“THE TREE OF BEAUTY”
“That,” said the playwright, “is a beautiful story. I suppose every one who reads it will think so; but I am not sure that more than one in a million will guess a tithe of what it means. Frankly, I know I don’t. I daresay even the writer himself didn’t know all that it suggests.”
The book was The Light Invisible, and the story was “Consolatrix Afflictorum.”
“Do you agree with me?” said the playwright after a pause, in which the only sound heard was the wind and the drumming of the waves on the rocks. Since he received no answer he looked at his companion, a man whom he believed he knew very well; when he looked at him he knew his own folly, and was silent.
Presently the man said:
“Do you like stories? Shall I tell you one?”
“Is it true?”
“Naturally. How could it be otherwise? Do you think I can create out of nothingness? The story in itself must be true, if I could understand it. But I shall have to grope after it, and translate it for you; and I shall do it badly, no doubt. Still—shall I tell it?”
“Do,” said the playwright. Whereupon the man began as follows:
“Years ago, perhaps a couple of centuries or so, there was a village in the north of England, which remains little altered to this day. It has never been touched by that change in the method of viewing truth which some call the Reformation, and others name after a different fashion. This was partly because it is an isolated moorland village; partly because it was, and is, owned by a family whose representative at that time was not only a very rich and influential man, but also of the type with whom other men, and even Church and State, do not very readily interfere. He was grave and discreet, sober of speech and very devout, and he ruled his village with a most benevolent despotism. He was especially filled with devotion for the Virgin Mother, “the blossoming Tree, the Mother of Christ,” in whose honour he had built a small but most beautiful chapel in his grounds; here the rites celebrated were of the highest perfection of reverent elaboration, and here the devout builder retired daily for prayer and meditation.
“One day as he came from prayer his servants brought him a vagabond gipsy lad who had been selling songs in the village or offering them in exchange for food. This outcast was very little past his boyhood; his garments were worn, and faded with sun and rain, his feet were bare, and in his cap was fastened a bough stolen from a blossoming fruit tree.
“At that time the once persecuted had become the persecutors; coarse, bitter, and profane songs were written, and sold to be sung in taverns and at country fairs, which mocked at things which were by many people justly held sacred. Among this stroller’s songs were two which spoke profanely of Her whom the king of the little moorland village reverenced. When therefore he read them he became very angry; he bade that the songs—one and all—should be destroyed; he told his servants that the gipsy should be whipped, set in the stocks, and finally pelted from the place after being ducked in the pond which was on the village green. Then the lad begged for mercy; he pleaded that he could not read, that he knew no difference between faith and faith, but only the crafts of the wood and the lore of his people. He bought and sold in ignorance, partly because he must eat, but chiefly because he wished to buy a string of red beads for his sweetheart, which he had promised her, because she desired to hang them round her throat.
“But the devout man, being wounded by the insults to his faith, for the verses were both coarse and flippant, would not listen. The lad was punished; his songs were destroyed; and at the time of sunset he fled, followed by the hoots of the villagers, bruised, bleeding, breathless, and half drowned.
“Now a year later his judge was riding, at nightfall, through a strange district of the south, whither he had come on business. He met a sober man in the dress of a preacher, and rode with him because the hour was late and the roads dangerous because of highwaymen. After a while they began to talk of grave matters touching their faith, and the salvation of their souls. Thus it happened that very soon they quarrelled, and well nigh came to reviling each other, in speech as well as in thought, the one for a blasphemous idolater, the other for a vile heretical outcast from the faith. At last they found that, in the heat of argument, they had missed the way, and were on a swampy bridle path in the depths of a misty oak wood.
“Then they called a truce, and reflected what they should do; as they considered thus they heard one coming through the wood who whistled. Soon he drew near; it was a young man, little more than a boy; as he came nearer he began to hoot like an owl, and the owls in the wood called back to him. When he was quite near and saw the faces of the riders he seemed as though he would fly; then he pulled his cap from his head, and came towards them, pleading that he was doing no ill. The ruler of the northern village saw he was the lad whom he had caused to be punished. He saw, moreover, that the gipsy knew him; therefore he told him very sternly that if, in revenge for a well-merited punishment, he played them evil tricks and directed them wrongly he should most bitterly repent it. But when the gipsy raised his eyes to his and asked simply:
“‘Why should I lie to you, sir, about the way?’ he felt ashamed and was silent. Then the preacher asked if there was any house at hand where they might purchase food and lodging. The gipsy answered:
“‘Good gentlemen, there is a farm a mile hence where this morning the farmer set his dog at me, thinking I would rob his hen-roost; when the dog did not bite me he kicked him. But he will gladly receive two worthy gentlemen with purses. Shall I guide you?’
“‘Guide us,’ said the preacher, ‘and we will pay you.’ So the boy went before them whistling. He was a wonderful whistler, and he seemed to have bat’s eyes that could see in the dark.
“Presently the man who had so severely condemned him called to him.
“‘Come here,’ he said, ‘and walk at my horse’s head.’
“The boy came obediently; at first he was afraid and loth to speak, but he seemed to be shy rather than sullen, and after a while he talked fearlessly and simply of such things as he knew; of the lore of his race, and of the customs of the peoples of the wood, sometimes called dumb brutes by those who cannot speak their tongue. His simplicity and gentleness, and his forgetfulness of the harshness of his former judge, won upon the man. He felt remorse, and asked him what he had done when his songs were destroyed, ‘For I might,’ said he, ‘have left those to you in which I found no offence.’ The gipsy answered simply that he went hungry for three days; also his sweetheart followed another because he could not give her the beads he had promised her. There were tears in his eyes as he spoke and yet he laughed.
“They went on for a while in silence; at last the lad stopped, and said:
“‘Gentlemen, I am sorry. The wood is very strange to-night, and I have missed my way. I meant to lead you right. Do not think evil of me. I know now that you who are not of our race quarrel among yourselves. But in this you agree. To curse us who are not of any faith, and to believe evil of us because we live under the sky and have other ways and thoughts than yours. But—but I am very tired of being cursed.’
“‘You shall not be cursed by me,’ said the man by whose side he walked. ‘Nor will I believe you wilfully led us wrong.’
“Then the gipsy took courage; he listened a little while, and cried:
“‘I hear the crackle of a camp fire. Perhaps some of my people are hereabouts. If so, do not fear us; we will welcome you if you trust us, and give you what we have to share.’
“The others heard nothing, but the lad led them towards the sound his ears caught, and soon they saw he was right. They came to an open space in the wood; there was a circle of huge grey stones, a temple of the gods of a vanished faith; within the circle was turf, where rabbits leaped and ate; in the centre a pool twenty feet deep, crystal clear, and green as pale chrysolite; had it been day each tiny weed that grew in the depth, each little stone that lay there, would have shone clear. In the centre of the pool was an islet, and on the isle a little ruined chapel dedicated to the Mother of God; in the chapel was a gipsy fire streaming upwards towards the great starlit sky, and causing wondrous shadows to leap and chase on the ruined walls. A thin slab of rock rose from the depths of the pool to the surface of the water, so that there was a narrow perilous pathway from the shore to the isle. In the chapel by the fire there sat on the broken pavement a young barefooted woman, clad in a peasant dress of blue frieze, a cloak about her shoulders, her hair falling veilwise around her, and a young child sleeping in her arms. The boy called to her in Romany; she rose and came to the shore of the isle, her child in her arms, and answered him in the same tongue. She was a beautiful brown-haired young woman; her solemn eyes were grey, and as clear as the pool by which she stood.
“‘Bid her speak in a tongue we can understand,’ said the preacher.
“The boy did so; asking whether she could direct them.
“‘I could, little brother,’ she answered in a sweet voice. ‘But you and these gentlemen might not understand me well. Better to shelter by these stones to-night, or cross the water to my fire; to-morrow you may seek your own way.’
“‘Have you any food, mother,’ said the lad, ‘food fit to offer such worshipful gentlemen?’
“‘Scarcely is it fit, brother,’ said the gipsy woman. ‘I have here bread, and a little wine, and one cup only in which to serve it.’
“‘If I had known you camped here, sister,’ said the boy, ‘and if you had no man to see that all is well with you and the child, I could have set snares in the fern, and you would have supped better.’
“‘I know it,’ she answered. ‘Had I asked it of you, you would have set snares for these little children. Nay, then, brother, you would have shared all you trapped till you went supperless yourself. Therefore you shall eat of my bread and drink the wine I have to give. Cross the water to me.’
“‘But these good gentlemen, mother?’ asked the boy.
“‘They may take you by the hand,’ she said, ‘and cross the water to me.’
“‘I do not think they can tread a path so narrow as this rock. It is slippery. Sister, I will cross and bring to them what you have of food and drink, and fire that we may build a fire by the stone.’
“‘You may take them fire,’ she answered, ‘but for food and drink they must cross to me. They cannot walk with your feet; they must use their own. They must cross barefoot, or they will fall into the pool.’
“After a while the man who ruled this little northern village determined to cross; he was hungry, and preferred the scantiest fare to fasting; besides he saw the cross on the ruined altar, and he desired to enter the chapel and pray. The preacher demurred at the depth of the cold still water; the chapel was a former place of Popish worship, the cross on the altar offended him, and he was not yet very hungry, besides he had a little food still in his wallet. He tethered the horses and sat down to eat, while his two companions crept, hand in hand, inch by inch over the narrow rock path that was just visible above the shifting shimmer of the pool’s surface.
“Entering the chapel they sat side by side on the broken pavement. The woman, sitting beside the fire, broke her cakes of bread; she gave them each a portion, and ate some herself; she drank from the cup and handed it to them.
“‘Till the sun rises,’ she said, ‘I shall rest here, I and my child. Rest you here, also, and sleep or watch as you will. Through the night my fire will burn; at dawn I shall let it die. It will have lighted and warmed us till the sun shall rise.’
“The preacher, having prayed, wrapped himself in his cloak, and sat at the foot of a great stone, watching the horses as they cropped the turf, lest they should stray and be lost; he mused profitably and seriously on his labours and doctrine. He heard the cropping of the horses, the murmur of the wind, and the trickle of a stream, fed by the deep still pool. He heard the woman singing softly to her child, in crooning snatches, in seeming unmindfulness of what she sang:
“‘He that is down need fear no fall,’ she crooned. ‘He that is low no pride——’
“She whispered wordless music as she rocked to and fro; then her song changed:
“‘O Tree of Beauty—Tree of Might,’ she sang, clear, faint, and high, in a monotonous chant, such as the chapel must have echoed to in the days when priests served before its ruined altar, and men and women knelt at the little shrine above which was the statue of a Mother and Child, ‘O Tree of Beauty—Tree of Beauty—Tree of Might——’
“The gipsy boy lay near the fire rejoicing in the warmth, looking sometimes up to the starlit sky, across which many a meteor flamed and died, sometimes at the shadows that leaped on the walls, sometimes into the woman’s face.
“‘What do you sing, sister?’ he said. ‘It is not a song of our people.’
“‘It is a song of all peoples, brother,’ she answered. ‘But they sing it in many tongues, and to many tunes.’
“The lad looked at her wonderingly; then he began to watch the stars again, and the little thin clouds that flew across the dark sky. At last he went to sleep with his head resting on his arm; sometimes he laughed and whispered as he slept, and thrice he sobbed. The woman bent down and cast over him a fold of her cloak, as he lay and dreamed under the stars.
“As for the third traveller, he, mindful of the sacredness of the place, stood not alone barefooted (for to cross the rock it had been needful to lay aside all covering of his feet), but also bareheaded he turned his face to the East, and perceiving the little side altar with the statue of the Mother, he approached and knelt before it, making the sign of the cross. There he knelt till dawn, for he was one used to prayer and vigil. The woman sat motionless, guarding the leaping flames; bread in her hands, the wine cup at her feet, her cloak enfolding the sleeping outcast, the swaddled babe on her knees. Now of her thoughts, which were measureless, there is no record I can read; nor can I tell of the gipsy boy’s dreams. But it is said the other two wanderers saw the place in very different fashion, and this is what they saw. The preacher beheld the dark circle of the enclosing oak trees, stirred by the wind; he saw the great grey stones reared by the dead pagans; he saw the turf, the horses, and the wild rabbits; he saw the pool shining in the firelight, the ruined chapel, the leaping flame, and the woman sitting beside it with her child on her knee, and the sleeping lad lying at her feet. And his eyes rested on her till he forgot the strife of creeds; he watched till she seemed to him the image or forthshowing of the motherhood of the world; and when next he preached he spoke no harsh doctrine, nor railed at idolatrous worship of a creature rather than of the Creator, as he was wont to do; but he spoke of the Love of God shown forth in human love, and above all in the great love of a mother for her little children; for this pure love, said he, is an example to us of the love that gives rather than takes, it is a symbol of the Divine Love, that, motherlike, feeds, sustains, and preserves all creatures.
“Now the other traveller passed into profound musing, till his outer senses were locked as though in sleep; and he saw the place in which he was after the following manner and semblance. He saw the girdle of trees as the wall of a great temple, therein there were three courts, and at the centre a shrine. In the first court was the image of a woman bearing a child in her arms; about her were lights burning and the smell of incense, and the song of human praise; priests in rich vestments celebrated solemn rites, and worshippers, both male and female, old and young, bowed down before this mother and child. In the second court there was a dimness as of a starlit night; there was no incense save the smell of earth and flowers, no song but the song of birds, and of streams, and the boom of waves like the tones of an organ; no lights but strange fires that gleamed and flickered through the night, no worshippers save dim forms of the gracious ‘hidden peoples,’ the gods of wood and orchard, plain and tilth.
“In the third court was a turmoil of cold flame; those who served and worshipped there (if servitors and worshippers there were), were many-hued, transparent, flame-like; here was no human being—neither was there male nor female, but in that turmoil of fires were strange forms moving in time to music, and wonderful shapes that changed and gleamed and moved in marvellous sort with a motion and rhythm that had therein nothing earthly whereof tongue can rightly speak or pen set down; but throughout the turmoil of this wondrous dance there was an order and a purpose, for they moved in time to a great song that seemed like silence.
“But in the Shrine there was nothing visible; only from it a voice was heard crying:
“‘She who is worshipped in this temple is the Mother of all Faiths, past and present. She is worshipped as the Divine Mother of the Worlds, as the Power of Wisdom, as the Secret Rose, as star-strewn space, as Mary the Virgin, Mother of God; as the deep waters of the sea, also; and some there be who think of Her as woman. She is the Form Divine, Memory and Time; She is angel and man, woman and child, beast and bird, sky and cloud and flower, song of bird, dew, sunshine and rain, wind and water, snow and frost, tree and stream, priests’ chant and sacred writ, learning and holy rites. She is the Sacred Mirror of God, in Whom are all things visible and invisible. They who toil in Her service worship and praise Her, and of Her the Holy Child is born in every human heart. She, the sacred cup, and the holy bread; She, the lily of flame set in the waters of space; She, the waters whence it springs; She, the hearts of men, and their souls and bodies; She, the Holy Cave, the consecrated Manger wherein the Babe is cradled; She is the Mother of the Sacred Humanity whereby we enter the mystery of the Godhead. She, then is Nature and Beauty, the Power of God, the Builder of all Forms, the Mother of all Tales. Those sing of Her and praise Her who love to worship God as Divine Form rather than as hidden all-sustaining Life. For He, though he be One, is likewise manifold; and those who adore Him in the many praise Him in the sacred Form, eternal in the heavens when all earthly forms have passed like spray driven by the wind; Mary the Ever-Virgin, the Root of all the worlds, one with the life that sustains them, eternally inseparate from It. She is the Temple of God, the glorified body of the saint, the celestial garden of the souls made one; She is the Sacred Wood of the Cross, the Tree of Might and Beauty——’”
The man who told this tale ceased to speak. He was silent till the playwright touched his arm; he started:
“Is that the end?” said the playwright.
“It is the end,” said the man, dreamily. “There is nothing more to tell.”