, and could get up and walk about
+a little. John looked uncomfortable at times, as they sat over
+their breakfast by the fire under the great trees. He was trying
+to make up his mind to tell his friend where he was, and to
+recall what had happened to him. He could see that, now the
+fever-mists were melting, he was likely to be remembering for
+himself before long. But how could he break things to him easily
+without giving him a dire shock in his worn-out state?
+
+Then to him pondering, the crisis came of itself.
+
+Suddenly out of the woodland stepped a party of natives with
+monkey-nuts, sweet potatoes, and other wares, very cheery and
+smiling.
+
+Benson started and his eyes grew troubled. 'Is this Africa?' he
+said. 'Then I'm not home after all not home after all.'
+
+'You're in Africa,' said John. 'You came up here about three
+months ago, so they told me.'
+
+'I remember,' said Benson. 'There was some money trouble in the
+City some bad trouble. Then I had to leave my little place in
+Kent near Seven-oaks, just as I was getting it to rights.' He
+looked miserable as he thought over things, this sallow little
+City man.
+
+Meanwhile John traded some monkey-nuts and sweet potatoes for
+salt, and sent the traffickers away.
+
+Afterwards Benson began to talk out of the bitterness of his
+soul, and John lit his pipe and listened gravely. He talked about
+his little estate near Sevenoaks, the cottages and the farm, the
+Elizabethan manor-house, the school and church, the timber and
+the planting of the new trees. 'I was just getting the place into
+shape,' he said. And then he nearly broke down and cried as he
+told about the trouble in the City, and how a family council had
+been called, and he had agreed to go to this country for his
+country's good, and to keep away. 'Oh this farm, as they call
+it,' he said 'these thousands of acres of grass and rocks with a
+tin shanty to die of fever in! How wretched I've been here! But
+we aren't on the farm still, are we? This seems a bit better. It
+regularly took me in, this place. I did really think I was in
+Kent again.'
+
+John knocked out his pipe solemnly, and was just going to try and
+say something comforting.
+
+But Benson began again. 'And how did you get here you, the only
+friend I've got in this wretched country?'
+
+John told him that he had come down to see him, when he did,
+without knowing how ill he was. He had had a letter from him, at
+his store up in Rosebery last month, and for old sakes' sake he
+had driven down when he had a chance to come away. When he
+reached the farm he had found Benson lying at his homestead
+unconscious from fever. The natives who were waiting on him
+seemed to think him in danger. They said he had been sick for
+days. John had gone to bed early that night of his coming to the
+farm a glorious moonlit night. But long before dawn he had been
+roused by a Kaffir boy with the news that Benson had risen and
+rushed out. They tracked his wanderings to that beautiful stretch
+of woodland, and managed to house him in a garden-hut of grass,
+close by a clearing among the trees. Either John or his native
+boy kept watch over him day and night then. But when he awoke
+with that happy fancy of being at home, John kept away the native
+boy, and put away, as far as he could, all the distinctive signs
+of Africa. That dream of being at home might be a real help in
+tiding his friend over a very wretched time. There he camped
+under the two great trees with the wild white-flowered bush so
+like an English cherry-tree in full September bloom about him,
+and wondered what the issue of that comfortable delusion of
+Benson's would be. It could not be expected to last anyhow, now
+that he was coming back to sense and strength.
+
+Benson writhed as John finished his story. He went on with the
+tale of his own black loneliness and grey home-sickness. The
+glory of Kent and the charm of High Wood seemed to be gone like
+the shadows of a dream already. What good had they done him after
+all?
+
+John felt miserable as he heard him out. 'Look here!' he said,
+'I've been doing well at the store, and I've got a good many
+cattle that I'd like to run on this farm, if we can come to
+terms; and I'll try and drive down every month or other month,
+and stay with you for a bit and see how they're getting on.'
+
+Percy Benson's face grew bright again at that saying. He was very
+weak, and prone to sudden ups and downs.
+
+'Oh, do promise you'll come every month,' he said. 'Weeks are so
+long, and the one mail-day a week comes always terribly slowly.
+Do promise.'
+
+John promised faithfully.
+
+Next day they went back to the homestead, a dull little iron
+building on a rather feverish site. 'If I were you,' said John,
+'I'd build where you have been lying sick. I don't like the look
+of this other place at all.'
+
+'Yes, I shall build in High Wood; I want to call it so now.
+It's a magical place, I think: I shall always feel something is
+home-like when I'm there.'
+
+Life was growing brighter to him. His fever-fancy had opened his
+eyes a little to the charm of the new country it was, at least,
+here and there, not unlike the old country.
+
+'I think I shall fancy this place more now,' he said to John on
+the morning they parted. 'But, oh, if you could only have seen
+that little place of mine five miles from Sevenoaks!'
+
+'Look here!' said John. 'You've got a bigger estate here than
+ever you had there, and you can find the same sort of interests
+in it. Study your Kaffir tenants, and help them with ideas about
+stock and ploughing and church and school. Your neighbors don't.
+Well, more simpletons and arrant wasters, they! Believe me,
+you'll find the new life much more like the old life in Kent, if
+you do. Then study tree-planting, and look after this grand old
+native timber. Expect me next month, on the 23rd.'
+
+He went away and left Benson lonely. But the real blackness of
+his loneliness was gone. The planning of the new homestead would
+keep him busy for a long while now. Was not healing virtue
+exuding from that soil, which the happy dreams of his recovery
+had consecrated? His fever had given him a new point of view, or
+rather given him back his old Kentish point of view delight in
+God's own country sights and scenes, care for his tenants, and
+hope.
+
+
+
+LE ROI EST MORT
+
+
+
+The railway had almost crept up to Alexandra Then--the seventy-three
+miles of its sandy pilgrimage were all but complete. In three
+months or so it would be open to those who could afford their
+penny a mile no, but I am forgetting, on the privileged group
+to which it belongs no European may travel third-class.
+
+I did not welcome that railway with any warmth. The district
+that it tapped had seemed to me a camping-ground of refuge, as
+civilization pressed on. That district was a haven for the
+Kaffir-trader, a haven for the transport-rider, a haven too for
+the foot-slogging missionary, like myself. We have our faults,
+all three doubtless, and deserve the spurning of civilization's
+iron feet, when our time comes, doubtless. On the other hand our
+displacement is a matter for some sympathy, it is likely to hurt
+like other displacements. Also we are prone to note that the
+admirable iron feet of our displacer are not unmixed with baser
+clay.
+
+I came to Shumba Siding last Eastertide, on my way to Alexandra.
+Charles Miller was there in charge of the line, and he offered me
+a thirty-one mile ride in to within two miles of town if I would
+only wait for a construction train. I declined in my stupid
+sentimentality. For one thing I hate breaking up a plan of
+combined foot-travel; it seems to me hard on one's native
+fellow-travelers, on whom one is apt to call for big efforts. To
+ride on ahead, and leave them struggling alone with the sandy
+monster of a road for any long distance, seems vile desertion,
+and I was by no means sure that the invitation to board the train
+included them. Moreover, this might be my last journey in, on the
+old road, under the old order.
+
+So I declined, but I lunched with Charles Miller Before I went
+on. Marvell was there, the Kaffir store-keeper from ten miles
+away. He had much to tell me of his wonderful good luck. The
+big firm that were putting up the new Store at Alexandra, that
+rail-head terminus designate, had asked him to manage it.
+
+He could marry now on his prospects. He had wanted to see me, and
+had waylaid me on my road. The bride was due by coach to-morrow.
+He hoped to get a Special License when once she had arrived.
+Would I marry them on Monday?
+
+We had a good lunch with healths afterwards, but they let me
+drink them in tea. Miller proposed the health of the bridegroom,
+to whom the railway, or ever it came, had brought luck. Might his
+luck last while the rails lasted, and grow heavier when they
+should be replaced by heavier metals! Might he never make less in
+a year than that railway had cost per mile! 'Three thousand five
+hundred will take some making,' Marvell sighed to me. He
+acknowledged the toast and proposed the Railway's prosperity. He
+grew rather florid to my thinking, about the benefit to the
+District how Kaffir gardens were to be displaced by up-to-date
+farming, how tourists were to pour in athirst to explore its
+ruins. He discoursed of the blessedness of ranching, and of
+chrome and asbestos syndicates. He said that we were in at the
+death alike of malaria, of blackwater, and horse-sickness. Then I
+spoke up for the other side. I asked them to remember the old Era
+in silence, and if they must drink, to drink to the transport-road
+and the transport-riders, and to all pioneers, and old hands
+going and gone, to the big native district and its dependencies,
+so rich in cattle and so rich in grain, to God's Eden of a
+country, and the people that He Himself had chosen to set there
+to dress it, and to keep it before our coming. My toast fell
+rather flat, I noticed. They both looked rather bored.
+
+Soon I pressed on, with fifteen miles or so to cover before our
+camping-place would be reached.
+
+I had gone some ten miles before the construction train passed
+me, and my carriers pressed through bushes and long grass for a
+nearer view of it.
+
+With three or four white men on the engine, a Black Watch or two
+and a few other natives on the trucks, it snorted along through
+the woodland. As the night deepened and the moon rose, we came
+close to the last coach-stable, and were soon encamped.
+
+The old Basuto near by gave me a drink of fairish water, but
+water was far away, I was told. My boys straggled away wearily,
+and came back at last, having seemingly missed the dipping-place.
+They had brought something between a liquid and a solid. Boiled,
+it was no doubt wholesome enough, but its taste was not such as
+to tempt to excess.
+
+That night I dreamed, with a tag of Marvell's speech buzzing in
+my head (I had garrisoned it with quinine before I slept). That
+tag rang out in boastful refrain like the natives' curfew-bell of
+Alexandra, a bell not always very punctually rung. 'We are in at
+the death of malaria, of black-water, and of horse-sickness.'
+
+So clanged the bell, the bell in the market tower, the tower of
+the dismantled pioneer fort. And it seemed to me that I saw
+Malaria a lean yellow ague-shaken shape with a Cape-boy sort of
+face, steal away out of the town past the new Railway Station,
+and across the river. He went, like a frightened Kaffir dog with
+a jackal-like yelp, far away into the Veld. I am not sure whether
+he did not become canine on the way, at least cynocephalous. I
+followed him. I went far in that following, over country that I
+remember as very difficult, there were so many stumps of trees
+about. Moreover, it had abundance of black-jacks to stud one's
+socks with. 'He is going through dry places seeking rest,' I
+thought. 'Soon he will return.' And sure enough we were to return
+by-and by. And a jackal pack of seven, that I was somehow
+expecting to come, came with us. We saw the lights of Alexandra
+soon, but the people had gone to bed, it seemed. There was no one
+about anywhere. Then the leading jackal fed foul and lapped long
+at a great black drain. Afterwards he howled under a window of
+the Hospital, and leaped through it, straddling his legs. Then I
+awoke.
+
+I married Marvell on the following Monday, and partook of his
+wedding-lunch. He made a far more florescent speech than that
+earlier one, it compared with it as the nuptial champagne with
+Miller's bottled beer.
+
+'The old Pioneer is now dead,' he told us, 'as dead as the Dodo
+or the Great Auk. No longer need we take Quinine to be "our grim
+chamberlain to usher us and draw" . . .' (here his memory of Hood
+failed him). 'No more need we shiver in our Kaffir blankets at
+Kaffir Stores 'fifty miles from the dead-ends of rail-less
+post-towns. "Le roi est mort." Malaria is dead or dying so far
+as Alexandra is concerned. We Alexandrians are now becoming
+wholesome Englishmen in a wholesome White Man's country. Long
+live the railway, and may it perforate the Alexandra District!'
+'Amen,' said the best-man fervently. But I said nothing.
+
+I admired Marvell. It was just like him to press a guinea on me for
+my Mission, though I told him there was no fee of any kind, and
+that I was ever so glad to be there. The remembrance of my dream
+stung me. I said something for conscience sake. 'Civilization has
+its perils,' I said dully, 'immature civilization. The period
+between no-drains and the up-to-date drainage system wants some
+living through.' 'That's all right,' Marvell declared. 'I'll watch
+it. I didn't go through Bloemfontein in the War for nothing.'
+
+'Le roi est mort: vive le roi! 'Alack! If Malaria slackened hold,
+enteric tightened its clutch. People were found to say that the
+latter state of Alexandra was worse than the former. Marvell and
+Rose Marvell both got enteric. But, thank God, the uneasy
+misgivings engendered by that eight-devil dream of mine about
+Alexandra were not justified! They both won through. They are
+going back to England for a change next month (the hay-making
+month at home), they tell me.
+
+'God made the country, and man made the town, and the devil made
+the little railway-swollen, transitional, Alexandra-sort-of-town.'
+So Marvell wrote to me by last mail. He is not so keen now on
+the transition stage of civilization for his wife's residence.
+He is thinking of a pioneer place in Northern Rhodesia, either
+that or London. If the perils of the old regime in Alexandra are
+diminished, the perils of the new regime appear to have a knack
+of growing.
+
+
+
+THE RIDING OF THE RED HORSE
+
+I
+
+
+
+Isaka rubbed his eyes, but he did not unroll himself yet out of
+his blankets. He was lying in the darkness with a round of white
+walls dimly seen about him. Through a hole in the grass roof, a
+star met his fixed gaze. The cocks had but just crowed the second
+time, and the light was but just winning way in the east. The
+night was holding out steadily so far.
+
+Was it he, Isaka, who had awakened, or some other? He was not
+very clear. Strange alike looked the happiness behind, and the
+hope before him. He was not sure of himself in that twilight of
+his senses. It seemed scarcely believable his title to either
+gift of heaven to memory or to expectation.
+
+Surely but slowly his brain cleared, his doubt grew faint as that
+star was growing, his outlook bright as the one pane in the wall,
+looking east. He sprang up with one of the best wills in the
+world; he was far too happy to be drowsy any longer. Soon he was
+washing himself, and dressing himself in white, with real zest.
+Last night had been a joy-night indeed, and the morning promised
+brilliantly. It was doubtless he himself who had both reached and
+enjoyed the night's happenings, he also who now stood firm on the
+threshold of the morning, having reached that also. Isaka, who
+had been Kadona, was a native of an African village with a far
+glimpse on fair days of Kilimanjaro. Being born where he was, and
+dwelling where he did, he belonged to a certain Central European
+Power. Certain manifestations of that Power had made him uneasy
+from his goat-herding boyhood onwards.
+
+He had walked warily, and kept an unscored back, but he gathered
+that fellow subjects were not always so fortunate. At last the
+claims on his attendance of a Government School had become
+importunate. Suddenly he took his fate into his hands, bade his
+family farewell (was not his mother dead these two years?), and
+made for a track through the forest. Since he must go to school,
+he would choose his own schoolmaster, and he chose one that he
+knew. This teacher, as it happened, stood for another European
+Power further west. He was fast ageing now, he could remember the
+days before Europe divided up with such appetite so much of
+Africa. He had been traveling on some teaching errand, and had
+fallen sick and lain nearly a whole month at Kadona's village.
+Kadona had brought him many gifts milk and ground-nuts and honey.
+The sick man for his part had not been thankless. As for gifts,
+he had given a knife and salt and soap and matches, but he had
+also shown fellow-feeling, which meant much more. Their
+friendship, signed and sealed outwardly by what they gave, was
+underlain by affection of a promising sort. So Kadona went to
+this teacher's mission, as to a city of refuge, traveling through
+a bush country, and sleeping in huts of a strange speaking tribe
+two or three nights of his way. He came to his host as man and
+friend, and his trust was not abused. Afterwards his host, known
+better, revealed new uses, he could doctor a little, he could
+teach more than a little, he also held keys of certain joys and
+wonders.
+
+By and by Kadona was illuminated to some extent by his friend. He
+was allowed to exchange his name when the approved fullness of
+time was come, on a day of benevolent mysteries. Henceforth he
+was Isaka. He had changed his name six months before the eventful
+morning I have chronicled changed it at the season he had come to
+reckon the years by the good time of Christmas.
+
+Now this last night had been a brilliant one in the church that
+he had learned to care for. There had been much glow of candles
+and splendor of psalms and anthem. He had been taught to make
+himself ready with light, so to speak, in view of the greatest
+illumination on earth the Sacred Banquet of the morning. The
+words of the anthem had rung in his ears like a trumpet in the
+night, they had peopled and painted his dream. 'And I saw and
+behold a white horse: . . . and He went forth conquering and to
+conquer.' This morning was the Banquet morning. It was no marvel
+that Kadona had been wonder-stricken at his awaking. The sense of
+moving in a vision was hard to escape from, it seemed to him. He
+moved towards the church like a man in a dream, and his feet felt
+for the steps. Was it he who had been herding goats but a few
+years ago, who had seen what he had seen on nights and at dances,
+who had felt so naked and helpless before a harsh Government not
+so very long ago? It did seem that it was he, and he was very
+grateful. He stole into the church soft-footed, and glided
+towards the blazing altar. Then he waited, trying to remember
+what it was best to remember at such an hour. Had he repentance,
+faith, gratitude, and love? He had so much of the last two surely
+as to make some amends for defects of the others, or at least he
+thought so. Yes, there was no mistaking his thanks, he thought to
+himself. He remembered his night's dream afterwards when the bell
+rang, and the Rider on the White Horse drew so near. Then he
+lifted up his heart that he might meet Him on His way, tried to
+open his heart as wide as it would go for the conquering Presence
+to ride into it.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+
+The scene was a mission station once more, but a different sort
+of interest appeared to be paramount in this busy station, other
+than plain Evangelism. This was a Lutheran Mission, used now
+in time of war as a collecting centre for the rice of the
+countryside. The foreboding of Isaka's teacher had come but too
+true. When Isaka had been telling him (on the day after the great
+day) his dream of the White Horse and his Rider, he had read to
+him the story of other horses and other riders out of Saint
+John's Vision. And his face had grown troubled as he added, 'We
+have proved what the riding of the black horse means here in this
+mission of ours. Do you remember years ago how the rains were
+short here, and how the people went hungry afterwards? And now
+there are clouds in the sky clouds not of rain. Will the Red
+Horse be ridden, as some prophesy? I seem to see him with the bit
+in his teeth spurred by his rider our way. Pray, Isaka, I beseech
+you, that the Red Horse and his rider be turned in their road.'
+And he told Isaka something of what he meant, also something of
+what that riding might mean to them all. And he would have Isaka
+pray, and his schoolmates pray also. And they prayed, but for all
+that this mad rider came galloping, the rider of whom Saint John
+wrote, 'And there went out another horse that was red; and power
+was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth,
+and that they should kill one another: . . .'
+
+It was nearly a year now since that morning Isaka remembered so
+well, when the White Horse was ridden his way. Once again when
+awaked.
+
+Isaka, Kadona, was not sure if he was dreaming, but this time the
+main reason for doubt was that things seemed too bad rather than
+too good to be true, things that had come or were coming, upon
+the earth. Nearly a year ago now the news of the riding of the
+Red Horse had come. Europe was in a horrible temper, and Africans
+must do as usually, not what they wanted to do, but what Europe
+bade. Isaka's English teacher must leave his school or his
+liberty, he must either run away or stay fast in the Government's
+hands a Government that was fighting England. He chose to remain,
+hoping to help Isaka and others, but he had very little power on
+earth left to him. For a little while he was allowed to stay in
+his old home, and the school began to be broken up only little by
+little. Then the pace quickened; some were drafted off as
+porters, some as soldiers, some were allowed to stay and
+cultivate for the Government. Its local officials' tempers
+had apparently not improved with its troubles. None on this
+alien mission within its borders were liable to be accounted
+trustworthy, all were liable to suspicion. Yet Isaka worked on
+happily for a while. When his teacher was moved to a place of
+internment he was allowed to keep one body servant. He invited
+Isaka to come, and Isaka came right willingly. He might have been
+passed by, and the choice lain among others, but his teacher
+asked him as the first choice of all, if he would come with him?
+Was it likely that he would refuse?
+
+Then suspicion fell upon Isaka in a day of rebuke and blasphemy.
+Probably he was to blame, probably he said more than he should
+have said, probably he did not recognize how well off he was.
+Anyhow the blow fell, and he was to be envied no longer, as he
+had been.
+
+He was beaten rather mercilessly, and taken to be a Government
+porter in a district far away. The tears came into his teacher's
+eyes when he bade Isaka farewell; his own captivity was
+wearisome, he was beginning to feel his age now; also this boy
+had been as a son to him.
+
+It was all like an evil dream, this war, so fecund of death and
+parting among friends, this riding of the Red Horse that had
+haunted Isaka's visions of the night. The light was just coming
+when he awaked from them at the German Mission Station. He was
+loath and slow to unroll himself from his one torn blanket and to
+step out of it. But someone kicked him angrily, and then needs
+must. He had come on these last days ever so many miles, and
+carried a full load. He struggled up stiffly, and crept to the
+little fire that two of his fellows were heaping and lighting
+while they chattered together. They were tribesmen of a district
+far from his own. One was telling a story of how their white
+masters with native soldiers had raided, a village. The other,
+whose village it was, full-stopped the story with grunts or
+deprecations. There had been some throats cut. Folk had been
+bidden to lie down, so the teller said; they had lain down as for
+the lash, but they had been paid in cold steel. Isaka listened
+dazedly. The end of his Christian era seemed to have come as
+suddenly and unexplainedly as the end of his Pagan era. His
+teacher had preached 'love,' 'love,' 'love,' with Pauline
+iteration, and not a little self-repetition. His teacher had
+taught that war was an unclean thing haunting the heathen world,
+and lurking in the blackness of Pagan villages. His teacher had
+deprecated violence; it was his rule never to strike, nor ever to
+rule by such fear as cast out love.
+
+Now, an askari (a native soldier) came up to the three, and he
+was storming furiously. He laid on his lash right and left. Isaka
+did not escape. They were to carry their loads at once, it was
+said, by forced marches to a rice mill at the lakeside. In
+another five minutes the big train of porters took the road, and
+spread itself like a serpent up the trackway. Isaka was the
+twentieth or the twenty-first in their advance. I do not think
+that his illness which was to show itself in a day or two, was
+really manifest on that day. Yet he went very heavily. Such
+maladies were certainly upon him as a poet has diagnosed, 'blank
+misgivings of a Creature moving about in worlds half realized.'
+The ridings of Red and White Horses had so fast succeeded one
+another in Isaka's circle, and had brought such different worlds
+and atmospheres in their respective wakes!
+
+
+
+The Riding of the Red Horse 253
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+
+Three days after, they were at the rice mill, and a July day was
+breaking. Isaka lay and listened to the lapping of the lake water
+lapping of the water in the greatest of African lakes. He was
+lying beside a creek that was papyrus-fringed with curtains of
+feathery green. A cloud of lake flies hung dark in the distance.
+The soft lake haze redeemed landscape and waterscape now from
+overclarity of outline the besetting blemish, as some might
+think, of its mid-day. Isaka was really ill that morning. He
+could hardly stir hand or foot. An askari came and looked at him,
+and said something to his German officer. The latter came and
+laid his hand not unkindly on his brow, found what the heat of
+his body was, and gave him some drug out of their scanty store.
+The great war with their fellow Christians was pinching them
+sorely in the matter of medicines these sturdy patriots of
+Central Europe. They were keeping their flag flying in a feverish
+land where febrifuges meant much indeed. Isaka was let lie, and
+he brooded over his dream the old dream that had come back so
+intrusively last night into such alien surroundings. For he in
+the province of the red-mounted rider had dreamed that He on the
+White Horse came as an invader, the light of daybreak in His
+looks, the faith of conquest in His eyes.
+
+Now, a friend happened upon Isaka that morning, one who had been
+reared upon the self-same mission-crowned hill whither Isaka's
+homesick mood harked back. How they spoke of old days together,
+and warmed their chilled hearts again! Surely Isaka's dream had
+heralded a measure of restored joy for him that morning, if
+nothing better and more lasting. He spoke of his dream, and of
+how it came first as the prelude of that Banquet, and of how his
+heart had danced on that Banquet morning, and the sun had danced
+in his sight at the sunrise. His friend was allowed to stay by
+him, for the transport officer was kindly, and they talked on and
+on. Isaka knew now that they thought his sickness a great one.
+Suddenly came a wild stir among porters and native soldiers. One
+of the English lake ships had shown round the point to northward,
+and was heading fast for the bay. The one German hurried down
+among the transport crowd, bidding them make haste and take
+cover. His friend left Isaka. He was one of the few soldiers who
+were to line the trench in a banana grove ready to dispute a
+landing. But Isaka was bestowed in some long grass; there was
+little time to carry him far. The ship rang and slowed down, then
+she crept like a lean black panther into the place that suited
+her spring. Soon she rang again, and stopped dead. There was a
+ghastly pause of stillness. Crash! Her twelve-pounder spoke.
+Crash! and crash! again, five times over. The rice mill showed a
+gaping wound by now. Then two boats were lowered, the Indian
+Ship's Guard and the British officers crowded into them, and the
+African sailors pulled for the shore. Isaka crawled to a hummock,
+and peered out to see what was happening. The shell fire had made
+him pant and shake, his lips were full of prayers remembered and
+half-remembered. The boats came nearer, they were almost up to
+the log-built pier now. Had they been left alone till they had
+come further, there might have been hope for the ambush of a
+great bag, while the Indians were bunched together on the landing
+place. But those in the banana grove trench were eager, they
+would not hold their fire. The rifles cracked, the bullets
+thrashed up the water, men crouched down in the drifting boats
+with oars and rifles waving rather helplessly. It looked as
+though they were likely to pay toll, wide though the shots had
+gone as yet. Then the oarsmen pulled themselves together, and
+rowed back for the ship's protection. There was not even an oar
+or a boat hit after all.
+
+Isaka stared eagerly at the fight. He showed himself. A minute
+after the ship's shrapnel burst near him, putting death's fear
+upon his weakness. Someone had said that the ambush was in the
+grass rather than in the banana grove, the ambush that was
+screened so well. Was there just will and time left to invoke the
+Rider on the White Horse of that unforgotten and abiding vision?
+I think there was. Then the shrapnel burst over Isaka. He was
+blotted, as his fellow Christians of the ship and her guns might
+have expressed it. The twelve-pounder (or was it the four-inch?)
+crashed again and again. The Maxim coughed and spat in a
+paroxysm. The Rider on the Red Horse rode on relentlessly.
+
+
+
+THREE AND AFRICA
+
+
+
+We all three went a common way with rather a bad grace, and
+Africa in a measure dominated our movements, or at least our
+proposed destinations. I think she tightened her grip on all our
+three affections by that journey, she made us more of her slaves
+she has ever a hankering after the slave-trade, has she not?
+In her shrewdness she gained a grip on us by very diverse
+expedients. Me the restless, so feverishly tired of her, she
+exercised in fresh fields. One result was, that I found out in
+those trial-grounds ever so many reasons why flight from Africa
+would be unthinkable for me. While as to him, my friend, whose
+doom of exile from her she had herself done much to bring about,
+I am sure that she dazzled him on that his road to the railway
+(his Via Dolorosa,) making assurance much more sure that he must
+leave his heart with her. As to her, my other friend, who had
+taken Africa so complacently and so very much for granted, Africa
+made revelations to her at each stage of a journey that was
+rousing in itself, for it brought her away from her western
+station to a very different countryside. And if these revelations
+were not prone to stimulate affection, I am quite mistaken. I
+could make out a strong case against Africa, on the grounds of
+that journey, as capricious, inconsiderate, and so on. Yet before
+I have done, I want to indicate pleas of extenuation.
+
+We were going with a donkey-wagon, he and I, the wagon wherein
+she, my other friend, was riding. He had been in the Civil
+Service, and suffered much from fever; yet he was leaving the
+Service for other reasons as well as that particular one. He was
+traveling cross-country to his exit station, prolonging thus his
+pangs of farewell; he was making himself useful by escorting her
+on her desolate road. Moreover, I was making myself courteous by
+adding my own escort. I was under no delusion as to my being
+useful.
+
+The donkeys were none too fat; they looked as if they had not
+been used well, and were far on in life. With their driver I
+differed as to beating them, but I will allow that they were dear
+to him on the whole, and that he made progress in by no means
+easy places. Indeed the road had been against us for many days
+before the day on which I left the wagon; and I as wagon
+conductor was to blame for the choice of it. I should have
+yielded myself patiently to go the mighty round that the main
+roads went. I had come almost due east at a venture, and when I
+had lost my first stake by being disappointed of the by-road I
+sought, I went on gambler-fashion. I had seen already how the
+wagon stuck in a big river's sand-bed. How many times we had dug
+out, how the whip and the driver's voice had plied, how we had
+filled up the ruts with sods and grass-tufts, striving to gain
+purchase for the wheels! And yet I was obstinately sanguine when
+I heard a tale of an ancient trading road. It would be wondrously
+direct, if one could win through by it. So along it, by my own
+decision, we went. That first night that we turned off by it, we
+stuck long in the waning light, trying to pull through a neck in
+the hills. It was grievously cumbered with boulders, and we were
+long in trying. Yet at last the driver rallied his team, and we
+slept on the right side of the pass, clear of the granite, ready
+for an early inspan next day. Then on the morrow we but crawled
+along, till at last we stuck fast in a spruit's spongy floor.
+That time we were not to pull out before we slept. Darkness drew
+in on the struggles of the dead-beat donkeys. We outspanned and
+went on with the struggle soon after sunrise, putting shoulders
+to wheels in wild earnest. At last we were through, but we had
+been delayed far into another day. That noon and afternoon the
+disused road traveled through bush-veld. It had been ridden over
+so little in the last few years, that there was much wood-cutting
+now to be done.
+
+Our voorlooper was no scraggy piccanin, he was brawny and
+bearded, an expert Mashona woodman. Now the woods bowed beneath
+his sturdy stroke. But his labors took time. One shrank in shame
+from the reckoning of miles covered on those days. Sunday came to
+our rescue, and we lay encamped in the granite-country, very
+grateful for our rest. On the Monday, its results showed. We
+trekked gallantly for hours and hours, we pulled out of a swamp
+at the first attempt; we even essayed a dreaded ford before we
+outspanned. But we did not win our stake. Not till we had knocked
+under, and outspanned once more did we struggle through. The lady
+of the wagon waded barefoot to lighten it, she even helped to
+coax a wheel up the further bank. At last we were saved from
+relapse. But that night our travelers' joy flickered and faded.
+We stuck grimly at a crossing; stuck at a mean little stream;
+there we found odds against us, both rocks and also deep mire. So
+we camped, leaving our wagon jammed in the stream's bed.
+
+Now I would tell you about that night and the next morning. We
+got the lady's mattress out of the wagon. She could not well
+sleep on it, where it was. There were many midges and mosquitoes
+about then, for March was the time of the year; so we made her
+bed on some high ground, close but not too close to our camp-fire.
+After supper we sat about the fire long, the branch-heaped
+blaze was comfortable after our chilly paddling. The wisdom or
+folly that we puffed and inhaled and toasted and sucked and
+munched over the fire is the making of my story. It is its best
+excuse for a yawning lack of plot.
+
+Delia Moore, lady mission-worker, roasted monkey-nuts for us.
+When they were at last ready, we all three munched at them. But
+meanwhile Richard Anson and I smoked Shangaan tobacco, and Miss
+Moore ate sweets out of a screw-topped bottle.
+
+Anson spoke about the charms of Mashonaland. He had been
+quartered in many parts of her those last ten years; his
+admiration had been consistent, it had also stood the test of her
+feverish dealings with him. He said that she was the only country
+worth inhabiting in a cursed world, that she was God's own
+country. Then I fanned his flame with my own home-sick talk. The
+wind was blowing chillily north-westward that night on the other
+side of our ant-hill shelter. A kindred wind was blowing just as
+steadfastly in my own soul. I had had my contrarieties lately,
+both of hard times and pastoral reverses; but, and that seemed to
+matter more, I was beginning to feel my age, its untimely growth
+as my work grew. Had I not done my share by now? I painted scenes
+in south-eastern England for my private view frequently now,
+scenes in cool greens and sober blues and restful grey scenes of
+weald and down-land, of hop-garden and country rectory. Over this
+last my fancy played and kindled ruddily in tiles and roses.
+
+When I found words for these scenes they proved so many
+battlefields, for Dick gave battle to my panegyrics impartially,
+as I filed them up before him. He seemed to be very hard hit that
+night, savagely bludgeoned by his doom of banishment. He said
+that he hoped to come back someday. Anyhow, he said, would I try
+to remember that he had chosen his burial-place a place where two
+rivers commingled some two hundred miles north of where we were
+camping? I promised to try. It seemed to me a pity that we Could
+not interchange health and abiding-places he so ague-wrung, so
+plainly doomed to go, yet withal so keen to stay. I, on the other
+hand, full of home lust, England-amorous, yet so robust, so
+lacking in any decent excuse to give over my job and go in that
+green old age of mine. Then, at last, Delia Moore chimed or
+rather clashed in, when she had roasted her monkey-nuts and found
+a dish for them. She said that we were both wrong, we were both
+so clearly called to do just what we were doing, he to go his
+way, and I to stay on. But, contended she, her own move was a
+more than doubtful one; she had been made into a rolling stone,
+against her own judgment, by church despotism; the odds were
+against her gathering moss to any reasonable extent. 'O,' she
+appealed to me, 'look after my west-country work, whatever else
+you do. My going east bids you in honor to stay.' I allowed her
+plea with a nod. It was not till some while afterwards that I
+propounded Africa's apology, as I had guessed it. Dick had been
+talking, rather bitterly as well as floridly, about sighting the
+cold Northern Star and losing the Southern Cross. I lay back and
+gloated over the starry picture overhead through a crisscross
+picture-mount of ragged grass. I left the confutation of the
+scoffer to Miss Moore. There was an edge on many of her remarks
+that night, and I could trust her to deal with him. But what she
+said I have forgotten. Only I remember that he gave her best at
+last. Then, and not till then, I broke silence, submitting
+subjects for inquiry.
+
+'Are not countries and subcontinents like men born under stars
+What star was South Africa herself born under? Not the Lyre
+surely, her poetry is comparatively so negligible. Not the
+Plough, nor yet Aquarius, for she is not blest with overmuch
+irrigation, nor brilliant at agriculture. Neither was it the
+Northern Star surely; constancy does not easily beset her. No, it
+was the Southern Cross. Take the cross as a symbol inclusive of
+more than Christian symbolism. Take it as a symbol signifying
+peine forte et dure. Is it not peculiarly characteristic of
+Africa to deal with us as she is doing? Does she not truly follow
+her star in banishing you, and shifting you, and detaining me'?
+
+'That's all very well,' said Dick truculently, 'but I want to
+know what WE are going to do. Are we going to take it lying
+down?'
+
+I sniffed. 'I suppose we had better,' I said. 'And if we want a
+decent handbook of procedure I am told that the Imitatio Christi
+is excellent.'
+
+'Promise me you'll not leave the Station, so help you, at least
+not till I come back.' Miss Moore plunged for a particular
+shallow just when I was floating in gay generalities.
+
+'Let me have till to-morrow,' I asked. Then I spoke in Africa's
+defense, setting out her case as well as I could. 'She's
+emphatically a feminine continent,' I said. 'I learned only the
+other day from a modern novelist that a woman's possibly at the
+height of her power with a man, just when her contact with him is
+but one of hope and memory. Surely that is true enough of some
+women and some men. Isn't Africa one of such women, and Dick one
+of such men? She knows her own business, and sends him to a
+distance, bidding him consecrate "a night of memories and sighs"
+to her. It's a doom that tends to bitterness on his part now. But
+trust him by and by to taste the bitter-sweet of it. It's the
+same sort of thing that I wrote raw verses about after I left
+Oxford behind: "Not until you go from her will she come to you"
+you know the sort of thing.'
+
+Dick grunted. Miss Moore complimented me on my preaching. My
+lucidities, I feared, were missing fire.
+
+A donkey saved the situation, one of the two that were not
+harnessed up for the night, there being no trek-gear for them.
+With a grassy mouth he was chewing at Miss Moore's pillow-slip.
+After many and shrill cries, it was rescued, but not before it
+had taken stains of a deep green color. After such a misfortune
+had been properly keened for, we sat down by the fire again.
+
+'Go on,' Dick said. 'Let's have your peroration.'
+
+'Well, as to Miss Moore Africa has shaken her up by shifting her,
+and by giving her a lesson in local values, just as the donkey
+has done about linen or calico, I forget which.'
+
+That started the keening again.
+
+'O,' said the mourner, 'my poor pillow-slip! But I'd give it by
+the dozen to get back just to the one place the same old Mission.
+You will promise to stop there till I come back, at any rate?'
+
+Worn out by continual dropping-fire, I promised, starry Heaven
+being my helper. 'Let's go to bed after that,' I pleaded. 'I've
+soared in an airy disquisition and I've come to earth in a gross
+sort of pledge.'
+
+'No, you're to go on,' Dick told me.
+
+'What about yourself?'
+
+'O, I'm led out on a string. I'm given trotting exercise by
+Africa within her own confines. I'm kept hanging about on her
+veld, while she delays my donkeys. Meanwhile she shows me
+out-of-the-way holes and corners where there's nobody to do the
+work she wants done. She appeals to my shame and pity, she has made
+a study of weak spots of mine. Has she not method? I meant to leave
+the wagon last week, but I'm lucky if I get off tomorrow. What
+with bad roads, spongy crossings, and indifferent donkeys, she's
+landed me in a pledge to-night a pledge to keep me hanging on.
+I'm in honor bound now to try to turn her night into day, just
+like a cock in one of her kraals. While all the time I want to be
+flitting North like one of her swallows this month of all months
+in the year.'
+
+In the morning I renewed my pledge at a rock's altar a rock that
+lichen had stained bright orange. I professed resignation, as did
+the other two beside me. Then after breakfast, we shook hands. I
+gave Dick a motto about Africa:
+
+She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
+For 'ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
+
+I gave Delia a prayer to say for her westward return. 'Turn our
+captivity ... as the rivers in the south.' Then I knelt by the
+grey flat stone and prayed audibly, 'Give me a blessing; for Thou
+hast given me a south land; give me also springs of water.'
+
+Soon I was striding away. There was little time to reach home by
+the hour when home wanted me. Pity and shame, pity pointing east
+and west, while shame spurns and aspires these two beams seem to
+make up my own Cyrenian's burden the burden of the Southern Cross
+for me. On the other hand, regret and adoration seem to supply
+the same office for Dick, if I may judge by his letters. As for
+Miss Moore, by far the most deserving of us three admittedly,
+doubtless her faith is firmly rooted wherever she is, and her
+sympathy spreads east or west, whichever way her duty calls her.
+Nevertheless she would be still glad should the Voice call and
+the Wind blow westward again, at least that is my own conviction.
+In our several ways we three are devoted to Africa: one way or
+another the Southern Cross is the constellation ascendant in each
+of our three careers.
+
+
+
+OUR LADY OF THE LAKE
+
+
+
+We had been dining on the bridge of H.M.S. Kampala the captain,
+the two ship's officers, the gunnery lieutenant and he who writes
+this story. We had come in as it grew dark that August evening,
+and anchored some few miles out from the German's great place.
+For that great place a big gun, rumored or real, commanded
+respect.
+
+I suppose our main object on that patrol trip of ours was the
+stopping of rice-running, the preservation of our lake blockade.
+We had had some firing a few days ago at presumptive stores,
+also at a dhow and lighter dimly descried (they were in the
+papyrus-fringed labyrinth of a boat-passage). But of late we had
+been lying up for the most part off a lonely island. Perhaps they
+would think we were out of the way, perhaps not. We should see
+what we should see.' I suppose that the gunnery lieutenant was
+almost as sanguine of adventure as I was of humdrum peace in this
+after-dinner hour on the darkened bridge. Adventure, or at least
+what seemed to be its promising prelude arrived quite suddenly.
+
+There was a sudden announcement to our captain about a light
+being seen, a brief one-sided discussion, the whistle blowing for
+'Stations,' the rattle of arms as the Indian ship's-guard fell
+in. These all affected me with strange twinges of futile protest.
+Surely there was a time for all things, and this was the time for
+coffee and tobacco, not for disconcerting risks and detestable
+noises. I wanted never to hear our four-inch gun again by
+day. The idea of its shaking the peace of night to bits was
+preposterous. Yet a light was reported ahead, a moving light on
+the lake itself. 'You haven't much time, Craig,' I heard the
+lieutenant cry to our captain. The engine-room bells rang
+ominously, there was much puffing and spouting, then we were off.
+I stole into a safe sort of corner, as corners went, by the
+doctor's cabin. I edged out of the way of the Indian riflemen who
+were sorting themselves, making ready for action. We were running
+along somewhither. I didn't know much about our bearings, but I
+had misgivings as to whether that big gun of the Germans was not
+getting nearer. 'I've been thinking it may be a lure to draw us
+on,' hazarded the Eurasian doctor by and by. That was just what
+I'd been thinking. I was glad when the tension ceased suddenly,
+not so many minutes after it had started. The light had vanished;
+we were out of the hunt somehow it seemed; our captain meant
+to wait till morning, then possibly he would show us a thing.
+Meanwhile there were some hours to morning. We had had no
+night-firing after all. Nor did there seem to be much prospect
+of any. One might as well go to bed in the dark without delay.
+
+Morning came and we hunted around, but drew blank. Then we
+started away to look for a supposed dhow in likely covers of
+creeks or inlets, but we drew these blank also. What was the
+vanished light? That of the resurrected German steam-tug?
+Possibly. Possibly it was not that of a dhow after all. Anyhow it
+was gone out of our ken. 'There's dirty work in there of night,
+Craig,' the gunnery-lieutenant had said with a stern eye on that
+German harbor. He spoke as a partisan. Was it such very dirty
+work if they did run a little food across to feed their own
+people? Anyhow their dirty work, whatever it was, had seemingly
+baffled our immaculate patrol under our white ensign, for that
+time at any rate.
+
+I don't think there is anything strange about this story as it
+stands up to this point, do you? There may have been a dhow ahead
+of us that night in August, and it may have been its light that
+our watchman spied. Also it may have put out its light all of a
+sudden, and so we may have lost it in the darkness. That simple
+explanation sounds probable enough, doesn't it, when you come to
+think of it?
+
+Nevertheless in the following week, a more romantic explanation
+was tendered to me it concerned a gramophone.
+
+'That was the last tune before the light was seen,' a bluejacket
+told me solemnly. 'It's a good tune, you perhaps know it, sir,
+"Ave Maris Stella"'? We had fraternized over recollections of
+Hastings, that was his birth-place. I told him how I had been
+into his church there, which was not mine, Saint Mary's, Star of
+the Sea. I recalled the blue-circled chancel and its glittering
+stars with admiration. Now he was confidential about what had
+happened a few nights before. He seemed to regard the putting-on
+of that particular gramophone record at that particular moment as
+significant. I was sympathetic, but I only grasped his point
+vaguely. 'You mean,' I said. 'I mean that She may have meant it,'
+he said rather confusedly. 'She may have meant us luck. If we'd
+only gone in straight where Her light showed, we might have found
+our luck.' 'You mean we might have captured Muanza, I suppose,' I
+said rather skeptically. 'Well, we might have killed a lot of
+Germans, sir, and done a lot of good. But our captain's too
+cautious altogether.'
+
+'It's possible,' I said. 'She may have meant to give us the tip,'
+he went on. 'I don't think it's likely, but you may be right,' I
+said with some detachment. The notion of Our Lady illuminating
+the lake that she might give us the tip to kill Germans was not
+so very convincing. I'm afraid I choked off the surmiser a bit
+with my Tolstoyite incredulity. He drew in his horns there and
+then; he confided none of his views to me again on similar
+subjects. He was to die at sea a year or so after. They had got
+him on to a ship from an island hospital, but he never reached
+the South African port they had shipped him for. I am glad now to
+think of his faith in Our Lady, Our Lady good at need.
+
+It was before he went down to the coast, that we advanced and
+took a great island renowned for its rice commerce. Then the day
+came only a month or so after that our troops marched into
+Muanza. The main body of its German defenders had steamed away
+down that land-locked sound of theirs a little while before. We
+had not stormed the place from the lake after all, we had arrived
+by a back-door road among the kopjes. Yet there we were at last.
+It seemed curious to be in the place that I had peered at
+apprehensively on patrol. How mysterious its lights and its
+harbor had looked from a darkened bridge or a deck of old. Now I
+went to and fro in the glaring Boma square, climbed the road
+among the rocks to the Fort Hospital with the tower and its dummy
+guns, patrolled the palm-tree promenade where no band played, but
+lake-water provided placid music much more to my taste than that
+of drums and brass.
+
+It was in the church above the bay, the church of the White
+Fathers, that I came upon my sequel, or at least what looks like
+the earthly sequel of my story. Afterwards, of course, I may hear
+much more. The White Father I had gone to see, took me into the
+church one morning and showed me Our Lady's altar. Over it was an
+altar-piece of familiar design I think it represented Our Lady of
+Good Counsel, but I am not sure. In front votive candles blazed,
+in very creditable profusion for those hard times surely. A
+silver star with about two-inch points caught my eye. There were
+other stars hung there too, much less conspicuous ones. There
+were also two or three little models of dhows or boats set on a
+ledge before that altar. I pointed to the silver star, and my
+guide answered my mute question: 'A gift to Our Lady, Star of
+this lake and these lake-shores,' he said. 'It was one night in
+August of last year that it happened, the miracle or whatever you
+wish to call it.' 'Did Our Lady appear on the lake?' I asked
+keenly, for memories began to stir in me. 'No, not quite that,'
+said the White Father. He had a brown beard, and a very white
+face, and he spoke clear-cut English. 'There was a light seen
+over the water.' Then it was that the surmise about the
+gramophone recurred to me. 'Do you really think,' I asked, 'that
+there was a light to be seen? If so, what was there strange about
+it?' 'Well, it was a miracle of sorts,' he said. 'I didn't
+believe about it at first, for I didn't see reason for it. They
+said it was a light given to lure the English within range. That
+was the talk of some of our Catholics in the town, but it wasn't
+good talk. I argued against it.' He paused. Then I told him,
+smilingly, the story of the gramophone. 'It's a parallel story,'
+I said. 'Our Lady was indeed divided against herself that night
+in her clients' estimation.' 'It shows the absurdity of war
+between Catholics,' he murmured. 'Yes, of war between so-called
+Christian nations,' I agreed. In an impulse I shook his hand.
+'But there was a light,' I said: 'I saw it.' 'So did I,' he said.
+'Was it the light of a dhow?' I wondered. 'No,' he said,
+surprisingly, 'the dhow was on the other side of your ship.' He
+pointed to the votive star. 'That star commemorates this sight of
+a light, or rather of a star,' he said. 'I veritably believe that
+the star light was Our Lady of the Lake's work. Yet she did not
+in the least mean to show the English where to land and slaughter
+us, nor on the other hand to lure them on to a fiery doom. Our
+Lady wants the salvage of men's lives not their destruction.
+Guess what happened that night.'
+
+I was puzzled. I took the star into my hand and looked it over.
+It only had 'Muanza' graved upon it, 'Muanza' and the date of
+that August evening. No, I gave it up. So he told me his version
+of events. 'There was a dhow beating round the corner of an
+island. The Goanese skipper had no idea that you were there. It
+was a near thing. He was lucky, wasn't he, that the alarm of the
+light seen by your watch came just then? He was running almost
+straight for your war-ship. But you started off on a course that
+took you far out of his way, started off on a light's chase or
+rather a star's chase. He is a very pious man, that Goanese
+skipper; he was here for two Masses this morning. He has a great
+devotion to Our Lady, as I believe, and he knows how to pray. He
+vowed a silver star to Our Lady Our Lady of the Lake, if she
+would but bring him through with his ship safe. He made a fair
+voyage after all. But he thanked the star that led you off from
+him for it, say rather Her who kindled that star. He is a man of
+prayer, the sort of prayer that invites miracles.' I was very
+silent. I knelt before the statue a little. Then I said 'Good-bye.'
+When I had said it I looked at two of the stars (that were not
+silver) curiously. Were they not Belgian officers' stars, and
+were they not likely to have a tragical history? 'Ask the silver
+star-man, please,' I said, 'to pray for God's miracle of peace.
+It does seem to me as if his prayers might do a lot of good. I'd
+give Our Lady of the Lake a whole Southern-Crossful of stars
+should peace come before the year's out.' Did he forget to ask
+that star-man for his prayers?
+
+
+
+EPILOGUE
+
+
+
+[AFRICA AND HER GODMOTHER.]
+
+With shoes of crystal peace and glee
+Christmas his clients proves:
+They're misfits for those masters pale
+And their white lady-loves;
+But O they fit black boys and girls
+Who clean their knives and stoves!
+
+I slipt from out the white men's church,
+The northern chants rang cold,
+And with the preacher's war-time words
+My heart it would not hold,
+Gay hymns and I alike had grown
+In exile grave and old.
+
+I said 'I'll wander from the town
+This cheerless Christmas Day.'
+A church stood up beside my road,
+And I turn'd in to pray.
+Buff-brick its walls were, and its roof
+Of ridg'd unlovely grey.
+
+I enter'd in, and joy was there
+The Mass had just begun.
+They filled the place from screen to door
+The children of the sun.
+Me seem'd that southern sun was glass'd
+In eyes of ev'ryone.
+
+The server-men had lawn and lace
+And crimson pageantry,
+And boys were in their best, and girls
+Wore kerchiefs bright to see.
+Me seem'd those bare brown feet were shod
+With crystal peace and glee.
+
+The incense-smoke it skein 'd and spir'd,
+The vowell'd hymns rang clear,
+A shrill bell rung by a brown hand
+Said Christ was very near.
+Me seem'd a sun-tann'd Angel stoopt
+And caroll'd in mine ear.
+
+I Bless God for this our Christmas Ball
+About our Christmas Board!
+Our Church that faery Godmother
+Her child hath not ignor'd,
+And Africa, with heart in sky,
+Is dancing to the Lord.
+
+The Old World's and the New World's drudge
+Whom few would praise before
+Now from the kitchen hath been claim 'd,
+The stable and the store,
+Christ claims her heart to dance with his
+Where Europe's danced of yore.'
+
+With shoes of crystal peace and glee
+Christmas his clients proves:
+They're misfits for those masters pale
+And their white lady-loves;
+But O they fit black boys and girls
+Who clean their knives and stoves!
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CINDERELLA IN THE SOUTH***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 22886.txt or 22886.zip *******
+
+
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/8/8/22886
+
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
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