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diff --git a/35637-8.txt b/35637-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2e60929 --- /dev/null +++ b/35637-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6614 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Secret Glory, by Arthur Machen + +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 Secret Glory + +Author: Arthur Machen + +Release Date: March 20, 2011 [EBook #35637] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECRET GLORY *** + + + + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + The Secret Glory + + By Arthur Machen + + + New York + Alfred A Knopf + Mcmxxii + + COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY + ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. + + _Published August, 1922_ + + + _Set up and printed by the Vail-Ballou Co., Binghamton, N. Y._ + _Paper furnished by W. F. Etherington & Co., New York, N. Y._ + _Bound by the H. Wolff Estate, New York, N. Y._ + + + MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + TO + VINCENT STARRETT + + + + +Note + + +_One of the schoolmasters in "The Secret Glory" has views on the subject +of football similar to those entertained by a well-known schoolmaster +whose Biography appeared many years ago. That is the only link between +the villain of invention and the good man of real life._ + + + + +PREFACE + + +_Some years ago I met my old master, Sir Frank Benson--he was Mr. F. R. +Benson then--and he asked me in his friendly way what I had been doing +lately._ + +_"I am just finishing a book," I replied, "a book that everybody will +hate."_ + +_"As usual," said the Don Quixote of our English stage--if I knew any +nobler title to bestow upon him, I would, bestow it--"as usual; running +your head against a stone wall!"_ + +_Well, I don't know about "as usual"; there may be something to be said +for the personal criticism or there may not; but it has struck me that +Sir Frank's remark is a very good description of "The Secret Glory," the +book I had in mind as I talked to him. It is emphatically the history of +an unfortunate fellow who ran his head against stone walls from the +beginning to the end. He could think nothing and do nothing after the +common fashion of the world; even when he "went wrong," he did so in a +highly unusual and eccentric manner. It will be for the reader to +determine whether he were a saint who had lost his way in the centuries +or merely an undeveloped lunatic; I hold no passionate view on either +side. In every age, there are people great and small for whom the times +are out of joint, for whom everything is, somehow, wrong and askew. +Consider Hamlet; an amiable man and an intelligent man. But what a mess +he made of it! Fortunately, my hero--or idiot, which you will--was not +called upon to intermeddle with affairs of State, and so only brought +himself to grief: if it were grief; for the least chink of the door +should be kept open, I am inclined to hold, for the other point of view. +I have just been rereading Kipling's "The Miracle of Purun Bhagat," the +tale of the Brahmin Prime Minister of the Native State in India, who saw +all the world and the glory of it, in the West as well as in the East, +and suddenly abjured all to become a hermit in the wood. Was he mad, or +was he supremely wise? It is just a matter of opinion._ + +_The origin and genesis of "The Secret Glory" were odd enough. Once on a +time, I read the life of a famous schoolmaster, one of the most notable +schoolmasters of these later days. I believe he was an excellent man in +every way; but, somehow, that "Life" got on my nerves. I thought that +the School Songs--for which, amongst other things, this master was +famous--were drivel; I thought his views about football, regarded, not +as a good game, but as the discipline and guide of life, were rot, and +poisonous rot at that. In a word, the "Life" of this excellent man got +my back up._ + +_Very good. The year after, schoolmasters and football had ceased to +engage my attention. I was deeply interested in a curious and minute +investigation of the wonderful legend of the Holy Grail; or rather, in +one aspect of that extraordinary complex. My researches led me to the +connection of the Grail Legend with the vanished Celtic Church which +held the field in Britain in the fifth and sixth and seventh centuries; +I undertook an extraordinary and fascinating journey into a misty and +uncertain region of Christian history. I must not say more here, +lest--as Nurse says to the troublesome and persistent child--I "begin +all over again"; but, indeed, it was a voyage on perilous seas, a +journey to faery lands forlorn--and I would declare, by the way, my +conviction that if there had been no Celtic Church, Keats could never +have written those lines of tremendous evocation and incantation._ + +_Again; very good. The year after, it came upon me to write a book. And +I hit upon an original plan; or so I thought. I took my dislike of the +good schoolmaster's "Life," I took my knowledge of Celtic mysteries--and +combined my information._ + +_Original, this plan! It was all thought of years before I was born. Do +you remember the critic of the "Eatanswill Gazette"? He had to review +for that admirable journal a work on Chinese Metaphysics. Mr. Pott tells +the story of the article._ + +_"He read up for the subject, at my desire, in the Encyclopædia +Britannica ... he read for metaphysics under the letter M, and for China +under the letter C, and combined his information!"_ + + + + +The Secret Glory + + + + +I + + +A heavy cloud passed swiftly away before the wind that came with the +night, and far in a clear sky the evening star shone with pure +brightness, a gleaming world set high above the dark earth and the black +shadows in the lane. In the ending of October a great storm had blown +from the west, and it was through the bare boughs of a twisted oak that +Ambrose Meyrick saw the silver light of the star. As the last faint +flash died in the sky he leaned against a gate and gazed upward; and +then his eyes fell on the dull and weary undulations of the land, the +vast circle of dun ploughland and grey meadow bounded by a dim horizon, +dreary as a prison wall. He remembered with a start how late it must be; +he should have been back an hour before, and he was still in the open +country, a mile away at least from the outskirts of Lupton. He turned +from the star and began to walk as quickly as he could along the lane +through the puddles and the sticky clay, soaked with three weeks' heavy +rain. + +He saw at last the faint lamps of the nearest streets where the +shoemakers lived and he tramped hurriedly through this wretched +quarter, past its penny shops, its raw public-house, its rawer chapel, +with twelve foundation-stones on which are written the names of the +twelve leading Congregationalists of Lupton, past the squalling children +whose mothers were raiding and harrying them to bed. Then came the Free +Library, an admirable instance, as the _Lupton Mercury_ declared, of the +adaptation of Gothic to modern requirements. From a sort of tower of +this building a great arm shot out and hung a round clock-face over the +street, and Meyrick experienced another shock when he saw that it was +even later than he had feared. He had to get to the other side of the +town, and it was past seven already! He began to run, wondering what his +fate would be at his uncle's hands, and he went by "our grand old parish +church" (completely "restored" in the early 'forties), past the remains +of the market-cross, converted most successfully, according to local +opinion, into a drinking fountain for dogs and cattle, dodging his way +among the late shoppers and the early loafers who lounged to and fro +along the High Street. + +He shuddered as he rang the bell at the Old Grange. He tried to put a +bold face on it when the servant opened the door, and he would have gone +straight down the hall into the schoolroom, but the girl stopped him. + +"Master said you're to go to the study at once, Master Meyrick, as soon +as ever you come in." + +She was looking strangely at him, and the boy grew sick with dread. He +was a "funk" through and through, and was frightened out of his wits +about twelve times a day every day of his life. His uncle had said a few +years before: "Lupton will make a man of you," and Lupton was doing its +best. The face of the miserable wretch whitened and grew wet; there was +a choking sensation in his throat, and he felt very cold. Nelly Foran, +the maid, still looked at him with strange, eager eyes, then whispered +suddenly: + +"You must go directly, Master Meyrick, Master heard the bell, I know; +but I'll make it up to you." + +Ambrose understood nothing except the approach of doom. He drew a long +breath and knocked at the study door, and entered on his uncle's +command. + +It was an extremely comfortable room. The red curtains were drawn close, +shutting out the dreary night, and there was a great fire of coal that +bubbled unctuously and shot out great jets of flame--in the schoolroom +they used coke. The carpet was soft to the feet, and the chairs promised +softness to the body, and the walls were well furnished with books. +There were Thackeray, Dickens, Lord Lytton, uniform in red morocco, +gilt extra; the Cambridge Bible for Students in many volumes, Stanley's +_Life of Arnold_, Coplestone's _Prælectiones Academicæ_, commentaries, +dictionaries, first editions of Tennyson, school and college prizes in +calf, and, of course, a great brigade of Latin and Greek classics. Three +of the wonderful and terrible pictures of Piranesi hung in the room; +these Mr. + +Horbury admired more for the subject-matter than for the treatment, in +which he found, as he said, a certain lack of the _aurea +mediocritas_--almost, indeed, a touch of morbidity. The gas was turned +low, for the High Usher was writing at his desk, and a shaded lamp cast +a bright circle of light on a mass of papers. + +He turned round as Ambrose Meyrick came in. He had a high, bald +forehead, and his fresh-coloured face was edged with reddish +"mutton-chop" whiskers. There was a dangerous glint in his grey-green +eyes, and his opening sentence was unpromising. + +"Now, Ambrose, you must understand quite definitely that this sort of +thing is not going to be tolerated any longer." + +Perhaps it would not have fared quite so badly with the unhappy lad if +only his uncle had not lunched with the Head. There was a concatenation +accordingly, every link in which had helped to make Ambrose Meyrick's +position hopeless. In the first place there was boiled mutton for +luncheon, and this was a dish hateful to Mr. Horbury's palate. Secondly, +the wine was sherry. Of this Mr. Horbury was very fond, but +unfortunately the Head's sherry, though making a specious appeal to the +taste, was in reality far from good and teemed with those fiery and +irritating spirits which make the liver to burn and rage. Then Chesson +had practically found fault with his chief assistant's work. He had not, +of course, told him in so many words that he was unable to teach; he had +merely remarked: + +"I don't know whether you've noticed it, Horbury, but it struck me the +other day that there was a certain lack of grip about those fellows of +yours in the fifth. Some of them struck me as _muddlers_, if you know +what I mean: there was a sort of _vagueness_, for example, about their +construing in that chorus. Have you remarked anything of the kind +yourself?" + +And then, again, the Head had gone on: + +"And, by the way, Horbury, I don't quite know what to make of your +nephew, Meyrick. He was your wife's nephew, wasn't he? Yes. Well, I +hardly know whether I can explain what I feel about the boy; but I can't +help saying that there is something wrong about him. His work strikes +me as good enough--in fact, quite above the form average--but, to use +the musical term, he seems to be in the wrong key. Of course, it may be +my fancy; but the lad reminds me of those very objectionable persons who +are said to have a joke up their sleeve. I doubt whether he is taking +the Lupton stamp; and when he gets up in the school I shall be afraid of +his influence on the other boys." + +Here, again, the master detected a note of blame; and by the time he +reached the Old Grange he was in an evil humour. He hardly knew which he +found the more offensive--Chesson's dish or his discourse. He was a +dainty man in his feeding, and the thought of the great fat gigot +pouring out a thin red stream from the gaping wound dealt to it by the +Head mingled with his resentment of the indirect scolding which he +considered that he had received, and on the fire just kindled every drop +of that corrosive sherry was oil. He drank his tea in black silence, his +rage growing fiercer for want of vent, and it is doubtful whether in his +inmost heart he was altogether displeased when report was made at six +o'clock that Meyrick had not come in. He saw a prospect--more than a +prospect--of satisfactory relief. + +Some philosophers have affirmed that lunatic doctors (or mental +specialists) grow in time to a certain resemblance to their patients, +or, in more direct language, become half mad themselves. There seems a +good deal to be said for the position; indeed, it is probably a more +noxious madness to swear a man into perpetual imprisonment in the +company of maniacs and imbeciles because he sings in his bath and will +wear a purple dressing-gown at dinner than to fancy oneself Emperor of +China. However this may be, it is very certain that in many cases the +schoolmaster is nothing more or less than a bloated schoolboy: the +beasts are, radically, the same, but morbid conditions have increased +the venom of the former's sting. Indeed, it is not uncommon for +well-wishers to the great Public School System to praise their favourite +masters in terms which admit, nay, glory in, this identity. Read the +memorial tributes to departed Heads in a well-known and most respectable +Church paper. "To the last he was a big boy at heart," writes Canon +Diver of his friend, that illiterate old sycophant who brought up the +numbers of the school to such a pitch by means of his conciliator policy +to Jews, Turks, heretics and infidels that there was nothing for it but +to make him a bishop. "I always thought he seemed more at home in the +playing fields than in the sixth-form room.... He had all the English +boy's healthy horror of anything approaching pose or eccentricity.... +He could be a severe disciplinarian when severity seemed necessary, but +everybody in the school knew that a well-placed 'boundary,' a difficult +catch or a goal well won or well averted would atone for all but the +most serious offences." There are many other points of resemblance +between the average master and the average boy: each, for example, is +intensely cruel, and experiences a quite abnormal joy in the infliction +of pain. The baser boy tortures those animals which are not _méchants_. +Tales have been told (they are hushed up by all true friends of the +"System") of wonderful and exquisite orgies in lonely hollows of the +moors, in obscure and hidden thickets: tales of a boy or two, a lizard +or a toad, and the slow simmering heat of a bonfire. But these are the +exceptional pleasures of the _virtuosi_; for the average lad there is +plenty of fun to be got out of his feebler fellows, of whom there are +generally a few even in the healthiest community. After all, the weakest +must go to the wall, and if the bones of the weakest are ground in the +process, that is their fault. When some miserable little wretch, after a +year or two of prolonged and exquisite torture of body and mind, seeks +the last escape of suicide, one knows how the Old Boys will come +forward, how gallantly they will declare that the days at the "dear old +school" were the happiest in their lives; how "the Doctor" was their +father and the Sixth their nursing-mother; how the delights of the +Mahomedans' fabled Paradise are but grey and weary sport compared with +the joys of the happy fag, whose heart, as the inspired bard of Harrow +tells us, will thrill in future years at the thought of the Hill. They +write from all quarters, these brave Old Boys: from the hard-won +Deanery, result of many years of indefatigable attack on the fundamental +doctrines of the Christian faith; from the comfortable villa, the reward +of commercial activity and acuteness on the Stock Exchange; from the +courts and from the camps; from all the high seats of the successful; +and common to them all is the convincing argument of praise. And we all +agree, and say there is nothing like our great Public Schools, and +perhaps the only dissentient voices are those of the father and mother +who bury the body of a little child about whose neck is the black sign +of the rope. But let them be comforted: the boy was no good at games, +though his torments were not bad sport while he lasted. + +Mr. Horbury was an old Luptonian; he was, in the words of Canon Diver, +but "a big boy at heart," and so he gave orders that Meyrick was to be +sent in the study directly he came in, and he looked at the clock on the +desk before him with satisfaction and yet with impatience. A hungry man +may long for his delayed dinner almost with a sense of fury, and yet at +the back of his mind he cannot help being consoled by the thought of how +wonderfully he will enjoy the soup when it appears at last. When seven +struck, Mr. Horbury moistened his lips slightly. He got up and felt +cautiously behind one of the bookshelves. The object was there, and he +sat down again. He listened; there were footfalls on the drive. Ah! +there was the expected ring. There was a brief interval, and then a +knock. The fire was glowing with red flashes, and the wretched toad was +secured. + +"Now, Ambrose, you must understand quite definitely that this sort of +thing isn't going to be tolerated any longer. This is the third time +during this term that you have been late for lockup. You know the rules: +six o'clock at latest. It is now twenty minutes past seven. What excuse +have you to make? What have you been doing with yourself? Have you been +in the Fields?" + +"No, Sir." + +"Why not? You must have seen the Resolution of the Sixth on the +notice-board of the High School? You know what it promised any boy who +shirked rocker? 'A good sound thrashing with tuds before the First +Thirty.' I am afraid you will have a very bad time of it on Monday, +after Graham has sent up your name to the Room." + +There was a pause. Mr. Horbury looked quietly and lengthily at the boy, +who stood white and sick before him. He was a rather sallow, ugly lad of +fifteen. There was something of intelligence in his expression, and it +was this glance that Chesson, the Headmaster, had resented. His heart +beat against his breast, his breath came in gasps and the sweat of +terror poured down his body. The master gazed at him, and at last spoke +again. + +"But what have you been doing? Where have you been all this time?" + +"If you please, Sir, I walked over to Selden Abbey." + +"To Selden Abbey? Why, it's at least six miles away! What on earth did +you want to go to Selden Abbey for? Are you fond of old stones?" + +"If you please, Sir, I wanted to see the Norman arches. There is a +picture of them in _Parker's Glossary_." + +"Oh, I see! You are a budding antiquarian, are you, Ambrose, with an +interest in Norman arches--eh? I suppose we are to look forward to the +time when your researches will have made Lupton famous? Perhaps you +would like to lecture to the school on St. Paul's Cathedral? Pray, what +are your views as to the age of Stonehenge?" + +The wit was heavy enough, but the speaker's position gave a bitter sting +to his lash. Mr. Horbury saw that every cut had told, and, without +prejudice to more immediate and acuter pleasures, he resolved that such +biting satire must have a larger audience. Indeed, it was a long time +before Ambrose Meyrick heard the last of those wretched Norman arches. +The method was absurdly easy. "Openings" presented themselves every day. +For example, if the boy made a mistake in construing, the retort was +obvious: + +"Thank you, Meyrick, for your most original ideas on the force of the +aorist. Perhaps if you studied your Greek Grammar a little more and your +favourite _Glossary of Architecture_ a little less, it would be the +better. Write out 'Aorist means indefinite' five hundred times." + +Or, again, perhaps the Classic Orders were referred to. Mr. Horbury +would begin to instruct the form as to the difference between Ionic and +Doric. The form listened with poor imitation of interest. Suddenly the +master would break off: + +"I beg your pardon. I was forgetting that we have a great architectural +authority amongst us. Be so kind as to instruct us, Meyrick. What does +Parker say? Or perhaps you have excogitated some theories of your own? I +know you have an original mind, from the extraordinary quantities of +your last copy of verse. By the way, I must ask you to write out 'The +_e_ in _venio_ is short' five hundred times. I am sorry to interfere +with your more important architectural studies, but I am afraid there is +no help for it." + +And so on; while the form howled with amusement. + +But Mr. Horbury kept these gems for future and public use. For the +moment he had more exciting work on hand. He burst out suddenly: + +"The fact is, Ambrose Meyrick, you're a miserable little humbug! You +haven't the honesty to say, fair and square, that you funked rocker and +went loafing about the country, looking for any mischief you could lay +your hands on. Instead of that you make up this cock-and-bull story of +Selden Abbey and Norman arches--as if any boy in his senses ever knew or +cared twopence about such things! I hope you haven't been spending the +afternoon in some low public-house? There, don't speak! I don't want to +hear any more lies. But, whatever you have been doing, you have broken +the rules, and you must be taught that the rules have to be kept. Stand +still!" + +Mr. Horbury went to the bookshelf and drew out the object. He stood at a +little distance behind Meyrick and opened proceedings with a savage cut +at his right arm, well above the elbow. Then it was the turn of the left +arm, and the master felt the cane bite so pleasantly into the flesh that +he distributed some dozen cuts between the two arms. Then he turned his +attention to the lad's thighs and finished up in the orthodox manner, +Meyrick bending over a chair. + +The boy's whole body was one mass of burning, stinging torture; and, +though he had not uttered a sound during the process, the tears were +streaming down his cheeks. It was not the bodily anguish, though that +was extreme enough, so much as a far-off recollection. He was quite a +little boy, and his father, dead long since, was showing him the western +doorway of a grey church on a high hill and carefully instructing him in +the difference between "billetty" and "chevronny." + +"It's no good snivelling, you know, Ambrose. I daresay you think me +severe, but, though you won't believe me now, the day will come when you +will thank me from your heart for what I have just done. Let this day be +a turning-point in your life. Now go to your work." + + +II + +It was strange, but Meyrick never came in the after days and thanked his +uncle for that sharp dose of physical and mental pain. Even when he was +a man he dreamed of Mr. Horbury and woke up in a cold sweat, and then +would fall asleep again with a great sigh of relief and gladness as he +realised that he was no longer in the power of that "infernal old +swine," "that filthy, canting, cruel brute," as he roughly called his +old master. + +The fact was, as some old Luptonians remarked, the two had never +understood one another. With the majority of the boys the High Usher +passed for a popular master enough. He had been a distinguished athlete +in his time, and up to his last days at the school was a football +enthusiast. Indeed, he organised a variety of the Lupton game which met +with immense popularity till the Head was reluctantly compelled to stop +it; some said because he always liked to drop bitter into Horbury's cup +when possible; others--and with more probability on their +side--maintained that it was in consequence of a report received from +the school doctor to the effect that this new species of football was +rapidly setting up an old species of heart disease in the weaker +players. + +However that might be, there could be no doubt as to Horbury's intense +and deep-rooted devotion to the school. His father had been a Luptonian +before him. He himself had gone from the school to the University, and +within a year or two of taking his degree he had returned to Lupton to +serve it as a master. It was the general opinion in Public School +circles that the High Usher had counted for as much as Chesson, the +Headmaster, if not for more, in the immense advance in prestige and +popularity that the school had made; and everybody thought that when +Chesson received the episcopal order Horbury's succession was a +certainty. Unfortunately, however, there were wheels within wheels, and +a total stranger was appointed, a man who knew nothing of the famous +Lupton traditions, who (it was whispered) had been heard to say that +"this athletic business" was getting a bit overdone. Mr. Horbury's +friends were furious, and Horbury himself, it was supposed, was bitterly +disappointed. He retreated to one of the few decent canonries which have +survived the wave of agricultural depression; but those who knew him +best doubted whether his ecclesiastical duties were an adequate +consolation for the loss of that coveted Headmastership of Lupton. + +To quote the memoir which appeared in the _Guardian_ soon after his +death, over some well-known initials: + +"His friends were shocked when they saw him at the Residence. He seemed +no longer the same man, he had aged more in six months, as some of them +expressed themselves, than in the dozen years before. The old joyous +Horbury, full of mirth, an apt master of word-play and logic-fence, was +somehow 'dimmed,' to use the happy phrase of a former colleague, the +Dean of Dorchester. Old Boys who remembered the sparkle of his wit, the +zest which he threw into everything, making the most ordinary form-work +better fun than the games at other schools, as one of them observed, +missed something indefinable from the man whom they had loved so long +and so well. One of them, who had perhaps penetrated as closely as any +into the _arcana_ of Horbury's friendship (a privilege which he will +ever esteem as one of the greatest blessings of his life), tried to +rouse him with an extravagant rumour which was then going the round of +the popular Press, to the effect that considerable modifications were +about to be introduced into the compulsory system of games at X., one of +the greatest of our great Public Schools. Horbury flushed; the old light +came into his eyes; his friend was reminded of the ancient war-horse who +hears once more the inspiring notes of the trumpet. 'I can't believe +it,' he said, and there was a tremor in his voice. 'They wouldn't dare. +Not even Y. (the Headmaster of X.) would do such a scoundrelly thing as +that. I _won't_ believe it.' But the flush soon faded and his apathy +returned. 'After all,' he said, 'I shouldn't wonder if it were so. Our +day is past, I suppose, and for all I know they may be construing the +Breviary and playing dominoes at X. in a few years' time.' + +"I am afraid that those last years at Wareham were far from happy. He +felt, I think, out of tune with his surroundings, and, _pace_ the +readers of the _Guardian_, I doubt whether he was ever quite at home in +his stall. He confessed to one of his old associates that he doubted the +wisdom of the whole Cathedral system. 'What,' he said, in his old +characteristic manner, 'would St. Peter say if he could enter this +building and see that gorgeous window in which he is represented with +mitre, cope and keys?' And I do not think that he was ever quite +reconciled to the daily recitation of the Liturgy, accompanied as it is +in such establishments by elaborate music and all the pomp of the +surpliced choir. 'Rome and water, Rome and water!' he has been heard to +mutter under his breath as the procession swept up the nave, and before +he died I think that he had the satisfaction of feeling that many in +high places were coming round to his views. + +"But to the very last he never forgot Lupton. A year or two before he +died he wrote the great school song, 'Follow, follow, follow!' He was +pleased, I know, when it appeared in the _Luptonian_, and a famous Old +Boy informs me that he will never forget Horbury's delight when he was +told that the song was already a great favourite in 'Chantry.' To many +of your readers the words will be familiar; but I cannot resist quoting +the first verse: + + "I am getting old and grey and the hills seem far away, + And I cannot hear the horn that once proclaimed the morn + When we sallied forth upon the chase together; + For the years are gone--alack!--when we hastened on the track, + And the huntsman's whip went crack! as a signal to our pack + Riding in the sunshine and fair weather. + And yet across the ground + I seem to hear a sound, + A sound that comes up floating from the hollow; + And its note is very clear + As it echoes in my ear, + And the words are: 'Lupton, follow, follow, follow!' + + _Chorus._ + + "Lupton, follow away! + The darkness lies behind us, and before us is the day. + Follow, follow the sun, + The whole world's to be won, + So, Lupton, follow, follow, follow, follow away! + +"An old pupil sang this verse to him on his death-bed, and I think, +perhaps, that some at least of the readers of the _Guardian_ will allow +that George Horbury died 'fortified,' in the truest sense, 'with the +rites of the Church'--the Church of a Great Aspiration." + +Such was the impression that Mr. Horbury had evidently made upon some of +his oldest friends; but Meyrick was, to the last, an infidel. He read +the verses in the _Guardian_ (he would never subscribe to the +_Luptonian_) and jeered savagely at the whole sentiment of the memoir, +and at the poetry, too. + +"Isn't it incredible?" he would say. "Let's allow that the main purpose +of the great Public Schools is to breed brave average boobies by means +of rocker, sticker and mucker and the rest of it. Still, they do +acknowledge that they have a sort of _parergon_--the teaching of two +great literatures, two literatures that have moulded the whole of +Western thought for more than two thousand years. And they pay an animal +like this to teach these literatures--a swine that has not enough +literature of any kind in him to save the soul of a louse! Look at those +verses! Why, a decent fourth form boy would be ashamed to put his name +to them!" + +He was foolish to talk in this fashion. People merely said that it was +evident he was one of the failures of the great Public School system; +and the song was much admired in the right circles. A very well-turned +_idem Latine_ appeared in the _Guardian_ shortly after the publication +of the memoir, and the initials at the foot of the version were +recognised as those of a literary dean. + +And on that autumn evening, far away in the 'seventies, Meyrick, the +boy, left Mr. Horbury's study in a white fury of grief and pain and +rage. He would have murdered his master without the faintest +compunction, nay, with huge delight. Psychologically, his frame of mind +was quite interesting, though he was only a schoolboy who had just had a +sound thrashing for breaking rules. + +For the fact, of course, was that Horbury, the irritating influence of +the Head's conversation and sherry apart, was by no means a bad fellow. +He was for the moment savagely cruel, but then, most men are apt to be +savagely cruel when they suffer from an inflamed liver and offensive +superiors, more especially when there is an inferior, warranted +defenceless, in their power. But, in the main, Horbury was a very decent +specimen of his class--English schoolmaster--and Meyrick would never +allow that. In all his reasoning about schools and schoolmasters there +was a fatal flaw--he blamed both for not being what they never pretended +to be. To use a figure that would have appealed to him, it was if one +quarrelled with a plain, old-fashioned meeting-house because it was not +in the least like Lincoln Cathedral. A chimney may not be a decorative +object, but then it does not profess to be a spire or a pinnacle far in +the spiritual city. + +But Meyrick was always scolding meeting-houses because they were not +cathedrals. He has been heard to rave for hours against useful, +unpretentious chimney-pots because they bore no resemblance to celestial +spires. Somehow or other, possibly by inheritance, possibly by the +influence of his father's companionship, he had unconsciously acquired a +theory of life which bore no relation whatever to the facts of it. The +theory was manifest in his later years; but it must have been +stubbornly, if vaguely, present in him all through his boyhood. Take, +for instance, his comment on poor Canon Horbury's verses. He judged +those, as we have seen, by the rules of the fine art of literature, and +found them rubbish. Yet any old Luptonian would have told him that to +hear the whole six hundred boys join in the chorus, "Lupton, follow +away!" was one of the great experiences of life; from which it appears +that the song, whatever its demerits from a literary point of view, +fully satisfied the purpose for which is was written. In other words, it +was an excellent chimney, but Meyrick still persisted in his easy and +futile task of proving that it was not a bit like a spire. Then, again, +one finds a fallacy of still huger extent in that major premiss of his: +that the great Public Schools purpose to themselves as a secondary and +minor object the imparting of the spirit and beauty of the Greek and +Latin literatures. Now, it is very possible that at some distant period +in the past this was an object, or even, perhaps, _the_ object of the +institutions in question. The Humanists, it may be conjectured, thought +of school and University as places where Latin and Greek were to be +learned, and to be learned with the object of enjoying the great thought +and the great style of an antique world. One sees the spirit of this in +Rabelais, for example. The Classics are a wonderful adventure; to learn +to understand them is to be a spiritual Columbus, a discoverer of new +seas and unknown continents, a drinker of new-old wine in a new-old +land. To the student of those days a mysterious drowned Atlantis again +rose splendid from the waves of the great deep. It was these things that +Meyrick (unconsciously, doubtless) expected to find in his school life; +it was for the absence of these things that he continued to scold the +system in his later years; wherein, like Jim in _Huckleberry Finn_, he +missed the point by a thousand miles. + +The Latin and Greek of modern instruction are, of course, most curious +and interesting survivals; no longer taught with any view of enabling +students to enjoy and understand either the thought or beauty of the +originals; taught rather in such a manner as to nauseate the learner for +the rest of his days with the very notion of these lessons. Still, the +study of the Classics survives, a curious and elaborate ritual, from +which all sense and spirit have departed. One has only to recollect the +form master's lessons in the _Odyssey_ or the _Bacchæ_, and then to view +modern Free-masons celebrating the Mystic Death and Resurrection of +Hiram Abiff; the analogy is complete, for neither the master nor the +Masons have the remotest notion of what they are doing. Both persevere +in strange and mysterious actions from inveterate conservatism. + +Meyrick was a lover of antiquity and a special lover of survivals, but +he could never see that the round of Greek syntax, and Latin prose, of +Elegiacs and verbs in [Greek: mi], with the mystery of the Oratio +obliqua and the Optative, was one of the most strange and picturesque +survivals of modern life. It is to be noted, by the way, that the very +meaning of the word "scholar" has been radically changed. Thus a +well-known authority points out that "Melancholy" Burton had no +"scholarship" in the real sense of the word; he merely used his vast +knowledge of ancient and modern literature to make one of the most +entertaining and curious books that the world possesses. True +"scholarship," in the modern sense, is to be sought for not in the +Jacobean translators of the Bible, but in the Victorian revisers. The +former made the greatest of English books out of their Hebrew and Greek +originals; but the latter understood the force of the aorist. It is +curious to reflect that "scholar" once meant a man of literary taste and +knowledge. + +Meyrick never mastered these distinctions, or, if he did so in later +years, he never confessed to his enlightment, but went on railing at the +meeting-house, which, he still maintained, _did_ pretend to be a +cathedral. He has been heard to wonder why a certain Dean, who had +pointed out the vast improvements that had been effected by the +Revisers, did not employ a few young art students from Kensington to +correct the infamous drawing of the fourteenth-century glass in his +cathedral. He was incorrigible; he was always incorrigible, and thus, in +his boyhood, on the dark November evening, he meditated the murder of +his good master and uncle--for at least a quarter of an hour. + +His father, he remembered, had always spoken of Gothic architecture as +the most wonderful and beautiful thing in the world: a thing to be +studied and loved and reverenced. His father had never so much as +mentioned rocker, much less had he preached it as the one way by which +an English boy must be saved. Hence, Ambrose maintained inwardly that +his visit to Selden Abbey was deserving of reward rather than +punishment, and he resented bitterly, the savage injustice (as he +thought it) of his caning. + + +III + +Yet Mr. Horbury had been right in one matter, if not in all. That +evening was a turning-point in Meyrick's life. He had felt the utmost +rage of the enemy, as it were, and he determined that he would be a funk +no longer. He would not degenerate into the state of little Phipps, who +had been bullied and "rockered" and beaten into such a deplorable +condition that he fainted dead away while the Headmaster was operating +on him for "systematic and deliberate lying." Phipps not only fainted, +but, being fundamentally sensible, as Dr. Johnson expressed it, showed a +strong disinclination to return to consciousness and the precious balms +of the "dear old Head." Chesson was rather frightened, and the school +doctor, who had his living to get, said, somewhat dryly, that he thought +the lad had better go home for a week or two. + +So Phipps went home in a state which made his mother cry bitterly and +his father wonder whether the Public School system was not over-praised. +But the old family doctor went about raging and swearing at the +"scoundrels" who had reduced a child of twelve to a nervous wreck, with +"neurasthenia cerebralis" well on its way. But Dr. Walford had got his +education in some trumpery little academy, and did not understand or +value the _ethos_ of the great Public Schools. + +Now, Ambrose Meyrick had marked the career of wretched Phipps with +concern and pity. The miserable little creature had been brought by +careful handling from masters and boys to such a pitch of neurotic +perfection that it was only necessary to tap him smartly on the back or +on the arm, and he would instantly burst into tears. Whenever anyone +asked him the simplest question he suspected a cruel trap of some sort, +and lied and equivocated and shuffled with a pitiable lack of skill. +Though he was pitched by the heels into mucker about three times a week, +that he might acquire the useful art of natation, he still seemed to +grow dirtier and dirtier. His school books were torn to bits, his +exercises made into darts; he had impositions for losing books and +canings for not doing his work, and he lied and cried all the more. + +Meyrick had never got to this depth. He was a sturdy boy, and Phipps had +always been a weakly little animal; but, as he walked from the study to +the schoolroom after his thrashing, he felt that he had been in some +danger of descending on that sad way. He finally resolved that he would +never tread it, and so he walked past the baize-lined doors into the +room where the other boys were at work on prep, with an air of unconcern +which was not in the least assumed. + +Mr. Horbury was a man of considerable private means and did not care to +be bothered with the troubles and responsibilities of a big House. But +there was room and to spare in the Old Grange, so he took three boys +besides his nephew. These three were waiting with a grin of +anticipation, since the nature of Meyrick's interview with "old Horbury" +was not dubious. But Ambrose strolled in with a "Hallo, you fellows!" +and sat down in his place as if nothing had happened. This was +intolerable. + +"I say, Meyrick," began Pelly, a beefy boy with a red face, "you _have_ +been blubbing! Feel like writing home about it? Oh! I forgot. This is +your home, isn't it? How many cuts? I didn't hear you howl." + +The boy took no notice. He was getting out his books as if no one had +spoken. + +"Can't you answer?" went on the beefy one. "How many cuts, you young +sneak?" + +"Go to hell!" + +The whole three stared aghast for a moment; they thought Meyrick must +have gone mad. Only one, Bates the observant, began to chuckle quietly +to himself, for he did not like Pelly. He who was always beefy became +beefier; his eyes bulged out with fury. + +"I'll give it you," he said and made for Ambrose, who was turning over +the leaves of the Latin dictionary. Ambrose did not wait for the +assault; he rose also and met Pelly half-way with a furious blow, well +planted on the nose. Pelly took a back somersault and fell with a crash +to the floor, where he lay for a moment half stunned. He rose staggering +and looked about him with a pathetic, bewildered air; for, indeed, a +great part of his little world had crumbled about his ears. He stood in +the middle of the room, wondering what it meant, whether it was true +indeed that Meyrick was no longer of any use for a little quiet fun. A +horrible and incredible transmutation had, apparently, been effected in +the funk of old. Pelly gazed wildly about him as he tried to staunch the +blood that poured over his mouth. + +"Foul blow!" ventured Rawson, a lean lad who liked to twist the arms of +very little boys till they shrieked for mercy. The full inwardness of +the incident had not penetrated to his brain; he saw without believing, +in the manner of the materialist who denies the marvellous even when it +is before his eyes. + +"Foul blow, young Meyrick!" + +The quiet student had gone back to his place and was again handling his +dictionary. It was a hard, compact volume, rebound in strong boards, and +the edge of these boards caught the unfortunate Rawson full across the +eyes with extraordinary force. He put his face in his hands and +blubbered quietly and dismally, rocking to and fro in his seat, hardly +hearing the fluent stream of curses with which the quiet student +inquired whether the blow he had just had was good enough for him. + +Meyrick picked up his dictionary with a volley of remarks which would +have done credit to an old-fashioned stage-manager at the last dress +rehearsal before production. + +"Hark at him," said Pelly feebly, almost reverently. "Hark at him." But +poor Rawson, rocking to and fro, his head between his hands, went on +blubbering softly and spoke no word. + +Meyrick had never been an unobservant lad; he had simply made a +discovery that evening that in Rome certain Roman customs must be +adopted. The wise Bates went on doing his copy of Latin verse, chuckling +gently to himself. Bates was a cynic. He despised all the customs and +manners of the place most heartily and took the most curious care to +observe them. He might have been the inventor and patentee of rocker, if +one judged him by the fervour with which he played it. He entered his +name for every possible event at the sports, and jumped the jumps and +threw the hammer and ran the races as if his life depended on it. Once +Mr. Horbury had accidentally over-head Bates saying something about "the +honour of the House" which went to his heart. As for cricket, Bates +played as if his sole ambition was to become a first-class professional. +And he chuckled as he did his Latin verses, which he wrote (to the awe +of other boys) "as if he were writing a letter"--that is, without making +a rough copy. For Bates had got the "hang" of the whole system from +rocker to Latin verse, and his copies were much admired. He grinned that +evening, partly at the transmutation of Meyrick and partly at the line +he was jotting down: + + "_Mira loquor, coelo resonans vox funditur alto._" + +In after life he jotted down a couple of novels which sold, as the +journalists said, "like hot cakes." Meyrick went to see him soon after +the first novel had gone into its thirtieth thousand, and Bates was +reading "appreciations" and fingering a cheque and chuckling. + +"Mira loquor, populo, resonans, _cheque_ funditur alto," he said. "I +know what schoolmasters and boys and the public want, and I take care +they get it--_sale espèce de sacrés cochons de N. de D._!" + +The rest of prep. went off quite quietly. Pelly was slowly recovering +from the shock that he had received and began to meditate revenge. +Meyrick had got him unawares, he reflected. It was merely an accident, +and he resolved to challenge Meyrick to fight and give him back the +worst licking he had ever had in his life. He was beefy, but a bold +fellow. Rawson, who was really a cruel coward and a sneak, had made up +his mind that he wanted no more, and from time to time cast meek and +propitiatory glances in Meyrick's direction. + +At half-past nine they all went into their dining-room for bread and +cheese and beer. At a quarter to ten Mr. Horbury appeared in cap and +gown and read a chapter from St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, with one +or two singularly maundering and unhappy prayers. He stopped the boys as +they were going up to their rooms. + +"What's this, Pelly?" he said. "Your nose is all swollen. It's been +bleeding, too, I see. What have you been doing to yourself? And you, +Rawson, how do you account for your eyes being black? What's the meaning +of all this?" + +"Please, Sir, there was a very stiff bully down at rocker this +afternoon, and Rawson and I got tokered badly." + +"Were you in the bully, Bates?" + +"No, Sir; I've been outside since the beginning of the term. But all the +fellows were playing up tremendously, and I saw Rawson and Pelly had +been touched when we were changing." + +"Ah! I see. I'm very glad to find the House plays up so well. As for +you, Bates, I hear you're the best outside for your age that we've ever +had. Good night." + +The three said "Thank you, Sir," as if their dearest wish had been +gratified, and the master could have sworn that Bates flushed with +pleasure at his word of praise. But the fact was that Bates had +"suggested" the flush by a cunning arrangement of his features. + +The boys vanished and Mr. Horbury returned to his desk. He was editing a +selection called "English Literature for Lower Forms." He began to read +from the slips that he had prepared: + + "_So all day long the noise of battle roll'd + Among the mountains by the winter sea; + Until King Arthur's table, man by man, + Had fallen in Lyonnesse----_" + +He stopped and set a figure by the last word, and then, on a blank slip, +with a corresponding letter, he repeated the figure and wrote the note: + + Lyonnesse--the Sicilly Isles. + +Then he took a third slip and wrote the question: + + Give the ancient name of the Sicilly Isles. + +These serious labours employed him till twelve o'clock. He put the +materials of his book away as the clock struck, and solemnly mixed +himself his nightly glass of whisky and soda--in the daytime he never +touched spirits--and bit the one cigar which he smoked in the +twenty-four hours. The stings of the Head's sherry and of his +conversation no longer burned within him; time and work and the bite of +the cane in Meyrick's flesh had soothed his soul, and he set himself to +dream, leaning back in his arm-chair, watching the cheerful fire. + +He was thinking of what he would do when he succeeded to the +Headmastership. Already there were rumours that Chesson had refused the +Bishopric of St. Dubric's in order that he might be free to accept +Dorchester, which, in the nature of things, must soon be vacant. Horbury +had no doubt that the Headmastership would be his; he had influential +friends who assured him that the trustees would not hesitate for an +instant. Then he would show the world what an English Public School +could be made. In five years, he calculated, he would double the +numbers. He saw the coming importance of the modern side, and especially +of science. Personally, he detested "stinks," but he knew what an effect +he would produce with a great laboratory fitted with the very best +appliances and directed by a highly qualified master. Then, again, an +elaborate gymnasium must be built; there must be an engineer's shop, +too, and a carpenter's as well. And people were beginning to complain +that a Public School Education was of no use in the City. There must be +a business master, an expert from the Stock Exchange who would see that +this reproach was removed. Then he considered that a large number of the +boys belonged to the land-owning class. Why should a country gentleman +be at the mercy of his agent, forced for lack of technical knowledge to +accept statements which he could not check? It was clear that the +management of land and great estates must have its part in the scheme; +and, again, the best-known of the Crammers must be bought on his own +terms, so that the boys who wished to get into the Army or the Civil +Service would be practically compelled to come to Lupton. Already +he saw paragraphs in the _Guardian_ and _The Times_--in all the +papers--paragraphs which mentioned the fact that ninety-five per cent of +the successful candidates for the Indian Civil Service had received +their education at the foundation of "stout old Martin Rolle." +Meanwhile, in all this flood of novelty, the old traditions should be +maintained with more vigour than ever. The classics should be taught as +they never had been taught. Every one of the masters on this side should +be in the highest honours and, if possible, he would get famous men for +the work--they should not merely be good, but also notorious scholars. +Gee, the famous explorer in Crete, who had made an enormous mark in +regions widely removed from the scholastic world by his wonderful book, +_Dædalus; or, The Secret of the Labyrinth_, must come to Lupton at any +price; and Maynard, who had discovered some most important Greek +manuscripts in Egypt, he must have a form, too. Then there was Rendell, +who had done so well with his _Thucydides_, and Davies, author of _The +Olive of Athene_, a daring but most brilliant book which promised to +upset the whole established theory of mythology--he would have such a +staff as no school had ever dreamed of. "We shall have no difficulty +about paying them," thought Horbury; "our numbers will go up by leaps +and bounds, and the fees shall be five hundred pounds a year--and such +terms will do us more good than anything." + +He went into minute detail. He must take expert advice as to the +advisability of the school farming on its own account, and so supplying +the boys with meat, milk, bread, butter and vegetables at first cost. He +believed it could be done; he would get a Scotch farmer from the +Lowlands and make him superintendent at a handsome salary and with a +share in the profits. There would be the splendid advertisement of "the +whole dietary of the school supplied from the School Farms, under the +supervision of Mr. David Anderson, formerly of Haddanneuk, the largest +tenancy in the Duke of Ayr's estates." The food would be better and +cheaper, too; but there would be no luxury. The "Spartan" card was +always worth playing; one must strike the note of plain living in a +luxurious age; there must be no losing of the old Public School +severity. On the other hand, the boy's hands should be free to go into +their own pockets; there should be no restraint here. If a boy chose to +bring in _Dindonneau aux truffes_ or _Pieds de mouton à la Ste +Menehould_ to help out his tea, that was his look-out. Why should not +the school grant a concession to some big London firm, who would pay +handsomely for the privilege of supplying the hungry lads with every +kind of expensive dainty? The sum could be justly made a large one, as +any competing shop could be promptly put out of bounds with reason or +without it. On one side, _confiserie_; at the other counter, +_charcuterie_; enormous prices could be charged to the wealthy boys of +whom the school would be composed. Yet, on the other hand, the +distinguished visitor--judge, bishop, peer or what not--would lunch at +the Headmaster's house and eat the boys' dinner and go away saying it +was quite the plainest and very many times the best meal he had ever +tasted. There would be well-hung saddle of mutton, roasted and not +baked; floury potatoes and cauliflower; apple pudding with real English +cheese, with an excellent glass of the school beer, an honest and +delicious beverage made of malt and hops in the well-found school +brewery. Horbury knew enough of modern eating and drinking to understand +that such a meal would be a choice rarity to nine rich people out of +ten; and yet it was "Spartan," utterly devoid of luxury and ostentation. + +Again, he passed from detail and minutiæ into great Napoleonic regions. +A thousand boys at £500 a year; that would be an income for the school +of five hundred thousand pounds! The profits would be gigantic, immense. +After paying large, even extravagant, prices to the staff, after all +building expenses had been deducted, he hardly dared to think how vast a +sum would accrue year by year to the Trustees. The vision began to +assume such magnificence that it became oppressive; it put on the +splendours and delights of the hashish dream, which are too great and +too piercing for mortal hearts to bear. And yet it was no mirage; there +was not a step that could not be demonstrated, shown to be based on +hard; matter-of-fact business considerations. He tried to keep back his +growing excitement, to argue with himself that he was dealing in +visions, but the facts were too obstinate. He saw that it would be his +part to work the same miracle in the scholastic world as the great +American storekeepers had operated in the world of retail trade. The +principle was precisely the same: instead of a hundred small shops +making comparatively modest and humdrum profits you had the vast +emporium doing business on the gigantic scale with vastly diminished +expenses and vastly increased rewards. + +Here again was a hint. He had thought of America, and he knew that here +was an inexhaustible gold mine, that no other scholastic prospector had +even dreamed of. The rich American was notoriously hungry for everything +that was English, from frock-coats to pedigrees. He had never thought of +sending his son to an English Public School because he considered the +system hopelessly behind the times. But the new translated Lupton would +be to other Public Schools as a New York hotel of the latest fashion is +to a village beer-shop. And yet the young millionaire would grow up in +the company of the sons of the English gentlemen, imbibing the unique +culture of English life, while at the same time he enjoyed all the +advantages of modern ideas, modern science and modern business training. +Land was still comparatively cheap at Lupton; the school must buy it +quietly, indirectly, by degrees, and then pile after pile of vast +buildings rose before his eyes. He saw the sons of the rich drawn from +all the ends of the world to the Great School, there to learn the secret +of the Anglo-Saxons. + +Chesson was mistaken in that idea of his, which he thought daring and +original, of establishing a distinct Jewish House where the food should +be "Kosher." The rich Jew who desired to send his son to an English +Public School was, in nine cases out of ten, anxious to do so precisely +because he wanted to sink his son's connection with Jewry in oblivion. +He had heard Chesson talk of "our Christian duty to the seed of Israel" +in this connection. The man was clearly a fool. No, the more Jews the +better, but no Jewish House. And no Puseyism either: broad, earnest +religious teaching, with a leaning to moderate Anglicanism, should be +the faith of Lupton. As to this Chesson was, certainly, sound enough. He +had always made a firm stand against ecclesiasticism in any form. +Horbury knew the average English parent of the wealthier classes +thoroughly; he knew that, though he generally called himself a +Churchman, he was quite content to have his sons prepared for +confirmation by a confessed Agnostic. Certainly this liberty must not be +narrowed when Lupton became cosmopolitan. "We will retain all the +dignified associations which belong to the Established Church," he said +to himself, "and at the same time we shall be utterly free from the +taint of over-emphasising dogmatic teaching." He had a sudden brilliant +idea. Everybody in Church circles was saying that the English bishops +were terribly overworked, that it was impossible for the most strenuous +men with the best intentions to supervise effectually the huge dioceses +that had descended from the sparsely populated England of the Middle +Ages. Everywhere there was a demand for suffragans and more suffragans. +In the last week's _Guardian_ there were three letters on the subject, +one from a clergyman in their own diocese. The Bishop had been attacked +by some rabid ritualistic person, who had pointed out that nine out of +every ten parishes had not so much as seen the colour of his hood ever +since his appointment ten years before. The Archdeacon of Melby had +replied in a capital letter, scathing and yet humorous. Horbury turned +to the paper on the table beside his chair and looked up the letter. +"In the first place," wrote the Archdeacon, "your correspondent does not +seem to have realised that the _ethoes_ of the Diocese of Melby is not +identical with that of sacerdotalism. The sturdy folk of the Midlands +have not yet, I am thankful to say, forgotten the lessons of our great +Reformation. They have no wish to see a revival of the purely mechanical +religion of the Middle Ages--of the system of a sacrificing priesthood +and of sacraments efficacious _ex opere operato_. Hence they do not +regard the episcopate quite in the same light as your correspondent +'Senex,' who, it seems to me, looks upon a bishop as a sort of +Christianised 'medicine-man,' endowed with certain mysterious +thaumaturgic powers which have descended to him by an (imaginary) +spiritual succession. This was not the view of Hooker, nor, I venture to +say, has it ever been the view of the really representative divines of +the Established Church of England. + +"Still," the Archdeacon went on, "it must be admitted that the present +diocese of Melby is unwieldy and, it may be fairly said, unworkable." + +Then there followed the humorous anecdote of Sir Boyle Roche and the +Bird, and finally the Archdeacon emitted the prayer that God in His own +good time would put it into the hearts of our rulers in Church and +State to give their good Bishop an episcopal curate. + +Horbury got up from his chair and paced up and down the study; his +excitement was so great that he could keep quiet no longer. His cigar +had gone out long ago, and he had barely sipped the whisky and soda. His +eyes glittered with excitement. Circumstances seemed positively to be +playing into his hands; the dice of the world were being loaded in his +favour. He was like Bel Ami at his wedding. He almost began to believe +in Providence. + +For he was sure it could be managed. Here was a general feeling that no +one man could do the work of the diocese. There must be a suffragan, and +Lupton must give the new Bishop his title. No other town was possible. +Dunham had certainly been a see in the eighth century, but it was now +little more than a village and a village served by a miserable little +branch line; whereas Lupton was on the great main track of the Midland +system, with easy connections to every part of the country. The +Archdeacon, who was also a peer, would undoubtedly become the first +Bishop of Lupton, and he should be the titular chaplain of the Great +School! "Chaplain! The Right Reverend Lord Selwyn, Lord Bishop of +Lupton." Horbury gasped; it was too magnificent, too splendid. He knew +Lord Selwyn quite well and had no doubt as to his acceptance. He was a +poor man, and there would be no difficulty whatever in establishing a +_modus_. The Archdeacon was just the man for the place. He was no +pedantic theologian, but a broad, liberal-minded man of the world. +Horbury remembered, almost with ecstasy, that he had lectured all over +the United States with immense success. The American Press had been +enthusiastic, and the First Congregational Church of Chicago had +implored Selwyn to accept its call, preach what he liked and pocket an +honorarium of twenty-five thousand dollars a year. And, on the other +hand, what could the most orthodox desire safer than a chaplain who was +not only a bishop, but a peer of the realm? Wonderful! Here were the +three birds--Liberalism, Orthodoxy and Reverence for the House of +Lords--caught safe and secure in this one net. + +The games? They should be maintained in all their glory, rather on an +infinitely more splendid scale. Cricket and sticker (the Lupton hockey), +rackets and fives, should be all encouraged; and more, Lupton should be +the only school to possess a tennis court. The noble _jeu de paume_, the +game of kings, the most aristocratic of all sports, should have a worthy +home at Lupton. They would train champions; they would have both French +and English markers skilled in the latest developments of the _chemin +de fer_ service. "Better than half a yard, I think," said Horbury to +himself; "they will have to do their best to beat that." + +But he placed most reliance on rocker. This was the Lupton football, a +variant as distinctive in its way as the Eton Wall Game. People have +thought that the name is a sort of portmanteau word, a combination of +Rugger and Soccer; but in reality the title was derived from the field +where the game used to be played in old days by the townsfolk. As in +many other places, football at Lupton had been originally an excuse for +a faction-fight between two parishes in the town--St. Michael's and St. +Paul's-in-the-Fields. Every year, on Shrove Tuesday, the townsfolk, +young and old, had proceeded to the Town Field and had fought out their +differences with considerable violence. The field was broken land: a +deep, sluggish stream crossed one angle of it, and in the middle there +were quarries and jagged limestone rocks. Hence football was called in +the town "playing rocks," for, indeed, it was considered an excellent +point of play to hurl a man over the edge of the quarry on to the rocks +beneath, and so late as 1830 a certain Jonas Simpson of St. Michael's +had had his spine broken in this way. However, as a boy from St. Paul's +was drowned in the Wand the same day, the game was always reckoned a +draw. It was from the peculiarities of this old English sport that the +school had constructed its game. The Town Field had, of course, long +been stolen from the townsfolk and built over; but the boys had, +curiously enough, perpetuated the tradition of its peculiarities in a +kind of football ritual. For, besides the two goals, one part of the +field was marked by a line of low white posts: these indicated the +course of a non-existent Wand brook, and in the line of these posts it +was lawful to catch an opponent by the throat and choke him till he +turned black in the face--the best substitute for drowning that the +revisers of the game could imagine. Again: about the centre of the field +two taller posts indicated the position of the quarries, and between +these you might be hit or kicked full in the stomach without the +smallest ground of complaint: the stroke being a milder version of the +old fall on the rocks. + +There were many other like amenities in rocker; and Horbury maintained +it was by far the manliest variant of the game. For this pleasing sport +he now designed a world-wide fame. Rocker should be played wherever the +English flag floated: east and west, north and south; from Hong Kong to +British Columbia; in Canada and New Zealand there should be the +_Temenoi_ of this great rite; and the traveller seeing the mystic +enclosure--the two goals, the line of little posts marking "brooks" and +the two poles indicating "quarries"--should know English soil as surely +as by the Union Jack. The technical terms of rocker should become a part +of the great Anglo-Saxon inheritance; the whole world should hear of +"bully-downs" and "tokering," of "outsides" and "rammers." It would +require working, but it was to be done: articles in the magazines and in +the Press; perhaps a story of school life, a new _Tom Brown_ must be +written. The Midlands and the North must be shown that there was money +in it, and the rest would be easy. + +One thing troubled Horbury. His mind was full of the new and splendid +buildings that were to be erected, but he was aware that antiquity still +counted for something, and unfortunately Lupton could show very little +that was really antique. Forty years before, Stanley, the first +reforming Headmaster, had pulled down the old High School. There were +prints of it: it was a half-timbered, fifteenth-century building, with a +wavering roof-line and an overhanging upper story; there were dim, +leaded windows and a grey arched porch--an ugly old barn, Stanley called +it. Scott was called in and built the present High School, a splendid +hall in red brick: French thirteenth-century, with Venetian detail; it +was much admired. But Horbury was sorry that the old school had been +destroyed; he saw for the first time that it might have been made a +valuable attraction. Then again, Dowsing, who succeeded Stanley, had +knocked the cloisters all to bits; there was only one side of the +quadrangle left, and this had been boarded up and used as a gardeners' +shed. Horbury did not know what to say of the destruction of the Cross +that used to stand in the centre of the quad. No doubt Dowsing was right +in thinking it superstitious; still, it might have been left as a +curiosity and shown to visitors, just as the instruments of bygone +cruelty--the rack and the Iron Maid--are preserved and exhibited to +wondering sightseers. There was no real danger of any superstitious +adoration of the Cross; it was, as a matter of fact, as harmless as the +axe and block at the Tower of London; Dowsing had ruined what might have +been an important asset in the exploitation of the school. + +Still, perhaps the loss was not altogether irreparable. High School was +gone and could not be recovered; but the cloisters might be restored and +the Cross, too. Horbury knew that the monument in front of Charing Cross +Railway Station was considered by many to be a genuine antique: why not +get a good man to build them a Cross? Not like the old one, of course; +that "Fair Roode with our Deare Ladie Saint Marie and Saint John," and, +below, the stories of the blissful Saints and Angels--that would never +do. But a vague, Gothic erection, with plenty of kings and queens, +imaginary benefactors of the school, and a small cast-iron cross at the +top: that could give no offence to anybody, and might pass with nine +people out of ten as a genuine remnant of the Middle Ages. It could be +made of soft stone and allowed to weather for a few years; then a coat +of invisible anti-corrosive fluid would preserve carvings and imagery +that would already appear venerable in decay. There was no need to make +any precise statements: parents and the public might be allowed to draw +their own conclusions. + +Horbury was neglecting nothing. He was building up a great scheme in his +mind, and to him it seemed that every detail was worth attending to, +while at the same time he did not lose sight of the whole effect. He +believed in finish: there must be no rough edges. It seemed to him that +a school legend must be invented. The real history was not quite what he +wanted, though it might work in with a more decorative account of +Lupton's origins. One might use the _Textus Receptus_ of Martin Rolle's +Foundation--the bequest of land _c._ 1430 to build and maintain a school +where a hundred boys should be taught grammar, and ten poor scholars and +six priests should pray for the Founder's soul. This was well enough, +but one might hint that Martin Rolle really refounded and re-endowed a +school of Saxon origin, probably established by King Alfred himself in +Luppa's Tun. Then, again, who could show that Shakespeare had not +visited Lupton? His famous schoolboy, "creeping like snail unwillingly +to school," might very possibly have been observed by the poet as he +strolled by the banks of the Wand. Many famous men might have received +their education at Lupton; it would not be difficult to make a plausible +list of such. It must be done carefully and cautiously, with such +phrases as "it has always been a tradition at Lupton that Sir Walter +Raleigh received part of his education at the school"; or, again, "an +earlier generation of Luptonians remembered the initials 'W. S. S. on +A.' cut deeply in the mantel of old High School, now, unfortunately, +demolished." Antiquarians would laugh? Possibly; but who cared about +antiquarians? For the average man "Charing" was derived from "_chère +reine_," and he loved to have it so, and Horbury intended to appeal to +the average man. Though he was a schoolmaster he was no recluse, and he +had marked the ways of the world from his quiet study in Lupton; hence +he understood the immense value of a grain of quackery in all schemes +which are meant to appeal to mortals. It was a deadly mistake to +suppose that anything which was all quackery would be a success--a +permanent success, at all events; it was a deadlier mistake still to +suppose that anything quite devoid of quackery could pay handsomely. The +average English palate would shudder at the flavour of _aioli_, but it +would be charmed by the insertion of that _petit point d'ail_ which +turned mere goodness into triumph and laurelled perfection. And there +was no need to mention the word "garlic" before the guests. Lupton was +not going to be all garlic: it was to be infinitely the best scholastic +dish that had ever been served--the ingredients should be unsurpassed +and unsurpassable. But--King Alfred's foundation of a school at Luppa's +Tun, and that "W. S. S. on A." cut deeply on the mantel of the vanished +High School--these and legends like unto them, these would be the last +touch, _le petit point d'ail_. + +It was a great scheme, wonderful and glorious; and the most amazing +thing about it was that it was certain to be realised. There was not a +flaw from start to finish. The Trustees were certain to appoint him--he +had that from a sure quarter--and it was but a question of a year or +two, perhaps only of a month or two, before all this great and golden +vision should be converted into hard and tangible fact. He drank off his +glass of whisky and soda; it had become flat and brackish, but to him +it was nectar, since it was flavoured with ecstasy. + +He frowned suddenly as he went upstairs to his room. An unpleasant +recollection had intruded for a moment on his amazing fantasy; but he +dismissed the thought as soon as it arose. That was all over, there +could be no possibility of trouble from that direction; and so, his mind +filled with images, he fell asleep and saw Lupton as the centre of the +whole world, like Jerusalem in the ancient maps. + +A student of the deep things of mysticism has detected a curious element +of comedy in the management of human concerns; and there certainly seems +a touch of humour in the fact that on this very night, while Horbury was +building the splendid Lupton of the future, the palace of his thought +and his life was shattered for ever into bitter dust and nothingness. +But so it was. The Dread Arrest had been solemnly recognised, and that +wretched canonry at Wareham was irrevocably pronounced for doom. +Fantastic were the elements of forces that had gone to the ordering of +this great sentence: raw corn spirit in the guise of sherry, the +impertinence (or what seemed such) of an elderly clergyman, a boiled leg +of mutton, a troublesome and disobedient boy, and--another person. + + + + +II + + +I + +He was standing in a wild, bare country. Something about it seemed +vaguely familiar: the land rose and fell in dull and weary undulations, +in a vast circle of dun ploughland and grey meadow, bounded by a dim +horizon without promise or hope, dreary as a prison wall. The infinite +melancholy of an autumn evening brooded heavily over all the world, and +the sky was hidden by livid clouds. + +It all brought back to him some far-off memory, and yet he knew that he +gazed on that sad plain for the first time. There was a deep and heavy +silence over all; a silence unbroken by so much as the fluttering of a +leaf. The trees seemed of a strange shape, and strange were the stunted +thorns dotted about the broken field in which he stood. A little path at +his feet, bordered by the thorn bushes, wandered away to the left into +the dim twilight; it had about it some indefinable air of mystery, as if +it must lead one down into a mystic region where all earthly things are +forgotten and lost for ever. + +He sat down beneath the bare, twisted boughs of a great tree and watched +the dreary land grow darker and yet darker; he wondered, +half-consciously, where he was and how he had come to that place, +remembering, faintly, tales of like adventure. A man passed by a +familiar wall one day, and opening a door before unnoticed, found +himself in a new world of unsurmised and marvellous experiences. Another +man shot an arrow farther than any of his friends and became the husband +of the fairy. Yet--this was not fairyland; these were rather the sad +fields and unhappy graves of the underworld than the abode of endless +pleasures and undying delights. And yet in all that he saw there was the +promise of great wonder. + +Only one thing was clear to him. He knew that he was Ambrose, that he +had been driven from great and unspeakable joys into miserable exile and +banishment. He had come from a far, far place by a hidden way, and +darkness had closed about him, and bitter drink and deadly meat were +given him, and all gladness was hidden from him. This was all he could +remember; and now he was astray, he knew not how or why, in this wild, +sad land, and the night descended dark upon him. + +Suddenly there was, as it were, a cry far away in the shadowy silence, +and the thorn bushes began to rustle before a shrilling wind that rose +as the night came down. At this summons the heavy clouds broke up and +dispersed, fleeting across the sky, and the pure heaven appeared with +the last rose flush of the sunset dying from it, and there shone the +silver light of the evening star. Ambrose's heart was drawn up to this +light as he gazed: he saw that the star grew greater and greater; it +advanced towards him through the air; its beams pierced to his soul as +if they were the sound of a silver trumpet. An ocean of white splendour +flowed over him: he dwelt within the star. + +It was but for a moment; he was still sitting beneath the tree of the +twisted branches. But the sky was now clear and filled with a great +peace; the wind had fallen and a more happy light shone on the great +plain. Ambrose was thirsty, and then he saw that beside the tree there +was a well, half hidden by the arching roots that rose above it. The +water was still and shining, as though it were a mirror of black marble, +and marking the brim was a great stone on which were cut the letters: + + "FONS VITAE IMMORTALIS." + +He rose and, bending over the well, put down his lips to drink, and his +soul and body were filled as with a flood of joy. Now he knew that all +his days of exile he had borne with pain and grief a heavy, weary body. +There had been dolours in every limb and achings in every bone; his feet +had dragged upon the ground, slowly, wearily, as the feet of those who +go in chains. But dim, broken spectres, miserable shapes and crooked +images of the world had his eyes seen; for they were eyes bleared with +sickness, darkened by the approach of death. Now, indeed, he clearly +beheld the shining vision of things immortal. He drank great draughts of +the dark, glittering water, drinking, it seemed, the light of the +reflected stars; and he was filled with life. Every sinew, every muscle, +every particle of the deadly flesh shuddered and quickened in the +communion of that well-water. The nerves and veins rejoiced together; +all his being leapt with gladness, and as one finger touched another, as +he still bent over the well, a spasm of exquisite pleasure quivered and +thrilled through his body. His heart throbbed with bliss that was +unendurable; sense and intellect and soul and spirit were, as it were, +sublimed into one white flame of delight. And all the while it was known +to him that these were but the least of the least of the pleasures of +the kingdom, but the overrunnings and base tricklings of the great +supernal cup. He saw, without amazement, that, though the sun had set, +the sky now began to flush and redden as if with the northern light. It +was no longer the evening, no longer the time of the procession of the +dusky night. The darkness doubtless had passed away in mortal hours +while for an infinite moment he tasted immortal drink; and perhaps one +drop of that water was endless life. But now it was the preparation for +the day. He heard the words: + + "_Dies venit, dies Tua + In qua reflorent omnia._" + +They were uttered within his heart, and he saw that all was being made +ready for a great festival. Over everything there was a hush of +expectation; and as he gazed he knew that he was no longer in that weary +land of dun ploughland and grey meadow, of the wild, bare trees and +strange stunted thorn bushes. He was on a hillside, lying on the verge +of a great wood; beneath, in the valley, a brook sang faintly under the +leaves of the silvery willows; and beyond, far in the east, a vast wall +of rounded mountain rose serene towards the sky. All about him was the +green world of the leaves: odours of the summer night, deep in the +mystic heart of the wood, odours of many flowers, and the cool breath +rising from the singing stream mingled in his nostrils. The world +whitened to the dawn, and then, as the light grew clear, the rose +clouds blossomed in the sky and, answering, the earth seemed to glitter +with rose-red sparks and glints of flame. All the east became as a +garden of roses, red flowers of living light shone over the mountain, +and as the beams of the sun lit up the circle of the earth a bird's song +began from a tree within the wood. Then were heard the modulations of a +final and exultant ecstasy, the chant of liberation, a magistral _In +Exitu_; there was the melody of rejoicing trills, of unwearied, glad +reiterations of choirs ever aspiring, prophesying the coming of the +great feast, singing the eternal antiphon. + +As the song aspired into the heights, so there aspired suddenly before +him the walls and pinnacles of a great church set upon a high hill. It +was far off, and yet as though it were close at hand he saw all the +delicate and wonderful imagery cut in its stones. The great door in the +west was a miracle: every flower and leaf, every reed and fern, were +clustered in the work of the capitals, and in the round arch above +moulding within moulding showed all the beasts that God has made. He saw +the rose-window, a maze of fretted tracery, the high lancets of the fair +hall, the marvellous buttresses, set like angels about this holy house, +whose pinnacles were as a place of many springing trees. And high above +the vast, far-lifted vault of the roof rose up the spire, golden in the +light. The bells were ringing for the feast; he heard from within the +walls the roll and swell and triumph of the organ: + + _O pius o bonus o placidus sonus hymnus eorum._ + +He knew not how he had taken his place in this great procession, how, +surrounded by ministrants in white, he too bore his part in endless +litanies. He knew not through what strange land they passed in their +fervent, admirable order, following their banners and their symbols that +glanced on high before them. But that land stood ever, it seemed, in a +clear, still air, crowned with golden sunlight; and so there were those +who bore great torches of wax, strangely and beautifully adorned with +golden and vermilion ornaments. The delicate flame of these tapers +burned steadily in the still sunlight, and the glittering silver censers +as they rose and fell tossed a pale cloud into the air. They delayed, +now and again, by wayside shrines, giving thanks for unutterable +compassions, and, advancing anew, the blessed company surged onward, +moving to its unknown goal in the far blue mountains that rose beyond +the plain. There were faces and shapes of awful beauty about him; he saw +those in whose eyes were the undying lamps of heaven, about whose heads +the golden hair was as an aureole; and there were they that above the +girded vesture of white wore dyed garments, and as they advanced around +their feet there was the likeness of dim flames. + +The great white array had vanished and he was alone. He was tracking a +secret path that wound in and out through the thickets of a great +forest. By solitary pools of still water, by great oaks, worlds of green +leaves, by fountains and streams of water, by the bubbling, mossy +sources of the brooks he followed this hidden way, now climbing and now +descending, but still mounting upward, still passing, as he knew, +farther and farther from all the habitations of men. Through the green +boughs now he saw the shining sea-water; he saw the land of the old +saints, all the divisions of the land that men had given to them for +God; he saw their churches, and it seemed as if he could hear, very +faintly, the noise of the ringing of their holy bells. Then, at last, +when he had crossed the Old Road, and had gone by the Lightning-struck +Land and the Fisherman's Well, he found, between the forest and the +mountain, a very ancient and little chapel; and now he heard the bell of +the saint ringing clearly and so sweetly that it was as it were the +singing of the angels. Within it was very dark and there was silence. He +knelt and saw scarcely that the chapel was divided into two parts by a +screen that rose up to the round roof. There was a glinting of shapes +as if golden figures were painted on this screen, and through the +joinings of its beams there streamed out thin needles of white splendour +as if within there was a light greater than that of the sun at noonday. +And the flesh began to tremble, for all the place was filled with the +odours of Paradise, and he heard the ringing of the Holy Bell and the +voices of the choir that out-sang the Fairy Birds of Rhiannon, crying +and proclaiming: + + "_Glory and praise to the Conqueror of Death: to the Fountain + of Life Unending._" + +Nine times they sang this anthem, and then the whole place was filled +with blinding light. For a door in the screen had been opened, and there +came forth an old man, all in shining white, on whose head was a gold +crown. Before him went one who rang the bell; on each side there were +young men with torches; and in his hands he bore the _Mystery of +Mysteries_ wrapped about in veils of gold and of all colours, so that it +might not be discerned; and so he passed before the screen, and the +light of heaven burst forth from that which he held. Then he entered in +again by a door that was on the other side, and the Holy Things were +hidden. + +And Ambrose heard from within an awful voice and the words: + + _Woe and great sorrow are on him, for he hath looked unworthily + into the Tremendous Mysteries, and on the Secret Glory which is + hidden from the Holy Angels._ + + +II + +"Poetry is the only possible way of saying anything that is worth saying +at all." This was an axiom that, in later years, Ambrose Meyrick's +friends were forced to hear at frequent intervals. He would go on to say +that he used the term poetry in its most liberal sense, including in it +all mystic or symbolic prose, all painting and statuary that was worthy +to be called art, all great architecture, and all true music. He meant, +it is to be presumed, that the mysteries can only be conveyed by +symbols; unfortunately, however, he did not always make it quite clear +that this was the proposition that he intended to utter, and thus +offence was sometimes given--as, for example, to the scientific +gentleman who had been brought to Meyrick's rooms and went away early, +wondering audibly and sarcastically whether "your clever friend" wanted +to metrify biology and set Euclid to Bach's Organ Fugues. + +However, the Great Axiom (as he called it) was the justification that +he put forward in defence of the notes on which the previous section is +based. + +"Of course," he would say, "the symbolism is inadequate; but that is the +defect of speech of any kind when you have once ventured beyond the +multiplication table and the jargon of the Stock Exchange. Inadequacy of +expression is merely a minor part of the great tragedy of humanity. Only +an ass thinks that he has succeeded in uttering the perfect content of +his thought without either excess or defect." + +"Then, again," he might go on, "the symbolism would very likely be +misleading to a great many people; but what is one to do? I believe many +good people find Turner mad and Dickens tiresome. And if the great +sometimes fail, what hope is there for the little? We cannot all +be--well--popular novelists of the day." + +Of course, the notes in question were made many years after the event +they commemorate; they were the man's translation of all the wonderful +and inexpressible emotions of the boy; and, as Meyrick puts it, many +"words" (or symbols) are used in them which were unknown to the lad of +fifteen. + +"Nevertheless," he said, "they are the best words that I can find." + +As has been said, the Old Grange was a large, roomy house; a space +could easily have been found for half a dozen more boys if the High +Usher had cared to be bothered with them. As it was, it was a favour to +be at Horbury's, and there was usually some personal reason for +admission. Pelly, for example, was the son of an old friend; Bates was a +distant cousin; and Rawson's father was the master of a small Grammar +School in the north with which certain ancestral Horburys were somehow +connected. The Old Grange was a fine large Caroline house; it had a +grave front of red brick, mellowed with age, tier upon tier of tall, +narrow windows, flush with the walls, and a high-pitched, red-tiled +roof. Above the front door was a rich and curious wooden pent-house, +deeply carven; and within there was plenty of excellent panelling, and +some good mantelpieces, added, it would seem, somewhere about the Adam +period. Horbury had seen its solid and comfortable merits and had bought +the freehold years before at a great bargain. The school was increasing +rapidly even in those days, and he knew that before long more houses +would be required. If he left Lupton he would be able to let the Old +Grange easily--he might almost put it up for auction--and the rent would +represent a return of fifty per cent on his investment. Many of the +rooms were large; of a size out of all proportion to the boys' needs, +and at a very trifling expense partitions might be made and the nine or +ten available rooms be subdivided into studies for twenty or even +twenty-five boys. Nature had gifted the High Usher with a careful, +provident mind in all things, both great and small; and it is but fair +to add that on his leaving Lupton for Wareham he found his anticipations +more than justified. To this day Charles Horbury, his nephew, a high +Government official, draws a comfortable income from his uncle's most +prudent investment, and the house easily holds its twenty-five boys. +Rainy, who took the place from Horbury, was an ingenious fellow and hit +upon a capital plan for avoiding the expense of making new windows for +some of the subdivided studies. After thoughtful consideration he caused +the wooden partitions which were put up to stop short of the ceiling by +four inches, and by this device the study with a window lighted the +study that had none; and, as Rainy explained to some of the parents, a +diffused light was really better for the eyes than a direct one. + +In the old days, when Ambrose Meyrick was being made a man of, the four +boys "rattled," as it were, in the big house. They were scattered about +in odd corners, remote from each other, and it seemed from everybody +else. Meyrick's room was the most isolated of any, but it was also the +most comfortable in winter, since it was over the kitchen, to the +extreme left of the house. This part, which was hidden from the road by +the boughs of a great cedar, was an after-thought, a Georgian addition +in grey brick, and rose only to two stories, and in the one furnished +room out of the three or four over the kitchen and offices slept +Ambrose. He wished his days could be as quiet and retired as his nights. +He loved the shadows that were about his bed even on the brightest +mornings in summer; for the cedar boughs were dense, and ivy had been +allowed to creep about the panes of the window; so the light entered dim +and green, filtered through the dark boughs and the ivy tendrils. + +Here, then, after the hour of ten each night, he dwelt secure. Now and +again Mr. Horbury would pay nocturnal surprise visits to see that all +lights were out; but, happily, the stairs at the end of the passage, +being old and badly fitted, gave out a succession of cracks like pistol +shots if the softest foot was set on them. It was simple, therefore, on +hearing the first of these reports, to extinguish the candle in the +small secret lantern (held warily so that no gleam of light should +appear from under the door) and to conceal the lantern under the +bed-clothes. One wetted one's finger and pinched at the flame, so there +was no smell of the expiring snuff, and the lantern slide was carefully +drawn to guard against the possibility of suspicious grease-marks on the +linen. It was perfect; and old Horbury's visits, which were rare enough, +had no terrors for Ambrose. + +So that night, while the venom of the cane still rankled in his body, +though it had ceased to disturb his mind, instead of going to bed at +once, according to the regulations, he sat for a while on his box +seeking a clue in a maze of odd fancies and conceits. He took off his +clothes and wrapped his aching body in the rug from the bed, and +presently, blowing out the official paraffin lamp, he lit his candle, +ready at the first warning creak on the stairs to douse the glim and +leap between the sheets. + +Odd enough were his first cogitations. He was thinking how very sorry he +was to have hit Pelly that savage blow and to have endangered Rawson's +eyesight by the hard boards of the dictionary! This was eccentric, for +he had endured from those two young Apaches every extremity of +unpleasantness for upwards of a couple of years. Pelly was not by any +means an evil lad: he was stupid and beefy within and without, and the +great Public School system was transmuting him, in the proper course and +by the proper steps, into one of those Brave Average Boobies whom +Meyrick used to rail against afterwards. Pelly, in all probability (his +fortunes have not been traced), went into the Army and led the milder +and more serious subalterns the devil's own life. In India he "lay +doggo" with great success against some hill tribe armed with +seventeenth-century muskets and rather barbarous knives; he seems to +have been present at that "Conference of the Powers" described so +brightly by Mr. Kipling. Promoted to a captaincy, he fought with +conspicuous bravery in South Africa, winning the Victoria Cross for his +rescue of a wounded private at the instant risk of his own life, and he +finally led his troop into a snare set by an old farmer; a rabbit of +average intelligence would have smelt and evaded it. + +For Rawson one is sorry, but one cannot, in conscience, say much that is +good, though he has been praised for his tact. He became domestic +chaplain to the Bishop of Dorchester, whose daughter Emily he married. + +But in those old days there was very little to choose between them, from +Meyrick's point of view. Each had displayed a quite devilish ingenuity +in the art of annoyance, in the whole cycle of jeers and sneers and +"scores," as known to the schoolboy, and they were just proceeding to +more active measures. Meyrick had borne it all meekly; he had returned +kindly and sometimes quaint answers to the unceasing stream of remarks +that were meant to wound his feelings, to make him look a fool before +any boys that happened to be about. He had only countered with a mild: +"What do you do that for, Pelly?" when the brave one smacked his head. +"Because I hate sneaks and funks," Pelly had replied and Meyrick said no +more. Rawson took a smaller size in victims when it was a question of +physical torments; but he had invented a most offensive tale about +Meyrick and had told it all over the school, where it was universally +believed. In a word, the two had done their utmost to reduce him to a +state of utter misery; and now he was sorry that he had punched the nose +of one and bombarded the other with a dictionary! + +The fact was that his forebearance had not been all cowardice; it is, +indeed, doubtful whether he was in the real sense a coward at all. He +went in fear, it is true, all his days, but what he feared was not the +insult, but the intention, the malignancy of which the insult, or the +blow, was the outward sign. The fear of a mad bull is quite distinct +from the horror with which most people look upon a viper; it was the +latter feeling which made Meyrick's life a burden to him. And again +there was a more curious shade of feeling; and that was the intense +hatred that he felt to the mere thought of "scoring" off an antagonist, +of beating down the enemy. He was a much sharper lad than either Rawson +or Pelly; he could have retorted again and again with crushing effect, +but he held his tongue, for all such victories were detestable to him. +And this odd sentiment governed all his actions and feelings; he +disliked "going up" in form, he disliked winning a game, not through any +acquired virtue, but by inherent nature. Poe would have understood +Meyrick's feelings; but then the author of _The Imp of the Perverse_ +penetrated so deeply into the inmost secrets of humanity that +Anglo-Saxon criticism has agreed in denouncing him as a wholly "inhuman" +writer. + +With Meyrick this mode of feeling had grown stronger by provocation; the +more he was injured, the more he shrank from the thought of returning +the injury. In a great measure the sentiment remained with him in later +life. He would sally forth from his den in quest of fresh air on top of +an omnibus and stroll peacefully back again rather than struggle for +victory with the furious crowd. It was not so much that he disliked the +physical contest: he was afraid of getting a seat! Quite naturally, he +said that people who "pushed," in the metaphorical sense, always +reminded him of the hungry little pigs fighting for the largest share of +the wash; but he seemed to think that, whereas this course of action was +natural in the little pigs, it was profoundly unnatural in the little +men. But in his early boyhood he had carried this secret doctrine of his +to its utmost limits; he had assumed, as it were, the rôle of the +coward and the funk; he had, without any conscious religious motive +certainly, but in obedience to an inward command, endeavoured to play +the part of a Primitive Christian, of a religious, in a great Public +School! _Ama nesciri et pro nihilo æstimari._ The maxim was certainly in +his heart, though he had never heard it; but perhaps if he had searched +the whole world over he could not have found a more impossible field for +its exercise than this seminary, where the broad, liberal principles of +Christianity were taught in a way that satisfied the Press, the public +and the parents. + +And he sat in his room and grieved over the fashion in which he had +broken this discipline. Still, something had to be done: he was +compelled to stay in this place, and he did not wish to be reduced to +the imbecility of wretched little Phipps who had become at last more +like a whimpering kitten with the mange than a human being. One had not +the right to allow oneself to be made an idiot, so the principle had to +be infringed--but externally only, never internally! Of that he was +firmly resolved; and he felt secure in his recollection that there had +been no anger in his heart. He resented the presence of Pelly and +Rawson, certainly, but in the manner with which some people resent the +presence of a cat, a mouse, or a black-beetle, as disagreeable objects +which can't help being disagreeable objects. But his bashing of Pelly +and his smashing of Rawson, his remarks (gathered from careful +observation by the banks of the Lupton and Birmingham Canal); all this +had been but the means to an end, the securing of peace and quiet for +the future. He would not be murdered by this infernal Public School +system either, after the fashion of Phipps--which was melancholy, or +after the fashion of the rest--which was more melancholy still, since it +is easier to recover from nervous breakdown than from suffusion of cant +through the entire system, mental and spiritual. Utterly from his +heart he abjured and renounced all the horrible shibboleths of the +school, its sham enthusiasm, its "ethos," its "tone," its "loyal +co-operation--masters and boys working together for the good of the +whole school"--all its ridiculous fetish conventions and absurd +observances, the joint contrivances of young fools and old knaves. But +his resistance should be secret and not open, for a while; there should +be no more "bashing" than was absolutely necessary. + +And one thing he resolved upon--he would make all he could out of the +place; he would work like a tiger and get all the Latin and Greek and +French obtainable, in spite of the teaching and its imbecile pedantry. +The school work must be done, so that trouble might be avoided, but +here at night in his room he would really learn the languages they +pottered over in form, wasting half their time in writing sham +Ciceronian prose which would have made Cicero sick, and verse evil +enough to cause Virgil to vomit. Then there was French, taught chiefly +out of pompous eighteenth-century fooleries, with lists of irregular +verbs to learn and Babylonish nonsense about the past participle, and +many other rotten formulas and rules, giving to the whole tongue the air +of a tiresome puzzle which had been dug up out of a prehistoric grave. +This was not the French that he wanted; still, he could write out +irregular verbs by day and learn the language at night. He wondered +whether unhappy French boys had to learn English out of the _Rambler_, +Blair's _Sermons_ and Young's _Night Thoughts_. For he had some sort of +smattering of English literature which a Public School boy has no +business to possess. So he went on with this mental tirade of his: one +is not over-wise at fifteen. It is true enough, perhaps, that the French +of the average English schoolboy is something fit to move only pity and +terror; it may be true also that nobody except Deans and schoolmasters +seems to bring away even the formulas and sacred teachings (such as the +Optative mystery and the Doctrine of Dum) of the two great literatures. +There is, doubtless, a good deal to be said on the subject of the Public +Schoolman's knowledge of the history and literature of his own country; +an infinite deal of comic stuff might be got out of his views and +acquirements in the great science of theology--still let us say, +_Floreat_! + +Meyrick turned from his review of the wisdom of his elders and +instructors to more intimate concerns. There were a few cuts of that +vigorous cane which still stung and hurt most abominably, for skill or +fortune had guided Mr. Horbury's hand so that he had been enabled here +and there to get home twice in the same place, and there was one +particular weal on the left arm where the flesh, purple and discoloured, +had swelled up and seemed on the point of bursting. It was no longer +with rage, but with a kind of rapture, that he felt the pain and +smarting; he looked upon the ugly marks of the High Usher's evil humours +as though they had been a robe of splendour. For he knew nothing of that +bad sherry, nothing of the Head's conversation; he knew that when Pelly +had come in quite as late it had only been a question of a hundred +lines, and so he persisted in regarding himself as a martyr in the cause +of those famous "Norman arches," which was the cause of that dear dead +enthusiast, his father, who loved Gothic architecture and all other +beautiful "unpractical" things with an undying passion. As soon as +Ambrose could walk he had begun his pilgrimages to hidden mystic +shrines; his father had led him over the wild lands to places known +perhaps only to himself, and there, by the ruined stones, by the smooth +hillock, had told the tale of the old vanished time, the time of the +"old saints." + + +III + +It was for this blessed and wonderful learning, he said to himself, that +he had been beaten, that his body had been scored with red and purple +stripes. He remembered his father's oft-repeated exclamation, "cythrawl +Sais!" He understood that the phrase damned not Englishmen _qua_ +Englishmen, but Anglo-Saxonism--the power of the creed that builds +Manchester, that "does business," that invents popular dissent, +representative government, adulteration, suburbs, and the Public School +system. It was, according to his father, the creed of "the Prince of +this world," the creed that made for comfort, success, a good balance at +the bank, the praise of men, the sensible and tangible victory and +achievement; and he bade his little boy, who heard everything and +understood next to nothing, fly from it, hate it and fight against it as +he would fight against the devil--"and," he would add, "it _is_ the +only devil you are ever likely to come across." + +And the little Ambrose had understood not much of all this, and if he +had been asked--even at fifteen--what it all meant, he would probably +have said that it was a great issue between Norman mouldings and Mr. +Horbury, an Armageddon of Selden Abbey _versus_ rocker. Indeed, it is +doubtful whether old Nicholas Meyrick would have been very much clearer, +for he forgot everything that might be said on the other side. He forgot +that Anglo-Saxonism (save in the United States of America) makes +generally for equal laws; that civil riot ("Labour" movements, of +course, excepted) is more a Celtic than a Saxon vice; that the penalty +of burning alive is unknown amongst Anglo-Saxons, unless the provocation +be extreme; that Englishmen have substituted "Indentured Labour" for the +old-world horrors of slavery; that English justice smites the guilty +rich equally with the guilty poor; that men are no longer poisoned with +swift and secret drugs, though somewhat unwholesome food may still be +sold very occasionally. Indeed, the old Meyrick once told his rector +that he considered a brothel a house of sanctity compared with a modern +factory, and he was beginning to relate some interesting tales +concerning the Three Gracious Courtesans of the Isle of Britain when the +rector fled in horror--he came from Sydenham. And all this was a nice +preparation for Lupton. + +A wonderful joy, an ecstasy of bliss, swelled in Ambrose's heart as he +assured himself that he was a witness, though a mean one, for the old +faith, for the faith of secret and beautiful and hidden mysteries as +opposed to the faith of rocker and sticker and mucker, and "the thought +of the school as an inspiring motive in life"--the text on which the +Head had preached the Sunday before. He bared his arms and kissed the +purple swollen flesh and prayed that it might ever be so, that in body +and mind and spirit he might ever be beaten and reviled and made +ridiculous for the sacred things, that he might ever be on the side of +the despised and the unsuccessful, that his life might ever be in the +shadow--in the shadow of the mysteries. + +He thought of the place in which he was, of the hideous school, the +hideous town, the weary waves of the dun Midland scenery bounded by the +dim, hopeless horizon; and his soul revisited the faery hills and woods +and valleys of the West. He remembered how, long ago, his father had +roused him early from sleep in the hush and wonder of a summer morning. +The whole world was still and windless; all the magic odours of the +night rose from the earth, and as they crossed the lawn the silence was +broken by the enchanted song of a bird rising from a thorn tree by the +gate. A high white vapour veiled the sky, and they only knew that the +sun had risen by the brightening of this veil, by the silvering of the +woods and the meadows and the water in the rejoicing brook. They crossed +the road, and crossed the brook in the field beneath, by the old +foot-bridge tremulous with age, and began to climb the steep hillside +that one could see from the windows, and, the ridge of the hill once +surmounted, the little boy found himself in an unknown land: he looked +into deep, silent valleys, watered by trickling streams; he saw still +woods in that dreamlike morning air; he saw winding paths that climbed +into yet remoter regions. His father led him onward till they came to a +lonely height--they had walked scarcely two miles, but to Ambrose it +seemed a journey into another world--and showed him certain irregular +markings in the turf. + +And Nicholas Meyrick murmured: + + "The cell of Iltyd is by the seashore, + The ninth wave washes its altar, + There is a fair shrine in the land of Morgan. + + "The cell of Dewi is in the City of the Legions, + Nine altars owe obedience to it, + Sovereign is the choir that sings about it. + + "The cell of Cybi is the treasure of Gwent, + Nine hills are its perpetual guardians, + Nine songs befit the memory of the saint." + +"See," he said, "there are the Nine Hills." He pointed them out to the +boy, telling him the tale of the saint and his holy bell, which they +said had sailed across the sea from Syon and had entered the Severn, and +had entered the Usk, and had entered the Soar, and had entered the +Canthwr; and so one day the saint, as he walked beside the little brook +that almost encompassed the hill in its winding course, saw the bell +"that was made of metal that no man might comprehend," floating under +the alders, and crying: + + "_Sant, sant, sant, + I sail from Syon + To Cybi Sant!_" + +"And so sweet was the sound of that bell," Ambrose's father went on, +"that they said it was as the joy of angels _ym Mharadwys_, and that it +must have come not from the earthly, but from the heavenly and glorious +Syon." + +And there they stood in the white morning, on the uneven ground that +marked the place where once the Saint rang to the sacrifice, where the +quickening words were uttered after the order of the Old Mass of the +Britons. + +"And then came the Yellow Hag of Pestilence, that destroyed the bodies +of the Cymri; then the Red Hag of Rome, that caused their souls to +stray; last is come the Black Hag of Geneva, that sends body and soul +quick to hell. No honour have the saints any more." + +Then they turned home again, and all the way Ambrose thought he heard +the bell as it sailed the great deeps from Syon, crying aloud: "Sant, +Sant, Sant!" And the sound seemed to echo from the glassy water of the +little brook, as it swirled and rippled over the shining stones circling +round those lonely hills. + +So they made strange pilgrimages over the beloved land, going farther +and farther afield as the boy grew older. They visited deep wells in the +heart of the woods, where a few broken stones, perhaps, were the last +remains of the hermitage. "Ffynnon Ilar Bysgootwr--the well of +Saint Ilar the Fisherman," Nicholas Meyrick would explain, and then +would follow the story of Ilar; how no man knew whence he came or who +his parents were. He was found, a little child, on a stone in a river in +Armorica, by King Alan, and rescued by him. And ever after they +discovered on the stone in the river where the child had lain every day +a great and shining fish lying, and on this fish Ilar was nourished. +And so he came with a great company of the saints to Britain, and +wandered over all the land. + +"So at last Ilar Sant came to this wood, which people now call St. +Hilary's wood because they have forgotten all about Ilar. And he was +weary with his wandering, and the day was very hot; so he stayed by this +well and began to drink. And there on that great stone he saw the +shining fish, and so he rested, and built an altar and a church of +willow boughs, and offered the sacrifice not only for the quick and the +dead, but for all the wild beasts of the woods and the streams. + +"And when this blessed Ilar rang his holy bell and began to offer, there +came not only the Prince and his servants, but all the creatures of the +wood. There, under the hazel boughs, you might see the hare, which flies +so swiftly from men, come gently and fall down, weeping greatly on +account of the Passion of the Son of Mary. And, beside the hare, the +weasel and the pole-cat would lament grievously in the manner of +penitent sinners; and wolves and lambs together adored the saint's +hierurgy; and men have beheld tears streaming from the eyes of venomous +serpents when Ilar Agios uttered 'Curiluson' with a loud voice--since +the serpent is not ignorant that by its wickedness sorrow came to the +whole world. And when, in the time of the holy ministry, it is necessary +that frequent Alleluyas should be chanted and vociferated, the saint +wondered what should be done, for as yet none in that place was skilled +in the art of song. Then was a great miracle, since from all the boughs +of the wood, from every bush and from every green tree, there resounded +Alleluyas in enchanting and prolonged harmony; never did the Bishop of +Rome listen to so sweet a singing in his church as was heard in this +wood. For the nightingale and thrush and blackbird and blackcap, and all +their companions, are gathered together and sing praises to the Lord, +chanting distinct notes and yet concluding in a melody of most ravishing +sweetness; such was the mass of the Fisherman. Nor was this all, for one +day as the saint prayed beside the well he became aware that a bee +circled round and round his head, uttering loud buzzing sounds, but not +endeavouring to sting him. To be short; the bee went before Ilar, and +led him to a hollow tree not far off, and straightway a swarm of bees +issued forth, leaving a vast store of wax behind them. This was their +oblation to the Most High, for from their wax Ilar Sant made goodly +candles to burn at the Offering; and from that time the bee is holy, +because his wax makes light to shine upon the Gifts." + +This was part of the story that Ambrose's father read to him; and they +went again to see the Holy Well. He looked at the few broken and uneven +stones that were left to distinguish it from common wells; and there in +the deep green wood, in the summer afternoon, under the woven boughs, he +seemed to hear the strange sound of the saint's bell, to see the +woodland creatures hurrying through the undergrowth that they might be +present at the Offering. The weasel beat his little breast for his sins; +the big tears fell down the gentle face of the hare; the adders wept in +the dust; and all the chorus of the birds sang: "Alleluya, Alleluya, +Alleluya!" + +Once they drove a long way from the Wern, going towards the west, till +they came to the Great Mountain, as the people called it. After they had +turned from the high road they went down a narrow lane, and this led +them with many windings to a lower ridge of the mountain, where the +horse and trap were put up at a solitary tavern. Then they began to toil +upward on foot, crossing many glistening and rejoicing streams that +rushed out cold from the limestone rock, mounting up and up, through the +wet land where the rare orchis grew amongst the rushes, through hazel +brakes, through fields that grew wilder as they still went higher, and +the great wind came down from the high dome above them. They turned, and +all the shining land was unrolled before them; the white houses were +bright in the sunlight, and there, far away, was the yellow sea and the +two islands, and the coasts beyond. + +Nicholas Meyrick pointed out a tuft of trees on a hill a long way off +and told his son that the Wern was hidden beyond it; and then they began +to climb once more, till they came at last to the line where the fields +and hedges ended, and above there was only the wild mountain land. And +on this verge stood an old farmhouse with strong walls, set into the +rock, sheltered a little from the winds by a line of twisted beeches. +The walls of the house were gleaming white, and by the porch there was a +shrub covered with bright yellow flowers. Mr. Meyrick beat upon the oak +door, painted black and studded with heavy nails. An old man, dressed +like a farmer, opened it, and Ambrose noticed that his father spoke to +him with something of reverence in his voice, as if he were some very +great person. They sat down in a long room, but dimly lighted by the +thick greenish glass in the quarried window, and presently the old +farmer set a great jug of beer before them. They both drank heartily +enough, and Mr. Meyrick said: + +"Aren't you about the last to brew your own beer, Mr. Cradock?" + +"Iss; I be the last of all. They do all like the muck the brewer sends +better than _cwrw dda_." + +"The whole world likes muck better than good drink, now." + +"You be right, Sir. Old days and old ways of our fathers, they be gone +for ever. There was a blasted preacher down at the chapel a week or two +ago, saying--so they do tell me--that they would all be damned to hell +unless they took to ginger-beer directly. Iss indeed now; and I heard +that he should say that a man could do a better day's work on that +rot-belly stuff than on good beer. Wass you ever hear of such a liarr as +that?" + +The old man was furious at the thought of these infamies and follies; +his esses hissed through his teeth and his r's rolled out with fierce +emphasis. Mr. Meyrick nodded his approval of this indignation. + +"We have what we deserve," he said. "False preachers, bad drink, the +talk of fools all the day long--even on the mountain. What is it like, +do you think, in London?" + +There fell a silence in the long, dark room. They could hear the sound +of the wind in the beech trees, and Ambrose saw how the boughs were +tossed to and fro, and he thought of what it must be like in winter +nights, here, high upon the Great Mountain, when the storms swept up +from the sea, or descended from the wilds of the north; when the shafts +of rain were like the onset of an army, and the winds screamed about the +walls. + +"May we see It?" said Mr. Meyrick suddenly. + +"I did think you had come for that. There be very few now that +remember." + +He went out, and returned carrying a bunch of keys. Then he opened a +door in the room and warned "the young master" to take care of the +steps. Ambrose, indeed, could scarcely see the way. His father led him +down a short flight of uneven stone steps, and they were in a room which +seemed at first quite dark, for the only light came from a narrow window +high up in the wall, and across the glass there were heavy iron bars. + +Cradock lit two tall candles of yellow wax that stood in brass +candlesticks on a table; and, as the flame grew clear, Ambrose saw that +he was opening a sort of aumbry constructed in the thickness of the +wall. The door was a great slab of solid oak, three or four inches +thick--as one could see when it was opened--and from the dark place +within the farmer took an iron box and set it carefully upon the floor, +Mr. Meyrick helping him. They were strong men, but they staggered under +the weight of the chest; the iron seemed as thick as the door of the +cupboard from which it was taken, and the heavy, antique lock yielded, +with a grating scream, to the key. Inside it there was another box of +some reddish metal, which, again, held a case of wood black with age; +and from this, with reverent hands, the farmer drew out a veiled and +splendid cup and set it on the table between the two candles. It was a +bowl-like vessel of the most wonderful workmanship, standing on a short +stem. All the hues of the world were mingled on it, all the jewels of +the regions seemed to shine from it; and the stem and foot were +encrusted with work in enamel, of strange and magical colours that shone +and dimmed with alternating radiance, that glowed with red fires and +pale glories, with the blue of the far sky, the green of the faery seas, +and the argent gleam of the evening star. But before Ambrose had gazed +more than a moment he heard the old man say, in pure Welsh, not in +broken English, in a resonant and chanting voice: + +"Let us fall down and adore the marvellous and venerable work of the +Lord God Almighty." + +To which his father responded: + +"Agyos, Agyos, Agyos. Mighty and glorious is the Lord God Almighty, in +all His works and wonderful operations. Curiluson, Curiluson, +Curiluson." + +They knelt down, Cradock in the midst, before the cup, and Ambrose and +his father on either hand. The holy vessel gleamed before the boy's +eyes, and he saw clearly its wonder and its beauty. All its surface was +a marvel of the most delicate intertwining lines in gold and silver, in +copper and in bronze, in all manner of metals and alloys; and these +interlacing patterns in their brightness, in the strangeness of their +imagery and ornament, seemed to enthral his eyes and capture them, as it +were, in a maze of enchantment; and not only the eyes; for the very +spirit was rapt and garnered into that far bright world whence the holy +magic of the cup proceeded. Among the precious stones which were set +into the wonder was a great crystal, shining with the pure light of the +moon; about the rim of it there was the appearance of faint and feathery +clouds, but in the centre it was a white splendour; and as Ambrose gazed +he thought that from the heart of this jewel there streamed continually +a shower of glittering stars, dazzling his eyes with their incessant +motion and brightness. His body thrilled with a sudden ineffable +rapture, his breath came and went in quick pantings; bliss possessed him +utterly as the three crowned forms passed in their golden order. Then +the interwoven sorcery of the vessel became a ringing wood of golden, +and bronze, and silver trees; from every side resounded the clear +summons of the holy bells and the exultant song of the faery birds; he +no longer heard the low-chanting voices of Cradock and his father as +they replied to one another in the forms of some antique liturgy. Then +he stood by a wild seashore; it was a dark night, and there was a +shrilling wind that sang about the peaks of the sharp rock, answering to +the deep voices of the heaving sea. A white moon, of fourteen days old, +appeared for a moment in the rift between two vast black clouds, and the +shaft of light showed all the savage desolation of the shore--cliffs +that rose up into mountains, into crenellated heights that were +incredible, whose bases were scourged by the torrents of hissing foam +that were driven against them from the hollow-sounding sea. Then, on the +highest of those awful heights, Ambrose became aware of walls and +spires, of towers and battlements that must have touched the stars; and, +in the midst of this great castle, there surged up the aspiring vault of +a vast church, and all its windows were ablaze with a light so white and +glorious that it was as if every pane were a diamond. And he heard the +voices of a praising host, or the clamour of golden trumpets and the +unceasing choir of the angels. And he knew that this place was the +Sovereign Perpetual Choir, Cor-arbennic, into whose secret the deadly +flesh may scarcely enter. But in the vision he lay breathless, on the +floor before the gleaming wall of the sanctuary, while the shadows of +the hierurgy were enacted; and it seemed to him that, for a moment of +time, he saw in unendurable light the Mystery of Mysteries pass veiled +before him, and the Image of the Slain and Risen. + +For a brief while this dream was broken. He heard his father singing +softly: + +"Gogoniant y Tâd ac y Mab ac yr Yspryd Glân." + +And the old man answered: + +"Agya Trias eleeson ymas." + +Then again his spirit was lost in the bright depths of the crystal, and +he saw the ships of the saints, without oar or sail, afloat on the faery +sea, seeking the Glassy Isle. All the whole company of the Blessed +Saints of the Isle of Britain sailed on the adventure; dawn and sunset, +night and morning, their illuminated faces never wavered; and Ambrose +thought that at last they saw bright shores in the dying light of a red +sun, and there came to their nostrils the scent of the deep apple-garths +in Avalon, and odours of Paradise. + + * * * * * + +When he finally returned to the presence of earthly things he was +standing by his father; while Cradock reverently wrapped the cup in the +gleaming veils which covered it, saying as he did so, in Welsh: + +"Remain in peace, O holy and divine cup of the Lord. Henceforth I know +not whether I shall return to thee or not; but may the Lord vouchsafe +me to see thee in the Church of the Firstborn which is in Heaven, on the +Altar of the Sacrifice which is from age unto ages." + +Ambrose went up the steps and out into the sunshine on the mountain side +with the bewilderment of strange dreams, as a coloured mist, about him. +He saw the old white walls, the yellow blossoms by the porch; above, the +wild, high mountain wall; and, below, all the dear land of Gwent, happy +in the summer air, all its woods and fields, its rolling hills and its +salt verge, rich in a golden peace. Beside him the cold water swelled +from the earth and trickled from the grey rock, and high in the air an +exultant lark was singing. The mountain breeze was full of life and +gladness, and the rustling and tossing of the woods, the glint and +glimmer of the leaves beneath, made one think that the trees, with every +creature, were merry on that day. And in that dark cell beneath many +locks, beneath wood and iron, concealed in golden, glittering veils, lay +hidden that glorious and awful cup, glass of wonderful vision, portal +and entrance of the Spiritual Place. + +His father explained to him something of that which he had seen. He told +him that the vessel was the Holy Cup of Teilo sant, which he was said to +have received from the Lord in the state of Paradise, and that when +Teilo said Mass, using that Chalice, the choir of angels was present +visibly; that it was a cup of wonders and mysteries, the bestower of +visions and heavenly graces. + +"But whatever you do," he said, "do not speak to anyone of what you have +seen to-day, because if you do the mystery will be laughed at and +blasphemed. Do you know that your uncle and aunt at Lupton would say +that we were all mad together? That is because they are fools, and in +these days most people are fools, and malignant fools too, as you will +find out for yourself before you are much older. So always remember that +you must hide the secrets that you have seen; and if you do not do so +you will be sorry." + +Mr. Meyrick told his son why old Cradock was to be treated with +respect--indeed, with reverence. + +"He is just what he looks," he said, "an old farmer with a small +freehold up here on the mountain side; and, as you heard, his English is +no better than that of any other farmer in this country. And, compared +with Cradock, the Duke of Norfolk is a man of yesterday. He is of the +tribe of Teilo the Saint; he is the last, in direct descent, of the +hereditary keepers of the holy cup; and his race has guarded that +blessed relic for thirteen hundred years. Remember, again, that to-day, +on this mountain, you have seen great marvels which you must keep in +silence." + +Poor Ambrose! He suffered afterwards for his forgetfulness of his +father's injunction. Soon after he went to Lupton one of the boys was +astonishing his friends with a brilliant account of the Crown jewels, +which he had viewed during the Christmas holidays. Everybody was deeply +impressed, and young Meyrick, anxious to be agreeable in his turn, began +to tell about the wonderful cup that he had once seen in an old +farmhouse. Perhaps his manner was not convincing, for the boys shrieked +with laughter over his description. A monitor who was passing asked to +hear the joke, and, having been told the tale, clouted Ambrose over the +head for an infernal young liar. This was a good lesson, and it served +Ambrose in good stead when one of the masters having, somehow or other, +heard the story, congratulated him in the most approved scholastic +manner before the whole form on his wonderful imaginative gifts. + +"I see the budding novelist in you, Meyrick," said this sly master. +"Besant and Rice will be nowhere when you once begin. I suppose you are +studying character just at present? Let us down gently, won't you? [To +the delighted form.] We must be careful, mustn't we, how we behave? 'A +chiel's amang us takin' notes,'" etc. etc. + +But Meyrick held his tongue. He did not tell his form master that he was +a beast, a fool and a coward, since he had found out that the truth, +like many precious things, must often be concealed from the profane. A +late vengeance overtook that foolish master. Long years after, he was +dining at a popular London restaurant, and all through dinner he had +delighted the ladies of his party by the artful mixture of brutal +insolence and vulgar chaff with which he had treated one of the waiters, +a humble-looking little Italian. The master was in the highest spirits +at the success of his persiflage; his voice rose louder and louder, and +his offensiveness became almost supernaturally acute. And then he +received a heavy earthen casserole, six quails, a few small onions and a +quantity of savoury but boiling juices full in the face. The waiter was +a Neapolitan. + +The hours of the night passed on, as Ambrose sat in his bedroom at the +Old Grange, recalling many wonderful memories, dreaming his dreams of +the mysteries, of the land of Gwent and the land of vision, just as his +uncle, but a few yards away in another room of the house, was at the +same time rapt into the world of imagination, seeing the new Lupton +descending like a bride from the heaven of headmasters. But Ambrose +thought of the Great Mountain, of the secret valleys, of the sanctuaries +and hallows of the saints, of the rich carven work of lonely churches +hidden amongst the hills and woods. There came into his mind the +fragment of an old poem which he loved: + + "In the darkness of old age let not my memory fail, + Let me not forget to celebrate the beloved land of Gwent. + If they imprison me in a deep place, in a house of pestilence, + Still shall I be free, when I remember the sunshine upon Mynydd + Maen. + There have I listened to the singing of the lark, my soul has + ascended with the song of the little bird; + The great white clouds were the ships of my spirit, sailing to the + haven of the Almighty. + Equally to be held in honour is the site of the Great Mountain, + Adorned with the gushing of many waters-- + Sweet is the shade of its hazel thickets, + There a treasure is preserved, which I will not celebrate, + It is glorious, and deeply concealed. + If Teilo should return, if happiness were restored to the Cymri, + Dewi and Dyfrig should serve his Mass; then a great marvel would + be made visible. + O blessed and miraculous work, then should my bliss be as the bliss + of angels; + I had rather behold this Offering than kiss the twin lips of dark + Gwenllian. + Dear my land of Gwent, _O quam dilecta tabernacula_! + Thy rivers are like precious golden streams of Paradise, + Thy hills are as the Mount Syon-- + Better a grave on Twyn Barlwm than a throne in the palace of the + Saxons at Caer-Ludd." + +And then, by the face of contrast, he thought of the first verse of the +great school song, "Rocker," one of the earliest of the many poems which +his uncle had consecrated to the praise of the dear old school: + + "Once on a time, in the books that bore me, + I read that in olden days before me + Lupton town had a wonderful game, + It was a game with a noble story + (Lupton town was then in its glory, + Kings and Bishops had brought it fame). + It was a game that you all must know, + And 'rocker' they called it, long ago. + + _Chorus._ + + "Look out for 'brooks,' or you're sure to drown, + Look out for 'quarries,' or else you're down-- + That was the way + 'Rocker' to play-- + Once on a day + That was the way, + Once on a day, + That was the way that they used to play in Lupton town." + +Thinking of the two songs, he put out his light and, wearied, fell into +a deep sleep. + + +IV + +The British schoolboy, considered in a genial light by those who have +made him their special study, has not been found to be either observant +or imaginative. Or, rather, it would be well to say that his powers of +observation, having been highly specialised within a certain limited +tract of thought and experience (bounded mainly by cricket and +football), are but faint without these bounds; while it is one of the +chiefest works of the System to kill, destroy, smash and bring to +nothing any powers of imagination he may have originally possessed. For +if this were not done thoroughly, neither a Conservative nor a Liberal +administration would be possible, the House of Commons itself would +cease to exist, the Episcopus (var. Anglicanus) would go the way of the +Great Bustard; a "muddling through somehow" (which must have been _the_ +brightest jewel in the British crown, wrung from King John by the +barons) would become a lost art. And, since all these consequences would +be clearly intolerable, the great Public Schools have perfected a very +thorough system of destroying the imaginative toxin, and few cases of +failure have been so far reported. + +Still, there are facts which not even the densest dullards, the most +complete boobies, can help seeing; and a good many of the boys found +themselves wondering "what was the matter with Meyrick" when they saw +him at Chapel on the Sunday morning. The news of his astounding +violences both of act and word on the night before had not yet +circulated generally. Bates was attending to that department, but hadn't +had time to do much so far; and the replies of Pelly and Rawson to +enquiries after black eyes and a potato-like nose were surly and +misleading. Afterwards, when the tale was told, when Bates, having +enlarged the incidents to folk-lore size, showed Pelly lying in a pool +of his own blood, Rawson screaming as with the torments of the lost and +Meyrick rolling out oaths--all original and all terrible--for the space +of a quarter of an hour, then indeed the school was satisfied; it was no +wonder if Meyrick did look a bit queer after the achievement of such an +adventure. The funk of aforetime had found courage; the air of rapture +was easily understood. It is probable that if, in the nature of things, +it had been possible for an English schoolboy to meet St. Francis of +Assisi, the boy would have concluded that the saint must have just made +200 not out in first-class cricket. + +But Ambrose walked in a strange light; he had been admitted into worlds +undreamed of, and from the first brightness of the sun, when he awoke in +the morning in his room at the Grange, it was the material world about +him, the walls of stone and brick, the solid earth, the sky itself, and +the people who talked and moved and seemed alive--these were things of +vision, unsubstantial shapes, odd and broken illusions of the mind. At +half-past seven old Toby, the man-of-all-work at the old Grange banged +at his door and let his clean boots fall with a crash on the boards +after the usual fashion. He awoke, sat up in bed, staring about him. But +what was this? The four walls covered with a foolish speckled paper, +pale blue and pale brown, the white ceiling, the bare boards with the +strip of carpet by the bedside: he knew nothing of all this. He was not +horrified, because he knew that it was all non-existent, some plastic +fantasy that happened to be presented for the moment to his brain. Even +the big black wooden chest that held his books (_Parker_, despised by +Horbury, among them) failed to appeal to him with any sense of reality; +and the bird's-eye washstand and chest of drawers, the white water-jug +with the blue band, were all frankly phantasmal. It reminded him of a +trick he had sometimes played: one chose one's position carefully, shut +an eye and, behold, a mean shed could be made to obscure the view of a +mountain! So these walls and appurtenances made an illusory sort of +intrusion into the true vision on which he gazed. That yellow washstand +rising out of the shining wells of the undying, the speckled walls in +the place of the great mysteries, a chest of drawers in the magic garden +of roses--it had the air of a queer joke, and he laughed aloud to +himself as he realized that he alone knew, that everybody else would +say, "That is a white jug with a blue band," while he, and he only, saw +the marvel and glory of the holy cup with its glowing metals, its +interlacing myriad lines, its wonderful images, and its hues of the +mountain and the stars, of the green wood and the faery sea where, in a +sure haven, anchor the ships that are bound for Avalon. + +For he had a certain faith that he had found the earthly presentation +and sacrament of the Eternal Heavenly Mystery. + +He smiled again, with the quaint smile of an angel in an old Italian +picture, as he realized more fully the strangeness of the whole position +and the odd humours which would relieve to play a wonderful game of +make-believe; the speckled walls, for instance, were not really there, +but he was to behave just as if they were solid realities. He would +presently rise and go through an odd pantomine of washing and dressing, +putting on brilliant boots, and going down to various mumbo-jumbo +ceremonies called breakfast, chapel and dinner, in the company of +appearances to whom he would accord all the honours due to veritable +beings. And this delicious phantasmagoria would go on and on day after +day, he alone having the secret; and what a delight it would be to "play +up" at rocker! It seemed to him that the solid-seeming earth, the dear +old school and rocker itself had all been made to minister to the +acuteness of his pleasure; they were the darkness that made the light +visible, the matter through which form was manifested. For the moment he +enclosed in the most secret place of his soul the true world into which +he had been guided; and as he dressed he hummed the favourite school +song, "Never mind!" + + "If the umpire calls 'out' at your poor second over, + If none of your hits ever turns out a 'rover,' + If you fumble your fives and 'go rot' over sticker, + If every hound is a little bit quicker; + If you can't tackle rocker at all, not at all, + And kick at the moon when you try for the ball, + Never mind, never mind, never mind--if you fall, + Dick falls before rising, Tom's short ere he's tall, + Never mind! + Don't be one of the weakest who go to the wall: + Never mind!" + +Ambrose could not understand how Columbus could have blundered so +grossly. Somehow or other he should have contrived to rid himself of his +crew; he should have returned alone, with a dismal tale of failure, and +passed the rest of his days as that sad and sorry charlatan who had +misled the world with his mad whimsies of a continent beyond the waters +of the Atlantic. If he had been given wisdom to do this, how great--how +wonderful would his joys have been! They would have pointed at him as he +paced the streets in his shabby cloak; the boys would have sung songs +about him and his madness; the great people would have laughed +contemptuously as he went by. And he would have seen in his heart all +that vast far world of the west, the rich islands barred by roaring +surf, a whole hemisphere of strange regions and strange people; he would +have known that he alone possessed the secret of it. But, after all, +Ambrose knew that his was a greater joy even than this; for the world +that he had discovered was not far across the seas, but within him. + +Pelly stared straight before him in savage silence all through +breakfast; he was convinced that mere hazard had guided that crushing +blow, and he was meditating schemes of complete and exemplary +vengeance. He noticed nothing strange about Meyrick, nor would he have +cared if he had seen the images of the fairies in his eyes. Rawson, on +the other hand, was full of genial civility and good fellowship; it was +"old chap" and "old fellow" every other word. But he was far from +unintelligent, and, as he slyly watched Meyrick, he saw that there was +something altogether unaccustomed and incomprehensible. Unknown lights +burned and shone in the eyes, reflections of one knew not what; the +expression was altered in some queer way that he could not understand. +Meyrick had always been a rather ugly, dogged-looking fellow; his black +hair and something that was not usual in the set of his features gave +him an exotic, almost an Oriental appearance; hence a story of Rawson's +to the effect that Meyrick's mother was a nigger woman in poor +circumstances and of indifferent morality had struck the school as +plausible enough. + +But now the grimness of the rugged features seemed abolished; the face +shone, as it were, with the light of a flame--but a flame of what fire? +Rawson, who would not have put his observations into such terms, drew +his own conclusions readily enough and imparted them to Pelly after +Chapel. + +"Look here, old chap," he said, "did you notice young Meyrick at +breakfast?" + +Pelly simply blasted Meyrick and announced his intention of giving him +the worst thrashing he had ever had at an early date. + +"Don't you try it on," said Rawson. "I had my eye on him all the time. +He didn't see I was spotting him. He's cracked; he's dangerous. I +shouldn't wonder if he were in a strait waistcoat in the County Lunatic +Asylum in a week's time. My governor had a lot to do with lunatics, and +he always says he can tell by the eyes. I'll swear Meyrick is raging +mad." + +"Oh, rot!" said Pelly. "What do you know about it?" + +"Well, look out, old chap, and don't say I didn't give you the tip. Of +course, you know a maniac is stronger than three ordinary men? The only +thing is to get them down and crack their ribs. But you want at least +half a dozen men before you can do it." + +"Oh, shut up!" + +So Rawson said no more, remaining quite sure that he had diagnosed +Ambrose's symptoms correctly. He waited for the catastrophe with a +dreadful joy, wondering whether Meyrick would begin by cutting old +Horbury's throat with his own razor, or whether he would rather steal +into Pelly's room at night and tear him limb from limb, a feat which, as +a madman, he could, of course, accomplish with perfect ease. As a matter +of fact, neither of these events happened. Pelly, a boy of the bulldog +breed, smacked Ambrose's face a day or two later before a huge crowd of +boys, and received in return such a terrific blow under the left ear +that a formal fight in the Tom Brown manner was out of the question. + +Pelly reached the ground and stayed there in an unconscious state for +some while; and the other boys determined that it would be as well to +leave Meyrick to himself. He might be cracked but he was undoubtedly a +hard hitter. As for Pelly, like the sensible fellow that he was, he +simply concluded that Meyrick was too good for him. He did not quite +understand it; he dimly suspected the intrusion of some strange forces, +but with such things he had nothing to do. It was a fair knock-out, and +there was an end of it. + +Bates had glanced up as Ambrose came into the dining-room on the Sunday +morning. He saw the shining face, the rapturous eyes, and had silently +wondered, recognising the presence of elements which transcended all his +calculations. + +Meanwhile the Lupton Sunday went on after its customary fashion. At +eleven o'clock the Chapel was full of boys. There were nearly six +hundred of them there, the big ones in frock-coats, with high, pointed +collars, which made them look like youthful Gladstones. The younger boys +wore broad, turn-down collars and had short, square jackets made +somewhat in the Basque fashion. Young and old had their hair cut close +to the scalp, and this gave them all a brisk but bullety appearance. The +masters, in cassock, gown and hood, occupied the choir stalls. Mr. +Horbury, the High Usher, clothed in a flowing surplice, was taking +Morning Prayer, and the Head occupied a kind of throne by the altar. + +The Chapel was not an inspiring building. It was the fourteenth century, +certainly, but the fourteenth century translated by 1840, and, it is to +be feared, sadly betrayed by the translators. The tracery of the windows +was poor and shallow; the mouldings of the piers and arches faulty to a +degree; the chancel was absurdly out of proportion, and the pitch-pine +benches and stalls had a sticky look. There was a stained-glass window +in memory of the Old Luptonians who fell in the Crimea. One wondered +what the Woman of Samaria by the Well had to do either with Lupton or +the Crimea. And the colouring was like that used in very common, cheap +sweets. + +The service went with a rush. The prayers, versicles and responses, and +psalms were said, the officiant and the congregation rather pressing +than pausing--often, indeed, coming so swiftly to cues that two or three +words at the end of one verse or two or three at the beginning of the +next would be lost in a confused noise of contending voices. But +_Venite_ and _Te Deum_ and _Benedictus_ were rattled off to frisky +Anglicans with great spirit; sometimes the organ tooted, sometimes it +bleated gently, like a flock of sheep; now one might have sworn that the +music of penny whistles stole on the ear, and again, as the organist +coupled up the full organ, using suddenly all the battery of his stops, +a gas explosion and a Salvation Army band seemed to strive against one +another. A well-known nobleman who had been to Chapel at Lupton was +heard to say, with reference to this experience: "I am no Ritualist, +heaven knows--but I confess I like a hearty service." + +But it was, above all, the sermon that has made the Chapel a place of +many memories. The Old Boys say--and one supposes that they are in +earnest--that the tall, dignified figure of the Doctor, standing high +above them all, his scarlet hood making a brilliant splash of colour +against the dingy, bilious paint of the pale green walls, has been an +inspiration to them in all quarters of the globe, in all manner of +difficulties and temptations. + +One man writes that in the midst of a complicated and dangerous deal on +the Stock Exchange he remembered a sermon of Dr. Chesson's called in the +printed volume, "Fighting the Good Fight." + +"You have a phrase amongst you which I often hear," said the Head. "That +phrase is 'Play the game,' and I wish to say that, though you know it +not; though, it may be, the words are often spoken half in jest; still, +they are but your modern, boyish rendering of the old, stirring message +which I have just read to you. + +"Fight the Good Fight.' 'Play the Game.' Remember the words in the storm +and struggle, the anxiety and stress that may be--nay, must be--before +you--etc., etc., etc." + +"After the crisis was over," wrote the Stock Exchange man, "I was +thankful that I _had_ remembered those words." + +"That voice sounding like a trumpet on the battle-field, bidding us all +remember that Success was the prize of Effort and Endurance----" So +writes a well-known journalist. + +"I remembered what the Doctor said to us once about 'running the race,'" +says a young soldier, recounting a narrow escape from a fierce enemy, +"so I stuck to my orders." + +Ambrose, on that Sunday morning, sat in his place, relishing acutely all +the savours of the scene, consumed with inward mirth at the thought that +this also professed to be a rite of religion. There was an aimless and +flighty merriment about the chant to the _Te Deum_ that made it +difficult for him to control his laughter; and when he joined in the +hymn "Pleasant are Thy courts above," there was an odd choke in his +voice that made the boy next to him shuffle uneasily. + +But the sermon! + +It will be found on page 125 of the _Lupton Sermons_. It dealt with the +Parable of the Talents, and showed the boys in what the sin of the man +who concealed his Talent really consisted. + +"I daresay," said the Head, "that many of the older amongst you have +wondered what this man's sin really was. You may have read your Greek +Testaments carefully, and then have tried to form in your minds some +analogy to the circumstances of the parable--and it would not surprise +me if you were to tell me that you had failed. + +"What manner of man was this? I can imagine your saying one to another. +I shall not be astonished if you confess that, for you at least, the +question seems unanswerable. + +"Yes; Unanswerable to you. For you are English boys, the sons of English +gentlemen, to whom the atmosphere of casuistry, of concealment, of +subtlety, is unknown; by whom such an atmosphere would be rejected with +scorn. You come from homes where there is no shadow, no dark corner +which must not be pried into. Your relations and your friends are not of +those who hide their gifts from the light of day. Some of you, perhaps, +have had the privilege of listening to the talk of one or other of the +great statesmen who guide the doctrines of this vast Empire. You will +have observed, I am sure, that in the world of politics there is no vain +simulation of modesty, no feigned reluctance to speak of worthy +achievement. All of you are members of this great community, of which +each one of us is so proud, which we think of as the great inspiration +and motive force of our lives. Here, you will say, there are no Hidden +Talents, for the note of the English Public School (thank God for it!) +is openness, frankness, healthy emulation; each endeavouring to do his +best for the good of all. In our studies and in our games each desires +to excel to carry off the prize. We strive for a corruptible crown, +thinking that this, after all, is the surest discipline for the crown +that is incorruptible. If a man say that he loveth God whom he hath not +seen, and love not his brother whom he hath seen! Let your light _shine_ +before men. Be sure that we shall never win Heaven by despising earth. + +"Yet that man hid his Talent in a napkin. What does the story mean? What +message has it for us to-day? + +"I will tell you. + +"Some years ago during our summer holidays I was on a walking tour in a +mountainous district in the north of England. The sky was of a most +brilliant blue, the sun poured, as it were, a gospel of gladness on the +earth. Towards the close of the day I was entering a peaceful and +beautiful valley amongst the hills, when three sullen notes of a bell +came down the breeze towards me. There was a pause. Again the three +strokes, and for a third time this dismal summons struck my ears. I +walked on in the direction of the sound, wondering whence it came and +what it signified; and soon I saw before me a great pile of buildings, +surrounded by a gloomy and lofty wall. + +"It was a Roman Catholic monastery. The bell was ringing the Angelus, as +it is called. + +"I obtained admittance to this place and spoke to some of the unhappy +monks. I should astonish you if I mentioned the names of some of the +deluded men who had immured themselves in this prison-house. It is +sufficient to say that among them were a soldier who had won distinction +on the battle-field, an artist, a statesman and a physician of no mean +repute. + +"Now do you understand? Ah! a day will come--you know, I think, what +that day is called--when these poor men will have to answer the +question: 'Where is the Talent that was given to you?' + +"'Where was your sword in the hour of your country's danger?' + +"'Where was your picture, your consecration of your art to the service +of morality and humanity, when the doors of the great Exhibition were +thrown open?' + +"'Where was your silver eloquence, your voice of persuasion, when the +strife of party was at its fiercest?' + +"'Where was your God-given skill in healing when One of Royal Blood lay +fainting on the bed of dire--almost mortal--sickness?' + +"And the answer? 'I laid it up in a napkin.' And now, etc., etc." + +Then the whole six hundred boys sang "O Paradise! O Paradise!" with a +fervour and sincerity that were irresistible. The organ thundered till +the bad glass shivered and rattled, and the service was over. + + +V + +Almost the last words that Ambrose had heard after his wonderful awaking +were odd enough, though at the time he took little note of them, since +they were uttered amidst passionate embraces, amidst soft kisses on his +poor beaten flesh. Indeed, if these words recurred to him afterwards, +they never made much impression on his mind, though to most people they +would seem of more serious import than much else that was uttered that +night! The sentences ran something like this: + +"The cruel, wicked brute! He shall be sorry all his days, and every blow +shall be a grief to him. My dear! I promise you he shall pay for +to-night ten times over. His heart shall ache for it till it stops +beating." + +There cannot be much doubt that this promise was kept to the letter. No +one knew how wicked rumours concerning Mr. Horbury got abroad in Lupton, +but from that very day the execution of the sentence began. In the +evening the High Usher, paying a visit to a friend in town, took a short +cut through certain dark, ill-lighted streets, and was suddenly +horrified to hear his name shrieked out, coupled with a most disgusting +accusation. His heart sank down in his breast; his face, he knew, was +bloodless; and then he rushed forward to the malpassage whence the voice +seemed to proceed. + +There was nothing there. It was a horrid little alley, leading from one +slum to another, between low walls and waste back-gardens, dismal and +lampless. Horbury ran at top speed to the end of it, but there was +nothing to be done. A few women were gossiping at their doors, a couple +of men slouched past on their way to the beer-shop at the corner--that +was all. He asked one of the women if she had seen anybody running, and +she said no, civilly enough--and yet he fancied that she had leered at +him. + +He turned and went back home. He was not in the mood for paying visits. +It was some time before he could compose his mind by assuring himself +that the incident, though unpleasant, was not of the slightest +significance. But from that day the nets were about his feet, and his +fate was sealed. + +Personally, he was subjected to no further annoyance, and soon forgot +that unpleasant experience in the back-street. But it seems certain that +from that Sunday onwards a cloud of calumny overshadowed the High Usher +in all his ways. No one said anything definite, but everyone appeared to +be conscious of something unpleasant when Horbury's name was mentioned. +People looked oddly at one another, and the subject was changed. + +One of the young masters, speaking to a colleague, did indeed allude +casually to Horbury as Xanthias Phoceus. The other master, a middle-aged +man, raised his eyebrows and shook his head without speaking. It is +understood that these muttered slanders were various in their nature; +but, as has been said, everything was indefinite, intangible as +contagion--and as deadly to the master's worldly health. + +That horrible accusation which had been screamed out of the alley was +credited by some; others agreed with the young master; while a few had a +terrible story of an idiot girl in a remote Derbyshire village. And the +persistence of all these fables was strange. + +It was four years before Henry Vibart Chesson, D. D., ascended the +throne of St. Guthmund at Dorchester; and all through those four years +the fountain of evil innuendo rose without ceasing. It is doubtful how +far belief in the truth of these scandals was firm and settled, or how +far they were in the main uttered and circulated by ill-natured people +who disliked Horbury, but did not in their hearts believe him guilty of +worse sins than pompousness and arrogance. The latter is the more +probable opinion. + +Of course, the deliberations of the Trustees were absolutely secret, and +the report that the Chairman, the Marquis of Dunham, said something +about Cæsar's wife is a report and nothing more. It is evident that the +London press was absolutely in the dark as to the existence of this +strange conspiracy of vengeance, since two of the chief dailies took the +appointment of the High Usher to the Headmastership as a foregone +conclusion, prophesying, indeed, a rule of phenomenal success. And then +Millward, a Winchester man, understood to be rather unsound on some +scholastic matters--"not _quite_ the right man"; "just a _little_ bit of +a Jesuit"--received the appointment, and people did begin to say that +there must be a screw loose somewhere. And Horbury was overwhelmed, and +began to die. + +The odd thing was that, save on that Sunday night, he never saw the +enemy; he never suspected that there was an enemy; And as for the +incident of the alley, after a little consideration he treated it with +contempt. It was only some drunken beast in the town who knew him by +sight and wished to be offensive, in the usual fashion of drunken +beasts. + +And there was nothing else. Lupton society was much too careful to allow +its suspicions to be known. A libel action meant, anyhow, a hideous +scandal and might have no pleasant results for the libellers. Besides, +no one wanted to offend Horbury, who was suspected of possessing a +revengeful temper; and it had not dawned on the Lupton mind that the +rumours they themselves were circulating would eventually ruin the High +Usher's chances of the Headmastership. Each gossip heard, as it were, +only his own mutter at the moment. He did not realize that when a great +many people are muttering all at once an ugly noise of considerable +volume is being produced. + +It is true that a few of the masters were somewhat cold in their manner. +They lacked the social gift of dissimulation, and could not help showing +their want of cordiality. But Horbury, who noticed this, put it down to +envy and disaffection, and resolved that the large powers given him by +the Trustees should not be in vain so far as the masters in question +were concerned. + +Indeed, C. L. Wood, who was afterwards Headmaster of Marcester and died +in Egypt a few years ago, had a curious story which in part relates to +the masters in question, and perhaps throws some light on the +extraordinary tale of Horbury's ruin. + +Wood was an old Luptonian. He was a mighty athlete in his time, and his +records for the Long Jump and Throwing the Cricket Ball have not been +beaten at Lupton to this day. He had been one of the first boarders +taken at the Old Grange. The early relations between Horbury and himself +had been continued in later life, and Wood was staying with his former +master at the time when the Trustee's decision was announced. It is +supposed, indeed, that Horbury had offered him a kind of unofficial, but +still important, position in the New Model; in fact, Wood confessed over +his port that the idea was that he should be a kind of "Intelligence +Department" to the Head. He did not seem very clear as to the exact +scope of his proposed duties. We may certainly infer, however, that +they would have been of a very confidential nature, for Wood had jotted +down his recollections of that fatal morning somewhat as follows: + +"I never saw Horbury in better spirits. Indeed, I remember thinking that +he was younger than ever--younger than he was in the old days when he +was a junior master and I was in the Third. Of course, he was always +energetic; one could not disassociate the two notions of Horbury and +energy, and I used to make him laugh by threatening to include the two +terms in the new edition of my little book, _Latin and English +Synonyms_. It did not matter whether he were taking the Fifth, or +editing Classics for his boys, or playing rocker--one could not help +rejoicing in the vivid and ebullient energy of the man. And perhaps this +is one reason why shirkers and loafers dreaded him, as they certainly +did. + +"But during those last few days at Lupton his vitality had struck me as +quite superhuman. As all the world knows, his succession to the +Headmastership was regarded by everyone as assured, and he was, +naturally and properly, full of the great task which he believed was +before him. This is not the place to argue the merits or demerits of the +scheme which had been maturing for many years in his brain. + +"A few persons who, I cannot but think, have received very imperfect +information on the subject, have denounced Horbury's views of the modern +Public School as revolutionary. Revolutionary they certainly were, as an +express engine is revolutionary compared to an ox-waggon. But those who +think of the late Canon Horbury as indifferent to the good side of +Public School traditions knew little of the real man. However, were his +plans good or bad, they were certainly of vast scope, and on the first +night of my visit he made me sit up with him till two o'clock while he +expounded his ideas, some of which, as he was good enough to say, he +trusted to me to carry out. He showed me the piles of MS. he had +accumulated: hundreds of pages relating to the multiple departments of +the great organisation which he was to direct, or rather to create; +sheets of serried figures, sheaves of estimates which he had caused to +be made out in readiness for immediate action. + +"Nothing was neglected. I remember seeing a note on the desirability of +compiling a 'Lupton Hymn Book' for use in the Chapel, and another on the +question of forming a Botanical Garden, so that the school botany might +be learned from 'the green life,' as he beautifully expressed it, not +from dry letterpress and indifferent woodcuts. Then, I think, on a +corner of the 'Botany Leaf' was a jotting--a mere hasty scrawl, waiting +development and consideration: 'Should we teach Hindustani? Write to +Tucker _re_ the Moulvie Ahmed Khan.' + +"I despair of giving the reader any conception of the range and +minuteness of these wonderful memoranda. I remember saying to Horbury +that he seemed to be able to use the microscope and the telescope at the +same time. He laughed joyously, and told me to wait till he was really +at work. 'You will have your share, I promise you,' he added. His high +spirits were extraordinary and infectious. He was an excellent +_raconteur_, and now and again, amidst his talk of the New Lupton which +he was about to translate from the idea into substance, he told some +wonderful stories which I have not the heart to set down here. _Tu ne +quæsieris._ I have often thought of those lines when I remember +Horbury's intense happiness, the nervous energy which made the delay of +a day or two seem almost intolerable. His brain and his fingers tingled, +as it were, to set about the great work before him. He reminded me of a +mighty host, awaiting but the glance of their general to rush forward +with irresistible force. + +"There was not a trace of misgiving. Indeed, I should have been utterly +astonished if I had seen anything of the kind. He told me, indeed, that +for some time past he had suspected the existence of a sort of cabal or +clique against him. 'A. and X., B. and Y., M. and N., and, I think, Z., +are in it,' he said, naming several of the masters. 'They are jealous, +I suppose, and want to make things as difficult as they can. They are +all cowards, though, and I don't believe one of them--except, perhaps, +M.--would fail in obedience, or rather in subservience, when it comes to +the point. But I am going to make short work of the lot.' And he told me +his intention of ridding the school of these disaffected elements. 'The +Trustees will back me up, I know,' he added, 'but we must try to avoid +all unnecessary friction'; and he explained to me a plan he had thought +of for eliminating the masters in question. 'It won't do to have +half-hearted officers on our ship,' was the way in which he put it, and +I cordially agreed with him. + +"Possibly he may have underrated the force of the opposition which he +treated so lightly; possibly he altogether misjudged the situation. He +certainly regarded the appointment as already made, and this, of course, +was, or appeared to be, the conviction of all who knew anything of +Lupton and Horbury. + +"I shall never forget the day on which the news came. Horbury made a +hearty breakfast, opening letters, jotting down notes, talking of his +plans as the meal proceeded. I left him for a while. I was myself a +good deal excited, and I strolled up and down the beautiful garden at +the Old Grange, wondering whether I should be able to satisfy such a +chief who, the soul of energy himself, would naturally expect a like +quality in his subordinates. I rejoined him in the course of an hour in +the study, where he was as busy as ever--'snowed up,' as he expressed +it, in a vast pile of papers and correspondence. + +"He nodded genially and pointed to a chair, and a few minutes later a +servant came in with a letter. She had just found it in the hall, she +explained. I had taken a book and was reading. I noticed nothing till +what I can only call a groan of intense anguish made me look up in +amazement--indeed, in horror--and I was shocked to see my old friend, +his face a ghastly white, his eyes staring into vacancy, and his +expression one of the most terrible--_the_ most terrible--that I have +ever witnessed. I cannot describe that look. There was an agony of grief +and despair, a glance of the wildest amazement, terror, as of an +impending awful death, and with these the fiercest and most burning +anger that I have ever seen on any human face. He held a letter clenched +in his hand. I was afraid to speak or move. + +"It was fully five minutes before he regained his self-control, and he +did this with an effort which was in itself dreadful to contemplate--so +severe was the struggle. He explained to me in a voice which faltered +and trembled with the shock that he had received, that he had had very +bad news--that a large sum of money which was absolutely necessary to +the carrying out of his projects had been embezzled by some unscrupulous +person, that he did not know what he should do. He fell back into his +chair; in a few minutes he had become an old man. + +"He did not seem upset, or even astonished, when, later in the day, a +telegram announced that he had failed in the aim of his life--that a +stranger was to bear rule in his beloved Lupton. He murmured something +to the effect that it was no matter now. He never held up his head +again." + +This note is an extract from _George Horbury: a Memoir_. It was written +by Dr. Wood for the use of a few friends and privately printed in a +small edition of a hundred and fifty copies. The author felt, as he +explains in his brief _Foreword_, that by restricting the sale to those +who either knew Horbury or were especially interested in his work, he +was enabled to dwell somewhat intimately on matters which could hardly +have been treated in a book meant for the general public. + +The extract that has been made from this book is interesting on two +points. It shows that Horbury was quite unaware of what had been going +on for four years before Chesson's resignation and that he had entirely +misinterpreted the few and faint omens which had been offered him. He +was preparing to break a sulky sentinel or two when all the ground of +his fortalice was a very network of loaded mines! The other point is +still more curious. It will be seen from Wood's story that the terrific +effect that he describes was produced by a letter, received some hours +before the news of the Trustees' decision arrived by telegram. "Later in +the day" is the phrase in the Memoir; as a matter of fact, the final +deliberation of the Lupton Trustees, held at Marshall's Hotel in +Albemarle Street, began at eleven-thirty and was not over till +one-forty-five. It is not likely that the result could have reached the +Old Grange before two-fifteen; whereas the letter found in the hall must +have been read by Horbury before ten o'clock. The invariable breakfast +hour at the Old Grange was eight o'clock. + +C. L. Wood says: "I rejoined him in the course of an hour," and the +letter was brought in "a few minutes later." Afterwards, when the fatal +telegram arrived, the Memoir notes that the unfortunate man was not +"even astonished." It seems to follow almost necessarily from these +facts that Horbury learnt the story of his ruin from the letter, for it +has been ascertained that the High Usher's account of the contents of +the letter was false from beginning to end. Horbury's most excellent and +sagacious investments were all in the impeccable hands of "Witham's" +(Messrs. Witham, Venables, Davenport and Witham), of Raymond Buildings, +Gray's Inn, who do not include embezzlement in their theory and practice +of the law; and, as a matter of fact, the nephew, Charles Horbury, came +into a very handsome fortune on the death of his uncle--eighty thousand +pounds in personality, with the Old Grange and some valuable ground +rents in the new part of Lupton. It is as certain as anything can be +that George Horbury never lost a penny by embezzlement or, indeed, in +any other way. + +One may surmise, then, the real contents of that terrible letter. In +general, that is, for it is impossible to conjecture whether the writer +told the whole story; one does not know, for example, whether Meyrick's +name was mentioned or not: whether there was anything which carried the +reader's mind to that dark evening in November when he beat the +white-faced boy with such savage cruelty. But from Dr. Wood's +description of the wretched man's appearance one understands how utterly +unexpected was the crushing blow that had fallen upon him. It was a +lightning flash from the sky at its bluest, and before that sudden and +awful blast his whole life fell into deadly and evil ruin. + +"He never held up his head again." He never lived again, one may say, +unless a ceaseless wheel of anguish and anger and bitter and unavailing +and furious regret can be called life. It was not a man, but a shell, +full of gall and fire, that went to Wareham; but probably he was not the +first of the Klippoth to be made a Canon. + +As we have no means of knowing exactly what or how much that letter told +him, one is not in a position to say whether he recognised the +singularity--one might almost say, the eccentricity--with which his +punishment was stage-managed. _Nec deus intersit_ certainly; but a +principle may be pushed too far, and a critic might point out that, +putting avenging deities in their machines on one side, it was rather +going to the other extreme to bring about the Great Catastrophe by means +of bad sherry, a trying Headmaster, boiled mutton, a troublesome +schoolboy and a servant-maid. Yet these were the agents employed; and it +seems that we are forced to the conclusion that we do not altogether +understand the management of the universe. The conclusion is a dangerous +one, since we may be led by it, unless great care is exercised, into the +worst errors of the Dark Ages. + +There is the question, of course, of the truthfulness or falsity of the +various slanders which had such a tremendous effect. The worst of them +were lies--there can be little doubt of that--and for the rest, it may +be hinted that the allusion of the young master to Xanthias Phoceus was +not very far wide of the mark. Mrs. Horbury had been dead some years, +and it is to be feared that there had been passages between the High +Usher and Nelly Foran which public opinion would have condemned. It +would be difficult to tell the whole story, but the girl's fury of +revenge makes one apt to believe that she was exacting payment not only +for Ambrose's wrongs, but for some grievous injury done to herself. + +But before all these things could be brought to their ending, Ambrose +Meyrick had to live in wonders and delights, to be initiated in many +mysteries, to discover the meaning of that voice which seemed to speak +within him, denouncing him because he had pried unworthily into the +Secret which is hidden from the Holy Angels. + + + + +III + + +I + +One of Ambrose Meyrick's favourite books was a railway timetable. He +spent many hours in studying these intricate pages of figures, noting +times of arrival and departure on a piece of paper, and following the +turnings and intersections of certain lines on the map. In this way he +had at last arrived at the best and quickest route to his native +country, which he had not seen for five years. His father had died when +he was ten years old. + +This result once obtained, the seven-thirty to Birmingham got him in at +nine-thirty-five; the ten-twenty for the west was a capital train, and +he would see the great dome of Mynydd Mawr before one o'clock. His fancy +led him often to a bridge which crossed the railway about a mile out of +Lupton. East and west the metals stretched in a straight line, defying, +it seemed, the wisdom of Euclid. He turned from the east and gazed +westward, and when a red train went by in the right direction he would +lean over the bridge and watch till the last flying carriage had +vanished into the distance. He imagined himself in that train and +thought of the joy of it, if the time ever came--for it seemed long--the +joy in every revolution of the wheels, in every whistle of the engine; +in the rush and in the rhythm of this swift flight from that horrible +school and that horrible place. + +Year after year went by and he had not revisited the old land of his +father. He was left alone in the great empty house in charge of the +servants during the holidays--except one summer when Mr. Horbury +despatched him to a cousin of his who lived at Yarmouth. + +The second year after his father's death there was a summer of dreadful +heat. Day after day the sky was a glare of fire, and in these abhorred +Midlands, far from the breath of the sea and the mountain breeze, the +ground baked and cracked and stank to heaven. A dun smoke rose from the +earth with the faint, sickening stench of a brick-field, and the +hedgerows swooned in the heat and in the dust. Ambrose's body and soul +were athirst with the desire of the hills and the woods; his heart cried +out within him for the waterpools in the shadow of the forest; and in +his ears continually he heard the cold water pouring and trickling and +dripping from the grey rocks on the great mountain side. And he saw that +awful land which God has no doubt made for manufacturers to prepare +them for their eternal habitation, its weary waves burning under the +glaring sky: the factory chimneys of Lupton vomiting their foul smoke; +the mean red streets, each little hellway with its own stink; the dull +road, choking in its dust. For streams there was the Wand, running like +black oil between black banks, steaming here as boiling poisons were +belched into it from the factory wall; there glittering with iridescent +scum vomited from some other scoundrel's castle. And for the waterpools +of the woods he was free to gaze at the dark green liquor in the tanks +of the Sulphuric Acid factory, but a little way out of town. Lupton was +a very rising place. + +His body was faint with the burning heat and the foulness of all about +him, and his soul was sick with loneliness and friendlessness and +unutterable longing. He had already mastered his Bradshaw and had found +out the bridge over the railway; and day after day he leaned over the +parapet and watched the burning metals vanishing into the west, into the +hot, thick haze that hung over all the land. And the trains sped away +towards the haven of his desire, and he wondered if he should ever see +again the dearly loved country or hear the song of the nightingale in +the still white morning, in the circle of the green hills. The thought +of his father, of the old days of happiness, of the grey home in the +still valley, swelled in his heart and he wept bitterly, so utterly +forsaken and wretched seemed his life. + +It happened towards the end of that dreadful August that one night he +had tossed all through the hours listening to the chiming bells, only +falling into a fevered doze a little while before they called him. He +woke from ugly and oppressive dreams to utter wretchedness; he crawled +downstairs like an old man and left his breakfast untouched, for he +could eat nothing. The flame of the sun seemed to burn in his brain; the +hot smoke of the air choked him. All his limbs ached. From head to foot +he was a body of suffering. He struggled out and tottered along the road +to the bridge and gazed with dim, hopeless eyes along the path of +desire, into the heavy, burning mist in the far distance. And then his +heart beat quick, and he cried aloud in his amazed delight; for, in the +shimmering glamour of the haze, he saw as in a mirror the vast green +wall of the Great Mountain rise before him--not far, but as if close at +hand. Nay, he stood upon its slope; his feet were in the sweet-smelling +bracken; the hazel thicket was rustling beneath him in the brave wind, +and the shining water poured cold from the stony rock. He heard the +silver note of the lark, shrilling high and glad in the sunlight. He saw +the yellow blossoms tossed by the breeze about the porch of the white +house. He seemed to turn in this vision and before him the dear, +long-remembered land appeared in its great peace and beauty: meadows and +cornfield, hill and valley and deep wood between the mountains and the +far sea. He drew a long breath of that quickening and glorious air, and +knew that life had returned to him. And then he was gazing once more +down the glittering railway into the mist; but strength and hope had +replaced that deadly sickness of a moment before, and light and joy came +back to his eyes. + +The vision had doubtless been given to him in his sore and pressing +need. It returned no more; not again did he see the fair height of +Mynydd Mawr rise out of the mist. But from that day the station on the +bridge was daily consecrated. It was his place of refreshment and hope +in many seasons of evil and weariness. From this place he could look +forward to the hour of release and return that must come at last. Here +he could remind himself that the bonds of the flesh had been broken in a +wonderful manner; that he had been set free from the jaws of hell and +death. + +Fortunately, few people came that way. It was but a by-road serving a +few farms in the neighbourhood, and on the Sunday afternoon, in +November, the Head's sermon over and dinner eaten, he betook himself to +his tower, free to be alone for a couple of hours, at least. + +He stood there, leaning on the wall, his face turned, as ever, to the +west, and, as it were, a great flood of rapture overwhelmed him. He sank +down, deeper, still deeper, into the hidden and marvellous places of +delight. In his country there were stories of the magic people who rose +all gleaming from the pools in lonely woods; who gave more than mortal +bliss to those who loved them; who could tell the secrets of that land +where flame was the most material substance; whose inhabitants dwelt in +palpitating and quivering colours or in the notes of a wonderful melody. +And in the dark of the night all legends had been fulfilled. + +It was a strange thing, but Ambrose Meyrick, though he was a public +schoolboy of fifteen, had lived all his days in a rapt innocence. It is +possible that in school, as elsewhere, enlightenment, pleasant or +unpleasant, only comes to those who seek for it--or one may say +certainly that there are those who dwell under the protection of +enchantments, who may go down into the black depths and yet appear +resurgent and shining, without any stain or defilement of the pitch on +their white robes. For these have ears so intent on certain immortal +songs that they cannot hear discordant voices; their eyes are veiled +with a light that shuts out the vision of evil. There are flames about +these feet that extinguish the gross fires of the pit. + +It is probable that all through those early years Ambrose's father had +been charming his son's heart, drawing him forth from the gehenna-valley +of this life into which he had fallen, as one draws forth a beast that +has fallen into some deep and dreadful place. Various are the methods +recommended. There is the way of what is called moral teaching, the way +of physiology and the way of a masterly silence; but Mr. Meyrick's was +the strange way of incantation. He had, in a certain manner, drawn the +boy aside from that evil traffic of the valley, from the stench of the +turmoil, from the blows and the black lechery, from the ugly fight in +the poisonous smoke, from all the amazing and hideous folly that +practical men call life, and had set him in that endless procession that +for ever and for ever sings its litanies in the mountains, going from +height to height on its great quest. Ambrose's soul had been caught in +the sweet thickets of the woods; it had been bathed in the pure water of +blessed fountains; it had knelt before the altars of the old saints, +till all the earth was become a sanctuary, all life was a rite and +ceremony, the end of which was the attainment of the mystic +sanctity--the achieving of the Graal. For this--for what else?--were +all things made. It was this that the little bird sang of in the bush, +piping a few feeble, plaintive notes of dusky evenings, as if his tiny +heart were sad that it could utter nothing better than such sorry +praises. This also celebrated the awe of the white morning on the hills, +the breath of the woods at dawn. This was figured in the red ceremony of +sunset, when flames shone over the dome of the great mountain, and roses +blossomed in the far plains of the sky. This was the secret of the dark +places in the heart of the woods. This the mystery of the sunlight on +the height; and every little flower, every delicate fern, and every reed +and rush was entrusted with the hidden declaration of this sacrament. +For this end, final and perfect rites had been given to men to execute; +and these were all the arts, all the far-lifted splendour of the great +cathedral; all rich carven work and all glowing colours; all magical +utterance of word and tones: all these things were the witnesses that +consented in the One Offering, in the high service of the Graal. + +To this service also, together with songs and burning torches and dyed +garments and the smoke of the bruised incense, were brought the incense +of the bruised heart, the magic torches of virtue hidden from the world, +the red dalmatics of those whose souls had been martyred, the songs of +triumph and exultation chanted by them that the profane had crushed into +the dust; holy wells and water-stoups were fountains of tears. So must +the Mass be duly celebrated in Cor-arbennic when Cadwaladr returned, +when Teilo Agyos lifted up again the Shining Cup. + +Perhaps it was not strange that a boy who had listened to such spells as +these should heed nothing of the foolish evils about him, the nastiness +of silly children who, for want of wits, were "crushing the lilies into +the dunghill." He listened to nothing of their ugly folly; he heard it +not, understood it not, thought as little of it as of their everlasting +chatter about "brooks" and "quarries" and "leg-hits" and "beaks from the +off." And when an unseemly phrase did chance to fall on his ear it was +of no more import or meaning than any or all of the stupid jargon that +went on day after day, mixing itself with the other jargon about the +optative and the past participle, the oratio obliqua and the verbs in +[Greek: mi]. To him this was all one nothingness, and he would not have +dreamed of connecting anything of it with the facts of life, as he +understood life. + +Hence it was that for him all that was beautiful and wonderful was a +part of sanctity; all the glory of life was for the service of the +sanctuary, and when one saw a lovely flower it was to be strewn before +the altar, just as the bee was holy because by its wax the Gifts are +illuminated. Where joy and delight and beauty were, there he knew by +sure signs were the parts of the mystery, the glorious apparels of the +heavenly vestments. If anyone had told him that the song of the +nightingale was an unclean thing he would have stared in amazement, as +though one had blasphemed the Sanctus. To him the red roses were as holy +as the garments of the martyrs. The white lilies were pure and shining +virtues; the imagery of the _Song of Songs_ was obvious and perfect and +unassailable, for in this world there was nothing common nor unclean. +And even to him the great gift had been freely given. + +So he stood, wrapt in his meditations and in his ecstasy, by the bridge +over the Midland line from Lupton to Birmingham. Behind him were the +abominations of Lupton: the chimneys vomiting black smoke faintly in +honour of the Sabbath; the red lines of the workmen's streets advancing +into the ugly fields; the fuming pottery kilns, the hideous height of +the boot factory. And before him stretched the unspeakable scenery of +the eastern Midlands, which seems made for the habitation of English +Nonconformists--dull, monotonous, squalid, the very hedgerows cropped +and trimmed, the trees looking like rows of Roundheads, the farmhouses +as uninteresting as suburban villas. On a field near at hand a +scientific farmer had recently applied an agreeable mixture consisting +of superphosphate of lime, nitrate of soda and bone meal. The stink was +that of a chemical works or a Texel cheese. Another field was just being +converted into an orchard. There were rows of grim young apple trees +planted at strictly mathematical intervals from one another, and grisly +little graves had been dug between the apple trees for the reception of +gooseberry bushes. Between these rows the farmer hoped to grow potatoes, +so the ground had been thoroughly trenched. It looked sodden and +unpleasant. To the right Ambrose could see how the operations on a +wandering brook were progressing. It had moved in and out in the most +wasteful and absurd manner, and on each bank there had grown a twisted +brake of trees and bushes and rank water plants. There were wonderful +red roses there in summer time. Now all this was being rectified. In the +first place the stream had been cut into a straight channel with raw, +bare banks, and then the rose bushes, the alders, the willows and the +rest were being grubbed up by the roots and so much valuable land was +being redeemed. The old barn which used to be visible on the left of the +line had been pulled down for more than a year. It had dated perhaps +from the seventeenth century. Its roof-tree had dipped and waved in a +pleasant fashion, and the red tiles had the glow of the sun in their +colours, and the half-timbered walls were not lacking in ruinous brace. +It was a dilapidated old shed, and a neat-looking structure with a +corrugated iron roof now stood in its place. + +Beyond all was the grey prison wall of the horizon; but Ambrose no +longer gazed at it with the dim, hopeless eyes of old. He had a Breviary +among his books, and he thought of the words: _Anima mea erepta est +sicut passer de laqueo venantium_, and he knew that in a good season his +body would escape also. The exile would end at last. + +He remembered an old tale which his father was fond of telling him--the +story of Eos Amherawdur (the Emperor Nightingale). Very long ago, the +story began, the greatest and the finest court in all the realms of +faery was the court of the Emperor Eos, who was above all the kings of +the Tylwydd Têg, as the Emperor of Rome is head over all the kings of +the earth. So that even Gwyn ap Nudd, whom they now call lord over all +the fair folk of the Isle of Britain, was but the man of Eos, and no +splendour such as his was ever seen in all the regions of enchantment +and faery. Eos had his court in a vast forest, called Wentwood, in the +deepest depths of the green-wood between Caerwent and Caermaen, which is +also called the City of the Legions; though some men say that we should +rather name it the city of the Waterfloods. Here, then, was the Palace +of Eos, built of the finest stones after the Roman manner, and within it +were the most glorious chambers that eye has ever seen, and there was no +end to the number of them, for they could not be counted. For the stones +of the palace being immortal, they were at the pleasure of the Emperor. +If he had willed, all the hosts of the world could stand in his greatest +hall, and, if he had willed, not so much as an ant could enter into it, +since it could not be discerned. But on common days they spread the +Emperor's banquet in nine great halls, each nine times larger than any +that are in the lands of the men of Normandi. And Sir Caw was the +seneschal who marshalled the feast; and if you would count those under +his command--go, count the drops of water that are in the Uske River. +But if you would learn the splendour of this castle it is an easy +matter, for Eos hung the walls of it with Dawn and Sunset. He lit it +with the sun and moon. There was a well in it called Ocean. And nine +churches of twisted boughs were set apart in which Eos might hear Mass; +and when his clerks sang before him all the jewels rose shining out of +the earth, and all the stars bent shining down from heaven, so +enchanting was the melody. Then was great bliss in all the regions of +the fair folk. But Eos was grieved because mortal ears could not hear +nor comprehend the enchantment of their song. What, then, did he do? +Nothing less than this. He divested himself of all his glories and of +his kingdom, and transformed himself into the shape of a little brown +bird, and went flying about the woods, desirous of teaching men the +sweetness of the faery melody. And all the other birds said: "This is a +contemptible stranger." The eagle found him not even worthy to be a +prey; the raven and the magpie called him simpleton; the pheasant asked +where he had got that ugly livery; the lark wondered why he hid himself +in the darkness of the wood; the peacock would not suffer his name to be +uttered. In short never was anyone so despised as was Eos by all the +chorus of the birds. But wise men heard that song from the faery regions +and listened all night beneath the bough, and these were the first who +were bards in the Isle of Britain. + +Ambrose had heard the song from the faery regions. He had heard it in +swift whispers at his ear, in sighs upon his breast, in the breath of +kisses on his lips. Never was he numbered amongst the despisers of Eos. + + +II + +Mr. Horbury had suffered from one or two slight twinges of conscience +for a few days after he had operated on his nephew. They were but very +slight pangs, for, after all, it was a case of flagrant and repeated +disobedience to rules, complicated by lying. The High Usher was quite +sincere in scouting the notion of a boy's taking any interest in Norman +architecture, and, as he said to himself, truly enough, if every boy at +Lupton could come and go when and how he pleased, and choose which rules +he would keep and which disobey--why, the school would soon be in a +pretty state. Still, there was a very faint and indistinct murmur in his +mind which suggested that Meyrick had received, in addition to his own +proper thrashing, the thrashings due to the Head, his cook and his wine +merchant. And Horbury was rather sorry, for he desired to be just +according to his definition of justice--unless, indeed justice should be +excessively inconvenient. + +But these faint scruples were soon removed--turned, indeed, to +satisfaction by the evident improvement which declared itself in Ambrose +Meyrick's whole tone and demeanour. He no longer did his best to avoid +rocker. He played, and played well and with relish. The boy was +evidently all right at heart: he had only wanted a sharp lesson, and it +was clear that, once a loafer, he was now on his way to be a credit to +the school. And by some of those secret channels which are known to +masters and to masters alone, rather more than a glimmering of the truth +as to Rawson's black eyes and Pelly's disfigured nose was vouchsafed to +Horbury's vision, and he was by no means displeased with his nephew. The +two boys had evidently asked for punishment, and had got it. It served +them right. Of course, if the swearing had been brought to his notice by +official instead of by subterranean and mystic ways, he would have had +to cane Meyrick a second time, since, by the Public School convention, +an oath is a very serious offence--as bad as smoking, or worse; but, +being far from a fool, under the circumstances he made nothing of it. +Then the lad's school work was so very satisfactory. It had always been +good, but it had become wonderfully good. That last Greek prose had +shown real grip of the language. The High Usher was pleased. His sharp +lesson had brought forth excellent results, and he foresaw the day when +he would be proud of having taught a remarkably fine scholar. + +With the boys Ambrose was becoming a general favourite. He learned not +only to play rocker, he showed Pelly how he thought that blow under the +ear should be dealt with. They all said he was a good fellow; but they +could not make out why, without apparent reason, he would sometimes +burst out into loud laughter. But he said it was something wrong with +his inside--the doctors couldn't make it out--and this seemed rather +interesting. + +In after life he often looked back upon this period when, to all +appearance, Lupton was "making a man" of him, and wondered at its +strangeness. To boys and masters alike he was an absolutely normal +schoolboy, busy with the same interests as the rest of them. There was +certainly something rather queer in his appearance; but, as they said, +generously enough, a fellow couldn't help his looks; and, that curious +glint in the eyes apart, he seemed as good a Luptonian as any in the +whole six hundred. Everybody thought that he had absolutely fallen into +line; that he was absorbing the _ethos_ of the place in the most +admirable fashion, subduing his own individuality, his opinions, his +habits, to the general tone of the community around him--putting off, as +it were, the profane dust of his own spirit and putting on the mental +frock of the brotherhood. This, of course, is one of the aims--rather, +_the_ great aim--of the system: this fashioning of very diverse +characters into one common form, so that each great Public School has +its type, which is easily recognisable in the grown-up man years after +his school days are over. Thus, in far lands, in India and Egypt, in +Canada and New Zealand, one recognises the brisk alertness of the +Etonian, the exquisite politeness of Harrow, the profound seriousness of +Rugby; while the note of Lupton may, perhaps, be called finality. The +Old Luptonian no more thinks of arguing a question than does the Holy +Father, and his conversation is a series of irreformable dogmas, and the +captious person who questions any one article is made to feel himself a +cad and an outsider. + +Thus it has been related that two men who had met for the first time at +a certain country house-party were getting on together capitally in the +evening over their whisky and soda and cigars. Each held identical views +of equal violence on some important topic--Home Rule or the Transvaal or +Free Trade--and, as the more masterful of the two asserted that hanging +was too good for Blank (naming a well-known statesman), the other would +reply: "I quite agree with you: hanging is too good for Blank." + +"He ought to be burned alive," said the one. + +"That's about it: he ought to be burned at the stake," answered the +other. + +"Look at the way he treated Dash! He's a coward and a damned scoundrel!" + +"Perfectly right. He's a damned cursed scoundrel!" + +This was splendid, and each thought the other a charming companion. +Unfortunately, however, the conversation, by some caprice, veered from +the iniquities of Blank and glanced aside to cookery--possibly by the +track of Irish stew, used metaphorically to express the disastrous and +iniquitous policy of the great statesman with regard to Ireland. But, as +it happened, there was not the same coincidence on the question of +cookery as there had been on the question of Blank. The masterful man +said: + +"No cookery like English. No other race in the world can cook as we do. +Look at French cookery--a lot of filthy, greasy messes." + +Now, instead of assenting briskly and firmly as before the other man +said: "Been much in France? Lived there?" + +"Never set foot in the beastly country! Don't like their ways, and don't +care to dine off snails and frogs swimming in oil." + +The other man began then to talk of the simple but excellent meals he +had relished in France--the savoury _croûte-au-pot_, the _bouilli_--good +eating when flavoured by a gherkin or two; velvety _épinards au jus_, a +roast partridge, a salad, a bit of Roquefort and a bunch of grapes. But +he had barely mentioned the soup when the masterful one wheeled round +his chair and offered a fine view of his strong, well-knit figure--as +seen from the back. He did not say anything--he simply took up the paper +and went on smoking. The other men stared in amazement: the amateur of +French cookery looked annoyed. But the host--a keen-eyed old fellow with +a white moustache, turned to the enemy of frogs and snails and grease +and said quite simply: "I say, Mulock, I never knew you'd been at +Lupton." + +Mulock gazed. The other men held their breath for a moment as the full +force of the situation dawned on them, and then a wild scream of +laughter shrilled from their throats. Yells and roars of mirth resounded +in the room. Their delight was insatiable. It died for a moment for lack +of breath, and then burst out anew in still louder, more uproarious +clamour, till old Sir Henry Rawnsley, who was fat and short, could do +nothing but choke and gasp and crow out a sound something between a +wheeze and a chuckle. Mulock left the room immediately, and the house +the next morning. He made some excuse to his host, but he told enquiring +friends that, personally, he disliked bounders. + +The story, true or false, illustrates the common view of the Lupton +stamp. + +"We try to teach the boys to know their own minds," said the Headmaster, +and the endeavour seems to have succeeded in most cases. And, as Horbury +noted in an article he once wrote on the Public School system, every boy +was expected to submit himself to the process, to form and reform +himself in accordance with the tone of the school. + +"I sometimes compare our work with that of the metal founder," he says +in the article in question. "Just as the metal comes to the foundry +_rudis indigestaque moles_, a rough and formless mass, without the +slightest suggestion of the shape which it must finally assume, so a boy +comes to a great Public School with little or nothing about him to +suggest the young man who, in eight or nine years' time, will say +good-bye to the dear old school, setting his teeth tight, restraining +himself from giving up to the anguish of this last farewell. Nay, I +think that ours is the harder task, for the metal that is sent to the +foundry has, I presume, been freed of its impurities; we have to deal +rather with the ore--a mass which is not only shapeless, but contains +much that is not metal at all, which must be burnt out and cast aside as +useless rubbish. So the boy comes from his home, which may or may not +have possessed valuable formative influences; which we often find has +tended to create a spirit of individualism and assertiveness; which, in +numerous cases, has left the boy under the delusion that he has come +into the world to live his own life and think his own thoughts. This is +the ore that we cast into our furnace. We burn out the dross and +rubbish; we liquefy the stubborn and resisting metal till it can be run +into the mould--the mould being the whole tone and feeling of a great +community. We discourage all excessive individuality; we make it quite +plain to the boy that he has come to Lupton, not to live his life, not +to think his thoughts, but to live _our_ life, to think _our_ thoughts. +Very often, as I think I need scarcely say, the process is a somewhat +unpleasant one, but, sooner or later, the stubbornest metal yields to +the cleansing, renewing, restoring fires of discipline and public +opinion, and the shapeless mass takes on the shape of the Great School. +Only the other day an old pupil came to see me and confessed that, for +the whole of his first year at Lupton, he had been profoundly wretched. +'I was a dreamy young fool,' he said. 'My head was stuffed with all +sorts of queer fancies, and I expect that if I hadn't come to Lupton I +should have turned out an absolute loafer. But I hated it badly that +first year. I loathed rocker--I did, really--and I thought the fellows +were a lot of savages. And then I seemed to go into a kind of cloud. You +see, Sir, I was losing my old self and hadn't got the new self in its +place, and I couldn't make out what was happening. And then, quite +suddenly, it all came out light and clear. I saw the purpose behind it +all--how we were all working together, masters and boys, for the dear +old school; how we were all "members one of another," as the Doctor said +in Chapel; and that I had a part in this great work, too, though I was +only a kid in the Third. It was like a flash of light: one minute I was +only a poor little chap that nobody cared for and who didn't matter to +anybody, and the next I saw that, in a way, I was as important as the +Doctor himself--I was a part of the failure or success of it all. Do you +know what I did, Sir? I had a book I thought a lot of--_Poems and Tales_ +of Edgar Allan Poe. It was my poor sister's book; she had died a year +before when she was only seventeen, and she had written my name in it +when she was dying--she knew I was fond of reading it. It was just the +sort of thing I used to like--morbid fancies and queer poems, and I was +always reading it when the fellows would let me alone. But when I saw +what life really was, when the meaning of it all came to me, as I said +just now, I took that book and tore it to bits, and it was like tearing +myself up. But I knew that writing all that stuff hadn't done that +American fellow much good, and I didn't see what good I should get by +reading it. I couldn't make out to myself that it would fit in with the +Doctor's plans of the spirit of the school, or that I should play up at +rocker any better for knowing all about the "Fall of the House of +Usher," or whatever it's called. I knew my poor sister would +understand, so I tore it up, and I've gone straight ahead ever +since--thanks to Lupton.' _Like a refiner's fire._ _I_ remembered the +dreamy, absent-minded child of fifteen years before; I could scarcely +believe that he stood before--keen, alert, practical, living every +moment of his life, a force, a power in the world, certain of successful +achievement." + +Such were the influences to which Ambrose Meyrick was being subjected, +and with infinite success, as it seemed to everybody who watched him. He +was regarded as a conspicuous instance of the efficacy of the system--he +had held out so long, refusing to absorb the "tone," presenting an +obstinate surface to the millstones which would, for his own good, have +ground him to powder, not concealing very much his dislike of the place +and of the people in it. And suddenly he had submitted with a good +grace: it was wonderful! The masters are believed to have discussed the +affair amongst themselves, and Horbury, who confessed or boasted that he +had used sharp persuasion, got a good deal of _kudos_ in consequence. + + +III + +A few years ago a little book called _Half-holidays_ attracted some +attention in semi-scholastic, semi-clerical circles. It was anonymous, +and bore the modest motto _Crambe bis cocta_; but those behind the +scenes recognised it as the work of Charles Palmer, who was for many +years a master at Lupton. His acknowledged books include a useful little +work on the Accents and an excellent summary of Roman History from the +Fall of the Republic to Romulus Augustulus. The _Half-holidays_ contains +the following amusing passage; there is not much difficulty in +identifying the N. mentioned in it with Ambrose Meyrick. + +"The cleverest dominie sometimes discovers"--the passage begins--"that +he has been living in a fool's paradise, that he has been tricked by a +quiet and persistent subtlety that really strikes one as almost devilish +when one finds it exhibited in the person of an English schoolboy. A +good deal of nonsense, I think, has been written about boys by people +who in reality know very little about them; they have been credited with +complexities of character, with feelings and aspirations and delicacies +of sentiment which are quite foreign to their nature. I can quite +believe in the dead cat trick of Stalky and his friends, but I confess +that the incident of the British Flag leaves me cold and sceptical. Such +refinement of perception is not the way of the boy--certainly not of the +boy as I have known him. He is radically a simple soul, whose feelings +are on the surface; and his deepest laid schemes and manoeuvres hardly +call for the talents of a Sherlock Holmes if they are to be detected and +brought to naught. Of course, a good deal of rubbish has been talked +about the wonderful success of our English plan of leaving the boys to +themselves without the everlasting supervision which is practised in +French schools. As a matter of fact, the English schoolboy is under +constant supervision; where in a French school one wretched usher has to +look after a whole horde of boys, in an English school each boy is +perpetually under the observation of hundreds of his fellows. In +reality, each boy is an unpaid _pion_, a watchdog whose vigilance never +relaxes. He is not aware of this; one need scarcely say that such a +notion is far from his wildest thoughts. He thinks, and very rightly, +doubtless, that he is engaged in maintaining the honour of the school, +in keeping up the observance of the school tradition, in dealing sharply +with slackers and loafers who would bring discredit on the place he +loves so well. He is, no doubt, absolutely right in all this; none the +less, he is doing the master's work unwittingly and admirably. When one +thinks of this, and of the Compulsory System of Games, which ensures +that every boy shall be in a certain place at a certain time, one sees, +I think, that the phrase about our lack of supervision _is_ a phrase +and nothing more. There is no system of supervision known to human wit +that approaches in thoroughness and minuteness the supervision under +which every single boy is kept all through his life at an English Public +School. + +"Hence one is really rather surprised when, in spite of all these unpaid +assistants, who are the whole school, one is thoroughly and completely +taken in. I can only remember one such case, and I am still astonished +at the really infernal ability with which the boy in question lived a +double life under the very eyes of the masters and six hundred other +boys. N., as I shall call him, was not in my House, and I can scarcely +say how I came to watch his career with so much interest; but there was +certainly something about him which did interest me a good deal. It may +have been his appearance: he was an odd-looking boy--dark, almost +swarthy, dreamy and absent in manner, and, for the first years of his +school life, a quite typical loafer. Such boys, of course, are not +common in a big school, but there are a few such everywhere. One never +knows whether this kind will write a successful book, or paint a great +picture, or go to the devil--from my observation I am sorry to say that +the last career is the most usual. I need scarcely say that such boys +meet with but little encouragement; it is not the type which the Public +School exists to foster, and the boy who abandons himself to morbid +introspection is soon made to feel pretty emphatically that he is matter +in the wrong place. Of course, one may be crushing genius. If this ever +happened it would be very unfortunate; still, in all communities the +minority must suffer for the good of the majority, and, frankly, I have +always been willing to run the risk. As I have hinted, the particular +sort of boy I have in my mind turns out in nine cases out of ten to be +not a genius, but that much more common type--a blackguard. + +"Well, as I say, I was curious about N. I was sorry for him, too; both +his parents were dead, and he was rather in the position of the poor +fellows who have no home life to look forward to when the holidays are +getting near. And his obstinacy astonished me; in most cases the +pressure of public opinion will bring the slackest loafer to a sense of +the error of his ways before his first term is ended; but N. seemed to +hold out against us all with a sort of dreamy resistance that was most +exasperating. I do not think he can have had a very pleasant time. His +general demeanour suggested that of a sage who has been cast on an +island inhabited by a peculiarly repulsive and degraded tribe of +savages, and I need scarcely say that the other boys did their best to +make him realise the extreme absurdity of such behaviour. He was clever +enough at his work, but it was difficult to make him play games, and +impossible to make him play up. He seemed to be looking through us at +something else; and neither the boys nor the masters liked being treated +as unimportant illusions. And then, quite suddenly, N. altered +completely. I believe his housemaster, worn out of all patience, gave +him a severe thrashing; at any rate, the change was instant and +marvellous. + +"I remember that a few days before N.'s transformation we had been +discussing the question of the cane at the weekly masters' meeting. I +had confessed myself a very half-hearted believer in the efficacy of the +treatment. I forget the arguments that I used, but I know that I was +strongly inclined to favour the 'Anti-baculist Party,' as the Head +jocosely named it. But a few months later when N.'s housemaster pointed +out N. playing up at football like a young demon, and then with a +twinkle in his eye reminded me of the position I had taken up at the +masters' meeting, there was nothing for it but to own that I had been in +the wrong. The cane had certainly, in this case, proved itself a magic +wand; the sometime loafer had been transformed by it into one of the +healthiest and most energetic fellows in the whole school. It was a +pleasure to watch him at the games, and I remember that his fast +bowling was at once terrific in speed and peculiarly deadly in its +accuracy. + +"He kept up this deception, for deception it was, for three or four +years. He was just going up to Oxford, and the whole school was looking +forward to a career which we knew would be quite exceptional in its +brilliance. His scholarship papers astonished the Balliol authorities. I +remember one of the Fellows writing to our Head about them in terms of +the greatest enthusiasm, and we all knew that N.'s bowling would get him +into the University Eleven in his first term. Cricketers have not yet +forgotten a certain performance of his at the Oval, when, as a poetic +journalist observed, wickets fell before him as ripe corn falls before +the sickle. N. disappeared in the middle of term. The whole school was +in a ferment; masters and boys looked at one another with wild faces; +search parties were sent out to scour the country; the police were +communicated with; on every side one heard the strangest surmises as to +what had happened. The affair got into the papers; most people thought +it was a case of breakdown and loss of memory from overwork and mental +strain. Nothing could be heard of N., till, at the end of a fortnight, +his Housemaster came into our room looking, as I thought, puzzled and +frightened. + +"'I don't understand,' he said. 'I've had this by the second post. It's +in N.'s handwriting. I can't make head or tail of it. It's some sort of +French, I suppose.' + +"He held out a paper closely written in N.'s exquisite, curious script, +which always reminded me vaguely of some Oriental character. The masters +shook their heads as the manuscript went from hand to hand, and one of +them suggested sending for the French master. But, as it happened, I was +something of a student of Old French myself, and I found I could make +out the drift of the document that N. had sent his master. + +"It was written in the manner and in the language of Rabelais. It was +quite diabolically clever, and beyond all question the filthiest thing I +have ever read. The writer had really exceeded his master in obscenity, +impossible as that might seem: the purport of it all was a kind of +nightmare vision of the school, the masters and the boys. Everybody and +everything were distorted in the most horrible manner, seen, we might +say, through an abominable glass, and yet every feature was easily +recognisable; it reminded me of Swift's disgusting description of the +Yahoos, over which one may shudder and grow sick, but which one cannot +affect to misunderstand. There was a fantastic episode which I remember +especially. One of us, an ambitious man, who for some reason or other +had become unpopular with a few of his colleagues, was described as +endeavouring to climb the school clock-tower, on the top of which a +certain object was said to be placed. The object was defended, so the +writer affirmed, by 'the Dark Birds of Night,' who resisted the master's +approach in all possible and impossible manners. Even to indicate the +way in which this extraordinary theme was treated would be utterly out +of the question; but I shall never forget the description of the +master's face, turned up towards the object of his quest, as he +painfully climbed the wall. I have never read even in the most filthy +pages of Rabelais, or in the savagest passages of Swift, anything which +approached the revolting cruelty of those few lines. They were +compounded of hell-fire and the Cloaca Maxima. + +"I read out and translated a few of the least abominable sentences. I +can hardly say whether the feeling of disgust or that of bewilderment +predominated amongst us. One of my colleagues stopped me and said they +had heard enough; we stared at one another in silence. The astounding +ability, ferocity and obscenity of the whole thing left us quite +dumbfounded, and I remember saying that if a volcano were suddenly to +belch forth volumes of flame and filth in the middle of the playing +fields I should scarcely be more astonished. And all this was the work +of N., whose brilliant abilities in games and in the schools were to +have been worth many thousands a year to X., as one of us put it! This +was the boy that for the last four years we had considered as a great +example of the formative influences of the school! This was the N. who +we thought would have died for the honour of the school, who spoke as if +he could never do enough to repay what X. had done for him! As I say, we +looked at one another with faces of blank amazement and horror. At last +somebody said that N. must have gone mad, and we tried to believe that +it was so, for madness, awful calamity as it is, would be more endurable +than sanity under such circumstances as these. I need scarcely say that +this charitable hypothesis turned out to be quite unfounded: N. was +perfectly sane; he was simply revenging himself for the suppression of +his true feelings for the four last years of his school life. The +'conversion' on which we prided ourselves had been an utter sham; the +whole of his life had been an elaborately organised hypocrisy maintained +with unfailing and unflinching skill term after term and year after +year. One cannot help wondering when one considers the inner life of +this unhappy fellow. Every morning, I suppose, he woke up with curses in +his soul; he smiled at us all and joined in the games with black rage +devouring him. So far as one can say, he was quite sincere in his +concealed opinions at all events. The hatred, loathing and contempt of +the whole system of the place displayed in that extraordinary and +terrible document struck me as quite genuine; and while I was reading it +I could not help thinking of his eager, enthusiastic face as he joined +with a will in the school songs; he seemed to inspire all the boys about +him with something of his own energy and devotion. The apparition was a +shocking one; I felt that for a moment I had caught a glimpse of a +region that was very like hell itself. + +"I remember that the French master contributed a characteristic touch of +his own. Of course, the Headmaster had to be told of the matter, and it +was arranged that M. and myself should collaborate in the unpleasant +task of making a translation. M. read the horrible stuff through with an +expression on his face that, to my astonishment, bordered on admiration, +and when he laid down the paper he said: + +"'_Eh bien: Maître François est encore en vie, évidemment. C'est le vrai +renouveau de la Renaissance; de la Renaissance en très mauvaise humeur, +si vous voulez, mais de la Renaissance tout-de-même. Si, si; c'est de la +crû véritable, je vous assure. Mais, notre bon N. est un Rabelais qui a +habité une terre affreusement sèche._' + +"I really think that to the Frenchman the terrible moral aspect of the +case was either entirely negligible or absolutely non-existent; he +simply looked on N.'s detestable and filthy performance as a little +masterpiece in a particular literary _genre_. Heaven knows! One does not +want to be a Pharisee; but as I saw M. grinning appreciatively over this +dung-heap I could not help feeling that the collapse of France before +Germany offered no insoluble problem to the historian. + +"There is little more to be said as to this extraordinary and most +unpleasant affair. It was all hushed up as much as possible. No further +attempts to discover N.'s whereabouts were made. It was some months +before we heard by indirect means that the wretched fellow had abandoned +the Balliol Scholarship and the most brilliant prospects in life to +attach himself to a company of greasy barnstormers--or 'Dramatic +Artists,' as I suppose they would be called nowadays. I believe that his +subsequent career has been of a piece with these beginnings; but of that +I desire to say nothing." + +The passage has been quoted merely in evidence of the great success with +which Ambrose Meyrick adapted himself to his environment at Lupton. +Palmer, the writer, who was a very well-meaning though intensely stupid +person, has told the bare facts as he saw them accurately enough; it +need not be said that his inferences and deductions from the facts are +invariably ridiculous. He was a well-educated man; but in his heart of +hearts he thought that Rabelais, _Maria Monk, Gay Life in Paris and La +Terre_ all came to much the same thing. + + +IV + +In an old notebook kept by Ambrose Meyrick in those long-past days there +are some curious entries which throw light on the extraordinary +experiences that befell him during the period which poor Palmer has done +his best to illustrate. The following is interesting: + +"I told her she must not come again for a long time. She was astonished +and asked me why--was I not fond of her? I said it was because I was so +fond of her, that I was afraid that if I saw her often I could not live. +I should pass away in delight because our bodies are not meant to live +for long in the middle of white fire. I was lying on my bed and she +stood beside it. I looked up at her. The room was very dark and still. I +could only just see her faintly, though she was so close to me that I +could hear her breathing quite well. I thought of the white flowers that +grew in the dark corners of the old garden at the Wern, by the great +ilex tree. I used to go out on summer nights when the air was still and +all the sky cloudy. One could hear the brook just a little, down beyond +the watery meadow, and all the woods and hills were dim. One could not +see the mountain at all. But I liked to stand by the wall and look into +the darkest place, and in a little time those flowers would seem to grow +out of the shadow. I could just see the white glimmer of them. She +looked like the flowers to me, as I lay on the bed in my dark room. + +"Sometimes I dream of wonderful things. It is just at the moment when +one wakes up; one cannot say where one has been or what was so +wonderful, but you know that you have lost everything in waking. For +just that moment you knew everything and understood the stars and the +hills and night and day and the woods and the old songs. They were all +within you, and you were all light. But the light was music, and the +music was violet wine in a great cup of gold, and the wine in the golden +cup was the scent of a June night. I understood all this as she stood +beside my bed in the dark and stretched out her hand and touched me on +the breast. + +"I knew a pool in an old, old grey wood a few miles from the Wern. I +called it the grey wood because the trees were ancient oaks that they +say must have grown there for a thousand years, and they have grown bare +and terrible. Most of them are all hollow inside and some have only a +few boughs left, and every year, they say, one leaf less grows on every +bough. In the books they are called the Foresters' Oaks. If you stay +under them you feel as if the old times must have come again. Among +these trees there was a great yew, far older than the oaks, and beneath +it a dark and shadowy pool. I had been for a long walk, nearly to the +sea, and as I came back I passed this place and, looking into the pool, +there was the glint of the stars in the water. + +"She knelt by my bed in the dark, and I could just see the glinting of +her eyes as she looked at me--the stars in the shadowy waterpool! + + * * * * * + +"I had never dreamed that there could be anything so wonderful in the +whole world. My father had told me of many beautiful and holy and +glorious things, of all the heavenly mysteries by which those who know +live for ever, all the things which the Doctor and my uncle and the +other silly clergymen in the Chapel ...[1] because they don't really +know anything at all about them, only their names, so they are like dogs +and pigs and asses who have somehow found their way into a beautiful +room, full of precious and delicate treasures. These things my father +told me of long ago, of the Great Mystery of the Offering. + +[Footnote 1: A highly Rabelaisian phrase is omitted.] + +"And I have learned the wonders of the old venerable saints that once +were marvels in our land, as the Welch poem says, and of all the great +works that shone around their feet as they went upon the mountains and +sought the deserts of ocean. I have seen their marks and writings cut on +the edges of the rocks. I know where Sagramnus lies buried in Wlad +Morgan. And I shall not forget how I saw the Blessed Cup of Teilo Agyos +drawn out from golden veils on Mynydd Mawr, when the stars poured out of +the jewel, and I saw the sea of the saints and the spiritual things in +Cor-arbennic. My father read out to me all the histories of Teilo, Dewi, +and Iltyd, of their marvellous chalices and altars of Paradise from +which they made the books of the Graal afterwards; and all these things +are beautiful to me. But, as the Anointed Bard said: 'With the bodily +lips I receive the drink of mortal vineyards; with spiritual +understanding wine from the garths of the undying. May Mihangel +intercede for me that these may be mingled in one cup; let the door +between body and soul be thrown open. For in that day earth will have +become Paradise, and the secret sayings of the bards shall be verified.' +I always knew what this meant, though my father told me that many people +thought it obscure or, rather, nonsense. But it is just the same really +as another poem by the same Bard, where he says: + + "'My sin was found out, and when the old women on the bridge pointed + at me I was ashamed; + I was deeply grieved when the boys shouted rebukes as I went from + Caer-Newydd. + How is it that I was not ashamed before the Finger of the Almighty? + I did not suffer agony at the rebuke of the Most High. + The fist of Rhys Fawr is more dreadful to me than the hand of God.' + +"He means, I think, that our great loss is that we separate what is one +and make it two; and then, having done so, we make the less real into +the more real, as if we thought the glass made to hold wine more +important than the wine it holds. And this is what I had felt, for it +was only twice that I had known wonders in my body, when I saw the Cup +of Teilo sant and when the mountains appeared in vision, and so, as the +Bard says, the door is shut. The life of bodily things is _hard_, just +as the wineglass is hard. We can touch it and feel it and see it always +before us. The wine is drunk and forgotten; it cannot be held. I believe +the air about us is just as substantial as a mountain or a cathedral, +but unless we remind ourselves we think of the air as nothing. It is not +_hard_. But now I was in Paradise, for body and soul were molten in one +fire and went up in one flame. The mortal and the immortal vines were +made one. Through the joy of the body I possessed the joy of the +spirit. And it was so strange to think that all this was through a +woman--through a woman I had seen dozens of times and had thought +nothing of, except that she was pleasant-looking and that the colour of +her hair, like copper, was very beautiful. + +"I cannot understand it. I cannot feel that she is really Nelly Foran +who opens the door and waits at table, for she is a miracle. How I +should have wondered once if I had seen a stone by the roadside become a +jewel of fire and glory! But if that were to happen, it would not be so +strange as what happened to me. I cannot see now the black dress and the +servant's cap and apron. I see the wonderful, beautiful body shining +through the darkness of my room, the glimmering of the white flower in +the dark, the stars in the forest pool. + + "'O gift of the everlasting! + O wonderful and hidden mystery! + Many secrets have been vouchsafed to me. + I have been long acquainted with the wisdom of the trees; + Ash and oak and elm have communicated to me from my boyhood, + The birch and the hazel and all the trees of the green wood have + not been dumb. + There is a caldron rimmed with pearls of whose gifts I am not + ignorant. + I will speak little of it; its treasures are known to Bards. + Many went on the search of Caer-Pedryfan, + Seven alone returned with Arthur, but my spirit was present. + Seven are the apple trees in a beautiful orchard. + I have eaten of their fruit, which is not bestowed on Saxons. + I am not ignorant of a Head which is glorious and venerable. + It made perpetual entertainment for the warriors; their joys would + have been immortal. + If they had not opened the door of the south, they could have + feasted for ever, + Listening to the song of the Fairy Birds of Rhiannon. + Let not anyone instruct me concerning the Glassy Isle, + In the garments of the saints who returned from it were rich odours + of Paradise. + All this I knew and yet my knowledge was ignorance, + For one day, as I walked by Caer-rhiu in the principal forest of + Gwent, + I saw golden Myfanwy, as she bathed in the brook Tarógi. + Her hair flowed about her. Arthur's crown had dissolved into a + shining mist. + I gazed into her blue eyes as it were into twin heavens. + All the parts of her body were adornments and miracles. + O gift of the everlasting! + O wonderful and hidden mystery! + When I embraced Myfanwy a moment became immortality!'[2] + +[Footnote 2: Translated from the Welsh verses quoted in the notebook.] + +"And yet I daresay this 'golden Myfanwy' was what people call 'a common +girl,' and perhaps she did rough, hard work, and nobody thought anything +of her till the Bard found her bathing in the brook of Tarógi. The birds +in the wood said, when they saw the nightingale: 'This is a contemptible +stranger!' + +"_June 24._ Since I wrote last in this book the summer has come. This +morning I woke up very early, and even in this horrible place the air +was pure and bright as the sun rose up and the long beams shone on the +cedar outside the window. She came to me by the way they think is locked +and fastened, and, just as the world is white and gold at the dawn, so +was she. A blackbird began to sing beneath the window. I think it came +from far, for it sang to me of morning on the mountain, and the woods +all still, and a little bright brook rushing down the hillside between +dark green alders, and air that must be blown from heaven. + + There is a bird that sings in the valley of the Soar. + Dewi and Tegfeth and Cybi preside over that region; + Sweet is the valley, sweet the sound of its waters. + + There is a bird that sings in the valley of the Soar; + Its voice is golden, like the ringing of the saints' bells; + Sweet is the valley, echoing with melodies. + + There is a bird that sings in the valley of the Soar; + Tegfeth in the south won red martyrdom. + Her song is heard in the perpetual choirs of heaven. + + There is a bird that sings in the valley of the Soar; + Dewi in the west had an altar from Paradise. + He taught the valleys of Britain to resound with Alleluia. + + There is a bird that sings in the valley of the Soar; + Cybi in the north was the teacher of Princes. + Through him Edlogan sings praise to heaven. + + There is a bird that sings in the valley of the Soar + When shall I hear again the notes of its melody? + When shall I behold once more Gwladys in that valley?'[3] + +[Footnote 3: The following translation of these verses appeared in +_Poems from the Old Bards_, by Taliesin, Bristol, 1812: + + "In Soar's sweet valley, where the sound + Of holy anthems once was heard + From many a saint, the hills prolong + Only the music of the bird. + + In Soar's sweet valley, where the brook + With many a ripple flows along, + Delicious prospects meet the eye, + The ear is charmed with _Phil'mel's_ song. + + In Soar's sweet valley once a Maid, + Despising worldly prospects gay, + Resigned her note in earthly choirs + Which now in Heaven must sound alway. + + In Soar's sweet valley David preached; + His Gospel accents so beguiled + The savage Britons, that they turned + Their fiercest cries to music mild. + + In Soar's sweet valley Cybi taught + To haughty Prince the Holy Law, + The way to Heaven he showed, and then + The subject tribes inspired with awe. + + In Soar's sweet valley still the song + Of Phil'mel sounds and checks alarms. + But when shall I once more renew + Those heavenly hours in Gladys' arms?" + +"Taliesin" was the pseudonym of an amiable clergyman, the Reverend Owen +Thomas, for many years curate of Llantrisant. He died in 1820, at the +great age of eighty-four. His original poetry in Welsh was reputed as +far superior to his translations, and he made a very valuable and +curious collection of "Cymric Antiquities," which remains in manuscript +in the keeping of his descendants.] + +"When I think of what I know, of the wonders of darkness and the wonders +of dawn, I cannot help believing that I have found something which all +the world has lost. I have heard some of the fellows talking about +women. Their words and their stories are filthy, and nonsense, too. One +would think that if monkeys and pigs could talk about their she-monkeys +and sows, it would be just like that. I might have thought that, being +only boys, they knew nothing about it, and were only making up nasty, +silly tales out of their nasty, silly minds. But I have heard the poor +women in the town screaming and scolding at their men, and the men +swearing back; and when they think they are making love, it is the most +horrible of all. + +"And it is not only the boys and the poor people. There are the masters +and their wives. Everybody knows that the Challises and the Redburns +'fight like cats,' as they say, and that the Head's daughter was 'put up +for auction' and bought by the rich manufacturer from Birmingham--a +horrible, fat beast, more than twice her age, with eyes like pig's. They +called it a splendid match. + +"So I began to wonder whether perhaps there are very few people in the +world who know; whether the real secret is lost like the great city that +was drowned in the sea and only seen by one or two. Perhaps it is more +like those shining Isles that the saints sought for, where the deep +apple orchards are, and all the delights of Paradise. But you had to +give up everything and get into a boat without oar or sails if you +wanted to find Avalon or the Glassy Isle. And sometimes the saints +could stand on the rocks and see those Islands far away in the midst of +the sea, and smell the sweet odours and hear the bells ringing for the +feast, when other people could see and hear nothing at all. + +"I often think now how strange it would be if it were found out that +nearly everybody is like those who stood on the rocks and could only see +the waves tossing and stretching far away, and the blue sky and the mist +in the distance. I mean, if it turned out that we have all been in the +wrong about everything; that we live in a world of the most wonderful +treasures which we see all about us, but we don't understand, and kick +the jewels into the dirt, and use the chalices for slop-pails and make +the holy vestments into dish-cloths, while we worship a great beast--a +monster, with the head of a monkey, the body of a pig and the hind legs +of a goat, with swarming lice crawling all over it. Suppose that the +people that they speak of now as 'superstitious' and 'half-savages' +should turn out to be in the right, and very wise, while we are all +wrong and great fools! It would be something like the man who lived in +the Bright Palace. The Palace had a hundred and one doors. A hundred of +them opened into gardens of delight, pleasure-houses, beautiful bowers, +wonderful countries, fairy seas, caves of gold and hills of diamonds, +into all the most splendid places. But one door led into a cesspool, and +that was the only door that the man ever opened. It may be that his sons +and his grandsons have been opening that one door ever since, till they +have forgotten that there are any others, so if anyone dares to speak of +the ways to the garden of delight or the hills of gold he is called a +madman, or a very wicked person. + +"_July 15._ The other day a very strange thing happened. I had gone for +a short walk out of the town before dinner on the Dunham road and came +as far as the four ways where the roads cross. It is rather pretty for +Lupton just there; there is a plot of grass with a big old elm tree in +the middle of it, and round the tree is a rough sort of seat, where +tramps and such people are often resting. As I came along I heard some +sort of music coming from the direction of the tree; it was like fairies +dancing, and then there were strange solemn notes like the priests' +singing, and a choir answered in a deep, rolling swell of sound, and the +fairies danced again; and I thought somehow of a grey church high on the +cliff above a singing sea, and the Fair People outside dancing on the +close turf, while the service was going on all the while. As I came +nearer I heard the sea waves and the wind and the cry of the seagulls, +and again the high, wonderful chanting, as if the fairies and the rocks +and the waves and the wild birds were all subject to that which was +being done within the church. I wondered what it could be, and then I +saw there was an old ragged man sitting on the seat under the tree, +playing the fiddle all to himself, and rocking from side to side. He +stopped directly he saw me, and said: + +"'Ah, now, would your young honour do yourself the pleasure of giving +the poor old fiddler a penny or maybe two: for Lupton is the very hell +of a town altogether, and when I play to dirty rogues the Reel of the +Warriors, they ask for something about Two Obadiahs--the devil's black +curse be on them! And it's but dry work playing to the leaf and the +green sod--the blessing of the holy saints be on your honour now, this +day, and for ever! 'Tis but a scarcity of beer that I have tasted for a +long day, I assure your honour.' + +"I had given him a shilling because I thought his music so wonderful. He +looked at me steadily as he finished talking, and his face changed. I +thought he was frightened, he stared so oddly. I asked him if he was +ill. + +"'May I be forgiven,' he said, speaking quite gravely, without that +wheedling way he had when he first spoke. 'May I be forgiven for talking +so to one like yourself; for this day I have begged money from one that +is to gain Red Martyrdom; and indeed that is yourself.' + +"He took off his old battered hat and crossed himself, and I stared at +him, I was so amazed at what he said. He picked up his fiddle, and +saying 'May you remember me in the time of your glory,' he walked +quickly off, going away from Lupton, and I lost sight of him at the turn +of the road. I suppose he was half crazy, but he played wonderfully." + + + + +IV + + +I + +The materials for the history of an odd episode in Ambrose Meyrick's +life are to be found in a sort of collection he made under the title +"Concerning Gaiety." The episode in question dates from about the middle +of his eighteenth year. + +"I do not know"--he says--"how it all happened. I had been leading two +eager lives. On the outside I was playing games and going up in the +school with a rush, and in the inside I was being gathered more and more +into the sanctuaries of immortal things. All life was transfigured for +me into a radiant glory, into a quickening and catholic sacrament; and, +the fooleries of the school apart, I had more and more the sense that I +was a participant in a splendid and significant ritual. I think I was +beginning to be a little impatient with the outward signs: I _think_ I +had a feeling that it was a pity that one had to drink wine out of a +cup, a pity that kernels seemed to imply shells. I wanted, in my heart, +to know nothing but the wine itself flowing gloriously from vague, +invisible fountains, to know the things 'that really are' in their +naked beauty, without their various and elaborate draperies. I doubt +whether Ruskin understood the motive of the monk who walked amidst the +mountains with his eyes cast down lest he might see the depths and +heights about him. Ruskin calls this a narrow asceticism; perhaps it was +rather the result of a very subtle aestheticism. The monk's inner vision +might be fixed with such rapture on certain invisible heights and +depths, that he feared lest the sight of their visible counterparts +might disturb his ecstasy. It is probable, I think, that there is a +point where the ascetic principle and the aesthetic become one and the +same. The Indian fakir who distorts his limbs and lies on spikes is at +the one extreme, the men of the Italian Renaissance were at the other. +In each case the true line is distorted and awry, for neither system +attains either sanctity or beauty in the highest. The fakir dwells in +_surfaces_, and the Renaissance artist dwelt in _surfaces_; in neither +case is there the inexpressible radiance of the invisible world shining +through the surfaces. A cup of Cellini's work is no doubt very lovely; +but it is not beautiful in the same way as the old Celtic cups are +beautiful. + +"I think I was in some danger of going wrong at the time I am talking +about. I was altogether too impatient of surfaces. Heaven forbid the +notion that I was ever in danger of being in any sense of the word a +Protestant; but perhaps I was rather inclined to the fundamental heresy +on which Protestantism builds its objection to what is called Ritual. I +suppose this heresy is really Manichee; it is a charge of corruption and +evil made against the visible universe, which is affirmed to be not +'very good,' but 'very bad'--or, at all events, too bad to be used as +the vehicle of spiritual truth. It is extraordinary by the way, that the +thinking Protestant does not perceive that this principle damns all +creeds and all Bibles and all teaching quite as effectually as it damns +candles and chasubles--unless, indeed, the Protestant thinks that the +logical understanding is a competent vehicle of Eternal Truth, and that +God can be properly and adequately defined and explained in human +speech. If he thinks _that_, he is an ass. Incense, vestments, candles, +all ceremonies, processions, rites--all these things are miserably +inadequate; but they do not abound in the horrible pitfalls, +misapprehensions, errors which are inseparable from speech of men used +as an expression of the Church. In a savage dance there may be a vast +deal more of the truth than in many of the hymns in our hymn-books. + +"After all, as Martinez said, we must even be content with what we have, +whether it be censers or syllogisms, or both. The way of the censer is +certainly the safer, as I have said; I suppose because the ruin of the +external universe is not nearly so deep nor so virulent as the ruin of +men. A flower, a piece of gold, no doubt approach their archetypes--what +they were meant to be--much more nearly than man does; hence their +appeal is purer than the speech or the reasoning of men. + +"But in those days at Lupton my head was full of certain sentences which +I had lit upon somewhere or other--I believe they must have been +translations from some Eastern book. I knew about a dozen of these +maxims; all I can remember now are: + + "_If you desire to be inebriated: abstain from wine._" + "_If you desire beauty: look not on beautiful things._" + "_If you desire to see: let your eyes be blindfolded._" + "_If you desire love: refrain from the Beloved._" + +"I expect the paradox of these sayings pleased me. One must allow that +if one has the inborn appetite of the somewhat subtle, of the truth not +too crudely and barely expressed, there is no such atmosphere as that of +a Public School for sharpening this appetite to an edge of ravening, +indiscriminate hunger. Think of our friend the Colonel, who is by way of +being a _fin gourmet_; imagine him fixed in a boarding-house where the +meals are a repeating cycle of Irish Stew, Boiled Rabbit, Cold Mutton +and Salt Cod (without oyster or any other sause)! Then let him out and +place him in the Café Anglais. With what a fierce relish would he set +tooth into curious and sought-out dishes! It must be remembered that I +listened every Sunday in every term to one of the Doctor's sermons, and +it is really not strange that I gave an eager ear to the voice of +_Persian Wisdom_--as I think the book was called. At any rate, I kept +Nelly Foran at a distance for nine or ten months, and when I saw a +splendid sunset I averted my eyes. I longed for a love purely spiritual, +for a sunset of vision. + +"I caught glimpses, too, I think, of a much more profound _askesis_ than +this. I suppose you have the _askesis_ in its simplest, most +rationalised form in the Case of Bill the Engine-driver--I forget in +what great work of _Theologia Moralis_ I found the instance; perhaps +Bill was really _Quidam_ in the original, and his occupation stated as +that of _Nauarchus_. At all events, Bill is fond of four-ale; but he had +perceived that two pots of this beverage consumed before a professional +journey tended to make him rather sleepy, rather less alert, than he +might be in the execution of his very responsible duties. Hence Bill, +considering this, wisely contents himself with _one_ pot before mounting +on his cab. He has deprived himself of a sensible good in order that an +equally sensible but greater good may be secured--in order that he and +the passengers may run no risks on the journey. Next to this simple +asceticism comes, I suppose, the ordinary discipline of the Church--the +abandonment of sensible goods to secure spiritual ends, the turning away +from the type to the prototype, from the sight of the eyes to the vision +of the soul. For in the true asceticism, whatever its degree, there is +always action to a certain end, to a perceived good. Does the +self-tormenting fakir act from this motive? I don't know; but if he does +not, his discipline is not asceticism at all, but folly, and impious +folly, too. If he mortifies himself merely for the sake of mortifying +himself; then he defiles and blasphemes the Temple. This in parenthesis. + +"But, as I say, I had a very dim and distant glimpse of another region +of the _askesis_. Mystics will understand me when I say that there are +moments when the Dark Night of the Soul is seen to be brighter than her +brightest day; there are moments when it is necessary to drive away even +the angels that there may be place for the Highest. One may ascend into +regions so remote from the common concerns of life that it becomes +difficult to procure the help of analogy, even in the terms and +processes of the Arts. But suppose a painter--I need not say that I mean +an artist--who is visited by an idea so wonderful, so super-exalted in +its beauty that he recognises his impotence; he knows that no pigments +and no technique can do anything but grossly parody his vision. Well, he +will show his greatness by _not_ attempting to paint that vision: he +will write on a bare canvass _vidit anima sed non pinxit manus_. And I +am sure that there are many romances which have never been written. It +was a highly paradoxical, even a dangerous philosophy that affirmed God +to be rather _Non-Ens_ than _Ens_; but there are moods in which one +appreciates the thought. + +"I think I caught, as I say, a distant vision of that Night which excels +the Day in its splendour. It began with the eyes turned away from the +sunset, with lips that refused kisses. Then there came a command to the +heart to cease from longing for the dear land of Gwent, to cease from +that aching desire that had never died for so many years for the sight +of the old land and those hills and woods of most sweet and anguished +memory. I remember once, when I was a great lout of sixteen, I went to +see the Lupton Fair. I always liked the great booths and caravans and +merry-go-rounds, all a blaze of barbaric green and red and gold, flaming +and glowing in the middle of the trampled, sodden field against a +background of Lupton and wet, grey autumn sky. There were country folk +then who wore smock-frocks and looked like men in them, too. One saw +scores of these brave fellows at the Fair: dull, good Jutes with flaxen +hair that was almost white, and with broad pink faces. I liked to see +them in the white robe and the curious embroidery; they were a note of +wholesomeness, an embassage from the old English village life to our +filthy 'industrial centre.' It was odd to see how they stared about +them; they wondered, I think, at the beastliness of the place, and yet, +poor fellows, they felt bound to admire the evidence of so much money. +Yes, they were of Old England; they savoured of the long, bending, broad +village street, the gable ends, the grave fronts of old mellow bricks, +the thatched roofs here and there, the bulging window of the 'village +shop,' the old church in decorous, somewhat dull perpendicular among the +elms, and, above all, the old tavern--that excellent abode of honest +mirth and honest beer, relic of the time when there were men, and men +who _lived_. Lupton is very far removed from Hardy's land, and yet as I +think of these country-folk in their smock-frocks all the essence of +Hardy is distilled for me; I see the village street all white in snow, a +light gleaming very rarely from an upper window, and presently, amid +ringing bells, one hears the carol-singers begin: + + '_Remember Adam's fall, + O thou man._' + +"And I love to look at the whirl of the merry-go-rounds, at the people +sitting with grave enjoyment on those absurd horses as they circle round +and round till one's eyes were dazed. Drums beat and thundered, strange +horns blew raucous calls from all quarters, and the mechanical music to +which those horses revolved belched and blazed and rattled out its +everlasting monotony, checked now and again by the shriek of the steam +whistle, groaning into silence for a while: then the tune clanged out +once more, and the horses whirled round and round. + +"But on this Fair Day of which I am speaking I left the booths and the +golden, gleaming merry-go-rounds for the next field, where horses were +excited to brief madness and short energy. I had scarcely taken up my +stand when a man close by me raised his voice to a genial shout as he +saw a friend a little way off. And he spoke with the beloved accent of +Gwent, with those tones that come to me more ravishing, more enchanting +than all the music in the world. I had not heard them for years of weary +exile! Just a phrase or two of common greeting in those chanting +accents: the Fair passed away, was whirled into nothingness, its +shouting voices, the charging of horses, drum and trumpet, clanging, +metallic music--it rushed down into the abyss. There was the silence +that follows a great peal of thunder; it was early morning and I was +standing in a well-remembered valley, beside the blossoming thorn bush, +looking far away to the wooded hills that kept the East, above the +course of the shining river. I was, I say, a great lout of sixteen, but +the tears flooded my eyes, my heart swelled with its longing. + +"Now, it seemed, I was to quell such thoughts as these, to desire no +more the fervent sunlight on the mountain, or the sweet scent of the +dusk about the runnings of the brook. I had been very fond of 'going for +walks'--walks of the imagination. I was afraid, I suppose, that unless +by constant meditation I renewed the shape of the old land in my mind, +its image might become a blurred and fading picture; I should forget +little by little the ways of those deep, winding lanes that took courses +that were almost subterranean over hill and vale, by woodside and +waterside, narrow, cavernous, leaf-vaulted; cool in the greatest heats +of summer. And the wandering paths that crossed the fields, that led one +down into places hidden and remote, into still depths where no one save +myself ever seemed to enter, that sometimes ended with a certain +solemnity at a broken stile in a hedgerow grown into a thicket--within a +plum tree returning to the savage life of the wood, a forest, perhaps, +of blue lupins, and a great wild rose about the ruined walls of a +house--all these ways I must keep in mind as if they were mysteries and +great secrets, as indeed they were. So I strolled in memory through the +Pageant of Gwent: 'lest I should forget the region of the flowers, lest +I should become unmindful of the wells and the floods.' + +"But the time came, as I say, when it was represented to me that all +this was an indulgence which, for a season at least, must be +pretermitted. With an effort I voided my soul of memory and desire and +weeping; when the idols of doomed Twyn-Barlwm, and great Mynydd Maen, +and the silver esses of the Usk appeared before me, I cast them out; I +would not meditate white Caerleon shining across the river. I endured, I +think, the severest pains. De Quincey, that admirable artist, that +searcher into secrets and master of mysteries, has described my pains +for me under the figure of the Opium Eater breaking the bonds of his +vice. How often, when the abominations of Lupton, its sham energies, its +sham morals, its sham enthusiasms, all its battalia of cant surged and +beat upon me, have I been sorely tempted to yield, to suffer no more the +press of folly, but to steal away by a secret path I knew, to dwell in a +secure valley where the foolish could never trouble me. Sometimes I +'fell,' as I drank deep then of the magic well-water, and went astray in +the green dells and avenues of the wildwood. Still I struggled to +refrain my heart from these things, to keep my spirit under the severe +discipline of abstention; and with a constant effort I succeeded more +and more. + +"But there was a yet deeper depth in this process of _catharsis_. I have +said that sometimes one must expel the angels that God may have room; +and now the strict ordinance was given that I should sever myself from +that great dream of Celtic sanctity that for me had always been _the_ +dream, the innermost shrine in which I could take refuge, the house of +sovran medicaments where all the wounds of soul and body were healed. +One does not wish to be harsh; we must admit, I suppose, that moderate, +sensible Anglicanism must have _something_ in it--since the absolute +sham cannot very well continue to exist. Let us say, then, that it is +highly favourable to a respectable and moral life, that it encourages a +temperate and well-regulated spirit of devotion. It was certainly a very +excellent and (according to her lights) devout woman who, in her version +of the _Anima Christi_ altered 'inebriate me' to 'purify me,' and it was +a good cleric who hated the Vulgate reading, _calix meus inebrians_. My +father had always instructed me that we must conform outwardly, and bear +with _Dearly Beloved Brethren_; while we celebrated in our hearts the +Ancient Mass of the Britons, and waited for Cadwaladr to return. I +reverenced his teaching, I still reverence it, and agree that we must +conform; but in my heart I have always doubted whether moderate +Anglicanism be Christianity in any sense, whether it even deserves to be +called a religion at all. I do not doubt, of course, that many truly +religious people have professed it: I speak of the system, and of the +atmosphere which emanates from it. And when the Public School _ethos_ is +added to this--well, the resultant teaching comes pretty much to the +dogma that Heaven and the Head are strict allies. One must not +degenerate into ecclesiastical controversy; I merely want to say that I +never dreamed of looking for religion in our Chapel services. No doubt +the _Te Deum_ was _still the Te Deum_, but the noblest of hymns is +degraded, obscured, defiled, made ridiculous, if you marry it to a tune +that would disgrace a penny gaff. Personally, I think that the airs on +the piano-organs are much more reverend compositions than Anglican +chants, and I am sure that many popular hymn tunes are vastly inferior +in solemnity to _'E Dunno where 'e are_. + +"No; the religion that led me and drew me and compelled me was that +wonderful and doubtful mythos of the Celtic Church. It was the +study--nay, more than the study, the enthusiasm--of my father's life; +and as I was literally baptized with water from a Holy Well, so +spiritually the great legend of the Saints and their amazing lives had +tinged all my dearest aspirations, had become to me the glowing vestment +of the Great Mystery. One may sometimes be deeply interested in the +matter of a tale while one is wearied or sickened by the manner of it; +one may have to embrace the bright divinity on the horrid lips of the +serpent of Cos. Or, on the other hand, the manner--the style--may be +admirable, and the matter a mere nothing but a ground for the +embroidery. But for me the Celtic Mythos was the Perfect Thing, the +King's Daughter: _Omnis gloria ejus filiæ Regis ab, intus, in fimbriis +aureis circumamicta varietatibus_. I have learned much more of this +great mystery since those days--I have seen, that is, how entirely, how +absolutely my boyhood's faith was justified; but even then with but +little knowledge I was rapt at the thought of this marvellous +knight-errantry, of this Christianity which was not a moral code, with +some sort of metaphorical Heaven held out as a reward for its due +observance, but a great mystical adventure into the unknown sanctity. +Imagine a Bishop of the Established Church getting into a boat without +oar or sails! Imagine him, if you can, doing anything remotely analagous +to such an action. Conceive the late Archbishop Tait going apart into +the chapel at Lambeth for three days and three nights; then you may +well conceive the people in the opposite bank being dazzled with the +blinding supernatural light poured forth from the chapel windows. Of +course, the end of the Celtic Church was ruin and confusion--but Don +Quixote failed and fell, while Sancho Panza lived a fat, prosperous +peasant. He inherited, I think, a considerable sum from the knight, and +was, no doubt, a good deal looked up to in the village. + +"Yes; the Celtic Church was the Company of the Great Errantry, of the +Great Mystery, and, though all the history of it seems but a dim and +shadowy splendour, its burning rose-red lamp yet glows for a few, and +from my earliest childhood I was indoctrinated in the great Rite of +Cor-arbennic. When I was still very young I had been humoured with the +sight of a wonderful Relic of the Saints--never shall I forget that +experience of the holy magic of sanctity. Every little wood, every rock +and fountain, and every running stream of Gwent were hallowed for me by +some mystical and entrancing legend, and the thought of this High +Spiritual City and its Blessed Congregation could, in a moment, exercise +and drive forth from me all the ugly and foolish and gibbering spectres +that made up the life of that ugly and foolish place where I was +imprisoned. + +"Now, with a sorrowful farewell, I bade good-bye for a brief time (as I +hoped it would be) to this golden legend; my heart was emptied of its +treasures and its curious shows, and the lights on the altars were put +out, and the images were strictly veiled. Hushed was the chanting in the +Sovereign and Perpetual Choir, hidden were the High Hallows of the +Saints, no more did I follow them to their cells in the wild hills, no +more did I look from the rocks in the west and see them set forth for +Avalon. Alas! + +"A great silence seemed to fall upon me, the silence of the depths +beneath the earth. And with the silence there was darkness. Only in a +hidden place there was reserved the one taper--the Light of Conformity, +of a perfect submission, that from the very excess of sorrow and +deprivation drew its secret but quintessential joy. I am reminded, now +that I look back upon this great purgation of the soul, of the story +that I once read of the Arabic Alchemist. He came to the Caliph Haroun +with a strange and extravagant proposal. Haroun sat in all his +splendour, his viziers, his chamberlains, his great officers about him, +in his golden court which displayed all the wonders and superfluities of +the East. He gave judgment; the wicked were punished, the virtuous were +rewarded; God's name was exalted, the Prophet was venerated. There came +before the Commander of the Faithful a poor old man in the poor and +ragged robes of a wandering poet; he was oppressed by the weight of his +years, and his entrance was like the entrance of misery. So wretched was +his appearance that one of the chamberlains, who was well acquainted +with the poets, could not help quoting the well-known verses: + + "'Between the main and a drop of rain the difference seen is + nothing great. + The sun so bright and the taper's light are alike and one save + in pomp and state. + In the grain of sand and in all the land what may ye arraign as + disparate? + A crust of bread and a King's board spread will hunger's lust alike + abate. + With the smallest blade or with host arrayed the Ruler may quench + his gall and hate. + A stone in a box and a quarry of rocks may be shown to be of an + equal freight. + With a sentence bold or with gold untold the lover may hold or + capture his mate. + The King and the Bard may alike be debarred from the fold of the + Lord Compassionate.'" + +"The Commander of the Faithful praised God, the Merciful, the +Compassionate, the King of the Day of Judgment, and caused the +chamberlain to be handsomely rewarded. He then enquired of the old man +for what reason he came before him, and the beggar (as, indeed, he +seemed) informed the Caliph that he had for many years prosecuted his +studies in magic, alchemy, astrology and geomancy and all other curious +and surprising arts, in Spain, Grand Cairo, the land of the Moors, +India, China, in various Cities of the Infidels; in fact, in every +quarter of the world where magicians were to be found. In proof of his +proficiency he produced a little box which he carried about him for the +purpose of his geomantic operations and asked anyone who was willing to +stand forth, that he might hear his whole life, past, present and +future. The Caliph ordered one of his officers to submit himself to this +ordeal, and the beggar having made the points in the sand, and having +erected the figure according to the rules of the geomantic art, +immediately informed the officer of all the most hidden transactions in +which he had been engaged, including several matters which this officer +thought had been secrets locked in his own breast. He also foretold his +death in a year's time from a certain herb, and so it fell out, for he +was strangled with a hempen cord by order of the Caliph. In the +meantime, the Commander of the Faithful and all about him were +astonished, and the Beggar Magician was ordered to proceed with his +story. He spoke at great length, and everyone remarked the elegance and +propriety of his diction, which was wanting in no refinement of +classical eloquence. But the sum of his speech was this--that he had +discovered the greatest wonder of the whole world, the name of which he +declared was Asrar, and by this talisman he said that the Caliph might +make himself more renowned than all the kings that had ever reigned on +the earth, not excepting King Solomon, the son of David. This was the +method of the operation which the beggar proposed. The Commander of the +Faithful was to gather together all the wealth of his entire kingdom, +omitting nothing that could possibly be discovered; and while this was +being done the magician said that he would construct a furnace of +peculiar shape in which all these splendours and magnificences and +treasures of the world must be consumed in a certain fire of art, +prepared with wisdom. And at last, he continued, after the operation had +endured many days, the fire being all the while most curiously governed, +there would remain but one drop no larger than a pearl, but glorious as +the sun to the moon and all the starry heavens and the wonders of the +compassionate; and with this drop the Caliph Haroun might heal all the +sorrows of the universe. Both the Commander of the Faithful and all his +viziers and officers were stupefied by this proposal, and most of the +assemblage considered the beggar to be a madman. The Caliph, however, +asked him to return the next day in order that his plans might receive +more mature consideration. + +"The beggar prostrated himself and went forth from the hall of audience, +but he returned no more, nor could it be discovered that he had been +seen again by anyone. + +"'But one drop no larger than a pearl,' and 'where there is Nothing +there is All.' I have often thought of those sentences in looking back +on that time when, as Chesson said, I was one of those 'light-hearted +and yet sturdy and reliable young fellows to whose hands the honour and +safety of England might one day be committed.' I cast all the treasures +I possessed into the alembic; again and again they were rectified by the +heat of the fire 'most curiously governed'; I saw the 'engendering of +the Crow' black as pitch, the flight of the Dove with Silver Wings, and +at last Sol rose red and glorious, and I fell down and gave thanks to +heaven for this most wonderful gift, the 'Sun blessed of the Fire.' I +had dispossessed myself of all, and I found that I possessed all; I had +thrown away all the money in my purse, and I was richer than I had ever +been; I had died, and I had found a new life in the land of the living. + +"It is curious that I should now have to explain the pertinency of all +that I have written to the title of this Note--concerning Gaiety. It +should not be necessary. The chain of thought is almost painfully +obvious. But I am afraid it is necessary. + +"Well: I once read an interesting article in the daily paper. It was +written apropos of some Shakespearean celebrations or other, and its +purport was that modern England was ever so much happier than mediæval +or Elizabethian England. It is possible that an acute logician might +find something to say on this thesis; but my interest lay in the +following passages, which I quote: + + "'Merrie England,' with its maypoles and its Whitsun Ales, and + its Shrove-tide jousts and junketings is dead for us, from the + religious point of view. The England that has survived is, + after all, a greater England still. It is Puritan England.... + The spirit has gone. Surely it is useless to revive the form. + Wherefore should the May Queen be "holy, wise, and fair," if + not to symbolise the Virgin Mary? And as for Shrove-tide, too, + what point in jollity without a fast to follow?' + +"The article is not over-illuminating, but I think the writer had caught +a glimpse of the truth that there is a deep relation between Mirth and +Sanctity; that no real mirth is possible without the apprehension of the +mysteries as its antecedent. The fast and the feast are complementary +terms. He is right; there is no point in jollity unless there is a fast +or something of the nature of a fast to follow--though, of course, there +is nothing to hinder the most advanced thinker from drinking as much +fusel-oil and raw Russian spirit as he likes. But the result of this +course is not real mirth or jollity; it is perhaps more essentially +dismal than a 'Tea' amongst the Protestant Dissenters. And, on the other +hand, true gaiety is only possible to those who have fasted; and now +perhaps it will be seen that I have been describing the preparations for +a light-hearted festival. + +"The cloud passed away from me, the restrictions and inhibitions were +suddenly removed, and I woke up one morning in dancing, bubbling +spirits, every drop of blood in my body racing with new life, my nerves +tingling and thrilling with energy. I laughed as I awoke; I was +conscious that I was to engage in a strange and fantastic adventure, +though I had not the remotest notion of what it was to be." + + +II + +Ambrose Meyrick's adventure was certainly of the fantastic order. His +fame had long been established on a sure footing with his uncle and +with everybody else, and Mr. Horbury had congratulated him with genuine +enthusiasm on his work in the examinations--the Summer term was drawing +to a close. Mr. Horbury was Ambrose's trustee, and he made no difficulty +about signing a really handsome cheque for his nephew's holiday expenses +and outfit. "There," he said "you ought to be able to do pretty well on +that. Where do you think of going?" + +Ambrose said that he had thought of North Devon, of tramping over +Exmoor, visiting the Doone country, and perhaps of working down to +Dartmoor. + +"You couldn't do better. You ought to try your hand at fishing: +wonderful sport in some of those streams. It mightn't come off at first, +but with your eye and sense of distance you'll soon make a fine angler. +If you _do_ have a turn at the trout, get hold of some local man and +make him give you a wrinkle or two. It's no good getting your flies from +town. Now, when I was fishing in Hampshire----" + +Mr. Horbury went on; but the devil of gaiety had already dictated a +wonderful scheme to Ambrose, and that night he informed Nelly Foran that +she must alter her plans; she was to come with him to France instead of +spending a fortnight at Blackpool. He carried out this mad device with +an ingenuity that poor Mr. Palmer would certainly have called +"diabolical." In the first place, there was to be a week in London--for +Nelly must have some clothes; and this week began as an experience of +high delight. It was not devoid of terror, for masters might be abroad, +and Ambrose did not wish to leave Lupton for some time. However, they +neither saw nor were seen. Arriving at St. Pancras, the luggage was left +in the station, and Ambrose, who had studied the map of London, stood +for a while on the pavement outside Scott's great masterpiece of +architecture and considered the situation with grave yet humorous +deliberation. Nelly proved herself admirably worthy of the adventure; +its monstrous audacity appealed to her, and she was in a state of +perpetual subdued laughter for some days after their arrival. Meyrick +looked about him and found that the Euston Road, being squalid and +noisy, offered few attractions; and with sudden resolution he took the +girl by the arm and steered into the heart of Bloomsbury. In this +charmingly central and yet retired quarter they found rooms in a quiet +byway which, oddly enough, looked on a green field; and under the +pleasant style of Mr. and Mr. Lupton they partook of tea while the +luggage was fetched by somebody--probably a husband--who came with a +shock of red, untidy hair from the dark bowels of the basement. They +screamed with mirth over the meal. Mr. Horbury had faults, but he kept +a good table for himself, his boys and his servants; and the exotic, +quaint flavour of the "bread" and "butter" seemed to these two young +idiots exquisitely funny. And the queer, faint, close smell, too, of the +whole house--it rushed out at one when the hall door was opened: it was +heavy, and worth its weight in gold. + +"I never know," Ambrose used to say afterwards, "whether to laugh or cry +when I have been away for some time from town, and come back and smell +that wonderful old London aroma. I don't believe it's so strong or so +rare as it used to be; I have been disappointed once or twice in houses +in quite shabby streets. It was _there_, of course, but--well, if it +were a vintage wine I should say it was a second growth of a very poor +year--Margaux, no doubt, but a Margaux of one of those very indifferent +years in the early 'seventies. Or it may be like the smell of +grease-paints; one doesn't notice it after a month or two. But I don't +think it is. + +"Still," he would go on, "I value what I can smell of it. It brings back +to me that afternoon, that hot, choking afternoon of ever so many years +ago. It was really tremendously hot--ninety-two degrees, I think I saw +in the paper the next day--and when we got out at St. Pancras the wind +came at one like a furnace blast. There was no sun visible; the sky was +bleary--a sort of sickly, smoky yellow, and the burning wind came in +gusts, and the dust hissed and rattled on the pavement. Do you know what +a low public-house smells like in London on a hot afternoon? Do you know +what London bitter tastes like on such a day--the publican being +evidently careful of his clients' health, and aware of the folly of +drinking cold beverages during a period of extreme heat? I do. Nelly, +poor dear, had warm lemonade, and I had warm beer--warm chemicals, I +mean. But the odour! Why doesn't some scientific man stop wasting his +time over a lot of useless rubbish and discover a way of bottling the +odour of the past? + +"Ah! but if he did so, in a phial of rare crystal with a stopper as +secure as the seal of Solimaun ben Daoud would I preserve one most +precious scent, inscribing on the seal, within a perfect pentagram, the +mystic legend 'No. 15, Little Russell Row.'" + +The cat had come in with the tea-tray. He was a black cat, not very +large, with a decent roundness of feature, and yet with a suggestion of +sinewy skinniness about him--the Skinniness of the wastrel, not of the +poor starveling. His bright green eyes had, as Ambrose observed, the +wisdom of Egypt; on his tomb should be inscribed "The Justified in +Sekht." He walked solemnly in front of the landlady, his body +describing strange curves, his tail waving in the air, and his ears put +back with an expression of intense cunning. He seemed delighted at "the +let," and when Nelly stroked his back he gave a loud shriek of joy and +made known his willingness to take a little refreshment. + +They laughed so heartily over their tea that when the landlady came in +to clear the things away they were still bubbling over with aimless +merriment. + +"I likes to see young people 'appy," she said pleasantly, and readily +provided a latchkey in case they cared to come in rather late. She told +them a good deal of her life: she had kept lodgings in Judd Street, near +King's Cross--a nasty, noisy street, she called it--and she seemed to +think the inhabitants a low lot. She had to do with all sorts, some good +some bad, and the business wasn't what it had been in her mother's day. + +They sat a little while on the sofa, hand in hand still consumed with +the jest of their being there at all, and imagining grotesque entrances +of Mr. Horbury or Dr. Chesson. Then they went out to wander about the +streets, to see London easily, merrily, without bothering the Monument, +or the British Museum, or Madame Tussaud's--finally, to get something to +eat, they didn't know when or where or how, and they didn't in the +least care! There was one "sight" they were not successful in avoiding: +they had not journeyed far before the great portal of the British Museum +confronted them, grandiose and gloomy. So, by the sober way of Great +Russell Street, they made their way into Tottenham Court Road and, +finally, into Oxford Street. The shops were bright and splendid, the +pavement was crowded with a hurrying multitude, as it seemed to the +country folk, though it was the dullest season of the year. It was a +great impression--decidedly London was a wonderful place. Already +Ambrose felt a curious sense of being at home in it; it was not +beautiful, but it was on the immense scale; it did something more than +vomit stinks into the air, poison into the water and rows of workmen's +houses on the land. They wandered on, and then they had the fancy that +they would like to explore the regions to the south; it was so +impossible, as Ambrose said, to know where they would find themselves +eventually. He carefully lost himself within a few minutes of Oxford +Street. A few turnings to right and then to left; the navigation of +strange alleys soon left them in the most satisfactory condition of +bewilderment; the distinctions of the mariner's compass, its pedantry of +east and west, north and south, were annihilated and had ceased to be; +it was an adventure in a trackless desert, in the Australian bush, but +on safer ground and in an infinitely more entertaining scene. At first +they had passed through dark streets, Georgian and Augustan ways, gloomy +enough, and half deserted; there were grave houses, with many stories of +windows, now reduced to printing offices, to pickle warehouses, to odd +crafts such as those of the metal assayer, the crucible maker, the +engraver of seals, the fabricator of Boule. But how wonderful it was to +see the actual place where those things were done! Ambrose had read of +such arts, but had always thought of them as existing in a vague +void--if some of them even existed at all in those days: but there in +the windows were actual crucibles, strange-looking curvilinear pots of +grey-yellowish ware, the veritable instruments of the Magnum Opus, +inventions of Arabia. He was no longer astonished when a little farther +he saw a harpsichord, which had only been a name to him, a beautiful +looking thing, richly inlaid, with its date--1780--inscribed on a card +above it. It was now utterly wonderland: he could very likely buy armour +round the corner; and he had scarcely formed the thought when a very +fine sixteenth-century suit, richly damascened, rose up before him, +handsomely displayed between two black jacks. These were the +comparatively silent streets; but they turned a corner, and what a +change! All the roadway, not the pavement only, seemed full of a +strolling, chatting, laughing mob of people: the women were bareheaded, +and one heard nothing but the roll of the French "r," torrents of +sonorous sound trolled out with the music of happy song. The papers in +the shops were all French, ensigns on every side proclaimed "Vins Fins," +"Beaune Supérieur": the tobacconists kept their tobacco in square blue, +yellow and brown packets; "Charcuterie" made a brave and appetising +show. And here was a "Café Restaurant: au château de Chinon." The name +was enough; they could not dine elsewhere, and Ambrose felt that he was +honouring the memory of the great Rabelais. + +It was probably not a very good dinner. It was infinitely better than +the Soho dinner of these days, for the Quarter had hardly begun to yield +to the attack of Art, Intellect and the Suburbs which, between them, +have since destroyed the character and unction of many a good cook-shop. +Ambrose only remembered two dishes; the _pieds de porc grillés_ and the +salad. The former he thought both amusing and delicious, and the latter +was strangely and artfully compounded of many herbs, of little vinegar, +of abundant Provençal oil, with the _chapon_, or crust rubbed with +garlic, reposing at the bottom of the bowl after Madame had "tormented" +the ingredients--the salad was a dish from Fairyland. There be no such +salads now in all the land of Soho. + +"Let me celebrate, above all, the little red wine," says Ambrose in a +brief dithyrambic note. "Not in any mortal vineyard did its father grape +ripen; it was not nourished by the warmth of the visible sun, nor were +the rains that made it swell common waters from the skies above us. Not +even in the Chinonnais, sacred earth though that be, was the press made +that caused its juices to be poured into the _cuve_, nor was the humming +of its fermentation heard in any of the good cellars of the lower +Touraine. But in that region which Keats celebrates when he sings the +'Mermaid Tavern' was this juice engendered--the vineyard lay low down in +the south, among the starry plains where is the _Terra Turonensis +Celestis_, that unimaginable country which Rabelais beheld in his vision +where mighty Gargantua drinks from inexhaustible vats eternally, where +Pantagruel is athirst for evermore, though he be satisfied continually. +There, in the land of the Crowned Immortal Tosspots was that wine of +ours vintaged, red with the rays of the Dog-star, made magical by the +influence of Venus, fertilised by the happy aspect of Mercury. O rare, +superabundant and most excellent juice, fruit of all fortunate stars, by +thee were we translated, exalted into the fellowship of that Tavern of +which the old poet writes: _Mihi est propositum in Taberna mori!_" + +There were few English people in the Château de Chinon--indeed, it is +doubtful whether there was more than one--the ménage Lupton excepted. +This one compatriot happened to be a rather remarkable man--it was +Carrol. He was not in the vanguard of anything; he knew no journalists +and belonged to no clubs; he was not even acquainted in the most distant +manner with a single person who could be called really influential or +successful. He was an obscure literary worker, who published an odd +volume every five or six years: now and then he got notices, when there +was no press of important stuff in the offices, and sometimes a kindly +reviewer predicted that he would come out all right in time, though he +had still much to learn. About a year before he died, an intelligent +reading public was told that one or two things of his were rather good; +then, on his death, it was definitely discovered that the five volumes +of verse occupied absolutely unique ground, that a supreme poet had been +taken from us, a poet who had raised the English language into a fourth +dimension of melody and magic. The intelligent reading public read him +no more than they ever did, but they buy him in edition after edition, +from large quarto to post octavo; they buy him put up into little +decorated boxes; they buy him on Japanese vellum; they buy him +illustrated by six different artists; they discuss no end of articles +about him; they write their names in the Carrol Birthday Book; they set +up the Carrol Calendar in their boudoirs; they have quotations from him +in Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral; they sing him in the +famous Carrol Cycle of Song; and, last and best of all, a brilliant +American playwright is talking even now of dramatising him. The Carrol +Club, of course, is ancient history. Its membership is confined to the +ranks of intellect and art; it invites to its dinners foreign princes, +bankers, major-generals and other persons of distinction--all of whom, +of course, are intensely interested in the master's book; and the record +and praise of the Club are in all the papers. It is a pity that Carrol +is dead. He would not have sworn: he would have grinned. + +Even then, though he was not glorious, he was observant, and he left a +brief note, a sort of thumb-nail sketch, of his impressions that night +at the Château de Chinon. + +"I was sitting in my old corner," he says, "wondering why the devil I +wrote so badly on the whole, and what the devil I was going to do with +the subject that I had tackled. The dinner was not so bad at the old +Château in those days, though now they say the plate-glass is the best +dish in the establishment. I liked the old place; it was dingy and low +down and rather disreputable, I fancy, and the company was miscellaneous +French with a dash of Italian. Nearly all of us knew each other, and +there were regulars who sat in the same seat night after night. I liked +it all. I liked the coarse tablecloths and the black-handled knives and +the lead spoons and the damp, adhesive salt, and the coarse, strong, +black pepper that one helped with a fork handle. Then there was Madame +sitting on high, and I never saw an uglier woman nor a more +good-natured. I was getting through my roast fowl and salad that +evening, when two wonderful people came in, obviously from fairyland! I +saw they had never been in such a place in all their lives before--I +don't believe either of them had set foot in London until that day, and +their wonder and delight and enjoyment of it all were so enormous that I +had another helping of food and an extra half-bottle of wine. I enjoyed +them, too, in their way, but I could see that _their_ fowl and _their_ +wine were not a bit the same as mine. _I_ once knew the restaurant they +were really dining at--Grand Café de Paradis--some such name as that. He +was an extraordinary looking chap, quite young, I should fancy, black +hair, dark skin, and such burning eyes! I don't know why, but I felt he +was a bit out of his setting, and I kept thinking how I should like to +see him in a monk's robe. Madame was different. She was a lovely girl +with amazing copper hair; dressed rather badly--of the people, I should +imagine. But what a gaiety she had! I couldn't hear what they were +saying, but one had to smile with sheer joy at the sight of her face--it +positively danced with mirth, and a good musician could have set it to +music, I am sure. There was something a little queer--too pronounced, +perhaps--about the lower part of her face. Perhaps it would have been an +odd tune, but I know I should have liked to hear it!" + +Ambrose lit a black Caporal cigarette--he had bought a packet on his +way. He saw an enticing bottle, of rotund form, paying its visits to +some neighbouring tables, and the happy fools made the acquaintance of +Benedictine. + +"Oh, yes, it is all very well," Ambrose has been heard to say on being +offered this agreeable and aromatic liqueur, "it's nice enough, I +daresay. But you should have tasted the _real_ stuff. I got it at a +little cafe in Soho some years ago--the Château de Chinon. No, it's no +good going there now, it's quite different. All the walls are +plate-glass and gold; the head waiter is called Maître d'hôtel, and I am +told it's quite the thing, both in southern and northern suburbs, to +make up dinner parties at the Château--everything most correct, evening +dress, fans, opera cloaks, 'Hide-seek' champagne, and stalls afterwards. +One gets a glimpse of Bohemian life that way, and everybody says it's +been such a queer evening, but quite amusing, too. But you can't get the +real Benedictine there now. + +"Where can you get it? Ah! I wish I knew. _I_ never come across it. The +bottle looks just the same, but it's quite a different flavour. The +phylloxera may be responsible, of course, but I don't think it is. +Perhaps the bottle that went round the table that night was like the +powder in _Jekyll and Hyde_--its properties were the result of some +strange accident. At all events, they were quite magical." + +The two adventurers went forth into the maze of streets and lost +themselves again. Heaven knows where they went, by what ways they +wandered, as with wide-gleaming eyes, arm locked in arm, they gazed on +an enchanted scene which they knew must be London and nothing else--what +else could it be? Indeed, now and again, Ambrose thought he recognized +certain features and monuments and public places of which he had read; +but still! That wine of the Château was, by all mundane reckonings, of +the smallest, and one little glass of Benedictine with coffee could not +disturb the weakest head: yet was it London, after all? + +What they saw was, doubtless, the common world of the streets and +squares, the gay ways and the dull, the broad, ringing, lighted roads +and the dark, echoing passages; yet they saw it all as one sees a +mystery play, through a veil. But the veil before their eyes was a +transmuting vision, and its substance was shot as if it were samite, +with wonderful and admirable golden ornaments. In the Eastern Tales, +people find themselves thus suddenly transported into an unknown magical +territory, with cities that are altogether things of marvel and +enchantment, whose walls are pure gold, lighted by the shining of +incomparable jewels; and Ambrose declared later that never till that +evening had he realized the extraordinary and absolute truth to nature +of the _Arabian Nights_. Those who were present on a certain occasion +will not soon forget his rejoinder to "a gentleman in the company" who +said that for truth to nature he went to George Eliot. + +"I was speaking of men and women, Sir," was the answer, "not of lice." + +The gentleman in question, who was quite an influential man--some +whisper that he was an editor--was naturally very much annoyed. + +Still, Ambrose maintained his position. He would even affirm that for +crude realism the Eastern Tales were absolutely unique. + +"Of course," he said, "I take realism to mean absolute and essential +truthfulness of description, as opposed to merely conventional +treatment. Zola is a realist, not--as the imbeciles suppose--because he +described--well, rather minutely--many unpleasant sights and sounds and +smells and emotions, but because he was a poet, a seer; because, in +spite of his pseudo-philosophies, his cheap materialisms, he saw the +true heart, the reality of things. Take _La Terre_; do you think it is +'realistic' because it describes minutely, and probably faithfully, the +event of a cow calving? Not in the least; the local vet. who was called +in could probably do all that as well, or better. It is 'realist' +because it goes behind all the brutalities, all the piggeries and +inhumanities, of those frightful people, and shows us the strange, mad, +transcendent passion that lay behind all those things--the wild desire +for the land--a longing that burned, that devoured, that inflamed, that +drove men to hell and death as would a passion for a goddess who might +never be attained. Remember how 'La Beauce' is personified, how the +earth swells and quickens before one, how every clod and morsel of the +soil cries for its service and its sacrifice and its victims--I call +_that_ realism. + +"The _Arabian Nights_ is also profoundly realistic, though both the +subject-matter and the method of treatment--the technique--are very +different from the subject-matter and the technique of Zola. Of course, +there may be people who think that if you describe a pigsty well you are +a 'realist,' and if you describe an altar well you are 'romantic.' ... I +do not know that the mental processes of Crétins form a very interesting +subject for discussion." + +One may surmise, if one will, that the sudden violence of the change was +a sufficient cause of exaltation. That detestable Lupton left behind; no +town, but a collection of stink and poison factories and slave quarters; +that more detestable school, more ridiculous than the Academy of Lagado; +that most detestable routine, games, lessons and the Doctor's +sermons--the transition was tremendous to the freedom of fabled London, +of the unknown streets and unending multitudes. + +Ambrose said he hesitated to talk of that walk, lest he should be +thought an aimless liar. They strolled for hours seeing the most +wonderful things, the most wonderful people; but he declared that the +case was similar to that of the Benedictine--he could never discover +again the regions that he had perambulated. Somewhere, he said, close to +the Château de Chinon there must be a passage which had since been +blocked up. By it was the entrance to Fairyland. + +When at last they found Little Russell Row, the black cat was awaiting +them with an expression which was pleased and pious, too; he had +devoured the greater portion of that quarter-pound of dubious butter. +Ambrose smoked black cigarettes in bed till the packet was finished. + + +III + +It was an amazing week they spent in London. For a couple of days Nelly +was busied in getting "things" and "odds and ends," and, to her credit, +she dressed the part most admirably. She abjured all the imperial +purples, the Mediterranean blues, the shrieking lilacs that her class +usually affects, and appeared at last a model of neat gaiety. + +In the meantime, while these shopping expeditions were in progress, +while Nelly consulted with those tall, dark-robed, golden-haired and +awful Elegances which preside over the last mysteries of the draper and +milliner, Ambrose sat at home in Little Russell Row and worked out the +outlines of some fantasies that had risen in his mind. It was, in fact, +during these days that he made the notes which were afterwards expanded +into the curious _Defence of Taverns_, a book which is now rare and +sought after by collectors. It is supposed that it was this work that +was in poor Palmer's mind when the earnest man referred with a sort of +gloomy reticence to Meyrick's later career. He had, in all probability, +not read a line of it; but the title was certainly not a very pleasing +one, judged by ordinary scholastic standards. And it must be said that +the critical reception of the book was not exactly encouraging. One +paper wondered candidly why such a book was ever written or printed; +another denounced the author in good, set terms as an enemy of the great +temperance movement; while a third, a Monthly Reviewer, declared that +the work made his blood boil. Yet even the severest moralists should +have seen by the epigraph that the Apes and Owls and Antiques hid +mysteries of some sort, since a writer whose purposes were really evil +and intemperate would never have chosen such a motto as: _Jalalúd-Din +praised the behaviour of the Inebriated and drank water from the well_. +But the reviewers thought that this was unintelligible nonsense, and +merely a small part of the writer's general purpose to annoy. + +The rough sketch is contained in the first of the _Note Books_, which +are still unpublished, and perhaps are likely to remain so. Meyrick +jotted down his hints and ideas in the dingy "first floor front" of the +Bloomsbury lodging-house, sitting at the rosewood "Davenport" which, to +the landlady, seemed the last word in beautiful furniture. + +The ménage rose late. What a relief it was to be free of the horrible +bells that poisoned one's rest at Lupton, to lie in peace as long as one +liked, smoking a matutinal cigarette or two to the accompaniment of a +cup of tea! Nelly was acquiring the art of the cigarette-smoker by +degrees. She did not like the taste at all at first, but the wild and +daring deviltry of the practice sustained her, and she persevered. And +while they thus wasted the best hours of the day, Ambrose would make to +pass before the bottom of the bed a long procession of the masters, each +uttering his characteristic word of horror and astonishment as he went +by, each whirled away by some invisible power in the middle of a +sentence. Thus would enter Chesson, fully attired in cassock, cap and +gown: + +"Meyrick! It is impossible? Are you not aware that such conduct as this +is entirely inconsistent with the tone of a great Public School? Have +the Games ..." But he was gone; his legs were seen vanishing in a +whirlwind which bore him up the chimney. + +Then Horbury rose out of the carpet: + +"Plain living and clear thinking are the notes of the System. A Spartan +Discipline--Meyrick! Do you call this a Spartan Discipline? Smoking +tobacco and reposing with ..." He shot like an arrow after the Head. + +"We discourage luxury by every means in our power. Boy! This is luxury! +Boy, boy! You are like the later Romans, boy! Heliogabalus was +accustomed ..." The chimney consumed Palmer also; and he gave place to +another. + +"Roughly speaking, a boy should be always either in school or playing +games. He should never be suffered to be at a loose end. Is this your +idea of playing games? I tell you, Meyrick ..." + +The game amused Nelly, more from its accompanying "business" and facial +expression than from any particular comprehension of the dialogue. +Ambrose saw that she could not grasp all the comedy of his situations, +so he invented an Idyll between the Doctor and a notorious and +flamboyant barmaid at the "Bell." The fame of this lady ran great but +not gracious through all Lupton. This proved a huge success; beginning +as a mere episode, it gathered to itself a complicated network of +incidents and adventures, of wild attempts and strange escapes, of +stratagems and ambushes, of disguises and alarms. Indeed, as Ambrose +instructed Nelly with great solemnity, the tale, at first an idyll, the +simple, pastoral story of the loves of the Shepherd Chesson and the +Nymph Bella, was rapidly becoming epical in its character. He talked of +dividing it into twelve books! He enlarged very elaborately the Defeat +of the Suitors. In this the dear old Head, disguised as a bookmaker, +drugged the whisky of the young bloods who were accustomed to throng +about the inner bar of the "Bell." There was quite a long passage +describing the compounding of the patent draught from various herbs, the +enormous cook at the Head's house enacting a kind of Canidia part, and +helping in the concoction of the dose. + +"Mrs. Belper," the Doctor would observe, "This is _most_ gratifying. I +had no idea that your knowledge of simples was so extensive. Do I +understand you to affirm that those few leaves which you hold in your +hand will produce marked symptoms?" + +"Bless your dear 'art, Doctor Chesson, and if you'll forgive me for +talking so to such a learned gentleman, and so good, I'm sure, but +you'll find there's nothing in the world like it. Often and often have I +'eard my pore old mother that's dead and gone these forty year come +Candlemas ..." + +"Mrs. Belper, Mrs. Belper, I am surprised at you! Are you not aware that +the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council has pronounced the +observance of the festival you so lightly name to be of a highly +superstitious nature? Your deceased mother, you were saying, will have +entered into her reward forty years ago on February the second of next +year? Is not this the case?" + +"These forty years came Febbymas, I mean, and a good woman she was, and +never have I seen a larger wart on the nose and her legs bad as bad for +years and years!" + +"These details, though, no doubt, of high personal interest, seem hardly +germane to our present undertaking. However, Mrs. Belper, proceed in +your remarks." + +"And thank you kindly, Sir, and not forgetting you are a clergyman--but +there! we can't all of us be everything. And my pore mother, as I was +saying, Sir, she said, again and again, that if she'd been like some +folks she'd a made a fortune in golden money from this very yarb I'm +a-showing you, Sir." + +"Dear me, Mrs. Belper! You interest me deeply. I have often thought how +wrong it is of us to neglect, as undoubtedly we _do_ neglect, the +bounteous gifts of the kindly earth. Your lamented mother used this +specific with remarkable success?" + +"Lord a mercy, Doctor 'Chesson! elephants couldn't a stood against it, +nor yet whales, being as how it's stronger than the strongest gunpowder +that was ever brewed or blasted, and miles better than the nasty +rubbidge you get in them doctors' shops, and a pretty penny they make +you pay for it and no better than calomel, if you ask me, Sir. But be +it the strongest of the strong, I'll take my Gospel oath it's weak to +what my pore mother made, and that anybody in Much Moddle parish would +tell you, for man, woman or child who took one of Mrs. Marjoram's +Mixtures and got over it, remember it, he would, until his dying day. +And my pore old mother, she was that funny--never was a cheerfuller +woman, I do believe, and when Tom Copus, the lame fiddler, he got +married, pore mother! though she could hardly walk, her legs was that +bad, come she would, and if she didn't slip a little of the mixture into +the beer when everybody was looking another way! Pore, dear soul! as she +said herself afterwards, 'mirth becomes marriage,' and so to be sure it +does, and merry they all were that day that didn't touch the beer, +preferring spirits, which pore mother couldn't get at, being locked +up--a nasty, mean trick, I call it, and always will." + +"Enough, Mrs. Belper, enough! You have amply satisfied me as to the +potency of the late Mrs. Marjoram's pharmacopoeia. We will, if you have +no objection, Mrs. Belper, make the mixture--to use the words of +Shakespeare--'slab and thick.'" + +"And bless your kind 'art, Sir, and a good, kind master you've always +been to me, if you 'aven't got enough 'ere to lay out all the Lupton +town, call me a Dutchwoman, and that I never was, nor pore Belper +neither." + +"Certainly not, Mrs. Belper. The Dutch belong to a different branch of +the great Teutonic stock, or, if identity had ever existed, the two +races have long been differentiated. I think, Mrs. Belper, that the most +eminent physicians have recognised the beneficial effects of a gentle +laxative during the treacherous (though delightful) season of spring?" + +"Law bless you, Sir, you're right, as you always are, or why, Doctor? As +my pore mother used to say when she made up the mixture: 'Scour 'em out +is the right way about!' And laugh she would as she pounded the stuff up +till I really thought she would 'a busted, and shaking like the best +blancmanges all the while." + +"Mrs. Belper, you have removed a weight from my mind. You think, then, +that I shall be freed from all unfair competition while I pay my +addresses to my young friend, Miss Floyer?" + +"As free you will be, Doctor Chesson, Sir, as the little birds in the +air; for not one of them young fellers will stand on his feet for days, +and groans and 'owls will be the best word that mortal man will speak, +and bless you they will with their dying breath. So, Sir, you'll 'ave +the sweet young lady, bless her dear 'art, all to yourself, and if it's +twins, don't blame me!" + +"Mrs. Belper, your construction, if I may say so, is somewhat proleptic +in its character. Still, I am sure that your meaning is good. Ha! I hear +the bell for afternoon school." + +The Doctor's voice happened to be shrill and piercing, with something of +the tone of the tooth-comb and tissue-paper; while the fat cook spoke in +a suety, husky contralto. Ambrose reproduced these peculiarities with +the gift of the born mimic, adding appropriate antic and gesture to +grace the show, and Nelly's appreciation of its humours was intense. + +Day by day new incidents and scenes were added. The Head, in the pursuit +of his guilty passion, hid in the coal-cellar of the "Bell," and, +rustling sounds being heard, evaded detection for a while by imitating +the barks of a terrier in chase of a rat. Nelly liked to hear the "Wuff! +wuff! wuff!" which was introduced at this point. She liked also the +final catastrophe, when the odd man of the "Bell" burst into the bar and +said: "Dang my eyes, if it ain't the Doctor! I seed his cap and gown as +he run round and round the coals on all fours, a-growling 'orrible." To +which the landlady rejoined: "Don't tell your silly lies here! How +_could_ he growl, him being a clergyman?" And all the loafers joined in +the chorus: "That's right, Tom; why _do_ you talk such silly lies as +that--him being a clergyman?" + +They laughed so loud and so merrily over their morning tea and these +lunacies that the landlady doubted gravely as to their marriage lines. +She cared nothing; they had paid what she asked, money down in advance, +and, as she said: "Young gentlemen _will_ have their fun with the young +ladies--so what's the good of talking?" + +Breakfast came at length. They gave the landlady a warning bell some +half-hour in advance, so the odd food was, at all events, not cold. +Afterwards Nelly sallied off on her shopping expeditions, which, as +might have been expected, she enjoyed hugely, and Ambrose stayed alone, +with his pen and ink and a fat notebook which had captured his eye in a +stationer's window. + +Under these odd circumstances, then, he laid the foundations of his rare +and precious _Defence of Taverns_, which is now termed by those +fortunate enough to possess copies as a unique and golden treatise. +Though he added a good deal in later years and remodelled and rearranged +freely, there is a certain charm of vigour and freshness about the first +sketch which is quite delightful in its way. Take, for example, the +description of the whole world overwhelmed with sobriety: a deadly +absence of inebriation annulling and destroying all the works and +thoughts of men, the country itself at point to perish of the want of +good liquor and good drinkers. He shows how there is grave cause to +dread that, by reason of this sad neglect of the Dionysiac Mysteries, +humanity is fast falling backward from the great heights to which it had +ascended, and is in imminent danger of returning to the dumb and blind +and helpless condition of the brutes. + +"How else," he says, "can one account for the stricken state in which +all the animal world grows and is eternally impotent? To them, strange, +vast and enormous powers and faculties have been given. Consider, for +example, the curious equipments of two odd extremes in this sphere--the +ant and the elephant. The ant, if one may say so, is very near to us. We +have our great centres of industry, our Black Country and our slaves +who, if not born black, become black in our service. And the ants, too, +have their black, enslaved races who do their dirty work for them, and +are, perhaps, congratulated on their privileges as sharing in the +blessings of civilisation--though this may be a refinement. The ant +slaves, I believe, will rally eagerly to the defence of the nest and the +eggs, and they say that the labouring classes are Liberal to the core. +Nay; we grow mushrooms by art, and so they. In some lands, I think, they +make enormous nests which are the nuisance and terror of the country. We +have Manchester and Lupton and Leeds, and many such places--one would +think them altogether civilised. + +"The elephant, again, has many gifts which we lack. Note the curious +instinct (or intuition, rather) of danger. The elephant knows, for +example, when a bridge is unsafe, and refuses to pass, where a man would +go on to destruction. One might examine in the same way all the +creatures, and find in them singular capacities. + +"Yet--they have no art. They see--but they see not. They hear--and they +hear not. The odour in their nostrils has no sweetness at all. They have +made no report of all the wonders that they knew. Their houses are, +sometimes, as ingenious as a Chemical Works, but never is there any +beauty for beauty's sake. + +"It is clear that their state is thus desolate, because of the heavy +pall of sobriety that hangs over them all; and it scarcely seems to have +occurred to our 'Temperance' advocates that when they urge on us the +example and abstinence of the beasts they have advanced the deadliest of +all arguments against their nostrum. The Laughing Jackass is a +teetotaller, doubtless, but no sane man should desire to be a Laughing +Jackass. + +"But the history of the men who have attained, who have done the +glorious things of the earth and have become for ever exalted is the +history of the men who have quested the Cup. Dionysius, said the Greeks, +_civilised_ the world; and the Bacchic Mystery was, naturally, the heart +and core of Greek civilisation. + +"Note the similitudes of Vine and Vineyard in Old Testament. + +"Note the Quest of the San Graal. + +"Note Rabelais and _La Dive Bouteille_. + +"Place yourself in imagination in a Gothic Cathedral of the thirteenth +century and assist at High Mass. Then go to the nearest Little Bethel, +and look, and listen. Consider the difference in the two buildings, in +those who worship in one and listen and criticise in the other. You have +the difference between the Inebriated and the Sober, displayed in their +works. As Little Bethel is to Tintern, so is Sobriety to Inebriation. + +"Modern civilisation has advanced in many ways? Yes. Bethel has a stucco +front. This material was quite unknown to the builders of Tintern Abbey. +Advanced? What is advancement? Freedom from excesses, from +extravagances, from wild enthusiasms? Small Protestant tradesmen are +free from all these things, certainly. But is the joy of Adulteration +to be the last goal, the final Initiation of the Race of Men? _Cælumque +tueri_--to sand the sugar? + +"The Flagons of the Song of Songs did not contain ginger-beer. + +"But the worst of it is we shall not merely descend to the beasts. We +shall fall very far below the beasts. A black fellow is good, and a +white fellow is good. But the white fellow who 'goes Fantee' does not +become a negro--he becomes something infinitely worse, a horrible mass +of the most putrid corruption. + +"If we can clear our minds of the horrible cant of our 'civilisation,' +if we can look at a modern 'industrial centre' with eyes purged of +illusions, we shall have some notion of the awful horror to which we are +descending in our effort to become as the ants and bees--creatures who +know nothing of + + CALIX INEBRIANS. + +"I doubt if we can really make this effort. Blacks, Stinks, Desolations, +Poisons, Hell's Nightmare generally have, I suspect, worked themselves +into the very form and mould of our thoughts. We are sober, and perhaps +the Tavern door is shut for ever against us. + +"Now and then, perhaps, at rarer and still rarer intervals, a few of us +will hear very faintly the far echoes of the holy madness within the +closed door: + + _"When up the thyrse is raised, and when the sound + Of sacred orgies flies 'around, around.'_ + +"Which is the _Sonus Epulantium in Æterno Convivio_. + +"But this we shall not be able to discern. Very likely we shall take the +noise of this High Choir for the horrid mirth of Hell. How strange it is +that those who are pledged officially and ceremonially, as it were, to a +Rite of Initiation which figures certainly a Feast, should in all their +thoughts and words and actions be continually blaspheming and denying +all the uses and ends of feastings and festivals. + +"This is not the refusal of the _species_ for the sake of enjoying +perfectly the most beautiful and desirable _genus_; it is the renouncing +of species and genus, the pronouncing of Good to be Evil. The Universal +being denied, the Particular is degraded and defiled. What is called +'The Drink Curse' is the natural and inevitable result and sequence of +the 'Protestant Reformation.' If the clear wells and fountains of the +magic wood are buried out of sight, then men (who must have Drink) will +betake them to the Slime Ponds and Poison Pools. + +"In the Graal Books there is a curse--an evil enchantment--on the land +of Logres because the mystery of the Holy Vessel is disregarded. The +Knight sees the Dripping Spear and the Shining Cup pass before him, and +says no word. He asks no question as to the end and meaning of this +ceremony. So the land is blasted and barren and songless, and those who +dwell in it are in misery. + +"Every day of our lives we see the Graal carried before us in a +wonderful order, and every day we leave the question unasked, the +Mystery despised and neglected. Yet if we could ask that question, +bowing down before these Heavenly and Glorious Splendours and +Hallows--then every man should have the meat and drink that his soul +desired; the hall would be filled with odours of Paradise, with the +light of Immortality. + +"In the books the Graal was at last taken away because of men's +unworthiness. So it will be, I suppose. Even now, the Quester's +adventure is a desperate one--few there be that find It. + +"Ventilation and sanitation are well enough in their way. But it would +not be very satisfactory to pass the day in a ventilated and sanitated +Hell with nothing to eat or drink. If one is perishing of hunger and +thirst, sanitation seems unimportant enough. + +"How wonderful, how glorious it would be if the Kingdom of the Great +Drinkers could be restored! If we could only sweep away all the might +of the Sober Ones--the factory builders, the poison makers, the +politicians, the manufacturers of bad books and bad pictures, together +with Little Bethel and the morality of Mr. Mildmay, the curate (a series +of negative propositions)--then imagine the Great Light of the Great +Inebriation shining on every face, and not any work of man's hands, from +a cathedral to a penknife, without the mark of the Tavern upon it! All +the world a great festival; every well a fountain of strong drink; every +river running with the New Wine; the Sangraal brought back from Sarras, +restored to the awful shrine of Cor-arbennic, the Oracle of the _Dive +Bouteille_ once more freely given, the ruined Vineyard flourishing once +more, girt about by shining, everlasting walls! Then we should hear the +Old Songs again, and they would dance the Old Dances, the happy, +ransomed people, Commensals and Compotators of the Everlasting Tavern." + +The whole treatise, of which this extract is a fragment in a rudimentary +and imperfect stage, is, of course, an impassioned appeal for the +restoration of the quickening, exuberant imagination, not merely in art, +but in all the inmost places of life. There is more than this, too. Here +and there one can hear, as it were, the whisper and the hint of deeper +mysteries, visions of a great experiment and a great achievement to +which some men may be called. In his own words: "Within the Tavern there +is an Inner Tavern, but the door of it is visible to few indeed." + +In Ambrose's mind in the after years the stout notebook was dear, +perhaps as a substitute for that aroma of the past in a phial which he +has declared so desirable an invention. It stood, not so much for what +was written in it as for the place and the circumstances in which it was +written. It recalled Little Russell Row and Nelly, and the evenings at +the Château de Chinon, where, night by night, they served still +stranger, more delicious meats, and the red wine revealed more clearly +its high celestial origin. One evening was diversified by an odd +encounter. + +A middle-aged man, sitting at an adjoining table, was evidently in want +of matches, and Ambrose handed his box with the sympathetic smile which +one smoker gives to another in such cases. The man--he had a black +moustache and a small, pointed beard--thanked him in fluent English with +a French accent, and they began to talk of casual things, veering, by +degrees, in the direction of the arts. The Frenchman smiled at Meyrick's +enthusiasm. + +"What a life you have before you!" he said. "Don't you know that the +populace always hates the artist--and kills him if it can? You are an +artist and mystic, too. What a fate! + +"Yes; but it is that applause, that _réclame_ that comes after the +artist is dead," he went on, replying to some objection of Ambrose's; +"it is that which is the worst cruelty of all. It is fine for Burns, is +it not, that his stupid compatriots have not ceased to utter follies +about him for the last eighty years? Scotchmen? But they should be +ashamed to speak his name! And Keats, and how many others in my country +and in yours and in all countries? The imbeciles are not content to +calumniate, to persecute, to make wretched the artist in his lifetime. +They follow him with their praise to the grave--the grave that they have +digged! Praise of the populace! Praise of a race of pigs! For, you see, +while they are insulting the dead with their compliments they are at the +same time insulting the living with their abuse." + +He dropped into silence; from his expression he seemed to be cursing +"the populace" with oaths too frightful to be uttered. He rose suddenly +and turned to Ambrose. + +"Artist--and mystic. Yes. You will probably be crucified. Good +evening ... and a fine martyrdom to you!" + +He was gone with a charming smile and a delightful bow to "Madame." +Ambrose looked after him with a puzzled face; his last words had called +up some memory that he could not capture; and then suddenly he +recollected the old, ragged Irish fiddler, the player of strange +fantasies under the tree in the outskirts of Lupton. He thought of his +phrase about "red martyrdom"; it was an odd coincidence. + + +IV + +The phrases kept recurring to his mind after they had gone out, and as +they wandered through the lighted streets with all their strange and +variegated show, with glittering windows and glittering lamps, with the +ebb and flow of faces, the voices and the laughter, the surging crowds +about the theatre doors, the flashing hansoms and the omnibuses +lumbering heavily along to strange regions, such as Turnham Green and +Castlenau, Cricklewood and Stoke Newington--why, they were as unknown as +cities in Cathay! + +It was a dim, hot night; all the great city smoked as with a mist, and a +tawny moon rose through films of cloud far in the vista of the east. +Ambrose thought with a sudden recollection that the moon, that world of +splendour, was shining in a farther land, on the coast of the wild +rocks, on the heaving sea, on the faery apple-garths in Avalon, where, +though the apples are always golden, yet the blossoms of enchantment +never fade, but hang for ever against the sky. + +They were passing a half-lit street, and these dreams were broken by the +sudden clanging, rattling music of a piano-organ. For a moment they saw +the shadowy figures of the children as they flitted to and fro, dancing +odd measures in the rhythm of the tune. Then they came into a long, +narrow way with a church spire in the distance, and near the church they +passed the "church-shop"--Roman, evidently, from the subjects and the +treatment of the works of art on view. But it was strange! In the middle +of the window was a crude, glaring statue of some saint. He was in +bright red robes, sprinkled with golden stars; the blood rained down +from a wound in his forehead, and with one hand he drew the scarlet +vestment aside and pointed to the dreadful gash above his heart, and +from this, again, the bloody drops fell thick. The colours stared and +shrieked, and yet, through the bad, cheap art there seemed to shine a +rapture that was very near to beauty; the thing expressed was so great +that it had to a certain extent overcome the villainy of the expression. + +They wandered vaguely, after their custom. Ambrose was silent; he was +thinking of Avalon and "Red Martyrdom" and the Frenchman's parting +salutation, of the vision in one of the old books, "the Man clothed in +a robe redder and more shining than burning fire, and his feet and his +hands and his face were of a like flame, and five angels in fiery +vesture stood about him, and at the feet of the Man the ground was +covered with a ruddy dew." + +They passed under an old church tower that rose white in the moonlight +above them. The air had cleared, the mist had floated away, and now the +sky glowed violet, and the white stones of the classic spirit shone on +high. From it there came suddenly a tumult of glad sound, exultant bells +in ever-changing order, pealing out as if to honour some great victory, +so that the mirth of the street below became but a trivial restless +noise. He thought of some passage that he had read but could not +distinctly remember: a ship was coming back to its haven after a weary +and tempestuous voyage over many dreadful seas, and those on board saw +the tumult in the city as their sails were sighted; heard afar the +shouts of gladness from the rejoicing people; heard the bells from all +the spires and towers break suddenly into triumphant chorus, sounding +high above the washing of the waves. + +Ambrose roused himself from his dreams. They had been walking in a +circle and had returned almost to the street of the Château, though, +their knowledge of the district being of an unscientific character, +they were under the impression that they were a mile or so away from +that particular point. As it happened, they had not entered this street +before, and they were charmed at the sudden appearance of stained glass +lighted up from within. The colour was rich and good; there were +flourished scrolls and grotesques in the Renaissance manner, many +emblazoned shields in ruby and gold and azure; and the centre-piece +showed the Court of the Beer King--a jovial and venerable figure +attended by a host of dwarfs and kobolds, all holding on high enormous +mugs of beer. They went in boldly and were glad. It was the famous +"Three Kings" in its golden and unreformed days, but this they knew not. +The room was of moderate size, very low, with great dark beams in the +white ceiling. White were the walls; on the plaster, black-letter texts +with vermilion initials praised the drinker's art, and more kobolds, in +black and red, loomed oddly in unsuspected corners. The lighting, +presumably, was gas, but all that was visible were great antique +lanterns depending from iron hooks, and through their dull green glass +only a dim radiance fell upon the heavy oak tables and the drinkers. +From the middle beam an enormous bouquet of fresh hops hung on high; +there was a subdued murmur of talk, and now and then the clatter of the +lid of a mug, as fresh beer was ordered. In one corner there was +a kind of bar; behind it a couple of grim women--the kobolds +apparently--performed their office; and above, on a sort of rack, hung +mugs and tankards of all sizes and of all fantasies. There were plain +mugs of creamy earthenware, mugs gaudily and oddly painted with +garlanded goats, with hunting scenes, with towering castles, with +flaming posies of flowers. Then some friend of the drunken, some sage +who had pried curiously into the secrets of thirst, had made a series of +wonders in glass, so shining and crystalline that to behold them was as +if one looked into a well, for every glitter of the facets gave promise +of satisfaction. There were the mugs, capacious and very deep, crowned +for the most part not with mere plain lids of common use and make, but +with tall spires in pewter, richly ornamented, evident survivals from +the Middle Ages. Ambrose's eyes glistened; the place was altogether as +he would have designed it. Nelly, too, was glad to sit down, for they +had walked longer than usual. She was refreshed by a glass of some cool +drink with a borage flower and a cherry floating in it, and Ambrose +ordered a mug of beer. + +It is not known how many of these _krugs_ he emptied. It was, as has +been noted, a sultry night, and the streets were dusty, and that glass +of Benedictine after dinner rather evokes than dismisses the demon of +thirst. Still, Munich beer is no hot and rebellious drink, so the causes +of what followed must probably be sought for in other springs. Ambrose +took a deep draught, gazed upward to the ceiling, and ordered another +mug of beer for himself and some more of the cool and delicate and +flowery beverage for Nelly. When the drink was set upon the board, he +thus began, without title or preface: + +"You must know, Nelly dear," he said, "that the marriage of Panurge, +which fell out in due time (according to the oracle and advice of the +Holy Bottle), was by no means a fortunate one. For, against all the +counsel of Pantagruel and of Friar John, and indeed of all his friends, +Panurge married in a fit of spleen and obstinacy the crooked and +squinting daughter of the little old man who sold green sauce in the Rue +Quincangrogne at Tours--you will see the very place in a few days, and +then you will understand everything. You do not understand that? My +child, that is impiety, since it accuses the Zeitgest, who is certainly +the only god that ever existed, as you will see more fully demonstrated +in Huxley and Spencer and all the leading articles in all the leading +newspapers. _Quod erat demonstrandum._ To be still more precise: You +must know that when I am dead, and a very great man indeed, many +thousands of people will come from all the quarters of the globe--not +forgetting the United States--to Lupton. They will come and stare very +hard at the Old Grange, which will have an inscription about me on the +wall; they will spend hours in High School; they will walk all round +Playing Fields; they will cut little bits off 'brooks' and 'quarries.' +Then they will view the Sulphuric Acid works, the Chemical Manure +factory and the Free Library, and whatever other stink-pots and +cesspools Lupton town may contain; they will finally enjoy the view of +the Midland Railway Goods Station. Then they will say: '_Now_ we +understand him; _now_ one sees how he got all his inspiration in that +lovely old school and the wonderful English country-side.' So you see +that when I show you the Rue Quincangrogne you will perfectly understand +this history. Let us drink; the world shall never be drowned again, so +have no fear. + +"Well, the fact remains that Panurge, having married this hideous wench +aforesaid, was excessively unhappy. It was in vain that he argued with +his wife in all known languages and in some that are unknown, for, as +she said, she only knew two languages, the one of Touraine and the other +of the Stick, and this second she taught Panurge _per modum +passionis_--that is by beating him, and this so thoroughly that poor +Pilgarlic was sore from head to foot. He was a worthy little fellow, +but the greatest coward that ever breathed. Believe me, illustrious +drinkers and most precious.... Nelly, never was man so wretched as this +Panurge since Paradise fell from Adam. This is the true doctrine; I +heard it when I was at Eleusis. You enquire what was the matter? Why, in +the first place, this vile wretch whom they all called--so much did they +hate her--La Vie Mortale, or Deadly Life, this vile wretch, I say: what +do you think that she did when the last note of the fiddles had sounded +and the wedding guests had gone off to the 'Three Lampreys' to kill a +certain worm--the which worm is most certainly immortal, since it is not +dead yet! Well, then, what did Madame Panurge? Nothing but this: She +robbed her excellent and devoted husband of all that he had. Doubtless +you remember how, in the old days, Panurge had played ducks and drakes +with the money that Pantagruel had given him, so that he borrowed on his +corn while it was still in the ear, and before it was sown, if we +enquire a little more closely. In truth, the good little man never had a +penny to bless himself withal, for the which cause Pantagruel loved him +all the more dearly. So that when the Dive Bouteille gave its oracle, +and Panurge chose his spouse, Pantagruel showed how preciously he +esteemed a hearty spender by giving him such a treasure that the +goldsmiths who live under the bell of St. Gatien still talk of it before +they dine, because by doing so their mouths water, and these salivary +secretions are of high benefit to the digestion: read on this, Galen. If +you would know how great and glorious this treasure was, you must go to +the Library of the Archevêché at Tours, where they will show you a vast +volume bound in pigskin, the name of which I have forgotten. But this +book is nothing else than the list of all the wonders and glories of +Pantagruel's wedding present to Panurge; it contains surprising things, +I can tell you, for, in good coin of the realm alone, never was gift +that might compare with it; and besides the common money there were +ancient pieces, the very names of which are now incomprehensible, and +incomprehensible they will remain till the coming of the Coqcigrues. +There was, for instance, a great gold Sol, a world in itself, as some +said truly, and I know not how many myriad myriad of Étoiles, all of the +finest silver that was ever minted, and Anges-Gardiens, which the +learned think must have been first coined at Angers, though others will +have it that they were the same as our Angels; and, as for Roses de +Paradis and Couronnes Immortelles, I believe he had as many of them as +ever he would. Beauties and joys he was to keep for pocket-money; small +change is sometimes great gain. And, as I say, no sooner had Panurge +married that accursed daughter of the Rue Quincangrogne than she robbed +him of everything, down to the last brass farthing. The fact is that the +woman was a witch; she was also something else which I leave out for the +present. But, if you will believe me, she cast such a spell upon Panurge +that he thought himself an absolute beggar. Thus he would look at his +Sol d'Or and say: 'What is the use of that? It is only a great bright +lump: I can see it every day.' Then when they said, 'But how about those +Anges-Gardiens?' he would reply, 'Where are they? Have you seen them? +_I_ never see them. Show them to me,' and so with all else; and all the +while that villain of a woman beat, thumped and belaboured him so that +the tears were always in his eyes, and they say you could hear him +howling all over the world. Everybody said that he had made a pretty +mess of it, and would come to a bad end. + +"Luckily for him, this ... witch of a wife of his would sometimes doze +off for a few minutes, and then he had a little peace, and he would +wonder what had become of all the gay girls and gracious ladies that he +had known in old times--for he had played the devil with the women in +his day and could have taught Ovid lessons in _arte amoris_. Now, of +course, it was as much as his life was worth to mention the very name +of one of these ladies, and as for any little sly visits, stolen +endearments, hidden embraces, or any small matters of that kind, it was +_good-bye, I shall see you next Nevermas_. Nor was this all, but worse +remains behind; and it is my belief that it is the thought of what I am +going to tell you that makes the wind wail and cry of winter nights, and +the clouds weep, and the sky look black; for in truth it is the greatest +sorrow that ever was since the beginning of the world. I must out with +it quick, or I shall never have done: in plain English, and as true as I +sit here drinking good ale, not one drop or minim or drachm or +pennyweight of drink had Panurge tasted since the day of his wedding! He +had implored mercy, he had told her how he had served Gargantua and +Pantagruel and had got into the habit of drinking in his sleep, and his +wife had merely advised him to go to the devil--she was not going to let +him so much as look at the nasty stuff. '"Touch not, taste not, smell +not," is my motto,' said she. She gave him a blue ribbon, which she said +would make up for it. 'What do you want with Drink?' said she. 'Go and +do business instead, it's much better for you.' + +"Sad, then, and sorry enough was the estate of poor Panurge. At last, so +wretched did he become, that he took advantage of one of his wife's +dozes and stole away to the good Pantagruel, and told him the whole +story--and a very bad one it was--so that the tears rolled down +Pantagruel's cheeks from sheer grief, and each teardrop contained +exactly one hundred and eighteen gallons of aqueous fluid, according to +the calculations of the best geometers. The great man saw that the case +was a desperate one, and Heaven knew, he said, whether it could be +mended or not; but certain it was that a business such as this could not +be settled in a hurry, since it was not like a game at shove-ha'penny to +be got over between two gallons of wine. He therefore counselled Panurge +to have patience and bear with his wife for a few thousand years, and in +the meantime they would see what could be done. But, lest his patience +should wear out, he gave him an odd drug or medicine, prepared by the +great artist of the Mountains of Cathay, and this he was to drop into +his wife's glass--for though he might have no drink, she was drunk three +times a day, and she would sleep all the longer, and leave him awhile in +peace. This Panurge very faithfully performed, and got a little rest now +and again, and they say that while that devil of a woman snored and +snorted he was able, by odd chances once or twice, to get hold of a drop +of the right stuff--good old Stingo from the big barrel--which he lapped +up as eagerly as a kitten laps cream. Others there be who declare that +once or twice he got about his sad old tricks, while his ugly wife was +sleeping in the sun; the women on the Maille make no secret of their +opinion that his old mistress, Madame Sophia, was seen stealing in and +out of the house as slyly as you please, and God knows what goes on when +the door is shut. But the Tourainians were always sad gossips, and one +must not believe all that one hears. I leave out the flat +scandal-mongers who are bold enough to declare that he kept one mistress +at Jerusalem, another at Eleusis, another in Egypt and about as many as +are contained in the seraglio of the Grand Turk, scattered up and down +in the towns and villages of Asia; but I do believe there was some +kissing in dark corners, and a curtain hung across one room in the house +could tell odd tales. Nevertheless, La Vie Mortale (a pest on her!) was +more often awake than asleep, and when she was awake Panurge's case was +worse than ever. For, you see, the woman was no piece of a fool, and she +saw sure enough that something was going on. The Stingo in the barrel +was lower than of rights, and more than once she had caught her husband +looking almost happy, at which she beat the house about his ears. Then, +another time, Madame Sophia dropped her ring, and again this sweet lady +came one morning so strongly perfumed that she scented the whole place, +and when La Vie woke up it smelt like a church. There was fine work +then, I promise you; the people heard the bangs and curses and shrieks +and groans as far as Amboise on the one side and Luynes on the other; +and that year the Loire rose ten feet higher than the banks on account +of Panurge's tears. As a punishment, she made him go and be industrial, +and he built ten thousand stink-pot factories with twenty thousand +chimneys, and all the leaves and trees and green grass and flowers in +the world were blackened and died, and all the waters were poisoned so +that there were no perch in the Loire, and salmon fetched forty sols the +pound at Chinon market. As for the men and women, they became yellow +apes and listened to a codger named Calvin, who told them they would all +be damned eternally (except himself and his friends), and they found his +doctrine very comforting, and probable too, since they had the sense to +know that they were more than half damned already. I don't know whether +Panurge's fate was worse on this occasion or on another when his wife +found a book in his writing, full from end to end of poetry; some of it +about the wonderful treasure that Pantagruel had given him, which he was +supposed to have forgotten. Some of it verses to those old +light-o'-loves of his, with a whole epic in praise of his +mistress-in-chief, Sophia. Then, indeed, there was the very deuce to +pay; it was bread and water, stripes and torment, all day long, and La +Vie swore a great oath that if he ever did it again he should be sent to +spend the rest of his life in Manchester, whereupon he fell into a swoon +from horrid fright and lay like a log, so that everybody thought he was +dead. + +"All this while the great Pantagruel was not idle. Perceiving how +desperate the matter was, he summoned the Thousand and First Great +OEcumenical Council of all the sages of the wide world, and when the +fathers had come, and had heard High Mass at St. Gatien's, the session +was opened in a pavilion in the meadows by the Loire just under the +Lanterne of Roche Corbon, whence this Council is always styled the great +and holy Council of the Lantern. If you want to know where the place is +you can do so very easily, for there is a choice tavern on the spot +where the pavilion stood, and there you may have _malelotte_ and +_friture_ and amber wine of Vouvray, better than in any tavern in +Touraine. As for the history of the acts of this great Council, it is +still a-writing, and so far only two thousand volumes in elephant folio +have been printed _sub signo Lucernæ cum permissu superiorum_. However, +as it is necessary to be brief, it may be said that the holy fathers of +the Lantern, after having heard the whole case as it was exposed to +them by the great clerks of Pantagruel, having digested all the +arguments, looked into the precedents, applied themselves to the +doctrine, explored the hidden wisdom, consulted the Canons, searched the +Scriptures, divided the dogma, distinguished the distinctions and +answered the questions, resolved with one voice that there was no help +in the world for Panurge, save only this: he must forthwith achieve the +most high, noble and glorious quest of the Sangraal, for no other way +was there under heaven by which he might rid himself of that pestilent +wife of his, La Vie Mortale. + +"And on some other occasion," said Ambrose, "you may hear of the last +voyage of Panurge to the Glassy Isle of the Holy Graal, of the +incredible adventures that he achieved, of the dread perils through +which he passed, of the great wonders and marvels and compassions of the +way, of the manner in which he received the title Plentyn y Tonau, which +signifies 'Child of the Waterfloods,' and how at last he gloriously +attained the vision of the Sangraal, and was most happily translated out +of the power of La Vie Mortale." + +"And where is he now?" said Nelly, who had found the tale interesting +but obscure. + +"It is not precisely known--opinions vary. But there are two odd things: +one is that he is exactly like that man in the red dress whose statue +we saw in the shop window to-night; and the other is that from that day +to this he has never been sober for a single minute. + + "_Calix meus inebrians quam præclarus est!_" + + +V + +Ambrose took a great draught from the mug and emptied it, and forthwith +rapped the lid for a fresh supply. Nelly was somewhat nervous; she was +afraid he might begin to sing, for there were extravagances in the +history of Panurge which seemed to her to be of alcoholic source. +However, he did not sing; he lapsed into silence, gazing at the dark +beams, the hanging hops, the bright array of the tankards and the groups +of drinkers dotted about the room. At a neighbouring table two Germans +were making a hearty meal, chumping the meat and smacking their lips in +a kind of heavy ecstasy. He had but little German, but he caught scraps +of the conversation. + +One man said: + +"Heavenly swine cutlets!" + +And the other answered: + +"Glorious eating!" + +"Nelly," said Ambrose, "I have a great inspiration!" + +She trembled visibly. + +"Yes; I have talked so much that I am hungry. We will have some supper." + +They looked over the list of strange eatables and, with the waiter's +help, decided on Leberwurst and potato-salad as light and harmless. With +this they ate crescent loaves, sprinkled with caraway seeds: there was +more Munich Lion-Brew and more flowery drink, with black coffee, a +_fine_ and a Maraschino to end all. For Nelly the kobolds began to +perform a grotesque and mystic dance in the shadows, the glass tankards +on the rack glittered strangely, the white walls with the red and black +texts retreated into vast distances, and the bouquet of hops seemed +suspended from a remote star. As for Ambrose, he was certainly not +_ebrius_ according to the Baron's definition; he was hardly _ebriolus_; +but he was sensible, let us say, of a certain quickening of the fancy, +of a more vivid and poignant enjoyment of the whole situation, of the +unutterable gaiety of this mad escape from the conventions of Lupton. + +"It was a Thursday night," said Ambrose in the after years, "and we were +thinking of starting for Touraine either the next morning or on Saturday +at latest. It will always be bright in my mind, that picture--the low +room with the oak beams, the glittering tankards, the hops hanging from +the ceiling, and Nelly sitting before me sipping the scented drink from +a green glass. It was the last night of gaiety, and even then gaiety was +mixed with odd patterns--the Frenchman's talk about martyrdom, and the +statue of the saint pointing to the marks of his passion, standing in +that dyed vesture with his rapt, exultant face; and then the song of +final triumph and deliverance that rang out on the chiming bells from +the white spire. I think the contrast of this solemn undertone made my +heart all the lighter; I was in that odd state in which one delights to +know that one is not being understood--so I told poor Nelly 'the story +of Panurge's marriage to La Vie Mortale; I am sure she thought I was +drunk! + +"We went home in a hansom, and agreed that we would have just one +cigarette and then go to bed. It was settled that we would catch the +night boat to Dieppe on the next day, and we both laughed with joy at +the thought of the adventure. And then--I don't know how it was--Nelly +began to tell me all about herself. She had never said a word before; I +had never asked her--I never ask anybody about their past lives. What +does it matter? You know a certain class of plot--novelists are rather +fond of using it--in which the hero's happiness is blasted because he +finds out that the life of his wife or his sweetheart has not always +been spotless as the snow. Why should it be spotless as the snow? What +is the hero that he should be dowered with the love of virgins of +Paradise? I call it cant--all that--and I hate it; I hope Angel Clare +was eventually entrapped by a young person from Piccadilly Circus--she +would probably be much too good for him! So, you see, I was hardly +likely to have put any very searching questions to Nelly; we had other +things to talk about. + +"But this night I suppose she was a bit excited. It had been a wild and +wonderful week. The transition from that sewage-pot in the Midlands to +the Abbey of Theleme was enough to turn any head; we had laughed till we +had grown dizzy. The worst of that miserable school discipline is is +that it makes one take an insane and quite disproportionate enjoyment in +little things, in the merest trifles which ought really to be accepted +as a matter of course. I assure you that every minute that I spent in +bed after seven o'clock was to me a grain of Paradise, a moment of +delight. Of course, it's ridiculous; let a man get up early or get up +late, as he likes or as he finds best--and say no more about it. But at +that wretched Lupton early rising was part of the infernal blether and +blatter of the place, that made life there like a long dinner in which +every dish has the same sauce. It may be a good sauce enough; but one +is sick of the taste of it. According to our Bonzes there, getting up +early on a winter's day was a high virtue which acquired merit. I +believe I should have liked a hard chair to sit in of my own free will, +if one of our old fools--Palmer--had not always been gabbling about the +horrid luxury of some boys who had arm-chairs in their studies. Unless +you were doing something or other to make yourself very uncomfortable, +he used to say you were like the 'later Romans.' I am sure he believed +that those lunatics who bathe in the Serpentine on Christmas Day would +go straight to heaven! + +"And there you are. I would awake at seven o'clock from persistent +habit, and laugh as I realised that I was in Little Russell Row and not +at the Old Grange. Then I would doze off again and wake up at +intervals--eight, nine, ten--and chuckle to myself with ever-increasing +enjoyment. It was just the same with smoking. I don't suppose I should +have touched a cigarette for years if smoking had not been one of the +mortal sins in our Bedlam Decalogue. I don't know whether smoking is bad +for boys or not; I should think not, as I believe the Dutch--who are +sturdy fellows--begin to puff fat cigars at the age of six or +thereabouts; but I do know that those pompous old boobies and blockheads +and leather-skulls have discovered exactly the best way to make a boy +think that a packet of Rosebuds represents the quintessence of frantic +delight. + +"Well, you see how it was, how Little Russell Row--the dingy, the +stuffy, the dark retreat of old Bloomsbury--became the abode of +miraculous joys, a bright portion of fairyland. Ah! it was a strong new +wine that we tasted, and it went to our heads, and not much wonder. It +all rose to its height on that Thursday night when we went to the 'Three +Kings' and sat beneath the hop bush, drinking Lion-Brew and flowery +drink as I talked extravagances concerning Panurge. It was time for the +curtain to be rung down on our comedy. + +"The one cigarette had become three or four when Nelly began to tell me +her history; the wine and the rejoicing had got into her head also. She +described the first things that she remembered: a little hut among wild +hills and stony fields in the west of Ireland, and the great sea roaring +on the shore but a mile away, and the wind and the rain always driving +from across the waves. She spoke of the place as if she loved it, though +her father and mother were as poor as they could be, and little was +there to eat even in the old cabin. She remembered Mass in the little +chapel, an old, old place hidden way in the most desolate part of the +country, small and dark and bare enough except for the candles on the +altar and a bright statue or two. St. Kieran's cell, they called it, and +it was supposed that the Mass had never ceased to be said there even in +the blackest days of persecution. Quite well she remembered the old +priest and his vestments, and the gestures that he used, and how they +all bowed down when the bell rang; she could imitate his quavering voice +saying the Latin. Her own father, she said, was a learned man in his +way, though it was not the English way. He could not read common print, +or write; he knew nothing about printed books, but he could say a lot of +the old Irish songs and stories by heart, and he had sticks on which he +wrote poems on all sorts of things, cutting notches on the wood in +Oghams, as the priest called them; and he could tell many wonderful +tales of the saints and the people. It was a happy life altogether; they +were as poor as poor could be, and praised God and wanted for nothing. +Then her mother went into a decline and died, and her father never +lifted up his head again, and she was left an orphan when she was nine +years old. The priest had written to an aunt who lived in England, and +so she found herself one black day standing on the platform of the +station in a horrible little manufacturing village in Lancashire; +everything was black--the sky and the earth, and the houses and the +people; and the sound of their rough, harsh voices made her sick. And +the aunt had married an Independent and turned Protestant, so she was +black, too, Nelly thought. She was wretched for a long time, she said. +The aunt was kind enough to her, but the place and the people were so +awful. Mr. Deakin, the husband, said he couldn't encourage Popery in his +house, so she had to go to the meeting-house on Sunday and listen to the +nonsense they called 'religion'--all long sermons with horrible +shrieking hymns. By degrees she forgot her old prayers, and she was +taken to the Dissenters' Sunday School, where they learned texts and +heard about King Solomon's Temple, and Jonadab the son of Rechab, and +Jezebel, and the Judges. They seemed to think a good deal of her at the +school; she had several prizes for Bible knowledge. + +"She was sixteen when she first went out to service. She was glad to get +away--nothing could be worse than Farnworth, and it might be better. And +then there were tales to tell! I never have had a clearer light thrown +on the curious and disgusting manners of the lower middle-class in +England--the class that prides itself especially on its respectability, +above all, on what it calls 'Morality'--by which it means the observance +of one particular commandment. You know the class I mean: the brigade of +the shining hat on Sunday, of the neat little villa with a well-kept +plot in front, of the consecrated drawing-room, of the big Bible well in +evidence. It is more often Chapel than Church, this tribe, but it draws +from both sources. It is above all things shiny--not only the Sunday +hat, but the furniture, the linoleum, the hair and the very flesh which +pertain to these people have an unwholesome polish on them; and they +prefer their plants and shrubs to be as glossy as possible--this _gens +lubrica_. + +"To these tents poor Nelly went as a slave; she dwelt from henceforth on +the genteel outskirts of more or less prosperous manufacturing towns, +and she soon profoundly regretted the frank grime and hideousness of +Farnworth. A hedgehog is a rough and prickly fellow--better his prickles +than the reptile's poisonous slime. The tales that yet await the +novelist who has courage (what is his name, by the way?), who has the +insight to see behind those Venetian blinds and white curtains, who has +the word that can give him entrance through the polished door by the +encaustic porch! What plots, what pictures, what characters are ready +for his cunning hand, what splendid matter lies unknown, useless, and +indeed offensive, which, in the artist's crucible, would be transmuted +into golden and exquisite perfection. Do you know that I can never +penetrate into the regions where these people dwell without a thrill of +wonder and a great desire that I might be called to execute the +masterpieces I have hinted at? Do you remember how Zola, viewing these +worlds from the train when he visited London, groaned because he had no +English, because he had no key to open the treasure-house before his +eyes? He, of course, who was a great diviner, saw the infinite variety +of romance that was concealed beneath those myriads of snug commonplace +roofs: I wish he could have observed in English and recorded in French. +He was a brave man, his defence of Dreyfus shows that; but, supposing +the capacity, I do not think he was brave enough to tell the London +suburbs the truth about themselves in their own tongue. + +"Yes, I walk down these long ways on Sunday afternoons, when they are at +their best. Sometimes, if you choose the right hour, you may look into +one 'breakfast room'--an apartment half sunken in the earth--after +another, and see in each one the table laid for tea, showing the +charming order and uniformity that prevail. Tea in the drawing-room +would be, I suppose, a desecration. I wonder what would happen if some +chance guest were to refuse tea and to ask for a glass of beer, or even +a brandy and soda? I suppose the central lake that lies many hundreds of +feet beneath London would rise up, and the sinful town would be +overwhelmed. Yes: consider these houses well; how demure, how +well-ordered, how shining, as I have said; and then think of what they +conceal. + +"Generally speaking, you know, 'morality' (in the English suburban +sense) has been a tolerably equal matter. I shouldn't imagine that those +'later Romans' that poor old Palmer was always bothering about were much +better or worse than the earlier Babylonians; and London as a whole is +very much the same thing in this respect as Pekin as a whole. Modern +Berlin and sixteenth-century Venice might compete on equal terms--save +that Venice, I am sure, was very picturesque, and Berlin, I have no +doubt is very piggy. The fact is, of course (to use a simple analogy), +man, by his nature, is always hungry, and, that being the case, he will +sometimes eat too much dinner and sometimes he will get his dinner in +odd ways, and sometimes he will help himself to more or less unlawful +snacks before breakfast and after supper. There it is, and there is an +end of it. But suppose a society in which the fact of hunger was +officially denied, in which the faintest hint at an empty stomach was +considered the rankest, most abominable indecency, the most detestable +offence against the most sacred religious feelings? Suppose the child +severely reprimanded at the mere mention of bread and butter, whipped +and shut up in a dark room for the offence of reading a recipe for +making plum pudding; suppose, I say, a whole society organised on the +strict official understanding that no decent person ever is or has been +or can be conscious of the physical want of food; that breakfast, lunch, +tea, dinner and supper are orgies only used by the most wicked and +degraded wretches, destined to an awful and eternal doom? In such a +world, I think, you would discover some very striking irregularities in +diet. Facts are known to be stubborn things, but if their very existence +is denied they become ferocious and terrible things. Coventry Patmore +was angry, and with reason, when he heard that even at the Vatican the +statues had received the order of the fig-leaf. + +"Nelly went among these Manichees. She had been to the world beyond the +Venetians, the white muslin curtains and the india-rubber plant, and she +told me her report. They talk about the morality of the theatre, these +swine! In the theatre--if there is anything of the kind--it is a case of +a wastrel and a wanton who meet and part on perfectly equal terms, +without deceit or false pretences. It is not a case of master creeping +into a young girl's room at dead of night, with a Bible under his +arm--the said Bible being used with grotesque skill to show that +'master's' wishes must be at once complied with under pain of severe +punishment, not only in this world, but in the world to come. Every +Sunday, you must remember, the girl has seen 'master' perhaps crouching +devoutly in his pew, perhaps in the part of sidesman or even +church-warden, more probably supplementing the gifts of the pastor at +some nightmarish meeting-house. 'Master' offers prayer with wonderful +fervour; he speaks to the Lord as man to man; in the emotional passages +his voice gets husky, and everybody says how good he is. He is a deacon, +a guardian of the poor (gracious title!), a builder and an earnest +supporter of the British and Foreign Bible Society: in a word, he is of +the great middle-class, the backbone of England and of the Protestant +Religion. He subscribes to the excellent society which prosecutes +booksellers for selling the Decameron of Boccaccio. He has from ten to +fifteen children, all of whom were found by Mamma in the garden. + +"'Mr. King was a horrible man,' said Nelly, describing her first place; +'he had a great greasy pale face with red whiskers, and a shiny bald +head; he was fat, too, and when he smiled it made one feel sick. Soon +after I got the place he came into the kitchen. Missus was away for +three days, and the children were all in bed. He sat down by the hearth +and asked whether I was saved, and did I love the Lord as I ought to, +and if I ever had any bad thoughts about young men? Then he opened the +Bible and read me nasty things from the Old Testament, and asked if I +understood what it meant. I said I didn't know, and he said we must +approach the Lord in prayer so that we might have grace to search the +Scriptures together. I had to kneel down close to him, and he put his +arm round my waist and began to pray, as he called it; and when we got +up he took me on his knee and said he felt to me as if I were his own +daughter.' + +"There, that is enough of Mr. King. You can imagine what the poor child +had to go through time after time. On prayer-meeting nights she used to +put the chest of drawers against her bedroom door: there would be +gentle, cautious pushes, and then a soft voice murmuring: 'My child, why +is your heart so bad and stubborn?' I think we can conceive the general +character of 'master' from these examples. 'Missus,' of course, requires +a treatise to herself; her more frequent failings are child-torture, +secret drinking and low amours with oily commercial travellers. + +"Yes, it is a hideous world enough, isn't it? And isn't it a pleasant +thought that you and I practically live under the government of these +people? 'Master' is the 'man in the street,' the 'hard-headed, +practical man of the world,' 'the descendant of the sturdy Puritans,' +whose judgment is final on all questions from Poetics to Liturgiology. +We hardly think that this picture will commend itself to the 'man in the +street'--a course of action that is calculated to alienate practical +men. Pleasant, isn't it? _Suburbia locuta est: causa finita est._ + +"I suppose that, by nature, these people would not be so very much more +depraved than the ordinary African black fellow. Their essential +hideousness comes, I take it, from their essential and most abominable +hypocrisy. You know how they are always prating about Bible +Teaching--the 'simple morality of the Gospel,' and all that nauseous +stuff? And what would be the verdict, in this suburban world, on a man +who took no thought for the morrow, who regulated his life by the +example of the lilies, who scoffed at the idea of saving money? You know +perfectly well that his relations would have him declared a lunatic. +_There_ is the villainy. If you are continually professing an idolatrous +and unctuous devotion to a body of teaching which you are also +persistently and perpetually disregarding and disobeying in its +plainest, most simple, most elementary injunctions, well, you will soon +interest anglers in search of bait. + +"Yes, such is the world behind the india-rubber plant into which Nelly +entered. I believe she repelled the advances of 'master' with success. +Her final undoing came from a different quarter, and I am afraid that +drugs, not Biblical cajoleries, were the instruments used. She cried +bitterly when she spoke of this event, but she said, too; 'I will kill +him for it!' It was an ugly story, and a sad one, alas!--the saddest +tale I ever listened to. Think of it: to come from that old cabin on the +wild, bare hills, from the sound of the great sea, from the pure breath +of the waves and the wet salt wind, to the stenches and the poisons of +our 'industrial centres.' She came from parents who had nothing and +possessed all things, to our civilisation which has everything, and lies +on the dung-heap that it has made at the very gates of Heaven--destitute +of all true treasures, full of sores and vermin and corruption. She was +nurtured on the wonderful old legends of the saints and the fairies; she +had listened to the songs that her father made and cut in Oghams; and we +gave her the penny novelette and the works of Madame Chose. She had +knelt before the altar, adoring the most holy sacrifice of the Mass; now +she knelt beside 'master' while he approached the Lord in prayer, +licking his fat white lips. I can imagine no more terrible transition. + +"I do not know how or why it happened, but as I listened to Nelly's +tale my eyes were opened to my own work and my own deeds, and I saw for +the first time my wickedness. I should despair of explaining to anyone +how utterly innocent I had been in intention all the while, how far I +was from any deliberate design of guilt. In a sense, I was learned, and +yet, in a sense, I was most ignorant; I had been committing what is, +doubtless a grievous sin, under the impression that I was enjoying the +greatest of all mysteries and graces and blessings--the great natural +sacrament of human life. + +"Did I not know I was doing wrong? I knew that if any of the masters +found me with Nelly I should get into sad trouble. Certainly I knew +that. But if any of the masters had caught me smoking a cigarette, or +saying 'damn,' or going into a public-house to get a glass of beer, or +using a crib, or reading Rabelais, I should have got into sad trouble +also. I knew that I was sinning against the 'tone' of the great Public +School; you may imagine how deeply I felt the guilt of such an offence +as that! And, of course, I had heard the boys telling their foolish +indecencies; but somehow their nasty talk and their filthy jokes were +not in any way connected in my mind with my love of Nelly--no more, +indeed, than midnight darkness suggests daylight, or torment symbolises +pleasure. Indeed, there was a hint--a dim intuition--deep down in my +consciousness that all was not well; but I knew of no reason for this; I +held it a morbid dream, the fantasy of an imagination over-exalted, +perhaps; I would not listen to a faint voice that seemed without sense +or argument. + +"And now that voice was ringing in my ears with the clear, resonant and +piercing summons of a trumpet; I saw myself arraigned far down beside +the pestilent horde of whom I have just spoken; and, indeed, my sin was +worse than theirs, for I had been bred in light, and they in darkness. +All heedless, without knowledge, without preparation, without receiving +the mystic word, I had stumbled into the shrine, uninitiated I had +passed beyond the veil and gazed upon the hidden mystery, on the secret +glory that is concealed from the holy angels. Woe and great sorrow were +upon me, as if a priest, devoutly offering the sacrifice, were suddenly +to become aware that he was uttering, all inadvertently, hideous and +profane blasphemies, summoning Satan in place of the Holy Spirit. I hid +my face in my hands and cried out in my anguish. + +"Do you know that I think Nelly was in a sense relieved when I tried to +tell her of my mistake, as I called it; even though I said, as gently as +I could, that it was all over. She was relieved, because for the first +time she felt quite sure that I was altogether in my senses; I can +understand it. My whole attitude must have struck her as bordering on +insanity, for, of course, from first to last I had never for a moment +taken up the position of the unrepentant but cheerful sinner, who knows +that he is being a sad dog, but means to continue in his naughty way. +She, with her evil experience, had thought the words I had sometimes +uttered not remote from madness. She wondered, she told me, whether one +night I might not suddenly take her throat in my hands and strangle her +in a sudden frenzy. She hardly knew whether she dreaded such a death or +longed for it. + +"'You spoke so strangely,' she said; 'and all the while I knew we were +doing wrong, and I wondered.' + +"Of course, even after I had explained the matter as well as I could she +was left to a large extent bewildered as to what my state of mind could +have been; still, she saw that I was not mad, and she was relieved, as I +have said. + +"I do not know how she was first drawn to me--how it was that she stole +that night to the room where I lay bruised and aching. Pity and desire +and revenge, I suppose, all had their share. She was so sorry, she said, +for me. She could see how lonely I was, how I hated the place and +everybody about it, and she knew that I was not English. I think my +wild Welsh face attracted her, too. + +"Alas! that was a sad night, after all our laughter. We had sat on and +on till the dawn began to come in through the drawn blinds. I told her +that we must go to bed, or we should never get up the next day. We went +into the bedroom, and there, sad and grey, the dawn appeared. There was +a heavy sky covered with clouds and a straight, soft rain was pattering +on the leaves of a great plane tree opposite; heavy drops fell into the +pools in the road. + +"It was still as on the mountain, filled with infinite sadness, and a +sudden step clattering on the pavement of the square beyond made the +stillness seem all the more profound. I stood by the window and gazed +out at the weeping, dripping tree, the ever-falling rain and the +motionless, leaden clouds--there was no breath of wind--and it was as if +I heard the saddest of all music, tones of anguish and despair and notes +that cried and wept. The theme was given out, itself wet, as it were, +with tears. It was repeated with a sharper cry, a more piteous +supplication; it was re-echoed with a bitter utterance, and tears fell +faster as the raindrops fell plashing from the weeping tree. Inexorable +in its sad reiterations, in its remorseless development, that music +wailed and grew in its lamentation in my own heart; heavy it was, and +without hope; heavy as those still, leaden clouds that hung motionless +in heaven. No relief came to this sorrowing melody--rather a sharper +note of anguish; and then for a moment, as if to embitter bitterness, +sounded a fantastic, laughing air, a measure of jocund pipes and rushing +violins, echoing with the mirth of dancing feet. But it was beaten into +dust by the sentence of despair, by doom that was for ever, by a +sentence pitiless, relentless; and, as a sudden breath shook the wet +boughs of the plane tree and a torrent fell upon the road, so the last +notes of that inner music were to me as a burst of hopeless weeping. + +"I turned away from the window and looked at the dingy little room where +we had laughed so well. It was a sad room enough, with its pale blue, +stripy-patterned paper, its rickety old furniture and its feeble +pictures. The only note of gaiety was on the dressing-table, where poor +little Nelly had arranged some toys and trinkets and fantasies that she +had bought for herself in the last few days. There was a silver-handled +brush and a flagon of some scent that I liked, and a little brooch of +olivines that had caught her fancy; and a powder-puff in a pretty gilt +box. The sight of these foolish things cut me to the heart. But Nelly! +She was standing by the bedside, half undressed, and she looked at me +with the most piteous longing. I think that she had really grown fond of +me. I suppose that I shall never forget the sad enchantment of her face, +the flowing of her beautiful coppery hair about it; and the tears were +wet on her cheeks. She half stretched out her bare arms to me and then +let them fall. I had never known all her strange allurement before. I +had refined and symbolised and made her into a sign of joy, and now +before me she shone disarrayed--not a symbol, but a woman, in the new +intelligence that had come to me, and I longed for her. I had just +enough strength and no more." + + + + +EPILOGUE + + +It is unfortunate--or fortunate: that is a matter to be settled by the +taste of the reader--that with this episode of the visit to London all +detailed material for the life of Ambrose Meyrick comes to an end. Odd +scraps of information, stray notes and jottings are all that is +available, and the rest of Meyrick's life must be left in dim and +somewhat legendary outline. + +Personally, I think that this failure of documents is to be lamented. +The four preceding chapters have, in the main, dealt with the years of +boyhood, and therefore with a multitude of follies. One is inclined to +wonder, as poor Nelly wondered, whether the lad was quite right in his +head. It is possible that if we had fuller information as to his later +years we might be able to dismiss him as decidedly eccentric, but +well-meaning on the whole. + +But, after all, I cannot be confident that he would get off so easily. +Certainly he did not repeat the adventure of Little Russell Row, nor, so +far as I am aware, did he address anyone besides his old schoolmaster +in a Rabelaisian epistle. There are certain acts of lunacy which are +like certain acts of heroism: they are hardly to be achieved twice by +the same men. + +But Meyrick continued to do odd things. He became a strolling player +instead of becoming a scholar of Balliol. If he had proceeded to the +University, he would have encountered the formative and salutary +influence of Jowett. He wandered up and down the country for two or +three years with the actors, and writes the following apostrophe to the +memory of his old company. + +"I take off my hat when I hear the old music, for I think of the old +friends and the old days; of the theatre in the meadows by the sacred +river, and the swelling song of the nightingales on sweet, spring +nights. There is no doubt that we may safely hold with Plato his +opinion, and safely may we believe that all brave earthly shows are but +broken copies and dim lineaments of immortal things. Therefore, I hope +and trust that I shall again be gathered unto the true Hathaway Company +_quæ sursum est_, which is the purged and exalted image of the lower, +which plays for ever a great mystery in the theatre of the meadows of +asphodel, which wanders by the happy, shining streams, and drinks from +an Eternal Cup in a high and blissful and everlasting Tavern. _Ave, +cara sodalitas, ave semper._" + +Thus does he translate into wild speech _crêpe_ hair and grease paints, +dirty dressing-rooms and dirtier lodgings. And when his strolling days +were over he settled down in London, paying occasional visits to his old +home in the west. He wrote three or four books which are curious and +interesting in their way, though they will never be popular. And finally +he went on a strange errand to the East; and from the East there was for +him no returning. + +It will be remembered that he speaks of a Celtic cup, which had been +preserved in one family for many hundred years. On the death of the last +"Keeper" this cup was placed in Meyrick's charge. He received it with +the condition that it was to be taken to a certain concealed shrine in +Asia and there deposited in hands that would know how to hide its +glories for ever from the evil world. + +He went on this journey into unknown regions, travelling by ragged roads +and mountain passes, by the sandy wilderness and the mighty river. And +he forded his way by the quaking and dubious track that winds in and out +among the dangers and desolations of the _Kevir_--the great salt slough. + +He came at last to the place appointed and gave the word and the +treasure to those who know how to wear a mask and to keep well the +things which are committed to them, and then set out on his journey +back. He had reached a point not very far from the gates of West and +halted for a day or two amongst Christians, being tired out with a weary +pilgrimage. But the Turks or the Kurds--it does not matter +which--descended on the place and worked their customary works, and so +Ambrose was taken by them. + +One of the native Christians, who had hidden himself from the +miscreants, told afterwards how he saw "the stranger Ambrosian" brought +out, and how they held before him the image of the Crucified that he +might spit upon it and trample it under his feet. But he kissed the icon +with great joy and penitence and devotion. So they bore him to a tree +outside the village and crucified him there. + +And after he had hung on the tree some hours, the infidels, enraged, as +it is said, by the shining rapture of his face, killed him with their +spears. + +It was in this manner that Ambrose Meyrick gained Red Martyrdom and +achieved the most glorious Quest and Adventure of the Sangraal. + + +THE END + + + + +BOOKS BY ARTHUR MACHEN + + + THE HOUSE OF SOULS + + THE SECRET GLORY + + THE HILL OF DREAMS + + FAR OFF THINGS + + THE THREE IMPOSTORS + (in Preparation) + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Secret Glory, by Arthur Machen + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECRET GLORY *** + +***** This file should be named 35637-8.txt or 35637-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/6/3/35637/ + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +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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