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diff --git a/old/lamor10h.htm b/old/lamor10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5f4bee2 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/lamor10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8636 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII"> +<title>Lay Morals</title> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Lay Morals, by Robert Louis Stevenson</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lay Morals, by Robert Louis Stevenson +(#10 in our series by Robert Louis Stevenson) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Lay Morals + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + +Release Date: December, 1995 [EBook #373] +[This file was first posted on November 25, 1995] +[Most recently updated: August 18, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII +</pre> +<p> +<a name="startoftext"></a> +Transcribed from the Chatto and Windus 1911 edition by David Price, +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +LAY MORALS AND OTHER PAPERS<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Contents:<br> + Lay Morals<br> + Chapter I<br> + Chapter II<br> + Chapter III<br> + Chapter IV<br> + Father Damien<br> + The Pentland Rising<br> + Chapter I - The Causes of the Revolt<br> + Chapter II - The Beginning<br> + Chapter III - The March of the Rebels<br> + Chapter IV - Rullion Green<br> + Chapter V - A Record of Blood<br> + The Day After To-morrow<br> + College Papers<br> + Chapter I - Edinburgh Students in +1824<br> + Chapter II - The Modern Student<br> + Chapter III - Debating Societies<br> + Criticisms<br> + Chapter I - Lord Lytton's “Fables +in Song”<br> + Chapter II - Salvini’s Macbeth<br> + Chapter III - Bagster’s “Pilgrim’s +Progress”<br> + Sketches<br> + The Satirist<br> + Nuits Blanches<br> + The Wreath of Immortelles<br> + Nurses<br> + A Character<br> + The Great North Road<br> + Chapter I - Nance at the “Green +Dragon”<br> + Chapter II - In which Mr. Archer +is Installed<br> + Chapter III - Jonathan Holdaway<br> + Chapter IV - Mingling Threads<br> + Chapter V - Life in the Castle<br> + Chapter IV - The Bad Half-Crown<br> + Chapter VII - The Bleaching-Green<br> + Chapter VIII - The Mail Guard<br> + The Young Chevalier<br> + Prologue: The Wine-Seller’s +Wife<br> + Chapter I - The Prince<br> + Heathercat<br> + Chapter I - Traqairs of Montroymont<br> + Chapter II - Francie<br> + Chapter III - The Hill-End of Drumlowe<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +LAY MORALS<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER I<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +The problem of education is twofold: first to know, and then to utter. +Every one who lives any semblance of an inner life thinks more nobly +and profoundly than he speaks; and the best of teachers can impart only +broken images of the truth which they perceive. Speech which goes +from one to another between two natures, and, what is worse, between +two experiences, is doubly relative. The speaker buries his meaning; +it is for the hearer to dig it up again; and all speech, written or +spoken, is in a dead language until it finds a willing and prepared +hearer. Such, moreover, is the complexity of life, that when we +condescend upon details in our advice, we may be sure we condescend +on error; and the best of education is to throw out some magnanimous +hints. No man was ever so poor that he could express all he has +in him by words, looks, or actions; his true knowledge is eternally +incommunicable, for it is a knowledge of himself; and his best wisdom +comes to him by no process of the mind, but in a supreme self-dictation, +which keeps varying from hour to hour in its dictates with the variation +of events and circumstances.<br> +<br> +A few men of picked nature, full of faith, courage, and contempt for +others, try earnestly to set forth as much as they can grasp of this +inner law; but the vast majority, when they come to advise the young, +must be content to retail certain doctrines which have been already +retailed to them in their own youth. Every generation has to educate +another which it has brought upon the stage. People who readily +accept the responsibility of parentship, having very different matters +in their eye, are apt to feel rueful when that responsibility falls +due. What are they to tell the child about life and conduct, subjects +on which they have themselves so few and such confused opinions? +Indeed, I do not know; the least said, perhaps, the soonest mended; +and yet the child keeps asking, and the parent must find some words +to say in his own defence. Where does he find them? and what are +they when found?<br> +<br> +As a matter of experience, and in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases +out of a thousand, he will instil into his wide-eyed brat three bad +things: the terror of public opinion, and, flowing from that as a fountain, +the desire of wealth and applause. Besides these, or what might +be deduced as corollaries from these, he will teach not much else of +any effective value: some dim notions of divinity, perhaps, and book-keeping, +and how to walk through a quadrille.<br> +<br> +But, you may tell me, the young people are taught to be Christians. +It may be want of penetration, but I have not yet been able to perceive +it. As an honest man, whatever we teach, and be it good or evil, +it is not the doctrine of Christ. What he taught (and in this +he is like all other teachers worthy of the name) was not a code of +rules, but a ruling spirit; not truths, but a spirit of truth; not views, +but a view. What he showed us was an attitude of mind. Towards +the many considerations on which conduct is built, each man stands in +a certain relation. He takes life on a certain principle. +He has a compass in his spirit which points in a certain direction. +It is the attitude, the relation, the point of the compass, that is +the whole body and gist of what he has to teach us; in this, the details +are comprehended; out of this the specific precepts issue, and by this, +and this only, can they be explained and applied. And thus, to +learn aright from any teacher, we must first of all, like a historical +artist, think ourselves into sympathy with his position and, in the +technical phrase, create his character. A historian confronted +with some ambiguous politician, or an actor charged with a part, have +but one pre-occupation; they must search all round and upon every side, +and grope for some central conception which is to explain and justify +the most extreme details; until that is found, the politician is an +enigma, or perhaps a quack, and the part a tissue of fustian sentiment +and big words; but once that is found, all enters into a plan, a human +nature appears, the politician or the stage-king is understood from +point to point, from end to end. This is a degree of trouble which +will be gladly taken by a very humble artist; but not even the terror +of eternal fire can teach a business man to bend his imagination to +such athletic efforts. Yet without this, all is vain; until we +understand the whole, we shall understand none of the parts; and otherwise +we have no more than broken images and scattered words; the meaning +remains buried; and the language in which our prophet speaks to us is +a dead language in our ears.<br> +<br> +Take a few of Christ’s sayings and compare them with our current +doctrines.<br> +<br> +‘Ye cannot,’ he says, ‘<i>serve God and Mammon</i>.’ +Cannot? And our whole system is to teach us how we can!<br> +<br> +‘<i>The children of this world are wiser in their generation than +the children of light</i>.’ Are they? I had been led +to understand the reverse: that the Christian merchant, for example, +prospered exceedingly in his affairs; that honesty was the best policy; +that an author of repute had written a conclusive treatise ‘How +to make the best of both worlds.’ Of both worlds indeed! +Which am I to believe then - Christ or the author of repute?<br> +<br> +‘<i>Take no thought for the morrow</i>.’ Ask the Successful +Merchant; interrogate your own heart; and you will have to admit that +this is not only a silly but an immoral position. All we believe, +all we hope, all we honour in ourselves or our contemporaries, stands +condemned in this one sentence, or, if you take the other view, condemns +the sentence as unwise and inhumane. We are not then of the ‘same +mind that was in Christ.’ We disagree with Christ. +Either Christ meant nothing, or else he or we must be in the wrong. +Well says Thoreau, speaking of some texts from the New Testament, and +finding a strange echo of another style which the reader may recognise: +‘Let but one of these sentences be rightly read from any pulpit +in the land, and there would not be left one stone of that meeting-house +upon another.’<br> +<br> +It may be objected that these are what are called ‘hard sayings’; +and that a man, or an education, may be very sufficiently Christian +although it leave some of these sayings upon one side. But this +is a very gross delusion. Although truth is difficult to state, +it is both easy and agreeable to receive, and the mind runs out to meet +it ere the phrase be done. The universe, in relation to what any +man can say of it, is plain, patent and staringly comprehensible. +In itself, it is a great and travailing ocean, unsounded, unvoyageable, +an eternal mystery to man; or, let us say, it is a monstrous and impassable +mountain, one side of which, and a few near slopes and foothills, we +can dimly study with these mortal eyes. But what any man can say +of it, even in his highest utterance, must have relation to this little +and plain corner, which is no less visible to us than to him. +We are looking on the same map; it will go hard if we cannot follow +the demonstration. The longest and most abstruse flight of a philosopher +becomes clear and shallow, in the flash of a moment, when we suddenly +perceive the aspect and drift of his intention. The longest argument +is but a finger pointed; once we get our own finger rightly parallel, +and we see what the man meant, whether it be a new star or an old street-lamp. +And briefly, if a saying is hard to understand, it is because we are +thinking of something else.<br> +<br> +But to be a true disciple is to think of the same things as our prophet, +and to think of different things in the same order. To be of the +same mind with another is to see all things in the same perspective; +it is not to agree in a few indifferent matters near at hand and not +much debated; it is to follow him in his farthest flights, to see the +force of his hyperboles, to stand so exactly in the centre of his vision +that whatever he may express, your eyes will light at once on the original, +that whatever he may see to declare, your mind will at once accept. +You do not belong to the school of any philosopher, because you agree +with him that theft is, on the whole, objectionable, or that the sun +is overhead at noon. It is by the hard sayings that discipleship +is tested. We are all agreed about the middling and indifferent +parts of knowledge and morality; even the most soaring spirits too often +take them tamely upon trust. But the man, the philosopher or the +moralist, does not stand upon these chance adhesions; and the purpose +of any system looks towards those extreme points where it steps valiantly +beyond tradition and returns with some covert hint of things outside. +Then only can you be certain that the words are not words of course, +nor mere echoes of the past; then only are you sure that if he be indicating +anything at all, it is a star and not a street-lamp; then only do you +touch the heart of the mystery, since it was for these that the author +wrote his book.<br> +<br> +Now, every now and then, and indeed surprisingly often, Christ finds +a word that transcends all common-place morality; every now and then +he quits the beaten track to pioneer the unexpressed, and throws out +a pregnant and magnanimous hyperbole; for it is only by some bold poetry +of thought that men can be strung up above the level of everyday conceptions +to take a broader look upon experience or accept some higher principle +of conduct. To a man who is of the same mind that was in Christ, +who stands at some centre not too far from his, and looks at the world +and conduct from some not dissimilar or, at least, not opposing attitude +- or, shortly, to a man who is of Christ’s philosophy - every +such saying should come home with a thrill of joy and corroboration; +he should feel each one below his feet as another sure foundation in +the flux of time and chance; each should be another proof that in the +torrent of the years and generations, where doctrines and great armaments +and empires are swept away and swallowed, he stands immovable, holding +by the eternal stars. But alas! at this juncture of the ages it +is not so with us; on each and every such occasion our whole fellowship +of Christians falls back in disapproving wonder and implicitly denies +the saying. Christians! the farce is impudently broad. Let +us stand up in the sight of heaven and confess. The ethics that +we hold are those of Benjamin Franklin. <i>Honesty is the best</i> +<i>policy</i>, is perhaps a hard saying; it is certainly one by which +a wise man of these days will not too curiously direct his steps; but +I think it shows a glimmer of meaning to even our most dimmed intelligences; +I think we perceive a principle behind it; I think, without hyperbole, +we are of the same mind that was in Benjamin Franklin.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER II<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +But, I may be told, we teach the ten commandments, where a world of +morals lies condensed, the very pith and epitome of all ethics and religion; +and a young man with these precepts engraved upon his mind must follow +after profit with some conscience and Christianity of method. +A man cannot go very far astray who neither dishonours his parents, +nor kills, nor commits adultery, nor steals, nor bears false witness; +for these things, rightly thought out, cover a vast field of duty.<br> +<br> +Alas! what is a precept? It is at best an illustration; it is +case law at the best which can be learned by precept. The letter +is not only dead, but killing; the spirit which underlies, and cannot +be uttered, alone is true and helpful. This is trite to sickness; +but familiarity has a cunning disenchantment; in a day or two she can +steal all beauty from the mountain tops; and the most startling words +begin to fall dead upon the ear after several repetitions. If +you see a thing too often, you no longer see it; if you hear a thing +too often, you no longer hear it. Our attention requires to be +surprised; and to carry a fort by assault, or to gain a thoughtful hearing +from the ruck of mankind, are feats of about an equal difficulty and +must be tried by not dissimilar means. The whole Bible has thus +lost its message for the common run of hearers; it has become mere words +of course; and the parson may bawl himself scarlet and beat the pulpit +like a thing possessed, but his hearers will continue to nod; they are +strangely at peace, they know all he has to say; ring the old bell as +you choose, it is still the old bell and it cannot startle their composure. +And so with this byword about the letter and the spirit. It is +quite true, no doubt; but it has no meaning in the world to any man +of us. Alas! it has just this meaning, and neither more nor less: +that while the spirit is true, the letter is eternally false.<br> +<br> +The shadow of a great oak lies abroad upon the ground at noon, perfect, +clear, and stable like the earth. But let a man set himself to +mark out the boundary with cords and pegs, and were he never so nimble +and never so exact, what with the multiplicity of the leaves and the +progression of the shadow as it flees before the travelling sun, long +ere he has made the circuit the whole figure will have changed. +Life may be compared, not to a single tree, but to a great and complicated +forest; circumstance is more swiftly changing than a shadow, language +much more inexact than the tools of a surveyor; from day to day the +trees fall and are renewed; the very essences are fleeting as we look; +and the whole world of leaves is swinging tempest-tossed among the winds +of time. Look now for your shadows. O man of formulae, is +this a place for you? Have you fitted the spirit to a single case? +Alas, in the cycle of the ages when shall such another be proposed for +the judgment of man? Now when the sun shines and the winds blow, +the wood is filled with an innumerable multitude of shadows, tumultuously +tossed and changing; and at every gust the whole carpet leaps and becomes +new. Can you or your heart say more?<br> +<br> +Look back now, for a moment, on your own brief experience of life; and +although you lived it feelingly in your own person, and had every step +of conduct burned in by pains and joys upon your memory, tell me what +definite lesson does experience hand on from youth to manhood, or from +both to age? The settled tenor which first strikes the eye is +but the shadow of a delusion. This is gone; that never truly was; +and you yourself are altered beyond recognition. Times and men +and circumstances change about your changing character, with a speed +of which no earthly hurricane affords an image. What was the best +yesterday, is it still the best in this changed theatre of a to-morrow? +Will your own Past truly guide you in your own violent and unexpected +Future? And if this be questionable, with what humble, with what +hopeless eyes, should we not watch other men driving beside us on their +unknown careers, seeing with unlike eyes, impelled by different gales, +doing and suffering in another sphere of things?<br> +<br> +And as the authentic clue to such a labyrinth and change of scene, do +you offer me these two score words? these five bald prohibitions? +For the moral precepts are no more than five; the first four deal rather +with matters of observance than of conduct; the tenth, <i>Thou shalt +not covet</i>, stands upon another basis, and shall be spoken of ere +long. The Jews, to whom they were first given, in the course of +years began to find these precepts insufficient; and made an addition +of no less than six hundred and fifty others! They hoped to make +a pocket-book of reference on morals, which should stand to life in +some such relation, say, as Hoyle stands in to the scientific game of +whist. The comparison is just, and condemns the design; for those +who play by rule will never be more than tolerable players; and you +and I would like to play our game in life to the noblest and the most +divine advantage. Yet if the Jews took a petty and huckstering +view of conduct, what view do we take ourselves, who callously leave +youth to go forth into the enchanted forest, full of spells and dire +chimeras, with no guidance more complete than is afforded by these five +precepts?<br> +<br> +<i>Honour thy father and thy mother</i>. Yes, but does that mean +to obey? and if so, how long and how far? <i>Thou shall not kill</i>. +Yet the very intention and purport of the prohibition may be best fulfilled +by killing. <i>Thou shall not commit adultery</i>. But some +of the ugliest adulteries are committed in the bed of marriage and under +the sanction of religion and law. <i>Thou shalt not bear false +witness</i>. How? by speech or by silence also? or even by a smile? +<i>Thou shalt</i> <i>not steal</i>. Ah, that indeed! But +what is <i>to steal</i>?<br> +<br> +To steal? It is another word to be construed; and who is to be +our guide? The police will give us one construction, leaving the +word only that least minimum of meaning without which society would +fall in pieces; but surely we must take some higher sense than this; +surely we hope more than a bare subsistence for mankind; surely we wish +mankind to prosper and go on from strength to strength, and ourselves +to live rightly in the eye of some more exacting potentate than a policeman. +The approval or the disapproval of the police must be eternally indifferent +to a man who is both valorous and good. There is extreme discomfort, +but no shame, in the condemnation of the law. The law represents +that modicum of morality which can be squeezed out of the ruck of mankind; +but what is that to me, who aim higher and seek to be my own more stringent +judge? I observe with pleasure that no brave man has ever given +a rush for such considerations. The Japanese have a nobler and +more sentimental feeling for this social bond into which we all are +born when we come into the world, and whose comforts and protection +we all indifferently share throughout our lives:- but even to them, +no more than to our Western saints and heroes, does the law of the state +supersede the higher law of duty. Without hesitation and without +remorse, they transgress the stiffest enactments rather than abstain +from doing right. But the accidental superior duty being thus +fulfilled, they at once return in allegiance to the common duty of all +citizens; and hasten to denounce themselves; and value at an equal rate +their just crime and their equally just submission to its punishment.<br> +<br> +The evading of the police will not long satisfy an active conscience +or a thoughtful head. But to show you how one or the other may +trouble a man, and what a vast extent of frontier is left unridden by +this invaluable eighth commandment, let me tell you a few pages out +of a young man’s life.<br> +<br> +He was a friend of mine; a young man like others; generous, flighty, +as variable as youth itself, but always with some high motions and on +the search for higher thoughts of life. I should tell you at once +that he thoroughly agrees with the eighth commandment. But he +got hold of some unsettling works, the New Testament among others, and +this loosened his views of life and led him into many perplexities. +As he was the son of a man in a certain position, and well off, my friend +had enjoyed from the first the advantages of education, nay, he had +been kept alive through a sickly childhood by constant watchfulness, +comforts, and change of air; for all of which he was indebted to his +father’s wealth.<br> +<br> +At college he met other lads more diligent than himself, who followed +the plough in summer-time to pay their college fees in winter; and this +inequality struck him with some force. He was at that age of a +conversible temper, and insatiably curious in the aspects of life; and +he spent much of his time scraping acquaintance with all classes of +man- and woman-kind. In this way he came upon many depressed ambitions, +and many intelligences stunted for want of opportunity; and this also +struck him. He began to perceive that life was a handicap upon +strange, wrong-sided principles; and not, as he had been told, a fair +and equal race. He began to tremble that he himself had been unjustly +favoured, when he saw all the avenues of wealth, and power, and comfort +closed against so many of his superiors and equals, and held unwearyingly +open before so idle, so desultory, and so dissolute a being as himself. +There sat a youth beside him on the college benches, who had only one +shirt to his back, and, at intervals sufficiently far apart, must stay +at home to have it washed. It was my friend’s principle +to stay away as often as he dared; for I fear he was no friend to learning. +But there was something that came home to him sharply, in this fellow +who had to give over study till his shirt was washed, and the scores +of others who had never an opportunity at all. <i>If one of these +could take his place</i>, he thought; and the thought tore away a bandage +from his eyes. He was eaten by the shame of his discoveries, and +despised himself as an unworthy favourite and a creature of the back-stairs +of Fortune. He could no longer see without confusion one of these +brave young fellows battling up-hill against adversity. Had he +not filched that fellow’s birthright? At best was he not +coldly profiting by the injustice of society, and greedily devouring +stolen goods? The money, indeed, belonged to his father, who had +worked, and thought, and given up his liberty to earn it; but by what +justice could the money belong to my friend, who had, as yet, done nothing +but help to squander it? A more sturdy honesty, joined to a more +even and impartial temperament, would have drawn from these considerations +a new force of industry, that this equivocal position might be brought +as swiftly as possible to an end, and some good services to mankind +justify the appropriation of expense. It was not so with my friend, +who was only unsettled and discouraged, and filled full of that trumpeting +anger with which young men regard injustices in the first blush of youth; +although in a few years they will tamely acquiesce in their existence, +and knowingly profit by their complications. Yet all this while +he suffered many indignant pangs. And once, when he put on his +boots, like any other unripe donkey, to run away from home, it was his +best consolation that he was now, at a single plunge, to free himself +from the responsibility of this wealth that was not his, and do battle +equally against his fellows in the warfare of life.<br> +<br> +Some time after this, falling into ill-health, he was sent at great +expense to a more favourable climate; and then I think his perplexities +were thickest. When he thought of all the other young men of singular +promise, upright, good, the prop of families, who must remain at home +to die, and with all their possibilities be lost to life and mankind; +and how he, by one more unmerited favour, was chosen out from all these +others to survive; he felt as if there were no life, no labour, no devotion +of soul and body, that could repay and justify these partialities. +A religious lady, to whom he communicated these reflections, could see +no force in them whatever. ‘It was God’s will,’ +said she. But he knew it was by God’s will that Joan of +Arc was burnt at Rouen, which cleared neither Bedford nor Bishop Cauchon; +and again, by God’s will that Christ was crucified outside Jerusalem, +which excused neither the rancour of the priests nor the timidity of +Pilate. He knew, moreover, that although the possibility of this +favour he was now enjoying issued from his circumstances, its acceptance +was the act of his own will; and he had accepted it greedily, longing +for rest and sunshine. And hence this allegation of God’s +providence did little to relieve his scruples. I promise you he +had a very troubled mind. And I would not laugh if I were you, +though while he was thus making mountains out of what you think molehills, +he were still (as perhaps he was) contentedly practising many other +things that to you seem black as hell. Every man is his own judge +and mountain-guide through life. There is an old story of a mote +and a beam, apparently not true, but worthy perhaps of some consideration. +I should, if I were you, give some consideration to these scruples of +his, and if I were he, I should do the like by yours; for it is not +unlikely that there may be something under both. In the meantime +you must hear how my friend acted. Like many invalids, he supposed +that he would die. Now, should he die, he saw no means of repaying +this huge loan which, by the hands of his father, mankind had advanced +him for his sickness. In that case it would be lost money. +So he determined that the advance should be as small as possible; and, +so long as he continued to doubt his recovery, lived in an upper room, +and grudged himself all but necessaries. But so soon as he began +to perceive a change for the better, he felt justified in spending more +freely, to speed and brighten his return to health, and trusted in the +future to lend a help to mankind, as mankind, out of its treasury, had +lent a help to him.<br> +<br> +I do not say but that my friend was a little too curious and partial +in his view; nor thought too much of himself and too little of his parents; +but I do say that here are some scruples which tormented my friend in +his youth, and still, perhaps, at odd times give him a prick in the +midst of his enjoyments, and which after all have some foundation in +justice, and point, in their confused way, to some more honourable honesty +within the reach of man. And at least, is not this an unusual +gloss upon the eighth commandment? And what sort of comfort, guidance, +or illumination did that precept afford my friend throughout these contentions? +‘Thou shalt not steal.’ With all my heart! But +<i>am</i> I stealing?<br> +<br> +The truly quaint materialism of our view of life disables us from pursuing +any transaction to an end. You can make no one understand that +his bargain is anything more than a bargain, whereas in point of fact +it is a link in the policy of mankind, and either a good or an evil +to the world. We have a sort of blindness which prevents us from +seeing anything but sovereigns. If one man agrees to give another +so many shillings for so many hours’ work, and then wilfully gives +him a certain proportion of the price in bad money and only the remainder +in good, we can see with half an eye that this man is a thief. +But if the other spends a certain proportion of the hours in smoking +a pipe of tobacco, and a certain other proportion in looking at the +sky, or the clock, or trying to recall an air, or in meditation on his +own past adventures, and only the remainder in downright work such as +he is paid to do, is he, because the theft is one of time and not of +money, - is he any the less a thief? The one gave a bad shilling, +the other an imperfect hour; but both broke the bargain, and each is +a thief. In piecework, which is what most of us do, the case is +none the less plain for being even less material. If you forge +a bad knife, you have wasted some of mankind’s iron, and then, +with unrivalled cynicism, you pocket some of mankind’s money for +your trouble. Is there any man so blind who cannot see that this +is theft? Again, if you carelessly cultivate a farm, you have +been playing fast and loose with mankind’s resources against hunger; +there will be less bread in consequence, and for lack of that bread +somebody will die next winter: a grim consideration. And you must +not hope to shuffle out of blame because you got less money for your +less quantity of bread; for although a theft be partly punished, it +is none the less a theft for that. You took the farm against competitors; +there were others ready to shoulder the responsibility and be answerable +for the tale of loaves; but it was you who took it. By the act +you came under a tacit bargain with mankind to cultivate that farm with +your best endeavour; you were under no superintendence, you were on +parole; and you have broke your bargain, and to all who look closely, +and yourself among the rest if you have moral eyesight, you are a thief. +Or take the case of men of letters. Every piece of work which +is not as good as you can make it, which you have palmed off imperfect, +meagrely thought, niggardly in execution, upon mankind who is your paymaster +on parole and in a sense your pupil, every hasty or slovenly or untrue +performance, should rise up against you in the court of your own heart +and condemn you for a thief. Have you a salary? If you trifle +with your health, and so render yourself less capable for duty, and +still touch, and still greedily pocket the emolument - what are you +but a thief? Have you double accounts? do you by any time-honoured +juggle, deceit, or ambiguous process, gain more from those who deal +with you than it you were bargaining and dealing face to face in front +of God? - What are you but a thief? Lastly, if you fill an office, +or produce an article, which, in your heart of hearts, you think a delusion +and a fraud upon mankind, and still draw your salary and go through +the sham manoeuvres of this office, or still book your profits and keep +on flooding the world with these injurious goods? - though you were +old, and bald, and the first at church, and a baronet, what are you +but a thief? These may seem hard words and mere curiosities of +the intellect, in an age when the spirit of honesty is so sparingly +cultivated that all business is conducted upon lies and so-called customs +of the trade, that not a man bestows two thoughts on the utility or +honourableness of his pursuit. I would say less if I thought less. +But looking to my own reason and the right of things, I can only avow +that I am a thief myself, and that I passionately suspect my neighbours +of the same guilt.<br> +<br> +Where did you hear that it was easy to be honest? Do you find +that in your Bible? Easy! It is easy to be an ass and follow +the multitude like a blind, besotted bull in a stampede; and that, I +am well aware, is what you and Mrs. Grundy mean by being honest. +But it will not bear the stress of time nor the scrutiny of conscience. +Even before the lowest of all tribunals, - before a court of law, whose +business it is, not to keep men right, or within a thousand miles of +right, but to withhold them from going so tragically wrong that they +will pull down the whole jointed fabric of society by their misdeeds +- even before a court of law, as we begin to see in these last days, +our easy view of following at each other’s tails, alike to good +and evil, is beginning to be reproved and punished, and declared no +honesty at all, but open theft and swindling; and simpletons who have +gone on through life with a quiet conscience may learn suddenly, from +the lips of a judge, that the custom of the trade may be a custom of +the devil. You thought it was easy to be honest. Did you +think it was easy to be just and kind and truthful? Did you think +the whole duty of aspiring man was as simple as a horn-pipe? and you +could walk through life like a gentleman and a hero, with no more concern +than it takes to go to church or to address a circular? And yet +all this time you had the eighth commandment! and, what makes it richer, +you would not have broken it for the world!<br> +<br> +The truth is, that these commandments by themselves are of little use +in private judgment. If compression is what you want, you have +their whole spirit compressed into the golden rule; and yet there expressed +with more significance, since the law is there spiritually and not materially +stated. And in truth, four out of these ten commands, from the +sixth to the ninth, are rather legal than ethical. The police-court +is their proper home. A magistrate cannot tell whether you love +your neighbour as yourself, but he can tell more or less whether you +have murdered, or stolen, or committed adultery, or held up your hand +and testified to that which was not; and these things, for rough practical +tests, are as good as can be found. And perhaps, therefore, the +best condensation of the Jewish moral law is in the maxims of the priests, +‘neminem laedere’ and ‘suum cuique tribuere.’ +But all this granted, it becomes only the more plain that they are inadequate +in the sphere of personal morality; that while they tell the magistrate +roughly when to punish, they can never direct an anxious sinner what +to do.<br> +<br> +Only Polonius, or the like solemn sort of ass, can offer us a succinct +proverb by way of advice, and not burst out blushing in our faces. +We grant them one and all and for all that they are worth; it is something +above and beyond that we desire. Christ was in general a great +enemy to such a way of teaching; we rarely find him meddling with any +of these plump commands but it was to open them out, and lift his hearers +from the letter to the spirit. For morals are a personal affair; +in the war of righteousness every man fights for his own hand; all the +six hundred precepts of the Mishna cannot shake my private judgment; +my magistracy of myself is an indefeasible charge, and my decisions +absolute for the time and case. The moralist is not a judge of +appeal, but an advocate who pleads at my tribunal. He has to show +not the law, but that the law applies. Can he convince me? then +he gains the cause. And thus you find Christ giving various counsels +to varying people, and often jealously careful to avoid definite precept. +Is he asked, for example, to divide a heritage? He refuses: and +the best advice that he will offer is but a paraphrase of that tenth +commandment which figures so strangely among the rest. <i>Take +heed, and beware of</i> <i>covetousness</i>. If you complain that +this is vague, I have failed to carry you along with me in my argument. +For no definite precept can be more than an illustration, though its +truth were resplendent like the sun, and it was announced from heaven +by the voice of God. And life is so intricate and changing, that +perhaps not twenty times, or perhaps not twice in the ages, shall we +find that nice consent of circumstances to which alone it can apply.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER III<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Although the world and life have in a sense become commonplace to our +experience, it is but in an external torpor; the true sentiment slumbers +within us; and we have but to reflect on ourselves or our surroundings +to rekindle our astonishment. No length of habit can blunt our +first surprise. Of the world I have but little to say in this +connection; a few strokes shall suffice. We inhabit a dead ember +swimming wide in the blank of space, dizzily spinning as it swims, and +lighted up from several million miles away by a more horrible hell-fire +than was ever conceived by the theological imagination. Yet the +dead ember is a green, commodious dwelling-place; and the reverberation +of this hell-fire ripens flower and fruit and mildly warms us on summer +eves upon the lawn. Far off on all hands other dead embers, other +flaming suns, wheel and race in the apparent void; the nearest is out +of call, the farthest so far that the heart sickens in the effort to +conceive the distance. Shipwrecked seamen on the deep, though +they bestride but the truncheon of a boom, are safe and near at home +compared with mankind on its bullet. Even to us who have known +no other, it seems a strange, if not an appalling, place of residence.<br> +<br> +But far stranger is the resident, man, a creature compact of wonders +that, after centuries of custom, is still wonderful to himself. +He inhabits a body which he is continually outliving, discarding and +renewing. Food and sleep, by an unknown alchemy, restore his spirits +and the freshness of his countenance. Hair grows on him like grass; +his eyes, his brain, his sinews, thirst for action; he joys to see and +touch and hear, to partake the sun and wind, to sit down and intently +ponder on his astonishing attributes and situation, to rise up and run, +to perform the strange and revolting round of physical functions. +The sight of a flower, the note of a bird, will often move him deeply; +yet he looks unconcerned on the impassable distances and portentous +bonfires of the universe. He comprehends, he designs, he tames +nature, rides the sea, ploughs, climbs the air in a balloon, makes vast +inquiries, begins interminable labours, joins himself into federations +and populous cities, spends his days to deliver the ends of the earth +or to benefit unborn posterity; and yet knows himself for a piece of +unsurpassed fragility and the creature of a few days. His sight, +which conducts him, which takes notice of the farthest stars, which +is miraculous in every way and a thing defying explanation or belief, +is yet lodged in a piece of jelly, and can be extinguished with a touch. +His heart, which all through life so indomitably, so athletically labours, +is but a capsule, and may be stopped with a pin. His whole body, +for all its savage energies, its leaping and its winged desires, may +yet be tamed and conquered by a draught of air or a sprinkling of cold +dew. What he calls death, which is the seeming arrest of everything, +and the ruin and hateful transformation of the visible body, lies in +wait for him outwardly in a thousand accidents, and grows up in secret +diseases from within. He is still learning to be a man when his +faculties are already beginning to decline; he has not yet understood +himself or his position before he inevitably dies. And yet this +mad, chimerical creature can take no thought of his last end, lives +as though he were eternal, plunges with his vulnerable body into the +shock of war, and daily affronts death with unconcern. He cannot +take a step without pain or pleasure. His life is a tissue of +sensations, which he distinguishes as they seem to come more directly +from himself or his surroundings. He is conscious of himself as +a joyer or a sufferer, as that which craves, chooses, and is satisfied; +conscious of his surroundings as it were of an inexhaustible purveyor, +the source of aspects, inspirations, wonders, cruel knocks and transporting +caresses. Thus he goes on his way, stumbling among delights and +agonies.<br> +<br> +Matter is a far-fetched theory, and materialism is without a root in +man. To him everything is important in the degree to which it +moves him. The telegraph wires and posts, the electricity speeding +from clerk to clerk, the clerks, the glad or sorrowful import of the +message, and the paper on which it is finally brought to him at home, +are all equally facts, all equally exist for man. A word or a +thought can wound him as acutely as a knife of steel. If he thinks +he is loved, he will rise up and glory to himself, although he be in +a distant land and short of necessary bread. Does he think he +is not loved? - he may have the woman at his beck, and there is not +a joy for him in all the world. Indeed, if we are to make any +account of this figment of reason, the distinction between material +and immaterial, we shall conclude that the life of each man as an individual +is immaterial, although the continuation and prospects of mankind as +a race turn upon material conditions. The physical business of +each man’s body is transacted for him; like a sybarite, he has +attentive valets in his own viscera; he breathes, he sweats, he digests +without an effort, or so much as a consenting volition; for the most +part he even eats, not with a wakeful consciousness, but as it were +between two thoughts. His life is centred among other and more +important considerations; touch him in his honour or his love, creatures +of the imagination which attach him to mankind or to an individual man +or woman; cross him in his piety which connects his soul with heaven; +and he turns from his food, he loathes his breath, and with a magnanimous +emotion cuts the knots of his existence and frees himself at a blow +from the web of pains and pleasures.<br> +<br> +It follows that man is twofold at least; that he is not a rounded and +autonomous empire; but that in the same body with him there dwell other +powers tributary but independent. If I now behold one walking +in a garden, curiously coloured and illuminated by the sun, digesting +his food with elaborate chemistry, breathing, circulating blood, directing +himself by the sight of his eyes, accommodating his body by a thousand +delicate balancings to the wind and the uneven surface of the path, +and all the time, perhaps, with his mind engaged about America, or the +dog-star, or the attributes of God - what am I to say, or how am I to +describe the thing I see? Is that truly a man, in the rigorous +meaning of the word? or is it not a man and something else? What, +then, are we to count the centre-bit and axle of a being so variously +compounded? It is a question much debated. Some read his +history in a certain intricacy of nerve and the success of successive +digestions; others find him an exiled piece of heaven blown upon and +determined by the breath of God; and both schools of theorists will +scream like scalded children at a word of doubt. Yet either of +these views, however plausible, is beside the question; either may be +right; and I care not; I ask a more particular answer, and to a more +immediate point. What is the man? There is Something that +was before hunger and that remains behind after a meal. It may +or may not be engaged in any given act or passion, but when it is, it +changes, heightens, and sanctifies. Thus it is not engaged in +lust, where satisfaction ends the chapter; and it is engaged in love, +where no satisfaction can blunt the edge of the desire, and where age, +sickness, or alienation may deface what was desirable without diminishing +the sentiment. This something, which is the man, is a permanence +which abides through the vicissitudes of passion, now overwhelmed and +now triumphant, now unconscious of itself in the immediate distress +of appetite or pain, now rising unclouded above all. So, to the +man, his own central self fades and grows clear again amid the tumult +of the senses, like a revolving Pharos in the night. It is forgotten; +it is hid, it seems, for ever; and yet in the next calm hour he shall +behold himself once more, shining and unmoved among changes and storm.<br> +<br> +Mankind, in the sense of the creeping mass that is born and eats, that +generates and dies, is but the aggregate of the outer and lower sides +of man. This inner consciousness, this lantern alternately obscured +and shining, to and by which the individual exists and must order his +conduct, is something special to himself and not common to the race. +His joys delight, his sorrows wound him, according as <i>this</i> is +interested or indifferent in the affair; according as they arise in +an imperial war or in a broil conducted by the tributary chieftains +of the mind. He may lose all, and <i>this</i> not suffer; he may +lose what is materially a trifle, and <i>this</i> leap in his bosom +with a cruel pang. I do not speak of it to hardened theorists: +the living man knows keenly what it is I mean.<br> +<br> +‘Perceive at last that thou hast in thee something better and +more divine than the things which cause the various effects, and, as +it were, pull thee by the strings. What is that now in thy mind? +is it fear, or suspicion, or desire, or anything of that kind?’ +Thus far Marcus Aurelius, in one of the most notable passages in any +book. Here is a question worthy to be answered. What is +in thy mind? What is the utterance of your inmost self when, in +a quiet hour, it can be heard intelligibly? It is something beyond +the compass of your thinking, inasmuch as it is yourself; but is it +not of a higher spirit than you had dreamed betweenwhiles, and erect +above all base considerations? This soul seems hardly touched +with our infirmities; we can find in it certainly no fear, suspicion, +or desire; we are only conscious - and that as though we read it in +the eyes of some one else - of a great and unqualified readiness. +A readiness to what? to pass over and look beyond the objects of desire +and fear, for something else. And this something else? this something +which is apart from desire and fear, to which all the kingdoms of the +world and the immediate death of the body are alike indifferent and +beside the point, and which yet regards conduct - by what name are we +to call it? It may be the love of God; or it may be an inherited +(and certainly well concealed) instinct to preserve self and propagate +the race; I am not, for the moment, averse to either theory; but it +will save time to call it righteousness. By so doing I intend +no subterfuge to beg a question; I am indeed ready, and more than willing, +to accept the rigid consequence, and lay aside, as far as the treachery +of the reason will permit, all former meanings attached to the word +righteousness. What is right is that for which a man’s central +self is ever ready to sacrifice immediate or distant interests; what +is wrong is what the central self discards or rejects as incompatible +with the fixed design of righteousness.<br> +<br> +To make this admission is to lay aside all hope of definition. +That which is right upon this theory is intimately dictated to each +man by himself, but can never be rigorously set forth in language, and +never, above all, imposed upon another. The conscience has, then, +a vision like that of the eyes, which is incommunicable, and for the +most part illuminates none but its possessor. When many people +perceive the same or any cognate facts, they agree upon a word as symbol; +and hence we have such words as <i>tree, star</i>, <i>love, honour</i>, +or <i>death</i>; hence also we have this word <i>right</i>, which, like +the others, we all understand, most of us understand differently, and +none can express succinctly otherwise. Yet even on the straitest +view, we can make some steps towards comprehension of our own superior +thoughts. For it is an incredible and most bewildering fact that +a man, through life, is on variable terms with himself; he is aware +of tiffs and reconciliations; the intimacy is at times almost suspended, +at times it is renewed again with joy. As we said before, his +inner self or soul appears to him by successive revelations, and is +frequently obscured. It is from a study of these alternations +that we can alone hope to discover, even dimly, what seems right and +what seems wrong to this veiled prophet of ourself.<br> +<br> +All that is in the man in the larger sense, what we call impression +as well as what we call intuition, so far as my argument looks, we must +accept. It is not wrong to desire food, or exercise, or beautiful +surroundings, or the love of sex, or interest which is the food of the +mind. All these are craved; all these should be craved; to none +of these in itself does the soul demur; where there comes an undeniable +want, we recognise a demand of nature. Yet we know that these +natural demands may be superseded; for the demands which are common +to mankind make but a shadowy consideration in comparison to the demands +of the individual soul. Food is almost the first prerequisite; +and yet a high character will go without food to the ruin and death +of the body rather than gain it in a manner which the spirit disavows. +Pascal laid aside mathematics; Origen doctored his body with a knife; +every day some one is thus mortifying his dearest interests and desires, +and, in Christ’s words, entering maim into the Kingdom of Heaven. +This is to supersede the lesser and less harmonious affections by renunciation; +and though by this ascetic path we may get to heaven, we cannot get +thither a whole and perfect man. But there is another way, to +supersede them by reconciliation, in which the soul and all the faculties +and senses pursue a common route and share in one desire. Thus, +man is tormented by a very imperious physical desire; it spoils his +rest, it is not to be denied; the doctors will tell you, not I, how +it is a physical need, like the want of food or slumber. In the +satisfaction of this desire, as it first appears, the soul sparingly +takes part; nay, it oft unsparingly regrets and disapproves the satisfaction. +But let the man learn to love a woman as far as he is capable of love; +and for this random affection of the body there is substituted a steady +determination, a consent of all his powers and faculties, which supersedes, +adopts, and commands the other. The desire survives, strengthened, +perhaps, but taught obedience and changed in scope and character. +Life is no longer a tale of betrayals and regrets; for the man now lives +as a whole; his consciousness now moves on uninterrupted like a river; +through all the extremes and ups and downs of passion, he remains approvingly +conscious of himself.<br> +<br> +Now to me, this seems a type of that rightness which the soul demands. +It demands that we shall not live alternately with our opposing tendencies +in continual see-saw of passion and disgust, but seek some path on which +the tendencies shall no longer oppose, but serve each other to a common +end. It demands that we shall not pursue broken ends, but great +and comprehensive purposes, in which soul and body may unite like notes +in a harmonious chord. That were indeed a way of peace and pleasure, +that were indeed a heaven upon earth. It does not demand, however, +or, to speak in measure, it does not demand of me, that I should starve +my appetites for no purpose under heaven but as a purpose in itself; +or, in a weak despair, pluck out the eye that I have not yet learned +to guide and enjoy with wisdom. The soul demands unity of purpose, +not the dismemberment of man; it seeks to roll up all his strength and +sweetness, all his passion and wisdom, into one, and make of him a perfect +man exulting in perfection. To conclude ascetically is to give +up, and not to solve, the problem. The ascetic and the creeping +hog, although they are at different poles, have equally failed in life. +The one has sacrificed his crew; the other brings back his seamen in +a cock-boat, and has lost the ship. I believe there are not many +sea-captains who would plume themselves on either result as a success.<br> +<br> +But if it is righteousness thus to fuse together our divisive impulses +and march with one mind through life, there is plainly one thing more +unrighteous than all others, and one declension which is irretrievable +and draws on the rest. And this is to lose consciousness of oneself. +In the best of times, it is but by flashes, when our whole nature is +clear, strong and conscious, and events conspire to leave us free, that +we enjoy communion with our soul. At the worst, we are so fallen +and passive that we may say shortly we have none. An arctic torpor +seizes upon men. Although built of nerves, and set adrift in a +stimulating world, they develop a tendency to go bodily to sleep; consciousness +becomes engrossed among the reflex and mechanical parts of life; and +soon loses both the will and power to look higher considerations in +the face. This is ruin; this is the last failure in life; this +is temporal damnation, damnation on the spot and without the form of +judgment. ‘What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole +world and <i>lose himself</i>?’<br> +<br> +It is to keep a man awake, to keep him alive to his own soul and its +fixed design of righteousness, that the better part of moral and religious +education is directed; not only that of words and doctors, but the sharp +ferule of calamity under which we are all God’s scholars till +we die. If, as teachers, we are to say anything to the purpose, +we must say what will remind the pupil of his soul; we must speak that +soul’s dialect; we must talk of life and conduct as his soul would +have him think of them. If, from some conformity between us and +the pupil, or perhaps among all men, we do in truth speak in such a +dialect and express such views, beyond question we shall touch in him +a spring; beyond question he will recognise the dialect as one that +he himself has spoken in his better hours; beyond question he will cry, +‘I had forgotten, but now I remember; I too have eyes, and I had +forgot to use them! I too have a soul of my own, arrogantly upright, +and to that I will listen and conform.’ In short, say to +him anything that he has once thought, or been upon the point of thinking, +or show him any view of life that he has once clearly seen, or been +upon the point of clearly seeing; and you have done your part and may +leave him to complete the education for himself.<br> +<br> +Now, the view taught at the present time seems to me to want greatness; +and the dialect in which alone it can be intelligibly uttered is not +the dialect of my soul. It is a sort of postponement of life; +nothing quite is, but something different is to be; we are to keep our +eyes upon the indirect from the cradle to the grave. We are to +regulate our conduct not by desire, but by a politic eye upon the future; +and to value acts as they will bring us money or good opinion; as they +will bring us, in one word, <i>profit</i>. We must be what is +called respectable, and offend no one by our carriage; it will not do +to make oneself conspicuous - who knows? even in virtue? says the Christian +parent! And we must be what is called prudent and make money; +not only because it is pleasant to have money, but because that also +is a part of respectability, and we cannot hope to be received in society +without decent possessions. Received in society! as if that were +the kingdom of heaven! There is dear Mr. So-and-so; - look at +him! - so much respected - so much looked up to - quite the Christian +merchant! And we must cut our conduct as strictly as possible +after the pattern of Mr. So-and-so; and lay our whole lives to make +money and be strictly decent. Besides these holy injunctions, +which form by far the greater part of a youth’s training in our +Christian homes, there are at least two other doctrines. We are +to live just now as well as we can, but scrape at last into heaven, +where we shall be good. We are to worry through the week in a +lay, disreputable way, but, to make matters square, live a different +life on Sunday.<br> +<br> +The train of thought we have been following gives us a key to all these +positions, without stepping aside to justify them on their own ground. +It is because we have been disgusted fifty times with physical squalls, +and fifty times torn between conflicting impulses, that we teach people +this indirect and tactical procedure in life, and to judge by remote +consequences instead of the immediate face of things. The very +desire to act as our own souls would have us, coupled with a pathetic +disbelief in ourselves, moves us to follow the example of others; perhaps, +who knows? they may be on the right track; and the more our patterns +are in number, the better seems the chance; until, if we be acting in +concert with a whole civilised nation, there are surely a majority of +chances that we must be acting right. And again, how true it is +that we can never behave as we wish in this tormented sphere, and can +only aspire to different and more favourable circumstances, in order +to stand out and be ourselves wholly and rightly! And yet once +more, if in the hurry and pressure of affairs and passions you tend +to nod and become drowsy, here are twenty-four hours of Sunday set apart +for you to hold counsel with your soul and look around you on the possibilities +of life.<br> +<br> +This is not, of course, all that is to be, or even should be, said for +these doctrines. Only, in the course of this chapter, the reader +and I have agreed upon a few catchwords, and been looking at morals +on a certain system; it was a pity to lose an opportunity of testing +the catchwords, and seeing whether, by this system as well as by others, +current doctrines could show any probable justification. If the +doctrines had come too badly out of the trial, it would have condemned +the system. Our sight of the world is very narrow; the mind but +a pedestrian instrument; there’s nothing new under the sun, as +Solomon says, except the man himself; and though that changes the aspect +of everything else, yet he must see the same things as other people, +only from a different side.<br> +<br> +And now, having admitted so much, let us turn to criticism.<br> +<br> +If you teach a man to keep his eyes upon what others think of him, unthinkingly +to lead the life and hold the principles of the majority of his contemporaries, +you must discredit in his eyes the one authoritative voice of his own +soul. He may be a docile citizen; he will never be a man. +It is ours, on the other hand, to disregard this babble and chattering +of other men better and worse than we are, and to walk straight before +us by what light we have. They may be right; but so, before heaven, +are we. They may know; but we know also, and by that knowledge +we must stand or fall. There is such a thing as loyalty to a man’s +own better self; and from those who have not that, God help me, how +am I to look for loyalty to others? The most dull, the most imbecile, +at a certain moment turn round, at a certain point will hear no further +argument, but stand unflinching by their own dumb, irrational sense +of right. It is not only by steel or fire, but through contempt +and blame, that the martyr fulfils the calling of his dear soul. +Be glad if you are not tried by such extremities. But although +all the world ranged themselves in one line to tell you ‘This +is wrong,’ be you your own faithful vassal and the ambassador +of God - throw down the glove and answer ‘This is right.’ +Do you think you are only declaring yourself? Perhaps in some +dim way, like a child who delivers a message not fully understood, you +are opening wider the straits of prejudice and preparing mankind for +some truer and more spiritual grasp of truth; perhaps, as you stand +forth for your own judgment, you are covering a thousand weak ones with +your body; perhaps, by this declaration alone, you have avoided the +guilt of false witness against humanity and the little ones unborn. +It is good, I believe, to be respectable, but much nobler to respect +oneself and utter the voice of God. God, if there be any God, +speaks daily in a new language by the tongues of men; the thoughts and +habits of each fresh generation and each new-coined spirit throw another +light upon the universe and contain another commentary on the printed +Bibles; every scruple, every true dissent, every glimpse of something +new, is a letter of God’s alphabet; and though there is a grave +responsibility for all who speak, is there none for those who unrighteously +keep silence and conform? Is not that also to conceal and cloak +God’s counsel? And how should we regard the man of science +who suppressed all facts that would not tally with the orthodoxy of +the hour?<br> +<br> +Wrong? You are as surely wrong as the sun rose this morning round +the revolving shoulder of the world. Not truth, but truthfulness, +is the good of your endeavour. For when will men receive that +first part and prerequisite of truth, that, by the order of things, +by the greatness of the universe, by the darkness and partiality of +man’s experience, by the inviolate secrecy of God, kept close +in His most open revelations, every man is, and to the end of the ages +must be, wrong? Wrong to the universe; wrong to mankind; wrong +to God. And yet in another sense, and that plainer and nearer, +every man of men, who wishes truly, must be right. He is right +to himself, and in the measure of his sagacity and candour. That +let him do in all sincerity and zeal, not sparing a thought for contrary +opinions; that, for what it is worth, let him proclaim. Be not +afraid; although he be wrong, so also is the dead, stuffed Dagon he +insults. For the voice of God, whatever it is, is not that stammering, +inept tradition which the people holds. These truths survive in +travesty, swamped in a world of spiritual darkness and confusion; and +what a few comprehend and faithfully hold, the many, in their dead jargon, +repeat, degrade, and misinterpret.<br> +<br> +So far of Respectability; what the Covenanters used to call ‘rank +conformity’: the deadliest gag and wet blanket that can be laid +on men. And now of Profit. And this doctrine is perhaps +the more redoubtable, because it harms all sorts of men; not only the +heroic and self-reliant, but the obedient, cowlike squadrons. +A man, by this doctrine, looks to consequences at the second, or third, +or fiftieth turn. He chooses his end, and for that, with wily +turns and through a great sea of tedium, steers this mortal bark. +There may be political wisdom in such a view; but I am persuaded there +can spring no great moral zeal. To look thus obliquely upon life +is the very recipe for moral slumber. Our intention and endeavour +should be directed, not on some vague end of money or applause, which +shall come to us by a ricochet in a month or a year, or twenty years, +but on the act itself; not on the approval of others, but on the rightness +of that act. At every instant, at every step in life, the point +has to be decided, our soul has to be saved, heaven has to be gained +or lost. At every step our spirits must applaud, at every step +we must set down the foot and sound the trumpet. ‘This have +I done,’ we must say; ‘right or wrong, this have I done, +in unfeigned honour of intention, as to myself and God.’ +The profit of every act should be this, that it was right for us to +do it. Any other profit than that, if it involved a kingdom or +the woman I love, ought, if I were God’s upright soldier, to leave +me untempted.<br> +<br> +It is the mark of what we call a righteous decision, that it is made +directly and for its own sake. The whole man, mind and body, having +come to an agreement, tyrannically dictates conduct. There are +two dispositions eternally opposed: that in which we recognise that +one thing is wrong and another right, and that in which, not seeing +any clear distinction, we fall back on the consideration of consequences. +The truth is, by the scope of our present teaching, nothing is thought +very wrong and nothing very right, except a few actions which have the +disadvantage of being disrespectable when found out; the more serious +part of men inclining to think all things <i>rather</i> <i>wrong</i>, +the more jovial to suppose them <i>right enough for</i> <i>practical +purposes</i>. I will engage my head, they do not find that view +in their own hearts; they have taken it up in a dark despair; they are +but troubled sleepers talking in their sleep. The soul, or my +soul at least, thinks very distinctly upon many points of right and +wrong, and often differs flatly with what is held out as the thought +of corporate humanity in the code of society or the code of law. +Am I to suppose myself a monster? I have only to read books, the +Christian Gospels for example, to think myself a monster no longer; +and instead I think the mass of people are merely speaking in their +sleep.<br> +<br> +It is a commonplace, enshrined, if I mistake not, even in school copy-books, +that honour is to be sought and not fame. I ask no other admission; +we are to seek honour, upright walking with our own conscience every +hour of the day, and not fame, the consequence, the far-off reverberation +of our footsteps. The walk, not the rumour of the walk, is what +concerns righteousness. Better disrespectable honour than dishonourable +fame. Better useless or seemingly hurtful honour, than dishonour +ruling empires and filling the mouths of thousands. For the man +must walk by what he sees, and leave the issue with God who made him +and taught him by the fortune of his life. You would not dishonour +yourself for money; which is at least tangible; would you do it, then, +for a doubtful forecast in politics, or another person’s theory +in morals?<br> +<br> +So intricate is the scheme of our affairs, that no man can calculate +the bearing of his own behaviour even on those immediately around him, +how much less upon the world at large or on succeeding generations! +To walk by external prudence and the rule of consequences would require, +not a man, but God. All that we know to guide us in this changing +labyrinth is our soul with its fixed design of righteousness, and a +few old precepts which commend themselves to that. The precepts +are vague when we endeavour to apply them; consequences are more entangled +than a wisp of string, and their confusion is unrestingly in change; +we must hold to what we know and walk by it. We must walk by faith, +indeed, and not by knowledge.<br> +<br> +You do not love another because he is wealthy or wise or eminently respectable: +you love him because you love him; that is love, and any other only +a derision and grimace. It should be the same with all our actions. +If we were to conceive a perfect man, it should be one who was never +torn between conflicting impulses, but who, on the absolute consent +of all his parts and faculties, submitted in every action of his life +to a self-dictation as absolute and unreasoned as that which bids him +love one woman and be true to her till death. But we should not +conceive him as sagacious, ascetical, playing off his appetites against +each other, turning the wing of public respectable immorality instead +of riding it directly down, or advancing toward his end through a thousand +sinister compromises and considerations. The one man might be +wily, might be adroit, might be wise, might be respectable, might be +gloriously useful; it is the other man who would be good.<br> +<br> +The soul asks honour and not fame; to be upright, not to be successful; +to be good, not prosperous; to be essentially, not outwardly, respectable. +Does your soul ask profit? Does it ask money? Does it ask +the approval of the indifferent herd? I believe not. For +my own part, I want but little money, I hope; and I do not want to be +decent at all, but to be good.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER IV<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +We have spoken of that supreme self-dictation which keeps varying from +hour to hour in its dictates with the variation of events and circumstances. +Now, for us, that is ultimate. It may be founded on some reasonable +process, but it is not a process which we can follow or comprehend. +And moreover the dictation is not continuous, or not continuous except +in very lively and well-living natures; and between-whiles we must brush +along without it. Practice is a more intricate and desperate business +than the toughest theorising; life is an affair of cavalry, where rapid +judgment and prompt action are alone possible and right. As a +matter of fact, there is no one so upright but he is influenced by the +world’s chatter; and no one so headlong but he requires to consider +consequences and to keep an eye on profit. For the soul adopts +all affections and appetites without exception, and cares only to combine +them for some common purpose which shall interest all. Now, respect +for the opinion of others, the study of consequences, and the desire +of power and comfort, are all undeniably factors in the nature of man; +and the more undeniably since we find that, in our current doctrines, +they have swallowed up the others and are thought to conclude in themselves +all the worthy parts of man. These, then, must also be suffered +to affect conduct in the practical domain, much or little according +as they are forcibly or feebly present to the mind of each.<br> +<br> +Now, a man’s view of the universe is mostly a view of the civilised +society in which he lives. Other men and women are so much more +grossly and so much more intimately palpable to his perceptions, that +they stand between him and all the rest; they are larger to his eye +than the sun, he hears them more plainly than thunder, with them, by +them, and for them, he must live and die. And hence the laws that +affect his intercourse with his fellow-men, although merely customary +and the creatures of a generation, are more clearly and continually +before his mind than those which bind him into the eternal system of +things, support him in his upright progress on this whirling ball, or +keep up the fire of his bodily life. And hence it is that money +stands in the first rank of considerations and so powerfully affects +the choice. For our society is built with money for mortar; money +is present in every joint of circumstance; it might be named the social +atmosphere, since, in society, it is by that alone that men continue +to live, and only through that or chance that they can reach or affect +one another. Money gives us food, shelter, and privacy; it permits +us to be clean in person, opens for us the doors of the theatre, gains +us books for study or pleasure, enables us to help the distresses of +others, and puts us above necessity so that we can choose the best in +life. If we love, it enables us to meet and live with the loved +one, or even to prolong her health and life; if we have scruples, it +gives us an opportunity to be honest; if we have any bright designs, +here is what will smooth the way to their accomplishment. Penury +is the worst slavery, and will soon lead to death.<br> +<br> +But money is only a means; it presupposes a man to use it. The +rich can go where he pleases, but perhaps please himself nowhere. +He can buy a library or visit the whole world, but perhaps has neither +patience to read nor intelligence to see. The table may be loaded +and the appetite wanting; the purse may be full, and the heart empty. +He may have gained the world and lost himself; and with all his wealth +around him, in a great house and spacious and beautiful demesne, he +may live as blank a life as any tattered ditcher. Without an appetite, +without an aspiration, void of appreciation, bankrupt of desire and +hope, there, in his great house, let him sit and look upon his fingers. +It is perhaps a more fortunate destiny to have a taste for collecting +shells than to be born a millionaire. Although neither is to be +despised, it is always better policy to learn an interest than to make +a thousand pounds; for the money will soon be spent, or perhaps you +may feel no joy in spending it; but the interest remains imperishable +and ever new. To become a botanist, a geologist, a social philosopher, +an antiquary, or an artist, is to enlarge one’s possessions in +the universe by an incalculably higher degree, and by a far surer sort +of property, than to purchase a farm of many acres. You had perhaps +two thousand a year before the transaction; perhaps you have two thousand +five hundred after it. That represents your gain in the one case. +But in the other, you have thrown down a barrier which concealed significance +and beauty. The blind man has learned to see. The prisoner +has opened up a window in his cell and beholds enchanting prospects; +he will never again be a prisoner as he was; he can watch clouds and +changing seasons, ships on the river, travellers on the road, and the +stars at night; happy prisoner! his eyes have broken jail! And +again he who has learned to love an art or science has wisely laid up +riches against the day of riches; if prosperity come, he will not enter +poor into his inheritance; he will not slumber and forget himself in +the lap of money, or spend his hours in counting idle treasures, but +be up and briskly doing; he will have the true alchemic touch, which +is not that of Midas, but which transmutes dead money into living delight +and satisfaction. <i>Ecirctre et pas avoir</i> - to be, not to +possess - that is the problem of life. To be wealthy, a rich nature +is the first requisite and money but the second. To be of a quick +and healthy blood, to share in all honourable curiosities, to be rich +in admiration and free from envy, to rejoice greatly in the good of +others, to love with such generosity of heart that your love is still +a dear possession in absence or unkindness - these are the gifts of +fortune which money cannot buy and without which money can buy nothing. +For what can a man possess, or what can he enjoy, except himself? +If he enlarge his nature, it is then that he enlarges his estates. +If his nature be happy and valiant, he will enjoy the universe as if +it were his park and orchard.<br> +<br> +But money is not only to be spent; it has also to be earned. It +is not merely a convenience or a necessary in social life; but it is +the coin in which mankind pays his wages to the individual man. +And from this side, the question of money has a very different scope +and application. For no man can be honest who does not work. +Service for service. If the farmer buys corn, and the labourer +ploughs and reaps, and the baker sweats in his hot bakery, plainly you +who eat must do something in your turn. It is not enough to take +off your hat, or to thank God upon your knees for the admirable constitution +of society and your own convenient situation in its upper and more ornamental +stories. Neither is it enough to buy the loaf with a sixpence; +for then you are only changing the point of the inquiry; and you must +first have <i>bought the</i> <i>sixpence</i>. Service for service: +how have you bought your sixpences? A man of spirit desires certainty +in a thing of such a nature; he must see to it that there is some reciprocity +between him and mankind; that he pays his expenditure in service; that +he has not a lion’s share in profit and a drone’s in labour; +and is not a sleeping partner and mere costly incubus on the great mercantile +concern of mankind.<br> +<br> +Services differ so widely with different gifts, and some are so inappreciable +to external tests, that this is not only a matter for the private conscience, +but one which even there must be leniently and trustfully considered. +For remember how many serve mankind who do no more than meditate; and +how many are precious to their friends for no more than a sweet and +joyous temper. To perform the function of a man of letters it +is not necessary to write; nay, it is perhaps better to be a living +book. So long as we love we serve; so long as we are loved by +others, I would almost say that we are indispensable; and no man is +useless while he has a friend. The true services of life are inestimable +in money, and are never paid. Kind words and caresses, high and +wise thoughts, humane designs, tender behaviour to the weak and suffering, +and all the charities of man’s existence, are neither bought nor +sold.<br> +<br> +Yet the dearest and readiest, if not the most just, criterion of a man’s +services, is the wage that mankind pays him or, briefly, what he earns. +There at least there can be no ambiguity. St. Paul is fully and +freely entitled to his earnings as a tentmaker, and Socrates fully and +freely entitled to his earnings as a sculptor, although the true business +of each was not only something different, but something which remained +unpaid. A man cannot forget that he is not superintended, and +serves mankind on parole. He would like, when challenged by his +own conscience, to reply: ‘I have done so much work, and no less, +with my own hands and brain, and taken so much profit, and no more, +for my own personal delight.’ And though St. Paul, if he +had possessed a private fortune, would probably have scorned to waste +his time in making tents, yet of all sacrifices to public opinion none +can be more easily pardoned than that by which a man, already spiritually +useful to the world, should restrict the field of his chief usefulness +to perform services more apparent, and possess a livelihood that neither +stupidity nor malice could call in question. Like all sacrifices +to public opinion and mere external decency, this would certainly be +wrong; for the soul should rest contented with its own approval and +indissuadably pursue its own calling. Yet, so grave and delicate +is the question, that a man may well hesitate before he decides it for +himself; he may well fear that he sets too high a valuation on his own +endeavours after good; he may well condescend upon a humbler duty, where +others than himself shall judge the service and proportion the wage.<br> +<br> +And yet it is to this very responsibility that the rich are born. +They can shuffle off the duty on no other; they are their own paymasters +on parole; and must pay themselves fair wages and no more. For +I suppose that in the course of ages, and through reform and civil war +and invasion, mankind was pursuing some other and more general design +than to set one or two Englishmen of the nineteenth century beyond the +reach of needs and duties. Society was scarce put together, and +defended with so much eloquence and blood, for the convenience of two +or three millionaires and a few hundred other persons of wealth and +position. It is plain that if mankind thus acted and suffered +during all these generations, they hoped some benefit, some ease, some +wellbeing, for themselves and their descendants; that if they supported +law and order, it was to secure fair-play for all; that if they denied +themselves in the present, they must have had some designs upon the +future. Now, a great hereditary fortune is a miracle of man’s +wisdom and mankind’s forbearance; it has not only been amassed +and handed down, it has been suffered to be amassed and handed down; +and surely in such a consideration as this, its possessor should find +only a new spur to activity and honour, that with all this power of +service he should not prove unserviceable, and that this mass of treasure +should return in benefits upon the race. If he had twenty, or +thirty, or a hundred thousand at his banker’s, or if all Yorkshire +or all California were his to manage or to sell, he would still be morally +penniless, and have the world to begin like Whittington, until he had +found some way of serving mankind. His wage is physically in his +own hand; but, in honour, that wage must still be earned. He is +only steward on parole of what is called his fortune. He must +honourably perform his stewardship. He must estimate his own services +and allow himself a salary in proportion, for that will be one among +his functions. And while he will then be free to spend that salary, +great or little, on his own private pleasures, the rest of his fortune +he but holds and disposes under trust for mankind; it is not his, because +he has not earned it; it cannot be his, because his services have already +been paid; but year by year it is his to distribute, whether to help +individuals whose birthright and outfit have been swallowed up in his, +or to further public works and institutions.<br> +<br> +At this rate, short of inspiration, it seems hardly possible to be both +rich and honest; and the millionaire is under a far more continuous +temptation to thieve than the labourer who gets his shilling daily for +despicable toils. Are you surprised? It is even so. +And you repeat it every Sunday in your churches. ‘It is +easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich +man to enter the kingdom of God.’ I have heard this and +similar texts ingeniously explained away and brushed from the path of +the aspiring Christian by the tender Great-heart of the parish. +One excellent clergyman told us that the ‘eye of a needle’ +meant a low, Oriental postern through which camels could not pass till +they were unloaded - which is very likely just; and then went on, bravely +confounding the ‘kingdom of God’ with heaven, the future +paradise, to show that of course no rich person could expect to carry +his riches beyond the grave - which, of course, he could not and never +did. Various greedy sinners of the congregation drank in the comfortable +doctrine with relief. It was worth the while having come to church +that Sunday morning! All was plain. The Bible, as usual, +meant nothing in particular; it was merely an obscure and figurative +school-copybook; and if a man were only respectable, he was a man after +God’s own heart.<br> +<br> +Alas! I fear not. And though this matter of a man’s services +is one for his own conscience, there are some cases in which it is difficult +to restrain the mind from judging. Thus I shall be very easily +persuaded that a man has earned his daily bread; and if he has but a +friend or two to whom his company is delightful at heart, I am more +than persuaded at once. But it will be very hard to persuade me +that any one has earned an income of a hundred thousand. What +he is to his friends, he still would be if he were made penniless to-morrow; +for as to the courtiers of luxury and power, I will neither consider +them friends, nor indeed consider them at all. What he does for +mankind there are most likely hundreds who would do the same, as effectually +for the race and as pleasurably to themselves, for the merest fraction +of this monstrous wage. Why it is paid, I am, therefore, unable +to conceive, and as the man pays it himself, out of funds in his detention, +I have a certain backwardness to think him honest.<br> +<br> +At least, we have gained a very obvious point: that <i>what a man spends +upon himself, he shall have earned by services to the race</i>. +Thence flows a principle for the outset of life, which is a little different +from that taught in the present day. I am addressing the middle +and the upper classes; those who have already been fostered and prepared +for life at some expense; those who have some choice before them, and +can pick professions; and above all, those who are what is called independent, +and need do nothing unless pushed by honour or ambition. In this +particular the poor are happy; among them, when a lad comes to his strength, +he must take the work that offers, and can take it with an easy conscience. +But in the richer classes the question is complicated by the number +of opportunities and a variety of considerations. Here, then, +this principle of ours comes in helpfully. The young man has to +seek, not a road to wealth, but an opportunity of service; not money, +but honest work. If he has some strong propensity, some calling +of nature, some over-weening interest in any special field of industry, +inquiry, or art, he will do right to obey the impulse; and that for +two reasons: the first external, because there he will render the best +services; the second personal, because a demand of his own nature is +to him without appeal whenever it can be satisfied with the consent +of his other faculties and appetites. If he has no such elective +taste, by the very principle on which he chooses any pursuit at all +he must choose the most honest and serviceable, and not the most highly +remunerated. We have here an external problem, not from or to +ourself, but flowing from the constitution of society; and we have our +own soul with its fixed design of righteousness. All that can +be done is to present the problem in proper terms, and leave it to the +soul of the individual. Now, the problem to the poor is one of +necessity: to earn wherewithal to live, they must find remunerative +labour. But the problem to the rich is one of honour: having the +wherewithal, they must find serviceable labour. Each has to earn +his daily bread: the one, because he has not yet got it to eat; the +other, who has already eaten it, because he has not yet earned it.<br> +<br> +Of course, what is true of bread is true of luxuries and comforts, whether +for the body or the mind. But the consideration of luxuries leads +us to a new aspect of the whole question, and to a second proposition +no less true, and maybe no less startling, than the last.<br> +<br> +At the present day, we, of the easier classes, are in a state of surfeit +and disgrace after meat. Plethora has filled us with indifference; +and we are covered from head to foot with the callosities of habitual +opulence. Born into what is called a certain rank, we live, as +the saying is, up to our station. We squander without enjoyment, +because our fathers squandered. We eat of the best, not from delicacy, +but from brazen habit. We do not keenly enjoy or eagerly desire +the presence of a luxury; we are unaccustomed to its absence. +And not only do we squander money from habit, but still more pitifully +waste it in ostentation. I can think of no more melancholy disgrace +for a creature who professes either reason or pleasure for his guide, +than to spend the smallest fraction of his income upon that which he +does not desire; and to keep a carriage in which you do not wish to +drive, or a butler of whom you are afraid, is a pathetic kind of folly. +Money, being a means of happiness, should make both parties happy when +it changes hands; rightly disposed, it should be twice blessed in its +employment; and buyer and seller should alike have their twenty shillings +worth of profit out of every pound. Benjamin Franklin went through +life an altered man, because he once paid too dearly for a penny whistle. +My concern springs usually from a deeper source, to wit, from having +bought a whistle when I did not want one. I find I regret this, +or would regret it if I gave myself the time, not only on personal but +on moral and philanthropical considerations. For, first, in a +world where money is wanting to buy books for eager students and food +and medicine for pining children, and where a large majority are starved +in their most immediate desires, it is surely base, stupid, and cruel +to squander money when I am pushed by no appetite and enjoy no return +of genuine satisfaction. My philanthropy is wide enough in scope +to include myself; and when I have made myself happy, I have at least +one good argument that I have acted rightly; but where that is not so, +and I have bought and not enjoyed, my mouth is closed, and I conceive +that I have robbed the poor. And, second, anything I buy or use +which I do not sincerely want or cannot vividly enjoy, disturbs the +balance of supply and demand, and contributes to remove industrious +hands from the production of what is useful or pleasurable and to keep +them busy upon ropes of sand and things that are a weariness to the +flesh. That extravagance is truly sinful, and a very silly sin +to boot, in which we impoverish mankind and ourselves. It is another +question for each man’s heart. He knows if he can enjoy +what he buys and uses; if he cannot, he is a dog in the manger; nay, +it he cannot, I contend he is a thief, for nothing really belongs to +a man which he cannot use. Proprietor is connected with propriety; +and that only is the man’s which is proper to his wants and faculties.<br> +<br> +A youth, in choosing a career, must not be alarmed by poverty. +Want is a sore thing, but poverty does not imply want. It remains +to be seen whether with half his present income, or a third, he cannot, +in the most generous sense, live as fully as at present. He is +a fool who objects to luxuries; but he is also a fool who does not protest +against the waste of luxuries on those who do not desire and cannot +enjoy them. It remains to be seen, by each man who would live +a true life to himself and not a merely specious life to society, how +many luxuries he truly wants and to how many he merely submits as to +a social propriety; and all these last he will immediately forswear. +Let him do this, and he will be surprised to find how little money it +requires to keep him in complete contentment and activity of mind and +senses. Life at any level among the easy classes is conceived +upon a principle of rivalry, where each man and each household must +ape the tastes and emulate the display of others. One is delicate +in eating, another in wine, a third in furniture or works of art or +dress; and I, who care nothing for any of these refinements, who am +perhaps a plain athletic creature and love exercise, beef, beer, flannel +shirts and a camp bed, am yet called upon to assimilate all these other +tastes and make these foreign occasions of expenditure my own. +It may be cynical: I am sure I shall be told it is selfish; but I will +spend my money as I please and for my own intimate personal gratification, +and should count myself a nincompoop indeed to lay out the colour of +a halfpenny on any fancied social decency or duty. I shall not +wear gloves unless my hands are cold, or unless I am born with a delight +in them. Dress is my own affair, and that of one other in the +world; that, in fact and for an obvious reason, of any woman who shall +chance to be in love with me. I shall lodge where I have a mind. +If I do not ask society to live with me, they must be silent; and even +if I do, they have no further right but to refuse the invitation! +There is a kind of idea abroad that a man must live up to his station, +that his house, his table, and his toilette, shall be in a ratio of +equivalence, and equally imposing to the world. If this is in +the Bible, the passage has eluded my inquiries. If it is not in +the Bible, it is nowhere but in the heart of the fool. Throw aside +this fancy. See what you want, and spend upon that; distinguish +what you do not care about, and spend nothing upon that. There +are not many people who can differentiate wines above a certain and +that not at all a high price. Are you sure you are one of these? +Are you sure you prefer cigars at sixpence each to pipes at some fraction +of a farthing? Are you sure you wish to keep a gig? Do you +care about where you sleep, or are you not as much at your ease in a +cheap lodging as in an Elizabethan manor-house? Do you enjoy fine +clothes? It is not possible to answer these questions without +a trial; and there is nothing more obvious to my mind, than that a man +who has not experienced some ups and downs, and been forced to live +more cheaply than in his father’s house, has still his education +to begin. Let the experiment be made, and he will find to his +surprise that he has been eating beyond his appetite up to that hour; +that the cheap lodging, the cheap tobacco, the rough country clothes, +the plain table, have not only no power to damp his spirits, but perhaps +give him as keen pleasure in the using as the dainties that he took, +betwixt sleep and waking, in his former callous and somnambulous submission +to wealth.<br> +<br> +The true Bohemian, a creature lost to view under the imaginary Bohemians +of literature, is exactly described by such a principle of life. +The Bohemian of the novel, who drinks more than is good for him and +prefers anything to work, and wears strange clothes, is for the most +part a respectable Bohemian, respectable in disrespectability, living +for the outside, and an adventurer. But the man I mean lives wholly +to himself, does what he wishes, and not what is thought proper, buys +what he wants for himself, and not what is thought proper, works at +what he believes he can do well and not what will bring him in money +or favour. You may be the most respectable of men, and yet a true +Bohemian. And the test is this: a Bohemian, for as poor as he +may be, is always open-handed to his friends; he knows what he can do +with money and how he can do without it, a far rarer and more useful +knowledge; he has had less, and continued to live in some contentment; +and hence he cares not to keep more, and shares his sovereign or his +shilling with a friend. The poor, if they are generous, are Bohemian +in virtue of their birth. Do you know where beggars go? +Not to the great houses where people sit dazed among their thousands, +but to the doors of poor men who have seen the world; and it was the +widow who had only two mites, who cast half her fortune into the treasury.<br> +<br> +But a young man who elects to save on dress or on lodging, or who in +any way falls out of the level of expenditure which is common to his +level in society, falls out of society altogether. I suppose the +young man to have chosen his career on honourable principles; he finds +his talents and instincts can be best contented in a certain pursuit; +in a certain industry, he is sure that he is serving mankind with a +healthy and becoming service; and he is not sure that he would be doing +so, or doing so equally well, in any other industry within his reach. +Then that is his true sphere in life; not the one in which he was born +to his father, but the one which is proper to his talents and instincts. +And suppose he does fall out of society, is that a cause of sorrow? +Is your heart so dead that you prefer the recognition of many to the +love of a few? Do you think society loves you? Put it to +the proof. Decline in material expenditure, and you will find +they care no more for you than for the Khan of Tartary. You will +lose no friends. If you had any, you will keep them. Only +those who were friends to your coat and equipage will disappear; the +smiling faces will disappear as by enchantment; but the kind hearts +will remain steadfastly kind. Are you so lost, are you so dead, +are you so little sure of your own soul and your own footing upon solid +fact, that you prefer before goodness and happiness the countenance +of sundry diners-out, who will flee from you at a report of ruin, who +will drop you with insult at a shadow of disgrace, who do not know you +and do not care to know you but by sight, and whom you in your turn +neither know nor care to know in a more human manner? Is it not +the principle of society, openly avowed, that friendship must not interfere +with business; which being paraphrased, means simply that a consideration +of money goes before any consideration of affection known to this cold-blooded +gang, that they have not even the honour of thieves, and will rook their +nearest and dearest as readily as a stranger? I hope I would go +as far as most to serve a friend; but I declare openly I would not put +on my hat to do a pleasure to society. I may starve my appetites +and control my temper for the sake of those I love; but society shall +take me as I choose to be, or go without me. Neither they nor +I will lose; for where there is no love, it is both laborious and unprofitable +to associate.<br> +<br> +But it is obvious that if it is only right for a man to spend money +on that which he can truly and thoroughly enjoy, the doctrine applies +with equal force to the rich and to the poor, to the man who has amassed +many thousands as well as to the youth precariously beginning life. +And it may be asked, Is not this merely preparing misers, who are not +the best of company? But the principle was this: that which a +man has not fairly earned, and, further, that which he cannot fully +enjoy, does not belong to him, but is a part of mankind’s treasure +which he holds as steward on parole. To mankind, then, it must +be made profitable; and how this should be done is, once more, a problem +which each man must solve for himself, and about which none has a right +to judge him. Yet there are a few considerations which are very +obvious and may here be stated. Mankind is not only the whole +in general, but every one in particular. Every man or woman is +one of mankind’s dear possessions; to his or her just brain, and +kind heart, and active hands, mankind intrusts some of its hopes for +the future; he or she is a possible well-spring of good acts and source +of blessings to the race. This money which you do not need, which, +in a rigid sense, you do not want, may therefore be returned not only +in public benefactions to the race, but in private kindnesses. +Your wife, your children, your friends stand nearest to you, and should +be helped the first. There at least there can be little imposture, +for you know their necessities of your own knowledge. And consider, +if all the world did as you did, and according to their means extended +help in the circle of their affections, there would be no more crying +want in times of plenty and no more cold, mechanical charity given with +a doubt and received with confusion. Would not this simple rule +make a new world out of the old and cruel one which we inhabit?<br> +<br> +<br> +[After two more sentences the fragment breaks off.]<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +FATHER DAMIEN<br> +AN OPEN LETTER TO THE REVEREND<br> +DR. HYDE OF HONOLULU<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +SYDNEY,<br> +<i>February 25</i>, 1890.<br> +<br> +<br> +Sir, - It may probably occur to you that we have met, and visited, and +conversed; on my side, with interest. You may remember that you +have done me several courtesies, for which I was prepared to be grateful. +But there are duties which come before gratitude, and offences which +justly divide friends, far more acquaintances. Your letter to +the Reverend H. B. Gage is a document which, in my sight, if you had +filled me with bread when I was starving, if you had sat up to nurse +my father when he lay a-dying, would yet absolve me from the bonds of +gratitude. You know enough, doubtless, of the process of canonisation +to be aware that, a hundred years after the death of Damien, there will +appear a man charged with the painful office of the <i>devil’s +advocate</i>. After that noble brother of mine, and of all frail +clay, shall have lain a century at rest, one shall accuse, one defend +him. The circumstance is unusual that the devil’s advocate +should be a volunteer, should be a member of a sect immediately rival, +and should make haste to take upon himself his ugly office ere the bones +are cold; unusual, and of a taste which I shall leave my readers free +to qualify; unusual, and to me inspiring. If I have at all learned +the trade of using words to convey truth and to arouse emotion, you +have at last furnished me with a subject. For it is in the interest +of all mankind, and the cause of public decency in every quarter of +the world, not only that Damien should be righted, but that you and +your letter should be displayed at length, in their true colours, to +the public eye.<br> +<br> +To do this properly, I must begin by quoting you at large: I shall then +proceed to criticise your utterance from several points of view, divine +and human, in the course of which I shall attempt to draw again, and +with more specification, the character of the dead saint whom it has +pleased you to vilify: so much being done, I shall say farewell to you +for ever.<br> +<br> +<br> +‘HONOLULU,<br> +<i>‘August</i> 2, 1889.<br> +<br> +<br> +‘Rev. H. B. GAGE.<br> +<br> +‘Dear Brother, - In answer to your inquiries about Father Damien, +I can only reply that we who knew the man are surprised at the extravagant +newspaper laudations, as if he was a most saintly philanthropist. +The simple truth is, he was a coarse, dirty man, head-strong and bigoted. +He was not sent to Molokai, but went there without orders; did not stay +at the leper settlement (before he became one himself), but circulated +freely over the whole island (less than half the island is devoted to +the lepers), and he came often to Honolulu. He had no hand in +the reforms and improvements inaugurated, which were the work of our +Board of Health, as occasion required and means were provided. +He was not a pure man in his relations with women, and the leprosy of +which he died should be attributed to his vices and carelessness. +Others have done much for the lepers, our own ministers, the government +physicians, and so forth, but never with the Catholic idea of meriting +eternal life. - Yours, etc.,<br> +<br> +‘C. M. HYDE.’ <a name="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1">{1}</a><br> +<br> +<br> +To deal fitly with a letter so extraordinary, I must draw at the outset +on my private knowledge of the signatory and his sect. It may +offend others; scarcely you, who have been so busy to collect, so bold +to publish, gossip on your rivals. And this is perhaps the moment +when I may best explain to you the character of what you are to read: +I conceive you as a man quite beyond and below the reticences of civility: +with what measure you mete, with that shall it be measured you again; +with you, at last, I rejoice to feel the button off the foil and to +plunge home. And if in aught that I shall say I should offend +others, your colleagues, whom I respect and remember with affection, +I can but offer them my regret; I am not free, I am inspired by the +consideration of interests far more large; and such pain as can be inflicted +by anything from me must be indeed trifling when compared with the pain +with which they read your letter. It is not the hangman, but the +criminal, that brings dishonour on the house.<br> +<br> +You belong, sir, to a sect - I believe my sect, and that in which my +ancestors laboured - which has enjoyed, and partly failed to utilise, +an exceptional advantage in the islands of Hawaii. The first missionaries +came; they found the land already self-purged of its old and bloody +faith; they were embraced, almost on their arrival, with enthusiasm; +what troubles they supported came far more from whites than from Hawaiians; +and to these last they stood (in a rough figure) in the shoes of God. +This is not the place to enter into the degree or causes of their failure, +such as it is. One element alone is pertinent, and must here be +plainly dealt with. In the course of their evangelical calling, +they - or too many of them - grew rich. It may be news to you +that the houses of missionaries are a cause of mocking on the streets +of Honolulu. It will at least be news to you, that when I returned +your civil visit, the driver of my cab commented on the size, the taste, +and the comfort of your home. It would have been news certainly +to myself, had any one told me that afternoon that I should live to +drag such matter into print. But you see, sir, how you degrade +better men to your own level; and it is needful that those who are to +judge betwixt you and me, betwixt Damien and the devil’s advocate, +should understand your letter to have been penned in a house which could +raise, and that very justly, the envy and the comments of the passers-by. +I think (to employ a phrase of yours which I admire) it ‘should +be attributed’ to you that you have never visited the scene of +Damien’s life and death. If you had, and had recalled it, +and looked about your pleasant rooms, even your pen perhaps would have +been stayed.<br> +<br> +Your sect (and remember, as far as any sect avows me, it is mine) has +not done ill in a worldly sense in the Hawaiian Kingdom. When +calamity befell their innocent parishioners, when leprosy descended +and took root in the Eight Islands, a <i>quid pro quo</i> was to be +looked for. To that prosperous mission, and to you, as one of +its adornments, God had sent at last an opportunity. I know I +am touching here upon a nerve acutely sensitive. I know that others +of your colleagues look back on the inertia of your Church, and the +intrusive and decisive heroism of Damien, with something almost to be +called remorse. I am sure it is so with yourself; I am persuaded +your letter was inspired by a certain envy, not essentially ignoble, +and the one human trait to be espied in that performance. You +were thinking of the lost chance, the past day; of that which should +have been conceived and was not; of the service due and not rendered. +Time was, said the voice in your ear, in your pleasant room, as you +sat raging and writing; and if the words written were base beyond parallel, +the rage, I am happy to repeat - it is the only compliment I shall pay +you - the rage was almost virtuous. But, sir, when we have failed, +and another has succeeded; when we have stood by, and another has stepped +in; when we sit and grow bulky in our charming mansions, and a plain, +uncouth peasant steps into the battle, under the eyes of God, and succours +the afflicted, and consoles the dying, and is himself afflicted in his +turn, and dies upon the field of honour - the battle cannot be retrieved +as your unhappy irritation has suggested. It is a lost battle, +and lost for ever. One thing remained to you in your defeat - +some rags of common honour; and these you have made haste to cast away.<br> +<br> +Common honour; not the honour of having done anything right, but the +honour of not having done aught conspicuously foul; the honour of the +inert: that was what remained to you. We are not all expected +to be Damiens; a man may conceive his duty more narrowly, he may love +his comforts better; and none will cast a stone at him for that. +But will a gentleman of your reverend profession allow me an example +from the fields of gallantry? When two gentlemen compete for the +favour of a lady, and the one succeeds and the other is rejected, and +(as will sometimes happen) matter damaging to the successful rival’s +credit reaches the ear of the defeated, it is held by plain men of no +pretensions that his mouth is, in the circumstance, almost necessarily +closed. Your Church and Damien’s were in Hawaii upon a rivalry +to do well: to help, to edify, to set divine examples. You having +(in one huge instance) failed, and Damien succeeded, I marvel it should +not have occurred to you that you were doomed to silence; that when +you had been outstripped in that high rivalry, and sat inglorious in +the midst of your wellbeing, in your pleasant room - and Damien, crowned +with glories and horrors, toiled and rotted in that pigsty of his under +the cliffs of Kalawao - you, the elect who would not, were the last +man on earth to collect and propagate gossip on the volunteer who would +and did.<br> +<br> +I think I see you - for I try to see you in the flesh as I write these +sentences - I think I see you leap at the word pigsty, a hyperbolical +expression at the best. ‘He had no hand in the reforms,’ +he was ‘a coarse, dirty man’; these were your own words; +and you may think it possible that I am come to support you with fresh +evidence. In a sense, it is even so. Damien has been too +much depicted with a conventional halo and conventional features; so +drawn by men who perhaps had not the eye to remark or the pen to express +the individual; or who perhaps were only blinded and silenced by generous +admiration, such as I partly envy for myself - such as you, if your +soul were enlightened, would envy on your bended knees. It is +the least defect of such a method of portraiture that it makes the path +easy for the devil’s advocate, and leaves for the misuse of the +slanderer a considerable field of truth. For the truth that is +suppressed by friends is the readiest weapon of the enemy. The +world, in your despite, may perhaps owe you something, if your letter +be the means of substituting once for all a credible likeness for a +wax abstraction. For, if that world at all remember you, on the +day when Damien of Molokai shall be named Saint, it will be in virtue +of one work: your letter to the Reverend H. B. Gage.<br> +<br> +You may ask on what authority I speak. It was my inclement destiny +to become acquainted, not with Damien, but with Dr. Hyde. When +I visited the lazaretto, Damien was already in his resting grave. +But such information as I have, I gathered on the spot in conversation +with those who knew him well and long: some indeed who revered his memory; +but others who had sparred and wrangled with him, who beheld him with +no halo, who perhaps regarded him with small respect, and through whose +unprepared and scarcely partial communications the plain, human features +of the man shone on me convincingly. These gave me what knowledge +I possess; and I learnt it in that scene where it could be most completely +and sensitively understood - Kalawao, which you have never visited, +about which you have never so much as endeavoured to inform yourself; +for, brief as your letter is, you have found the means to stumble into +that confession. ‘<i>Less than one-half</i> of the island,’ +you say, ‘is devoted to the lepers.’ Molokai - ‘<i>Molokai +ahina</i>,’ the ‘grey,’ lofty, and most desolate island +- along all its northern side plunges a front of precipice into a sea +of unusual profundity. This range of cliff is, from east to west, +the true end and frontier of the island. Only in one spot there +projects into the ocean a certain triangular and rugged down, grassy, +stony, windy, and rising in the midst into a hill with a dead crater: +the whole bearing to the cliff that overhangs it somewhat the same relation +as a bracket to a wall. With this hint you will now be able to +pick out the leper station on a map; you will be able to judge how much +of Molokai is thus cut off between the surf and precipice, whether less +than a half, or less than a quarter, or a fifth, or a tenth - or, say, +a twentieth; and the next time you burst into print you will be in a +position to share with us the issue of your calculations.<br> +<br> +I imagine you to be one of those persons who talk with cheerfulness +of that place which oxen and wain-ropes could not drag you to behold. +You, who do not even know its situation on the map, probably denounce +sensational descriptions, stretching your limbs the while in your pleasant +parlour on Beretania Street. When I was pulled ashore there one +early morning, there sat with me in the boat two sisters, bidding farewell +(in humble imitation of Damien) to the lights and joys of human life. +One of these wept silently; I could not withhold myself from joining +her. Had you been there, it is my belief that nature would have +triumphed even in you; and as the boat drew but a little nearer, and +you beheld the stairs crowded with abominable deformations of our common +manhood, and saw yourself landing in the midst of such a population +as only now and then surrounds us in the horror of a nightmare - what +a haggard eye you would have rolled over your reluctant shoulder towards +the house on Beretania Street! Had you gone on; had you found +every fourth face a blot upon the landscape; had you visited the hospital +and seen the butt-ends of human beings lying there almost unrecognisable, +but still breathing, still thinking, still remembering; you would have +understood that life in the lazaretto is an ordeal from which the nerves +of a man’s spirit shrink, even as his eye quails under the brightness +of the sun; you would have felt it was (even to-day) a pitiful place +to visit and a hell to dwell in. It is not the fear of possible +infection. That seems a little thing when compared with the pain, +the pity, and the disgust of the visitor’s surroundings, and the +atmosphere of affliction, disease, and physical disgrace in which he +breathes. I do not think I am a man more than usually timid; but +I never recall the days and nights I spent upon that island promontory +(eight days and seven nights), without heartfelt thankfulness that I +am somewhere else. I find in my diary that I speak of my stay +as a ‘grinding experience’: I have once jotted in the margin, +‘<i>Harrowing</i> is the word’; and when the <i>Mokolii</i> +bore me at last towards the outer world, I kept repeating to myself, +with a new conception of their pregnancy, those simple words of the +song -<br> +<br> +<br> +‘’Tis the most distressful country that ever yet was seen.’<br> +<br> +<br> +And observe: that which I saw and suffered from was a settlement purged, +bettered, beautified; the new village built, the hospital and the Bishop-Home +excellently arranged; the sisters, the doctor, and the missionaries, +all indefatigable in their noble tasks. It was a different place +when Damien came there and made his great renunciation, and slept that +first night under a tree amidst his rotting brethren: alone with pestilence; +and looking forward (with what courage, with what pitiful sinkings of +dread, God only knows) to a lifetime of dressing sores and stumps.<br> +<br> +You will say, perhaps, I am too sensitive, that sights as painful abound +in cancer hospitals and are confronted daily by doctors and nurses. +I have long learned to admire and envy the doctors and the nurses. +But there is no cancer hospital so large and populous as Kalawao and +Kalaupapa; and in such a matter every fresh case, like every inch of +length in the pipe of an organ, deepens the note of the impression; +for what daunts the onlooker is that monstrous sum of human suffering +by which he stands surrounded. Lastly, no doctor or nurse is called +upon to enter once for all the doors of that gehenna; they do not say +farewell, they need not abandon hope, on its sad threshold; they but +go for a time to their high calling, and can look forward as they go +to relief, to recreation, and to rest. But Damien shut-to with +his own hand the doors of his own sepulchre.<br> +<br> +I shall now extract three passages from my diary at Kalawao.<br> +<br> +<i>A</i>. ‘Damien is dead and already somewhat ungratefully +remembered in the field of his labours and sufferings. “He +was a good man, but very officious,” says one. Another tells +me he had fallen (as other priests so easily do) into something of the +ways and habits of thought of a Kanaka; but he had the wit to recognise +the fact, and the good sense to laugh at’ [over] ‘it. +A plain man it seems he was; I cannot find he was a popular.’<br> +<br> +<i>B</i>. ‘After Ragsdale’s death’ [Ragsdale +was a famous Luna, or overseer, of the unruly settlement] ‘there +followed a brief term of office by Father Damien which served only to +publish the weakness of that noble man. He was rough in his ways, +and he had no control. Authority was relaxed; Damien’s life +was threatened, and he was soon eager to resign.’<br> +<br> +<i>C</i>. ‘Of Damien I begin to have an idea. He seems +to have been a man of the peasant class, certainly of the peasant type: +shrewd, ignorant and bigoted, yet with an open mind, and capable of +receiving and digesting a reproof if it were bluntly administered; superbly +generous in the least thing as well as in the greatest, and as ready +to give his last shirt (although not without human grumbling) as he +had been to sacrifice his life; essentially indiscreet and officious, +which made him a troublesome colleague; domineering in all his ways, +which made him incurably unpopular with the Kanakas, but yet destitute +of real authority, so that his boys laughed at him and he must carry +out his wishes by the means of bribes. He learned to have a mania +for doctoring; and set up the Kanakas against the remedies of his regular +rivals: perhaps (if anything matter at all in the treatment of such +a disease) the worst thing that he did, and certainly the easiest. +The best and worst of the man appear very plainly in his dealings with +Mr. Chapman’s money; he had originally laid it out’ [intended +to lay it out] ‘entirely for the benefit of Catholics, and even +so not wisely; but after a long, plain talk, he admitted his error fully +and revised the list. The sad state of the boys’ home is +in part the result of his lack of control; in part, of his own slovenly +ways and false ideas of hygiene. Brother officials used to call +it “Damien’s Chinatown.” “Well,” +they would say, “your China-town keeps growing.” And +he would laugh with perfect good-nature, and adhere to his errors with +perfect obstinacy. So much I have gathered of truth about this +plain, noble human brother and father of ours; his imperfections are +the traits of his face, by which we know him for our fellow; his martyrdom +and his example nothing can lessen or annul; and only a person here +on the spot can properly appreciate their greatness.’<br> +<br> +I have set down these private passages, as you perceive, without correction; +thanks to you, the public has them in their bluntness. They are +almost a list of the man’s faults, for it is rather these that +I was seeking: with his virtues, with the heroic profile of his life, +I and the world were already sufficiently acquainted. I was besides +a little suspicious of Catholic testimony; in no ill sense, but merely +because Damien’s admirers and disciples were the least likely +to be critical. I know you will be more suspicious still; and +the facts set down above were one and all collected from the lips of +Protestants who had opposed the father in his life. Yet I am strangely +deceived, or they build up the image of a man, with all his weaknesses, +essentially heroic, and alive with rugged honesty, generosity, and mirth.<br> +<br> +Take it for what it is, rough private jottings of the worst sides of +Damien’s character, collected from the lips of those who had laboured +with and (in your own phrase) ‘knew the man’; - though I +question whether Damien would have said that he knew you. Take +it, and observe with wonder how well you were served by your gossips, +how ill by your intelligence and sympathy; in how many points of fact +we are at one, and how widely our appreciations vary. There is +something wrong here; either with you or me. It is possible, for +instance, that you, who seem to have so many ears in Kalawao, had heard +of the affair of Mr. Chapman’s money, and were singly struck by +Damien’s intended wrong-doing. I was struck with that also, +and set it fairly down; but I was struck much more by the fact that +he had the honesty of mind to be convinced. I may here tell you +that it was a long business; that one of his colleagues sat with him +late into the night, multiplying arguments and accusations; that the +father listened as usual with ‘perfect good-nature and perfect +obstinacy’; but at the last, when he was persuaded - ‘Yes,’ +said he, ‘I am very much obliged to you; you have done me a service; +it would have been a theft.’ There are many (not Catholics +merely) who require their heroes and saints to be infallible; to these +the story will be painful; not to the true lovers, patrons, and servants +of mankind.<br> +<br> +And I take it, this is a type of our division; that you are one of those +who have an eye for faults and failures; that you take a pleasure to +find and publish them; and that, having found them, you make haste to +forget the overvailing virtues and the real success which had alone +introduced them to your knowledge. It is a dangerous frame of +mind. That you may understand how dangerous, and into what a situation +it has already brought you, we will (if you please) go hand-in-hand +through the different phrases of your letter, and candidly examine each +from the point of view of its truth, its appositeness, and its charity.<br> +<br> +Damien was <i>coarse.<br> +<br> +</i>It is very possible. You make us sorry for the lepers, who +had only a coarse old peasant for their friend and father. But +you, who were so refined, why were you not there, to cheer them with +the lights of culture? Or may I remind you that we have some reason +to doubt if John the Baptist were genteel; and in the case of Peter, +on whose career you doubtless dwell approvingly in the pulpit, no doubt +at all he was a ‘coarse, headstrong’ fisherman! Yet +even in our Protestant Bibles Peter is called Saint.<br> +<br> +Damien was <i>dirty.<br> +<br> +</i>He was. Think of the poor lepers annoyed with this dirty comrade! +But the clean Dr. Hyde was at his food in a fine house.<br> +<br> +Damien was <i>headstrong.<br> +<br> +</i>I believe you are right again; and I thank God for his strong head +and heart.<br> +<br> +Damien was <i>bigoted.<br> +<br> +</i>I am not fond of bigots myself, because they are not fond of me. +But what is meant by bigotry, that we should regard it as a blemish +in a priest? Damien believed his own religion with the simplicity +of a peasant or a child; as I would I could suppose that you do. +For this, I wonder at him some way off; and had that been his only character, +should have avoided him in life. But the point of interest in +Damien, which has caused him to be so much talked about and made him +at last the subject of your pen and mine, was that, in him, his bigotry, +his intense and narrow faith, wrought potently for good, and strengthened +him to be one of the world’s heroes and exemplars.<br> +<br> +Damien <i>was not sent to Molokai, but went there without orders.<br> +<br> +</i>Is this a misreading? or do you really mean the words for blame? +I have heard Christ, in the pulpits of our Church, held up for imitation +on the ground that His sacrifice was voluntary. Does Dr. Hyde +think otherwise?<br> +<br> +Damien <i>did not stay at the settlement, etc.<br> +<br> +</i>It is true he was allowed many indulgences. Am I to understand +that you blame the father for profiting by these, or the officers for +granting them? In either case, it is a mighty Spartan standard +to issue from the house on Beretania Street; and I am convinced you +will find yourself with few supporters.<br> +<br> +Damien <i>had no hand</i> <i>in the reforms, etc.<br> +<br> +</i>I think even you will admit that I have already been frank in my +description of the man I am defending; but before I take you up upon +this head, I will be franker still, and tell you that perhaps nowhere +in the world can a man taste a more pleasurable sense of contrast than +when he passes from Damien’s ‘Chinatown’ at Kalawao +to the beautiful Bishop-Home at Kalaupapa. At this point, in my +desire to make all fair for you, I will break my rule and adduce Catholic +testimony. Here is a passage from my diary about my visit to the +Chinatown, from which you will see how it is (even now) regarded by +its own officials: ‘We went round all the dormitories, refectories, +etc. - dark and dingy enough, with a superficial cleanliness, which +he’ [Mr. Dutton, the lay-brother] ‘did not seek to defend. +“It is almost decent,” said he; “the sisters will +make that all right when we get them here.”’ And yet +I gathered it was already better since Damien was dead, and far better +than when he was there alone and had his own (not always excellent) +way. I have now come far enough to meet you on a common ground +of fact; and I tell you that, to a mind not prejudiced by jealousy, +all the reforms of the lazaretto, and even those which he most vigorously +opposed, are properly the work of Damien. They are the evidence +of his success; they are what his heroism provoked from the reluctant +and the careless. Many were before him in the field; Mr. Meyer, +for instance, of whose faithful work we hear too little: there have +been many since; and some had more worldly wisdom, though none had more +devotion, than our saint. Before his day, even you will confess, +they had effected little. It was his part, by one striking act +of martyrdom, to direct all men’s eyes on that distressful country. +At a blow, and with the price of his life, he made the place illustrious +and public. And that, if you will consider largely, was the one +reform needful; pregnant of all that should succeed. It brought +money; it brought (best individual addition of them all) the sisters; +it brought supervision, for public opinion and public interest landed +with the man at Kalawao. If ever any man brought reforms, and +died to bring them, it was he. There is not a clean cup or towel +in the Bishop-Home, but dirty Damien washed it.<br> +<br> +Damien <i>was not a pure man in his relations with</i> <i>women, etc.<br> +<br> +</i>How do you know that? Is this the nature of the conversation +in that house on Beretania Street which the cabman envied, driving past? +- racy details of the misconduct of the poor peasant priest, toiling +under the cliffs of Molokai?<br> +<br> +Many have visited the station before me; they seem not to have heard +the rumour. When I was there I heard many shocking tales, for +my informants were men speaking with the plainness of the laity; and +I heard plenty of complaints of Damien. Why was this never mentioned? +and how came it to you in the retirement of your clerical parlour?<br> +<br> +But I must not even seem to deceive you. This scandal, when I +read it in your letter, was not new to me. I had heard it once +before; and I must tell you how. There came to Samoa a man from +Honolulu; he, in a public-house on the beach, volunteered the statement +that Damien had ‘contracted the disease from having connection +with the female lepers’; and I find a joy in telling you how the +report was welcomed in a public-house. A man sprang to his feet; +I am not at liberty to give his name, but from what I heard I doubt +if you would care to have him to dinner in Beretania Street. ‘You +miserable little - ’ (here is a word I dare not print, it would +so shock your ears). ‘You miserable little - ,’ he +cried, ‘if the story were a thousand times true, can’t you +see you are a million times a lower - for daring to repeat it?’ +I wish it could be told of you that when the report reached you in your +house, perhaps after family worship, you had found in your soul enough +holy anger to receive it with the same expressions; ay, even with that +one which I dare not print; it would not need to have been blotted away, +like Uncle Toby’s oath, by the tears of the recording angel; it +would have been counted to you for your brightest righteousness. +But you have deliberately chosen the part of the man from Honolulu, +and you have played it with improvements of your own. The man +from Honolulu - miserable, leering creature - communicated the tale +to a rude knot of beach-combing drinkers in a public-house, where (I +will so far agree with your temperance opinions) man is not always at +his noblest; and the man from Honolulu had himself been drinking - drinking, +we may charitably fancy, to excess. It was to your ‘Dear +Brother, the Reverend H. B. Gage,’ that you chose to communicate +the sickening story; and the blue ribbon which adorns your portly bosom +forbids me to allow you the extenuating plea that you were drunk when +it was done. Your ‘dear brother’ - a brother indeed +- made haste to deliver up your letter (as a means of grace, perhaps) +to the religious papers; where, after many months, I found and read +and wondered at it; and whence I have now reproduced it for the wonder +of others. And you and your dear brother have, by this cycle of +operations, built up a contrast very edifying to examine in detail. +The man whom you would not care to have to dinner, on the one side; +on the other, the Reverend Dr. Hyde and the Reverend H. B. Gage: the +Apia bar-room, the Honolulu manse.<br> +<br> +But I fear you scarce appreciate how you appear to your fellow-men; +and to bring it home to you, I will suppose your story to be true. +I will suppose - and God forgive me for supposing it - that Damien faltered +and stumbled in his narrow path of duty; I will suppose that, in the +horror of his isolation, perhaps in the fever of incipient disease, +he, who was doing so much more than he had sworn, failed in the letter +of his priestly oath - he, who was so much a better man than either +you or me, who did what we have never dreamed of daring - he too tasted +of our common frailty. ‘O, Iago, the pity of it!’ +The least tender should be moved to tears; the most incredulous to prayer. +And all that you could do was to pen your letter to the Reverend H. +B. Gage!<br> +<br> +Is it growing at all clear to you what a picture you have drawn of your +own heart? I will try yet once again to make it clearer. +You had a father: suppose this tale were about him, and some informant +brought it to you, proof in hand: I am not making too high an estimate +of your emotional nature when I suppose you would regret the circumstance? +that you would feel the tale of frailty the more keenly since it shamed +the author of your days? and that the last thing you would do would +be to publish it in the religious press? Well, the man who tried +to do what Damien did, is my father, and the father of the man in the +Apia bar, and the father of all who love goodness; and he was your father +too, if God had given you grace to see it.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE PENTLAND RISING<br> +A PAGE OF HISTORY<br> +1666<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +‘A cloud of witnesses lyes here,<br> +Who for Christ’s interest did appear.’<br> +<i>Inscription on Battlefield at Rullion Green</i>.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER I - THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLT<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +‘Halt, passenger; take heed what thou dost see,<br> +This tomb doth show for what some men did die.’<br> +<i>Monument, Greyfriars’ Churchyard, Edinburgh,<br> +</i>1661-1668. <a name="citation2a"></a><a href="#footnote2a">{2a}</a><br> +<br> +<br> +Two hundred years ago a tragedy was enacted in Scotland, the memory +whereof has been in great measure lost or obscured by the deep tragedies +which followed it. It is, as it were, the evening of the night +of persecution - a sort of twilight, dark indeed to us, but light as +the noonday when compared with the midnight gloom which followed. +This fact, of its being the very threshold of persecution, lends it, +however, an additional interest.<br> +<br> +The prejudices of the people against Episcopacy were ‘out of measure +increased,’ says Bishop Burnet, ‘by the new incumbents who +were put in the places of the ejected preachers, and were generally +very mean and despicable in all respects. They were the worst +preachers I ever heard; they were ignorant to a reproach; and many of +them were openly vicious. They . . . were indeed the dreg and +refuse of the northern parts. Those of them who arose above contempt +or scandal were men of such violent tempers that they were as much hated +as the others were despised.’ <a name="citation2b"></a><a href="#footnote2b">{2b}</a> +It was little to be wondered at, from this account that the country-folk +refused to go to the parish church, and chose rather to listen to outed +ministers in the fields. But this was not to be allowed, and their +persecutors at last fell on the method of calling a roll of the parishioners’ +names every Sabbath, and marking a fine of twenty shillings Scots to +the name of each absenter. In this way very large debts were incurred +by persons altogether unable to pay. Besides this, landlords were +fined for their tenants’ absences, tenants for their landlords’, +masters for their servants’, servants for their masters’, +even though they themselves were perfectly regular in their attendance. +And as the curates were allowed to fine with the sanction of any common +soldier, it may be imagined that often the pretexts were neither very +sufficient nor well proven.<br> +<br> +When the fines could not be paid at once, Bibles, clothes, and household +utensils were seized upon, or a number of soldiers, proportionate to +his wealth, were quartered on the offender. The coarse and drunken +privates filled the houses with woe; snatched the bread from the children +to feed their dogs; shocked the principles, scorned the scruples, and +blasphemed the religion of their humble hosts; and when they had reduced +them to destitution, sold the furniture, and burned down the roof-tree +which was consecrated to the peasants by the name of Home. For +all this attention each of these soldiers received from his unwilling +landlord a certain sum of money per day - three shillings sterling, +according to <i>Naphtali</i>. And frequently they were forced +to pay quartering money for more men than were in reality ‘cessed +on them.’ At that time it was no strange thing to behold +a strong man begging for money to pay his fines, and many others who +were deep in arrears, or who had attracted attention in some other way, +were forced to flee from their homes, and take refuge from arrest and +imprisonment among the wild mosses of the uplands. <a name="citation2c"></a><a href="#footnote2c">{2c}</a><br> +<br> +One example in particular we may cite:<br> +<br> +John Neilson, the Laird of Corsack, a worthy man, was, unfortunately +for himself, a Nonconformist. First he was fined in four hundred +pounds Scots, and then through cessing he lost nineteen hundred and +ninety-three pounds Scots. He was next obliged to leave his house +and flee from place to place, during which wanderings he lost his horse. +His wife and children were turned out of doors, and then his tenants +were fined till they too were almost ruined. As a final stroke, +they drove away all his cattle to Glasgow and sold them. <a name="citation2d"></a><a href="#footnote2d">{2d}</a> +Surely it was time that something were done to alleviate so much sorrow, +to overthrow such tyranny.<br> +<br> +About this time too there arrived in Galloway a person calling himself +Captain Andrew Gray, and advising the people to revolt. He displayed +some documents purporting to be from the northern Covenanters, and stating +that they were prepared to join in any enterprise commenced by their +southern brethren. The leader of the persecutors was Sir James +Turner, an officer afterwards degraded for his share in the matter. +‘He was naturally fierce, but was mad when he was drunk, and that +was very often,’ said Bishop Burnet. ‘He was a learned +man, but had always been in armies, and knew no other rule but to obey +orders. He told me he had no regard to any law, but acted, as +he was commanded, in a military way.’ <a name="citation2e"></a><a href="#footnote2e">{2e}</a><br> +<br> +This was the state of matters, when an outrage was committed which gave +spirit and determination to the oppressed countrymen, lit the flame +of insubordination, and for the time at least recoiled on those who +perpetrated it with redoubled force.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER II - THE BEGINNING<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +I love no warres,<br> +I love no jarres,<br> +Nor strife’s fire.<br> +May discord cease,<br> +Let’s live in peace:<br> +This I desire.<br> +<br> +If it must be<br> +Warre we must see<br> +(So fates conspire),<br> +May we not feel<br> +The force of steel:<br> +This I desire.<br> +<br> +T. JACKSON, 1651 <a name="citation3a"></a><a href="#footnote3a">{3a}</a><br> +<br> +<br> +Upon Tuesday, November 13th, 1666, Corporal George Deanes and three +other soldiers set upon an old man in the clachan of Dalry and demanded +the payment of his fines. On the old man’s refusing to pay, +they forced a large party of his neighbours to go with them and thresh +his corn. The field was a certain distance out of the clachan, +and four persons, disguised as countrymen, who had been out on the moors +all night, met this mournful drove of slaves, compelled by the four +soldiers to work for the ruin of their friend. However, chided +to the bone by their night on the hills, and worn out by want of food, +they proceeded to the village inn to refresh themselves. Suddenly +some people rushed into the room where they were sitting, and told them +that the soldiers were about to roast the old man, naked, on his own +girdle. This was too much for them to stand, and they repaired +immediately to the scene of this gross outrage, and at first merely +requested that the captive should be released. On the refusal +of the two soldiers who were in the front room, high words were given +and taken on both sides, and the other two rushed forth from an adjoining +chamber and made at the countrymen with drawn swords. One of the +latter, John M’Lellan of Barscob, drew a pistol and shot the corporal +in the body. The pieces of tobacco-pipe with which it was loaded, +to the number of ten at least, entered him, and he was so much disturbed +that he never appears to have recovered, for we find long afterwards +a petition to the Privy Council requesting a pension for him. +The other soldiers then laid down their arms, the old man was rescued, +and the rebellion was commenced. <a name="citation3b"></a><a href="#footnote3b">{3b}</a><br> +<br> +And now we must turn to Sir James Turner’s memoirs of himself; +for, strange to say, this extraordinary man was remarkably fond of literary +composition, and wrote, besides the amusing account of his own adventures +just mentioned, a large number of essays and short biographies, and +a work on war, entitled <i>Pallas Armata</i>. The following are +some of the shorter pieces ‘Magick,’ ‘Friendship,’ +‘Imprisonment,’ ‘Anger,’ ‘Revenge,’ +‘Duells,’ ‘Cruelty,’ ‘A Defence of some +of the Ceremonies of the English Liturgie - to wit - Bowing at the Name +of Jesus, The frequent repetition of the Lord’s Prayer and Good +Lord deliver us, Of the Doxologie, Of Surplesses, Rotchets, Canonnicall +Coats,’ etc. From what we know of his character we should +expect ‘Anger’ and ‘Cruelty’ to be very full +and instructive. But what earthly right he had to meddle with +ecclesiastical subjects it is hard to see.<br> +<br> +Upon the 12th of the month he had received some information concerning +Gray’s proceedings, but as it was excessively indefinite in its +character, he paid no attention to it. On the evening of the 14th, +Corporal Deanes was brought into Dumfries, who affirmed stoutly that +he had been shot while refusing to sign the Covenant - a story rendered +singularly unlikely by the after conduct of the rebels. Sir James +instantly dispatched orders to the cessed soldiers either to come to +Dumfries or meet him on the way to Dalry, and commanded the thirteen +or fourteen men in the town with him to come at nine next morning to +his lodging for supplies.<br> +<br> +On the morning of Thursday the rebels arrived at Dumfries with 50 horse +and 150 foot. Neilson of Corsack, and Gray, who commanded, with +a considerable troop, entered the town, and surrounded Sir James Turner’s +lodging. Though it was between eight and nine o’clock, that +worthy, being unwell, was still in bed, but rose at once and went to +the window.<br> +<br> +Neilson and some others cried, ‘You may have fair quarter.’<br> +<br> +‘I need no quarter,’ replied Sir James; ‘nor can I +be a prisoner, seeing there is no war declared.’ On being +told, however, that he must either be a prisoner or die, he came down, +and went into the street in his night-shirt. Here Gray showed +himself very desirous of killing him, but he was overruled by Corsack. +However, he was taken away a prisoner, Captain Gray mounting him on +his own horse, though, as Turner naively remarks, ‘there was good +reason for it, for he mounted himself on a farre better one of mine.’ +A large coffer containing his clothes and money, together with all his +papers, were taken away by the rebels. They robbed Master Chalmers, +the Episcopalian minister of Dumfries, of his horse, drank the King’s +health at the market cross, and then left Dumfries. <a name="citation3c"></a><a href="#footnote3c">{3c}</a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER III - THE MARCH OF THE REBELS<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +‘Stay, passenger, take notice what thou reads,<br> +At Edinburgh lie our bodies, here our heads;<br> +Our right hands stood at Lanark, these we want,<br> +Because with them we signed the Covenant.’<br> +<i>Epitaph on a Tombstone at Hamilton</i>. <a name="citation4a"></a><a href="#footnote4a">{4a}</a><br> +<br> +<br> +On Friday the 16th, Bailie Irvine of Dumfries came to the Council at +Edinburgh, and gave information concerning this ‘horrid rebellion.’ +In the absence of Rothes, Sharpe presided - much to the wrath of some +members; and as he imagined his own safety endangered, his measures +were most energetic. Dalzell was ordered away to the West, the +guards round the city were doubled, officers and soldiers were forced +to take the oath of allegiance, and all lodgers were commanded to give +in their names. Sharpe, surrounded with all these guards and precautions, +trembled - trembled as he trembled when the avengers of blood drew him +from his chariot on Magus Muir, - for he knew how he had sold his trust, +how he had betrayed his charge, and he felt that against him must their +chiefest hatred be directed, against him their direst thunder-bolts +be forged. But even in his fear the apostate Presbyterian was +unrelenting, unpityingly harsh; he published in his manifesto no promise +of pardon, no inducement to submission. He said, ‘If you +submit not you must die,’ but never added, ‘If you submit +you may live!’ <a name="citation4b"></a><a href="#footnote4b">{4b}</a><br> +<br> +Meantime the insurgents proceeded on their way. At Carsphairn +they were deserted by Captain Gray, who, doubtless in a fit of oblivion, +neglected to leave behind him the coffer containing Sir James’s +money. Who he was is a mystery, unsolved by any historian; his +papers were evidently forgeries - that, and his final flight, appear +to indicate that he was an agent of the Royalists, for either the King +or the Duke of York was heard to say, ‘That, if he might have +his wish, he would have them all turn rebels and go to arms.’ +<a name="citation4c"></a><a href="#footnote4c">{4c}</a><br> +<br> +Upon the 18th day of the month they left Carsphairn and marched onwards.<br> +<br> +Turner was always lodged by his captors at a good inn, frequently at +the best of which their halting-place could boast. Here many visits +were paid to him by the ministers and officers of the insurgent force. +In his description of these interviews he displays a vein of satiric +severity, admitting any kindness that was done to him with some qualifying +souvenir of former harshness, and gloating over any injury, mistake, +or folly, which it was his chance to suffer or to hear. He appears, +notwithstanding all this, to have been on pretty good terms with his +cruel ‘phanaticks,’ as the following extract sufficiently +proves:<br> +<br> +‘Most of the foot were lodged about the church or churchyard, +and order given to ring bells next morning for a sermon to be preached +by Mr. Welch. Maxwell of Morith, and Major M’Cullough invited +me to heare “that phanatick sermon” (for soe they merrilie +called it). They said that preaching might prove an effectual +meane to turne me, which they heartilie wished. I answered to +them that I was under guards, and that if they intended to heare that +sermon, it was probable I might likewise, for it was not like my guards +wold goe to church and leave me alone at my lodgeings. Bot to +what they said of my conversion, I said it wold be hard to turne a Turner. +Bot because I founde them in a merrie humour, I said, if I did not come +to heare Mr. Welch preach, then they might fine me in fortie shillings +Scots, which was double the suome of what I had exacted from the phanatics.’ +<a name="citation4d"></a><a href="#footnote4d">{4d}</a><br> +<br> +This took place at Ochiltree, on the 22nd day of the month. The +following is recounted by this personage with malicious glee, and certainly, +if authentic, it is a sad proof of how chaff is mixed with wheat, and +how ignorant, almost impious, persons were engaged in this movement; +nevertheless we give it, for we wish to present with impartiality all +the alleged facts to the reader:<br> +<br> +‘Towards the evening Mr. Robinsone and Mr. Crukshank gaue me a +visite; I called for some ale purposelie to heare one of them blesse +it. It fell Mr. Robinsone to seeke the blessing, who said one +of the most bombastick graces that ever I heard in my life. He +summoned God Allmightie very imperiouslie to be their secondarie (for +that was his language). “And if,” said he, “thou +wilt not be our Secondarie, we will not fight for thee at all, for it +is not our cause bot thy cause; and if thou wilt not fight for our cause +and thy oune cause, then we are not obliged to fight for it. They +say,” said he, “that Dukes, Earles, and Lords are coming +with the King’s General against us, bot they shall be nothing +bot a threshing to us.” This grace did more fullie satisfie +me of the folly and injustice of their cause, then the ale did quench +my thirst.’ <a name="citation4e"></a><a href="#footnote4e">{4e}</a><br> +<br> +Frequently the rebels made a halt near some roadside alehouse, or in +some convenient park, where Colonel Wallace, who had now taken the command, +would review the horse and foot, during which time Turner was sent either +into the alehouse or round the shoulder of the hill, to prevent him +from seeing the disorders which were likely to arise. He was, +at last, on the 25th day of the month, between Douglas and Lanark, permitted +to behold their evolutions. ‘I found their horse did consist +of four hundreth and fortie, and the foot of five hundreth and upwards. +. . . The horsemen were armed for most part with suord and pistoll, +some onlie with suord. The foot with musket, pike, sith (scythe), +forke, and suord; and some with suords great and long.’ +He admired much the proficiency of their cavalry, and marvelled how +they had attained to it in so short a time. <a name="citation4f"></a><a href="#footnote4f">{4f}</a><br> +<br> +At Douglas, which they had just left on the morning of this great wapinshaw, +they were charged - awful picture of depravity! - with the theft of +a silver spoon and a nightgown. Could it be expected that while +the whole country swarmed with robbers of every description, such a +rare opportunity for plunder should be lost by rogues - that among a +thousand men, even though fighting for religion, there should not be +one Achan in the camp? At Lanark a declaration was drawn up and +signed by the chief rebels. In it occurs the following:<br> +<br> +‘The just sense whereof ’ - the sufferings of the country +- ‘made us choose, rather to betake ourselves to the fields for +self-defence, than to stay at home, burdened daily with the calamities +of others, and tortured with the fears of our own approaching misery.’ +<a name="citation4g"></a><a href="#footnote4g">{4g}</a><br> +<br> +The whole body, too, swore the Covenant, to which ceremony the epitaph +at the head of this chapter seems to refer.<br> +<br> +A report that Dalzell was approaching drove them from Lanark to Bathgate, +where, on the evening of Monday the 26th, the wearied army stopped. +But at twelve o’clock the cry, which served them for a trumpet, +of ‘Horse! horse!’ and ‘Mount the prisoner!’ +resounded through the night-shrouded town, and called the peasants from +their well-earned rest to toil onwards in their march. The wind +howled fiercely over the moorland; a close, thick, wetting rain descended. +Chilled to the bone, worn out with long fatigue, sinking to the knees +in mire, onward they marched to destruction. One by one the weary +peasants fell off from their ranks to sleep, and die in the rain-soaked +moor, or to seek some house by the wayside wherein to hide till daybreak. +One by one at first, then in gradually increasing numbers, at every +shelter that was seen, whole troops left the waning squadrons, and rushed +to hide themselves from the ferocity of the tempest. To right +and left nought could be descried but the broad expanse of the moor, +and the figures of their fellow-rebels, seen dimly through the murky +night, plodding onwards through the sinking moss. Those who kept +together - a miserable few - often halted to rest themselves, and to +allow their lagging comrades to overtake them. Then onward they +went again, still hoping for assistance, reinforcement, and supplies; +onward again, through the wind, and the rain, and the darkness - onward +to their defeat at Pentland, and their scaffold at Edinburgh. +It was calculated that they lost one half of their army on that disastrous +night-march.<br> +<br> +Next night they reached the village of Colinton, four miles from Edinburgh, +where they halted for the last time. <a name="citation4h"></a><a href="#footnote4h">{4h}</a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER IV - RULLION GREEN<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +‘From Covenanters with uplifted hands,<br> +From Remonstrators with associate bands,<br> +Good Lord, deliver us!’<br> +<i>Royalist Rhyme</i>, KIRKTON, p. 127.<br> +<br> +<br> +Late on the fourth night of November, exactly twenty-four days before +Rullion Green, Richard and George Chaplain, merchants in Haddington, +beheld four men, clad like West-country Whigamores, standing round some +object on the ground. It was at the two-mile cross, and within +that distance from their homes. At last, to their horror, they +discovered that the recumbent figure was a livid corpse, swathed in +a blood-stained winding-sheet. <a name="citation5a"></a><a href="#footnote5a">{5a}</a> +Many thought that this apparition was a portent of the deaths connected +with the Pentland Rising.<br> +<br> +On the morning of Wednesday, the 28th of November 1666, they left Colinton +and marched to Rullion Green. There they arrived about sunset. +The position was a strong one. On the summit of a bare, heathery +spur of the Pentlands are two hillocks, and between them lies a narrow +band of flat marshy ground. On the highest of the two mounds - +that nearest the Pentlands, and on the left hand of the main body - +was the greater part of the cavalry, under Major Learmont; on the other +Barscob and the Galloway gentlemen; and in the centre Colonel Wallace +and the weak, half-armed infantry. Their position was further +strengthened by the depth of the valley below, and the deep chasm-like +course of the Rullion Burn.<br> +<br> +The sun, going down behind the Pentlands, cast golden lights and blue +shadows on their snow-clad summits, slanted obliquely into the rich +plain before them, bathing with rosy splendour the leafless, snow-sprinkled +trees, and fading gradually into shadow in the distance. To the +south, too, they beheld a deep-shaded amphitheatre of heather and bracken; +the course of the Esk, near Penicuik, winding about at the foot of its +gorge; the broad, brown expanse of Maw Moss; and, fading into blue indistinctness +in the south, the wild heath-clad Peeblesshire hills. In sooth, +that scene was fair, and many a yearning glance was cast over that peaceful +evening scene from the spot where the rebels awaited their defeat; and +when the fight was over, many a noble fellow lifted his head from the +blood-stained heather to strive with darkening eyeballs to behold that +landscape, over which, as over his life and his cause, the shadows of +night and of gloom were falling and thickening.<br> +<br> +It was while waiting on this spot that the fear-inspiring cry was raised: +‘The enemy! Here come the enemy!’<br> +<br> +Unwilling to believe their own doom - for our insurgents still hoped +for success in some negotiations for peace which had been carried on +at Colinton - they called out, ‘They are some of our own.’<br> +<br> +‘They are too blacke ‘ (<i>i.e</i>. numerous), ‘fie! +fie! for ground to draw up on,’ cried Wallace, fully realising +the want of space for his men, and proving that it was not till after +this time that his forces were finally arranged. <a name="citation5b"></a><a href="#footnote5b">{5b}</a><br> +<br> +First of all the battle was commenced by fifty Royalist horse sent obliquely +across the hill to attack the left wing of the rebels. An equal +number of Learmont’s men met them, and, after a struggle, drove +them back. The course of the Rullion Burn prevented almost all +pursuit, and Wallace, on perceiving it, dispatched a body of foot to +occupy both the burn and some ruined sheep-walls on the farther side.<br> +<br> +Dalzell changed his position, and drew up his army at the foot of the +hill, on the top of which were his foes. He then dispatched a +mingled body of infantry and cavalry to attack Wallace’s outpost, +but they also were driven back. A third charge produced a still +more disastrous effect, for Dalzell had to check the pursuit of his +men by a reinforcement.<br> +<br> +These repeated checks bred a panic in the Lieutenant-General’s +ranks, for several of his men flung down their arms. Urged by +such fatal symptoms, and by the approaching night, he deployed his men, +and closed in overwhelming numbers on the centre and right flank of +the insurgent army. In the increasing twilight the burning matches +of the firelocks, shimmering on barrel, halbert, and cuirass, lent to +the approaching army a picturesque effect, like a huge, many-armed giant +breathing flame into the darkness.<br> +<br> +Placed on an overhanging hill, Welch and Semple cried aloud, ‘The +God of Jacob! The God of Jacob!’ and prayed with uplifted hands +for victory. <a name="citation5c"></a><a href="#footnote5c">{5c}</a><br> +<br> +But still the Royalist troops closed in.<br> +<br> +Captain John Paton was observed by Dalzell, who determined to capture +him with his own hands. Accordingly he charged forward, presenting +his pistols. Paton fired, but the balls hopped off Dalzell’s +buff coat and fell into his boot. With the superstition peculiar +to his age, the Nonconformist concluded that his adversary was rendered +bullet-proof by enchantment, and, pulling some small silver coins from +his pocket, charged his pistol therewith. Dalzell, seeing this, +and supposing, it is likely, that Paton was putting in larger balls, +hid behind his servant, who was killed. <a name="citation5d"></a><a href="#footnote5d">{5d}</a><br> +<br> +Meantime the outposts were forced, and the army of Wallace was enveloped +in the embrace of a hideous boa-constrictor - tightening, closing, crushing +every semblance of life from the victim enclosed in his toils. +The flanking parties of horse were forced in upon the centre, and though, +as even Turner grants, they fought with desperation, a general flight +was the result.<br> +<br> +But when they fell there was none to sing their coronach or wail the +death-wail over them. Those who sacrificed themselves for the +peace, the liberty, and the religion of their fellow-countrymen, lay +bleaching in the field of death for long, and when at last they were +buried by charity, the peasants dug up their bodies, desecrated their +graves, and cast them once more upon the open heath for the sorry value +of their winding-sheets!<br> +<br> +<br> +<i>Inscription on stone at Rullion Green:<br> +<br> +<br> +</i>HERE<br> +AND NEAR TO<br> +THIS PLACE LYES THE<br> +REVEREND MR JOHN CROOKSHANK<br> +AND MR ANDREW MCCORMICK<br> +MINISTERS OF THE GOSPEL AND<br> +ABOUT FIFTY OTHER TRUE COVENANTED<br> +PRESBYTERIANS WHO WERE<br> +KILLED IN THIS PLACE IN THEIR OWN<br> +INOCENT SELF DEFENCE AND DEFFENCE<br> +OF THE COVENANTED WORK OF<br> +REFORMATION BY THOMAS DALZEEL OF BINS<br> +UPON THE 28 OF NOVEMBER<br> +1666. REV. 12. 11. ERECTED<br> +SEPT. 28 1738.<br> +<br> +<br> +<i>Back of stone:<br> +<br> +<br> +</i>A Cloud of Witnesses lyes here,<br> +Who for Christ’s Interest did appear,<br> +For to restore true Liberty,<br> +O’erturnèd then by tyranny.<br> +And by proud Prelats who did Rage<br> +Against the Lord’s Own heritage.<br> +They sacrificed were for the laws<br> +Of Christ their king, his noble cause.<br> +These heroes fought with great renown;<br> +By falling got the Martyr’s crown. <a name="citation5e"></a><a href="#footnote5e">{5e}</a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER V - A RECORD OF BLOOD<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +‘They cut his hands ere he was dead,<br> +And after that struck of his head.<br> +His blood under the altar cries<br> +For vengeance on Christ’s enemies.’<br> +<i>Epitaph on Tomb at Longcross of Clermont</i>. <a name="citation6a"></a><a href="#footnote6a">{6a}</a><br> +<br> +<br> +Master Andrew Murray, an outed minister, residing in the Potterrow, +on the morning after the defeat, heard the sounds of cheering and the +march of many feet beneath his window. He gazed out. With +colours flying, and with music sounding, Dalzell, victorious, entered +Edinburgh. But his banners were dyed in blood, and a band of prisoners +were marched within his ranks. The old man knew it all. +That martial and triumphant strain was the death-knell of his friends +and of their cause, the rust-hued spots upon the flags were the tokens +of their courage and their death, and the prisoners were the miserable +remnant spared from death in battle to die upon the scaffold. +Poor old man! he had outlived all joy. Had he lived longer he +would have seen increasing torment and increasing woe; he would have +seen the clouds, then but gathering in mist, cast a more than midnight +darkness over his native hills, and have fallen a victim to those bloody +persecutions which, later, sent their red memorials to the sea by many +a burn. By a merciful Providence all this was spared to him - +he fell beneath the first blow; and ere four days had passed since Rullion +Green, the aged minister of God was gathered to is fathers. <a name="citation6b"></a><a href="#footnote6b">{6b}</a><br> +<br> +When Sharpe first heard of the rebellion, he applied to Sir Alexander +Ramsay, the Provost, for soldiers to guard his house. Disliking +their occupation, the soldiers gave him an ugly time of it. All +the night through they kept up a continuous series of ‘alarms +and incursions,’ ‘cries of “Stand!” “Give +fire!”’ etc., which forced the prelate to flee to the Castle +in the morning, hoping there to find the rest which was denied him at +home. <a name="citation6c"></a><a href="#footnote6c">{6c}</a> +Now, however, when all danger to himself was past, Sharpe came out in +his true colours, and scant was the justice likely to be shown to the +foes of Scottish Episcopacy when the Primate was by. The prisoners +were lodged in Haddo’s Hole, a part of St. Giles’ Cathedral, +where, by the kindness of Bishop Wishart, to his credit be it spoken, +they were amply supplied with food. <a name="citation6d"></a><a href="#footnote6d">{6d}</a><br> +<br> +Some people urged, in the Council, that the promise of quarter which +had been given on the field of battle should protect the lives of the +miserable men. Sir John Gilmoure, the greatest lawyer, gave no +opinion - certainly a suggestive circumstance - but Lord Lee declared +that this would not interfere with their legal trial, ‘so to bloody +executions they went.’ <a name="citation6e"></a><a href="#footnote6e">{6e}</a> +To the number of thirty they were condemned and executed; while two +of them, Hugh M’Kail, a young minister, and Neilson of Corsack, +were tortured with the boots.<br> +<br> +The goods of those who perished were confiscated, and their bodies were +dismembered and distributed to different parts of the country; ‘the +heads of Major M’Culloch and the two Gordons,’ it was resolved, +says Kirkton, ‘should be pitched on the gate of Kirkcudbright; +the two Hamiltons and Strong’s head should be affixed at Hamilton, +and Captain Arnot’s sett on the Watter Gate at Edinburgh. +The armes of all the ten, because they hade with uplifted hands renewed +the Covenant at Lanark, were sent to the people of that town to expiate +that crime, by placing these arms on the top of the prison.’ <a name="citation6f"></a><a href="#footnote6f">{6f}</a> +Among these was John Neilson, the Laird of Corsack, who saved Turner’s +life at Dumfries; in return for which service Sir James attempted, though +without success, to get the poor man reprieved. One of the condemned +died of his wounds between the day of condemnation and the day of execution. +‘ None of them,’ says Kirkton, ‘would save their life +by taking the declaration and renouncing the Covenant, though it was +offered to them. . . . But never men died in Scotland so much lamented +by the people, not only spectators, but those in the country. +When Knockbreck and his brother were turned over, they clasped each +other in their armes, and so endured the pangs of death. When +Humphrey Colquhoun died, he spoke not like an ordinary citizen, but +like a heavenly minister, relating his comfortable Christian experiences, +and called for his Bible, and laid it on his wounded arm, and read John +iii. 8, and spoke upon it to the admiration of all. But most of +all, when Mr. M’Kail died, there was such a lamentation as was +never known in Scotland before; not one dry cheek upon all the street, +or in all the numberless windows in the mercate place.’ <a name="citation6g"></a><a href="#footnote6g">{6g}</a><br> +<br> +The following passage from this speech speaks for itself and its author:<br> +<br> +‘Hereafter I will not talk with flesh and blood, nor think on +the world’s consolations. Farewell to all my friends, whose +company hath been refreshful to me in my pilgrimage. I have done +with the light of the sun and the moon; welcome eternal light, eternal +life, everlasting love, everlasting praise, everlasting glory. +Praise to Him that sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever! +Bless the Lord, O my soul, that hath pardoned all my iniquities in the +blood of His Son, and healed all my diseases. Bless Him, O all +ye His angels that excel in strength, ye ministers of His that do His +pleasure. Bless the Lord, O my soul!’ <a name="citation6h"></a><a href="#footnote6h">{6h}</a><br> +<br> +After having ascended the gallows ladder he again broke forth in the +following words of touching eloquence: ‘And now I leave off to +speak any more to creatures, and begin my intercourse with God, which +shall never be broken off. Farewell father and mother, friends +and relations! Farewell the world and all delights! Farewell +meat and drink! Farewell sun, moon, and stars! - Welcome God and +Father! Welcome sweet Jesus Christ, the Mediator of the new covenant! +Welcome blessed Spirit of grace and God of all consolation! Welcome +glory! Welcome eternal life! Welcome Death!’ <a name="citation6i"></a><a href="#footnote6i">{6i}</a><br> +<br> +At Glasgow, too, where some were executed, they caused the soldiers +to beat the drums and blow the trumpets on their closing ears. +Hideous refinement of revenge! Even the last words which drop +from the lips of a dying man - words surely the most sincere and the +most unbiassed which mortal mouth can utter - even these were looked +upon as poisoned and as poisonous. ‘Drown their last accents,’ +was the cry, ‘lest they should lead the crowd to take their part, +or at the least to mourn their doom!’ <a name="citation6j"></a><a href="#footnote6j">{6j}</a> +But, after all, perhaps it was more merciful than one would think - +unintentionally so, of course; perhaps the storm of harsh and fiercely +jubilant noises, the clanging of trumpets, the rattling of drums, and +the hootings and jeerings of an unfeeling mob, which were the last they +heard on earth, might, when the mortal fight was over, when the river +of death was passed, add tenfold sweetness to the hymning of the angels, +tenfold peacefulness to the shores which they had reached.<br> +<br> +Not content with the cruelty of these executions, some even of the peasantry, +though these were confined to the shire of Mid-Lothian, pursued, captured, +plundered, and murdered the miserable fugitives who fell in their way. +One strange story have we of these times of blood and persecution: Kirkton +the historian and popular tradition tell us alike of a flame which often +would arise from the grave, in a moss near Carnwath, of some of those +poor rebels: of how it crept along the ground; of how it covered the +house of their murderer; and of how it scared him with its lurid glare.<br> +<br> +Hear Daniel Defoe: <a name="citation6k"></a><a href="#footnote6k">{6k}</a><br> +<br> +‘If the poor people were by these insupportable violences made +desperate, and driven to all the extremities of a wild despair, who +can justly reflect on them when they read in the Word of God “That +oppression makes a wise man mad”? And therefore were there +no other original of the insurrection known by the name of the Rising +of Pentland, it was nothing but what the intolerable oppressions of +those times might have justified to all the world, nature having dictated +to all people a right of defence when illegally and arbitrarily attacked +in a manner not justifiable either by laws of nature, the laws of God, +or the laws of the country.’<br> +<br> +Bear this remonstrance of Defoe’s in mind, and though it is the +fashion of the day to jeer and to mock, to execrate and to contemn, +the noble band of Covenanters - though the bitter laugh at their old-world +religious views, the curl of the lip at their merits, and the chilling +silence on their bravery and their determination, are but too rife through +all society - be charitable to what was evil and honest to what was +good about the Pentland insurgents, who fought for life and liberty, +for country and religion, on the 28th of November 1666, now just two +hundred years ago.<br> +<br> +<br> +EDINBURGH, <i>28th November 1866</i>.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE DAY AFTER TO-MORROW<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +History is much decried; it is a tissue of errors, we are told, no doubt +correctly; and rival historians expose each other’s blunders with +gratification. Yet the worst historian has a clearer view of the +period he studies than the best of us can hope to form of that in which +we live. The obscurest epoch is to-day; and that for a thousand +reasons of inchoate tendency, conflicting report, and sheer mass and +multiplicity of experience; but chiefly, perhaps, by reason of an insidious +shifting of landmarks. Parties and ideas continually move, but +not by measurable marches on a stable course; the political soil itself +steals forth by imperceptible degrees, like a travelling glacier, carrying +on its bosom not only political parties but their flag-posts and cantonments; +so that what appears to be an eternal city founded on hills is but a +flying island of Laputa. It is for this reason in particular that +we are all becoming Socialists without knowing it; by which I would +not in the least refer to the acute case of Mr. Hyndman and his horn-blowing +supporters, sounding their trumps of a Sunday within the walls of our +individualist Jericho - but to the stealthy change that has come over +the spirit of Englishmen and English legislation. A little while +ago, and we were still for liberty; ‘crowd a few more thousands +on the bench of Government,’ we seemed to cry; ‘keep her +head direct on liberty, and we cannot help but come to port.’ +This is over; <i>laisser faire</i> declines in favour; our legislation +grows authoritative, grows philanthropical, bristles with new duties +and new penalties, and casts a spawn of inspectors, who now begin, note-book +in hand, to darken the face of England. It may be right or wrong, +we are not trying that; but one thing it is beyond doubt: it is Socialism +in action, and the strange thing is that we scarcely know it.<br> +<br> +Liberty has served us a long while, and it may be time to seek new altars. +Like all other principles, she has been proved to be self-exclusive +in the long run. She has taken wages besides (like all other virtues) +and dutifully served Mammon; so that many things we were accustomed +to admire as the benefits of freedom and common to all were truly benefits +of wealth, and took their value from our neighbours’ poverty. +A few shocks of logic, a few disclosures (in the journalistic phrase) +of what the freedom of manufacturers, landlords, or shipowners may imply +for operatives, tenants, or seamen, and we not unnaturally begin to +turn to that other pole of hope, beneficent tyranny. Freedom, +to be desirable, involves kindness, wisdom, and all the virtues of the +free; but the free man as we have seen him in action has been, as of +yore, only the master of many helots; and the slaves are still ill-fed, +ill-clad, ill-taught, ill-housed, insolently treated, and driven to +their mines and workshops by the lash of famine. So much, in other +men’s affairs, we have begun to see clearly; we have begun to +despair of virtue in these other men, and from our seat in Parliament +begin to discharge upon them, thick as arrows, the host of our inspectors. +The landlord has long shaken his head over the manufacturer; those who +do business on land have lost all trust in the virtues of the shipowner; +the professions look askance upon the retail traders and have even started +their co-operative stores to ruin them; and from out the smoke-wreaths +of Birmingham a finger has begun to write upon the wall the condemnation +of the landlord. Thus, piece by piece, do we condemn each other, +and yet not perceive the conclusion, that our whole estate is somewhat +damnable. Thus, piece by piece, each acting against his neighbour, +each sawing away the branch on which some other interest is seated, +do we apply in detail our Socialistic remedies, and yet not perceive +that we are all labouring together to bring in Socialism at large. +A tendency so stupid and so selfish is like to prove invincible; and +if Socialism be at all a practicable rule of life, there is every chance +that our grand-children will see the day and taste the pleasures of +existence in something far liker an ant-heap than any previous human +polity. And this not in the least because of the voice of Mr. +Hyndman or the horns of his followers; but by the mere glacier movement +of the political soil, bearing forward on its bosom, apparently undisturbed, +the proud camps of Whig and Tory. If Mr. Hyndman were a man of +keen humour, which is far from my conception of his character, he might +rest from his troubling and look on: the walls of Jericho begin already +to crumble and dissolve. That great servile war, the Armageddon +of money and numbers, to which we looked forward when young, becomes +more and more unlikely; and we may rather look to see a peaceable and +blindfold evolution, the work of dull men immersed in political tactics +and dead to political results.<br> +<br> +The principal scene of this comedy lies, of course, in the House of +Commons; it is there, besides, that the details of this new evolution +(if it proceed) will fall to be decided; so that the state of Parliament +is not only diagnostic of the present but fatefully prophetic of the +future. Well, we all know what Parliament is, and we are all ashamed +of it. We may pardon it some faults, indeed, on the ground of +Irish obstruction - a bitter trial, which it supports with notable good +humour. But the excuse is merely local; it cannot apply to similar +bodies in America and France; and what are we to say of these? +President Cleveland’s letter may serve as a picture of the one; +a glance at almost any paper will convince us of the weakness of the +other. Decay appears to have seized on the organ of popular government +in every land; and this just at the moment when we begin to bring to +it, as to an oracle of justice, the whole skein of our private affairs +to be unravelled, and ask it, like a new Messiah, to take upon itself +our frailties and play for us the part that should be played by our +own virtues. For that, in few words, is the case. We cannot +trust ourselves to behave with decency; we cannot trust our consciences; +and the remedy proposed is to elect a round number of our neighbours, +pretty much at random, and say to these: ‘Be ye our conscience; +make laws so wise, and continue from year to year to administer them +so wisely, that they shall save us from ourselves and make us righteous +and happy, world without end. Amen.’ And who can look +twice at the British Parliament and then seriously bring it such a task? +I am not advancing this as an argument against Socialism: once again, +nothing is further from my mind. There are great truths in Socialism, +or no one, not even Mr. Hyndman, would be found to hold it; and if it +came, and did one-tenth part of what it offers, I for one should make +it welcome. But if it is to come, we may as well have some notion +of what it will be like; and the first thing to grasp is that our new +polity will be designed and administered (to put it courteously) with +something short of inspiration. It will be made, or will grow, +in a human parliament; and the one thing that will not very hugely change +is human nature. The Anarchists think otherwise, from which it +is only plain that they have not carried to the study of history the +lamp of human sympathy.<br> +<br> +Given, then, our new polity, with its new waggon-load of laws, what +headmarks must we look for in the life? We chafe a good deal at +that excellent thing, the income-tax, because it brings into our affairs +the prying fingers, and exposes us to the tart words, of the official. +The official, in all degrees, is already something of a terror to many +of us. I would not willingly have to do with even a police-constable +in any other spirit than that of kindness. I still remember in +my dreams the eye-glass of a certain <i>attaché</i> at a certain +embassy - an eyeglass that was a standing indignity to all on whom it +looked; and my next most disagreeable remembrance is of a bracing, Republican +postman in the city of San Francisco. I lived in that city among +working folk, and what my neighbours accepted at the postman’s +hands - nay, what I took from him myself - it is still distasteful to +recall. The bourgeois, residing in the upper parts of society, +has but few opportunities of tasting this peculiar bowl; but about the +income-tax, as I have said, or perhaps about a patent, or in the halls +of an embassy at the hands of my friend of the eye-glass, he occasionally +sets his lips to it; and he may thus imagine (if he has that faculty +of imagination, without which most faculties are void) how it tastes +to his poorer neighbours, who must drain it to the dregs. In every +contact with authority, with their employer, with the police, with the +School Board officer, in the hospital, or in the workhouse, they have +equally the occasion to appreciate the light-hearted civility of the +man in office; and as an experimentalist in several out-of-the-way provinces +of life, I may say it has but to be felt to be appreciated. Well, +this golden age of which we are speaking will be the golden age of officials. +In all our concerns it will be their beloved duty to meddle, with what +tact, with what obliging words, analogy will aid us to imagine. +It is likely these gentlemen will be periodically elected; they will +therefore have their turn of being underneath, which does not always +sweeten men’s conditions. The laws they will have to administer +will be no clearer than those we know to-day, and the body which is +to regulate their administration no wiser than the British Parliament. +So that upon all hands we may look for a form of servitude most galling +to the blood - servitude to many and changing masters, and for all the +slights that accompany the rule of jack-in-office. And if the +Socialistic programme be carried out with the least fulness, we shall +have lost a thing, in most respects not much to be regretted, but as +a moderator of oppression, a thing nearly invaluable - the newspaper. +For the independent journal is a creature of capital and competition; +it stands and falls with millionaires and railway bonds and all the +abuses and glories of to-day; and as soon as the State has fairly taken +its bent to authority and philanthropy, and laid the least touch on +private property, the days of the independent journal are numbered. +State railways may be good things and so may State bakeries; but a State +newspaper will never be a very trenchant critic of the State officials.<br> +<br> +But again, these officials would have no sinecure. Crime would +perhaps be less, for some of the motives of crime we may suppose would +pass away. But if Socialism were carried out with any fulness, +there would be more contraventions. We see already new sins ringing +up like mustard - School Board sins, factory sins, Merchant Shipping +Act sins - none of which I would be thought to except against in particular, +but all of which, taken together, show us that Socialism can be a hard +master even in the beginning. If it go on to such heights as we +hear proposed and lauded, if it come actually to its ideal of the ant-heap, +ruled with iron justice, the number of new contraventions will be out +of all proportion multiplied. Take the case of work alone. +Man is an idle animal. He is at least as intelligent as the ant; +but generations of advisers have in vain recommended him the ant’s +example. Of those who are found truly indefatigable in business, +some are misers; some are the practisers of delightful industries, like +gardening; some are students, artists, inventors, or discoverers, men +lured forward by successive hopes; and the rest are those who live by +games of skill or hazard - financiers, billiard-players, gamblers, and +the like. But in unloved toils, even under the prick of necessity, +no man is continually sedulous. Once eliminate the fear of starvation, +once eliminate or bound the hope of riches, and we shall see plenty +of skulking and malingering. Society will then be something not +wholly unlike a cotton plantation in the old days; with cheerful, careless, +demoralised slaves, with elected overseers, and, instead of the planter, +a chaotic popular assembly. If the blood be purposeful and the +soil strong, such a plantation may succeed, and be, indeed, a busy ant-heap, +with full granaries and long hours of leisure. But even then I +think the whip will be in the overseer’s hands, and not in vain. +For, when it comes to be a question of each man doing his own share +or the rest doing more, prettiness of sentiment will be forgotten. +To dock the skulker’s food is not enough; many will rather eat +haws and starve on petty pilferings than put their shoulder to the wheel +for one hour daily. For such as these, then, the whip will be +in the overseer’s hand; and his own sense of justice and the superintendence +of a chaotic popular assembly will be the only checks on its employment. +Now, you may be an industrious man and a good citizen, and yet not love, +nor yet be loved by, Dr. Fell the inspector. It is admitted by +private soldiers that the disfavour of a sergeant is an evil not to +be combated; offend the sergeant, they say, and in a brief while you +will either be disgraced or have deserted. And the sergeant can +no longer appeal to the lash. But if these things go on, we shall +see, or our sons shall see, what it is to have offended an inspector.<br> +<br> +This for the unfortunate. But with the fortunate also, even those +whom the inspector loves, it may not be altogether well. It is +concluded that in such a state of society, supposing it to be financially +sound, the level of comfort will be high. It does not follow: +there are strange depths of idleness in man, a too-easily-got sufficiency, +as in the case of the sago-eaters, often quenching the desire for all +besides; and it is possible that the men of the richest ant-heaps may +sink even into squalor. But suppose they do not; suppose our tricksy +instrument of human nature, when we play upon it this new tune, should +respond kindly; suppose no one to be damped and none exasperated by +the new conditions, the whole enterprise to be financially sound - a +vaulting supposition - and all the inhabitants to dwell together in +a golden mean of comfort: we have yet to ask ourselves if this be what +man desire, or if it be what man will even deign to accept for a continuance. +It is certain that man loves to eat, it is not certain that he loves +that only or that best. He is supposed to love comfort; it is +not a love, at least, that he is faithful to. He is supposed to +love happiness; it is my contention that he rather loves excitement. +Danger, enterprise, hope, the novel, the aleatory, are dearer to man +than regular meals. He does not think so when he is hungry, but +he thinks so again as soon as he is fed; and on the hypothesis of a +successful ant-heap, he would never go hungry. It would be always +after dinner in that society, as, in the land of the Lotos-eaters, it +was always afternoon; and food, which, when we have it not, seems all-important, +drops in our esteem, as soon as we have it, to a mere prerequisite of +living.<br> +<br> +That for which man lives is not the same thing for all individuals nor +in all ages; yet it has a common base; what he seeks and what he must +have is that which will seize and hold his attention. Regular +meals and weatherproof lodgings will not do this long. Play in +its wide sense, as the artificial induction of sensation, including +all games and all arts, will, indeed, go far to keep him conscious of +himself; but in the end he wearies for realities. Study or experiment, +to some rare natures, is the unbroken pastime of a life. These +are enviable natures; people shut in the house by sickness often bitterly +envy them; but the commoner man cannot continue to exist upon such altitudes: +his feet itch for physical adventure; his blood boils for physical dangers, +pleasures, and triumphs; his fancy, the looker after new things, cannot +continue to look for them in books and crucibles, but must seek them +on the breathing stage of life. Pinches, buffets, the glow of +hope, the shock of disappointment, furious contention with obstacles: +these are the true elixir for all vital spirits, these are what they +seek alike in their romantic enterprises and their unromantic dissipations. +When they are taken in some pinch closer than the common, they cry, +‘Catch me here again!’ and sure enough you catch them there +again - perhaps before the week is out. It is as old as <i>Robinson +Crusoe</i>; as old as man. Our race has not been strained for +all these ages through that sieve of dangers that we call Natural Selection, +to sit down with patience in the tedium of safety; the voices of its +fathers call it forth. Already in our society as it exists, the +bourgeois is too much cottoned about for any zest in living; he sits +in his parlour out of reach of any danger, often out of reach of any +vicissitude but one of health; and there he yawns. If the people +in the next villa took pot-shots at him, he might be killed indeed, +but so long as he escaped he would find his blood oxygenated and his +views of the world brighter. If Mr. Mallock, on his way to the +publishers, should have his skirts pinned to a wall by a javelin, it +would not occur to him - at least for several hours - to ask if life +were worth living; and if such peril were a daily matter, he would ask +it never more; he would have other things to think about, he would be +living indeed - not lying in a box with cotton, safe, but immeasurably +dull. The aleatory, whether it touch life, or fortune, or renown +- whether we explore Africa or only toss for halfpence - that is what +I conceive men to love best, and that is what we are seeking to exclude +from men’s existences. Of all forms of the aleatory, that +which most commonly attends our working men - the danger of misery from +want of work - is the least inspiriting: it does not whip the blood, +it does not evoke the glory of contest; it is tragic, but it is passive; +and yet, in so far as it is aleatory, and a peril sensibly touching +them, it does truly season the men’s lives. Of those who +fail, I do not speak - despair should be sacred; but to those who even +modestly succeed, the changes of their life bring interest: a job found, +a shilling saved, a dainty earned, all these are wells of pleasure springing +afresh for the successful poor; and it is not from these but from the +villa-dweller that we hear complaints of the unworthiness of life. +Much, then, as the average of the proletariat would gain in this new +state of life, they would also lose a certain something, which would +not be missed in the beginning, but would be missed progressively and +progressively lamented. Soon there would be a looking back: there +would be tales of the old world humming in young men’s ears, tales +of the tramp and the pedlar, and the hopeful emigrant. And in +the stall-fed life of the successful ant-heap - with its regular meals, +regular duties, regular pleasures, an even course of life, and fear +excluded - the vicissitudes, delights, and havens of to-day will seem +of epic breadth. This may seem a shallow observation; but the +springs by which men are moved lie much on the surface. Bread, +I believe, has always been considered first, but the circus comes close +upon its heels. Bread we suppose to be given amply; the cry for +circuses will be the louder, and if the life of our descendants be such +as we have conceived, there are two beloved pleasures on which they +will be likely to fall back: the pleasures of intrigue and of sedition.<br> +<br> +In all this I have supposed the ant-heap to be financially sound. +I am no economist, only a writer of fiction; but even as such, I know +one thing that bears on the economic question - I know the imperfection +of man’s faculty for business. The Anarchists, who count +some rugged elements of common sense among what seem to me their tragic +errors, have said upon this matter all that I could wish to say, and +condemned beforehand great economical polities. So far it is obvious +that they are right; they may be right also in predicting a period of +communal independence, and they may even be right in thinking that desirable. +But the rise of communes is none the less the end of economic equality, +just when we were told it was beginning. Communes will not be +all equal in extent, nor in quality of soil, nor in growth of population; +nor will the surplus produce of all be equally marketable. It +will be the old story of competing interests, only with a new unit; +and, as it appears to me, a new, inevitable danger. For the merchant +and the manufacturer, in this new world, will be a sovereign commune; +it is a sovereign power that will see its crops undersold, and its manufactures +worsted in the market. And all the more dangerous that the sovereign +power should be small. Great powers are slow to stir; national +affronts, even with the aid of newspapers, filter slowly into popular +consciousness; national losses are so unequally shared, that one part +of the population will be counting its gains while another sits by a +cold hearth. But in the sovereign commune all will be centralised +and sensitive. When jealousy springs up, when (let us say) the +commune of Poole has overreached the commune of Dorchester, irritation +will run like quicksilver throughout the body politic; each man in Dorchester +will have to suffer directly in his diet and his dress; even the secretary, +who drafts the official correspondence, will sit down to his task embittered, +as a man who has dined ill and may expect to dine worse; and thus a +business difference between communes will take on much the same colour +as a dispute between diggers in the lawless West, and will lead as directly +to the arbitrament of blows. So that the establishment of the +communal system will not only reintroduce all the injustices and heart-burnings +of economic inequality, but will, in all human likelihood, inaugurate +a world of hedgerow warfare. Dorchester will march on Poole, Sherborne +on Dorchester, Wimborne on both; the waggons will be fired on as they +follow the highway, the trains wrecked on the lines, the ploughman will +go armed into the field of tillage; and if we have not a return of ballad +literature, the local press at least will celebrate in a high vein the +victory of Cerne Abbas or the reverse of Toller Porcorum. At least +this will not be dull; when I was younger, I could have welcomed such +a world with relief; but it is the New-Old with a vengeance, and irresistibly +suggests the growth of military powers and the foundation of new empires.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +COLLEGE PAPERS<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER I - EDINBURGH STUDENTS IN 1824<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +On the 2nd of January 1824 was issued the prospectus of the <i>Lapsus +Linguae</i>; <i>or, the College Tatler</i>; and on the 7th the first +number appeared. On Friday the 2nd of April ‘<i>Mr. Tatler</i> +became speechless.’ Its history was not all one success; +for the editor (who applies to himself the words of Iago, ‘I am +nothing if I am not critical’) overstepped the bounds of caution, +and found himself seriously embroiled with the powers that were. +There appeared in No. XVI. a most bitter satire upon Sir John Leslie, +in which he was compared to Falstaff, charged with puffing himself, +and very prettily censured for publishing only the first volume of a +class-book, and making all purchasers pay for both. Sir John Leslie +took up the matter angrily, visited Carfrae the publisher, and threatened +him with an action, till he was forced to turn the hapless <i>Lapsus</i> +out of doors. The maltreated periodical found shelter in the shop +of Huie, Infirmary Street; and No. XVII. was duly issued from the new +office. No. XVII. beheld <i>Mr. Tatler’s</i> humiliation, +in which, with fulsome apology and not very credible assurances of respect +and admiration, he disclaims the article in question, and advertises +a new issue of No. XVI. with all objectionable matter omitted. +This, with pleasing euphemism, he terms in a later advertisement, ‘a +new and improved edition.’ This was the only remarkable +adventure of <i>Mr. Tatler’s</i> brief existence; unless we consider +as such a silly Chaldee manuscript in imitation of <i>Blackwood</i>, +and a letter of reproof from a divinity student on the impiety of the +same dull effusion. He laments the near approach of his end in +pathetic terms. ‘How shall we summon up sufficient courage,’ +says he, ‘to look for the last time on our beloved little devil +and his inestimable proof-sheet? How shall we be able to pass +No. 14 Infirmary Street and feel that all its attractions are over? +How shall we bid farewell for ever to that excellent man, with the long +greatcoat, wooden leg and wooden board, who acts as our representative +at the gate of <i>Alma Mater</i>?’ But alas! he had no choice: +<i>Mr. Tatler</i>, whose career, he says himself, had been successful, +passed peacefully away, and has ever since dumbly implored ‘the +bringing home of bell and burial.’<br> +<br> +<i>Alter et idem</i>. A very different affair was the <i>Lapsus</i> +<i>Linguae</i> from the <i>Edinburgh</i> <i>University Magazine</i>. +The two prospectuses alone, laid side by side, would indicate the march +of luxury and the repeal of the paper duty. The penny bi-weekly +broadside of session 1828-4 was almost wholly dedicated to Momus. +Epigrams, pointless letters, amorous verses, and University grievances +are the continual burthen of the song. But <i>Mr. Tatler</i> was +not without a vein of hearty humour; and his pages afford what is much +better: to wit, a good picture of student life as it then was. +The students of those polite days insisted on retaining their hats in +the class-room. There was a cab-stance in front of the College; +and ‘Carriage Entrance’ was posted above the main arch, +on what the writer pleases to call ‘coarse, unclassic boards.’ +The benches of the ‘Speculative’ then, as now, were red; +but all other Societies (the ‘Dialectic’ is the only survivor) +met downstairs, in some rooms of which it is pointedly said that ‘nothing +else could conveniently be made of them.’ However horrible +these dungeons may have been, it is certain that they were paid for, +and that far too heavily for the taste of session 1823-4, which found +enough calls upon its purse for porter and toasted cheese at Ambrose’s, +or cranberry tarts and ginger-wine at Doull’s. Duelling +was still a possibility; so much so that when two medicals fell to fisticuffs +in Adam Square, it was seriously hinted that single combat would be +the result. Last and most wonderful of all, Gall and Spurzheim +were in every one’s mouth; and the Law student, after having exhausted +Byron’s poetry and Scott’s novels, informed the ladies of +his belief in phrenology. In the present day he would dilate on +‘Red as a rose is she,’ and then mention that he attends +Old Greyfriars’, as a tacit claim to intellectual superiority. +I do not know that the advance is much.<br> +<br> +But <i>Mr. Tatler’s</i> best performances were three short papers +in which he hit off pretty smartly the idiosyncrasies of the ‘<i>Divinity</i>,’ +the ‘<i>Medical</i>,’ and the ‘<i>Law</i>’ of +session 1823-4. The fact that there was no notice of the <i>‘Arts’</i> +seems to suggest that they stood in the same intermediate position as +they do now - the epitome of student-kind. <i>Mr. Tatler’s</i> +satire is, on the whole, good-humoured, and has not grown superannuated +in <i>all</i> its limbs. His descriptions may limp at some points, +but there are certain broad traits that apply equally well to session +1870-1. He shows us the <i>Divinity</i> of the period - tall, +pale, and slender - his collar greasy, and his coat bare about the seams +- ‘his white neckcloth serving four days, and regularly turned +the third’ - ‘the rim of his hat deficient in wool’ +- and ‘a weighty volume of theology under his arm.’ +He was the man to buy cheap ‘a snuff-box, or a dozen of pencils, +or a six-bladed knife, or a quarter of a hundred quills,’ at any +of the public sale-rooms. He was noted for cheap purchases, and +for exceeding the legal tender in halfpence. He haunted ‘the +darkest and remotest corner of the Theatre Gallery.’ He +was to be seen issuing from ‘aerial lodging-houses.’ +Withal, says mine author, ‘there were many good points about him: +he paid his landlady’s bill, read his Bible, went twice to church +on Sunday, seldom swore, was not often tipsy, and bought the <i>Lapsus +Linguae</i>.’<br> +<br> +The <i>Medical</i>, again, ‘wore a white greatcoat, and consequently +talked loud’ - (there is something very delicious in that <i>consequently</i>). +He wore his hat on one side. He was active, volatile, and went +to the top of Arthur’s Seat on the Sunday forenoon. He was +as quiet in a debating society as he was loud in the streets. +He was reckless and imprudent: yesterday he insisted on your sharing +a bottle of claret with him (and claret was claret then, before the +cheap-and-nasty treaty), and to-morrow he asks you for the loan of a +penny to buy the last number of the <i>Lapsus.<br> +<br> +</i>The student of <i>Law</i>, again, was a learned man. ‘He +had turned over the leaves of Justinian’s <i>Institutes</i>, and +knew that they were written in Latin. He was well acquainted with +the title-page of Blackstone’s <i>Commentaries</i>, and <i>argal</i> +(as the gravedigger in <i>Hamlet</i> says) he was not a person to be +laughed at.’ He attended the Parliament House in the character +of a critic, and could give you stale sneers at all the celebrated speakers. +He was the terror of essayists at the Speculative or the Forensic. +In social qualities he seems to have stood unrivalled. Even in +the police-office we find him shining with undiminished lustre. +‘If a <i>Charlie</i> should find him rather noisy at an untimely +hour, and venture to take him into custody, he appears next morning +like a Daniel come to judgment. He opens his mouth to speak, and +the divine precepts of unchanging justice and Scots law flow from his +tongue. The magistrate listens in amazement, and fines him only +a couple of guineas.’<br> +<br> +Such then were our predecessors and their College Magazine. Barclay, +Ambrose, Young Amos, and Fergusson were to them what the Café, +the Rainbow, and Rutherford’s are to us. An hour’s +reading in these old pages absolutely confuses us, there is so much +that is similar and so much that is different; the follies and amusements +are so like our own, and the manner of frolicking and enjoying are so +changed, that one pauses and looks about him in philosophic judgment. +The muddy quadrangle is thick with living students; but in our eyes +it swarms also with the phantasmal white greatcoats and tilted hats +of 1824. Two races meet: races alike and diverse. Two performances +are played before our eyes; but the change seems merely of impersonators, +of scenery, of costume. Plot and passion are the same. It +is the fall of the spun shilling whether seventy-one or twenty-four +has the best of it.<br> +<br> +In a future number we hope to give a glance at the individualities of +the present, and see whether the cast shall be head or tail - whether +we or the readers of the <i>Lapsus</i> stand higher in the balance.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER II - THE MODERN STUDENT CONSIDERED GENERALLY<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +We have now reached the difficult portion of our task. <i>Mr. +Tatler</i>, for all that we care, may have been as virulent as he liked +about the students of a former; but for the iron to touch our sacred +selves, for a brother of the Guild to betray its most privy infirmities, +let such a Judas look to himself as he passes on his way to the Scots +Law or the Diagnostic, below the solitary lamp at the corner of the +dark quadrangle. We confess that this idea alarms us. We +enter a protest. We bind ourselves over verbally to keep the peace. +We hope, moreover, that having thus made you secret to our misgivings, +you will excuse us if we be dull, and set that down to caution which +you might before have charged to the account of stupidity.<br> +<br> +The natural tendency of civilisation is to obliterate those distinctions +which are the best salt of life. All the fine old professional +flavour in language has evaporated. Your very gravedigger has +forgotten his avocation in his electorship, and would quibble on the +Franchise over Ophelia’s grave, instead of more appropriately +discussing the duration of bodies under ground. From this tendency, +from this gradual attrition of life, in which everything pointed and +characteristic is being rubbed down, till the whole world begins to +slip between our fingers in smooth undistinguishable sands, from this, +we say, it follows that we must not attempt to join <i>Mr. Taller</i> +in his simple division of students into <i>Law, Divinity</i>, and <i>Medical</i>. +Nowadays the Faculties may shake hands over their follies; and, like +Mrs. Frail and Mrs. Foresight (in <i>Love for Love</i>) they may stand +in the doors of opposite class-rooms, crying: ‘Sister, Sister +- Sister everyway!’ A few restrictions, indeed, remain to +influence the followers of individual branches of study. The Divinity, +for example, must be an avowed believer; and as this, in the present +day, is unhappily considered by many as a confession of weakness, he +is fain to choose one of two ways of gilding the distasteful orthodox +bolus. Some swallow it in a thin jelly of metaphysics; for it +is even a credit to believe in God on the evidence of some crack-jaw +philosopher, although it is a decided slur to believe in Him on His +own authority. Others again (and this we think the worst method), +finding German grammar a somewhat dry morsel, run their own little heresy +as a proof of independence; and deny one of the cardinal doctrines that +they may hold the others without being laughed at.<br> +<br> +Besides, however, such influences as these, there is little more distinction +between the faculties than the traditionary ideal, handed down through +a long sequence of students, and getting rounder and more featureless +at each successive session. The plague of uniformity has descended +on the College. Students (and indeed all sorts and conditions +of men) now require their faculty and character hung round their neck +on a placard, like the scenes in Shakespeare’s theatre. +And in the midst of all this weary sameness, not the least common feature +is the gravity of every face. No more does the merry medical run +eagerly in the clear winter morning up the rugged sides of Arthur’s +Seat, and hear the church bells begin and thicken and die away below +him among the gathered smoke of the city. He will not break Sunday +to so little purpose. He no longer finds pleasure in the mere +output of his surplus energy. He husbands his strength, and lays +out walks, and reading, and amusement with deep consideration, so that +he may get as much work and pleasure out of his body as he can, and +waste none of his energy on mere impulse, or such flat enjoyment as +an excursion in the country.<br> +<br> +See the quadrangle in the interregnum of classes, in those two or three +minutes when it is full of passing students, and we think you will admit +that, if we have not made it ‘an habitation of dragons,’ +we have at least transformed it into ‘a court for owls.’ +Solemnity broods heavily over the enclosure; and wherever you seek it, +you will find a dearth of merriment, an absence of real youthful enjoyment. +You might as well try<br> +<br> +<br> +‘To move wild laughter in the throat of death’<br> +<br> +<br> +as to excite any healthy stir among the bulk of this staid company.<br> +<br> +The studious congregate about the doors of the different classes, debating +the matter of the lecture, or comparing note-books. A reserved +rivalry sunders them. Here are some deep in Greek particles: there, +others are already inhabitants of that land<br> +<br> +<br> +‘Where entity and quiddity,<br> +‘Like ghosts of defunct bodies fly -<br> +Where Truth in person does appear<br> +Like words congealed in northern air.’<br> +<br> +<br> +But none of them seem to find any relish for their studies - no pedantic +love of this subject or that lights up their eyes - science and learning +are only means for a livelihood, which they have considerately embraced +and which they solemnly pursue. ‘Labour’s pale priests,’ +their lips seem incapable of laughter, except in the way of polite recognition +of professorial wit. The stains of ink are chronic on their meagre +fingers. They walk like Saul among the asses.<br> +<br> +The dandies are not less subdued. In 1824 there was a noisy dapper +dandyism abroad. Vulgar, as we should now think, but yet genial +- a matter of white greatcoats and loud voices - strangely different +from the stately frippery that is rife at present. These men are +out of their element in the quadrangle. Even the small remains +of boisterous humour, which still clings to any collection of young +men, jars painfully on their morbid sensibilities; and they beat a hasty +retreat to resume their perfunctory march along Princes Street. +Flirtation is to them a great social duty, a painful obligation, which +they perform on every occasion in the same chill official manner, and +with the same commonplace advances, the same dogged observance of traditional +behaviour. The shape of their raiment is a burden almost greater +than they can bear, and they halt in their walk to preserve the due +adjustment of their trouser-knees, till one would fancy he had mixed +in a procession of Jacobs. We speak, of course, for ourselves; +but we would as soon associate with a herd of sprightly apes as with +these gloomy modern beaux. Alas, that our Mirabels, our Valentines, +even our Brummels, should have left their mantles upon nothing more +amusing!<br> +<br> +Nor are the fast men less constrained. Solemnity, even in dissipation, +is the order of the day; and they go to the devil with a perverse seriousness, +a systematic rationalism of wickedness that would have surprised the +simpler sinners of old. Some of these men whom we see gravely +conversing on the steps have but a slender acquaintance with each other. +Their intercourse consists principally of mutual bulletins of depravity; +and, week after week, as they meet they reckon up their items of transgression, +and give an abstract of their downward progress for approval and encouragement. +These folk form a freemasonry of their own. An oath is the shibboleth +of their sinister fellowship. Once they hear a man swear, it is +wonderful how their tongues loosen and their bashful spirits take enlargement, +under the consciousness of brotherhood. There is no folly, no +pardoning warmth of temper about them; they are as steady-going and +systematic in their own way as the studious in theirs.<br> +<br> +Not that we are without merry men. No. We shall not be ungrateful +to those, whose grimaces, whose ironical laughter, whose active feet +in the ‘College Anthem’ have beguiled so many weary hours +and added a pleasant variety to the strain of close attention. +But even these are too evidently professional in their antics. +They go about cogitating puns and inventing tricks. It is their +vocation, Hal. They are the gratuitous jesters of the class-room; +and, like the clown when he leaves the stage, their merriment too often +sinks as the bell rings the hour of liberty, and they pass forth by +the Post-Office, grave and sedate, and meditating fresh gambols for +the morrow.<br> +<br> +This is the impression left on the mind of any observing student by +too many of his fellows. They seem all frigid old men; and one +pauses to think how such an unnatural state of matters is produced. +We feel inclined to blame for it the unfortunate absence of <i>University +feeling</i> which is so marked a characteristic of our Edinburgh students. +Academical interests are so few and far between - students, as students, +have so little in common, except a peevish rivalry - there is such an +entire want of broad college sympathies and ordinary college friendships, +that we fancy that no University in the kingdom is in so poor a plight. +Our system is full of anomalies. A, who cut B whilst he was a +shabby student, curries sedulously up to him and cudgels his memory +for anecdotes about him when he becomes the great so-and-so. Let +there be an end of this shy, proud reserve on the one hand, and this +shuddering fine ladyism on the other; and we think we shall find both +ourselves and the College bettered. Let it be a sufficient reason +for intercourse that two men sit together on the same benches. +Let the great A be held excused for nodding to the shabby B in Princes +Street, if he can say, ‘That fellow is a student.’ +Once this could be brought about, we think you would find the whole +heart of the University beat faster. We think you would find a +fusion among the students, a growth of common feelings, an increasing +sympathy between class and class, whose influence (in such a heterogeneous +company as ours) might be of incalculable value in all branches of politics +and social progress. It would do more than this. If we could +find some method of making the University a real mother to her sons +- something beyond a building of class-rooms, a Senatus and a lottery +of somewhat shabby prizes - we should strike a death-blow at the constrained +and unnatural attitude of our Society. At present we are not a +united body, but a loose gathering of individuals, whose inherent attraction +is allowed to condense them into little knots and coteries. Our +last snowball riot read us a plain lesson on our condition. There +was no party spirit - no unity of interests. A few, who were mischievously +inclined, marched off to the College of Surgeons in a pretentious file; +but even before they reached their destination the feeble inspiration +had died out in many, and their numbers were sadly thinned. Some +followed strange gods in the direction of Drummond Street, and others +slunk back to meek good-boyism at the feet of the Professors. +The same is visible in better things. As you send a man to an +English University that he may have his prejudices rubbed off, you might +send him to Edinburgh that he may have them ingrained - rendered indelible +- fostered by sympathy into living principles of his spirit. And +the reason of it is quite plain. From this absence of University +feeling it comes that a man’s friendships are always the direct +and immediate results of these very prejudices. A common weakness +is the best master of ceremonies in our quadrangle: a mutual vice is +the readiest introduction. The studious associate with the studious +alone - the dandies with the dandies. There is nothing to force +them to rub shoulders with the others; and so they grow day by day more +wedded to their own original opinions and affections. They see +through the same spectacles continually. All broad sentiments, +all real catholic humanity expires; and the mind gets gradually stiffened +into one position - becomes so habituated to a contracted atmosphere, +that it shudders and withers under the least draught of the free air +that circulates in the general field of mankind.<br> +<br> +Specialism in Society then is, we think, one cause of our present state. +Specialism in study is another. We doubt whether this has ever +been a good thing since the world began; but we are sure it is much +worse now than it was. Formerly, when a man became a specialist, +it was out of affection for his subject. With a somewhat grand +devotion he left all the world of Science to follow his true love; and +he contrived to find that strange pedantic interest which inspired the +man who<br> +<br> +<br> +‘Settled <i>Hoti’s</i> business - let it be -<br> +Properly based <i>Oun</i> -<br> +Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic <i>De</i>,<br> +Dead from the waist down.’<br> +<br> +<br> +Nowadays it is quite different. Our pedantry wants even the saving +clause of Enthusiasm. The election is now matter of necessity +and not of choice. Knowledge is now too broad a field for your +Jack-of-all-Trades; and, from beautifully utilitarian reasons, he makes +his choice, draws his pen through a dozen branches of study, and behold +- John the Specialist. That this is the way to be wealthy we shall +not deny; but we hold that it is <i>not</i> the way to be healthy or +wise. The whole mind becomes narrowed and circumscribed to one +‘punctual spot’ of knowledge. A rank unhealthy soil +breeds a harvest of prejudices. Feeling himself above others in +his one little branch - in the classification of toadstools, or Carthaginian +history - he waxes great in his own eyes and looks down on others. +Having all his sympathies educated in one way, they die out in every +other; and he is apt to remain a peevish, narrow, and intolerant bigot. +Dilettante is now a term of reproach; but there is a certain form of +dilettantism to which no one can object. It is this that we want +among our students. We wish them to abandon no subject until they +have seen and felt its merit - to act under a general interest in all +branches of knowledge, not a commercial eagerness to excel in one.<br> +<br> +In both these directions our sympathies are constipated. We are +apostles of our own caste and our own subject of study, instead of being, +as we should, true men and <i>loving</i> students. Of course both +of these could be corrected by the students themselves; but this is +nothing to the purpose: it is more important to ask whether the Senatus +or the body of alumni could do nothing towards the growth of better +feeling and wider sentiments. Perhaps in another paper we may +say something upon this head.<br> +<br> +One other word, however, before we have done. What shall we be +when we grow really old? Of yore, a man was thought to lay on +restrictions and acquire new deadweight of mournful experience with +every year, till he looked back on his youth as the very summer of impulse +and freedom. We please ourselves with thinking that it cannot +be so with us. We would fain hope that, as we have begun in one +way, we may end in another; and that when we are in fact the octogenarians +that we <i>seem</i> at present, there shall be no merrier men on earth. +It is pleasant to picture us, sunning ourselves in Princes Street of +a morning, or chirping over our evening cups, with all the merriment +that we wanted in youth.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER III - DEBATING SOCIETIES<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +A debating society is at first somewhat of a disappointment. You +do not often find the youthful Demosthenes chewing his pebbles in the +same room with you; or, even if you do, you will probably think the +performance little to be admired. As a general rule, the members +speak shamefully ill. The subjects of debate are heavy; and so +are the fines. The Ballot Question - oldest of dialectic nightmares +- is often found astride of a somnolent sederunt. The Greeks and +Romans, too, are reserved as sort of <i>general-utility</i> men, to +do all the dirty work of illustration; and they fill as many functions +as the famous waterfall scene at the ‘Princess’s,’ +which I found doing duty on one evening as a gorge in Peru, a haunt +of German robbers, and a peaceful vale in the Scottish borders. +There is a sad absence of striking argument or real lively discussion. +Indeed, you feel a growing contempt for your fellow-members; and it +is not until you rise yourself to hawk and hesitate and sit shamefully +down again, amid eleemosynary applause, that you begin to find your +level and value others rightly. Even then, even when failure has +damped your critical ardour, you will see many things to be laughed +at in the deportment of your rivals.<br> +<br> +Most laughable, perhaps, are your indefatigable strivers after eloquence. +They are of those who ‘pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope,’ +and who, since they expect that ‘the deficiencies of last sentence +will be supplied by the next,’ have been recommended by Dr. Samuel +Johnson to ‘attend to the History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia.’ +They are characterised by a hectic hopefulness. Nothing damps +them. They rise from the ruins of one abortive sentence, to launch +forth into another with unabated vigour. They have all the manner +of an orator. From the tone of their voice, you would expect a +splendid period - and lo! a string of broken-backed, disjointed clauses, +eked out with stammerings and throat-clearings. They possess the +art (learned from the pulpit) of rounding an uneuphonious sentence by +dwelling on a single syllable - of striking a balance in a top-heavy +period by lengthening out a word into a melancholy quaver. Withal, +they never cease to hope. Even at last, even when they have exhausted +all their ideas, even after the would-be peroration has finally refused +to perorate, they remain upon their feet with their mouths open, waiting +for some further inspiration, like Chaucer’s widow’s son +in the dung-hole, after<br> +<br> +<br> +‘His throat was kit unto the nekké bone,’<br> +<br> +<br> +in vain expectation of that seed that was to be laid upon his tongue, +and give him renewed and clearer utterance.<br> +<br> +These men may have something to say, if they could only say it - indeed +they generally have; but the next class are people who, having nothing +to say, are cursed with a facility and an unhappy command of words, +that makes them the prime nuisances of the society they affect. +They try to cover their absence of matter by an unwholesome vitality +of delivery. They look triumphantly round the room, as if courting +applause, after a torrent of diluted truism. They talk in a circle, +harping on the same dull round of argument, and returning again and +again to the same remark with the same sprightliness, the same irritating +appearance of novelty.<br> +<br> +After this set, any one is tolerable; so we shall merely hint at a few +other varieties. There is your man who is pre-eminently conscientious, +whose face beams with sincerity as he opens on the negative, and who +votes on the affirmative at the end, looking round the room with an +air of chastened pride. There is also the irrelevant speaker, +who rises, emits a joke or two, and then sits down again, without ever +attempting to tackle the subject of debate. Again, we have men +who ride pick-a-back on their family reputation, or, if their family +have none, identify themselves with some well-known statesman, use his +opinions, and lend him their patronage on all occasions. This +is a dangerous plan, and serves oftener, I am afraid, to point a difference +than to adorn a speech.<br> +<br> +But alas! a striking failure may be reached without tempting Providence +by any of these ambitious tricks. Our own stature will be found +high enough for shame. The success of three simple sentences lures +us into a fatal parenthesis in the fourth, from whose shut brackets +we may never disentangle the thread of our discourse. A momentary +flush tempts us into a quotation; and we may be left helpless in the +middle of one of Pope’s couplets, a white film gathering before +our eyes, and our kind friends charitably trying to cover our disgrace +by a feeble round of applause. <i>Amis lecteurs</i>, this is a +painful topic. It is possible that we too, we, the ‘potent, +grave, and reverend’ editor, may have suffered these things, and +drunk as deep as any of the cup of shameful failure. Let us dwell +no longer on so delicate a subject.<br> +<br> +In spite, however, of these disagreeables, I should recommend any student +to suffer them with Spartan courage, as the benefits he receives should +repay him an hundredfold for them all. The life of the debating +society is a handy antidote to the life of the classroom and quadrangle. +Nothing could be conceived more excellent as a weapon against many of +those <i>peccant</i> <i>humours</i> that we have been railing against +in the jeremiad of our last ‘College Paper’ - particularly +in the field of intellect. It is a sad sight to see our heather-scented +students, our boys of seventeen, coming up to College with determined +views - <i>roués</i> in speculation - having gauged the vanity +of philosophy or learned to shun it as the middle-man of heresy - a +company of determined, deliberate opinionists, not to be moved by all +the sleights of logic. What have such men to do with study? +If their minds are made up irrevocably, why burn the ‘studious +lamp’ in search of further confirmation? Every set opinion +I hear a student deliver I feel a certain lowering of my regard. +He who studies, he who is yet employed in groping for his premises, +should keep his mind fluent and sensitive, keen to mark flaws, and willing +to surrender untenable positions. He should keep himself teachable, +or cease the expensive farce of being taught. It is to further +this docile spirit that we desire to press the claims of debating societies. +It is as a means of melting down this museum of premature petrifactions +into living and impressionable soul that we insist on their utility. +If we could once prevail on our students to feel no shame in avowing +an uncertain attitude towards any subject, if we could teach them that +it was unnecessary for every lad to have his <i>opinionette</i> on every +topic, we should have gone a far way towards bracing the intellectual +tone of the coming race of thinkers; and this it is which debating societies +are so well fitted to perform.<br> +<br> +We there meet people of every shade of opinion, and make friends with +them. We are taught to rail against a man the whole session through, +and then hob-a-nob with him at the concluding entertainment. We +find men of talent far exceeding our own, whose conclusions are widely +different from ours; and we are thus taught to distrust ourselves. +But the best means of all towards catholicity is that wholesome rule +which some folk are most inclined to condemn - I mean the law of <i>obliged +speeches</i>. Your senior member commands; and you must take the +affirmative or the negative, just as suits his best convenience. +This tends to the most perfect liberality. It is no good hearing +the arguments of an opponent, for in good verity you rarely follow them; +and even if you do take the trouble to listen, it is merely in a captious +search for weaknesses. This is proved, I fear, in every debate; +when you hear each speaker arguing out his own prepared <i>spécialité</i> +(he never intended speaking, of course, until some remarks of, etc.), +arguing out, I say, his own <i>coached-up</i> subject without the least +attention to what has gone before, as utterly at sea about the drift +of his adversary’s speech as Panurge when he argued with Thaumaste, +and merely linking his own prelection to the last by a few flippant +criticisms. Now, as the rule stands, you are saddled with the +side you disapprove, and so you are forced, by regard for your own fame, +to argue out, to feel with, to elaborate completely, the case as it +stands against yourself; and what a fund of wisdom do you not turn up +in this idle digging of the vineyard! How many new difficulties +take form before your eyes? how many superannuated arguments cripple +finally into limbo, under the glance of your enforced eclecticism!<br> +<br> +Nor is this the only merit of Debating Societies. They tend also +to foster taste, and to promote friendship between University men. +This last, as we have had occasion before to say, is the great requirement +of our student life; and it will therefore be no waste of time if we +devote a paragraph to this subject in its connection with Debating Societies. +At present they partake too much of the nature of a <i>clique</i>. +Friends propose friends, and mutual friends second them, until the society +degenerates into a sort of family party. You may confirm old acquaintances, +but you can rarely make new ones. You find yourself in the atmosphere +of your own daily intercourse. Now, this is an unfortunate circumstance, +which it seems to me might readily be rectified. Our Principal +has shown himself so friendly towards all College improvements that +I cherish the hope of seeing shortly realised a certain suggestion, +which is not a new one with me, and which must often have been proposed +and canvassed heretofore - I mean, a real <i>University Debating Society</i>, +patronised by the Senatus, presided over by the Professors, to which +every one might gain ready admittance on sight of his matriculation +ticket, where it would be a favour and not a necessity to speak, and +where the obscure student might have another object for attendance besides +the mere desire to save his fines: to wit, the chance of drawing on +himself the favourable consideration of his teachers. This would +be merely following in the good tendency, which has been so noticeable +during all this session, to increase and multiply student societies +and clubs of every sort. Nor would it be a matter of much difficulty. +The united societies would form a nucleus: one of the class-rooms at +first, and perhaps afterwards the great hall above the library, might +be the place of meeting. There would be no want of attendance +or enthusiasm, I am sure; for it is a very different thing to speak +under the bushel of a private club on the one hand, and, on the other, +in a public place, where a happy period or a subtle argument may do +the speaker permanent service in after life. Such a club might +end, perhaps, by rivalling the ‘Union’ at Cambridge or the +‘Union’ at Oxford.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER IV - THE PHILOSOPHY OF UMBRELLAS <a name="citation7"></a><a href="#footnote7">{7}</a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +It is wonderful to think what a turn has been given to our whole Society +by the fact that we live under the sign of Aquarius - that our climate +is essentially wet. A mere arbitrary distinction, like the walking-swords +of yore, might have remained the symbol of foresight and respectability, +had not the raw mists and dropping showers of our island pointed the +inclination of Society to another exponent of those virtues. A +ribbon of the Legion of Honour or a string of medals may prove a person’s +courage; a title may prove his birth; a professorial chair his study +and acquirement; but it is the habitual carriage of the umbrella that +is the stamp of Respectability. The umbrella has become the acknowledged +index of social position.<br> +<br> +Robinson Crusoe presents us with a touching instance of the hankering +after them inherent in the civilised and educated mind. To the +superficial, the hot suns of Juan Fernandez may sufficiently account +for his quaint choice of a luxury; but surely one who had borne the +hard labour of a seaman under the tropics for all these years could +have supported an excursion after goats or a peaceful <i>constitutional</i> +arm in arm with the nude Friday. No, it was not this: the memory +of a vanished respectability called for some outward manifestation, +and the result was - an umbrella. A pious castaway might have +rigged up a belfry and solaced his Sunday mornings with the mimicry +of church-bells; but Crusoe was rather a moralist than a pietist, and +his leaf-umbrella is as fine an example of the civilised mind striving +to express itself under adverse circumstances as we have ever met with.<br> +<br> +It is not for nothing, either, that the umbrella has become the very +foremost badge of modern civilisation - the Urim and Thummim of respectability. +Its pregnant symbolism has taken its rise in the most natural manner. +Consider, for a moment, when umbrellas were first introduced into this +country, what manner of men would use them, and what class would adhere +to the useless but ornamental cane. The first, without doubt, +would be the hypochondriacal, out of solicitude for their health, or +the frugal, out of care for their raiment; the second, it is equally +plain, would include the fop, the fool, and the Bobadil. Any one +acquainted with the growth of Society, and knowing out of what small +seeds of cause are produced great revolutions, and wholly new conditions +of intercourse, sees from this simple thought how the carriage of an +umbrella came to indicate frugality, judicious regard for bodily welfare, +and scorn for mere outward adornment, and, in one word, all those homely +and solid virtues implied in the term RESPECTABILITY. Not that +the umbrella’s costliness has nothing to do with its great influence. +Its possession, besides symbolising (as we have already indicated) the +change from wild Esau to plain Jacob dwelling in tents, implies a certain +comfortable provision of fortune. It is not every one that can +expose twenty-six shillings’ worth of property to so many chances +of loss and theft. So strongly do we feel on this point, indeed, +that we are almost inclined to consider all who possess really well-conditioned +umbrellas as worthy of the Franchise. They have a qualification +standing in their lobbies; they carry a sufficient stake in the common-weal +below their arm. One who bears with him an umbrella - such a complicated +structure of whalebone, of silk, and of cane, that it becomes a very +microcosm of modern industry - is necessarily a man of peace. +A half-crown cane may be applied to an offender’s head on a very +moderate provocation; but a six-and-twenty shilling silk is a possession +too precious to be adventured in the shock of war.<br> +<br> +These are but a few glances at how umbrellas (in the general) came to +their present high estate. But the true Umbrella-Philosopher meets +with far stranger applications as he goes about the streets.<br> +<br> +Umbrellas, like faces, acquire a certain sympathy with the individual +who carries them: indeed, they are far more capable of betraying his +trust; for whereas a face is given to us so far ready made, and all +our power over it is in frowning, and laughing, and grimacing, during +the first three or four decades of life, each umbrella is selected from +a whole shopful, as being most consonant to the purchaser’s disposition. +An undoubted power of diagnosis rests with the practised Umbrella-Philosopher. +O you who lisp, and amble, and change the fashion of your countenances +- you who conceal all these, how little do you think that you left a +proof of your weakness in our umbrella-stand - that even now, as you +shake out the folds to meet the thickening snow, we read in its ivory +handle the outward and visible sign of your snobbery, or from the exposed +gingham of its cover detect, through coat and waistcoat, the hidden +hypocrisy of the ‘<i>dickey</i>’! But alas! even the +umbrella is no certain criterion. The falsity and the folly of +the human race have degraded that graceful symbol to the ends of dishonesty; +and while some umbrellas, from carelessness in selection, are not strikingly +characteristic (for it is only in what a man loves that he displays +his real nature), others, from certain prudential motives, are chosen +directly opposite to the person’s disposition. A mendacious +umbrella is a sign of great moral degradation. Hypocrisy naturally +shelters itself below a silk; while the fast youth goes to visit his +religious friends armed with the decent and reputable gingham. +May it not be said of the bearers of these inappropriate umbrellas that +they go about the streets ‘with a lie in their right hand’?<br> +<br> +The kings of Siam, as we read, besides having a graduated social scale +of umbrellas (which was a good thing), prevented the great bulk of their +subjects from having any at all, which was certainly a bad thing. +We should be sorry to believe that this Eastern legislator was a fool +- the idea of an aristocracy of umbrellas is too philosophic to have +originated in a nobody - and we have accordingly taken exceeding pains +to find out the reason of this harsh restriction. We think we +have succeeded; but, while admiring the principle at which he aimed, +and while cordially recognising in the Siamese potentate the only man +before ourselves who had taken a real grasp of the umbrella, we must +be allowed to point out how unphilosophically the great man acted in +this particular. His object, plainly, was to prevent any unworthy +persons from bearing the sacred symbol of domestic virtues. We +cannot excuse his limiting these virtues to the circle of his court. +We must only remember that such was the feeling of the age in which +he lived. Liberalism had not yet raised the war-cry of the working +classes. But here was his mistake: it was a needless regulation. +Except in a very few cases of hypocrisy joined to a powerful intellect, +men, not by nature <i>umbrellarians</i>, have tried again and again +to become so by art, and yet have failed - have expended their patrimony +in the purchase of umbrella after umbrella, and yet have systematically +lost them, and have finally, with contrite spirits and shrunken purses, +given up their vain struggle, and relied on theft and borrowing for +the remainder of their lives. This is the most remarkable fact +that we have had occasion to notice; and yet we challenge the candid +reader to call it in question. Now, as there cannot be any <i>moral +selection</i> in a mere dead piece of furniture - as the umbrella cannot +be supposed to have an affinity for individual men equal and reciprocal +to that which men certainly feel toward individual umbrellas - we took +the trouble of consulting a scientific friend as to whether there was +any possible physical explanation of the phenomenon. He was unable +to supply a plausible theory, or even hypothesis; but we extract from +his letter the following interesting passage relative to the physical +peculiarities of umbrellas: ‘Not the least important, and by far +the most curious property of the umbrella, is the energy which it displays +in affecting the atmospheric strata. There is no fact in meteorology +better established - indeed, it is almost the only one on which meteorologists +are agreed - than that the carriage of an umbrella produces desiccation +of the air; while if it be left at home, aqueous vapour is largely produced, +and is soon deposited in the form of rain. No theory,’ my +friend continues, ‘competent to explain this hygrometric law has +been given (as far as I am aware) by Herschel, Dove, Glaisher, Tait, +Buchan, or any other writer; nor do I pretend to supply the defect. +I venture, however, to throw out the conjecture that it will be ultimately +found to belong to the same class of natural laws as that agreeable +to which a slice of toast always descends with the buttered surface +downwards.’<br> +<br> +But it is time to draw to a close. We could expatiate much longer +upon this topic, but want of space constrains us to leave unfinished +these few desultory remarks - slender contributions towards a subject +which has fallen sadly backward, and which, we grieve to say, was better +understood by the king of Siam in 1686 than by all the philosophers +of to-day. If, however, we have awakened in any rational mind +an interest in the symbolism of umbrellas - in any generous heart a +more complete sympathy with the dumb companion of his daily walk - or +in any grasping spirit a pure notion of respectability strong enough +to make him expend his six-and-twenty shillings - we shall have deserved +well of the world, to say nothing of the many industrious persons employed +in the manufacture of the article.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER V - THE PHILOSOPHY OF NOMENCLATURE<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +‘How many Caesars and Pompeys, by mere inspirations of the names, +have been rendered worthy of them? And how many are there, who +might have done exceeding well in the world, had not their characters +and spirits been totally depressed and Nicodemus’d into nothing?’ +- <i>Tristram</i> <i>Shandy</i>, vol. I. chap xix.<br> +<br> +<br> +Such were the views of the late Walter Shandy, Esq., Turkey merchant. +To the best of my belief, Mr. Shandy is the first who fairly pointed +out the incalculable influence of nomenclature upon the whole life - +who seems first to have recognised the one child, happy in an heroic +appellation, soaring upwards on the wings of fortune, and the other, +like the dead sailor in his shotted hammock, haled down by sheer weight +of name into the abysses of social failure. Solomon possibly had +his eye on some such theory when he said that ‘a good name is +better than precious ointment’; and perhaps we may trace a similar +spirit in the compilers of the English Catechism, and the affectionate +interest with which they linger round the catechumen’s name at +the very threshold of their work. But, be these as they may, I +think no one can censure me for appending, in pursuance of the expressed +wish of his son, the Turkey merchant’s name to his system, and +pronouncing, without further preface, a short epitome of the ‘Shandean +Philosophy of Nomenclature.’<br> +<br> +To begin, then: the influence of our name makes itself felt from the +very cradle. As a schoolboy I remember the pride with which I +hailed Robin Hood, Robert Bruce, and Robert le Diable as my name-fellows; +and the feeling of sore disappointment that fell on my heart when I +found a freebooter or a general who did not share with me a single one +of my numerous <i>praenomina</i>. Look at the delight with which +two children find they have the same name. They are friends from +that moment forth; they have a bond of union stronger than exchange +of nuts and sweetmeats. This feeling, I own, wears off in later +life. Our names lose their freshness and interest, become trite +and indifferent. But this, dear reader, is merely one of the sad +effects of those ‘shades of the prison-house’ which come +gradually betwixt us and nature with advancing years; it affords no +weapon against the philosophy of names.<br> +<br> +In after life, although we fail to trace its working, that name which +careless godfathers lightly applied to your unconscious infancy will +have been moulding your character, and influencing with irresistible +power the whole course of your earthly fortunes. But the last +name, overlooked by Mr. Shandy, is no whit less important as a condition +of success. Family names, we must recollect, are but inherited +nicknames; and if the <i>sobriquet</i> were applicable to the ancestor, +it is most likely applicable to the descendant also. You would +not expect to find Mr. M’Phun acting as a mute, or Mr. M’Lumpha +excelling as a professor of dancing. Therefore, in what follows, +we shall consider names, independent of whether they are first or last. +And to begin with, look what a pull <i>Cromwell</i> had over <i>Pym</i> +- the one name full of a resonant imperialism, the other, mean, pettifogging, +and unheroic to a degree. Who would expect eloquence from <i>Pym</i> +- who would read poems by <i>Pym</i> - who would bow to the opinion +of <i>Pym</i>? He might have been a dentist, but he should never +have aspired to be a statesman. I can only wonder that he succeeded +as he did. Pym and Habakkuk stand first upon the roll of men who +have triumphed, by sheer force of genius, over the most unfavourable +appellations. But even these have suffered; and, had they been +more fitly named, the one might have been Lord Protector, and the other +have shared the laurels with Isaiah. In this matter we must not +forget that all our great poets have borne great names. Chaucer, +Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Wordsworth, Shelley - what a constellation +of lordly words! Not a single common-place name among them - not +a Brown, not a Jones, not a Robinson; they are all names that one would +stop and look at on a door-plate. Now, imagine if <i>Pepys</i> +had tried to clamber somehow into the enclosure of poetry, what a blot +would that word have made upon the list! The thing was impossible. +In the first place a certain natural consciousness that men would have +held him down to the level of his name, would have prevented him from +rising above the Pepsine standard, and so haply withheld him altogether +from attempting verse. Next, the booksellers would refuse to publish, +and the world to read them, on the mere evidence of the fatal appellation. +And now, before I close this section, I must say one word as to <i>punnable</i> +names, names that stand alone, that have a significance and life apart +from him that bears them. These are the bitterest of all. +One friend of mine goes bowed and humbled through life under the weight +of this misfortune; for it is an awful thing when a man’s name +is a joke, when he cannot be mentioned without exciting merriment, and +when even the intimation of his death bids fair to carry laughter into +many a home.<br> +<br> +So much for people who are badly named. Now for people who are +<i>too</i> well named, who go top-heavy from the font, who are baptized +into a false position, and find themselves beginning life eclipsed under +the fame of some of the great ones of the past. A man, for instance, +called William Shakespeare could never dare to write plays. He +is thrown into too humbling an apposition with the author of <i>Hamlet</i>. +Its own name coming after is such an anti-climax. ‘The plays +of William Shakespeare’? says the reader - ‘O no! +The plays of William Shakespeare Cockerill,’ and he throws the +book aside. In wise pursuance of such views, Mr. John Milton Hengler, +who not long since delighted us in this favoured town, has never attempted +to write an epic, but has chosen a new path, and has excelled upon the +tight-rope. A marked example of triumph over this is the case +of Mr. Dante Gabriel Rossetti. On the face of the matter, I should +have advised him to imitate the pleasing modesty of the last-named gentleman, +and confine his ambition to the sawdust. But Mr. Rossetti has +triumphed. He has even dared to translate from his mighty name-father; +and the voice of fame supports him in his boldness.<br> +<br> +Dear readers, one might write a year upon this matter. A lifetime +of comparison and research could scarce suffice for its elucidation. +So here, if it please you, we shall let it rest. Slight as these +notes have been, I would that the great founder of the system had been +alive to see them. How he had warmed and brightened, how his persuasive +eloquence would have fallen on the ears of Toby; and what a letter of +praise and sympathy would not the editor have received before the month +was out! Alas, the thing was not to be. Walter Shandy died +and was duly buried, while yet his theory lay forgotten and neglected +by his fellow-countrymen. But, reader, the day will come, I hope, +when a paternal government will stamp out, as seeds of national weakness, +all depressing patronymics, and when godfathers and godmothers will +soberly and earnestly debate the interest of the nameless one, and not +rush blindfold to the christening. In these days there shall be +written a ‘Godfather’s Assistant,’ in shape of a dictionary +of names, with their concomitant virtues and vices; and this book shall +be scattered broadcast through the land, and shall be on the table of +every one eligible for godfathership, until such a thing as a vicious +or untoward appellation shall have ceased from off the face of the earth.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CRITICISMS<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER I - LORD LYTTON’S ‘FABLES IN SONG’<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +It seems as if Lord Lytton, in this new book of his, had found the form +most natural to his talent. In some ways, indeed, it may be held +inferior to <i>Chronicles</i> <i>and Characters</i>; we look in vain +for anything like the terrible intensity of the night-scene in <i>Irene</i>, +or for any such passages of massive and memorable writing as appeared, +here and there, in the earlier work, and made it not altogether unworthy +of its model, Hugo’s <i>Legend of the Ages</i>. But it becomes +evident, on the most hasty retrospect, that this earlier work was a +step on the way towards the later. It seems as if the author had +been feeling about for his definite medium, and was already, in the +language of the child’s game, growing hot. There are many +pieces in <i>Chronicles</i> <i>and Characters</i> that might be detached +from their original setting, and embodied, as they stand, among the +<i>Fables in Song.<br> +<br> +</i>For the term Fable is not very easy to define rigorously. +In the most typical form some moral precept is set forth by means of +a conception purely fantastic, and usually somewhat trivial into the +bargain; there is something playful about it, that will not support +a very exacting criticism, and the lesson must be apprehended by the +fancy at half a hint. Such is the great mass of the old stories +of wise animals or foolish men that have amused our childhood. +But we should expect the fable, in company with other and more important +literary forms, to be more and more loosely, or at least largely, comprehended +as time went on, and so to degenerate in conception from this original +type. That depended for much of its piquancy on the very fact +that it was fantastic: the point of the thing lay in a sort of humorous +inappropriateness; and it is natural enough that pleasantry of this +description should become less common, as men learn to suspect some +serious analogy underneath. Thus a comical story of an ape touches +us quite differently after the proposition of Mr. Darwin’s theory. +Moreover, there lay, perhaps, at the bottom of this primitive sort of +fable, a humanity, a tenderness of rough truths; so that at the end +of some story, in which vice or folly had met with its destined punishment, +the fabulist might be able to assure his auditors, as we have often +to assure tearful children on the like occasions, that they may dry +their eyes, for none of it was true.<br> +<br> +But this benefit of fiction becomes lost with more sophisticated hearers +and authors: a man is no longer the dupe of his own artifice, and cannot +deal playfully with truths that are a matter of bitter concern to him +in his life. And hence, in the progressive centralisation of modern +thought, we should expect the old form of fable to fall gradually into +desuetude, and be gradually succeeded by another, which is a fable in +all points except that it is not altogether fabulous. And this +new form, such as we should expect, and such as we do indeed find, still +presents the essential character of brevity; as in any other fable also, +there is, underlying and animating the brief action, a moral idea; and +as in any other fable, the object is to bring this home to the reader +through the intellect rather than through the feelings; so that, without +being very deeply moved or interested by the characters of the piece, +we should recognise vividly the hinges on which the little plot revolves. +But the fabulist now seeks analogies where before he merely sought humorous +situations. There will be now a logical nexus between the moral +expressed and the machinery employed to express it. The machinery, +in fact, as this change is developed, becomes less and less fabulous. +We find ourselves in presence of quite a serious, if quite a miniature +division of creative literature; and sometimes we have the lesson embodied +in a sober, everyday narration, as in the parables of the New Testament, +and sometimes merely the statement or, at most, the collocation of significant +facts in life, the reader being left to resolve for himself the vague, +troublesome, and not yet definitely moral sentiment which has been thus +created. And step by step with the development of this change, +yet another is developed: the moral tends to become more indeterminate +and large. It ceases to be possible to append it, in a tag, to +the bottom of the piece, as one might write the name below a caricature; +and the fable begins to take rank with all other forms of creative literature, +as something too ambitious, in spite of its miniature dimensions, to +be resumed in any succinct formula without the loss of all that is deepest +and most suggestive in it.<br> +<br> +Now it is in this widest sense that Lord Lytton understands the term; +there are examples in his two pleasant volumes of all the forms already +mentioned, and even of another which can only be admitted among fables +by the utmost possible leniency of construction. ‘Composure,’ +‘Et Caetera,’ and several more, are merely similes poetically +elaborated. So, too, is the pathetic story of the grandfather +and grandchild: the child, having treasured away an icicle and forgotten +it for ten minutes, comes back to find it already nearly melted, and +no longer beautiful: at the same time, the grandfather has just remembered +and taken out a bundle of love-letters, which he too had stored away +in years gone by, and then long neglected; and, behold! the letters +are as faded and sorrowfully disappointing as the icicle. This +is merely a simile poetically worked out; and yet it is in such as these, +and some others, to be mentioned further on, that the author seems at +his best. Wherever he has really written after the old model, +there is something to be deprecated: in spite of all the spirit and +freshness, in spite of his happy assumption of that cheerful acceptation +of things as they are, which, rightly or wrongly, we come to attribute +to the ideal fabulist, there is ever a sense as of something a little +out of place. A form of literature so very innocent and primitive +looks a little over-written in Lord Lytton’s conscious and highly-coloured +style. It may be bad taste, but sometimes we should prefer a few +sentences of plain prose narration, and a little Bewick by way of tail-piece. +So that it is not among those fables that conform most nearly to the +old model, but one had nearly said among those that most widely differ +from it, that we find the most satisfactory examples of the author’s +manner.<br> +<br> +In the mere matter of ingenuity, the metaphysical fables are the most +remarkable; such as that of the windmill who imagined that it was he +who raised the wind; or that of the grocer’s balance (‘Cogito +ergo sum’) who considered himself endowed with free-will, reason, +and an infallible practical judgment; until, one fine day, the police +made a descent upon the shop, and find the weights false and the scales +unequal; and the whole thing is broken up for old iron. Capital +fables, also, in the same ironical spirit, are ‘Prometheus Unbound,’ +the tale of the vainglorying of a champagne-cork, and ‘Teleology,’ +where a nettle justifies the ways of God to nettles while all goes well +with it, and, upon a change of luck, promptly changes its divinity.<br> +<br> +In all these there is still plenty of the fabulous if you will, although, +even here, there may be two opinions possible; but there is another +group, of an order of merit perhaps still higher, where we look in vain +for any such playful liberties with Nature. Thus we have ‘Conservation +of Force’; where a musician, thinking of a certain picture, improvises +in the twilight; a poet, hearing the music, goes home inspired, and +writes a poem; and then a painter, under the influence of this poem, +paints another picture, thus lineally descended from the first. +This is fiction, but not what we have been used to call fable. +We miss the incredible element, the point of audacity with which the +fabulist was wont to mock at his readers. And still more so is +this the case with others. ‘The Horse and the Fly’ +states one of the unanswerable problems of life in quite a realistic +and straightforward way. A fly startles a cab-horse, the coach +is overset; a newly-married pair within and the driver, a man with a +wife and family, are all killed. The horse continues to gallop +off in the loose traces, and ends the tragedy by running over an only +child; and there is some little pathetic detail here introduced in the +telling, that makes the reader’s indignation very white-hot against +some one. It remains to be seen who that some one is to be: the +fly? Nay, but on closer inspection, it appears that the fly, actuated +by maternal instinct, was only seeking a place for her eggs: is maternal +instinct, then, ‘sole author of these mischiefs all’? +‘Who’s in the Right?’ one of the best fables in the +book, is somewhat in the same vein. After a battle has been won, +a group of officers assemble inside a battery, and debate together who +should have the honour of the success; the Prince, the general staff, +the cavalry, the engineer who posted the battery in which they then +stand talking, are successively named: the sergeant, who pointed the +guns, sneers to himself at the mention of the engineer; and, close by, +the gunner, who had applied the match, passes away with a smile of triumph, +since it was through his hand that the victorious blow had been dealt. +Meanwhile, the cannon claims the honour over the gunner; the cannon-ball, +who actually goes forth on the dread mission, claims it over the cannon, +who remains idly behind; the powder reminds the cannon-ball that, but +for him, it would still be lying on the arsenal floor; and the match +caps the discussion; powder, cannon-ball, and cannon would be all equally +vain and ineffectual without fire. Just then there comes on a +shower of rain, which wets the powder and puts out the match, and completes +this lesson of dependence, by indicating the negative conditions which +are as necessary for any effect, in their absence, as is the presence +of this great fraternity of positive conditions, not any one of which +can claim priority over any other. But the fable does not end +here, as perhaps, in all logical strictness, it should. It wanders +off into a discussion as to which is the truer greatness, that of the +vanquished fire or that of the victorious rain. And the speech +of the rain is charming:<br> +<br> +<br> +‘Lo, with my little drops I bless again<br> +And beautify the fields which thou didst blast!<br> +Rend, wither, waste, and ruin, what thou wilt,<br> +But call not Greatness what the Gods call Guilt.<br> +Blossoms and grass from blood in battle spilt,<br> +And poppied corn, I bring.<br> +‘Mid mouldering Babels, to oblivion built,<br> +My violets spring.<br> +Little by little my small drops have strength<br> +To deck with green delights the grateful earth.’<br> +<br> +<br> +And so forth, not quite germane (it seems to me) to the matter in hand, +but welcome for its own sake.<br> +<br> +Best of all are the fables that deal more immediately with the emotions. +There is, for instance, that of ‘The Two Travellers,’ which +is profoundly moving in conception, although by no means as well written +as some others. In this, one of the two, fearfully frost-bitten, +saves his life out of the snow at the cost of all that was comely in +his body; just as, long before, the other, who has now quietly resigned +himself to death, had violently freed himself from Love at the cost +of all that was finest and fairest in his character. Very graceful +and sweet is the fable (if so it should be called) in which the author +sings the praises of that ‘kindly perspective,’ which lets +a wheat-stalk near the eye cover twenty leagues of distant country, +and makes the humble circle about a man’s hearth more to him than +all the possibilities of the external world. The companion fable +to this is also excellent. It tells us of a man who had, all his +life through, entertained a passion for certain blue hills on the far +horizon, and had promised himself to travel thither ere he died, and +become familiar with these distant friends. At last, in some political +trouble, he is banished to the very place of his dreams. He arrives +there overnight, and, when he rises and goes forth in the morning, there +sure enough are the blue hills, only now they have changed places with +him, and smile across to him, distant as ever, from the old home whence +he has come. Such a story might have been very cynically treated; +but it is not so done, the whole tone is kindly and consolatory, and +the disenchanted man submissively takes the lesson, and understands +that things far away are to be loved for their own sake, and that the +unattainable is not truly unattainable, when we can make the beauty +of it our own. Indeed, throughout all these two volumes, though +there is much practical scepticism, and much irony on abstract questions, +this kindly and consolatory spirit is never absent. There is much +that is cheerful and, after a sedate, fireside fashion, hopeful. +No one will be discouraged by reading the book; but the ground of all +this hopefulness and cheerfulness remains to the end somewhat vague. +It does not seem to arise from any practical belief in the future either +of the individual or the race, but rather from the profound personal +contentment of the writer. This is, I suppose, all we must look +for in the case. It is as much as we can expect, if the fabulist +shall prove a shrewd and cheerful fellow-wayfarer, one with whom the +world does not seem to have gone much amiss, but who has yet laughingly +learned something of its evil. It will depend much, of course, +upon our own character and circumstances, whether the encounter will +be agreeable and bracing to the spirits, or offend us as an ill-timed +mockery. But where, as here, there is a little tincture of bitterness +along with the good-nature, where it is plainly not the humour of a +man cheerfully ignorant, but of one who looks on, tolerant and superior +and smilingly attentive, upon the good and bad of our existence, it +will go hardly if we do not catch some reflection of the same spirit +to help us on our way. There is here no impertinent and lying +proclamation of peace - none of the cheap optimism of the well-to-do; +what we find here is a view of life that would be even grievous, were +it not enlivened with this abiding cheerfulness, and ever and anon redeemed +by a stroke of pathos.<br> +<br> +It is natural enough, I suppose, that we should find wanting in this +book some of the intenser qualities of the author’s work; and +their absence is made up for by much happy description after a quieter +fashion. The burst of jubilation over the departure of the snow, +which forms the prelude to ‘The Thistle,’ is full of spirit +and of pleasant images. The speech of the forest in ‘Sans +Souci’ is inspired by a beautiful sentiment for nature of the +modern sort, and pleases us more, I think, as poetry should please us, +than anything in <i>Chronicles and Characters</i>. There are some +admirable felicities of expression here and there; as that of the hill, +whose summit<br> +<br> +<br> + ‘Did print<br> +The azure air with pines.’<br> +<br> +<br> +Moreover, I do not recollect in the author’s former work any symptom +of that sympathetic treatment of still life, which is noticeable now +and again in the fables; and perhaps most noticeably, when he sketches +the burned letters as they hover along the gusty flue, ‘Thin, +sable veils, wherein a restless spark Yet trembled.’ But +the description is at its best when the subjects are unpleasant, or +even grisly. There are a few capital lines in this key on the +last spasm of the battle before alluded to. Surely nothing could +be better, in its own way, than the fish in ‘The Last Cruise of +the Arrogant,’ ‘the shadowy, side-faced, silent things,’ +that come butting and staring with lidless eyes at the sunken steam-engine. +And although, in yet another, we are told, pleasantly enough, how the +water went down into the valleys, where it set itself gaily to saw wood, +and on into the plains, where it would soberly carry grain to town; +yet the real strength of the fable is when it dealt with the shut pool +in which certain unfortunate raindrops are imprisoned among slugs and +snails, and in the company of an old toad. The sodden contentment +of the fallen acorn is strangely significant; and it is astonishing +how unpleasantly we are startled by the appearance of her horrible lover, +the maggot.<br> +<br> +And now for a last word, about the style. This is not easy to +criticise. It is impossible to deny to it rapidity, spirit, and +a full sound; the lines are never lame, and the sense is carried forward +with an uninterrupted, impetuous rush. But it is not equal. +After passages of really admirable versification, the author falls back +upon a sort of loose, cavalry manner, not unlike the style of some of +Mr. Browning’s minor pieces, and almost inseparable from wordiness, +and an easy acceptation of somewhat cheap finish. There is nothing +here of that compression which is the note of a really sovereign style. +It is unfair, perhaps, to set a not remarkable passage from Lord Lytton +side by side with one of the signal masterpieces of another, and a very +perfect poet; and yet it is interesting, when we see how the portraiture +of a dog, detailed through thirty odd lines, is frittered down and finally +almost lost in the mere laxity of the style, to compare it with the +clear, simple, vigorous delineation that Burns, in four couplets, has +given us of the ploughman’s collie. It is interesting, at +first, and then it becomes a little irritating; for when we think of +other passages so much more finished and adroit, we cannot help feeling, +that with a little more ardour after perfection of form, criticism would +have found nothing left for her to censure. A similar mark of +precipitate work is the number of adjectives tumultuously heaped together, +sometimes to help out the sense, and sometimes (as one cannot but suspect) +to help out the sound of the verses. I do not believe, for instance, +that Lord Lytton himself would defend the lines in which we are told +how Laocoön ‘Revealed to Roman crowds, now <i>Christian</i> +grown, That <i>Pagan</i> anguish which, in <i>Parian</i> stone, The +<i>Rhodian</i> artist,’ and so on. It is not only that this +is bad in itself; but that it is unworthy of the company in which it +is found; that such verses should not have appeared with the name of +a good versifier like Lord Lytton. We must take exception, also, +in conclusion, to the excess of alliteration. Alliteration is +so liable to be abused that we can scarcely be too sparing of it; and +yet it is a trick that seems to grow upon the author with years. +It is a pity to see fine verses, such as some in ‘Demos,’ +absolutely spoiled by the recurrence of one wearisome consonant.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER II - SALVINI’S MACBETH<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Salvini closed his short visit to Edinburgh by a performance of <i>Macbeth</i>. +It was, perhaps, from a sentiment of local colour that he chose to play +the Scottish usurper for the first time before Scotsmen; and the audience +were not insensible of the privilege. Few things, indeed, can +move a stronger interest than to see a great creation taking shape for +the first time. If it is not purely artistic, the sentiment is +surely human. And the thought that you are before all the world, +and have the start of so many others as eager as yourself, at least +keeps you in a more unbearable suspense before the curtain rises, if +it does not enhance the delight with which you follow the performance +and see the actor ‘bend up each corporal agent’ to realise +a masterpiece of a few hours’ duration. With a player so +variable as Salvini, who trusts to the feelings of the moment for so +much detail, and who, night after night, does the same thing differently +but always well, it can never be safe to pass judgment after a single +hearing. And this is more particularly true of last week’s +<i>Macbeth</i>; for the whole third act was marred by a grievously humorous +misadventure. Several minutes too soon the ghost of Banquo joined +the party, and after having sat helpless a while at a table, was ignominiously +withdrawn. Twice was this ghostly Jack-in-the-box obtruded on +the stage before his time; twice removed again; and yet he showed so +little hurry when he was really wanted, that, after an awkward pause, +Macbeth had to begin his apostrophe to empty air. The arrival +of the belated spectre in the middle, with a jerk that made him nod +all over, was the last accident in the chapter, and worthily topped +the whole. It may be imagined how lamely matters went throughout +these cross purposes.<br> +<br> +In spite of this, and some other hitches, Salvini’s Macbeth had +an emphatic success. The creation is worthy of a place beside +the same artist’s Othello and Hamlet. It is the simplest +and most unsympathetic of the three; but the absence of the finer lineaments +of Hamlet is redeemed by gusto, breadth, and a headlong unity. +Salvini sees nothing great in Macbeth beyond the royalty of muscle, +and that courage which comes of strong and copious circulation. +The moral smallness of the man is insisted on from the first, in the +shudder of uncontrollable jealousy with which he sees Duncan embracing +Banquo. He may have some northern poetry of speech, but he has +not much logical understanding. In his dealings with the supernatural +powers he is like a savage with his fetich, trusting them beyond bounds +while all goes well, and whenever he is crossed, casting his belief +aside and calling ‘fate into the list.’ For his wife, +he is little more than an agent, a frame of bone and sinew for her fiery +spirit to command. The nature of his feeling towards her is rendered +with a most precise and delicate touch. He always yields to the +woman’s fascination; and yet his caresses (and we know how much +meaning Salvini can give to a caress) are singularly hard and unloving. +Sometimes he lays his hand on her as he might take hold of any one who +happened to be nearest to him at a moment of excitement. Love +has fallen out of this marriage by the way, and left a curious friendship. +Only once - at the very moment when she is showing herself so little +a woman and so much a high-spirited man - only once is he very deeply +stirred towards her; and that finds expression in the strange and horrible +transport of admiration, doubly strange and horrible on Salvini’s +lips - ‘Bring forth men-children only!’<br> +<br> +The murder scene, as was to be expected, pleased the audience best. +Macbeth’s voice, in the talk with his wife, was a thing not to +be forgotten; and when he spoke of his hangman’s hands he seemed +to have blood in his utterance. Never for a moment, even in the +very article of the murder, does he possess his own soul. He is +a man on wires. From first to last it is an exhibition of hideous +cowardice. For, after all, it is not here, but in broad daylight, +with the exhilaration of conflict, where he can assure himself at every +blow he has the longest sword and the heaviest hand, that this man’s +physical bravery can keep him up; he is an unwieldy ship, and needs +plenty of way on before he will steer.<br> +<br> +In the banquet scene, while the first murderer gives account of what +he has done, there comes a flash of truculent joy at the ‘twenty +trenchèd gashes’ on Banquo’s head. Thus Macbeth +makes welcome to his imagination those very details of physical horror +which are so soon to turn sour in him. As he runs out to embrace +these cruel circumstances, as he seeks to realise to his mind’s +eye the reassuring spectacle of his dead enemy, he is dressing out the +phantom to terrify himself; and his imagination, playing the part of +justice, is to ‘commend to his own lips the ingredients of his +poisoned chalice.’ With the recollection of Hamlet and his +father’s spirit still fresh upon him, and the holy awe with which +that good man encountered things not dreamt of in his philosophy, it +was not possible to avoid looking for resemblances between the two apparitions +and the two men haunted. But there are none to be found. +Macbeth has a purely physical dislike for Banquo’s spirit and +the ‘twenty trenchèd gashes.’ He is afraid +of he knows not what. He is abject, and again blustering. +In the end he so far forgets himself, his terror, and the nature of +what is before him, that he rushes upon it as he would upon a man. +When his wife tells him he needs repose, there is something really childish +in the way he looks about the room, and, seeing nothing, with an expression +of almost sensual relief, plucks up heart enough to go to bed. +And what is the upshot of the visitation? It is written in Shakespeare, +but should be read with the commentary of Salvini’s voice and +expression:- ‘O!<i> siam nell’ opra ancor fanciulli</i>’ +- ‘We are yet but young in deed.’ Circle below +circle. He is looking with horrible satisfaction into the mouth +of hell. There may still be a prick to-day; but to-morrow conscience +will be dead, and he may move untroubled in this element of blood.<br> +<br> +In the fifth act we see this lowest circle reached; and it is Salvini’s +finest moment throughout the play. From the first he was admirably +made up, and looked Macbeth to the full as perfectly as ever he looked +Othello. From the first moment he steps upon the stage you can +see this character is a creation to the fullest meaning of the phrase; +for the man before you is a type you know well already. He arrives +with Banquo on the heath, fair and red-bearded, sparing of gesture, +full of pride and the sense of animal wellbeing, and satisfied after +the battle like a beast who has eaten his fill. But in the fifth +act there is a change. This is still the big, burly, fleshly, +handsome-looking Thane; here is still the same face which in the earlier +acts could be superficially good-humoured and sometimes royally courteous. +But now the atmosphere of blood, which pervades the whole tragedy, has +entered into the man and subdued him to its own nature; and an indescribable +degradation, a slackness and puffiness, has overtaken his features. +He has breathed the air of carnage, and supped full of horrors. +Lady Macbeth complains of the smell of blood on her hand: Macbeth makes +no complaint - he has ceased to notice it now; but the same smell is +in his nostrils. A contained fury and disgust possesses him. +He taunts the messenger and the doctor as people would taunt their mortal +enemies. And, indeed, as he knows right well, every one is his +enemy now, except his wife. About her he questions the doctor +with something like a last human anxiety; and, in tones of grisly mystery, +asks him if he can ‘minister to a mind diseased.’ +When the news of her death is brought him, he is staggered and falls +into a seat; but somehow it is not anything we can call grief that he +displays. There had been two of them against God and man; and +now, when there is only one, it makes perhaps less difference than he +had expected. And so her death is not only an affliction, but +one more disillusion; and he redoubles in bitterness. The speech +that follows, given with tragic cynicism in every word, is a dirge, +not so much for her as for himself. From that time forth there +is nothing human left in him, only ‘the fiend of Scotland,’ +Macduff’s ‘hell-hound,’ whom, with a stern glee, we +see baited like a bear and hunted down like a wolf. He is inspired +and set above fate by a demoniacal energy, a lust of wounds and slaughter. +Even after he meets Macduff his courage does not fail; but when he hears +the Thane was not born of woman, all virtue goes out of him; and though +he speaks sounding words of defiance, the last combat is little better +than a suicide.<br> +<br> +The whole performance is, as I said, so full of gusto and a headlong +unity; the personality of Macbeth is so sharp and powerful; and within +these somewhat narrow limits there is so much play and saliency that, +so far as concerns Salvini himself, a third great success seems indubitable. +Unfortunately, however, a great actor cannot fill more than a very small +fraction of the boards; and though Banquo’s ghost will probably +be more seasonable in his future apparitions, there are some more inherent +difficulties in the piece. The company at large did not distinguish +themselves. Macduff, to the huge delight of the gallery, out-Macduff’d +the average ranter. The lady who filled the principal female part +has done better on other occasions, but I fear she has not metal for +what she tried last week. Not to succeed in the sleep-walking +scene is to make a memorable failure. As it was given, it succeeded +in being wrong in art without being true to nature.<br> +<br> +And there is yet another difficulty, happily easy to reform, which somewhat +interfered with the success of the performance. At the end of +the incantation scene the Italian translator has made Macbeth fall insensible +upon the stage. This is a change of questionable propriety from +a psychological point of view; while in point of view of effect it leaves +the stage for some moments empty of all business. To remedy this, +a bevy of green ballet-girls came forth and pointed their toes about +the prostrate king. A dance of High Church curates, or a hornpipe +by Mr. T. P. Cooke, would not be more out of the key; though the gravity +of a Scots audience was not to be overcome, and they merely expressed +their disapprobation by a round of moderate hisses, a similar irruption +of Christmas fairies would most likely convulse a London theatre from +pit to gallery with inextinguishable laughter. It is, I am told, +the Italian tradition; but it is one more honoured in the breach than +the observance. With the total disappearance of these damsels, +with a stronger Lady Macbeth, and, if possible, with some compression +of those scenes in which Salvini does not appear, and the spectator +is left at the mercy of Macduffs and Duncans, the play would go twice +as well, and we should be better able to follow and enjoy an admirable +work of dramatic art.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER III - BAGSTER’S ‘PILGRIM’S PROGRESS’<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +I have here before me an edition of the <i>Pilgrim’s</i> <i>Progress</i>, +bound in green, without a date, and described as ‘illustrated +by nearly three hundred engravings, and memoir of Bunyan.’ +On the outside it is lettered ‘Bagster’s Illustrated Edition,’ +and after the author’s apology, facing the first page of the tale, +a folding pictorial ‘Plan of the Road’ is marked as ‘drawn +by the late Mr. T. Conder,’ and engraved by J. Basire. No +further information is anywhere vouchsafed; perhaps the publishers had +judged the work too unimportant; and we are still left ignorant whether +or not we owe the woodcuts in the body of the volume to the same hand +that drew the plan. It seems, however, more than probable. +The literal particularity of mind which, in the map, laid down the flower-plots +in the devil’s garden, and carefully introduced the court-house +in the town of Vanity, is closely paralleled in many of the cuts; and +in both, the architecture of the buildings and the disposition of the +gardens have a kindred and entirely English air. Whoever he was, +the author of these wonderful little pictures may lay claim to be the +best illustrator of Bunyan. They are not only good illustrations, +like so many others; but they are like so few, good illustrations of +Bunyan. Their spirit, in defect and quality, is still the same +as his own. The designer also has lain down and dreamed a dream, +as literal, as quaint, and almost as apposite as Bunyan’s; and +text and pictures make but the two sides of the same homespun yet impassioned +story. To do justice to the designs, it will be necessary to say, +for the hundredth time, a word or two about the masterpiece which they +adorn.<br> +<br> +All allegories have a tendency to escape from the purpose of their creators; +and as the characters and incidents become more and more interesting +in themselves, the moral, which these were to show forth, falls more +and more into neglect. An architect may command a wreath of vine-leaves +round the cornice of a monument; but if, as each leaf came from the +chisel, it took proper life and fluttered freely on the wall, and if +the vine grew, and the building were hidden over with foliage and fruit, +the architect would stand in much the same situation as the writer of +allegories. The <i>Faëry</i> <i>Queen</i> was an allegory, +I am willing to believe; but it survives as an imaginative tale in incomparable +verse. The case of Bunyan is widely different; and yet in this +also Allegory, poor nymph, although never quite forgotten, is sometimes +rudely thrust against the wall. Bunyan was fervently in earnest; +with ‘his fingers in his ears, he ran on,’ straight for +his mark. He tells us himself, in the conclusion to the first +part, that he did not fear to raise a laugh; indeed, he feared nothing, +and said anything; and he was greatly served in this by a certain rustic +privilege of his style, which, like the talk of strong uneducated men, +when it does not impress by its force, still charms by its simplicity. +The mere story and the allegorical design enjoyed perhaps his equal +favour. He believed in both with an energy of faith that was capable +of moving mountains. And we have to remark in him, not the parts +where inspiration fails and is supplied by cold and merely decorative +invention, but the parts where faith has grown to be credulity, and +his characters become so real to him that he forgets the end of their +creation. We can follow him step by step into the trap which he +lays for himself by his own entire good faith and triumphant literality +of vision, till the trap closes and shuts him in an inconsistency. +The allegories of the Interpreter and of the Shepherds of the Delectable +Mountains are all actually performed, like stage-plays, before the pilgrims. +The son of Mr. Great-grace visibly ‘tumbles hills about with his +words.’ Adam the First has his condemnation written visibly +on his forehead, so that Faithful reads it. At the very instant +the net closes round the pilgrims, ‘the white robe falls from +the black man’s body.’ Despair ‘getteth him +a grievous crab-tree cudgel’; it was in ‘sunshiny weather’ +that he had his fits; and the birds in the grove about the House Beautiful, +‘our country birds,’ only sing their little pious verses +‘at the spring, when the flowers appear and the sun shines warm.’ +‘I often,’ says Piety, ‘go out to hear them; we also +ofttimes keep them tame on our house.’ The post between +Beulah and the Celestial City sounds his horn, as you may yet hear in +country places. Madam Bubble, that ‘tall, comely dame, something +of a swarthy complexion, in very pleasant attire, but old,’ ‘gives +you a smile at the end of each sentence’ - a real woman she; we +all know her. Christiana dying ‘gave Mr. Stand-fast a ring,’ +for no possible reason in the allegory, merely because the touch was +human and affecting. Look at Great-heart, with his soldierly ways, +garrison ways, as I had almost called them; with his taste in weapons; +his delight in any that ‘he found to be a man of his hands’; +his chivalrous point of honour, letting Giant Maul get up again when +he was down, a thing fairly flying in the teeth of the moral; above +all, with his language in the inimitable tale of Mr. Fearing: ‘I +thought I should have lost my man’ - ‘chicken-hearted’ +- ‘at last he came in, and I will say that for my lord, he carried +it wonderful lovingly to him.’ This is no Independent minister; +this is a stout, honest, big-busted ancient, adjusting his shoulder-belts, +twirling his long moustaches as he speaks. Last and most remarkable, +‘My sword,’ says the dying Valiant-for-Truth, he in whom +Great-heart delighted, ‘my sword I give to him that shall succeed +me in my pilgrimage, <i>and my courage and skill to him that can get +it</i>.’ And after this boast, more arrogantly unorthodox +than was ever dreamed of by the rejected Ignorance, we are told that +‘all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side.’<br> +<br> +In every page the book is stamped with the same energy of vision and +the same energy of belief. The quality is equally and indifferently +displayed in the spirit of the fighting, the tenderness of the pathos, +the startling vigour and strangeness of the incidents, the natural strain +of the conversations, and the humanity and charm of the characters. +Trivial talk over a meal, the dying words of heroes, the delights of +Beulah or the Celestial City, Apollyon and my Lord Hate-good, Great-heart, +and Mr. Worldly-Wiseman, all have been imagined with the same clearness, +all written of with equal gusto and precision, all created in the same +mixed element, of simplicity that is almost comical, and art that, for +its purpose, is faultless.<br> +<br> +It was in much the same spirit that our artist sat down to his drawings. +He is by nature a Bunyan of the pencil. He, too, will draw anything, +from a butcher at work on a dead sheep, up to the courts of Heaven. +‘A Lamb for Supper’ is the name of one of his designs, ‘Their +Glorious Entry’ of another. He has the same disregard for +the ridiculous, and enjoys somewhat of the same privilege of style, +so that we are pleased even when we laugh the most. He is literal +to the verge of folly. If dust is to be raised from the unswept +parlour, you may be sure it will ‘fly abundantly’ in the +picture. If Faithful is to lie ‘as dead’ before Moses, +dead he shall lie with a warrant - dead and stiff like granite; nay +(and here the artist must enhance upon the symbolism of the author), +it is with the identical stone tables of the law that Moses fells the +sinner. Good and bad people, whom we at once distinguish in the +text by their names, Hopeful, Honest, and Valiant-for-Truth, on the +one hand, as against By-ends, Sir Having Greedy, and the Lord Old-man +on the other, are in these drawings as simply distinguished by their +costume. Good people, when not armed <i>cap-à-pie</i>, +wear a speckled tunic girt about the waist, and low hats, apparently +of straw. Bad people swagger in tail-coats and chimney-pots, a +few with knee-breeches, but the large majority in trousers, and for +all the world like guests at a garden-party. Worldly-Wiseman alone, +by some inexplicable quirk, stands before Christian in laced hat, embroidered +waistcoat, and trunk-hose. But above all examples of this artist’s +intrepidity, commend me to the print entitled ‘Christian Finds +it Deep.’ ‘A great darkness and horror,’ says +the text, have fallen on the pilgrim; it is the comfortless deathbed +with which Bunyan so strikingly concludes the sorrows and conflicts +of his hero. How to represent this worthily the artist knew not; +and yet he was determined to represent it somehow. This was how +he did: Hopeful is still shown to his neck above the water of death; +but Christian has bodily disappeared, and a blot of solid blackness +indicates his place.<br> +<br> +As you continue to look at these pictures, about an inch square for +the most part, sometimes printed three or more to the page, and each +having a printed legend of its own, however trivial the event recorded, +you will soon become aware of two things: first, that the man can draw, +and, second, that he possesses the gift of an imagination. ‘Obstinate +reviles,’ says the legend; and you should see Obstinate reviling. +‘He warily retraces his steps’; and there is Christian, +posting through the plain, terror and speed in every muscle. ‘Mercy +yearns to go’ shows you a plain interior with packing going forward, +and, right in the middle, Mercy yearning to go - every line of the girl’s +figure yearning. In ‘The Chamber called Peace’ we +see a simple English room, bed with white curtains, window valance and +door, as may be found in many thousand unpretentious houses; but far +off, through the open window, we behold the sun uprising out of a great +plain, and Christian hails it with his hand:<br> +<br> +<br> +‘Where am I now! is this the love and care<br> +Of Jesus, for the men that pilgrims are!<br> +Thus to provide! That I should be forgiven!<br> +And dwell already the next door to heaven!’<br> +<br> +<br> +A page or two further, from the top of the House Beautiful, the damsels +point his gaze toward the Delectable Mountains: ‘The Prospect,’ +so the cut is ticketed - and I shall be surprised, if on less than a +square inch of paper you can show me one so wide and fair. Down +a cross road on an English plain, a cathedral city outlined on the horizon, +a hazel shaw upon the left, comes Madam Wanton dancing with her fair +enchanted cup, and Faithful, book in hand, half pauses. The cut +is perfect as a symbol; the giddy movement of the sorceress, the uncertain +poise of the man struck to the heart by a temptation, the contrast of +that even plain of life whereon he journeys with the bold, ideal bearing +of the wanton - the artist who invented and portrayed this had not merely +read Bunyan, he had also thoughtfully lived. The Delectable Mountains +- I continue skimming the first part - are not on the whole happily +rendered. Once, and once only, the note is struck, when Christian +and Hopeful are seen coming, shoulder-high, through a thicket of green +shrubs - box, perhaps, or perfumed nutmeg; while behind them, domed +or pointed, the hills stand ranged against the sky. A little further, +and we come to that masterpiece of Bunyan’s insight into life, +the Enchanted Ground; where, in a few traits, he has set down the latter +end of such a number of the would-be good; where his allegory goes so +deep that, to people looking seriously on life, it cuts like satire. +The true significance of this invention lies, of course, far out of +the way of drawing; only one feature, the great tedium of the land, +the growing weariness in well-doing, may be somewhat represented in +a symbol. The pilgrims are near the end: ‘Two Miles Yet,’ +says the legend. The road goes ploughing up and down over a rolling +heath; the wayfarers, with outstretched arms, are already sunk to the +knees over the brow of the nearest hill; they have just passed a milestone +with the cipher two; from overhead a great, piled, summer cumulus, as +of a slumberous summer afternoon, beshadows them: two miles! it might +be hundreds. In dealing with the Land of Beulah the artist lags, +in both parts, miserably behind the text, but in the distant prospect +of the Celestial City more than regains his own. You will remember +when Christian and Hopeful ‘with desire fell sick.’ +‘Effect of the Sunbeams’ is the artist’s title. +Against the sky, upon a cliffy mountain, the radiant temple beams upon +them over deep, subjacent woods; they, behind a mound, as if seeking +shelter from the splendour - one prostrate on his face, one kneeling, +and with hands ecstatically lifted - yearn with passion after that immortal +city. Turn the page, and we behold them walking by the very shores +of death; Heaven, from this nigher view, has risen half-way to the zenith, +and sheds a wider glory; and the two pilgrims, dark against that brightness, +walk and sing out of the fulness of their hearts. No cut more +thoroughly illustrates at once the merit and the weakness of the artist. +Each pilgrim sings with a book in his grasp - a family Bible at the +least for bigness; tomes so recklessly enormous that our second, impulse +is to laughter. And yet that is not the first thought, nor perhaps +the last. Something in the attitude of the manikins - faces they +have none, they are too small for that - something in the way they swing +these monstrous volumes to their singing, something perhaps borrowed +from the text, some subtle differentiation from the cut that went before +and the cut that follows after - something, at least, speaks clearly +of a fearful joy, of Heaven seen from the deathbed, of the horror of +the last passage no less than of the glorious coming home. There +is that in the action of one of them which always reminds me, with a +difference, of that haunting last glimpse of Thomas Idle, travelling +to Tyburn in the cart. Next come the Shining Ones, wooden and +trivial enough; the pilgrims pass into the river; the blot already mentioned +settles over and obliterates Christian. In two more cuts we behold +them drawing nearer to the other shore; and then, between two radiant +angels, one of whom points upward, we see them mounting in new weeds, +their former lendings left behind them on the inky river. More +angels meet them; Heaven is displayed, and if no better, certainly no +worse, than it has been shown by others - a place, at least, infinitely +populous and glorious with light - a place that haunts solemnly the +hearts of children. And then this symbolic draughtsman once more +strikes into his proper vein. Three cuts conclude the first part. +In the first the gates close, black against the glory struggling from +within. The second shows us Ignorance - alas! poor Arminian! - +hailing, in a sad twilight, the ferryman Vain-Hope; and in the third +we behold him, bound hand and foot, and black already with the hue of +his eternal fate, carried high over the mountain-tops of the world by +two angels of the anger of the Lord. ‘Carried to Another +Place,’ the artist enigmatically names his plate - a terrible +design.<br> +<br> +Wherever he touches on the black side of the supernatural his pencil +grows more daring and incisive. He has many true inventions in +the perilous and diabolic; he has many startling nightmares realised. +It is not easy to select the best; some may like one and some another; +the nude, depilated devil bounding and casting darts against the Wicket +Gate; the scroll of flying horrors that hang over Christian by the Mouth +of Hell; the horned shade that comes behind him whispering blasphemies; +the daylight breaking through that rent cave-mouth of the mountains +and falling chill adown the haunted tunnel; Christian’s further +progress along the causeway, between the two black pools, where, at +every yard or two, a gin, a pitfall, or a snare awaits the passer-by +- loathsome white devilkins harbouring close under the bank to work +the springes, Christian himself pausing and pricking with his sword’s +point at the nearest noose, and pale discomfortable mountains rising +on the farther side; or yet again, the two ill-favoured ones that beset +the first of Christian’s journey, with the frog-like structure +of the skull, the frog-like limberness of limbs - crafty, slippery, +lustful-looking devils, drawn always in outline as though possessed +of a dim, infernal luminosity. Horrid fellows are they, one and +all; horrid fellows and horrific scenes. In another spirit that +Good-Conscience ‘to whom Mr. Honest had spoken in his lifetime,’ +a cowled, grey, awful figure, one hand pointing to the heavenly shore, +realises, I will not say all, but some at least of the strange impressiveness +of Bunyan’s words. It is no easy nor pleasant thing to speak +in one’s lifetime with Good-Conscience; he is an austere, unearthly +friend, whom maybe Torquemada knew; and the folds of his raiment are +not merely claustral, but have something of the horror of the pall. +Be not afraid, however; with the hand of that appearance Mr. Honest +will get safe across.<br> +<br> +Yet perhaps it is in sequences that this artist best displays himself. +He loves to look at either side of a thing: as, for instance, when he +shows us both sides of the wall - ‘Grace Inextinguishable’ +on the one side, with the devil vainly pouring buckets on the flame, +and ‘The Oil of Grace’ on the other, where the Holy Spirit, +vessel in hand, still secretly supplies the fire. He loves, also, +to show us the same event twice over, and to repeat his instantaneous +photographs at the interval of but a moment. So we have, first, +the whole troop of pilgrims coming up to Valiant, and Great-heart to +the front, spear in hand and parleying; and next, the same cross-roads, +from a more distant view, the convoy now scattered and looking safely +and curiously on, and Valiant handing over for inspection his ‘right +Jerusalem blade.’ It is true that this designer has no great +care after consistency: Apollyon’s spear is laid by, his quiver +of darts will disappear, whenever they might hinder the designer’s +freedom; and the fiend’s tail is blobbed or forked at his good +pleasure. But this is not unsuitable to the illustration of the +fervent Bunyan, breathing hurry and momentary inspiration. He, +with his hot purpose, hunting sinners with a lasso, shall himself forget +the things that he has written yesterday. He shall first slay +Heedless in the Valley of the Shadow, and then take leave of him talking +in his sleep, as if nothing had happened, in an arbour on the Enchanted +Ground. And again, in his rhymed prologue, he shall assign some +of the glory of the siege of Doubting Castle to his favourite Valiant-for-the-Truth, +who did not meet with the besiegers till long after, at that dangerous +corner by Deadman’s Lane. And, with all inconsistencies +and freedoms, there is a power shown in these sequences of cuts: a power +of joining on one action or one humour to another; a power of following +out the moods, even of the dismal subterhuman fiends engendered by the +artist’s fancy; a power of sustained continuous realisation, step +by step, in nature’s order, that can tell a story, in all its +ins and outs, its pauses and surprises, fully and figuratively, like +the art of words.<br> +<br> +One such sequence is the fight of Christian and Apollyon - six cuts, +weird and fiery, like the text. The pilgrim is throughout a pale +and stockish figure; but the devil covers a multitude of defects. +There is no better devil of the conventional order than our artist’s +Apollyon, with his mane, his wings, his bestial legs, his changing and +terrifying expression, his infernal energy to slay. In cut the +first you see him afar off, still obscure in form, but already formidable +in suggestion. Cut the second, ‘The Fiend in Discourse,’ +represents him, not reasoning, railing rather, shaking his spear at +the pilgrim, his shoulder advanced, his tail writhing in the air, his +foot ready for a spring, while Christian stands back a little, timidly +defensive. The third illustrates these magnificent words: ‘Then +Apollyon straddled quite over the whole breadth of the way, and said, +I am void of fear in this matter: prepare thyself to die; for I swear +by my infernal den that thou shalt go no farther: here will I spill +thy soul! And with that he threw a flaming dart at his breast.’ +In the cut he throws a dart with either hand, belching pointed flames +out of his mouth, spreading his broad vans, and straddling the while +across the path, as only a fiend can straddle who has just sworn by +his infernal den. The defence will not be long against such vice, +such flames, such red-hot nether energy. And in the fourth cut, +to be sure, he has leaped bodily upon his victim, sped by foot and pinion, +and roaring as he leaps. The fifth shows the climacteric of the +battle; Christian has reached nimbly out and got his sword, and dealt +that deadly home-thrust, the fiend still stretched upon him, but ‘giving +back, as one that had received his mortal wound.’ The raised +head, the bellowing mouth, the paw clapped upon the sword, the one wing +relaxed in agony, all realise vividly these words of the text. +In the sixth and last, the trivial armed figure of the pilgrim is seen +kneeling with clasped hands on the betrodden scene of contest and among +the shivers of the darts; while just at the margin the hinder quarters +and the tail of Apollyon are whisking off, indignant and discounted.<br> +<br> +In one point only do these pictures seem to be unworthy of the text, +and that point is one rather of the difference of arts than the difference +of artists. Throughout his best and worst, in his highest and +most divine imaginations as in the narrowest sallies of his sectarianism, +the human-hearted piety of Bunyan touches and ennobles, convinces, accuses +the reader. Through no art beside the art of words can the kindness +of a man’s affections be expressed. In the cuts you shall +find faithfully parodied the quaintness and the power, the triviality +and the surprising freshness of the author’s fancy; there you +shall find him out-stripped in ready symbolism and the art of bringing +things essentially invisible before the eyes: but to feel the contact +of essential goodness, to be made in love with piety, the book must +be read and not the prints examined.<br> +<br> +Farewell should not be taken with a grudge; nor can I dismiss in any +other words than those of gratitude a series of pictures which have, +to one at least, been the visible embodiment of Bunyan from childhood +up, and shown him, through all his years, Great-heart lungeing at Giant +Maul, and Apollyon breathing fire at Christian, and every turn and town +along the road to the Celestial City, and that bright place itself, +seen as to a stave of music, shining afar off upon the hill-top, the +candle of the world.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +SKETCHES<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE SATIRIST<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +My companion enjoyed a cheap reputation for wit and insight. He +was by habit and repute a satirist. If he did occasionally condemn +anything or anybody who richly deserved it, and whose demerits had hitherto +escaped, it was simply because he condemned everything and everybody. +While I was with him he disposed of St. Paul with an epigram, shook +my reverence for Shakespeare in a neat antithesis, and fell foul of +the Almighty Himself, on the score of one or two out of the ten commandments. +Nothing escaped his blighting censure. At every sentence he overthrew +an idol, or lowered my estimation of a friend. I saw everything +with new eyes, and could only marvel at my former blindness. How +was it possible that I had not before observed A’s false hair, +B’s selfishness, or C’s boorish manners? I and my +companion, methought, walked the streets like a couple of gods among +a swarm of vermin; for every one we saw seemed to bear openly upon his +brow the mark of the apocalyptic beast. I half expected that these +miserable beings, like the people of Lystra, would recognise their betters +and force us to the altar; in which case, warned by the late of Paul +and Barnabas, I do not know that my modesty would have prevailed upon +me to decline. But there was no need for such churlish virtue. +More blinded than the Lycaonians, the people saw no divinity in our +gait; and as our temporary godhead lay more in the way of observing +than healing their infirmities, we were content to pass them by in scorn.<br> +<br> +I could not leave my companion, not from regard or even from interest, +but from a very natural feeling, inseparable from the case. To +understand it, let us take a simile. Suppose yourself walking +down the street with a man who continues to sprinkle the crowd out of +a flask of vitriol. You would be much diverted with the grimaces +and contortions of his victims; and at the same time you would fear +to leave his arm until his bottle was empty, knowing that, when once +among the crowd, you would run a good chance yourself of baptism with +his biting liquor. Now my companion’s vitriol was inexhaustible.<br> +<br> +It was perhaps the consciousness of this, the knowledge that I was being +anointed already out of the vials of his wrath, that made me fall to +criticising the critic, whenever we had parted.<br> +<br> +After all, I thought, our satirist has just gone far enough into his +neighbours to find that the outside is false, without caring to go farther +and discover what is really true. He is content to find that things +are not what they seem, and broadly generalises from it that they do +not exist at all. He sees our virtues are not what they pretend +they are; and, on the strength of that, he denies us the possession +of virtue altogether. He has learnt the first lesson, that no +man is wholly good; but he has not even suspected that there is another +equally true, to wit, that no man is wholly bad. Like the inmate +of a coloured star, he has eyes for one colour alone. He has a +keen scent after evil, but his nostrils are plugged against all good, +as people plugged their nostrils before going about the streets of the +plague-struck city.<br> +<br> +Why does he do this? It is most unreasonable to flee the knowledge +of good like the infection of a horrible disease, and batten and grow +fat in the real atmosphere of a lazar-house. This was my first +thought; but my second was not like unto it, and I saw that our satirist +was wise, wise in his generation, like the unjust steward. He +does not want light, because the darkness is more pleasant. He +does not wish to see the good, because he is happier without it. +I recollect that when I walked with him, I was in a state of divine +exaltation, such as Adam and Eve must have enjoyed when the savour of +the fruit was still unfaded between their lips; and I recognise that +this must be the man’s habitual state. He has the forbidden +fruit in his waist-coat pocket, and can make himself a god as often +and as long as he likes. He has raised himself upon a glorious +pedestal above his fellows; he has touched the summit of ambition; and +he envies neither King nor Kaiser, Prophet nor Priest, content in an +elevation as high as theirs, and much more easily attained. Yes, +certes, much more easily attained. He has not risen by climbing +himself, but by pushing others down. He has grown great in his +own estimation, not by blowing himself out, and risking the fate of +AEsop’s frog, but simply by the habitual use of a diminishing +glass on everybody else. And I think altogether that his is a +better, a safer, and a surer recipe than most others.<br> +<br> +After all, however, looking back on what I have written, I detect a +spirit suspiciously like his own. All through, I have been comparing +myself with our satirist, and all through, I have had the best of the +comparison. Well, well, contagion is as often mental as physical; +and I do not think my readers, who have all been under his lash, will +blame me very much for giving the headsman a mouthful of his own sawdust.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +NUITS BLANCHES<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +If any one should know the pleasure and pain of a sleepless night, it +should be I. I remember, so long ago, the sickly child that woke +from his few hours’ slumber with the sweat of a nightmare on his +brow, to lie awake and listen and long for the first signs of life among +the silent streets. These nights of pain and weariness are graven +on my mind; and so when the same thing happened to me again, everything +that I heard or saw was rather a recollection than a discovery.<br> +<br> +Weighed upon by the opaque and almost sensible darkness, I listened +eagerly for anything to break the sepulchral quiet. But nothing +came, save, perhaps, an emphatic crack from the old cabinet that was +made by Deacon Brodie, or the dry rustle of the coals on the extinguished +fire. It was a calm; or I know that I should have heard in the +roar and clatter of the storm, as I have not heard it for so many years, +the wild career of a horseman, always scouring up from the distance +and passing swiftly below the window; yet always returning again from +the place whence first he came, as though, baffled by some higher power, +he had retraced his steps to gain impetus for another and another attempt.<br> +<br> +As I lay there, there arose out of the utter stillness the rumbling +of a carriage a very great way off, that drew near, and passed within +a few streets of the house, and died away as gradually as it had arisen. +This, too, was as a reminiscence.<br> +<br> +I rose and lifted a corner of the blind. Over the black belt of +the garden I saw the long line of Queen Street, with here and there +a lighted window. How often before had my nurse lifted me out +of bed and pointed them out to me, while we wondered together if, there +also, there were children that could not sleep, and if these lighted +oblongs were signs of those that waited like us for the morning.<br> +<br> +I went out into the lobby, and looked down into the great deep well +of the staircase. For what cause I know not, just as it used to +be in the old days that the feverish child might be the better served, +a peep of gas illuminated a narrow circle far below me. But where +I was, all was darkness and silence, save the dry monotonous ticking +of the clock that came ceaselessly up to my ear.<br> +<br> +The final crown of it all, however, the last touch of reproduction on +the pictures of my memory, was the arrival of that time for which, all +night through, I waited and longed of old. It was my custom, as +the hours dragged on, to repeat the question, ‘When will the carts +come in?’ and repeat it again and again until at last those sounds +arose in the street that I have heard once more this morning. +The road before our house is a great thoroughfare for early carts. +I know not, and I never have known, what they carry, whence they come, +or whither they go. But I know that, long ere dawn, and for hours +together, they stream continuously past, with the same rolling and jerking +of wheels and the same clink of horses’ feet. It was not +for nothing that they made the burthen of my wishes all night through. +They are really the first throbbings of life, the harbingers of day; +and it pleases you as much to hear them as it must please a shipwrecked +seaman once again to grasp a hand of flesh and blood after years of +miserable solitude. They have the freshness of the daylight life +about them. You can hear the carters cracking their whips and +crying hoarsely to their horses or to one another; and sometimes even +a peal of healthy, harsh horse-laughter comes up to you through the +darkness. There is now an end of mystery and fear. Like +the knocking at the door in <i>Macbeth</i>, <a name="citation8"></a><a href="#footnote8">{8}</a> +or the cry of the watchman in the <i>Tour de Nesle</i>, they show that +the horrible caesura is over and the nightmares have fled away, because +the day is breaking and the ordinary life of men is beginning to bestir +itself among the streets.<br> +<br> +In the middle of it all I fell asleep, to be wakened by the officious +knocking at my door, and I find myself twelve years older than I had +dreamed myself all night.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE WREATH OF IMMORTELLES<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +It is all very well to talk of death as ‘a pleasant potion of +immortality’, but the most of us, I suspect, are of ‘queasy +stomachs,’ and find it none of the sweetest. <a name="citation9a"></a><a href="#footnote9a">{9a}</a> +The graveyard may be cloak-room to Heaven; but we must admit that it +is a very ugly and offensive vestibule in itself, however fair may be +the life to which it leads. And though Enoch and Elias went into +the temple through a gate which certainly may be called Beautiful, the +rest of us have to find our way to it through Ezekiel’s low-bowed +door and the vault full of creeping things and all manner of abominable +beasts. Nevertheless, there is a certain frame of mind to which +a cemetery is, if not an antidote, at least an alleviation. If +you are in a fit of the blues, go nowhere else. It was in obedience +to this wise regulation that the other morning found me lighting my +pipe at the entrance to Old Greyfriars’, thoroughly sick of the +town, the country, and myself.<br> +<br> +Two of the men were talking at the gate, one of them carrying a spade +in hands still crusted with the soil of graves. Their very aspect +was delightful to me; and I crept nearer to them, thinking to pick up +some snatch of sexton gossip, some ‘talk fit for a charnel,’ +<a name="citation9b"></a><a href="#footnote9b">{9b}</a> something, in +fine, worthy of that fastidious logician, that adept in coroner’s +law, who has come down to us as the patron of Yaughan’s liquor, +and the very prince of gravediggers. Scots people in general are +so much wrapped up in their profession that I had a good chance of overhearing +such conversation: the talk of fish-mongers running usually on stockfish +and haddocks; while of the Scots sexton I could repeat stories and speeches +that positively smell of the graveyard. But on this occasion I +was doomed to disappointment. My two friends were far into the +region of generalities. Their profession was forgotten in their +electorship. Politics had engulfed the narrower economy of grave-digging. +‘Na, na,’ said the one, ‘ye’re a’ wrang.’ +‘The English and Irish Churches,’ answered the other, in +a tone as if he had made the remark before, and it had been called in +question - ‘The English and Irish Churches have <i>impoverished</i> +the country.’<br> +<br> +‘Such are the results of education,’ thought I as I passed +beside them and came fairly among the tombs. Here, at least, there +were no commonplace politics, no diluted this-morning’s leader, +to distract or offend me. The old shabby church showed, as usual, +its quaint extent of roofage and the relievo skeleton on one gable, +still blackened with the fire of thirty years ago. A chill dank +mist lay over all. The Old Greyfriars’ churchyard was in +perfection that morning, and one could go round and reckon up the associations +with no fear of vulgar interruption. On this stone the Covenant +was signed. In that vault, as the story goes, John Knox took hiding +in some Reformation broil. From that window Burke the murderer +looked out many a time across the tombs, and perhaps o’ nights +let himself down over the sill to rob some new-made grave. Certainly +he would have a selection here. The very walks have been carried +over forgotten resting-places; and the whole ground is uneven, because +(as I was once quaintly told) ‘when the wood rots it stands to +reason the soil should fall in,’ which, from the law of gravitation, +is certainly beyond denial. But it is round the boundary that +there are the finest tombs. The whole irregular space is, as it +were, fringed with quaint old monuments, rich in death’s-heads +and scythes and hour-glasses, and doubly rich in pious epitaphs and +Latin mottoes - rich in them to such an extent that their proper space +has run over, and they have crawled end-long up the shafts of columns +and ensconced themselves in all sorts of odd corners among the sculpture. +These tombs raise their backs against the rabble of squalid dwelling-houses, +and every here and there a clothes-pole projects between two monuments +its fluttering trophy of white and yellow and red. With a grim +irony they recall the banners in the Invalides, banners as appropriate +perhaps over the sepulchres of tailors and weavers as these others above +the dust of armies. Why they put things out to dry on that particular +morning it was hard to imagine. The grass was grey with drops +of rain, the headstones black with moisture. Yet, in despite of +weather and common sense, there they hung between the tombs; and beyond +them I could see through open windows into miserable rooms where whole +families were born and fed, and slept and died. At one a girl +sat singing merrily with her back to the graveyard; and from another +came the shrill tones of a scolding woman. Every here and there +was a town garden full of sickly flowers, or a pile of crockery inside +upon the window-seat. But you do not grasp the full connection +between these houses of the dead and the living, the unnatural marriage +of stately sepulchres and squalid houses, till, lower down, where the +road has sunk far below the surface of the cemetery, and the very roofs +are scarcely on a level with its wall, you observe that a proprietor +has taken advantage of a tall monument and trained a chimney-stack against +its back. It startles you to see the red, modern pots peering +over the shoulder of the tomb.<br> +<br> +A man was at work on a grave, his spade clinking away the drift of bones +that permeates the thin brown soil; but my first disappointment had +taught me to expect little from Greyfriars’ sextons, and I passed +him by in silence. A slater on the slope of a neighbouring roof +eyed me curiously. A lean black cat, looking as if it had battened +on strange meats, slipped past me. A little boy at a window put +his finger to his nose in so offensive a manner that I was put upon +my dignity, and turned grandly off to read old epitaphs and peer through +the gratings into the shadow of vaults.<br> +<br> +Just then I saw two women coming down a path, one of them old, and the +other younger, with a child in her arms. Both had faces eaten +with famine and hardened with sin, and both had reached that stage of +degradation, much lower in a woman than a man, when all care for dress +is lost. As they came down they neared a grave, where some pious +friend or relative had laid a wreath of immortelles, and put a bell +glass over it, as is the custom. The effect of that ring of dull +yellow among so many blackened and dusty sculptures was more pleasant +than it is in modern cemeteries, where every second mound can boast +a similar coronal; and here, where it was the exception and not the +rule, I could even fancy the drops of moisture that dimmed the covering +were the tears of those who laid it where it was. As the two women +came up to it, one of them kneeled down on the wet grass and looked +long and silently through the clouded shade, while the second stood +above her, gently oscillating to and fro to lull the muling baby. +I was struck a great way off with something religious in the attitude +of these two unkempt and haggard women; and I drew near faster, but +still cautiously, to hear what they were saying. Surely on them +the spirit of death and decay had descended; I had no education to dread +here: should I not have a chance of seeing nature? Alas! a pawnbroker +could not have been more practical and commonplace, for this was what +the kneeling woman said to the woman upright - this and nothing more: +‘Eh, what extravagance!’<br> +<br> +O nineteenth century, wonderful art thou indeed - wonderful, but wearisome +in thy stale and deadly uniformity. Thy men are more like numerals +than men. They must bear their idiosyncrasies or their professions +written on a placard about their neck, like the scenery in Shakespeare’s +theatre. Thy precepts of economy have pierced into the lowest +ranks of life; and there is now a decorum in vice, a respectability +among the disreputable, a pure spirit of Philistinism among the waifs +and strays of thy Bohemia. For lo! thy very gravediggers talk +politics; and thy castaways kneel upon new graves, to discuss the cost +of the monument and grumble at the improvidence of love.<br> +<br> +Such was the elegant apostrophe that I made as I went out of the gates +again, happily satisfied in myself, and feeling that I alone of all +whom I had seen was able to profit by the silent poem of these green +mounds and blackened headstones.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +NURSES<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +I knew one once, and the room where, lonely and old, she waited for +death. It was pleasant enough, high up above the lane, and looking +forth upon a hill-side, covered all day with sheets and yellow blankets, +and with long lines of underclothing fluttering between the battered +posts. There were any number of cheap prints, and a drawing by +one of ‘her children,’ and there were flowers in the window, +and a sickly canary withered into consumption in an ornamental cage. +The bed, with its checked coverlid, was in a closet. A great Bible +lay on the table; and her drawers were full of ‘scones,’ +which it was her pleasure to give to young visitors such as I was then.<br> +<br> +You may not think this a melancholy picture; but the canary, and the +cat, and the white mouse that she had for a while, and that died, were +all indications of the want that ate into her heart. I think I +know a little of what that old woman felt; and I am as sure as if I +had seen her, that she sat many an hour in silent tears, with the big +Bible open before her clouded eyes.<br> +<br> +If you could look back upon her life, and feel the great chain that +had linked her to one child after another, sometimes to be wrenched +suddenly through, and sometimes, which is infinitely worse, to be torn +gradually off through years of growing neglect, or perhaps growing dislike! +She had, like the mother, overcome that natural repugnance - repugnance +which no man can conquer - towards the infirm and helpless mass of putty +of the earlier stage. She had spent her best and happiest years +in tending, watching, and learning to love like a mother this child, +with which she has no connection and to which she has no tie. +Perhaps she refused some sweetheart (such things have been), or put +him off and off, until he lost heart and turned to some one else, all +for fear of leaving this creature that had wound itself about her heart. +And the end of it all - her month’s warning, and a present perhaps, +and the rest of the life to vain regret. Or, worse still, to see +the child gradually forgetting and forsaking her, fostered in disrespect +and neglect on the plea of growing manliness, and at last beginning +to treat her as a servant whom he had treated a few years before as +a mother. She sees the Bible or the Psalm-book, which with gladness +and love unutterable in her heart she had bought for him years ago out +of her slender savings, neglected for some newer gift of his father, +lying in dust in the lumber-room or given away to a poor child, and +the act applauded for its unfeeling charity. Little wonder if +she becomes hurt and angry, and attempts to tyrannise and to grasp her +old power back again. We are not all patient Grizzels, by good +fortune, but the most of us human beings with feelings and tempers of +our own.<br> +<br> +And so, in the end, behold her in the room that I described. Very +likely and very naturally, in some fling of feverish misery or recoil +of thwarted love, she has quarrelled with her old employers and the +children are forbidden to see her or to speak to her; or at best she +gets her rent paid and a little to herself, and now and then her late +charges are sent up (with another nurse, perhaps) to pay her a short +visit. How bright these visits seem as she looks forward to them +on her lonely bed! How unsatisfactory their realisation, when +the forgetful child, half wondering, checks with every word and action +the outpouring of her maternal love! How bitter and restless the +memories that they leave behind! And for the rest, what else has +she? - to watch them with eager eyes as they go to school, to sit in +church where she can see them every Sunday, to be passed some day unnoticed +in the street, or deliberately cut because the great man or the great +woman are with friends before whom they are ashamed to recognise the +old woman that loved them.<br> +<br> +When she goes home that night, how lonely will the room appear to her! +Perhaps the neighbours may hear her sobbing to herself in the dark, +with the fire burnt out for want of fuel, and the candle still unlit +upon the table.<br> +<br> +And it is for this that they live, these quasi-mothers - mothers in +everything but the travail and the thanks. It is for this that +they have remained virtuous in youth, living the dull life of a household +servant. It is for this that they refused the old sweetheart, +and have no fireside or offspring of their own.<br> +<br> +I believe in a better state of things, that there will be no more nurses, +and that every mother will nurse her own offspring; for what can be +more hardening and demoralising than to call forth the tenderest feelings +of a woman’s heart and cherish them yourself as long as you need +them, as long as your children require a nurse to love them, and then +to blight and thwart and destroy them, whenever your own use for them +is at an end. This may be Utopian; but it is always a little thing +if one mother or two mothers can be brought to feel more tenderly to +those who share their toil and have no part in their reward.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER V - A CHARACTER<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +The man has a red, bloated face, and his figure is short and squat. +So far there is nothing in him to notice, but when you see his eyes, +you can read in these hard and shallow orbs a depravity beyond measure +depraved, a thirst after wickedness, the pure, disinterested love of +Hell for its own sake. The other night, in the street, I was watching +an omnibus passing with lit-up windows, when I heard some one coughing +at my side as though he would cough his soul out; and turning round, +I saw him stopping under a lamp, with a brown greatcoat buttoned round +him and his whole face convulsed. It seemed as if he could not +live long; and so the sight set my mind upon a train of thought, as +I finished my cigar up and down the lighted streets.<br> +<br> +He is old, but all these years have not yet quenched his thirst for +evil, and his eyes still delight themselves in wickedness. He +is dumb; but he will not let that hinder his foul trade, or perhaps +I should say, his yet fouler amusement, and he has pressed a slate into +the service of corruption. Look at him, and he will sign to you +with his bloated head, and when you go to him in answer to the sign, +thinking perhaps that the poor dumb man has lost his way, you will see +what he writes upon his slate. He haunts the doors of schools, +and shows such inscriptions as these to the innocent children that come +out. He hangs about picture-galleries, and makes the noblest pictures +the text for some silent homily of vice. His industry is a lesson +to ourselves. Is it not wonderful how he can triumph over his +infirmities and do such an amount of harm without a tongue? Wonderful +industry - strange, fruitless, pleasureless toil? Must not the +very devil feel a soft emotion to see his disinterested and laborious +service? Ah, but the devil knows better than this: he knows that +this man is penetrated with the love of evil and that all his pleasure +is shut up in wickedness: he recognises him, perhaps, as a fit type +for mankind of his satanic self, and watches over his effigy as we might +watch over a favourite likeness. As the business man comes to +love the toil, which he only looked upon at first as a ladder towards +other desires and less unnatural gratifications, so the dumb man has +felt the charm of his trade and fallen captivated before the eyes of +sin. It is a mistake when preachers tell us that vice is hideous +and loathsome; for even vice has her Hörsel and her devotees, who +love her for her own sake.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE GREAT NORTH ROAD<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER I - NANCE AT THE ‘GREEN DRAGON’<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Nance Holdaway was on her knees before the fire blowing the green wood +that voluminously smoked upon the dogs, and only now and then shot forth +a smothered flame; her knees already ached and her eyes smarted, for +she had been some while at this ungrateful task, but her mind was gone +far away to meet the coming stranger. Now she met him in the wood, +now at the castle gate, now in the kitchen by candle-light; each fresh +presentment eclipsed the one before; a form so elegant, manners so sedate, +a countenance so brave and comely, a voice so winning and resolute - +sure such a man was never seen! The thick-coming fancies poured +and brightened in her head like the smoke and flames upon the hearth.<br> +<br> +Presently the heavy foot of her uncle Jonathan was heard upon the stair, +and as he entered the room she bent the closer to her work. He +glanced at the green fagots with a sneer, and looked askance at the +bed and the white sheets, at the strip of carpet laid, like an island, +on the great expanse of the stone floor, and at the broken glazing of +the casement clumsily repaired with paper.<br> +<br> +‘Leave that fire a-be,’ he cried. ‘What, have +I toiled all my life to turn innkeeper at the hind end? Leave +it a-be, I say.’<br> +<br> +‘La, uncle, it doesn’t burn a bit; it only smokes,’ +said Nance, looking up from her position.<br> +<br> +‘You are come of decent people on both sides,’ returned +the old man. ‘Who are you to blow the coals for any Robin-run-agate? +Get up, get on your hood, make yourself useful, and be off to the “Green +Dragon.”’<br> +<br> +‘I thought you was to go yourself,’ Nance faltered.<br> +<br> +‘So did I,’ quoth Jonathan; ‘but it appears I was +mistook.’<br> +<br> +The very excess of her eagerness alarmed her, and she began to hang +back. ‘I think I would rather not, dear uncle,’ she +said. ‘Night is at hand, and I think, dear, I would rather +not.’<br> +<br> +‘Now you look here,’ replied Jonathan, ‘I have my +lord’s orders, have I not? Little he gives me, but it’s +all my livelihood. And do you fancy, if I disobey my lord, I’m +likely to turn round for a lass like you? No, I’ve that +hell-fire of pain in my old knee, I wouldn’t walk a mile, not +for King George upon his bended knees.’ And he walked to +the window and looked down the steep scarp to where the river foamed +in the bottom of the dell.<br> +<br> +Nance stayed for no more bidding. In her own room, by the glimmer +of the twilight, she washed her hands and pulled on her Sunday mittens; +adjusted her black hood, and tied a dozen times its cherry ribbons; +and in less than ten minutes, with a fluttering heart and excellently +bright eyes, she passed forth under the arch and over the bridge, into +the thickening shadows of the groves. A well-marked wheel-track +conducted her. The wood, which upon both sides of the river dell +was a mere scrambling thicket of hazel, hawthorn, and holly, boasted +on the level of more considerable timber. Beeches came to a good +growth, with here and there an oak; and the track now passed under a +high arcade of branches, and now ran under the open sky in glades. +As the girl proceeded these glades became more frequent, the trees began +again to decline in size, and the wood to degenerate into furzy coverts. +Last of all there was a fringe of elders; and beyond that the track +came forth upon an open, rolling moorland, dotted with wind-bowed and +scanty bushes, and all golden brown with the winter, like a grouse. +Right over against the girl the last red embers of the sunset burned +under horizontal clouds; the night fell clear and still and frosty, +and the track in low and marshy passages began to crackle under foot +with ice.<br> +<br> +Some half a mile beyond the borders of the wood the lights of the ‘Green +Dragon’ hove in sight, and running close beside them, very faint +in the dying dusk, the pale ribbon of the Great North Road. It +was the back of the post-house that was presented to Nance Holdaway; +and as she continued to draw near and the night to fall more completely, +she became aware of an unusual brightness and bustle. A post-chaise +stood in the yard, its lamps already lighted: light shone hospitably +in the windows and from the open door; moving lights and shadows testified +to the activity of servants bearing lanterns. The clank of pails, +the stamping of hoofs on the firm causeway, the jingle of harness, and, +last of all, the energetic hissing of a groom, began to fall upon her +ear. By the stir you would have thought the mail was at the door, +but it was still too early in the night. The down mail was not +due at the ‘Green Dragon’ for hard upon an hour; the up +mail from Scotland not before two in the black morning.<br> +<br> +Nance entered the yard somewhat dazzled. Sam, the tall ostler, +was polishing a curb-chain wit sand; the lantern at his feet letting +up spouts of candle-light through the holes with which its conical roof +was peppered.<br> +<br> +‘Hey, miss,’ said he jocularly, ‘you won’t look +at me any more, now you have gentry at the castle.’<br> +<br> +Her cheeks burned with anger.<br> +<br> +‘That’s my lord’s chay,’ the man continued, +nodding at the chaise, ‘Lord Windermoor’s. Came all +in a fluster - dinner, bowl of punch, and put the horses to. For all +the world like a runaway match, my dear - bar the bride. He brought +Mr. Archer in the chay with him.’<br> +<br> +‘Is that Holdaway?’ cried the landlord from the lighted +entry, where he stood shading his eyes.<br> +<br> +‘Only me, sir,’ answered Nance.<br> +<br> +‘O, you, Miss Nance,’ he said. ‘Well, come in +quick, my pretty. My lord is waiting for your uncle.’<br> +<br> +And he ushered Nance into a room cased with yellow wainscot and lighted +by tall candles, where two gentlemen sat at a table finishing a bowl +of punch. One of these was stout, elderly, and irascible, with +a face like a full moon, well dyed with liquor, thick tremulous lips, +a short, purple hand, in which he brandished a long pipe, and an abrupt +and gobbling utterance. This was my Lord Windermoor. In +his companion Nance beheld a younger man, tall, quiet, grave, demurely +dressed, and wearing his own hair. Her glance but lighted on him, +and she flushed, for in that second she made sure that she had twice +betrayed herself - betrayed by the involuntary flash of her black eyes +her secret impatience to behold this new companion, and, what was far +worse, betrayed her disappointment in the realisation of her dreams. +He, meanwhile, as if unconscious, continued to regard her with unmoved +decorum.<br> +<br> +‘O, a man of wood,’ thought Nance.<br> +<br> +‘What - what?’ said his lordship. ‘Who is this?’<br> +<br> +‘If you please, my lord, I am Holdaway’s niece,’ replied +Nance, with a curtsey.<br> +<br> +‘Should have been here himself,’ observed his lordship. +‘Well, you tell Holdaway that I’m aground, not a stiver +- not a stiver. I’m running from the beagles - going abroad, +tell Holdaway. And he need look for no more wages: glad of ’em +myself, if I could get ’em. He can live in the castle if +he likes, or go to the devil. O, and here is Mr. Archer; and I +recommend him to take him in - a friend of mine - and Mr. Archer will +pay, as I wrote. And I regard that in the light of a precious +good thing for Holdaway, let me tell you, and a set-off against the +wages.’<br> +<br> +‘But O, my lord!’ cried Nance, ‘we live upon the wages, +and what are we to do without?’<br> +<br> +‘What am I to do? - what am I to do?’ replied Lord Windermoor +with some exasperation. ‘I have no wages. And there +is Mr. Archer. And if Holdaway doesn’t like it, he can go +to the devil, and you with him! - and you with him!’<br> +<br> +‘And yet, my lord,’ said Mr. Archer, ‘these good people +will have as keen a sense of loss as you or I; keener, perhaps, since +they have done nothing to deserve it.’<br> +<br> +‘Deserve it?’ cried the peer. ‘What? What? +If a rascally highwayman comes up to me with a confounded pistol, do +you say that I’ve deserved it? How often am I to tell you, +sir, that I was cheated - that I was cheated?’<br> +<br> +‘You are happy in the belief,’ returned Mr. Archer gravely.<br> +<br> +‘Archer, you would be the death of me!’ exclaimed his lordship. +‘You know you’re drunk; you know it, sir; and yet you can’t +get up a spark of animation.’<br> +<br> +‘I have drunk fair, my lord,’ replied the younger man; ‘but +I own I am conscious of no exhilaration.’<br> +<br> +‘If you had as black a look-out as me, sir,’ cried the peer, +‘you would be very glad of a little innocent exhilaration, let +me tell you. I am glad of it - glad of it, and I only wish I was +drunker. For let me tell you it’s a cruel hard thing upon +a man of my time of life and my position, to be brought down to beggary +because the world is full of thieves and rascals - thieves and rascals. +What? For all I know, you may be a thief and a rascal yourself; +and I would fight you for a pinch of snuff - a pinch of snuff,’ +exclaimed his lordship.<br> +<br> +Here Mr. Archer turned to Nance Holdaway with a pleasant smile, so full +of sweetness, kindness, and composure that, at one bound, her dreams +returned to her. ‘My good Miss Holdaway,’ said he, +‘if you are willing to show me the road, I am even eager to be +gone. As for his lordship and myself, compose yourself; there +is no fear; this is his lordship’s way.’<br> +<br> +‘What? what?’ cried his lordship. ‘My way? +Ish no such a thing, my way.’<br> +<br> +‘Come, my lord,’ cried Archer; ‘you and I very thoroughly +understand each other; and let me suggest, it is time that both of us +were gone. The mail will soon be due. Here, then, my lord, +I take my leave of you, with the most earnest assurance of my gratitude +for the past, and a sincere offer of any services I may be able to render +in the future.’<br> +<br> +‘Archer,’ exclaimed Lord Windermoor, ‘I love you like +a son. Le’ ’s have another bowl.’<br> +<br> +‘My lord, for both our sakes, you will excuse me,’ replied +Mr. Archer. ‘We both require caution; we must both, for +some while at least, avoid the chance of a pursuit.’<br> +<br> +‘Archer,’ quoth his lordship, ‘this is a rank ingratishood. +What? I’m to go firing away in the dark in the cold po’chaise, +and not so much as a game of écarté possible, unless I +stop and play with the postillion, the postillion; and the whole country +swarming with thieves and rascals and highwaymen.’<br> +<br> +‘I beg your lordship’s pardon,’ put in the landlord, +who now appeared in the doorway to announce the chaise, ‘but this +part of the North Road is known for safety. There has not been +a robbery, to call a robbery, this five years’ time. Further +south, of course, it’s nearer London, and another story,’ +he added.<br> +<br> +‘Well, then, if that’s so,’ concluded my lord, ‘le’ +’s have t’other bowl and a pack of cards.’<br> +<br> +‘My lord, you forget,’ said Archer, ‘I might still +gain; but it is hardly possible for me to lose.’<br> +<br> +‘Think I’m a sharper?’ inquired the peer. ‘Gen’leman’s +parole’s all I ask.’<br> +<br> +But Mr. Archer was proof against these blandishments, and said farewell +gravely enough to Lord Windermoor, shaking his hand and at the same +time bowing very low. ‘You will never know,’ says +he, ‘the service you have done me.’ And with that, +and before my lord had finally taken up his meaning, he had slipped +about the table, touched Nance lightly but imperiously on the arm, and +left the room. In face of the outbreak of his lordship’s +lamentations she made haste to follow the truant.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER II - IN WHICH MR. ARCHER IS INSTALLED<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +The chaise had been driven round to the front door; the courtyard lay +all deserted, and only lit by a lantern set upon a window-sill. +Through this Nance rapidly led the way, and began to ascend the swellings +of the moor with a heart that somewhat fluttered in her bosom. +She was not afraid, but in the course of these last passages with Lord +Windermoor Mr. Archer had ascended to that pedestal on which her fancy +waited to instal him. The reality, she felt, excelled her dreams, +and this cold night walk was the first romantic incident in her experience.<br> +<br> +It was the rule in these days to see gentlemen unsteady after dinner, +yet Nance was both surprised and amused when her companion, who had +spoken so soberly, began to stumble and waver by her side with the most +airy divagations. Sometimes he would get so close to her that +she must edge away; and at others lurch clear out of the track and plough +among deep heather. His courtesy and gravity meanwhile remained +unaltered. He asked her how far they had to go; whether the way +lay all upon the moorland, and when he learned they had to pass a wood +expressed his pleasure. ‘For,’ said he, ‘I am +passionately fond of trees. Trees and fair lawns, if you consider +of it rightly, are the ornaments of nature, as palaces and fine approaches +- ’ And here he stumbled into a patch of slough and nearly +fell. The girl had hard work not to laugh, but at heart she was +lost in admiration for one who talked so elegantly.<br> +<br> +They had got to about a quarter of a mile from the ‘Green Dragon,’ +and were near the summit of the rise, when a sudden rush of wheels arrested +them. Turning and looking back, they saw the post-house, now much +declined in brightness; and speeding away northward the two tremulous +bright dots of my Lord Windermoor’s chaise-lamps. Mr. Archer +followed these yellow and unsteady stars until they dwindled into points +and disappeared.<br> +<br> +‘There goes my only friend,’ he said. ‘Death +has cut off those that loved me, and change of fortune estranged my +flatterers; and but for you, poor bankrupt, my life is as lonely as +this moor.’<br> +<br> +The tone of his voice affected both of them. They stood there +on the side of the moor, and became thrillingly conscious of the void +waste of the night, without a feature for the eye, and except for the +fainting whisper of the carriage-wheels without a murmur for the ear. +And instantly, like a mockery, there broke out, very far away, but clear +and jolly, the note of the mail-guard’s horn. ‘Over +the hills’ was his air. It rose to the two watchers on the +moor with the most cheerful sentiment of human company and travel, and +at the same time in and around the ‘Green Dragon’ it woke +up a great bustle of lights running to and fro and clattering hoofs. +Presently after, out of the darkness to southward, the mail grew near +with a growing rumble. Its lamps were very large and bright, and +threw their radiance forward in overlapping cones; the four cantering +horses swarmed and steamed; the body of the coach followed like a great +shadow; and this lit picture slid with a sort of ineffectual swiftness +over the black field of night, and was eclipsed by the buildings of +the ‘Green Dragon.’<br> +<br> +Mr. Archer turned abruptly and resumed his former walk; only that he +was now more steady, kept better alongside his young conductor, and +had fallen into a silence broken by sighs. Nance waxed very pitiful +over his fate, contrasting an imaginary past of courts and great society, +and perhaps the King himself, with the tumbledown ruin in a wood to +which she was now conducting him.<br> +<br> +‘You must try, sir, to keep your spirits up,’ said she. +‘To be sure this is a great change for one like you; but who knows +the future?’<br> +<br> +Mr. Archer turned towards her in the darkness, and she could clearly +perceive that he smiled upon her very kindly. ‘There spoke +a sweet nature,’ said he, ‘and I must thank you for these +words. But I would not have you fancy that I regret the past for +any happiness found in it, or that I fear the simplicity and hardship +of the country. I am a man that has been much tossed about in +life; now up, now down; and do you think that I shall not be able to +support what you support - you who are kind, and therefore know how +to feel pain; who are beautiful, and therefore hope; who are young, +and therefore (or am I the more mistaken?) discontented?’<br> +<br> +‘Nay, sir, not that, at least,’ said Nance; ‘not discontented. +If I were to be discontented, how should I look those that have real +sorrows in the face? I have faults enough, but not that fault; +and I have my merits too, for I have a good opinion of myself. +But for beauty, I am not so simple but that I can tell a banter from +a compliment.’<br> +<br> +‘Nay, nay,’ said Mr. Archer, ‘I had half forgotten; +grief is selfish, and I was thinking of myself and not of you, or I +had never blurted out so bold a piece of praise. ’Tis the +best proof of my sincerity. But come, now, I would lay a wager +you are no coward?’<br> +<br> +‘Indeed, sir, I am not more afraid than another,’ said Nance. +‘None of my blood are given to fear.’<br> +<br> +‘And you are honest?’ he returned.<br> +<br> +‘I will answer for that,’ said she.<br> +<br> +‘Well, then, to be brave, to be honest, to be kind, and to be +contented, since you say you are so - is not that to fill up a great +part of virtue?’<br> +<br> +‘I fear you are but a flatterer,’ said Nance, but she did +not say it clearly, for what with bewilderment and satisfaction, her +heart was quite oppressed.<br> +<br> +There could be no harm, certainly, in these grave compliments; but yet +they charmed and frightened her, and to find favour, for reasons however +obscure, in the eyes of this elegant, serious, and most unfortunate +young gentleman, was a giddy elevation, was almost an apotheosis, for +a country maid.<br> +<br> +But she was to be no more exercised; for Mr. Archer, disclaiming any +thought of flattery, turned off to other subjects, and held her all +through the wood in conversation, addressing her with an air of perfect +sincerity, and listening to her answers with every mark of interest. +Had open flattery continued, Nance would have soon found refuge in good +sense; but the more subtle lure she could not suspect, much less avoid. +It was the first time she had ever taken part in a conversation illuminated +by any ideas. All was then true that she had heard and dreamed +of gentlemen; they were a race apart, like deities knowing good and +evil. And then there burst upon her soul a divine thought, hope’s +glorious sunrise: since she could understand, since it seemed that she +too, even she, could interest this sorrowful Apollo, might she not learn? +or was she not learning? Would not her soul awake and put forth +wings? Was she not, in fact, an enchanted princess, waiting but +a touch to become royal? She saw herself transformed, radiantly +attired, but in the most exquisite taste: her face grown longer and +more refined; her tint etherealised; and she heard herself with delighted +wonder talking like a book.<br> +<br> +Meanwhile they had arrived at where the track comes out above the river +dell, and saw in front of them the castle, faintly shadowed on the night, +covering with its broken battlements a bold projection of the bank, +and showing at the extreme end, where were the habitable tower and wing, +some crevices of candle-light. Hence she called loudly upon her +uncle, and he was seen to issue, lantern in hand, from the tower door, +and, where the ruins did not intervene, to pick his way over the swarded +courtyard, avoiding treacherous cellars and winding among blocks of +fallen masonry. The arch of the great gate was still entire, flanked +by two tottering bastions, and it was here that Jonathan met them, standing +at the edge of the bridge, bent somewhat forward, and blinking at them +through the glow of his own lantern. Mr. Archer greeted him with +civility; but the old man was in no humour of compliance. He guided +the newcomer across the court-yard, looking sharply and quickly in his +face, and grumbling all the time about the cold, and the discomfort +and dilapidation of the castle. He was sure he hoped that Mr. +Archer would like it; but in truth he could not think what brought him +there. Doubtless he had a good reason - this with a look of cunning +scrutiny - but, indeed, the place was quite unfit for any person of +repute; he himself was eaten up with the rheumatics. It was the +most rheumaticky place in England, and some fine day the whole habitable +part (to call it habitable) would fetch away bodily and go down the +slope into the river. He had seen the cracks widening; there was +a plaguy issue in the bank below; he thought a spring was mining it; +it might be to-morrow, it might be next day; but they were all sure +of a come-down sooner or later. ‘And that is a poor death,’ +said he, ‘for any one, let alone a gentleman, to have a whole +old ruin dumped upon his belly. Have a care to your left there; +these cellar vaults have all broke down, and the grass and hemlock hide +’em. Well, sir, here is welcome to you, such as it is, and +wishing you well away.’<br> +<br> +And with that Jonathan ushered his guest through the tower door, and +down three steps on the left hand into the kitchen or common room of +the castle. It was a huge, low room, as large as a meadow, occupying +the whole width of the habitable wing, with six barred windows looking +on the court, and two into the river valley. A dresser, a table, +and a few chairs stood dotted here and there upon the uneven flags. +Under the great chimney a good fire burned in an iron fire-basket; a +high old settee, rudely carved with figures and Gothic lettering, flanked +it on either side; there was a hinge table and a stone bench in the +chimney corner, and above the arch hung guns, axes, lanterns, and great +sheaves of rusty keys.<br> +<br> +Jonathan looked about him, holding up the lantern, and shrugged his +shoulders, with a pitying grimace. ‘Here it is,’ he +said. ‘See the damp on the floor, look at the moss; where +there’s moss you may be sure that it’s rheumaticky. +Try and get near that fire for to warm yourself; it’ll blow the +coat off your back. And with a young gentleman with a face like +yours, as pale as a tallow-candle, I’d be afeard of a churchyard +cough and a galloping decline,’ says Jonathan, naming the maladies +with gloomy gusto, ‘or the cold might strike and turn your blood,’ +he added.<br> +<br> +Mr. Archer fairly laughed. ‘My good Mr. Holdaway,’ +said he, ‘I was born with that same tallow-candle face, and the +only fear that you inspire me with is the fear that I intrude unwelcomely +upon your private hours. But I think I can promise you that I +am very little troublesome, and I am inclined to hope that the terms +which I can offer may still pay you the derangement.’<br> +<br> +‘Yes, the terms,’ said Jonathan, ‘I was thinking of +that. As you say, they are very small,’ and he shook his +head.<br> +<br> +‘Unhappily, I can afford no more,’ said Mr. Archer. +‘But this we have arranged already,’ he added with a certain +stiffness; ‘and as I am aware that Miss Holdaway has matter to +communicate, I will, if you permit, retire at once. To-night I +must bivouac; to-morrow my trunk is to follow from the “Dragon.” +So if you will show me to my room I shall wish you a good slumber and +a better awakening.’<br> +<br> +Jonathan silently gave the lantern to Nance, and she, turning and curtseying +in the doorway, proceeded to conduct their guest up the broad winding +staircase of the tower. He followed with a very brooding face.<br> +<br> +‘Alas!’ cried Nance, as she entered the room, ‘your +fire black out,’ and, setting down the lantern, she clapped upon +her knees before the chimney and began to rearrange the charred and +still smouldering remains. Mr. Archer looked about the gaunt apartment +with a sort of shudder. The great height, the bare stone, the +shattered windows, the aspect of the uncurtained bed, with one of its +four fluted columns broken short, all struck a chill upon his fancy. +From this dismal survey his eyes returned to Nance crouching before +the fire, the candle in one hand and artfully puffing at the embers; +the flames as they broke forth played upon the soft outline of her cheek +- she was alive and young, coloured with the bright hues of life, and +a woman. He looked upon her, softening; and then sat down and +continued to admire the picture.<br> +<br> +‘There, sir,’ said she, getting upon her feet, ‘your +fire is doing bravely now. Good-night.’<br> +<br> +He rose and held out his hand. ‘Come,’ said he, ‘you +are my only friend in these parts, and you must shake hands.’<br> +<br> +She brushed her hand upon her skirt and offered it, blushing.<br> +<br> +‘God bless you, my dear,’ said he.<br> +<br> +And then, when he was alone, he opened one of the windows, and stared +down into the dark valley. A gentle wimpling of the river among +stones ascended to his ear; the trees upon the other bank stood very +black against the sky; farther away an owl was hooting. It was +dreary and cold, and as he turned back to the hearth and the fine glow +of fire, ‘Heavens!’ said he to himself, ‘what an unfortunate +destiny is mine!’<br> +<br> +He went to bed, but sleep only visited his pillow in uneasy snatches. +Outbreaks of loud speech came up the staircase; he heard the old stones +of the castle crack in the frosty night with sharp reverberations, and +the bed complained under his tossings. Lastly, far on into the +morning, he awakened from a doze to hear, very far off, in the extreme +and breathless quiet, a wailing flourish on the horn. The down +mail was drawing near to the ‘Green Dragon.’ He sat +up in bed; the sound was tragical by distance, and the modulation appealed +to his ear like human speech. It seemed to call upon him with +a dreary insistence - to call him far away, to address him personally, +and to have a meaning that he failed to seize. It was thus, at +least, in this nodding castle, in a cold, miry woodland, and so far +from men and society, that the traffic on the Great North Road spoke +to him in the intervals of slumber.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER III - JONATHAN HOLDAWAY<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Nance descended the tower stair, pausing at every step. She was +in no hurry to confront her uncle with bad news, and she must dwell +a little longer on the rich note of Mr. Archer’s voice, the charm +of his kind words, and the beauty of his manner and person. But, +once at the stair-foot, she threw aside the spell and recovered her +sensible and workaday self.<br> +<br> +Jonathan was seated in the middle of the settle, a mug of ale beside +him, in the attitude of one prepared for trouble; but he did not speak, +and suffered her to fetch her supper and eat of it, with a very excellent +appetite, in silence. When she had done, she, too, drew a tankard +of home-brewed, and came and planted herself in front of him upon the +settle.<br> +<br> +‘Well?’ said Jonathan.<br> +<br> +‘My lord has run away,’ said Nance.<br> +<br> +‘What?’ cried the old man.<br> +<br> +‘Abroad,’ she continued; ‘run away from creditors. +He said he had not a stiver, but he was drunk enough. He said +you might live on in the castle, and Mr. Archer would pay you; but you +was to look for no more wages, since he would be glad of them himself.’<br> +<br> +Jonathan’s face contracted; the flush of a black, bilious anger +mounted to the roots of his hair; he gave an inarticulate cry, leapt +upon his feet, and began rapidly pacing the stone floor. At first +he kept his hands behind his back in a tight knot; then he began to +gesticulate as he turned.<br> +<br> +‘This man - this lord,’ he shouted, ‘who is he? +He was born with a gold spoon in his mouth, and I with a dirty straw. +He rolled in his coach when he was a baby. I have dug and toiled +and laboured since I was that high - that high.’ And he +shouted again. ‘I’m bent and broke, and full of pains. +D’ ye think I don’t know the taste of sweat? Many’s +the gallon I’ve drunk of it - ay, in the midwinter, toiling like +a slave. All through, what has my life been? Bend, bend, +bend my old creaking back till it would ache like breaking; wade about +in the foul mire, never a dry stitch; empty belly, sore hands, hat off +to my Lord Redface; kicks and ha’pence; and now, here, at the +hind end, when I’m worn to my poor bones, a kick and done with +it.’ He walked a little while in silence, and then, extending +his hand, ‘Now you, Nance Holdaway,’ says he, ‘you +come of my blood, and you’re a good girl. When that man +was a boy, I used to carry his gun for him. I carried the gun +all day on my two feet, and many a stitch I had, and chewed a bullet +for. He rode upon a horse, with feathers in his hat; but it was +him that had the shots and took the game home. Did I complain? +Not I. I knew my station. What did I ask, but just the chance +to live and die honest? Nance Holdaway, don’t let them deny +it to me - don’t let them do it. I’ve been as poor +as Job, and as honest as the day, but now, my girl, you mark these words +of mine, I’m getting tired of it.’<br> +<br> +‘I wouldn’t say such words, at least,’ said Nance.<br> +<br> +‘You wouldn’t?’ said the old man grimly. ‘Well, +and did I when I was your age? Wait till your back’s broke +and your hands tremble, and your eyes fail, and you’re weary of +the battle and ask no more but to lie down in your bed and give the +ghost up like an honest man; and then let there up and come some insolent, +ungodly fellow - ah! if I had him in these hands! “Where’s +my money that you gambled?” I should say. “Where’s +my money that you drank and diced?” “Thief!” +is what I would say; “Thief!”’ he roared, ‘“Thief”’<br> +<br> +‘Mr. Archer will hear you if you don’t take care,’ +said Nance, ‘and I would be ashamed, for one, that he should hear +a brave, old, honest, hard-working man like Jonathan Holdaway talk nonsense +like a boy.’<br> +<br> +‘D’ ye think I mind for Mr. Archer?’ he cried shrilly, +with a clack of laughter; and then he came close up to her, stooped +down with his two palms upon his knees, and looked her in the eyes, +with a strange hard expression, something like a smile. ‘Do +I mind for God, my girl?’ he said; ‘that’s what it’s +come to be now, do I mind for God?’<br> +<br> +‘Uncle Jonathan,’ she said, getting up and taking him by +the arm; ‘you sit down again, where you were sitting. There, +sit still; I’ll have no more of this; you’ll do yourself +a mischief. Come, take a drink of this good ale, and I’ll +warm a tankard for you. La, we’ll pull through, you’ll +see. I’m young, as you say, and it’s my turn to carry +the bundle; and don’t you worry your bile, or we’ll have +sickness, too, as well as sorrow.’<br> +<br> +‘D’ ye think that I’d forgotten you?’ said Jonathan, +with something like a groan; and thereupon his teeth clicked to, and +he sat silent with the tankard in his hand and staring straight before +him.<br> +<br> +‘Why,’ says Nance, setting on the ale to mull, ‘men +are always children, they say, however old; and if ever I heard a thing +like this, to set to and make yourself sick, just when the money’s +failing. Keep a good heart up; you haven’t kept a good heart +these seventy years, nigh hand, to break down about a pound or two. +Here’s this Mr. Archer come to lodge, that you disliked so much. +Well, now you see it was a clear Providence. Come, let’s +think upon our mercies. And here is the ale mulling lovely; smell +of it; I’ll take a drop myself, it smells so sweet. And, +Uncle Jonathan, you let me say one word. You’ve lost more +than money before now; you lost my aunt, and bore it like a man. +Bear this.’<br> +<br> +His face once more contracted; his fist doubled, and shot forth into +the air, and trembled. ‘Let them look out!’ he shouted. +‘Here, I warn all men; I’ve done with this foul kennel of +knaves. Let them look out!’<br> +<br> +‘Hush, hush! for pity’s sake,’ cried Nance.<br> +<br> +And then all of a sudden he dropped his face into his hands, and broke +out with a great hiccoughing dry sob that was horrible to hear. +‘O,’ he cried, ‘my God, if my son hadn’t left +me, if my Dick was here!’ and the sobs shook him; Nance sitting +still and watching him, with distress. ‘O, if he were here +to help his father!’ he went on again. ‘If I had a +son like other fathers, he would save me now, when all is breaking down; +O, he would save me! Ay, but where is he? Raking taverns, +a thief perhaps. My curse be on him!’ he added, rising again +into wrath.<br> +<br> +‘Hush!’ cried Nance, springing to her feet: ‘your +boy, your dead wife’s boy - Aunt Susan’s baby that she loved +- would you curse him? O, God forbid!’<br> +<br> +The energy of her address surprised him from his mood. He looked +upon her, tearless and confused. ‘Let me go to my bed,’ +he said at last, and he rose, and, shaking as with ague, but quite silent, +lighted his candle, and left the kitchen.<br> +<br> +Poor Nance! the pleasant current of her dreams was all diverted. +She beheld a golden city, where she aspired to dwell; she had spoken +with a deity, and had told herself that she might rise to be his equal; +and now the earthly ligaments that bound her down had been tightened. +She was like a tree looking skyward, her roots were in the ground. +It seemed to her a thing so coarse, so rustic, to be thus concerned +about a loss in money; when Mr. Archer, fallen from the sky-level of +counts and nobles, faced his changed destiny with so immovable a courage. +To weary of honesty; that, at least, no one could do, but even to name +it was already a disgrace; and she beheld in fancy her uncle, and the +young lad, all laced and feathered, hand upon hip, bestriding his small +horse. The opposition seemed to perpetuate itself from generation +to generation; one side still doomed to the clumsy and the servile, +the other born to beauty.<br> +<br> +She thought of the golden zones in which gentlemen were bred, and figured +with so excellent a grace; zones in which wisdom and smooth words, white +linen and slim hands, were the mark of the desired inhabitants; where +low temptations were unknown, and honesty no virtue, but a thing as +natural as breathing.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER IV - MINGLING THREADS<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +It was nearly seven before Mr. Archer left his apartment. On the +landing he found another door beside his own opening on a roofless corridor, +and presently he was walking on the top of the ruins. On one hand +he could look down a good depth into the green court-yard; on the other +his eye roved along the downward course of the river, the wet woods +all smoking, the shadows long and blue, the mists golden and rosy in +the sun, here and there the water flashing across an obstacle. +His heart expanded and softened to a grateful melancholy, and with his +eye fixed upon the distance, and no thought of present danger, he continued +to stroll along the elevated and treacherous promenade.<br> +<br> +A terror-stricken cry rose to him from the courtyard. He looked +down, and saw in a glimpse Nance standing below with hands clasped in +horror and his own foot trembling on the margin of a gulf. He +recoiled and leant against a pillar, quaking from head to foot, and +covering his face with his hands; and Nance had time to run round by +the stair and rejoin him where he stood before he had changed a line +of his position.<br> +<br> +‘Ah!’ he cried, and clutched her wrist; ‘don’t +leave me. The place rocks; I have no head for altitudes.’<br> +<br> +‘Sit down against that pillar,’ said Nance. ‘Don’t +you be afraid; I won’t leave you, and don’t look up or down: +look straight at me. How white you are!’<br> +<br> +‘The gulf,’ he said, and closed his eyes again and shuddered.<br> +<br> +‘Why,’ said Nance, ‘what a poor climber you must be! +That was where my cousin Dick used to get out of the castle after Uncle +Jonathan had shut the gate. I’ve been down there myself +with him helping me. I wouldn’t try with you,’ she +said, and laughed merrily.<br> +<br> +The sound of her laughter was sincere and musical, and perhaps its beauty +barbed the offence to Mr. Archer. The blood came into his face +with a quick jet, and then left it paler than before. ‘It +is a physical weakness,’ he said harshly, ‘and very droll, +no doubt, but one that I can conquer on necessity. See, I am still +shaking. Well, I advance to the battlements and look down. +Show me your cousin’s path.’<br> +<br> +‘He would go sure-foot along that little ledge,’ said Nance, +pointing as she spoke; ‘then out through the breach and down by +yonder buttress. It is easier coming back, of course, because +you see where you are going. From the buttress foot a sheep-walk +goes along the scarp - see, you can follow it from here in the dry grass. +And now, sir,’ she added, with a touch of womanly pity, ‘I +would come away from here if I were you, for indeed you are not fit.’<br> +<br> +Sure enough Mr. Archer’s pallor and agitation had continued to +increase; his cheeks were deathly, his clenched fingers trembled pitifully. +‘The weakness is physical,’ he sighed, and had nearly fallen. +Nance led him from the spot, and he was no sooner back in the tower-stair, +than he fell heavily against the wall and put his arm across his eyes. +A cup of brandy had to be brought him before he could descend to breakfast; +and the perfection of Nance’s dream was for the first time troubled.<br> +<br> +Jonathan was waiting for them at table, with yellow, blood-shot eyes +and a peculiar dusky complexion. He hardly waited till they found +their seats, before, raising one hand, and stooping with his mouth above +his plate, he put up a prayer for a blessing on the food and a spirit +of gratitude in the eaters, and thereupon, and without more civility, +fell to. But it was notable that he was no less speedily satisfied +than he had been greedy to begin. He pushed his plate away and +drummed upon the table.<br> +<br> +‘These are silly prayers,’ said he, ‘that they teach +us. Eat and be thankful, that’s no such wonder. Speak +to me of starving - there’s the touch. You’re a man, +they tell me, Mr. Archer, that has met with some reverses?’<br> +<br> +‘I have met with many,’ replied Mr. Archer.<br> +<br> +‘Ha!’ said Jonathan. ‘None reckons but the last. +Now, see; I tried to make this girl here understand me.’<br> +<br> +‘Uncle,’ said Nance, ‘what should Mr. Archer care +for your concerns? He hath troubles of his own, and came to be +at peace, I think.’<br> +<br> +‘I tried to make her understand me,’ repeated Jonathan doggedly; +‘and now I’ll try you. Do you think this world is +fair?’<br> +<br> +‘Fair and false!’ quoth Mr. Archer.<br> +<br> +The old man laughed immoderately. ‘Good,’ said he, +‘very good, but what I mean is this: do you know what it is to +get up early and go to bed late, and never take so much as a holiday +but four: and one of these your own marriage day, and the other three +the funerals of folk you loved, and all that, to have a quiet old age +in shelter, and bread for your old belly, and a bed to lay your crazy +bones upon, with a clear conscience?’<br> +<br> +‘Sir,’ said Mr. Archer, with an inclination of his head, +‘you portray a very brave existence.’<br> +<br> +‘Well,’ continued Jonathan, ‘and in the end thieves +deceive you, thieves rob and rook you, thieves turn you out in your +old age and send you begging. What have you got for all your honesty? +A fine return! You that might have stole scores of pounds, there +you are out in the rain with your rheumatics!’<br> +<br> +Mr. Archer had forgotten to eat; with his hand upon his chin he was +studying the old man’s countenance. ‘And you conclude?’ +he asked.<br> +<br> +‘Conclude!’ cried Jonathan. ‘I conclude I’ll +be upsides with them.’<br> +<br> +‘Ay,’ said the other, ‘we are all tempted to revenge.’<br> +<br> +‘You have lost money?’ asked Jonathan.<br> +<br> +‘A great estate,’ said Archer quietly.<br> +<br> +‘See now!’ says Jonathan, ‘and where is it?’<br> +<br> +‘Nay, I sometimes think that every one has had his share of it +but me,’ was the reply. ‘All England hath paid his +taxes with my patrimony: I was a sheep that left my wool on every briar.’<br> +<br> +‘And you sit down under that?’ cried the old man. +‘Come now, Mr. Archer, you and me belong to different stations; +and I know mine - no man better - but since we have both been rooked, +and are both sore with it, why, here’s my hand with a very good +heart, and I ask for yours, and no offence, I hope.’<br> +<br> +‘There is surely no offence, my friend,’ returned Mr. Archer, +as they shook hands across the table; ‘for, believe me, my sympathies +are quite acquired to you. This life is an arena where we fight +with beasts; and, indeed,’ he added, sighing, ‘I sometimes +marvel why we go down to it unarmed.’<br> +<br> +In the meanwhile a creaking of ungreased axles had been heard descending +through the wood; and presently after, the door opened, and the tall +ostler entered the kitchen carrying one end of Mr. Archer’s trunk. +The other was carried by an aged beggar man of that district, known +and welcome for some twenty miles about under the name of ‘Old +Cumberland.’ Each was soon perched upon a settle, with a +cup of ale; and the ostler, who valued himself upon his affability, +began to entertain the company, still with half an eye on Nance, to +whom in gallant terms he expressly dedicated every sip of ale. +First he told of the trouble they had to get his Lordship started in +the chaise; and how he had dropped a rouleau of gold on the threshold, +and the passage and doorstep had been strewn with guinea-pieces. +At this old Jonathan looked at Mr. Archer. Next the visitor turned +to news of a more thrilling character: how the down mail had been stopped +again near Grantham by three men on horseback - a white and two bays; +how they had handkerchiefs on their faces; how Tom the guard’s +blunderbuss missed fire, but he swore he had winged one of them with +a pistol; and how they had got clean away with seventy pounds in money, +some valuable papers, and a watch or two.<br> +<br> +‘Brave! brave!’ cried Jonathan in ecstasy. ‘Seventy +pounds! O, it’s brave!’<br> +<br> +‘Well, I don’t see the great bravery,’ observed the +ostler, misapprehending him. ‘Three men, and you may call +that three to one. I’ll call it brave when some one stops +the mail single-handed; that’s a risk.’<br> +<br> +‘And why should they hesitate?’ inquired Mr. Archer. +‘The poor souls who are fallen to such a way of life, pray what +have they to lose? If they get the money, well; but if a ball +should put them from their troubles, why, so better.’<br> +<br> +‘Well, sir,’ said the ostler, ‘I believe you’ll +find they won’t agree with you. They count on a good fling, +you see; or who would risk it? - And here’s my best respects to +you, Miss Nance.’<br> +<br> +‘And I forgot the part of cowardice,’ resumed Mr. Archer. +‘All men fear.’<br> +<br> +‘O, surely not!’ cried Nance.<br> +<br> +‘All men,’ reiterated Mr. Archer.<br> +<br> +‘Ay, that’s a true word,’ observed Old Cumberland, +‘and a thief, anyway, for it’s a coward’s trade.’<br> +<br> +‘But these fellows, now,’ said Jonathan, with a curious, +appealing manner - ‘these fellows with their seventy pounds! +Perhaps, Mr. Archer, they were no true thieves after all, but just people +who had been robbed and tried to get their own again. What was +that you said, about all England and the taxes? One takes, another +gives; why, that’s almost fair. If I’ve been rooked +and robbed, and the coat taken off my back, I call it almost fair to +take another’s.’<br> +<br> +‘Ask Old Cumberland,’ observed the ostler; ‘you ask +Old Cumberland, Miss Nance!’ and he bestowed a wink upon his favoured +fair one.<br> +<br> +‘Why that?’ asked Jonathan.<br> +<br> +‘He had his coat taken - ay, and his shirt too,’ returned +the ostler.<br> +<br> +‘Is that so?’ cried Jonathan eagerly. ‘Was you +robbed too?’<br> +<br> +‘That was I,’ replied Cumberland, ‘with a warrant! +I was a well-to-do man when I was young.’<br> +<br> +‘Ay! See that!’ says Jonathan. ‘And you +don’t long for a revenge?’<br> +<br> +‘Eh! Not me!’ answered the beggar. ‘It’s +too long ago. But if you’ll give me another mug of your +good ale, my pretty lady, I won’t say no to that.’<br> +<br> +‘And shalt have! And shalt have!’ cried Jonathan. +‘Or brandy even, if you like it better.’<br> +<br> +And as Cumberland did like it better, and the ostler chimed in, the +party pledged each other in a dram of brandy before separating.<br> +<br> +As for Nance, she slipped forth into the ruins, partly to avoid the +ostler’s gallantries, partly to lament over the defects of Mr. +Archer. Plainly, he was no hero. She pitied him; she began +to feel a protecting interest mingle with and almost supersede her admiration, +and was at the same time disappointed and yet drawn to him. She +was, indeed, conscious of such unshaken fortitude in her own heart, +that she was almost tempted by an occasion to be bold for two. +She saw herself, in a brave attitude, shielding her imperfect hero from +the world; and she saw, like a piece of heaven, his gratitude for her +protection.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER V - LIFE IN THE CASTLE<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +From that day forth the life of these three persons in the ruin ran +very smoothly. Mr. Archer now sat by the fire with a book, and +now passed whole days abroad, returning late, dead weary. His +manner was a mask; but it was half transparent; through the even tenor +of his gravity and courtesy profound revolutions of feeling were betrayed, +seasons of numb despair, of restlessness, of aching temper. For +days he would say nothing beyond his usual courtesies and solemn compliments; +and then, all of a sudden, some fine evening beside the kitchen fire, +he would fall into a vein of elegant gossip, tell of strange and interesting +events, the secrets of families, brave deeds of war, the miraculous +discovery of crime, the visitations of the dead. Nance and her +uncle would sit till the small hours with eyes wide open: Jonathan applauding +the unexpected incidents with many a slap of his big hand; Nance, perhaps, +more pleased with the narrator’s eloquence and wise reflections; +and then, again, days would follow of abstraction, of listless humming, +of frequent apologies and long hours of silence. Once only, and +then after a week of unrelieved melancholy, he went over to the ‘Green +Dragon,’ spent the afternoon with the landlord and a bowl of punch, +and returned as on the first night, devious in step but courteous and +unperturbed of speech.<br> +<br> +If he seemed more natural and more at his ease it was when he found +Nance alone; and, laying by some of his reserve, talked before her rather +than to her of his destiny, character and hopes. To Nance these +interviews were but a doubtful privilege. At times he would seem +to take a pleasure in her presence, to consult her gravely, to hear +and to discuss her counsels; at times even, but these were rare and +brief, he would talk of herself, praise the qualities that she possessed, +touch indulgently on her defects, and lend her books to read and even +examine her upon her reading; but far more often he would fall into +a half unconsciousness, put her a question and then answer it himself, +drop into the veiled tone of voice of one soliloquising, and leave her +at last as though he had forgotten her existence. It was odd, +too, that in all this random converse, not a fact of his past life, +and scarce a name, should ever cross his lips. A profound reserve +kept watch upon his most unguarded moments. He spoke continually +of himself, indeed, but still in enigmas; a veiled prophet of egoism.<br> +<br> +The base of Nance’s feelings for Mr. Archer was admiration as +for a superior being; and with this, his treatment, consciously or not, +accorded happily. When he forgot her, she took the blame upon +herself. His formal politeness was so exquisite that this essential +brutality stood excused. His compliments, besides, were always +grave and rational; he would offer reason for his praise, convict her +of merit, and thus disarm suspicion. Nay, and the very hours when +he forgot and remembered her alternately could by the ardent fallacies +of youth be read in the light of an attention. She might be far +from his confidence; but still she was nearer it than any one. +He might ignore her presence, but yet he sought it.<br> +<br> +Moreover, she, upon her side, was conscious of one point of superiority. +Beside this rather dismal, rather effeminate man, who recoiled from +a worm, who grew giddy on the castle wall, who bore so helplessly the +weight of his misfortunes, she felt herself a head and shoulders taller +in cheerful and sterling courage. She could walk head in air along +the most precarious rafter; her hand feared neither the grossness nor +the harshness of life’s web, but was thrust cheerfully, if need +were, into the briar bush, and could take hold of any crawling horror. +Ruin was mining the walls of her cottage, as already it had mined and +subverted Mr. Archer’s palace. Well, she faced it with a +bright countenance and a busy hand. She had got some washing, +some rough seamstress work from the ‘Green Dragon,’ and +from another neighbour ten miles away across the moor. At this +she cheerfully laboured, and from that height she could afford to pity +the useless talents and poor attitude of Mr. Archer. It did not +change her admiration, but it made it bearable. He was above her +in all ways; but she was above him in one. She kept it to herself, +and hugged it. When, like all young creatures, she made long stories +to justify, to nourish, and to forecast the course of her affection, +it was this private superiority that made all rosy, that cut the knot, +and that, at last, in some great situation, fetched to her knees the +dazzling but imperfect hero. With this pretty exercise she beguiled +the hours of labour, and consoled herself for Mr. Archer’s bearing.<br> +<br> +Pity was her weapon and her weakness. To accept the loved one’s +faults, although it has an air of freedom, is to kiss the chain, and +this pity it was which, lying nearer to her heart, lent the one element +of true emotion to a fanciful and merely brain-sick love.<br> +<br> +Thus it fell out one day that she had gone to the ‘Green Dragon’ +and brought back thence a letter to Mr. Archer. He, upon seeing +it, winced like a man under the knife: pain, shame, sorrow, and the +most trenchant edge of mortification cut into his heart and wrung the +steady composure of his face.<br> +<br> +‘Dear heart! have you bad news?’ she cried.<br> +<br> +But he only replied by a gesture and fled to his room, and when, later +on, she ventured to refer to it, he stopped her on the threshold, as +if with words prepared beforehand. ‘There are some pains,’ +said he, ‘too acute for consolation, or I would bring them to +my kind consoler. Let the memory of that letter, if you please, +be buried.’ And then as she continued to gaze at him, being, +in spite of herself, pained by his elaborate phrase, doubtfully sincere +in word and manner: ‘Let it be enough,’ he added haughtily, +‘that if this matter wring my heart, it doth not touch my conscience. +I am a man, I would have you to know, who suffers undeservedly.’<br> +<br> +He had never spoken so directly: never with so convincing an emotion; +and her heart thrilled for him. She could have taken his pains +and died of them with joy.<br> +<br> +Meanwhile she was left without support. Jonathan now swore by +his lodger, and lived for him. He was a fine talker. He +knew the finest sight of stories; he was a man and a gentleman, take +him for all in all, and a perfect credit to Old England. Such +were the old man’s declared sentiments, and sure enough he clung +to Mr. Archer’s side, hung upon his utterance when he spoke, and +watched him with unwearing interest when he was silent. And yet +his feeling was not clear; in the partial wreck of his mind, which was +leaning to decay, some after-thought was strongly present. As +he gazed in Mr. Archer’s face a sudden brightness would kindle +in his rheumy eyes, his eye-brows would lift as with a sudden thought, +his mouth would open as though to speak, and close again on silence. +Once or twice he even called Mr. Archer mysteriously forth into the +dark courtyard, took him by the button, and laid a demonstrative finger +on his chest; but there his ideas or his courage failed him; he would +shufflingly excuse himself and return to his position by the fire without +a word of explanation. ‘The good man was growing old,’ +said Mr. Archer with a suspicion of a shrug. But the good man +had his idea, and even when he was alone the name of Mr. Archer fell +from his lips continually in the course of mumbled and gesticulative +conversation.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER VI - THE BAD HALF-CROWN<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +However early Nance arose, and she was no sluggard, the old man, who +had begun to outlive the earthly habit of slumber, would usually have +been up long before, the fire would be burning brightly, and she would +see him wandering among the ruins, lantern in hand, and talking assiduously +to himself. One day, however, after he had returned late from +the market town, she found that she had stolen a march upon that indefatigable +early riser. The kitchen was all blackness. She crossed +the castle-yard to the wood-cellar, her steps printing the thick hoarfrost. +A scathing breeze blew out of the north-east and slowly carried a regiment +of black and tattered clouds over the face of heaven, which was already +kindled with the wild light of morning, but where she walked, in shelter +of the ruins, the flame of her candle burned steady. The extreme +cold smote upon her conscience. She could not bear to think this +bitter business fell usually to the lot of one so old as Jonathan, and +made desperate resolutions to be earlier in the future.<br> +<br> +The fire was a good blaze before he entered, limping dismally into the +kitchen. ‘Nance,’ said he, ‘I be all knotted +up with the rheumatics; will you rub me a bit?’ She came +and rubbed him where and how he bade her. ‘This is a cruel +thing that old age should be rheumaticky,’ said he. ‘When +I was young I stood my turn of the teethache like a man! for why? because +it couldn’t last for ever; but these rheumatics come to live and +die with you. Your aunt was took before the time came; never had +an ache to mention. Now I lie all night in my single bed and the +blood never warms in me; this knee of mine it seems like lighted up +with rheumatics; it seems as though you could see to sew by it; and +all the strings of my old body ache, as if devils was pulling ’em. +Thank you kindly; that’s someways easier now, but an old man, +my dear, has little to look for; it’s pain, pain, pain to the +end of the business, and I’ll never be rightly warm again till +I get under the sod,’ he said, and looked down at her with a face +so aged and weary that she had nearly wept.<br> +<br> +‘I lay awake all night,’ he continued; ‘I do so mostly, +and a long walk kills me. Eh, deary me, to think that life should +run to such a puddle! And I remember long syne when I was strong, +and the blood all hot and good about me, and I loved to run, too - deary +me, to run! Well, that’s all by. You’d better +pray to be took early, Nance, and not live on till you get to be like +me, and are robbed in your grey old age, your cold, shivering, dark +old age, that’s like a winter’s morning’; and he bitterly +shuddered, spreading his hands before the fire.<br> +<br> +‘Come now,’ said Nance, ‘the more you say the less +you’ll like it, Uncle Jonathan; but if I were you I would be proud +for to have lived all your days honest and beloved, and come near the +end with your good name: isn’t that a fine thing to be proud of? +Mr. Archer was telling me in some strange land they used to run races +each with a lighted candle, and the art was to keep the candle burning. +Well, now, I thought that was like life: a man’s good conscience +is the flame he gets to carry, and if he comes to the winning-post with +that still burning, why, take it how you will, the man’s a hero +- even if he was low-born like you and me.’<br> +<br> +‘Did Mr. Archer tell you that?’ asked Jonathan.<br> +<br> +‘No, dear,’ said she, ‘that’s my own thought +about it. He told me of the race. But see, now,’ she +continued, putting on the porridge, ‘you say old age is a hard +season, but so is youth. You’re half out of the battle, +I would say; you loved my aunt and got her, and buried her, and some +of these days soon you’ll go to meet her; and take her my love +and tell her I tried to take good care of you; for so I do, Uncle Jonathan.’<br> +<br> +Jonathan struck with his fist upon the settle. ‘D’ +ye think I want to die, ye vixen?’ he shouted. ‘I +want to live ten hundred years.’<br> +<br> +This was a mystery beyond Nance’s penetration, and she stared +in wonder as she made the porridge.<br> +<br> +‘I want to live,’ he continued, ‘I want to live and +to grow rich. I want to drive my carriage and to dice in hells +and see the ring, I do. Is this a life that I lived? I want +to be a rake, d’ ye understand? I want to know what things +are like. I don’t want to die like a blind kitten, and me +seventy-six.’<br> +<br> +‘O fie!’ said Nance.<br> +<br> +The old man thrust out his jaw at her, with the grimace of an irreverent +schoolboy. Upon that aged face it seemed a blasphemy. Then +he took out of his bosom a long leather purse, and emptying its contents +on the settle, began to count and recount the pieces, ringing and examining +each, and suddenly he leapt like a young man. ‘What!’ +he screamed. ‘Bad? O Lord! I’m robbed +again!’ And falling on his knees before the settle he began +to pour forth the most dreadful curses on the head of his deceiver. +His eyes were shut, for to him this vile solemnity was prayer. +He held up the bad half-crown in his right hand, as though he were displaying +it to Heaven, and what increased the horror of the scene, the curses +he invoked were those whose efficacy he had tasted - old age and poverty, +rheumatism and an ungrateful son. Nance listened appalled; then +she sprang forward and dragged down his arm and laid her hand upon his +mouth.<br> +<br> +‘Whist!’ she cried. ‘Whist ye, for God’s +sake! O my man, whist ye! If Heaven were to hear; if poor +Aunt Susan were to hear! Think, she may be listening.’ +And with the histrionism of strong emotion she pointed to a corner of +the kitchen.<br> +<br> +His eyes followed her finger. He looked there for a little, thinking, +blinking; then he got stiffly to his feet and resumed his place upon +the settle, the bad piece still in his hand. So he sat for some +time, looking upon the half-crown, and now wondering to himself on the +injustice and partiality of the law, now computing again and again the +nature of his loss. So he was still sitting when Mr. Archer entered +the kitchen. At this a light came into his face, and after some +seconds of rumination he dispatched Nance upon an errand.<br> +<br> +‘Mr. Archer,’ said he, as soon as they were alone together, +‘would you give me a guinea-piece for silver?’<br> +<br> +‘Why, sir, I believe I can,’ said Mr. Archer.<br> +<br> +And the exchange was just effected when Nance re-entered the apartment. +The blood shot into her face.<br> +<br> +‘What’s to do here?’ she asked rudely.<br> +<br> +‘Nothing, my dearie,’ said old Jonathan, with a touch of +whine.<br> +<br> +‘What’s to do?’ she said again.<br> +<br> +‘Your uncle was but changing me a piece of gold,’ returned +Mr. Archer.<br> +<br> +‘Let me see what he hath given you, Mr. Archer,’ replied +the girl. ‘I had a bad piece, and I fear it is mixed up +among the good.’<br> +<br> +‘Well, well,’ replied Mr. Archer, smiling, ‘I must +take the merchant’s risk of it. The money is now mixed.’<br> +<br> +‘I know my piece,’ quoth Nance. ‘Come, let me +see your silver, Mr. Archer. If I have to get it by a theft I’ll +see that money,’ she cried.<br> +<br> +‘Nay, child, if you put as much passion to be honest as the world +to steal, I must give way, though I betray myself,’ said Mr. Archer. +‘There it is as I received it.’<br> +<br> +Nance quickly found the bad half-crown.<br> +<br> +‘Give him another,’ she said, looking Jonathan in the face; +and when that had been done, she walked over to the chimney and flung +the guilty piece into the reddest of the fire. Its base constituents +began immediately to run; even as she watched it the disc crumbled, +and the lineaments of the King became confused. Jonathan, who +had followed close behind, beheld these changes from over her shoulder, +and his face darkened sorely.<br> +<br> +‘Now,’ said she, ‘come back to table, and to-day it +is I that shall say grace, as I used to do in the old times, day about +with Dick’; and covering her eyes with one hand, ‘O Lord,’ +said she with deep emotion, ‘make us thankful; and, O Lord, deliver +us from evil! For the love of the poor souls that watch for us +in heaven, O deliver us from evil.’<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER VII - THE BLEACHING-GREEN<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +The year moved on to March; and March, though it blew bitter keen from +the North Sea, yet blinked kindly between whiles on the river dell. +The mire dried up in the closest covert; life ran in the bare branches, +and the air of the afternoon would be suddenly sweet with the fragrance +of new grass.<br> +<br> +Above and below the castle the river crooked like the letter ‘S.’ +The lower loop was to the left, and embraced the high and steep projection +which was crowned by the ruins; the upper loop enclosed a lawny promontory, +fringed by thorn and willow. It was easy to reach it from the +castle side, for the river ran in this part very quietly among innumerable +boulders and over dam-like walls of rock. The place was all enclosed, +the wind a stranger, the turf smooth and solid; so it was chosen by +Nance to be her bleaching-green.<br> +<br> +One day she brought a bucketful of linen, and had but begun to wring +and lay them out when Mr. Archer stepped from the thicket on the far +side, drew very deliberately near, and sat down in silence on the grass. +Nance looked up to greet him with a smile, but finding her smile was +not returned, she fell into embarrassment and stuck the more busily +to her employment. Man or woman, the whole world looks well at +any work to which they are accustomed; but the girl was ashamed of what +she did. She was ashamed, besides, of the sun-bonnet that so well +became her, and ashamed of her bare arms, which were her greatest beauty.<br> +<br> +‘Nausicaa,’ said Mr. Archer at last, ‘I find you like +Nausicaa.’<br> +<br> +‘And who was she?’ asked Nance, and laughed in spite of +herself, an empty and embarrassed laugh, that sounded in Mr. Archer’s +ears, indeed, like music, but to her own like the last grossness of +rusticity.<br> +<br> +‘She was a princess of the Grecian islands,’ he replied. +‘A king, being shipwrecked, found her washing by the shore. +Certainly I, too, was shipwrecked,’ he continued, plucking at +the grass. ‘There was never a more desperate castaway - +to fall from polite life, fortune, a shrine of honour, a grateful conscience, +duties willingly taken up and faithfully discharged; and to fall to +this - idleness, poverty, inutility, remorse.’ He seemed +to have forgotten her presence, but here he remembered her again. +‘Nance,’ said he, ‘would you have a man sit down and +suffer or rise up and strive?’<br> +<br> +‘Nay,’ she said. ‘I would always rather see +him doing.’<br> +<br> +‘Ha!’ said Mr. Archer, ‘but yet you speak from an +imperfect knowledge. Conceive a man damned to a choice of only +evil - misconduct upon either side, not a fault behind him, and yet +naught before him but this choice of sins. How would you say then?’<br> +<br> +‘I would say that he was much deceived, Mr. Archer,’ returned +Nance. ‘I would say there was a third choice, and that the +right one.’<br> +<br> +‘I tell you,’ said Mr. Archer, ‘the man I have in +view hath two ways open, and no more. One to wait, like a poor +mewling baby, till Fate save or ruin him; the other to take his troubles +in his hand, and to perish or be saved at once. It is no point +of morals; both are wrong. Either way this step-child of Providence +must fall; which shall he choose, by doing or not doing?’<br> +<br> +‘Fall, then, is what I would say,’ replied Nance. +‘Fall where you will, but do it! For O, Mr. Archer,’ +she continued, stooping to her work, ‘you that are good and kind, +and so wise, it doth sometimes go against my heart to see you live on +here like a sheep in a turnip-field! If you were braver - ’ +and here she paused, conscience-smitten.<br> +<br> +‘Do I, indeed, lack courage?’ inquired Mr. Archer of himself. +‘Courage, the footstool of the virtues, upon which they stand? +Courage, that a poor private carrying a musket has to spare of; that +does not fail a weasel or a rat; that is a brutish faculty? I +to fail there, I wonder? But what is courage, then? The +constancy to endure oneself or to see others suffer? The itch +of ill-advised activity: mere shuttle-wittedness, or to be still and +patient? To inquire of the significance of words is to rob ourselves +of what we seem to know, and yet, of all things, certainly to stand +still is the least heroic. Nance,’ he said, ‘did you +ever hear of <i>Hamlet</i>?’<br> +<br> +‘Never,’ said Nance.<br> +<br> +‘’Tis an old play,’ returned Mr. Archer, ‘and +frequently enacted. This while I have been talking Hamlet. +You must know this Hamlet was a Prince among the Danes,’ and he +told her the play in a very good style, here and there quoting a verse +or two with solemn emphasis.<br> +<br> +‘It is strange,’ said Nance; ‘he was then a very poor +creature?’<br> +<br> +‘That was what he could not tell,’ said Mr. Archer. +‘Look at me, am I as poor a creature?’<br> +<br> +She looked, and what she saw was the familiar thought of all her hours; +the tall figure very plainly habited in black, the spotless ruffles, +the slim hands; the long, well-shapen, serious, shaven face, the wide +and somewhat thin-lipped mouth, the dark eyes that were so full of depth +and change and colour. He was gazing at her with his brows a little +knit, his chin upon one hand and that elbow resting on his knee.<br> +<br> +‘Ye look a man!’ she cried, ‘ay, and should be a great +one! The more shame to you to lie here idle like a dog before +the fire.’<br> +<br> +‘My fair Holdaway,’ quoth Mr. Archer, ‘you are much +set on action. I cannot dig, to beg I am ashamed.’ +He continued, looking at her with a half-absent fixity, ‘’Tis +a strange thing, certainly, that in my years of fortune I should never +taste happiness, and now when I am broke, enjoy so much of it, for was +I ever happier than to-day? Was the grass softer, the stream pleasanter +in sound, the air milder, the heart more at peace? Why should +I not sink? To dig - why, after all, it should be easy. +To take a mate, too? Love is of all grades since Jupiter; love +fails to none; and children’ - but here he passed his hand suddenly +over his eyes. ‘O fool and coward, fool and coward!’ +he said bitterly; ‘can you forget your fetters? You did +not know that I was fettered, Nance?’ he asked, again addressing +her.<br> +<br> +But Nance was somewhat sore. ‘I know you keep talking,’ +she said, and, turning half away from him, began to wring out a sheet +across her shoulder. ‘I wonder you are not wearied of your +voice. When the hands lie abed the tongue takes a walk.’<br> +<br> +Mr. Archer laughed unpleasantly, rose and moved to the water’s +edge. In this part the body of the river poured across a little +narrow fell, ran some ten feet very smoothly over a bed of pebbles, +then getting wind, as it were, of another shelf of rock which barred +the channel, began, by imperceptible degrees, to separate towards either +shore in dancing currents, and to leave the middle clear and stagnant. +The set towards either side was nearly equal; about one half of the +whole water plunged on the side of the castle, through a narrow gullet; +about one half ran ripping past the margin of the green and slipped +across a babbling rapid.<br> +<br> +‘Here,’ said Mr. Archer, after he had looked for some time +at the fine and shifting demarcation of these currents, ‘come +here and see me try my fortune.’<br> +<br> +‘I am not like a man,’ said Nance; ‘I have no time +to waste.’<br> +<br> +‘Come here,’ he said again. ‘I ask you seriously, +Nance. We are not always childish when we seem so.’<br> +<br> +She drew a little nearer.<br> +<br> +‘Now,’ said he, ‘you see these two channels - choose +one.’<br> +<br> +‘I’ll choose the nearest, to save time,’ said Nance.<br> +<br> +‘Well, that shall be for action,’ returned Mr. Archer. +‘And since I wish to have the odds against me, not only the other +channel but yon stagnant water in the midst shall be for lying still. +You see this?’ he continued, pulling up a withered rush. +‘I break it in three. I shall put each separately at the +top of the upper fall, and according as they go by your way or by the +other I shall guide my life.’<br> +<br> +‘This is very silly,’ said Nance, with a movement of her +shoulders.<br> +<br> +‘I do not think it so,’ said Mr. Archer.<br> +<br> +‘And then,’ she resumed, ‘if you are to try your fortune, +why not evenly?’<br> +<br> +‘Nay,’ returned Mr. Archer with a smile, ‘no man can +put complete reliance in blind fate; he must still cog the dice.’<br> +<br> +By this time he had got upon the rock beside the upper fall, and, bidding +her look out, dropped a piece of rush into the middle of the intake. +The rusty fragment was sucked at once over the fall, came up again far +on the right hand, leaned ever more and more in the same direction, +and disappeared under the hanging grasses on the castle side.<br> +<br> +‘One,’ said Mr. Archer, ‘one for standing still.’<br> +<br> +But the next launch had a different fate, and after hanging for a while +about the edge of the stagnant water, steadily approached the bleaching-green +and danced down the rapid under Nance’s eyes.<br> +<br> +‘One for me,’ she cried with some exultation; and then she +observed that Mr. Archer had grown pale, and was kneeling on the rock, +with his hand raised like a person petrified. ‘Why,’ +said she, ‘you do not mind it, do you?’<br> +<br> +‘Does a man not mind a throw of dice by which a fortune hangs?’ +said Mr. Archer, rather hoarsely. ‘And this is more than +fortune. Nance, if you have any kindness for my fate, put up a +prayer before I launch the next one.’<br> +<br> +‘A prayer,’ she cried, ‘about a game like this? +I would not be so heathen.’<br> +<br> +‘Well,’ said he, ‘then without,’ and he closed +his eyes and dropped the piece of rush. This time there was no +doubt. It went for the rapid as straight as any arrow.<br> +<br> +‘Action then!’ said Mr. Archer, getting to his feet; ‘and +then God forgive us,’ he added, almost to himself.<br> +<br> +‘God forgive us, indeed,’ cried Nance, ‘for wasting +the good daylight! But come, Mr. Archer, if I see you look so +serious I shall begin to think you was in earnest.’<br> +<br> +‘Nay,’ he said, turning upon her suddenly, with a full smile; +‘but is not this good advice? I have consulted God and demigod; +the nymph of the river, and what I far more admire and trust, my blue-eyed +Minerva. Both have said the same. My own heart was telling +it already. Action, then, be mine; and into the deep sea with +all this paralysing casuistry. I am happy to-day for the first +time.’<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER VIII - THE MAIL GUARD<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Somewhere about two in the morning a squall had burst upon the castle, +a clap of screaming wind that made the towers rock, and a copious drift +of rain that streamed from the windows. The wind soon blew itself +out, but the day broke cloudy and dripping, and when the little party +assembled at breakfast their humours appeared to have changed with the +change of weather. Nance had been brooding on the scene at the +river-side, applying it in various ways to her particular aspirations, +and the result, which was hardly to her mind, had taken the colour out +of her cheeks. Mr. Archer, too, was somewhat absent, his thoughts +were of a mingled strain; and even upon his usually impassive countenance +there were betrayed successive depths of depression and starts of exultation, +which the girl translated in terms of her own hopes and fears. +But Jonathan was the most altered: he was strangely silent, hardly passing +a word, and watched Mr. Archer with an eager and furtive eye. +It seemed as if the idea that had so long hovered before him had now +taken a more solid shape, and, while it still attracted, somewhat alarmed +his imagination.<br> +<br> +At this rate, conversation languished into a silence which was only +broken by the gentle and ghostly noises of the rain on the stone roof +and about all that field of ruins; and they were all relieved when the +note of a man whistling and the sound of approaching footsteps in the +grassy court announced a visitor. It was the ostler from the ‘Green +Dragon’ bringing a letter for Mr. Archer. Nance saw her +hero’s face contract and then relax again at sight of it; and +she thought that she knew why, for the sprawling, gross black characters +of the address were easily distinguishable from the fine writing on +the former letter that had so much disturbed him. He opened it +and began to read; while the ostler sat down to table with a pot of +ale, and proceeded to make himself agreeable after his fashion.<br> +<br> +‘Fine doings down our way, Miss Nance,’ said he. ‘I +haven’t been abed this blessed night.’<br> +<br> +Nance expressed a polite interest, but her eye was on Mr. Archer, who +was reading his letter with a face of such extreme indifference that +she was tempted to suspect him of assumption.<br> +<br> +‘Yes,’ continued the ostler, ‘not been the like of +it this fifteen years: the North Mail stopped at the three stones.’<br> +<br> +Jonathan’s cup was at his lip, but at this moment he choked with +a great splutter; and Mr. Archer, as if startled by the noise, made +so sudden a movement that one corner of the sheet tore off and stayed +between his finger and thumb. It was some little time before the +old man was sufficiently recovered to beg the ostler to go on, and he +still kept coughing and crying and rubbing his eyes. Mr. Archer, +on his side, laid the letter down, and, putting his hands in his pocket, +listened gravely to the tale.<br> +<br> +‘Yes,’ resumed Sam, ‘the North Mail was stopped by +a single horseman; dash my wig, but I admire him! There were four +insides and two out, and poor Tom Oglethorpe, the guard. Tom showed +himself a man; let fly his blunderbuss at him; had him covered, too, +and could swear to that; but the Captain never let on, up with a pistol +and fetched poor Tom a bullet through the body. Tom, he squelched +upon the seat, all over blood. Up comes the Captain to the window. +“Oblige me,” says he, “with what you have.” +Would you believe it? Not a man says cheep! - not them. +“Thy hands over thy head.” Four watches, rings, snuff-boxes, +seven-and-forty pounds overhead in gold. One Dicksee, a grazier, +tries it on: gives him a guinea. “Beg your pardon,” +says the Captain, “I think too highly of you to take it at your +hand. I will not take less than ten from such a gentleman.” +This Dicksee had his money in his stocking, but there was the pistol +at his eye. Down he goes, offs with his stocking, and there was +thirty golden guineas. “Now,” says the Captain, “you’ve +tried it on with me, but I scorns the advantage. Ten I said,” +he says, “and ten I take.” So, dash my buttons, I +call that man a man!’ cried Sam in cordial admiration.<br> +<br> +‘Well, and then?’ says Mr. Archer.<br> +<br> +‘Then,’ resumed Sam, ‘that old fat fagot Engleton, +him as held the ribbons and drew up like a lamb when he was told to, +picks up his cattle, and drives off again. Down they came to the +“Dragon,” all singing like as if they was scalded, and poor +Tom saying nothing. You would ‘a’ thought they had +all lost the King’s crown to hear them. Down gets this Dicksee. +“Postmaster,” he says, taking him by the arm, “this +is a most abominable thing,” he says. Down gets a Major +Clayton, and gets the old man by the other arm. “We’ve +been robbed,” he cries, “robbed!” Down gets +the others, and all around the old man telling their story, and what +they had lost, and how they was all as good as ruined; till at last +Old Engleton says, says he, “How about Oglethorpe?” says +he. “Ay,” says the others, “how about the guard?” +Well, with that we bousted him down, as white as a rag and all blooded +like a sop. I thought he was dead. Well, he ain’t +dead; but he’s dying, I fancy.’<br> +<br> +‘Did you say four watches?’ said Jonathan.<br> +<br> +‘Four, I think. I wish it had been forty,’ cried Sam. +‘Such a party of soused herrings I never did see - not a man among +them bar poor Tom. But us that are the servants on the road have +all the risk and none of the profit.’<br> +<br> +‘And this brave fellow,’ asked Mr. Archer, very quietly, +‘this Oglethorpe - how is he now?’<br> +<br> +‘Well, sir, with my respects, I take it he has a hole bang through +him,’ said Sam. ‘The doctor hasn’t been yet. +He’d ‘a’ been bright and early if it had been a passenger. +But, doctor or no, I’ll make a good guess that Tom won’t +see to-morrow. He’ll die on a Sunday, will poor Tom; and +they do say that’s fortunate.’<br> +<br> +‘Did Tom see him that did it?’ asked Jonathan.<br> +<br> +‘Well, he saw him,’ replied Sam, ‘but not to swear +by. Said he was a very tall man, and very big, and had a ’ankerchief +about his face, and a very quick shot, and sat his horse like a thorough +gentleman, as he is.’<br> +<br> +‘A gentleman!’ cried Nance. ‘The dirty knave!’<br> +<br> +‘Well, I calls a man like that a gentleman,’ returned the +ostler; ‘that’s what I mean by a gentleman.’<br> +<br> +‘You don’t know much of them, then,’ said Nance.<br> +<br> +‘A gentleman would scorn to stoop to such a thing. I call +my uncle a better gentleman than any thief.’<br> +<br> +‘And you would be right,’ said Mr. Archer.<br> +<br> +‘How many snuff-boxes did he get?’ asked Jonathan.<br> +<br> +‘O, dang me if I know,’ said Sam; ‘I didn’t +take an inventory.’<br> +<br> +‘I will go back with you, if you please,’ said Mr. Archer. +‘I should like to see poor Oglethorpe. He has behaved well.’<br> +<br> +‘At your service, sir,’ said Sam, jumping to his feet. +‘I dare to say a gentleman like you would not forget a poor fellow +like Tom - no, nor a plain man like me, sir, that went without his sleep +to nurse him. And excuse me, sir,’ added Sam, ‘you +won’t forget about the letter neither?’<br> +<br> +‘Surely not,’ said Mr. Archer.<br> +<br> +Oglethorpe lay in a low bed, one of several in a long garret of the +inn. The rain soaked in places through the roof and fell in minute +drops; there was but one small window; the beds were occupied by servants, +the air of the garret was both close and chilly. Mr. Archer’s +heart sank at the threshold to see a man lying perhaps mortally hurt +in so poor a sick-room, and as he drew near the low bed he took his +hat off. The guard was a big, blowsy, innocent-looking soul with +a thick lip and a broad nose, comically turned up; his cheeks were crimson, +and when Mr. Archer laid a finger on his brow he found him burning with +fever.<br> +<br> +‘I fear you suffer much,’ he said, with a catch in his voice, +as he sat down on the bedside.<br> +<br> +‘I suppose I do, sir,’ returned Oglethorpe; ‘it is +main sore.’<br> +<br> +‘I am used to wounds and wounded men,’ returned the visitor. +‘I have been in the wars and nursed brave fellows before now; +and, if you will suffer me, I propose to stay beside you till the doctor +comes.’<br> +<br> +‘It is very good of you, sir, I am sure,’ said Oglethorpe. +‘The trouble is they won’t none of them let me drink.’<br> +<br> +‘If you will not tell the doctor,’ said Mr. Archer, ‘I +will give you some water. They say it is bad for a green wound, +but in the Low Countries we all drank water when we found the chance, +and I could never perceive we were the worse for it.’<br> +<br> +‘Been wounded yourself, sir, perhaps?’ called Oglethorpe.<br> +<br> +‘Twice,’ said Mr. Archer, ‘and was as proud of these +hurts as any lady of her bracelets. ’Tis a fine thing to +smart for one’s duty; even in the pangs of it there is contentment.’<br> +<br> +‘Ah, well!’ replied the guard, ‘if you’ve been +shot yourself, that explains. But as for contentment, why, sir, +you see, it smarts, as you say. And then, I have a good wife, +you see, and a bit of a brat - a little thing, so high.’<br> +<br> +‘Don’t move,’ said Mr. Archer.<br> +<br> +‘No, sir, I will not, and thank you kindly,’ said Oglethorpe. +‘At York they are. A very good lass is my wife - far too +good for me. And the little rascal - well, I don’t know +how to say it, but he sort of comes round you. If I were to go, +sir, it would be hard on my poor girl - main hard on her!’<br> +<br> +‘Ay, you must feel bitter hardly to the rogue that laid you here,’ +said Archer.<br> +<br> +‘Why, no, sir, more against Engleton and the passengers,’ +replied the guard. ‘He played his hand, if you come to look +at it; and I wish he had shot worse, or me better. And yet I’ll +go to my grave but what I covered him,’ he cried. ‘It +looks like witchcraft. I’ll go to my grave but what he was +drove full of slugs like a pepper-box.’<br> +<br> +‘Quietly,’ said Mr. Archer, ‘you must not excite yourself. +These deceptions are very usual in war; the eye, in the moment of alert, +is hardly to be trusted, and when the smoke blows away you see the man +you fired at, taking aim, it may be, at yourself. You should observe, +too, that you were in the dark night, and somewhat dazzled by the lamps, +and that the sudden stopping of the mail had jolted you. In such +circumstances a man may miss, ay, even with a blunder-buss, and no blame +attach to his marksmanship.’ . . .<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE YOUNG CHEVALIER<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +PROLOGUE - THE WINE-SELLER’S WIFE<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +There was a wine-seller’s shop, as you went down to the river +in the city of the Anti-popes. There a man was served with good +wine of the country and plain country fare; and the place being clean +and quiet, with a prospect on the river, certain gentlemen who dwelt +in that city in attendance on a great personage made it a practice (when +they had any silver in their purses) to come and eat there and be private.<br> +<br> +They called the wine-seller Paradou. He was built more like a +bullock than a man, huge in bone and brawn, high in colour, and with +a hand like a baby for size. Marie-Madeleine was the name of his +wife; she was of Marseilles, a city of entrancing women, nor was any +fairer than herself. She was tall, being almost of a height with +Paradou; full-girdled, point-device in every form, with an exquisite +delicacy in the face; her nose and nostrils a delight to look at from +the fineness of the sculpture, her eyes inclined a hair’s-breadth +inward, her colour between dark and fair, and laid on even like a flower’s. +A faint rose dwelt in it, as though she had been found unawares bathing, +and had blushed from head to foot. She was of a grave countenance, +rarely smiling; yet it seemed to be written upon every part of her that +she rejoiced in life. Her husband loved the heels of her feet +and the knuckles of her fingers; he loved her like a glutton and a brute; +his love hung about her like an atmosphere; one that came by chance +into the wine-shop was aware of that passion; and it might be said that +by the strength of it the woman had been drugged or spell-bound. +She knew not if she loved or loathed him; he was always in her eyes +like something monstrous - monstrous in his love, monstrous in his person, +horrific but imposing in his violence; and her sentiment swung back +and forward from desire to sickness. But the mean, where it dwelt +chiefly, was an apathetic fascination, partly of horror; as of Europa +in mid ocean with her bull.<br> +<br> +On the 10th November 1749 there sat two of the foreign gentlemen in +the wine-seller’s shop. They were both handsome men of a +good presence, richly dressed. The first was swarthy and long +and lean, with an alert, black look, and a mole upon his cheek. +The other was more fair. He seemed very easy and sedate, and a +little melancholy for so young a man, but his smile was charming. +In his grey eyes there was much abstraction, as of one recalling fondly +that which was past and lost. Yet there was strength and swiftness +in his limbs; and his mouth set straight across his face, the under +lip a thought upon side, like that of a man accustomed to resolve. +These two talked together in a rude outlandish speech that no frequenter +of that wine-shop understood. The swarthy man answered to the +name of <i>Ballantrae</i>; he of the dreamy eyes was sometimes called +<i>Balmile</i>, and sometimes <i>my Lord</i>, or <i>my</i> <i>Lord Gladsmuir</i>; +but when the title was given him, he seemed to put it by as if in jesting, +not without bitterness.<br> +<br> +The mistral blew in the city. The first day of that wind, they +say in the countries where its voice is heard, it blows away all the +dust, the second all the stones, and the third it blows back others +from the mountains. It was now come to the third day; outside +the pebbles flew like hail, and the face of the river was puckered, +and the very building-stones in the walls of houses seemed to be curdled +with the savage cold and fury of that continuous blast. It could +be heard to hoot in all the chimneys of the city; it swept about the +wine-shop, filling the room with eddies; the chill and gritty touch +of it passed between the nearest clothes and the bare flesh; and the +two gentlemen at the far table kept their mantles loose about their +shoulders. The roughness of these outer hulls, for they were plain +travellers’ cloaks that had seen service, set the greater mark +of richness on what showed below of their laced clothes; for the one +was in scarlet and the other in violet and white, like men come from +a scene of ceremony; as indeed they were.<br> +<br> +It chanced that these fine clothes were not without their influence +on the scene which followed, and which makes the prologue of our tale. +For a long time Balmile was in the habit to come to the wine-shop and +eat a meal or drink a measure of wine; sometimes with a comrade; more +often alone, when he would sit and dream and drum upon the table, and +the thoughts would show in the man’s face in little glooms and +lightenings, like the sun and the clouds upon a water. For a long +time Marie-Madeleine had observed him apart. His sadness, the +beauty of his smile when by any chance he remembered her existence and +addressed her, the changes of his mind signalled forth by an abstruse +play of feature, the mere fact that he was foreign and a thing detached +from the local and the accustomed, insensibly attracted and affected +her. Kindness was ready in her mind; it but lacked the touch of +an occasion to effervesce and crystallise. Now Balmile had come +hitherto in a very poor plain habit; and this day of the mistral, when +his mantle was just open, and she saw beneath it the glancing of the +violet and the velvet and the silver, and the clustering fineness of +the lace, it seemed to set the man in a new light, with which he shone +resplendent to her fancy.<br> +<br> +The high inhuman note of the wind, the violence and continuity of its +outpouring, and the fierce touch of it upon man’s whole periphery, +accelerated the functions of the mind. It set thoughts whirling, +as it whirled the trees of the forest; it stirred them up in flights, +as it stirred up the dust in chambers. As brief as sparks, the +fancies glittered and succeeded each other in the mind of Marie-Madeleine; +and the grave man with the smile, and the bright clothes under the plain +mantle, haunted her with incongruous explanations. She considered +him, the unknown, the speaker of an unknown tongue, the hero (as she +placed him) of an unknown romance, the dweller upon unknown memories. +She recalled him sitting there alone, so immersed, so stupefied; yet +she was sure he was not stupid. She recalled one day when he had +remained a long time motionless, with parted lips, like one in the act +of starting up, his eyes fixed on vacancy. Any one else must have +looked foolish; but not he. She tried to conceive what manner +of memory had thus entranced him; she forged for him a past; she showed +him to herself in every light of heroism and greatness and misfortune; +she brooded with petulant intensity on all she knew and guessed of him. +Yet, though she was already gone so deep, she was still unashamed, still +unalarmed; her thoughts were still disinterested; she had still to reach +the stage at which - beside the image of that other whom we love to +contemplate and to adorn - we place the image of ourself and behold +them together with delight.<br> +<br> +She stood within the counter, her hands clasped behind her back, her +shoulders pressed against the wall, her feet braced out. Her face +was bright with the wind and her own thoughts; as a fire in a similar +day of tempest glows and brightens on a hearth, so she seemed to glow, +standing there, and to breathe out energy. It was the first time +Ballantrae had visited that wine-seller’s, the first time he had +seen the wife; and his eyes were true to her.<br> +<br> +‘I perceive your reason for carrying me to this very draughty +tavern,’ he said at last.<br> +<br> +‘I believe it is propinquity,’ returned Balmile.<br> +<br> +‘You play dark,’ said Ballantrae, ‘but have a care! +Be more frank with me, or I will cut you out. I go through no +form of qualifying my threat, which would be commonplace and not conscientious. +There is only one point in these campaigns: that is the degree of admiration +offered by the man; and to our hostess I am in a posture to make victorious +love.’<br> +<br> +‘If you think you have the time, or the game worth the candle,’ +replied the other with a shrug.<br> +<br> +‘One would suppose you were never at the pains to observe her,’ +said Ballantrae.<br> +<br> +‘I am not very observant,’ said Balmile. ‘She +seems comely.’<br> +<br> +‘You very dear and dull dog!’ cried Ballantrae; ‘chastity +is the most besotting of the virtues. Why, she has a look in her +face beyond singing! I believe, if you was to push me hard, I +might trace it home to a trifle of a squint. What matters? +The height of beauty is in the touch that’s wrong, that’s +the modulation in a tune. ’Tis the devil we all love; I +owe many a conquest to my mole’ - he touched it as he spoke with +a smile, and his eyes glittered; - ‘we are all hunchbacks, and +beauty is only that kind of deformity that I happen to admire. +But come! Because you are chaste, for which I am sure I pay you +my respects, that is no reason why you should be blind. Look at +her, look at the delicious nose of her, look at her cheek, look at her +ear, look at her hand and wrist - look at the whole baggage from heels +to crown, and tell me if she wouldn’t melt on a man’s tongue.’<br> +<br> +As Ballantrae spoke, half jesting, half enthusiastic, Balmile was constrained +to do as he was bidden. He looked at the woman, admired her excellences, +and was at the same time ashamed for himself and his companion. +So it befell that when Marie-Madeleine raised her eyes, she met those +of the subject of her contemplations fixed directly on herself with +a look that is unmistakable, the look of a person measuring and valuing +another - and, to clench the false impression, that his glance was instantly +and guiltily withdrawn. The blood beat back upon her heart and +leaped again; her obscure thoughts flashed clear before her; she flew +in fancy straight to his arms like a wanton, and fled again on the instant +like a nymph. And at that moment there chanced an interruption, +which not only spared her embarrassment, but set the last consecration +on her now articulate love.<br> +<br> +Into the wine-shop there came a French gentleman, arrayed in the last +refinement of the fashion, though a little tumbled by his passage in +the wind. It was to be judged he had come from the same formal +gathering at which the others had preceded him; and perhaps that he +had gone there in the hope to meet with them, for he came up to Ballantrae +with unceremonious eagerness.<br> +<br> +‘At last, here you are!’ he cried in French. ‘I +thought I was to miss you altogether.’<br> +<br> +The Scotsmen rose, and Ballantrae, after the first greetings, laid his +hand on his companion’s shoulder.<br> +<br> +‘My lord,’ said he, ‘allow me to present to you one +of my best friends and one of our best soldiers, the Lord Viscount Gladsmuir.’<br> +<br> +The two bowed with the elaborate elegance of the period.<br> +<br> +‘<i>Monseigneur</i>,’ said Balmile, ‘<i>je n’ai +pas la prétention de m’affubler d’un titre que la +mauvaise fortune de mon roi ne me permet pas de porter comma il sied. +Je m’appelle, pour vous servir, Blair de Balmile tout court</i>.’ +[My lord, I have not the effrontery to cumber myself with a title which +the ill fortunes of my king will not suffer me to bear the way it should +be. I call myself, at your service, plain Blair of Balmile.]<br> +<br> +‘<i>Monsieur le Vicomte ou monsieur Blèr’ de Balmaïl</i>,’ +replied the newcomer, ‘<i>le nom n’y fait rien, et l’on +connaît vos beaux faits</i>.’ [The name matters nothing, +your gallant actions are known.]<br> +<br> +A few more ceremonies, and these three, sitting down together to the +table, called for wine. It was the happiness of Marie-Madeleine +to wait unobserved upon the prince of her desires. She poured +the wine, he drank of it; and that link between them seemed to her, +for the moment, close as a caress. Though they lowered their tones, +she surprised great names passing in their conversation, names of kings, +the names of de Gesvre and Belle-Isle; and the man who dealt in these +high matters, and she who was now coupled with him in her own thoughts, +seemed to swim in mid air in a transfiguration. Love is a crude +core, but it has singular and far-reaching fringes; in that passionate +attraction for the stranger that now swayed and mastered her, his harsh +incomprehensible language, and these names of grandees in his talk, +were each an element.<br> +<br> +The Frenchman stayed not long, but it was plain he left behind him matter +of much interest to his companions; they spoke together earnestly, their +heads down, the woman of the wine-shop totally forgotten; and they were +still so occupied when Paradou returned.<br> +<br> +This man’s love was unsleeping. The even bluster of the +mistral, with which he had been combating some hours, had not suspended, +though it had embittered, that predominant passion. His first +look was for his wife, a look of hope and suspicion, menace and humility +and love, that made the over-blooming brute appear for the moment almost +beautiful. She returned his glance, at first as though she knew +him not, then with a swiftly waxing coldness of intent; and at last, +without changing their direction, she had closed her eyes.<br> +<br> +There passed across her mind during that period much that Paradou could +not have understood had it been told to him in words: chiefly the sense +of an enlightening contrast betwixt the man who talked of kings and +the man who kept a wine-shop, betwixt the love she yearned for and that +to which she had been long exposed like a victim bound upon the altar. +There swelled upon her, swifter than the Rhone, a tide of abhorrence +and disgust. She had succumbed to the monster, humbling herself +below animals; and now she loved a hero, aspiring to the semi-divine. +It was in the pang of that humiliating thought that she had closed her +eyes.<br> +<br> +Paradou - quick as beasts are quick, to translate silence - felt the +insult through his blood; his inarticulate soul bellowed within him +for revenge. He glanced about the shop. He saw the two indifferent +gentlemen deep in talk, and passed them over: his fancy flying not so +high. There was but one other present, a country lout who stood +swallowing his wine, equally unobserved by all and unobserving - to +him he dealt a glance of murderous suspicion, and turned direct upon +his wife. The wine-shop had lain hitherto, a space of shelter, +the scene of a few ceremonial passages and some whispered conversation, +in the howling river of the wind; the clock had not yet ticked a score +of times since Paradou’s appearance; and now, as he suddenly gave +tongue, it seemed as though the mistral had entered at his heels.<br> +<br> +‘What ails you, woman?’ he cried, smiting on the counter.<br> +<br> +‘Nothing ails me,’ she replied. It was strange; but +she spoke and stood at that moment like a lady of degree, drawn upward +by her aspirations.<br> +<br> +‘You speak to me, by God, as though you scorned me!’ cried +the husband.<br> +<br> +The man’s passion was always formidable; she had often looked +on upon its violence with a thrill, it had been one ingredient in her +fascination; and she was now surprised to behold him, as from afar off, +gesticulating but impotent. His fury might be dangerous like a +torrent or a gust of wind, but it was inhuman; it might be feared or +braved, it should never be respected. And with that there came +in her a sudden glow of courage and that readiness to die which attends +so closely upon all strong passions.<br> +<br> +‘I do scorn you,’ she said.<br> +<br> +‘What is that?’ he cried.<br> +<br> +‘I scorn you,’ she repeated, smiling.<br> +<br> +‘You love another man!’ said he.<br> +<br> +‘With all my soul,’ was her reply.<br> +<br> +The wine-seller roared aloud so that the house rang and shook with it.<br> +<br> +‘Is this the - ?’ he cried, using a foul word, common in +the South; and he seized the young countryman and dashed him to the +ground. There he lay for the least interval of time insensible; +thence fled from the house, the most terrified person in the county. +The heavy measure had escaped from his hands, splashing the wine high +upon the wall. Paradou caught it. ‘And you?’ +he roared to his wife, giving her the same name in the feminine, and +he aimed at her the deadly missile. She expected it, motionless, +with radiant eyes.<br> +<br> +But before it sped, Paradou was met by another adversary, and the unconscious +rivals stood confronted. It was hard to say at that moment which +appeared the more formidable. In Paradou, the whole muddy and +truculent depths of the half-man were stirred to frenzy; the lust of +destruction raged in him; there was not a feature in his face but it +talked murder. Balmile had dropped his cloak: he shone out at +once in his finery, and stood to his full stature; girt in mind and +body all his resources, all his temper, perfectly in command in his +face the light of battle. Neither spoke; there was no blow nor +threat of one; it was war reduced to its last element, the spiritual; +and the huge wine-seller slowly lowered his weapon. Balmile was +a noble, he a commoner; Balmile exulted in an honourable cause. +Paradou already perhaps began to be ashamed of his violence. Of +a sudden, at least, the tortured brute turned and fled from the shop +in the footsteps of his former victim, to whose continued flight his +reappearance added wings.<br> +<br> +So soon as Balmile appeared between her husband and herself, Marie-Madeleine +transferred to him her eyes. It might be her last moment, and +she fed upon that face; reading there inimitable courage and illimitable +valour to protect. And when the momentary peril was gone by, and +the champion turned a little awkwardly towards her whom he had rescued, +it was to meet, and quail before, a gaze of admiration more distinct +than words. He bowed, he stammered, his words failed him; he who +had crossed the floor a moment ago, like a young god, to smite, returned +like one discomfited; got somehow to his place by the table, muffled +himself again in his discarded cloak, and for a last touch of the ridiculous, +seeking for anything to restore his countenance, drank of the wine before +him, deep as a porter after a heavy lift. It was little wonder +if Ballantrae, reading the scene with malevolent eyes, laughed out loud +and brief, and drank with raised glass, ‘To the champion of the +Fair.’<br> +<br> +Marie-Madeleine stood in her old place within the counter; she disdained +the mocking laughter; it fell on her ears, but it did not reach her +spirit. For her, the world of living persons was all resumed again +into one pair, as in the days of Eden; there was but the one end in +life, the one hope before her, the one thing needful, the one thing +possible - to be his.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER I - THE PRINCE<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +That same night there was in the city of Avignon a young man in distress +of mind. Now he sat, now walked in a high apartment, full of draughts +and shadows. A single candle made the darkness visible; and the +light scarce sufficed to show upon the wall, where they had been recently +and rudely nailed, a few miniatures and a copper medal of the young +man’s head. The same was being sold that year in London, +to admiring thousands. The original was fair; he had beautiful +brown eyes, a beautiful bright open face; a little feminine, a little +hard, a little weak; still full of the light of youth, but already beginning +to be vulgarised; a sordid bloom come upon it, the lines coarsened with +a touch of puffiness. He was dressed, as for a gala, in peach-colour +and silver; his breast sparkled with stars and was bright with ribbons; +for he had held a levee in the afternoon and received a distinguished +personage incognito. Now he sat with a bowed head, now walked +precipitately to and fro, now went and gazed from the uncurtained window, +where the wind was still blowing, and the lights winked in the darkness.<br> +<br> +The bells of Avignon rose into song as he was gazing; and the high notes +and the deep tossed and drowned, boomed suddenly near or were suddenly +swallowed up, in the current of the mistral. Tears sprang in the +pale blue eyes; the expression of his face was changed to that of a +more active misery, it seemed as if the voices of the bells reached, +and touched and pained him, in a waste of vacancy where even pain was +welcome. Outside in the night they continued to sound on, swelling +and fainting; and the listener heard in his memory, as it were their +harmonies, joy-bells clashing in a northern city, and the acclamations +of a multitude, the cries of battle, the gross voices of cannon, the +stridor of an animated life. And then all died away, and he stood +face to face with himself in the waste of vacancy, and a horror came +upon his mind, and a faintness on his brain, such as seizes men upon +the brink of cliffs.<br> +<br> +On the table, by the side of the candle, stood a tray of glasses, a +bottle, and a silver bell. He went thither swiftly, then his hand +lowered first above the bell, then settled on the bottle. Slowly +he filled a glass, slowly drank it out; and, as a tide of animal warmth +recomforted the recesses of his nature, stood there smiling at himself. +He remembered he was young; the funeral curtains rose, and he saw his +life shine and broaden and flow out majestically, like a river sunward. +The smile still on his lips, he lit a second candle and a third; a fire +stood ready built in a chimney, he lit that also; and the fir-cones +and the gnarled olive billets were swift to break in flame and to crackle +on the hearth, and the room brightened and enlarged about him like his +hopes. To and fro, to and fro, he went, his hands lightly clasped, +his breath deeply and pleasurably taken. Victory walked with him; +he marched to crowns and empires among shouting followers; glory was +his dress. And presently again the shadows closed upon the solitary. +Under the gilt of flame and candle-light, the stone walls of the apartment +showed down bare and cold; behind the depicted triumph loomed up the +actual failure: defeat, the long distress of the flight, exile, despair, +broken followers, mourning faces, empty pockets, friends estranged. +The memory of his father rose in his mind: he, too, estranged and defied; +despair sharpened into wrath. There was one who had led armies +in the field, who had staked his life upon the family enterprise, a +man of action and experience, of the open air, the camp, the court, +the council-room; and he was to accept direction from an old, pompous +gentleman in a home in Italy, and buzzed about by priests? A pretty +king, if he had not a martial son to lean upon! A king at all?<br> +<br> +‘There was a weaver (of all people) joined me at St. Ninians; +he was more of a man than my papa!’ he thought. ‘I +saw him lie doubled in his blood and a grenadier below him - and he +died for my papa! All died for him, or risked the dying, and I +lay for him all those months in the rain and skulked in heather like +a fox; and now he writes me his advice! calls me Carluccio - me, the +man of the house, the only king in that king’s race.’ +He ground his teeth. ‘The only king in Europe!’ +Who else? Who has done and suffered except me? who has lain and +run and hidden with his faithful subjects, like a second Bruce? +Not my accursed cousin, Louis of France, at least, the lewd effeminate +traitor!’ And filling the glass to the brim, he drank a +king’s damnation. Ah, if he had the power of Louis, what +a king were here!<br> +<br> +The minutes followed each other into the past, and still he persevered +in this debilitating cycle of emotions, still fed the fire of his excitement +with driblets of Rhine wine: a boy at odds with life, a boy with a spark +of the heroic, which he was now burning out and drowning down in futile +reverie and solitary excess.<br> +<br> +From two rooms beyond, the sudden sound of a raised voice attracted +him.<br> +<br> +‘By . . .<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +HEATHERCAT<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER I - TRAQUAIRS OF MONTROYMONT<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +The period of this tale is in the heat of the <i>killing</i>-<i>time</i>; +the scene laid for the most part in solitary hills and morasses, haunted +only by the so-called Mountain Wanderers, the dragoons that came in +chase of them, the women that wept on their dead bodies, and the wild +birds of the moorland that have cried there since the beginning. +It is a land of many rain-clouds; a land of much mute history, written +there in prehistoric symbols. Strange green raths are to be seen +commonly in the country, above all by the kirkyards; barrows of the +dead, standing stones; beside these, the faint, durable footprints and +handmarks of the Roman; and an antiquity older perhaps than any, and +still living and active - a complete Celtic nomenclature and a scarce-mingled +Celtic population. These rugged and grey hills were once included +in the boundaries of the Caledonian Forest. Merlin sat here below +his apple-tree and lamented Gwendolen; here spoke with Kentigern; here +fell into his enchanted trance. And the legend of his slumber +seems to body forth the story of that Celtic race, deprived for so many +centuries of their authentic speech, surviving with their ancestral +inheritance of melancholy perversity and patient, unfortunate courage.<br> +<br> +The Traquairs of Montroymont <i>(Mons Romanus</i>, as the erudite expound +it) had long held their seat about the head-waters of the Dule and in +the back parts of the moorland parish of Balweary. For two hundred +years they had enjoyed in these upland quarters a certain decency (almost +to be named distinction) of repute; and the annals of their house, or +what is remembered of them, were obscure and bloody. Ninian Traquair +was ‘cruallie slochtered’ by the Crozers at the kirk-door +of Balweary, anno 1482. Francis killed Simon Ruthven of Drumshoreland, +anno 1540; bought letters of slayers at the widow and heir, and, by +a barbarous form of compounding, married (without tocher) Simon’s +daughter Grizzel, which is the way the Traquairs and Ruthvens came first +to an intermarriage. About the last Traquair and Ruthven marriage, +it is the business of this book, among many other things, to tell.<br> +<br> +The Traquairs were always strong for the Covenant; for the King also, +but the Covenant first; and it began to be ill days for Montroymont +when the Bishops came in and the dragoons at the heels of them. +Ninian (then laird) was an anxious husband of himself and the property, +as the times required, and it may be said of him, that he lost both. +He was heavily suspected of the Pentland Hills rebellion. When +it came the length of Bothwell Brig, he stood his trial before the Secret +Council, and was convicted of talking with some insurgents by the wayside, +the subject of the conversation not very clearly appearing, and of the +reset and maintenance of one Gale, a gardener man, who was seen before +Bothwell with a musket, and afterwards, for a continuance of months, +delved the garden at Montroymont. Matters went very ill with Ninian +at the Council; some of the lords were clear for treason; and even the +boot was talked of. But he was spared that torture; and at last, +having pretty good friendship among great men, he came off with a fine +of seven thousand marks, that caused the estate to groan. In this +case, as in so many others, it was the wife that made the trouble. +She was a great keeper of conventicles; would ride ten miles to one, +and when she was fined, rejoiced greatly to suffer for the Kirk; but +it was rather her husband that suffered. She had their only son, +Francis, baptized privately by the hands of Mr. Kidd; there was that +much the more to pay for! She could neither be driven nor wiled +into the parish kirk; as for taking the sacrament at the hands of any +Episcopalian curate, and tenfold more at those of Curate Haddo, there +was nothing further from her purposes; and Montroymont had to put his +hand in his pocket month by month and year by year. Once, indeed, +the little lady was cast in prison, and the laird, worthy, heavy, uninterested +man, had to ride up and take her place; from which he was not discharged +under nine months and a sharp fine. It scarce seemed she had any +gratitude to him; she came out of gaol herself, and plunged immediately +deeper in conventicles, resetting recusants, and all her old, expensive +folly, only with greater vigour and openness, because Montroymont was +safe in the Tolbooth and she had no witness to consider. When +he was liberated and came back, with his fingers singed, in December +1680, and late in the black night, my lady was from home. He came +into the house at his alighting, with a riding-rod yet in his hand; +and, on the servant-maid telling him, caught her by the scruff of the +neck, beat her violently, flung her down in the passageway, and went +upstairs to his bed fasting and without a light. It was three +in the morning when my lady returned from that conventicle, and, hearing +of the assault (because the maid had sat up for her, weeping), went +to their common chamber with a lantern in hand and stamping with her +shoes so as to wake the dead; it was supposed, by those that heard her, +from a design to have it out with the good man at once. The house-servants +gathered on the stair, because it was a main interest with them to know +which of these two was the better horse; and for the space of two hours +they were heard to go at the matter, hammer and tongs. Montroymont +alleged he was at the end of possibilities; it was no longer within +his power to pay the annual rents; she had served him basely by keeping +conventicles while he lay in prison for her sake; his friends were weary, +and there was nothing else before him but the entire loss of the family +lands, and to begin life again by the wayside as a common beggar. +She took him up very sharp and high: called upon him, if he were a Christian? +and which he most considered, the loss of a few dirty, miry glebes, +or of his soul? Presently he was heard to weep, and my lady’s +voice to go on continually like a running burn, only the words indistinguishable; +whereupon it was supposed a victory for her ladyship, and the domestics +took themselves to bed. The next day Traquair appeared like a +man who had gone under the harrows; and his lady wife thenceforward +continued in her old course without the least deflection.<br> +<br> +Thenceforward Ninian went on his way without complaint, and suffered +his wife to go on hers without remonstrance. He still minded his +estate, of which it might be said he took daily a fresh farewell, and +counted it already lost; looking ruefully on the acres and the graves +of his fathers, on the moorlands where the wild-fowl consorted, the +low, gurgling pool of the trout, and the high, windy place of the calling +curlews - things that were yet his for the day and would be another’s +to-morrow; coming back again, and sitting ciphering till the dusk at +his approaching ruin, which no device of arithmetic could postpone beyond +a year or two. He was essentially the simple ancient man, the +farmer and landholder; he would have been content to watch the seasons +come and go, and his cattle increase, until the limit of age; he would +have been content at any time to die, if he could have left the estates +undiminished to an heir-male of his ancestors, that duty standing first +in his instinctive calendar. And now he saw everywhere the image +of the new proprietor come to meet him, and go sowing and reaping, or +fowling for his pleasure on the red moors, or eating the very gooseberries +in the Place garden; and saw always, on the other hand, the figure of +Francis go forth, a beggar, into the broad world.<br> +<br> +It was in vain the poor gentleman sought to moderate; took every test +and took advantage of every indulgence; went and drank with the dragoons +in Balweary; attended the communion and came regularly to the church +to Curate Haddo, with his son beside him. The mad, raging, Presbyterian +zealot of a wife at home made all of no avail; and indeed the house +must have fallen years before if it had not been for the secret indulgence +of the curate, who had a great sympathy with the laird, and winked hard +at the doings in Montroymont. This curate was a man very ill reputed +in the countryside, and indeed in all Scotland. ‘Infamous +Haddo’ is Shield’s expression. But Patrick Walker +is more copious. ‘Curate Hall Haddo,’ says he, <i>sub</i> +<i>voce</i> Peden, ‘or <i>Hell</i> Haddo, as he was more justly +to be called, a pokeful of old condemned errors and the filthy vile +lusts of the flesh, a published whore-monger, a common gross drunkard, +continually and godlessly scraping and skirling on a fiddle, continually +breathing flames against the remnant of Israel. But the Lord put +an end to his piping, and all these offences were composed into one +bloody grave.’ No doubt this was written to excuse his slaughter; +and I have never heard it claimed for Walker that he was either a just +witness or an indulgent judge. At least, in a merely human character, +Haddo comes off not wholly amiss in the matter of these Traquairs: not +that he showed any graces of the Christian, but had a sort of Pagan +decency, which might almost tempt one to be concerned about his sudden, +violent, and unprepared fate.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER II - FRANCIE<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Francie was eleven years old, shy, secret, and rather childish of his +age, though not backward in schooling, which had been pushed on far +by a private governor, one M’Brair, a forfeited minister harboured +in that capacity at Montroymont. The boy, already much employed +in secret by his mother, was the most apt hand conceivable to run upon +a message, to carry food to lurking fugitives, or to stand sentry on +the skyline above a conventicle. It seemed no place on the moorlands +was so naked but what he would find cover there; and as he knew every +hag, boulder, and heather-bush in a circuit of seven miles about Montroymont, +there was scarce any spot but what he could leave or approach it unseen. +This dexterity had won him a reputation in that part of the country; +and among the many children employed in these dangerous affairs, he +passed under the by-name of Heathercat.<br> +<br> +How much his father knew of this employment might be doubted. +He took much forethought for the boy’s future, seeing he was like +to be left so poorly, and would sometimes assist at his lessons, sighing +heavily, yawning deep, and now and again patting Francie on the shoulder +if he seemed to be doing ill, by way of a private, kind encouragement. +But a great part of the day was passed in aimless wanderings with his +eyes sealed, or in his cabinet sitting bemused over the particulars +of the coming bankruptcy; and the boy would be absent a dozen times +for once that his father would observe it.<br> +<br> +On 2nd of July 1682 the boy had an errand from his mother, which must +be kept private from all, the father included in the first of them. +Crossing the braes, he hears the clatter of a horse’s shoes, and +claps down incontinent in a hag by the wayside. And presently +he spied his father come riding from one direction, and Curate Haddo +walking from another; and Montroymont leaning down from the saddle, +and Haddo getting on his toes (for he was a little, ruddy, bald-pated +man, more like a dwarf), they greeted kindly, and came to a halt within +two fathoms of the child.<br> +<br> +‘Montroymont,’ the curate said, ‘the deil’s +in ’t but I’ll have to denunciate your leddy again.’<br> +<br> +‘Deil’s in ’t indeed!’ says the laird.<br> +<br> +‘Man! can ye no induce her to come to the kirk?’ pursues +Haddo; ‘or to a communion at the least of it? For the conventicles, +let be! and the same for yon solemn fule, M’Brair: I can blink +at them. But she’s got to come to the kirk, Montroymont.’<br> +<br> +‘Dinna speak of it,’ says the laird. ‘I can +do nothing with her.’<br> +<br> +‘Couldn’t ye try the stick to her? it works wonders whiles,’ +suggested Haddo. ‘No? I’m wae to hear it. +And I suppose ye ken where you’re going?’<br> +<br> +‘Fine!’ said Montroymont. ‘Fine do I ken where: +bankrup’cy and the Bass Rock!’<br> +<br> +‘Praise to my bones that I never married!’ cried the curate. +‘Well, it’s a grievous thing to me to see an auld house +dung down that was here before Flodden Field. But naebody can +say it was with my wish.’<br> +<br> +‘No more they can, Haddo!’ says the laird. ‘A +good friend ye’ve been to me, first and last. I can give +you that character with a clear conscience.’<br> +<br> +Whereupon they separated, and Montroymont rode briskly down into the +Dule Valley. But of the curate Francis was not to be quit so easily. +He went on with his little, brisk steps to the corner of a dyke, and +stopped and whistled and waved upon a lassie that was herding cattle +there. This Janet M’Clour was a big lass, being taller than +the curate; and what made her look the more so, she was kilted very +high. It seemed for a while she would not come, and Francie heard +her calling Haddo a ‘daft auld fule,’ and saw her running +and dodging him among the whins and hags till he was fairly blown. +But at the last he gets a bottle from his plaid-neuk and holds it up +to her; whereupon she came at once into a composition, and the pair +sat, drinking of the bottle, and daffing and laughing together, on a +mound of heather. The boy had scarce heard of these vanities, +or he might have been minded of a nymph and satyr, if anybody could +have taken long-leggit Janet for a nymph. But they seemed to be +huge friends, he thought; and was the more surprised, when the curate +had taken his leave, to see the lassie fling stones after him with screeches +of laughter, and Haddo turn about and caper, and shake his staff at +her, and laugh louder than herself. A wonderful merry pair, they +seemed; and when Francie had crawled out of the hag, he had a great +deal to consider in his mind. It was possible they were all fallen +in error about Mr. Haddo, he reflected - having seen him so tender with +Montroymont, and so kind and playful with the lass Janet; and he had +a temptation to go out of his road and question her herself upon the +matter. But he had a strong spirit of duty on him; and plodded +on instead over the braes till he came near the House of Cairngorm. +There, in a hollow place by the burnside that was shaded by some birks, +he was aware of a barefoot boy, perhaps a matter of three years older +than himself. The two approached with the precautions of a pair +of strange dogs, looking at each other queerly.<br> +<br> +‘It’s ill weather on the hills,’ said the stranger, +giving the watchword.<br> +<br> +‘For a season,’ said Francie, ‘but the Lord will appear.’<br> +<br> +‘Richt,’ said the barefoot boy; ‘wha’re ye frae?’<br> +<br> +‘The Leddy Montroymont,’ says Francie.<br> +<br> +‘Ha’e, then!’ says the stranger, and handed him a +folded paper, and they stood and looked at each other again. ‘It’s +unco het,’ said the boy.<br> +<br> +‘Dooms het,’ says Francie.<br> +<br> +‘What do they ca’ ye?’ says the other.<br> +<br> +‘Francie,’ says he. ‘I’m young Montroymont. +They ca’ me Heathercat.’<br> +<br> +‘I’m Jock Crozer,’ said the boy. And there was +another pause, while each rolled a stone under his foot.<br> +<br> +‘Cast your jaiket and I’ll fecht ye for a bawbee,’ +cried the elder boy with sudden violence, and dramatically throwing +back his jacket.<br> +<br> +‘Na, I’ve nae time the now,’ said Francie, with a +sharp thrill of alarm, because Crozer was much the heavier boy.<br> +<br> +‘Ye’re feared. Heathercat indeed!’ said Crozer, +for among this infantile army of spies and messengers, the fame of Crozer +had gone forth and was resented by his rivals. And with that they +separated.<br> +<br> +On his way home Francie was a good deal occupied with the recollection +of this untoward incident. The challenge had been fairly offered +and basely refused: the tale would be carried all over the country, +and the lustre of the name of Heathercat be dimmed. But the scene +between Curate Haddo and Janet M’Clour had also given him much +to think of: and he was still puzzling over the case of the curate, +and why such ill words were said of him, and why, if he were so merry-spirited, +he should yet preach so dry, when coming over a knowe, whom should he +see but Janet, sitting with her back to him, minding her cattle! +He was always a great child for secret, stealthy ways, having been employed +by his mother on errands when the same was necessary; and he came behind +the lass without her hearing.<br> +<br> +‘Jennet,’ says he.<br> +<br> +‘Keep me,’ cries Janet, springing up. ‘O, it’s +you, Maister Francie! Save us, what a fricht ye gied me.’<br> +<br> +‘Ay, it’s me,’ said Francie. ‘I’ve +been thinking, Jennet; I saw you and the curate a while back - ’<br> +<br> +‘Brat!’ cried Janet, and coloured up crimson; and the one +moment made as if she would have stricken him with a ragged stick she +had to chase her bestial with, and the next was begging and praying +that he would mention it to none. It was ‘naebody’s +business, whatever,’ she said; ‘it would just start a clash +in the country’; and there would be nothing left for her but to +drown herself in Dule Water.<br> +<br> +‘Why?’ says Francie.<br> +<br> +The girl looked at him and grew scarlet again.<br> +<br> +‘And it isna that, anyway,’ continued Francie. ‘It +was just that he seemed so good to ye - like our Father in heaven, I +thought; and I thought that mebbe, perhaps, we had all been wrong about +him from the first. But I’ll have to tell Mr. M’Brair; +I’m under a kind of a bargain to him to tell him all.’<br> +<br> +‘Tell it to the divil if ye like for me!’ cried the lass. +‘I’ve naething to be ashamed of. Tell M’Brair +to mind his ain affairs,’ she cried again: ‘they’ll +be hot eneugh for him, if Haddie likes!’ And so strode off, +shoving her beasts before her, and ever and again looking back and crying +angry words to the boy, where he stood mystified.<br> +<br> +By the time he had got home his mind was made up that he would say nothing +to his mother. My Lady Montroymont was in the keeping-room, reading +a godly book; she was a wonderful frail little wife to make so much +noise in the world and be able to steer about that patient sheep her +husband; her eyes were like sloes, the fingers of her hands were like +tobacco-pipe shanks, her mouth shut tight like a trap; and even when +she was the most serious, and still more when she was angry, there hung +about her face the terrifying semblance of a smile.<br> +<br> +‘Have ye gotten the billet, Francie said she; and when he had +handed it over, and she had read and burned it, ‘Did you see anybody?’ +she asked.<br> +<br> +‘I saw the laird,’ said Francie.<br> +<br> +‘He didna see you, though?’ asked his mother.<br> +<br> +‘Deil a fear,’ from Francie.<br> +<br> +‘Francie!’ she cried. ‘What’s that I hear? +an aith? The Lord forgive me, have I broughten forth a brand for +the burning, a fagot for hell-fire?’<br> +<br> +‘I’m very sorry, ma’am,’ said Francie. +‘I humbly beg the Lord’s pardon, and yours, for my wickedness.’<br> +<br> +‘H’m,’ grunted the lady. ‘Did ye see nobody +else?’<br> +<br> +‘No, ma’am,’ said Francie, with the face of an angel, +‘except Jock Crozer, that gied me the billet.’<br> +<br> +‘Jock Crozer!’ cried the lady. ‘I’ll Crozer +them! Crozers indeed! What next? Are we to repose +the lives of a suffering remnant in Crozers? The whole clan of +them wants hanging, and if I had my way of it, they wouldna want it +long. Are you aware, sir, that these Crozers killed your forebear +at the kirk-door?’<br> +<br> +‘You see, he was bigger ’n me,’ said Francie.<br> +<br> +‘Jock Crozer!’ continued the lady. ‘That’ll +be Clement’s son, the biggest thief and reiver in the country-side. +To trust a note to him! But I’ll give the benefit of my +opinions to Lady Whitecross when we two forgather. Let her look +to herself! I have no patience with half-hearted carlines, that +complies on the Lord’s day morning with the kirk, and comes taigling +the same night to the conventicle. The one or the other! is what +I say: hell or heaven - Haddie’s abominations or the pure word +of God dreeping from the lips of Mr. Arnot,<br> +<br> +<br> +‘“Like honey from the honeycomb<br> +That dreepeth, sweeter far.”’<br> +<br> +<br> +My lady was now fairly launched, and that upon two congenial subjects: +the deficiencies of the Lady Whitecross and the turpitudes of the whole +Crozer race - which, indeed, had never been conspicuous for respectability. +She pursued the pair of them for twenty minutes on the clock with wonderful +animation and detail, something of the pulpit manner, and the spirit +of one possessed. ‘O hellish compliance!’ she exclaimed. +‘I would not suffer a complier to break bread with Christian folk. +Of all the sins of this day there is not one so God-defying, so Christ-humiliating, +as damnable compliance’: the boy standing before her meanwhile, +and brokenly pursuing other thoughts, mainly of Haddo and Janet, and +Jock Crozer stripping off his jacket. And yet, with all his distraction, +it might be argued that he heard too much: his father and himself being +‘compliers’ - that is to say, attending the church of the +parish as the law required.<br> +<br> +Presently, the lady’s passion beginning to decline, or her flux +of ill words to be exhausted, she dismissed her audience. Francie +bowed low, left the room, closed the door behind him: and then turned +him about in the passage-way, and with a low voice, but a prodigious +deal of sentiment, repeated the name of the evil one twenty times over, +to the end of which, for the greater efficacy, he tacked on ‘damnable’ +and ‘hellish.’ <i>Fas est ab hoste doceri</i> - disrespect +is made more pungent by quotation; and there is no doubt but he felt +relieved, and went upstairs into his tutor’s chamber with a quiet +mind. M’Brair sat by the cheek of the peat-fire and shivered, +for he had a quartan ague and this was his day. The great night-cap +and plaid, the dark unshaven cheeks of the man, and the white, thin +hands that held the plaid about his chittering body, made a sorrowful +picture. But Francie knew and loved him; came straight in, nestled +close to the refugee, and told his story. M’Brair had been +at the College with Haddo; the Presbytery had licensed both on the same +day; and at this tale, told with so much innocency by the boy, the heart +of the tutor was commoved.<br> +<br> +‘Woe upon him! Woe upon that man!’ he cried. +‘O the unfaithful shepherd! O the hireling and apostate +minister! Make my matters hot for me? quo’ she! the shameless +limmer! And true it is, that he could repose me in that nasty, +stinking hole, the Canongate Tolbooth, from which your mother drew me +out - the Lord reward her for it! - or to that cold, unbieldy, marine +place of the Bass Rock, which, with my delicate kist, would be fair +ruin to me. But I will be valiant in my Master’s service. +I have a duty here: a duty to my God, to myself, and to Haddo: in His +strength, I will perform it.’<br> +<br> +Then he straitly discharged Francie to repeat the tale, and bade him +in the future to avert his very eyes from the doings of the curate. +‘You must go to his place of idolatry; look upon him there!’ +says he, ‘but nowhere else. Avert your eyes, close your +ears, pass him by like a three days’ corp. He is like that +damnable monster Basiliscus, which defiles - yea, poisons! - by the +sight.’ - All which was hardly claratory to the boy’s mind.<br> +<br> +Presently Montroymont came home, and called up the stairs to Francie. +Traquair was a good shot and swordsman: and it was his pleasure to walk +with his son over the braes of the moorfowl, or to teach him arms in +the back court, when they made a mighty comely pair, the child being +so lean, and light, and active, and the laird himself a man of a manly, +pretty stature, his hair (the periwig being laid aside) showing already +white with many anxieties, and his face of an even, flaccid red. +But this day Francie’s heart was not in the fencing.<br> +<br> +‘Sir,’ says he, suddenly lowering his point, ‘will +ye tell me a thing if I was to ask it?’<br> +<br> +‘Ask away,’ says the father.<br> +<br> +‘Well, it’s this,’ said Francie: ‘Why do you +and me comply if it’s so wicked?’<br> +<br> +‘Ay, ye have the cant of it too!’ cries Montroymont. +‘But I’ll tell ye for all that. It’s to try +and see if we can keep the rigging on this house, Francie. If +she had her way, we would be beggar-folk, and hold our hands out by +the wayside. When ye hear her - when ye hear folk,’ he corrected +himself briskly, ‘call me a coward, and one that betrayed the +Lord, and I kenna what else, just mind it was to keep a bed to ye to +sleep in and a bite for ye to eat. - On guard!’ he cried, and +the lesson proceeded again till they were called to supper.<br> +<br> +‘There’s another thing yet,’ said Francie, stopping +his father. ‘There’s another thing that I am not sure +that I am very caring for. She - she sends me errands.’<br> +<br> +‘Obey her, then, as is your bounden duty,’ said Traquair.<br> +<br> +‘Ay, but wait till I tell ye,’ says the boy. ‘If +I was to see you I was to hide.’<br> +<br> +Montroymont sighed. ‘Well, and that’s good of her +too,’ said he. ‘The less that I ken of thir doings +the better for me; and the best thing you can do is just to obey her, +and see and be a good son to her, the same as ye are to me, Francie.’<br> +<br> +At the tenderness of this expression the heart of Francie swelled within +his bosom, and his remorse was poured out. ‘Faither!’ +he cried, ‘I said “deil” to-day; many’s the +time I said it, and <i>damnable</i> too, and <i>hellitsh</i>. +I ken they’re all right; they’re beeblical. But I +didna say them beeblically; I said them for sweir words - that’s +the truth of it.’<br> +<br> +‘Hout, ye silly bairn!’ said the father, ‘dinna do +it nae mair, and come in by to your supper.’ And he took +the boy, and drew him close to him a moment, as they went through the +door, with something very fond and secret, like a caress between a pair +of lovers.<br> +<br> +The next day M’Brair was abroad in the afternoon, and had a long +advising with Janet on the braes where she herded cattle. What +passed was never wholly known; but the lass wept bitterly, and fell +on her knees to him among the whins. The same night, as soon as +it was dark, he took the road again for Balweary. In the Kirkton, +where the dragoons quartered, he saw many lights, and heard the noise +of a ranting song and people laughing grossly, which was highly offensive +to his mind. He gave it the wider berth, keeping among fields; +and came down at last by the water-side, where the manse stands solitary +between the river and the road. He tapped at the back door, and +the old woman called upon him to come in, and guided him through the +house to the study, as they still called it, though there was little +enough study there in Haddo’s days, and more song-books than theology.<br> +<br> +‘Here’s yin to speak wi’ ye, Mr. Haddie!’ cries +the old wife.<br> +<br> +And M’Brair, opening the door and entering, found the little, +round, red man seated in one chair and his feet upon another. +A clear fire and a tallow dip lighted him barely. He was taking +tobacco in a pipe, and smiling to himself; and a brandy-bottle and glass, +and his fiddle and bow, were beside him on the table.<br> +<br> +‘Hech, Patey M’Briar, is this you?’ said he, a trifle +tipsily. ‘Step in by, man, and have a drop brandy: for the +stomach’s sake! Even the deil can quote Scripture - eh, +Patey?’<br> +<br> +‘I will neither eat nor drink with you,’ replied M’Brair. +‘I am come upon my Master’s errand: woe be upon me if I +should anyways mince the same. Hall Haddo, I summon you to quit +this kirk which you encumber.’<br> +<br> +‘Muckle obleeged!’ says Haddo, winking.<br> +<br> +‘You and me have been to kirk and market together,’ pursued +M’Brair; ‘we have had blessed seasons in the kirk, we have +sat in the same teaching-rooms and read in the same book; and I know +you still retain for me some carnal kindness. It would be my shame +if I denied it; I live here at your mercy and by your favour, and glory +to acknowledge it. You have pity on my wretched body, which is +but grass, and must soon be trodden under: but O, Haddo! how much greater +is the yearning with which I yearn after and pity your immortal soul! +Come now, let us reason together! I drop all points of controversy, +weighty though these be; I take your defaced and damnified kirk on your +own terms; and I ask you, Are you a worthy minister? The communion +season approaches; how can you pronounce thir solemn words, “The +elders will now bring forrit the elements,” and not quail? +A parishioner may be summoned to-night; you may have to rise from your +miserable orgies; and I ask you, Haddo, what does your conscience tell +you? Are you fit? Are you fit to smooth the pillow of a +parting Christian? And if the summons should be for yourself, +how then?’<br> +<br> +Haddo was startled out of all composure and the better part of his temper. +‘What’s this of it?’ he cried. ‘I’m +no waur than my neebours. I never set up to be speeritual; I never +did. I’m a plain, canty creature; godliness is cheerfulness, +says I; give me my fiddle and a dram, and I wouldna hairm a flee.’<br> +<br> +‘And I repeat my question,’ said M’Brair: ‘Are +you fit - fit for this great charge? fit to carry and save souls?’<br> +<br> +‘Fit? Blethers! As fit’s yoursel’,’ +cried Haddo.<br> +<br> +‘Are you so great a self-deceiver?’ said M’Brair. +‘Wretched man, trampler upon God’s covenants, crucifier +of your Lord afresh. I will ding you to the earth with one word: +How about the young woman, Janet M’Clour?’<br> +<br> +‘Weel, what about her? what do I ken?’ cries Haddo. +‘M’Brair, ye daft auld wife, I tell ye as true’s truth, +I never meddled her. It was just daffing, I tell ye: daffing, +and nae mair: a piece of fun, like! I’m no denying but what +I’m fond of fun, sma’ blame to me! But for onything +sarious - hout, man, it might come to a deposeetion! I’ll +sweir it to ye. Where’s a Bible, till you hear me sweir?’<br> +<br> +‘There is nae Bible in your study,’ said M’Brair severely.<br> +<br> +And Haddo, after a few distracted turns, was constrained to accept the +fact.<br> +<br> +‘Weel, and suppose there isna?’ he cried, stamping. +‘What mair can ye say of us, but just that I’m fond of my +joke, and so’s she? I declare to God, by what I ken, she +might be the Virgin Mary - if she would just keep clear of the dragoons. +But me! na, deil haet o’ me!’<br> +<br> +‘She is penitent at least,’ says M’Brair.<br> +<br> +‘Do you mean to actually up and tell me to my face that she accused +me?’ cried the curate.<br> +<br> +‘I canna just say that,’ replied M’Brair. ‘But +I rebuked her in the name of God, and she repented before me on her +bended knees.’<br> +<br> +‘Weel, I daursay she’s been ower far wi’ the dragoons,’ +said Haddo. ‘I never denied that. I ken naething by +it.’<br> +<br> +‘Man, you but show your nakedness the more plainly,’ said +M’Brair. ‘Poor, blind, besotted creature - and I see +you stoytering on the brink of dissolution: your light out, and your +hours numbered. Awake, man!’ he shouted with a formidable +voice, ‘awake, or it be ower late.’<br> +<br> +‘Be damned if I stand this!’ exclaimed Haddo, casting his +tobacco-pipe violently on the table, where it was smashed in pieces. +‘Out of my house with ye, or I’ll call for the dragoons.’<br> +<br> +‘The speerit of the Lord is upon me,’ said M’Brair +with solemn ecstasy. ‘I sist you to compear before the Great +White Throne, and I warn you the summons shall be bloody and sudden.’<br> +<br> +And at this, with more agility than could have been expected, he got +clear of the room and slammed the door behind him in the face of the +pursuing curate. The next Lord’s day the curate was ill, +and the kirk closed, but for all his ill words, Mr. M’Brair abode +unmolested in the house of Montroymont.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER III - THE HILL-END OF DRUMLOWE<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +This was a bit of a steep broken hill that overlooked upon the west +a moorish valley, full of ink-black pools. These presently drained +into a burn that made off, with little noise and no celerity of pace, +about the corner of the hill. On the far side the ground swelled +into a bare heath, black with junipers, and spotted with the presence +of the standing stones for which the place was famous. They were +many in that part, shapeless, white with lichen - you would have said +with age: and had made their abode there for untold centuries, since +first the heathens shouted for their installation. The ancients +had hallowed them to some ill religion, and their neighbourhood had +long been avoided by the prudent before the fall of day; but of late, +on the upspringing of new requirements, these lonely stones on the moor +had again become a place of assembly. A watchful picket on the +Hill-end commanded all the northern and eastern approaches; and such +was the disposition of the ground, that by certain cunningly posted +sentries the west also could be made secure against surprise: there +was no place in the country where a conventicle could meet with more +quiet of mind or a more certain retreat open, in the case of interference +from the dragoons. The minister spoke from a knowe close to the +edge of the ring, and poured out the words God gave him on the very +threshold of the devils of yore. When they pitched a tent (which +was often in wet weather, upon a communion occasion) it was rigged over +the huge isolated pillar that had the name of Anes-Errand, none knew +why. And the congregation sat partly clustered on the slope below, +and partly among the idolatrous monoliths and on the turfy soil of the +Ring itself. In truth the situation was well qualified to give +a zest to Christian doctrines, had there been any wanted. But +these congregations assembled under conditions at once so formidable +and romantic as made a zealot of the most cold. They were the +last of the faithful; God, who had averted His face from all other countries +of the world, still leaned from heaven to observe, with swelling sympathy, +the doings of His moorland remnant; Christ was by them with His eternal +wounds, with dropping tears; the Holy Ghost (never perfectly realised +nor firmly adopted by Protestant imaginations) was dimly supposed to +be in the heart of each and on the lips of the minister. And over +against them was the army of the hierarchies, from the men Charles and +James Stuart, on to King Lewie and the Emperor; and the scarlet Pope, +and the muckle black devil himself, peering out the red mouth of hell +in an ecstasy of hate and hope. ‘One pull more!’ he +seemed to cry; ‘one pull more, and it’s done. There’s +only Clydesdale and the Stewartry, and the three Bailiaries of Ayr, +left for God.’ And with such an august assistance of powers +and principalities looking on at the last conflict of good and evil, +it was scarce possible to spare a thought to those old, infirm, debile, +<i>ab agendo</i> devils whose holy place they were now violating.<br> +<br> +There might have been three hundred to four hundred present. At +least there were three hundred horses tethered for the most part in +the ring; though some of the hearers on the outskirts of the crowd stood +with their bridles in their hand, ready to mount at the first signal. +The circle of faces was strangely characteristic; long, serious, strongly +marked, the tackle standing out in the lean brown cheeks, the mouth +set and the eyes shining with a fierce enthusiasm; the shepherd, the +labouring man, and the rarer laird, stood there in their broad blue +bonnets or laced hats, and presenting an essential identity of type. +From time to time a long-drawn groan of adhesion rose in this audience, +and was propagated like a wave to the outskirts, and died away among +the keepers of the horses. It had a name; it was called ‘a +holy groan.’<br> +<br> +A squall came up; a great volley of flying mist went out before it and +whelmed the scene; the wind stormed with a sudden fierceness that carried +away the minister’s voice and twitched his tails and made him +stagger, and turned the congregation for a moment into a mere pother +of blowing plaid-ends and prancing horses; and the rain followed and +was dashed straight into their faces. Men and women panted aloud +in the shock of that violent shower-bath; the teeth were bared along +all the line in an involuntary grimace; plaids, mantles, and riding-coats +were proved vain, and the worshippers felt the water stream on their +naked flesh. The minister, reinforcing his great and shrill voice, +continued to contend against and triumph over the rising of the squall +and the dashing of the rain.<br> +<br> +‘In that day ye may go thirty mile and not hear a crawing cock,’ +he said; ‘and fifty mile and not get a light to your pipe; and +an hundred mile and not see a smoking house. For there’ll +be naething in all Scotland but deid men’s banes and blackness, +and the living anger of the Lord. O, where to find a bield - O +sirs, where to find a bield from the wind of the Lord’s anger? +Do ye call <i>this</i> a wind? Bethankit! Sirs, this is +but a temporary dispensation; this is but a puff of wind, this is but +a spit of rain and by with it. Already there’s a blue bow +in the west, and the sun will take the crown of the causeway again, +and your things’ll be dried upon ye, and your flesh will be warm +upon your bones. But O, sirs, sirs! for the day of the Lord’s +anger!’<br> +<br> +His rhetoric was set forth with an ear-piercing elocution, and a voice +that sometimes crashed like cannon. Such as it was, it was the +gift of all hill-preachers, to a singular degree of likeness or identity. +Their images scarce ranged beyond the red horizon of the moor and the +rainy hill-top, the shepherd and his sheep, a fowling-piece, a spade, +a pipe, a dunghill, a crowing cock, the shining and the withdrawal of +the sun. An occasional pathos of simple humanity, and frequent +patches of big Biblical words, relieved the homely tissue. It +was a poetry apart; bleak, austere, but genuine, and redolent of the +soil.<br> +<br> +A little before the coming of the squall there was a different scene +enacting at the outposts. For the most part, the sentinels were +faithful to their important duty; the Hill-end of Drumlowe was known +to be a safe meeting-place; and the out-pickets on this particular day +had been somewhat lax from the beginning, and grew laxer during the +inordinate length of the discourse. Francie lay there in his appointed +hiding-hole, looking abroad between two whin-bushes. His view +was across the course of the burn, then over a piece of plain moorland, +to a gap between two hills; nothing moved but grouse, and some cattle +who slowly traversed his field of view, heading northward: he heard +the psalms, and sang words of his own to the savage and melancholy music; +for he had his own design in hand, and terror and cowardice prevailed +in his bosom alternately, like the hot and the cold fit of an ague. +Courage was uppermost during the singing, which he accompanied through +all its length with this impromptu strain:<br> +<br> +<br> +‘And I will ding Jock Crozer down<br> +No later than the day.’<br> +<br> +<br> +Presently the voice of the preacher came to him in wafts, at the wind’s +will, as by the opening and shutting of a door; wild spasms of screaming, +as of some undiscerned gigantic hill-bird stirred with inordinate passion, +succeeded to intervals of silence; and Francie heard them with a critical +ear. ‘Ay,’ he thought at last, ‘he’ll +do; he has the bit in his mou’ fairly.’<br> +<br> +He had observed that his friend, or rather his enemy, Jock Crozer, had +been established at a very critical part of the line of outposts; namely, +where the burn issues by an abrupt gorge from the semicircle of high +moors. If anything was calculated to nerve him to battle it was +this. The post was important; next to the Hill-end itself, it +might be called the key to the position; and it was where the cover +was bad, and in which it was most natural to place a child. It +should have been Heathercat’s; why had it been given to Crozer? +An exquisite fear of what should be the answer passed through his marrow +every time he faced the question. Was it possible that Crozer +could have boasted? that there were rumours abroad to his - Heathercat’s +- discredit? that his honour was publicly sullied? All the world +went dark about him at the thought; he sank without a struggle into +the midnight pool of despair; and every time he so sank, he brought +back with him - not drowned heroism indeed, but half-drowned courage +by the locks. His heart beat very slowly as he deserted his station, +and began to crawl towards that of Crozer. Something pulled him +back, and it was not the sense of duty, but a remembrance of Crozer’s +build and hateful readiness of fist. Duty, as he conceived it, +pointed him forward on the rueful path that he was travelling. +Duty bade him redeem his name if he were able, at the risk of broken +bones; and his bones and every tooth in his head ached by anticipation. +An awful subsidiary fear whispered him that if he were hurt, he should +disgrace himself by weeping. He consoled himself, boy-like, with +the consideration that he was not yet committed; he could easily steal +over unseen to Crozer’s post, and he had a continuous private +idea that he would very probably steal back again. His course +took him so near the minister that he could hear some of his words: +‘What news, minister, of Claver’se? He’s going +round like a roaring rampaging lion. . . .<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Footnotes:<br> +<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1">{1}</a> From the Sydney +<i>Presbyterian</i>, October 26, 1889.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote2a"></a><a href="#citation2a">{2a}</a> <i>Theater</i> +of <i>Mortality</i>, p. 10; Edin. 1713.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote2b"></a><a href="#citation2b">{2b}</a> <i>History +of My Own Times</i>, beginning 1660, by Bishop Gilbert Burnet, p. 158.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote2c"></a><a href="#citation2c">{2c}</a> Wodrow’s +<i>Church History</i>, Book II. chap. i. sect. I.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote2d"></a><a href="#citation2d">{2d}</a> Crookshank’s +<i>Church History</i>, 1751, second ed. p. 202.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote2e"></a><a href="#citation2e">{2e}</a> Burnet, +p. 348.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote3a"></a><a href="#citation3a">{3a}</a> <i>Fuller’s +Historie of the Holy Warre</i>, fourth ed. 1651.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote3b"></a><a href="#citation3b">{3b}</a> Wodrow, +vol. ii. p. 17.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote3c"></a><a href="#citation3c">{3c}</a> Sir J. +Turner’s <i>Memoirs</i>, pp. 148-50.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote4a"></a><a href="#citation4a">{4a}</a> <i>A Cloud +of Witnesses</i>, p. 376.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote4b"></a><a href="#citation4b">{4b}</a> Wodrow, +pp. 19, 20.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote4c"></a><a href="#citation4c">{4c}</a> <i>A Hind +Let Loose</i>, p. 123.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote4d"></a><a href="#citation4d">{4d}</a> Turner, +p. 163.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote4e"></a><a href="#citation4e">{4e}</a> Turner, +p. 198.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote4f"></a><a href="#citation4f">{4f}</a> <i>Ibid</i>. +p. 167.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote4g"></a><a href="#citation4g">{4g}</a> Wodrow, +p. 29.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote4h"></a><a href="#citation4h">{4h}</a> Turner, +Wodrow, and <i>Church History</i> by James Kirkton, an outed minister +of the period.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote5a"></a><a href="#citation5a">{5a}</a> Kirkton, +p. 244.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote5b"></a><a href="#citation5b">{5b}</a> Kirkton.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote5c"></a><a href="#citation5c">{5c}</a> Turner.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote5d"></a><a href="#citation5d">{5d}</a> Kirkton.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote5e"></a><a href="#citation5e">{5e}</a> Kirkton.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote6a"></a><a href="#citation6a">{6a}</a> <i>Cloud +of Witnesses</i>, p. 389; Edin. 1765.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote6b"></a><a href="#citation6b">{6b}</a> Kirkton, +p. 247.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote6c"></a><a href="#citation6c">{6c}</a> Ibid. +p. 254.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote6d"></a><a href="#citation6d">{6d}</a> <i>Ibid</i>. +p. 247.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote6e"></a><a href="#citation6e">{6e}</a> <i>Ibid</i>. +pp. 247, 248.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote6f"></a><a href="#citation6f">{6f}</a> Kirkton, +p. 248.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote6g"></a><a href="#citation6g">{6g}</a> Kirkton, +p. 249.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote6h"></a><a href="#citation6h">{6h}</a> <i>Naphtali</i>, +p. 205; Glasgow, 1721.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote6i"></a><a href="#citation6i">{6i}</a> Wodrow, +p. 59.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote6j"></a><a href="#citation6j">{6j}</a> Kirkton, +p. 246.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote6k"></a><a href="#citation6k">{6k}</a> Defoe’s +<i>History of the Church of Scotland.<br> +<br> +</i><a name="footnote7"></a><a href="#citation7">{7}</a> ‘This +paper was written in collaboration with James Waiter Ferrier, and if +reprinted this is to be stated, though his principal collaboration was +to lie back in an easy-chair and laugh.’ - [R.L.S., Oct. 25, 1894.]<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote8"></a><a href="#citation8">{8}</a> See a short +essay of De Quincey’s.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote9a"></a><a href="#citation9a">{9a}</a> <i>Religio +Medici</i>, Part ii.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote9b"></a><a href="#citation9b">{9b}</a> <i>Duchess</i> +<i>of Malfi</i>.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, LAY MORALS ***<br> +<pre> + +******This file should be named lamor10h.htm or lamor10h.zip****** +Corrected EDITIONS of our EBooks get a new NUMBER, lamor11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, lamor10ah.htm + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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