THE BENDING OF THE TWIG
Early in the morning of the hot July day there had been a sea-mist, and the fog lay on the horizon like a rolled banner gleaming with ineffable tints of opalescent purple. The glassy sea was purest blue, save where the shimmering paths of the currents shone silver-white or where the lap and fret of waves at the cliff foot made the water pink with Devon earth. The weed on the rocks glowed orange-brown in the dazzling light, and the dark line of the low-flying shag gave the only sombre touch to the brilliant hues of land, sea, and sky. The turf sweet with the breath of wild thyme, and studded with pale yellow rock rose, crept well-nigh to the water’s edge. Here a hundred years ago the sea had claimed tribute of the earth, and a big landslip rent the bosom of the patient mother. Half a mile of cliff had fallen, and in the chasm thus made, now filled full with greenery and prodigal growth of fern, bramble, and berry, a long white house stood sun-bathed and creeper-clad.
A little spring sprang seawards from the cliff, tinkling in a baby waterfall down grey rocks splashed with orange lichen, and forming in a small crystal pool ere it ran on to lose itself in the greyish-white sand of the shore.
By this little pool sat three children: two flaxen-haired girls and a small dark-haired grey-eyed boy. The girls lay on the ground; their chins resting on their clasped hands, their eyes round, blue, and awestruck. The boy knelt stiffly on the verge of the pool, his eyes looking straight out over the sea, his hands linked behind his head. He was a slim little child with a small pale face, delicate irregular features, and long-lashed grey eyes.
“They came up,” he was saying, “up the little path that comes from the shore. They left their boats on the beach. They broke down our doors, making a great noise. The doors fell down; I heard them fall; I could hear the others shrieking as the men killed them. I was painting, you know; I painted coloured letters round a face which was in the middle. I drew the face myself; it was a white face with gold all round it. The men broke into my room and killed an old man who was there with me. I stood with my back against the wall. I put out my hands, so; I had no sword, and—and—then they killed me....”
The child broke off abruptly; he gasped, threw himself face downwards on the turf sobbing either with grief or excitement. The audience drew a long breath. Never—never—never—in all the annals of the nursery had even the most gifted grown-up person told them such tales as did this, their small orphan cousin.
“What’s the matter now,” said a man’s voice. “Quarrelling? Dennis, why are you crying?”
Three people had unheard approached the little group; a man, a young girl, and a boy. The man and boy were sufficiently alike to be easily recognisable as father and son. The boy was seventeen or eighteen years old; handsome, vigorous, and graceful. He carried a gun; he had been shooting rabbits on the cliffs, and two little helpless brown bodies dangled from his left hand. The man was past middle age, but time alone had not carved the straight, severe lines about his mouth, nor made his eyes so cold. That was the work of temperament; the comely lad beside him would never have such lips and eyes, though the tinting and moulding of the two faces were very much the same.
The crying child scrambled to his feet blushing and half laughing; his grief had not been very deeply rooted. The youngest girl clinging to her father’s hand cried out eagerly in praise of the tale; “Dennis tells us such lovely stories, daddy.”
The boy with the gun threw the rabbits on the grass. “Kitty’s quite right,” he said. “They’re ripping. I can’t think how he gets hold of them. He says they’re true.” “He says they happened to him,” broke in the enthusiastic auditor. “And he tells us what he sees too. O Dennis, tell them about the little men you saw in the mist this morning.”
The dark brows of the elder listener drew together.
“Look here, Dennis,” he said shortly, “if you prefer to tell stories to the girls rather than go rabbiting with the boys”—there was a little touch of contempt in the voice—“of course there’s no harm in that; but you must not say what is untrue.”
“But it is true,” said the child eagerly. “It is true, Uncle Hugh. That did happen to me; it did really. It was a grey house by the sea, and they killed me in the room where I was painting.”
“Take care, Dennis. When did this happen, may I ask?”
“I—I don’t know, Uncle Hugh.”
“Nor any one else. Did you tell the girls it was true?”
“It is true,” said Dennis, beginning to pant and rock from heel to toe and back again. “It is quite true.”
“It is, is it? And you see little men in the mist, eh?”
“I did this morning.”
“And he sees pictures in the water,” broke in one of the listening children.
“Do you see pictures in the water, Dennis?”
“Yes, sometimes.”
“In that water for instance? Look and see.”
The child knelt down and stared into the pool.
“I don’t”—he began after a pause. “Yes. I do, yes I do, I see a little house and a cornfield and a—O, there it’s gone!”
The man laid his finger-tips lightly on the child’s shoulder. “Get up and listen to me,” he said gravely. Dennis rose; the touch had not been at all rough; on the contrary it was very gentle, and the voice was quiet, but there was a sense of danger in the air; an ominous thrill; and the child’s eyes, why he knew not, grew slightly frightened.
“What you have just said is a lie,” said his elder very distinctly, “and you know that just as well as I do; you are very young yet, and I don’t want to be hard on you. If you confess that you told a lie, I won’t say any more about it, unless you do it again. Come.”
“But—I can’t. It wasn’t a lie.”
“Take care now. Tell me you said what wasn’t true and are sorry; and then run into tea and forget about it.”
The child began to tremble. “But I can’t—it wasn’t—indeed—it—O dear, O dear!”
“I tell you I don’t want to be hard upon you. I mean to be, and I hope I always am, perfectly just. I shall ask you three times whether your stories are true. If you say no—well and good. If you persist in saying yes, you’ll—take the consequences, that’s all. I shall ask you this question every day till I make you speak the truth.”
Things were now looking very serious. The little girls were struck with awe. The young girl and the lad exchanged glances and strove to extenuate the crime of Dennis.
“O please, Mr. March,” said the girl softly, “he’s so very little and he’s imaginative, you know.”
“He’s dotty, poor little chap,” said the boy cheerily. “He means no harm, dad. He’ll be all right when he goes to school. Let him off this once.”
“He has the matter in his own hands. Now then, Dennis, are these tales of yours true?”
“Yes,” faltered the quivering lips.
“Once more, are they true?”
“They are true! they are true! What shall I do? If you kill me, they’re true.”
“I’m not at all likely to kill you, but I mean to cure you of lying. It’s obstinacy; for you must know you’ve told lies. Are these things true?”
“Y—ye—I mean—I think so,” hedged poor Dennis desperately.
“Go into the house,” said the man with a push. “You’ve brought it on yourself, and it serves you right.”
Consolatory reflection. The child slunk into the house crying bitterly. The girl attempted further intercession.
“It’s no good, Kate,” said the man angrily. “I’m shocked at the child’s obstinacy. He has told a gratuitous falsehood, and he must, as I said, take the consequences.”
So Dennis took the consequences, and woke up at night shrieking with nightmare as their direct result. Daily the same question was put to him, and received the same answer which produced the same pains and penalties, save that they grew a little more grievous daily because of the increasing blackness of his sin. Dennis went about with a white face and silent tongue; his eyes were red and swollen, and there were purple rings under them. At last on the fifth day the child breaking down confessed himself to be a wilful and egregious perverter of the truth.
“Why couldn’t you have said that before?” said Hugh March. “Now speak the truth in future, there’s a good boy.”
Dennis promised that he certainly would do so, and went away to cry over his first lie. He knew that lying was a grievous sin; and the preacher under whom the March family “sat” predicted a fiery doom for sinners. Dennis cried over his probable damnation; but the undying worm and quenchless fire of a vengeful God were far away, whereas Hugh March’s birch was horribly near; so Dennis risked eternity for the sake of comparative well-being in time.
It must not be supposed that March was the typical wicked uncle of nursery tales; he was sincerely anxious to be kind to his dead brother’s little boy. The “queerness” of Dennis was a source of concerned perplexity to his guardian. Perry, his own son, whom he idolised, was an athlete rather than a scholar, and March was glad of the fact; nevertheless he would have been satisfied with his fragile non-athletic nephew if he had shown signs of studiousness; but the child was not clever; he was backward, lazy, and dreamy; his only talents were a gift for drawing and an eye for colour effects, which were “mere accomplishments” in the eyes of his uncle. Dennis had no other gifts unless his stories presaged a future novelist.
Dennis, on his side, was stunned and terrified by his uncle’s treatment of his powers of vision. His Irish mother, like her son, possessed “the sight,” and she had treated his visions as simple facts, which were by no means extraordinary; hence the child was not vain of the gift, nor did he dream of boasting of or colouring his visions. When his mother died and he came to live with his uncle and cousins, he came simply and confidingly as to friends; unsuspicious of the possibility of harshness, inexperienced in aught save tenderness. To be suddenly denounced as an obstinate liar, to be flogged because he saw things which his cousins did not see, not only terrified but stupefied him. He relapsed into bewildered silence, and bent all his small powers of deception to conceal his power of vision.
Hitherto “the sight” had been spasmodic; but either from some influence of climate or because of his nervous tension it now became almost unintermittent; he saw very often, and the strain of concealment troubled him. The visions were in a measure consolatory; that which he saw did not frighten him, and he lived in a world of sound, colour, and light, which was unshared by his companions. The child was very lonely, for he feared to talk much lest he should betray himself; nevertheless he became gradually aware of the fact that he had one staunch and kindly friend. This was his cousin Perry.
Perry was a good humoured, genial and sympathetic soul; his very superabundant vigour and strength gave him a chivalrous sense of pitiful protection towards the poor little frightened nervous child.
Once at a picnic on the Head, Dennis began to watch some little folk who were unseen by the others. Suddenly he became aware that Perry was watching him with puzzled eyes and knitted brows. Dennis started, his vision vanished, and he lay quivering with fear lest Perry should ask him what he had been looking at with such interest. But Perry did not ask; he smiled at his little cousin, and turned his eyes away.
After the picnic that night a party sat on the verandah and told ghost stories of a grisly nature. Dennis grew frightened, the “other world” was real to him; this grim aspect of it was terrible. He did not understand the things he saw, and the dread of seeing the horrors described in the tales fell upon him. The nervous system of a sensitive child is a delicate instrument, though it is sometimes the custom to treat it as though it were constructed of equal parts of whalebone, steel, and cast-iron. The stream of tales ran dry.
“What’s become of all your fine stories, Dennis?” said one of the circle mockingly; one who knew of the little tragedy enacted a month ago. “I’m afraid I’ve spoilt the flow of Dennis’s genius,” said March, and the laugh rippled round the circle at the expense of the young seer. Is this world so purely joyous that we should forget our heavenly heritage if our brethren did not try now and then to give us a little pain, even though it be a tongue stab to make us less contented with our earthly bliss? It would seem that there be many who think so. Perry put forth an arm in the darkness and laid it round the child’s neck.
“That’s a beastly shame,” he said to the first speaker.
They were only four homely schoolboy words; it was only the touch of a strong kindly young arm, but they drew forth a disproportionate flood of adoring gratitude from the child’s sensitive heart. Therefore when he went to bed that night he ventured to ask a favour of Perry. In Dennis’s room there was an unpleasant-looking green and yellow curtain, which had a reprehensible habit of swaying when there was not any wind. Ghost stories had made that curtain a thing of horror to Dennis; he feared it would draw back very slowly one of these days, and he should see some hideous object gibbering behind it—a class of vision of which he had formerly never dreamed. He once asked whether the curtain might be taken away: but as he could assign no reason for his request he was told “not to be silly,” and the curtain, like the poor, remained with him always. Alas! for the dumb terrors, the helpless inarticulateness of the soul of a young misunderstood child.
To-night he took courage.
“Perry,” he said, “won’t you come and stay with me till I’m asleep?”
Since the five days’ holy war which March had waged with Dennis the child had stammered slightly; it was a pathetic little falter of the tongue and Perry felt vaguely touched by it. He looked at him questioningly. At last he said:
“Why? Well, never mind. Right you are.”
He entered the room whistling, and by some instinct drew the green and yellow curtain back. Dennis undressed and slipped into bed. Perry knelt down, put his arm over the child and spoke kindly:
“You’re not very happy here, Den,” he said; “what’s the matter with you?”
Dennis bit his lip and closed his eyes; at last by dint of coaxing Perry arrived at the fact that Dennis was mourning over the sin of deceit.
“That wasn’t much,” said Perry immorally but cheerfully.
He hesitated, then he said in a whisper:
“I say, Denny, which was the lie, eh?”
He felt the slender body beneath his arm start, quiver, and grow unnaturally still.
“Was it a lie that you saw those things or that you didn’t see them, which?”
“Th-that I saw th-them.”
There was a pause. Then Perry said gently:
“Poor little chap; it’s a shame. All right old man. Go to sleep; I’ll stay with you.”
To himself he said: “Who’s to blame for that lie, Den or the dad?”
The holidays were nearly over; Perry was about to return for his last term to Harrow and Dennis was going for his first term to a preparatory school. Before his final departure Perry was going to walk fifteen miles in order to stay for a couple of days with some friends. A week before this visit there was a farewell picnic at the Head. It was a lovely day and the sea was blue and calm. Perry was on the cliff building the fire for the picnic tea; Dennis was on the rocks below. Then he turned and ran; he rushed up the cliff path sobbing out that there was a drowned man in the water below. Of course March, Perry, and three or four young men ran to the shore only to see the water rippling peacefully in and the brown weed swaying with the lazy tide.
March shouted to the child on the cliff:
“Come here.”
Dennis obeyed him shuddering still.
“There’s no drowned man here,” said March sternly. “Why did you say there was?”
The child caught his breath with a jerk and his face grew white as ashes. The thing he so dreaded had come; he had betrayed himself. He glanced imploringly at his only hope—Perry, and his lip quivered.
“It was the weed he saw,” said Perry. “He’s always fanciful and nervous you know.”
“Nonsense,” said March. “These are his old tricks. I thought I’d cured you of this, Dennis.”
He left the shore with an angry glance at the child.
Dennis began to cry, and Perry laid a hand on his shoulder. Dennis clutched his arm.
“O Perry,” he wailed, “do go to him. Do speak to him. Do tell him I’m sorry. I’d n-never have said what I saw if I hadn’t thought everyb-body could see it t-too.”
“I thought so,” said Perry under his breath; “you do see these things and you pretend you don’t for fear of a licking.”
“Don’t tell. Please don’t tell; dear Perry, d-don’t tell.”
“All right, don’t cry. I’ll speak to the governor.”
But Perry spoke in vain. March was an obstinate thick-headed man, and he was very angry indeed. The vials of his righteous wrath descended on the luckless seer, who was utterly broken and unnerved in consequence. Perry also was very angry though not with the helpless little victim of March’s dull wits. When three days after the child’s punishment a drowned sailor was actually washed up at the Head, Perry boldly avowed his belief in the visions of Dennis. March was as angry with Perry as it was possible for him to be with his idolised only son. He made many acute and scathing remarks about ignorance, superstition, and naughty, lying, hysterical children whose imagination and hysteria must be crushed with the strong hand of authority.
Perry went away in a very bad temper, and Dennis remained behind in such a state of abject terror that he hardly dared to grasp his coffee cup when it was offered to him at the breakfast table lest it should prove to be an elusive and unshared vision.
On the evening of Perry’s departure Dennis stood at the door of his uncle’s study trying to make up his mind to go in. Like many men who never read anything save the daily paper March had a “study.” At last Dennis went in. March who was writing a letter looked up:
“Well, Dennis, what is it?”
“H-have you heard from Perry, Uncle?” stammered the child.
“Heard from Perry! The boy’s daft. He only left this morning.”
“O,” said Dennis nervously, “y-yes, so he did; I f-forgot.”
And he crept out again like a frightened mouse.
The next morning a telegram arrived for Perry which his father opened; it was from the friends with whom he was supposed to be staying asking the reason of his non-arrival; Perry was going over to play in a cricket match; hence their agitation. March rode over to them at once. Perry had not arrived; inquiries on the road gained no tidings of him. Search was made for him throughout that day and through the night and through the next day and still there was no news of Perry.
For the first time in his life March was shaken to the finest fibre of his soul. His son was the apple of his eye, the best beloved of all his children. He felt a tremor of the nerves which he would have called weakness and affectation in another. When on the third night the searchers returned with no tidings of the young man, March went to his room with a grey-hued face and eyes that were glazed with agony and suspense. He sat at his table and bowed his head upon it. He tried to pray—March was a somewhat conventionally religious man—but he could only groan. In the room above where was the green and yellow curtain the child knelt by the side of the bed shaking from head to foot, the drops of agony standing on his forehead. The soul which was so much older than the little body was wrestling in the throes of a complex passion of love and personal cowardly dread; the poor little ten-year old body could scarcely support the strain.
In the afternoon, two hours after Perry had left, Dennis knelt by the little pool and chanced to look therein. Before his eyes a picture grew. It was Perry stunned and lifeless lying in a hollow, the mouth of which was hidden by elder bushes with their luscious black berries. It was a narrow rocky crevasse formed by the rending slipping land. Everything about the picture was very clear; on the hill above the hollow was an old pine tree twisted into a strange shape; there was a bent bough on it on which a human form dangled—a dead man hanged by the neck to the bent tree. This was the vision that had driven Dennis to his uncle’s room; since then the picture appeared to him again and yet again. Sometimes the hanged man was not there, but the scene was always the same point for point. Even now as he knelt it formed itself between him and the green and yellow curtain.
The child sobbed and twisted his fingers in his hair. In his ears rang the stern words: “If I hear a whisper of this again I shall write very strongly to Mr. Brownlow and warn him of your untruthfulness.”
Mr. Brownlow was Dennis’s future schoolmaster and poor Dennis pictured himself as being pilloried and held up for execration before a whole community of youthful devotees of truth. But then there was Perry. Perry had been kind to him; Perry had banished the terrors of the green and yellow curtain; had tried to screen him from wrath. If only some one else could see! His Highland nurse had told him “the sight” was God’s gift. If only He would give that gift to some one else; to some one who would not be punished and scolded because of his possession. Dennis had prayed on this subject with a child’s unreasoning and sometimes unreasonable faith, and now he once more extended his clasped hands and sobbed into the darkness:
“O do-do-do make some one else see instead of me.”
But no one else saw, and the burden, responsibility, and terror of a gift, whatsoever be its nature, lay heavily on the slender shoulders of Dennis. Therefore the end was inevitable. All strong powers lie upon the men who possess them like mighty compelling forces unless the man be stronger than the gift. To Dennis and to no other was the vision; as he closed his streaming eyes it slowly formed itself once more. He staggered to his feet and made for the room below; the force was stronger than he, or else he was stronger than his weak nerves and trembling body. Though March should beat him within an inch of his fragile life he must tell that which he saw. He did not hesitate now; he opened the door and went straight in. March raised his head, started, and stood up.
“Dennis! Bless my soul, child, what are you doing at this hour? Not undressed. Are you ill.”
“Uncle Hugh,” said Dennis, steadying himself by the table edge, “I—I know where Perry is. At least I think so.”
“You know where Perry is. What do you mean?”
The child began to describe the place of his vision and March listened with growing interest and excitement; when Dennis spoke of the pine and the dangling figure he sprang up:
“It’s the highwayman’s pine,” he almost shouted; “they say a man was hanged there a hundred years ago. But I’ll take my oath you’ve never been there. How do you know the place?”
“I s-saw it,” faltered Dennis, and having thus betrayed his evil-doing he swung forward and fainted. When he recovered he was lying on a sofa and March was pouring water on his face.
“Lie still,” he said kindly. “Don’t be frightened. You must have been dreaming, you know. I—I think I’ll go to this place you dreamed of. It is superstition, of course, but er—er——”
March called a maid to tend the child; then he summoned the men who had been searching through the day and led them on another quest. This time they found the missing lad. He was insensible and his leg was broken.
The next day the doctor spoke gravely of the condition of his patient. “I am very much afraid his condition is serious,” he said. “If he had been cared for at once recovery would have been quite certain; but he has been lying there half-stunned and without food, drink, or care four days and nights.”
March did not speak; possessed by a sudden thought he sought his nephew.
“Dennis, child,” he said, “when did you first see the place where we found Perry?”
“The day he left.”
“Why didn’t you tell me at once what you saw? Perry’s very ill from lying there four days.”
“I’m sorry,” murmured Dennis, “I—I thought you’d, you’d——”
“You thought I should be angry?”
“Y-yes, I was afraid.”
He did not know how innocently he avenged himself and paid off old scores. March was silent for a minute, then he said in a low voice: “It’s just. It’s my own fault.”
He stooped and took the child’s face gently between his hands, kissed his forehead and went out alone to wrestle with his pain and anxiety.
As this tale began so it ends at the pool in the landslip. Perry lay beside the stream apparently none the worse for his fall of the year before. Dennis sitting cross-legged beside the little rock basin watched the water. March was talking with his son; following the direction of Perry’s smiling eyes he saw Dennis. Dennis’s pictures were less frequent now and his “stories” were less marvellous. The press of outer interest which crowded in was doing its work. March looked at the boy as he rose and stood beside him and laid his hand on his head:
“Seeing pictures?” he asked with a half-mocking laugh. March’s position was a very illogical one and he was semi-conscious of the fact. The child looked up and nodded.
“What nonsense,” said March, “it’s all fancy. If there was anything to see why shouldn’t I see it?”
“Come, father,” said Perry laughing, “why can’t I tell ‘Rule Britannia’ from ‘God save the King?’”
“Nonsense! I tell you it’s a rampant medieval superstition that’s got hold of you. As for Denny he’s a little donkey.”
But he laughed and pulled the boy’s hair with a gentle hand; which seems to prove that one is not necessarily incapable of learning even after one has “come to forty years.”
Note.—This story is founded on fact. That is to say, although it is mine as regards characters and incidents, the motif, the clairvoyance of the child, is true. The drastic methods which were employed for the repression of the gifts of the luckless little seer are also facts, and that is the reason I wrote the story.
THE MYSTERY OF THE SON
OF MAN
Lord God of Glory, Pow’r of Perfect Light,
Look on Thy little children of the wild,
In whose frail souls the Son of Man is born
Thine is the pow’r of pain and anguish, Lord,
Thine is the chrysm of the agony,
The bitter wisdom born within the soul
That knows the sorrow of sin’s piteous load.
Father in Heaven, blessed be the hour
When in the beast-soul rises the sad voice
Of human shame, crying: “I will arise,
And seek my Father’s feet, and mourn my sin.”
Blessed the hour when the dread scourge of pain
Is gladly borne by some poor tortur’d soul,
Because it sees its foulness before Thee
By the white light of Christ, Who dwells within
The outrag’d temple of humanity.
There was wrath and distress in the House of the Cold Strand by reason of the sin of Brother Gorlois. He was the child of the Holy House, taken into the pious nurture of the brethren, from the dead breast of his murdered mother, a heathen woman, found by Brother Pacificus lying dead in the undergrowth of the great forest nigh the House of the Cold Strand. The pious company of Christian monks, who had built their house of prayer in that land, baptised the babe, and reared him by the precepts of Solomon, by the rule of their House, and by the wisdom which flowed from their hearts. And when the Brother Gorlois was twelve years old he entered his noviciate, and when he was fifteen he took upon him the vows of a monk, namely, the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. He had little wit, and was not studious; nor was he called to the way of contemplation, but he was strong, and waxed mighty of muscle. As he grew to manhood the good gift of comeliness was bestowed upon him by the Hand of God, and the thick crisp waves of his curly yellow hair rose up like billows around his head.
He liked to trap and fish for the Holy House, but when the glee of sport was passed he was lazy and loved to sleep. He gave the first occasion for scandal during a fast of twice forty days, wherein the brethren ate no flesh. This Brother Gorlois, stealing forth on the eighth day, slew a coney, and was taken in the wood, having built a fire in order that he might cook and devour it to the gratification of his body, and the peril of his soul; moreover, he lied concerning his sin, scandalously, and indeed foolishly, for it was manifest to the simplest, and denial was vain.
The second scandal was when the Brother Gorlois was found in the refectory drunk with wine; for this offence he did penance, being scourged, and sorely rebuked by the brethren. But the third and most grievous scandal was when he was taken in the forest with the swineherd’s daughter; whereupon the brethren placed him in ward, whilst they debated whether or no a monk who had broken his vows to the shame of his House, should not lie within a narrow cell, the entrance whereof should be securely barred by mortised stones, that soul and body might part slowly in the terrors of a death by hunger and by thirst. Such was the fate adjudged to Brother Gorlois, who was then but a young man of twenty years, and he was brought forth, bound, to hear the same.
The Brother Gorlois was, as aforesaid, young and lusty, comely and of great stature; he looked sullen, but he was less fearful and less ashamed than might have been expected. God had granted to him vigorous youth, health, and a person as goodly to behold as those He had given to the great stags on the moor, and the mighty milk-white bulls which crashed through the forest, leading a drove of their kind; but He in His Wisdom had not yet given to Brother Gorlois the blessing (or curse) of a lively power of imagery, and a sensitive memory.
Still he had been taken, as he knew, in what the brethren denounced as sin, and he knew they were so made that they visited sin by fasting, and by the scourge, to the Brother Gorlois’ great dis-ease; for he loved food, and he esteemed the scourge to be a needless discomfort. Therefore he looked very sulky, and stood gazing upon his feet, and wishing vaguely that his arms were free.
Then he who was Head of the lonely little House of the Cold Strand rose to pronounce the doom of Brother Gorlois, when the aged Brother Pacificus uplifted his voice. It was the Brother Pacificus who had found Brother Gorlois a young babe upon the dead breast of the half-savage heathen woman, his mother.
Brother Pacificus was very old, and a reputed seer; esteemed as a saint was he; twenty years had he travelled over Europe carrying the Gospel of the Christ among heathen people; founding many a Holy House, but never taking the Headship of any; thirty years lived he as a hermit, supplicating God for the world; ten years he had dwelt at the House of the Cold Strand, speaking little and praying much; but during the last year he spoke more frequently and more freely, and the Head of the House of the Cold Strand consulted him reverently as his soul-friend, what though in that House he was his superior in religion.
“It is in my mind, holy father,” said Brother Pacificus, “that we have sinned greatly against our Brother Gorlois, and owe him amends.”
“Speak thy mind, my brother, therefore,” said he who was the Head of the House. “Make plain to us wherein we have sinned, and he shall live.”
“My father,” said the Brother Pacificus, “this, our young brother, so lusty in his youth, is not bound by his vows, seeing that in truth he took them not upon him.”
“Who then took them, venerable brother?”
“Verily, that did we,” said Brother Pacificus; “for we knew their meaning, our Brother Gorlois did not so. He, obeying babe-like those who nurtured him, uttered words of which his heart knew not the meaning. For it is written that once a man of God made a religious house in the wilderness and bound by vows Brother Fox, binding him to a religious life, and to eat no flesh; the which vow he broke, adding to this offence the sin of theft, for so mightily desired he to eat flesh that he ate the leathern shoe-straps of his superior in religion, namely, the holy saint; whereupon the holy man rebuked him for conduct unbefitting a monk, when it was revealed to him that no vow can make a religious of a beast of the field; the blame is his who bindeth a little brother by a harsh rule against which the nature which God hath given constraineth him. Wherefore let our Brother Gorlois abide with us in peace, doing such tasks as his youth and great thews and sinews make very fitting for him; but do not bind him to eat no flesh, nor drink wine, nor even forbid him to seek the love of a maid, for to these things the youth’s nature mightily constraineth him; nor doth he perceive in any measure the beauty of holiness, nor desireth he to enter into the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven. Behold! he is no monk; though his lips spake vow on vow, God would not register them in Heaven as we foolish men do on earth; this Brother Gorlois is but a lad, and in his heart a heathen, like the woman who bore him. Nevertheless he is the child of our House. His hour is not yet. Spare him, my father, and let us not—we who follow Him who bade the woman go unhurt and sin no more—give our child to a cruel death. For we took him in God’s name, and in the Power of that Name shall he dwell amongst us unhurt and forgiven.”
Now no other voice in the Holy House would have been heard on behalf of Brother Gorlois save only that of Brother Pacificus. But to his voice the brethren listened with heed, and now his counsel prevailed, and they spared the Brother Gorlois, and absolved him from his vows, bidding him remain in the House of the Cold Strand, doing such work as his youth and strength rendered fitting for him. Thus then Brother Gorlois was pardoned by the holy father who ruled the brethren. This holy father was a man of great zeal, and jealous for the fair repute of the House, and often he mourned to Brother Pacificus because the soul of the House was barren, and he knew not by what means the brethren could make thereof a mightier power in the Hand of the Lord. But Brother Pacificus said:
“The soul of a Holy House, my father, is like unto the Kingdom of God; it cometh not with observation. It is from the beginning, and to hold this diligently in our minds in all that is possible for us to do in this matter. Let us then act as our nature constraineth us, under the guidance of the Lord, remembering all natures are rooted in Him, and it may ofttimes be our duty to suffer gladly, as His servant, one who sorely opposes us; now this is hard for the natural man, but the Lord from Heaven useth the one and the other for His service according to the measure of their gifts, asking not wit from him who lacketh, nor clerkly lore from the simple, nor the power of the spirit from him who is yet a babe in Christ. Nor can we expect to know the subtle workings of our brethren’s souls, and though it be our duty to dwell in sympathy with them when we may, yet ofttimes it is our duty sweetly to resign ourselves to dwell in ignorance of them. But the soul of a House of Prayer is born from above, not from below, and this, meseemeth, is the meaning of that Scripture which saith a man by taking thought can add not a cubit to his stature.”
It was summer time when the sin of Brother Gorlois was judged by the brethren; the following winter was very cold, and the Brother Pacificus grew feebler. When the spring came he was very infirm; he slept little, and it grew a custom that a brother should watch beside him to minister to him in the night. On a moonlit night of May Brother Gorlois was bidden to keep vigil by the old man’s side. Brother Pacificus slept lightly during the first watch of the night. Brother Gorlois rose up gently and looked from the little unglazed casement upon the forest. It was a warm night, the glamour of the moon lay on the great silent glades. Brother Gorlois felt restless, and upon him was a desire to rove the forest. The oaks were in leaf, the smell of bluebells filled the air, the fierce life of night and springtide was pulsing apace through the dim sweet land; it was a night when all the beasts of the forest did roam, seeking their bread from God.
Brother Gorlois leaned out, and smelled the night air and the earth; then he drew back and sat by the old monk.
Something flew through the casement and hit Brother Gorlois on his broad chest; it was a bunch of bluebells. Brother Gorlois looked out once more. Below the window was the swineherd’s daughter; the night was sultry, and her smock was open by reason of the heat; her skirt was made of the stitched skins of beasts; about her neck was a garland of blue flowers of the wood, swaying rope-like about her throat. When she saw Brother Gorlois she laughed loudly and fled, but as she fled she looked back. Then Brother Gorlois leaped from the window. When she heard the beat of his feet behind her she ran faster; nevertheless, as she ran she dragged the bluebells from about her throat and flung them earth-wards to mark the way by which she went. Soon the thicket hid her, and Brother Gorlois, flying in pursuit, was hidden too.
A little while after the flight of Brother Gorlois, the Brother Pacificus stirred.
“My son,” he said faintly, “give me to drink, I pray thee.”
No one answered, and the old man murmured:
“He is young, he sleeps.”
He sighed, for his mouth was very parched and dry. After a while he said again:
“My son, sleepest thou? Wake, I pray thee.”
But no one answered, and he said:
“My voice is weak, and the sleep of youth is heavy. O Lord, Thy chosen slept in the hour of Thy agony; how didst Thou thirst, O Master, and there was none to succour Thee, save with the bitter vinegar and gall!”
After a while the old monk’s thirst grew grievous, and he strove, slowly and tremulously, to raise his aged limbs.
“It is but a little way to yonder jug,” he murmured, “I am a selfish old man; the lad is tired with toil. I will seek the water for myself.”
He rose slowly, groped a pace or two, stumbled, and fell to the floor of his cell. He lay there, moaning a little now and then, and shivering. Thus did he lie during two hours of the night; and thus Brother Gorlois found him when he slunk back, just as day broke. In great terror he called the brethren, praying God that the old man had not known his absence, or at least would be speechless till the end. But Brother Pacificus, though all might see his death was near, recovered speech and clearness of mind, and received the last rites of the Church. Then said he:
“My brethren, ye are weary. Leave me to await the coming of my Lord and Master. I shall die this night when midnight strikes. Wherefore at that hour go ye to the chapel, and speed my soul with songs of holy joy; and leave with me, I pray you, Brother Gorlois.”
Then they obeyed, weeping; but the Head said:
“Dare we trust thee, beloved brother, with this youth?” and sternly he said to Brother Gorlois:
“Slept ye not, nor had left our holy brother when this sickness increased upon him?”
Then Brother Gorlois lied; and Brother Pacificus smiled very tenderly upon him and said:
“Nay, ye shall leave me, my father, with the babe I found.”
When the brethren were gone, Brother Pacificus said:
“Come near to me, my child, and lift me in thy arms, for I breathe hardly.”
Brother Gorlois obeyed, and Brother Pacificus said:
“Wherefore left ye me, my son and little brother? The pain was sore as I lay yonder; and that ye might have spared me. But in truth I sinned in lack of patience; nevertheless, the thirst which was upon me was great when I strove to fetch the water, that I might drink a little to cool my tongue.”
The old man spoke very feebly, a word or two and then a long pause; but when he had spoken Brother Gorlois knew Brother Pacificus had perceived his absence. He said no word, but hung his head. He perceived there was no fear that Brother Pacificus would betray him. And yet he hung his head; there grew up about his heart a feeling new and strange, and he felt very wroth with the swineherd’s brown daughter.
“See thy penance, child,” said Brother Pacificus. “Hold me in thy arms; thus I breathe more freely.”
Brother Gorlois said nothing, not even when the cramp in his arms grew great.
The old man fell into a stupor; but sometimes he wandered a little. He would moan and say:
“My son—Gorlois—my son—where are thou?”
Sometimes he would say:
“I thirst—alone—Thou, Lord, wast left——”
And Brother Gorlois, albeit dull of wit, saw he was living through the pain and loneliness of the past night. Brother Gorlois did not ask the old monk’s pardon; he did not know he wanted him to forgive; he knew his heart felt heavy; he began to wish the Head might find out what he had done, and have him flogged; and he felt more and more wroth with the swineherd’s daughter, who was the cause of his discomfort.
In the chapel the brethren began to sing, Brother Pacificus could not hear them. The hour of midnight was near.
Dies iræ, dies illa,
Solvet sæclum in favilla,
Teste David cum Sybilla.
Brother Pacificus waxed heavier in the strong arms of his “little brother;” his breathing grew slower, and more slow.
Rex tremendæ majestatis,
Qui salvandos salvas gratis,
Salva me, fons pietatis.
Brother Pacificus shuddered once with a great shudder, and his breathing ceased; then he breathed once more, opened his eyes, and smiled.
“Jhesu!” he said, “Jhesu! Jhesu! Jhesu!” Then he laughed softly and gladly, as a lover at the sight of his beloved, or as an exile when he sees again the land he loves.
The hour was midnight; a light like moonlight flickering upon blue steel flashed through the room, and Brother Pacificus died.
Then as Brother Gorlois laid him down, and slowly rubbed his cramped arms, there flew through the casement a bunch of blue flowers; they smote him on the chest, and dropped upon the dead man’s breast.
Brother Gorlois gave a cry that was like unto a human sob of pain, but liker still to the cry of an angry beast that has been hurt. He leaped through the unglazed casement; in the silent wood below there was the shriek of a woman in a swiftly stilled anguish of bodily fear.
From the chapel, when the day broke, the weeping brethren came. They found Brother Pacificus dead, and on his breast a bunch of blue sweet-smelling flowers; under the window on the dew-drenched forest turf, there lay a half-clad girl; a bunch of blossoms like those on the dead saint’s breast was in her stiffened hand; there was a wound in her throat that an arm nerved by savage rage had given; in the tangle of her rough hair was the knife that had killed her. It was the Brother Gorlois’ hunting knife; but he had fled, and the House of the Cold Strand knew him no more from the hour when the Son of Man was born in him, in the throes of a first “conviction of sin,” the passing anguish of a first remorse.
THE EXCELLENT VERSATILITY
OF THE MINOR POET
Petals of wild cherry blossom were flying on a soft rush of wind that swept through the beech wood. Little bright sheathlets lay, brown and shining, at the feet of the smooth silver-green boles of the trees. The leaves, not yet rid of the silky soft fringes of their babyhood, fluttered like little flags, and glowed like green flame; they were not yet thick enough to hide the misty blue sky, laced with feathery cloudlets. Light seemed to flow from the little leaves—the light of life, the life of spring-time. The “Fire of God” was aflame in the wood world; a green mist of colour was aglow in the very air that pulsed between the beech-tree boles. In every dell the bracken sprang up straightly, uncurling its brown heads to spread abroad the branches of its later summer greenery. The first blue-bells were there too, covering the ground with tender blue mist, and filling the air with an ecstasy of perfume that smote the senses with the pain that attends the inexpressible and almost intangible; for the soul of all joy, of all sweetness, whether of perfume, sight, or sound, is ever hidden away in the heart of things, whereof all that can be smelt, or seen, or heard, does but torment us with a deeper, eternally elusive longing.
On a bough a blue tit hung head downwards, and beneath the bough, half hidden in a crisp bed of last year’s leaves, lay a child who watched the tit with half-shut eyes, and shook with a delight he did not understand, which was akin to pain. A queer, lonely, shy child, lying in a wood, trembling with a force which was trying to express itself through him. He was the motherless son of an old country vicar, who took scarcely any notice of him until the boy was old enough to read the books his father loved, who let the child “run wild” from sunrise to sunset, and after.
Those who commented on the matter said it was very bad for a boy to have no young companions, and to dream alone in a wood all day. This was true, but circumstances alter cases. The training, or rather the lack of any training from the world of men, happened to be just what this particular child needed; this was probably the reason he was placed where he was, to struggle through a short life alone. People were as shadows to the boy—shadows whom he greeted kindly, to whom he meekly submitted himself in much, for he was docile in most matters, partly because there were so few things of the outer world for which this queer child really cared. When the outer things were forced upon his notice, he observed all manner of traits in people which others did not see. But for the most part he did not live in the world of men at all, but in the life of the beech wood, and in the life of that which the wood partly expressed—a life after which he reached continually without knowing or finding it.
He lay in the withered leaves and quivered with the thoughts and dim sensations that came about him like living presences; a power, not his own, seemed to press upon the child, till the wood vanished from his eyes; it was as though the wide sky had suddenly stooped to the boy and engulfed him in a flood of quivering, living light.
Vague longings, longings to express somewhat that lurked within and ever eluded him, compassed the child about; until at last the knowledge stole upon him that he could put a shadow of his thought into rhythmic words; words with a cadence that should tell of brooks and whispering leaves, and the songs and rustling of the birds in the beech wood.
It was about this time that the father saw that his child was not as other children; when he saw it he gave the boy no less liberty, but he bestowed upon him freely such knowledge as was his, and let him learn from the poets of past and present the power that lies in deftly wielded words.
So this boy, Fletewode Garth, lived in the quiet old vicarage house, surrounded by the beech woods and the meadows, and dreamed, and wrote, and read such books as his father possessed, which were less numerous than well chosen. His father, the gentlest, simplest, most unworldly of men, never speculated as to his boy’s future. Nor did the lad himself dream, as yet, of giving his thoughts to the world; of fame to be or money making he never thought at all.
The day came (it was when Fletewode was twenty years old) that the mild old vicar, having finished his appointed course as pastor of Beechenfield, sat down peacefully to smoke and doze under the shade of a trellised Crimson Rambler in the vicarage garden, and there he fell asleep and never woke up again. Then it was found that save for the sum of £100 in the Bank, his son was left penniless; very well read in English literature, with much delicacy of taste in art and poetry, with such classical attainments as the old vicar had himself possessed, and with no other qualifications for making his way in the world—save genius. So that it is obvious he ran a very good chance of starving.
His father’s cousin, a prosperous man of business, desired to do well by him. He offered to obtain for him a clerkship in the city. Fletewode thanked him; then he pointed out that he was very unbusinesslike, that arithmetic was not his strong point, in fact he was in the habit, when necessity arose, of adding up on his fingers; also that he wrote a very unclerkly hand. Moreover, he said: “I want to write about the things of which I think, and I believe that is the only thing I can really do well.”
His relative regarded him as a fool, and did not take the trouble to hide the fact. Fletewode was quite unruffled by this, which annoyed his kinsman still more. There is nothing to be done with a person who does not mind what you think of, or say to, him, and it makes you appear as though you were of little account in his eyes. Fletewode’s relative was unpleasantly conscious of this, nevertheless he tried again to rouse the impracticable youth to a sense of realities; he asked him how he proposed to live. Fletewode replied that he possessed £100; he supposed he could live on that for some time; perhaps he should earn money by the things he wrote; he had not considered the matter deeply, and, after all, money was of secondary importance. To speak disrespectfully of other people’s Gods is unjustifiable; Fletewode’s relative, very properly, cursed him in the names of Worldly Wisdom, and Business and Commonsense; also he said he washed his hands of him, when he was starving in the gutter he would come to his senses. Fletewode smiled like one who is occupied with more important questions, but lends a kindly ear to childlike babblings; then he went out to sit under the Crimson Rambler, where his father died. The crimson petals lay thickly on the walk, and in a crook of the thorny boughs a flycatcher was feeding a youthful family.
A week later Fletewode left the vicarage, and the roses, the beech wood and the birds, and went to London with a sheaf of manuscripts and a few books. At the end of a year he had written a great deal, but no one heeded him. Who was to be expected to turn aside from the press of life to see whether this shabbily dressed young man, who couched all manner of wild, mystical thoughts of God and humanity and nature in melodious verse, that made one think of the murmur of the wind through a perfumed wood on a June night—who was to take much trouble, I say, to see whether there was any truth in the words, or genius in the soul, of such a country lad as this?
At the end of a year the £100 was nearly gone; not that Fletewode had recklessly spent the whole of this enormous sum on himself, but he found (it is not an unusual experience) many people in the not too magnificent street where he rented a room who were poorer than he; these people looked upon him as a man of fortune, and they explained to him the duty of the rich towards the poor.
On a day in spring Fletewode Garth sat in his room and shivered with nervousness and hunger, while he faced the fact that he had but three shillings left.
Soon he would not be able to buy ink and paper; his work was beginning to suffer a little by reason of lack of food, and anxiety. It was for that reason the sheet of paper on the table before him was angrily torn across, and stained, moreover, with tears. He could not think; the halting of his brain, the blunting of his perceptions were the keenest tortures life could bring a soul like Fletewode Garth. He had altered during his year of town life; the child-look, which had lingered in his eyes despite his twenty years, was gone. He was no longer semi-unconscious of his surroundings and steeped in dreams of the things beyond. He was nervously, irritably, bitterly conscious of his world. Life—the seamy side of it—had made him look on the things men call the realities of existence; the ugliest, most sordid, most evil side of life. He had looked to some purpose, looked till his heart was sickened, till his heart was weary with pain and hopelessness. Looked till the pressure of the sordid-seeming struggle without, and the strong constraining power of that mystic something within, a power which was laid on him despite himself, sometimes strained his nerves to breaking point.
Now, too, a dread seized him. The sight of the world’s sorrow had made him tremblingly anxious that his human comrades should hear him speak of the fairer things; of that which he felt to be true, which once had been the whole of life for him. For the first time he desired to comfort and to succour, and though he knew it not, this longing gave to his work the last touch it needed—the human touch, the power of speech from heart to heart.
Suppose, he thought, he died of poverty, and all he had written was swept away unread. Fletewode actually believed that it is possible to sweep out of existence, irrevocably and for all time, a thing which the world needs, or will need. Therefore he grieved; he had no personal ambitions, he did not mind obscurity or death, nor did he greatly mind suffering; but now, at last, he wished people to have the happiness that had vanished from his own life.
He got up with a sigh, took his hat, and went out. He was going to seek a possible patron. John Chalmers, a man whom he once helped with some of the vanished £100, told him “to go and see Scottie; Scottie might put something in his way.”
John Chalmers was a clever man, who would have been a successful artist, save for drink. He drew rather coarse cartoons for inferior comic papers.
“Scottie,” on the other hand, was a prosperous person. He had a talent for inventing jingling refrains which “caught on” with the public; his comic songs, “patriotic” songs, and dance music were whistled by every street boy, and ground out by every piano organ in London.
Fletewode Garth reached the house of this prosperous man; it was a little house in the suburbs, with a lilac tree bursting into bloom in the small front garden. Mr. Scottie had lunched an hour before his visitor’s arrival; but, being conscienceless in such matters, he lied and said he was famished, and luncheon was late. This he did because he knew Fletewode Garth was hungry; for, before he and the public had discovered his gift for tunes, he was a struggling provincial actor, stranded in South Wales by a decamping manager; wherefore he had tramped to the nearest large town, went forty-eight hours without food, and slept under a hayrick in a pelting thunderstorm; this invaluable experience caused him to feel for Fletewode, and also caused him to perceive the signs of famine, and shape his lie in accordance with his observations. Now if some persons had refrained from that lie, it would have indicated in them a high regard for truth; but if Mr. Scottie had refrained from it, it would have argued lack of sympathy rather than morality; for he lied fairly often, and believed it to be necessary; therefore his untruthfulness to Fletewode was an act of unmixed virtue.
After luncheon he told his guest he wanted verses—up-to-date verses—to which he could attach tunes; his old friend Farquharson, who used to write them for him, was dead; would Fletewode try to fill his place. It was pure philanthropy on the part of this patron of poetry; he could get countless jingles of the kind he needed; but he was sorry for the lad, whose white face, hollow eyes, and air of nervous strain, had touched him.
Fletewode said he would try. He went home, and thought for a few minutes. Then he drew from his memory a quaint country tale from his old home; he cast it into the form of a ballad. It was stirring enough; a story of love and heroism, of those elemental passions of the race which are always young, always able to grip the imagination. The next day he took it to his patron, who shook his head.
“My dear chap,” said he amiably, “this won’t do. I want something which will go down at the Rag Bag. Never been to the Rag Bag? Great Scott! How on earth can you write unless you know the world? I’ll give you a pass. You go and see for yourself the kind of thing I want.”
Fletewode went to the Rag Bag; at first the foolish vulgarity of the songs, the dull, sordid atmosphere of the place, wearied him. Then his mind, an ever-plastic machine, adapted itself a little; he began to take a sort of amused pleasure in learning the “trick of the thing.” His cleverness began to prompt him; to show him how easily he could write rhymes much more pointed, much more witty, and considerably more harmful, than the majority of these coarse, imbecile jingles; his genius, which was the power beyond, held his mind back, and said: “Keep these powers holy for me.”
Next day he went to see Scottie, and told him he did not care to do it.
“Why not?” said his patron, a little piqued.
“I don’t care to wade in the gutter mud,” said Fletewode irritably, and indeed, very rudely and ungratefully; but he was over-strung and tormented by various sections of his mental and emotional make-up pulling at him at once, and each in a different direction.
“What bosh,” said the other. “Gutter mud! Gutter mud be hanged! The people want it. Old Farquharson was as decent a fellow as ever breathed. You think the poor old chap has gone below, I suppose, because he wrote these things to keep his missus and kids out of the workhouse? Well! Of all the beastly cant——”
“No, no, I don’t mean that. It was all right for him.”
“If you think you’re a better fellow than old Farquharson was, my young friend, you’re jolly well mistaken,” said the other, strumming excruciatingly on the piano, for he was growing annoyed.
“I never said I was better. I never think, or care either, whether I am good, bad, or indifferent. Can’t you see how hideously ugly these songs are? Jingling tunes and Bank Holiday verses! They’re like the smell of withered cabbages and naphtha lamps.”
This was not very courteous to the kindly composer of the said tunes.
“Oh, well,” said he, rather sharply, “as you please. Er—I’m rather busy, Mr. Garth.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” said Fletewode, starting and colouring. “I’m afraid I’ve been very rude. I’m sorry. Good morning, and—thank you.”
That evening he sat alone as usual, and tried to write his thoughts. He was cold and tired and half-starved. There was only a shilling left. He had written a sonnet, perhaps one of the most difficult forms of poetry, needing the greatest perfection of execution. He read it, sitting near the window, where a streak of the dying sunlight could fall on his numbed frame. The lines halted, they did not even scan; the thoughts were feeble, confused. His work was bad; it was fatally, irredeemably bad. He crushed the paper in his hands, fell on his knees on the floor, and rested his head on the seat of his one wooden chair. There are some agonies of the soul into which it is sacrilege to pry; this was one of them; we will not try to gauge it.
At last Fletewode stood up, went out, spent his last shilling on a meal, and came back penniless. That was no matter, to-morrow Scottie would give him five, perhaps ten shillings.
He sat at the table and wrote; as he wrote he became absorbed in his work, he found himself laughing over it. When it was finished he read it through, he dropped it on the table, rested his head upon it and cried like a child. He had sold his birthright for a mess of pottage, and his life died within him for very shame. The dawn found him asleep in his chair, his head still resting upon the paper.
The next day he sought his patron, apologised for his folly, was easily forgiven by the most placable and kindly of slip-knot-principled men, and tendered his verses. The amiable Scottie took them, read, and chuckled over them appreciatively.
“You jolly humbug!” he said with genuine admiration. “And you got a pass for the Rag Bag out of me to give you a tip!”
“Will they do—these verses?”
“Rather,” still chuckling. “I’ll give you ten shillings for them—yes—I don’t mind giving you ten shillings. They’re very smart. This is your real line, you see; you’ll get on now like a house on fire.”
“Give them to me. I’ll polish them. They’re in the rough. I wrote them quickly.”
“They’ll do.”
“Give them back, I tell you,” said Fletewode irritably. “They might have been raked out of the Thames mud; but, even so, I won’t let them go like that. I’ll polish them. You shall have them to-morrow.”
Scottie handed him the verses and a ten-shilling piece. Fletewode went home to “polish” his production.
He spread the verses out before him. From his window he could see stacks of chimney pots, their crudeness of colour mellowed by the picturesqueness of dirt lit by the benign influence of May sunshine. Through the open window floated the fluty call of a caged thrush, whose cage hung over a great heap of wallflowers on the stall of a greengrocer’s shop.
Fletewode listened awhile, picked up the verses, dropped them, half raised his hands to his head, let them fall, and sat still. His limbs grew numb and heavy, then they vanished from his consciousness; all his life seemed to be focussed to one point, with a great eagerness and yearning, for what he knew not.
The room faded from his sight. Petals of wild cherry blossom, like faery cups fashioned from snowflakes, were flying through the air; the green of the beeches was like living flame; the wood was full of keen strong life. The birds were building; a wren flew by with thistledown in her beak; down by the little stream where marsh marigolds and water forget-me-nots grew, a kingfisher was flashing by; a blackbird was splashing and bathing in the shallows; over the cowslip-spangled meadow beyond, the rooks were flying, and the sheep bells’ clang blended with their sober calling.
But there was a keener, swifter life in the wood than that of opening leaf and building bird. He had always felt its throbbing, but now it waxed perceptible to sight; it flowed like living light through the boles of the trees; they seemed to grow translucent; it thrilled in the air; through the shining vistas of the beechen woods, the gods and dryads of old legends came trooping; and the elfin peoples of the flowers and air, of the water and the moss-decked rock, made good sport in the flitting lights and shadows.
He cast himself, so it seemed, in the old hollow filled with the dead crisp beech leaves; their faint pungent smell and the delicate odour of the opening leaves were all about him in this strange old-new world. About him a presence wove itself; an unreal, most-real, compelling power, without him and within. He felt the pulsing of a stronger life smite upon his. And then, even as when he was a child, the inner and the outer world alike flowed away from him, the great sky seemed to stoop to him in a blinding flood of living light and wrap him round, and “there was neither speech nor language,” only light—light—light—and again more light and keener life.
The next day Mr. Scottie received a note which was left at his door. Out of it dropped a ten-shilling piece. On a sheet of paper was written:
“I can’t do it, I’ve torn them up. To every man his work and his line, this isn’t mine. I must do the work they mean me to do. If you say: ‘Who are they?’ I do not know. If through some fault of mine, or of the world’s, I fail to do as I am meant to do, then let me go. There’s no point in a man’s keeping his body alive by making his brain grind out work for which it wasn’t built. Better work with one’s hands than that, till the hour strikes. That is what I shall try now, and wait results.”
Mr. Scottie was greatly concerned, because his protégé had, as he phrased it, “gone dotty,” and, being as kindly a creature as ever pursued the tasks appointed for him by his past, he took pains to find Fletewode. But Fletewode and his MSS. were gone.
A week later the gardener of a well-to-do literary man, a minor poet, received a shock. Within his master’s grounds was a little clump of beech trees; they grew far away from Fletewode’s old home, but they were fine trees, all bravely decked in their spring green, and at their feet grew bluebells. The gardener found a dead man lying face downwards in a bluebell patch, and beside him was a great bundle of papers tied up in a scarlet and white handkerchief. The gardener gave the alarm; he carried the bundle to his master, and the dead man was laid in the harness room in the stables. There was no clue at all as to the identity of the man; the doctor discovered he had died of heart failure. The minor poet looked through the papers; he said at the inquest there was no clue in the bundle as to who the man was, there were only a few unimportant documents; he would pay the expenses of the poor young fellow’s funeral.
Now the minor poet was an ambitious man, well known in the literary world. His ambitions were larger than his power of performance. He was well known among men of letters as a very good critic of other people’s work. The day of the funeral he sat alone and trembled in the throes of temptation. He did not understand the subtle mystic thought of the poems in the bundle, but he saw their marvellous beauty of expression. He appreciated keenly the lovely lilt and melody of the lines which seemed to ring out from the heart of a fairy haunted wood. The minor poet was not a very righteous man. Three beautiful little books emanated from his pen point, they were finally bound in white vellum and tied chastely with blue ribbons. Those books were widely read. The critics greatly praised the versatility of the minor poet, who had never written anything of that kind before; also they warned him—friendly-wise—against a tendency to mysticism, which ever saps the judgment and emasculates the intellect. The minor poet said he would never fall again into that snare, and indeed he never did so. The thoughts enshrined within those poems struck strongly on the consciousness of four readers only. One was a foreign writer of romance, the second was a great preacher, the third a musician, and the fourth a man of science to whom the world harkened when he spake. And the thought of these four men, and through them the thought of the world, was coloured for all time to come by the work of the minor poet; men who had not heeded that of Fletewode Garth, heard his voice gladly. Thus the wheel that none can stay rolled on, and the world, through the heart failure of Fletewode, and the ambition of an unrighteous man, received the message which it would not receive by other means. For the hour had struck upon the clock of time when it was fit that it should hear, therefore its ears were opened.
But the problem for the wise is this: When sheaves are garnered what shall be the minor poet’s share in the reaping?