III
The year came round again, and this man had found no contentment for mind or heart. He was such a one as had always believed in the unity of God and nature, had held the visible universe to be the robe of His glory and the material to be like clothing which partly hides and partly reveals the form.
He was a man whom God had chastened a little in the flesh, so that He might know the Hand that touched him, yet had given him no loathsome evil thing to be with him, so that he must hate even the body that served him. God had given him amply of the good things of life and sufficiently of its sorrows to make him know the first were good. He had early looked into the empty tomb and seen that since even the body can in time elude it, it would be beyond reason and belief to dream that the soul can be prisoned by it. For the soul is not even prisoned by the body, seeing that it can walk among the stars, thread the secret places of the earth, or dive into the seas, while the eyes of the body stare upon a book; or it can fight battles and go through many strange adventures and visit distant lands while the eyes are closed and the body is laid upon the bed. Therefore this man had long believed in his soul, though he had not taught his life and his fancies that though the material sometimes appears to be greater and stronger and older than the spiritual, yet that this is merely as the flower seems to one who looks not below the ground to be more vital than the root. So though he believed this, the man could not understand what the truth of the world might be. For he saw that although one may rejoice in its beauties and delight even in wholly innocent things, believing truly that they come from God, yet many men thus go astray. And when he listened to the voices of the dearest of God’s servants he became all the more perplexed. For one cried “All things are yours, things present as well as things to come”; but another said “Love not the world.” Again he heard one say “It is good to be here; let us build three tabernacles”; and saw him that said it straightway led into the dust and turmoil of the incredulous crowd. And the sweetest voice said now “Deny yourself,” and now “Consider the lilies, consider the birds.”
This man was a man who always loved the water. It made a great calm in his mind to see the sea spread calm before his feet; the storm of the sea filled him with life, and to die in the sea would, he thought, be like a child sinking to sleep in its mother’s arms. Clear, translucent water drew him with a great longing, and he dreamt often that he should bathe, but as his feet touched the water it ebbed away.
Now near his home there spread, embowered in trees, a great lake; on one side ran a road neglected and seldom used, from this the lake ran up curving out of sight. Half-way up towards the curve there stood a great oak, and beneath this he often bathed. So being in this perplexity he went out one summer morning, passed through the sleeping village and by the church, and went down to the lake.
And in the turn of the year again the woods were lightly foliaged, and the branches shone golden between the leaves; the ground beneath the oak was carpeted with hyacinths and primroses, here and there a late anemone starred it.
Here he undressed and plunged from a little height into a pool. His hands parted the water, which rushed up him as he plunged; then he gave himself up to the element and it lifted him to the surface. Again he warred with it, yet moved by means of it, with steady stroke parting it, and again he turned over and yielded himself up to it, and the least movement was enough to keep him floating on the surface, and he rejoiced in the coolness and the purity. So when he had finished he returned and clothed himself, and moved on through the edge of the wood, looking at the water, wondering at a transparency that was so deep and the strength of the fleeting thing, till he came to where a little wooden bridge spanned the overflow from the lake; and upon the bridge a boy of about eight years old was sitting.
He was not dressed like a village child; his cap lay beside him with a little spray of reddening oak stuck into it, and he was staring at the water.
“Who are you, my son?” said the man as he passed.
“I’m a king,” the child replied; “but I’m an outlaw just now, you see,” he went on, laying his hand on his cap. “I can’t get into my kingdom.”
“Where is your kingdom?” asked the man.
“Come down here and you’ll see,” he said.
The man sat down beside him on the plank.
“I can’t see much,” he said, “the water is dazzling.”
“Ah, those are the sun’s messengers,” said the boy; “the sun sends messengers millions and millions of miles to the lake and they telegraph back to him. But you must look in another place.”
The man slipped into the humour of the child.
“Now I see your kingdom,” he said; “it has greenish forests waving, strange transparent creatures move silently about.”
“No, that’s not my kingdom,” the child answered, “why, I can get in there; but it is not like what you think. Those are slippery fishes and the bottom is all slimy. You must fix your eyes tight and not let them slip to see my kingdom.”
“Now I see it,” said the other; “it has beautiful blue sky, trees stretch twigs into it which glisten like gold—one spreads leaves like jewelled glass with the sun shining through; one stretches budding twigs made of ruby; it is far, far below the shine and the fishes; and yet when I look it is quite close to us.”
“Yes, that’s my kingdom!” cried the child.
“But isn’t it just like that behind us?” said the man, to test him.
The boy looked round. “No, that’s out-of-doors,” he said. “My kingdom is much more happy and safe, and the sky is more shining and the leaves glitter.”
“But it’s the sun’s kingdom down there even where the shine is,” said the man.
“Yes, I know it’s his,” said the boy; “if he didn’t send messengers down there it would be all inky black and dreadful; but they won’t let his messengers get through, only a few of them, a little yellowish, greenish light.”
“Is out-of-doors his kingdom too?” then said the man.
“Of course it’s his,” said the child; “if he wasn’t there it would be dark, and the wind would sob and the trees shake their branches.”
“And what about your kingdom?”
“Oh, he makes that for me,” said the child, “to be all my own.”
The man sat a moment looking at the water and was silent; a starling chattered on the boughs above; far away came the cry of the cuckoo; at the right hand of them there was a little rustle as a snake slipped over dead leaves and through the new living shoots of spring, and paused.
The man turned to the child.
“But is it real?” he said.
“It’s just as real as the sun and the water and out-of-doors,” said the boy steadily.
“But you said some day you would get in,” answered the man, tempting him.
The boy turned and looked at him, and his eyes were like a great stream with the sun shining through. “And that’s just as real as me,” he said.
The man snapped the twig he held in his hand, the snake silently slipped through the brake and was gone, and the man stood up, yet paused a moment looking down at the shining world, then he got up.
“Goodbye,” he said, “I must go and look for my kingdom. I had one once but I lost it.”
“Shall you be able to get in?” asked the boy.
“Not just yet, perhaps,” he said, “but I can look at it till I find the way in.”
So he went back through the wood, remembering that it was written, “Out of the mouth of babes thou hast perfected praise.”
The Gresham Press,
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED,
WOKING AND LONDON.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Some of the descriptions which follow include things seen on our later visits.
[2] In later years we found a garden open to the public, and even trees in it.
[3] More than one such outer chapel of a tomb we made to serve as a place for Christian worship.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Archaic or alternate spelling which may have been in use at the time of publication has been retained.