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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 19:54:08 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 19:54:08 -0700 |
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diff --git a/30622-h/30622-h.htm b/30622-h/30622-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..29700db --- /dev/null +++ b/30622-h/30622-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8139 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Unknown Quantity, by Henry Van Dyke + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; background-color: #FFFFFF; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table { width:60%; padding: 1em; text-align: left; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} +table.tb1 { width:80%; padding: 1em; text-align: left; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + +td.td1 { padding-left: 2em;} + +.tocpg {text-align: right; vertical-align: bottom;} + + +.f1 { font-size:smaller; } +.f2 { margin-left:60%; } +.f3 { margin-left:40%; } +.f4 { margin-left:50%; } +.f5 { margin-left:2%; } + +a[name] { position: static; } +a:link { border:none; color:#0000ff; text-decoration:none; } +a:visited {color:#0000ff; text-decoration:none; } +a:hover { color:#ff0000; } + +ul { list-style:none; margin-left:35%; } +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + font-style:normal; +} /* page numbers */ + + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.u {text-decoration: underline;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold; font-size:smaller;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i2 { + display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i4 { + display: block; + margin-left: 4em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i15 { + display: block; + margin-left: 15em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +/* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Unknown Quantity, by Henry van Dyke + +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: The Unknown Quantity + A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales + +Author: Henry van Dyke + +Release Date: December 7, 2009 [EBook #30622] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNKNOWN QUANTITY *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Juliet Sutherland, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="400" height="626" alt="Illustration" /> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/frontis.jpg" width="400" height="623" alt="It did people good to buy of her." /> +<span class="caption">It did people good to buy of her.</span> +</div> +<p> </p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/image_001.jpg" width="400" height="749" alt="Illustration" /> +</div> +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/image_002.jpg" width="500" height="363" alt="Illustration" /> +</div> + +<h1>THE<br /> +UNKNOWN QUANTITY</h1> + +<h3>A Book of Romance<br /> +And Some Half-Told Tales</h3> +<p> </p> +<h4><i>by</i></h4> + +<h2>HENRY VAN DYKE</h2> +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><i>"Let X represent the unknown quantity."</i></p> + +<p class="f4"><i>Legendre's Algebra</i></p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h3>NEW YORK</h3> + +<h3>CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS</h3> + +<h3>1921</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h4><i>Copyright, 1912, by Charles Scribner's Sons</i></h4> +<h4><i>Published October, 1912. Reprinted October, December,<br /> + 1912; July, 1916; May, 1918; March, 1919;<br /> +December, 1919; July, 1921.</i></h4> +<h4><i>Leather Edition, September, 1913; May, 1916;<br /> + February, 1917; June, 1920; May, 1921.</i></h4> + <p> </p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 86px;"> +<img src="images/seal.jpg" width="86" height="100" alt="Illustration" /> +</div> + + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3>Dedicated</h3> +<h4>IN THANKFULNESS<br /> + TO THE MEMORY OF</h4> +<h2>DEAR DAUGHTER DOROTHEA</h2> +<h4>RAY OF LIGHT<br /> + SONG OF JOY<br /> + HEART OF LOVE</h4> +<h4>1888-1912</h4> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>DOROTHEA</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i15"><i>A deeper crimson in the rose,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i15"><i>A deeper blue in sky and sea,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i15"><i>And ever, as the summer goes,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i15"><i>A deeper loss in losing thee!</i><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i15"><i>A deeper music in the strain</i><br /></span> +<span class="i15"><i>Of hermit-thrush from lonely tree;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i15"><i>And deeper grows the sense of gain</i><br /></span> +<span class="i15"><i>My life has found in having thee.</i><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i15"><i>A deeper love, a deeper rest,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i15"><i>A deeper joy in all I see;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i15"><i>And ever deeper in my breast</i><br /></span> +<span class="i15"><i>A silver song that comes from thee.</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="f2"><i>H. v. D.</i></p> + +<p class="f3"><span class="smcap">Mount Desert</span>,</p> + +<p class="f3"><i>August 1, 1912</i>.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p> +<h2>PREFACE</h2> + + +<p>There is a chain of little lakes—a necklace of lost jewels—lying in +the forest that clothes the blue Laurentian Mountains in the Province +of Quebec.</p> + +<p>Each of these hidden lakes has its own character and therefore its own +charm. One is bright and friendly, with wooded hills around it, and +silver beaches, and red berries of the rowan-tree fringing the shores. +Another is sombre and lonely, set in a circle of dark firs and +larches, with sighing, trembling reeds along the bank. Another is only +a round bowl of crystal water, the colour of an aquamarine, +transparent and joyful as the sudden smile on the face of a child. +Another is surrounded by fire-scarred mountains, and steep cliffs +frown above it, and the shores are rough with fallen fragments of +rock; it seems as if the setting of this jewel had been marred and +broken in battle, but the gem itself shines tranquilly amid the ruin, +and the lichens paint the rocks, and the new woods spring<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span> bright +green upon the mountains. There are many more lakes, and all are +different. The thread that binds them together is the little river +flowing from one to another, now with a short, leaping passage, now +with a longer, winding course.</p> + +<p>You may follow it in your canoe, paddling through the still-waters, +dropping down the rapids with your setting-pole, wading and dragging +your boat in the shallows, and coming to each lake as a surprise, +something distinct and separate and personal. It seems strange that +they should be sisters; they are so unlike. But the same stream, +rising in unknown springs, and seeking an unknown sea, runs through +them all, and lives in them all, and makes them all belong together.</p> + +<p>The thread which unites the stories in this book is like that. It is +the sign of the unknown quantity, the sense of mystery and +strangeness, that runs through human life.</p> + +<p>We think we know a great deal more about the processes and laws and +conditions of life than men used to know. And probably that is true; +though it is not quite certain, for it is hard to say<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span> precisely how +much those inscrutable old Egyptians and Hebrews and Chaldæans and +Hindus knew and did not tell.</p> + +<p>But granting that we have gone beyond them, we have not gone very far, +we have not come to perfect knowledge. There is still something around +us and within that baffles and surprises us. Events happen which are +as mysterious after our glib explanations as they were before. Changes +for good or ill take place in the heart of man for which his intellect +gives no reason. There is the daily miracle of the human will, the +power of free choice, for which no one can account, and which +sometimes flashes out the strangest things. There is the secret, +incalculable influence of one life on another. There is the web of +circumstance woven to an unseen pattern. There is the vast, unexplored +land of dreams in which we spend one-third of our lives without even +remembering most of what befalls us there.</p> + +<p>I am not thinking now of the so-called "realm of the occult," nor of +those extraordinary occurrences which startle and perplex the world +from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span> time to time, nor of those complicated and subtle problems of +crime which are set to puzzle us. I am thinking of much more human and +familiar things, quite natural and inevitable as it seems, which make +us feel that life is threaded through and through by the unknown +quantity.</p> + +<p>This is the thread that I have followed from one to another of these +stories. They are as different as my lakes in the North Country; some +larger and some smaller; some brighter and some darker; for that is +the way life goes. But most of them end happily, even after sorrow; +for that is what I think life means.</p> + +<p>Four of the stories have grown out of slight hints, for which I return +thanks. For the two Breton legends which appear in "The Wedding-Ring" +and "Messengers at the Window," I am indebted to my friend, M. Anatole +Le Braz; for an incident which suggested "The Night Call," to my +friend, Mrs. Edward Robinson; and for the germ of "The Mansion," to my +friend, Mr. W. D. Sammis. If the stories that have come from their +hints are different from what my friends thought they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span> would be, that +is only another illustration of the theme.</p> + +<p>Between the longer stories there are three groups of tales that are +told in a briefer and different manner. They are like etchings in +which more is suggested than is in the picture. For this reason they +are called Half-Told Tales, in the hope that they may mean to the +reader more than they say.</p> + +<p>Without the unknown quantity life would be easier, perhaps, but +certainly less interesting. It is not likely that we shall ever +eliminate it. But we can live with it and work with it bravely, +hopefully, happily, if we believe that after all it means +good—infinite good, passing comprehension—to all who live in love.</p> + +<p class="f5"><span class="smcap">Avalon</span>,</p> + +<p class="f5"><i>June 1, 1912</i>.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</a></span></p> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + +<table summary="Contents"> +<tr><td></td><td class="tocpg f1">PAGE</td> +</tr> +<tr><td><i><a href="#THE_WEDDING-RING">The Wedding-Ring</a></i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_3">3</a> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td><i><a href="#MESSENGERS_AT_THE_WINDOW">Messengers at the Window</a></i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_25">25</a> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td><i><a href="#THE_COUNTERSIGN_OF_THE_CRADLE">The Countersign of the Cradle</a></i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_43">43</a> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td> </td> + <td class="tocpg"> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td><i><a href="#THE_KEY_of_the_TOWER">The Key of the Tower</a></i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_67">67</a> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td><i><a href="#THE_RIPENING_OF_THE_FRUIT">The Ripening of the Fruit</a></i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_73">73</a> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td><i><a href="#THE_KINGS_JEWEL">The King's Jewel</a></i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_80">80</a> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td> </td> + <td class="tocpg"> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td><i><a href="#THE_MUSIC-LOVER">The Music-Lover</a></i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_87">87</a> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td><i><a href="#HUMORESKE">Humoreske</a></i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_103">103</a> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td> </td> + <td class="tocpg"> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td><i><a href="#AN_OLD_GAME">An Old Game</a></i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_139">139</a> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td><i><a href="#THE_UNRULY_SPRITE">The Unruly Sprite</a></i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_144">144</a> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td><i><a href="#A_CHANGE_OF_AIR">A Change of Air</a></i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_156">156</a> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td> </td> + <td class="tocpg"> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td><i><a href="#THE_NIGHT_CALL">The Night Call</a></i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_167">167</a> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td><i><a href="#THE_EFFECTUAL_FERVENT_PRAYER">The Effectual Fervent Prayer</a></i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_203">203</a> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td><i><a href="#THE_RETURN_OF_THE_CHARM">The Return of the Charm</a></i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_235">235</a> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td><i><a href="#BEGGARS_under_the_BUSH">Beggars Under the Bush</a></i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_249">249</a> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td><i><a href="#STRONGHOLD">Stronghold</a></i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_257">257</a> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td><i><a href="#IN_the_ODOUR_of_SANCTITY">In the Odour of Sanctity</a></i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_266">266</a> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td> </td> + <td class="tocpg"> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td><i><a href="#THE_SAD_SHEPHERD">The Sad Shepherd</a></i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_287">287</a> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td><i><a href="#THE_MANSION">The Mansion</a></i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_325">325</a> </td> +</tr> +</table> + + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[xv]</a></span></p> +<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + +<table class="tb1" summary="Illustrations"> +<tr><td><i>It did people good to buy of her</i></td><td class="tocpg f1"><i>Frontispiece</i></td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><i>From a drawing by Charles S. Chapman.</i></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td></td><td class="tocpg f1">Facing page</td> +</tr> +<tr><td><i>The King's Jewel</i></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_82">82</a> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><i>From a drawing by Garth Jones.</i></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td><i>The Music-Lover</i></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_90">90</a> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><i>From a drawing by Sigismond de Ivanowski.</i></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td><i>The Unruly Sprite</i></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_154">154</a> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><i>From a drawing by Garth Jones.</i></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td><i>She flung herself across his knees and put her +arms around him</i></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_230">230</a> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><i>From a drawing by Paul Julien Meylan.</i></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td><i>Stronghold</i></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_258">258</a> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><i>From a drawing by Garth Jones.</i></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td><i>So the sad shepherd thanked them for their +entertainment</i></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_314">314</a> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="td1"><i>From a drawing by Blendon Campbell.</i></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td><i>Title-page, head and end pieces by Garth Jones</i></td><td> </td></tr> +</table> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="THE_WEDDING-RING" id="THE_WEDDING-RING"></a>THE WEDDING-RING</h2> + + +<p>Before Toinette Girard made up her mind to marry Prosper Leclère,—you +remember the man at Abbéville who had such a brave heart that he was +not willing to fight with an old friend,—before Toinette perceived +and understood how brave Prosper was, it seemed as if she were very +much in doubt whether she did not love some one else more than she +loved him, whether he and she really were made for each other, +whether, in short, she cared for him enough to give herself entirely +to him.</p> + +<p>But after they had been married six weeks there was no doubt left in +her mind. He was the one man in the world for her. He satisfied her to +the core—although by this time she knew most of his faults. It was +not so much that she loved him in spite of them, but she simply could +not imagine him changed in any way without losing a part of him, and +that idea was both intolerable and in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>credible to her. Just as he was, +she clung to him and became one with him.</p> + +<p>I know it seems ridiculous to describe a love like that, and it is +certainly impossible to explain it. It is not common, nor regular, nor +altogether justifiable by precept and authority. Reason is against it; +and the doctors of the church have always spoken severely of the +indulgence of any human affection that verges on idolatry. But the +fact remains that there are a few women in the world who are capable +of such a passion.</p> + +<p>Capable? No, that is not the word. They are created for it. They +cannot help it. It is not a virtue, it is simply a quality. Their +whole being depends upon their love. They hang upon it, as a wreath +hangs from a nail in the wall. If it breaks they are broken. If it +holds they are happy. Other things interest them and amuse them, of +course, but there is only one thing that really counts—to love and to +be loved.</p> + +<p>Toinette was a woman of that rare race. To the outward view she was +just a pretty French Canadian girl with an oval face, brown hair, and +eyes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> like a very dark topaz. Her hands were small, but rather red and +rough. Her voice was rich and vibrant, like the middle notes of a +'cello, but she spoke a dialect that was as rustic as a cabbage. Her +science was limited to enough arithmetic to enable her to keep +accounts, her art to the gift of singing a very lovely contralto by +ear, and her notions of history bordered on the miraculous. She was +obstinate, superstitious, and at times quick-tempered. But she had a +positive genius for loving. That raised her into the first rank, and +enabled her to bestow as much happiness on Prosper as if she had been +a queen.</p> + +<p>It was a grief to them, of course, that they had no children. But this +grief did not destroy, nor even diminish, their felicity in each +other; it was like the soft shadow of a cloud passing over a +landscape—the sun was still shining and the world was fair. They were +too happy to be discontented. And their fortunes were thriving, too, +so that they were kept pretty hard at work—which, next to love, is +the best antidote for unhappiness.</p> + +<p>After the death of the old <i>bonhomme</i> Girard, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> store fell to +Prosper; and his good luck—or his cleverness, or his habit of always +being ready for things, call it what you will—stuck by him. Business +flourished in the <i>Bon Marché</i> of Abbéville. Toinette helped it by her +gay manners and her skill in selling. It did people good to buy of +her: she made them feel that she was particularly glad that they were +getting just what they needed. A pipe of the special shape which +Pierre affected, a calico dress-pattern of the shade most becoming to +Angélique, a brand of baking-powder which would make the batter rise +up like mountains—<i>v'là, voisine, c'est b'en bon</i>! Everything that +she sold had a charm with it. Consequently trade was humming, and the +little wooden house beside the store was <i>b'en trimée</i>.</p> + +<p>The only drawback to the happiness of the Leclères was the fact that +business required Prosper to go away for a fortnight twice a year to +replenish his stock of goods. He went to Quebec or to Montreal, for he +had a great many kinds of things to get, and he wanted good things and +good bargains, and he did not trust the commercial travellers.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Who pays those men," he said, "to run around everywhere, with big +watch-chains? You and me! But why? I can buy better myself—because I +understand what Abbéville wants—and I can buy cheaper."</p> + +<p>The times of his absence were heavy and slow to Toinette. The hours +were doped out of the day as reluctantly as black molasses dribbles +from a jug. A professional instinct kept her up to her work in the +store. She jollied the customers, looked after the accounts, made good +sales, and even coquetted enough with the commercial travellers to +send them away without ill-will for the establishment which refused to +buy from them.</p> + +<p>"A little <i>badinage</i> does no harm," she said, "it keeps people from +getting angry because they can't do any more business."</p> + +<p>But in the house she was dull and absent-minded. She went about as if +she had lost something. She sat in her rocking-chair, with her hands +in her lap, as if she were waiting for something. The yellow light of +the lamp shone upon her face and hurt her eyes. A tear fell upon her +knitting. The old <i>tante</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> Bergeron, who came in to keep house for her +while she was busy with the store, diagnosed her malady and was +displeased with it.</p> + +<p>"You are love-sick," said she. "That is bad. Especially for a married +woman. It is wrong to love any of God's creatures too much. Trouble +will come of it—<i>voyons voir</i>."</p> + +<p>"But, aunty," answered Toinette, "Prosper is not just any of God's +creatures. He is mine. How could I love him too much? Besides, I don't +do it. It does itself. How can I help it?"</p> + +<p>"It is a malady," sighed the old woman shaking her head. "It is a +malady of youth, my child. There is danger in it—and for Prosper too! +You make an idol of a man and you spoil him. You upset his mind. Men +are like that. You will bring trouble upon your man, if you don't take +care. God will send you a warning—perhaps a countersign of death."</p> + +<p>"What is that," cried Toinette, her heart shaking within her breast, +"what do you mean with your countersign of death?"</p> + +<p>The old woman nodded her head mysteriously<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> and leaned forward, +putting her gnarled hand on Toinette's round knee and peering with her +faded eyes into the girl's wild-flower face.</p> + +<p>"It is the word," said she, "that death speaks before he crosses the +threshold. He gives a sign—sometimes one thing, and sometimes +another—before he comes in. Our folk in Brittany have understood +about that for a long time. My grandmother has told me. It always +comes to one who has gone too far, to one who is like you. You must be +careful. You must go to Mass every day and pray that your malady may +be restrained."</p> + +<p>So Toinette, having tasted of the strange chalice of fear, went to the +church early every morning while Prosper was away and prayed that she +might not love him so much as to make God jealous. The absurdity of +such a prayer never occurred to her. She made it with childish +simplicity. Probably it did no harm. For when Prosper came home she +loved him more than ever. Then she went to High Mass every Sunday +morning with him and prayed for other things.</p> + +<p>After four years there came a day when Prosper<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> must go away for a +longer absence. There was an affair connected with the Department of +Forests and Fisheries, which could only be arranged at Ottawa. Thither +he must go to see the lawyers, and there he must stay perhaps a month, +perhaps two.</p> + +<p>You can imagine that Toinette was desolate. The draught of fear that +<i>tante</i> Bergeron had given her grew more potent and bitter in her +simple heart. And the strange thing was that, although she was +ignorant of it, there was apparently something true in the warning +which the old woman had given. For jealousy—that vine with flying +seeds and strangling creepers—had taken root in the heart of Prosper +Leclère.</p> + +<p>Yes, I know it is contrary to all the rules and to all the proverbs, +but so it happened. It is not true that the strongest love is the most +jealous. It is the lesser love, the love which receives more than it +gives, that lies open to the floating germs of mistrust and suspicion. +And so it was Prosper who began to have doubts whether Toinette +thought of him as much when he was away as when he was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> with her; +whether her gladness when he came home was not something that she put +on to fool him and humour him; whether her <i>badinage</i> with the +commercial travellers (and especially with that good-looking Irishman, +Flaherty from Montreal, of whom the village gossips had much to say) +might not be more serious than it looked; whether—ah, well, you know, +when a man begins to follow fool thoughts like that, they carry him +pretty far astray in the wilderness.</p> + +<p>Prosper was a good fellow with a touch of the prig in him. He was a +Catholic with a Puritan temperament and a Gallic imagination. The +idolatry of Toinette had, as a matter of fact, spoiled him a little; +it was so much that he weakly questioned the reality of it, as if it +were too good to be true. All the time he was in Ottawa and on the +journey those fool thoughts hobbled around him and misled him and made +him unhappy.</p> + +<p>Meantime Toinette was toiling through the time of separation, with a +laugh for the store, and a sigh for the lonely house, and a prayer for +the church. Tired as she was at night, she did not sleep well,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> and +her dreams were troubled by aunty Bergeron's warning against loving +too much.</p> + +<p>In the cold drab dawn of a March morning it seemed to her as if the +church bell had just stopped ringing as she awaked from a dream of +Prosper. She put on her clothes quickly and hurried out. The road was +deserted. In the snowy fields the little fir-trees stood out as black +as ink. Against the sky rose the gray-stone church like a fortress of +refuge.</p> + +<p>But as she entered the door, instead of five or six well-known +neighbours, kneeling in the half-darkness, she saw that the church was +filled with a strange, thick, blinding radiance, like a mist of light. +Everything was blurred and confused in that luminous fog. There was +not a face to be seen. Yet she felt the presence of a vast +congregation all around her. There were movements in the mist. The +rustling of silks, the breath of rich and strange perfumes, a low +rattling as of hidden chains, came to her from every side. There were +voices of men and women, young and old, rough and delicate, hoarse and +sweet, all praying the same prayer in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> many tongues. She could not +hear it clearly, but the sound of their murmurs and sighs was like the +whisper of the fir-wood when the wind walks through it.</p> + +<p>She was bewildered and frightened. Part of going to church means +having people that you know near you. Her heart fluttered with a vague +terror, and she sank into the first seat by the door.</p> + +<p>She could not see the face of the priest at the altar. His voice was +unfamiliar. The tinkle of the bell sounded from an infinite distance. +The sound of footsteps came down the aisle. It must be some one +carrying the plate for the offering. As he advanced slowly she could +hear the clink of the coins dropping into it. Mechanically she put her +hand in her pocket and drew out the little piece of silver and the +four coppers that by chance were there.</p> + +<p>When the man came near she saw that he was dressed in a white robe +with a hood over his face. The plate was full of golden coins. She +held out her poor little offering. The man in the cowl shook his head +and drew back the plate.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It is for the souls of the dead," he whispered, "the dead whom we +have loved too much. Nothing but gold is good enough for this +offering."</p> + +<p>"But this is all I have," she stammered.</p> + +<p>"There is a ring on your hand," he answered in a voice which pierced +her heart.</p> + +<p>Shivering dumbly like a dog, palsied with pain, yet compelled by an +instinct which she dared not resist, she drew her wedding-ring from +her finger and dropped it into the plate.</p> + +<p>As it fell there was a clang as if a great bell had tolled; and she +rose and ran from the church, never stopping until she reached her own +room and fell on her knees beside her bed, sobbing as if her heart +would break.</p> + +<p>The first thing that roused her was the clatter of the dishes in the +kitchen. The yellow light of morning filled the room. She wondered to +find herself fully dressed and kneeling by the bed instead of sleeping +in it. It was late, she had missed the hour of Mass. Her glance fell +upon her left hand, lying stretched out upon the bed. The third finger +was bare.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span></p> + +<p>All the scene in the church rushed over her like a drive of logs in +the river when the jam breaks. She felt as helpless as a little child +in a canoe before the downward sweeping flood. She did not wish to cry +out, to struggle—only to crouch down, and cover her eyes, and wait. +Whatever was coming would come.</p> + +<p>Then the force of youth and hope and love rose within her and she +leaped to her feet. "Bah!" she said to herself, "I am a baby. It was +only a dream,—the curé has told us not to be afraid of them,—I snap +my fingers at that old Bergeron with her stupid countersigns,—<i>je +m'en fricasse</i>! But, my ring—my ring? I have dropped it, that's all, +while I was groping around the room in my sleep. After a while I will +look for it and find it."</p> + +<p>She washed her face and smoothed her hair and walked into the kitchen. +Breakfast was ready and the old woman was grumbling because it had +been kept waiting.</p> + +<p>"You are lazy," she said, "a love-sick woman is good for nothing. Your +eyes are red. You look bad. You have seen something. A countersign!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span></p> + +<p>She peered at the girl curiously, the wrinkles on her yellow face +deepening like the cracks in drying clay, and her thin lips working as +if they mumbled a delicious morsel,—a foretaste of the terrible.</p> + +<p>"Let me alone with your silly talk," cried Toinette gaily. "I am +hungry. Besides, I have a headache. You must take care of the store +this morning. I will stay here. Prosper will come home to-day."</p> + +<p>"<i>Frivolante</i>," said the old woman, with her sharp eyes fixed on the +girl's left hand, "why do you think that? Where is your wedding-ring?"</p> + +<p>"I dropped it," replied Toinette, drawing back her hand quickly and +letting it fall under the table-cloth, "it must be somewhere in my +room."</p> + +<p>"She dropped it," repeated the old woman, with wagging head, "<i>tiens!</i> +what a pity! The ring that not even death should take from her +finger,—she dropped it! But that is a bad sign,—the worst of all,—a +countersign of——"</p> + +<p>"Will you go? Old babbler," cried Toinette, springing up in anger, "I +tell you to go to the store. I am mistress in this house."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p> + +<p><i>Tante</i> Bergeron clumped sullenly away, muttering, "A mistress without +a wedding-ring! Oh, là-là, là-là! There's a big misery in that."</p> + +<p>Toinette rolled up her sleeves and washed the dishes. She tried to +sing a little at her work, because she knew that Prosper liked it, but +the notes seemed to stick in her throat. She wiped her eyes with the +hem of her apron, and went upstairs, bare-armed, to search for her +ring.</p> + +<p>She looked and felt in every corner of the room, took up the +rag-carpet rugs and shook them, moved every chair and the big chest of +drawers and the wash-stand, pulled the covers and the pillows and the +mattress off the bed and threw them on the floor. When she had +finished the room looked as if the big north-west wind had passed +through it.</p> + +<p>Then Toinette sat down on the bed, rubbing the little white mark on +her finger where the ring had been, and staring through the window at +the church as if she were hypnotised. All sorts of dark and cloudy +thoughts were trooping around her. Perhaps Prosper had met with an +accident, or he was sick; or perhaps the suspicions and unjust +re<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>proaches with which he had sometimes wounded her lately had grown +into his mind, so that he was angry with her and did not want to see +her. Perhaps some one had been telling lies to him, and made him mad, +and there was a fight, and a knife—she could see him lying on the +floor of a tavern, in a little red puddle, with white face and staring +eyes, cold and reproachful. Would he never come back, come home?</p> + +<p>In the front of the store sleigh-bells jingled. It was probably some +customer. No, she knew in her heart it was her husband!</p> + +<p>But she could not go to him,—he must come to her, here, away from +that hateful old woman. A step sounded in the hall, the door opened, +Prosper stood before her. She ran to him and threw her arms around +him. But he did not answer her kiss. His voice was as cold as his +hands.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "I come back sooner than you expected, eh? A little +surprise—like a story-book."</p> + +<p>She could not speak, her heart was beating in her throat, her arms +dropped at her side.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You are fond of your bed," he went on, "you rise late, and your +room,—it looks like mad. Perhaps you had company. A party?—or a +fracas?"</p> + +<p>Her cheeks flamed, her eyes filled with tears, her mouth quivered, but +no words came.</p> + +<p>"Well," he continued, "you don't say much, but you look well. I +suppose you had a good time while I was gone. Why have you taken off +your wedding-ring? When a woman does that, she——"</p> + +<p>Her face went very white, her eyes burned, she spoke with her deepest, +slowest note.</p> + +<p>"Stop, Prosper, you are unjust, something has made you crazy, some one +has told you lies. You are insulting me, you are hurting me,—but +I,—well, I am the one that loves you always. So I will tell you what +has happened. Sit down there on the bed and be quiet. You have a right +to know it all,—and I have the right to tell you."</p> + +<p>Then she stood before him, with her right hand covering the white mark +on the ring-finger, and told him the strange story of the Mass for the +dead who had been too much loved. He listened with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> changing eyes, now +full of doubt, now full of wonder and awe.</p> + +<p>"You tell it well," he said, "and I have heard of such things before. +But did this really happen to you? Is it true?"</p> + +<p>"As God lives it is true," she answered. "I was afraid I had loved you +too much. I was afraid you might be dead. That was why I gave my +wedding-ring—for your soul. Look, I will swear it to you on the +crucifix."</p> + +<p>She went to the wall behind the bed where the crucifix was hanging. +She lifted her hand to take it down.</p> + +<p>There, on the little shelf at the feet of the wounded figure, she saw +her wedding-ring.</p> + +<p>Her hands trembled as she put it on her finger. Her knees trembled as +she went back to Prosper and sat beside him. Her voice trembled as she +said, "Here it is,—<i>He</i> has given it back to us."</p> + +<p>A river of shame swept over him. It seemed as if chains fell from his +heart. He drew her to him. He felt her bare arms around his neck. Her +head fell back, her eyes closed, her lips parted, her breath<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> came +soft and quick. He waited a moment before he dared to kiss her.</p> + +<p>"My dove," he whispered, "the sin was not that you loved too much, but +that I loved too little."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="MESSENGERS_AT_THE_WINDOW" id="MESSENGERS_AT_THE_WINDOW"></a>MESSENGERS AT THE WINDOW</h2> + + +<p>The lighthouse on the Isle of the Wise Virgin—formerly called the +Isle of Birds—still looks out over the blue waters of the Gulf of +Saint Lawrence; its white tower motionless through the day, like a +sea-gull sleeping on the rock; its great yellow eye wide-open and +winking, winking steadily once a minute, all through the night. And +the birds visit the island,—not in great flocks as formerly, but +still plenty of them,—long-winged waterbirds in the summer, and in +the spring and fall short-winged landbirds passing in their +migrations—the children and grandchildren, no doubt, of the same +flying families that used to pass there fifty years ago, in the days +when Nataline Fortin was "The Keeper of the Light." And she herself, +that brave girl who said that the light was her "law of God," and who +kept it, though it nearly broke her heart—Nataline is still guardian +of the island and its flashing beacon of safety.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span></p> + +<p>Not in her own person, you understand, for her dark curly hair long +since turned white, and her brown eyes were closed, and she was laid +at rest beside her father in the little graveyard behind the chapel at +Dead Men's Point. But her spirit still inhabits the island and keeps +the light. The son whom she bore to Marcel Thibault was called +Baptiste, after her father, and he is now the lighthouse-keeper; and +her granddaughter, Nataline, is her living image; a brown darling of a +girl, merry and fearless, who plays the fife bravely all along the +march of life.</p> + +<p>It is good to have some duties in the world which do not change, and +some spirits who meet them with a proud cheerfulness, and some +families who pass on the duty and the cheer from generation to +generation—aristocrats, first families, the best blood.</p> + +<p>Nataline the second was bustling about the kitchen of the lighthouse, +humming a little song, as I sat there with my friend Baptiste, snugly +sheltered from the night fury of the first September storm. The sticks +of sprucewood snapped and crackled in the range; the kettle purred a +soft accompaniment<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> to the girl's low voice; the wind and the rain +beat against the seaward window. I was glad that I had given up the +trout fishing, and left my camp on the <i>Sainte-Marguérite-en-bas</i>, and +come to pass a couple of days with the Thibaults at the lighthouse.</p> + +<p>Suddenly there was a quick blow on the window behind me, as if someone +had thrown a ball of wet seaweed or sand against it. I leaped to my +feet and turned quickly, but saw nothing in the darkness.</p> + +<p>"It is a bird, m'sieu'," said Baptiste, "only a little bird. The light +draws them, and then it blinds them. Most times they fly against the +big lantern above. But now and then one comes to this window. In the +morning sometimes after a big storm we find a hundred dead ones around +the tower."</p> + +<p>"But, oh," cried Nataline, "the pity of it! I can't get over the pity +of it. The poor little one,—how it must be deceived,—to seek light +and to find death! Let me go out and look for it. Perhaps it is not +dead."</p> + +<p>She came back in a minute, the rain-drops shining on her cheeks and in +her hair. In the hollow of her firm hands she held a feathery brown +little body, limp<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> and warm. We examined it carefully. It was stunned, +but not killed, and apparently neither leg nor wing was broken.</p> + +<p>"It is a white-throat sparrow," I said to Nataline, "you know the tiny +bird that sings all day in the bushes, <i>sweet-sweet-Canada, Canada, +Canada</i>?"</p> + +<p>"But yes!" she cried, "he is the dearest of them all. He seems to +speak to you,—to say, 'be happy.' We call him the <i>rossignol</i>. +Perhaps if we take care of him, he will get well, and be able to fly +to-morrow—and to sing again."</p> + +<p>So we made a nest in a box for the little creature, which breathed +lightly, and covered him over with a cloth so that he should not fly +about and hurt himself. Then Nataline went singing up to bed, for she +must rise at two in the morning to take her watch with the light. +Baptiste and I drew our chairs up to the range, and lit our pipes for +a good talk.</p> + +<p>"Those small birds, m'sieu'," he began, puffing slowly at his pipe, +"you think, without doubt, that it is all an affair of chance, the way +they come,—that it means nothing,—that it serves no purpose for them +to die?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span></p> + +<p>Certain words in an old book, about a sparrow falling to the ground, +came into my mind, and I answered him carefully, hoping, perhaps, that +he might be led on into one of those mystical legends which still +linger among the exiled children of Britanny in the new world.</p> + +<p>"From our side, my friend, it looks like chance—and from the birds' +side, certainly, like a very bad chance. But we do not know all. +Perhaps there is some meaning or purpose beyond us. Who can tell?"</p> + +<p>"I will tell you," he replied gravely, laying down his pipe, and +leaning forward with his knotted hands on his knees. "I will tell you +that those little birds are sometimes the messengers of God. They can +bring a word or a warning from Him. That is what we Bretons have +believed for many centuries at home in France. Why should it not be +true here? Is He not here also? Those birds are God's <i>coureurs des +bois</i>. They do His errands. Would you like to hear a thing that +happened in this house?"</p> + +<p>This is what he told me.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span></p> +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>My father, Marcel Thibault, was an honest man, strong in the heart, +strong in the arms, but, in the conscience,—well, he had his little +weaknesses, like the rest of us. You see his father, the old Thibault +lived in the days when there was no lighthouse here, and wrecking was +the chief trade of this coast.</p> + +<p>It is a cruel trade, m'sieu'—to live by the misfortune of others. No +one can be really happy who lives by such a trade as that. But my +father—he was born under that influence; and all the time he was a +boy he heard always people talking of what the sea might bring to +them, clothes and furniture, and all kinds of precious things—and +never a thought of what the sea might take away from the other people +who were shipwrecked and drowned. So what wonder is it that my father +grew up with weak places and holes in his conscience?</p> + +<p>But my mother, Nataline Fortin—ah, m'sieu', she was a straight soul, +for sure—clean white, like a wild swan! I suppose she was not a +saint. She was too fond of singing and dancing for that. But she was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> +a good woman, and nothing could make her happy that came from the +misery of another person. Her idea of goodness was like this light in +the lantern above us—something faithful and steady that warns people +away from shipwreck and danger.</p> + +<p>Well, it happened one day, about this time forty-eight years ago, just +before I was ready to be born, my father had to go up to the village +of <i>La Trinité</i> on a matter of business. He was coming back in his +boat at evening, with his sail up, and perfectly easy in his +mind—though it was after sunset—because he knew that my mother was +entirely capable of kindling the light and taking care of it in his +absence. The wind was moderate, and the sea gentle. He had passed the +<i>Point du Caribou</i> about two miles, when suddenly he felt his boat +strike against something in the shadow.</p> + +<p>He knew it could not be a rock. There was no hardness, no grating +sound. He supposed it might be a tree floating in the water. But when +he looked over the side of the boat, he saw it was the body of a dead +man.</p> + +<p>The face was bloated and blue, as if the man had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> been drowned for +some days. The clothing was fine, showing that he must have been a +person of quality; but it was disarranged and torn, as if he had +passed through a struggle to his death. The hands, puffed and +shapeless, floated on the water, as if to balance the body. They +seemed almost to move in an effort to keep the body afloat. And on the +little finger of the left hand there was a great ring of gold with a +red stone set in it, like a live coal of fire.</p> + +<p>When my father saw this ring a passion of covetousness leaped upon +him.</p> + +<p>"It is a thing of price," he said, "and the sea has brought it to me +for the heritage of my unborn child. What good is a ring to a dead +man? But for my baby it will be a fortune."</p> + +<p>So he luffed the boat, and reached out with his oar, and pulled the +body near to him, and took the cold, stiff hand into his own. He +tugged at the ring, but it would not come off. The finger was swollen +and hard, and no effort that he could make served to dislodge the +ring.</p> + +<p>Then my father grew angry, because the dead man seemed to withhold +from him the bounty of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> sea. He laid the hand across the gunwale +of the boat, and, taking up the axe that lay beside him, with a single +blow he chopped the little finger from the hand.</p> + +<p>The body of the dead man swung away from the boat, turned on its side, +lifting its crippled left hand into the air, and sank beneath the +water. My father laid the finger with the ring upon it under the +thwart, and sailed on, wishing that the boat would go faster. But the +wind was light, and before he came to the island it was already dark, +and a white creeping fog, very thin and full of moonlight, was spread +over the sea like a shroud.</p> + +<p>As he went up the path to the house he was trying to pull off the +ring. At last it came loose in his hand; and the red stone was as +bright as a big star on the edge of the sky, and the gold was heavy in +his palm. So he hid the ring in his vest.</p> + +<p>But the finger he dropped in a cluster of blue-berry bushes not far +from the path. And he came into the house with a load of joy and +trouble on his soul; for he knew that it is wicked to maim the dead, +but he thought also of the value of the ring.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span></p> +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>My mother Nataline was able to tell when people's souls had changed, +without needing to wait for them to speak. So she knew that something +great had happened to my father, and the first word she said when she +brought him his supper was this:</p> + +<p>"How did it happen?"</p> + +<p>"What has happened?" said he, a little surprised, and putting down his +head over his cup of tea to hide his face.</p> + +<p>"Well," she said in her joking way, "that is just what you haven't +told me, so how can I tell you? But it was something very bad or very +good, I know. Now which was it?"</p> + +<p>"It was good," said he, reaching out his hand to cut a piece from the +loaf, "it was as good—as good as bread."</p> + +<p>"Was it by land," said she, "or was it by sea?"</p> + +<p>He was sitting at the table just opposite that window, so that he +looked straight into it as he lifted his head to answer her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It was by sea," he said smiling, "a true treasure of the deep."</p> + +<p>Just then there came a sharp stroke and a splash on the window, and +something struggled and scrabbled there against the darkness. He saw a +hand with the little finger cut off spread out against the pane.</p> + +<p>"My God," he cried, "what is that?"</p> + +<p>But my mother, when she turned, saw only a splotch of wet on the +outside of the glass.</p> + +<p>"It is only a bird," she said, "one of God's messengers. What are you +afraid of? I will go out and get it."</p> + +<p>She came back with a cedar-bird in her hand—one of those brown birds +that we call <i>recollets</i> because they look like a monk with a hood. +Her face was very grave.</p> + +<p>"Look," she cried, "it is a <i>recollet</i>. He is only stunned a little. +Look, he flutters his wings, we will let him go—like that! But he was +sent to this house because there is something here to be confessed. +What is it?"</p> + +<p>By this time my father was disturbed, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> trouble was getting on +top of the joy in his soul. So he pulled the ring out of his vest and +laid it on the table under the lamp. The gold glittered, and the stone +sparkled, and he saw that her eyes grew large as she looked at it.</p> + +<p>"See," he said, "this is the good fortune that the waves brought me on +the way home from <i>La Trinité</i>. It is a heritage for our baby that is +coming."</p> + +<p>"The waves!" she cried, shrinking back a little. "How could the waves +bring a heavy thing like that? It would sink."</p> + +<p>"It was floating," he answered, casting about in his mind for a good +lie; "it was floating—about two miles this side of the <i>Point du +Caribou</i>—it was floating on a piece of——"</p> + +<p>At that moment there was another blow on the window, and something +pounded and scratched against the glass. Both of them were looking +this time, and again my father saw the hand without the little +finger—but my mother could see only a blur and a movement.</p> + +<p>He was terrified, and fell on his knees praying. She trembled a +little, but stood over him brave and stern.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What is it that you have seen," said she; "tell me, what has made you +afraid?"</p> + +<p>"A hand," he answered, very low, "a hand on the window."</p> + +<p>"A hand!" she cried, "then there must be some one waiting outside. You +must go and let him in."</p> + +<p>"Not I," whispered he, "I dare not."</p> + +<p>Then she looked at him hard, and waited a minute. She opened the door, +peered out, trembled again, crossed the threshold, and returned with +the body of a blackbird.</p> + +<p>"Look," she cried, "another messenger of God—his heart is beating a +little. I will put him here where it is warm—perhaps he will get well +again. But there is a curse coming upon this house. Confess. What is +this about hands?"</p> + +<p>So he was moved and terrified to open his secret half-way.</p> + +<p>"On the rocks this side of the point," he stammered, "as I was sailing +very slowly—there was something white—the arm and hand of a +man—this ring on one of the fingers. Where was the man? Drowned and +lost. What did he want of the ring? It was easy to pull it——"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p> + +<p>As he said this, there was a crash at the window. The broken pane +tinkled upon the floor. In the opening they both saw, for a moment, a +hand with the little finger cut off and the blood dripping from it.</p> + +<p>When it faded, my mother Nataline went to the window, and there on the +floor, in a little red pool, she found the body of a dead cross-bill, +all torn and wounded by the glass through which it had crashed.</p> + +<p>She took it up and fondled it. Then she gave a great sigh, and went to +my father Marcel and kneeled beside him.</p> + +<p>(You understand, m'sieu', it was he who narrated all this to me. He +said he never should forget a word or a look of it until he died—and +perhaps not even then.)</p> + +<p>So she kneeled beside him and put one hand over his shoulder, the dead +cross-bill in the other.</p> + +<p>"Marcel," she said, "thou and I love each other so much that we must +always go together—whether to heaven or to hell—and very soon our +little baby is to be born. Wilt thou keep a secret from me now? Look, +this is the last messenger at the window—the blessed bird whose bill +is twisted because he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> tried to pull out the nail from the Saviour's +hand on the cross, and whose feathers are always red because the blood +of Jesus fell upon them. It is a message of pardon that he brings us, +if we repent. Come, tell the whole of the sin."</p> + +<p>At this the heart of my father Marcel was melted within him, as a +block of ice is melted when it floats into the warmer sea, and he told +her all of the shameful thing that he had done.</p> + +<p>She stood up and took the ring from the table with the ends of her +fingers, as if she did not like to touch it.</p> + +<p>"Where hast thou put it," she asked, "the finger of the hand from +which this thing was stolen?"</p> + +<p>"It is among the bushes," he answered, "beside the path to the +landing."</p> + +<p>"Thou canst find it," said she, "as we go to the boat, for the moon is +shining and the night is still. Then thou shalt put the ring where it +belongs, and we will row to the place where the hand is—dost thou +remember it?"</p> + +<p>So they did as she commanded. The sea was very quiet and the moon was +full. They rowed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> together until they came about two miles from the +<i>Point du Caribou</i>, at a place which Marcel remembered because there +was a broken cliff on the shore.</p> + +<p>When he dropped the finger, with the great ring glittering upon it, +over the edge of the boat, he groaned. But the water received the +jewel in silence, with smooth ripples, and a circle of light spread +away from it under the moon, and my mother Nataline smiled like one +who is well content.</p> + +<p>"Now," she said, "we have done what the messengers at the window told +us. We have given back what the poor man wanted. God is not angry with +us now. But I am very tired—row me home, for I think my time is near +at hand."</p> + +<p>The next day, just before sunset, was the day of my birth. My mother +Nataline told me, when I was a little boy, that I was born to good +fortune. And, you see, m'sieu', it was true, for I am the keeper of +her light.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="THE_COUNTERSIGN_OF_THE_CRADLE" id="THE_COUNTERSIGN_OF_THE_CRADLE"></a>THE COUNTERSIGN OF THE CRADLE</h2> + + +<p>I cannot explain to you the connection between the two parts of this +story. They were divided, in their happening, by a couple of hundred +miles of mountain and forest. There were no visible or audible means +of communication between the two scenes. But the events occurred at +the same hour, and the persons who were most concerned in them were +joined by one of those vital ties of human affection which seem to +elude the limitations of time and space. Perhaps that was the +connection. Perhaps love worked the miracle. I do not know. I only +tell you the story.</p> + + +<h3>I</h3> +<p>It begins in the peaceful, homely village of Saint Gérôme, on the +shore of Lake Saint John, at the edge of the vast northern wilderness. +Here was the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> home of my guide, Pat Mullarkey, whose name was as Irish +as his nature was French-Canadian, and who was so fond of children +that, having lost his only one, he was willing to give up smoking in +order to save money for the adoption of a baby from the foundling +asylum at Quebec. How his virtue was rewarded, and how his wife, +Angélique, presented him with twins of his own, to his double delight, +has been told in another story. The relation of parentage to a matched +brace of babies is likely to lead to further adventures.</p> + +<p>The cradle, of course, being built for two, was a broad affair, and +little Jacques and Jacqueline rolled around in it inextricably mixed, +until Pat had the ingenious idea of putting a board down the middle +for a partition. Then the infants rocked side by side in harmony, +going up and down alternately, without a thought of debating the +eternal question of superiority between the sexes. Their weight was +the same. Their dark eyes and hair were alike. Their voices, whether +they wept or cooed, were indistinguishable. Everybody agreed that a +finer boy and girl had never been seen in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> Saint Gérôme. But nobody +except Pat and Angélique could tell them apart as they swung in the +cradle, gently rising and falling, in unconscious illustration of the +equivalence and balancing of male and female.</p> + +<p>Angélique, of course, was particularly proud of the boy. As he grew, +and found his feet, and began to wander about the house and the front +yard, with a gait in which a funny little swagger was often +interrupted by sudden and unpremeditated down-sittings, she was keen +to mark all his manly traits.</p> + +<p>"Regard him, m'sieu'," she would say to me when I dropped in at the +cottage on my way home from camp—"regard this little brave. Is it not +a boy of the finest? What arms! What legs! He walks already like a +<i>voyageur</i>, and he does not cry when he falls. He is of a marvellous +strength, and of a courage! My faith, you should see him stand up to +the big rooster of the neighbour, Pigot. Come, my little one, my +Jacques, my Jimmee, one day you will be able to put your father on his +back—is it not?"</p> + +<p>She laughed, and Pat laughed with her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That arrives to all fathers," said he, catching the little Jacqueline +as she swayed past him and swinging her to his knee. "Soon or late the +<i>bonhomme</i> has to give in to his boy; and he is glad of it. But for +me, I think it will not be very soon, and meantime, m'sieu', cast a +good look of the eye upon this girl. Has she not the red cheeks, the +white teeth, the curly hair, brown like her mother's? But she will be +pretty, I tell you! And clever too, I am sure of it! She can bake the +bread, and sew, and keep the house clean; she can read, and sing in +the church, and drive the boys crazy—<i>hein</i>, my pretty one—what a +comfort to the old <i>bonhomme</i>!"</p> + +<p>"He goes fast," laughed Angélique; "he talks already as if she were in +long dresses with her hair done up. Without doubt, m'sieu' amuses +himself to hear such talk about two infants."</p> + +<p>But the thing that amused me most was the beginning-to-talk of the +twins themselves. It was natural that the mother and father should +speak to me in their quaint French <i>patois</i>; and the practice of many +summers had made me able to get along with it fairly well. But that +these scraps of human<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>ity should begin their adventures in language +with French, and such French, old-fashioned as a Breton song, always +seemed to me surprising and wonderfully smart. I could not get over +the foolish impression that it was extraordinary. There is something +magical about the sound of a baby voice babbling a tongue that is +strange to you; it sets you thinking about the primary difficulties in +the way of human intercourse and wondering just how it was that people +began to talk to each other.</p> + +<p>Long before the twins outgrew their French baby talk the famous cradle +was too small to hold their sturdy bodies, and they were promoted to a +trundle-bed on the floor. The cradle was an awkward bit of furniture +in such a little house, and Angélique was for giving it away or +breaking it up for kindling-wood.</p> + +<p>"But no!" said Pat. "We have plenty of wood for kindlings in this +country without burning the cradle. Besides, this wood means more to +us than any old tree—it has rocked our hopes. Let us put it in the +corner of the kitchen—what? Come—perhaps we may find a use for it, +who knows?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Go along," said Angélique, giving him a friendly box on the ear, "you +old joker! Off with you, <i>vieux bavasseur</i>—put the cradle where you +like."</p> + +<p>So there it stood, in the corner beside the stove, on the night of my +story. Pat had gone down to Quebec on the first of June (three days +ahead of time) to meet me there and help in packing the goods for a +long trip up the Peribonca River. Angélique was sleeping the sleep of +the innocent and the just in the bedroom, with the twins in their +trundle-bed beside her, and the door into the kitchen half-open.</p> + +<p>What it was that waked her she did not know—perhaps a bad dream, for +Pat had given her a bit of trouble that spring, with a sudden +inclination for drinking and carousing, and she was uneasy about his +long absence. A man in the middle years sometimes has a bit of folly, +and a woman worries about him without knowing exactly why. At all +events, Angélique came wide awake in the night with a sense of fear in +her heart, as if she had just heard something terrible about her +husband which she could not remember.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span></p> + +<p>She listened to the breathing of the twins in the darkness. It was +soft and steady as the falling of tiny ripples upon the beach. But +presently she was aware of a louder sound in the kitchen. It was +regular and even, like the ticking of a clock. There was a roll and a +creak in it, as if somebody was sitting in the rocking-chair and +balancing back and forth.</p> + +<p>She slipped out of bed and opened the door a little wider. There was a +faint streak of moonlight slanting through the kitchen window, and she +could see the tall back of the chair, with its red-and-white tidy, +vacant and motionless.</p> + +<p>In the corner was the cradle, with the children's clothes hanging over +the head of it and their two ragged dolls tucked away within. It was +rocking evenly and slowly, as if moved by some unseen force.</p> + +<p>Her eyes followed the ray of the moon. On the rocker of the cradle she +saw a man's foot with the turned-up toe of a <i>botte sauvage</i>. It +seemed as if the smoke of a familiar pipe was in the room. She heard +her husband's voice softly humming:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"<i>Petit rocher de la haute montagne,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Je viens finir ici cette campagne.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Ah, doux echos, entendez mes soupirs;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>En languissant je vais bientôt mourir!</i>"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Trembling, she entered the room, with a cry on her lips.</p> + +<p>"Ah! Pat, <i>mon ami</i>, what is it? How camest thou here?"</p> + +<p>As she spoke, the cradle ceased rocking, the moon-ray faded on the +bare floor, the room was silent.</p> + +<p>She fell upon her knees, sobbing.</p> + +<p>"My God, I have seen his double, his ghost. My man is dead!"</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> +<p>In the steep street of Quebec which is called "Side of the Mountain," +there is a great descending curve; and from this curve, at the right, +there drops a break-neck flight of steps, leading by the shortest way +to the Lower Town.</p> + +<p>As I came down these steps, after dining comfortably at the Château +Frontenac, on the same night when Angélique was sleeping alone beside +the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> twins in the little house of Saint Gérôme, I was aware of a merry +fracas below me in the narrow lane called "Under the Fort." The gas +lamps glimmered yellow in the gulf; the old stone houses almost +touched their gray foreheads across the roadway; and in the cleft +between them a dozen roystering companions, men and girls, were +shouting, laughing, swearing, quarrelling, pushing this way and that +way, like the waves on a turbulent eddy of the river before it decides +which direction to follow. In the centre of the noisy group was a big +fellow with a black mustache.</p> + +<p>"I tell you, my boys," he cried, "we go to the Rue Champlain, to the +<i>Moulin Gris</i> of old Trudel. There is good stuff to drink there; we'll +make a night of it! My m'sieu' comes to seek me, but he will not find +me until to-morrow. Shut your mouth, you Louis. What do we care for +the police? Come, Suzanne, <i>marchons</i>!"</p> + +<p>Then he broke out into song:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"<i>Ce n'est point du raisin pourri,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>C'est le bon vin qui danse!</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>C'est le bon vin qui danse ici,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>C'est le bon vin qui danse!</i>"<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>Even through its too evident disguise in liquor I knew the voice of my +errant Pat. Would it be wise to accost him at such a moment, in such +company? The streets of the Lower Town were none too peaceful after +dark. And yet, if he were not altogether out of his head, it would be +a good thing to stop him from going further and getting into trouble. +At least it was worth trying.</p> + +<p>"Good-evening, Pat," I cried.</p> + +<p>He turned as if a pebble had struck him, and saw me standing under the +flickering lamp. He stared for a moment in bewilderment, then a smile +came over his face, and he pulled off his hat.</p> + +<p>"There is my m'sieu'," he said; "my faith, but that is droll! You go +on, you others. I must speak to him a little. See you later—Rue +Champlain—the old place."</p> + +<p>The befogged company rolled away in the darkness and Pat rolled over +to me. His greeting was a bit unsteady, but his natural politeness and +good-fellowship did not fail him.</p> + +<p>"But how I am happy to see m'sieu'!" said he; "it is a little sooner +than I expected, but so much the better! And how well m'sieu' carries +himself—in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> full health, is it not? You have the air of it—all ready +for the Peribonca, I suppose? <i>Batêche</i>, that will be a great voyage, +and we shall have plenty of the good luck."</p> + +<p>"Yes," I answered, "it looks to me like a good trip, if we get started +right. I want to talk with you about it. Can you leave your friends +for a while?"</p> + +<p>His face reddened visibly under its dark coat of tan, and he stammered +as he replied:</p> + +<p>"But certainly, m'sieu'—they are not my friends—that is to +say—well, I know them a little—they can wait—I am perfectly at the +service of m'sieu'."</p> + +<p>So we walked around the corner into the open square (which, by the +way, is shaped like a triangle), at one side of which there is an +old-fashioned French hotel, with a double <i>galerie</i> across its face, +and green-shuttered windows. There were tables in front of it, and at +one of these I invited Pat to join me in having some coffee.</p> + +<p>His conversation at first was decidedly vague and woolly, though +polite as ever. There was a thickness about his words as if they were +a little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> swollen, and his ideas had loose edges, and would not fit +together. However, he did his best to pull himself up and make good +talk. But his <i>r</i>'s rolled like an unstrung drum, and his <i>n</i>'s +twanged like a cracked banjo. On the subject of the proper amount of +provisions to take with us for our six weeks' camping trip he wandered +wildly. Without doubt we must take enough—in grand quantity—one must +live well—else one could not carry the load on the portages—very +long portages—not good for heavy packs—we must take very little +stuff—small rations, a little pork and flour—we can get plenty to +eat with our guns and m'sieu's rod—a splendid country for sport—and +those little fishes in tin boxes which m'sieu' loves so well—for sure +we must take plenty of them!</p> + +<p>It was impossible to get anything definite out of him in regard to the +outfit of the camp, and I knew it beforehand; but I wanted to keep him +talking while the coffee got in its good work, and I knew that his +courtesy would not let him break away while I was asking questions. By +the time I had poured him the second cup of the black brain-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>clearer +he was distinctly more steady. His laugh was quieter and his eyes grew +more thoughtful.</p> + +<p>"And the bread," said I; "we must carry two or three loaves of good +<i>habitant</i> bread, just for the first week out. I can't do without +that. Do you suppose, by any chance, that Angélique would bake it for +us? Or perhaps those lady friends of yours who have just left +you—eh?"</p> + +<p>A look of shame and protest flushed in Pat's face. He dropped his +head, and lifted it again, glancing quickly at me to read a hidden +meaning in the question. Then he turned away and stared across the +square toward the slender spire of the little church at the other end.</p> + +<p>"I assure you," he said slowly, "they are not of my friends, +those—those—bah! what do those people know about making bread? I beg +m'sieu' not to speak of those girls there in the same breath with my +Angélique!"</p> + +<p>"Good!" I answered. "Pardon me, I will not do it again. I did not +understand. They are bad people, I suppose. But how are you so thick +with them?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span></p> + +<p>"If they are bad," said he, shrugging his shoulders—"if they are bad! +But why should I judge them? That is God's affair. There are all kinds +of people in His world. I do not like it that m'sieu' has found me +with that kind. But a man must make a little fun sometimes, you +comprehend, and sometimes he makes himself a damn fool, do you see? I +have been with those people last night and to-day—and now I have +promised—I have won the money of Pierre Goujon, and he must have his +revenge—and I have promised that Suzanne Gravel—well, I must keep my +word of honour and go to them for to-night. M'sieu' will excuse me +now?"</p> + +<p>He rose from the table, but I sat still.</p> + +<p>"Wait a moment," I said; "there is no hurry. Let us have another pot +of coffee and some of those little cakes with melted white sugar on +them, like Angélique used to make." (He started slightly at the name.) +"Come, sit down again. I want you to tell me something about that +pretty old church across the square. See how the moonlight sparkles on +the tin spire. What is the name of it?"</p> + +<p>"Our Lady of the Victories," he answered, seat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>ing himself +unwillingly. "They say it is the most old of the churches of Quebec."</p> + +<p>"It is a fine name," said I. "What does it mean? What victories?"</p> + +<p>"The French over the English, I suppose, long ago. It does not +interest me now. I must be on my road to the <i>Moulin Gris</i>."</p> + +<p>"Will you stop on your way to say a prayer at the door of the church +of Our Lady of the Victories?"</p> + +<p>His eyes dropped and he shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Well, then, on your way back in the morning perhaps you will stop at +the church and go in to confess?"</p> + +<p>He nodded his head and spoke heavily. "Who knows? Perhaps yes—perhaps +no. There may be fighting to-night. Pierre is very mad and ugly. I am +not afraid. But it is evident that m'sieu' makes the conversation to +detain me. We are old friends. Why not speak frank?"</p> + +<p>"Old friends we are, Pat, and frank it is. I do not want you to go to +the Gray Mill. You have been drinking—stronger stuff than coffee. +Those<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> people will pluck you, do you up, perhaps stick a knife in you. +Then what will become of Angélique and the twins? Stay here a while; I +want to talk to you about the twins. How are they? You have not told +me a word about them yet."</p> + +<p>His face sombered and brightened again. He poured himself another cup +of coffee and put in three spoonfuls of sugar, smiling as he stirred +it.</p> + +<p>"Ah," said he, "that is something good to speak of—those twins! It is +easily seen that m'sieu' knows how to make the conversation. I could +talk of those twins for a long time. They are better than +ever—strong, fat, and good—and pretty, too—you may believe it! I +pretend to make nothing of the boy, just to tease my wife; and she +pretends to make nothing of the girl, just to tease me. But they are a +pair—I tell you, a pair of marvels!"</p> + +<p>He went on telling me about their growth, their adventures, their +clever tricks, as if the subject were inexhaustible. I offered him a +cigar. But no, he preferred his pipe—with a <i>pipée</i> of the good +tobacco from the Upper Town, if I would oblige him? The smoke wreaths +curled over our heads. The other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> tables were gradually deserted. The +sleepy waiter had received payment for the coffee and cleared away the +cups. The moon slipped behind the lofty cliff of the Citadel, and the +little square lay in soft shadow with the church spire shining dimly +above it. Pat continued the <i>mémoires intimes</i> of Jacques and +Jacqueline.</p> + +<p>"And the cradle," I asked, "that famous cradle built for two—what has +become of it? Doubtless it exists no more."</p> + +<p>"But it is there," he cried warmly. "Angélique said it was in the way, +but I persuaded her to keep it. You see, perhaps we might need +it—what? Ha, ha, that would be droll. But anyway it is good for the +twins to put their dolls to sleep in. It is a cradle so easy to rock. +You do not need to touch it with your hand. It goes like this."</p> + +<p>He put out his right foot with its <i>botte sauvage</i>, the round toe +turned up, the low heel resting on the ground, and moved it slowly +down and up as if it pressed an unseen rocker.</p> + +<p>"<i>Comme ça, m'sieu'</i>," he said. "It demands no effort, only the +tranquillity of soul. One can smoke<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> a little, one can sing, one can +dream of the days to come. That is a pleasant inn to stay at—the Sign +of the Cradle. How many good hours I have passed there—the happiest +of my life—I thank God for them. I can never forget them."</p> + +<p>A crash as of sudden thunder—a ripping, rending roar of swift, +unknown disaster—filled the air, and shook the quiet houses around +our Lady of the Victories with nameless terror. After it, ten seconds +of thrilling silence, and then the distant sound of shrieking and +wailing. We sprang to our feet, trembling and horror-stricken.</p> + +<p>"It is in the Rue Champlain," cried Pat. "Come!"</p> + +<p>We darted across the square, turned a corner to the right, a corner to +the left, and ran down the long dingy street that skirts the foot of +the precipice on which the Citadel is enthroned. The ramshackle +houses, grey and grimy, huddled against the cliff that frowned above +them with black scorn and menace. High against the stars loomed the +impregnable walls of the fortress. Low in the shadow crouched the +frail habitations of the poor, the miserable tenements, the tiny +shops, the dusky drinking-dens.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span></p> + +<p>The narrow way was already full of distracted people—some running +toward us to escape from danger—some running with us to see what had +happened.</p> + +<p>"The Gray Mill," gasped my comrade; "a hundred yards farther—come +on—we must get there at all hazards! Push through!"</p> + +<p>When we came at last to the place, there was a gap in the wall of +houses that leaned against the cliff; a horrible confusion of +shattered roofs and walls hurled across the street; and above it an +immense scar on the face of the precipice. Ten thousand tons of rock, +loosened secretly by the frost and the rain, had plunged without +warning on the doomed habitations below and buried the Gray Mill in +overwhelming ruin.</p> + +<p>Pat trembled like a branch caught among the rocks in a swift current +of the river. He buried his face in his hands.</p> + +<p>"My God," he muttered, "was it as close as that? How was I spared? My +God, pardon for all poor sinners!"</p> + +<p>We worked for hours among the houses that had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> been more lightly +struck and where there was still hope of rescuing the wounded. The +Church of Our Lady of the Victories was quickly opened to receive +them, and the priests ministered to the suffering and the dying as we +carried them in.</p> + +<p>As the pale dawn crept through the narrow windows, I saw Pat rise from +his knees at the altar and come down the aisle to stand with me in the +doorway.</p> + +<p>"Well," said I, "it is all over, and here we are in the church this +morning, after all."</p> + +<p>"Yes," he answered; "it is the best place. It is where we all need to +come. I have given my money to the priest—it was not mine—I have +left it all for prayers to be said for the poor souls of those—of +those—those friends of mine."</p> + +<p>He brought out the words with brave humility, an avowal and a plea for +pardon.</p> + +<p>"We must send a telegram," I said, putting my hand on his shoulder. +"Angélique will be frightened if she hears of this. We must +tranquillise her. How will this do? 'Safe and well. Coming home +to-morrow to you and twins.' That makes just ten words."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It is perfectly correct, m'sieu'." he replied gravely. "She will be +glad to get that message. But—if it would not cost too much—only a +few words more,—I should like to put in something to say, 'God bless +you and forgive me.'"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p> + +<h2>HALF-TOLD TALES</h2> + +<h3>THE KEY OF THE TOWER<br /> +<br /> +THE RIPENING OF THE FRUIT<br /> +<br /> +THE KING'S JEWEL</h3> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/image_003.jpg" width="500" height="241" alt="Illustration" /> +</div> + +<h2><a name="THE_KEY_of_the_TOWER" id="THE_KEY_of_the_TOWER"></a>THE KEY of the TOWER</h2> + + +<p>So the first knight came to the Tower. Now his name was <i>Casse-Tout</i>, +because wherever he came there was much breaking of things that stood +in his way. And when he saw that the door of the Tower was shut (for +it was very early in the morning, and all the woods lay asleep in the +shadow, and only the weather-cock on the uppermost gable of the roof +was turning in the light wind of dawn), it seemed to him that the time +favoured a bold deed and a masterful entrance.</p> + +<p>He laid hold of the door, therefore, and shook it; but the door would +not give. Then he set his shoulder to it and thrust mightily; but the +door did not so much as creak. Whereupon he began to hammer against it +with his gloves of steel, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> shouted with a voice as if the master +were suddenly come home to his house and found it barred.</p> + +<p>When he was quite out of breath, between his shoutings he was aware of +a small, merry noise as of one laughing and singing. So he listened, +and this is what he heard:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Hark to the wind in the wood without!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I laugh in my bed while I hear him roar,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blustering, bellowing, shout after shout,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">What do you want, O wind, at my door?"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Then he cried loudly: "No wind am I, but a mighty knight, and your +door is shut. I must come in to you and that speedily!" But the +singing voice answered:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Blow your best, you can do no more;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Batter away, for my door is stout;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The more you threaten, I laugh the more—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Hark to the wind in the wood without!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>So he hammered a while longer at the oaken panels until he was +wearifully wroth, and when the sun was rising he went his way with +sore hands and a sullen face.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No doubt," said he, "there is a she-devil in the Tower. I hate those +who put their trust in brute strength."</p> + +<p>It was mid-morn when there came a second knight to the Tower, whose +name was <i>Parle-Doux</i>. And he was very gentle-spoken, and full of +favourable ways, smiling always when he talked, but his eyes were cool +and ever watchful. So he made his horse prance delicately before the +Tower, and looked up at the windows with a flattering face;</p> + +<p>"Fair house," said he, "how well art thou fashioned, and with what +beauty does the sunlight adorn thee! Here dwells the wonder of the +world, the lady of all desires, the princess of my good fortune. Would +that she might look upon me and see that the happy hour has come!"</p> + +<p>Then there was a little sound at one of the upper windows, and the +lattice clicked open. But the lady who stood there was closely covered +with a jewelled veil, and nothing could be seen of her but her hand, +with many rings upon it, holding a key.</p> + +<p>"Marvel of splendour," said <i>Parle-Doux</i>, "moon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> of beauty, jewel of +all ladies! I have won you to look upon me, now let fall the key."</p> + +<p>"And then?" said the lady.</p> + +<p>"Then, surely," said the knight, "I will open the door without delay, +and spring up the stairs, winged with joy, and——"</p> + +<p>But before he had finished speaking, with the smile on his face, the +hand was drawn back, and the lattice clicked shut.</p> + +<p>So the knight sang and talked very beautifully for about the space of +three hours in front of the Tower. And when he rode away it was just +as it had been before, only the afternoon shadows were falling.</p> + +<p>A little before sunset came the third knight, and his name was +<i>Fais-Brave</i>.</p> + +<p>Now the cool of the day had called all the birds to their even-song, +and the flowers in the garden were yielding up their sweetness to the +air, and through the wood Twilight was walking with silent steps.</p> + +<p>So the knight looked well at the Tower, and saw that all the windows +were open, though the door<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> was shut, and on the grass before it lay a +jewelled veil. And after a while of looking and waiting and thinking +and wondering, he got down from his horse, and took off the saddle and +bridle, and let him go free to wander and browse in the wood. Then the +knight sat down on a little green knoll before the Tower, and made +himself comfortable, as one who had a thought of continuing in that +place for a certain time.</p> + +<p>And after the sun was set, when the longest shadows flowed into dusk, +the lady came walking out of the wood toward the Tower. She was +lightly singing to herself a song of dreams. Her face was uncovered, +and the gold of her hair was clear as the little floating clouds high +in the West, and her eyes were like stars. When the knight saw her he +stood up and could say nothing. But all the more he looked at her, and +wondered, and his thoughts were written in his face as if they stood +in an open book.</p> + +<p>Long time they looked at each other thus; and then the lady held out +her hand with a key in it.</p> + +<p>"What will you do with this key?" said she, "if I give it to you?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Is it the key of your Tower?" said he.</p> + +<p>"Ay!" said she.</p> + +<p>"I will give it back to you," said he, "until it pleases you to open +the door."</p> + +<p>"It is yours," said she.</p> +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;"> +<img src="images/image_004.jpg" width="250" height="257" alt="Illustration" /> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/image_005.jpg" width="500" height="400" alt="Illustration" /> +</div> + +<h2><a name="THE_RIPENING_OF_THE_FRUIT" id="THE_RIPENING_OF_THE_FRUIT"></a>THE RIPENING OF THE FRUIT</h2> + + +<p>The righteousness of Puramitra was notorious, and it was evident to +all that he had immense faith in his gods. He was as strict in the +performance of his devotions as in the payment of his debts, nor was +there any altar, whether of Brahma, or of Vishnu, or of Shiva, at +which he failed to offer both prayers and gifts. He observed the rules +of religion and of business with admirable regularity, and enjoyed the +reputation of one whose conduct was above reproach.</p> + +<p>But, being a self-contained man, he had not the love of the little +children of the village, to whom<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> he often gave sweetmeats and toys; +and being a very prosperous man, he was not without rivals and +detractors, who liked his prosperity the less the more they marvelled +at it. This was displeasing to Puramitra, though he thought it beneath +him to show it.</p> + +<p>"If all were known!" said some people, wagging their heads sagely, as +if they were full of secret and discreditable information.</p> + +<p>"If we only had his luck," said others, sighing.</p> + +<p>But when Puramitra heard of these things he said, "The fruits of earth +ripen by the will of Heaven and the harvest is on the lap of the +gods."</p> + +<p>So saying, he made the sign of reverence, and went his way calmly to a +certain place in his garden, where he was accustomed to practise the +virtue of meditation and to review his inmost thoughts.</p> + +<p>Now the inmost thoughts of Puramitra were in the shape of wishes and +strong desires; for which reason, being a religious man, he often +called them prayers. They were concerned chiefly with himself. And +next to that, with two others: Indranu, his friend, and Vishnamorsu, +his enemy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p> + +<p>But the motions of friendship are quiet and slow, and much the same +from day to day; whereas the motions of hatred are quick and stirring, +and changeful as the colors on a serpent. So Puramitra came to think +less and less of his friend, and more and more of his enemy. Every day +he returned at sundown to the retired place in the garden, where an +orange-tree shaded his favourite seat with thick, glossy leaves, and +surrendered himself to those meditations in which his desires were +laid bare to his gods.</p> + +<p>At first he gave a thought to Indranu, who had helped him, and served +him, and always spoken well of him; and this thought he called love. +Then he gave many thoughts to Vishnamorsu, who had opposed him, and +thwarted him, and mocked him with bitter words and laughter; and these +thoughts he called just indignation. He reflected upon the many +misdeeds and offences of his enemy with a grave and serious passion. +He considered curiously the various punishments which these +misdemeanours must merit at the hand of Heaven, such as poverty and +pain and disgrace and death, and,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> after that, all the thirty-nine +degrees of damnation; he turned them over in his mind like a hollow +ball with rings carved within it, and they played one into another +smoothly and intricately, and at the centre of the rings a little +black figure with the face of Vishnamorsu writhed and twisted.</p> + +<p>While Puramitra meditated thus upon the justice of the gods and the +ill-deserts of his enemy, the tree grew and flourished above him from +week to month and from month to year, spreading out its arms to hide +and befriend his devotions. The white flowers bloomed and faded with +heavy fragrance. The pale-green fruits formed and fell from the tree +before their time. But of all their many promises one persisted, +clinging to the lowest bough, rounding and ripening among the dark +leaves with strange flame and lustre—a fiery globe, intense and +perfect as Puramitra's thought of his enemy.</p> + +<p>"You meditate much, my son," said a Brahman who knew him well and +sometimes visited his garden.</p> + +<p>"Holy one," he answered, "I pray."</p> + +<p>"For what?" asked the Brahman.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That the divine will may be done in all ways and upon all things," +replied Puramitra.</p> + +<p>"Then why have you been at pains to poison your tree?" asked the +Brahman.</p> + +<p>"I did not know," said the man, "that I had done anything to the +tree."</p> + +<p>"Look," said the Brahman, and he touched the fruit with the end of his +staff. A drop oozed from the saffron globe, red as blood; and where it +fell the grass withered as if a flame had scorched it. Then the heart +of Puramitra leaped up within him, for he knew that his inmost +thoughts had passed into the course of nature and fructified upon the +tree.</p> + +<p>"Most excellent Brahman," said he, with great humility, "the fruits of +earth ripen by the will of Heaven."</p> + +<p>"For whom is this one intended?" asked the Brahman.</p> + +<p>"Holiness," said Puramitra, "it is on the lap of, the gods."</p> + +<p>So the Brahman pursued his way, and Puramitra his meditations.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></p> + +<p>The next day he ordered an open path made through his gardens for the +pleasure and comfort of the neighbours. The glistening fruit hung +above the path, ripe and ruddy.</p> + +<p>"It is on the lap of the gods," thought Puramitra; "if the evil-doer +stretches forth his hand to it, the justice of Heaven will appear." So +he hid among the bushes at nightfall, and expected the event.</p> + +<p>A man crept slowly along the path and stayed beneath the tree. His +face was concealed by a cloak; but the watcher said, "I shall know him +by his actions, for my enemy will not respect that which is mine." Now +the man was thinking shame and scorn of the rich owner of the garden, +and despising the prosperity of wiles and wickedness. So he hated and +contemned the fruit, saying to himself, "God forbid that I should +touch anything that belongs to the wretch Puramitra." And the path +grew darker.</p> + +<p>Soon after came another man, walking with uncovered head, but his face +could not be discerned because of the shadow. And the watcher said,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> +"Now we shall see what the gods intend." The man went freely and +easily, without a care, and when he came to the fruit he put out his +hand and took it, saying to himself, "The benevolent Puramitra will be +glad that I should have this, for he is good to all his friends." So +he ate of the fruit, and fell at the foot of the tree.</p> + +<p>Then Puramitra came running, and lifted up the dead man, and looked +upon his face. And it was the face of his friend, the well-beloved +Indranu.</p> + +<p>So Puramitra wept aloud, and tore his hair, and his heart went black +within him. And Vishnamorsu, returning through the garden by another +path, heard the lamentable noise, and came near, and laughed. But the +Brahman, passing homeward, looked upon the three, and said, "The ways +of the gods are secret; but the happiest of these is Indranu."</p> +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;"> +<img src="images/image_006.jpg" width="300" height="243" alt="Illustration" /> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/image_007.jpg" width="500" height="239" alt="Illustration" /> +</div> + +<h2><a name="THE_KINGS_JEWEL" id="THE_KINGS_JEWEL"></a>THE KING'S JEWEL</h2> + + +<p>There was an outcry at the door of the king's great hall, and suddenly +a confusion arose. The guards ran thither swiftly, and the people were +crowded together, pushing and thrusting as if to withhold some +intruder. Out of the tumult came a strong voice shouting, "I will come +in! I must see the false king!" But other voices cried, "Not so—you +are mad—you shall not come in thus!"</p> + +<p>Then the king said, "Let him come in as he will!"</p> + +<p>So the confusion fell apart, and the hall was very still, and a man in +battered armour stumbled through the silence and stood in front of the +throne. He was breathing hard, for he was weary and angry and afraid, +and the sobbing of his breath shook him from head to foot. But his +anger was stronger<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> than his weariness and his fear, so he lifted his +eyes hardily and looked the king in the face.</p> + +<p>It was like the face of a mountain, very calm and very high, but not +unkind. When the man saw it clearly he knew that he was looking at the +true king; but his anger was not quenched, and he stood stiff, with +drawn brows, until the king said, "Speak!"</p> + +<p>For answer the man drew from his breast a golden chain, at the end of +which was a jewel set with a great blue stone. He looked at it for a +moment with scorn, as one who had a grievance. Then he threw it down +on the steps of the throne, and turned on his heel to go.</p> + +<p>"Stay," said the king. "Whose is this jewel?"</p> + +<p>"I thought it to be yours," said the man.</p> + +<p>"Where did you get it?" asked the king.</p> + +<p>"From an old servant of yours," answered the man. "He gave it to me +when I was but a lad, and told me it came from the king—it was the +blue stone of the Truth, perfect and priceless. Therefore I must keep +it as the apple of mine eye, and bring it back to the king perfect and +unbroken."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/image_008.jpg" width="400" height="624" alt="The King's Jewel" /> +<span class="caption">The King's Jewel</span> +</div> + +<p>"And you have done this?" said the king.</p> + +<p>"Yes and no," answered the man.</p> + +<p>"Divide your answer," said the king. "First, the <i>yes</i>."</p> + +<p>The man delayed a moment before he spoke. Then his words came slow and +firm as if they were measured and weighed in his mind.</p> + +<p>"All that man could do, O king, have I done to keep this jewel of the +Truth. Against open foes and secret robbers I have defended it, with +faithful watching and hard fighting. Through storm and peril, through +darkness and sorrow, through the temptation of pleasure and the +bewilderment of riches, I have never parted from it. Gold could not +buy it; passion could not force it; nor man nor woman could wile or +win it away. Glad or sorry, well or wounded, at home or in exile, I +have given my life to keep the jewel. This is the meaning of the +<i>yes</i>."</p> + +<p>"It is right," said the king. "And now the <i>no</i>."</p> + +<p>The man answered quickly and with heat.</p> + +<p>"The <i>no</i> also is right, O king! But not by my fault. The jewel is not +untarnished, not perfect. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>It never was. There is a flaw in the +stone. I saw it first when I entered the light of your palace-gate. +Look, it is marred and imperfect, a thing of little value. It is not +the crystal of Truth. I have been deceived. You have claimed my life +for a fool's errand, a thing of naught; no jewel, but a bauble. Take +it. It is yours."</p> + +<p>The king looked not at the gold chain and the blue stone, but at the +face of the man. He looked quietly and kindly and steadily into the +eyes full of pain and wounded loyalty, until they fell before his +look. Then he spoke gently.</p> + +<p>"Will you give me my jewel?"</p> + +<p>The man lifted his eyes in wonder.</p> + +<p>"It is there," he cried, "at your feet!"</p> + +<p>"I spoke not of that," said the king, "but of your life, yourself."</p> + +<p>"My life," said the man faltering, "what is that? Is it not ended?"</p> + +<p>"It is begun," said the king. "Your life—yourself, what of that?"</p> + +<p>"I had not thought of that," said the man, "only of the jewel, not of +myself, my life."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Think of it now," said the king, "and think clearly. Have you not +learned courage and hardiness? Have not your labours brought you +strength; your perils, wisdom; your wounds, patience? Has not your +task broken chains for you, and lifted you out of sloth and above +fear? Do you say that the stone that has done this for you is false, a +thing of naught?"</p> + +<p>"Is this true?" said the man, trembling and sinking on his knee.</p> + +<p>"It is true," answered the king, "as God lives, it is true. Come, +stand at my right hand. My jewels that I seek are not dead, but alive. +But the stone which led you here—look! has it a flaw?"</p> + +<p>He stooped and lifted the jewel. The light of his face fell upon it. +And in the blue depths of the sapphire the man saw a star.</p> +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;"> +<img src="images/image_009.jpg" width="300" height="220" alt="Illustration" /> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="THE_MUSIC-LOVER" id="THE_MUSIC-LOVER"></a>THE MUSIC-LOVER</h2> + + +<p>The Music-Lover had come to his favourite seat. It was in the front +row of the balcony, just where the curve reaches its outermost point, +and, like a rounded headland, meets the unbroken flow of the +long-rolling, invisible waves of rhythmical sound.</p> + +<p>The value of that chosen place did not seem to be known to the world, +else there would have been a higher price demanded for the privilege +of occupying it. People were willing to pay far more to get into the +boxes, or even to have a chair reserved on the crowded level of the +parquet.</p> + +<p>But the Music-Lover cared little for fashion, and had long ago ceased +to reckon the worth of things by the prices asked for them in the +market.</p> + +<p>He knew that his coign of vantage, by some secret confluence of +architectural lines, gave him the very best of the delight of hearing +that the vast concert-hall contained. It was for that delight<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> that he +was thirsting, and he surrendered himself to it confidently and +entirely.</p> + +<p>He had arrived at an oasis in the day. Since morning he had been +toiling through the Sahara of the city's noise: arid, senseless, +inhospitable noise: roaring of wheels, clanging of bells, shrieking of +whistles, clatter of machinery, squawking of horns, raucous and +strident voices: confused, bewildering, exhausting noise, a desolate +and unfriendly desert of heard ugliness.</p> + +<p>Now all that waste, howling wilderness was shut out by the massive +walls of the concert-hall, and he found himself in a haven of refuge.</p> + +<p>But silence alone would not have healed and restored his spirit. It +needed something more than the absence of harsh and brutal and +meaningless noise to satisfy him. It needed the presence of music: +tones measured, ordered, and restrained; varied and blended not by +chance, but by feeling and reason; sound expressive of the secret life +and the rhythmical emotion of the human heart. And this he found +flowing all around him, entering deeply into him, filling all the +parched<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> and empty channels of his being, as he listened to +Beethoven's great Symphony in C Minor.</p> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>There was nothing between him and the orchestra. He looked over the +railing of the gallery, which shaded his eyes from the lights of the +boxes below, straight across the gulf in which the mass of the +audience, diminutive and indistinguishable, seemed to be submerged, to +the brilliant island of the stage.</p> + +<p>The conductor stood in the foreground. There was no touch of carefully +considered eccentricity in hair or costume, no pose of self-conscious +Bohemianism about him. His face, with its clear brow, firmly moulded +chin, and brown moustache, was that of a man who understood himself as +well as music. His figure, in its faultless evening dress, had the +tranquil poise and force of one who obeys the customs of society in +order to be free to give his mind to other things. With slight +motions, easy and graceful as if they came without thought and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> +required no effort, his right hand, with the little baton, gave the +time and rhythm, commanding swift obedience; while his left hand +lightly beckoned here and there with magical persuasion, drawing forth +louder or softer notes, stirring the groups of instruments to +passionate expression, or hushing them to delicate and ethereal +strains.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/image_010.jpg" width="450" height="678" alt="The Music-Lover." /> +<span class="caption">The Music-Lover.</span> +</div> + +<p>There was no labour, no dramatic display in that leadership; nothing +to distract the attention, or to break the spell of the music. All the +toil of art, the consideration of effects, the sharp and vehement +assertion of authority, lay behind him in the rehearsals.</p> + +<p>Now the finished work, the noble interpretation of the composer's +musical idea, flowed forth at the leader's touch, as if each motive +and phrase, each period and melody, were waiting somewhere in the air +to reveal itself at his slight signal. And through all the movement of +the <i>Allegro con brio</i>, with its momentous struggle between Fate and +the Human Soul, the orchestra answered to the leader's will as if it +were a single instrument upon which he played.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span></p> + +<p>And so, for a time, it seemed to the Music-Lover as he looked down +upon it from his lofty place. With what precision the bows of the +violins moved up and down together; how accurately the wood-winds came +in with their gentler notes; how regularly the brazen keys of the +trumpets rose and fell, and the long, shining tubes of the trombone +slid out and in. Such varied motions, yet all so limited, so orderly, +so certain and obedient, looked like the sure interplay of the parts +of a wonderful machine.</p> + +<p>He watched them as if in a dream, fascinated by their regularity, +their simplicity in detail, their complexity in the mass—watched them +with his eyes, while his heart was carried along with the flood of +music. More and more the impression of a marvellous unity, a +mechanical certainty of action, grew upon that half of his mind which +was occupied with sight, and gave him a singular satisfaction and +comfort.</p> + +<p>It was good to be free, for a little while at least, from the +everlasting personal equation, the perplexing interest in human +individuals, the mys<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>terious and disturbing sympathies awakened by +contact with other lives, and to give one's self to the pure enjoyment +of an impersonal work of art, rendered by the greatest of all +instruments—a full orchestra under control of a master.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>But presently the <i>Allegro</i> came to an end, and with the pause there +came that brief stir in the orchestra, that momentary relaxation of +nerves and muscles, that moving and turning of many heads in different +directions, that swift interchange of looks and smiles and whispered +words between the players, which seemed like the temporary dissolving +of the spell that made them one. And with this general but separated +and uncertain movement a vague thought, an unformulated question, +passed into the mind of the Music-Lover.</p> + +<p>How would the leader reassemble the parts of his instrument in a few +seconds, and make them one again, and resume his control over it? How +would he make the pipes and strings and tubes and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> drums answer to his +touch, though he laid no hand upon them? There must be some strange, +invisible key-board, some secret system of communication between him +and those various contrivances of wood and wire and sheep-skin and +horse-hair and metal (so curiously and grotesquely fashioned, when one +came to consider them) out of which he was to bring melody and +harmony. How should one conceive of this mysterious key-board and its +hidden connections?</p> + +<p>How should one comprehend and imagine it? Was it not, after all, the +most wonderful thing about the great instrument on which the symphony +was played?</p> + +<p>While the Music-Lover, leaning back in his seat, was idly turning over +this thought, the <i>Andante</i> began, and all definite questioning and +reasoning were absorbed in the calm, satisfying melody which flowed +from the violas and 'cellos.</p> + +<p>But now a singular change came over the half-conscious impression +which his eyes received as they rested on the orchestra. It was no +longer a huge and strangely fashioned instrument, intricate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> in +construction, perfect in adjustment, that he was watching.</p> + +<p>It was a company of human beings, trained and disciplined to common +action, understanding one another through the sharing of a certain +technical knowledge, and bound together by a unity of will which was +expressed in their central obedience to the leader. The arms, the +hands, the lips of these hundred persons were weaving together the +many-coloured garment of music, because their minds knew the pattern, +and their wills worked together in the design.</p> + +<p>Here was the wonderful hidden system of communication, more magical +than any mechanism, just because it was less perfect, just because it +left room, along each separate channel, for the coming in of those +slight, incalculable elements of personal emotion which lend the touch +of life to rhythm and tone.</p> + +<p>The instruments were but the tools. The composer was the +master-designer. The leader and his orchestra were the weavers of the +rich robe of sound, in which alone the hidden spirit of Music,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> +daughter of Psyche and Amor, becomes perceptible to mortal sense.</p> + +<p>The smooth and harmonious action of the players seemed to lend a new +charm, delicate and indefinable, to the development of the clear and +heart-strengthening theme with its subtle variations and its powerful, +emphatic close, like the fullness of meaning in the last line of a +noble sonnet.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>In the pause that followed, the Music-Lover let himself drift quietly +with the thoughts of peace and concord awakened by this loveliest of +andantes.</p> + +<p>The beginning of the <i>Scherzo</i> found him, somehow or other, in a new +relation to the visible image of the orchestra. The weird, almost +supernatural music, murmured at first by the 'cellos and +double-basses, then proclaimed by the horns as if by the trumpet of +Fate itself; the repetition of the same struggle of emotions which had +marked the first movement, but now more tense, more passionate, more +human, the strange, fantastic mingling of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> comedy and tragedy in the +<i>Trio</i> and the <i>Fugue</i> with its abrupt questions and answers; all this +seemed to him like a moving picture of the inner life of man.</p> + +<p>And while he followed it, the other half of his mind was watching the +players, no longer as a group, a unit of disciplined action, but as +individuals, persons for each of whom life had a distinct colour, and +tone, and meaning.</p> + +<p>His eyes rested unconsciously on the pale, dreamy face of the second +violinist; the black, rugged brows of the trumpeter; the long, gentle +countenance of the flute-player with its flexible lips and blond +beard.</p> + +<p>The grizzled head of the 'cellist bent over his instrument with an air +of quiet devotion. The burly form of the player of the double-bassoon, +behind his rare and awkward instrument, waiting for his time to come +in, had the look of a man who could not be surprised or troubled by +anything. One of the bass-violinists had the rough-hewn figure and the +divinely chiseled, sorrow-lighted face of Lincoln, the others were +children of the everyday.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> The clarionettist, with his dark beard and +high temples, might have sat for Rembrandt's picture of "The +Philosopher." The rotund kettle-drummer, with his smooth head and +sparkling eyes, restlessly turning his little keys and bending down to +listen to the tuning of his grotesque music-pots, seemed impatient for +the part in the score when he was to build the magical bridge, on +which the symphony passes, without a break, from the third to the last +movement.</p> + +<p>"All these persons," said the inner voice of the Music-Lover (he +listening all the while to the entangling and unfolding, dismissing +and recalling of the various motives)—"all these persons have their +own lives and characters. They have known joys and sorrows, failures +and successes. They have hoped and feared. All that Beethoven poured +into this music from his experience of poverty, of conflict with +physical weakness and the cruel limitations of Fate, of baffled +desire, of loneliness, of strong resolution, of immortal courage and +faith, these players in their measure and degree have known.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Even now they may be in love, in hatred, in friendship, in jealousy, +in gloom, in resignation, in courage, or in happiness. What strange +paths lie behind them; what laughter and what tears have they shared; +what secret ties unite them, one with another, and what hidden +barriers rise between those who do not understand and those who do not +care! There are many stories running along underneath this music, some +of them just begun, some long since ended, some never to find a true +completion: little stories of many lands, humourous and pathetic, +droll and capricious legends, merry jests, vivid romances, serious +tales of patience and devotion.</p> + +<p>"And out of these stories, because they are human, has come the +humanity of the players: the thing which makes it possible for them to +feel this music, and to play it, not as a machine would play, grinding +it out with dead monotony, but with all the colour and passion of life +itself.</p> + +<p>"Why should we not know something of this hidden background of the +orchestra? Why should not somebody tell one of the stories that is +waiting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> here? Not I, but some one familiar with this region, who has +trodden its paths and shared in its labours; not a mere lover of +music, but a musician."</p> + +<p>Here the inner voice which had been running along through the +<i>Scherzo</i> and the <i>Trio</i> and the <i>Recapitulation</i>, died away quietly +with the <i>pianissimo</i> passage in which the double-basses and the drum +carry one through the very heart of mystery; and the Music-Lover found +himself intensely waiting for the great <i>Finale</i>.</p> + +<p>Now it comes, long-expected, surprising, victorious, sweeping all the +instruments into its mighty current, pausing for a moment to take up +the most delicate and mysterious melody of the <i>Scherzo</i> (changed as +if by magic into something new and strange), and then moving on again, +with hurrying, swelling tide, until it breaks in the swift-rolling, +thunderous billows of immeasurable jubilation.</p> + +<p>The Music-Lover drew a long breath. He sat motionless in his seat. The +storm of applause did not disturb him. He did not notice that the +audience had risen. He was looking at the orchestra,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> already +beginning to melt away; but he did not really see them.</p> + +<p>Presently a hand was stretched out from the second row behind him, and +touched him on the shoulder. He turned around and saw the face of his +friend the Dreamer, the Brushwood Boy, with his bright eyes and +disheveled hair. And beside him was the radiant presence of the Girl +Who Understood.</p> + +<p>"<i>Lieber Meister,</i>" said the Boy, "you are coming now with us. There +is a bite and a sup, and a pipe and an open fire, waiting for you in +our room—and I have a story to read you. <i>Bitte komm!</i>"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="HUMORESKE" id="HUMORESKE"></a>HUMORESKE</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>They parted at the end of the summer—the boy and the girl—after +having been very happy together for two months and very miserable for +two days. The trouble was that she would not marry him.</p> + +<p>This was not altogether strange, for Richard Shafer was only twenty +and had just finished his second year in college. To Carola Brune, who +was a year younger, he seemed perfect as a playmate, but she simply +could not imagine him as a husband. He was too vague, unformed, boyish +in his moods and caprices. She was a strong girl, with quick and +powerful impulses in her nature, and she felt that she would need a +strong man to hold her. What Richard was, what he would be, she could +not clearly see. She loved to make music with him—she at the piano, +he with his violin. She loved to roam the woods with him, and to go +out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> in a canoe with him on the moonlit river. But she could not and +she would not say that she loved <i>him</i>—at least, not enough to +promise to marry him now.</p> + +<p>He took her "no" very hard. He argued the case persistently. There +were no real obstacles, that he could see, to their marriage. She was +the daughter of a musician, a Bohemian, who would make no objections +to an unworldly match. He was an orphan with a little patrimony of +four or five thousand dollars, enough to live on until the world +recognised his genius as a poet and his mastery as a violinist.</p> + +<p>At this, unfortunately, being a little nervous and overstrained by the +long pleading, she laughed. "Oh, Dick!" she cried. "Swinburne and +Sarasate—two single gentlemen rolled into one!"</p> + +<p>Now there is nothing that a boy—or for that matter, a man—dislikes +so much as laughter when he is making a declaration of love. His sense +of humour at that time is in eclipse, and even the gentlest turn of +wit shocks him deeply.</p> + +<p>"Very well," he answered, rising from their fa<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>vourite seat among the +roots of an old hemlock tree overhanging the stream, "let us go back +to the hotel. I have been a silly ass, I suppose, and now it's all +over."</p> + +<p>"But why?"—she was tempted to ask him as they walked through the +woods. Why was it all over? Why shouldn't they go on being good +friends and comrades? Couldn't he see that she had only tried to make +a little joke to ease the strain? Didn't he know that she really had a +wonderful admiration for his talents and a large hope for his future?</p> + +<p>But something held her back from speaking. She was embarrassed and +slightly ashamed. He was in a strange mood, evidently offended, +absurdly polite and distant, making talk about the concert that was to +come off that evening. She could not bring herself to explain to him +now. She would do it in the morning when the air was clearer and +cooler.</p> + +<p>As they entered the hotel, she turned into the music room, saying that +she had to practise for her part in the concert. He held out his hand +with a little formal gesture. "I wish you a big success," said he; "my +part doesn't need any practice."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> Then he went upstairs to pack his +trunk for the six o'clock train.</p> + +<p>An hour later, as he passed out of the door, he heard her still at the +piano. She was playing for her own pleasure now—just to relieve the +tension of her feelings by letting them flow out on the rhythmic +current of music. It was her favourite piece, that magical <i>humoreske</i> +by Dvor̆ák, which is like an April day, full of smiles and tears, +pleading and laughter. The clear notes came out under her exquisite +touch with a penetrating charm of airy, graceful fantasy. To the angry +boy at the door it seemed as if they were full of delicate +indifference and mockery. They expressed to him the spirit of a +girl—light, capricious, elusive, yet with a will that can resist all +appeal and evade all attack—an invincible butterfly, a thistle-down +of steel—the thing that a man wants most in all the world and yet can +not have unless she chooses. She stood for his first defeat, his great +disappointment, his discovery that life can refuse; and now she was +playing this quaint, careless, mocking music!</p> + +<p>"She does not care," he said to himself, as he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> climbed into the +stage, "and I will not care. She is only a flirt. All girls are like +that." With this profound generalisation in what he called his mind, +but what was really his temper, he rode sullenly away.</p> + +<p>He did not hear how she lingered caressingly over the last phrases of +the <i>humoreske</i>, playing them very softly, with her blond head bent +over the piano, as if she were trying to recall something. He did not +know that she put on the frock that he liked best, with the mauve +ribbons, for the concert that night. He did not see her lips quiver +and the look of pained surprise flash into her brown eyes when she +heard that he had gone without even saying good-bye.</p> + +<p>Naturally she, thinking him a proud and foolish boy, waited for him to +come back or to write. Naturally he, having classified her as a cold +and heartless flirt, expected her to send him a letter asking him to +return. Naturally neither of these things happened. The little +bank-dividing stream of circumstance flowed between them, ever +broadening, until it seemed like an impassable river.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span></p> + +<p>Each of them said, "It was only an episode." Each of them was sure +that there was nothing in it which could mean a lasting pain, nothing +which time would not obliterate. Each of them repeated a wise phrase +or two about "passing fancies" and "puppy love," and so they went +their ways lightly enough, reasonably resolving not to think of each +other any more.</p> + +<p>But it was strange how clearly and brightly the scenes of the summer +itself lived in their memories. To both of them there was a peculiar +and deepening vividness in those pictures of certain places.</p> + +<p>The hardwood ridges in the forest, where there was no undergrowth and +they could walk straight ahead, side by side, through the interminable +colonnade of beeches and birches which upheld the green, gold-flecked +roof,—the dark tangled spruce thicket, where one must stoop under the +interlacing lower branches, dead and brittle, and creep over the soft +brown carpet of fallen needles, dry and slippery, in order to reach a +little open glade, moist with springs, where the red wood-lily and the +purple-fringed orchid grew,—the high steep rock<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> that jutted out from +the woods about half-way up the slope of the Dome, as if to make a +narrow view-point of surprise where two people could stand close +together and look down upon the broad valley and the blue hills +beyond,—the old hemlock, with its big, bent knees covered with moss, +ready to hold them comfortably in its lap, while they read poetry or +stories of adventure, and the little river sung its sleepy song at +their feet,—the long stillwater where the canoe floated quietly among +the mirrored stars,—the merry rapids where the moon path spread +before them broad and silvery, luring them to follow it down to +danger,—the twilight hour in the music room, where the piano answered +to the violin, and through the open door and windows the aromatic +breath of the pine-trees and the spicy smell of wild grapes drifted +faintly in,—a certain afternoon when the cool rain-drops beat in +their faces as they tramped home, after a long walk over the hills, +wet and joyous, swinging their clasped hands and chanting some +foolish, endless song of the road,—a certain evening when the +murmuring hemlock above them grew silent, and the whispering water<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> +below them seemed to hush, and a single big star across the river was +softly throbbing in the mauve dusk, and their lips met for a moment as +purely and silently as the twilight meets the night;—these were +pictures that would not fade and dissolve. There was something +unforgettable about them.</p> + +<p>Was it the spirit of place that possessed them with a unique +loveliness; or was it that they were illuminated by the charm of a +companionship in which two hearts had tasted together the sweetest cup +in the world, the royal chalice of the pure, uncalculating, +inexplicable joy of living?</p> + +<p>Be that as it may, the fact remains that while the boy and the girl +went away from each other, and grew separately to manhood and +womanhood, and had other experiences and joys and troubles, that +summer stayed with them both as something rare and unequalled, set +apart in its delectable perfection, a standard by which, +unconsciously, they measured all happiness and all beauty.</p> + +<p>The effect of such an inward standard is peculiar. It is apt to give a +certain detachment, a touch of isolation, to the person who possesses +it. And<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> whether that is a good thing or a bad thing depends upon the +tone which is given to it by an unknown quantity, the way in which the +secret will of the spirit chooses to take and use it.</p> + +<p>To Carola Brune it was like the possession of something very precious, +which she had found and which she felt she could never lose. She +followed the path which was marked out for her as a student of music +with tranquil enthusiasm and cheerful industry; she made friends +everywhere by her serene and wholesome loveliness; and she did her +work at the piano so well that when she went to Paris, at the end of +the second year, to continue her studies, she found no difficulty in +being received as a pupil by the great Alberti.</p> + +<p>"You have a very happy touch, mademoiselle," said the little gray man +one day at the end of a lesson. He gave his moustache that fierce +upward turn with which he accompanied his rare compliments, and +frowned at her benignly while he went on. "I suppose you know that you +really play better than you know how to play. What right have you to +do that?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span></p> + +<p>She smiled as she turned around to him, for she had learned to +understand his abrupt ways. "No right, dear master," she said, "only +perhaps it is because I happen to know a little of the meaning of +happiness."</p> + +<p>"But you play the sad music too," he continued, "and you let it all +come out."</p> + +<p>"That is because I am not afraid of sadness," she answered, with her +clear brown eyes looking quietly up at him.</p> + +<p>His voice grew gentle and he laid his hand on her shoulder. "You have +the secret, my child—to know the meaning of happiness, and not to be +afraid of sadness, but to pour it all into the music. That is the +secret, and it will make you a musician,—it will carry you far, I +think,—provided you don't neglect your practising," he added +brusquely.</p> + +<p>She shook her head and laughed. "I wouldn't dare do that with such a +tyrant as you, dear master."</p> + +<p>"Next week," he went on, giving a new upward twist to his moustache, +"I shall expect you to be letter-perfect with that G major concerto of +Beethoven—no more drum-beats, remember. And<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> mind, you are not to +think of playing in public, at a concert, until I tell you. It may be +a long time,—a year, perhaps,—but I am not going to let them spoil +my sweetest rose by forcing her into bloom too soon."</p> + +<p>"Despot," she laughed back as he patted her hand at the door, "if you +only had a kind heart I should love you—a little!"</p> + +<p>On the way home to her tiny apartment in the Rue de Grenelle, where +she lived with her aunt and her younger sister, who was a student of +drawing, she walked through the Garden of the Luxembourg, thinking +about a concert. Not one of those which the master had forbidden to +her, but a very simple and foolish and far-away little concert in the +old hotel beside the Delaware. And the deep beauty of the forest came +back to her, and the long-shining reaches of the river, and the hours +of good comradeship with a boy who perfectly shared her joy of living, +and the breath of the pine-trees and the sweetness of the wild grape! +Did she really smell them now? No, it was only the faint fragrance of +the formal beds of hyacinths and tulips and jonquils<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> on the terraces +behind the old palace. In the broad walks, children were running and +playing. Old men were smoking on the benches in a drowsy peace. In the +shady paths under the tall trees, evidently amatory couples were +strolling or sitting close together. Carola enjoyed it all—but there +was a look in her face, half sad, half smiling, as if she remembered +something better.</p> + +<p>When she reached home, she laid aside her hat and scarf, and went into +the little <i>salon</i>. She sat down at the piano and let her fingers run +idly over the keys, wandering from fragment to fragment of soft music. +Then with a firmer touch she began to play the <i>humoreske</i> of +Dvor̆ák, but with a new phrasing, a new expression. It was full of +an infinite tenderness, a great longing, a sweetness of distant and +remembered joy. It seemed to be singing over again the favourite song +of some one who had died—singing very clearly and distinctly so as +not to lose a single note, a single movement, of the unforgotten +melody of happiness.</p> + +<p>The delicate dusk of a May evening gathered slowly in the room. The +windows were wide open.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> In the narrow, curving street below, already +half-deserted, a young man who was passing with long aimless steps, as +if he felt that he must be going somewhere but did not know exactly +where, stopped suddenly when he heard the music above him, and stood +listening until its last note trembled into silence. Then he strode +away, but in the opposite direction, as if he had changed his mind.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>The path that had led Richard Shafer into the Rue de Grenelle and +under the windows of Carola Brune without knowing it, was long and +roundabout, and in places rather rough. It was one of the by-ways of +the unknown quantity.</p> + +<p>To him, from the first, the thought of the perfect summer had been +like something that he had lost and would never find again. It made +him dissatisfied, fickle, and resentful. He went back to his college +work with a temper which handicapped him in everything. His lessons +seemed like the dullest drudgery to one who felt sure that he had in +him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> the making of a poet or a musician, he did not quite know +which—perhaps it was both. The fellowship of the other boys, with its +rude and hearty democracy, streaked with funny little social +prejudices and ambitions, was a thing of which he could not or would +not learn the secret.</p> + +<p>He tried running with the literary set. But Shorty Burke, who was the +acknowledged college genius, said of him, "Shafer seems to think that +he's the only man since Keats, and all the rest of us are duffers."</p> + +<p>He tried running with the fast set. But Duke Jones, who could carry +more strong liquors than any man in the crowd, said of him, "Dick is +no good; when he goes to town with us he's a thousand miles away, and +every glass makes him more stuck-up and quarrelsome."</p> + +<p>He tried running with the purely social set, the arbiters of college +elegance. But it bored him immensely, and he took no pains to conceal +it, so they silently cast him out.</p> + +<p>The consequence of all this was that he failed to get into any of the +upper-class societies, and con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>soled himself with the belief that he +was terribly in love with a girl three years older than himself.</p> + +<p>She was part of a liberal education, and she was very kind to him +because she liked his really beautiful violin playing. When she told +him, at the beginning of his senior year, that she was going to marry +one of the assistant professors, he added another illustration to his +theory that "all girls are like that," and plunged into a violent +course of study for honours and a fellowship. But it was too late. He +graduated with a fourth group and a firm conviction that college is a +failure.</p> + +<p>Then he went to New York, with his violin and with a dozen poems and +half-a-dozen short stories in his trunk, resolved to storm the +magazines or to get a place in one of the great orchestras—he was not +quite sure which of the two short paths to fame it would be.</p> + +<p>It was neither. He sold two sonnets and a story which brought him in +$47.50. For a few months he saw life in the Great White Way and other +paths, and found them very dusty. It would not be true to say that +there was no amusement in it. There<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> were times when it was +excessively merry. And for the little <i>Caffè Fiammella</i>, where the +fat, bald-headed proprietor used to introduce him as "<i>l'illustrissimo +violinista Signore Ricardo Sciafèro</i>," and where the mixed audience +welcomed his music with delight, he had a sincere affection, in spite +of the ineradicable smell of garlic. There was a girl there who was +the living image of Raphæl's <i>Fornarina</i>, until she began to talk.</p> + +<p>But in all the life that he thus confusedly saw, there was not a +single hour to which he could have said with Faust, "Oh, stay, thou +art so fair!" For behind it all, there was that inward, unconscious +standard of beauty and happiness—the summer which he could not have +forgotten if he would, and would not have forgotten if he could. It +did not console or comfort him at all. It only kept him from being +contented—which, after all, would have been the worst thing in the +world for him at the present stage of his education.</p> + +<p>So when the remnant of his patrimony had shrunk to a couple of hundred +dollars, he burned his poems and stories, for which he had conceived a +strong<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> disgust, and took passage on a small French steam-ship for +Bordeaux, to make the "grand tour" of Europe. His violin made him the +most popular person on the ship. He had a facile talent and a good +memory, which enabled him to play almost any kind of music; and when +he could not remember he could improvise. The second officer, a short, +stout man, with a pointed black beard, and a secret passion for the +fine arts, conceived a great fancy for the young American. When they +reached Bordeaux he took Richard to his favourite theatre and +introduced him to the leader of the orchestra, a person with a crinkly +yellow face and a soft heart, whose name was Camembert, for which +reason his intimates called him "the Cheese."</p> + +<p>The theatre was about to close for the summer, but four of the +musicians had made a plan for a concert tour in various small cities +and watering-places. When M. Camembert had heard Richard play after a +joyous supper in the famous restaurant of the <i>Chapon Fin</i>, he +embraced him with effusion and invited him to join the company.</p> + +<p>Nothing could have suited the young man's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> humour better. They +wandered from one city-in-etching to another,—Angoulême, Poitiers, +Tours, Rennes, Caen,—grey and crumbly towns, white and trim towns. +They visited the rocky resorts of Brittany and the sandy resorts of +Normandy. They played in a little theatre, or in a casino, or in the +ballroom of a hotel. Their fortunes varied, but in the main they were +prosperous. The announcements of "The Renowned Camembert Quintette, +with a celebrated American Soloist" attracted an amused curiosity. And +the music was good, for the old man was a real master, and the +practice was strenuous and persistent. It was hard work, but it was +also good fun, and the great thing for Richard was that he learned +more of the human side of music and of the philosophy of life than he +could have done in ten years of insulated study.</p> + +<p>A vein of luck which they struck in Rouen and Dieppe emboldened them +to turn eastward, with comfortably full pockets, and try the Dauphiné +and High Savoy. At Grenoble they had a frost and a heavy loss, but at +the sleepy Baths of Uriage they made a week of good harvest with +afternoon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> recitals. Chambréy did well for them, and Annécy even +better, so that, in spite of the indifference of Aix, they reached +Geneva in funds. Then they played their way around the Lake of Geneva, +and up into the Rhone Valley, and so over to the Italian lakes with +the autumn.</p> + +<p>Here, at Pallanza, in a garden overhanging the Lago Maggiore where the +Borromean Isles sleep in their swan-like beauty on the blue-green +waves, they faced the question of turning homeward or going on to the +south for a winter tour. As they sat around the little iron table, +which held a savoury Spanish omelette and a corpulent straw-covered +flask of Chianti, their spirit was cheerful and their courage high.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" asked the valiant Camembert. "Is it that the Italians are +more difficult to conquer than the French? Napoleon did it—my faith, +yes. Forward to the conquest of Italy!"</p> + +<p>Richard was immensely amused. He did not really care which way they +went, as long as they went somewhere. His heart was full of a vague +hunger for home,—deep, wild, sheltering woods,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> friendly hills, +companionable and never-failing little rivers,—he longed to be there. +But he knew that was impossible. So why not Italy? It would certainly +be an adventure.</p> + +<p>And so it was. But the conquest was largely a matter of imagination. +They saw the flowing green streets of Venice, the ruddy towers of +Bologna, the grey walls and dark dome of Florence. They saw the +fountains flash in Rome and the red fire run down the long slope of +Vesuvius at Naples. They crossed over to Sicily and saw ivory Palermo +in her golden shell and Taormina sitting high upon the benches of her +amphitheatre. In that sense they conquered and possessed Italy, as any +one who has eyes and a heart may do.</p> + +<p>But Italy did not pay much tribute to their music. They had to travel +third-class and sleep in the poorest inns, cultivating a taste for +macaroni and dark bread with pallid butter. Still, they were merry +enough until they reached Genoa, and perceived that there was no +reasonable prospect of their being able to make anything at all in the +over-civilised and over-entertained towns of the Rivièra.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span></p> + +<p>"We must retreat, my children," said the Cheese, crinkling his face +over the sour wine in a musty <i>trattoria</i>, "but let us retreat in good +order and while we have the means to do so. How much money in bank?"</p> + +<p>They counted their resources and found them hardly enough to pay the +railway fare to Bordeaux. Richard insisted upon putting the remnant of +his private fortune into the common fund, but the others would not +have it.</p> + +<p>"No," they said, "you shall not give us money. But you may settle all +the restaurant bills between here and Bordeaux."</p> + +<p>"But I am not going to Bordeaux," said he; "I am going to Paris."</p> + +<p>At this there was voluble protest and discussion. Richard had no +arguments, but his determination was as fixed as it was unreasonable. +Finally he forced them to take fifty francs as a loan. At Lyons the +quintette dissolved with emotional embraces, the four going westward, +and he northward in the night train.</p> + +<p>When he walked out into the stony desert in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> front of the <i>Gare de +Lyon</i> in the grey chill of a March morning, he had just two hundred +and twenty francs in his pocket, and he felt that he was really adrift +in the world. There was nothing for him to hold fast to, no one who +had need of him.</p> + +<p>He found a garret room in the <i>Rue Cherche Midi</i>, and looked up two +friends of his who were studying at the <i>Beaux Arts</i>. They introduced +him to a newspaper correspondent who threw a bit of work in his way—a +fortnightly letter to an Arkansas paper on French fashions and +society, at five dollars <i>per</i> letter. This did not go very far, but +it retarded the melting away of his estate while he finished two +articles,—one on "The Cradle of the French Revolution," the Chateau +of Vezille, which he had visited during his week at the Baths of +Uriage,—the other on "An Eruption of Vesuvius," which had opportunely +occurred while he was in Naples. For the first time in his life he +wrote directly, simply, and naturally, describing what he had really +seen, and expressing what he had really felt and imagined. He sent the +articles to two American magazines and relapsed into a state of doubt +and despair.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></p> + +<p>He took what Paris has to give a young man in the way of cheap +diversion, but he found it as dusty as New York. The long rambles +through the older parts of the city, the solitary excursions into the +forests of the environs, really satisfied and refreshed him more. +Meantime the feeling that he was adrift grew upon him and his reserve +of capital disappeared. The wolf scratched at the door of his garret +and short rations were necessary. In the second week of May a +remittance arrived from the Arkansas paper for his last two letters, +with the statement that they were not "snappy" enough to suit the +taste of the community, and that the correspondence had better be +discontinued.</p> + +<p>So it was that he strode through the Rue de Grenelle in the May +twilight, with fifty francs in his pocket, resolved to spend it all +that night—and then? Well, it was not very clear in his mind, but +certainly he was not going back to his miserable lodging,—and surely +there must be some way of making an end of it all for a man who felt +that he was adrift and very tired,—there was no one to care much if +he dropped out, and he could see no attractive reason for going on.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was then that he heard the notes of the <i>humoreske</i> coming down +into the deserted street and stood still to listen. The memories of +the perfect summer floated around him again. Something in the music +seemed to call to him, to plead with him, to try to console and cheer +him with a wonderful, playful tenderness like the pure wordless +sympathy of a child.</p> + +<p>"If she had only known how to play it like that," he said to himself; +"if she had only cared enough—she would have called me back. But here +is a woman who does know—and perhaps even for me—well, I will fight +a little longer."</p> + +<p>So he turned back to his lonely lodging, guided and impelled by +something that he could not quite understand, and did not even try to +explain. Surely it would be absurd to think that the chance hearing of +a bit of music could have an influence on a man's life.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>That turn in the Rue de Grenelle seemed like the turn in the tide of +his fortunes. The morning mail brought an order for five hundred +francs,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> with a letter from the editor of the <i>Epoch Magazine</i>, saying +that he liked the article on "The Cradle of the Revolution" very much, +and that he wished the author would do three papers for him on the +"Old Prisons of Paris," A week later came a letter from the editor of +<i>The World's Wonders</i>, saying that if the author of the excellent +article on Vesuvius would procure photographic illustrations of it at +their expense, they would be glad to pay a hundred dollars for it, and +asking if he felt like doing two or three articles on "The Little +Chateaux of France" during the summer.</p> + +<p>Richard felt, not so much that he was "himself again," but that he was +a new man. The touch of praise for his work refreshed him more than +wine. His friends, the <i>Beaux Arts</i> men and the newspaper +correspondent, noticed the change in him, and accused him of being in +love.</p> + +<p>"Not much," he laughed, "but I am at work—two articles accepted and +commissions for five more."</p> + +<p>They joyfully gave him all the hints and helps they could, and told +him where to find the books<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> that he needed. He settled down to his +reading bravely and made copious notes for his articles. On Sundays he +went with his three friends to spend the day at some resort in the +suburbs. He played the violin only on these country excursions and at +night in his room when his eyes were tired. The rest of the time he +toiled terribly. His boyish dream that the world lay at his feet was +ended, but instead he felt that he had the power to do something +fairly good, if he worked hard enough. And then, perhaps some day he +might have the good luck to meet that girl whose music he had heard +the evening when the tide turned.</p> + +<p>He wondered what she looked like. He had passed the house often, +hoping that he might see her or hear her play again. But nothing of +that kind happened. The windows on the second floor were always +closed. A discreet inquiry at the glass door of the <i>concierge</i> drew +out only the information that Madame Farr, the American lady, had gone +away with her two nieces for their vacation. The name conveyed nothing +to him. It would have been absurd to try to follow such a cobweb +clue,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> and give up his work to chase after an unknown American lady +and her invisible nieces.</p> + +<p>Yet more and more the remembrance of that strain of music lingered +with him, strangely penetrating and significant. He played it often on +the violin. It came to be the symbol of that summer, not as it had +ended in disappointment and deception, but as it had flowed for so +many perfect weeks in pure joy and gaiety of heart. He thought of the +unseen player very kindly. He tried unconsciously to make a picture of +her in his mind—the colour of her hair, her eyes, the shape of her +face. He saw her running through the woods, or sitting between the +knees of the old hemlock beside the river. And always her hair was +blond and soft and loosely curling, her eyes of a brown so bright and +clear that it seemed to glow with hidden gold, and her face a full +oval, tinted like the petal of a great magnolia blossom.</p> + +<p>"I am a poor fool," he would say to himself after these reveries; "why +should she have been in the least like Carola? More probably she had +freckles and red hair—but she was a girl who understood."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span></p> + +<p>When August came, Richard's friends went off for a holiday, but he +stuck to his work. The heat of Paris was faint and smothering. On the +first Sunday he went out to St. Germain, loveliest of all the Parisian +suburbs, and wandered all day in the green and mossy forest. He was +lonely and depressed. Not even the cool verdure of the woods, nor the +splendour of the view from the terrace looking out over the curves of +the Seine, and the green rolling hills, and the lines of light that +led to the city beginning to glow with a pale yellow radiance in the +dusk, could console him. The merry, companionable stir of life around +him made him feel more solitary. He turned away from the gay verandah +of the <i>Pavillion Henry IV</i>, which was full of dining-parties, and +went back into the town to seek the quieter garden of the <i>Pavillion +Louis XIV</i>. There was a big linden-tree there and a certain table at +one side of it where he had dined before. He would go there now for +his solitary repast.</p> + +<p>But the garden also was well-patronized that night. The white-aproned +waiters were running to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> and fro; the stout landlady in black silk and +a lace cap was moving among her guests with beaming face; a soft +babble of talk and laughter rose from every walk and corner. When +Richard came to his chosen table he found it occupied by three ladies. +Disappointed, he was turning to look for another place, when the voice +of Carola Brune called him.</p> + +<p>When a thing like that happens, a man does not know exactly where he +is, or how he feels. The largeness and the smallness of the world +amaze him; the mystery of life bewilders him; he is confused in the +presence of the unknown quantity. How he behaves, what he says or +does, depends entirely upon instincts beyond his control.</p> + +<p>Richard would have been puzzled to give an account of his introduction +to Mrs. Farr, and of his recognition of the little sister, now grown +to young womanhood. The conversation at the table where he dined with +the family party was very vague in his mind. He knew that he was +telling them about his adventures, as if they were scenes in a comedy, +and that he said a little about the turn of good luck<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> that had come +to him just in time. He knew that Carola was talking of her +music-lessons, and of her dear master and of his sudden promise that +she should have a concert in the early winter. It was all very jolly +and friendly, but it did not seem quite real to him until he asked her +a question.</p> + +<p>"Where did you live in Paris last May?"</p> + +<p>"In the Rue de Grenelle," she answered; "of course you know that old +street."</p> + +<p>He nodded and fell into silence, letting his cigarette go out, as he +sipped his coffee.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "this has been delightful—it was great luck to meet +you. But I suppose I should be going. The best of friends must part."</p> + +<p>"But no," said Carola, flushing faintly, "what reason is there for +that stupid proverb now? My aunt and sister always take a little walk +on the terrace after dinner to see the lights. But you must let me +show you what pretty rooms we have found here for our vacation. I have +to be near the master and to keep up my practising, you know. I have a +heavenly piano. Don't you want to hear whether I have improved in my +playing?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I do," he answered, "indeed that is just what I want."</p> + +<p>When they came into the little sitting-room above the garden, the +windows were wide and the room was cool and dim and fragrant. Carola +moved about in the shadow, lighting the candles on the mantle-piece +and the tall lamp beside the piano.</p> + +<p>"Now," she said, "let us talk a little."</p> + +<p>He hesitated a moment, and answered: "I would rather hear you play."</p> + +<p>"You are as decided and dictatorial as ever," she laughed; "but this +time you shall have your way. What will you have—a bit of Chopin or +Grieg? Here is plenty of music to choose from."</p> + +<p>"No," he said, "something that you know by heart. The piece that you +played in the Rue de Grenelle in the twilight on May the seventh."</p> + +<p>She looked at him with startled, wondering eyes, as if about to ask +the explanation of such a curious request. Then her eyes dropped, and +her colour rose, and she sat down at the piano.</p> + +<p>The <i>humoreske</i> came from her lightly moving<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> hands as it had come on +that spring evening,—quaint, tender, consoling, caressing,—but now +with a new accent of joy in it, a quicker, almost exulting movement in +the dancing passages. Richard listened, standing close behind her, +watching the play of her firm, rounded fingers, breathing the +fragrance that rose from her hair and her white neck.</p> + +<p>When she turned on the stool he was kneeling beside her, and his hands +were stretched out to take hers.</p> + +<p>"Let me tell you," he exclaimed, "let me tell you what a fool I have +been."</p> + +<p>So she sat very still while he told her of his failure at college, and +how he had gone wild afterward, and how bitter he had been, and how +lonely. The adventure with the travelling musicians had led to +nothing, and his assurance of winning fame with his violin or with his +pen had come to nothing. He was at the edge of the big darkness on +that May evening, when she had brought the turn of the tide without +knowing it. And even now things were not much better, but still he had +a fighting chance to make himself amount to something.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> He could +write, and he would work at it as a man must work at his calling. He +could play the violin, and he would make it his avocation and +refreshment. She was going on, he knew, to win a great success. He +would rejoice in it—he loved her with all his heart—she must know +that—but he had nothing to offer her. He was too poor to ask her for +anything now.</p> + +<p>Her hands trembled as he bent to kiss them. In her shining eyes there +was a strange, sweet, deep smile. She leaned over him, and he felt the +warmth of her breath on his forehead as she whispered: "Richard, +couldn't you even ask me for the <i>humoreske</i>?"</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span></p> + +<h2>HALF-TOLD TALES</h2> + +<h3>AN OLD GAME<br /> +<br /> +THE UNRULY SPRITE<br /> +<br /> +A CHANGE OF AIR</h3> + + + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/image_011.jpg" width="500" height="289" alt="Illustration" /> +</div> + +<h2><a name="AN_OLD_GAME" id="AN_OLD_GAME"></a>AN OLD GAME</h2> + + +<p>Three men were taking a walk together, as they said, just to while +away the time.</p> + +<p>The first man intended to go Somewhere, to look at a piece of property +which he was considering. The second man was ready to go Anywhere, +since he expected to be happy by the way. The third man thought he was +going Nowhere, because he was a philosopher and held that time and +space are only mental forms.</p> + +<p>Therefore the third man walked in silence, reflecting upon the vanity +of whiling away an hour which did not exist, and upon the futility of +going when staying was the same thing. But the other men,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> being more +simple, were playing the oldest game in the world and giving names to +the things that they saw as they travelled.</p> + +<p>"Mutton," said the Somewhere Man, as he looked over a stone wall.</p> + +<p>"A flock of sheep," said the Anywhere Man, gazing upon the pasture, +where the fleecy ewes were nipping grass between the rocks and the +eager lambs nuzzled their mothers.</p> + +<p>But the Nowhere Man meditated on the foolish habit of eating, and said +nothing.</p> + +<p>"An ant-hill," said the Anywhere Man, looking at a mound beside the +path; "see how busy the citizens are!"</p> + +<p>"Pismires," said the Somewhere Man, kicking the mound; "they sting +like the devil."</p> + +<p>But the Nowhere Man, being certain that the devil is a myth, said +nothing.</p> + +<p>"Briars," said the Somewhere Man, as they passed through a coppice.</p> + +<p>"Blackberries," said the Anywhere Man; "they will blossom next month +and ripen in August."</p> + +<p>But the Nowhere Man, to whom they referred<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> the settlement of the +first round of the game, decided that both had lost because they spoke +only of accidental phenomena.</p> + +<p>With the next round they came into a little forest on a sandy hill. +The oak-trees were still bare, and the fir-trees were rusty green, and +the maple-trees were in rosy bud. On these things the travellers were +agreed.</p> + +<p>But among the withered foliage on the ground a vine trailed far and +wide with verdant leaves, thick and heavy, and under the leaves were +clusters of rosy stars, breathing a wonderful sweetness, so that the +travellers could not but smell it.</p> + +<p>"Rough-leaf," said the Somewhere Man; "gravel-weed we call it in our +country, because it marks the poorest soil."</p> + +<p>"Trailing arbutus," said the Anywhere Man; "May-flowers we call them +in our country."</p> + +<p>"But why?" asked the Nowhere Man. "May has not yet come."</p> + +<p>"She is coming," answered the other; "she will be here before these +are gone."</p> + +<p>On the other side of the wood they entered a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> meadow where a little +bird was bubbling over with music in the air.</p> + +<p>"Skunk-blackbird," said the Somewhere Man; "colours the same as a +skunk."</p> + +<p>"Bobolink," said the Anywhere Man; "spills his song while he flies."</p> + +<p>"It is a silly name," said the Nowhere Man. "Where did you find it?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," answered the other; "it just sounds to me like the +bird."</p> + +<p>By this time it was clear that the two men did not play the game by +the same rules, but they went on playing, just as other people do.</p> + +<p>They saw a little thatched house beside the brook. "Beastly hovel," +said the first man. "Pretty cottage," said the second.</p> + +<p>A woman was tossing and fondling her child, with kiss-words. "Sickly +sentiment," said the first man. "Mother love," said the second.</p> + +<p>They passed a youth sleeping on the grass under a tree. "Lazy hound!" +said the first man. "Happy dog!" said the second.</p> + +<p>Now the third man, remembering that he was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> philosopher, concluded +that he was wasting his imaginary time in hearing this endless old +game.</p> + +<p>"I must bid you good-day, gentlemen," said he, "for it seems to me +that you are disputing only about appearances, and are not likely to +arrive Somewhere or Anywhere. But I am seeking <i>das Ding an sich</i>."</p> + +<p>So he left them, and went on his way Nowhere. And I know not which of +the others won the game, but I think the second man had more pleasure +in playing it.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;"> +<img src="images/image_004.jpg" width="250" height="257" alt="Illustration" /> +</div> + + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/image_012.jpg" width="500" height="320" alt="Illustration" /> +</div> + +<h2><a name="THE_UNRULY_SPRITE" id="THE_UNRULY_SPRITE"></a>THE UNRULY SPRITE</h2> + +<h4>A PARTIAL FAIRY TALE</h4> +<p>There was once a man who was also a writer of books.</p> + +<p>The merit of his books lies beyond the horizon of this tale. No doubt +some of them were good, and some of them were bad, and some were +merely popular. But he was all the time trying to make them better, +for he was quite an honest man, and thankful that the world should +give him a living for his writing. Moreover, he found great delight in +the doing of it, which was something that did not enter into the +world's account—a kind of daily Christmas present in addition to his +wages.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span></p> + +<p>But the interesting thing about the man was that he had a clan or +train of little sprites attending him—small, delicate, aerial +creatures, who came and went around him at their pleasure, and showed +him wonderful things, and sang to him, and kept him from being +discouraged, and often helped him with his work.</p> + +<p>If you ask me what they were and where they came from, I must frankly +tell you that I do not know. Neither did the man know. Neither does +anybody else know.</p> + +<p>But the man had sense enough to understand that they were real—just +as real as any of the other mysterious things, like microbes, and +polonium, and chemical affinities, and the northern lights, by which +we are surrounded. Sometimes it seemed as if the sprites were the +children of the flowers that die in blooming; and sometimes as if they +came in a flock with the birds from the south; and sometimes as if +they rose one by one from the roots of the trees in the deep forest, +or from the waves of the sea when the moon lay upon them; and +sometimes as if they appeared suddenly in the streets of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> the city +after the people had passed by and the houses had gone to sleep. They +were as light as thistle-down, as unsubstantial as mists upon the +mountain, as wayward and flickering as will-o'-the-wisps. But there +was something immortal about them, and the man knew that the world +would be nothing to him without their presence and comradeship.</p> + +<p>Most of these attendant sprites were gentle and docile; but there was +one who had a strain of wildness in him. In his hand he carried a bow, +and at his shoulder a quiver of arrows, and he looked as if, some day +or other, he might be up to mischief.</p> + +<p>Now this man was much befriended by a certain lady, to whom he used to +bring his stories in order that she might tell him whether they were +good, or bad, or merely popular. But whatever she might think of the +stories, always she liked the man, and of the airy fluttering sprites +she grew so fond that it almost seemed as if they were her own +children. This was not unnatural, for they were devoted to her; they +turned the pages of her book when she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> read; they made her walks +through the forest pleasant and friendly; they lit lanterns for her in +the dark; they brought flowers to her and sang to her, as well as to +the man. Of this he was glad, because of his great friendship for the +lady and his desire to see her happy.</p> + +<p>But one day she complained to him of the sprite who carried the bow. +"He is behaving badly," said she; "he teases me."</p> + +<p>"That surprises me," said the man, "and I am distressed to hear it; +for at heart he is rather good, and to you he is deeply attached. But +how does he tease you, dear lady? What does he do?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing," she answered, "and that is what annoys me. The others +are all busy with your affairs or mine. But this idle one follows me +like my shadow, and looks at me all the time. It is not at all polite. +I fear he has a vacant mind and has not been well brought up."</p> + +<p>"That may easily be," said the man, "for he came to me very suddenly +one day, and I have never inquired about his education."</p> + +<p>"But you ought to do so," said she; "it is your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> duty to have him +taught to know his place, and not to tease, and other useful lessons."</p> + +<p>"You are always right," said the man, "and it shall be just as you +say."</p> + +<p>On the way home he talked seriously to the sprite, and told him how +impolite he had been, and arranged a plan for his schooling in botany, +diplomacy, music, psychology, deportment, and other useful studies.</p> + +<p>The rest of the sprites came in to the school-room every day, to get +some of the profitable lessons. They sat around quiet and orderly, so +that it was quite like a kindergarten. But the principal pupil was +restless and troublesome.</p> + +<p>"You are never still," said the man; "you have an idle mind and +wandering thoughts."</p> + +<p>"No!" said the sprite, shaking his head. "It is true, my mind is not +on my lessons. But my thoughts do not wander at all. They always +follow yours."</p> + +<p>Then the man stopped talking, and the other sprites laughed behind +their hands. But the one who had been reproved went on drawing +pictures in the back of his botany book. The face in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> pictures was +always the same, but none of them seemed to satisfy him, for he always +rubbed them out and began over again.</p> + +<p>After several weeks of hard work the master thought his pupil must +have learned something, so he gave him a holiday, and asked him what +he would like to do.</p> + +<p>"Go with you," he answered, "when you take her your new stories."</p> + +<p>So they went together, and the lady complimented the writer on his +success as an educator.</p> + +<p>"Your pupil does you credit," said she; "he talks very nicely about +botany and deportment. But I am a little troubled to see him looking +so pale. Perhaps you have been too severe with him. I must take him +out in the garden with me every day to play a while."</p> + +<p>"You have a kind heart," said the man, "and I hope he will appreciate +it."</p> + +<p>This agreeable and amicable life continued for some weeks, and +everybody was glad that affairs had arranged themselves. But one day +the lady brought a new complaint.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span></p> + +<p>"He is a strange little creature, and he has begun to annoy me in the +most extraordinary way."</p> + +<p>"That is bad," said the man. "What does he do now?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing," she answered, "and that is just the trouble. When I +want to talk about you, he refuses, and says he does not like you as +much as he used to. When I propose to play a game, he says he is tired +and would rather sit under a tree and hear stories. When I tell them +he says they do not suit him, they all end happily, and that is +stupid. He is very perverse. But he clings to me like a bur. He is +always teasing me to tell him the name of every flower in my garden +and give him one of every kind."</p> + +<p>"Is he rude about it?"</p> + +<p>"Not exactly rude, but he is all the more annoying because he is so +polite, and I always feel that he wants something different."</p> + +<p>"He must not do that," said the man. "He must learn to want what you +wish."</p> + +<p>"But how can he learn what I wish? I do not always know that myself."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It may be difficult," said the man, "but all the same he must learn +it for your sake. I will deal with him."</p> + +<p>So he took the unruly sprite out into the desert and gave him a sound +beating with thorn branches. The blood ran down the poor little +creature's arms and legs, and the tears down the man's cheeks. But the +only words that he said were: "You must learn to want what she +wishes—do you hear?—you must want what she wishes." At last the +sprite whimpered and said: "Yes, I hear; I will wish what she wants." +Then the man stopped beating him, and went back to his house, and +wrote a little story that was really good.</p> + +<p>But the sprite lay on his face in the desert for a long time, sobbing +as if his heart would break. Then he fell asleep and laughed in his +dreams. When he awoke it was night and the moon was shining silver. He +rubbed his eyes and whispered to himself: "Now I must find out what +she wants." With that he leaped up, and the moonbeams washed him white +as he passed through them to the lady's house.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span></p> + +<p>The next afternoon, when the man came to read her the really good +story, she would not listen.</p> + +<p>"No," she said, "I am very angry with you."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"You know well enough."</p> + +<p>"Upon my honour, I do not."</p> + +<p>"What?" cried the lady. "You profess ignorance, when he distinctly +said——"</p> + +<p>"Pardon," said the man; "but <i>who</i> said?"</p> + +<p>"Your unruly sprite," she answered, indignant. "He came last night +outside my window, which was wide open for the moon, and shot an arrow +into my breast—a little baby arrow, but it hurt. And when I cried out +for the pain, he climbed up to me and kissed the place, saying that +would make it well. And he swore that you made him promise to come. If +that is true, I will never speak to you again."</p> + +<p>"Then of course," said the man, "it is not true. And now what do you +want me to do with this unruly sprite?"</p> + +<p>"Get rid of him," said she firmly.</p> + +<p>"I will," replied the man, and he bowed over her hand and went away.</p> + +<p>He stayed for a long time—nearly a week—and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> when he came back he +brought several sad verses with him to read. "They are very dull," +said the lady; "what is the matter with you?" He confessed that he did +not know, and began to talk learnedly about the Greek and Persian +poets, until the lady was consumed with a fever of dullness.</p> + +<p>"You are simply impossible!" she cried. "I wonder at myself for having +chosen such a friend!"</p> + +<p>"I am sorry indeed," said the man.</p> + +<p>"For what?"</p> + +<p>"For having disappointed you as a friend, and also for having lost my +dear unruly sprite who kept me from being dull."</p> + +<p>"Lost him!" exclaimed the lady. "How?"</p> + +<p>"By now," said the man, "he must be quite dead, for I tied him to a +tree in the forest five days ago and left him to starve."</p> + +<p>"You are a brute," said the lady, "and a very stupid man. Come, take +me to the tree. At least we can bury the poor sprite, and then we +shall part forever."</p> + +<p>So he took her by the hand and guided her through the woods, and they +talked much of the sadness of parting forever.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/image_013.jpg" width="400" height="617" alt="The Unruly Sprite." /> +<span class="caption">The Unruly Sprite.</span> +</div> + +<p>When they came to the tree, there was the little sprite, with his +wrists and ankles bound, lying upon the moss. His eyes were closed, +and his body was white as a snowdrop. They knelt down, one on each +side of him, and untied the cord. To their surprise his hands felt +warm. "I believe he is not quite dead," said the lady. "Shall we try +to bring him to life?" asked the man. And with that they fell to +chafing his wrists and his palms. Presently he gave each of them a +slight pressure of the fingers.</p> + +<p>"Did you feel that?" cried she.</p> + +<p>"Indeed I did," the man answered. "It shook me to the core. Would you +like to take him on your lap so that I can chafe his feet?"</p> + +<p>The lady nodded and took the soft little body on her knees and held it +close to her, while the man kneeled before her rubbing the small, +milk-white feet with strong and tender touches. Presently, as they +were thus engaged, they heard the sprite faintly whispering, while one +of his eyelids flickered:</p> + +<p>"I think—if each of you—would kiss me—on opposite cheeks—at the +same moment—those kind of movements would revive me."</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p> + +<p>The two friends looked at each other, and the man spoke first.</p> + +<p>"He talks ungrammatically, and I think he is an incorrigible little +savage, but I love him. Shall we try his idea?"</p> + +<p>"If you love him," said the lady, "I am willing to try, provided you +shut your eyes."</p> + +<p>So they both shut their eyes and tried.</p> + +<p>But just at that moment the unruly sprite slipped down, and put his +hands behind their heads, and the two mouths that sought his cheeks +met lip to lip in a kiss so warm, so long, so sweet that everything +else was forgotten.</p> + +<p>Now you can easily see that as the persons who had this strange +experience were the ones who told me the tale, their forgetfulness at +this point leaves it of necessity half-told. But I know from other +sources that the man who was also a writer went on making books, and +the lady always told him truly whether they were good, or bad, or +merely popular. But what the unruly sprite is doing now nobody knows.</p> + + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/image_014.jpg" width="500" height="388" alt="Illustration" /> +</div> + +<h2><a name="A_CHANGE_OF_AIR" id="A_CHANGE_OF_AIR"></a>A CHANGE OF AIR</h2> + + +<p>There were three neighbours who lived side by side in a certain +village. They were bound together by the contiguousness of their back +yards and front porches, and by a community of interest in taxes and +water-rates and the high cost of living. They were separated by their +religious opinions; for one of them was a Mystic, and the second was a +Sceptic, and the other was a suppressed Dyspeptic who called himself +an Asthmatic.</p> + +<p>These differences were very dear to them, and laid the foundations of +a lasting friendship in a nervous habit of interminable argument on +all pos<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>sible subjects. Their wives did not share in these +disputations because they were resolved to be neighbourly, and they +could not conceive a difference of opinion without a personal +application. So they called one another Clara and Caroline and +Katharine, and kissed audibly whenever they met, but they were careful +to confine their conversation to topics upon which they had only one +mind, such as the ingratitude of domestic servants.</p> + +<p>The husbands, however, as often as they could get together without the +mollifying influence of the feminine presence, continued their debates +with delightful ferocity, finding matter in each event of life, though +clear, and especially in those which had not yet occurred. So they had +a very happy time, and their friendship deepened from day to day.</p> + +<p>"I can see your point of view," one of them would say, after an +apparently harmless proposition had been advanced. "Perhaps so," the +other would reply, clinging desperately to the advantage of the first +service in definitions, "but you certainly do not understand it."</p> + +<p>Whereupon the third had the pleasure of show<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>ing that neither of the +others knew what he was talking about. This invariably resulted in +their combining against him, and usually to his gain, because he was +able to profit by the inconsistencies of their double play.</p> + +<p>But of all earthly pleasures, as Sancho Panza said, there cometh in +the end satiety. The neighbours, after several years of refreshing +colloquial combat, felt an alarming decline of virility and the +approach of an anæmic peace. Their arguments grew monotonous, remote, +repetitious, amounting to little more than a bald statement of +position: "Here I stand"—"There you stand"—"There he stands,"—"What +is the use of talking about it?" The salt and pepper had vanished from +their table of conversation, and as each man silently chewed his own +favourite cereal, they all felt as if the banqueting-days were ended +and each must say to the others:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Grow old apart from me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The worst is yet to be."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>One night as they were about to separate, long before midnight, +without a single spirited contro<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>versy, they looked at one another +sadly, as men who felt the approach of a common misfortune.</p> + +<p>"The trouble is," said the Mystic, who disliked nothing so much as +solitude, "we do not meditate enough, and so the springs of our +inspiration from the Oversoul are running dry."</p> + +<p>"The trouble is," said the Sceptic, whose doubts were more dogmatic +than dogmas, "that our fixed ideas are choking the feed-pipes of our +minds."</p> + +<p>"The trouble is," wheezed the Asthmatic, whose suppressed dyspepsia +gave him an enormous appetite, "modern life is demoralised, especially +in domestic service. In the last month my wife has had five cooks, and +she whom she now has is not a cook. Hygiene is the basis of sound +thinking."</p> + +<p>This sudden and unexpected renewal of the joy of disputation cheered +them greatly, and they discussed it for several hours, arriving, as +usual, at the same practical conclusions from the most diverse +premises.</p> + +<p>They all agreed that the trouble <i>was</i>.</p> + +<p>To cure it nothing could be better than a change of air. So they +resolved to make a little journey together.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span></p> + +<p>They went first to New York, and the size of it impressed them +immensely. The Sceptic was delighted with the Cathedral of St. John +the Divine, because, as he said, it was so unmistakably human. The +Mystic was delighted with the theatres, because, as he said, most of +the plays seemed so super-human. The Asthmatic was delighted with the +subway, because, as he said, the ventilation was so satisfactory. It +was like eating bread-pudding on a steam-boat; you knew exactly what +you were getting; all the microbes were blended, and they neutralised +each other.</p> + +<p>Their next point of visitation was Chicago, where they had heard that +a new Literary School was arising with a noise like thunder out of the +lake. They attended many club-meetings, and revolved rapidly in the +highest literary circles, coming around invariably to the point from +which they had started.</p> + +<p>"This is tiresome," said the Mystic; "the Oversoul is not in it."</p> + +<p>"It is narrowing," said the Sceptic; "these people are the most +bigoted unbelievers I ever saw."</p> + +<p>"It is unwholesome," said the Asthmatic, "but I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> think I could digest +the stuff if I could only breathe more easily. This wind is too strong +for me."</p> + +<p>So they agreed to go to Philadelphia for a rest. The clerk in the +colonial hotel to which they repaired assured them that the house was +crowded—he had only one room, a parlour, which he could fit up with +three beds if they would accept it.</p> + +<p>The room was large and old-fashioned. A tall bookcase with glass doors +stood against the wall. The three beds were arranged, side by side, in +the middle of the room. "This is like home," cried the neighbours, and +they lay until midnight in a sweet ferocity of dispute over the moral +character of Benjamin Franklin.</p> + +<p>A couple of hours later the Asthmatic was awakened from a sound sleep +by a terrible attack of short breathing.</p> + +<p>"Open the window," he gasped; "I am choking to death."</p> + +<p>The Mystic sprang from bed and groped along the wall for the +electric-light button, but could not find it. Then he groped for the +window and his hand touched the glass.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It is fastened," he cried; "I can't find the catch. It will not move +up or down."</p> + +<p>"I shall die," groaned the Asthmatic, "unless I have air. Break the +window-pane!"</p> + +<p>So the Mystic felt for the footstool, over which he had just stubbed +his toes, and used the corner of it to smash the glass.</p> + +<p>"Ah," said the Asthmatic, with a long sigh of relief, "I am better. +There is nothing like fresh air."</p> + +<p>Then they all went to sleep again.</p> + +<p>The morning roused them slowly, and they lay on their backs looking +around the room. The windows were closed and the shades drawn.</p> + +<p>But the glass door of the bookcase had a great hole in it!</p> + +<p>"You see!" said the Mystic. "It was the faith cure. The Oversoul cured +you."</p> + +<p>"Not at all," said the Sceptic. "It was the doubt cure. The way to get +rid of a thing is to doubt it."</p> + +<p>"I think," said the Asthmatic, "that it was the nightmare, and that +miscellaneous cooking is the cause of human misery. We have travelled +enough,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> and yet we have found no better air than we left at home."</p> + +<p>So they went back to the certain village and continued their +disputations very happily for the rest of their lives.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/image_015.jpg" width="500" height="266" alt="Illustration" /> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="THE_NIGHT_CALL" id="THE_NIGHT_CALL"></a>THE NIGHT CALL</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>The first caprice of November snow had sketched the world in white for +an hour in the morning. After mid-day, the sun came out, the wind +turned warm, and the whiteness vanished from the landscape. By +evening, the low ridges and the long plain of New Jersey were rich and +sad again, in russet and dull crimson and old gold; for the foliage +still clung to the oaks and elms and birches, and the dying monarchy +of autumn retreated slowly before winter's cold republic.</p> + +<p>In the old town of Calvinton, stretched along the highroad, the lamps +were lit early as the saffron sunset faded into humid night. A mist +rose from the long, wet street and the sodden lawns, muffling the +houses and the trees and the college towers with a double veil, under +which a pallid aureole encircled every light, while the moon above, +languid and tearful, waded slowly through the mounting fog. It was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> a +night of delay and expectation, a night of remembrance and mystery, +lonely and dim and full of strange, dull sounds.</p> + +<p>In one of the smaller houses on the main street the light in the +window burned late. Leroy Carmichael was alone in his office reading +Balzac's story of "The Country Doctor." He was not a gloomy or +despondent person, but the spirit of the night had entered into him. +He had yielded himself, as young men of ardent temperament often do, +to the subduing magic of the fall. In his mind, as in the air, there +was a soft, clinging mist, and blurred lights of thought, and a still +foreboding of change. A sense of the vast tranquil movement of Nature, +of her sympathy and of her indifference, sank deeply into his heart. +For a time he realised that all things, and he, too, some day, must +grow old; and he felt the universal pathos of it more sensitively, +perhaps, than he would ever feel it again.</p> + +<p>If you had told Carmichael that this was what he was thinking about as +he sat in his bachelor quarters on that November night, he would have +stared at you and then laughed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Nonsense," he would have answered, cheerfully. "I'm no +sentimentalist: only a bit tired by a hard afternoon's work and a +rough ride home. Then, Balzac always depresses me a little. The next +time I'll take some quinine and Dumas: he is a tonic."</p> + +<p>But, in fact, no one came in to interrupt his musings and rouse him to +that air of cheerfulness with which he always faced the world, and to +which, indeed (though he did not know it), he owed some measure of his +delay in winning the confidence of Calvinton.</p> + +<p>He had come there some five years ago with a particularly good outfit +to practice medicine in that quaint and alluring old burgh, full of +antique hand-made furniture and traditions. He had not only been well +trained for his profession in the best medical school and hospital of +New York, but he was also a graduate of Calvinton College (in which +his father had been a professor for a time), and his granduncle was a +Grubb, a name high in the Golden Book of Calvintonian aristocracy and +inscribed upon tombstones in every village within a radius of fifteen +miles. Consequently the young doctor arrived well<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> accredited, and was +received in his first year with many tokens of hospitality in the +shape of tea-parties and suppers.</p> + +<p>But the final and esoteric approval of Calvinton was a thing apart +from these mere fashionable courtesies and worldly amenities—a thing +not to be bestowed without due consideration and satisfactory reasons. +Leroy Carmichael failed, somehow or other, to come up to the +requirements for a leading physician in such a conservative community. +In the judgment of Calvinton he was a clever young man; but he lacked +poise and gravity. He walked too lightly along the streets, swinging +his stick, and greeting his acquaintances blithely, as if he were +rather glad to be alive. Now this is a sentiment, if you analyse it, +near akin to vanity, and, therefore, to be discountenanced in your +neighbour and concealed in yourself. How can a man be glad that he is +alive, and frankly show it, without a touch of conceit and a +reprehensible forgetfulness of the presence of original sin even in +the best families? The manners of a professional man, above all, +should at once express and impose humility.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span></p> + +<p>Young Dr. Carmichael, Calvinton said, had been spoiled by his life in +New York. It had made him too gay, light-hearted, almost frivolous. It +was possible that he might know a good deal about medicine, though +doubtless that had been exaggerated; but it was certain that his +temperament needed chastening before he could win the kind of +confidence that Calvinton had given to the venerable Dr. Coffin, whose +face was like a monument, and whose practice rested upon the two +pillars of podophyllin and predestination.</p> + +<p>So Carmichael still felt, after his five years' work, that he was an +outsider; felt it rather more indeed than when he had first come. He +had enough practice to keep him in good health and spirits. But his +patients were along the side streets and in the smaller houses and out +in the country. He was not called, except in a chance emergency, to +the big houses with the white pillars. The inner circle had not yet +taken him in.</p> + +<p>He wondered how long he would have to work and wait for that. He knew +that things in Calvinton moved slowly; but he knew also that its +silent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> and subconscious judgments sometimes crystallised with +incredible rapidity and hardness. Was it possible that he was already +classified in the group that came near but did not enter, an +inhabitant but not a real burgher, a half-way citizen and a lifelong +new-comer? That would be rough; he would not like growing old in that +way.</p> + +<p>But perhaps there was no such invisible barrier hemming in his path. +Perhaps it was only the naturally slow movement of things that +hindered him. Some day the gate would open. He would be called in +behind those white pillars into the world of which his father had +often told him stories and traditions. There he would prove his skill +and his worth. He would make himself useful and trusted by his work. +Then he could marry the girl he loved, and win a firm place and a real +home in the old town whose strange charm held him so strongly even in +the vague sadness of this autumnal night.</p> + +<p>He turned again from these musings to his Balzac, and read the +wonderful pages in which Benassis tells the story of his consecration +to his profession and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> Captain Genestas confides the little Adrien to +his care, and then the beautiful letter in which the boy describes the +country doctor's death and burial. The simple pathos of it went home +to Carmichael's heart.</p> + +<p>"It is a fine life, after all," said he to himself, as he shut the +book at midnight and laid down his pipe. "No man has a better chance +than a doctor to come close to the real thing. Human nature is his +patient, and each case is a symptom. It's worth while to work for the +sake of getting nearer to the reality and doing some definite good by +the way. I'm glad that this isn't one of those mystical towns where +Christian Science and Buddhism and all sorts of vagaries flourish. +Calvinton may be difficult, but it's not obscure. And some day I'll +feel its pulse and get at the heart of it."</p> + +<p>The silence of the little office was snapped by the nervous clamour of +the electric bell, shrilling with a night call.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span></p> +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Dr. Carmichael turned on the light in the hall, and opened the front +door. A tall, dark man of military aspect loomed out of the mist, and, +behind him, at the curbstone, the outline of a big motorcar was dimly +visible. He held out a visiting-card inscribed "Baron de Mortemer," +and spoke slowly and courteously, but with a strong nasal accent and a +tone of insistent domination.</p> + +<p>"You are the Dr. Carmichael, yes? You speak French—no? It is a pity. +There is need of you at once—a patient—it is very pressing. You will +come with me, yes?"</p> + +<p>"But I do not know you, sir," said the doctor; "you are——"</p> + +<p>"The Baron de Mortemer," broke in the stranger, pointing to the card +as if it answered all questions. "It is the Baroness who is very +suffering—I pray you to come without delay."</p> + +<p>"But what is it?" asked the doctor. "What shall I bring with me? My +instrument-case?"</p> + +<p>The Baron smiled with his lips and frowned with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> his eyes. "Not at +all," he said, "Madame expects not an arrival—it is not so bad as +that—but she has had a sudden access of anguish—she has demanded +you. I pray you to come at the instant. Bring what pleases you, what +you think best, but come!"</p> + +<p>The man's manner was not agitated, but it was strangely urgent, +overpowering, constraining; his voice was like a pushing hand. +Carmichael threw on his coat and hat, hastily picked up his +medicine-satchel and a portable electric battery, and followed the +Baron to the motor.</p> + +<p>The great car started easily and rolled softly purring down the +deserted street. The houses were all asleep, and the college buildings +dark as empty fortresses. The moon-threaded mist clung closely to the +town like a shroud of gauze, not concealing the form beneath, but +making its immobility more mysterious. The trees drooped and dripped +with moisture, and the leaves seemed ready, almost longing, to fall at +a touch. It was one of those nights when the solid things of the +world, the houses and the hills and the woods and the very earth +itself, grow unreal to the point of vanishing; while the impalpable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> +things, the presences of life and death which travel on the unseen +air, the influences of the far-off starry lights, the silent messages +and presentiments of darkness, the ebb and flow of vast currents of +secret existence all around us, seem so close and vivid that they +absorb and overwhelm us with their intense reality.</p> + +<p>Through this realm of indistinguishable verity and illusion, strangely +imposed upon the familiar, homely street of Calvinton, the machine ran +smoothly, faintly humming, as the Frenchman drove it with +master-skill—itself a dream of embodied power and speed. Gliding by +the last cottages of Town's End where the street became the highroad, +the car ran swiftly through the open country for a mile until it came +to a broad entrance. The gate was broken from the leaning posts and +thrown to one side. Here the machine turned in and laboured up a +rough, grass-grown carriage-drive.</p> + +<p>Carmichael knew that they were at Castle Gordon, one of the "old +places" of Calvinton, which he often passed on his country drives. The +house stood well back from the road, on a slight elevation, looking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> +down over the oval field that was once a lawn, and the scattered elms +and pines and Norway firs that did their best to preserve the memory +of a noble plantation. The building was colonial; heavy stone walls +covered with yellow stucco; tall white wooden pillars ranged along a +narrow portico; a style which seemed to assert that a Greek temple was +good enough for the residence of an American gentleman. But the clean +buff and white of the house had long since faded. The stucco had +cracked, and, here and there, had fallen from the stones. The paint on +the pillars was dingy, peeling in round blisters and narrow strips +from the grey wood underneath. The trees were ragged and untended, the +grass uncut, the driveway overgrown with weeds and gullied by +rains—the whole place looked forsaken. Carmichael had always supposed +that it was vacant. But he had not passed that way for nearly a month, +and, meantime, it might have been reopened and tenanted.</p> + +<p>The Baron drove the car around to the back of the house and stopped +there.</p> + +<p>"Pardon," said he, "that I bring you not to the door of entrance; but +this is the more convenient."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span></p> + +<p>He knocked hurriedly and spoke a few words in French. The key grated +in the lock and the door creaked open. A withered, wiry little man, +dressed in dark grey, stood holding a lighted candle, which flickered +in the draught. His head was nearly bald; his sallow, hairless face +might have been of any age from twenty to a hundred years; his eyes +between their narrow red lids were glittering and inscrutable as those +of a snake. As he bowed and grinned, showing his yellow, broken teeth, +Carmichael thought that he had never seen a more evil face or one more +clearly marked with the sign of the drug-fiend.</p> + +<p>"My chauffeur, Gaspard," said the Baron, "also my valet, my cook, my +chambermaid, my man to do all, what you call factotum, is it not? But +he speaks not English, so pardon me once more."</p> + +<p>He spoke a few words to the man, who shrugged his shoulders and smiled +with the same deferential grimace while his unchanging eyes gleamed +through their slits. Carmichael caught only the word "Madame" while he +was slipping off his overcoat, and understood that they were talking +of his patient.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Come," said the Baron, "he says that it goes better, at least not +worse—that is always something. Let us mount at the instant."</p> + +<p>The hall was bare, except for a table on which a kitchen lamp was +burning, and two chairs with heavy automobile coats and rugs and veils +thrown upon them. The stairway was uncarpeted, and the dust lay thick +under the banisters. At the door of the back room on the second floor +the Baron paused and knocked softly. A low voice answered, and he went +in, beckoning the doctor to follow.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>If Carmichael lived to be a hundred he could never forget that first +impression. The room was but partly furnished, yet it gave at once the +idea that it was inhabited; it was even, in some strange way, rich and +splendid. Candles on the mantelpiece and a silver travelling-lamp on +the dressing-table threw a soft light on little articles of luxury, +and photographs in jewelled frames, and a couple of well-bound books, +and a gilt clock marking the half-hour<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> after midnight. A wood fire +burned in the wide chimney-place, and before it a rug was spread. At +one side there was a huge mahogany four-post bedstead, and there, +propped up by the pillows, lay the noblest-looking woman that +Carmichael had ever seen.</p> + +<p>She was dressed in some clinging stuff of soft black, with a diamond +at her breast, and a deep-red cloak thrown over her feet. She must +have been past middle age, for her thick, brown hair was already +touched with silver, and one lock of snow-white lay above her +forehead. But her face was one of those which time enriches; fearless +and tender and high-spirited, a speaking face in which the dark-lashed +grey eyes were like words of wonder and the sensitive mouth like a +clear song. She looked at the young doctor and held out her hand to +him.</p> + +<p>"I am glad to see you," she said, in her low, pure voice, "very glad! +You are Roger Carmichael's son. Oh, I am glad to see you indeed."</p> + +<p>"You are very kind," he answered, "and I am glad also to be of any +service to you, though I do not yet know who you are."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span></p> + +<p>The Baron was bending over the fire rearranging the logs on the +andirons. He looked up sharply and spoke in his strong nasal tone.</p> + +<p>"<i>Pardon! Madame la Baronne de Mortemer, j'ai l'honneur de vous +presenter Monsieur le Docteur Carmichael.</i>"</p> + +<p>The accent on the "doctor" was marked. A slight shadow came upon the +lady's face. She answered, quietly:</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know. The doctor has come to see me because I was ill. We will +talk of that in a moment. But first I want to tell him who I am—and +by another name. Dr. Carmichael, did your father ever speak to you of +Jean Gordon?"</p> + +<p>"Why, yes," he said, after an instant of thought, "it comes back to me +now quite clearly. She was the young girl to whom he taught Latin when +he first came here as a college instructor. He was very fond of her. +There was one of her books in his library—I have it now—a little +volume of Horace, with a few translations in verse written on the +fly-leaves, and her name on the title-page—Jean Gordon. My father +wrote under that, 'My best pupil,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> who left her lessons unfinished.' +He was very fond of the book, and so I kept it when he died."</p> + +<p>The lady's eyes grew moist, but the tears did not fall. They trembled +in her voice.</p> + +<p>"I was that Jean Gordon—a girl of fifteen—your father was the best +man I ever knew. You look like him, but he was handsomer than you. Ah, +no, I was not his best pupil, but his most wilful and ungrateful one. +Did he never tell you of my running away—of the unjust suspicions +that fell on him—of his voyage to Europe?"</p> + +<p>"Never," answered Carmichael. "He only spoke, as I remember, of your +beauty and your brightness, and of the good times that you all had +when this old house was in its prime."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes," she said, quickly and with strong feeling, "they were good +times, and he was a man of honour. He never took an unfair advantage, +never boasted of a woman's favour, never tried to spare himself. He +was an American man. I hope you are like him."</p> + +<p>The Baron, who had been leaning on the mantel, crossed the room +impatiently and stood beside the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> bed. He spoke in French again, +dragging the words in his insistent, masterful voice, as if they were +something heavy which he laid upon his wife.</p> + +<p>Her grey eyes grew darker, almost black, with enlarging pupils. She +raised herself on the pillows as if about to get up. Then she sank +back again and said, with an evident effort:</p> + +<p>"René, I must beg you not to speak in French again. The doctor does +not understand it. We must be more courteous. And now I will tell him +about my sudden illness to-night. It was the first time—like a flash +of lightning—an ice-cold hand of pain——"</p> + +<p>Even as she spoke a swift and dreadful change passed over her face. +Her colour vanished in a morbid pallor; a cold sweat lay like +death-dew on her forehead; her eyes were fixed on some impending +horror; her lips, blue and rigid, were strained with an unspeakable, +intolerable anguish. Her left arm stiffened as if it were gripped in a +vise of pain. Her right hand fluttered over her heart, plucking at an +unseen weight. It seemed as if an invisible, silent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> death-wind were +quenching the flame of her life. It flickered in an agony of +strangulation.</p> + +<p>"Be quick," cried the doctor; "lay her head lower on the pillows, +loosen her dress, warm her hands."</p> + +<p>He had caught up his satchel, and was looking for a little vial. He +found it almost empty. But there were four or five drops of the +yellowish, oily liquid. He poured them on his handkerchief and held it +close to the lady's mouth. She was still breathing regularly though +slowly, and as she inhaled the pungent, fruity smell, like the odour +of a jargonelle pear, a look of relief flowed over her face, her +breathing deepened, her arm and her lips relaxed, the terror faded +from her eyes.</p> + +<p>He went to his satchel again and took out a bottle of white tablets +marked "Nitroglycerin." He gave her one of them, and when he saw her +look of peace grow steadier, after a minute, he prepared the electric +battery. Softly he passed the sponges charged with their mysterious +current over her temples and her neck and down her slender arms and +blue-veined wrists, holding them for a while in the palms of her +hands, which grew rosy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span></p> + +<p>In all this the Baron had helped as he could, and watched closely, but +without a word. He was certainly not indifferent; neither was he +distressed; the expression of his black eyes and heavy, passionless +face was that of presence of mind, self-control covering an intense +curiosity. Carmichael conceived a vague sentiment of dislike for the +man.</p> + +<p>When the patient rested easily they stepped outside the room together +for a moment.</p> + +<p>"It is the <i>angina</i>, I suppose," droned the Baron, "hein? That is of +great inconvenience. But I think it is the false one, that is much +less grave—not truly dangerous, hein?"</p> + +<p>"My dear sir," answered Carmichael, "who can tell the difference +between a false and a true <i>angina pectoris</i>, except by a post-mortem? +The symptoms are much alike, the result is sometimes identical, if the +paroxysm is severe enough. But in this case I hope that you may be +right. Your wife's illness is severe, dangerous, but not necessarily +fatal. This attack has passed and may not recur for months or even +years."</p> + +<p>The lip-smile came back under the Baron's sullen eyes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Those are the good news, my dear doctor," said he, slowly. "Then we +shall be able to travel soon, perhaps to-morrow or the next day. It is +of an extreme importance. This place is insufferable to me. We have +engagements in Washington—a gay season."</p> + +<p>Carmichael looked at him steadily and spoke with deliberation.</p> + +<p>"Baron, you must understand me clearly. This is a serious case. If I +had not come in time your wife might be dead now. She cannot possibly +be moved for a week, perhaps it may take a month fully to restore her +strength. After that she must have a winter of absolute quiet and +repose."</p> + +<p>The Frenchman's face hardened; his brows drew together in a black +line, and he lifted his hand quickly with a gesture of irritation. +Then he bowed.</p> + +<p>"As you will, doctor! And for the present moment, what is it that I +may have the honour to do for your patient?"</p> + +<p>"Just now," said the doctor, "she needs a stimulant—a glass of sherry +or of brandy, if you have it—and a hot-water bag—you have none? +Well, then, a couple of bottles filled with hot water and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> wrapped in +a cloth to put at her feet. Can you get them?"</p> + +<p>The Baron bowed again, and went down the stairs. As Carmichael +returned to the bedroom he heard the droning, insistent voice below +calling "Gaspard, Gaspard!"</p> + +<p>The great grey eyes were open as he entered the room, and there was a +sense of release from pain and fear in them that was like the deepest +kind of pleasure.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am much better," said she; "the attack has passed. Will it +come again? No? Not soon, you mean. Well, that is good. You need not +tell me what it is—time enough for that to-morrow. But come and sit +by me. I want to talk to you. Your first name is——"</p> + +<p>"Leroy," he answered. "But you are weak; you must not talk much."</p> + +<p>"Only a little," she replied, smiling; "it does me good. Leroy was +your mother's name—yes? It is not a Calvinton name. I wonder where +your father met her. Perhaps in France when he came to look for me. +But he did not find me—no, indeed—I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> was well hidden then—but he +found your mother. You are young enough to be my son. Will you be a +friend to me for your father's sake?"</p> + +<p>She spoke gently, in a tone of infinite kindness and tender grace, +with pauses in which a hundred unspoken recollections and appeals were +suggested. The young man was deeply moved. He took her hand in his +firm clasp.</p> + +<p>"Gladly," he said, "and for your sake too. But now I want you to +rest."</p> + +<p>"Oh," she answered, "I am resting now. But let me talk a little more. +It will not harm me. I have been through so much! Twice married—a +great fortune to spend—all that the big world can give. But now I am +very tired of the whirl. There is only one thing I want—to stay here +in Calvinton. I rebelled against it once; but it draws me back. There +is a strange magic in the place. Haven't you felt it? How do you +explain it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "I have felt it surely, but I can't explain it, unless +it is a kind of ancient peace that makes you wish to be at home here +even while you rebel."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span></p> + +<p>She nodded her head and smiled softly.</p> + +<p>"That is it," she said, hesitating for a moment. "But my husband—you +see he is a very strong man, and he loves the world, the whirling +life—he took a dislike to this place at once. No wonder, with the +house in such a state! But I have plenty of money—it will be easy to +restore the house. Only, sometimes I think he cares more for the money +than—but no matter what I think. He wishes to go on at +once—to-morrow, if we can. I hate the thought of it. Is it possible +for me to stay? Can you help me?"</p> + +<p>"Dear lady," he answered, lifting her hand to his lips, "set your mind +at rest. I have already told him that it is impossible for you to go +for many days. You can arrange to move to the inn to-morrow, and stay +there while you direct the putting of your house in order."</p> + +<p>A sound in the hallway announced the return of the Baron and Gaspard +with the hot-water bottles and the cognac. The doctor made his patient +as comfortable as possible for the night, prepared a sleeping-draught, +and gave directions for the use of the tablets in an emergency.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Good night," he said, bending over her. "I will see you in the +morning. You may count upon me."</p> + +<p>"I do," she said, with her eyes resting on his; "thank you for all. I +shall expect you—<i>au revoir</i>."</p> + +<p>As they went down the stairs he said to the Baron, "Remember, absolute +repose is necessary. With that you are safe enough for to-night. But +you may possibly need more of the nitrite of amyl. My vial is empty. I +will write the prescription, if you will allow me."</p> + +<p>"In the dining-room," said the Baron, taking up the lamp and throwing +open the door of the back room on the right. The floor had been +hastily swept and the rubbish shoved into the fireplace. The heavy +chairs stood along the wall. But two of them were drawn up at the head +of the long mahogany table, and dishes and table utensils from a +travelling-basket were lying there, as if a late supper had been +served.</p> + +<p>"You see," said the Baron, drawling, "our banquet-hall! Madame and I +have dined in this splendour to-night. Is it possible that you write +here?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span></p> + +<p>His secret irritation, his insolence, his contempt spoke clearly +enough in his tone. The remark was almost like an intentional insult. +For a second Carmichael hesitated. "No," he thought, "why should I +quarrel with him? He is only sullen. He can do no harm."</p> + +<p>He pulled a chair to the foot of the table, took out his tablet and +his fountain-pen, and wrote the prescription. Tearing off the leaf, he +folded it crosswise and left it on the table.</p> + +<p>In the hall, as he put on his coat he remembered the paper.</p> + +<p>"My prescription," he said, "I must take it to the druggist to-night."</p> + +<p>"Permit me," said the Baron, "the room is dark. I will take the paper, +and procure the drug as I return from escorting the doctor to his +residence."</p> + +<p>He went into the dark room, groped about for a moment, and returned, +closing the door behind him.</p> + +<p>"Come, Monsieur," he said, "your work at the Château Gordon is +finished for this night. I shall leave you with yourself—at home, as +you say—in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> few moments. Gaspard—Gaspard, <i>fermez la porte à +clé</i>!"</p> + +<p>The strong nasal voice echoed through the house, and the servant ran +lightly down the stairs. His master muttered a few sentences to him, +holding up his right hand as he did so, with the five fingers +extended, as if to impress something on the man's mind.</p> + +<p>"Pardon," he said, turning to Carmichael, "that I speak always French, +after the rebuke. But this time it is of necessity. I repeat the +instruction for the pilules. One at each hour until eight +o'clock—five, not more—it is correct? Come, then, our equipage is +always harnessed, always ready, how convenient!"</p> + +<p>The two men did not speak as the car rolled through the brumous night. +A rising wind was sifting the fog. The moon had set. The loosened +leaves came whirling, fluttering, sinking through the darkness like a +flight of huge dying moths. Now and then they brushed the faces of the +travellers with limp, moist wings.</p> + +<p>The red night-lamp in the drug-store was still<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> burning. Carmichael +called the other's attention to it.</p> + +<p>"You have the prescription?"</p> + +<p>"Without doubt!" he answered. "After I have escorted you, I shall +procure the drug."</p> + +<p>The doctor's front door was lit up as he had left it. The light +streamed out rather brightly and illumined the Baron's sullen black +eyes and smiling lips as he leaned from the car, lifting his cap.</p> + +<p>"A thousand thanks, my dear doctor, you have been excessively kind; +yes, truly of an excessive goodness for us. It is a great +pleasure—how do you tell it in English?—it is a great pleasure to +have met you. <i>Adieu.</i>"</p> + +<p>"Till to-morrow morning!" said Carmichael, cheerfully, waving his +hand.</p> + +<p>The Baron stared at him curiously, and lifted his cap again.</p> + +<p>"<i>Adieu!</i>" droned the insistent voice, and the great car slid into the +dark.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span></p> +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>The next morning was of crystal. It was after nine when Carmichael +drove his electric-phaeton down the leaf-littered street, where the +country wagons and the decrepit hacks were already meandering +placidly, and out along the highroad, between the still green fields. +It seemed to him as if the experience of the past night were "such +stuff as dreams are made of." Yet the impression of what he had seen +and heard in that firelit chamber—of the eyes, the voice, the hand of +that strangely lovely lady—of her vision of sudden death, her +essentially lonely struggle with it, her touching words to him when +she came back to life—all this was so vivid and unforgettable that he +drove straight to Castle Gordon.</p> + +<p>The great house was shut up like a tomb: every door and window was +closed, except where half of one of the shutters had broken loose and +hung by a single hinge. He drove around to the back. It was the same +there. A cobweb was spun across the lower corner of the door and tiny +drops of moisture<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> jewelled it. Perhaps it had been made in the early +morning. If so, no one had come out of the door since night.</p> + +<p>Carmichael knocked, and knocked again. No answer. He called. No reply. +Then he drove around to the portico with the tall white pillars and +tried the front door. It was locked. He peered through the half-open +window into the drawing-room. The glass was crusted with dirt and the +room was dark. He was trying to make out the outlines of the huddled +furniture when he heard a step behind him. It was the old farmer from +the nearest cottage on the road.</p> + +<p>"Mornin', doctor! I seen ye comin' in, and tho't ye might want to see +the house."</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Scudder! I do, if you'll let me in. But first tell me +about these automobile tracks in the drive."</p> + +<p>The old man gazed at him with a kind of dull surprise as if the +question were foolish.</p> + +<p>"Why, ye made 'em yerself, comin' up, didn't ye?"</p> + +<p>"I mean those larger tracks—they were made by a much heavier car than +mine."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh," said the old man, nodding, "them was made by a big machine that +come in here las' week. You see this house 's bin shet up 'bout ten +years, ever sence ol' Jedge Gordon died. B'longs to Miss Jean—her +that run off with the Eye-talyin. She kinder wants to sell it, and +kinder not—ye see—"</p> + +<p>"Yes," interrupted Carmichael, "but about that big machine—when did +you say it was here?"</p> + +<p>"P'raps four or five days ago; I think it was a We'nsday. Two fellers +from Philadelfy—said they wanted to look at the house, tho't of +buyin' it. So I bro't 'em in, but when they seen the outside of it +they said they didn't want to look at it no more—too big and too +crumbly!"</p> + +<p>"And since then no one has been here?"</p> + +<p>"Not a soul—leastways nobody that I seen. I don't s'pose you think o' +buyin' the house, doc'! It's too lonely for an office, ain't it?"</p> + +<p>"You're right, Scudder, much too lonely. But I'd like to look through +the old place, if you will take me in."</p> + +<p>The hall, with the two chairs and the table, on which a kitchen lamp +with a half-inch of oil in it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> standing, gave no sign of recent +habitation. Carmichael glanced around him and hurried up the stairway +to the bedroom. A tall four-poster stood in one corner, with a +coverlet apparently hiding a mattress and some pillows. A +dressing-table stood against the wall, and in the middle of the floor +there were a few chairs. A half-open closet door showed a pile of +yellow linen. The daylight sifted dimly into the room through the +cracks of the shutters.</p> + +<p>"Scudder," said Carmichael, "I want you to look around carefully and +tell me whether you see any signs of any one having been here lately."</p> + +<p>The old man stared, and turned his eyes slowly about the room. Then he +shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Can't say as I do. Looks pretty much as it did when me and my wife +breshed it up in October. Ye see it's kinder clean fer an old +house—not much dust from the road here. That linen and that bed's bin +here sence I c'n remember. Them burnt logs mus' be left over from old +Jedge Gordon's time. He died in here. But what's the matter, doc'? Ye +think tramps or burglers——"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No," said Carmichael, "but what would you say if I told you that I +was called here last night to see a patient, and that the patient was +the Miss Jean Gordon of whom you have just told me?"</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean?" said the old man, gaping. Then he gazed at the +doctor pityingly, and shook his head. "I know ye ain't a drinkin' man, +doc', so I wouldn't say nothin'. But I guess ye bin dreamin'. Why, +las' time Miss Jean writ to me—her name's Mortimer now, and her +husband's a kinder Barrin or some sorter furrin noble,—she was in +Paris, not mor'n two weeks ago! Said she was dyin' to come back to the +ol' place agin, but she wa'n't none too well, and didn't guess she c'd +manage it. Ef ye said ye seen her here las' night—why—well, I'd jest +think ye'd bin dreamin'. P'raps ye're a little under the weather—bin +workin' too hard?"</p> + +<p>"I never was better, Scudder, but sometimes curious notions come to +me. I wanted to see how you would take this one. Now we'll go +downstairs again."</p> + +<p>The old man laughed, but doubtfully, as if he was still puzzled by the +talk, and they descended the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> creaking, dusty stairs. Carmichael +turned at once into the dining-room.</p> + +<p>The rubbish was still in the fireplace, the chairs ranged along the +wall. There were no dishes on the long table; but at the head of it +two chairs; and at the foot, one; and in front of that, lying on the +table, a folded bit of paper. Carmichael picked it up and opened it.</p> + +<p>It was his prescription for the nitrite of amyl.</p> + +<p>He hesitated a moment; then refolded the paper and put it in his +vest-pocket.</p> + +<p>Seated in his car, with his hand on the lever, he turned to Scudder, +who was watching him with curious eyes.</p> + +<p>"I'm very much obliged to you, Scudder, for taking me through the +house. And I'll be more obliged to you if you'll just keep it to +yourself—what I said to you about last night."</p> + +<p>"Sure," said the old man, nodding gravely. "I like ye, doc', and that +kinder talk might do ye harm here in Calvinton. We don't hold much to +dreams and visions down this way. But, say, 'twas a mighty interestin' +dream, wa'n't it? I guess Miss Jean<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> hones for them white pillars, +many a day—they sorter stand for old times. They draw ye, don't +they?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, my friend," said Carmichael as he moved the lever, "they speak +of the past. There is a magic in those white pillars. They draw you."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="THE_EFFECTUAL_FERVENT_PRAYER" id="THE_EFFECTUAL_FERVENT_PRAYER"></a>THE EFFECTUAL FERVENT PRAYER</h2> + + +<p>"O-o-o! Danny, oho-o-o! five o'clock!"</p> + +<p>The clear young voice of Esther North floated across the snowy fields +to the hill where the children of Glendour were coasting. Her brother +Daniel, plodding up the trampled path beside the glairy track with +half a dozen other boys, dragging the bob-sled on which his little +sister Ruth was seated, heard the call with vague sentiments of +dislike and rebellion. His twelve years rose up in arms against being +ordered by a girl, even if she was sixteen and had begun to put up her +hair and lengthen her skirts. She was a nice girl, to be sure—the +prettiest in Glendour. But she might have had more sense than to call +out that way before all the crowd. He had a good mind to pretend not +to hear her.</p> + +<p>But his comrades were not so minded. They had no idea of letting him +evade the situation. They wanted him to stay, but he must do it like a +man.</p> + +<p>"Listen at your nurse already?" said one of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> older lads mockingly; +"she's a-callin' you. Run along home, boy!"</p> + +<p>"Aw, no!" pleaded a youngster, not yet master of the art of irony. +"Don't you mind her, Dan! The coast is just gettin' like glass, and +you're the onliest one to steer the bob. You stay!"</p> + +<p>"Please, Danny," said Ruth, keeping her seat as the sled stopped at +the top of the hill, "only once more down! I ain't a bit tired."</p> + +<p>"Dannee-ee-ee! O <i>Danny</i>!" came the sweet vibrant call again. "Five +o'clock—come on—remember!"</p> + +<p>Daniel remembered. The rules of the Rev. Nathaniel North's house were +like the law of the Medes and Persians. Daniel had never met a Mede or +a Persian, but in his mind he pictured them as persons with +reddish-gray hair and beards and smooth-shaven upper lips, wearing +white neckcloths and long black broadcloth coats, and requiring +absolute punctuality at meal time, church time, school time, and +family prayers. Esther's voice recalled him from the romance of the +coasting-hill to the reality of life. He considered the consequences +of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> being late for Saturday evening worship and made up his mind that +they were too much for him.</p> + +<p>"Come on, Ruthie," he cried, picking up the cord of her small sled, +which she had forsaken for the greater glory and excitement of riding +behind her brother on the bob. The child put her hand in his, and they +ran together over the creaking snow to the place where their older +sister was waiting, her slender figure in blue jacket and skirt +outlined against the white field, and her golden hair shining like an +aureole around her rosy face in the intense bloom of the winter +sunset.</p> + +<p>The three young Norths were the flower of Glendour: a Scotch village +in western Pennsylvania, where the spirits of John Knox and Robert +Burns lived face to face, separated by a great gulf. On one side of +the street, near the river, was the tavern, where the lights burned +late, and the music went to the tune of "Wandering Willie" and "John +Barleycorn." On the other side of the street, toward the hills, was +the Presbyterian church, where the sermons were an hour long, and the +favourite lyric was</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"A charge to keep I have."<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>The Rev. Nathaniel North's "charge to keep" was the spiritual welfare +of the elect, and especially of his own motherless children. To guide +them in the narrow way, unspotted from the world, to train them up in +the faith once delivered to the saints and in the customs which that +faith had developed among the Scotch Covenanters, was the great desire +of his heart. For that desire he would gladly have suffered martyrdom; +and into the fulfilling of his task he threw a strenuous tenderness, a +strong, unfaltering, sincere affection that bound his children to him +by a love which lay far deeper than all their outward symptoms of +restiveness under his strict rule.</p> + +<p>This is a thing that seldom gets into stories. People of the world do +not understand it. They are strangers to the intensity of religious +passion, and to the swift instinct by which the heart of a child +surrenders to absolute sincerity. This was what the North children +felt in their father—a devotion that was grave, stern, almost fierce +in its single-hearted attachment to them. He was theirs altogether. He +would not let them dance or play cards. The thea<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>tre and even the +circus were tabooed to them. Novel-reading was discouraged and no +books were admitted to the house which had not passed under his +censorship. All this seemed strange to them; they could not comprehend +it; at times they talked together about the hardship of it—the two +older ones—and made little plots to relax or circumvent the paternal +rule. But in their hearts they accepted it, because they knew their +father loved them better than any one else in the world, and they +trusted him because they felt that he was a true man and a good man.</p> + +<p>You see they were not "children in fiction"; they were real +children—and beautiful, high-spirited children too. Esther was easily +the "fairest of the village maids," and the head of her class in the +high-school; Daniel, a leader in games among the boys of his age; even +eight-year-old Ruth with her fly-away red hair and her wide brown eyes +had her devoted admirers among the younger lads. It was evident to the +Rev. Nathaniel North that his children were destined to have the +perilous gift of popularity, and with all his natural pride in them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> +he was tormented with anxiety on their account. How to protect them +from temptation, how to shield them from the vain allurements of +wealth and folly and fashion, how to surround them with an atmosphere +altogether serious and devout and pure, how to keep them out of reach +of the evil that is in the world—that was the tremendous problem upon +which his mind and his heart laboured day and night.</p> + +<p>Of course he admitted, or rather he positively affirmed, according to +orthodox doctrine, that there was Original Sin in them. Under every +human exterior, however fair, he postulated a heart "deceitful above +all things and desperately wicked." This he regarded as a well-known +axiom of theology, but it had no bearing at all upon the fact of +experience that none of his children had ever lied to him, and that he +would have been amazed out of measure if one of them should ever do a +mean or a cruel thing. Yet he believed, all the same, that the mass of +depravity must be there, in the nature which they inherited through +him from Adam, like a heap of tinder, waiting for the fire. It was +his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> duty to keep the fire from touching them, to guard them from the +flame, even the spark, of worldliness. He gave thanks for his poverty +which was like a wall about them. He prayed every night that no +descendant of his might ever be rich. He was grateful for the +seclusion and plainness of the village of Glendour in which vice +certainly did not glitter.</p> + +<p>"Separate from the world," he said to himself often; "that is a great +mercy. No doubt there is evil here, as everywhere; but it is not +gilded, it is not attractive. For my children's sake I am glad to live +in obscurity, to keep them separate from the world."</p> + +<p>But they were not conscious of any oppressive sense of separation as +they walked homeward, through the saffron after-glow deepening into +crimson and violet. The world looked near to them, and very great and +beautiful, tingling with life even through its winter dress. The keen +air, the crisp snow beneath their feet, the quivering stars that +seemed to hang among the branches of the leafless trees, all gave them +joy. They were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> healthily tired and heartily hungry; a good supper was +just ahead of them, and beyond that a long life full of wonderful +possibilities; and they were very glad to be alive. The two older +children walked side by side pulling the sled with Ruth, who was +willing to confess that she was "just a little mite tired" now that +the fun was over.</p> + +<p>"Esther," said the boy, "what do you suppose makes father so quiet and +solemn lately—more than usual? Has anything happened, or is it just +thinking?"</p> + +<p>"Well," said the girl, who had a touch of the gentle tease in her, +"perhaps it is just the left-over sadness from finding out that you'd +been smoking!"</p> + +<p>"Huh," murmured Dan, "you drop that, Essie! That was two weeks +ago—besides, he didn't find out; I told him; and I took my medicine, +too—never flinched. That's all over. More likely he remembers the +fuss you made about not being let to go with the Slocums to see the +theatre in Pittsburgh. You cried, baby! I didn't."</p> + +<p>The boy rubbed the back of his hand reminiscently against the leg of +his trousers, and Esther<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span> was sorry she had reminded him of a painful +subject.</p> + +<p>"Anyway," she said, "you had the best of it. I'd rather have gone, and +told him about it, and taken a whipping afterward."</p> + +<p>"What stuff! You know dad wouldn't whip a girl—not to save her life. +Besides, when a thing's done, and 'fessed, and paid for, it's all over +with dad. He's perfectly fair, I must say that. He doesn't nag like +girls do."</p> + +<p>"Now <i>you</i> drop <i>that</i>, Danny, and I'll tell you what I think is the +matter with father. But you must promise not to speak to him about +it."</p> + +<p>"All right, I promise. What is it?"</p> + +<p>"I guess—now mind, you mustn't tell—but I'm almost sure it is +something about our Uncle Abel. A letter came last month, postmarked +Colorado; and last week there was another letter in the same +handwriting from Harrisburg. Father has been reading them over and +over, and looking sadder each time. I guess perhaps Uncle Abel is in +trouble or else——"</p> + +<p>"You mean father's rich brother that lives out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> West? Billy Slocum +told me about him once—says he's a king-pin out there, owns a mine a +mile deep and full of gold, keeps lots of fast horses, wins races all +over the country. He must be great. You mean him? Why doesn't father +ever speak of him?"</p> + +<p>The girl nodded her head and lowered her voice, glancing back to see +that Ruth was not listening.</p> + +<p>"You see," she continued, "father and Uncle Abel had a break—not a +quarrel, but a kind of a divide—when they were young men. Lucy Slocum +heard all about it from her grandmother, and told me. They were in a +college scrape together, and father took his punishment, and after +that he was converted, and you know how good he is. But his brother +got mad, and he ran away from college, out West, and I reckon he has +been—well, pretty bad. They say he gambled and drank and did all +sorts of things. He said the world owed him a fortune and a good time. +Now he's got piles of money and a great big place he calls Due North, +with herds of cattle and ponies and a house full of pictures and +things. I guess he's quieted down<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span> some, but he isn't married, and +they say he isn't at all religious. He's what they call a +free-thinker, and he just travels around with his horses and spends +money. I suppose that is why father does not speak of him. You know he +thinks that's all wrong, very wicked, and he wants to keep us separate +from it all."</p> + +<p>The boy listened to this long, breathless confidence in silence, +kicking the lumps of snow in the road as he trudged along.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "it seems kind of awful to have two brothers divided +like that, doesn't it, Essie? But I suppose father's right, he 'most +always is. Only I wish they'd make it up, and Uncle Abel would come +here with some of his horses, and perhaps I could go West with him +some time to make a start in life."</p> + +<p>"Yes," added the girl, "and wouldn't it be fine to hear him tell about +his adventures. And then perhaps he'd take an interest in us, and make +things easier for father, and if he liked my singing he might give the +money to send me to the Conservatory of Music. That would be great!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes," piped up the voice of Ruth from the sled, "and I wish he'd take +us all out to Due North with him to see the ponies and the big house. +That would be just lovely!"</p> + +<p>Esther looked at Dan and smiled. Then she turned around.</p> + +<p>"You little pitcher," she laughed, "what do you have such long ears +for? But you must keep your mouth shut, anyway. Remember, I don't want +you to speak to father about Uncle Abel."</p> + +<p>"I didn't promise," said Ruth, shaking her head, "and I want him to +come—it'll be better'n Santa Claus."</p> + +<p>By this time the children had arrived at the little red brick +parsonage, with its white wooden porch, on the side street a few doors +back of the church. They stamped the snow off their feet, put the sled +under the porch, hung their coats and hats in the entry, and went into +the parlour on the stroke of half past five.</p> + +<p>Over the mantel hung an engraving of "The Death-Bed of John Knox," +which they never looked at if they could help it; on the opposite wall +a copy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> of Reynolds's "Infant Samuel," which they adored. The pendent +lamp, with a view of Jerusalem on the shade and glass danglers around +the edge, shed a strong light on the marble-topped centre-table and +the red plush furniture and the pale green paper with gilt roses on +it.</p> + +<p>On Saturday evening family worship came before supper. The cook and +the maid-of-all-work were in their places on the smallest chairs, +beside the door. On the sofa, where the children always sat, their +Bibles were laid out. The father was in the big arm-chair by the +centre-table with the book on his knees, already open.</p> + +<p>The passage chosen was the last chapter of the Epistle of James. The +deep, even voice of Nathaniel North sounded through that terrible +denunciation of unholy riches with a gravity of conviction far more +impressive than the anger of the modern muck-raker. The hearts of the +children, remembering their conversation, were disturbed and vaguely +troubled. Then came the gentler words about patience and pity and +truthfulness and the healing of the sick. At the end each member of +the house-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>hold was to read a sentence in turn and try to explain its +meaning in a few words. The portion that fell to little Ruth was this:</p> + +<p>"<i>The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.</i>"</p> + +<p>She stumbled over the two longer words, but she gave her comment +clearly enough in her childish voice.</p> + +<p>"That means if we obey Him, God will do anything we ask, I suppose."</p> + +<p>The father nodded. "Right, my child. If we keep the commandments our +prayers are sure of an answer. But remember that the people in the +first part of the chapter have no such promise."</p> + +<p>There was an unusual fervour in the prayer which closed the worship +that night. Nathaniel North seemed to be putting his arms around the +family to shield them from some unseen danger. The children, whose +thoughts had wandered a little, while he was remembering the Jews and +the heathen and the missionaries, in the customary phrases, felt their +hearts dimly moved when he asked that his house might be kept from the +power of darkness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> and the ravening wolves of sin, kept in unbroken +purity and peace, holy and undefiled. The potent sincerity of his love +came upon them. They believed with his faith; they consented with his +will.</p> + +<p>At the supper-table there was pleasant talk about books and school +work and games and the plan to make a skating-pond in one of the lower +fields that could be flooded after the snow had fallen. Nathaniel +North, with all his strictness, was very near to his children; he +wished to increase and to share their rightful happiness; he wanted +them to be separate from the world but not from him. It was when they +were talking of the coming school exhibition that Ruth dropped her +little surprise into the conversation.</p> + +<p>"Father," she said, "will Uncle Abel be here then? Oh, I wish he would +come. I want to see him ever so much!"</p> + +<p>He looked at her with astonishment for a moment. Esther and Daniel +exchanged glances of dismay. They did not know what was coming. A +serious rebuke from their father was not an easy thing to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> face. But +when he spoke there was no rebuke in his voice.</p> + +<p>"Children," he said, "it is strange that one of you should speak to me +of my brother Abel when I have never spoken of him to you. But it is +only natural, after all, and I should have foreseen it and been more +frank with you. Have other people told you of him?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," they cried, with sparkling looks, but the father's face +grew darker as he noticed their eagerness.</p> + +<p>"Let me explain to you about him," he continued gravely. "He was my +older brother—a year older—and as boys we were very fond of each +other. But one day we had to part because our paths went in opposite +directions. He chose the broad and easy way, and I was led into the +straight and narrow path. How can two walk together except they be +agreed? For ten years I tried to win him back, but without success. At +last he told me that he wished me never to address him on the subject +of religion again, for he would rather lose both his hands and his +feet than believe as I did.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span> He went on with his reckless life, +prospering in this world, as I hear, but I have never seen him since +that time."</p> + +<p>"But wouldn't you like to see him?" said Esther, dropping her eyes. +"He must be quite a wonderful man. Doesn't he write to you?"</p> + +<p>Her father's lip twitched, but he still spoke sadly and gravely.</p> + +<p>"I see you have guessed the answer already. Yes, a letter came from +him some time ago, proposing a visit, which I discouraged. Another +came this week, saying that he was on his way, driving his own horses +across the country, and though he had received no reply from me, he +hoped to get here late Saturday—that is, to-night—or Sunday morning. +Of course we must welcome my own brother—if he comes."</p> + +<p>"Why, he may get here any minute," cried Daniel eagerly; "he's sure to +change his wagon for a sleigh in Pittsburgh, and he won't have to +drive 'way round by the long bridge, he can cross the river on the +ice. I wonder if he's driving that famous long-distance team that +Slocum told me about. Oh, that'll be simply great."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I must go upstairs right away," exclaimed Esther, with brightening +face, "to see that the guest room is ready for him when he comes."</p> + +<p>"I'll go to help" cried Ruth, clapping her hands. "What fun to have a +real uncle here. I guess he'll bring a present for each of us."</p> + +<p>"Wait, my children," said the father, lifting his hand, "before you go +I have something more to say to you. Your uncle is a man of the world, +and you know the world is evil; we have been called to come out of it. +He does not think as we do, nor believe as we do, nor live as we do, +according to the Word. For one thing, he cares nothing for the +sanctity of the Sabbath. Unless he has changed very much, he is not +temperate nor reverent. I fear the effect of his example in Glendour. +I fear his influence upon you, my children. It is my duty to warn you, +to put you on your guard. It will be a hard trial. But we must receive +him—if he comes."</p> + +<p>"If he comes?" cried Esther, evidently alarmed; "there's no doubt of +that, is there, since he has written?"</p> + +<p>"My dear, when you know your uncle you will understand that there is +always a doubt. He is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> very irregular and uncertain in all his ways. +He may change his mind or be turned aside. No one can tell. But go to +your tasks now, my children, and to bed early. I have some work to do +in my study."</p> + +<p>Each of them kissed him good-night, and he watched them out of the +room with a look of tender sternness in his lined and rugged face, +anxious, troubled, and ready to give his life to safeguard them from +the invisible arrows of sin. Then he went into his long, narrow +book-room, but not to work.</p> + +<p>Up and down the worn and dingy carpet, between the walls lined with +dull grey and brown and black books, he paced with heavy feet. The +weight of a dreadful responsibility pressed upon him, the anguish of a +spiritual conflict tore his heart. His old affection for his brother +seemed to revive and leap up within him, like a flame from smothered +embers when the logs are broken open. The memory of their young +comradeship and joys together grew bright and warm. He longed to see +Abel's face once more.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then came other memories, dark and cold, crowding in upon him with +evil faces to chill and choke his love. The storm of rebellion that +led to the parting, the wild and reckless life in the far country, the +gambling, the drinking, the fighting, the things that he knew and the +things that he guessed—and then, the ways of Abel when he returned, +at times, in the earlier years, with his pockets full of money to +spend it in the worst company and with a high-handed indifference to +all restraint, yet always with a personal charm of generosity and +good-will that drew people to him and gave him a strange power over +them—and then, Abel's final refusal to listen any more to the +pleadings of the true faith, his good-humoured obstinacy in unbelief, +his definite choice of the world as his portion, and after that the +long silence and the growing rumours of his wealth, his extravagance, +his devotion, if not to the lust of the flesh, at least to the lust of +the eyes and the pride of life—all these thoughts and pictures rushed +upon Nathaniel North and overwhelmed him with painful terror and +foreboding. They seemed to loom above him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> and his children like black +clouds charged with hidden disaster. They shook his sick heart with an +agony of trembling hatred.</p> + +<p>He did not hate his brother—no, never that—and there was the +poignant pain of it. The bond of affection rooted in his very flesh, +held firm and taut, stretched to the point of anguish, and vibrating +in shrill notes of sorrow as the hammer of conviction struck it. He +could not cast his brother out of his inmost heart, blot his name from +the book of remembrance, cease to hope that the infinite mercy might +some day lay hold upon him before it was too late.</p> + +<p>But the things for which that brother stood in the world—the +ungodliness, the vainglory, the material glitter and the spiritual +darkness—these things the minister was bound to hate; and the more he +hated the more he feared and trembled. The intensity of this fear +seemed for the time to blot out all other feelings. The coming of such +a man, with all his attractions, with the glamour of his success, with +the odours and enchantments of the world about him, was an +incalculable peril. The pastor agon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>ised for his flock, the father for +his little ones. It seemed as if he saw a tiger with glittering eyes +creeping near and crouching for a spring. It seemed as if a serpent, +with bright colours coiled and fatal head poised, were waiting in the +midst of the children for one of them to put out a hand to touch it. +Which would it be? Perhaps all of them would be fascinated. They were +so eager, so innocent, so full of life. How could he guard them in a +peril so subtle and so terrible?</p> + +<p>He had done all that he could for them, but perhaps it was not enough. +He felt his weakness, his helpless impotence. They would slip away +from him and be lost—perhaps forever. Already his sick heart saw them +charmed, bewildered, poisoned, perishing in ways where his imagination +shuddered to follow them.</p> + +<p>The torture of his love and terror crushed him. He sank to his knees +beside the ink-stained wooden table on the threadbare carpet and +buried his face in his arms. All of his soul was compressed into a +single agony of prayer.</p> + +<p>He prayed that this bitter trial might not come<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> upon him, that this +great peril might not approach his children. He prayed that the +visitation which he dreaded might be averted by almighty power. He +prayed that God would prevent his brother from coming, and keep the +home in unbroken purity and peace, holy and undefiled.</p> + +<p>From this strange wrestling in spirit he rose benumbed, yet calmed, as +one who feels that he has made his last effort and can do no more. He +opened the door of his study and listened. There was no sound. The +children had all gone to bed. He turned back to the old table to work +until midnight on his sermon for the morrow. The text was: "<i>As for me +and my house, we will serve the Lord.</i>"</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>But that sermon was not to be delivered. Mr. North woke very early, +before it was light, and could not find sleep again. In the gray of +the morning, when the little day was creeping among the houses of +Glendour, he heard steps in the street and then a whisper of voices at +his gate. He threw his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> wrapper around him and went down quietly to +open the door.</p> + +<p>A group of men were there, with trouble in their faces. They told him +of an accident on the river. A sleigh crossing the ice during the +night had lost the track. The horses had broken into an air-hole and +dragged the sleigh with them. The man went under the ice with the +current, and came out a little while ago in the big spring-hole by the +point. They had pulled the body ashore. They did not know for sure who +it was—a stranger—but they thought—perhaps——</p> + +<p>The minister listened silently, shivering once or twice, and passing +his hand over his brow as if to brush away something. When their +voices paused and ceased, he said slowly, "Thank you for coming to me. +I must go with you, and then I can tell." As he went upstairs softly +and put on his clothes, he repeated these words to himself two or +three times mechanically—"yes, then I can tell." But as he went with +the men he said nothing, walking like one in a dream.</p> + +<p>On the bank of the river, amid the broken ice<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> and trampled yellow +snow, the men had put a couple of planks together and laid the body of +the stranger upon them turning up the broad collar of his fur coat to +hide his face. One of the men now turned the collar down, and +Nathaniel North looked into the wide-open eyes of the dead.</p> + +<p>A horrible tremor shook him from head to foot. He lifted his hands, as +if he must cry aloud in anguish. Then suddenly his face and figure +seemed to congeal and stiffen with some awful inward coldness—the +frost of the last circle of the Inferno—it spread upon him till he +stood like a soul imprisoned in ice.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "this is my brother Abel. Will you carry him to my +house? We must bury him."</p> + +<p>During the confusion and distress of the following days that frozen +rigidity never broke nor melted. Mr. North gave no directions for the +funeral, took no part in it, but stood beside the grave in dreadful +immobility. He did not mourn. He did not lament. He listened to his +friends' consolation as if it were spoken in an unknown tongue. +Nothing helped him, nothing hurt, because nothing touched him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> He did +no work, opened no book, spoke no word if he could avoid it. He moved +about his house like a stranger, a captive, shrinking from his +children so that they grew afraid to come close to him. They were +bewildered and harrowed with pity. They did not know what to do. It +seemed as if it were their father and not their uncle who had died.</p> + +<p>Every attempt to penetrate the ice of his anguish failed. He gave no +sign of why or how he suffered. Most of the time he spent alone in his +book-room, sitting with his hands in his lap, staring at the +unspeakable thought that paralysed him, the thought that was entangled +with the very roots of his creed and that glared at him with monstrous +and malignant face above the very altar of his religion—the thought +of his last prayer—the effectual prayer, the fervent prayer, the +damnable prayer that branded his soul with the mark of Cain, his +brother's murderer.</p> + +<p>The physician grew alarmed. He feared the minister would lose his +reason in a helpless melancholia. The children were heart-broken. All +their efforts to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span> comfort and distract their father fell down hopeless +from the mask of ice, behind which they saw him like a spirit in +prison. Daniel and Ruth were ready to give up in despair. But Esther +still clung to the hope that she could do something to rescue him.</p> + +<p>One night, when the others had gone to bed, she crept down to the +sombre study. Her father did not turn his head as she entered. She +crossed the room and knelt down by the ink-stained table, laying her +hands on his knee. He put them gently away and motioned her to rise.</p> + +<p>"Do not do that," he said in a dull voice.</p> + +<p>She stood before him, wringing her hands, the tears streaming down her +face, but her voice was sweet and steady.</p> + +<p>"Father," she said, "you must tell me what it is that is killing you. +Don't you know it is killing us too? Is it right for you to do that? I +know it is something more than uncle's death that hurts you. It is sad +to lose a brother, but there is something deeper in your heart. Tell +me what it is. I have the right to know. I ask you for mother's +sake."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/image_016.jpg" width="400" height="495" alt="She flung herself across his knees and put her arms +around him." /> +<span class="caption">She flung herself across his knees and put her arms +around him.</span> +</div> + +<p>He lifted his head and looked at her. His eyelids quivered. His secret +dragged downward in his breast like an iron hand clutching his +throat-strings. His voice was stifled. But no matter what it cost him, +to her, the first child of his love, his darling, he must speak at +last.</p> + +<p>"You have the right to know, Esther," he said, with a painful effort. +"I will tell you what is in my soul. I killed my brother Abel. The +night of his death, I knelt at that table and prayed that he might be +prevented from coming to this house. My only thought, my only wish was +that he must be kept away. That was all I asked for. God killed him +because I asked it. His blood is on my soul."</p> + +<p>He leaned back in his chair exhausted, and shut his eyes.</p> + +<p>The girl stood dazed for a moment, struck dumb by the grotesque horror +of what she had heard. Then the light of Heaven-sent faith flashed +through her and the courage of human love warmed her. She sprang to +her father, sobbing, almost laughing in the joy of triumph. She flung +herself across his knees and put her arms around him.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Father, did you teach us that God is our Father, our real Father?"</p> + +<p>The man did not answer, but the girl went bravely on:</p> + +<p>"Father, if I asked you to kill Ruth, would you do it?"</p> + +<p>The man stirred a little, but he did not open his eyes nor answer, and +the girl went bravely on:</p> + +<p>"Father, is it fair to God to believe that He would do something that +you would be ashamed of? Isn't He better than you are?"</p> + +<p>The man opened his eyes. The light of his old faith kindled in them. +He answered firmly:</p> + +<p>"He is infinite, absolute, and unchangeable. His Word is sure. We dare +not question Him. There is the promise—the effectual fervent prayer +of a righteous man availeth much."</p> + +<p>The girl did not look up. She clung to him more closely and buried her +face on his breast.</p> + +<p>"Yes, father dear, but if what you asked in your prayer was wrong, +were you a righteous man? Could your prayer have any power?"</p> + +<p>It was her last stroke—she trembled as she made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span> it. There was a dead +silence in the room. She heard the slow clock ticking on the mantel, +the wind whistling in the chimney. Then her father's breast was +shaken, his head fell upon her shoulder, his tears rained upon her +neck.</p> + +<p>"Thank God," he cried, "I was a sinner—it was not a prayer—God be +merciful to me a sinner!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="THE_RETURN_OF_THE_CHARM" id="THE_RETURN_OF_THE_CHARM"></a>THE RETURN OF THE CHARM</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>"Nor I," cried John Harcourt, pulling up in the moon-silvered mist and +clapping his hand to his pocket, "not a groat! Stay, here is a crooked +sixpence of King James that none but a fool would take. The merry +robbers left me that for luck."</p> + +<p>Dick Barton growled as he turned in his saddle. "We must ride on, +then, till we find a cousin to loan us a few pounds. Sir Empty-purse +fares ill at an inn."</p> + +<p>"By my sore seat," laughed Harcourt, "we'll ride no farther to-night. +Here we 'light, at the sign of the Magpie in the Moon. The rogues of +Farborough Cross have trimmed us well; the honest folk of Market +Farborough shall feed us better!"</p> + +<p>"For a crooked sixpence!" grumbled Barton. "Will you beg our +entertainment like a pair of landlopers, or will you take it by force +like our late friends on the road?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Neither," said Harcourt, "but in the fashion that befits +gentlemen—with a bold face, a gay tongue, and a fine coat well +carried. Remember, Dick, look up, and no snivelling! Tell your +ill-fortune and you bid for more. 'Tis Monsieur Debonair that owns the +tavern."</p> + +<p>Their lusty shouts brought the hostler on the trot to take their +steaming horses, and the landlord stood in the open door, his broad +face a welcome to such handsome guests. They entered as if the place +belonged to them, and called for the best it contained as if it were +just good enough. The whole house was awake and astir with their +coming. The smiling maids ran to and fro; the rustics in the long room +stared and admired: the table was spread with a fair cloth and loaded +with a smoking supper; and afterward there were pots of ale for all +the company, and a song with a chorus. The landlord, with his thumbs +in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, patted himself to see his business +go so merrily. But the landlady came to the door, now and then, and +looked in with anxious eyes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Mark the mistress," whispered Barton; "she has her suspicions."</p> + +<p>"Her troubles," answered Harcourt, "and that I relish not. I will have +all happy around me, else my spirit sinks and the game is lost. I'll +talk with her."</p> + +<p>He beckoned her to his side with a courteous gesture.</p> + +<p>"A famous supper, Mistress," said he, "but your face is too downcast +for the maker of such a masterpiece. What is it that ails you?"</p> + +<p>"It is my child," she answered; "kind sir, my little Faith is ill of +fever, and the physician has been called away. He has left her a +draught, but she grows worse, and the fever holds her from sleep. It +may be that you know something of the healing art."</p> + +<p>"As much as any man," said Harcourt, confidently. "You see in me, +despite my youth, a practitioner of the oldest school in the world, a +disciple of Galen's grandfather. Let me go with you to look at the +child."</p> + +<p>The little girl lay in a close room. Her curls<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span> were tangled on the +pillow and her thin, brown arms tossed on the hot counterpane. By her +side was a glass of some dark medicine, and her black eyes held more +of rebellion than of fever as she gazed at the stranger.</p> + +<p>He leaned over her with a smile, smoothing her wrists lightly, with +slow, downward touches, and whispering in her ear. The sound of the +singing below came through the door ajar, and the child listened to +her visitor as if he were telling her a wonderful tale.</p> + +<p>"Open the window," he said, after a while, to the mother, pulling the +sheet softly over the child's shoulders, "the air to-night is full of +silver threads which draw away the fever."</p> + +<p>Then he threw the black draught out of the window. And the child, +watching him, laughed a little.</p> + +<p>"It is the wrong medicine," said he. "Bring me paper and pen."</p> + +<p>He wrote by the light of the flickering candle, hiding the words with +his other hand: <i>Fortune favour Faith</i>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then he slipped the crooked sixpence into the paper, folded it +carefully, tucking the ends one into the other, and marked it with a +cross.</p> + +<p>"Hold it tight," he said to the child, closing the fingers of her +right hand upon the little packet. "It will let you into the Garden of +Good Dreams. And now your carriage is ready, and now your horses are +trotting, gently, gently, quickly, softly along the white moon-road to +the Land of Nod. Will you go—are you going—are you gone?"</p> + +<p>Her eyelids drooped and fell, and she turned on her right side with a +sigh, thrusting her brown fist under the pillow. Harcourt drew the +mother to the door.</p> + +<p>"Hush," he whispered; "leave the window wide. Your Faith holds an +ancient potent charm, thousands of years old, better than all +medicines. Do not speak of it to any one. If you open it, you will +lose it. Let her sleep with it so, and bring it me on the morrow."</p> + +<p>In the morning, when the landlord had served breakfast with his own +hands, Harcourt called boldly for the bill; and Barton stared at him, +but the landlord was confused.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span></p> + +<p>"My wife," he stammered—"you must excuse her, gentlemen, nothing will +do but she must speak with you herself about the reckoning. I'll go +call her."</p> + +<p>She came with a wonder of gladness in her face, and the little girl +clinging to a fold of her mother's dress by the left hand and pressing +the other brown fist close to her neck.</p> + +<p>"You see," said the mother. "She is well! Run, Faith, and kiss the +gentleman's hand. Oh, sir, there can be no talk of payment between +us—we are deep in your debt; but if my child might keep this ancient +potent charm?"</p> + +<p>The question hung in her voice. Harcourt delayed a moment, as if in +doubt, before he answered, smiling:</p> + +<p>"I am loath to part from it," he said at last, "but since she has +proved it, let her keep it and believe in it for good—never for evil. +Come, little Faith, kiss me good-bye—no, not on the hand!"</p> + +<p>When they were alone together, Barton turned upon his companion with +reproachful looks.</p> + +<p>"What is this charm?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"A secret," answered the other curtly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I like it not," said Barton, shaking his head; "you go too far, Jack. +You put a deception on these simple folk."</p> + +<p>"Who knows?" laughed Harcourt. "At least I have done them no harm. We +leave them happy and ride on. How far to your nearest cousin?"</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>"The next case is a strange one," said Sir Richard Barton, Justice of +the Peace, sitting on the bench by his friend, the famous Judge who +was holding court for Market Farborough.</p> + +<p>"How is it strange?" asked the Judge, whose face showed ruddy and +strong beneath his white wig.</p> + +<p>"It is an accusation of witchcraft," answered Sir Richard, "and that +is a serious thing in these days. Yet it seems the woman has a good +heart and harms nobody."</p> + +<p>"Beneficent witchcraft!" said the Judge—"that is a rarity indeed. +What do you make of it?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I am against all superstition," said Sir Richard solemnly; "it brings +disorder. For religion we have the clergy, and for justice the +lawyers, and for health the doctors. All outside of that partakes of +license and unreason."</p> + +<p>"Yet outside of that," mused the Judge, "there are things that neither +clergy nor lawyers nor doctors can explain. Tell me, what do people +think concerning this witch?"</p> + +<p>"The strict and godly folk," answered Sir Richard, "reckon her a +scandal to the town and an enemy of religion. They are of opinion that +she should be put away, whether by hanging or drowning, or by shutting +her in a madhouse. But many poor people have an affection for her, +because she has helped them."</p> + +<p>"And you?" asked the Judge.</p> + +<p>Sir Richard looked at him keenly. "I can better tell," said he, "when +you have seen her yourself and heard her story."</p> + +<p>"That is plainly my duty," said the Judge. "Clerk, call the next +case."</p> + +<p>As the clerk read the name of the accused and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> charge against her, +the eyes of the Judge were fixed curiously upon the prisoner at the +bar, as if he sought for something forgotten.</p> + +<p>Tall and dark, with sunburned face and fearless eyes, she stood +quietly while her way of life was told; her dwelling, since the death +of her parents, in a cottage on the heath beyond the town; her comings +and goings among the neighbours; her wonderful cures of sick animals +and strange diseases, but especially of little children. There were +some who testified that she was wilful and malicious; yet it appeared +they could only allege she had withheld her cure, saying that it was +beyond her power. The doctor was bitter against her, as an unlawful +person; and the parson condemned her, though she came often to church; +"for," said he, "the Scripture commands us, 'Thou shalt not suffer a +witch to live.'"</p> + +<p>The face of the Judge was troubled. "Tell me," he said, leaning +forward and speaking gravely, "are you a witch?"</p> + +<p>"Not for evil, my Lord," answered the woman simply, "but I have a +healing gift."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span></p> + +<p>"How do you work your cures?" he asked. "What do you to the children?"</p> + +<p>"I open the windows of the room where they lie," she answered.</p> + +<p>The face of the Judge relaxed, and his eyes twinkled kindly. "And +then?" said he.</p> + +<p>"I throw the black draught out of the window and tell the children a +tale of the Garden of Good Dreams."</p> + +<p>"Is that all?" said the Judge, shading his face with his hand.</p> + +<p>"No, my Lord," replied the woman. "When the children are near to +sleep, I put my charm in their hands."</p> + +<p>"Whence had you this charm?" he said. "And what is it?"</p> + +<p>"I pray your Lordship," cried the woman, "ask me not, for I can never +tell."</p> + +<p>"Let me see it," said the Judge, with a smile.</p> + +<p>So the woman, trembling and reluctant, drew a dark-red ribbon from her +breast, and at the end of it a packet of fine linen bound closely with +white silk. She laid it before the Judge. He broke the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> silken thread +and unrolled the linen, fold after fold, until he came to a yellow +piece of paper with writing on it, and in the paper a crooked sixpence +of King James.</p> + +<p>The coin and the scrap of paper lay in his hand as he looked up and +met the shrewd questioning eyes of Sir Richard.</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered the Baron Harcourt in a low voice, "you have seen the +coin before, and now you may read what is written on the paper."</p> + +<p>"Now I know," said Sir Richard, shaking his head, "what charm you gave +to the woman and her child forty years ago. Was I not right? It was a +deception."</p> + +<p>"Who knows?" said the Baron Harcourt cheerfully. "It has not failed +to-day. Fortune has favoured Faith."</p> + +<p>He turned to the clerk. "Make record that this case is dismissed for +want of evidence against the accused. The woman has done no harm. The +court is adjourned."</p> + +<p>"And my charm," said the woman eagerly—"oh, my Lord, you will give me +back my charm?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That I must keep for you," he said with kindness, as to a child. "But +you may still open the windows, and throw out the black draught, and +tell the children of the Garden of Good Dreams. Trust me, that will +work wonders."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span></p> + +<h2>HALF-TOLD TALES</h2> + + +<h3>BEGGARS UNDER THE BUSH<br /> +<br /> +STRONGHOLD<br /> +<br /> +IN THE ODOUR OF SANCTITY</h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/image_017.jpg" width="500" height="246" alt="Illustration" /> +</div> + +<h2><a name="BEGGARS_under_the_BUSH" id="BEGGARS_under_the_BUSH"></a>BEGGARS under the BUSH</h2> + + +<p>As I came round the bush I was aware of four beggars in the shade of +it, counting their spoils.</p> + +<p>They sat at their ease, with food and a flagon of wine before them and +silver cups, for all the world like gentlefolk on a picnic, only +happier. But I knew them for beggars by the boldness of their asking +eyes and the crook in their fingers.</p> + +<p>They looked at me curiously, as if to say, "What do you bring us?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing, gentlemen," I answered, "I am only seeking information."</p> + +<p>At this they moved uneasily and glanced at one another with a crafty +look of alarm. Their crooked fingers closed around the cups.</p> + +<p>"Are you a collector of taxes?" cried the first beggar.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Certainly not," I replied with heat, "but a payer of them!"</p> + +<p>"Come, come," said the beggar, with a wink at his comrades, "no insult +intended! Only a prudent habit of ours in these days of mixed society. +But you are evidently poor and honest. Take a chair on the grass. +Honesty we love, and to poverty we have no objection—in fact, we +admire it—in others."</p> + +<p>So I sat down beside them in the shade of the bush and lit my pipe to +listen.</p> + +<p>In the hot field below, a man was ploughing amid the glare of the sun. +The reins hung about his neck like a halter, and he clung to the +jerking handles of the plough while the furrows of red earth turned +and fell behind him like welts on the flank of the hill.</p> + +<p>"A hard life," said the second beggar, draining his cup, "but healthy! +And very useful! The world must have bread."</p> + +<p>"Plenty of it," said the third beggar, "else what would become of +that?"</p> + +<p>He nodded down the valley, where tall spires pointed toward the blue +and taller chimneys veiled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span> it with black. The huddled city seemed to +move and strain and quiver under the dusky curtain, and the fumes of +its toil hung over it like steam from a sweating horse.</p> + +<p>"It is a sad sight," said the fourth beggar, waving his hand with the +gesture of an orator. "Shakespeare was right when he said, 'God made +the country and man made the town.' Admit for the present that cities +are necessary evils. The time is coming when every man must have his +country-place. Meanwhile let us cultivate the rural virtues."</p> + +<p>He smacked his lips and lifted the flagon.</p> + +<p>"Right," said the first beggar, "a toast! To the simple life!"</p> + +<p>So the four quaffed a cupful of wine—and I a puff of smoke—to the +simple life.</p> + +<p>In the bush was a bird, very busy catching flies. He perched on a +branch, darted into the air, caught his fly, and fluttered to another +branch. Between flies he chirped and twittered cheerfully.</p> + +<p>"Beautiful bird," said the first beggar, leaning back, "a model of +cheerful industry! What do they call him?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span></p> + +<p>"A warbler," said I, "because he has so little voice."</p> + +<p>"He might sing better," observed the second beggar, "if he did not +work so hard catching flies."</p> + +<p>But the fourth beggar sighed and wiped the corner of his left eye, for +he was a tender-hearted man on one side.</p> + +<p>"I am thinking," said he, "of the poor flies!"</p> + +<p>"Bet you a hundred to ten he doesn't catch the next one," said the +third beggar.</p> + +<p>"Done," cried the others, but before the stakes were counted out, the +bird had flown.</p> + +<p>"Tell me, sirs," I began, when they had stripped the gilded bands from +their cigars and lighted them, "what it is that makes you all so +innocently merry and contented in this troublous world?"</p> + +<p>"It is a professional secret," said the first beggar. "If we tell it, +you will give it away."</p> + +<p>"Never," I answered. "I only want to put it into a poem."</p> + +<p>The beggars looked at one another and laughed heartily. "That will do +no harm," said they, "our secret will be safe there."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, then," said the first beggar gravely, "it is religion. We +approve the conduct of Providence. It must be all right. The Lord is +on our side. It would be wicked to ask why. We practise the grace of +resignation, and find peace."</p> + +<p>"No," said the second beggar smiling, "religion is an old wives' tale. +It is philosophy that makes us contented. Nothing could be unless it +was, and nothing is different from what it has to be. Evolution goes +on evolving all the time. So here we are, you see, in the best world +possible at the present moment. Why not make the most of it? Pass me +the flagon."</p> + +<p>"Not at all," interrupted the fourth beggar loudly, "I will have none +of your selfish religion or your immoral philosophy. I am a Reformer. +This is the worst world possible, and that is why I enjoy it. It gives +me my chance to make orations about reform. Philanthropy is the secret +of happiness."</p> + +<p>"Piffle!" said the third beggar, tossing a gold coin in the air. "You +talk as if people heard you. The secret of happiness—religion, +philosophy, philanthropy?—poppycock! It is luck, sheer luck. Life<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span> is +a game of chance. Heads I win, tails you lose. Will you match me, +Master Poet?"</p> + +<p>"You will have to excuse me," I said. "I have only a penny in my +pocket. But I am still puzzled by your answers. You seem of many +minds, but of one spirit. You are all equally contented. How is this?"</p> + +<p>The eyes of the beggars turned to the piles of booty in front of them, +and they all nodded their heads wisely as if to say, "you can see."</p> + +<p>A packet of papers lay before the first beggar and his look lingered +on them with love.</p> + +<p>"How came you by these?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"An old gentleman gave them to me," he answered. "He said he was my +grandfather. He was an unpleasant old fellow, but God rest his soul! +These are all gilt-edged."</p> + +<p>The second beggar was playing with a heap of jewels. He was a handsome +fellow with fine hands.</p> + +<p>"How did you get these pretty things?" said I.</p> + +<p>"By consenting to be married," he replied. "It was easy enough. She +squints, and her grammar is defective, but she is a good little +thing."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span></p> + +<p>The third beggar ran his fingers through the pile of gold before him, +and took up a coin, now and then, to flip it in the air.</p> + +<p>"How did you earn this?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"Earn it!" said he scornfully, "do you take me for a labouring man? +These fellows here lent me something, and I bet on how much corn that +fellow down there with the plough would raise—and the rest—why, the +rest was luck, sheer luck!"</p> + +<p>"And you?" I turned to the fourth beggar who had a huge bag beside +him, so full of silver that the dimes and quarters ran from the mouth +of it.</p> + +<p>"I," said he loftily, "am a Reformer. The people love me and give me +whatever I want, because I tell them that these other beggars have no +right to their money. I am going to be President."</p> + +<p>At this they all burst into shouts of laughter and rolled on the +grass. Even the Reformer chuckled a little.</p> + +<p>While they were laughing, the ploughman came up with an axe and began +to chop at the bush.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing to our bush?" cried the beggars.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Chopping it down," said the ploughman.</p> + +<p>"But why?" cried they.</p> + +<p>"I must plough this field," said he.</p> + +<p>So the beggars grabbed their spoils and scuttled away to other +countries, and I went on over the hill.</p> +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/image_018.jpg" width="500" height="209" alt="Illustration" /> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/image_019.jpg" width="500" height="354" alt="Illustration" /> +</div> + +<h2><a name="STRONGHOLD" id="STRONGHOLD"></a>STRONGHOLD</h2> + + +<p>It rose upon the rock like a growth of nature; secure, commanding, +imperturbable; mantled with ivy and crowned with towers; a castle of +the olden time, called Stronghold.</p> + +<p>Below it, the houses of the town clung to the hillside, creeping up +close to the castle wall and clustering in its shadow as if to claim +protection. In truth, for many a day it had been their warden against +freebooter and foreign foe, gathering the habitations of the humble as +a hen gathers her chickens beneath her wings to defend them from the +wandering hawk.</p> + +<p>But those times of disorder and danger were long<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span> past. The roaming +tribes had settled down in their conquered regions. The children of +the desert had learned to irrigate their dusty fields. The robber +chiefs had sobered into merchants and money-lenders. The old town by +the river had a season of peace, labouring and making merry and +sleeping and bringing forth children and burying its dead in +tranquillity, protected by forts far away and guarded by ships on +distant waters.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/image_020.jpg" width="400" height="628" alt="Stronghold." /> +<span class="caption">Stronghold.</span> +</div> + +<p>Yet Stronghold still throned upon the rock, proudly dominant; and the +houses full of manifold life were huddled at its foot; and the voices +of men and women and little children, talking or laughing or singing +or sobbing or cursing or praying, went up around it like smoke.</p> + +<p>Now the late lord of the castle, in the last age of romance, had +carried off a beautiful peasant girl with dove's eyes, whom he married +on her death-bed where she gave birth to their son. The blood of his +father and of his mother met in the boy's body, and in his soul their +spirits were mingled, so that he was by times haughty and gentle, and +by turns fierce and tender, and he grew up a dreamer <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>with sudden +impulses to strong action. To him, at his father's death, fell the +lordship of the castle; and he was both proud and thoughtful; and he +considered the splendour of his ancient dwelling and the duties of his +high station.</p> + +<p>The doors of Stronghold, at this time, were always open, not only for +the going out of the many retainers and servants on their errands of +business and mercy and pleasure in the town, but also for the citizens +and the poor folk who came seeking employment, or demanding justice, +or asking relief for their necessities. The lord of the castle had +ordered that none should be denied, and that a special welcome should +be given to those who came with words of enlightenment and counsel, to +interpret the splendour of Stronghold and help its master to learn the +duties of his high station.</p> + +<p>So there came many men with various words. Some told him of the days +when Stronghold was the defence of the land and the foreign foe was +broken against it. Some walked with him in the long hall of portraits +and narrated the brave deeds of his ancestors. Some explained to him +the history of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span> heirlooms, and showed him how each vessel of +silver and great carved chair and richly faded tapestry had a meaning +which made it precious.</p> + +<p>Other men talked to him of the future and of the things that he ought +to do. They set forth new schemes of industry by which the castle +should be changed into a central power-house or a silk-mill. They +unfolded new plans of bounty by which the hungry should be clad, and +the naked fed, and the sick given an education. They told him that if +he would do these things, in the course of a hundred years or so all +would be well.</p> + +<p>But the trouble was that their counsels were contradictory, and their +promises were distant, and the lord of the castle was impatient and +bewildered in mind. For meantime the manifold voices of the town went +up around him like smoke, and he knew that underneath it some fires of +trouble and sorrow must be burning.</p> + +<p>Then came two barefaced and masterful men who told him bluntly that +the first duty of his high station was to abandon it.</p> + +<p>"What shall I do then?" he asked.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Work for your living," they shouted.</p> + +<p>"What do you do for your living?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"We tell other men what to do," replied they.</p> + +<p>"And do you think," said he, "that your job is any harder than mine, +or that you work more than I do?" So he gave order that they should +have a good supper and be escorted from the castle, for he had no time +to waste upon mummers.</p> + +<p>But the confusion in his mind continued, because the spirits of his +father and his mother were working within him, and the impulse to +sudden action gathered force beneath his dreams. So he was glad when +the next visitor came bearing the marks of evident sincerity and a +great purpose.</p> + +<p>His beard was untrimmed, his garb was rude, his feet were bare, like +an ancient prophet. His voice was fiercely quiet, and his eyes burned +while he talked, as if he saw to the root of all things. He called +himself John the Nothingarian.</p> + +<p>The lord of the castle related some of the plans which his counsellors +had made for his greater usefulness.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span></p> + +<p>"They are puerile," said the Nothingarian, "futile, because they do +not go to the root."</p> + +<p>Then the young lord spoke of the legends of his forefathers and the +history of Stronghold.</p> + +<p>"They are dusty tales," said the Nothingarian, "false, because they do +not go to the root."</p> + +<p>"How shall we get to the root?" asked the young lord, trembling with a +new eagerness.</p> + +<p>"There is only one way," answered the prophet. "Come with me."</p> + +<p>As they went through the outer passageway the old man pressed hard +with his hands against one of the stones in the wall, and a little +door slid open.</p> + +<p>"The secret stair," said he, "by which your fathers brought in their +stolen women. Your Stronghold is honeycombed with lies."</p> + +<p>The young lord's face was red as fire. "I never knew of it," he +murmured.</p> + +<p>In the vaulted crypt beneath the castle the old man found a lantern +and a pickaxe. He went to an alcove walled with plaster and picked at +it with the axe. The plaster fell away. On the floor of the alcove lay +two crumpled bodies of men long dead;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span> the clothes were rotting upon +the bones and a dagger stuck fast in each back.</p> + +<p>"They were stabbed as they sat at meat," said the old man, "for the +gain of their gold. Your Stronghold is cemented with blood."</p> + +<p>The young lord's face grew dark as night. "I never knew of it," he +muttered.</p> + +<p>"Come," said the other, "I see we must go a little deeper before you +know where you stand."</p> + +<p>So he led the way through the long vaults, where the cobwebs trailed +like rags and the dripping pendules of lime hung from the arches like +dirty icicles, until he came to the foundation of the great tower. +There he set down the lantern and began to dig, fiercely and silently, +close to the corner-stone, throwing out the rubble with his bare +hands. At last the pick broke through into a hollow niche. At the +bottom of it was the skeleton of a child about five years old, and the +cords that bound her little hands and feet lay in white dust upon the +sunken bones.</p> + +<p>"You see!" said the old man, wiping his torn hands on his robe. "The +corner-stones were laid for safety on the body of a murdered +innocent.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span> Your Stronghold is founded on cruelty. This is the root."</p> + +<p>The young lord's face went white as death. "Horrible!" he cried. "But +what to do?"</p> + +<p>"Do away with it!" said the Nothingarian. "That is the only thing. +Come!"</p> + +<p>He went out into the night and the young lord followed him, the sudden +impulse to strong action leaping in his heart and pounding in his +temples and ringing in his ears, like a madness.</p> + +<p>They passed around behind the great tower, where it stood close to the +last pinnacle of the rock and rose above it, bolted to the high crest +of stone by an iron bar.</p> + +<p>"Here is the clutch of your Stronghold," said the old man urgently. +"Break that and all goes down. Dare you strike to the root?"</p> + +<p>"I dare," he cried, "for I must. A thing built on cruelty, cemented +with blood, and worm-eaten with lies is hateful to me as to God."</p> + +<p>He lifted the pick and struck. Once! and the castle trembled to its +base and the servants ran out at the doors. Twice! and the tower +swayed and a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span> cry of fear arose. Thrice! and the huge walls of +Stronghold rocked and crashed and thundered down upon the sleeping +town, burying it in wild ruin!</p> + +<p>Dead silence for an instant—and then, through the cloud of dust that +hung above the flattened houses, came a lamentable tumult. Voices of +men and women and little children, shrieking in fear, groaning with +pain, whimpering for pity, moaning in mortal anguish, rose like smoke +from the pit beneath the wreck of Stronghold.</p> + +<p>The young lord listened, dizzy and sick with horror. Then he looked at +the Nothingarian whose eyes glittered wildly. He swung up the pickaxe +again.</p> + +<p>"Curse you," he cried, "why didn't you tell me of this?" And he split +his head down to the beard.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/image_021.jpg" width="400" height="263" alt="Illustration" /> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/image_022.jpg" width="500" height="308" alt="Illustration" /> +</div> + +<h2><a name="IN_the_ODOUR_of_SANCTITY" id="IN_the_ODOUR_of_SANCTITY"></a>IN the ODOUR of SANCTITY</h2> + +<h4><i>Mortem suscepit cantando</i></h4> + +<p>Last of all, the crouching plague leaped upon the Count Angelo (whose +women and boon companions already lay dead around him in his castle of +Montefeltro), and dragged him from the banquet-hall of many delights +into the dim alley of the grave. There he looked, as it were through a +door half open, into the shapeless horror of the face of Death, which +turns all desires into stone. But even while he looked, the teeth of +the black beast that gripped him were loosened, and he crept back into +life as one returning from a far country.</p> + +<p>His castle was empty save for the few terror-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span>stricken servants who +lingered because they knew not whither to flee. In the garden withered +the rose and the lily, untended and unplucked. The chairs and couches +where he had seen the faces of his friends were vacant. On the pillows +of his great bed there were no curls of tangled gold, nor plaited +tresses of long black spread out beside him in the morning light.</p> + +<p>The world in which he had revelled away his youth was void; and in the +unknown world, from whose threshold he had painfully escaped, but +whither he knew he must one day return, there dwelt only a horrible +fear and a certain looking for of judgment.</p> + +<p>So Count Angelo came to life again. But all desires and passions which +had hitherto warmed or burned him were like dead embers. For the flame +of them all had gone into one desire—the resolve to die in the odour +of sanctity, and so to pass into Paradise safely and unafraid.</p> + +<p>Therefore he put aside the fine garments which his trembling servants +brought, and clad himself in sackcloth with a girdle of rope about his +loins.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> Thus apparelled he climbed on foot to the holy mountain of La +Verna, above the Val d'Arno, which mountain the Count Rolando of +Montefeltro had given, many years before, to St. Francis the minstrel +of God and his poor little disciples of the cross, for a refuge and a +sanctuary near the sky. At the door of the Friary built upon the land +of his forefathers the Count Angelo knocked humbly as a beggar.</p> + +<p>"Who is there?" said the door-keeper from his loophole.</p> + +<p>"A poor sinner," answered Angelo, "who has no wish left in life but to +die in the odour of sanctity."</p> + +<p>At this the door-keeper opened grudgingly, supposing he had to do with +some outcast seeking the house of religion as a last resort. But when +he saw the stranger he knew that it was the rich and generous Count of +Montefeltro.</p> + +<p>"May it please your lordship to enter," he cried; "the guest-chamber +awaits you, and the friars minor of St. Francis will rejoice in the +presence of their patron."</p> + +<p>"Not so," replied Angelo; "but in the meanest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span> of your cells will I +lodge. For I am come not to bestow, but to beg, and my request is the +lowest place among the little servants of poverty."</p> + +<p>Whereupon the door-keeper was greatly astonished, and led Angelo to +the Warden, to whom he unfolded his purpose to strip himself of all +worldly gear and possessions and give his remnant of life solely to +the preparation of a saintly death. This proposal the Warden and the +other brethren duly considered, not without satisfaction, and Angelo +was received as a penitent and a novice.</p> + +<p>The first year of his probation he passed as a servant of the cattle +and the beasts of burden, cleansing their stables and conversing only +with them. "For," said he, "the ox and the ass knew their Lord in the +manger, but I in my castle was deaf to his voice."</p> + +<p>The second year of his probation he laboured in the kitchen, washing +the dishes and preparing the food for the friars, but he himself ate +sparingly and only of the crusts and crumbs which the others had +despised. "For," said he, "I am less worthy than that lad who brought +the few loaves and small<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span> fishes to feed the multitude, and for me it +is enough to eat of the fragments that remain."</p> + +<p>In all this he was so diligently humble and self-denying that in the +third year he was admitted fully to the order and given the honourable +office of sweeping and cleansing the sacred places.</p> + +<p>In this duty Angelo showed an extraordinary devotion. Not content with +this, he soon began to practise upon himself particular and extreme +asperities and macerations. He slept only upon the ground and never +beyond an hour at one space, rising four and twenty times a day to his +prayers. He fasted thrice in the week from matins to matins, and +observed the rule of silence every six days, speaking only on the +seventh. He wore next to his naked skin a breastplate of iron, and a +small leather band with sharp points about his loins, and rings of +iron under his arms, whereby his flesh was wasted and frayed from his +bones like a worn garment with holes in it, and he bled secretly. By +reason of these things his face fell away into a dolorous sadness, and +the fame of his afflictions spread through the Friary and to other +houses where the little brothers of St. Francis were assembled.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span></p> + +<p>But the inward gladness of Angelo did not increase in measure with his +outward sadness and the renown of his piety. For the ray and the flame +of divine Consolation were diminished within him, and he no longer +felt that joy which he had formerly in the cleansing of the stables, +in the washing of the dishes, and in the sweeping of the holy places, +from which he was now relieved by reason of bodily weakness. He was +tormented with the fear that his penances might not sufficiently atone +for the sinful pleasures of his past life, of which he had a vivid and +growing remembrance. The thought was ever present with him that he +might not be predestined to die in the odour of sanctity.</p> + +<p>In this anguish of heart he went forth one day into the wood which +lies on the top of the mountain of La Verna, beyond the Friary, and +ran up and down, stumbling among the roots of the trees and calling +aloud with sighs and tears, "Little wretch, thou art lost! Abominable +sinner Angelo, how shalt thou find a holy death?"</p> + +<p>To him, in this distraction, comes the Warden with three of the elder +friars and asks him what has befallen him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span>.</p> + +<p>"The fear of dying in my sins," cries Angelo.</p> + +<p>"You have the comfort of the Gospel, my son," says the Warden.</p> + +<p>"It is not enough for me," sobs Angelo, beating his wounded breast. +"You know not how great were my pleasures in the world!"</p> + +<p>With that he starts away again to wander through the wood, but the +Warden restrains him, and soothes him, and speaks comfortably to him; +and at last Angelo makes his request that he may have a certain cave +in the woods for his dwelling and be enclosed there as a recluse to +await the coming of a holy death.</p> + +<p>"But, my son," objects the Warden, "what will the Friary do without +the example of your devotion and your service?"</p> + +<p>"I will pray for you all," says Angelo; "night and day I will give +myself to intercession for the order of friars minor."</p> + +<p>So the Warden consents, and Angelo, for the time, is satisfied.</p> + +<p>Now, the top of the mountain of La Verna is full of rude clefts and +caverns, with broken and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span> jagged rocks. Truly, it were a frightful +place to behold but for the tall trees that have grown up among the +rocks, clasping them with their roots, and the trailing vines and +gentle wild flowers and green ferns that spring abundantly around them +as if in token of kindness and good-will and bounty.</p> + +<p>All these were much beloved of St. Francis, who heard every creature +cry aloud, saying "God made me for thee, O man." So great was his +affection for them that he would not have his little friars cut down a +whole tree for firewood, but bade them only lop the branches and let +the tree live in joy. And he taught them to make no garden of +pot-herbs only, but to leave room always for the flowers, for love of +One who was called "the rose of Sharon," and "the lily of the valley."</p> + +<p>But this was not the mind of Angelo, who stumbled to his reclusery +blindly, intent only on the thought of his death, and never marking +the fine lace-work of the ferns that were broken by his passing nor +the sweet fragrance of the flowers crushed beneath his feet.</p> + +<p>The cave which he had chosen lay a little beyond<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span> that most sacred +cavern where St. Francis had fasted and where the falcon had visited +him every morning, beating her wings and singing to rouse him softly +to matins, and where at last he had received in his body the marks of +the Holy Cross.</p> + +<p>It was on the side of the mountain looking toward the west, and in +front of it was a narrow, deep, and terrible chasm, which could only +be crossed by a log laid in the manner of a bridge. But the cave +itself looked out beyond into the wide and fruitful Val d'Arno, with +the stream of silver coiling through it, and on the other side the +wooded mountains of Valombrosa and Pratomagno.</p> + +<p>Of this Angelo saw nothing, as he passed by the log bridge into the +cave. The three friars who went with him walled up the entrance with +stones, except for an opening at the height of a man's breast; and +they returned, taking away the log at his request and casting it down +the cliff. After that the food of Angelo was thrown across the chasm +into the opening of the cave, and to drink he had a small spring of +water trickling among the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span> rocks a drop at a time, and he lived as a +recluse considering only how to make a saintly end.</p> + +<p>His thoughts were thus fixed and centred upon his own great concern, +to a degree that made the world turn to nothing around him. Even the +Friary seemed to lie at an infinite distance, and the prayers which he +had promised to offer for it were more in word than in desire. There +was no warmth in them, for all the fire of his soul had burned into +one thought which consumed him. Day and night he cried, "O wicked +life, let me go into a holy death!"</p> + +<p>But he came no nearer to his goal, nor could he find any assurance +that he was elect and chosen to attain it. On the contrary his anxiety +increased and misery became his companion. For this reason: in his +dreams he dwelt continually upon the most sinful pleasures of his past +life, and they grew upon him; but in his waking hours he considered +and measured the greatness of his penances, yet without ever arriving +at the certainty that they balanced his offences.</p> + +<p>Now, you are not to suppose that the past life<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span> of Angelo, though vain +and worldly and streaked with evil, had been altogether woven of black +threads. For he had been of an open and kindly heart, ready to share +with others in the joy of living, greatly pleased to do a good turn to +his neighbours, compassionate and gentle-natured, a lover of music and +of little children. So there were many things in his youth of which he +had no need to be ashamed, since they were both innocent and merry, +and the white and golden threads of a pure and grateful happiness were +not wanting in the fabric of his loom.</p> + +<p>But of these he would not think, being set upon recalling only the +sinful hours that needed repentance. And of these he thought so +constantly that in the visions of the night they lived again, twining +their limbs about him and pressing their burning lips upon his. But +when he awoke he was filled with terror, and fell to counting the +severities and privations which he had endured for an atonement. So it +came to pass that he was strangely and dreadfully merry dreaming, but +strangely and desperately sad waking. And between the two he found no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span> +peace, nor ever escaped from the trouble and anguish of himself.</p> + +<p>After a twelvemonth or more of this life, very early in the morning he +awoke from a hot dream with horror, and groaned aloud, "If I die, I am +damned."</p> + +<p>"How so, little sheep of God," said a voice near at hand; "who has led +thee into the wilderness?"</p> + +<p>Fra Angelo lifted his head and looked at the opening of the cave, but +there was no one there. Then he looked behind him, and on both sides, +but he saw no one. Yet so clear and certain was the sound of the voice +that he could not rest, but went to the entrance and thrust out his +head.</p> + +<p>On the shelf of the rock in front of the cave he saw a short and spare +brother dressed in the habit of a friar minor, with a thin black +beard, and dark simple eyes, kindled with gentle flames. In his right +hand he held a stick of wood, as it were the bow of a viol, and this +he drew across his left arm, singing the while in French a hymn of joy +for the sun, his brother, and for the wind, his companion,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span> and for +the water, his sister, and for the earth, his mother.</p> + +<p>At this Fra Angelo was astonished and confused, for these songs had +not been heard in the Friary since many years, and it seemed as if +some foreign brother must have come from France with strange customs. +But when he looked more closely he saw that the long and delicate +hands of the little brother were pierced in the palm, and his feet +were wounded as if a nail had passed through them. Then he knew that +he saw St. Francis, and he was so ashamed and afraid that he clung to +the rocks and could not speak.</p> + +<p>Then the little brother turned from looking out upon the morning in +Val d'Arno and looked at Fra Angelo. After a long while he said, very +softly, "What doest thou here in the cave, dearest?"</p> + +<p>"Blessed father," stammered the recluse, "I dwell in solitude, to +atone for my worldly life and find a holy death."</p> + +<p>"That is for thyself," said the little brother in the sun; "but for +others what doest thou?"</p> + +<p>Angelo thought a moment and answered, humbly, "I give them an ensample +of holiness."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span></p> + +<p>"They need more," said the little brother smiling, "and thou must give +it."</p> + +<p>"Blessed father," cried Angelo, "command me and I will obey thee, for +thou art in heaven and I am near to hell."</p> + +<p>"Listen, then, thou lost sheep," said the little brother, "and I will +show thee the way. Climb over the wall. Lay aside the breastplate and +rings of iron—they hinder thee. Come near and sit beside me. In a +certain city there is a poor widow whose child is sick even unto +death. Go unto her with this box of electuary, and give it to the +child that he may recover. I command thee by Obedience."</p> + +<p>So saying he laid in the hand of Angelo a box of olive-wood, filled +with an electuary so sweet that the fragrance of it went through the +wood. But Angelo was confused.</p> + +<p>"How shall I know the way," said he, "when I know not the city?"</p> + +<p>"Stand up," answered the little brother with the wounded hands, "and +close thine eyes firmly. Now turn round and round as children do, +until I bid thee stop."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span></p> + +<p>So Fra Angelo, fearing a little because the shelf of rock was narrow, +shut tight his eyes and, stretching out his arms, turned round and +round until he was dizzy. Then he fell to the ground, and when he +looked up the little brother of the sun was gone.</p> + +<p>But the head of Fra Angelo lay toward the city of Poppi on the other +side of the valley, so he knew that this was the way, and he went down +from the mountain.</p> + +<p>As he went, his bodily weakness departed and the pains of his worn +flesh left him, and he rejoiced in the brightness of the world. The +linnets and blackbirds that sang in the thickets were the children of +those that had been brothers of the air to St. Francis, and the larks +that bubbled up from the fields wore the same sad-coloured garments +and chanted the same joyous music that he had commended. The primroses +and the violets and the cyclamens had not forgotten to bloom because +of sin, and the pure incense of their breath went forth unto gladness.</p> + +<p>So Fra Angelo made his journey with a light heart, quickly, and came +to the city of Poppi.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span> There he found the poor widow with her child +sick unto death, and he gave them the olive-wood box. The child took +the electuary eagerly, for it was pleasant to the taste, and it did +him good more than if it had been bitter. So presently the fever left +him, and the mother rejoiced and blessed St. Francis and Fra Angelo. +And he said, "I must be going."</p> + +<p>Now, as he went and returned toward La Verna, he passed through a +village, and in the field at the side of it he saw many children +quarrelling.</p> + +<p>"Why do you fight," said Angelo, laying hands on two of them, "when +you might be playing?"</p> + +<p>"Because we know not what to play," they answered; and some shouted +one thing and some another.</p> + +<p>"Let the older ones play at Fox and Geese," said Angelo; "and look, +here is a plank! We will put it over this great stone and I will play +at seesaw with the little ones."</p> + +<p>Then the children all laughed when they saw a friar playing at seesaw; +but he went up and down merrily, and they were all glad together. +After a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span> while they grew weary of the games, and Angelo asked what +they would do next.</p> + +<p>"Dance," cried the children; "dance and sing!"</p> + +<p>"But where is the music?" said Angelo.</p> + +<p>So one of the boys ran away to a house in the village and came back +presently with an old viol and a bow. Angelo fingered the instrument, +and tuned it, for he had been a skilful musician.</p> + +<p>"Now I will teach you," said he, "a very sweet music that I heard this +morning. And do you all sing as I teach you, and between the songs +take hands and dance around."</p> + +<p>Then he sat down upon a grassy hillock, with the children in a circle +about him, and he taught them the songs that were sung by the little +brother of the sun and of the wind and of the water and of the +birds—even by that minstrel of God who came to the cave with the +morning light. Between the verses the children, holding hands, danced +in a ring around Fra Angelo, while he played upon the old viol.</p> + +<p>As he played thus, he was aware of a hand upon his shoulder, and +supposed it to be one of the children.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Go back," he said, "go back to your place, dearest naughty one; the +song is not finished."</p> + +<p>"It is finished," said a voice behind him. "This is the right ending +of the song."</p> + +<p>And Angelo, looking up in amazement, saw the face of an angel, and the +bow dropped from his fingers.</p> + +<p>When the music ceased, the children broke their ring and ran to Angelo +where he lay upon the grass. They wondered to see him so still and +pale, yet because his face was smiling they were not afraid.</p> + +<p>"He is weary," they cried; "the good friar has fallen asleep—perhaps +he has fainted. Let us run and call help for him."</p> + +<p>But they did not understand that the messenger of Holy Death had +passed among them and called Angelo in the odour of sanctity.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/image_023.jpg" width="400" height="221" alt="Illustration" /> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="THE_SAD_SHEPHERD" id="THE_SAD_SHEPHERD"></a>THE SAD SHEPHERD</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<h4>DARKNESS</h4> + +<p>Out of the Valley of Gardens, where a film of new-fallen snow lay +smooth as feathers on the breast of a dove, the ancient Pools of +Solomon looked up into the night sky with dark, tranquil eyes, +wide-open and passive, reflecting the crisp stars and the small, round +moon. The full springs, overflowing on the hillside, melted their way +through the field of white in winding channels, and along their course +the grass was green even in the dead of winter.</p> + +<p>But the sad shepherd walked far above the friendly valley, in a region +where ridges of gray rock welted and scarred the back of the earth, +like wounds of half-forgotten strife and battles long ago. The +solitude was forbidding and disquieting; the keen air that searched +the wanderer had no pity in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span> it; and the myriad glances of the night +were curiously cold.</p> + +<p>His flock straggled after him. The sheep, weather beaten and dejected, +followed the path with low heads nodding from side to side, as if they +had travelled far and found little pasture. The black, lop-eared goats +leaped upon the rocks, restless and ravenous, tearing down the tender +branches and leaves of the dwarf oaks and wild olives. They reared up +against the twisted trunks and crawled and scrambled among the boughs. +It was like a company of gray downcast friends and a troop of merry +little black devils following the sad shepherd afar off.</p> + +<p>He walked looking on the ground, paying small heed to them. Now and +again, when the sound of pattering feet and panting breath and the +rustling and rending among the copses fell too far behind, he drew out +his shepherd's pipe and blew a strain of music, shrill and plaintive, +quavering and lamenting through the hollow night. He waited while the +troops of gray and black scuffled and bounded and trotted near to him. +Then he dropped the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span> pipe into its place again and strode forward, +looking on the ground.</p> + +<p>The fitful, shivery wind that rasped the hill-top, fluttered the rags +of his long mantle of Tyrian blue, torn by thorns and stained by +travel. The rich tunic of striped silk beneath it was worn thin, and +the girdle about his loins had lost all its ornaments of silver and +jewels. His curling hair hung down dishevelled under a turban of fine +linen, in which the gilt threads were frayed and tarnished; and his +shoes of soft leather were broken by the road. On his brown fingers +the places of the vanished rings were still marked in white skin. He +carried not the long staff nor the heavy nail-studded rod of the +shepherd, but a slender stick of carved cedar battered and scratched +by hard usage, and the handle, which must once have been of precious +metal, was missing.</p> + +<p>He was a strange figure for that lonely place and that humble +occupation—a branch of faded beauty from some royal garden tossed by +rude winds into the wilderness—a pleasure craft adrift, buffeted and +broken, on rough seas.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span></p> + +<p>But he seemed to have passed beyond caring. His young face was as +frayed and threadbare as his garments. The splendour of the moonlight +flooding the wild world meant as little to him as the hardness of the +rugged track which he followed. He wrapped his tattered mantle closer +around him, and strode ahead, looking on the ground.</p> + +<p>As the path dropped from the summit of the ridge toward the Valley of +Mills and passed among huge broken rocks, three men sprang at him from +the shadows. He lifted his stick, but let it fall again, and a strange +ghost of a smile twisted his face as they gripped him and threw him +down.</p> + +<p>"You are rough beggars," he said. "Say what you want, you are welcome +to it."</p> + +<p>"Your money, dog of a courtier," they muttered fiercely; "give us your +golden collar, Herod's hound, quick, or you die!"</p> + +<p>"The quicker the better," he answered, closing his eyes.</p> + +<p>The bewildered flock of sheep and goats, gathered in a silent ring, +stood at gaze while the robbers fumbled over their master.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span></p> + +<p>"This is a stray dog," said one, "he has lost his collar, there is not +even the price of a mouthful of wine on him. Shall we kill him and +leave him for the vultures?"</p> + +<p>"What have the vultures done for us," said another, "that we should +feed them? Let us take his cloak and drive off his flock, and leave +him to die in his own time."</p> + +<p>With a kick and a curse they left him. He opened his eyes and lay +quiet for a moment, with his twisted smile, watching the stars.</p> + +<p>"You creep like snails," he said. "I thought you had marked my time +to-night. But not even that is given to me for nothing. I must pay for +all, it seems."</p> + +<p>Far away, slowly scattering and receding, he heard the rustling and +bleating of his frightened flock as the robbers, running and shouting, +tried to drive them over the hills. Then he stood up and took the +shepherd's pipe from the breast of his tunic. He blew again that +plaintive, piercing air, sounding it out over the ridges and distant +thickets. It seemed to have neither beginning nor end; a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span> melancholy, +pleading tune that searched forever after something lost.</p> + +<p>While he played, the sheep and the goats, slipping away from their +captors by roundabout ways, hiding behind the laurel bushes, following +the dark gullies, leaping down the broken cliffs, came circling back +to him, one after another; and as they came, he interrupted his +playing, now and then, to call them by name.</p> + +<p>When they were nearly all assembled, he went down swiftly toward the +lower valley, and they followed him, panting. At the last crook of the +path on the steep hillside a straggler came after him along the cliff. +He looked up and saw it outlined against the sky. Then he saw it leap, +and slip, and fall beyond the path into a deep cleft.</p> + +<p>"Little fool," he said, "fortune is kind to you! You have escaped from +the big trap of life. What? You are crying for help? You are still in +the trap? Then I must go down to you, little fool, for I am a fool +too. But why I must do it, I know no more than you know."</p> + +<p>He lowered himself quickly and perilously into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span> the cleft, and found +the creature with its leg broken and bleeding. It was not a sheep but +a young goat. He had no cloak to wrap it in, but he took off his +turban and unrolled it, and bound it around the trembling animal. Then +he climbed back to the path and strode on at the head of his flock, +carrying the little black kid in his arms.</p> + +<p>There were houses in the Valley of the Mills; and in some of them +lights were burning; and the drone of the mill-stones, where the women +were still grinding, came out into the night like the humming of +drowsy bees. As the women heard the pattering and bleating of the +flock, they wondered who was passing so late. One of them, in a house +where there was no mill but many lights, came to the door and looked +out laughing, her face and bosom bare.</p> + +<p>But the sad shepherd did not stay. His long shadow and the confused +mass of lesser shadows behind him drifted down the white moonlight, +past the yellow bars of lamplight that gleamed from the doorways. It +seemed as if he were bound to go somewhere and would not delay.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span></p> + +<p>Yet with all his haste to be gone, it was plain that he thought little +of where he was going. For when he came to the foot of the valley, +where the paths divided, he stood between them staring vacantly, +without a desire to turn him this way or that. The imperative of +choice halted him like a barrier. The balance of his mind hung even +because both scales were empty. He could act, he could go, for his +strength was untouched; but he could not choose, for his will was +broken within him.</p> + +<p>The path to the left went up toward the little town of Bethlehem, with +huddled roofs and walls in silhouette along the double-crested hill. +It was dark and forbidding as a closed fortress. The sad shepherd +looked at it with indifferent eyes; there was nothing there to draw +him.</p> + +<p>The path to the right wound through rock-strewn valleys toward the +Dead Sea. But rising out of that crumpled wilderness, a mile or two +away, the smooth white ribbon of a chariot-road lay upon the flank of +a cone-shaped mountain and curled in loops toward its peak. There the +great cone was cut squarely off, and the levelled summit was capped +by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span> a palace of marble, with round towers at the corners and flaring +beacons along the walls; and the glow of an immense fire, hidden in +the central court-yard, painted a false dawn in the eastern sky. All +down the clean-cut mountain slopes, on terraces and blind arcades, the +lights flashed from lesser pavilions and pleasure-houses.</p> + +<p>It was the secret orchard of Herod and his friends, their +trysting-place with the spirits of mirth and madness. They called it +the Mountain of the Little Paradise. Rich gardens were there; and the +cool water from the Pools of Solomon plashed in the fountains; and +trees of the knowledge of good and evil fruited blood-red and +ivory-white above them; and smooth, curving, glistening shapes, +whispering softly of pleasure, lay among the flowers and glided behind +the trees. All this was now hidden in the dark. Only the strange bulk +of the mountain, a sharp black pyramid girdled and crowned with fire, +loomed across the night—a mountain once seen never to be forgotten.</p> + +<p>The sad shepherd remembered it well. He looked at it with the eyes of +a child who has been in hell.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span> It burned him from afar. Turning +neither to the right nor to the left, he walked without a path +straight out upon the plain of Bethlehem, still whitened in the +hollows and on the sheltered side of its rounded hillocks by the veil +of snow.</p> + +<p>He faced a wide and empty world. To the west in sleeping Bethlehem, to +the east in flaring Herodium, the life of man was infinitely far away +from him. Even the stars seemed to withdraw themselves against the +blue-black of the sky. They diminished and receded till they were like +pin-holes in the vault above him. The moon in mid-heaven shrank into a +bit of burnished silver, hard and glittering, immeasurably remote. The +ragged, inhospitable ridges of Tekoa lay stretched in mortal slumber +along the horizon, and between them he caught a glimpse of the sunken +Lake of Death, darkly gleaming in its deep bed. There was no movement, +no sound, on the plain where he walked, except the soft-padding feet +of his dumb, obsequious flock.</p> + +<p>He felt an endless isolation strike cold to his heart, against which +he held the limp body of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span> wounded kid, wondering the while, with a +half-contempt for his own foolishness, why he took such trouble to +save a tiny scrap of the worthless tissue which is called life.</p> + +<p>Even when a man does not know or care where he is going, if he steps +onward he will get there. In an hour or more of walking over the plain +the sad shepherd came to a sheep-fold of grey stones with a rude tower +beside it. The fold was full of sheep, and at the foot of the tower a +little fire of thorns was burning, around which four shepherds were +crouching, wrapped in their thick woollen cloaks.</p> + +<p>As the stranger approached they looked up, and one of them rose +quickly to his feet, grasping his knotted club. But when they saw the +flock that followed the sad shepherd, they stared at each other and +said: "It is one of us, a keeper of sheep. But how comes he here in +this raiment? It is what men wear in kings' houses."</p> + +<p>"No," said the one who was standing, "it is what they wear when they +have been thrown out of them. Look at the rags. He may be a thief and +a robber with his stolen flock."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Salute him when he comes near," said the oldest shepherd. "Are we not +four to one? We have nothing to fear from a ragged traveller. Speak +him fair. It is the will of God—and it costs nothing."</p> + +<p>"Peace be with you, brother," cried the youngest shepherd; "may your +mother and father be blessed."</p> + +<p>"May your heart be enlarged," the stranger answered, "and may all your +families be more blessed than mine, for I have none."</p> + +<p>"A homeless man," said the old shepherd, "has either been robbed by +his fellows, or punished by God."</p> + +<p>"I do not know which it was," answered the stranger; "the end is the +same, as you see."</p> + +<p>"By your speech you come from Galilee. Where are you going? What are +you seeking here?"</p> + +<p>"I was going nowhere, my masters; but it was cold on the way there, +and my feet turned to your fire."</p> + +<p>"Come then, if you are a peaceable man, and warm your feet with us. +Heat is a good gift; divide it and it is not less. But you shall have +bread and salt too, if you will."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span></p> + +<p>"May your hospitality enrich you. I am your unworthy guest. But my +flock?"</p> + +<p>"Let your flock shelter by the south wall of the fold: there is good +picking there and no wind. Come you and sit with us."</p> + +<p>So they all sat down by the fire; and the sad shepherd ate of their +bread, but sparingly, like a man to whom hunger brings a need but no +joy in the satisfying of it; and the others were silent for a proper +time, out of courtesy. Then the oldest shepherd spoke:</p> + +<p>"My name is Zadok the son of Eliezer, of Bethlehem. I am the chief +shepherd of the flocks of the Temple, which are before you in the +fold. These are my sister's sons, Jotham, and Shama, and Nathan: their +father Elkanah is dead; and but for these I am a childless man."</p> + +<p>"My name," replied the stranger, "is Ammiel the son of Jochanan, of +the city of Bethsaida, by the Sea of Galilee, and I am a fatherless +man."</p> + +<p>"It is better to be childless than fatherless," said Zadok, "yet it is +the will of God that children should bury their fathers. When did the +blessed Jochanan die?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I know not whether he be dead or alive. It is three years since I +looked upon his face or had word of him."</p> + +<p>"You are an exile, then? he has cast you off?"</p> + +<p>"It was the other way," said Ammiel, looking on the ground.</p> + +<p>At this the shepherd Shama, who had listened with doubt in his face, +started up in anger. "Pig of a Galilean," he cried, "despiser of +parents! breaker of the law! When I saw you coming I knew you for +something vile. Why do you darken the night for us with your presence? +You have reviled him who begot you. Away, or we stone you!"</p> + +<p>Ammiel did not answer or move. The twisted smile passed over his face +again as he waited to know the shepherds' will with him, even as he +had waited for the robbers. But Zadok lifted his hand.</p> + +<p>"Not so hasty, Shama-ben-Elkanah. You also break the law by judging a +man unheard. The rabbis have told us that there is a tradition of the +elders—a rule as holy as the law itself—that a man may deny his +father in a certain way without sin. It is a strange rule, and it must +be very holy or it would not be so strange. But this is the teaching<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span> +of the elders: a son may say of anything for which his father asks +him—a sheep, or a measure of corn, or a field, or a purse of +silver—'it is Corban, a gift that I have vowed unto the Lord'; and so +his father shall have no more claim upon him. Have you said 'Corban' +to your father, Ammiel-ben-Jochanan? Have you made a vow unto the +Lord?"</p> + +<p>"I have said 'Corban,'" answered Ammiel, lifting his face, still +shadowed by that strange smile, "but it was not the Lord who heard my +vow."</p> + +<p>"Tell us what you have done," said the old man sternly, "for we will +neither judge you, nor shelter you, unless we hear your story."</p> + +<p>"There is nothing in it," replied Ammiel indifferently. "It is an old +story. But if you are curious you shall hear it. Afterward you shall +deal with me as you will."</p> + +<p>So the shepherds, wrapped in their warm cloaks, sat listening with +grave faces and watchful, unsearchable eyes, while Ammiel in his +tattered silk sat by the sinking fire of thorns and told his tale with +a voice that had no room for hope or fear—a cool, dead voice that +spoke only of things ended.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span></p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<h4>NIGHTFIRE</h4> + +<p>"In my father's house I was the second son. My brother was honoured +and trusted in all things. He was a prudent man and profitable to the +house-hold. All that he counselled was done, all that he wished he +had. My place was a narrow one. There was neither honour nor joy in +it, for it was filled with daily tasks and rebukes. No one cared for +me. My mother sometimes wept when I was rebuked. Perhaps she was +disappointed in me. But she had no power to make things better. I felt +that I was a beast of burden, fed only in order that I might be +useful; and the dull life irked me like an ill-fitting harness. There +was nothing in it.</p> + +<p>"I went to my father and claimed my share of the inheritance. He was +rich. He gave it to me. It did not impoverish him and it made me free. +I said to him 'Corban,' and shook the dust of Bethsaida from my feet.</p> + +<p>"I went out to look for mirth and love and joy and all that is +pleasant to the eyes and sweet to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span> the taste. If a god made me, +thought I, he made me to live, and the pride of life was strong in my +heart and in my flesh. My vow was offered to that well-known god. I +served him in Jerusalem, in Alexandria, in Rome, for his altars are +everywhere and men worship him openly or in secret.</p> + +<p>"My money and youth made me welcome to his followers, and I spent them +both freely as if they could never come to an end. I clothed myself in +purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. The wine of +Cyprus and the dishes of Egypt and Syria were on my table. My dwelling +was crowded with merry guests. They came for what I gave them. Their +faces were hungry and their soft touch was like the clinging of +leeches. To them I was nothing but money and youth; no longer a beast +of burden—a beast of pleasure. There was nothing in it.</p> + +<p>"From the richest fare my heart went away empty, and after the wildest +banquet my soul fell drunk and solitary into sleep.</p> + +<p>"Then I thought, Power is better than pleasure. If a man will feast +and revel let him do it with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span> great. They will favour him and +raise him up for the service that he renders them. He will obtain +place and authority in the world and gain many friends. So I joined +myself to Herod."</p> + +<p>When the sad shepherd spoke this name his listeners drew back from him +as if it were a defilement to hear it. They spat upon the ground and +cursed the Idumean who called himself their king.</p> + +<p>"A slave!" Jotham cried, "a bloody tyrant and a slave from Edom! A +fox, a vile beast who devours his own children! God burn him in +Gehenna."</p> + +<p>The old Zadok picked up a stone and threw it into the darkness, saying +slowly, "I cast this stone on the grave of the Idumean, the +blasphemer, the defiler of the Temple! God send us soon the Deliverer, +the Promised One, the true King of Israel!" Ammiel made no sign, but +went on with his story.</p> + +<p>"Herod used me well—for his own purpose. He welcomed me to his palace +and his table, and gave me a place among his favourites. He was so +much my friend that he borrowed my money. There were many of the +nobles of Jerusalem with him, Sadducees, and proselytes from Rome and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span> +Asia, and women from everywhere. The law of Israel was observed in the +open court, when the people were watching. But in the secret feasts +there was no law but the will of Herod, and many deities were served +but no god was worshipped. There the captains and the princes of Rome +consorted with the high-priest and his sons by night; and there was +much coming and going by hidden ways. Everybody was a borrower or a +lender, a buyer or a seller of favours. It was a house of diligent +madness. There was nothing in it.</p> + +<p>"In the midst of this whirling life a great need of love came upon me +and I wished to hold some one in my inmost heart.</p> + +<p>"At a certain place in the city, within closed doors, I saw a young +slave-girl dancing. She was about fifteen years old, thin and supple; +she danced like a reed in the wind; but her eyes were weary as death, +and her white body was marked with bruises. She stumbled, and the men +laughed at her. She fell, and her mistress beat her, crying out that +she would fain be rid of such a heavy-footed slave. I paid the price +and took her to my dwelling.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Her name was Tamar. She was a daughter of Lebanon. I robed her in +silk and broidered linen. I nourished her with tender care so that +beauty came upon her like the blossoming of an almond tree; she was a +garden enclosed, breathing spices. Her eyes were like doves behind her +veil, her lips were a thread of scarlet, her neck was a tower of +ivory, and her breasts were as two fawns which feed among the lilies. +She was whiter than milk, and more rosy than the flower of the peach, +and her dancing was like the flight of a bird among the branches. So I +loved her.</p> + +<p>"She lay in my bosom as a clear stone that one has bought and polished +and set in fine gold at the end of a golden chain. Never was she glad +at my coming, or sorry at my going. Never did she give me anything +except what I took from her. There was nothing in it.</p> + +<p>"Now whether Herod knew of the jewel that I kept in my dwelling I +cannot tell. It was sure that he had his spies in all the city, and +himself walked the streets by night in a disguise. On a certain day he +sent for me, and had me into his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span> secret chamber, professing great +love toward me and more confidence than in any man that lived. So I +must go to Rome for him, bearing a sealed letter and a private message +to Cæsar. All my goods would be left safely in the hands of the king, +my friend, who would reward me double. There was a certain place of +high authority at Jerusalem which Cæsar would gladly bestow on a Jew +who had done him a service. This mission would commend me to him. It +was a great occasion, suited to my powers. Thus Herod fed me with fair +promises, and I ran his errand. There was nothing in it.</p> + +<p>"I stood before Cæsar and gave him the letter. He read it and laughed, +saying that a prince with an incurable hunger is a servant of value to +an emperor. Then he asked me if there was nothing sent with the +letter. I answered that there was no gift, but a message for his +private ear. He drew me aside and I told him that Herod begged +earnestly that his dear son, Antipater, might be sent back in haste +from Rome to Palestine, for the king had great need of him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span></p> + +<p>"At this Cæsar laughed again. 'To bury him, I suppose,' said he, 'with +his brothers, Alexander and Aristobulus! Truly, it is better to be +Herod's swine than his son! Tell the old fox he may catch his own +prey.' With this he turned from me and I withdrew unrewarded, to make +my way back, as best I could with an empty purse, to Palestine. I had +seen the Lord of the World. There was nothing in it.</p> + +<p>"Selling my rings and bracelets I got passage in a trading ship for +Joppa. There I heard that the king was not in Jerusalem, at his Palace +of the Upper City, but had gone with his friends to make merry for a +month on the Mountain of the Little Paradise. On that hill-top over +against us, where the lights are flaring to-night, in the banquet-hall +where couches are spread for a hundred guests, I found Herod."</p> + +<p>The listening shepherds spat upon the ground again, and Jotham +muttered, "May the worms that devour his flesh never die!" But Zadok +whispered, "We wait for the Lord's salvation to come out of Zion." And +the sad shepherd, looking with fixed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span> eyes at the firelit mountain far +away, continued his story:</p> + +<p>"The king lay on his ivory couch, and the sweat of his disease was +heavy upon him, for he was old, and his flesh was corrupted. But his +hair and his beard were dyed and perfumed and there was a wreath of +roses on his head. The hall was full of nobles and great men, the sons +of the high-priest were there, and the servants poured their wine in +cups of gold. There was a sound of soft music; and all the men were +watching a girl who danced in the middle of the hall; and the eyes of +Herod were fiery, like the eyes of a fox.</p> + +<p>"The dancer was Tamar. She glistened like the snow on Lebanon, and the +redness of her was ruddier than a pomegranate, and her dancing was +like the coiling of white serpents. When the dance was ended her +attendants threw a veil of gauze over her and she lay among her +cushions, half covered with flowers, at the feet of the king.</p> + +<p>"Through the sound of clapping hands and shouting, two slaves led me +behind the couch of Herod. His eyes narrowed as they fell upon me. I +told him the message of Cæsar, making it soft, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span> if it were a word +that suffered him to catch his prey. He stroked his beard and his look +fell on Tamar. 'I have caught it,' he murmured; 'by all the gods, I +have always caught it. And my dear son, Antipater, is coming home of +his own will. I have lured him, he is mine.'</p> + +<p>"Then a look of madness crossed his face and he sprang up, with +frothing lips, and struck at me. 'What is this,' he cried, 'a spy, a +servant of my false son, a traitor in my banquet-hall! Who are you?' I +knelt before him, protesting that he must know me; that I was his +friend, his messenger; that I had left all my goods in his hands; that +the girl who had danced for him was mine. At this his face changed +again and he fell back on his couch, shaken with horrible laughter. +'Yours!' he cried, 'when was she yours? What is yours? I know you now, +poor madman. You are Ammiel, a crazy shepherd from Galilee, who +troubled us some time since. Take him away, slaves. He has twenty +sheep and twenty goats among my flocks at the foot of the mountain. +See to it that he gets them, and drive him away.'</p> + +<p>"I fought against the slaves with my bare hands,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span> but they held me. I +called to Tamar, begging her to have pity on me, to speak for me, to +come with me. She looked up with her eyes like doves behind her veil, +but there was no knowledge of me in them. She laughed lazily, as if it +were a poor comedy, and flung a broken rose-branch in my face. Then +the silver cord was loosened within me, and my heart went out, and I +struggled no more. There was nothing in it.</p> + +<p>"Afterward I found myself on the road with this flock. I led them past +Hebron into the south country, and so by the Vale of Eshcol, and over +many hills beyond the Pools of Solomon, until my feet brought me to +your fire. Here I rest on the way to nowhere."</p> + +<p>He sat silent, and the four shepherds looked at him with amazement.</p> + +<p>"It is a bitter tale," said Shama, "and you are a great sinner."</p> + +<p>"I should be a fool not to know that," answered the sad shepherd, "but +the knowledge does me no good."</p> + +<p>"You must repent," said Nathan, the youngest shepherd, in a friendly +voice.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span></p> + +<p>"How can a man repent," answered the sad shepherd, "unless he has +hope? But I am sorry for everything, and most of all for living."</p> + +<p>"Would you not live to kill the fox Herod?" cried Jotham fiercely.</p> + +<p>"Why should I let him out of the trap," answered the sad shepherd. "Is +he not dying more slowly than I could kill him?"</p> + +<p>"You must have faith in God," said Zadok earnestly and gravely.</p> + +<p>"He is too far away."</p> + +<p>"Then you must have love for your neighbour."</p> + +<p>"He is too near. My confidence in man was like a pool by the wayside. +It was shallow, but there was water in it, and sometimes a star shone +there. Now the feet of many beasts have trampled through it, and the +jackals have drunken of it, and there is no more water. It is dry and +the mire is caked at the bottom."</p> + +<p>"Is there nothing good in the world?"</p> + +<p>"There is pleasure, but I am sick of it. There is power, but I hate +it. There is wisdom, but I mistrust it. Life is a game and every +player is for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span> his own hand. Mine is played. I have nothing to win or +lose."</p> + +<p>"You are young, you have many years to live."</p> + +<p>"I am old, yet the days before me are too many."</p> + +<p>"But you travel the road, you go forward. Do you hope for nothing?"</p> + +<p>"I hope for nothing," said the sad shepherd. "Yet if one thing should +come to me it might be the beginning of hope. If I saw in man or woman +a deed of kindness without a selfish reason, and a proof of love +gladly given for its own sake only, then might I turn my face toward +that light. Till that comes, how can I have faith in God whom I have +never seen? I have seen the world which he has made, and it brings me +no faith. There is nothing in it."</p> + +<p>"Ammiel-ben-Jochanan," said the old man sternly, "you are a son of +Israel, and we have had compassion on you, according to the law. But +you are an apostate, an unbeliever, and we can have no more fellowship +with you, lest a curse come upon us. The company of the desperate +brings<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span> misfortune. Go your way and depart from us, for our way is not +yours."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/image_024.jpg" width="400" height="586" alt="So the sad shepherd thanked them for their +entertainment." /> +<span class="caption">So the sad shepherd thanked them for their +entertainment.</span> +</div> + +<p>So the sad shepherd thanked them for their entertainment, and took the +little kid again in his arms, and went into the night, calling his +flock. But the youngest shepherd Nathan followed him a few steps and +said:</p> + +<p>"There is a broken fold at the foot of the hill. It is old and small, +but you may find a shelter there for your flock where the wind will +not shake you. Go your way with God, brother, and see better days."</p> + +<p>Then Ammiel went a little way down the hill and sheltered his flock in +a corner of the crumbling walls. He lay among the sheep and the goats +with his face upon his folded arms, and whether the time passed slowly +or swiftly he did not know, for he slept.</p> + +<p>He waked as Nathan came running and stumbling among the scattered +stones.</p> + +<p>"We have seen a vision," he cried, "a wonderful vision of angels. Did +you not hear them? They sang loudly of the Hope of Israel. We are +going <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span>to Bethlehem to see this thing which is come to pass. Come +you and keep watch over our sheep while we are gone."</p> + +<p>"Of angels I have seen and heard nothing," said Ammiel, "but I will +guard your flocks with mine, since I am in debt to you for bread and +fire."</p> + +<p>So he brought the kid in his arms, and the weary flock straggling +after him, to the south wall of the great fold again, and sat there by +the embers at the foot of the tower, while the others were away.</p> + +<p>The moon rested like a ball on the edge of the western hills and +rolled behind them. The stars faded in the east and the fires went out +on the Mountain of the Little Paradise. Over the hills of Moab a gray +flood of dawn rose slowly, and arrows of red shot far up before the +sunrise.</p> + +<p>The shepherds returned full of joy and told what they had seen.</p> + +<p>"It was even as the angels said unto us," said Shama, "and it must be +true. The King of Israel has come. The faithful shall be blessed."</p> + +<p>"Herod shall fall," cried Jotham, lifting his clenched fist toward the +dark peaked mountain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span> "Burn, black Idumean, in the bottomless pit, +where the fire is not quenched."</p> + +<p>Zadok spoke more quietly. "We found the new-born child of whom the +angels told us wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. The +ways of God are wonderful. His salvation comes out of darkness. But +you, Ammiel-ben-Jochanan, except you believe, you shall not see it. +Yet since you have kept our flocks faithfully, and because of the joy +that has come to us, I give you this piece of silver to help you on +your way."</p> + +<p>But Nathan came close to the sad shepherd and touched him on the +shoulder with a friendly hand. "Go you also to Bethlehem," he said in +a low voice, "for it is good to see what we have seen, and we will +keep your flock until you return."</p> + +<p>"I will go," said Ammiel, looking into his face, "for I think you wish +me well. But whether I shall see what you have seen, or whether I +shall ever return, I know not. Farewell."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span></p> +<h3>III</h3> + +<h4>DAWN</h4> + +<p>The narrow streets of Bethlehem were waking to the first stir of life +as the sad shepherd came into the town with the morning, and passed +through them like one walking in his sleep.</p> + +<p>The court-yard of the great khan and the open rooms around it were +crowded with travellers, rousing from their night's rest and making +ready for the day's journey. In front of the stables half hollowed in +the rock beside the inn, men were saddling their horses and their +beasts of burden, and there was much noise and confusion.</p> + +<p>But beyond these, at the end of the line, there was a deeper grotto in +the rock, which was used only when the nearer stalls were full. Beside +the entrance of this cave an ass was tethered, and a man of middle age +stood in the doorway.</p> + +<p>The sad shepherd saluted him and told his name.</p> + +<p>"I am Joseph the carpenter of Nazareth," replied the man. "Have you +also seen the angels of whom your brother shepherds came to tell us?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I have seen no angels," answered Ammiel, "nor have I any brothers +among the shepherds. But I would fain see what they have seen."</p> + +<p>"It is our first-born son," said Joseph, "and the Most High has sent +him to us. He is a marvellous child: great things are foretold of him. +You may go in, but quietly, for the child and his mother Mary are +asleep."</p> + +<p>So the sad shepherd went in quietly. His long shadow entered before +him, for the sunrise was flowing into the door of the grotto. It was +made clean and put in order, and a bed of straw was laid in the corner +on the ground.</p> + +<p>The child was asleep, but the young mother was waking, for she had +taken him from the manger into her lap, where her maiden veil of white +was spread to receive him. And she was singing very softly as she bent +over him in wonder and content.</p> + +<p>Ammiel saluted her and kneeled down to look at the child. He saw +nothing different from other young children. The mother waited for him +to speak of angels, as the other shepherds had done.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span> The sad shepherd +did not speak, but only looked And as he looked his face changed.</p> + +<p>"You have suffered pain and danger and sorrow for his sake," he said +gently.</p> + +<p>"They are past," she answered, "and for his sake I have suffered them +gladly."</p> + +<p>"He is very little and helpless; you must bear many troubles for his +sake."</p> + +<p>"To care for him is my joy, and to bear him lightens my burden."</p> + +<p>"He does not know you, he can do nothing for you."</p> + +<p>"But I know him. I have carried him under my heart, he is my son and +my king."</p> + +<p>"Why do you love him?"</p> + +<p>The mother looked up at the sad shepherd with a great reproach in her +soft eyes. Then her look grew pitiful as it rested on his face.</p> + +<p>"You are a sorrowful man," she said.</p> + +<p>"I am a wicked man," he answered.</p> + +<p>She shook her head gently.</p> + +<p>"I know nothing of that," she said, "but you must be very sorrowful, +since you are born of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span> woman and yet you ask a mother why she loves +her child. I love him for love's sake, because God has given him to +me."</p> + +<p>So the mother Mary leaned over her little son again and began to croon +a song as if she were alone with him.</p> + +<p>But Ammiel was still there, watching and thinking and beginning to +remember. It came back to him that there was a woman in Galilee who +had wept when he was rebuked; whose eyes had followed him when he was +unhappy, as if she longed to do something for him; whose voice had +broken and dropped silent while she covered her tear-stained face when +he went away.</p> + +<p>His thoughts flowed swiftly and silently toward her and after her like +rapid waves of light. There was a thought of her bending over a little +child in her lap, singing softly for pure joy,—and the child was +himself. There was a thought of her lifting a little child to the +breast that had borne him as a burden and a pain, to nourish him there +as a comfort and a treasure,—and the child was himself. There was a +thought of her watching and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span> tending and guiding a little child from +day to day, from year to year, putting tender arms around him, bending +over his first wavering steps, rejoicing in his joys, wiping away the +tears from his eyes, as he had never tried to wipe her tears +away,—and the child was himself. She had done everything for the +child's sake, but what had the child done for her sake? And the child +was himself: that was what he had come to,—after the nightfire had +burned out, after the darkness had grown thin and melted in the +thoughts that pulsed through it like rapid waves of light,—that was +what he had come to in the early morning,—himself, a child in his +mother's arms.</p> + +<p>Then he arose and went out of the grotto softly, making the three-fold +sign of reverence; and the eyes of Mary followed him with kind looks.</p> + +<p>Joseph of Nazareth was still waiting outside the door.</p> + +<p>"How was it that you did not see the angels?" he asked. "Were you not +with the other shepherds?"</p> + +<p>"No," answered Ammiel, "I was asleep. But I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span> have seen the mother and +the child. Blessed be the house that holds them."</p> + +<p>"You are strangely clad for a shepherd," said Joseph. "Where do you +come from?"</p> + +<p>"From a far country," replied Ammiel; "from a country that you have +never visited."</p> + +<p>"Where are you going now?" asked Joseph.</p> + +<p>"I am going home," answered Ammiel, "to my mother's and my father's +house in Galilee."</p> + +<p>"Go in peace, friend," said Joseph.</p> + +<p>And the sad shepherd took up his battered staff, and went on his way +rejoicing.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="THE_MANSION" id="THE_MANSION"></a>THE MANSION</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>There was an air of calm and reserved opulence about the Weightman +mansion that spoke not of money squandered, but of wealth prudently +applied. Standing on a corner of the Avenue no longer fashionable for +residence, it looked upon the swelling tide of business with an +expression of complacency and half-disdain.</p> + +<p>The house was not beautiful. There was nothing in its straight front +of chocolate-coloured stone, its heavy cornices, its broad, staring +windows of plate glass, its carved and bronze-bedecked mahogany doors +at the top of the wide stoop, to charm the eye or fascinate the +imagination. But it was eminently respectable, and in its way +imposing. It seemed to say that the glittering shops of the jewellers, +the milliners, the confectioners, the florists, the picture-dealers, +the furriers, the makers of rare and costly antiquities, retail +traders in the luxuries<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span> of life, were beneath the notice of a house +that had its foundations in the high finance, and was built literally +and figuratively in the shadow of St. Petronius' Church.</p> + +<p>At the same time there was something self-pleased and congratulatory +in the way in which the mansion held its own amid the changing +neighbourhood. It almost seemed to be lifted up a little, among the +tall buildings near at hand, as if it felt the rising value of the +land on which it stood.</p> + +<p>John Weightman was like the house into which he had built himself +thirty years ago, and in which his ideals and ambitions were +incrusted. He was a self-made man. But in making himself he had chosen +a highly esteemed pattern and worked according to the approved rules. +There was nothing irregular, questionable, flamboyant about him. He +was solid, correct, and justly successful.</p> + +<p>His minor tastes, of course, had been carefully kept up to date. At +the proper time, pictures by the Barbizon masters, old English plate +and portraits, bronzes by Barye and marbles by Rodin, Persian carpets +and Chinese porcelains, had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span> introduced to the mansion. It +contained a Louis Quinze reception-room, an Empire drawing-room, a +Jacobean dining-room, and various apartments dimly reminiscent of the +styles of furniture affected by deceased monarchs. That the hallways +were too short for the historic perspective did not make much +difference. American decorative art is <i>capable de tout</i>, it absorbs +all periods. Of each period Mr. Weightman wished to have something of +the best. He understood its value, present as a certificate, and +prospective as an investment.</p> + +<p>It was only in the architecture of his town house that he remained +conservative, immovable, one might almost say Early-Victorian-Christian. +His country house at Dulwich-on-the-Sound was a palace of the Italian +Renaissance. But in town he adhered to an architecture which had moral +associations, the Nineteenth-Century-Brownstone epoch. It was a symbol of +his social position, his religious doctrine, and even, in a way, of his +business creed.</p> + +<p>"A man of fixed principles," he would say, "should express them in the +looks of his house. New York changes its domestic architecture too<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span> +rapidly. It is like divorce. It is not dignified. I don't like it. +Extravagance and fickleness are advertised in most of these new +houses. I wish to be known for different qualities. Dignity and +prudence are the things that people trust. Every one knows that I can +afford to live in the house that suits me. It is a guarantee to the +public. It inspires confidence. It helps my influence. There is a text +in the Bible about 'a house that hath foundations.' That is the proper +kind of a mansion for a solid man."</p> + +<p>Harold Weightman had often listened to his father discoursing in this +fashion on the fundamental principles of life, and always with a +divided mind. He admired immensely his father's talents and the +single-minded energy with which he improved them. But in the paternal +philosophy there was something that disquieted and oppressed the young +man, and made him gasp inwardly for fresh air and free action.</p> + +<p>At times, during his college course and his years at the law school, +he had yielded to this impulse and broken away—now toward +extravagance and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span> dissipation, and then, when the reaction came, +toward a romantic devotion to work among the poor. He had felt his +father's disapproval for both of these forms of imprudence; but it was +never expressed in a harsh or violent way, always with a certain +tolerant patience, such as one might show for the mistakes and +vagaries of the very young. John Weightman was not hasty, impulsive, +inconsiderate, even toward his own children. With them, as with the +rest of the world, he felt that he had a reputation to maintain, a +theory to vindicate. He could afford to give them time to see that he +was absolutely right.</p> + +<p>One of his favourite Scripture quotations was, "Wait on the Lord." He +had applied it to real estate and to people, with profitable results.</p> + +<p>But to human persons the sensation of being waited for is not always +agreeable. Sometimes, especially with the young, it produces a vague +restlessness, a dumb resentment, which is increased by the fact that +one can hardly explain or justify it. Of this John Weightman was not +conscious. It lay beyond his horizon. He did not take it into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span> account +in the plan of life which he made for himself and for his family as +the sharers and inheritors of his success.</p> + +<p>"Father plays us," said Harold, in a moment of irritation, to his +mother, "like pieces in a game of chess."</p> + +<p>"My dear," said that lady, whose faith in her husband was religious, +"you ought not to speak so impatiently. At least he wins the game. He +is one of the most respected men in New York. And he is very generous, +too."</p> + +<p>"I wish he would be more generous in letting us be ourselves," said +the young man. "He always has something in view for us and expects to +move us up to it."</p> + +<p>"But isn't it always for our benefit?" replied his mother. "Look what +a position we have. No one can say there is any taint on our money. +There are no rumours about your father. He has kept the laws of God +and of man. He has never made any mistakes."</p> + +<p>Harold got up from his chair and poked the fire. Then he came back to +the ample, well-gowned, firm-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span>looking lady, and sat beside her on the +sofa. He took her hand gently and looked at the two rings—a thin band +of gold, and a small solitaire diamond—which kept their place on her +third finger in modest dignity, as if not shamed, but rather +justified, by the splendour of the emerald which glittered beside +them.</p> + +<p>"Mother," he said, "you have a wonderful hand, and father made no +mistake when he won you. But are you sure he has always been so +inerrant?"</p> + +<p>"Harold," she exclaimed, a little stiffly, "what do you mean? His life +is an open book."</p> + +<p>"Oh," he answered, "I don't mean anything bad, mother dear. I know the +governor's life is an open book—a ledger, if you like, kept in the +best book-keeping hand, and always ready for inspection—every page +correct, and showing a handsome balance. But isn't it a mistake not to +allow us to make our own mistakes, to learn for ourselves, to live our +own lives? Must we be always working for 'the balance,' in one thing +or another? I want to be myself,—to get outside of this everlasting, +profitable 'plan,'—to let myself go, and lose myself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span> for a while at +least,—to do the things that I want to do, just because I want to do +them."</p> + +<p>"My boy," said his mother, anxiously, "you are not going to do +anything wrong or foolish? You know the falsehood of that old proverb +about wild oats."</p> + +<p>He threw back his head and laughed. "Yes, mother," he answered, "I +know it well enough. But in California, you know, the wild oats are +one of the most valuable crops. They grow all over the hillsides and +keep the cattle and the horses alive. But that wasn't what I meant—to +sow wild oats. Say to pick wild flowers, if you like, or even to chase +wild geese—to do something that seems good to me just for its own +sake, not for the sake of wages of one kind or another. I feel like a +hired man, in the service of this magnificent mansion—say in training +for father's place as major-domo. I'd like to get out some way, to +feel free—perhaps to do something for others."</p> + +<p>The young man's voice hesitated a little. "Yes, it sounds like cant, I +know, but sometimes I feel as if I'd like to do some good in the +world, if father<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span> only wouldn't insist upon God's putting it into the +ledger."</p> + +<p>His mother moved uneasily, and a slight look of bewilderment came into +her face.</p> + +<p>"Isn't that almost irreverent?" she asked. "Surely the righteous must +have their reward. And your father is good. See how much he gives to +all the established charities, how many things he has founded. He's +always thinking of others, and planning for them. And surely, for us +he does everything. How well he has planned this trip to Europe for me +and the girls—the court-presentation at Berlin, the season on the +Riviera, the visits in England with the Plumptons and the +Halverstones. He says Lord Halverstone has the finest old house in +Sussex, pure Elizabethan, and all the old customs are kept up, +too—family prayers every morning for all the domestics. By-the-way, +you know his son Bertie, I believe."</p> + +<p>Harold smiled a little to himself as he answered: "Yes, I fished at +Catalina Island last June with the Honorable Ethelbert; he's rather a +decent chap, in spite of his in-growing mind. But you?—mother,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span> you +are simply magnificent! You are father's masterpiece." The young man +leaned over to kiss her, and went up to the Riding Club for his +afternoon canter in the Park.</p> + +<p>So it came to pass, early in December, that Mrs. Weightman and her two +daughters sailed for Europe, on their serious pleasure trip, even as +it had been written in the book of Providence; and John Weightman, who +had made the entry, was left to pass the rest of the winter with his +son and heir in the brownstone mansion.</p> + +<p>They were comfortable enough. The machinery of the massive +establishment ran as smoothly as a great electric dynamo. They were +busy enough, too. John Weightman's plans and enterprises were +complicated, though his principle of action was always simple—to get +good value for every expenditure and effort. The banking-house of +which he was the brain, the will, the absolutely controlling hand, was +so admirably organised that the details of its direction took but +little time. But the scores of other interests that radiated from it +and were dependent upon it,—or perhaps it would be more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span> accurate to +say, that contributed to its solidity and success,—the many +investments, industrial, political, benevolent, reformatory, +ecclesiastical, that had made the name of Weightman well known and +potent in city, church, and state, demanded much attention and careful +steering, in order that each might produce the desired result. There +were board meetings of corporations and hospitals, conferences in Wall +Street and at Albany, consultations and committee meetings in the +brownstone mansion.</p> + +<p>For a share in all this business and its adjuncts John Weightman had +his son in training in one of the famous law firms of the city; for he +held that banking itself is a simple affair, the only real +difficulties of finance are on its legal side. Meantime he wished the +young man to meet and know the men with whom he would have to deal +when he became a partner in the house. So a couple of dinners were +given in the mansion during December, after which the father called +his son's attention to the fact that over a hundred million dollars +had sat around the board.</p> + +<p>But on Christmas Eve father and son were dining<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span> together without +guests, and their talk across the broad table, glittering with silver +and cut glass, and softly lit by shaded candles, was intimate, though +a little slow at times. The elder man was in rather a rare mood, more +expansive and confidential than usual; and, when the coffee was +brought in and they were left alone, he talked more freely of his +personal plans and hopes than he had ever done before.</p> + +<p>"I feel very grateful to-night," said he, at last; "it must be +something in the air of Christmas that gives me this feeling of +thankfulness for the many mercies that have been bestowed upon me. All +the principles by which I have tried to guide my life have been +justified. I have never made the value of this salted almond by +anything that the courts would not uphold, at least in the long run, +and yet—or wouldn't it be truer to say and therefore?—my affairs +have been wonderfully prospered. There's a great deal in that text +'Honesty is the best'—but no, that's not from the Bible, after all, +is it? Wait a moment; there is something of that kind, I know."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span></p> + +<p>"May I light a cigar, father," said Harold, turning away to hide a +smile, "while you are remembering the text?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, certainly," answered the elder man, rather shortly; "you know I +don't dislike the smell. But it is a wasteful, useless habit, and +therefore I have never practised it. Nothing useless is worth while, +that's my motto—nothing that does not bring a reward. Oh, now I +recall the text, 'Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.' I +shall ask Doctor Snodgrass to preach a sermon on that verse some day."</p> + +<p>"Using you as an illustration?"</p> + +<p>"Well, not exactly that; but I could give him some good material from +my own experience to prove the truth of Scripture. I can honestly say +that there is not one of my charities that has not brought me in a +good return, either in the increase of influence, the building up of +credit, or the association with substantial people. Of course you have +to be careful how you give, in order to secure the best results—no +indiscriminate giving—no pennies in beggars' hats! It has been one of +my principles<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span> always to use the same kind of judgment in charities +that I use in my other affairs, and they have not disappointed me."</p> + +<p>"Even the check that you put in the plate when you take the offertory +up the aisle on Sunday morning?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly; though there the influence is less direct; and I must +confess that I have my doubts in regard to the collection for Foreign +Missions. That always seems to me romantic and wasteful. You never +hear from it in any definite way. They say the missionaries have done +a good deal to open the way for trade; perhaps—but they have also +gotten us into commercial and political difficulties. Yet I give to +them—a little—it is a matter of conscience with me to identify +myself with all the enterprises of the Church; it is the mainstay of +social order and a prosperous civilisation. But the best forms of +benevolence are the well-established, organised ones here at home, +where people can see them and know what they are doing."</p> + +<p>"You mean the ones that have a local habitation and a name."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes; they offer by far the safest return, though of course there is +something gained by contributing to general funds. A public man can't +afford to be without public spirit. But on the whole I prefer a +building, or an endowment. There is a mutual advantage to a good name +and a good institution in their connection in the public mind. It +helps them both. Remember that, my boy. Of course at the beginning you +will have to practise it in a small way; later, you will have larger +opportunities. But try to put your gifts where they can be identified +and do good all around. You'll see the wisdom of it in the long run."</p> + +<p>"I can see it already, sir, and the way you describe it looks +amazingly wise and prudent. In other words, we must cast our bread on +the waters in large loaves, carried by sound ships marked with the +owner's name, so that the return freight will be sure to come back to +us."</p> + +<p>The father laughed, but his eyes were frowning a little as if he +suspected something irreverent under the respectful reply.</p> + +<p>"You put it humourously, but there's sense in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[340]</a></span> what you say. Why not? +God rules the sea; but He expects us to follow the laws of navigation +and commerce. Why not take good care of your bread, even when you give +it away?"</p> + +<p>"It's not for me to say why not—and yet I can think of cases—" The +young man hesitated for a moment. His half-finished cigar had gone +out. He rose and tossed it into the fire, in front of which he +remained standing—a slender, eager, restless young figure, with a +touch of hunger in the fine face, strangely like and unlike the +father, at whom he looked with half-wistful curiosity.</p> + +<p>"The fact is, sir," he continued, "there is such a case in my mind +now. So I thought of speaking to you about it to-night. You remember +Tom Rollins, the Junior who was so good to me when I entered college?"</p> + +<p>The father nodded. He remembered very well indeed the annoying +incidents of his son's first escapade, and how Rollins had stood by +him and helped to avoid a public disgrace, and how a close friendship +had grown between the two boys, so different in their fortunes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[341]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "I remember him. He was a promising young man. Has he +succeeded?"</p> + +<p>"Not exactly—that is, not yet. His business has been going rather +badly. He has a wife and little baby, you know. And now he has broken +down,—something wrong with his lungs. The doctor says his only chance +is a year or eighteen months in Colorado. I wish we could help him."</p> + +<p>"How much would it cost?"</p> + +<p>"Three or four thousand, perhaps, as a loan."</p> + +<p>"Does the doctor say he will get well?"</p> + +<p>"A fighting chance—the doctor says."</p> + +<p>The face of the older man changed subtly. Not a line was altered, but +it seemed to have a different substance, as if it were carved out of +some firm imperishable stuff.</p> + +<p>"A fighting chance," he said, "may do for a speculation, but it is not +a good investment. You owe something to young Rollins. Your grateful +feeling does you credit. But don't overwork it. Send him three or four +hundred, if you like. You'll never hear from it again, except in the +letter of thanks. But for Heaven's sake don't be senti<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[342]</a></span>mental. +Religion is not a matter of sentiment; it's a matter of principle."</p> + +<p>The face of the younger man changed now. But instead of becoming fixed +and graven, it seemed to melt into life. His nostrils quivered with +quick breath, his lips were curled.</p> + +<p>"Principle!" he said. "You mean principal—and interest too. Well, +sir, you know best whether that is religion or not. But if it is, +count me out, please. Tom saved me from going to the devil, six years +ago; and I'll be damned if I don't help him to the best of my ability +now."</p> + +<p>John Weightman looked at his son steadily. "Harold," he said at last, +"you know I dislike violent language, and it never has any influence +with me. If I could honestly approve of this proposition of yours, I'd +let you have the money; but I can't; it's extravagant and useless. But +you have your Christmas check for a thousand dollars coming to you +to-morrow. You can use it as you please. I never interfere with your +private affairs."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Harold. "Thank you very much! But there's another +private affair. I want<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[343]</a></span> to get away from this life, this town, this +house. It stifles me. You refused last summer when I asked you to let +me go up to Grenfell's Mission on the Labrador. I could go now, at +least as far as the Newfoundland Station. Have you changed your mind?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all. I think it is an exceedingly foolish enterprise. It would +interrupt the career that I have marked out for you."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, here's a cheaper proposition. Algy Vanderhoof wants me to +join him on his yacht with—well, with a little party—to cruise in +the West Indies. Would you prefer that?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not! The Vanderhoof set is wild and godless—I do not wish +to see you keeping company with fools who walk in the broad and easy +way that leads to perdition."</p> + +<p>"It is rather a hard choice," said the young man, with a short laugh, +turning toward the door. "According to you there's very little +difference—a fool's paradise or a fool's hell! Well, it's one or the +other for me, and I'll toss up for it to-night: heads, I lose; tails, +the devil wins. Anyway, I'm sick of this, and I'm out of it."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[344]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Harold," said the older man (and there was a slight tremor in his +voice), "don't let us quarrel on Christmas Eve. All I want is to +persuade you to think seriously of the duties and responsibilities to +which God has called you. Don't speak lightly of heaven and hell. +Remember, there is another life."</p> + +<p>The young man came back and laid his hand upon his father's shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Father," he said, "I want to remember it. I try to believe in it. But +somehow or other, in this house, it all seems unreal to me. No doubt +all you say is perfectly right and wise. I don't venture to argue +against it, but I can't feel it—that's all. If I'm to have a soul, +either to lose or to save, I must really live. Just now neither the +present nor the future means anything to me. But surely we won't +quarrel. I'm very grateful to you, and we'll part friends. Good-night, +sir."</p> + +<p>The father held out his hand in silence. The heavy portiere dropped +noiselessly behind the son, and he went up the wide, curving stairway +to his own room.</p> + +<p>Meantime John Weightman sat in his carved chair in the Jacobean +dining-room. He felt strangely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[345]</a></span> old and dull. The portraits of +beautiful women by Lawrence and Reynolds and Raeburn, which had often +seemed like real company to him, looked remote and uninteresting. He +fancied something cold and almost unfriendly in their expression, as +if they were staring through him or beyond him. They cared nothing for +his principles, his hopes, his disappointments, his successes; they +belonged to another world, in which he had no place. At this he felt a +vague resentment, a sense of discomfort that he could not have defined +or explained. He was used to being considered, respected, appreciated +at his full value in every region, even in that of his own dreams.</p> + +<p>Presently he rang for the butler, telling him to close the house and +not to sit up, and walked with lagging steps into the long library, +where the shaded lamps were burning. His eye fell upon the low shelves +full of costly books, but he had no desire to open them. Even the +carefully chosen pictures that hung above them seemed to have lost +their attraction. He paused for a moment before an idyll of Corot—a +dance of nymphs around some forgotten<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[346]</a></span> altar in a vaporous glade—and +looked at it curiously. There was something rapturous and serene about +the picture, a breath of spring-time in the misty trees, a harmony of +joy in the dancing figures, that wakened in him a feeling of half +pleasure and half envy. It represented something that he had never +known in his calculated, orderly life. He was dimly mistrustful of it.</p> + +<p>"It is certainly very beautiful," he thought, "but it is distinctly +pagan; that altar is built to some heathen god. It does not fit into +the scheme of a Christian life. I doubt whether it is consistent with +the tone of my house. I will sell it this winter. It will bring three +or four times what I paid for it. That was a good purchase, a very +good bargain."</p> + +<p>He dropped into the revolving chair before his big library table. It +was covered with pamphlets and reports of the various enterprises in +which he was interested. There was a pile of newspaper clippings in +which his name was mentioned with praise for his sustaining power as a +pillar of finance, for his judicious benevolence, for his support of +wise and prudent reform movements, for his dis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[347]</a></span>cretion in making +permanent public gifts—"the Weightman Charities," one very +complaisant editor called them, as if they deserved classification as +a distinct species.</p> + +<p>He turned the papers over listlessly. There was a description and a +picture of the "Weightman Wing of the Hospital for Cripples," of which +he was president; and an article on the new professor in the +"Weightman Chair of Political Jurisprudence" in Jackson University, of +which he was a trustee; and an illustrated account of the opening of +the "Weightman Grammar-School" at Dulwich-on-the-Sound, where he had +his legal residence for purposes of taxation.</p> + +<p>This last was perhaps the most carefully planned of all the Weightman +Charities. He desired to win the confidence and support of his rural +neighbours. It had pleased him much when the local newspaper had +spoken of him as an ideal citizen and the logical candidate for the +Governorship of the State; but upon the whole it seemed to him wiser +to keep out of active politics. It would be easier and better to put +Harold into the running, to have him sent to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[348]</a></span> the Legislature from the +Dulwich district, then to the national House, then to the Senate. Why +not? The Weightman interests were large enough to need a direct +representative and guardian at Washington.</p> + +<p>But to-night all these plans came back to him with dust upon them. +They were dry and crumbling like forsaken habitations. The son upon +whom his complacent ambition had rested had turned his back upon the +mansion of his father's hopes. The break might not be final; and in +any event there would be much to live for; the fortunes of the family +would be secure. But the zest of it all would be gone if John +Weightman had to give up the assurance of perpetuating his name and +his principles in his son. It was a bitter disappointment, and he felt +that he had not deserved it.</p> + +<p>He rose from the chair and paced the room with leaden feet. For the +first time in his life his age was visibly upon him. His head was +heavy and hot, and the thoughts that rolled in it were confused and +depressing. Could it be that he had made a mistake in the principles +of his existence?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[349]</a></span> There was no argument in what Harold had said, it +was almost childish, and yet it had shaken the elder man more deeply +than he cared to show. It held a silent attack which touched him more +than open criticism.</p> + +<p>Suppose the end of his life were nearer than he thought—the end must +come sometime—what if it were now? Had he not founded his house upon +a rock? Had he not kept the Commandments? Was he not, "touching the +law, blameless"? And beyond this, even if there were some faults in +his character—and all men are sinners—yet he surely believed in the +saving doctrines of religion—the forgiveness of sins, the +resurrection of the body, the life everlasting. Yes, that was the true +source of comfort, after all. He would read a bit in the Bible, as he +did every night, and go to bed and to sleep.</p> + +<p>He went back to his chair at the library table. A strange weight of +weariness rested upon him, but he opened the book at a familiar place, +and his eyes fell upon the verse at the bottom of the page.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"<i>Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth.</i>"</span> +</p></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[350]</a></span></p> + +<p>That had been the text of the sermon a few weeks before. Sleepily, +heavily, he tried to fix his mind upon it and recall it. What was it +that Doctor Snodgrass had said? Ah, yes—that it was a mistake to +pause here in reading the verse. We must read on without a pause—<i>Lay +not up treasures upon earth where moth and rust do corrupt and where +thieves break through and steal</i>—that was the true doctrine. We may +have treasures upon earth, but they must not be put into unsafe +places, but into safe places. A most comforting doctrine! He had +always followed it. Moths and rust and thieves had done no harm to his +investments.</p> + +<p>John Weightman's drooping eyes turned to the next verse, at the top of +the second column.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"<i>But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.</i>"</span></p></div> + +<p>Now what had the Doctor said about that? How was it to be +understood—in what sense—treasures—in heaven?</p> + +<p>The book seemed to float away from him. The light vanished. He +wondered dimly if this could be Death, coming so suddenly, so quietly, +so irresistibly. He struggled for a moment to hold himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[351]</a></span> up, and +then sank slowly forward upon the table. His head rested upon his +folded hands. He slipped into the unknown.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>How long afterward conscious life returned to him he did not know. The +blank might have been an hour or a century. He knew only that +something had happened in the interval. What it was he could not tell. +He found great difficulty in catching the thread of his identity +again. He felt that he was himself; but the trouble was to make his +connections, to verify and place himself, to know who and where he +was.</p> + +<p>At last it grew clear. John Weightman was sitting on a stone, not far +from a road in a strange land.</p> + +<p>The road was not a formal highway, fenced and graded. It was more like +a great travel-trace, worn by thousands of feet passing across the +open country in the same direction. Down in the valley, into which he +could look, the road seemed to form itself gradually out of many minor +paths; little footways coming across the meadows, winding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[352]</a></span> tracks +following along beside the streams, faintly marked trails emerging +from the woodlands. But on the hillside the threads were more firmly +woven into one clear band of travel, though there were still a few dim +paths joining it here and there, as if persons had been climbing up +the hill by other ways and had turned at last to seek the road.</p> + +<p>From the edge of the hill, where John Weightman sat, he could see the +travellers, in little groups or larger companies, gathering from time +to time by the different paths, and making the ascent. They were all +clothed in white, and the form of their garments was strange to him; +it was like some old picture. They passed him, group after group, +talking quietly together or singing; not moving in haste, but with a +certain air of eagerness and joy as if they were glad to be on their +way to an appointed place. They did not stay to speak to him, but they +looked at him often and spoke to one another as they looked; and now +and then one of them would smile and beckon him a friendly greeting, +so that he felt they would like him to be with them.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[353]</a></span></p> + +<p>There was quite an interval between the groups; and he followed each +of them with his eyes as it passed along the ribbon of the road rising +and receding across the wide, billowy upland, among the rounded +hillocks of aerial green and gold and lilac, until it came to the high +horizon, and stood outlined for a moment, a tiny cloud of white +against the tender blue, before it vanished over the hill.</p> + +<p>For a long time he sat there watching and wondering. It was a very +different world from that in which his mansion on the Avenue was +built; and it looked strange to him, but most real—as real as +anything he had ever seen. Presently he felt a strong desire to know +what country it was and where the people were going. He had a faint +premonition of what it must be, but he wished to be sure. So he rose +from the stone where he was sitting, and came down through the short +grass and the lavender flowers, toward a passing group of people. One +of them turned to meet him, and held out his hand. It was an old man, +under whose white beard and brows John Weightman thought he saw a +suggestion of the face of the village doctor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[354]</a></span> who had cared for him +years ago, when he was a boy in the country.</p> + +<p>"Welcome," said the old man. "Will you come with us?"</p> + +<p>"Where are you going?"</p> + +<p>"To the heavenly city, to see our mansions there."</p> + +<p>"And who are these with you?"</p> + +<p>"Strangers to me until a little while ago; I know them better now. But +I have known you for a long time, John Weightman. Don't you remember +your old doctor?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he cried—"yes; your voice has not changed at all. I'm glad +indeed to see you, Doctor McLean, especially now. All this seems very +strange to me, almost oppressive. I wonder if—but may I go with you, +do you suppose?"</p> + +<p>"Surely," answered the doctor, with his familiar smile; "it will do +you good. And you also must have a mansion in the city waiting for +you—a fine one, too—are you not looking forward to it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied the other, hesitating a moment: "yes—I believe it must +be so, although I had not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[355]</a></span> expected to see it so soon. But I will go +with you, and we can talk by the way."</p> + +<p>The two men quickly caught up with the other people, and all went +forward together along the road. The doctor had little to tell of his +experience, for it had been a plain, hard life, uneventfully spent for +others, and the story of the village was very simple. John Weightman's +adventures and triumphs would have made a far richer, more imposing +history, full of contacts with the great events and personages of the +time. But somehow or other he did not care to speak much about it, +walking on that wide heavenly moorland, under that tranquil, sunless +arch of blue, in that free air of perfect peace, where the light was +diffused without a shadow, as if the spirit of life in all things were +luminous.</p> + +<p>There was only one person except the doctor in that little company +whom John Weightman had known before—an old book-keeper who had spent +his life over a desk, carefully keeping accounts—a rusty, dull little +man, patient and narrow, whose wife had been in the insane asylum for +twenty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[356]</a></span> years and whose only child was a crippled daughter, for whose +comfort and happiness he had toiled and sacrificed himself without +stint. It was a surprise to find him here, as care-free and joyful as +the rest.</p> + +<p>The lives of others in the company were revealed in brief glimpses as +they talked together—a mother, early widowed, who had kept her little +flock of children together and laboured through hard and heavy years +to bring them up in purity and knowledge—a Sister of Charity who had +devoted herself to the nursing of poor folk who were being eaten to +death by cancer—a schoolmaster whose heart and life had been poured +into his quiet work of training boys for a clean and thoughtful +manhood—a medical missionary who had given up a brilliant career in +science to take the charge of a hospital in darkest Africa—a +beautiful woman with silver hair who had resigned her dreams of love +and marriage to care for an invalid father, and after his death had +made her life a long, steady search for ways of doing kindnesses to +others—a poet who had walked among the crowded tenements of the great +city, bringing cheer and comfort not only by his songs,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[357]</a></span> but by his +wise and patient works of practical aid—a paralysed woman who had +lain for thirty years upon her bed, helpless but not hopeless, +succeeding by a miracle of courage in her single aim, never to +complain, but always to impart a bit of her joy and peace to every one +who came near her. All these, and other persons like them, people of +little consideration in the world, but now seemingly all full of great +contentment and an inward gladness that made their steps light, were +in the company that passed along the road, talking together of things +past and things to come, and singing now and then with clear voices +from which the veil of age and sorrow was lifted.</p> + +<p>John Weightman joined in some of the songs—which were familiar to him +from their use in the church—at first with a touch of hesitation, and +then more confidently. For as they went on his sense of strangeness +and fear at his new experience diminished, and his thoughts began to +take on their habitual assurance and complacency. Were not these +people going to the Celestial City? And was not he in his right place +among them? He had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[358]</a></span> always looked forward to this journey. If they +were sure, each one, of finding a mansion there, could not he be far +more sure? His life had been more fruitful than theirs. He had been a +leader, a founder of new enterprises, a pillar of Church and State, a +prince of the House of Israel. Ten talents had been given him, and he +had made them twenty. His reward would be proportionate. He was glad +that his companions were going to find fit dwellings prepared for +them; but he thought also with a certain pleasure of the surprise that +some of them would feel when they saw his appointed mansion.</p> + +<p>So they came to the summit of the moorland and looked over into the +world beyond. It was a vast green plain, softly rounded like a shallow +vase, and circled with hills of amethyst. A broad, shining river +flowed through it, and many silver threads of water were woven across +the green; and there were borders of tall trees on the banks of the +river, and orchards full of roses abloom along the little streams, and +in the midst of all stood the city, white and wonderful.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[359]</a></span></p> + +<p>When the travellers saw it they were filled with awe and joy. They +passed over the little streams and among the orchards quickly and +silently, as if they feared to speak lest the city should vanish.</p> + +<p>The wall of the city was very low, a child could see over it, for it +was made only of precious stones. The gate of the city was not like a +gate at all, for it was not barred with iron or wood, but only a +single pearl, softly gleaming, marked the place where the wall ended +and the entrance lay open.</p> + +<p>A person stood there whose face was bright and grave, and whose robe +was like the flower of the lily, not a woven fabric, but a living +texture.</p> + +<p>"Come in," he said to the company of travellers; "you are at your +journey's end, and your mansions are ready for you."</p> + +<p>John Weightman hesitated, for he was troubled by a doubt. Suppose that +he was not really, like his companions, at his journey's end, but only +transported for a little while out of the regular course of his life +into this mysterious experience? Suppose that, after all, he had not +really passed through the door of death, like these others, but was +walking in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[360]</a></span> a vision, a living man among the blessed dead. Would it be +right for him to go with them into the heavenly city? Would it not be +a deception, a desecration, a deep and unforgivable offence? The +strange, confusing question had no reason in it, as he very well knew; +for if he was dreaming, then it was all a dream; but if his companions +were real, then he also was with them in reality, and if they had died +then he must have died too. Yet he could not rid his mind of the sense +that there was a difference between them and him, and it made him +afraid to go on. But, as he paused and turned, the Keeper of the Gate +looked straight and deep into his eyes, and beckoned to him. Then he +knew that it was not only right but necessary that he should enter.</p> + +<p>They passed from street to street among fair and spacious dwellings, +set in amaranthine gardens, and adorned with an infinitely varied +beauty of divine simplicity. The mansions differed in size, in shape, +in charm: each one seemed to have its own personal look of loveliness; +yet all were alike in fitness to their place, in harmony with one +an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[361]</a></span>other, in the addition which each made to the singular and tranquil +splendour of the city.</p> + +<p>As the little company came, one by one, to the mansions which were +prepared for them, and their Guide beckoned to the happy inhabitant to +enter in and take possession, there was a soft murmur of joy, half +wonder and half recognition; as if the new and immortal dwelling were +crowned with the beauty of surprise, lovelier and nobler than all the +dreams of it; and yet also as if it were touched with the beauty of +the familiar, the remembered, the long-loved. One after another the +travellers were led to their own mansions, and went in gladly; and +from within, through the open doorways, came sweet voices of welcome, +and low laughter, and song.</p> + +<p>At last there was no one left with the Guide but the two old friends, +Doctor McLean and John Weightman. They were standing in front of one +of the largest and fairest of the houses, whose garden glowed softly +with radiant flowers. The Guide laid his hand upon the doctor's +shoulder.</p> + +<p>"This is for you," he said. "Go in; there is no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[362]</a></span> more sickness here, +no more death, nor sorrow, nor pain; for your old enemies are all +conquered. But all the good that you have done for others, all the +help that you have given, all the comfort that you have brought, all +the strength and love that you have bestowed upon the suffering, are +here; for we have built them all into this mansion for you."</p> + +<p>The good man's face was lighted with a still joy. He clasped his old +friend's hand closely, and whispered: "How wonderful it is! Go on, you +will come to your mansion next, it is not far away, and we shall see +each other again soon, very soon."</p> + +<p>So he went through the garden, and into the music within. The Keeper +of the Gate turned to John Weightman with level, quiet, searching +eyes. Then he asked, gravely:</p> + +<p>"Where do you wish me to lead you now?"</p> + +<p>"To see my own mansion," answered the man, with half-concealed +excitement. "Is there not one here for me? You may not let me enter it +yet, perhaps, for I must confess to you that I am only——"</p> + +<p>"I know," said the Keeper of the Gate—"I know it all. You are John +Weightman."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[363]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes," said the man, more firmly than he had spoken at first, for it +gratified him that his name was known. "Yes, I am John Weightman, +Senior Warden of St. Petronius' Church. I wish very much to see my +mansion here. I believe that you have one for me. Will you take me to +it?"</p> + +<p>The Keeper of the Gate drew a little book from the breast of his robe +and turned over the pages.</p> + +<p>"Certainly," he said, with a curious look at the man, "your name is +here; and you shall see your mansion if you will follow me."</p> + +<p>It seemed as if they must have walked miles and miles through the vast +city, passing street after street of houses larger and smaller, of +gardens richer and poorer, but all full of beauty and delight. They +came into a kind of suburb, where there were many small cottages, with +plots of flowers, very lowly, but bright and fragrant. Finally they +reached an open field, bare and lonely-looking. There were two or +three little bushes in it, without flowers, and the grass was sparse +and thin. In the centre of the field was a tiny hut, hardly big enough +for a shepherd's shelter. It looked as if it had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[364]</a></span> built of +discarded things, scraps and fragments of other buildings, put +together with care and pains, by some one who had tried to make the +most of cast-off material. There was something pitiful and shamefaced +about the hut. It shrank and drooped in its barren field, and seemed +to cling only by sufferance to the edge of the splendid city.</p> + +<p>"This," said the Keeper of the Gate, standing still and speaking with +a low, distinct voice—"this is your mansion, John Weightman."</p> + +<p>An almost intolerable shock of grieved wonder and indignation choked +the man for a moment so that he could not say a word. Then he turned +his face away from the poor little hut and began to remonstrate +eagerly with his companion.</p> + +<p>"Surely, sir," he stammered, "you must be in error about this. There +is something wrong—some other John Weightman—a confusion of +names—the book must be incorrect."</p> + +<p>"There is no mistake," said the Keeper of the Gate very calmly; "here +is your name, the record of your title and your possessions in this +place."</p> + +<p>"But how could such a house be prepared for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[365]</a></span> me," cried the man with a +resentful tremor in his voice—"for me, after my long and faithful +service? Is this a suitable mansion for one so well known and devoted? +Why is it so pitifully small and mean? Why have you not built it large +and fair, like the others?"</p> + +<p>"That is all the material you sent us."</p> + +<p>"What!"</p> + +<p>"We have used all the material that you sent us," repeated the Keeper +of the Gate.</p> + +<p>"Now I know that you are mistaken," cried the man with growing +earnestness, "for all my life long I have been doing things that must +have supplied you with material. Have you not heard that I have built +a school-house; the wing of a hospital; two—yes, three—small +churches, and the greater part of a large one, the spire of St. +Petro——"</p> + +<p>The Keeper of the Gate lifted his hand.</p> + +<p>"Wait," he said; "we know all these things. They were not ill done. +But they were all marked and used as foundations for the name and +mansion of John Weightman in the world. Did you not plan them for +that?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[366]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes," answered the man, confused and taken aback, "I confess that I +thought often of them in that way. Perhaps my heart was set upon that +too much. But there are other things—my endowment for the college—my +steady and liberal contributions to all the established charities—my +support of every respectable——"</p> + +<p>"Wait," said the Keeper of the Gate again. "Were not all these +carefully recorded on earth where they would add to your credit? They +were not foolishly done. Verily, you have had your reward for them. +Would you be paid twice?"</p> + +<p>"No," cried the man, with deepening dismay, "I dare not claim that. I +acknowledge that I considered my own interest too much. But surely not +altogether. You have said that these things were not foolishly done. +They accomplished some good in the world. Does not that count for +something?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered the Keeper of the Gate, "it counts in the world—where +you counted it. But it does not belong to you here. We have saved and +used everything that you sent us. This is the mansion prepared for +you."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[367]</a></span></p> + +<p>As he spoke, his look grew deeper and more searching, like a flame of +fire. John Weightman could not endure it. It seemed to strip him naked +and wither him. He sank to the ground under a crushing weight of +shame, covering his eyes with his hands and cowering, face downward, +upon the stones. Dimly through the trouble of his mind he felt their +hardness and coldness.</p> + +<p>"Tell me, then," he cried, brokenly, "since my life has been so little +worth, how came I here at all?"</p> + +<p>"Through the mercy of the King"—the answer was like the soft tolling +of a bell.</p> + +<p>"And how have I earned it?" he murmured.</p> + +<p>"It is never earned; it is only given," came the clear, low reply.</p> + +<p>"But how have I failed so wretchedly," he asked, "in all the purpose +of my life? What could I have done better? What is it that counts +here?"</p> + +<p>"Only that which is truly given," answered the bell-like voice. "Only +that good which is done for the love of doing it. Only those plans in +which the welfare of others is the master thought. Only those labours +in which the sacrifice is greater than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[368]</a></span> the reward. Only those gifts +in which the giver forgets himself."</p> + +<p>The man lay silent. A great weakness, an unspeakable despondency and +humiliation were upon him. But the face of the Keeper of the Gate was +infinitely tender as he bent over him.</p> + +<p>"Think again, John Weightman. Has there been nothing like that in your +life?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing," he sighed. "If there ever were such things, it must have +been long ago—they were all crowded out—I have forgotten them."</p> + +<p>There was an ineffable smile on the face of the Keeper of the Gate, +and his hand made the sign of the cross over the bowed head as he +spoke gently:</p> + +<p>"These are the things that the King never forgets; and because there +were a few of these in your life, you have a little place here."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The sense of coldness and hardness under John Weightman's hands grew +sharper and more distinct. The feeling of bodily weariness and +lassitude weighed upon him, but there was a calm, almost a lightness +in his heart as he listened to the fading<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[369]</a></span> vibrations of the silvery +bell-tones. The chimney clock on the mantel had just ended the last +stroke of seven as he lifted his head from the table. Thin, pale +strips of the city morning were falling into the room through the +narrow partings of the heavy curtains.</p> + +<p>What was it that had happened to him? Had he been ill? Had he died and +come to life again? Or had he only slept, and had his soul gone +visiting in dreams? He sat for some time, motionless, not lost, but +finding himself in thought. Then he took a narrow book from the table +drawer, wrote a check, and tore it out.</p> + +<p>He went slowly up the stairs, knocked very softly at his son's door, +and, hearing no answer, entered without noise. Harold was asleep, his +bare arm thrown above his head, and his eager face relaxed in peace. +His father looked at him a moment with strangely shining eyes, and +then tiptoed quietly to the writing-desk, found a pencil and a sheet +of paper, and wrote rapidly:</p> + +<p>"My dear boy, here is what you asked me for; do what you like with it +and ask for more if you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[370]</a></span> need it. If you are still thinking of that +work with Grenfell, we'll talk it over to-day after church. I want to +know your heart better; and if I have made mistakes——"</p> + +<p>A slight noise made him turn his head. Harold was sitting up in bed +with wide-open eyes.</p> + +<p>"Father!" he cried, "is that you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, my son," answered John Weightman; "I've come back—I mean I've +come up—no, I mean come in—well, here I am, and God give us a good +Christmas together."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>BY HENRY VAN DYKE</h2> + +<ul> +<li>The Valley of Vision</li> +<li>Fighting for Peace</li> +<li>The Unknown Quantity</li> +<li>The Ruling Passion</li> +<li>The Blue Flower</li> +</ul> + + +<ul> +<li>Camp-Fires and Guide-Posts</li> +<li>Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land</li> +<li>Days Off</li> +<li>Little Rivers</li> +<li>Fisherman's Luck</li> +</ul> + + +<ul> +<li>Poems, Collection in one volume</li> +</ul> + + +<ul> +<li>Golden Stars</li> +<li>The Red Flower</li> +<li>The Grand Canyon, and Other Poems</li> +<li>The White Bees, and Other Poems</li> +<li>The Builders, and Other Poems</li> +<li>Music, and Other Poems</li> +<li>The Toiling of Felix, and Other Poems</li> +<li>The House of Rimmon</li> +</ul> + + +<ul> +<li>Studies in Tennyson</li> +<li>Poems of Tennyson</li> +</ul> +<p> </p> + +<h3>CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS +</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Unknown Quantity, by Henry van Dyke + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNKNOWN QUANTITY *** + +***** This file should be named 30622-h.htm or 30622-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/6/2/30622/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Juliet Sutherland, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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