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@@ -0,0 +1,7466 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Moon Endureth--Tales and Fancies, by John Buchan + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Moon Endureth--Tales and Fancies + +Author: John Buchan + +Release Date: February 3, 2008 [EBook #715] +[Last updated: March 12, 2016] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOON ENDURETH--TALES AND FANCIES *** + + + + + + + + + +The Moon Endureth + +Tales and Fancies + +by + +John Buchan + + + + +Contents + +From the Pentlands looking North and South + + + I The Company of the Marjolaine + Avignon 1759 + + II A Lucid Interval + The Shorter Catechism (revised version) + + III The Lemnian + Atta's song + + IV Space + Stocks and stones + + V Streams of water in the South + The Gipsy's song to the lady Cassilis + + VI The grove of Ashtaroth + Wood magic + + VII The riding of Ninemileburn + Plain Folk + + VIII The Kings of Orion + Babylon + + IX The green glen + The wise years + [Updater's note: Chapter 9 missing from etext] + + X The rime of True Thomas + + + + +FROM THE PENTLANDS LOOKING NORTH AND SOUTH + + Around my feet the clouds are drawn + In the cold mystery of the dawn; + No breezes cheer, no guests intrude + My mossy, mist-clad solitude; + When sudden down the steeps of sky + Flames a long, lightening wind. On high + The steel-blue arch shines clear, and far, + In the low lands where cattle are, + Towns smoke. And swift, a haze, a gleam,-- + The Firth lies like a frozen stream, + Reddening with morn. Tall spires of ships, + Like thorns about the harbour's lips, + Now shake faint canvas, now, asleep, + Their salt, uneasy slumbers keep; + While golden-grey, o'er kirk and wall, + Day wakes in the ancient capital. + + Before me lie the lists of strife, + The caravanserai of life, + Whence from the gates the merchants go + On the world's highways; to and fro + Sail laiden ships; and in the street + The lone foot-traveller shakes his feet, + And in some corner by the fire + Tells the old tale of heart's desire. + Thither from alien seas and skies + Comes the far-questioned merchandise:-- + Wrought silks of Broussa, Mocha's ware + Brown-tinted, fragrant, and the rare + Thin perfumes that the rose's breath + Has sought, immortal in her death: + Gold, gems, and spice, and haply still + The red rough largess of the hill + Which takes the sun and bears the vines + Among the haunted Apennines. + And he who treads the cobbled street + To-day in the cold North may meet, + Come month, come year, the dusky East, + And share the Caliph's secret feast; + Or in the toil of wind and sun + Bear pilgrim-staff, forlorn, fordone, + Till o'er the steppe, athwart the sand + Gleam the far gates of Samarkand. + The ringing quay, the weathered face + Fair skies, dusk hands, the ocean race + The palm-girt isle, the frosty shore, + Gales and hot suns the wide world o'er + Grey North, red South, and burnished West + The goals of the old tireless quest, + Leap in the smoke, immortal, free, + Where shines yon morning fringe of sea + I turn, and lo! the moorlands high + Lie still and frigid to the sky. + The film of morn is silver-grey + On the young heather, and away, + Dim, distant, set in ribs of hill, + Green glens are shining, stream and mill, + Clachan and kirk and garden-ground, + All silent in the hush profound + Which haunts alone the hills' recess, + The antique home of quietness. + Nor to the folk can piper play + The tune of "Hills and Far Away," + For they are with them. Morn can fire + No peaks of weary heart's desire, + Nor the red sunset flame behind + Some ancient ridge of longing mind. + For Arcady is here, around, + In lilt of stream, in the clear sound + Of lark and moorbird, in the bold + Gay glamour of the evening gold, + And so the wheel of seasons moves + To kirk and market, to mild loves + And modest hates, and still the sight + Of brown kind faces, and when night + Draws dark around with age and fear + Theirs is the simple hope to cheer.-- + A land of peace where lost romance + And ghostly shine of helm and lance + Still dwell by castled scarp and lea, + And the last homes of chivalry, + And the good fairy folk, my dear, + Who speak for cunning souls to hear, + In crook of glen and bower of hill + Sing of the Happy Ages still. + + + O Thou to whom man's heart is known, + Grant me my morning orison. + Grant me the rover's path--to see + The dawn arise, the daylight flee, + In the far wastes of sand and sun! + Grant me with venturous heart to run + On the old highway, where in pain + And ecstasy man strives amain, + Conquers his fellows, or, too weak, + Finds the great rest that wanderers seek! + Grant me the joy of wind and brine, + The zest of food, the taste of wine, + The fighter's strength, the echoing strife + The high tumultuous lists of life-- + May I ne'er lag, nor hapless fall, + Nor weary at the battle-call!... + But when the even brings surcease, + Grant me the happy moorland peace; + That in my heart's depth ever lie + That ancient land of heath and sky, + Where the old rhymes and stories fall + In kindly, soothing pastoral. + There in the hills grave silence lies, + And Death himself wears friendly guise + There be my lot, my twilight stage, + Dear city of my pilgrimage. + + + + +I + +THE COMPANY OF THE MARJOLAINE + + "Qu'est-c'qui passe ici si tard, + Compagnons de la Marjolaine," + --CHANSONS DE FRANCE + + +...I came down from the mountain and into the pleasing valley of the +Adige in as pelting a heat as ever mortal suffered under. The way +underfoot was parched and white; I had newly come out of a wilderness +of white limestone crags, and a sun of Italy blazed blindingly in an +azure Italian sky. You are to suppose, my dear aunt, that I had had +enough and something more of my craze for foot-marching. A fortnight +ago I had gone to Belluno in a post-chaise, dismissed my fellow to +carry my baggage by way of Verona, and with no more than a valise on +my back plunged into the fastnesses of those mountains. I had a fancy +to see the little sculptured hills which made backgrounds for +Gianbellini, and there were rumours of great mountains built wholly of +marble which shone like the battlements. + +...1 This extract from the unpublished papers of the Manorwater family +has seemed to the Editor worth printing for its historical interest. +The famous Lady Molly Carteron became Countess of Manorwater by her +second marriage. She was a wit and a friend of wits, and her nephew, +the Honourable Charles Hervey-Townshend (afterwards our Ambassador at +The Hague), addressed to her a series of amusing letters while making, +after the fashion of his contemporaries, the Grand Tour of Europe. +Three letters, written at various places in the Eastern Alps and +despatched from Venice, contain the following short narrative.... + +of the Celestial City. So at any rate reported young Mr. Wyndham, who +had travelled with me from Milan to Venice. I lay the first night at +Pieve, where Titian had the fortune to be born, and the landlord at the +inn displayed a set of villainous daubs which he swore were the early +works of that master. Thence up a toilsome valley I journeyed to the +Ampezzan country, valley where indeed I saw my white mountains, but, +alas! no longer Celestial. For it rained like Westmorland for five +endless days, while I kicked my heels in an inn and turned a canto of +Aristo into halting English couplets. By-and-by it cleared, and I +headed westward towards Bozen, among the tangle of rocks where the +Dwarf King had once his rose-garden. The first night I had no inn but +slept in the vile cabin of a forester, who spoke a tongue half Latin, +half Dutch, which I failed to master. The next day was a blaze of +heat, the mountain-paths lay thick with dust, and I had no wine from +sunrise to sunset. Can you wonder that, when the following noon I saw +Santa Chiara sleeping in its green circlet of meadows, my thought was +only of a deep draught and a cool chamber? I protest that I am a great +lover of natural beauty, of rock and cascade, and all the properties of +the poet: but the enthusiasm of Rousseau himself would sink from the +stars to earth if he had marched since breakfast in a cloud of dust +with a throat like the nether millstone. + +Yet I had not entered the place before Romance revived. The little +town--a mere wayside halting-place on the great mountain-road to the +North--had the air of mystery which foretells adventure. Why is it +that a dwelling or a countenance catches the fancy with the promise of +some strange destiny? I have houses in my mind which I know will some +day and somehow be intertwined oddly with my life; and I have faces in +memory of which I know nothing--save that I shall undoubtedly cast eyes +again upon them. My first glimpses of Santa Chiara gave me this earnest +of romance. It was walled and fortified, the streets were narrow pits +of shade, old tenements with bent fronts swayed to meet each other. +Melons lay drying on flat roofs, and yet now and then would come a +high-pitched northern gable. Latin and Teuton met and mingled in the +place, and, as Mr. Gibbon has taught us, the offspring of this +admixture is something fantastic and unpredictable. I forgot my +grievous thirst and my tired feet in admiration and a certain vague +expectation of wonders. Here, ran my thought, it is fated, maybe, that +romance and I shall at last compass a meeting. Perchance some princess +is in need of my arm, or some affair of high policy is afoot in this +jumble of old masonry. You will laugh at my folly, but I had an +excuse for it. A fortnight in strange mountains disposes a man to look +for something at his next encounter with his kind, and the sight of +Santa Chiara would have fired the imagination of a judge in Chancery. + +I strode happily into the courtyard of the Tre Croci, and presently had +my expectation confirmed for I found my fellow,--a faithful rogue I got +in Rome on a Cardinal's recommendation,--hot in dispute with a lady's +maid. The woman was old, harsh-featured--no Italian clearly, though she +spoke fluently in the tongue. She rated my man like a pickpocket, and +the dispute was over a room. + +"The signor will bear me out," said Gianbattista. "Was not I sent to +Verona with his baggage, and thence to this place of ill manners? Was +I not bidden engage for him a suite of apartments? Did I not duly +choose these fronting on the gallery, and dispose therein the signor's +baggage? And lo! an hour ago I found it all turned into the yard and +this woman installed in its place. It is monstrous, unbearable! Is +this an inn for travellers, or haply the private mansion of these +Magnificences?" + +"My servant speaks truly," I said firmly yet with courtesy, having no +mind to spoil adventure by urging rights. "He had orders to take these +rooms for me, and I know not what higher power can countermand me." + +The woman had been staring at me scornfully, for no doubt in my dusty +habit I was a figure of small count; but at the sound of my voice she +started, and cried out, "You are English, signor?" + +I bowed an admission. "Then my mistress shall speak with you," she +said, and dived into the inn like an elderly rabbit. + +Gianbattista was for sending for the landlord and making a riot in that +hostelry; but I stayed him, and bidding him fetch me a flask of white +wine, three lemons, and a glass of eau de vie, I sat down peaceably at +one of the little tables in the courtyard and prepared for the +quenching of my thirst. Presently, as I sat drinking that excellent +compound of my own invention, my shoulder was touched, and I turned to +find the maid and her mistress. Alas for my hopes of a glorious being, +young and lissom and bright with the warm riches of the south! I saw a +short, stout little lady, well on the wrong side of thirty. She had +plump red cheeks, and fair hair dressed indifferently in the Roman +fashion. Two candid blue eyes redeemed her plainness, and a certain +grave and gentle dignity. She was notably a gentlewoman, so I got up, +doffed my hat, and awaited her commands. + +She spoke in Italian. "Your pardon, signor, but I fear my good +Cristine has done you unwittingly a wrong." + +Cristine snorted at this premature plea of guilty, while I hastened to +assure the fair apologist that any rooms I might have taken were freely +at her service. + +I spoke unconsciously in English, and she replied in a halting parody +of that tongue. "I understand him," she said, "but I do not speak him +happily. I will discourse, if the signor pleases, in our first speech." + +She and her father, it appeared, had come over the Brenner, and arrived +that morning at the Tre Croci, where they purposed to lie for some +days. He was an old man, very feeble, and much depending upon her +constant care. Wherefore it was necessary that the rooms of all the +party should adjoin, and there was no suite of the size in the inn save +that which I had taken. Would I therefore consent to forgo my right, +and place her under an eternal debt? + +I agreed most readily, being at all times careless where I sleep, so +the bed be clean, or where I eat, so the meal be good. I bade my +servant see the landlord and have my belongings carried to other rooms. +Madame thanked me sweetly, and would have gone, when a thought detained +her. + +"It is but courteous," she said, "that you should know the names of +those whom you have befriended. My father is called the Count +d'Albani, and I am his only daughter. We travel to Florence, where we +have a villa in the environs." + +"My name," said I, "is Hervey-Townshend, an Englishman travelling +abroad for his entertainment." + +"Hervey?" she repeated. "Are you one of the family of Miladi Hervey?" + +"My worthy aunt," I replied, with a tender recollection of that +preposterous woman. + +Madame turned to Cristine, and spoke rapidly in a whisper. + +"My father, sir," she said, addressing me, "is an old frail man, little +used to the company of strangers; but in former days he has had +kindness from members of your house, and it would be a satisfaction to +him, I think, to have the privilege of your acquaintance." + +She spoke with the air of a vizier who promises a traveller a sight of +the Grand Turk. I murmured my gratitude, and hastened after +Gianbattista. In an hour I had bathed, rid myself of my beard, and +arrayed myself in decent clothing. Then I strolled out to inspect the +little city, admired an altar-piece, chaffered with a Jew for a cameo, +purchased some small necessaries, and returned early in the afternoon +with a noble appetite for dinner. + +The Tre Croci had been in happier days a Bishop's lodging, and +possessed a dining-hall ceiled with black oak and adorned with frescos. +It was used as a general salle a manger for all dwellers in the inn, +and there accordingly I sat down to my long-deferred meal. At first +there were no other diners, and I had two maids, as well as +Gianbattista, to attend on my wants. Presently Madame d'Albani +entered, escorted by Cristine and by a tall gaunt serving-man, who +seemed no part of the hostelry. The landlord followed, bowing civilly, +and the two women seated themselves at the little table at the farther +end. "Il Signor Conte dines in his room," said Madame to the host, who +withdrew to see to that gentleman's needs. + +I found my eyes straying often to the little party in the cool twilight +of that refectory. The man-servant was so old and battered, and of +such a dignity, that he lent a touch of intrigue to the thing. He stood +stiffly behind Madame's chair, handing dishes with an air of great +reverence--the lackey of a great noble, if I had ever seen the type. +Madame never glanced toward me, but conversed sparingly with Cristine, +while she pecked delicately at her food. Her name ran in my head with +a tantalizing flavour of the familiar. Albani! D'Albani! It was a +name not uncommon in the Roman States, but I had never heard it linked +to a noble family. And yet I had somehow, somewhere; and in the vain +effort at recollection I had almost forgotten my hunger. There was +nothing bourgeois in the little lady. The austere servants, the high +manner of condescension, spake of a stock used to deference, though, +maybe, pitifully decayed in its fortunes. There was a mystery in +these quiet folk which tickled my curiosity. Romance after all was not +destined to fail me at Santa Chiara. + +My doings of the afternoon were of interest to me alone. Suffice it to +say that when at nightfall I found Gianbattista the trustee of a +letter. It was from Madame, written in a fine thin hand on a delicate +paper, and it invited me to wait upon the signor her father, that +evening at eight o'clock. What caught my eye was a coronet stamped in +a corner. A coronet, I say, but in truth it was a crown, the same as +surmounts the Arms Royal of England on the sign-board of a Court +tradesman. I marvelled at the ways of foreign heraldry. Either this +family of d'Albani had higher pretensions than I had given it credit +for, or it employed an unlearned and imaginative stationer. I +scribbled a line of acceptance and went to dress. + +The hour of eight found me knocking at the Count's door. The grim +serving-man admitted me to the pleasant chamber which should have been +mine own. A dozen wax candles burned in sconces, and on the table +among fruits and the remains of supper stood a handsome candelabra of +silver. A small fire of logs had been lit on the hearth, and before it +in an armchair sat a strange figure of a man. He seemed not so much +old as aged. I should have put him at sixty, but the marks he bore +were clearly less those of time than of life. There sprawled before me +the relics of noble looks. The fleshy nose, the pendulous cheek, the +drooping mouth, had once been cast in looks of manly beauty. Heavy +eyebrows above and heavy bags beneath spoiled the effect of a choleric +blue eye, which age had not dimmed. The man was gross and yet haggard; +it was not the padding of good living which clothed his bones, but a +heaviness as of some dropsical malady. I could picture him in health a +gaunt loose-limbed being, high-featured and swift and eager. He was +dressed wholly in black velvet, with fresh ruffles and wristbands, and +he wore heeled shoes with antique silver buckles. It was a figure of +an older age which rose to greet me, in one hand a snuff-box and a +purple handkerchief, and in the other a book with finger marking place. +He made me a great bow as Madame uttered my name, and held out a hand +with a kindly smile. + +"Mr. Hervey-Townshend," he said, "we will speak English, if you please. +I am fain to hear it again, for 'tis a tongue I love. I make you +welcome, sir, for your own sake and for the sake of your kin. How is +her honourable ladyship, your aunt? A week ago she sent me a letter." + +I answered that she did famously, and wondered what cause of +correspondence my worthy aunt could have with wandering nobles of Italy. + +He motioned me to a chair between Madame and himself, while a servant +set a candle on a shelf behind him. Then he proceeded to catechise me +in excellent English, with now and then a phrase of French, as to the +doings in my own land. Admirably informed this Italian gentleman +proved himself. I defy you to find in Almack's more intelligent +gossip. He inquired as to the chances of my Lord North and the mind of +my Lord Rockingham. He had my Lord Shelburne's foibles at his fingers' +ends. The habits of the Prince, the aims of the their ladyships of +Dorset and Buckingham, the extravagance of this noble Duke and that +right honourable gentleman were not hid from him. I answered +discreetly yet frankly, for there was no ill-breeding in his curiosity. +Rather it seemed like the inquiries of some fine lady, now buried deep +in the country, as to the doings of a forsaken Mayfair. There was +humour in it and something of pathos. + +"My aunt must be a voluminous correspondent, sir," I said. + +He laughed, "I have many friends in England who write to me, but I have +seen none of them for long, and I doubt I may never see them again. +Also in my youth I have been in England." And he sighed as at +sorrowful recollection. + +Then he showed the book in his hand. "See," he said, "here is one of +your English writings, the greatest book I have ever happened on." It +was a volume of Mr. Fielding. For a little he talked of books and +poets. He admired Mr. Fielding profoundly, Dr. Smollet somewhat less, +Mr. Richardson not at all. But he was clear that England had a +monopoly of good writers, saving only my friend M. Rousseau, whom he +valued, yet with reservations. Of the Italians he had no opinion. I +instanced against him the plays of Signor Alfieri. He groaned, shook +his head, and grew moody. + +"Know you Scotland?" he asked suddenly. + +I replied that I had visited Scotch cousins, but had no great +estimation for the country. "It is too poor and jagged," I said, "for +the taste of one who loves colour and sunshine and suave outlines." He +sighed. "It is indeed a bleak land, but a kindly. When the sun shines +at all he shines on the truest hearts in the world. I love its +bleakness too. There is a spirit in the misty hills and the harsh +sea-wind which inspires men to great deeds. Poverty and courage go +often together, and my Scots, if they are poor, are as untamable as +their mountains." + +"You know the land, sir?" I asked. + +"I have seen it, and I have known many Scots. You will find them in +Paris and Avignon and Rome, with never a plack in their pockets. I +have a feeling for exiles, sir, and I have pitied these poor people. +They gave their all for the cause they followed." + +Clearly the Count shared my aunt's views of history--those views which +have made such sport for us often at Carteron. Stalwart Whig as I am, +there was something in the tone of the old gentleman which made me feel +a certain majesty in the lost cause. + +"I am Whig in blood and Whig in principle," I said,--"but I have never +denied that those Scots who followed the Chevalier were too good to +waste on so trumpery a leader." + +I had no sooner spoken the words than I felt that somehow I had been +guilty of a betise. + +"It may be so," said the Count. "I did not bid you here, sir, to argue +on politics, on which I am assured we should differ. But I will ask +you one question. The King of England is a stout upholder of the right +of kings. How does he face the defection of his American possessions?" + +"The nation takes it well enough, and as for his Majesty's feelings, +there is small inclination to inquire into them. I conceive of the +whole war as a blunder out of which we have come as we deserved. The +day is gone by for the assertion of monarchic rights against the will +of a people." + +"May be. But take note that the King of England is suffering to-day +as--how do you call him?--the Chevalier suffered forty years ago. 'The +wheel has come full circle,' as your Shakespeare says. Time has +wrought his revenge." + +He was staring into a fire, which burned small and smokily. + +"You think the day for kings is ended. I read it differently. The +world will ever have need of kings. If a nation cast out one it will +have to find another. And mark you, those later kings, created by the +people, will bear a harsher hand than the old race who ruled as of +right. Some day the world will regret having destroyed the kindly and +legitimate line of monarchs and put in their place tyrants who govern +by the sword or by flattering an idle mob." + +This belated dogma would at other times have set me laughing, but the +strange figure before me gave no impulse to merriment. I glanced at +Madame, and saw her face grave and perplexed, and I thought I read a +warning gleam in her eye. There was a mystery about the party which +irritated me, but good breeding forbade me to seek a clue. + +"You will permit me to retire, sir," I said. "I have but this morning +come down from a long march among the mountains east of this valley. +Sleeping in wayside huts and tramping those sultry paths make a man +think pleasantly of bed." + +The Count seemed to brighten at my words. "You are a marcher, sir, and +love the mountains! Once I would gladly have joined you, for in my +youth I was a great walker in hilly places. Tell me, now, how many +miles will you cover in a day?" + +I told him thirty at a stretch. + +"Ah," he said, "I have done fifty, without food, over the roughest and +mossiest mountains. I lived on what I shot, and for drink I had +spring-water. Nay, I am forgetting. There was another beverage, which +I wager you have never tasted. Heard you ever, sir, of that eau de vie +which the Scots call usquebagh? It will comfort a traveller as no thin +Italian wine will comfort him. By my soul, you shall taste it. +Charlotte, my dear, bid Oliphant fetch glasses and hot water and +lemons. I will give Mr. Hervey-Townshend a sample of the brew. You +English are all tetes-de-fer, sir, and are worthy of it." + +The old man's face had lighted up, and for the moment his air had the +jollity of youth. I would have accepted the entertainment had I not +again caught Madame's eye. It said, unmistakably and with serious +pleading, "Decline." I therefore made my excuses, urged fatigue, +drowsiness, and a delicate stomach, bade my host good-night, and in +deep mystification left the room. + +Enlightenment came upon me as the door closed. There in the threshold +stood the manservant whom they called Oliphant, erect as a sentry on +guard. The sight reminded me of what I had once seen at Basle when by +chance a Rhenish Grand Duke had shared the inn with me. Of a sudden a +dozen clues linked together--the crowned notepaper, Scotland, my aunt +Hervey's politics, the tale of old wanderings. + +"Tell me," I said in a whisper, "who is the Count d'Albani, your +master?" and I whistled softly a bar of "Charlie is my darling." + +"Ay," said the man, without relaxing a muscle of his grim face. "It is +the King of England--my king and yours." + + + + +II + +In the small hours of the next morning I was awoke by a most unearthly +sound. It was as if all the cats on all the roofs of Santa Chiara were +sharpening their claws and wailing their battle-cries. Presently out +of the noise came a kind of music--very slow, solemn, and melancholy. +The notes ran up in great flights of ecstasy, and sunk anon to the +tragic deeps. In spite of my sleepiness I was held spellbound and the +musician had concluded with certain barbaric grunts before I had the +curiosity to rise. It came from somewhere in the gallery of the inn, +and as I stuck my head out of my door I had a glimpse of Oliphant, +nightcap on head and a great bagpipe below his arm, stalking down the +corridor. + +The incident, for all the gravity of the music, seemed to give a touch +of farce to my interview of the past evening. I had gone to bed with +my mind full of sad stories of the deaths of kings. Magnificence in +tatters has always affected my pity more deeply than tatters with no +such antecedent, and a monarch out at elbows stood for me as the last +irony of our mortal life. Here was a king whose misfortunes could find +no parallel. He had been in his youth the hero of a high adventure, +and his middle age had been spent in fleeting among the courts of +Europe, and waiting as pensioner on the whims of his foolish but +regnant brethren. I had heard tales of a growing sottishness, a +decline in spirit, a squalid taste in pleasures. Small blame, I had +always thought, to so ill-fated a princeling. And now I had chanced +upon the gentleman in his dotage, travelling with a barren effort at +mystery, attended by a sad-faced daughter and two ancient domestics. +It was a lesson in the vanity of human wishes which the shallowest +moralist would have noted. Nay, I felt more than the moral. Something +human and kindly in the old fellow had caught my fancy. The decadence +was too tragic to prose about, the decadent too human to moralise on. +I had left the chamber of the--shall I say de jure King of England?--a +sentimental adherent of the cause. But this business of the bagpipes +touched the comic. To harry an old valet out of bed and set him +droning on pipes in the small hours smacked of a theatrical taste, or +at least of an undignified fancy. Kings in exile, if they wish to keep +the tragic air, should not indulge in such fantastic serenades. + +My mind changed again when after breakfast I fell in with Madame on the +stair. She drew aside to let me pass, and then made as if she would +speak to me. I gave her good-morning, and, my mind being full of her +story, addressed her as "Excellency." + +"I see, sir," she said, "That you know the truth. I have to ask your +forbearance for the concealment I practised yesterday. It was a poor +requital for your generosity, but is it one of the shifts of our sad +fortune. An uncrowned king must go in disguise or risk the laughter of +every stable-boy. Besides, we are too poor to travel in state, even if +we desired it." + +Honestly, I knew not what to say. I was not asked to sympathise, having +already revealed my politics, and yet the case cried out for sympathy. +You remember, my dear aunt, the good Lady Culham, who was our +Dorsetshire neighbour, and tried hard to mend my ways at Carteron? +This poor Duchess--for so she called herself--was just such another. A +woman made for comfort, housewifery, and motherhood, and by no means +for racing about Europe in charge of a disreputable parent. I could +picture her settled equably on a garden seat with a lapdog and +needlework, blinking happily over green lawns and mildly rating an +errant gardener. I could fancy her sitting in a summer parlour, very +orderly and dainty, writing lengthy epistles to a tribe of nieces. I +could see her marshalling a household in the family pew, or riding +serenely in the family coach behind fat bay horses. But here, on an +inn staircase, with a false name and a sad air of mystery, she was +woefully out of place. I noted little wrinkles forming in the corners +of her eyes, and the ravages of care beginning in the plump rosiness of +her face. Be sure there was nothing appealing in her mien. She spoke +with the air of a great lady, to whom the world is matter only for an +afterthought. It was the facts that appealed and grew poignant from +her courage. + +"There is another claim upon your good nature," she said. "Doubtless +you were awoke last night by Oliphant's playing upon the pipes. I +rebuked the landlord for his insolence in protesting, but to you, a +gentleman and a friend, an explanation is due. My father sleeps ill, +and your conversation seems to have cast him into a train of sad +memories. It has been his habit on such occasions to have the pipes +played to him, since they remind him of friends and happier days. It +is a small privilege for an old man, and he does not claim it often." + +I declared that the music had only pleased, and that I would welcome +its repetition. Where upon she left me with a little bow and an +invitation to join them that day at dinner, while I departed into the +town on my own errands. I returned before midday, and was seated at an +arbour in the garden, busy with letters, when there hove in sight the +gaunt figure of Oliphant. He hovered around me, if such a figure can +be said to hover, with the obvious intention of addressing me. The +fellow had caught my fancy, and I was willing to see more of him. His +face might have been hacked out of grey granite, his clothes hung +loosely on his spare bones, and his stockined shanks would have done no +discredit to Don Quixote. There was no dignity in his air, only a +steady and enduring sadness. Here, thought I, is the one of the +establishment who most commonly meets the shock of the world's buffets. +I called him by name and asked him his desires. + +It appeared that he took me for a Jacobite, for he began a rigmarole +about loyalty and hard fortune. I hastened to correct him, and he took +the correction with the same patient despair with which he took all +things. 'Twas but another of the blows of Fate. + +"At any rate," he said in a broad Scotch accent, "ye come of kin that +has helpit my maister afore this. I've many times heard tell o' +Herveys and Townshends in England, and a' folk said they were on the +richt side. Ye're maybe no a freend, but ye're a freend's freend, or I +wadna be speirin' at ye." + +I was amused at the prologue, and waited on the tale. It soon came. +Oliphant, it appeared, was the purse-bearer of the household, and +woeful straits that poor purse-bearer must have been often put to. I +questioned him as to his master's revenues, but could get no clear +answer. There were payments due next month in Florence which would +solve the difficulties for the winter, but in the meantime expenditure +had beaten income. Travelling had cost much, and the Count must have +his small comforts. The result in plain words was that Oliphant had +not the wherewithal to frank the company to Florence; indeed, I doubted +if he could have paid the reckoning in Santa Chiara. A loan was +therefore sought from a friend's friend, meaning myself. + +I was very really embarrassed. Not that I would not have given +willingly, for I had ample resources at the moment and was mightily +concerned about the sad household. But I knew that the little Duchess +would take Oliphant's ears from his head if she guessed that he had +dared to borrow from me, and that, if I lent, her back would for ever +be turned against me. And yet, what would follow on my refusal? In a +day of two there would be a pitiful scene with mine host, and as like +as not some of their baggage detained as security for payment. I did +not love the task of conspiring behind the lady's back, but if it could +be contrived 'twas indubitably the kindest course. I glared sternly at +Oliphant, who met me with his pathetic, dog-like eyes. + +"You know that your mistress would never consent to the request you +have made of me?" + +"I ken," he said humbly. "But payin' is my job, and I simply havena +the siller. It's no the first time it has happened, and it's a sair +trial for them both to be flung out o' doors by a foreign hostler +because they canna meet his charges. But, sir, if ye can lend to me, +ye may be certain that her leddyship will never, hear a word o't. Puir +thing, she takes nae thocht o' where the siller comes frae, ony mair +than the lilies o' the field." + +I became a conspirator. "You swear, Oliphant, by all you hold sacred, +to breathe nothing of this to your mistress, and if she should suspect, +to lie like a Privy Councillor?" + +A flicker of a smile crossed his face. "I'll lee like a Scotch +packman, and the Father o' lees could do nae mair. You need have no +fear for your siller, sir. I've aye repaid when I borrowed, though you +may have to wait a bittock." And the strange fellow strolled off. + +At dinner no Duchess appeared till long after the appointed hour, nor +was there any sign of Oliphant. When she came at last with Cristine, +her eyes looked as if she had been crying, and she greeted me with +remote courtesy. My first thought was that Oliphant had revealed the +matter of the loan, but presently I found that the lady's trouble was +far different. Her father, it seemed, was ill again with his old +complaint. What that was I did not ask, nor did the Duchess reveal it. + +We spoke in French, for I had discovered that this was her favourite +speech. There was no Oliphant to wait on us, and the inn servants were +always about, so it was well to have a tongue they did not comprehend. +The lady was distracted and sad. When I inquired feelingly as to the +general condition of her father's health she parried the question, and +when I offered my services she disregarded my words. It was in truth a +doleful meal, while the faded Cristine sat like a sphinx staring into +vacancy. I spoke of England and of her friends, of Paris and +Versailles, of Avignon where she had spent some years, and of the +amenities of Florence, which she considered her home. But it was like +talking to a nunnery door. I got nothing but "It is indeed true, sir," +or "Do you say so, sir!" till my energy began to sink. Madame +perceived my discomfort, and, as she rose, murmured an apology. "Pray +forgive my distraction, but I am poor company when my father is ill. I +have a foolish mind, easily frightened. Nay, nay!" she went on when I +again offered help, "the illness is trifling. It will pass off by +to-morrow, or at the latest the next day. Only I had looked forward to +some ease at Santa Chiara, and the promise is belied." + +As it chanced that evening, returning to the inn, I passed by the north +side where the windows of the Count's room looked over a little +flower-garden abutting on the courtyard. The dusk was falling, and a +lamp had been lit which gave a glimpse into the interior. The sick man +was standing by the window, his figure flung into relief by the +lamplight. If he was sick, his sickness was of a curious type. His +face was ruddy, his eye wild, and, his wig being off, his scanty hair +stood up oddly round his head. He seemed to be singing, but I could +not catch the sound through the shut casement. Another figure in the +room, probably Oliphant, laid a hand on the Count's shoulder, drew him +from the window, and closed the shutter. + +It needed only the recollection of stories which were the property of +all Europe to reach a conclusion on the gentleman's illness. The +legitimate King of England was very drunk. + +As I went to my room that night I passed the Count's door. There stood +Oliphant as sentry, more grim and haggard than ever, and I thought that +his eye met mine with a certain intelligence. From inside the room +came a great racket. There was the sound of glasses falling, then a +string of oaths, English, French, and for all I know, Irish, rapped out +in a loud drunken voice. A pause, and then came the sound of maudlin +singing. It pursued me along the gallery, an old childish song, +delivered as if 'twere a pot-house catch-- + + "Qu'est-ce qui passe ici si tard, + Compagnons de la Marjolaine--" + +One of the late-going company of the Marjolaine hastened to bed. This +king in exile, with his melancholy daughter, was becoming too much for +him. + + + + +III + +It was just before noon next day that the travellers arrived. I was +sitting in the shady loggia of the inn, reading a volume of De Thou, +when there drove up to the door two coaches. Out of the first +descended very slowly and stiffly four gentlemen; out of the second +four servants and a quantity of baggage. As it chanced there was no +one about, the courtyard slept its sunny noontide sleep, and the only +movement was a lizard on the wall and a buzz of flies by the fountain. +Seeing no sign of the landlord, one of the travellers approached me +with a grave inclination. + +"This is the inn called the Tre Croci, sir?" he asked. + +I said it was, and shouted on my own account for the host. Presently +that personage arrived with a red face and a short wind, having +ascended rapidly from his own cellar. He was awed by the dignity of +the travellers, and made none of his usual protests of incapacity. The +servants filed off solemnly with the baggage, and the four gentlemen +set themselves down beside me in the loggia and ordered each a modest +flask of wine. + +At first I took them for our countrymen, but as I watched them the +conviction vanished. All four were tall and lean beyond the average of +mankind. They wore suits of black, with antique starched frills to +their shirts; their hair was their own and unpowdered. Massive buckles +of an ancient pattern adorned their square-toed shoes, and the canes +they carried were like the yards of a small vessel. They were four +merchants, I had guessed, of Scotland, maybe, or of Newcastle, but +their voices were not Scotch, and their air had no touch of commerce. +Take the heavy-browed preoccupation of a Secretary of State, add the +dignity of a bishop, the sunburn of a fox-hunter, and something of the +disciplined erectness of a soldier, and you may perceive the manner of +these four gentlemen. By the side of them my assurance vanished. +Compared with their Olympian serenity my Person seemed fussy and +servile. Even so, I mused, must Mr. Franklin have looked when baited +in Parliament by the Tory pack. The reflection gave me the cue. +Presently I caught from their conversation the word "Washington," and +the truth flashed upon me. I was in the presence of four of Mr. +Franklin's countrymen. Having never seen an American in the flesh, I +rejoiced at the chance of enlarging my acquaintance. + +They brought me into the circle by a polite question as to the length +of road to Verona. Soon introductions followed. My name intrigued +them, and they were eager to learn of my kinship to Uncle Charles. The +eldest of the four, it appeared, was Mr. Galloway out of Maryland. +Then came two brothers, Sylvester by name, of Pennsylvania, and last +Mr. Fish, a lawyer of New York. All four had campaigned in the late +war, and all four were members of the Convention, or whatever they call +their rough-and-ready parliament. They were modest in their behaviour, +much disinclined to speak of their past, as great men might be whose +reputation was world-wide. Somehow the names stuck in my memory. I +was certain that I had heard them linked with some stalwart fight or +some moving civil deed or some defiant manifesto. The making of +history was in their steadfast eye and the grave lines of the mouth. +Our friendship flourished mightily in a brief hour, and brought me the +invitation, willingly accepted, to sit with them at dinner. + +There was no sign of the Duchess or Cristine or Oliphant. Whatever had +happened, that household to-day required all hands on deck, and I was +left alone with the Americans. In my day I have supped with the +Macaronies, I have held up my head at the Cocoa Tree, I have avoided +the floor at hunt dinners, I have drunk glass to glass with Tom +Carteron. But never before have I seen such noble consumers of good +liquor as those four gentlemen from beyond the Atlantic. They drank +the strong red Cyprus as if it had been spring-water. "The dust of +your Italian roads takes some cleansing, Mr. Townshend," was their only +excuse, but in truth none was needed. The wine seemed only to thaw +their iron decorum. Without any surcease of dignity they grew +communicative, and passed from lands to peoples and from peoples to +constitutions. Before we knew it we were embarked upon high politics. + +Naturally we did not differ on the war. Like me, they held it to have +been a grievous necessity. They had no bitterness against England, +only regrets for her blunders. Of his Majesty they spoke with respect, +of his Majesty's advisers with dignified condemnation. They thought +highly of our troops in America; less highly of our generals. + +"Look you, sir," said Mr. Galloway, "in a war such as we have witnessed +the Almighty is the only strategist. You fight against the forces of +Nature, and a newcomer little knows that the success or failure of +every operation he can conceive depends not upon generalship, but upon +the confirmation of a vast country. Our generals, with this in mind +and with fewer men, could make all your schemes miscarry. Had the +English soldiers not been of such stubborn stuff, we should have been +victors from the first. Our leader was not General Washington but +General America, and his brigadiers were forests, swamps, lakes, +rivers, and high mountains." + +"And now," I said, "having won, you have the greatest of human +experiments before you. Your business is to show that the Saxon stock +is adaptable to a republic." + +It seemed to me that they exchanged glances. + +"We are not pedants," said Mr. Fish, "and have no desire to dispute +about the form of a constitution. A people may be as free under a king +as under a senate. Liberty is not the lackey of any type of government." + +These were strange words from a member of a race whom I had thought +wedded to the republicanism of Helvidius Priscus. + +"As a loyal subject of a monarchy," I said, "I must agree with you. +But your hands are tied, for I cannot picture the establishment of a +House of Washington and--if not, where are you to turn for your +sovereign?" + +Again a smile seemed to pass among the four. + +"We are experimenters, as you say, sir, and must go slowly. In the +meantime, we have an authority which keeps peace and property safe. We +are at leisure to cast our eyes round and meditate on the future." + +"Then, gentlemen," said I, "you take an excellent way of meditation in +visiting this museum of old sovereignties. Here you have the relics of +any government you please--a dozen republics, tyrannies, theocracies, +merchant confederations, kingdoms, and more than one empire. You have +your choice. I am tolerably familiar with the land, and if I can +assist you I am at your service." + +They thanked me gravely "We have letters," said Mr. Galloway; "one in +especial is to a gentleman whom we hope to meet in this place. Have +you heard in your travels of the Count of Albany?" + +"He has arrived," said I, "two days ago. Even now he is in the chamber +above us at dinner." + +The news interested them hugely. + +"You have seen him?" they cried. "What is he like?" + +"An elderly gentleman in poor health, a man who has travelled much, +and, I judge, has suffered something from fortune. He has a fondness +for the English, so you will be welcome, sirs; but he was indisposed +yesterday, and may still be unable to receive you. His daughter +travels with him and tends his old age." + +"And you--you have spoken with him?" + +"The night before last I was in his company. We talked of many things, +including the late war. He is somewhat of your opinion on matters of +government." + +The four looked at each other, and then Mr. Galloway rose. + +"I ask your permission, Mr. Townshend, to consult for a moment with my +friends. The matter is of some importance, and I would beg you to +await us." So saying, he led the others out of doors, and I heard them +withdraw to a corner of the loggia. Now, thought I, there is something +afoot, and my long-sought romance approaches fruition. The company of +the Marjolaine, whom the Count had sung of, have arrived at last. + +Presently they returned and seated themselves at the table. + +"You can be of great assistance to us, Mr. Townshend, and we would fain +take you into our confidence. Are you aware who is this Count of +Albany?" + +I nodded. "It is a thin disguise to one familiar with history." + +"Have you reached any estimate of his character or capabilities? You +speak to friends, and, let me tell you, it is a matter which deeply +concerns the Count's interests." + +"I think him a kindly and pathetic old gentleman. He naturally bears +the mark of forty years' sojourn in the wilderness." + +Mr. Galloway took snuff. + +"We have business with him, but it is business which stands in need of +an agent. There is no one in the Count's suite with whom we could +discuss affairs?" + +"There is his daughter." + +"Ah, but she would scarcely suit the case. Is there no man--a friend, +and yet not a member of the family who can treat with us?" + +I replied that I thought that I was the only being in Santa Chiara who +answered the description. + +"If you will accept the task, Mr. Townshend, you are amply qualified. +We will be frank with you and reveal our business. We are on no less +an errand than to offer the Count of Albany a crown." + +I suppose I must have had some suspicion of their purpose, and yet the +revelation of it fell on me like a thunderclap. I could only stare +owlishly at my four grave gentlemen. + +Mr. Galloway went on unperturbed. "I have told you that in America we +are not yet republicans. There are those among us who favour a +republic, but they are by no means a majority. We have got rid of a +king who misgoverned us, but we have no wish to get rid of kingship. +We want a king of our own choosing, and we would get with him all the +ancient sanctions of monarchy. The Count of Albany is of the most +illustrious royal stock in Europe--he is, if legitimacy goes for +anything, the rightful King of Britain. Now, if the republican party +among us is to be worsted, we must come before the nation with a +powerful candidate for their favour. You perceive my drift? What more +potent appeal to American pride than to say: 'We have got rid of King +George; we choose of our own free will the older line and King +Charles'?" + +I said foolishly that I thought monarchy had had its day, and that +'twas idle to revive it. + +"That is a sentiment well enough under a monarchical government; but +we, with a clean page to write upon, do not share it. You know your +ancient historians. Has not the repository of the chief power always +been the rock on which republicanism has shipwrecked? If that power is +given to the chief citizen, the way is prepared for the tyrant. If it +abides peacefully in a royal house, it abides with cyphers who dignify, +without obstructing, a popular constitution. Do not mistake me, Mr. +Townshend. This is no whim of a sentimental girl, but the reasoned +conclusion of the men who achieved our liberty. There is every reason +to believe that General Washington shares our views, and Mr. Hamilton, +whose name you may know, is the inspirer of our mission." + +"But the Count is an old man," I urged; for I knew not where to begin +in my exposition of the hopelessness of their errand. + +"By so much the better. We do not wish a young king who may be +fractious. An old man tempered by misfortune is what our purpose +demands." + +"He has also his failings. A man cannot lead his life for forty years +and retain all the virtues." + +At that one of the Sylvesters spoke sharply. "I have heard such +gossip, but I do not credit it. I have not forgotten Preston and +Derby." + +I made my last objection. "He has no posterity--legitimate +posterity--to carry on his line." + +The four gentlemen smiled. "That happens to be his chiefest +recommendation," said Mr. Galloway. "It enables us to take the House +of Stuart on trial. We need a breathing-space and leisure to look +around; but unless we establish the principle of monarchy at once the +republicans will forestall us. Let us get our king at all costs, and +during the remaining years of his life we shall have time to settle the +succession problem. + +"We have no wish to saddle ourselves for good with a race who might +prove burdensome. If King Charles fails he has no son, and we can look +elsewhere for a better monarch. You perceive the reason of my view?" + +I did, and I also perceived the colossal absurdity of the whole +business. But I could not convince them of it, for they met my +objections with excellent arguments. Nothing save a sight of the Count +would, I feared, disillusion them. + +"You wish me to make this proposal on your behalf?" I asked. + +"We shall make the proposal ourselves, but we desire you to prepare the +way for us. He is an elderly man, and should first be informed of our +purpose." + +"There is one person whom I beg leave to consult--the Duchess, his +daughter. It may be that the present is an ill moment for approaching +the Count, and the affair requires her sanction." + +They agreed, and with a very perplexed mind I went forth to seek the +lady. The irony of the thing was too cruel, and my heart ached for +her. In the gallery I found Oliphant packing some very shabby trunks, +and when I questioned him he told me that the family were to leave +Santa Chiara on the morrow. Perchance the Duchess had awakened to the +true state of their exchequer, or perchance she thought it well to get +her father on the road again as a cure for his ailment. + +I discovered Cristine, and begged for an interview with her mistress on +an urgent matter. She led me to the Duchess's room, and there the +evidence of poverty greeted me openly. All the little luxuries of the +menage had gone to the Count. The poor lady's room was no better than +a servant's garret, and the lady herself sat stitching a rent in a +travelling cloak. She rose to greet me with alarm in her eyes. + +As briefly as I could I set out the facts of my amazing mission. At +first she seemed scarcely to hear me. "What do they want with him?" +she asked. "He can give them nothing. He is no friend to the +Americans or to any people who have deposed their sovereign." Then, as +she grasped my meaning, her face flushed. + +"It is a heartless trick, Mr. Townshend. I would fain think you no +party to it." + +"Believe me, dear madame, it is no trick. The men below are in sober +earnest. You have but to see their faces to know that theirs is no +wild adventure. I believe sincerely that they have the power to +implement their promise." + +"But it is madness. He is old and worn and sick. His day is long past +for winning a crown." + +"All this I have said, but it does not move them." And I told her +rapidly Mr. Galloway's argument. She fell into a muse. "At the +eleventh hour! Nay, too late, too late. Had he been twenty years +younger, what a stroke of fortune! Fate bears too hard on us, too +hard!" + +Then she turned to me fiercely. "You have no doubt heard, sir, the +gossip about my father, which is on the lips of every fool in Europe. +Let us have done with this pitiful make-believe. My father is a sot. +Nay, I do not blame him. I blame his enemies and his miserable +destiny. But there is the fact. Were he not old, he would still be +unfit to grasp a crown and rule over a turbulent people. He flees from +one city to another, but he cannot flee from himself. That is his +illness on which you condoled with me yesterday." + +The lady's control was at breaking-point. Another moment and I +expected a torrent of tears. But they did not come. With a great +effort she regained her composure. + +"Well, the gentlemen must have an answer. You will tell them that the +Count, my father--nay--give him his true title if you care--is vastly +obliged to them for the honour they have done him, but would decline on +account of his age and infirmities. You know how to phrase a decent +refusal." + +"Pardon me," said I, "but I might give them that answer till doomsday +and never content them. They have not travelled many thousand miles to +be put off by hearsay evidence. Nothing will satisfy them but an +interview with your father himself. + +"It is impossible," she said sharply. + +"Then we must expect the renewed attentions of our American friends. +They will wait till they see him." + +She rose and paced the room. + +"They must go," she repeated many times. "If they see him sober he +will accept with joy, and we shall be the laughing-stock of the world. +I tell you it cannot be. I alone know how immense is the +impossibility. He cannot afford to lose the last rags of his dignity, +the last dregs of his ease. They must not see him. I will speak with +them myself." + +"They will be honoured, madame, but I do not think they will be +convinced. They are what we call in my land 'men of business.' They +will not be content till they get the Count's reply from his own lips." + +A new Duchess seemed to have arisen, a woman of quick action and sharp +words. + +"So be it. They shall see him. Oh, I am sick to death of fine +sentiments and high loyalty and all the vapouring stuff I have lived +among for years. All I ask for myself and my father is a little peace, +and, by Heaven! I shall secure it. If nothing will kill your +gentlemen's folly but truth, why, truth they shall have. They shall +see my father, and this very minute. Bring them up, Mr. Townshend, and +usher them into the presence of the rightful King of England. You will +find him alone." She stopped her walk and looked out of the window. + +I went back in a hurry to the Americans. "I am bidden to bring you to +the Count's chamber. He is alone and will see you. These are the +commands of madame his daughter." + +"Good!" said Mr. Galloway, and all four, grave gentlemen as they were, +seemed to brace themselves to a special dignity as befitted ambassadors +to a king. I led them upstairs, tapped at the Count's door, and, +getting no answer, opened it and admitted them. + +And this was what we saw. The furniture was in disorder, and on a couch +lay an old man sleeping a heavy drunken sleep. His mouth was open and +his breath came stertorously. The face was purple, and large purple +veins stood out on the mottled forehead. His scanty white hair was +draggled over his cheek. On the floor was a broken glass, wet stains +still lay on the boards, and the place reeked of spirits. The four +looked for a second--I do not think longer at him whom they would have +made their king. They did not look at each other. With one accord +they moved out, and Mr. Fish, who was last, closed the door very gently +behind him. + +In the hall below Mr. Galloway turned to me. "Our mission is ended, +Mr. Townshend. I have to thank you for your courtesy." Then to the +others, "If we order the coaches now, we may get well on the way to +Verona ere sundown." + + +An hour later two coaches rolled out of the courtyard of the Tre Croci. +As they passed, a window was half-opened on the upper floor, and a head +looked out. A line of a song came down, a song sung in a strange +quavering voice. It was the catch I had heard the night before: + + "Qu'est-ce qui passe ici si tard, + Compagnons de la Marjolaine--e!" + +It was true. The company came late indeed--too late by forty +years. . . . + + + + +AVIGNON + +1759 + + Hearts to break but nane to sell, + Gear to tine but nane to hain;-- + We maun dree a weary spell + Ere our lad comes back again. + + I walk abroad on winter days, + When storms have stripped the wide champaign, + For northern winds have norland ways, + And scents of Badenoch haunt the rain. + And by the lipping river path, + When in the fog the Rhone runs grey, + I see the heather of the Strath, + And watch the salmon leap in Spey. + + The hills are feathered with young trees, + I set them for my children's boys. + I made a garden deep in ease, + A pleasance for my lady's joys. + Strangers have heired them. Long ago + She died,--kind fortune thus to die; + And my one son by Beauly flow + Gave up the soul that could not lie. + + Old, elbow-worn, and pinched I bide + The final toll the gods may take. + The laggard years have quenched my pride; + They cannot kill the ache, the ache. + + Weep not the dead, for they have sleep + Who lie at home: but ah, for me + In the deep grave my heart will weep + With longing for my lost countrie. + + Hearts to break but nane to sell, + Gear to tine but nane to hain;-- + We maun dree a weary spell + Ere our lad comes back again. + + + + +II + +A LUCID INTERVAL + +To adopt the opening words of a more famous tale, "The truth of this +strange matter is what the world has long been looking for." The +events which I propose to chronicle were known to perhaps a hundred +people in London whose fate brings them into contact with politics. +The consequences were apparent to all the world, and for one hectic +fortnight tinged the soberest newspapers with saffron, drove more than +one worthy election agent to an asylum, and sent whole batches of +legislators to Continental cures. "But no reasonable explanation of +the mystery has been forthcoming until now, when a series of chances +gave the key into my hands." + +Lady Caerlaverock is my aunt, and I was present at the two remarkable +dinner-parties which form the main events in this tale. I was also +taken into her confidence during the terrible fortnight which +intervened between them. Like everybody else, I was hopelessly in the +dark, and could only accept what happened as a divine interposition. +My first clue came when James, the Caerlaverocks' second footman, +entered my service as valet, and being a cheerful youth chose to gossip +while he shaved me. I checked him, but he babbled on, and I could not +choose but learn something about the disposition of the Caerlaverock +household below stairs. I learned--what I knew before--that his +lordship had an inordinate love for curries, a taste acquired during +some troubled years as Indian Viceroy. I had often eaten that +admirable dish at his table, and had heard him boast of the skill of +the Indian cook who prepared it. James, it appeared, did not hold with +the Orient in the kitchen. He described the said Indian gentleman as a +"nigger," and expressed profound distrust of his ways. He referred +darkly to the events of the year before, which in some distorted way +had reached the servants' ears. "We always thought as 'ow it was them +niggers as done it," he declared; and when I questioned him on his use +of the plural, admitted that at the time in question "there 'ad been +more nor one nigger 'anging about the kitchen." + +Pondering on these sayings, I asked myself if it were not possible that +the behaviour of certain eminent statesmen was due to some strange +devilry of the East, and I made a vow to abstain in future from the +Caerlaverock curries. But last month my brother returned from India, +and I got the whole truth. He was staying with me in Scotland, and in +the smoking-room the talk turned on occultism in the East. I declared +myself a sceptic, and George was stirred. He asked me rudely what I +knew about it, and proceeded to make a startling confession of faith. +He was cross-examined by the others, and retorted with some of his +experiences. Finding an incredulous audience, his tales became more +defiant, until he capped them all with one monstrous yarn. He +maintained that in a Hindu family of his acquaintance there had been +transmitted the secret of a drug, capable of altering a man's whole +temperament until the antidote was administered. It would turn a +coward into a bravo, a miser into a spendthrift, a rake into a fakir. +Then, having delivered his manifesto he got up abruptly and went to bed. + +I followed him to his room, for something in the story had revived a +memory. By dint of much persuasion I dragged from the somnolent George +various details. The family in question were Beharis, large +landholders dwelling near the Nepal border. He had known old Ram Singh +for years, and had seen him twice since his return from England. He +got the story from him under no promise of secrecy, for the family drug +was as well known in the neighbourhood as the nine incarnations of +Krishna. He had no doubt about the truth of it, for he had positive +proof. "And others besides me," said George. "Do you remember when +Vennard had a lucid interval a couple of years ago and talked sense for +once? That was old Ram Singh's doing, for he told me about it." + +Three years ago it seems the Government of India saw fit to appoint a +commission to inquire into land tenure on the Nepal border. Some of +the feudal Rajahs had been "birsing yont," like the Breadalbanes, and +the smaller zemindars were gravely disquieted. The result of the +commission was that Ram Singh had his boundaries rectified, and lost a +mile or two of country which his hard-fisted fathers had won. + +I know nothing of the rights of the matter, but there can be no doubt +about Ram Singh's dissatisfaction. He appealed to the law courts, but +failed to upset the commission's finding, and the Privy Council upheld +the Indian judgment. Thereupon in a flowery and eloquent document he +laid his case before the Viceroy, and was told that the matter was +closed. Now Ram Singh came of a fighting stock, so he straightway took +ship to England to petition the Crown. He petitioned Parliament, but +his petition went into the bag behind the Speaker's chair, from which +there is no return. He petitioned the King, but was courteously +informed that he must approach the Department concerned. He tried the +Secretary of State for India, and had an interview with Abinger +Vennard, who was very rude to him, and succeeded in mortally insulting +the feudal aristocrat. He appealed to the Prime Minister, and was +warned off by a harassed private secretary. The handful of members of +Parliament who make Indian grievances their stock-in-trade fought shy +of him, for indeed Ram Singh's case had no sort of platform appeal in +it, and his arguments were flagrantly undemocratic. But they sent him +to Lord Caerlaverock, for the ex-viceroy loved to be treated as a kind +of consul-general for India. But this Protector of the Poor proved a +broken reed. He told Ram Singh flatly that he was a belated feudalist, +which was true; and implied that he was a land-grabber, which was not +true, Ram Singh having only enjoyed the fruits of his fore-bears' +enterprise. Deeply incensed, the appellant shook the dust of +Caerlaverock House from his feet, and sat down to plan a revenge upon +the Government which had wronged him. And in his wrath he thought of +the heirloom of his house, the drug which could change men's souls. + +It happened that Lord Caerlaverock cook's came from the same +neighbourhood as Ram Singh. This cook, Lal Muhammad by name, was one +of a large poor family, hangers-on of Ram Singh's house. The aggrieved +landowner summoned him, and demanded as of right his humble services. +Lal Muhammad, who found his berth to his liking, hesitated, quibbled, +but was finally overborne. He suggested a fee for his services, but +hastily withdrew when Ram Singh sketched a few of the steps he proposed +to take on his return by way of punishing Lal Muhammad's insolence on +Lal Muhammad's household. Then he got to business. There was a great +dinner next week--so he had learned from Jephson, the butler--and more +than one member of the Government would honour Caerlaverock House by +his presence. With deference he suggested this as a fitting occasion +for the experiment, and Ram Singh was pleased to assent. + +I can picture these two holding their meetings in the South Kensington +lodgings where Ram Singh dwelt. We know from James, the second +footman, that they met also at Caerlaverock House, no doubt that Ram +Singh might make certain that his orders were duly obeyed. I can see +the little packet of clear grains--I picture them like small granulated +sugar--added to the condiments, and soon dissolved out of sight. The +deed was done; the cook returned to Bloomsbury and Ram Singh to +Gloucester Road, to await with the patient certainty of the East the +consummation of a great vengeance. + + + +II + +My wife was at Kissengen, and I was dining with the Caerlaverocks en +garcon. When I have not to wait upon the adornment of the female +person I am a man of punctual habits, and I reached the house as the +hall clock chimed the quarter-past. My poor friend, Tommy Deloraine, +arrived along with me, and we ascended the staircase together. I call +him "my poor friend," for at the moment Tommy was under the weather. +He had the misfortune to be a marquis, and a very rich one, and at the +same time to be in love with Claudia Barriton. Neither circumstance +was in itself an evil, but the combination made for tragedy. For +Tommy's twenty-five years of healthy manhood, his cleanly-made +up-standing figure, his fresh countenance and cheerful laugh, were of +no avail in the lady's eyes when set against the fact that he was an +idle peer. Miss Claudia was a charming girl, with a notable bee in her +bonnet. She was burdened with the cares of the State, and had no +patience with any one who took them lightly. To her mind the social +fabric was rotten beyond repair, and her purpose was frankly +destructive. I remember some of her phrases: "A bold and generous +policy of social amelioration"; "The development of a civic +conscience"; "A strong hand to lop off decaying branches from the trunk +of the State." I have no fault to find with her creed, but I objected +to its practical working when it took the shape of an inhuman hostility +to that devout lover, Tommy Deloraine. She had refused him, I believe, +three times, with every circumstance of scorn. The first time she had +analysed his character, and described him as a bundle of attractive +weaknesses. "The only forces I recognise are those of intellect and +conscience," she had said, "and you have neither." The second time--it +was after he had been to Canada on the staff--she spoke of the +irreconcilability of their political ideals. "You are an Imperialist," +she said, "and believe in an empire of conquest for the benefit of the +few. I want a little island with a rich life for all." Tommy declared +that he would become a Doukhobor to please her, but she said something +about the inability of Ethiopians to change their skin. The third time +she hinted vaguely that there was "another." The star of Abinger +Vennard was now blazing in the firmament, and she had conceived a +platonic admiration for him. The truth is that Miss Claudia, with all +her cleverness, was very young and--dare I say it?--rather silly. + +Caerlaverock was stroking his beard, his legs astraddle on the +hearthrug, with something appallingly viceregal in his air, when Mr. +and Mrs. Alexander Cargill were announced. The Home Secretary was a +joy to behold. He had the face of an elderly and pious bookmaker, and +a voice in which lurked the indescribable Scotch quality of "unction." +When he was talking you had only to shut your eyes to imagine yourself +in some lowland kirk on a hot Sabbath morning. He had been a +distinguished advocate before he left the law for politics, and had +swayed juries of his countrymen at his will. The man was +extraordinarily efficient on a platform. There were unplumbed depths +of emotion in his eye, a juicy sentiment in his voice, an overpowering +tenderness in his manner, which gave to politics the glamour of a +revival meeting. He wallowed in obvious pathos, and his hearers, often +unwillingly, wallowed with him. I have never listened to any orator at +once so offensive and so horribly effective. There was no appeal too +base for him, and none too august: by some subtle alchemy he blended +the arts of the prophet and the fishwife. He had discovered a new kind +of language. Instead of "the hungry millions," or "the toilers," or +any of the numerous synonyms for our masters, he invented the phrase, +"Goad's people." "I shall never rest," so ran his great declaration, +"till Goad's green fields and Goad's clear waters are free to Goad's +people." I remember how on this occasion he pressed my hand with his +famous cordiality, looked gravely and earnestly into my face, and then +gazed sternly into vacancy. It was a fine picture of genius descending +for a moment from its hill-top to show how close it was to poor +humanity. + +Then came Lord Mulross, a respectable troglodytic peer, who represented +the one sluggish element in a swiftly progressing Government. He was +an oldish man with bushy whiskers and a reputed mastery of the French +tongue. A Whig, who had never changed his creed one iota, he was +highly valued by the country as a sober element in the nation's +councils, and endured by the Cabinet as necessary ballast. He did not +conceal his dislike for certain of his colleagues, notably Mr. Vennard +and Mr. Cargill. + +When Miss Barriton arrived with her stepmother the party was almost +complete. She entered with an air of apologising for her prettiness. +Her manner with old men was delightful, and I watched with interest the +unbending of Caerlaverock and the simplifying of Mr. Cargill in her +presence. Deloraine, who was talking feverishly to Mrs. Cargill, +started as if to go and greet her, thought better of it, and continued +his conversation. The lady swept the room with her eye, but did not +acknowledge his presence. She floated off with Mr. Cargill to a +window-corner, and metaphorically sat at his feet. I saw Deloraine +saying things behind his moustache, while he listened to Mrs. Cargill's +new cure for dyspepsia. + +Last of all, twenty minutes late, came Abinger Vennard. He made a fine +stage entrance, walking swiftly with a lowering brow to his hostess, +and then glaring fiercely round the room as if to challenge criticism. +I have heard Deloraine, in a moment of irritation, describe him as a +"Pre-Raphaelite attorney," but there could be no denying his good +looks. He had a bad, loose figure, and a quantity of studiously +neglected hair, but his face was the face of a young Greek. A certain +kind of political success gives a man the manners of an actor, and both +Vennard and Cargill bristled with self-consciousness. You could see it +in the way they patted their hair, squared their shoulders, and shifted +their feet to positions loved by sculptors. + +"Well, Vennard, what's the news from the House?" Caerlaverock asked. + +"Simpson is talking," said Vennard wearily. "He attacks me, of course. +He says he has lived forty years in India--as if that mattered! When +will people recognise that the truths of democratic policy are +independent of time and space? Liberalism is a category, an eternal +mode of thought, which cannot be overthrown by any trivial happenings. +I am sick of the word 'facts.' I long for truths." + +Miss Barriton's eyes brightened, and Cargill said, "Excellent." Lord +Mulross, who was a little deaf, and in any case did not understand the +language, said loudly to my aunt that he wished there was a close time +for legislation. + +"The open season for grouse should be the close season for politicians." + +And then we went down to dinner. + +Miss Barriton sat on my left hand, between Deloraine and me, and it was +clear she was discontented with her position. Her eyes wandered down +the table to Vennard, who had taken in an American duchess, and seemed +to be amused at her prattle. She looked with disfavour at Deloraine, +and turned to me as the lesser of two evils. + +I was tactless enough to say that I thought there was a good deal in +Lord Mulross's view. "Oh, how can you?" she cried. "Is there a close +season for the wants of the people? It sounds to me perfectly horrible +the way you talk of government, as if it were a game for idle men of +the upper classes. I want professional politicians, men who give their +whole heart and soul to the service of the State. I know the kind of +member you and Lord Deloraine like--a rich young man who eats and +drinks too much, and thinks the real business of life is killing little +birds. He travels abroad and shoots some big game, and then comes home +and vapours about the Empire. He knows nothing about realities, and +will go down before the men who take the world seriously." + +I am afraid I laughed, but Deloraine, who had been listening, was in no +mood to be amused. + +"I don't think you are quite fair to us, Miss Claudia," he said slowly. +"We take things seriously enough, the things we know about. We can't +be expected to know about everything, and the misfortune is that the +things I care about don't interest you. But they are important enough +for all that." + +"Hush," said the lady rudely. "I want to hear what Mr. Vennard is +saying." + +Mr. Vennard was addressing the dinner-table as if it were a large +public meeting. It was a habit he had, for he had no mind to confine +the pearls of his wisdom to his immediate neighbours. His words were +directed to Caerlaverock at the far end. + +"In my opinion this craze for the scientific stand-point is not merely +overdone--it is radically vicious. Human destinies cannot be treated +as if they were inert objects under the microscope. The cold-blooded +logical way of treating a problem is in almost every case the wrong +way. Heart and imagination to me are more vital than intellect. I +have the courage to be illogical, to defy facts for the sake of an +ideal, in the certainty that in time facts will fall into conformity. +My Creed may be put in the words of Newman's favourite quotation: Non +in dialectica complacuit Deo salvum facere populum suum--Not in cold +logic is it God's will that His people should find salvation." + +"It is profoundly true," sighed Mr. Cargill, and Miss Claudia's beaming +eyes proved her assent. The moment of destiny, though I did not know +it, had arrived. The entree course had begun, and of the two entrees +one was the famous Caerlaverock curry. Now on a hot July evening in +London there are more attractive foods than curry seven times heated, +MORE INDICO. I doubt if any guest would have touched it, had not our +host in his viceregal voice called the attention of the three ministers +to its merits, while explaining that under doctor's orders he was +compelled to refrain for a season. The result was that Mulross, +Cargill, and Vennard alone of the men partook of it. Miss Claudia, +alone of the women, followed suit in the fervour of her hero-worship. +She ate a mouthful, and then drank rapidly two glasses of water. + +My narrative of the events which followed is based rather on what I +should have seen than on what I saw. I had not the key, and missed +much which otherwise would have been plain to me. For example, if I +had known the secret, I must have seen Miss Claudia's gaze cease to +rest upon Vennard and the adoration die out of her eyes. I must have +noticed her face soften to the unhappy Deloraine. As it was, I did not +remark her behaviour, till I heard her say to her neighbour-- + +"Can't you get hold of Mr. Vennard and forcibly cut his hair?" + +Deloraine looked round with a start. Miss Barriton's tone was intimate +and her face friendly. + +"Some people think it picturesque," he said in serious bewilderment. + +"Oh, yes, picturesque--like a hair-dresser's young man!" she shrugged +her shoulders. "He looks as if he had never been out of doors in his +life." + +Now, whatever the faults of Tommy's appearance, he had a wholesome +sunburnt face, and he knew it. This speech of Miss Barriton's cheered +him enormously, for he argued that if she had fallen out of love with +Vennard's looks she might fall in love with his own. Being a +philosopher in his way, he was content to take what the gods gave, and +ask for no explanations. + +I do not know how their conversation prospered, for my attention was +distracted by the extraordinary behaviour of the Home Secretary. Mr. +Cargill had made himself notorious by his treatment of "political" +prisoners. It was sufficient in his eyes for a criminal to confess to +political convictions to secure the most lenient treatment and a speedy +release. The Irish patriot who cracked skulls in the Scotland Division +of Liverpool, the Suffragist who broke windows and the noses of the +police, the Social Democrat whose antipathy to the Tsar revealed itself +in assaults upon the Russian Embassy, the "hunger-marchers" who had +designs on the British Museum,--all were sure of respectful and tender +handling. He had announced more than once, amid tumultuous cheering, +that he would never be the means of branding earnestness, however +mistaken, with the badge of the felon. + +He was talking I recall, to Lady Lavinia Dobson, renowned in two +hemispheres for her advocacy of women's rights. And this was what I +heard him say. His face had grown suddenly flushed and his eye bright, +so that he looked liker than ever to a bookmaker who had had a good +meeting. "No, no, my dear lady, I have been a lawyer, and it is my +duty in office to see that the law, the palladium of British liberties +is kept sacrosanct. The law is no respecter of persons, and I intend +that it shall be no respecter of creeds. If men or women break the +laws, to jail they shall go, though their intentions were those of the +Apostle Paul. We don't punish them for being Socialists or +Suffragists, but for breaking the peace. Why, goodness me, if we +didn't, we should have every malefactor in Britain claiming +preferential treatment because he was a Christian Scientist or a +Pentecostal Dancer." + +"Mr. Cargill, do you realise what you are saying?" said Lady Lavinia +with a scared face. + +"Of course I do. I am a lawyer, and may be presumed to know the law. +If any other doctrine were admitted, the Empire would burst up in a +fortnight." + +"That I should live to hear you name that accursed name!" cried the +outraged lady. "You are denying your gods, Mr. Cargill. You are +forgetting the principles of a lifetime." + +Mr. Cargill was becoming excited, and exchanging his ordinary +Edinburgh-English for a broader and more effective dialect. + +"Tut, tut, my good wumman, I may be allowed to know my own principles +best. I tell ye I've always maintained these views from the day when I +first walked the floor of the Parliament House. Besides, even if I +hadn't, I'm surely at liberty to change if I get more light. Whoever +makes a fetish of consistency is a trumpery body and little use to God +or man. What ails ye at the Empire, too? Is it not better to have a +big country than a kailyard, or a house in Grosvenor Square than a +but-and-ben in Balham?" + +Lady Lavinia folded her hands. "We slaughter our black +fellow-citizens, we fill South Africa with yellow slaves, we crowd the +Indian prisons with the noblest and most enlightened of the Indian +race, and we call it Empire building!" + +"No, we don't," said Mr. Cargill stoutly, "we call it common-sense. +That is the penal and repressive side of any great activity. D'ye mean +to tell me that you never give your maid a good hearing? But would you +like it to be said that you spent the whole of your days swearing at +the wumman?" + +"I never swore in my life," said Lady Lavinia. + +"I spoke metaphorically," said Mr. Cargill. "If ye cannot understand a +simple metaphor, ye cannot understand the rudiments of politics." + +Picture to yourself a prophet who suddenly discovers that his God is +laughing at him, a devotee whose saint winks and tells him that the +devotion of years has been a farce, and you will get some idea of Lady +Lavinia's frame of mind. Her sallow face flushed, her lip trembled, +and she slewed round as far as her chair would permit her. Meanwhile +Mr. Cargill, redder than before, went on contentedly with his dinner. + +I was glad when my aunt gave the signal to rise. The atmosphere was +electric, and all were conscious of it save the three Ministers, +Deloraine, and Miss Claudia. Vennard seemed to be behaving very badly. +He was arguing with Caerlaverock down the table, and the ex-Viceroy's +face was slowly getting purple. When the ladies had gone, we remained +oblivious to wine and cigarettes, listening to this heated controversy +which threatened any minute to end in a quarrel. + +The subject was India, and Vennard was discussing on the follies of all +Viceroys. + +"Take this idiot we've got now," he declared. "He expects me to be a +sort of wet-nurse to the Government of India and do all their dirty +work for them. They know local conditions, and they have ample powers +if they would only use them, but they won't take an atom of +responsibility. How the deuce am I to decide for them, when in the +nature of things I can't be half as well informed about the facts!" + +"Do you maintain," said Caerlaverock, stuttering in his wrath, "that +the British Government should divest itself of responsibility for the +governement of our great Indian Dependency?" + +"Not a bit," said Vennard impatiently; "of course we are responsible, +but that is all the more reason why the fellows who know the business +at first hand should do their duty. If I am the head of a bank I am +responsible for its policy, but that doesn't mean that every local +bank-manager should consult me about the solvency of clients I never +heard of. Faversham keeps bleating to me that the state of India is +dangerous. Well, for God's sake let him suppress every native paper, +shut up the schools, and send every agitator to the Andamans. I'll +back him up all right. But don't let him ask me what to do, for I +don't know." + +"You think such a course would be popular?" asked a large, grave man, a +newspaper editor. + +"Of course it would," said Vennard cheerily. "The British public hates +the idea of letting India get out of hand. But they want a lead. They +can't be expected to start the show any more than I can." + +Lord Caerlaverock rose to join the ladies with an air of outraged +dignity. Vennard pulled out his watch and announced that he must go +back to the House. + +"Do you know what I am going to do?" he asked. "I am going down to +tell Simpson what I think of him. He gets up and prates of having been +forty years in India. Well, I am going to tell him that it is to him +and his forty-year lot that all this muddle is due. Oh, I assure you, +there's going to be a row," said Vennard, as he struggled into his coat. + +Mulross had been sitting next me, and I asked him if he was leaving +town. "I wish I could," he said, "but I fear I must stick on over the +Twelth. I don't like the way that fellow Von Kladow has been talking. +He's up to no good, and he's going to get a flea in his ear before he +is very much older." + +Cheerfully, almost hilariously the three Ministers departed, Vennard +and Cargill in a hansom and Mulross on foot. I can only describe the +condition of those left behind as nervous prostration. We looked +furtively at each other, each afraid to hint his suspicions, but all +convinced that a surprising judgment had befallen at least two members +of his Majesty's Government. For myself I put the number at three, for +I did not like to hear a respected Whig Foreign Secretary talk about +giving the Chancellor of a friendly but jealous Power a flea in his ear. + +The only unperplexed face was Deloraine's. He whispered to me that +Miss Barriton was going on to the Alvanleys' ball, and had warned him +to be there. "She hasn't been to a dance for months, you know," he +said. "I really think things are beginning to go a little better, old +man." + + + +III + +When I opened my paper next morning I read two startling pieces of +news. Lord Mulross had been knocked down by a taxi-cab on his way home +the night before, and was now in bed suffering from a bad shock and a +bruised ankle. There was no cause for anxiety, said the report, but +his lordship must keep his room for a week or two. + +The second item, which filled leading articles and overflowed into +"Political Notes," was Mr. Vennard's speech. The Secretary for India +had gone down about eleven o'clock to the House, where an Indian debate +was dragging out its slow length. He sat himself on the Treasury Bench +and took notes, and the House soon filled in anticipation of his reply. +His "tail"--progressive young men like himself--were there in full +strength, ready to cheer every syllable which fell from their idol. +Somewhere about half-past twelve he rose to wind up the debate, and the +House was treated to an unparalleled sensation. He began with his +critics, notably the unfortunate Simpson, and, pretty much in +Westbury's language to the herald, called them silly old men who did +not understand their silly old business. But it was the reasons he +gave for this abuse which left his followers aghast. He attacked his +critics not for being satraps and reactionaries, but because they had +dared to talk second-rate Western politics in connection with India. + +"Have you lived for forty years with your eyes shut," he cried, "that +you cannot see the difference between a Bengali, married at fifteen and +worshipping a pantheon of savage gods, and the university-extension +Young Radical at home? There is a thousand years between them, and you +dream of annihilating the centuries with a little dubious popular +science!" Then he turned to the other critics of Indian +administration--his quondam supporters. He analysed the character of +these "members for India" with a vigour and acumen which deprived them +of speech. The East, he said, had had its revenge upon the West by +making certain Englishmen babus. His honourable friends had the same +slipshod minds, and they talked the same pigeon-English, as the +patriots of Bengal. Then his mood changed, and he delivered a solemn +warning against what he called "the treason begotten of restless vanity +and proved incompetence." He sat down, leaving a House deeply +impressed and horribly mystified. + +The Times did not know what to make of it at all. In a weighty leader +it welcomed Mr. Vennard's conversion, but hinted that with a convert's +zeal he had slightly overstated his case. The Daily Chronicle talked +of "nervous breakdown," and suggested "kindly forgetfulness" as the +best treatment. The Daily News, in a spirited article called "The +Great Betrayal," washed its hands of Mr. Vennard unless he donned the +white sheet of the penitent. Later in the day I got The Westminster +Gazette, and found an ingenious leader which proved that the speech in +no way conflicted with Liberal principles, and was capable of a quite +ordinary explanation. Then I went to see Lady Caerlaverock. + +I found my aunt almost in tears. + +"What has happened?" she cried. "What have we done that we should be +punished in this awful way? And to think that the blow fell in this +house? Caerlaverock--we all--thought Mr. Vennard so strange last night, +and Lady Lavinia told me that Mr. Cargill was perfectly horrible. I +suppose it must be the heat and the strain of the session. And that +poor Lord Mulross, who was always so wise, should be stricken down at +this crisis!" + +I did not say that I thought Mulross's accident a merciful +dispensation. I was far more afraid of him than of all the others, for +if with his reputation for sanity he chose to run amok, he would be +taken seriously. He was better in bed than affixing a flea to Von +Kladow's ear. + +"Caerlaverock was with the Prime Minister this morning," my aunt went +on. "He is going to make a statement in the Lords tomorrow to try to +cover Mr. Vennard's folly. They are very anxious about what Mr. +Cargill will do today. He is addressing the National Convention of +Young Liberals at Oldham this afternoon, and though they have sent him +a dozen telegrams they can get no answer. Caerlaverock went to Downing +Street an hour ago to get news." + +There was the sound of an electric brougham stopping in the square +below, and we both listened with a premonition of disaster. A minute +later Caerlaverock entered the room, and with him the Prime Minister. +The cheerful, eupeptic countenance of the latter was clouded with care. +He shook hands dismally with my aunt, nodded to me, and flung himself +down on a sofa. + +"The worst has happened," Caerlaverock boomed solemnly. "Cargill has +been incredibly and infamously silly." He tossed me an evening paper. + +One glance convinced me that the Convention of Young Liberals had had a +waking-up. Cargill had addressed them on what he called the true view +of citizenship. He had dismissed manhood suffrage as an obsolete +folly. The franchise, he maintained, should be narrowed and given only +to citizens, and his definition of citizenship was military training +combined with a fairly high standard of rates and taxes. I do not know +how the Young Liberals received his creed, but it had no sort of +success with the Prime Minister. + +"We must disavow him," said Caerlaverock. + +"He is too valuable a man to lose," said the Prime Minister. "We must +hope that it is only a temporary aberration. I simply cannot spare him +in the House." + +"But this is flat treason." + +"I know, I know. It is all too horrible, and utterly unexpected. But +the situation wants delicate handling, my dear Caerlaverock. I see +nothing for it but to give out that he was ill." + +"Or drunk?" I suggested. + +The Prime Minister shook his head sadly. "I fear it will be the same +thing. What we call illness the ordinary man will interpret as +intoxication. It is a most regrettable necessity, but we must face it." + +The harassed leader rose, seized the evening paper, and departed as +swiftly as he had come. "Remember, illness," were his parting words. +"An old heart trouble, which is apt to affect his brain. His friends +have always known about it." + +I walked home, and looked in at the Club on my way. There I found +Deloraine devouring a hearty tea and looking the picture of virtuous +happiness. + +"Well, this is tremendous news," I said, as I sat down beside him. + +"What news?" he asked with a start. + +"This row about Vennard and Cargill." + +"Oh, that! I haven't seen the papers to-day. What's it all about?" +His tone was devoid of interest. + +Then I knew that something of great private moment had happened to +Tommy. + +"I hope I may congratulate you," I said. + +Deloraine beamed on me affectionately. "Thanks very much, old man. +Things came all right, quite suddenly, you know. We spent most of the +time at the Alvanleys together, and this morning in the Park she +accepted me. It will be in the papers next week, but we mean to keep +it quiet for a day or two. However, it was your right to be told--and, +besides, you guessed." + +I remember wondering, as I finished my walk home, whether there could +not be some connection between the stroke of Providence which had +driven three Cabinet Ministers demented and that gentler touch which +had restored Miss Claudia Barriton to good sense and a reasonable +marriage. + + + +IV + +The next week was an epoch in my life. I seemed to live in the centre +of a Mad Tea-party, where every one was convinced of the madness, and +yet resolutely protested that nothing had happened. The public events +of those days were simple enough. While Lord Mulross's ankle +approached convalescence, the hives of politics were humming with +rumours. Vennard's speech had dissolved his party into its parent +elements, and the Opposition, as nonplussed as the Government, did not +dare as yet to claim the recruit. Consequently he was left alone till +he should see fit to take a further step. He refused to be +interviewed, using blasphemous language about our free Press; and +mercifully he showed no desire to make speeches. He went down to golf +at Littlestone, and rarely showed himself in the House. The earnest +young reformer seemed to have adopted not only the creed but the habits +of his enemies. + +Mr. Cargill's was a hard case. He returned from Oldham, delighted with +himself and full of fight, to find awaiting him an urgent message from +the Prime Minister. His chief was sympathetic and kindly. He had long +noticed that the Home Secretary looked fagged and ill. There was no +Home Office Bill very pressing, and his assistance in general debate +could be dispensed with for a little. Let him take a fortnight's +holiday--fish, golf, yacht--the Prime Minister was airily suggestive. +In vain Mr. Cargill declared he was perfectly well. His chief gently +but firmly overbore him, and insisted on sending him his own doctor. +That eminent specialist, having been well coached, was vaguely +alarming, and insisted on a change. Then Mr. Cargill began to suspect, +and asked the Prime Minister point-blank if he objected to his Oldham +speech. He was told that there was no objection--a little strong meat, +perhaps, for Young Liberals, a little daring, but full of Mr. Cargill's +old intellectual power. Mollified and reassured, the Home Secretary +agreed to a week's absence, and departed for a little salmon-fishing in +Scotland. His wife had meantime been taken into the affair, and +privately assured by the Prime Minister that she would greatly ease the +mind of the Cabinet if she could induce her husband to take a longer +holiday--say three weeks. She promised to do her best and to keep her +instructions secret, and the Cargills duly departed for the North. "In +a fortnight," said the Prime Minister to my aunt, "he will have +forgotten all this nonsense; but of course we shall have to watch him +very carefully in the future." + +The Press was given its cue, and announced that Mr. Cargill had spoken +at Oldham while suffering from severe nervous breakdown, and that the +remarkable doctrines of that speech need not be taken seriously. As I +had expected, the public put its own interpretation upon this tale. +Men took each other aside in clubs, women gossiped in drawing-rooms, +and in a week the Cargill scandal had assumed amazing proportions. The +popular version was that the Home Secretary had got very drunk at +Caerlaverock House, and still under the influence of liquor had +addressed the Young Liberals at Oldham. He was now in an Inebriates' +Home, and would not return to the House that session. I confess I +trembled when I heard this story, for it was altogether too libellous +to pass unnoticed. I believed that soon it would reach the ear of +Cargill, fishing quietly at Tomandhoul, and that then there would be +the deuce to pay. + +Nor was I wrong. A few days later I went to see my aunt to find out +how the land lay. She was very bitter, I remember, about Claudia +Barriton. "I expected sympathy and help from her, and she never comes +near me. I can understand her being absorbed in her engagement, but I +cannot understand the frivolous way she spoke when I saw her yesterday. +She had the audacity to say that both Mr. Vennard and Mr. Cargill had +gone up in her estimation. Young people can be so heartless." + +I would have defended Miss Barriton, but at this moment an astonishing +figure was announced. It was Mrs. Cargill in travelling dress, with a +purple bonnet and a green motor-veil. Her face was scarlet, whether +from excitement or the winds of Tomandhoul, and she charged down on us +like a young bull. + +"We have come back," she said, "to meet our accusers." + +"Accusers!" cried my aunt. + +"Yes, accusers!" said the lady. "The abominable rumour about Alexander +has reached our ears. At this moment he is with the Prime Minister, +demanding an official denial. I have come to you, because it was here, +at your table, that Alexander is said to have fallen." + +"I really don't know what you mean, Mrs. Cargill." + +"I mean that Alexander is said to have become drunk while dining here, +to have been drunk when he spoke at Oldham, and to be now in a +Drunkard's Home." The poor lady broke down, "Alexander," she cried, +"who has been a teetotaller from his youth, and for thirty years an +elder in the U.P. Church! No form of intoxicant has ever been +permitted at our table. Even in illness the thing has never passed our +lips." + +My aunt by this time had pulled herself together. "If this outrageous +story is current, Mrs. Cargill, there was nothing for it but to come +back. Your friends know that it is a gross libel. The only denial +necessary is for Mr. Cargill to resume his work. I trust his health is +better." + +"He is well, but heartbroken. His is a sensitive nature, Lady +Caerlaverock, and he feels a stain like a wound." + +"There is no stain," said my aunt briskly. "Every public man is a +target for scandals, but no one but a fool believes them. They will +die a natural death when he returns to work. An official denial would +make everybody look ridiculous, and encourage the ordinary person to +think that there may have been something in them. Believe me, dear +Mrs. Cargill, there is nothing to be anxious about now that you are +back in London again." + +On the contrary, I thought, there was more cause for anxiety than ever. +Cargill was back in the House and the illness game could not be played +a second time. I went home that night acutely sympathetic towards the +worries of the Prime Minister. Mulross would be abroad in a day or +two, and Vennard and Cargill were volcanoes in eruption. The +Government was in a parlous state, with three demented Ministers on the +loose. + +The same night I first heard the story of The Bill. Vennard had done +more than play golf at Littlestone. His active mind--for his bitterest +enemies never denied his intellectual energy--had been busy on a great +scheme. At that time, it will be remembered, a serious shrinkage of +unskilled labour existed not only in the Transvaal, but in the new +copper fields of East Africa. Simultaneously a famine was scourging +Behar, and Vennard, to do him justice, had made manful efforts to cope +with it. He had gone fully into the question, and had been slowly +coming to the conclusion that Behar was hopelessly overcrowded. In his +new frame of mind--unswervingly logical, utterly unemotional, and +wholly unbound by tradition--he had come to connect the African and +Indian troubles, and to see in one the relief of the other. The first +fruit of his meditations was a letter to The Times. In it he laid down +a new theory of emigration. The peoples of the Empire, he said, must +be mobile, shifting about to suit economic conditions. But if this was +true of the white man, it was equally true for the dark races under our +tutelage. He referred to the famine and argued that the recurrence of +such disasters was inevitable, unless we assisted the poverty-stricken +ryot to emigrate and sell his labour to advantage. He proposed +indentures and terminable contracts, for he declared he had no wish to +transplant for good. All that was needed was a short season of +wage-earning abroad, that the labourer might return home with savings +which would set him for the future on a higher economic plane. The +letter was temperate and academic in phrasing, the speculation of a +publicist rather than the declaration of a Minister. But in Liberals, +who remembered the pandemonium raised over the Chinese in South Africa, +it stirred up the gloomiest forebodings. + +Then, whispered from mouth to mouth, came the news of the Great Bill. +Vennard, it was said, intended to bring in a measure at the earliest +possible date to authorise a scheme of enforced and State-aided +emigration to the African mines. It would apply at first only to the +famine districts, but power would be given to extend its working by +proclamation to other areas. Such was the rumour, and I need not say +it was soon magnified. Questions were asked in the House which the +Speaker ruled out of order. Furious articles, inviting denial, +appeared in the Liberal Press; but Vennard took not the slightest +notice. He spent his time between his office in Whitehall and the +links at Littlestone, dropping into the House once or twice for half an +hour's slumber while a colleague was speaking. His Under Secretary in +the Lords--a young gentleman who had joined the party for a bet, and to +his immense disgust had been immediately rewarded with office--lost his +temper under cross-examination and swore audibly at the Opposition. In +a day or two the story universally believed was that the Secretary for +India was about to transfer the bulk of the Indian people to work as +indentured labourers for South African Jews. + +It was this popular version, I fancy, which reached the ears of Ram +Singh, and the news came on him like a thunderclap. He thought that +what Vennard proposed Vennard could do. He saw his native province +stripped of its people, his fields left unploughed, and his cattle +untended; nay, it was possible, his own worthy and honourable self sent +to a far country to dig in a hole. It was a grievous and intolerable +prospect. He walked home to Gloucester Road in heavy preoccupation, +and the first thing he did was to get out the mysterious brass box in +which he kept his valuables. From a pocket-book he took a small silk +packet, opened it, and spilled a few clear grains on his hand. It was +the antidote. + +He waited two days, while on all sides the rumour of the Bill grew +stronger and its provisions more stringent. Then he hesitated no +longer, but sent for Lord Caerlaverock's cook. + + + +V + +I conceive that the drug did not create new opinions, but elicited +those which had hitherto lain dormant. Every man has a creed, but in +his soul he knows that that creed has another side, possibly not less +logical, which it does not suit him to produce. Our most honest +convictions are not the children of pure reason, but of temperament, +environment, necessity, and interest. Most of us take sides in life +and forget the one we reject. But our conscience tells us it is there, +and we can on occasion state it with a fairness and fulness which +proves that it is not wholly repellent to our reason. During the +crisis I write of, the attitude of Cargill and Vennard was not that of +roysterers out for irresponsible mischief. They were eminently +reasonable and wonderfully logical, and in private conversation they +gave their opponents a very bad time. Cargill, who had hitherto been +the hope of the extreme Free-traders, wrote an article for the +Quarterly on Tariff Reform. It was set up, but long before it could be +used it was cancelled and the type scattered. I have seen a proof of +it, however, and I confess I have never read a more brilliant defence +of a doctrine which the author had hitherto described as a childish +heresy. Which proves my contention--that Cargill all along knew that +there was a case against Free Trade, but naturally did not choose to +admit it, his allegiance being vowed elsewhere. The drug altered +temperament, and with it the creed which is based mainly on +temperament. It scattered current convictions, roused dormant +speculations, and without damaging the reason switched it on to a new +track. + +I can see all this now, but at the time I saw only stark madness and +the horrible ingenuity of the lunatic. While Vennard was ruminating on +his Bill, Cargill was going about London arguing like a Scotch +undergraduate. The Prime Minister had seen from the start that the +Home Secretary was the worse danger. Vennard might talk of his +preposterous Bill, but the Cabinet would have something to say to it +before its introduction, and he was mercifully disinclined to go near +St. Stephen's. But Cargill was assiduous in his attendance at the +House, and at any moment might blow the Government sky-high. His +colleagues were detailed in relays to watch him. One would hale him to +luncheon, and keep him till question time was over. Another would +insist on taking him for a motor ride, which would end in a break-down +about Brentford. Invitations to dinner were showered upon him, and +Cargill, who had been unknown in society, found the whole social +machinery of his party set at work to make him a lion. The result was +that he was prevented from speaking in public, but given far too much +encouragement to talk in private. He talked incessantly, before, at, +and after dinner, and he did enormous harm. He was horribly clever, +too, and usually got the best of an argument, so that various eminent +private Liberals had their tempers ruined by his dialectic. In his +rich and unabashed accent--he had long discarded his +Edinburgh-English--he dissected their arguments and ridiculed their +character. He had once been famous for his soapy manners: now he was +as rough as a Highland stot. + +Things could not go on in this fashion: the risk was too great. It +was just a fortnight, I think, after the Caerlaverock dinner-party, +when the Prime Minister resolved to bring matters to a head. He could +not afford to wait for ever on a return of sanity. He consulted +Caerlaverock, and it was agreed that Vennard and Cargill should be +asked, or rather commanded to dine on the following evening at +Caerlaverock House. Mulross, whose sanity was not suspected, and whose +ankle was now well again, was also invited, as were three other members +of the Cabinet and myself as amicus curiae. It was understood that +after dinner there would be a settling-up with the two rebels. Either +they should recant and come to heel, or they should depart from the +fold to swell the wolf-pack of the Opposition. The Prime Minister did +not conceal the loss which his party would suffer, but he argued very +sensibly that anything was better than a brace of vipers in its bosom. + +I have never attended a more lugubrious function. When I arrived I +found Caerlaverock, the Prime Minister, and the three other members of +the Cabinet standing round a small fire in attitudes of nervous +dejection. I remember it was a raw wet evening, but the gloom out of +doors was sunshine compared to the gloom within. Caerlaverock's +viceregal air had sadly altered. The Prime Minister, once famous for +his genial manners, was pallid and preoccupied. We exchanged remarks +about the weather and the duration of the session. Then we fell silent +till Mulross arrived. + +He did not look as if he had come from a sickbed. He came in as jaunty +as a boy, limping just a little from his accident. He was greeted by +his colleagues with tender solicitude,--solicitude, I fear, completely +wasted on him. + +"Devilish silly thing to do to get run over," he said. "I was in a +brown study when a cab came round a corner. But I don't regret it, you +know. During the last fortnight I have had leisure to go into this +Bosnian Succession business, and I see now that Von Kladow has been +playing one big game of bluff. Very well; it has got to stop. I am +going to prick the bubble before I am many days older." + +The Prime Minister looked anxious. "Our policy towards Bosnia has been +one of non-interference. It is not for us, I should have thought, to +read Germany a lesson." + +"Oh, come now," Mulross said, slapping--yes, actually slapping--his +leader on the back; "we may drop that nonsense when we are alone. You +know very well that there are limits to our game of non-interference. +If we don't read Germany a lesson, she will read us one--and a damned +long unpleasant one too. The sooner we give up all this milk-blooded, +blue-spectacled, pacificist talk the better. However, you will see +what I have got to say to-morrow in the House." + +The Prime Minister's face lengthened. Mulross was not the pillar he +had thought him, but a splintering reed. I saw that he agreed with me +that this was the most dangerous of the lot. + +Then Cargill and Vennard came in together. Both looking uncommonly +fit, younger, trimmer, cleaner. Vennard, instead of his sloppy clothes +and shaggy hair, was groomed like a Guardsman; had a large +pearl-and-diamond solitaire in his shirt, and a white waistcoat with +jewelled buttons. He had lost all his self-consciousness, grinned +cheerfully at the others, warmed his hands at the fire, and cursed the +weather. Cargill, too, had lost his sanctimonious look. There was a +bloom of rustic health on his cheek, and a sparkle in his eye, so that +he had the appearance of some rosy Scotch laird of Raeburn's painting. +Both men wore an air of purpose and contentment. + +Vennard turned at once on the Prime Minister. "Did you get my letter?" +he asked. "No? Well, you'll find it waiting when you get home. We're +all friends here, so I can tell you its contents. We must get rid of +this ridiculous Radical 'tail.' They think they have the whip-hand of +us; well, we have got to prove that we can do very well without them. +They are a collection of confounded, treacherous, complacent prigs, but +they have no grit in them, and will come to heel if we tackle them +firmly. I respect an honest fanatic, but I do not respect those +sentiment-mongers. They have the impudence to say that the country is +with them. I tell you it is rank nonsense. If you take a strong hand +with them, you'll double your popularity, and we'll come back next +year with an increased majority. Cargill agrees with me." + +The Prime Minister looked grave. "I am not prepared to discuss any +policy of ostracism. What you call our 'tail' is a vital section of +our party. Their creed may be one-sided, but it is none the less part +of our mandate from the people." + +"I want a leader who governs as well as reigns," said Vennard. "I +believe in discipline, and you know as well as I do that the Rump is +infernally out of hand." + +"They are not the only members who fail in discipline." + +Vennard grinned. "I suppose you mean Cargill and myself. But we are +following the central lines of British policy. We are on your side, +and we want to make your task easier." + +Cargill suddenly began to laugh. "I don't want any ostracism. Leave +them alone, and Vennard and I will undertake to give them such a time +in the House that they will wish they had never been born. We'll make +them resign in batches." + +Dinner was announced, and, laughing uproariously, the two rebels went +arm-in-arm into the dining-room. + +Cargill was in tremendous form. He began to tell Scotch stories, +memories of his old Parliament House days. He told them admirably, with +a raciness of idiom which I had thought beyond him. They were long +tales, and some were as broad as they were long, but Mr. Cargill +disarmed criticism. His audience, rather scandalised at the start, +were soon captured, and political troubles were forgotten in +old-fashioned laughter. Even the Prime Minister's anxious face relaxed. + +This lasted till the entree, the famous Caerlaverock curry. + +As I have said, I was not in the secret, and did not detect the +transition. As I partook of the dish I remember feeling a sudden +giddiness and a slight nausea. The antidote, to those who had not +taken the drug, must have been, I suppose, in the nature of a mild +emetic. A mist seemed to obscure the faces of my fellow-guests, and +slowly the tide of conversation ebbed away. First Vennard, then +Cargill, became silent. I was feeling rather sick, and I noticed with +some satisfaction that all our faces were a little green. I wondered +casually if I had been poisoned. + +The sensation passed, but the party had changed. More especially I was +soon conscious that something had happened to the three Ministers. I +noticed Mulross particularly, for he was my neighbour. The look of +keenness and vitality had died out of him, and suddenly he seemed a +rather old, rather tired man, very weary about the eyes. + +I asked him if he felt seedy. + +"No, not specially," he replied, "but that accident gave me a nasty +shock." + +"You should go off for a change," I said. + +"I almost think I will," was the answer. "I had not meant to leave +town till just before the Twelth but I think I had better get away to +Marienbad for a fortnight. There is nothing doing in the House, and +work at the Office is at a standstill. Yes, I fancy I'll go abroad +before the end of the week." + +I caught the Prime Minister's eye and saw that he had forgotten the +purpose of the dinner, being dimly conscious that that purpose was now +idle. Cargill and Vennard had ceased to talk like rebels. The Home +Secretary had subsided into his old, suave, phrasing self. The humour +had gone out of his eye, and the looseness had returned to his lips. +He was an older and more commonplace man, but harmless, quite harmless. +Vennard, too, wore a new air, or rather had recaptured his old one. He +was saying little, but his voice had lost its crispness and recovered +its half-plaintive unction; his shoulders had a droop in them; once +more he bristled with self-consciousness. + +We others were still shaky from that detestable curry, and were so +puzzled as to be acutely uncomfortable. Relief would come later, no +doubt; for the present we were uneasy at this weird transformation. I +saw the Prime Minister examining the two faces intently, and the result +seemed to satisfy him. He sighed and looked at Caerlaverock, who +smiled and nodded. + +"What about that Bill of yours, Vennard?" he asked. "There have been a +lot of stupid rumours." + +"Bill?" Vennard said. "I know of no Bill. Now that my departmental +work is over, I can give my whole soul to Cargill's Small Holdings. Do +you mean that?" + +"Yes, of course. There was some confusion in the popular mind, but the +old arrangement holds. You and Cargill will put it through between +you." + +They began to talk about those weariful small holdings, and I ceased to +listen. We left the dining-room and drifted to the library, where a +fire tried to dispel the gloom of the weather. There was a feeling of +deadly depression abroad, so that, for all its awkwardness, I would +really have preferred the former Caerlaverock dinner. The Prime +Minister was whispering to his host. I heard him say something about +there being "the devil of a lot of explaining" before him. + +Vennard and Cargill came last to the library, arm-in-arm as before. + +"I should count it a greater honour," Vennard was saying, "to sweeten +the lot of one toiler in England than to add a million miles to our +territory. While one English household falls below the minimum scale +of civic wellbeing, all talk of Empire is sin and folly." "Excellent!" +said Mr. Cargill. Then I knew for certain that at last peace had +descended upon the vexed tents of Israel. + + + + +THE SHORTER CATECHISM + +(Revised Version) + + When I was young and herdit sheep + I read auld tales o' Wallace wight; + My heid was fou o' sangs and threip + O' folk that feared nae mortal might. + But noo I'm auld, and weel I ken + We're made alike o' gowd and mire; + There's saft bits in the stievest men, + The bairnliest's got a spunk o' fire. + + Sae hearken to me, lads, + It's truth that I tell: + There's nae man a' courage-- + I ken by mysel'. + + I've been an elder forty year: + I've tried to keep the narrow way: + I've walked afore the Lord in fear: + I've never missed the kirk a day. + I've read the Bible in and oot, + (I ken the feck o't clean by hert). + But, still and on, I sair misdoot + I'm better noo than at the stert. + + Sae hearken to me, lads, + It's truth I maintain: + Man's works are but rags, for + I ken by my ain. + + I hae a name for decent trade: + I'll wager a' the countryside + Wad sweer nae trustier man was made, + The ford to soom, the bent to bide. + But when it comes to coupin' horse, + I'm just like a' that e'er was born; + I fling my heels and tak' my course; + I'd sell the minister the morn. + + Sae hearken to me, lads, + It's truth that I tell: + There's nae man deid honest-- + I ken by mysel'. + + + + +III + +THE LEMNIAN + +He pushed the matted locks from his brow as he peered into the mist. +His hair was thick with salt, and his eyes smarted from the greenwood +fire on the poop. The four slaves who crouched beside the +thwarts-Carians with thin birdlike faces-were in a pitiable case, their +hands blue with oar-weals and the lash marks on their shoulders +beginning to gape from sun and sea. The Lemnian himself bore marks of +ill usage. His cloak was still sopping, his eyes heavy with watching, +and his lips black and cracked with thirst. Two days before the storm +had caught him and swept his little craft into mid-Aegean. He was a +sailor, come of sailor stock, and he had fought the gale manfully and +well. But the sea had burst his waterjars, and the torments of drought +had been added to his toil. He had been driven south almost to Scyros, +but had found no harbour. Then a weary day with the oars had brought +him close to the Euboean shore, when a freshet of storm drove him +seaward again. Now at last in this northerly creek of Sciathos he had +found shelter and a spring. But it was a perilous place, for there +were robbers in the bushy hills--mainland men who loved above all things +to rob an islander: and out at sea, as he looked towards Pelion, there +seemed something adoing which boded little good. There was deep water +beneath a ledge of cliff, half covered by a tangle of wildwood. So +Atta lay in the bows, looking through the trails of vine at the racing +tides now reddening in the dawn. + +The storm had hit others besides him it seemed. The channel was full +of ships, aimless ships that tossed between tide and wind. Looking +closer, he saw that they were all wreckage. There had been tremendous +doings in the north, and a navy of some sort had come to grief. Atta +was a prudent man, and knew that a broken fleet might be dangerous. +There might be men lurking in the maimed galleys who would make short +work of the owner of a battered but navigable craft. At first he +thought that the ships were those of the Hellenes. The troublesome +fellows were everywhere in the islands, stirring up strife and robbing +the old lords. But the tides running strongly from the east were +bringing some of the wreckage in an eddy into the bay. He lay closer +and watched the spars and splintered poops as they neared him. These +were no galleys of the Hellenes. Then came a drowned man, swollen and +horrible: then another-swarthy, hooknosed fellows, all yellow with the +sea. Atta was puzzled. They must be the men from the East about whom +he had been hearing. Long ere he left Lemnos there had been news about +the Persians. They were coming like locusts out of the dawn, swarming +over Ionia and Thrace, men and ships numerous beyond telling. They +meant no ill to honest islanders: a little earth and water were enough +to win their friendship. But they meant death to the hubris of the +Hellenes. Atta was on the side of the invaders; he wished them well in +their war with his ancient foes. They would eat them up, Athenians, +Lacedaemonians, Corinthians, Aeginetans, men of Argos and Elis, and +none would be left to trouble him. But in the meantime something had +gone wrong. Clearly there had been no battle. As the bodies butted +against the side of the galley he hooked up one or two and found no +trace of a wound. Poseidon had grown cranky, and had claimed victims. +The god would be appeased by this time, and all would go well. + +Danger being past, he bade the men get ashore and fill the water-skins. +"God's curse on all Hellenes," he said, as he soaked up the cold water +from the spring in the thicket. + +About noon he set sail again. The wind sat in the north-east, but the +wall of Pelion turned it into a light stern breeze which carried him +swiftly westward. The four slaves, still leg-weary and arm-weary, lay +like logs beside the thwarts. Two slept; one munched some salty figs; +the fourth, the headman, stared wearily forward, with ever and again a +glance back at his master. But the Lemnian never looked his way. His +head was on his breast, as he steered, and he brooded on the sins of +the Hellenes. He was of the old Pelasgian stock, the first lords of +the land, who had come out of the soil at the call of God. The +pillaging northmen had crushed his folk out of the mainlands and most +of the islands, but in Lemnos they had met their match. It was a +family story how every grown male had been slain, and how the women +long after had slaughtered their conquerors in the night. "Lemnian +deeds," said the Hellenes, when they wished to speak of some shameful +thing: but to Atta the shame was a glory to be cherished for ever. He +and his kind were the ancient people, and the gods loved old things, as +those new folk would find. Very especially he hated the men of Athens. +Had not one of their captains, Militades, beaten the Lemnians and +brought the island under Athenian sway? True, it was a rule only in +name, for any Athenian who came alone to Lemnos would soon be cleaving +the air from the highest cliff-top. But the thought irked his pride, +and he gloated over the Persians' coming. The Great King from beyond +the deserts would smite those outrageous upstarts. Atta would +willingly give earth and water. It was the whim of a fantastic +barbarian, and would be well repaid if the bastard Hellenes were +destroyed. They spoke his own tongue, and worshipped his own gods, and +yet did evil. Let the nemesis of Zeus devour them! + +The wreckage pursued him everywhere. Dead men shouldered the sides of +the galley, and the straits were stuck full of things like monstrous +buoys, where tall ships had foundered. At Artemision he thought he saw +signs of an anchored fleet with the low poops of the Hellenes, and +sheered off to the northern shores. There, looking towards Oeta and +the Malian Gulf, he found an anchorage at sunset. The waters were ugly +and the times ill, and he had come on an enterprise bigger than he had +dreamed. The Lemnian was a stout fellow, but he had no love for +needless danger. He laughed mirthlessly as he thought of his errand, +for he was going to Hellas, to the shrine of the Hellenes. + +It was a woman's doing, like most crazy enterprises. Three years ago +his wife had laboured hard in childbirth, and had had the whims of +labouring women. Up in the keep of Larisa, on the windy hillside, +there had been heart-searching and talk about the gods. The little +olive-wood Hermes, the very private and particular god of Atta's folk, +was good enough in simple things like a lambing or a harvest, but he +was scarcely fit for heavy tasks. Atta's wife declared that her lord +lacked piety. There were mainland gods who repaid worship, but his +scorn of all Hellenes made him blind to the merits of those potent +divinities. At first Atta resisted. There was Attic blood in his +wife, and he strove to argue with her unorthodox craving. But the +woman persisted, and a Lemnian wife, as she is beyond other wives in +virtue and comeliness, excels them in stubbornness of temper. A second +time she was with child, and nothing would content her but that Atta +should make his prayers to the stronger gods. Dodona was far away, and +long ere he reached it his throat would be cut in the hills. But +Delphi was but two days' journey from the Malian coast, and the god of +Delphi, the Far-Darter had surprising gifts, if one were to credit +travellers' tales. Atta yielded with an ill grace, and out of his +wealth devised an offering to Apollo. So on this July day he found +himself looking across the gulf to Kallidromos bound for a Hellenic +shrine, but hating all Hellenes in his soul. A verse of Homer consoled +him--the words which Phocion spoke to Achilles. "Verily even the gods +may be turned, they whose excellence and honour and strength are +greater than thine; yet even these do men, when they pray, turn from +their purpose with offerings of incense and pleasant vows." The +Far-Darter must hate the hubris of those Hellenes, and be the more +ready to avenge it since they dared to claim his countenance. "No race +has ownership in the gods," a Lemnian song-maker had said when Atta had +been questioning the ways of Poseidon. + +The following dawn found him coasting past the north end of Euboea in +the thin fog of a windless summer morn. He steered by the peak of +Othrys and a spur of Oeta, as he had learnt from a slave who had +travelled the road. Presently he was in the muddy Malian waters, and +the sun was scattering the mist on the landward side. And then he +became aware of a greater commotion than Poseidon's play with the ships +off Pelion. A murmur like a winter's storm came seawards. He lowered +the sail, which he had set to catch a chance breeze, and bade the men +rest on their oars. An earthquake seemed to be tearing at the roots of +the hills. + +The mist rolled up, and his hawk eyes saw a strange sight. The water +was green and still around him, but shoreward it changed its colour. +It was a dirty red, and things bobbed about in it like the Persians in +the creek of Sciathos. On the strip of shore, below the sheer wall of +Kallidromos, men were fighting-myriads of men, for away towards Locris +they stretched in ranks and banners and tents till the eye lost them in +the haze. There was no sail on the queer, muddy-red-edged sea; there +was no man on the hills: but on that one flat ribbon of sand all the +nations of the earth were warring. He remembered about the place: +Thermopylae they called it, the Gate of the Hot Springs. The Hellenes +were fighting the Persians in the pass for their Fatherland. + +Atta was prudent and loved not other men's quarrels. He gave the word +to the rowers to row seaward. In twenty strokes they were in the mist +again... + +Atta was prudent, but he was also stubborn. He spent the day in a +creek on the northern shore of the gulf, listening to the weird hum +which came over the waters out of the haze. He cursed the delay. Up +on Kallidromos would be clear dry air and the path to Delphi among the +oak woods. The Hellenes could not be fighting everywhere at once. He +might find some spot on the shore, far in their rear, where he could +land and gain the hills. There was danger indeed, but once on the +ridge he would be safe; and by the time he came back the Great King +would have swept the defenders into the sea, and be well on the road +for Athens. He asked himself if it were fitting that a Lemnian should +be stayed in his holy task by the struggles of Hellene and Barbarian. +His thoughts flew to his steading at Larisa, and the dark-eyed wife who +was awaiting his homecoming. He could not return without Apollo's +favour: his manhood and the memory of his lady's eyes forbade it. So +late in the afternoon he pushed off again and steered his galley for +the south. + +About sunset the mist cleared from the sea; but the dark falls swiftly +in the shadow of the high hills, and Atta had no fear. With the night +the hum sank to a whisper; it seemed that the invaders were drawing off +to camp, for the sound receded to the west. At the last light the +Lemnian touched a rock-point well to the rear of the defence. He +noticed that the spume at the tide's edge was reddish and stuck to his +hands like gum. Of a surety much blood was flowing on that coast. + +He bade his slaves return to the north shore and lie hidden to await +him. When he came back he would light a signal fire on the topmost +bluff of Kallidromos. Let them watch for it and come to take him off. +Then he seized his bow and quiver, and his short hunting-spear, buckled +his cloak about him, saw that the gift to Apollo was safe in the folds +of it, and marched sturdily up the hillside. + +The moon was in her first quarter, a slim horn which at her rise showed +only the faint outline of the hill. Atta plodded steadfastly on, but +he found the way hard. This was not like the crisp sea-turf of Lemnos, +where among the barrows of the ancient dead, sheep and kine could find +sweet fodder. Kallidromos ran up as steep as the roof of a barn. +Cytisus and thyme and juniper grew rank, but above all the place was +strewn with rocks, leg-twisting boulders, and great cliffs where eagles +dwelt. Being a seaman, Atta had his bearings. The path to Delphi left +the shore road near the Hot Springs, and went south by a rift of the +mountain. If he went up the slope in a beeline he must strike it in +time and find better going. Still it was an eerie place to be tramping +after dark. The Hellenes had strange gods of the thicket and hillside, +and he had no wish to intrude upon their sanctuaries. He told himself +that next to the Hellenes he hated this country of theirs, where a man +sweltered in hot jungles or tripped among hidden crags. He sighed for +the cool beaches below Larisa, where the surf was white as the snows of +Samothrace, and the fisherboys sang round their smoking broth-pots. + +Presently he found a path. It was not the mule road, worn by many +feet, that he had looked for, but a little track which twined among the +boulders. Still it eased his feet, so he cleared the thorns from his +sandals, strapped his belt tighter, and stepped out more confidently. +Up and up he went, making odd detours among the crags. Once he came to +a promontory, and, looking down, saw lights twinkling from the Hot +Springs. He had thought the course lay more southerly, but consoled +himself by remembering that a mountain path must have many windings. +The great matter was that he was ascending, for he knew that he must +cross the ridge of Oeta before he struck the Locrian glens that led to +the Far-Darter's shrine. + +At what seemed the summit of the first ridge he halted for breath, and, +prone on the thyme, looked back to sea. The Hot Springs were hidden, +but across the gulf a single light shone from the far shore. He +guessed that by this time his galley had been beached and his slaves +were cooking supper. The thought made him homesick. He had beaten and +cursed these slaves of his times without number, but now in this +strange land he felt them kinsfolk, men of his own household. Then he +told himself he was no better than a woman. Had he not gone sailing to +Chalcedon and distant Pontus, many months' journey from home while this +was but a trip of days? In a week he would be welcomed by a smiling +wife, with a friendly god behind him. + +The track still bore west, though Delphi lay in the south. Moreover, +he had come to a broader road running through a little tableland. The +highest peaks of Oeta were dark against the sky, and around him was a +flat glade where oaks whispered in the night breezes. By this time he +judged from the stars that midnight had passed, and he began to +consider whether, now that he was beyond the fighting, he should not +sleep and wait for dawn. He made up his mind to find a shelter, and, +in the aimless way of the night traveller, pushed on and on in the +quest of it. The truth is his mind was on Lemnos, and a dark-eyed, +white-armed dame spinning in the evening by the threshold. His eyes +roamed among the oaktrees, but vacantly and idly, and many a mossy +corner was passed unheeded. He forgot his ill temper, and hummed +cheerfully the song his reapers sang in the barley-fields below his +orchard. It was a song of seamen turned husbandmen, for the gods it +called on were the gods of the sea.... + +Suddenly he found himself crouching among the young oaks, peering and +listening. There was something coming from the west. It was like the +first mutterings of a storm in a narrow harbour, a steady rustling and +whispering. It was not wind; he knew winds too well to be deceived. +It was the tramp of light-shod feet among the twigs--many feet, for the +sound remained steady, while the noise of a few men will rise and fall. +They were coming fast and coming silently. The war had reached far up +Kallidromos. + +Atta had played this game often in the little island wars. Very +swiftly he ran back and away from the path up the slope which he knew +to be the first ridge of Kallidromos. The army, whatever it might be, +was on the Delphian road. Were the Hellenes about to turn the flank of +the Great King? + +A moment later he laughed at his folly. For the men began to appear, +and they were crossing to meet him, coming from the west. Lying close +in the brushwood he could see them clearly. It was well he had left +the road, for they stuck to it, following every winding-crouching, too, +like hunters after deer. The first man he saw was a Hellene, but the +ranks behind were no Hellenes. There was no glint of bronze or gleam +of fair skin. They were dark, long-haired fellows, with spears like +his own, and round Eastern caps, and egg-shaped bucklers. Then Atta +rejoiced. It was the Great King who was turning the flank of the +Hellenes. They guarded the gate, the fools, while the enemy slipped +through the roof. + +He did not rejoice long. The van of the army was narrow and kept to +the path, but the men behind were straggling all over the hillside. +Another minute and he would be discovered. The thought was cheerless. +It was true that he was an islander and friendly to the Persian, but up +on the heights who would listen to his tale? He would be taken for a +spy, and one of those thirsty spears would drink his blood. It must be +farewell to Delphi for the moment, he thought, or farewell to Lemnos +for ever. Crouching low, he ran back and away from the path to the +crest of the sea-ridge of Kallidromos. + +The men came no nearer him. They were keeping roughly to the line of +the path, and drifted through the oak wood before him, an army without +end. He had scarcely thought there were so many fighting men in the +world. He resolved to lie there on the crest, in the hope that ere the +first light they would be gone. Then he would push on to Delphi, +leaving them to settle their quarrels behind him. These were the hard +times for a pious pilgrim. + +But another noise caught his ear from the right. The army had flanking +squadrons, and men were coming along the ridge. Very bitter anger rose +in Atta's heart. He had cursed the Hellenes, and now he cursed the +Barbarians no less. Nay, he cursed all war, that spoiled the errands +of peaceful folk. And then, seeking safety, he dropped over the crest +on to the steep shoreward face of the mountain. + +In an instant his breath had gone from him. He slid down a long slope +of screes, and then with a gasp found himself falling sheer into space. +Another second and he was caught in a tangle of bush, and then dropped +once more upon screes, where he clutched desperately for handhold. +Breathless and bleeding he came to anchor on a shelf of greensward and +found himself blinking up at the crest which seemed to tower a thousand +feet above. There were men on the crest now. He heard them speak and +felt that they were looking down. + +The shock kept him still till the men had passed. Then the terror of +the place gripped him, and he tried feverishly to retrace his steps. A +dweller all his days among gentle downs, he grew dizzy with the sense +of being hung in space. But the only fruit of his efforts was to set +him slipping again. This time he pulled up at the root of gnarled oak, +which overhung the sheerest cliff on Kallidromos. The danger brought +his wits back. He sullenly reviewed his case, and found it desperate. + +He could not go back, and, even if he did, he would meet the Persians. +If he went on he would break his neck, or at the best fall into the +Hellenes' hands. Oddly enough he feared his old enemies less than his +friends. He did not think that the Hellenes would butcher him. Again, +he might sit perched in his eyrie till they settled their quarrel, or +he fell off. He rejected this last way. Fall off he should for +certain, unless he kept moving. Already he was retching with the +vertigo of the heights. It was growing lighter. Suddenly he was +looking not into a black world, but to a pearl-grey floor far beneath +him. It was the sea, the thing he knew and loved. The sight screwed +up his courage. He remembered that he was Lemnian and a seafarer. He +would be conquered neither by rock, nor by Hellene, nor by the Great +King. Least of all by the last, who was a barbarian. Slowly, with +clenched teeth and narrowed eyes, he began to clamber down a ridge +which flanked the great cliffs of Kallidromos. His plan was to reach +the shore and take the road to the east before the Persians completed +their circuit. Some instinct told him that a great army would not take +the track he had mounted by. There must be some longer and easier way +debouching farther down the coast. He might yet have the good luck to +slip between them and the sea. + +The two hours which followed tried his courage hard. Thrice he fell, +and only a juniper-root stood between him and death. His hands grew +ragged, and his nails were worn to the quick. He had long ago lost his +weapons; his cloak was in shreds, all save the breast-fold which held +the gift to Apollo. The heavens brightened, but he dared not look +around. He knew he was traversing awesome places, where a goat could +scarcely tread. Many times he gave up hope of life. His head was +swimming, and he was so deadly sick that often he had to lie gasping on +some shoulder of rock less steep than the rest. But his anger kept him +to his purpose. He was filled with fury at the Hellenes. It was they +and their folly that had brought him these mischances. Some day .... + +He found himself sitting blinking on the shore of the sea. A furlong +off the water was lapping on the reefs. A man, larger than human in +the morning mist, was standing above him. + +"Greeting, stranger," said the voice. "By Hermes, you choose the +difficult roads to travel." + +Atta felt for broken bones, and, reassured, struggled to his feet. + +"God's curse upon all mountains," he said. He staggered to the edge of +the tide and laved his brow. The savour of salt revived him. He +turned to find the tall man at his elbow, and noted how worn and ragged +he was, and yet how upright. "When a pigeon is flushed from the rocks, +there is a hawk near," said the voice. + +Atta was angry. "A hawk!" he cried. "Nay, an army of eagles. There +will be some rare flushing of Hellenes before evening." + +"What frightened you, Islander?" the stranger asked. "Did a wolf bark +up on the hillside?" + +"Ay, a wolf. The wolf from the East with a multitude of wolflings. +There will be fine eating soon in the pass." + +The man's face grew dark. He put his hand to his mouth and called. +Half a dozen sentries ran to join him. He spoke to them in the harsh +Lacedaemonian speech which made Atta sick to hear. They talked with +the back of the throat and there was not an "s" in their words. + +"There is mischief in the hills," the first man said. "This islander +has been frightened down over the rocks. The Persian is stealing a +march on us." + +The sentries laughed. One quoted a proverb about island courage. +Atta's wrath flared and he forgot himself. He had no wish to warn the +Hellenes, but it irked his pride to be thought a liar. He began to +tell his story hastily, angrily, confusedly; and the men still laughed. + +Then he turned eastward and saw the proof before him. The light had +grown and the sun was coming up over Pelion. The first beam fell on +the eastern ridge of Kallidromos, and there, clear on the sky-line, was +the proof. The Persian was making a wide circuit, but moving +shoreward. In a little he would be at the coast, and by noon at the +Hellenes' rear. + +His hearers doubted no more. Atta was hurried forward through the +lines of the Greeks to the narrow throat of the pass, where behind a +rough rampart of stones lay the Lacedaemonian headquarters. He was +still giddy from the heights, and it was in a giddy dream that he +traversed the misty shingles of the beach amid ranks of sleeping +warriors. It was a grim place, for there were dead and dying in it, +and blood on every stone. But in the lee of the wall little fires were +burning and slaves were cooking breakfast. The smell of roasting flesh +came pleasantly to his nostrils, and he remembered that he had had no +meal since he crossed the gulf. + +Then he found himself the centre of a group who had the air of kings. +They looked as if they had been years in war. Never had he seen faces +so worn and so terribly scarred. The hollows in their cheeks gave them +the air of smiling, and yet they were grave. Their scarlet vests were +torn and muddled, and the armour which lay near was dinted like the +scrap-iron before a smithy door. But what caught his attention were +the eyes of the men. They glittered as no eyes he had ever seen before +glittered. The sight cleared his bewilderment and took the pride out +of his heart. He could not pretend to despise a folk who looked like +Ares fresh from the wars of the Immortals. + +They spoke among themselves in quiet voices. Scouts came and went, and +once or twice one of the men, taller than the rest, asked Atta a +question. The Lemnian sat in the heart of the group, sniffing the +smell of cooking, and looking at the rents in his cloak and the long +scratches on his legs. Something was pressing on his breast, and he +found that it was Apollo's gift. He had forgotten all about it. +Delphi seemed beyond the moon, and his errand a child's dream. + +Then the King, for so he thought of the tall man, spoke-- + +"You have done us a service, Islander. The Persian is at our back and +front, and there will be no escape for those who stay. Our allies are +going home, for they do not share our vows. We of Lacedaemon wait in +the pass. If you go with the men of Corinth you will find a place of +safety before noon. No doubt in the Euripus there is some boat to take +you to your own land." + +He spoke courteously, not in the rude Athenian way; and somehow the +quietness of his voice and his glittering eyes roused wild longings in +Atta's heart. His island pride was face to face with a greater-greater +than he had ever dreamed of. + +"Bid yon cooks give me some broth," he said gruffly. "I am faint. +After I have eaten I will speak with you." + +He was given food, and as he ate he thought. He was on trial before +these men of Lacedaemon. More, the old faith of the islands, the pride +of the first masters, was at stake in his hands. He had boasted that +he and his kind were the last of the men; now these Hellenes of +Lacedaemon were preparing a great deed, and they deemed him unworthy to +share in it. They offered him safety. Could he brook the insult? He +had forgotten that the cause of the Persian was his; that the Hellenes +were the foes of his race. He saw only that the last test of manhood +was preparing and the manhood in him rose to greet the trial. An odd +wild ecstasy surged in his veins. It was not the lust of battle, for +he had no love of slaying, or hate for the Persian, for he was his +friend. It was the sheer joy of proving that the Lemnian stock had a +starker pride than these men of Lacedamon. They would die for their +fatherland, and their vows; but he, for a whim, a scruple, a delicacy +of honour. His mind was so clear that no other course occurred to him. +There was only one way for a man. He, too, would be dying for his +fatherland, for through him the island race would be ennobled in the +eyes of gods and men. + +Troops were filing fast to the east--Thebans, Corinthians. "Time +flies, Islander," said the King's voice. "The hours of safety are +slipping past." Atta looked up carelessly. "I will stay," he said. +"God's curse on all Hellenes! Little I care for your quarrels. It is +nothing to me if your Hellas is under the heels of the East. But I +care much for brave men. It shall never be said that a man of Lemnos, +a son of the old race, fell back when Death threatened. I stay with +you, men of Lacedaemon." + +The King's eyes glittered; they seemed to peer into his heart. + +"It appears they breed men in the islands," he said. "But you err. +Death does not threaten. Death awaits us. + +"It is all one," said Atta. "But I crave a boon. Let me fight my last +fight by your side. I am of older stock than you, and a king in my own +country. I would strike my last blow among kings." + +There was an hour of respite before battle was joined, and Atta spent +it by the edge of the sea. He had been given arms, and in girding +himself for the fight he had found Apollo's offering in his breastfold. +He was done with the gods of the Hellenes. His offering should go to +the gods of his own people. So, calling upon Poseidon, he flung the +little gold cup far out to sea. It flashed in the sunlight, and then +sank in the soft green tides so noiselessly that it seemed as if the +hand of the Sea-god had been stretched to take it. "Hail, Poseidon!" +the Lemnian cried. "I am bound this day for the Ferryman. To you only +I make prayer, and to the little Hermes of Larisa. Be kind to my kin +when they travel the sea, and keep them islanders and seafarers for +ever. Hail and farewell, God of my own folk!" + +Then, while the little waves lapped on the white sand, Atta made a +song. He was thinking of the homestead far up in the green downs, +looking over to the snows of Samothrace. At this hour in the morning +there would be a tinkle of sheep-bells as the flocks went down to the +low pastures. Cool wind would be blowing, and the noise of the surf +below the cliffs would come faint to the ear. In the hall the maids +mould be spinning, while their dark-haired mistress would be casting +swift glances to the doorway, lest it might be filled any moment by the +form of her returning lord. Outside in the chequered sunlight of the +orchard the child would be playing with his nurse, crooning in childish +syllables the chanty his father had taught him. And at the thought of +his home a great passion welled up in Atta's heart. It was not regret, +but joy and pride and aching love. In his antique island creed the +death he was awaiting was not other than a bridal. He was dying for +the things he loved, and by his death they would be blessed eternally. +He would not have long to wait before bright eyes came to greet him in +the House of Shadows. + +So Atta made the Song of Atta, and sang it then, and later in the press +of battle. It was a simple song, like the lays of seafarers. It put +into rough verse the thought which cheers the heart of all +adventurers--nay, which makes adventure possible for those who have +much to leave. It spoke of the shining pathway of the sea which is the +Great Uniter. A man may lie dead in Pontus or beyond the Pillars of +Herakles, but if he dies on the shore there is nothing between him and +his fatherland. It spoke of a battle all the long dark night in a +strange place--a place of marshes and black cliffs and shadowy terrors. + +"In the dawn the sweet light comes," said the song, "and the salt winds +and the tides will bear me home..." + +When in the evening the Persians took toll of the dead, they found one +man who puzzled them. He lay among the tall Lacedaemonians on the very +lip of the sea, and around him were swathes of their countrymen. It +looked as if he had been fighting his way to the water, and had been +overtaken by death as his feet reached the edge. Nowhere in the pass +did the dead lie so thick, and yet he was no Hellene. He was torn like +a deer that the dogs have worried, but the little left of his garments +and his features spoke of Eastern race. The survivors could tell +nothing except that he had fought like a god and had been singing all +the while. + +The matter came to the ear of the Great King who was sore enough at the +issue of the day. That one of his men had performed feats of valeur +beyond the Hellenes was a pleasant tale to tell. And so his captains +reported it. Accordingly when the fleet from Artemision arrived next +morning, and all but a few score Persians were shovelled into holes, +that the Hellenes might seem to have been conquered by a lesser force, +Atta's body was laid out with pomp in the midst of the Lacedaemonians. +And the seamen rubbed their eyes and thanked their strange gods that +one man of the East had been found to match those terrible warriors +whose name was a nightmare. Further, the Great King gave orders that +the body of Atta should be embalmed and carried with the army, and that +his name and kin should be sought out and duly honoured. This latter +was a task too hard for the staff, and no more was heard of it till +months later, when the King, in full flight after Salamis, bethought +him of the one man who had not played him false. Finding that his +lieutenants had nothing to tell him, he eased five of them of their +heads. + +As it happened, the deed was not quite forgotten. An islander, a +Lesbian and a cautious man, had fought at Thermopylae in the Persian +ranks, and had heard Atta's singing and seen how he fell. Long +afterwards some errand took this man to Lemnos, and in the evening, +speaking with the Elders, he told his tale and repeated something of +the song. There was that in the words which gave the Lemnians a clue, +the mention, I think, of the olive-wood Hermes and the snows of +Samothrace. So Atta came to great honour among his own people, and his +memory and his words were handed down to the generations. The song +became a favourite island lay, and for centuries throughout the Aegean +seafaring men sang it when they turned their prows to wild seas. Nay, +it travelled farther, for you will find part of it stolen by Euripides +and put in a chorus of the Andromache. There are echoes of it in some +of the epigrams of the Anthology; and, though the old days have gone, +the simple fisher-folk still sing snatches in their barbarous dialect. +The Klephts used to make a catch of it at night round their fires in +the hills, and only the other day I met a man in Scyros who had +collected a dozen variants, and was publishing them in a dull book on +island folklore. + +In the centuries which followed the great fight, the sea fell away from +the roots of the cliffs and left a mile of marshland. About fifty +years ago a peasant, digging in a rice-field, found the cup which Atta +bad given to Poseidon. There was much talk about the discovery, and +scholars debated hotly about its origin. To-day it is in the Berlin +Museum, and according to the new fashion in archaeology it is labelled +"Minoan," and kept in the Cretan Section. But any one who looks +carefully will see behind the rim a neat little carving of a dolphin; +and I happen to know that that was the private badge of Atta's house. + + + + +ATTA'S SONG + +(Roughly translated.) + + I will sing of thee, Great Sea-Mother, + Whose white arms gather + Thy sons in the ending: + And draw them homeward + From far sad marches-- + Wild lands in the sunset, + Bitter shores of the morning-- + Soothe them and guide them + By shining pathways + Homeward to thee. + + All day I have striven in dark glens + With parched throat and dim eyes, + Where the red crags choke the stream + And dank thickets hide the spear. + I have spilled the blood of my foes + And their wolves have torn my flanks. + I am faint, O Mother, + Faint and aweary. + I have longed for thy cool winds + And thy kind grey eyes + And thy lover's arms. + + At the even I came + To a land of terrors, + Of hot swamps where the feet mired + And waters that flowerd red with blood + There I strove with thousands, + Wild-eyed and lost, + As a lion among serpents. + --But sudden before me + I saw the flash + Of the sweet wide waters + That wash my homeland + And mirror the stars of home. + Then sang I for joy, + For I knew the Preserver, + Thee, the Uniter, + The great Sea-Mother. + Soon will the sweet light come, + And the salt winds and the tides + Will bear me home. + + Far in the sunrise, + Nestled in thy bosom, + Lies my own green isle. + Thither wilt thou bear me. + To where, above the sea-cliffs, + Stretch mild meadows, flower-decked, thyme-scented, + Crisp with sea breezes. + There my flocks feed + On sunny uplands, + Looking over thy waters + To where the mount Saos + Raises purl snows to God. + + Hermes, guide of souls, + I made thee a shrine in my orchard, + And round thy olive-wood limbs + The maidens twined Spring blossoms-- + Violet and helichryse + And the pale wind flowers. + Keep thou watch for me, + For I am coming. + Tell to my lady + And to all my kinsfolk + That I who have gone from them + Tarry not long, but come swift o'er the sea-path, + My feet light with joy, + My eyes bright with longing. + For little it matters + Where a man may fall, + If he fall by the sea-shore; + The kind waters await him, + The white arms are around him, + And the wise Mother of Men + Will carry him home. + + I who sing + Wait joyfully on the morning. + Ten thousand beset me + And their spears ache for my heart. + They will crush me and grind me to mire, + So that none will know the man that once was me. + But at the first light I shall be gone, + Singing, flitting, o'er the grey waters, + Outward, homeward, + To thee, the Preserver, + Thee, the Uniter, + Mother the Sea. + + + + +IV + +SPACE + + "Est impossibile? Certum est." + --TERTULLIAN. + + +Leithen told me this story one evening in early September as we sat +beside the pony track which gropes its way from Glenvalin up the Correi +na Sidhe. I had arrived that afternoon from the south, while he had +been taking an off-day from a week's stalking, so we had walked up the +glen together after tea to get the news of the forest. A rifle was out +on the Correi na Sidhe beat, and a thin spire of smoke had risen from +the top of Sgurr Dearg to show that a stag had been killed at the +burnhead. The lumpish hill pony with its deer-saddle had gone up the +Correi in a gillie's charge while we followed at leisure, picking our +way among the loose granite rocks and the patches of wet bogland. The +track climbed high on one of the ridges of Sgurr Dearg, till it hung +over a caldron of green glen with the Alt-na-Sidhe churning in its linn +a thousand feet below. It was a breathless evening, I remember, with a +pale-blue sky just clearing from the haze of the day. West-wind +weather may make the North, even in September, no bad imitation of the +Tropics, and I sincerely pitied the man who all these stifling hours +had been toiling on the screes of Sgurr Dearg. By-and-by we sat down +on a bank of heather, and idly watched the trough swimming at our feet. +The clatter of the pony's hoofs grew fainter, the drone of bees had +gone, even the midges seemed to have forgotten their calling. No place +on earth can be so deathly still as a deer-forest early in the season +before the stags have begun roaring, for there are no sheep with their +homely noises, and only the rare croak of a raven breaks the silence. +The hillside was far from sheer-one could have walked down with a +little care-but something in the shape of the hollow and the remote +gleam of white water gave it an extraordinary depth and space. There +was a shimmer left from the day's heat, which invested bracken and rock +and scree with a curious airy unreality. One could almost have +believed that the eye had tricked the mind, that all was mirage, that +five yards from the path the solid earth fell away into nothingness. I +have a bad head, and instinctively I drew farther back into the +heather. Leithen's eyes were looking vacantly before him. + +"Did you ever know Hollond?" he asked. + +Then he laughed shortly. "I don't know why I asked that, but somehow +this place reminded me of Hollond. That glimmering hollow looks as if +it were the beginning of eternity. It must be eerie to live with the +feeling always on one." + +Leithen seemed disinclined for further exercise. He lit a pipe and +smoked quietly for a little. "Odd that you didn't know Hollond. You +must have heard his name. I thought you amused yourself with +metaphysics." + +Then I remembered. There had been an erratic genius who had written +some articles in Mind on that dreary subject, the mathematical +conception of infinity. Men had praised them to me, but I confess I +never quite understood their argument. "Wasn't he some sort of +mathematical professor?" I asked. + +"He was, and, in his own way, a tremendous swell. He wrote a book on +Number which has translations in every European language. He is dead +now, and the Royal Society founded a medal in his honour. But I wasn't +thinking of that side of him." + +It was the time and place for a story, for the pony would not be back +for an hour. So I asked Leithen about the other side of Hollond which +was recalled to him by Correi na Sidhe. He seemed a little unwilling +to speak... + +"I wonder if you will understand it. You ought to, of course, better +than me, for you know something of philosophy. But it took me a long +time to get the hang of it, and I can't give you any kind of +explanation. He was my fag at Eton, and when I began to get on at the +Bar I was able to advise him on one or two private matters, so that he +rather fancied my legal ability. He came to me with his story because +he had to tell someone, and he wouldn't trust a colleague. He said he +didn't want a scientist to know, for scientists were either pledged to +their own theories and wouldn't understand, or, if they understood, +would get ahead of him in his researches. He wanted a lawyer, he said, +who was accustomed to weighing evidence. That was good sense, for +evidence must always be judged by the same laws, and I suppose in the +long-run the most abstruse business comes down to a fairly simple +deduction from certain data. Anyhow, that was the way he used to talk, +and I listened to him, for I liked the man, and had an enormous respect +for his brains. At Eton he sluiced down all the mathematics they could +give him, and he was an astonishing swell at Cambridge. He was a +simple fellow, too, and talked no more jargon than he could help. I +used to climb with him in the Alps now and then, and you would never +have guessed that he had any thoughts beyond getting up steep rocks. + +"It was at Chamonix, I remember, that I first got a hint of the matter +that was filling his mind. We had been taking an off-day, and were +sitting in the hotel garden, watching the Aiguilles getting purple in +the twilight. Chamonix always makes me choke a little-it is so crushed +in by those great snow masses. I said something about it--said I liked +the open spaces like the Gornegrat or the Bel Alp better. He asked me +why: if it was the difference of the air, or merely the wider horizon? +I said it was the sense of not being crowded, of living in an empty +world. He repeated the word 'empty' and laughed. + +"'By "empty" you mean,' he said, 'where things don't knock up against +you?' + +I told him No. I mean just empty, void, nothing but blank aether. + +"You don't knock up against things here, and the air is as good as you +want. It can't be the lack of ordinary emptiness you feel." + +"I agreed that the word needed explaining. 'I suppose it is mental +restlessness,' I said. 'I like to feel that for a tremendous distance +there is nothing round me. Why, I don't know. Some men are built the +other way and have a terror of space.' + +"He said that that was better. 'It is a personal fancy, and depends on +your KNOWING that there is nothing between you and the top of the Dent +Blanche. And you know because your eyes tell you there is nothing. +Even if you were blind, you might have a sort of sense about adjacent +matter. Blind men often have it. But in any case, whether got from +instinct or sight, the KNOWLEDGE is what matters.' + +"Hollond was embarking on a Socratic dialogue in which I could see +little point. I told him so, and he laughed. "'I am not sure that I am +very clear myself. But yes--there IS a point. Supposing you knew-not +by sight or by instinct, but by sheer intellectual knowledge, as I know +the truth of a mathematical proposition--that what we call empty space +was full, crammed. Not with lumps of what we call matter like hills +and houses, but with things as real--as real to the mind. Would you +still feel crowded?' + +"'No,' I said, 'I don't think so. It is only what we call matter that +signifies. It would be just as well not to feel crowded by the other +thing, for there would be no escape from it. But what are you getting +at? Do you mean atoms or electric currents or what?' + +"He said he wasn't thinking about that sort of thing, and began to talk +of another subject. + +"Next night, when we were pigging it at the Geant cabane, he started +again on the same tack. He asked me how I accounted for the fact that +animals could find their way back over great tracts of unknown country. +I said I supposed it was the homing instinct. + +"'Rubbish, man,' he said. 'That's only another name for the puzzle, +not an explanation. There must be some reason for it. They must KNOW +something that we cannot understand. Tie a cat in a bag and take it +fifty miles by train and it will make its way home. That cat has some +clue that we haven't.' + +"I was tired and sleepy, and told him that I did not care a rush about +the psychology of cats. But he was not to be snubbed, and went on +talking. + +"'How if Space is really full of things we cannot see and as yet do not +know? How if all animals and some savages have a cell in their brain +or a nerve which responds to the invisible world? How if all Space be +full of these landmarks, not material in our sense, but quite real? A +dog barks at nothing, a wild beast makes an aimless circuit. Why? +Perhaps because Space is made up of corridors and alleys, ways to +travel and things to shun? For all we know, to a greater intelligence +than ours the top of Mont Blanc may be as crowded as Piccadilly Circus.' + +"But at that point I fell asleep and left Hollond to repeat his +questions to a guide who knew no English and a snoring porter. + +"Six months later, one foggy January afternoon, Hollond rang me up at +the Temple and proposed to come to see me that night after dinner. I +thought he wanted to talk Alpine shop, but he turned up in Duke Street +about nine with a kit-bag full of papers. He was an odd fellow to look +at--a yellowish face with the skin stretched tight on the cheek-bones, +clean-shaven, a sharp chin which he kept poking forward, and deep-set, +greyish eyes. He was a hard fellow, too, always in pretty good +condition, which was remarkable considering how he slaved for nine +months out of the twelve. He had a quiet, slow-spoken manner, but that +night I saw that he was considerably excited. + +"He said that he had come to me because we were old friends. He +proposed to tell me a tremendous secret. 'I must get another mind to +work on it or I'll go crazy. I don't want a scientist. I want a plain +man.' + +"Then he fixed me with a look like a tragic actor's. 'Do you remember +that talk we had in August at Chamonix--about Space? I daresay you +thought I was playing the fool. So I was in a sense, but I was feeling +my way towards something which has been in my mind for ten years. Now +I have got it, and you must hear about it. You may take my word that +it's a pretty startling discovery.' + +"I lit a pipe and told him to go ahead, warning him that I knew about +as much science as the dustman. + +"I am bound to say that it took me a long time to understand what he +meant. He began by saying that everybody thought of Space as an 'empty +homogeneous medium.' 'Never mind at present what the ultimate +constituents of that medium are. We take it as a finished product, and +we think of it as mere extension, something without any quality at all. +That is the view of civilised man. You will find all the philosophers +taking it for granted. Yes, but every living thing does not take that +view. An animal, for instance. It feels a kind of quality in Space. +It can find its way over new country, because it perceives certain +landmarks, not necessarily material, but perceptible, or if you like +intelligible. Take an Australian savage. He has the same power, and, +I believe, for the same reason. He is conscious of intelligible +landmarks.' + +"'You mean what people call a sense of direction,' I put in. + +"'Yes, but what in Heaven's name is a sense of direction? The phrase +explains nothing. However incoherent the mind of the animal or the +savage may be, it is there somewhere, working on some data. I've been +all through the psychological and anthropological side of the business, +and after you eliminate the clues from sight and hearing and smell and +half-conscious memory there remains a solid lump of the inexplicable.' + +"Hollond's eye had kindled, and he sat doubled up in his chair, +dominating me with a finger. + +"'Here, then is a power which man is civilising himself out of. Call +it anything you like, but you must admit that it is a power. Don't you +see that it is a perception of another kind of reality that we are +leaving behind us?... Well, you know the way nature works. The wheel +comes full circle, and what we think we have lost we regain in a higher +form. So for a long time I have been wondering whether the civilised +mind could not recreate for itself this lost gift, the gift of seeing +the quality of Space. I mean that I wondered whether the scientific +modern brain could not get to the stage of realising that Space is not +an empty homogeneous medium, but full of intricate differences, +intelligible and real, though not with our common reality.' + +"I found all this very puzzling and he had to repeat it several times +before I got a glimpse of what he was talking about. + +"'I've wondered for a long time he went on 'but now quite suddenly, I +have begun to know.' He stopped and asked me abruptly if I knew much +about mathematics. + +"'It's a pity,' he said,'but the main point is not technical, though I +wish you could appreciate the beauty of some of my proofs. Then he +began to tell me about his last six months' work. I should have +mentioned that he was a brilliant physicist besides other things. All +Hollond's tastes were on the borderlands of sciences, where mathematics +fades into metaphysics and physics merges in the abstrusest kind of +mathematics. Well, it seems he had been working for years at the +ultimate problem of matter, and especially of that rarefied matter we +call aether or space. I forget what his view was--atoms or molecules or +electric waves. If he ever told me I have forgotten, but I'm not +certain that I ever knew. However, the point was that these ultimate +constituents were dynamic and mobile, not a mere passive medium but a +medium in constant movement and change. He claimed to have +discovered--by ordinary inductive experiment--that the constituents of +aether possessed certain functions, and moved in certain figures +obedient to certain mathematical laws. Space, I gathered, was +perpetually 'forming fours' in some fancy way. + +"Here he left his physics and became the mathematician. Among his +mathematical discoveries had been certain curves or figures or +something whose behaviour involved a new dimension. I gathered that +this wasn't the ordinary Fourth Dimension that people talk of, but that +fourth-dimensional inwardness or involution was part of it. The +explanation lay in the pile of manuscripts he left with me, but though +I tried honestly I couldn't get the hang of it. My mathematics stopped +with desperate finality just as he got into his subject. + +"His point was that the constituents of Space moved according to these +new mathematical figures of his. They were always changing, but the +principles of their change were as fixed as the law of gravitation. +Therefore, if you once grasped these principles you knew the contents +of the void. What do you make of that?" + +I said that it seemed to me a reasonable enough argument, but that it +got one very little way forward. "A man," I said, "might know the +contents of Space and the laws of their arrangement and yet be unable +to see anything more than his fellows. It is a purely academic +knowledge. His mind knows it as the result of many deductions, but his +senses perceive nothing." + +Leithen laughed. "Just what I said to Hollond. He asked the opinion +of my legal mind. I said I could not pronounce on his argument but +that I could point out that he had established no trait d'union between +the intellect which understood and the senses which perceived. It was +like a blind man with immense knowledge but no eyes, and therefore no +peg to hang his knowledge on and make it useful. He had not explained +his savage or his cat. 'Hang it, man,' I said, 'before you can +appreciate the existence of your Spacial forms you have to go through +elaborate experiments and deductions. You can't be doing that every +minute. Therefore you don't get any nearer to the USE of the sense you +say that man once possessed, though you can explain it a bit.'" + +"What did he say?" I asked. + +"The funny thing was that he never seemed to see my difficulty. When I +kept bringing him back to it he shied off with a new wild theory of +perception. He argued that the mind can live in a world of realities +without any sensuous stimulus to connect them with the world of our +ordinary life. Of course that wasn't my point. I supposed that this +world of Space was real enough to him, but I wanted to know how he got +there. He never answered me. He was the typical Cambridge man, you +know--dogmatic about uncertainties, but curiously diffident about the +obvious. He laboured to get me to understand the notion of his +mathematical forms, which I was quite willing to take on trust from +him. Some queer things he said, too. He took our feeling about Left +and Right as an example of our instinct for the quality of Space. But +when I objected that Left and Right varied with each object, and only +existed in connection with some definite material thing, he said that +that was exactly what he meant. It was an example of the mobility of +the Spacial forms. Do you see any sense in that?" + +I shook my head. It seemed to me pure craziness. + +"And then he tried to show me what he called the 'involution of Space,' +by taking two points on a piece of paper. The points were a foot away +when the paper was flat, they coincided when it was doubled up. He +said that there were no gaps between the figures, for the medium was +continuous, and he took as an illustration the loops on a cord. You +are to think of a cord always looping and unlooping itself according to +certain mathematical laws. Oh, I tell you, I gave up trying to follow +him. And he was so desperately in earnest all the time. By his +account Space was a sort of mathematical pandemonium." + +Leithen stopped to refill his pipe, and I mused upon the ironic fate +which had compelled a mathematical genius to make his sole confidant of +a philistine lawyer, and induced that lawyer to repeat it confusedly to +an ignoramus at twilight on a Scotch hill. As told by Leithen it was a +very halting tale. + +"But there was one thing I could see very clearly," Leithen went on, +"and that was Hollond's own case. This crowded world of Space was +perfectly real to him. How he had got to it I do not know. Perhaps +his mind, dwelling constantly on the problem, had unsealed some +atrophied cell and restored the old instinct. Anyhow, he was living +his daily life with a foot in each world. + +"He often came to see me, and after the first hectic discussions he +didn't talk much. There was no noticeable change in him--a little more +abstracted perhaps. He would walk in the street or come into a room +with a quick look round him, and sometimes for no earthly reason he +would swerve. Did you ever watch a cat crossing a room? It sidles +along by the furniture and walks over an open space of carpet as if it +were picking its way among obstacles. Well, Hollond behaved like that, +but he had always been counted a little odd, and nobody noticed it but +me. + +"I knew better than to chaff him, and had stopped argument, so there +wasn't much to be said. But sometimes he would give me news about his +experiences. The whole thing was perfectly clear and scientific and +above board, and nothing creepy about it. You know how I hate the +washy supernatural stuff they give us nowadays. Hollond was well and +fit, with an appetite like a hunter. But as he talked, +sometimes--well, you know I haven't much in the way of nerves or +imagination--but I used to get a little eerie. Used to feel the solid +earth dissolving round me. It was the opposite of vertigo, if you +understand me--a sense of airy realities crowding in on you-crowding +the mind, that is, not the body. + +"I gathered from Hollond that he was always conscious of corridors and +halls and alleys in Space, shifting, but shifting according to +inexorable laws. I never could get quite clear as to what this +consciousness was like. When I asked he used to look puzzled and +worried and helpless. I made out from him that one landmark involved a +sequence, and once given a bearing from an object you could keep the +direction without a mistake. He told me he could easily, if he wanted, +go in a dirigible from the top of Mont Blanc to the top of Snowdon in +the thickest fog and without a compass, if he were given the proper +angle to start from. I confess I didn't follow that myself. Material +objects had nothing to do with the Spacial forms, for a table or a bed +in our world might be placed across a corridor of Space. The forms +played their game independent of our kind of reality. But the worst of +it was, that if you kept your mind too much in one world you were apt +to forget about the other and Hollond was always barking his shins on +stones and chairs and things. + +"He told me all this quite simply and frankly. Remember his mind and +no other part of him lived in his new world. He said it gave him an +odd sense of detachment to sit in a room among people, and to know that +nothing there but himself had any relation at all to the infinite +strange world of Space that flowed around them. He would listen, he +said, to a great man talking, with one eye on the cat on the rug, +thinking to himself how much more the cat knew than the man." + +"How long was it before he went mad?" I asked. + +It was a foolish question, and made Leithen cross. "He never went mad +in your sense. My dear fellow, you're very much wrong if you think +there was anything pathological about him--then. The man was +brilliantly sane. His mind was as keen is a keen sword. I couldn't +understand him, but I could judge of his sanity right enough." + +I asked if it made him happy or miserable. + +"At first I think it made him uncomfortable. He was restless because +he knew too much and too little. The unknown pressed in on his mind as +bad air weighs on the lungs. Then it lightened and he accepted the new +world in the same sober practical way that he took other things. I +think that the free exercise of his mind in a pure medium gave him a +feeling of extraordinary power and ease. His eyes used to sparkle when +he talked. And another odd thing he told me. He was a keen +rockclimber, but, curiously enough, he had never a very good head. +Dizzy heights always worried him, though he managed to keep hold on +himself. But now all that had gone. The sense of the fulness of Space +made him as happy--happier I believe--with his legs dangling into +eternity, as sitting before his own study fire. + +"I remember saying that it was all rather like the mediaeval wizards +who made their spells by means of numbers and figures. + +"He caught me up at once. 'Not numbers,' he said. "Number has no +place in Nature. It is an invention of the human mind to atone for a +bad memory. But figures are a different matter. All the mysteries of +the world are in them, and the old magicians knew that at least, if +they knew no more.' + +"He had only one grievance. He complained that it was terribly lonely. +'It is the Desolation,' he would quote, 'spoken of by Daniel the +prophet.' He would spend hours travelling those eerie shifting +corridors of Space with no hint of another human soul. How could there +be? It was a world of pure reason, where human personality had no +place. What puzzled me was why he should feel the absence of this. One +wouldn't you know, in an intricate problem of geometry or a game of +chess. I asked him, but he didn't understand the question. I puzzled +over it a good deal, for it seemed to me that if Hollond felt lonely, +there must be more in this world of his than we imagined. I began to +wonder if there was any truth in fads like psychical research. Also, I +was not so sure that he was as normal as I had thought: it looked as +if his nerves might be going bad. + +"Oddly enough, Hollond was getting on the same track himself. He had +discovered, so he said, that in sleep everybody now and then lived in +this new world of his. You know how one dreams of triangular railway +platforms with trains running simultaneously down all three sides and +not colliding. Well, this sort of cantrip was 'common form,' as we say +at the Bar, in Hollond's Space, and he was very curious about the why +and wherefore of Sleep. He began to haunt psychological laboratories, +where they experiment with the charwoman and the odd man, and he used +to go up to Cambridge for seances. It was a foreign atmosphere to him, +and I don't think he was very happy in it. He found so many charlatans +that he used to get angry, and declare he would be better employed at +Mother's Meetings!" + +From far up the Glen came the sound of the pony's hoofs. The stag had +been loaded up and the gillies were returning. Leithen looked at his +watch. "We'd better wait and see the beast," he said. + +"... Well, nothing happened for more than a year. Then one evening in +May he burst into my rooms in high excitement. You understand quite +clearly that there was no suspicion of horror or fright or anything +unpleasant about this world he had discovered. It was simply a series +of interesting and difficult problems. All this time Hollond had been +rather extra well and cheery. But when he came in I thought I noticed +a different look in his eyes, something puzzled and diffident and +apprehensive. + +"'There's a queer performance going on in the other world,' he said. +'It's unbelievable. I never dreamed of such a thing. I--I don't +quite know how to put it, and I don't know how to explain it, but--but +I am becoming aware that there are other beings--other minds--moving +in Space besides mine.' + +"I suppose I ought to have realised then that things were beginning to +go wrong. But it was very difficult, he was so rational and anxious to +make it all clear. I asked him how he knew. 'There could, of course, +on his own showing be no CHANGE in that world, for the forms of Space +moved and existed under inexorable laws. He said he found his own mind +failing him at points. There would come over him a sense of +fear--intellectual fear--and weakness, a sense of something else, quite +alien to Space, thwarting him. Of course he could only describe his +impressions very lamely, for they were purely of the mind, and he had +no material peg to hang them on, so that I could realise them. But the +gist of it was that he had been gradually becoming conscious of what he +called 'Presences' in his world. They had no effect on Space--did not +leave footprints in its corridors, for instance--but they affected his +mind. There was some mysterious contact established between him and +them. I asked him if the affection was unpleasant and he said 'No, not +exactly.' But I could see a hint of fear in his eyes. + +"Think of it. Try to realise what intellectual fear is. I can't, but +it is conceivable. To you and me fear implies pain to ourselves or +some other, and such pain is always in the last resort pain of the +flesh. Consider it carefully and you will see that it is so. But +imagine fear so sublimated and transmuted as to be the tension of pure +spirit. I can't realise it, but I think it possible. I don't pretend +to understand how Hollond got to know about these Presences. But there +was no doubt about the fact. He was positive, and he wasn't in the +least mad--not in our sense. In that very month he published his book +on Number, and gave a German professor who attacked it a most +tremendous public trouncing. + +"I know what you are going to say,--that the fancy was a weakening of +the mind from within. I admit I should have thought of that but he +looked so confoundedly sane and able that it seemed ridiculous. He +kept asking me my opinion, as a lawyer, on the facts he offered. It +was the oddest case ever put before me, but I did my best for him. I +dropped all my own views of sense and nonsense. I told him that, +taking all that he had told me as fact, the Presences might be either +ordinary minds traversing Space in sleep; or minds such as his which +had independently captured the sense of Space's quality; or, finally, +the spirits of just men made perfect, behaving as psychical researchers +think they do. It was a ridiculous task to set a prosaic man, and I +wasn't quite serious. But Holland was serious enough. + +"He admitted that all three explanations were conceivable, but he was +very doubtful about the first. The projection of the spirit into Space +during sleep, he thought, was a faint and feeble thing, and these were +powerful Presences. With the second and the third he was rather +impressed. I suppose I should have seen what was happening and tried +to stop it; at least, looking back that seems to have been my duty. +But it was difficult to think that anything was wrong with Hollond; +indeed the odd thing is that all this time the idea of madness never +entered my head. I rather backed him up. Somehow the thing took my +fancy, though I thought it moonshine at the bottom of my heart. I +enlarged on the pioneering before him. 'Think,' I told him, 'what may +be waiting for you. You may discover the meaning of Spirit. You may +open up a new world, as rich as the old one, but imperishable. You may +prove to mankind their immortality and deliver them for ever from the +fear of death. Why, man, you are picking at the lock of all the +world's mysteries.' + +"But Hollond did not cheer up. He seemed strangely languid and +dispirited. 'That is all true enough,' he said,'if you are right, if +your alternatives are exhaustive. But suppose they are something else, +something .... What that 'something' might be he had apparently no +idea, and very soon he went away. + +"He said another thing before he left. We asked me if I ever read +poetry, and I said, not often. Nor did he: but he had picked up a +little book somewhere and found a man who knew about the Presences. I +think his name was Traherne, one of the seventeenth-century fellows. +He quoted a verse which stuck to my fly-paper memory. It ran something +like + + 'Within the region of the air, + Compassed about with Heavens fair, + Great tracts of lands there may be found, + Where many numerous hosts, + In those far distant coasts, + For other great and glorious ends + Inhabit, my yet unknown friends.' + +Hollond was positive he did not mean angels or anything of the sort. I +told him that Traherne evidently took a cheerful view of them. He +admitted that, but added: 'He had religion, you see. He believed that +everything was for the best. I am not a man of faith, and can only +take comfort from what I understand. I'm in the dark, I tell you...' + +"Next week I was busy with the Chilian Arbitration case, and saw nobody +for a couple of months. Then one evening I ran against Hollond on the +Embankment, and thought him looking horribly ill. He walked back with +me to my rooms, and hardly uttered one word all the way. I gave him a +stiff whisky-and-soda, which he gulped down absent-mindedly. There was +that strained, hunted look in his eyes that you see in a frightened +animal's. He was always lean, but now he had fallen away to skin and +bone. + +"'I can't stay long,' he told me, 'for I'm off to the Alps to-morrow +and I have a lot to do.' Before then he used to plunge readily into +his story, but now he seemed shy about beginning. Indeed I had to ask +him a question. + +"'Things are difficult,' he said hesitatingly, and rather distressing. +Do you know, Leithen, I think you were wrong about--about what I spoke +to you of. You said there must be one of three explanations. I am +beginning to think that there is a fourth. + +"He stopped for a second or two, then suddenly leaned forward and +gripped my knee so fiercely that I cried out. 'That world is the +Desolation,' he said in a choking voice, 'and perhaps I am getting near +the Abomination of the Desolation that the old prophet spoke of. I +tell you, man, I am on the edge of a terror, a terror,' he almost +screamed, 'that no mortal can think of and live.' + +You can imagine that I was considerably startled. It was lightning out +of a clear sky. How the devil could one associate horror with +mathematics? I don't see it yet... At any rate, I--You may be sure I +cursed my folly for ever pretending to take him seriously. The only +way would have been to have laughed him out of it at the start. And +yet I couldn't, you know--it was too real and reasonable. Anyhow, I +tried a firm tone now, and told him the whole thing was arrant raving +bosh. I bade him be a man and pull himself together. I made him dine +with me, and took him home, and got him into a better state of mind +before he went to bed. Next morning I saw him off at Charing Cross, +very haggard still, but better. He promised to write to me pretty +often.... + + +The pony, with a great eleven-pointer lurching athwart its back, was +abreast of us, and from the autumn mist came the sound of soft Highland +voices. Leithen and I got up to go, when we heard that the rifle had +made direct for the Lodge by a short cut past the Sanctuary. In the +wake of the gillies we descended the Correi road into a glen all +swimming with dim purple shadows. The pony minced and boggled; the +stag's antlers stood out sharp on the rise against a patch of sky, +looking like a skeleton tree. Then we dropped into a covert of birches +and emerged on the white glen highway. + +Leithen's story had bored and puzzled me at the start, but now it had +somehow gripped my fancy. Space a domain of endless corridors and +Presences moving in them! The world was not quite the same as an hour +ago. It was the hour, as the French say, "between dog and wolf," when +the mind is disposed to marvels. I thought of my stalking on the +morrow, and was miserably conscious that I would miss my stag. Those +airy forms would get in the way. Confound Leithen and his yarns! + +"I want to hear the end of your story," I told him, as the lights of +the Lodge showed half a mile distant. + +"The end was a tragedy," he said slowly. "I don't much care to talk +about it. But how was I to know? I couldn't see the nerve going. You +see I couldn't believe it was all nonsense. If I could I might have +seen. But I still think there was something in it--up to a point. Oh, +I agree he went mad in the end. It is the only explanation. Something +must have snapped in that fine brain, and he saw the little bit more +which we call madness. Thank God, you and I are prosaic fellows... + +"I was going out to Chamonix myself a week later. But before I started +I got a post-card from Hollond, the only word from him. He had printed +my name and address, and on the other side had scribbled six words--'I +know at last--God's mercy.--H.G.H' The handwriting was like a sick man +of ninety. I knew that things must be pretty bad with my friend. + +"I got to Chamonix in time for his funeral. An ordinary climbing +accident--you probably read about it in the papers. The Press talked +about the toll which the Alps took from intellectuals--the usual rot. +There was an inquiry, but the facts were quite simple. The body was +only recognised by the clothes. He had fallen several thousand feet. + +"It seems that he had climbed for a few days with one of the Kronigs +and Dupont, and they had done some hair-raising things on the +Aiguilles. Dupont told me that they had found a new route up the +Montanvert side of the Charmoz. He said that Hollond climbed like a +'diable fou' and if you know Dupont's standard of madness you will see +that the pace must have been pretty hot. 'But monsieur was sick,' he +added; 'his eyes were not good. And I and Franz, we were grieved for +him and a little afraid. We were glad when he left us.' + +"He dismissed the guides two days before his death. The next day he +spent in the hotel, getting his affairs straight. He left everything +in perfect order, but not a line to a soul, not even to his sister. +The following day he set out alone about three in the morning for the +Grepon. He took the road up the Nantillons glacier to the Col, and +then he must have climbed the Mummery crack by himself. After that he +left the ordinary route and tried a new traverse across the Mer de +Glace face. Somewhere near the top he fell, and next day a party going +to the Dent du Requin found him on the rocks thousands of feet below. + +"He had slipped in attempting the most foolhardy course on earth, and +there was a lot of talk about the dangers of guideless climbing. But I +guessed the truth, and I am sure Dupont knew, though he held his +tongue...." + +We were now on the gravel of the drive, and I was feeling better. The +thought of dinner warmed my heart and drove out the eeriness of the +twilight glen. The hour between dog and wolf was passing. After all, +there was a gross and jolly earth at hand for wise men who had a mind +to comfort. + +Leithen, I saw, did not share my mood. He looked glum and puzzled, as +if his tale had aroused grim memories. He finished it at the Lodge +door. + +"... For, of course, he had gone out that day to die. He had seen the +something more, the little bit too much, which plucks a man from his +moorings. He had gone so far into the land of pure spirit that he must +needs go further and shed the fleshly envelope that cumbered him. God +send that he found rest! I believe that he chose the steepest cliff in +the Alps for a purpose. He wanted to be unrecognisable. He was a +brave man and a good citizen. I think he hoped that those who found +him might not see the look in his eyes." + + + + +STOCKS AND STONES + +[The Chief Topaiwari replieth to Sir Walter Raleigh who upbraideth him +for idol worship] + + + My gods, you say, are idols dumb, + Which men have wrought from wood or clay, + Carven with chisel, shaped with thumb, + A morning's task, an evening's play. + You bid me turn my face on high + Where the blue heaven the sun enthrones, + And serve a viewless deity, + Nor make my bow to stocks and stones. + + My lord, I am not skilled in wit + Nor wise in priestcraft, but I know + That fear to man is spur and bit + To jog and curb his fancies' flow. + He fears and loves, for love and awe + In mortal souls may well unite + To fashion forth the perfect law + Where Duty takes to wife Delight. + + But on each man one Fear awaits + And chills his marrow like the dead.-- + He cannot worship what he hates + Or make a god of naked Dread. + The homeless winds that twist and race, + The heights of cloud that veer and roll, + The unplumb'd Abyss, the drift of Space-- + These are the fears that drain the soul. + + Ye dauntless ones from out the sea + Fear nought. Perchance your gods are strong + To rule the air where grim things be, + And quell the deeps with all their throng. + For me, I dread not fire nor steel, + Nor aught that walks in open light, + But fend me from the endless Wheel, + The voids of Space, the gulfs of Night. + + Wherefore my brittle gods I make + Of friendly clay and kindly stone,-- + Wrought with my hands, to serve or break, + From crown to toe my work, my own. + My eyes can see, my nose can smell, + My fingers touch their painted face, + They weave their little homely spell + To warm me from the cold of Space. + + My gods are wrought of common stuff + For human joys and mortal tears; + Weakly, perchance, yet staunch enough + To build a barrier 'gainst my fears, + Where, lowly but secure, I wait + And hear without the strange winds blow.-- + I cannot worship what I hate, + Or serve a god I dare not know. + + + + +V + +STREAMS OF WATER IN THE SOUTH + + "As streams of water in the south, Our bondage, Lord, recall." + --PSALM cxxvi. (Scots Metrical Version). + + +It was at the ford of the Clachlands Water in a tempestuous August, +that I, an idle boy, first learned the hardships of the Lammas droving. +The shepherd of the Redswirehead, my very good friend, and his three +shaggy dogs, were working for their lives in an angry water. The path +behind was thronged with scores of sheep bound for the Gledsmuir +market, and beyond it was possible to discern through the mist the few +dripping dozen which had made the passage. Between raged yards of +brown foam coming down from murky hills, and the air echoed with the +yelp of dogs and the perplexed cursing of men. + +Before I knew I was helping in the task, with water lipping round my +waist and my arms filled with a terrified sheep. It was no light task, +for though the water was no more than three feet deep it was swift and +strong, and a kicking hogg is a sore burden. But this was the only +road; the stream might rise higher at any moment; and somehow or other +those bleating flocks had to be transferred to their fellows beyond. +There were six men at the labour, six men and myself and all were +cross and wearied and heavy with water. + +I made my passages side by side with my friend the shepherd, and +thereby felt much elated. This was a man who had dwelt all his days in +the wilds and was familiar with torrents as with his own doorstep. Now +and then a swimming dog would bark feebly as he was washed against us, +and flatter his fool's heart that he was aiding the work. And so we +wrought on, till by midday I was dead-beat, and could scarce stagger +through the surf, while all the men had the same gasping faces. I saw +the shepherd look with longing eye up the long green valley, and mutter +disconsolately in his beard. + +"Is the water rising?" I asked. + +"It's no rising," said he, "but I likena the look o' yon big black clud +upon Cairncraw. I doubt there's been a shoor up the muirs, and a shoor +there means twae mair feet o' water in the Clachlands. God help Sandy +Jamieson's lambs, if there is." + +"How many are left?" I asked. + +"Three, fower,--no abune a score and a half," said he, running his eye +over the lessened flocks. "I maun try to tak twae at a time." So for +ten minutes he struggled with a double burden, and panted painfully at +each return. Then with a sudden swift look up-stream he broke off and +stood up. "Get ower the water, every yin o' ye, and leave the sheep," +he said, and to my wonder every man of the five obeyed his word. + +And then I saw the reason of his command, for with a sudden swift leap +forward the Clachlands rose, and flooded up to where I stood an instant +before high and dry. + +"It's come," said the shepherd in a tone of fate, "and there's fifteen +no ower yet, and Lord kens how they'll dae't. They'll hae to gang +roond by Gledsmuir Brig, and that's twenty mile o' a differ. 'Deed, +it's no like that Sandy Jamieson will get a guid price the morn for sic +sair forfochen beasts." + +Then with firmly gripped staff he marched stoutly into the tide till it +ran hissing below his armpits. "I could dae't alone," he cried, "but +no wi' a burden. For, losh, if ye slippit, ye'd be in the Manor Pool +afore ye could draw breath." + +And so we waited with the great white droves and five angry men beyond, +and the path blocked by a surging flood. For half an hour we waited, +holding anxious consultation across the stream, when to us thus busied +there entered a newcomer, a helper from the ends of the earth. + +He was a man of something over middle size, but with a stoop forward +that shortened him to something beneath it. His dress was ragged +homespun, the cast-off clothes of some sportsman, and in his arms he +bore a bundle of sticks and heather-roots which marked his calling. I +knew him for a tramp who long had wandered in the place, but I could +not account for the whole-voiced shout of greeting which met him as he +stalked down the path. He lifted his eyes and looked solemnly and long +at the scene. Then something of delight came into his eye, his face +relaxed, and flinging down his burden he stripped his coat and came +toward us. + +"Come on, Yeddie, ye're sair needed," said the shepherd, and I watched +with amazement this grizzled, crooked man seize a sheep by the fleece +and drag it to the water. Then he was in the midst, stepping warily, +now up, now down the channel, but always nearing the farther bank. At +last with a final struggle he landed his charge, and turned to journey +back. Fifteen times did he cross that water, and at the end his mean +figure had wholly changed. For now he was straighter and stronger, his +eye flashed, and his voice, as he cried out to the drovers, had in it a +tone of command. I marvelled at the transformation; and when at length +he had donned once more his ragged coat and shouldered his bundle, I +asked the shepherd his name. + +"They ca' him Adam Logan," said my friend, his face still bright with +excitement, "but maist folk ca' him 'Streams o' Water.'" + +"Ay," said I, "and why 'Streams of Water'?" + +"Juist for the reason ye see," said he. + +Now I knew the shepherd's way, and I held my peace, for it was clear +that his mind was revolving other matters, concerned most probably with +the high subject of the morrow's prices. But in a little, as we +crossed the moor toward his dwelling, his thoughts relaxed and he +remembered my question. So he answered me thus: + +"Oh, ay; as ye were sayin', he's a queer man Yeddie-aye been; guid kens +whaur he cam frae first, for he's been trampin' the countryside since +ever I mind, and that's no yesterday. He maun be sixty year, and yet +he's as fresh as ever. If onything, he's a thocht dafter in his +ongaein's, mair silent-like. But ye'll hae heard tell o' him afore?" +I owned ignorance. + +"Tut," said he, "ye ken nocht. But Yeddie had aye a queer crakin' for +waters. He never gangs on the road. Wi' him it's juist up yae glen +and doon anither and aye keepin' by the burn-side. He kens every water +i' the warld, every bit sheuch and burnie frae Gallowa' to Berwick. +And then he kens the way o' spates the best I ever seen, and I've heard +tell o' him fordin' waters when nae ither thing could leeve i' them. +He can weyse and wark his road sae cunnin'ly on the stanes that the +roughest flood, if it's no juist fair ower his heid, canna upset him. +Mony a sheep has he saved to me, and it's mony a guid drove wad never +hae won to Gledsmuir market but for Yeddie." + +I listened with a boy's interest in any romantic narration. Somehow, +the strange figure wrestling in the brown stream took fast hold on my +mind, and I asked the shepherd for further tales. + +"There's little mair to tell," he said, "for a gangrel life is nane o' +the liveliest. But d'ye ken the langnebbit hill that cocks its tap +abune the Clachlands heid? Weel, he's got a wee bit o' grund on the tap +frae the Yerl, and there he's howkit a grave for himsel'. He's sworn +me and twae-three ithers to bury him there, wherever he may dee. It's +a queer fancy in the auld dotterel." + +So the shepherd talked, and as at evening we stood by his door we saw a +figure moving into the gathering shadows. I knew it at once, and did +not need my friend's "There gangs 'Streams o' Water'" to recognise it. +Something wild and pathetic in the old man's face haunted me like a +dream, and as the dusk swallowed him up, he seemed like some old Druid +recalled of the gods to his ancient habitation of the moors. + + + +II + +Two years passed, and April came with her suns and rains and again the +waters brimmed full in the valleys. Under the clear, shining sky the +lambing went on, and the faint bleat of sheep brooded on the hills. In +a land of young heather and green upland meads, of faint odours of +moor-burn, and hill-tops falling in clear ridges to the sky-line, the +veriest St. Anthony would not abide indoors; so I flung all else to the +winds and went a-fishing. + +At the first pool on the Callowa, where the great flood sweeps nobly +round a ragged shoulder of hill, and spreads into broad deeps beneath a +tangle of birches, I began my toils. The turf was still wet with dew +and the young leaves gleamed in the glow of morning. Far up the stream +rose the grim hills which hem the mosses and tarns of that tableland, +whence flow the greater waters of the countryside. An ineffable +freshness, as of the morning alike of the day and the seasons, filled +the clear hill-air, and the remote peaks gave the needed touch of +intangible romance. + +But as I fished I came on a man sitting in a green dell, busy at the +making of brooms. I knew his face and dress, for who could forget such +eclectic raggedness?--and I remembered that day two years before when +he first hobbled into my ken. Now, as I saw him there, I was +captivated by the nameless mystery of his appearance. There was +something startling to one accustomed to the lack-lustre gaze of +town-bred folk, in the sight of an eye as keen and wild as a hawk's +from sheer solitude and lonely travelling. He was so bent and scarred +with weather that he seemed as much a part of that woodland place as +the birks themselves, and the noise of his labours did not startle the +birds that hopped on the branches. + +Little by little I won his acquaintance--by a chance reminiscence, a +single tale, the mention of a friend. Then he made me free of his +knowledge, and my fishing fared well that day. He dragged me up little +streams to sequestered pools, where I had astonishing success; and then +back to some great swirl in the Callowa where he had seen monstrous +takes. And all the while he delighted me with his talk, of men and +things, of weather and place, pitched high in his thin, old voice, and +garnished with many tones of lingering sentiment. He spoke in a broad, +slow Scots, with so quaint a lilt in his speech that one seemed to be +in an elder time among people of a quieter life and a quainter +kindliness. + +Then by chance I asked him of a burn of which I had heard, and how it +might be reached. I shall never forget the tone of his answer as his +face grew eager and he poured forth his knowledge. + +"Ye'll gang up the Knowe Burn, which comes down into the Cauldshaw. +It's a wee tricklin' thing, trowin' in and out o' pools i' the rock, +and comin' doun out o' the side o' Caerfraun. Yince a merrymaiden +bided there, I've heard folks say, and used to win the sheep frae the +Cauldshaw herd, and bile them i' the muckle pool below the fa'. They +say that there's a road to the ill Place there, and when the Deil likit +he sent up the lowe and garred the water faem and fizzle like an auld +kettle. But if ye're gaun to the Colm Burn ye maun haud atower the rig +o' the hill frae the Knowe heid, and ye'll come to it wimplin' among +green brae faces. It's a bonny bit, rale lonesome, but awfu' bonny, +and there's mony braw trout in its siller flow." + +Then I remembered all I had heard of the old man's craze, and I +humoured him. "It's a fine countryside for burns," I said. + +"Ye may say that," said he gladly, "a weel-watered land. But a' this +braw south country is the same. I've traivelled frae the Yeavering +Hill in the Cheviots to the Caldons in Galloway, and it's a' the same. +When I was young, I've seen me gang north to the Hielands and doun to +the English lawlands, but now that I'm gettin' auld I maun bide i' the +yae place. There's no a burn in the South I dinna ken, and I never cam +to the water I couldna ford." + +"No?" said I. "I've seen you at the ford o' Clachlands in the Lammas +floods." + +"Often I've been there," he went on, speaking like one calling up vague +memories. "Yince, when Tam Rorison was drooned, honest man. Yince +again, when the brigs were ta'en awa', and the Black House o' +Clachlands had nae bread for a week. But oh, Clachlands is a bit easy +water. But I've seen the muckle Aller come roarin' sae high that it +washed awa' a sheepfold that stood weel up on the hill. And I've seen +this verra burn, this bonny clear Callowa, lyin' like a loch for miles +i' the haugh. But I never heeds a spate, for if a man just kens the +way o't it's a canny, hairmless thing. I couldna wish to dee better +than just be happit i' the waters o' my ain countryside, when my legs +fail and I'm ower auld for the trampin'." + +Something in that queer figure in the setting of the hills struck a +note of curious pathos. And towards evening as we returned down the +glen the note grew keener. A spring sunset of gold and crimson flamed +in our backs and turned the clear pools to fire. Far off down the vale +the plains and the sea gleamed half in shadow. Somehow in the +fragrance and colour and the delectable crooning of the stream, the +fantastic and the dim seemed tangible and present, and high sentiment +revelled for once in my prosaic heart. + +And still more in the breast of my companion. He stopped and sniffed +the evening air, as he looked far over hill and dale and then back to +the great hills above us. "Yen's Crappel, and Caerdon, and the Laigh +Law," he said, lingering with relish over each name, "and the Gled +comes doun atween them. I haena been there for a twalmonth, and I maun +hae anither glisk o't, for it's a braw place." And then some bitter +thought seemed to seize him, and his mouth twitched. "I'm an auld +man," he cried, "and I canna see ye a' again. There's burns and mair +burns in the high hills that I'll never win to." Then he remembered my +presence, and stopped. "Ye maunna mind me," he said huskily, "but the +sicht o' a' thae lang blue hills makes me daft, now that I've faun i' +the vale o' years. Yince I was young and could get where I wantit, but +now I am auld and maun bide i' the same bit. And I'm aye thinkin' o' +the waters I've been to, and the green heichs and howes and the linns +that I canna win to again. I maun e'en be content wi' the Callowa, +which is as guid as the best." + +And then I left him, wandering down by the streamside and telling his +crazy meditations to himself. + + + +III + +A space of years elapsed ere I met him, for fate had carried me far +from the upland valleys. But once again I was afoot on the white +moor-roads; and, as I swung along one autumn afternoon up the path +which leads from the Glen of Callowa to the Gled, I saw a figure before +me which I knew for my friend. When I overtook him, his appearance +puzzled and troubled me. Age seemed to have come on him at a bound, +and in the tottering figure and the stoop of weakness I had difficulty +in recognising the hardy frame of the man as I had known him. +Something, too, had come over his face. His brow was clouded, and the +tan of weather stood out hard and cruel on a blanched cheek. His eye +seemed both wilder and sicklier, and for the first time I saw him with +none of the appurtenances of his trade. He greeted me feebly and +dully, and showed little wish to speak. He walked with slow, uncertain +step, and his breath laboured with a new panting. Every now and then +he would look at me sidewise, and in his feverish glance I could detect +none of the free kindliness of old. The man was ill in body and mind. + +I asked him how he had done since I saw him last. + +"It's an ill world now," he said in a slow, querulous voice. + +"There's nae need for honest men, and nae leevin'. Folk dinna heed me +ava now. They dinna buy my besoms, they winna let me bide a nicht in +their byres, and they're no like the kind canty folk in the auld +times. And a' the countryside is changin'. Doun by Goldieslaw they're +makkin' a dam for takin' water to the toun, and they're thinkin' o' +daein' the like wi' the Callowa. Guid help us, can they no let the +works o' God alane? Is there no room for them in the dirty lawlands +that they maun file the hills wi' their biggins?" + +I conceived dimly that the cause of his wrath was a scheme for +waterworks at the border of the uplands, but I had less concern for +this than his strangely feeble health. + +"You are looking ill," I said. "What has come over you?" + +"Oh, I canna last for aye," he said mournfully. "My auld body's about +dune. I've warkit it ower sair when I had it, and it's gaun to fail on +my hands. Sleepin' out o' wat nichts and gangin' lang wantin' meat are +no the best ways for a long life"; and he smiled the ghost of a smile. + +And then he fell to wild telling of the ruin of the place and the +hardness of the people, and I saw that want and bare living had gone +far to loosen his wits. I knew the countryside, and I recognised that +change was only in his mind. And a great pity seized me for this +lonely figure toiling on in the bitterness of regret. I tried to +comfort him, but my words were useless, for he took no heed of me; with +bent head and faltering step he mumbled his sorrows to himself. + +Then of a sudden we came to the crest of the ridge where the road dips +from the hill-top to the sheltered valley. Sheer from the heather ran +the white streak till it lost itself among the reddening rowans and the +yellow birks of the wood. The land was rich in autumn colour, and the +shining waters dipped and fell through a pageant of russet and gold. +And all around hills huddled in silent spaces, long brown moors crowned +with cairns, or steep fortresses of rock and shingle rising to +foreheads of steel-like grey. The autumn blue faded in the far +sky-line to white, and lent distance to the farther peaks. The hush of +the wilderness, which is far different from the hush of death, brooded +over the scene, and like faint music came the sound of a distant +scytheswing, and the tinkling whisper which is the flow of a hundred +streams. + +I am an old connoisseur in the beauties of the uplands, but I held my +breath at the sight. And when I glanced at my companion, he, too, had +raised his head, and stood with wide nostrils and gleaming eye +revelling in this glimpse of Arcady. Then he found his voice, and the +weakness and craziness seemed for one moment to leave him. + +"It's my ain land," he cried, "and I'll never leave it. D'ye see yon +broun hill wi' the lang cairn?" and he gripped my arm fiercely and +directed my gaze. "Yon's my bit. I howkit it richt on the verra tap, +and ilka year I gang there to make it neat and ordlerly. I've trystit +wi' fower men in different pairishes that whenever they hear o' my +death, they'll cairry me up yonder and bury me there. And then I'll +never leave it, but be still and quiet to the warld's end. I'll aye +hae the sound o' water in my ear, for there's five burns tak' their +rise on that hillside, and on a' airts the glens gang doun to the Gled +and the Aller." + +Then his spirit failed him, his voice sank, and he was almost the +feeble gangrel once more. But not yet, for again his eye swept the +ring of hills, and he muttered to himself names which I knew for +streams, lingeringly, lovingly, as of old affections. "Aller and Gled +and Callowa," he crooned, "braw names, and Clachlands and Cauldshaw and +the Lanely Water. And I maunna forget the Stark and the Lin and the +bonny streams o' the Creran. And what mair? I canna mind a' the +burns, the Howe and the Hollies and the Fawn and the links o' the +Manor. What says the Psalmist about them? + +'As streams o' water in the South, Our bondage Lord, recall.' + +Ay, but yen's the name for them. 'Streams o' water in the South.'" + +And as we went down the slopes to the darkening vale I heard him +crooning to himself in a high, quavering voice the single distich; then +in a little his weariness took him again, and he plodded on with no +thought save for his sorrows. + + + +IV + +The conclusion of this tale belongs not to me, but to the shepherd of +the Redswirehead, and I heard it from him in his dwelling, as I stayed +the night, belated on the darkening moors. He told me it after supper +in a flood of misty Doric, and his voice grew rough at times, and he +poked viciously at the dying peat. + +In the last back-end I was at Gledfoot wi' sheep, and a weary job I had +and little credit. Ye ken the place, a lang dreich shore wi' the wind +swirlin' and bitin' to the bane, and the broun Gled water choked wi' +Solloway sand. There was nae room in ony inn in the town, so I bude to +gang to a bit public on the Harbour Walk, where sailor-folk and +fishermen feucht and drank, and nae dacent men frae the hills thocht of +gangin'. I was in a gey ill way, for I had sell't my beasts dooms +cheap, and I thocht o' the lang miles hame in the wintry weather. So +after a bite o' meat I gangs out to get the air and clear my heid, +which was a' rammled wi' the auction-ring. + +And whae did I find, sittin' on a bench at the door, but the auld man +Yeddie. He was waur changed than ever. His lang hair was hingin' over +his broo, and his face was thin and white as a ghaist's. His claes +fell loose about him, and he sat wi' his hand on his auld stick and his +chin on his hand, hearin' nocht and glowerin' afore him. He never saw +nor kenned me till I shook him by the shoulders, and cried him by his +name. + +"Whae are ye?" says he, in a thin voice that gaed to my hert. + +"Ye ken me fine, ye auld fule," says I. "I'm Jock Rorison o' the +Redswirehead, whaur ye've stoppit often." + +"Redswirehead," he says, like a man in a dream. "Redswirehead! That's +at the tap o' the Clachlands Burn as ye gang ower to the Dreichil." + +"And what are ye daein' here? It's no your countryside ava, and ye're +no fit noo for lang trampin'." + +"No," says he, in the same weak voice and wi' nae fushion in him, "but +they winna hae me up yonder noo. I'm ower auld and useless. Yince +a'body was gled to see me, and wad keep me as lang's I wantit, and had +aye a gud word at meeting and pairting. Noo it's a' changed, and my +wark's dune." + +I saw fine that the man was daft, but what answer could I gie to his +havers? Folk in the Callowa Glens are as kind as afore, but ill +weather and auld age had put queer notions intil his heid. Forbye, he +was seeck, seeck unto death, and I saw mair in his een than I likit to +think. + +"Come in-by and get some meat, man," I said. "Ye're famishin' wi' +cauld and hunger." + +"I canna eat," he says, and his voice never changed. "It's lang since +I had a bite, for I'm no hungry. But I'm awfu' thirsty. I cam here +yestreen, and I can get nae water to drink like the water in the hills. +I maun be settin' out back the morn, if the Lord spares me." + +I mindit fine that the body wad tak nae drink like an honest man, but +maun aye draibble wi' burn water, and noo he had got the thing on the +brain. I never spak a word, for the maitter was bye ony mortal's aid. + +For lang he sat quiet. Then he lifts his heid and looks awa ower the +grey sea. A licht for a moment cam intil his een. + +"Whatna big water's yon?" he said, wi' his puir mind aye rinnin' on +waters. + +"That's the Solloway," says I. + +"The Solloway," says he; "it's a big water, and it wad be an ill job to +ford it." + +"Nae man ever fordit it," I said. + +"But I never yet cam to the water I couldna ford," says he. "But +what's that queer smell i' the air? Something snell and cauld and +unfreendly." + +"That's the salt, for we're at the sea here, the mighty ocean. + +He keepit repeatin' the word ower in his mouth. "The salt, the salt, +I've heard tell o' it afore, but I dinna like it. It's terrible cauld +and unhamely." + +By this time an onding o' rain was coming up' frae the water, and I +bade the man come indoors to the fire. He followed me, as biddable as +a sheep, draggin' his legs like yin far gone in seeckness. I set him +by the fire, and put whisky at his elbow, but he wadna touch it. + +"I've nae need o' it," said he. "I'm find and warm"; and he sits +staring at the fire, aye comin' ower again and again, "The Solloway, +the Solloway. It's a guid name and a muckle water." + +But sune I gaed to my bed, being heavy wi' sleep, for I had traivelled +for twae days. + +The next morn I was up at six and out to see the weather. It was a' +changed. The muckle tides lay lang and still as our ain Loch o' the +Lee, and far ayont I saw the big blue hills o' England shine bricht and +clear. I thankit Providence for the day, for it was better to tak the +lang miles back in sic a sun than in a blast o' rain. + +But as I lookit I saw some folk comin' up frae the beach carryin' +something atween them. My hert gied a loup, and "some puir, drooned +sailor-body," says I to mysel', "whae has perished in yesterday's +storm." But as they cam nearer I got a glisk which made me run like +daft, and lang ere I was up on them I saw it was Yeddie. + +He lay drippin' and white, wi' his puir auld hair lyin' back frae his +broo and the duds clingin' to his legs. But out o' the face there had +gane a' the seeckness and weariness. His een were stelled, as if he +had been lookin' forrit to something, and his lips were set like a man +on a lang errand. And mair, his stick was grippit sae firm in his hand +that nae man could loose it, so they e'en let it be. + +Then they tell't me the tale o't, how at the earliest licht they had +seen him wanderin' alang the sands, juist as they were putting out +their boats to sea. They wondered and watched him, till of a sudden he +turned to the water and wadit in, keeping straucht on till he was oot +o' sicht. They rowed a' their pith to the place, but they were ower +late. Yince they saw his heid appear abune water, still wi' his face +to the other side; and then they got his body, for the tide was rinnin' +low in the mornin'. I tell't them a' I kenned o' him, and they were +sair affected. "Puir cratur," said yin, "he's shurely better now." + +So we brocht him up to the house and laid him there till the folk i' +the town had heard o' the business. Syne the procurator-fiscal came +and certifeed the death and the rest was left tae me. I got a wooden +coffin made and put him in it, juist as he was, wi' his staff in his +hand and his auld duds about him. I mindit o' my sworn word, for I was +yin o' the four that had promised, and I ettled to dae his bidding. It +was saxteen mile to the hills, and yin and twenty to the lanely tap +whaur he had howkit his grave. But I never heedit it. I'm a strong +man, weel-used to the walkin' and my hert was sair for the auld body. +Now that he had gotten deliverance from his affliction, it was for me +to leave him in the place he wantit. Forbye, he wasna muckle heavier +than a bairn. + +It was a long road, a sair road, but I did it, and by seven o'clock I +was at the edge o' the muirlands. There was a braw mune, and a the +glens and taps stood out as clear as midday. Bit by bit, for I was gey +tired, I warstled ower the rigs and up the cleuchs to the Gled-head; +syne up the stany Gled-cleuch to the lang grey hill which they ca' the +Hurlybackit. By ten I had come to the cairn, and black i' the mune I +saw the grave. So there I buried him, and though I'm no a releegious +man, I couldna help sayin' ower him the guid words o' the Psalmist-- + +"As streams of water in the South, + Our bondage, Lord, recall." + +So if you go from the Gled to the Aller, and keep far over the north +side of the Muckle Muneraw, you will come in time to a stony ridge +which ends in a cairn. There you will see the whole hill country of +the south, a hundred lochs, a myriad streams, and a forest of +hill-tops. There on the very crest lies the old man, in the heart of +his own land, at the fountain-head of his many waters. If you listen +you will hear a hushed noise as of the swaying in trees or a ripple on +the sea. It is the sound of the rising of burns, which, innumerable +and unnumbered, flow thence to the silent glens for evermore. + + + + +THE GIPSY'S SONG TO THE LADY CASSILIS + +"Whereupon the Faas, coming down from the Gates of Galloway, did so +bewitch my lady that she forgat husband and kin, and followed the +tinkler's piping."--Chap-book of the Raid of Cassilis. + + + The door is open to the wall, + The air is bright and free; + Adown the stair, across the hall, + And then-the world and me; + The bare grey bent, the running stream, + The fire beside the shore; + And we will bid the hearth farewell, + And never seek it more, My love, + And never seek it more. + + And you shall wear no silken gown, + No maid shall bind your hair; + The yellow broom shall be your gem, + Your braid the heather rare. + Athwart the moor, adown the hill, + Across the world away; + The path is long for happy hearts + That sing to greet the day, My love, + That sing to greet the day. + + When morning cleaves the eastern grey, + And the lone hills are red + When sunsets light the evening way + And birds are quieted; + In autumn noon and springtide dawn, + By hill and dale and sea, + The world shall sing its ancient song + Of hope and joy for thee, My love, + Of hope and joy for thee. + + And at the last no solemn stole + Shall on thy breast be laid; + No mumbling priest shall speed thy soul, + No charnel vault thee shade. + But by the shadowed hazel copse, + Aneath the greenwood tree, + Where airs are soft and waters sing, + Thou'lt ever sleep by me, My love, + Thou'lt ever sleep by me. + + + + +VI + +THE GROVE OF ASHTAROTH + + "C'est enfin que dans leurs prunelles + Rit et pleure-fastidieux-- + L'amour des choses eternelles + Des vieux morts et des anciens dieux!" + --PAUL VERLAINE. + + +We were sitting around the camp fire, some thirty miles north of a +place called Taqui, when Lawson announced his intention of finding a +home. He had spoken little the last day or two, and I had guessed that +he had struck a vein of private reflection. I thought it might be a +new mine or irrigation scheme, and I was surprised to find that it was +a country house. + +"I don't think I shall go back to England," he said, kicking a +sputtering log into place. "I don't see why I should. For business +purposes I am far more useful to the firm in South Africa than in +Throgmorton Street. I have no relation left except a third cousin, and +I have never cared a rush for living in town. That beastly house of +mine in Hill Street will fetch what I gave for it,--Isaacson cabled +about it the other day, offering for furniture and all. I don't want +to go into Parliament, and I hate shooting little birds and tame deer. +I am one of those fellows who are born Colonial at heart, and I don't +see why I shouldn't arrange my life as I please. Besides, for ten +years I have been falling in love with this country, and now I am up to +the neck." + +He flung himself back in the camp-chair till the canvas creaked, and +looked at me below his eyelids. I remember glancing at the lines of +him, and thinking what a fine make of a man he was. In his untanned +field-boots, breeches, and grey shirt, he looked the born wilderness +hunter, though less than two months before he had been driving down to +the City every morning in the sombre regimentals of his class. Being a +fair man, he was gloriously tanned, and there was a clear line at his +shirt-collar to mark the limits of his sunburn. I had first known him +years ago, when he was a broker's clerk working on half-commission. +Then he had gone to South Africa, and soon I heard he was a partner in +a mining house which was doing wonders with some gold areas in the +North. The next step was his return to London as the new +millionaire,--young, good-looking, wholesome in mind and body, and much +sought after by the mothers of marriageable girls. We played polo +together, and hunted a little in the season, but there were signs that +he did not propose to become the conventional English gentleman. He +refused to buy a place in the country, though half the Homes of England +were at his disposal. He was a very busy man, he declared, and had not +time to be a squire. Besides, every few months he used to rush out to +South Africa. I saw that he was restless, for he was always badgering +me to go big-game hunting with him in some remote part of the earth. +There was that in his eyes, too, which marked him out from the ordinary +blond type of our countrymen. They were large and brown and +mysterious, and the light of another race was in their odd depths. + +To hint such a thing would have meant a breach of friendship, for +Lawson was very proud of his birth. When he first made his fortune he +had gone to the Heralds to discover his family, and these obliging +gentlemen had provided a pedigree. It appeared that he was a scion of +the house of Lowson or Lowieson, an ancient and rather disreputable +clan on the Scottish side of the Border. He took a shooting in +Teviotdale on the strength of it, and used to commit lengthy Border +ballads to memory. But I had known his father, a financial journalist +who never quite succeeded, and I had heard of a grandfather who sold +antiques in a back street at Brighton. The latter, I think, had not +changed his name, and still frequented the synagogue. The father was a +progressive Christian, and the mother had been a blonde Saxon from the +Midlands. In my mind there was no doubt, as I caught Lawson's +heavy-lidded eyes fixed on me. My friend was of a more ancient race +than the Lowsons of the Border. + +"Where are you thinking of looking for your house?" I asked. "In Natal +or in the Cape Peninsula? You might get the Fishers' place if you paid +a price." + +"The Fishers' place be hanged!" he said crossly. "I don't want any +stuccoed, over-grown Dutch farm. I might as well be at Roehampton as +in the Cape." + +He got up and walked to the far side of the fire, where a lane ran down +through the thornscrub to a gully of the hills. The moon was silvering +the bush of the plains, forty miles off and three thousand feet below +us. + +"I am going to live somewhere hereabouts," he answered at last. I +whistled. "Then you've got to put your hand in your pocket, old man. +You'll have to make everything, including a map of the countryside." + +"I know," he said; "that's where the fun comes in. Hang it all, why +shouldn't I indulge my fancy? I'm uncommonly well off, and I haven't +chick or child to leave it to. Supposing I'm a hundred miles from +rail-head, what about it? I'll make a motor-road and fix up a +telephone. I'll grow most of my supplies, and start a colony to +provide labour. When you come and stay with me, you'll get the best +food and drink on earth, and sport that will make your mouth water. +I'll put Lochleven trout in these streams,--at 6,000 feet you can do +anything. We'll have a pack of hounds, too, and we can drive pig in +the woods, and if we want big game there are the Mangwe flats at our +feet. I tell you I'll make such a country-house as nobody ever dreamed +of. A man will come plumb out of stark savagery into lawns and +rose-gardens." Lawson flung himself into his chair again and smiled +dreamily at the fire. + +"But why here, of all places?" I persisted. I was not feeling very +well and did not care for the country. + +"I can't quite explain. I think it's the sort of land I have always +been looking for. I always fancied a house on a green plateau in a +decent climate looking down on the tropics. I like heat and colour, +you know, but I like hills too, and greenery, and the things that bring +back Scotland. Give me a cross between Teviotdale and the Orinoco, +and, by Gad! I think I've got it here." + +I watched my friend curiously, as with bright eyes and eager voice he +talked of his new fad. The two races were very clear in him--the one +desiring gorgeousness, the other athirst for the soothing spaces of the +North. He began to plan out the house. He would get Adamson to design +it, and it was to grow out of the landscape like a stone on the +hillside. There would be wide verandahs and cool halls, but great +fireplaces against winter time. It would all be very simple and +fresh--"clean as morning" was his odd phrase; but then another idea +supervened, and he talked of bringing the Tintorets from Hill Street. +"I want it to be a civilised house, you know. No silly luxury, but the +best pictures and china and books. I'll have all the furniture made +after the old plain English models out of native woods. I don't want +second-hand sticks in a new country. Yes, by Jove, the Tintorets are a +great idea, and all those Ming pots I bought. I had meant to sell +them, but I'll have them out here." + +He talked for a good hour of what he would do, and his dream grew +richer as he talked, till by the time we went to bed he had sketched +something more like a palace than a country-house. Lawson was by no +means a luxurious man. At present he was well content with a Wolseley +valise, and shaved cheerfully out of a tin mug. It struck me as odd +that a man so simple in his habits should have so sumptuous a taste in +bric-a-brac. I told myself, as I turned in, that the Saxon mother from +the Midlands had done little to dilute the strong wine of the East. + +It drizzled next morning when we inspanned, and I mounted my horse in a +bad temper. I had some fever on me, I think, and I hated this lush yet +frigid tableland, where all the winds on earth lay in wait for one's +marrow. Lawson was, as usual, in great spirits. We were not hunting, +but shifting our hunting-ground, so all morning we travelled fast to +the north along the rim of the uplands. + +At midday it cleared, and the afternoon was a pageant of pure colour. +The wind sank to a low breeze; the sun lit the infinite green spaces, +and kindled the wet forest to a jewelled coronal. Lawson gaspingly +admired it all, as he cantered bareheaded up a bracken-clad slope. +"God's country," he said twenty times. "I've found it." Take a piece +of Sussex downland; put a stream in every hollow and a patch of wood; +and at the edge, where the cliffs at home would fall to the sea, put a +cloak of forest muffling the scarp and dropping thousands of feet to +the blue plains. Take the diamond air of the Gornergrat, and the riot +of colour which you get by a West Highland lochside in late September. +Put flowers everywhere, the things we grow in hothouses, geraniums like +sun-shades and arums like trumpets. That will give you a notion of the +countryside we were in. I began to see that after all it was out of +the common. + +And just before sunset we came over a ridge and found something better. +It was a shallow glen, half a mile wide, down which ran a blue-grey +stream in lings like the Spean, till at the edge of the plateau it +leaped into the dim forest in a snowy cascade. The opposite side ran +up in gentle slopes to a rocky knell, from which the eye had a noble +prospect of the plains. All down the glen were little copses, half +moons of green edging some silvery shore of the burn, or delicate +clusters of tall trees nodding on the hill brow. The place so +satisfied the eye that for the sheer wonder of its perfection we +stopped and stared in silence for many minutes. + +Then "The House," I said, and Lawson replied softly, "The House!" + +We rode slowly into the glen in the mulberry gloaming. Our transport +waggons were half an hour behind, so we had time to explore. Lawson +dismounted and plucked handfuls of flowers from the water meadows. He +was singing to himself all the time--an old French catch about Cadet +Rousselle and his Trois maisons. + +"Who owns it?" I asked. + +"My firm, as like as not. We have miles of land about here. But +whoever the man is, he has got to sell. Here I build my tabernacle, +old man. Here, and nowhere else!" + +In the very centre of the glen, in a loop of the stream, was one copse +which even in that half light struck me as different from the others. +It was of tall, slim, fairy-like trees, the kind of wood the monks +painted in old missals. No, I rejected the thought. It was no +Christian wood. It was not a copse, but a "grove,"--one such as +Artemis may have flitted through in the moonlight. It was small, forty +or fifty yards in diameter, and there was a dark something at the heart +of it which for a second I thought was a house. + +We turned between the slender trees, and--was it fancy?--an odd tremor +went through me. I felt as if I were penetrating the temenos of some +strange and lovely divinity, the goddess of this pleasant vale. There +was a spell in the air, it seemed, and an odd dead silence. + +Suddenly my horse started at a flutter of light wings. A flock of +doves rose from the branches, and I saw the burnished green of their +plumes against the opal sky. Lawson did not seem to notice them. I +saw his keen eyes staring at the centre of the grove and what stood +there. + +It was a little conical tower, ancient and lichened, but, so far as I +could judge, quite flawless. You know the famous Conical Temple at +Zimbabwe, of which prints are in every guidebook. This was of the same +type, but a thousandfold more perfect. It stood about thirty feet +high, of solid masonry, without door or window or cranny, as shapely as +when it first came from the hands of the old builders. Again I had the +sense of breaking in on a sanctuary. What right had I, a common vulgar +modern, to be looking at this fair thing, among these delicate trees, +which some white goddess had once taken for her shrine? + +Lawson broke in on my absorption. "Let's get out of this," he said +hoarsely and he took my horse's bridle (he had left his own beast at +the edge) and led him back to the open. But I noticed that his eyes +were always turning back and that his hand trembled. + +"That settles it," I said after supper. "What do you want with your +mediaeval Venetians and your Chinese pots now? You will have the +finest antique in the world in your garden--a temple as old as time, +and in a land which they say has no history. You had the right +inspiration this time." + +I think I have said that Lawson had hungry eyes. In his enthusiasm +they used to glow and brighten; but now, as he sat looking down at the +olive shades of the glen, they seemed ravenous in their fire. He had +hardly spoken a word since we left the wood. + +"Where can I read about these things?" he asked, and I gave him the +names of books. Then, an hour later, he asked me who were the +builders. I told him the little I knew about Phoenician and Sabaen +wanderings, and the ritual of Sidon and Tyre. He repeated some names +to himself and went soon to bed. + +As I turned in, I had one last look over the glen, which lay ivory and +black in the moon. I seemed to hear a faint echo of wings, and to see +over the little grove a cloud of light visitants. "The Doves of +Ashtaroth have come back," I said to myself. "It is a good omen. +They accept the new tenant." But as I fell asleep I had a sudden +thought that I was saying something rather terrible. + + + +II + +Three years later, pretty nearly to a day, I came back to see what +Lawson had made of his hobby. He had bidden me often to Welgevonden, +as he chose to call it--though I do not know why he should have fixed a +Dutch name to a countryside where Boer never trod. At the last there +had been some confusion about dates, and I wired the time of my +arrival, and set off without an answer. A motor met me at the queer +little wayside station of Taqui, and after many miles on a doubtful +highway I came to the gates of the park, and a road on which it was a +delight to move. Three years had wrought little difference in the +landscape. Lawson had done some planting,--conifers and flowering +shrubs and suchlike,--but wisely he had resolved that Nature had for +the most part forestalled him. All the same, he must have spent a mint +of money. The drive could not have been beaten in England, and fringes +of mown turf on either hand had been pared out of the lush meadows. +When we came over the edge of the hill and looked down on the secret +glen, I could not repress a cry of pleasure. The house stood on the +farther ridge, the viewpoint of the whole neighbourhood; and its brown +timbers and white rough-cast walls melted into the hillside as if it +had been there from the beginning of things. The vale below was +ordered in lawns and gardens. A blue lake received the rapids of the +stream, and its banks were a maze of green shades and glorious masses +of blossom. I noticed, too, that the little grove we had explored on +our first visit stood alone in a big stretch of lawn, so that its +perfection might be clearly seen. Lawson had excellent taste, or he +had had the best advice. + +The butler told me that his master was expected home shortly, and took +me into the library for tea. Lawson had left his Tintorets and Ming +pots at home after all. It was a long, low room, panelled in teak +half-way up the walls, and the shelves held a multitude of fine +bindings. There were good rugs on the parquet door, but no ornaments +anywhere, save three. On the carved mantelpiece stood two of the old +soapstone birds which they used to find at Zimbabwe, and between, on an +ebony stand, a half moon of alabaster, curiously carved with zodiacal +figures. My host had altered his scheme of furnishing, but I approved +the change. + +He came in about half-past six, after I had consumed two cigars and all +but fallen asleep. Three years make a difference in most men, but I +was not prepared for the change in Lawson. For one thing, he had grown +fat. In place of the lean young man I had known, I saw a heavy, +flaccid being, who shuffled in his gait, and seemed tired and listless. +His sunburn had gone, and his face was as pasty as a city clerk's. He +had been walking, and wore shapeless flannel clothes, which hung loose +even on his enlarged figure. And the worst of it was, that he did not +seem over-pleased to see me. He murmured something about my journey, +and then flung himself into an arm-chair and looked out of the window. + +I asked him if he had been ill. + +"Ill! No!" he said crossly. "Nothing of the kind. I'm perfectly well." + +"You don't look as fit as this place should make you. What do you do +with yourself? Is the shooting as good as you hoped?" + +He did not answer, but I thought I heard him mutter something like +"shooting be damned." + +Then I tried the subject of the house. I praised it extravagantly, but +with conviction. "There can be no place like it in the world," I said. + +He turned his eyes on me at last, and I saw that they were as deep and +restless as ever. With his pallid face they made him look curiously +Semitic. I had been right in my theory about his ancestry. + +"Yes," he said slowly, "there is no place like it--in the world." + +Then he pulled himself to his feet. "I'm going to change," he said. +"Dinner is at eight. Ring for Travers, and he'll show you your room." + +I dressed in a noble bedroom, with an outlook over the garden-vale and +the escarpment to the far line of the plains, now blue and saffron in +the sunset. I dressed in an ill temper, for I was seriously offended +with Lawson, and also seriously alarmed. He was either very unwell or +going out of his mind, and it was clear, too, that he would resent any +anxiety on his account. I ransacked my memory for rumours, but found +none. I had heard nothing of him except that he had been +extraordinarily successful in his speculations, and that from his +hill-top he directed his firm's operations with uncommon skill. If +Lawson was sick or mad, nobody knew of it. + +Dinner was a trying ceremony. Lawson, who used to be rather particular +in his dress, appeared in a kind of smoking suit with a flannel collar. +He spoke scarcely a word to me, but cursed the servants with a +brutality which left me aghast. A wretched footman in his nervousness +spilt some sauce over his sleeve. Lawson dashed the dish from his hand +and volleyed abuse with a sort of epileptic fury. Also he, who had +been the most abstemious of men, swallowed disgusting quantities of +champagne and old brandy. + +He had given up smoking, and half an hour after we left the dining-room +he announced his intention of going to bed. I watched him as he +waddled upstairs with a feeling of angry bewilderment. Then I went to +the library and lit a pipe. I would leave first thing in the +morning--on that I was determined. But as I sat gazing at the moon of +alabaster and the soapstone birds my anger evaporated, and concern took +its place. I remembered what a fine fellow Lawson had been, what good +times we had had together. I remembered especially that evening when +we had found this valley and given rein to our fancies. What horrid +alchemy in the place had turned a gentleman into a brute? I thought of +drink and drugs and madness and insomnia, but I could fit none of them +into my conception of my friend. I did not consciously rescind my +resolve to depart, but I had a notion that I would not act on it. + +The sleepy butler met me as I went to bed. "Mr. Lawson's room is at +the end of your corridor, sir," he said. "He don't sleep over well, so +you may hear him stirring in the night. At what hour would you like +breakfast, sir? Mr. Lawson mostly has his in bed." + +My room opened from the great corridor, which ran the full length of +the front of the house. So far as I could make out, Lawson was three +rooms off, a vacant bedroom and his servant's room being between us. I +felt tired and cross, and tumbled into bed as fast as possible. +Usually I sleep well, but now I was soon conscious that my drowsiness +was wearing off and that I was in for a restless night. I got up and +laved my face, turned the pillows, thought of sheep coming over a hill +and clouds crossing the sky; but none of the old devices were of any +use. After about an hour of make-believe I surrendered myself to +facts, and, lying on my back, stared at the white ceiling and the +patches of moonshine on the walls. + +It certainly was an amazing night. I got up, put on a dressing-gown, +and drew a chair to the window. The moon was almost at its full, and +the whole plateau swam in a radiance of ivory and silver. The banks of +the stream were black, but the lake had a great belt of light athwart +it, which made it seem like a horizon and the rim of land beyond it +like a contorted cloud. Far to the right I saw the delicate outlines +of the little wood which I had come to think of as the Grove of +Ashtaroth. I listened. There was not a sound in the air. The land +seemed to sleep peacefully beneath the moon, and yet I had a sense that +the peace was an illusion. The place was feverishly restless. + +I could have given no reason for my impression but there it was. +Something was stirring in the wide moonlit landscape under its deep +mask of silence. I felt as I had felt on the evening three years ago +when I had ridden into the grove. I did not think that the influence, +whatever it was, was maleficent. I only knew that it was very strange, +and kept me wakeful. + +By-and-by I bethought me of a book. There was no lamp in the corridor +save the moon, but the whole house was bright as I slipped down the +great staircase and across the hall to the library. I switched on the +lights and then switched them off. They seemed profanation, and I did +not need them. + +I found a French novel, but the place held me and I stayed. I sat down +in an arm-chair before the fireplace and the stone birds. Very odd +those gawky things, like prehistoric Great Auks, looked in the +moonlight. I remember that the alabaster moon shimmered like +translucent pearl, and I fell to wondering about its history. Had the +old Sabaens used such a jewel in their rites in the Grove of Ashtaroth? + +Then I heard footsteps pass the window. A great house like this would +have a watchman, but these quick shuffling footsteps were surely not +the dull plod of a servant. They passed on to the grass and died away. +I began to think of getting back to my room. + +In the corridor I noticed that Lawson's door was ajar, and that a light +had been left burning. I had the unpardonable curiosity to peep in. +The room was empty, and the bed had not been slept in. Now I knew +whose were the footsteps outside the library window. + +I lit a reading-lamp and tried to interest myself in "La Cruelle +Enigme." But my wits were restless, and I could not keep my eyes on +the page. I flung the book aside and sat down again by the window. +The feeling came over me that I was sitting in a box at some play. The +glen was a huge stage, and at any moment the players might appear on +it. My attention was strung as high as if I had been waiting for the +advent of some world-famous actress. But nothing came. Only the +shadows shifted and lengthened as the moon moved across the sky. + +Then quite suddenly the restlessness left me and at the same moment the +silence was broken by the crow of a cock and the rustling of trees in a +light wind. I felt very sleepy, and was turning to bed when again I +heard footsteps without. From the window I could see a figure moving +across the garden towards the house. It was Lawson, got up in the sort +of towel dressing-gown that one wears on board ship. He was walking +slowly and painfully, as if very weary. I did not see his face, but +the man's whole air was that of extreme fatigue and dejection. I +tumbled into bed and slept profoundly till long after daylight. + + + +III + +The man who valeted me was Lawson's own servant. As he was laying out +my clothes I asked after the health of his master, and was told that he +had slept ill and would not rise till late. Then the man, an +anxious-faced Englishman, gave me some information on his own account. +Mr. Lawson was having one of his bad turns. It would pass away in a +day or two, but till it had gone he was fit for nothing. He advised me +to see Mr. Jobson, the factor, who would look to my entertainment in +his master's absence. + +Jobson arrived before luncheon, and the sight of him was the first +satisfactory thing about Welgevonden. He was a big, gruff Scot from +Roxburghshire, engaged, no doubt, by Lawson as a duty to his Border +ancestry. He had short grizzled whiskers, a weatherworn face, and a +shrewd, calm blue eye. I knew now why the place was in such perfect +order. + +We began with sport, and Jobson explained what I could have in the way +of fishing and shooting. His exposition was brief and business-like, +and all the while I could see his eye searching me. It was clear that +he had much to say on other matters than sport. + +I told him that I had come here with Lawson three years before, when he +chose the site. Jobson continued to regard me curiously. "I've heard +tell of ye from Mr. Lawson. Ye're an old friend of his, I understand." + +"The oldest," I said. "And I am sorry to find that the place does not +agree with him. Why it doesn't I cannot imagine, for you look fit +enough. Has he been seedy for long?" + +"It comes and it goes," said Mr. Jobson. "Maybe once a month he has a +bad turn. But on the whole it agrees with him badly. He's no' the man +he was when I first came here." + +Jobson was looking at me very seriously and frankly. I risked a +question. + +"What do you suppose is the matter?" + +He did not reply at once, but leaned forward and tapped my knee. "I +think it's something that doctors canna cure. Look at me, sir. I've +always been counted a sensible man, but if I told you what was in my +head you would think me daft. But I have one word for you. Bide till +to-night is past and then speir your question. Maybe you and me will +be agreed." + +The factor rose to go. As he left the room he flung me back a remark +over his shoulder--"Read the eleventh chapter of the First Book of +Kings." + + +After luncheon I went for a walk. First I mounted to the crown of the +hill and feasted my eyes on the unequalled loveliness of the view. I +saw the far hills in Portuguese territory, a hundred miles away, +lifting up thin blue fingers into the sky. The wind blew light and +fresh, and the place was fragrant with a thousand delicate scents. +Then I descended to the vale, and followed the stream up through the +garden. Poinsettias and oleanders were blazing in coverts, and there +was a paradise of tinted water-lilies in the slacker reaches. I saw +good trout rise at the fly, but I did not think about fishing. I was +searching my memory for a recollection which would not come. By-and-by +I found myself beyond the garden, where the lawns ran to the fringe of +Ashtaroth's Grove. + +It was like something I remembered in an old Italian picture. Only, as +my memory drew it, it should have been peopled with strange +figures-nymphs dancing on the sward, and a prick-eared faun peeping +from the covert. In the warm afternoon sunlight it stood, ineffably +gracious and beautiful, tantalising with a sense of some deep hidden +loveliness. Very reverently I walked between the slim trees, to where +the little conical tower stood half in the sun and half in shadow. +Then I noticed something new. Round the tower ran a narrow path, worn +in the grass by human feet. There had been no such path on my first +visit, for I remembered the grass growing tall to the edge of the +stone. Had the Kaffirs made a shrine of it, or were there other and +strange votaries? + +When I returned to the house I found Travers with a message for me. +Mr. Lawson was still in bed, but he would like me to go to him. I +found my friend sitting up and drinking strong tea,--a bad thing, I +should have thought, for a man in his condition. I remember that I +looked about the room for some sign of the pernicious habit of which I +believed him a victim. But the place was fresh and clean, with the +windows wide open, and, though I could not have given my reasons, I was +convinced that drugs or drink had nothing to do with the sickness. + +He received me more civilly, but I was shocked by his looks. There +were great bags below his eyes, and his skin had the wrinkled puffy +appearance of a man in dropsy. His voice, too, was reedy and thin. +Only his great eyes burned with some feverish life. + +"I am a shocking bad host," he said, "but I'm going to be still more +inhospitable. I want you to go away. I hate anybody here when I'm off +colour." + +"Nonsense," I said; "you want looking after. I want to know about +this sickness. Have you had a doctor?" + +He smiled wearily. "Doctors are no earthly use to me. There's nothing +much the matter I tell you. I'll be all right in a day or two, and +then you can come back. I want you to go off with Jobson and hunt in +the plains till the end of the week. It will be better fun for you, +and I'll feel less guilty." + +Of course I pooh-poohed the idea, and Lawson got angry. "Damn it, +man," he cried, "why do you force yourself on me when I don't want you? +I tell you your presence here makes me worse. In a week I'll be as +right as the mail and then I'll be thankful for you. But get away now; +get away, I tell you." + +I saw that he was fretting himself into a passion. "All right," I said +soothingly; "Jobson and I will go off hunting. But I am horribly +anxious about you, old man." + +He lay back on his pillows. "You needn't trouble. I only want a +little rest. Jobson will make all arrangements, and Travers will get +you anything you want. Good-bye." + +I saw it was useless to stay longer, so I left the room. Outside I +found the anxious-faced servant "Look here," I said, "Mr. Lawson +thinks I ought to go, but I mean to stay. Tell him I'm gone if he asks +you. And for Heaven's sake keep him in bed." + +The man promised, and I thought I saw some relief in his face. + +I went to the library, and on the way remembered Jobson's remark about +Ist Kings. With some searching I found a Bible and turned up the +passage. It was a long screed about the misdeeds of Solomon, and I +read it through without enlightenment. I began to re-read it, and a +word suddenly caught my attention-- + +"For Solomon went after Ashtaroth, the goddess of the Zidonians." + +That was all, but it was like a key to a cipher. Instantly there +flashed over my mind all that I had heard or read of that strange +ritual which seduced Israel to sin. I saw a sunburnt land and a people +vowed to the stern service of Jehovah. But I saw, too, eyes turning +from the austere sacrifice to lonely hill-top groves and towers and +images, where dwelt some subtle and evil mystery. I saw the fierce +prophets, scourging the votaries with rods, and a nation Penitent +before the Lord; but always the backsliding again, and the hankering +after forbidden joys. Ashtaroth was the old goddess of the East. Was +it not possible that in all Semitic blood there remained transmitted +through the dim generations, some craving for her spell? I thought of +the grandfather in the back street at Brighten and of those burning +eyes upstairs. + +As I sat and mused my glance fell on the inscrutable stone birds. They +knew all those old secrets of joy and terror. And that moon of +alabaster! Some dark priest had worn it on his forehead when he +worshipped, like Ahab, "all the host of Heaven." And then I honestly +began to be afraid. I, a prosaic, modern Christian gentleman, a +half-believer in casual faiths, was in the presence of some hoary +mystery of sin far older than creeds or Christendom. There was fear in +my heart--a kind of uneasy disgust, and above all a nervous eerie +disquiet. Now I wanted to go away and yet I was ashamed of the +cowardly thought. I pictured Ashtaroth's Grove with sheer horror. +What tragedy was in the air? What secret awaited twilight? For the +night was coming, the night of the Full Moon, the season of ecstasy and +sacrifice. + +I do not know how I got through that evening. I was disinclined for +dinner, so I had a cutlet in the library and sat smoking till my tongue +ached. But as the hours passed a more manly resolution grew up in my +mind. I owed it to old friendship to stand by Lawson in this +extremity. I could not interfere--God knows, his reason seemed already +rocking, but I could be at hand in case my chance came. I determined +not to undress, but to watch through the night. I had a bath, and +changed into light flannels and slippers. Then I took up my position +in a corner of the library close to the window, so that I could not +fail to hear Lawson's footsteps if he passed. + +Fortunately I left the lights unlit, for as I waited I grew drowsy, and +fell asleep. When I woke the moon had risen, and I knew from the feel +of the air that the hour was late. I sat very still, straining my +ears, and as I listened I caught the sound of steps. They were +crossing the hall stealthily, and nearing the library door. I huddled +into my corner as Lawson entered. + +He wore the same towel dressing-gown, and he moved swiftly and silently +as if in a trance. I watched him take the alabaster moon from the +mantelpiece and drop it in his pocket. A glimpse of white skin showed +that the gown was his only clothing. Then he moved past me to the +window, opened it and went out. + +Without any conscious purpose I rose and followed, kicking off my +slippers that I might go quietly. He was running, running fast, across +the lawns in the direction of the Grove--an odd shapeless antic in the +moonlight. I stopped, for there was no cover, and I feared for his +reason if he saw me. When I looked again he had disappeared among the +trees. + +I saw nothing for it but to crawl, so on my belly I wormed my way over +the dripping sward. There was a ridiculous suggestion of deer-stalking +about the game which tickled me and dispelled my uneasiness. Almost I +persuaded myself I was tracking an ordinary sleep-walker. The lawns +were broader than I imagined, and it seemed an age before I reached the +edge of the Grove. The world was so still that I appeared to be making +a most ghastly amount of noise. I remember that once I heard a +rustling in the air, and looked up to see the green doves circling +about the tree-tops. + +There was no sign of Lawson. On the edge of the Grove I think that all +my assurance vanished. I could see between the trunks to the little +tower, but it was quiet as the grave, save for the wings above. Once +more there came over me the unbearable sense of anticipation I had felt +the night before. My nerves tingled with mingled expectation and +dread. I did not think that any harm would come to me, for the powers +of the air seemed not malignant. But I knew them for powers, and felt +awed and abased. I was in the presence of the "host of Heaven," and I +was no stern Israelitish prophet to prevail against them. + +I must have lain for hours waiting in that spectral place, my eyes +riveted on the tower and its golden cap of moonshine. I remember that +my head felt void and light, as if my spirit were becoming disembodied +and leaving its dew-drenched sheath far below. But the most curious +sensation was of something drawing me to the tower, something mild and +kindly and rather feeble, for there was some other and stronger force +keeping me back. I yearned to move nearer, but I could not drag my +limbs an inch. There was a spell somewhere which I could not break. I +do not think I was in any way frightened now. The starry influence was +playing tricks with me, but my mind was half asleep. Only I never took +my eyes from the little tower. I think I could not, if I had wanted to. + +Then suddenly from the shadows came Lawson. He was stark-naked, and he +wore, bound across his brow, the half-moon of alabaster. He had +something, too, in his hand,--something which glittered. + +He ran round the tower, crooning to himself, and flinging wild arms to +the skies. Sometimes the crooning changed to a shrill cry of passion, +such as a maenad may have uttered in the train of Bacchus. I could make +out no words, but the sound told its own tale. He was absorbed in some +infernal ecstasy. And as he ran, he drew his right hand across his +breast and arms, and I saw that it held a knife. + +I grew sick with disgust,--not terror, but honest physical loathing. +Lawson, gashing his fat body, affected me with an overpowering +repugnance. I wanted to go forward and stop him, and I wanted, too, to +be a hundred miles away. And the result was that I stayed still. I +believe my own will held me there, but I doubt if in any case I could +have moved my legs. + +The dance grew swifter and fiercer. I saw the blood dripping from +Lawson's body, and his face ghastly white above his scarred breast. +And then suddenly the horror left me; my head swam; and for one +second--one brief second--I seemed to peer into a new world. A strange +passion surged up in my heart. I seemed to see the earth peopled with +forms not human, scarcely divine, but more desirable than man or god. +The calm face of Nature broke up for me into wrinkles of wild +knowledge. I saw the things which brush against the soul in dreams, +and found them lovely. There seemed no cruelty in the knife or the +blood. It was a delicate mystery of worship, as wholesome as the +morning song of birds. I do not know how the Semites found Ashtaroth's +ritual; to them it may well have been more rapt and passionate than it +seemed to me. For I saw in it only the sweet simplicity of Nature, and +all riddles of lust and terror soothed away as a child's nightmares are +calmed by a mother. I found my legs able to move, and I think I took +two steps through the dusk towards the tower. + +And then it all ended. A cock crew, and the homely noises of earth +were renewed. While I stood dazed and shivering, Lawson plunged +through the Grove toward me. The impetus carried him to the edge, and +he fell fainting just outside the shade. + +My wits and common-sense came back to me with my bodily strength. I +got my friend on my back, and staggered with him towards the house. I +was afraid in real earnest now, and what frightened me most was the +thought that I had not been afraid sooner. I had come very near the +"abomination of the Zidonians." + +At the door I found the scared valet waiting. He had apparently done +this sort of thing before. + +"Your master has been sleep-walking and has had a fall," I said. "We +must get him to bed at once." + +We bathed the wounds as he lay in a deep stupor, and I dressed them as +well as I could. The only danger lay in his utter exhaustion, for +happily the gashes were not serious, and no artery had been touched. +Sleep and rest would make him well, for he had the constitution of a +strong man. I was leaving the room when he opened his eyes and spoke. +He did not recognize me, but I noticed that his face had lost its +strangeness, and was once more that of the friend I had known. Then I +suddenly bethought me of an old hunting remedy which he and I always +carried on our expeditions. It is a pill made up from an ancient +Portuguese prescription. One is an excellent specific for fever. Two +are invaluable if you are lost in the bush, for they send a man for +many hours into a deep sleep, which prevents suffering and madness, +till help comes. Three give a painless death. I went to my room and +found the little box in my jewel-case. Lawson swallowed two, and +turned wearily on his side. I bade his man let him sleep till he woke, +and went off in search of food. + + + +IV + +I had business on hand which would not wait. By seven, Jobson, who had +been sent for, was waiting for me in the library. I knew by his grim +face that here I had a very good substitute for a prophet of the Lord. + +"You were right," I said. "I have read the 11th chapter of Ist Kings, +and I have spent such a night as I pray God I shall never spend again. + +"I thought you would," he replied. "I've had the same experience +myself." + +"The Grove?" I said. + +"Ay, the wud," was the answer in broad Scots. + +I wanted to see how much he understood. "Mr. Lawson's family is from +the Scottish Border?" + +"Ay. I understand they come off Borthwick Water side," he replied, but +I saw by his eyes that he knew what I meant. + +"Mr. Lawson is my oldest friend," I went on, "and I am going to take +measures to cure him. For what I am going to do I take the sole +responsibility. I will make that plain to your master. But if I am to +succeed I want your help. Will you give it me? It sounds like madness +and you are a sensible man and may like to keep out of it. I leave it +to your discretion." + +Jobson looked me straight in the face. "Have no fear for me," he said; +"there is an unholy thing in that place, and if I have the strength in +me I will destroy it. He has been a good master to me, and, forbye I +am a believing Christian. So say on, sir." + +There was no mistaking the air. I had found my Tishbite. + +"I want men," I said, "--as many as we can get." + +Jobson mused. "The Kaffirs will no' gang near the place, but there's +some thirty white men on the tobacco farm. They'll do your will, if +you give them an indemnity in writing." + +"Good," said I. "Then we will take our instructions from the only +authority which meets the case. We will follow the example of King +Josiah. I turned up the 23rd chapter of end Kings, and read-- + +"And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the +right hand of the Mount of Corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel +had builded for Ashtaroth the abomination of the Zidonians ... did the +king defile. + +"And he brake in Pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and +filled their places with the bones of men....' + +"Moreover the altar that was at Beth-el, and the high place which +Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, had made, both that +altar and the high place he brake down, and burned the high place, and +stamped it small to powder, and burned the grove." + +Jobson nodded. "It'll need dinnymite. But I've plenty of yon down at +the workshops. I'll be off to collect the lads." + + +Before nine the men had assembled at Jobson's house. They were a hardy +lot of young farmers from home, who took their instructions docilely +from the masterful factor. On my orders they had brought their +shotguns. We armed them with spades and woodmen's axes, and one man +wheeled some coils of rope in a handcart. + +In the clear, windless air of morning the Grove, set amid its lawns, +looked too innocent and exquisite for ill. I had a pang of regret that +a thing so fair should suffer; nay, if I had come alone, I think I +might have repented. But the men were there, and the grim-faced Jobson +was waiting for orders. I placed the guns, and sent beaters to the far +side. I told them that every dove must be shot. + +It was only a small flock, and we killed fifteen at the first drive. +The poor birds flew over the glen to another spinney, but we brought +them back over the guns and seven fell. Four more were got in the +trees, and the last I killed myself with a long shot. In half an hour +there was a pile of little green bodies on the sward. + +Then we went to work to cut down the trees. The slim stems were an +easy task to a good woodman, and one after another they toppled to the +ground. And meantime, as I watched, I became conscious of a strange +emotion. + +It was as if someone were pleading with me. A gentle voice, not +threatening, but pleading--something too fine for the sensual ear, but +touching inner chords of the spirit. So tenuous it was and distant +that I could think of no personality behind it. Rather it was the +viewless, bodiless grace of this delectable vale, some old exquisite +divinity of the groves. There was the heart of all sorrow in it, and +the soul of all loveliness. It seemed a woman's voice, some lost lady +who had brought nothing but goodness unrepaid to the world. And what +the voice told me was that I was destroying her last shelter. + +That was the pathos of it--the voice was homeless. As the axes flashed +in the sunlight and the wood grew thin, that gentle spirit was pleading +with me for mercy and a brief respite. It seemed to be telling of a +world for centuries grown coarse and pitiless, of long sad wanderings, +of hardly-won shelter, and a peace which was the little all she sought +from men. There was nothing terrible in it. No thought of +wrong-doing. The spell, which to Semitic blood held the mystery of +evil, was to me, of the Northern race, only delicate and rare and +beautiful. Jobson and the rest did not feel it, I with my finer senses +caught nothing but the hopeless sadness of it. That which had stirred +the passion in Lawson was only wringing my heart. It was almost too +pitiful to bear. As the trees crashed down and the men wiped the sweat +from their brows, I seemed to myself like the murderer of fair women +and innocent children. I remember that the tears were running over my +cheeks. More than once I opened my mouth to countermand the work, but +the face of Jobson, that grim Tishbite, held me back. + +I knew now what gave the Prophets of the Lord their mastery, and I knew +also why the people sometimes stoned them. + +The last tree fell, and the little tower stood like a ravished shrine, +stripped of all defence against the world. I heard Jobson's voice +speaking. "We'd better blast that stane thing now. We'll trench on +four sides and lay the dinnymite. Ye're no' looking weel, sir. Ye'd +better go and sit down on the braeface." + +I went up the hillside and lay down. Below me, in the waste of shorn +trunks, men were running about, and I saw the mining begin. It all +seemed like an aimless dream in which I had no part. The voice of that +homeless goddess was still pleading. It was the innocence of it that +tortured me Even so must a merciful Inquisitor have suffered from the +plea of some fair girl with the aureole of death on her hair. I knew I +was killing rare and unrecoverable beauty. As I sat dazed and +heartsick, the whole loveliness of Nature seemed to plead for its +divinity. The sun in the heavens, the mellow lines of upland, the blue +mystery of the far plains, were all part of that soft voice. I felt +bitter scorn for myself. I was guilty of blood; nay, I was guilty of +the sin against light which knows no forgiveness. I was murdering +innocent gentleness--and there would be no peace on earth for me. Yet +I sat helpless. The power of a sterner will constrained me. And all +the while the voice was growing fainter and dying away into unutterable +sorrow. + +Suddenly a great flame sprang to heaven, and a pall of smoke. I heard +men crying out, and fragments of stone fell around the ruins of the +grove. When the air cleared, the little tower had gone out of sight. + +The voice had ceased and there seemed to me to be a bereaved silence in +the world. The shock moved me to my feet, and I ran down the slope to +where Jobson stood rubbing his eyes. + +"That's done the job. Now we maun get up the tree roots. We've no +time to howk. We'll just blast the feck o' them." + +The work of destruction went on, but I was coming back to my senses. I +forced myself to be practical and reasonable. I thought of the night's +experience and Lawson's haggard eyes, and I screwed myself into a +determination to see the thing through. I had done the deed; it was my +business to make it complete. A text in Jeremiah came into my head: + +"Their children remember their altars and their groves by the green +trees upon the high hills." + +I would see to it that this grove should be utterly forgotten. + +We blasted the tree-roots, and, yolking oxen, dragged the debris into a +great heap. Then the men set to work with their spades, and roughly +levelled the ground. I was getting back to my old self, and Jobson's +spirit was becoming mine. + +"There is one thing more," I told him "Get ready a couple of ploughs. +We will improve upon King Josiah." My brain was a medley of Scripture +precedents, and I was determined that no safeguard should be wanting. + +We yoked the oxen again and drove the ploughs over the site of the +grove. It was rough ploughing, for the place was thick with bits of +stone from the tower, but the slow Afrikaner oxen plodded on, and +sometime in the afternoon the work was finished. Then I sent down to +the farm for bags of rock-salt, such as they use for cattle. Jobson +and I took a sack apiece, and walked up and down the furrows, sowing +them with salt. + +The last act was to set fire to the pile of tree trunks. They burned +well, and on the top we flung the bodies of the green doves. The birds +of Ashtaroth had an honourable pyre. + +Then I dismissed the much-perplexed men, and gravely shook hands with +Jobson. Black with dust and smoke I went back to the house, where I +bade Travers pack my bags and order the motor. I found Lawson's +servant, and heard from him that his master was sleeping peacefully. I +gave him some directions, and then went to wash and change. + +Before I left I wrote a line to Lawson. I began by transcribing the +verses from the 23rd chapter of 2nd Kings. I told him what I had done, +and my reason. "I take the whole responsibility upon myself," I +wrote. "No man in the place had anything to do with it but me. I +acted as I did for the sake of our old friendship, and you will believe +it was no easy task for me. I hope you will understand. Whenever you +are able to see me send me word, and I will come back and settle with +you. But I think you will realise that I have saved your soul." + +The afternoon was merging into twilight as I left the house on the road +to Taqui. The great fire, where the Grove had been, was still blazing +fiercely, and the smoke made a cloud over the upper glen, and filled +all the air with a soft violet haze. I knew that I had done well for +my friend, and that he would come to his senses and be grateful. My +mind was at ease on that score, and in something like comfort I faced +the future. But as the car reached the ridge I looked back to the vale +I had outraged. The moon was rising and silvering the smoke, and +through the gaps I could see the tongues of fire. Somehow, I know not +why, the lake, the stream, the garden-coverts, even the green slopes of +hill, wore an air of loneliness and desecration. And then my heartache +returned, and I knew that I had driven something lovely and adorable +from its last refuge on earth. + + + +WOOD MAGIC + +(9TH CENTURY.) + + I will walk warily in the wise woods on the fringes of eventide, + For the covert is full of noises and the stir of nameless things. + I have seen in the dusk of the beeches the shapes of the lords + that ride, + And down in the marish hollow I have heard the lady who sings. + And once in an April gleaming I met a maid on the sward, + All marble-white and gleaming and tender and wild of eye;-- + I, Jehan the hunter, who speak am a grown man, middling hard, + But I dreamt a month of the maid, and wept I knew not why. + + Down by the edge of the firs, in a coppice of heath and vine, + Is an old moss-grown altar, shaded by briar and bloom, + Denys, the priest, hath told me 'twas the lord Apollo's shrine + In the days ere Christ came down from God to the Virgin's womb. + I never go past but I doff my cap and avert my eyes-- + + (Were Denys to catch me I trow I'd do penance for half a year)-- + For once I saw a flame there and the smoke of a sacrifice, + And a voice spake out of the thicket that froze my soul with fear. + + Wherefore to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, + Mary the Blessed Mother, and the kindly Saints as well, + I will give glory and praise, and them I cherish the most, + For they have the keys of Heaven, and save the soul from Hell. + But likewise I will spare for the Lord Apollo a grace, + And a bow for the lady Venus-as a friend but not as a thrall. + 'Tis true they are out of Heaven, but some day they may win the + place; + For gods are kittle cattle, and a wise man honours them all. + + + + +VII + +THE RIDING OF NINEMILEBURN + +Sim bent over the meal ark and plumbed its contents with his fist. Two +feet and more remained: provender--with care--for a month, till he +harvested the waterside corn and ground it at Ashkirk mill. He +straightened his back better pleased; and, as he moved, the fine dust +flew into his throat and set him coughing. He choked back the sound +till his face crimsoned. + +But the mischief was done. A woman's voice, thin and weary, came from +the ben-end. The long man tiptoed awkwardly to her side. "Canny, +lass," he crooned. "It's me back frae the hill. There's a mune and a +clear sky, and I'll hae the lave under thack and rape the morn. Syne +I'm for Ninemileburn, and the coo 'ill be i' the byre by Setterday. +Things micht be waur, and we'll warstle through yet. There was mair +tint at Flodden." + +The last rays of October daylight that filtered through the straw +lattice showed a woman's head on the pillow. The face was white and +drawn, and the great black eyes--she had been an Oliver out of +Megget--were fixed in the long stare of pain. Her voice had the high +lilt and the deep undertones of the Forest. + +"The bairn 'ill be gone ere ye ken, Sim," she said wearily. "He canna +live without milk, and I've nane to gie him. Get the coo back or lose +the son I bore ye. If I were my ordinar' I wad hae't in the byre, +though I had to kindle Ninemileburn ower Wat's heid." + +She turned miserably on her pillow and the babe beside her set up a +feeble crying. Sim busied himself with re-lighting the peat fire. He +knew too well that he would never see the milk-cow till he took with +him the price of his debt or gave a bond on harvested crops. He had +had a bad lambing, and the wet summer had soured his shallow lands. +The cess to Branksome was due, and he had had no means to pay it. His +father's cousin of the Ninemileburn was a brawling fellow, who never +lacked beast in byre or corn in bin, and to him he had gone for the +loan. But Wat was a hard man, and demanded surety; so the one cow had +travelled the six moorland miles and would not return till the bond was +cancelled. As well might he try to get water from stone as move Wat by +any tale of a sick wife and dying child. + +The peat smoke got into his throat and brought on a fresh fit of +coughing. The wet year had played havoc with his chest and his lean +shoulders shook with the paroxysms. An anxious look at the bed told +him that Marion was drowsing, so he slipped to the door. + +Outside, as he had said, the sky was clear. From the plashy hillside +came the rumour of swollen burns. Then he was aware of a man's voice +shouting. + +"Sim," it cried, "Sim o' the Cleuch ... Sim." A sturdy figure came +down through the scrog of hazel and revealed itself as his neighbour of +the Dodhead. Jamie Telfer lived five miles off in Ettrick, but his was +the next house to the Cleuch shieling. Telfer was running, and his +round red face shone with sweat. + +"Dod, man, Sim, ye're hard o' hearing. I was routin' like to wake the +deid, and ye never turned your neck. It's the fray I bring ye. Mount +and ride to the Carewoodrig. The word's frae Branksome. I've but +Ranklehope to raise, and then me and William's Tam will be on the road +to join ye." + +"Whatna fray?" Sim asked blankly. + +"Ninemileburn. Bewcastle's marching. They riped the place at +cockcrow, and took twenty-six kye, five horse and a walth o' +plenishing. They were seen fordin' Teviot at ten afore noon, but +they're gaun round by Ewes Water, for they durstna try the Hermitage +Slack. Forbye they move slow, for the bestial's heavy wark to drive. +They shut up Wat in the auld peel, and he didna win free till bye +midday. Syne he was off to Branksome, and the word frae Branksome is +to raise a' Ettrick, Teviotdale, Ale Water, and the Muirs o' Esk. We +look to win up wi' the lads long ere they cross Liddel, and that at the +speed they gang will be gey an' near sunrise. It's a braw mune for the +job." + +Jarnie Telfer lay on his face by the burn and lapped up water like a +dog. Then without another word he trotted off across the hillside +beyond which lay the Ranklehope. + +Sim had a fit of coughing and looked stupidly at the sky. Here was the +last straw. He was dog-tired, for he had had little sleep the past +week. There was no one to leave with Marion, and Marion was too weak +to tend herself. The word was from Branksome, and at another time +Branksome was to be obeyed. But now the thing was past reason. What +use was there for a miserable careworn man to ride among the swank, +well-fed lads in the Bewcastle chase? And then he remembered his cow. +She would be hirpling with the rest of the Ninemileburn beasts on the +road to the Border. The case was more desperate than he had thought. +She was gone for ever unless he helped Wat to win her back. And if she +went, where was the milk for the child? + +He stared hopelessly up at a darkening sky. Then he went to the +lean-to where his horse was stalled. The beast was fresh, for it had +not been out for two days--a rough Forest shelty with shaggy fetlocks +and a mane like a thicket. Sim set his old saddle on it, and went back +to the house. + +His wife was still asleep, breathing painfully. He put water on the +fire to boil, and fetched a handful of meal from the ark. With this he +made a dish of gruel, and set it by the bedside. He drew a pitcher of +water from the well, for she might be thirsty. Then he banked up the +fire and steeked the window. When she woke she would find food and +drink, and he would be back before the next darkening. He dared not +look at the child. + +The shelty shied at a line of firelight from the window, as Sim flung +himself wearily on its back. He had got his long ash spear from its +place among the rafters, and donned his leather jacket with the iron +studs on breast and shoulder. One of the seams gaped. His wife had +been mending it when her pains took her. + +He had ridden by Commonside and was high on the Caerlanrig before he +saw signs of men. The moon swam in a dim dark sky, and the hills were +as yellow as corn. The round top of the Wisp made a clear mark to ride +by. Sim was a nervous man, and at another time would never have dared +to ride alone by the ruined shieling of Chasehope, where folk said a +witch had dwelt long ago and the Devil still came in the small hours. +But now he was too full of his cares to have room for dread. With his +head on his breast he let the shelty take its own road through the +mosses. + +But on the Caerlanrig he came on a troop of horse. They were a lusty +crowd, well-mounted and armed, with iron basnets and corselets that +jingled as they rode. Harden's men, he guessed, with young Harden at +the head of them. They cried him greeting as he fell in at the tail. +"It's Long Sim o' the Cleuch," one said; "he's sib to Wat or he wadna +be here. Sim likes his ain fireside better than the 'Bateable Land'." + +The companionship of others cheered him. There had been a time, before +he brought Marion from Megget, when he was a well kenned figure on the +Borders, a good man at weaponshows and a fierce fighter when his blood +was up. Those days were long gone; but the gusto of them returned. No +man had ever lightlied him without paying scot. He held up his head +and forgot his cares and his gaping jackets. In a little they had +topped the hill, and were looking down on the young waters of Ewes. + +The company grew, as men dropped in from left and right. Sim +recognised the wild hair of Charlie of Geddinscleuch, and the square +shoulders of Adam of Frodslaw. They passed Mosspaul, a twinkle far +down in the glen, and presently came to the long green slope which is +called the Carewoodrig, and which makes a pass from Ewes to Hermitage. +To Sim it seemed that an army had encamped on it. Fires had been lit +in a howe, and wearied men slept by them. These were the runners, who +all day had been warning the dales. By one fire stood the great figure +of Wat o' the Ninemileburn, blaspheming to the skies and counting his +losses. He had girded on a long sword, and for better precaution had +slung an axe on his back. At the sight of young Harden he held his +peace. The foray was Branksome's and a Scott must lead. + +Dimly and stupidly, for he was very weary, Sim heard word of the enemy. +The beasts had travelled slow, and would not cross Liddel till sunrise. +Now they were high up on Tarras water, making for Liddel at a ford +below the Castletown. There had been no time to warn the Elliots, but +the odds were that Lariston and Mangerton would be out by morning. + +"Never heed the Elliots," cried young Harden. "We can redd our ain +frays, lads. Haste and ride, and we'll hae Geordie Musgrave long ere +he wins to the Ritterford, Borrowstonemoss is the bit for us." And +with a light Scott laugh he was in the saddle. + +They were now in a land of low hills, which made ill-going. A +companion gave Sim the news. Bewcastle and five-score men and the +Scots four-score and three. "It's waur to haul than to win," said the +man. "Ae man can take ten beasts when three 'ill no keep them. +There'll be bluidy war on Tarras side ere the nicht's dune." + +Sim was feeling his weariness too sore for speech. He remembered that +he had tasted no food for fifteen hours. He found his meal-poke and +filled his mouth, but the stuff choked him. It only made him cough +fiercely, so that Wat o' the Ninemileburn, riding before him, cursed +him for a broken-winded fool. Also he was remembering about Marion, +lying sick in the darkness twenty miles over the hills. + +The moon was clouded, for an east wind was springing up. It was ill +riding on the braeface, and Sim and his shelty floundered among the +screes. He was wondering how long it would all last. Soon he must +fall down and be the scorn of the Border men. The thought put Marion +out of his head again. He set his mind on tending his horse and +keeping up with his fellows. + +Suddenly a whistle from Harden halted the company. A man came running +back from the crown of the rig. A whisper went about that Bewcastle +was on the far side, in the little glen called the Brunt Burn. The men +held their breath, and in the stillness they heard far off the sound of +hooves on stones and the heavy breathing of cattle. + +It was a noble spot for an ambuscade. The Borderers scattered over the +hillside, some riding south to hold the convoy as it came down the +glen. Sim's weariness lightened. His blood ran quicker; he remembered +that the cow, his child's one hope, was there before him. He found +himself next his cousin Wat, who chewed curses in his great beard. +When they topped the rig they saw a quarter of a mile below them the +men they sought. The cattle were driven in the centre, with horsemen +in front and rear and flankers on the braeside. + +"Hae at them, lads," cried Wat o' the Ninemileburn, as he dug spurs +into his grey horse. From farther down the glen he was answered with a +great shout of "Branksome". + +Somehow or other Sim and his shelty got down the steep braeface. The +next he knew was that the raiders had turned to meet him--to meet him +alone, it seemed; the moon had come out again, and their faces showed +white in it. The cattle, as the driving ceased, sank down wearily in +the moss. A man with an iron ged turned, cursing to receive Wat's +sword on his shoulder-bone. A light began to blaze from down the +burn--Sim saw the glitter of it out of the corner of an eye--but the +men in front were dark figures with white faces. + +The Bewcastle lads were stout fellows, well used to hold as well as +take. They closed up in line around the beasts, and the moon lit the +tops of their spears. Sim brandished his ash-shaft, which had weighed +heavily these last hours, and to his surprise found it light. He found +his voice, too, and fell a-roaring like Wat. + +Before he knew he was among the cattle. Wat had broken the ring, and +men were hacking and slipping among the slab sides of the wearied +beasts. The shelty came down over the rump of a red bullock, and Sim +was sprawling on his face in the trampled grass. He struggled to rise, +and some one had him by the throat. + +Anger fired his slow brain. He reached out his long arms and grappled +a leather jerkin. His nails found a seam and rent it, for he had +mighty fingers. Then he was gripping warm flesh, tearing it like a +wild beast, and his assailant with a cry slackened his hold. "Whatna +wull-cat..." he began, but he got no further. The hoof of Wat's horse +came down on his head and brained him. A splatter of blood fell on +Sim's face. + +The man was half wild. His shelty had broken back for the hill, but +his spear lay a yard off. He seized it and got to his feet, to find +that Wat had driven the English over the burn. The cattle were losing +their weariness in panic, and tossing wild manes among the Scots. It +was like a fight in a winter's byre. The glare on the right grew +fiercer, and young Harden's voice rose, clear as a bell, above the +tumult. He was swearing by the cross of his sword. + +On foot, in the old Border way, Sim followed in Wat's wake, into the +bog and beyond the burn. He laired to his knees, but he scarcely +heeded it. There was a big man before him, a foolish, red-haired +fellow, who was making great play with a cudgel. He had shivered two +spears and was singing low to himself. Farther off Wat had his axe in +hand and was driving the enemy to the brae. There were dead men in the +moss. Sim stumbled over a soft body, and a hand caught feebly at his +heel. "To me, lads," cried Wat. "Anither birse and we hae them +broken." + +But something happened. Harden was pushing the van of the raiders up +the stream, and a press of them surged in from the right. Wat found +himself assailed on his flank, and gave ground. The big man with the +cudgel laughed loud and ran down the hill, and the Scots fell back on +Sim. Men tripped over him, and as he rose he found the giant above him +with his stick in the air. + +The blow fell, glancing from the ash-shaft to Sim's side. Something +cracked and his left arm hung limp. But the furies of hell had hold of +him now. He rolled over, gripped his spear short, and with a swift +turn struck upwards. The big man gave a sob and toppled down into a +pool of the burn. + +Sim struggled to his feet, and saw that the raiders were beginning to +hough the cattle One man was driving a red spear into a helpless beast. +It might have been the Cleuch cow. The sight maddened him, and like a +destroying angel he was among them. One man he caught full in the +throat, and had to set a foot on breast before he could tug the spear +out. Then the head shivered on a steel corselet, and Sim played +quarterstaff with the shaft. The violence of his onslaught turned the +tide. Those whom Harden drove up were caught in a vice, and squeezed +out, wounded and dying and mad with fear, on to the hill above the +burn. Both sides were weary men, or there would have been a grim +slaughter. As it was, none followed the runners, and every now and +again a Scot would drop like a log, not from wounds but from dead +weariness. + +Harden's flare was dying down. Dawn was breaking and Sim's wild eyes +cleared. Here a press of cattle, dazed with fright, and the red and +miry heather. Queer black things were curled and stretched athwart it. +He noticed a dead man beside him, perhaps of his own slaying. It was a +shabby fellow, in a jacket that gaped like Sim's. His face was thin +and patient, and his eyes, even in death, looked puzzled and +reproachful. He would be one of the plain folk who had to ride, +willy-nilly, on bigger men's quarrels. Sim found himself wondering if +he, also, had a famished wife and child at home. The fury of the night +had gone, and Sim began to sob from utter tiredness. + +He slept in what was half a swoon. When he woke the sun was well up in +the sky and the Scots were cooking food. His arm irked him, and his +head burned like fire. He felt his body and found nothing worse than +bruises, and one long shallow scar where his jacket was torn. + +A Teviotdale man brought him a cog of brose. Sim stared at it and +sickened: he was too far gone for food. Young Harden passed, and +looked curiously at him. "Here's a man that has na spared himsel'," he +said. "A drop o' French cordial is the thing for you, Sim." And out +of a leathern flask he poured a little draught which he bade Sim +swallow. + +The liquor ran through his veins and lightened the ache of his head. +He found strength to rise and look round. Surely they were short of +men. If these were all that were left Bewcastle had been well avenged. + +Jamie Telfer enlightened him. "When we had gotten the victory, there +were some o' the lads thocht that Bewcastle sud pay scot in beasts as +weel as men. Sae Wat and a score mair rade off to lowse Geordie +Musgrave's kye. The road's clear, and they'll be back ower Liddell by +this time. Dod, there'll be walth o' plenishin' at the Ninemileburn." + +Sim was cheered by the news. If Wat got back more than his own he +might be generous. They were cooking meat round the fire, the flesh of +the cattle killed in the fight. He went down to the nearest blaze, and +was given a strip of roast which he found he could swallow. + +"How mony beasts were killed?" he asked incuriously, and was told +three. Saugh poles had been set up to hang the skins on. A notion +made Sim stagger to his feet and go to inspect them. There could be no +mistake. There hung the brindled hide of Marion's cow. + +Wat returned in a cloud of glory, driving three-and-twenty English +beasts before him--great white fellows that none could match on the +Scottish side. He and his lads clamoured for food, so more flesh was +roasted, till the burnside smelt like a kitchen. The Scots had found +better than cattle, for five big skins of ale bobbed on their saddles. +Wat summoned all to come and drink, and Harden, having no fear of +reprisals, did not forbid it. + +Sim was becoming a man again. He had bathed his bruises and scratches +in the burn, and Will o' Phawhope, who had skill as a leech, had set +his arm and bound it to his side in splints of ash and raw hide. He +had eaten grossly of flesh--the first time since the spring, and then +it had only been braxy lamb. The ale had warmed his blood and +quickened his wits. He began to feel pleased with himself. He had +done well in the fray--had not young Harden praised him?--and surly Wat +had owned that the salvage of so many beasts was Sim's doing. "Man, +Sim, ye wrocht michtily at the burnside," he had said. "The heids +crackit like nits when ye garred your staff sing. Better you wi' a +stick than anither than wi' a sword." It was fine praise, and warmed +Sim's chilly soul. For a year he had fought bitterly for bread, and +now glory had come to him without asking. + +Men were drawn by lot to drive the cattle, and others to form a +rearguard. The rest set off for their homes by the nearest road. The +shelty had been recovered, and Sim to his pride found himself riding in +the front with Wat and young Harden and others of the Scott and Elliot +gentry. + +The company rode fast over the green hills in the clear autumn noon. +Harden's blue eyes danced, and he sang snatches in his gay voice. Wat +rumbled his own praises and told of the raid over Liddel. Sim felt a +new being from the broken man who the night before had wearily jogged +on the same road. He told himself he took life too gravely and let +care ride him too hard. He was too much thirled to the Cleuch and tied +to his wife's apron. In the future he would see his friends, and bend +the bicker with the rest of them. + +By the darkening they had come to Ninemileburn, where Harden's road +left theirs. Wat had them all into the bare dwelling, and another skin +of ale was broached. A fire was lit and the men sprawled around it, +singing songs. Then tales began, and they would have sat till morning, +had not Harden called them to the road. Sim, too, got to his feet. He +was thinking of the six miles yet before him, and as home grew nearer +his spirits sank. Dimly he remembered the sad things that waited his +homecoming. + +Wat made him a parting speech. "Gude e'en to ye, Cousin Sim. Ye've +been a kind man to me the day. May I do as weel by you if ever the +fray gangs by the Cleuch. I had a coo o' yours in pledge, and it was +ane o the beasts the Musgraves speared. By the auld law your debt +still stands, and if I likit I could seek anither pledge. But there'll +be something awin' for rescue-shot, and wi' that and the gude wark +ye've dune the day, I'm content to ca' the debt paid." + +Wat's words sounded kind, and no doubt Wat thought himself generous. +Sim had it on his tongue to ask for a cow--even on a month's loan. But +pride choked his speech. It meant telling of the pitiful straits at +the Cleuch. After what had passed he must hold his head high amongst +those full-fed Branksome lads. He thanked Wat, cried farewell to the +rest, and mounted his shelty. + +The moon was rising and the hills were yellow as corn. The shelty had +had a feed of oats, and capered at the shadows. What with excitement, +meat and ale, and the dregs of a great fatigue, Sim's mind was hazy, +and his cheerfulness returned. He thought only on his exploits. He +had done great things--he, Sim o' the Cleuch--and every man in the +Forest would hear of them and praise his courage. There would be +ballads made about him; he could hear the blind violer at the Ashkirk +change-house singing--songs which told how Sim o' the Cleuch smote +Bewcastle in the howe of the Brunt Burn--ash against steel, one against +ten. The fancy intoxicated him; he felt as if he, too, could make a +ballad. It would speak of the soft shiny night with the moon high in +the heavens. It would tell of the press of men and beasts by the +burnside, and the red glare of Harden's fires, and Wat with his axe, +and above all of Sim with his ash-shaft and his long arms, and how +Harden drove the raiders up the burn and Sim smote them silently among +the cattle. Wat's exploits would come in, but the true glory was Sim's. +But for him Scots saddles might have been empty and every beast safe +over Liddel. + +The picture fairly ravished him. It carried him over the six miles of +bent and down by the wood of hazel to where the Cleuch lay huddled in +its nook of hill. It brought him to the door of his own silent +dwelling. As he pushed into the darkness his heart suddenly sank... + +With fumbling hands he kindled a rushlight. The peat fire had long +gone out and left only a heap of white ashes. The gruel by the bed had +been spilled and was lying on the floor. Only the jug of water was +drained to the foot. + +His wife lay so still that he wondered. A red spot burned in each +cheek, and, as he bent down, he could hear her fast breathing. He +flashed the light on her eyes and she slowly opened them. + +"The coo, Sim," she said faintly. "Hae ye brocht the coo?" + +The rushlight dropped on the floor. Now he knew the price of his +riding. He fell into a fit of coughing. + + + + +PLAIN FOLK + + Since flaming angels drove our sire + From Eden's green to walk the mire, + We are the folk who tilled the plot + And ground the grain and boiled the pot. + We hung the garden terraces + That pleasured Queen Semiramis. + Our toil it was and burdened brain + That set the Pyramids o'er the plain. + We marched from Egypt at God's call + And drilled the ranks and fed them all; + But never Eschol's wine drank we,-- + Our bones lay 'twixt the sand and sea. + We officered the brazen bands + That rode the far and desert lands; + We bore the Roman eagles forth + And made great roads from south to north; + White cities flowered for holidays, + But we, forgot, died far away. + And when the Lord called folk to Him, + And some sat blissful at His feet, + Ours was the task the bowl to brim, + For on this earth even saints must eat. + The serfs have little need to think, + Only to work and sleep and drink; + A rover's life is boyish play, + For when cares press he rides away; + The king sits on his ruby throne, + And calls the whole wide world his own. + But we, the plain folk, noon and night + No surcease of our toil we see; + We cannot ease our cares by flight, + For Fortune holds our loves in fee. + We are not slaves to sell our wills, + We are not kings to ride the hills, + But patient men who jog and dance + In the dull wake of circumstance; + Loving our little patch of sun, + Too weak our homely dues to shun, + Too nice of conscience, or too free, + To prate of rights--if rights there be. + + The Scriptures tell us that the meek + The earth shall have to work their will; + It may be they shall find who seek, + When they have topped the last long hill. + Meantime we serve among the dust + For at the best a broken crust, + A word of praise, and now and then + The joy of turning home again. + But freemen still we fall or stand, + We serve because our hearts command. + Though kings may boast and knights cavort, + We broke the spears at Agincourt. + When odds were wild and hopes were down, + We died in droves by Leipsic town. + Never a field was starkly won + But ours the dead that faced the sun. + The slave will fight because he must, + The rover for his ire and lust, + The king to pass an idle hour + Or feast his fatted heart with power; + But we, because we choose, we choose, + Nothing to gain and much to lose, + Holding it happier far to die + Than falter in our decency. + + The serfs may know an hour of pride + When the high flames of tumult ride. + The rover has his days of ease + When he has sacked his palaces. + A king may live a year like God + When prostrate peoples drape the sod. + We ask for little,-leave to tend + Our modest fields: at daylight's end + The fires of home: a wife's caress: + The star of children's happiness. + Vain hope! 'Tis ours for ever and aye + To do the job the slaves have marred, + To clear the wreckage of the fray, + And please our kings by working hard. + Daily we mend their blunderings, + Swachbucklers, demagogues, and kings! + + What if we rose?--If some fine morn, + Unnumbered as the autumn corn, + With all the brains and all the skill + Of stubborn back and steadfast will, + We rose and, with the guns in train, + Proposed to deal the cards again, + And, tired of sitting up o' nights, + Gave notice to our parasites, + Announcing that in future they + Who paid the piper should call the lay! + Then crowns would tumble down like nuts, + And wastrels hide in water-butts; + Each lamp-post as an epilogue: + Would hold a pendent demagogue: + Then would the world be for the wise!-- + + . . . . . . . . . . . . . + + But ah! the plain folk never rise. + + + + +VIII + +THE KINGS OF ORION + + "An ape and a lion lie side by side in the heart of a man." + --PERSIAN PROVERB + + +Spring-fishing in the North is a cold game for a man whose blood has +become thin in gentler climates. All afternoon I had failed to stir a +fish, and the wan streams of the Laver, swirling between bare grey +banks, were as icy to the eye as the sharp gusts of hail from the +north-east were to the fingers. I cast mechanically till I grew weary, +and then with an empty creel and a villainous temper set myself to +trudge the two miles of bent to the inn. Some distant ridges of hill +stood out snow-clad against the dun sky, and half in anger, half in +dismal satisfaction, I told myself that fishing to-morrow would be as +barren as to-day. + +At the inn door a tall man was stamping his feet and watching a servant +lifting rodcases from a dog-cart. Hooded and wrapped though he was, my +friend Thirlstone was an unmistakable figure in any landscape. The +long, haggard, brown face, with the skin drawn tightly over the +cheek-bones, the keen blue eyes finely wrinkled round the corners with +staring at many suns, the scar which gave his mouth a humorous droop to +the right, made up a whole which was not easily forgotten. I had last +seen him on the quay at Funchal bargaining with some rascally boatman +to take him after mythical wild goats in Las Desertas. Before that we +had met at an embassy ball in Vienna, and still earlier at a +hill-station in Persia to which I had been sent post-haste by an +anxious and embarrassed Government. Also I had been at school with +him, in those far-away days when we rode nine stone and dreamed of +cricket averages. He was a soldier of note, who had taken part in two +little wars and one big one; had himself conducted a political mission +through a hard country with some success, and was habitually chosen by +his superiors to keep his eyes open as a foreign attache in our +neighbours' wars. But his fame as a hunter had gone abroad into places +where even the name of the British army is unknown. He was the +hungriest shikari I have ever seen, and I have seen many. If you are +wise you will go forthwith to some library and procure a little book +entitled "Three Hunting Expeditions," by A.W.T. It is a modest work, +and the style is that of a leading article, but all the lore and +passion of the Red Gods are in its pages. + +The sitting-room at the inn is a place of comfort, and while Thirlstone +warmed his long back at the fire I sank contentedly into one of the +well-rubbed leather arm-chairs. The company of a friend made the +weather and scarcity of salmon less the intolerable grievance they had +seemed an hour ago than a joke to be laughed at. The landlord came in +with whisky, and banked up the peats till they glowed beneath a pall of +blue smoke. + +"I hope to goodness we are alone," said Thirlstone, and he turned to +the retreating landlord and asked the question. + +"There's naebody bidin' the nicht forbye yoursels," he said, "but the +morn there's a gentleman comin'. I got a letter frae him the day. +Maister Wiston, they ca him. Maybe ye ken him?" + +I started at the name, which I knew very well. Thirlstone, who knew it +better, stopped warming himself and walked to the window, where he +stood pulling his moustache and staring at the snow. When the man had +left the room, he turned to me with the face of one whose mind is made +up on a course but uncertain of the best method. + +"Do you know this sort of weather looks infernally unpromising? I've +half a mind to chuck it and go back to town." + +I gave him no encouragement, finding amusement in his difficulties. +"Oh, it's not so bad," I said, "and it won't last. To-morrow we may +have the day of our lives." + +He was silent for a little, staring at the fire. "Anyhow," he said at +last, "we were fools to be so far up the valley. Why shouldn't we go +down to the Forest Lodge? They'll take us in, and we should be +deucedly comfortable, and the water's better." + +"There's not a pool on the river to touch the stretch here," I said. +"I know, for I've fished every inch of it." + +He had no reply to this, so he lit a pipe and held his peace for a +time. Then, with some embarrassment but the air of having made a +discovery, he announced that his conscience was troubling him about his +work, and he thought he ought to get back to it at once. "There are +several things I have forgotten to see to, and they're rather +important. I feel a beast behaving like this, but you won't mind, will +you?" + +"My dear Thirlstone," I said, "what is the good of hedging? Why can't +you say you won't meet Wiston!" + +His face cleared. "Well, that's the fact--I won't. It would be too +infernally unpleasant. You see, I was once by way of being his friend, +and he was in my regiment. I couldn't do it." + +The landlord came in at the moment with a basket of peats. "How long +is Capt.--Mr. Wiston staying here?" I asked. + +"He's no bidin' ony time. He's just comin' here in the middle o' the +day for his denner, and then drivin' up the water to Altbreac. He has +the fishin' there." + +Thirlstone's face showed profound relief. "Thank God!" I heard him +mutter under his breath, and when the landlord had gone he fell to +talking of salmon with enthusiasm. "We must make a big day of it +to-morrow, dark to dark, you know. Thank Heaven, our beat's +down-stream, too." And thereafter he made frequent excursions to the +door, and bulletins on the weather were issued regularly. + +Dinner over, we drew our chairs to the hearth, and fell to talk and the +slow consumption of tobacco. When two men from the ends of the earth +meet by a winter fire, their thoughts are certain to drift overseas. +We spoke of the racing tides off Vancouver, and the lonely pine-clad +ridges running up to the snow-peaks of the Selkirks, to which we had +both travelled once upon a time in search of sport. Thirlstone on his +own account had gone wandering to Alaska, and brought back some +bear-skins and a frost-bitten toe as trophies, and from his tales had +consorted with the finest band of rogues which survives unhanged on +this planet. Then some casual word took our thoughts to the south, and +our memories dallied with Africa. Thirlstone had hunted in Somaliland +and done mighty slaughter; while I had spent some never-to-be forgotten +weeks long ago in the hinterland of Zanzibar, in the days before +railways and game-preserves. I have gone through life with a keen eye +for the discovery of earthly paradises, to which I intend to retire +when my work is over, and the fairest I thought I had found above the +Rift valley, where you had a hundred miles of blue horizon and the +weather of Scotland. Thirlstone, not having been there, naturally +differed, and urged the claim of a certain glen in Kashmir, where you +may hunt two varieties of bear and three of buck in thickets of +rhododendron, and see the mightiest mountain-wall on earth from your +tent door. The mention of the Indian frontier brought us back to our +professions, and for a little we talked "shop" with the unblushing +confidence of those who know each other's work and approve it. As a +very young soldier Thirlstone had gone shooting in the Pamirs, and had +blundered into a Russian party of exploration which contained +Kuropatkin. He had in consequence grossly outstayed his leave, having +been detained for a fortnight by an arbitrary hospitality; but he had +learned many things, and the experience had given him strong views on +frontier questions. Half an hour was devoted to a masterly survey of +the East, until a word pulled us up. + +"I went there in '99" Thirlstone was saying,--"the time Wiston and I +were sent--" and then he stopped, and his eager face clouded. Wiston's +name cast a shadow over our reminiscences. + +"What did he actually do?" I asked after a short silence. + +"Pretty bad! He seemed a commonplace, good sort of fellow, popular, +fairly competent, a little bad-tempered perhaps. And then suddenly he +did something so extremely blackguardly that everything was at an end. +It's no good repeating details, and I hate to think about it. We know +little about our neighbours, and I'm not so sure that we know much +about ourselves. There may be appalling depths of iniquity in every +one of us, only most people are fortunate enough to go through the +world without meeting anything to wake the devil in them. I don't +believe Wiston was bad in the ordinary sense. Only there was something +else in him--somebody else, if you like--and in a moment it came +uppermost, and he was a branded man. Ugh! it's a gruesome thought." +Thirlstone had let his pipe go out, and was staring moodily into the +fire. + +"How do you explain things like that?" he asked. "I have an idea of my +own about them. We talk glibly of ourselves and our personality and +our conscience, as if every man's nature were a smooth, round, white +thing, like a chuckie-stone. But I believe there are two men--perhaps +more-in every one of us. There's our ordinary self, generally rather +humdrum; and then there's a bit of something else, good, bad, but never +indifferent,--and it is that something else which may make a man a +saint or a great villain." + +"'The Kings of Orion have come to earth,'" I quoted. + +Something in the words struck Thirlstone, and he asked me what was the +yarn I spoke of. + +"It's an old legend," I explained. "When the kings were driven out of +Orion, they were sent to this planet and given each his habitation in +some mortal soul. There were differences of character in that royal +family, and so the alter ego which dwells alongside of us may be +virtuous or very much the reverse. But the point is that he is always +greater than ourselves, for he has been a king. It's a foolish story, +but very widely believed. There is something of the sort in Celtic +folk-lore, and there's a reference to it in Ausonius. Also the bandits +in the Bakhtiari have a version of it in a very excellent ballad." + +"Kings of Orion," said Thirlstone musingly. "I like that idea. Good +or bad, but always great! After all, we show a kind of belief in it in +our daily practice. Every man is always making fancies about himself; +but it is never his workaday self, but something else. The bank clerk +who pictures himself as a financial Napoleon knows that his own thin +little soul is incapable of it; but he knows, too, that it is possible +enough for that other bigger thing which is not his soul, but yet in +some odd way is bound up with it. I fancy myself a field-marshal in a +European war; but I know perfectly well that if the job were offered +me, I should realise my incompetence and decline. I expect you rather +picture yourself now and then as a sort of Julius Caesar and +empire-maker, and yet, with all respect, my dear chap, I think it would +be rather too much for you." + +"There was once a man," I said, "an early Victorian Whig, whose chief +ambitions were to reform the criminal law and abolish slavery. Well, +this dull, estimable man in his leisure moments was Emperor of +Byzantium. He fought great wars and built palaces, and then, when the +time for fancy was past, went into the House of Commons and railed +against militarism and Tory extravagance. That particular king from +Orion had a rather odd sort of earthly tenement." + +Thirlstone was all interest. "A philosophic Whig and the throne of +Byzantium. A pretty rum mixture! And yet--yet," and his eyes became +abstracted. "Did you ever know Tommy Lacelles?" + +"The man who once governed Deira? Retired now, and lives somewhere in +Kent. Yes, I've met him once or twice. But why?" + +"Because," said Thirlstone solemnly, "unless I'm greatly mistaken, +Tommy was another such case, though no man ever guessed it except +myself. I don't mind telling you the story, now that he is retired and +vegetating in his ancestral pastures. Besides, the facts are all in +his favour, and the explanation is our own business.... + +"His wife was my cousin, and when she died Tommy was left a very +withered, disconsolate man, with no particular object in life. We all +thought he would give up the service, for he was hideously well off and +then one fine day, to our amazement, he was offered Deira, and accepted +it. I was short of a job at the time, for my battalion was at home, +and there was nothing going on anywhere, so I thought I should like to +see what the East Coast of Africa was like, and wrote to Tommy about +it. He jumped at me, cabled offering me what he called his Military +Secretaryship, and I got seconded, and set off. I had never known him +very well, but what I had seen I had liked; and I suppose he was glad +to have one of Maggie's family with him, for he was still very low +about her loss. I was in pretty good spirits, for it meant new +experiences, and I had hopes of big game. + +"You've never been to Deira? Well, there's no good trying to describe +it, for it's the only place in the world like itself. God made it and +left it to its own devices. The town is pretty enough, with its palms +and green headland, and little scrubby islands in the river's mouth. +It has the usual half-Arab, half-Portugee look-white green-shuttered +houses, flat roofs, sallow little men in duck, and every type of nigger +from the Somali to the Shangaan. There are some good buildings, and +Government House was the mansion of some old Portugee seigneur, and was +built when people in Africa were not in such a hurry as to-day. Inland +there's a rolling, forest country, beginning with decent trees and +ending in mimosa-thorn, when the land begins to rise to the stony hills +of the interior; and that poisonous yellow river rolls through it all, +with a denser native population along its banks than you will find +anywhere else north of the Zambesi. For about two months in the year +the climate is Paradise, and for the rest you live in a Turkish bath, +with every known kind of fever hanging about. We cleaned out the town +and improved the sanitation, so there were few epidemics, but there was +enough ordinary malaria to sicken a crocodile. + +"The place was no special use to us. It had been annexed in spite of a +tremendous Radical outcry, and, upon my soul, it was one of the few +cases where the Radicals had something to say for themselves. All we +got by it was half a dozen of the nastiest problems an unfortunate +governor can have to face. Ten years before it had been a decaying +strip of coast, with a few trading firms in the town, and a small +export of ivory and timber. But some years before Tommy took it up +there had been a huge discovery of copper in the hills inland, a +railway had been built, and there were several biggish mining +settlements at the end of it. Deira itself was filled with offices of +European firms, it had got a Stock Exchange of its own, and it was +becoming the usual cosmopolitan playground. It had a knack, too, of +getting the very worst breed of adventurer. I know something of your +South African and Australian mining town, and with all their faults +they are run by white men. If they haven't much morals, they have a +kind of decency which keeps them fairly straight. But for our sins we +got a brand of Levantine Jew, who was fit for nothing but making money +and making trouble. They were always defying the law, and then, when +they got into a hole, they squealed to Government for help, and started +a racket in the home papers about the weakness of the Imperial power. +The crux of the whole difficulty was the natives, who lived along the +river and in the foothills. They were a hardy race of Kaffirs, sort of +far-away cousins to the Zulu, and till the mines were opened they had +behaved well enough. They had arms, which we had never dared to take +away, but they kept quiet and paid their hut-taxes like men. I got to +know many of the chiefs, and liked them, for they were upstanding +fellows to look at and heavenborn shikaris. However, when the Jews +came along they wanted labour, and, since we did not see our way to +allow them to add to the imported coolie population, they had to fall +back upon the Labonga. At first things went smoothly. The chiefs were +willing to let their men work for good wages, and for a time there was +enough labour for everybody. But as the mines extended, and the +natives, after making a few pounds, wanted to get back to their kraals, +there came a shortage; and since the work could not be allowed to +slacken, the owners tried other methods. They made promises which they +never intended to keep, and they stood on the letter of a law which the +natives did not understand, and they employed touts who were little +better than slave-dealers. They got the labour, of course, but soon +they had put the Labonga into a state of unrest which a very little +would turn into a rising. + +"Into this kettle of fish Tommy was pitchforked, and when I arrived he +was just beginning to understand how unpleasant it was. As I said +before, I did not know him very well, and I was amazed to find how bad +he was at his job. A more curiously incompetent person I never met. +He was a long, thin man, with a grizzled moustache and a mild sleepy +eye-not an impressive figure, except on a horse; and he had an odd lisp +which made even a shrewd remark sound foolish. He was the most +industrious creature in the world, and a model of official decorum. +His papers were always in order, his despatches always neat and +correct, and I don't believe any one ever caught him tripping in office +work. But he had no more conception than a child of the kind of +trouble that was brewing. He knew never an honest man from a rogue, +and the result was that he received all unofficial communications with +a polite disbelief. I used to force him to see people--miners, +prospectors, traders, any one who had something to say worth listening +to, but it all glided smoothly off his mind. He was simply the most +incompetent being ever created, living in the world as not being of it, +or rather creating a little official world of his own, where all events +happened on lines laid down by the Colonial Office, and men were like +papers, to be rolled into packets and properly docketed. He had an +Executive Council of people like himself, competent officials and blind +bats at anything else. Then there was a precious Legislative Council, +intended to represent the different classes of the population. There +were several good men on it--one old trader called Mackay, for instance, +who had been thirty years in the country-but most were nominees of the +mining firms, and very seedy rascals at that. They were always talking +about the rights of the white man, and demanding popular control of the +Government, and similar twaddle. The leader was a man who hailed from +Hamburg, and called himself Le Foy--descended from a Crusader of the +name of Levi--who was a jackal of one of the chief copper firms. He +overflowed with Imperialist sentiment, and when he wasn't waving the +flag he used to gush about the beauties of English country life the +grandeur of the English tradition. He hated me from the start, for +when he talked of going 'home' I thought he meant Hamburg, and said so; +and then a thing happened which made him hate me worse. He was +infernally rude to Tommy, who, like the dear sheep he was, never saw +it, and, if he had, wouldn't have minded. But one day I chanced to +overhear some of his impertinences, so I hunted out my biggest sjambok +and lay in wait for Mr. Le Foy. I told him that he was a +representative of the sovereign people, that I was a member of an +effete bureaucracy, and that it would be most painful if unpleasantness +arose between us. But, I added, I was prepared, if necessary, to +sacrifice my official career to my private feelings, and if he dared to +use such language again to his Majesty's representative I would give +him a hiding he would remember till he found himself in Abraham's +bosom. Not liking my sjambok, he became soap and butter at once, and +held his tongue for a month or two. + +"But though Tommy was no good at his job, he was a tremendous swell at +other things. He was an uncommonly good linguist, and had always about +a dozen hobbies which he slaved at; and when he found himself at Deira +with a good deal of leisure, he became a bigger crank than ever. He +had a lot of books which used to follow him about the world in +zinc-lined boxes--your big paper-backed German books which mean +research,--and he was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and corresponded +with half a dozen foreign shows. India was his great subject, but he +had been in the Sudan and knew a good deal about African races. When I +went out to him, his pet hobby was the Bantu, and he had acquired an +amazing amount of miscellaneous learning. He knew all about their +immigration from the North, and the Arab and Phoenician trade-routes, +and the Portuguese occupation, and the rest of the history of that +unpromising seaboard. The way he behaved in his researches showed the +man. He worked hard at the Labonga language--which, I believe, is a +linguistic curiosity of the first water-from missionary books and the +conversation of tame Kaffirs. But he never thought of paying them a +visit in their native haunts. I was constantly begging him to do it, +but it was not Tommy's way. He did not care a straw about political +experience, and he liked to look at things through the medium of paper +and ink. Then there were the Phoenician remains in the foot-hills +where the copper was mined-old workings, and things which might have +been forts or temples. He knew all that was to be known about them, +but he had never seen them and never wanted to. Once only he went to +the hills, to open some new reservoirs and make the ordinary Governor's +speech; but he went in a special train and stayed two hours, most of +which was spent in lunching and being played to by brass bands. + +"But, oddly enough, there was one thing which stirred him with an +interest that was not academic. I discovered it by accident one day +when I went into his study and found him struggling with a map of +Central Asia. Instead of the mild, benevolent smile with which he +usually greeted my interruptions, he looked positively furtive, and, I +could have sworn, tried to shuffle the map under some papers. Now it +happens that Central Asia is the part of the globe that I know better +than most men, and I could not help picking up the map and looking at +it. It was a wretched thing, and had got the Oxus two hundred miles +out of its course. I pointed this out to Tommy, and to my amazement he +became quite excited. 'Nonsense,' he said. 'You don't mean to say it +goes south of that desert. Why, I meant to--,' and then he stammered +and stopped. I wondered what on earth he had meant to do, but I merely +observed that I had been there, and knew. That brought Tommy out of +his chair in real excitement. 'What!' he cried, 'you! You never told +me,' and he started to fire off a round of questions, which showed that +if he knew very little about the place, he had it a good deal in his +mind." + +I drew some sketch-plans for him, and left him brooding over them. + +"That was the first hint I got. The second was a few nights later, +when we were smoking in the billiard-room. I had been reading Marco +Polo, and the talk got on to Persia and drifted all over the north side +of the Himalaya. Tommy, with an abstracted eye, talked of Alexander +and Timour and Genghis Khan, and particularly of Prester John, who was +a character and took his fancy. I had told him that the natives in the +Pamirs were true Persian stock, and this interested him greatly. 'Why +was there never a great state built up in those valleys?' he asked. +'You get nothing but a few wild conquerors rushing east and west, and +then some squalid khanates. And yet all the materials were there--the +stuff for a strong race, a rich land, the traditions of an old +civilisation, and natural barriers against all invasion.' + +"'I suppose they never found the man,' I said. + +"He agreed. 'Their princes were sots, or they were barbarians of +genius who could devastate to the gates of Peking or Constantinople, +but could never build. They did not recognise their limits, and so +they went out in a whirlwind. But if there had been a man of solid +genius he might have built up the strongest nation on the globe. In +time he could have annexed Persia and nibbled at China. He would have +been rich, for he could tap all the inland trade-routes of Asia. He +would have had to be a conqueror, for his people would be a race of +warriors, but first and foremost he must have been a statesman. Think +of such a civilisation, THE Asian civilisation, growing up mysteriously +behind the deserts and the ranges! That's my idea of Prester John. +Russia would have been confined to the line of the Urals. China would +have been absorbed. There would have been no Japan. The whole history +of the world for the last few hundred years would have been different. +It is the greatest of all the lost chances in history.' Tommy waxed +pathetic over the loss. + +"I was a little surprised at his eloquence, especially when he seemed +to remember himself and stopped all of a sudden. But for the next week +I got no peace with his questions. I told him all I knew of Bokhara, +and Samarkand, and Tashkend, and Yarkand. I showed him the passes in +the Pamirs and the Hindu Kush. I traced out the rivers, and I +calculated distances; we talked over imaginary campaigns, and set up +fanciful constitutions. It a was childish game, but I found it +interesting enough. He spoke of it all with a curious personal tone +which puzzled me, till one day when we were amusing ourselves with a +fight on the Zarafshan, and I put in a modest claim to be allowed to +win once in a while. For a second he looked at me in blank surprise. +'You can't,' he said; 'I've got to enter Samarkand before I can...' +and he stopped again, with a glimmering sense in his face that he was +giving himself away. And then I knew that I had surprised Tommy's +secret. While he was muddling his own job, he was salving his pride +with fancies of some wild career in Asia, where Tommy, disguised as the +lord knows what Mussulman grandee, was hammering the little states into +an empire. + +"I did not think then as I think now, and I was amused to find so odd a +trait in a dull man. I had known something of the kind before. I had +met fellows who after their tenth peg would begin to swagger about some +ridiculous fancy of their own--their little private corner of soul +showing for a moment when the drink had blown aside their common-sense. +Now, I had never known the thing appear in cold blood and everyday +life, but I assumed the case to be the same. I thought of it only as a +harmless fancy, never imagining that it had anything to do with +character. I put it down to that kindly imagination which is the old +opiate for failures. So I played up to Tommy with all my might, and +though he became very discreet after the first betrayal, having hit +upon the clue, I knew what to look for, and I found it. When I told +him that the Labonga were in a devil of a mess, he would look at me +with an empty face and change the subject; but once among the Turcomans +his eye would kindle, and he would slave at his confounded folly with +sufficient energy to reform the whole East Coast. It was the spark +that kept the man alive. Otherwise he would have been as limp as a +rag, but this craziness put life into him, and made him carry his head +in the air and walk like a free man. I remember he was very keen about +any kind of martial poetry. He used to go about crooning Scott and +Macaulay to himself, and when we went for a walk or a ride he wouldn't +speak for miles, but keep smiling to himself and humming bits of songs. +I daresay he was very happy,--far happier than your stolid, competent +man, who sees only the one thing to do and does it. Tommy was muddling +his particular duty, but building glorious palaces in the air. + +"One day Mackay, the old trader, came to me after a sitting of the +precious Legislative Council. We were very friendly, and I had done +all I could to get the Government to listen to his views. He was a +dour, ill-tempered Scotsman, very anxious for the safety of his +property, but perfectly careless about any danger to himself. + +"'Captain Thirlstone,' he said, 'that Governor of yours is a damned +fool.' + +"Of course I shut him up very brusquely, but he paid no attention. 'He +just sits and grins, and lets yon Pentecostal crowd we've gotten here +as a judgment for our sins do what they like wi' him. God kens what'll +happen. I would go home to-morrow, if I could realise without an +immoderate loss. For the day of reckoning is at hand. Maark my words, +Captain--at hand.' + +"I said I agreed with him about the approach of trouble, but that the +Governor would rise to the occasion. I told him that people like Tommy +were only seen at their best in a crisis, and that he might be +perfectly confident that when it arrived he would get a new idea of the +man. I said this, but of course I did not believe a word of it. I +thought Tommy was only a dreamer, who had rotted any grit he ever +possessed by his mental opiates. At that time I did not understand +about the kings from Orion. + +"And then came the thing we had all been waiting for--a Labonga rising. +A week before I had got leave and had gone up country, partly to shoot, +but mainly to see for myself what trouble was brewing. I kept away +from the river, and therefore missed the main native centres, but such +kraals as I passed had a look I did not like. The chiefs were almost +always invisible, and the young bloods were swaggering about and +bukking to each other, while the women were grinding maize as if for +some big festival. However, after a bit the country seemed to grow +more normal, and I went into the foothills to shoot, fairly easy in my +mind. I had got up to a place called Shimonwe, on the Pathi river, +where I had ordered letters to be sent, and one night coming in from a +hard day after kudu I found a post-runner half-dead of fatigue with a +chit from Utterson, who commanded a police district twenty miles nearer +the coast. It said simply that all the young men round about him had +cleared out and appeared to be moving towards Deira, that he was in the +devil of a quandary, and that, since the police were under the +Governor, he would take his orders from me. + +"It looked as if the heather were fairly on fire at last, so I set off +early next morning to trek back. About midday I met Utterson, a very +badly scared little man, who had come to look for me. It seemed that +his policemen had bolted in the night and gone to join the rising, +leaving him with two white sergeants, barely fifty rounds of +ammunition, and no neighbour for a hundred miles. He said that the +Labonga chiefs were not marching to the coast, as he had thought, but +north along the eastern foothills in the direction of the mines. This +was better news, for it meant that in all probability the railway would +remain open. It was my business to get somehow to my chief, and I was +in the deuce of a stew how to manage it. It was no good following the +line of the natives' march, for they would have been between me and my +goal, and the only way was to try and outflank them by going due east, +in the Deira direction, and then turning north, so as to strike the +railway about half-way to the mines. I told Utterson we had better +scatter, otherwise we should have no chance of getting through a +densely populated native country. So, about five in the afternoon I +set off with my chief shikari, who, by good luck, was not a Labonga, +and dived into the jungly bush which skirts the hills. + +"For three days I had a baddish time. We steered by the stars, +travelling chiefly by night, and we showed extraordinary skill in +missing the water-holes. I had a touch of fever and got light-headed, +and it was all I could do to struggle through the thick grass and +wait-a-bit thorns. My clothes were torn to rags, and I grew so +footsore that it was agony to move. All the same we travelled fast, +and there was no chance of our missing the road, for any route due +north was bound to cut the railway. I had the most sickening +uncertainty about what was to come next. Hely, who was in command at +Deira, was a good enough man, but he had only three companies of white +troops, and the black troops were as likely as not to be on their way +to the rebels. It looked as if we should have a Cawnpore business on a +small scale, though I thanked Heaven there were no women in the case. +As for Tommy, he would probably be repeating platitudes in Deira and +composing an intelligent despatch on the whole subject. + +"About four in the afternoon of the third day I struck the line near a +little station called Palala. I saw by the look of the rails that +trains were still running, and my hopes revived. At Palala there was a +coolie stationmaster, who gave me a drink and a little food, after +which I slept heavily in his office till wakened by the arrival of an +up train. It contained one of the white companies and a man Davidson, +of the 101st, who was Hely's second in command. From him I had news +that took away my breath. The Governor had gone up the line two days +before with an A.D.C. and old Mackay. 'The sportsman has got a move +on him at last,' said Davidson, 'but what he means to do Heaven only +knows. The Labonga are at the mines, and a kind of mine-guard has been +formed for defence. The joke of it is that most of the magnates are +treed up there, for the railway is cut and they can't get away. I +don't envy your chief the job of schooling that nervous crowd.' + +"I went on with Davidson, and very early next morning we came to a +broken culvert and had to stop. There we stuck for three hours till +the down train arrived, and with it Hely. He was for ordinary a stolid +soul, but I never saw a man in such a fever of excitement. He gripped +me by the arm and fairly shook me. 'That old man of yours is a hero,' +he cried. 'The Lord forgive me! and I have always crabbed him.' + +"I implored him in Heaven's name to tell me what was up, but he would +say nothing till he had had his pow-pow with Davidson. It seemed that +he was bringing all his white troops up the line for some great +demonstration that Tommy had conceived. Davidson went back to Deira, +while we mended the culvert and got the men transferred to the other +train. Then I screwed the truth out of Hely. Tommy had got up to the +mines before the rebels arrived, and had found as fine a chaos as can +be imagined. He did not seem to have had any doubts what to do. There +was a certain number of white workmen, hard fellows from Cornwall +mostly, with a few Australians, and these he got together with Mackay's +help and organised into a pretty useful corps. He set them to guard +the offices, and gave them strict orders to shoot at sight any one +attempting to leave. Then he collected the bosses and talked to them +like a father. What he said Hely did not know, except that he had +damned their eyes pretty heartily, and told them what a set of swine +they were, making trouble which they had not the pluck to face. +Whether from Mackay, or from his own intelligence, or from a memory of +my neglected warnings, he seemed to have got a tight grip on the facts +at last. Meanwhile, the Labonga were at the doors, chanting their +battle-songs half a mile away, and shots were heard from the far +pickets. If they had tried to rush the place then, all would have been +over, but, luckily, that was never their way of fighting. They sat +down in camp to make their sacrifices and consult their witch-doctors, +and presently Hely arrived with the first troops, having come in on the +northern flank when he found the line cut. He had been in time to hear +the tail-end of Tommy's final address to the mineowners. He told them, +in words which Hely said he could never have imagined coming from his +lips, that they would be well served if the Labonga cleaned the whole +place out. Only, he said, that would be against the will of Britain, +and it was his business, as a loyal servant, to prevent it. Then, +after giving Hely his instructions, he had put on his uniform, gold +lace and all, and every scrap of bunting he possessed--all the orders +and 'Golden Stars' of half a dozen Oriental States where he had served. +He made Ashurst, the A.D.C., put on his best Hussar's kit, and Mackay +rigged himself out in a frock-coat and a topper; and the three set out +on horseback for the Labonga. 'I believe he'll bring it off, said +Hely, with wild eyes, 'and, by Heaven, if he does, it'll be the best +thing since John Nicholson!' + +"For the rest of the way I sat hugging myself with excitement. The +miracle of miracles seemed to have come. The old, slack, incompetent +soul in Tommy seemed to have been driven out by that other spirit, +which had hitherto been content to dream of crazy victories on the +Oxus. I cursed my folly in having missed it all, for I would have +given my right hand to be with him among the Labonga. I envied that +young fool Ashurst his luck in being present at that queer +transformation scene. I had not a doubt that Tommy would bring it off +all right. The kings from Orion don't go into action without coming +out on top. As we got near the mines I kept my ears open for the sound +of shots; but all was still,--not even the kind of hubbub a native +force makes when it is on the move. Something had happened, but what +it was no man could guess. When we got to where the line was up, we +made very good time over the five miles to the mines. No one +interfered with us, and the nearer we got the greater grew my +certainty. Soon we were at the pickets, who had nothing to tell us; +and then we were racing up the long sandy street to the offices, and +there, sitting smoking on the doorstep of the hotel, surrounded by +everybody who was not on duty, were Mackay and Ashurst. + +"They were an odd pair. Ashurst still wore his uniform; but he seemed +to have been rolling about in it on the ground; his sleek hair was +wildly ruffled, and he was poking holes in the dust with his sword. +Mackay had lost his topper, and wore a disreputable cap, his ancient +frock-coat was without buttons, and his tie had worked itself up behind +his ears. They talked excitedly to each other, now and then +vouchsafing a scrap of information to an equally excited audience. +When they saw me they rose and rushed for me, and dragged me between +them up the street, while the crowd tailed at our heels. + +"'Ye're a true prophet, Captain Thirlstone,' Mackay began, 'and I ask +your pardon for doubting you. Ye said the Governor only needed a +crisis to behave like a man. Well, the crisis has come; and if there's +a man alive in this sinful world, it's that chief o' yours. And then +his emotion overcame him, and, hard-bitten devil as he was, he sat down +on the ground and gasped with hysterical laughter, while Ashurst, with +a very red face, kept putting the wrong end of a cigarette in his mouth +and swearing profanely. + +"I never remember a madder sight. There was the brassy blue sky and +reddish granite rock and acres of thick red dust. The scrub had that +metallic greenness which you find in all copper places. Pretty +unwholesome it looked, and the crowd, which had got round us again, was +more unwholesome still. Fat Jew boys, with diamond rings on dirty +fingers and greasy linen cuffs, kept staring at us with twitching lips; +and one or two smarter fellows in riding-breeches, mine-managers and +suchlike, tried to show their pluck by nervous jokes. And in the +middle was Mackay, with his damaged frocker, drawling out his story in +broad Scots. + +"'He made this laddie put on his braws, and he commandeered this +iniquitous garment for me. I've raxed its seams, and it'll never look +again on the man that owns it. Syne he arrayed himself in purple and +fine linen till he as like the king's daughter, all glorious without; +and says he to me, "Mackay," he says, "we'll go and talk to these +uncovenanted deevils in their own tongue. We'll visit them at home, +Mackay," he says. "They're none such bad fellows, but they want a +little humouring from men like you and me." So we got on our horses +and started the procession--the Governor with his head in the air, and +the laddie endenvouring to look calm and collected, and me praying to +the God of Israel and trying to keep my breeks from working up above my +knees. I've been in Kaffir wars afore, but I never thought I would +ride without weapon of any kind into such a black Armageddon. I am a +peaceable man for ordinar', and a canny one, but I wasna myself in that +hour. Man, Thirlstone, I was that overcome by the spirit of your +chief, that if he had bidden me gang alone on the same errand, I +wouldna say but what I would have gone. + +"'We hadna ridden half a mile before we saw the indunas and their men, +ten thousand if there was one, and terrible as an army with banners. I +speak feeguratively, for they hadna the scrap of a flag among them. +They were beating the war-drums, and the young men were dancing with +their big skin shields and wagging their ostrich feathers, so I saw +they were out for business. I'll no' say but what my blood ran cold, +but the Governor's eye got brighter and his back stiffer. "Kings may +be blest," I says to myself, "but thou art glorious." + +"'We rode straight for the centre of the crowd, where the young men +were thickest and the big war-drums lay. As soon as they saw us a +dozen lifted their spears and ran out to meet us. But they stopped +after six steps. The sun glinted on the Governor's gold lace and my +lum hat, and no doubt they thought we were heathen deities descended +from the heavens. Down they went on their faces, and then back like +rabbits to the rest, while the drums stopped, and the whole body +awaited our coming in a silence like the tomb. + +"'Never a word we spoke, but just jogged on with our chins cocked up +till we were forenent the big drum, where yon old scoundrel Umgazi was +standing with his young men looking as black as sin. For a moment +their spears were shaking in their hands, and I heard the click of a +breech-bolt. If we had winked an eye we would have become pincushions +that instant. But some unearthly power upheld us. Even the laddie +kept a stiff face, and for me I forgot my breeks in watching the +Governor. He looked as solemn as an archangel, and comes to a halt +opposite Umgazi, where he glowers at the old man for maybe three +minutes, while we formed up behind him. Their eyes fell before his, +and by-and-by their spears dropped to their sides. "The father has +come to his children," says he in their own tongue. "What do the +children seek from their father? + +"'Ye see the cleverness of the thing. The man's past folly came to +help him. The natives had never seen the Governor before till they +beheld him in gold lace and a cocked hat on a muckle horse, speaking +their own tongue and looking like a destroying angel. I tell you the +Labonga's knees were loosed under them. They durstna speak a word +until the Governor repeated the question in the same quiet, steely +voice. "You seek something," he said, "else you had not come out to +meet me in your numbers. The father waits to hear the children's +desires." + +"'Then Umgazi found his tongue and began an uneasy speech. The mines, +he said, truly enough, were the abode of devils, who compelled the +people to work under the ground. The crops were unreaped and the buck +went unspeared, because there were no young men left to him. Their +father had been away or asleep, they thought, for no help had come from +him; therefore it had seemed good to them, being freemen and warriors, +to seek help for themselves. + +"'The Governor listened to it all with a set face. Then he smiled at +them with supernatural assurance. They were fools, he said, and people +of little wit, and he flung the better part of the Book of Job at their +heads. The Lord kens where the man got his uncanny knowledge of the +Labonga. He had all their heathen customs by heart, and he played with +them like a cat with a mouse. He told then they were damned rascals to +make such a stramash, and damned fools to think they could frighten the +white man by their demonstrations. There was no brag about his words, +just a calm statement of fact. At the same time, he said, he had no +mind to let any one wrong his children, and if any wrong had been done +it should be righted. It was not meet, he said, that the young men +should be taken from the villages unless by their own consent, though +it was his desire that such young men as could be spared should have a +chance of earning an honest penny. And then he fired at them some +stuff about the British Empire and the King, and you could sec the +Labonga imbibing it like water. The man in a cocked hat might have +told them that the sky was yellow, and they would have swallowed it. + +"'"I have spoken," he says at last, and there was a great shout from +the young men, and old Umgazi looked pretty foolish. They were coming +round our horses to touch our stirrups with their noses, but the +Governor stopped them. + +"'"My children will pile their weapons in front of me," says he, "to +show me how they have armed themselves, and likewise to prove that +their folly is at an end. All except a dozen," says he, "whom I select +as a bodyguard." And there and then he picked twelve lusty savages for +his guard, while the rest without a cheep stacked their spears and guns +forenent the big drum. + +"'Then he turned to us and spoke in English. "Get back to the mines +hell-for-leather, and tell them what's happening, and see that you get +up some kind of a show for to-morrow at noon. I will bring the chiefs, +and we'll feast them. Get all the bands you can, and let them play me +in. Tell the mines fellows to look active for it's the chance of their +lives. "Then he says to the Labonga, "My men will return he says, "but +as for me I will spend the night with my children. Make ready food, +but let no beer be made, for it is a solemn occasion." + +"'And so we left him. I will not describe how I spent last night +mysel', but I have something to say about this remarkable phenomenon. +I could enlarge on the triumph of mind over matter. .... + +"Mackay did not enlarge. He stopped, cocked his ears, and looked down +the road, from which came the strains of 'Annie Laurie,' played with +much spirit but grievously out of tune. Followed 'The British +Grenadiers,' and then an attempt at 'The March of the Priests.' Mackay +rose in excitement and began to crane his disreputable neck, while the +band--a fine scratch collection of instruments--took up their stand at +the end of the street, flanked by a piper in khaki who performed when +their breath failed. Mackay chuckled with satisfaction. 'The deevils +have entered into the spirit of my instructions,' he said. 'In a wee +bit the place will be like Falkirk Tryst for din. + +"Punctually at twelve there came a great hullabaloo up the road, the +beating of drums and the yelling of natives, and presently the +procession hove in sight. There was Tommy on his horse, and on each +side of him six savages with feather head-dress, and shields and +war-paint complete. After him trooped about thirty of the great +chiefs, walking two by two, for all the world like an Aldershot parade. +They carried no arms, but the bodyguard shook their spears, and let +yells out of them that would have scared Julius Caesar. Then the band +started in, and the piper blew up, and the mines people commenced to +cheer, and I thought the heavens would fall. Long before Tommy came +abreast of me I knew what I should see. His uniform looked as if it +had been slept in, and his orders were all awry. But he had his head +flung back, and his eyes very bright, and his jaw set square. He never +looked to right or left, never recognised me or anybody, for he was +seeing something quite different from the red road and the white +shanties and the hot sky." + +The fire had almost died out. Thirlstone stooped for a moment and +stirred the peats. + +"Yes," he said, "I knew that in his fool's ear the trumpets of all Asia +were ringing, and the King of Bokhara was entering Samarkand." + + + + +BABYLON + +(The Song of NEHEMIAH'S Workmen) + + How many miles to Babylon? + 'Three score and ten. + Can I get there by candle-light? + Yes, and back again. + + We are come back from Babylon, + Out of the plains and the glare, + To the little hills of our own country + And the sting of our kindred air; + To the rickle of stones on the red rock's edge + Which Kedron cleaves like a sword. + We will build the walls of Zion again, + To the glory of Zion's lord. + + Now is no more of dalliance + By the reedy waters in spring, + When we sang of home, and sighed, and dreamed, + And wept on remembering. + Now we are back in our ancient hills + Out of the plains and the sun; + But before we make it a dwelling-place + There's a wonderful lot to be done. + + The walls are to build from west to east, + From Gihon to Olivet, + Waters to lead and wells to clear, + And the garden furrows to set. + From the Sheep Gate to the Fish Gate + Is a welter of mire and mess; + And southward over the common lands + 'Tis a dragon's wilderness. + + The Courts of the Lord are a heap of dust + Where the hill winds whistle and race, + And the noble pillars of God His House + Stand in a ruined place + In the Holy of Holies foxes lair, + And owls and night-birds build. + There's a deal to do ere we patch it anew + As our father Solomon willed. + + Now is the day of the ordered life + And the law which all obey. + We toil by rote and speak by note + And never a soul dare stray. + Ever among us a lean old man + Keepeth his watch and ward, + Crying, "The Lord hath set you free: + Prepare ye the way of the Lord." + + A goodly task we are called unto, + A task to dream on o' nights, + --Work for Judah and Judah's God, + Setting our lands to rights; + Everything fair and all things square + And straight as a plummet string. + --Is it mortal guile, if once in a while + Our thoughts go wandering?... + + We were not slaves in Babylon, + For the gate of our souls lay free, + There in that vast and sunlit land + On the edges of mystery. + Daily we wrought and daily we thought, + And we chafed not at rod and power, + For Sinim, Ssabea, and dusky Hind + Talked to us hour by hour. + + The man who lives in Babylon + May poorly sup and fare, + But loves and lures from the ends of the earth + Beckon him everywhere. + Next year he too may have sailed strange seas + And conquered a diadem; + For kings are as common in Babylon + As crows in Bethlehem. + + Here we are bound to the common round + In a land which knows not change + Nothing befalleth to stir the blood + Or quicken the heart to range; + Never a hope that we cannot plumb + Or a stranger visage in sight,-- + At the most a sleek Samaritan + Or a ragged Amorite. + + Here we are sober and staid of soul, + Working beneath the law, + Settled amid our father's dust, + Seeing the hills they saw. + All things fixed and determinate, + Chiselled and squared by rule; + Is it mortal guile once in a while + To try and escape from school? + + We will go back to Babylon, + Silently one by one, + Out from the hills and the laggard brooks + To the streams that brim in the sun. + Only a moment, Lord, we crave, + To breathe and listen and see.-- + Then we start anew with muscle and thew + To hammer trestles for Thee. + + + + +X + +THE RIME OF TRUE THOMAS + +THE TALE OF THE RESPECTABLE WHAUP AND THE GREAT GODLY MAN + +This is a story that I heard from the King of the Numidians, who with +his tattered retinue encamps behind the peat-ricks. If you ask me +where and when it happened I fear that I am scarce ready with an +answer. But I will vouch my honour for its truth; and if any one seek +further proof, let him go east the town and west the town and over the +fields of No mans land to the Long Muir, and if he find not the King +there among the peat-ricks, and get not a courteous answer to his +question, then times have changed in that part of the country, and he +must continue the quest to his Majesty's castle in Spain. + +Once upon a time, says the tale, there was a Great Godly Man, a +shepherd to trade, who lived in a cottage among heather. If you looked +east in the morning, you saw miles of moor running wide to the flames +of sunrise, and if you turned your eyes west in the evening, you saw a +great confusion of dim peaks with the dying eye of the sun set in a +crevice. If you looked north, too, in the afternoon, when the life of +the day is near its end and the world grows wise, you might have seen a +country of low hills and haughlands with many waters running sweet +among meadows. But if you looked south in the dusty forenoon or at hot +midday, you saw the far-off glimmer of a white road, the roofs of the +ugly little clachan of Kilmaclavers, and the rigging of the fine new +kirk of Threepdaidle. It was a Sabbath afternoon in the hot weather, +and the man had been to kirk all the morning. He had heard a grand +sermon from the minister (or it may have been the priest, for I am not +sure of the date and the King told the story quickly)--a fine discourse +with fifteen heads and three parentheses. He held all the parentheses +and fourteen of the heads in his memory, but he had forgotten the +fifteenth; so for the purpose of recollecting it, and also for the sake +of a walk, he went forth in the afternoon into the open heather. + +The whaups were crying everywhere, making the air hum like the twanging +of a bow. Poo-eelie, Poo-eelie, they cried, Kirlew, Kirlew, Whaup, +Wha-up. Sometimes they came low, all but brushing him, till they drove +settled thoughts from his head. Often had he been on the moors, but +never had he seen such a stramash among the feathered clan. The +wailing iteration vexed him, and he shoo'd the birds away with his +arms. But they seemed to mock him and whistle in his very face, and at +the flaff of their wings his heart grew sore. He waved his great +stick; he picked up bits of loose moor-rock and flung them wildly; but +the godless crew paid never a grain of heed. The morning's sermon was +still in his head, and the grave words of the minister still rattled in +his ear, but he could get no comfort for this intolerable piping. At +last his patience failed him and he swore unchristian words. "Deil rax +the birds' thrapples," he cried. At this all the noise was hushed and +in a twinkling the moor was empty. Only one bird was left, standing on +tall legs before him with its head bowed upon its breast, and its beak +touching the heather. + +Then the man repented his words and stared at the thing in the moss. +"What bird are ye?" he asked thrawnly. + +"I am a Respectable Whaup," said the bird, "and I kenna why ye have +broken in on our family gathering. Once in a hundred years we +foregather for decent conversation, and here we are interrupted by a +muckle, sweerin' man." + +Now the shepherd was a fellow of great sagacity, yet he never thought +it a queer thing that he should be having talk in the mid-moss with a +bird. + +"What for were ye making siccan a din, then?" he asked. "D'ye no ken +ye were disturbing the afternoon of the holy Sabbath?" + +The bird lifted its eyes and regarded him solemnly. "The Sabbath is a +day of rest and gladness," it said, "and is it no reasonable that we +should enjoy the like?" + +The shepherd shook his head, for the presumption staggered him. "Ye +little ken what ye speak of," he said. "The Sabbath is for them that +have the chance of salvation, and it has been decreed that salvation is +for Adam's race and no for the beasts that perish." + +The whaup gave a whistle of scorn. "I have heard all that long ago. +In my great grandmother's time, which 'ill be a thousand years and mair +syne, there came a people from the south with bright brass things on +their heads and breasts and terrible swords at their thighs. And with +them were some lang gowned men who kenned the stars and would come out +o' nights to talk to the deer and the corbies in their ain tongue. And +one, I mind, foregathered with my great-grandmother and told her that +the souls o' men flitted in the end to braw meadows where the gods bide +or gaed down to the black pit which they ca' Hell. But the souls o' +birds, he said, die wi' their bodies, and that's the end o' them. +Likewise in my mother's time, when there was a great abbey down yonder +by the Threepdaidle Burn which they called the House of Kilmaclavers, +the auld monks would walk out in the evening to pick herbs for their +distillings, and some were wise and kenned the ways of bird and beast. +They would crack often o' nights with my ain family, and tell them that +Christ had saved the souls o' men, but that birds and beasts were +perishable as the dew o' heaven. And now ye have a black-gowned man in +Threepdaidle who threeps on the same overcome. Ye may a' ken something +o' your ain kitchen midden, but certes! ye ken little o' the warld +beyond it." + +Now this angered the man, and he rebuked the bird. "These are great +mysteries," he said, "which are no to be mentioned in the ears of an +unsanctified creature. What can a thing like you wi' a lang neb and +twae legs like stilts ken about the next warld?" + +"Weel, weel," said the whaup, "we'll let the matter be. Everything to +its ain trade, and I will not dispute with ye on Metapheesics. But if +ye ken something about the next warld, ye ken terrible little about +this." + +Now this angered the man still more, for he was a shepherd reputed to +have great skill in sheep and esteemed the nicest judge of hogg and +wether in all the countryside. "What ken ye about that?" he asked. +"Ye may gang east to Yetholm and west to Kells, and no find a better +herd." + +"If sheep were a'," said the bird, "ye micht be right; but what o' the +wide warld and the folk in it? Ye are Simon Etterick o' the Lowe Moss. +Do ye ken aucht o' your forebears?" + +"My father was a God-fearing man at the Kennelhead and my grandfather +and great grandfather afore him. One o' our name, folk say, was shot +at a dykeback by the Black Westeraw." + +"If that's a'" said the bird, "ye ken little. Have ye never heard o' +the little man, the fourth back from yoursel', who killed the Miller o' +Bewcastle at the Lammas Fair? That was in my ain time, and from my +mother I have heard o' the Covenanter who got a bullet in his wame +hunkering behind the divot-dyke and praying to his Maker. There were +others of your name rode in the Hermitage forays and turned Naworth and +Warkworth and Castle Gay. I have heard o' an Etterick. Sim o' the +Redcleuch, who cut the throat o' Jock Johnstone in his ain house by the +Annan side. And my grandmother had tales o' auld Ettericks who rade +wi' Douglas and the Bruce and the ancient Kings o' Scots; and she used +to tell o' others in her mother's time, terrible shockheaded men +hunting the deer and rinnin' on the high moors, and bidin' in the +broken stane biggings on the hill-taps." + +The shepherd stared, and he, too, saw the picture. He smelled the air +of battle and lust and foray, and forgot the Sabbath. + +"And you yoursel'," said the bird, "are sair fallen off from the auld +stock. Now ye sit and spell in books, and talk about what ye little +understand, when your fathers were roaming the warld. But little cause +have I to speak, for I too am a downcome. My bill is two inches +shorter than my mother's, and my grandmother was taller on her feet. +The warld is getting weaklier things to dwell in it, even since I mind +mysel'." + +"Ye have the gift o' speech; bird," said the man, "and I would hear +mair." You will perceive that he had no mind of the Sabbath day or the +fifteenth head of the forenoon's discourse. + +"What things have I to tell ye when ye dinna ken the very horn-book o' +knowledge? Besides, I am no clatter-vengeance to tell stories in the +middle o' the muir, where there are ears open high and low. There's +others than me wi mair experience and a better skill at the telling. +Our clan was well acquaint wi' the reivers and lifters o' the muirs, +and could crack fine o' wars and the takin of cattle. But the blue +hawk that lives in the corrie o' the Dreichil can speak o' kelpies and +the dwarfs that bide in the hill. The heron, the lang solemn fellow, +kens o' the greenwood fairies and the wood elfins, and the wild geese +that squatter on the tap o' the Muneraw will croak to ye of the merry +maidens and the girls o' the pool. The wren--him that hops in the +grass below the birks--has the story of the Lost Ladies of the Land, +which is ower auld and sad for any but the wisest to hear; and there is +a wee bird bides in the heather-hill--lintie men call him--who sings +the Lay of the West Wind, and the Glee of the Rowan Berries. But what +am I talking of? What are these things to you, if ye have not first +heard True Thomas's Rime, which is the beginning and end o' all things? + +"I have heard no rime" said the man, "save the sacred psalms o' God's +Kirk." + +"Bonny rimes" said the bird. "Once I flew by the hinder end o' the +Kirk and I keekit in. A wheen auld wives wi' mutches and a wheen +solemn men wi' hoasts! Be sure the Rime is no like yon." + +"Can ye sing it, bird?" said the man, "for I am keen to hear it." + +"Me sing!" cried the bird, "me that has a voice like a craw! Na, na, I +canna sing it, but maybe I can tak ye where ye may hear it. When I was +young an auld bogblitter did the same to me, and sae began my +education. But are ye willing and brawly willing?--for if ye get but a +sough of it ye will never mair have an ear for other music." + +"I am willing and brawly willing," said the man. + +"Then meet me at the Gled's Cleuch Head at the sun's setting," said the +bird, and it flew away. + +Now it seemed to the man that in a twinkling it was sunset, and he +found himself at the Gled's Cleuch Head with the bird flapping in the +heather before him. The place was a long rift in the hill, made green +with juniper and hazel, where it was said True Thomas came to drink the +water. + +"Turn ye to the west," said the whaup, "and let the sun fail on your +face; then turn ye five times round about and say after me the Rune Of +the Heather and the Dew." And before he knew the man did as he was +told, and found himself speaking strange words, while his head hummed +and danced as if in a fever. + +"Now lay ye down and put your ear to the earth," said the bird; and the +man did so. Instantly a cloud came over his brain, and he did not feel +the ground on which he lay or the keen hill-air which blew about him. +He felt himself falling deep into an abysm of space, then suddenly +caught up and set among the stars of heaven. Then slowly from the +stillness there welled forth music, drop by drop like the clear falling +of rain, and the man shuddered for he knew that he heard the beginning +of the Rime. + +High rose the air, and trembled among the tallest pines and the summits +of great hills. And in it were the sting of rain and the blatter of +hail, the soft crush of snow and the rattle of thunder among crags. +Then it quieted to the low sultry croon which told of blazing midday +when the streams are parched and the bent crackles like dry tinder. +Anon it was evening, and the melody dwelled among the high soft notes +which mean the coming of dark and the green light of sunset. Then the +whole changed to a great paean which rang like an organ through the +earth. There were trumpet notes ill it and flute notes and the plaint +of pipes. "Come forth," it cried; "the sky is wide and it is a far cry +to the world's end. The fire crackles fine o' nights below the firs, +and the smell of roasting meat and wood smoke is dear to the heart of +man. Fine, too is the sting of salt and the rasp of the north wind in +the sheets. Come forth, one and all, unto the great lands oversea, and +the strange tongues and the hermit peoples. Learn before you die to +follow the Piper's Son, and though your old bones bleach among grey +rocks, what matter if you have had your bellyful of life and come to +your heart's desire?" And the tune fell low and witching, bringing +tears to the eyes and joy to the heart; and the man knew (though no one +told him) that this was the first part of the Rime, the Song of the +Open Road, the Lilt of the Adventurer, which shall be now and ever and +to the end of days. + +Then the melody changed to a fiercer and sadder note. He saw his +forefathers, gaunt men and terrible, run stark among woody hills. He +heard the talk of the bronze-clad invader, and the jar and clangour as +stone met steel. Then rose the last coronach of his own people, hiding +in wild glens, starving in corries, or going hopelessly to the death. +He heard the cry of the Border foray, the shouts of the famished Scots +as they harried Cumberland, and he himself rode in the midst of them. +Then the tune fell more mournful and slow, and Flodden lay before him. +He saw the flower of the Scots gentry around their King, gashed to the +breast-bone, still fronting the lines of the south, though the paleness +of death sat on each forehead. "The flowers of the Forest are gone," +cried the lilt, and through the long years he heard the cry of the +lost, the desperate, fighting for kings over the water and princes in +the heather. "Who cares?" cried the air. "Man must die, and how can +he die better than in the stress of fight with his heart high and alien +blood on his sword? Heigh-ho! One against twenty, a child against a +host, this is the romance of life." And the man's heart swelled, for +he knew (though no one told him) that this was the Song of Lost Battles +which only the great can sing before they die. + +But the tune was changing, and at the change the man shivered for the +air ran up to the high notes and then down to the deeps with an eldrich +cry, like a hawk's scream at night, or a witch's song in the gloaming. +It told of those who seek and never find, the quest that knows no +fulfilment. "There is a road," it cried, "which leads to the Moon and +the Great Waters. No changehouse cheers it, and it has no end; but it +is a fine road, a braw road--who will follow it?" And the man knew +(though no one told him) that this was the Ballad of Grey Weather, +which makes him who hears it sick all the days of his life for +something which he cannot name. It is the song which the birds sing on +the moor in the autumn nights, and the old crow on the treetop hears +and flaps his wing. It is the lilt which men and women hear in the +darkening of their days, and sigh for the unforgettable; and love-sick +girls get catches of it and play pranks with their lovers. It is a +song so old that Adam heard it in the Garden before Eve came to comfort +him, so young that from it still flows the whole joy and sorrow of +earth. + +Then it ceased, and all of a sudden the man was rubbing his eyes on the +hillside, and watching the falling dusk. "I have heard the Rime," he +said to himself, and he walked home in a daze. The whaups were crying, +but none came near him, though he looked hard for the bird that had +spoken with him. It may be that it was there and he did not know it, +or it may be that the whole thing was only a dream; but of this I +cannot say. + +The next morning the man rose and went to the manse. + +"I am glad to see you, Simon," said the minister, "for it will soon be +the Communion Season, and it is your duty to go round with the tokens." + +"True," said the man, "but it was another thing I came to talk about," +and he told him the whole tale. + +"There are but two ways of it, Simon," said the minister. "Either ye +are the victim of witchcraft, or ye are a self-deluded man. If the +former (whilk I am loth to believe), then it behoves ye to watch and +pray lest ye enter into temptation. If the latter, then ye maun put a +strict watch over a vagrant fancy, and ye'll be quit o' siccan +whigmaleeries." + +Now Simon was not listening but staring out of the window. "There was +another thing I had it in my mind to say," said he. "I have come to +lift my lines, for I am thinking of leaving the place." + +"And where would ye go?" asked the minister, aghast. + +"I was thinking of going to Carlisle and trying my luck as a dealer, or +maybe pushing on with droves to the South." + +"But that's a cauld country where there are no faithfu' ministrations," +said the minister. + +"Maybe so, but I am not caring very muckle about ministrations," said +the man, and the other looked after him in horror. + +When he left the manse he went to a Wise Woman, who lived on the left +side of the kirkyard above Threepdaidle burn-foot. She was very old, +and sat by the ingle day and night, waiting upon death. To her he told +the same tale. + +She listened gravely, nodding with her head. "Ach," she said, "I have +heard a like story before. And where will you be going?" + +"I am going south to Carlisle to try the dealing and droving" said the +man, "for I have some skill of sheep." + +"And will ye bide there?" she asked. + +"Maybe aye, and maybe no," he said. "I had half a mind to push on to +the big toun or even to the abroad. A man must try his fortune." + +"That's the way of men," said the old wife. "I, too, have heard the +Rime, and many women who now sit decently spinning in Kilmaclavers have +heard it. But woman may hear it and lay it up in her soul and bide at +hame, while a man, if he get but a glisk of it in his fool's heart, +must needs up and awa' to the warld's end on some daft-like ploy. But +gang your ways and fare-ye-weel. My cousin Francie heard it, and he +went north wi' a white cockade in his bonnet and a sword at his side, +singing 'Charlie's come hame'. And Tam Crichtoun o' the Bourhopehead +got a sough o' it one simmers' morning, and the last we heard o' Tam he +was fechting like a deil among the Frenchmen. Once I heard a tinkler +play a sprig of it on the pipes, and a' the lads were wud to follow +him. Gang your ways for I am near the end o' mine." + +And the old wife shook with her coughing. So the man put up his +belongings in a pack on his back and went whistling down the Great +South Road. + +Whether or not this tale have a moral it is not for me to say. The +King (who told it me) said that it had, and quoted a scrap of Latin, +for he had been at Oxford in his youth before he fell heir to his +kingdom. One may hear tunes from the Rime, said he, in the thick of a +storm on the scarp of a rough hill, in the soft June weather, or in the +sunset silence of a winter's night. But let none, he added, pray to +have the full music; for it will make him who hears it a footsore +traveller in the ways o' the world and a masterless man till death. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Moon Endureth--Tales and Fancies, by +John Buchan + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOON ENDURETH--TALES AND FANCIES *** + +***** This file should be named 715.txt or 715.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/7/1/715/ + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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