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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/35388-h.zip b/35388-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b4d88f2 --- /dev/null +++ b/35388-h.zip diff --git a/35388-h/35388-h.htm b/35388-h/35388-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0c446bf --- /dev/null +++ b/35388-h/35388-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1952 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Master Of The Inn, by Robert Herrick. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + visibility: hidden; + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .blockquot{margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .listcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Master of the Inn, by Robert Herrick + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Master of the Inn + +Author: Robert Herrick + +Release Date: February 24, 2011 [EBook #35388] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MASTER OF THE INN *** + + + + +Produced by Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + +<h2>THE MASTER OF THE INN<br /><br /></h2> +<h2>THE</h2> +<h1>MASTER OF THE INN</h1> +<h3>BY</h3> +<h2>Robert Herrick<br /></h2> + +<hr style='width: 10%;' /> + +<h3><br />NEW YORK</h3> +<h3>Charles Scribner's Sons</h3> +<h4>1910<br /><br /></h4> + + + + +<div class="listcenter"> +<i>Copyright, 1908, by Charles Scribner's Sons</i><br /> +<br /> +<i>Published April, 1908</i><br /> +<i>Second Impression, July, 1908</i><br /> +<i>Third Impression, September, 1908</i><br /> +<i>Fourth Impression, December, 1908</i><br /> +<i>Fifth Impression, December, 1908</i><br /> +<i>Sixth Impression, July, 1909</i><br /> +<i>Seventh Impression, October, 1909</i><br /> +<i>Eighth Impression, January, 1910</i><br /> +<i>Ninth Impression, July, 1910</i><br /><br /> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 75px;"> +<img src="images/title.jpg" width="75" height="85" alt="publisher's decoration" title="publisher's decoration" /> +<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +</div> + + + + +<div class="blockquot"><i>The author of "The Master of the Inn" having received many +inquiries as to what foundation in fact this tale has wishes to +state explicitly that both incidents and persons are purely +imaginary, and that so far as he is aware there is neither Master +nor Inn in existence.</i><br /> + + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0"><i>Chicago, Ills.,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>12 May, 1909.</i><br /></span> +</div> +</div> + + +<p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span> +</p> + + +<p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> +<br /> +<br /> +</p> + + +<h2>THE MASTER OF THE INN<br /><br /></h2> + +<p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span><br /><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +</p> + +<h3>THE</h3> +<h2>MASTER OF THE INN<br /><br /></h2> + + + + +<h2>I</h2> + + +<p> +It was a plain brick house, three full stories, with four broad +chimneys, and overhanging eaves. The tradition was that it had been a +colonial tavern—a dot among the fir-covered northern hills on the +climbing post-road into Canada. The village scattered along the road +below the inn was called Albany—and soon forgotten when the railroad +sought an opening through a valley less rugged, eight miles to the west. +</p> + +<p> +Rather more than thirty years ago<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> the Doctor had arrived, one summer +day, and opened all the doors and windows of the neglected old house, +which he had bought from scattered heirs. He was a quiet man, the +Doctor, in middle life then or nearly so; and he sank almost without +remark into the world of Albany, where they raise hay and potatoes and +still cut good white pine off the hills. Gradually the old brick tavern +resumed the functions of life: many buildings were added to it as well +as many acres of farm and forest to the Doctor's original purchase of +intervale land. The new Master did not open his house to the public, yet +he, too, kept a sort of Inn, where men came and stayed a long time. +Although no sign now hung from the old elm tree in front of the house,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> +nevertheless an ever-widening stream of humanity mounted the winding +road from White River and passed through the doors of the Inn, seeking +life.... +</p> + +<p> +That first summer the Doctor brought with him Sam, the Chinaman, whom we +all came to know and love, and also a young man, who loafed much while +the Doctor worked, and occasionally fished. This was John Herring—now a +famous architect—and it was from his designs, sketched those first idle +summer days, that were built all the additions to the simple old +house—the two low wings in the rear for the "cells," with the Italian +garden between them; the marble seat curving around the pool that joined +the wings on the west; also the substan<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>tial wall that hid the Inn, its +terraced gardens and orchards, from Albanian curiosity. Herring found a +store of red brick in some crumbling buildings in the neighborhood, and +he discovered the quarry whence came those thick slabs of purple slate. +The blue-veined marble was had from a fissure in the hills, and the +Doctor's School made the tiles. +</p> + +<p> +I think Herring never did better work than in the making over of this +old tavern: he divined that subtle affinity which exists between north +Italy, with all its art, and our bare New England; and he dared to graft +boldly one to the other, having the rear of the Inn altogether Italian +with its portico, its dainty colonnades, the garden and the fountain and +the pool. From all this one looked down<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> on the waving grass of the +Intervale, which fell away gently to the turbulent White River, then +rose again to the wooded hills that folded one upon another, with ever +deepening blue, always upward and beyond. +</p> + +<p> +Not all this building at once, to be sure, as the millionaire builds; +but a gradual growth over a couple of decades; and all built lovingly by +the "Brothers," stone on stone, brick and beam and tile—many a hand +taking part in it that came weak to the task and left it sturdy. There +was also the terraced arrangement of gardens and orchards on either side +of the Inn, reaching to the farm buildings on the one side and to the +village on the other. For a time Herring respected the quaint old tavern +with its small rooms and pine wain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>scot; then he made a stately +two-storied hall out of one half where we dined in bad weather, and a +pleasant study for the Doctor from the rest. The doors east and west +always stood open in the summer, giving the rare passer-by a glimpse of +that radiant blue heaven among the hills, with the silver flash of the +river in the middle distance, and a little square of peaceful garden +close at hand.... The tough northern grasses rustled in the breezes that +always played about Albany; and the scent of spruce drawn by the hot +sun—the strong resinous breath of the north—was borne from the woods. +</p> + +<p> +Thus it started, that household of men in the old Inn at the far end of +Albany village among the northern hills, with the Doctor and Sam and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> +Herring, who had been flung aside after his first skirmish with life and +was picked up in pure kindness by the Doctor, as a bit of the broken +waste of our modern world, and carried off with him out of the city. The +young architect returning in due time to the fight—singing—naturally +venerated the Doctor as a father; and when a dear friend stumbled and +fell in the <i>via dura</i> of this life, he whispered to him word of the Inn +and its Master—of the life up there among the hills where Man is little +and God looks down on his earth.... "Oh, you'll understand when you put +your eyes on White Face some morning! The Doctor? He heals both body and +soul." And this one having heeded spoke the word in turn to others in +need<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>—"to the right sort, who would understand." Thus the custom grew +like a faith, and a kind of brotherhood was formed, of those who had +found more than health at the Inn—who had found themselves. The Doctor, +ever busy about his farms and his woods, his building, and above all his +School, soon had on his hands a dozen or more patients or guests, as you +might call them, and he set them to work speedily. There was little +medicine to be found in the Inn: the sick labored as they could and thus +grew strong.... +</p> + +<p> +And so, as one was added to another, they began to call themselves in +joke "Brothers," and the Doctor, "Father." The older "Brothers" would +return to the Inn from all parts of the land, for a few days or a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> few +weeks, to grasp the Doctor's hand, to have a dip in the pool, to try the +little brooks among the hills. Young men and middle-aged, and even the +old, they came from the cities where the heat of living had scorched +them, where they had faltered and doubted the goodness of life. In some +way word of the Master had reached them, with this compelling +advice—"Go! And tell him I sent you." So from the clinic or the +lecture-room, from the office or the mill—wherever men labor with +tightening nerves—the needy one started on his long journey. Toward +evening he was set down before the plain red face of the Inn. And as the +Stranger entered the old hall, a voice was sure to greet him from within +somewhere, the deep voice of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> hearty man, and presently the Master +appeared to welcome the newcomer, resting one hand on his guest's +shoulder perhaps, with a yearning affection that ran before knowledge. +</p> + +<p> +"So you've come, my boy," he said. "Herring [or some one] wrote me to +look for you." +</p> + +<p> +And after a few more words of greeting, the Doctor beckoned to Sam, and +gave the guest over to his hands. Thereupon the Chinaman slippered +through tiled passageways to the court, where the Stranger, caught by +the beauty and peace so well hidden, lingered a while. The little space +within the wings was filled with flowers as far as the yellow water of +the pool and the marble bench. In the centre of the court was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> an old +gray fountain—sent from Verona by a Brother—from which the water +dropped and ran away among the flower beds to the pool. A stately elm +tree shaded this place, flecking the water below. The sun shot long rays +beneath its branches into the court, and over all there was an odor of +blossoming flowers and the murmur of bees. +</p> + +<p> +"Bath!" Sam explained, grinning toward the pool. +</p> + +<p> +With the trickle of the fountain in his ears the Stranger looked out +across the ripening fields of the Intervale to the noble sky-line of the +Stowe hills. Those little mountains of the north! Mere hills to all who +know the giants of the earth—not mountains in the brotherhood of ice +and snow and rock! But in form and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> color, in the lesser things that +create the love of men for places, they rise nobly toward heaven, those +little hills! On a summer day like this their broad breasts flutter with +waving tree-tops, and at evening depth on depth of purple mist gathers +over them, dropping into those soft curves where the little brooks flow, +and mounting even to the sky-line. When the sun has fallen, there rests +a band of pure saffron, and in the calm and perfect peace of evening +there is a hint of coming moonlight. Ah, they are of the fellowship of +mountains, those little hills of Stowe! And when in winter their flanks +are jewelled with ice and snow, then they raise their heads proudly to +the stars, calling across the frozen valleys to their greater brethren +in the midriff of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> the continent—"Behold, we also are hills, in the +sight of the Lord!"... +</p> + +<p> +Meantime Sam, with Oriental ease, goes slipping along the arcade until +he comes to a certain oak door, where he drops your bag, and disappears, +having saluted. It is an ample and lofty room, and on the outer side of +it hangs a little balcony above the orchard, from which there is a view +of the valley and the woods beyond, and from somewhere in the fields the +note of the thrush rises. The room itself is cool, of a gray tone, with +a broad fireplace, a heavy table, and many books. Otherwise there are +bed and chairs and dressing-table, the necessities of life austerely +provided. And Peace! God, what Peace to him who has escaped from the +furnace men make! It is as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> if he had come all the way to the end of the +world, and found there a great still room of peace. +</p> + +<p> +Soon a bell sounds—with a strange vibration as though in distant lands +it had summoned many a body of men together—and the household assembles +under the arcade. If it is fair and not cold, Sam and his helpers bring +out the long narrow table and place it, as Veronese places his feasters, +lengthwise beneath the colonnade, and thus the evening meal is served. A +fresh, coarse napkin is laid on the bare board before each man, no more +than enough for all those present, and the Doctor sits in the middle, +serving all. There are few dishes, and for the most part such as may be +got at home there in the hills. There is a pitcher of cider at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> one end +and a pitcher of mild white wine at the other, and the men eat and +drink, with jokes and talk—the laughter of the day. (The novice might +feel only the harmony of it all, but later he will learn how many +considered elements go to the making of Peace.) Afterward, when Sam has +brought pipes and tobacco, the Master leads the way to the sweeping +semicircle of marble seat around the pool with the leafy tree overhead; +and there they sit into the soft night, talking of all things, with the +glow of pipes, until one after another slips away to sleep. For as the +Master said, "Talk among men in common softens the muscles of the mind +and quickens the heart." Yet he loved most to hear the talk of others. +</p> + +<p> +Thus insensibly for the Novice there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> begins the life of the place, +opening in a gentle and persistent routine that takes him in its flow +and carries him on with it. He finds Tradition and Habit all about him, +in the ordered, unconscious life of the Inn, to which he yields without +question.... Shortly after dawn the bell sounds, and then the men meet +at the pool, where the Doctor is always first. A plunge into the yellow +water which is flecked with the fallen leaves, and afterward to each +man's room there is brought a large bowl of coffee and hot milk, with +bread and eggs and fruit. What more he craves may be found in the hall. +</p> + +<p> +Soon there is a tap on the newcomer's door, and a neighborly voice calls +out—"We all go into the fields<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> every morning, you know. You must earn +your dinner, the Doctor says, or borrow it!" So the Novice goes forth to +earn his first dinner with his hands. Beyond the gardens and the +orchards are the barns and sheds, and a vista of level acres of hay and +potatoes and rye, the bearing acres of the farm, and beyond these the +woods on the hills. "Nearly a thousand acres, fields and woods," the +neighbor explains. "Oh, there's plenty to do all times!" Meantime the +Doctor strides ahead through the wet grass, his eyes roaming here and +there, inquiring the state of his land. And watching him the newcomer +believes that there is always much to be done wherever the Doctor leads. +</p> + +<p> +It may be July and hay time—all the intervale grass land is mowed by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> +hand—there is a sweat-breaking task! Or it may be potatoes to hoe. Or +later in the season the apples have to be gathered—a pleasant pungent +job, filling the baskets and pouring them into the fat-bellied barrels. +But whatever the work may be the Doctor keeps the Novice in his mind, +and as the sun climbs high over the Stowe hills, he taps the new one on +the shoulder—"Better stop here to-day, my boy! You'll find a good tree +over there by the brook for a nap...." +</p> + +<p> +Under that particular tree in the tall timothy, there is the coolest +spot, and the Novice drowses, thinking of those wonderful mowers in +<i>Anna</i>, as he gazes at the marching files eating their way through the +meadow until his eyelids fall and he sleeps, the rip<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>ple of waving +timothy in his ears. At noon the bell sounds again from the Inn, and the +men come striding homeward wiping the sweat from their faces. They +gather at the swimming pool, and still panting from their labor strip +off their wet garments, then plunge one after another, like happy boys. +From bath to room, and a few minutes for fresh clothes, and all troop +into the hall, which is dark and cool. The old brick walls of the tavern +never held a gayer lot of guests. +</p> + +<p> +From this time on each one is his own master; there is no common toil. +The farmer and his men take up the care of the farm, and the Master +usually goes down to his School, in company with some of the Brothers. +Each one finds his own way<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> of spending the hours till sunset—some +fishing or shooting, according to the season; others, in tennis or games +with the boys of the School; and some reading or loafing—until the +shadows begin to fall across the pool into the court, and Sam brings out +the long table for dinner. +</p> + +<p> +The seasons shading imperceptibly into one another vary the course of +the day. Early in September the men begin to sit long about the +hall-fire of an evening, and when the snow packs hard on the hills there +is wood-cutting to be done, and in early spring it is the carpenter's +shop. So the form alters, but the substance remains—work and play and +rest.... +</p> + +<p> +To each one a time will come when the Doctor speaks to him alone. At +some hour, before many days have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> passed, the Novice will find himself +with those large eyes resting on his face, searchingly. It may be in the +study after the others have scattered, or at the pool where the Master +loved to sit beneath the great tree and hear his "confessions," as the +men called these talks. At such times, when the man came to remember it +afterward, the Doctor asked few questions, said little, but listened. He +had the confessing ear! And as if by chance his hand would rest on the +man's arm or shoulder. For he said—"Touch speaks: soul flows through +flesh into soul." +</p> + +<p> +Thus he sat and confessed his patients one after another, and his dark +eyes seemed familiar with all man's woes, as if he had listened always. +Men said to him what they had never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> before let pass their lips to man +or woman, what they themselves scarce looked at in the gloom of their +souls. Unawares it slipped from them, the reason within the reason for +their ill, the ultimate cause of sorrow. From the moment they had +revealed to him this hidden thing—had slipped the leash on their +tongues—it seemed no longer to be feared. "Trouble evaporates, being +properly aired," said the Doctor. And already in the troubled one's mind +the sense of the confused snarl of life began to lessen and veils began +to descend between him and it.... "For you must learn to forget," +counselled the Doctor, "forget day by day until the recording soul +beneath your mind is clean. Therefore—work, forget, be new!"... +</p> + +<p> +A self-important young man, much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> concerned with himself, once asked the +Master: +</p> + +<p> +"Doctor, what is the regimen that you would recommend to me?" +</p> + +<p> +And we all heard him say in reply— +</p> + +<p> +"The potatoes need hilling, and then you'll feel like having a dip in +the pool." +</p> + +<p> +The young man, it seems, wrote back to the friend in the city who had +sent him—"This Doctor cannot understand my case: he tells me to dig +potatoes and bathe in a swimming pool. That is all! All!" But the +friend, who was an old member of the Brotherhood, telegraphed back—"Dig +and swim, you fool!" Sam took the message at the telephone while we were +dining, and repeated it faithfully to the young man within the hearing +of all. A laugh rose that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> was hard in dying, and I think the Doctor's +lips wreathed in smile.... In the old days they say the Master gave +medicine like other doctors. That was when he spent part of the year in +the city and had an office there and believed in drugs. But as he gave +up going to the city, the stock of drugs in the cabinet at the end of +the study became exhausted, and was never renewed. All who needed +medicine were sent to an old Brother, who had settled down the valley at +Stowe. "He knows more about pills than I do," the Doctor said. "At least +he can give you the stuff with confidence." Few of the inmates of the +Inn ever went to Stowe, though Dr. Williams was an excellent physician. +And it was from about this time that we began to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> drop the title of +doctor, calling him instead the Master; and the younger men sometimes, +Father. He seemed to like these new terms, as denoting affection and +respect for his authority. +</p> + +<p> +By the time that we called him Master, the Inn had come to its maturity. +Altogether it could hold eighteen guests, and if more came, as in +midsummer or autumn, they lived in tents in the orchard or in the hill +camps. The Master was still adding to the forest land—fish and game +preserve the village people called it; for the Master was a hunter and a +fisherman. But up among those curving hills, when he looked out through +the waving trees, measuring by eye a fir or a pine, he would say, +nodding his head—"Boys, behold my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> heirs—from generation to +generation!" +</p> + +<p> +He was now fifty and had ceased altogether to go to the city. There were +ripe men in the great hospitals that still remembered him as a young man +in the medical school; but he had dropped out, they said—why? He might +have answered that, instead of following the beaten path, he had spoken +his word to the world through men—and spoken widely. For there was no +break in the stream of life that flowed upward to the old Inn. The +"cells" were always full, winter and summer. Now there were coming +children of the older Brothers, and these, having learned the ways of +the place from their fathers, were already house-broken, as we said, +when they came. They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> knew that no door was locked about the Inn, but +that if they returned after ten it behooved them to come in by the pool +and make no noise. They knew that when the first ice formed on the pool, +then they were not expected to get out of bed for the morning plunge. +They knew that there was an old custom which no one ever forgot, and +that was to put money in the house-box behind the hall door on leaving, +at least something for each day of the time spent, and as much more as +one cared to give. For, as everyone knew, all in the box beyond the +daily expense went to maintain the School on the road below the village. +So the books of the Inn were easy to keep—there was never a word about +money in the place—but I know that many a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> large sum of money was found +in this box, and the School never wanted means. +</p> + +<p> +That I might tell more of what took place in the Inn, and what the +Master said, and the sort of men one found there, and the talk we all +had summer evenings beside the pool and winter nights in the hall! +Winter, I think, was the best time of all the year, the greatest beauty +and the greatest joy, from the first fall of the snow to the yellow +brook water and the floating ice in White River. Then the broad velvety +shadows lay on the hills between the stiff spruces, then came rosy +mornings out of darkness when you knew that some good thing was waiting +for you in the world. After you had drunk your bowl of coffee, you got +your axe and followed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> the procession of choppers, who were carefully +foresting the Doctor's woods. In the spring, when the little brooks had +begun to run down the slopes, there was road making and mending; for the +Master kept in repair most of the roads about Albany, grinding the rock +in his pit, saying that—"a good road is one sure blessing." +</p> + +<p> +And the dusks I shall never forget—those gold and violet moments with +the light of immortal heavens behind the rampart of hills; and the +nights, so still, so still like everlasting death, each star set +jewel-wise in a black sky above a white earth. How splendid it was to +turn out of the warm hall where we had been reading and talking in to +the frosty court, with the thermometer at twenty be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>low and still +falling, and look down across the broad white valley, marked by the +streak of bushy alders where the dumb river flowed, up to the little +frozen water courses among the hills, up above where the stars +glittered! You took your way to your room in the silence, rejoicing that +it was all so, that somewhere in this tumultuous world of ours there was +hidden all this beauty and the secret of living; and that you were of +the brotherhood of those who had found it.... +</p> + +<p> +Thus was the Inn and its Master in the year when he touched sixty, and +his hair and beard were more white than gray.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>II</h2> + + +<p> +Then there came to the Inn one day in the early part of the summer a new +guest—a man about fifty, with an aging, worldly face. Bill, the Albany +stage man, had brought him from Island Junction, and on the way had +answered all his questions, discreetly, reckoning in his wisdom that his +passenger was "one of those queer folks that went up to the old Doctor's +place." For there was something smart and fashionable about the +stranger's appearance that made Bill uncomfortable. +</p> + +<p> +"There," he said, as he pulled up outside the red brick house and +pointed over the wall into the garden,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> "mos' likely you'll find the old +man fussin' 'round somewheres inside there, if he hain't down to the +School," and he drove off with the people's mail. +</p> + +<p> +The stranger looked back through the village street, which was as silent +as a village street should be at four o'clock on a summer day. Then he +muttered to himself, whimsically, "Mos' likely you'll find the old man +fussin' 'round somewheres inside!" Well, <i>what next</i>? And he glanced at +the homely red brick building with the cold eye of one who has made many +goings out and comings in, and to whom novelty offers little +entertainment. As he stood there (thinking possibly of that early train +from the junction on the morrow) the hall door opened wide, and an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> +oldish man with white eye-brows and black eyes appeared. He was dressed +in a linen suit that deepened the dark tan of his face and hands. He +said: +</p> + +<p> +"You are Dr. Augustus Norton?" +</p> + +<p> +"And you," the Stranger replied with a graceful smile, "are the +Master—and this is the Inn!" +</p> + +<p> +He had forgotten what Percival called the old boy—forgot everything +these days—had tried to remember the name all the way up—nevertheless, +he had turned it off well! So the two looked at each other—one a little +younger as years go, but with lined face and shaking fingers; the other +solid and self-contained, with less of that ready language which comes +from always jostling with nimble wits. But as they stood there, each saw +a Man and an Equal.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> +</p> + +<p> +"The great surgeon of St. Jerome's," said our Master in further welcome. +</p> + +<p> +"Honored by praise from your lips!" Thus the man of the city lightly +turned the compliment, and extended his hand, which the Master took +slowly, gazing meanwhile steadily at his guest. +</p> + +<p> +"Pray come into my house," said the Master of the Inn, with more +stateliness of manner than he usually had with a new Brother. But, it +may be said, Dr. Augustus Norton had the most distinguished name of that +day in his profession. He followed the Master to his study, with +uncertain steps, and sinking into a deep chair before the smouldering +ashes looked at his host with a sad grin—"Perhaps you'll give me +something—the journey, you know?..."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> +</p> + +<p> +Two years before the head surgeon of St. Jerome's had come to the +hospital of a morning to perform some operation—one of those affairs +for which he was known from coast to coast. As he entered the officers' +room that day, with the arrogant eye of the commander-in-chief, one of +his aides looked at him suspiciously, then glanced again—and the great +surgeon felt those eyes upon him when he turned his back. And he knew +why! Something was wrong with him. Nevertheless in glum silence he made +ready to operate. But when the moment came, and he was about to take the +part of God toward the piece of flesh lying in the ether sleep before +him, he hesitated. Then, in the terrible recoil of Fear, he turned +back.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> +</p> + +<p> +"Macroe!" he cried to his assistant, "you will have to operate. I +cannot—I am not well!" +</p> + +<p> +There was almost panic, but Macroe was a man, too, and proceeded to do +his work without a word. The great surgeon, his hands now trembling +beyond disguise, went back to the officers' room, took off his white +robes, and returned to his home. There he wrote his resignation to the +directors of St. Jerome's, and his resignation from other offices of +honor and responsibility. Then he sent for a medical man, an old friend, +and held out his shaking hand to him: +</p> + +<p> +"The damn thing won't go," he said, pointing also to his head. +</p> + +<p> +"Too much work," the doctor replied, of course.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> +</p> + +<p> +But the great surgeon, who was a man of clear views, added impersonally, +"Too much everything, I guess!" +</p> + +<p> +There followed the usual prescription, making the sick man a wanderer +and pariah—first to Europe, "to get rid of me," the surgeon growled; +then to Georgia for golf, to Montana for elk, to Canada for salmon, and +so forth. Each time the sick man returned with a thin coat of tan that +peeled off in a few days, and with those shaking hands that suggested +immediately another journey to another climate. Until it happened +finally that the men of St. Jerome's who had first talked of the date of +their chief's return merely raised their eyebrows at the mention of his +name. +</p> + +<p> +"Done for, poor old boy!" and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> great surgeon read it with his lynx +eyes, in the faces of the men he met at his clubs. His mouth drew +together sourly and his back sloped. "Fifty-two," he muttered. "God, +that is too early—something ought to pull me together." So he went on +trying this and that, while his friends said he was "resting," until he +had slipped from men's thoughts. +</p> + +<p> +One day Percival of St. Jerome's, one of those boys he had growled at +and cursed in former times, met him crawling down the avenue to his +quietest club, and the old surgeon took him by the arm—he was gray in +face and his neck was wasting away—and told the story of his +troubles—as he would to anyone these days. The young man listened +respectfully. Then he spoke of the old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> Inn, of the Brotherhood, of the +Master and what he had done for miserable men, who had despaired. The +famous surgeon, shaking his head as one who has heard of these miracles +many times and found them naught, was drinking it all in, nevertheless. +</p> + +<p> +"He takes a man," said the young surgeon, "who doesn't want to live and +makes him fall in love with life." +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Augustus Norton sniffed. +</p> + +<p> +"In love with life! That's good! If your Wonder of the Ages can make a +man of fifty fall in love with anything, I must try him." He laughed a +sneering laugh, the feeble merriment of doubt. +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, Doctor!" cried the young man, "you must go and live with the +Master. And then come back to us at St. Jerome's: for we need you!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> +</p> + +<p> +And the great surgeon, touched to the heart by these last words, said: +</p> + +<p> +"Well, what's the name of your miracle-worker, and where is he to be +found?... I might as well try all the cures—write a book on 'em one of +these days!"... +</p> + +<p> +So he came by the stage to the gate of the old Inn, and the Master, who +had been warned by a telegram from the young doctor only that morning, +stood at his door to welcome his celebrated guest. +</p> + +<p> +He put him in the room of state above the study, a great square room at +the southwest, overlooking the wings and the flower-scented garden, the +pool, and the waving grass fields beyond, dotted with tall elms—all +freshly green. +</p> + +<p> +"Not a bad sort of place," mur<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>mured the weary man, "and there must be +trout in those brooks up yonder. Well, it will do for a week or two, if +there's fishing."... Then the bell sounded for dinner which was served +for the first time that season out of doors in the soft twilight. The +Brothers had gathered in the court beside the fountain, young men and +middle-aged—all having bent under some burden, which they were now +learning to carry easily. They stood about the hall door until the +distinguished Stranger appeared, and he walked between them to the place +of honor at the Master's side. Everyone at the long table was named to +the great surgeon, and then with the coming of the soup he was promptly +forgotten, while the talk of the day's work and the mor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>row's rose +vigorously from all sides. It was a question of the old mill, which had +given way. An engineer among the company described what would have to be +done to get at the foundations. And a young man who happened to sit next +to the surgeon explained that the Master had reopened an old mill above +the Inn in the Intervale, where he ground corn and wheat and rye with +the old water-wheel; for the country people, who had always got their +grain ground there, complained when the mill had been closed. It seemed +to the Stranger that the dark coarse bread which was served was +extraordinarily good, and he wondered if the ancient process had +anything to do with it and he resolved to see the old mill. Then the +young man said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> something about bass: there was a cool lake up the +valley, which had been stocked. The surgeon's eye gleamed. Did he know +how to fish for bass! Why, before this boy—yes, he would go at five in +the morning, sharp.... After the meal, while the blue wreaths of smoke +floated across the flowers and the talk rose and fell in the court, the +Master and his new guest were seated alone beneath the great elm. The +surgeon could trace the Master's face in the still waters of the pool at +their feet, and it seemed to him like a finely cut cameo, with gentle +lines about the mouth and eyes that relieved the thick nose. +Nevertheless he knew by certain instinct that they were not of the same +kind. The Master was very silent this night, and his guest felt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> that +some mystery, some vacuum existed between them, as he gazed on the face +in the water. It was as if the old man were holding him off at arm's +length while he looked into him. But the great surgeon, who was used to +the amenities of city life, resolved to make his host talk: +</p> + +<p> +"Extraordinary sort of place you have here! I don't know that I have +ever seen anything just like it. And what is your System?" +</p> + +<p> +"What is my System?" repeated the Master wonderingly. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes! Your method of building these fellows up—electricity, diet, +massage, baths—what is your line?" An urbane smile removed the offence +of the banter. +</p> + +<p> +"I have no System!" the Master replied thoughtfully. "I live my life<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> +here with my work, and those you see come and live with me as my +friends." +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, but you have ideas ... extraordinary success ... so many cases," +the great man muttered, confused by the Master's steady gaze. +</p> + +<p> +"You will learn more about us after you have been here a little time. +You will see, and the others will help you to understand. To-morrow we +work at the mill, and the next day we shall be in the gardens—but you +may be too tired to join us. And we bathe here, morning and noon. Harvey +will tell you all our customs." +</p> + +<p> +The celebrated surgeon of St. Jerome's wrote that night to an old +friend: "And the learned doctor's prescription seems to be to dig in the +garden and bathe in a great pool! A daffy sort of place—but I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> am going +bass fishing to-morrow at five with a young man, who is just the right +age for a son! So to bed, but I suspect that I shall see you +soon—novelties wear out quickly at my years." +</p> + +<p> +Just here there entered that lovely night wind, rising far away beyond +the low lakes to the south—it soughed through the room, swaying the +draperies, sighing, sighing, and it blew out the candle. The sick man +looked down on the court below, white in the moonlight, and his eyes +roved farther to the dark orchard, and the great barns and the huddled +cattle. +</p> + +<p> +"Quite a bit of country here!" the surgeon murmured. As he stood there +looking into the misty light which covered the Intervale, up to the +great hills above which floated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> luminous cloud banks, the chorus of an +old song rose from below where the pipes gleamed in the dark about the +pool. He leaned out into the air, filled with all the wild scent of +green fields, and added under a sort of compulsion—"And a good place, +enough!" +</p> + +<p> +He went to bed to a deep sleep, and over his tired, worldly face the +night wind passed gently, stripping leaf by leaf from his weary mind +that heavy coating of care which he had wrapped about him in the course +of many years. +</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p> +Dr. Augustus Norton did not return at the end of one week, nor of two. +The city saw him, indeed, no more that year. It was said that a frisky, +rosy ghost of the great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> surgeon had slipped into St. Jerome's near +Christmas—had skipped through a club or two and shaken hands about +pretty generally—and disappeared. Sometimes letters came from him with +an out-of-the-way postmark on them, saying in a jesting tone that he was +studying the methods of an extraordinary country doctor, who seemed to +cure men by touch. "He lives up here among the hills in forty degrees of +frost, and if I am not mistaken he is nearer the Secret than all of you +pill slingers"—(for he was writing a mere doctor of medicine!). "Anyhow +I shall stay on until I learn the Secret—or my host turns me out; for +life up here seems as good to me as ice-cream and kisses to a girl of +sixteen.... Why should I go back mucking about with you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> fellows—just +yet? I caught a five-pounder yesterday, and <i>ate</i> him!" +</p> + +<p> +There are many stories of the great surgeon that have come to me from +those days. He was much liked, especially by the younger men, after the +first gloom had worn off, and he began to feel the blood run once more. +He had a joking way with him that made him a good table companion, and +the Brothers pretending that he would become the historian of the order +taught him all the traditions of the place. "But the Secret, the Secret! +Where is it?" he would demand jestingly. One night—it was at table and +all were there—Harvey asked him: +</p> + +<p> +"Has the Master confessed you?" +</p> + +<p> +"'Confessed me'?" repeated the surgeon. "What's that?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> +</p> + +<p> +A sudden silence fell on all, because this was the one thing never +spoken of, at least in public. Then the Master, who had been silent all +that evening, turned the talk to other matters. +</p> + +<p> +The Master, to be sure, gave this distinguished guest all liberties, and +they often talked together as men of the same profession. And the +surgeon witnessed all—the mending of the mill, the planting and the +hoeing and the harvesting, the preparations for the long winter, the +chopping and the road-making—all, and he tested it with his hands. "Not +bad sport," he would say, "with so many sick-well young men about to +help!" +</p> + +<p> +But meanwhile the "secret" escaped the keen mind, though he sought for +it daily. +</p> + +<p> +"You give no drugs, Doctor," he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> complained. "You're a scab on the +profession!" +</p> + +<p> +"The drugs gave out," the Master explained, "and I neglected to order +more.... There's always Bert Williams at Stowe, who can give you +anything you might want—shall I send for him, Doctor?" +</p> + +<p> +There was laughter all about, and when it died down the great surgeon +returned to the attack. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, come, tell us now what you do believe in? Magic, the laying on of +hands? Come, there are four doctors here, and we have the right to +know—or we'll report you!" +</p> + +<p> +"I believe," said the Master solemnly, in reply to the banter, "I +believe in Man and in God." And there followed such talk as had never +been in the old hall; for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> surgeon was, after his kind, a +materialist and pushed the Master for definition. The Master believed, +as I recall it, that Disease could not be cured, for the most part. No +chemistry would ever solve the mystery of pain! But Disease could be +ignored, and the best way to forget pain was through labor. Not labor +merely for oneself; but also something for others. Wherefore the School, +around which the Inn and the farm and all had grown. For he told us then +that he had bought the Inn as a home for his boys, the waste product of +the city. Finding the old tavern too small for his purpose and seeing +how he should need helpers, he had encouraged ailing men to come to live +with him and to cure themselves by curing others. Without that School<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> +below in the valley, with its workshops and cottages, there would have +been no Inn! +</p> + +<p> +As for God—that night he would go no further, and the surgeon said +rather flippantly, we all thought, that the Master had left little room +in his world for God, anyhow—he had made man so large. It was a stormy +August evening, I remember, when we had been forced to dine within on +account of the gusty rain that had come after a still, hot day. The +valley seemed filled with murk, which was momentarily torn by fire, +revealing the trembling leaves upon the trees. When we passed through +the arcade to reach our rooms, the surgeon pointed out into this sea of +fire and darkness, and muttered with a touch of irony<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>— +</p> + +<p> +"HE seems to be talking for himself this evening!" +</p> + +<p> +Just then a bolt shot downward, revealing with large exaggeration the +hills, the folded valleys—the descents. +</p> + +<p> +"It's like standing on a thin plank in a turbulent sea!" the surgeon +remarked wryly. "Ah, my boy, Life's like that!" and he disappeared into +his room. +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, it was that night he wrote to his friend: "I am getting +nearer this Mystery, which I take to be, the inner heart of it, a +mixture of the Holy Ghost and Sweat—with a good bath afterward! But the +old boy is the mixer of the Pills, mind you, and he <i>is</i> a Master! Most +likely I shall never get hold of the heart of it; for somehow, yet with +all courtesy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> he keeps me at a distance. I have never been 'confessed,' +whatever that may be—an experience that comes to the youngest boy among +them! Perhaps the Doctor thinks that old fellows like you and me have +only dead sins to confess, which would crumble to dust if exposed. But +there is a sting in very old sins, I think—for instance—oh! if you +were here tonight, I should be as foolish as a woman...." +</p> + +<p> +The storm that night struck one of the school buildings and killed a +lad. In the morning the Master and the surgeon set out for the School +Village, which was lower in the valley beyond Albany. It was warm and +clear at the Inn; but thick mist wreaths still lay heavily over the +Intervale. The hills all about glittered as in October,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> and there was +in the air that laughing peace, that breath of sweet plenty which comes +the morning after a storm. The two men followed the foot-path, which +wound downward from the Inn across the Intervale. The sun filled the +windless air, sucking up the spicy odors of the tangled path—fern and +balsam and the mother scent of earth and rain and sun. The new green +rioted over the dead leaves.... The Master closely observing his guest, +remarked: +</p> + +<p> +"You seem quite well, Doctor. I suppose you will be leaving us soon?" +</p> + +<p> +"Leaving?" the surgeon questioned slowly, as if a secret dread had risen +at the Master's hint of departure. "Yes," he admitted, after a time, "I +suppose I am what you would call well—well enough. But something<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> still +clogs within me. It may be the memory of Fear. I am afraid of myself!" +</p> + +<p> +"Afraid? You need some test, perhaps. That will come sooner or later; we +need not hurry it!" +</p> + +<p> +"No, we need not hurry!" +</p> + +<p> +Yet he knew well enough that the Inn never sheltered drones, and that +many special indulgences had been granted him: he had borrowed freely +from the younger Brothers—of their time and strength. He thought +complacently of the large cheque which he should drop into the house-box +on his departure. With it the Master would be able to build a new +cottage or a small hospital for the School. +</p> + +<p> +"Some of them," mused the Master, "never go back to the machine that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> +once broke them. They stay about here and help me—buy a farm and +revert! But for the most part they are keen to get back to the fight, as +is right and best. Sometimes when they loiter too long, I shove them out +of the nest!" +</p> + +<p> +"And I am near the shoving point?" his companion retorted quickly. "So I +must leave all your dear boys and Peace and Fishing and <i>you</i>! Suppose +so, suppose so!... Doctor, you've saved my life—oh, hang it, that +doesn't tell the story. But even <i>I</i> can feel what it is to live at the +Inn!" +</p> + +<p> +Instinctively he grasped his host by the arm—he was an impulsive man. +But the Master's arm did not respond to the clasp; indeed, a slight +shiver seemed to shake it, so that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> surgeon's hand fell away while +the Master said: +</p> + +<p> +"I am glad to have been of service—to you—yes, especially to +<i>you</i>...." +</p> + +<p> +They came into the school village, a tiny place of old white houses, +very clean and trim, with a number of sweeping elms along the narrow +road. A mountain brook turned an old water-wheel, supplying power for +the workshops where the boys were trained. The great surgeon had visited +the place many times in company with the Master, and though he admired +the order and economy of the institution, and respected its +purpose—that is, to create men out of the refuse of society—to tell +the truth, the place bored him a trifle. This morning they went directly +to the little cottage that served as in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>firmary, where the dead boy had +been brought. He was a black-haired Italian, and his lips curved upward +pleasantly. The Master putting his hand on the dead boy's brow as he +might have done in life stood looking at the face. +</p> + +<p> +"I've got a case in the next room, I'd like to have your opinion on, +Doctor," the young physician said in a low tone to the surgeon, and the +two crossed the passage into the neighboring room. The surgeon fastened +his eyes on the sick lad's body: here was a case he understood, a +problem with a solution. The old Master coming in from the dead stood +behind the two. +</p> + +<p> +"Williams," the surgeon said, "it's so, sure enough—you must +operate—at once!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> +</p> + +<p> +"I was afraid it was that," the younger man replied. "But how can I +operate here?" +</p> + +<p> +The surgeon shrugged his shoulders—"He would never reach the city!" +</p> + +<p> +"Then I must, you think——" +</p> + +<p> +The shrewd surgeon recognized Fear in the young man's voice. Quick the +thrill shot through his nerves, and he cried, "I will operate, <i>now</i>." +</p> + +<p> +In half an hour it was over, and the Master and the surgeon were leaving +the village, climbing up by the steep path under the blazing noon sun. +The Master glanced at the man by his side, who strode along confidently, +a trifle of a swagger in his buoyant steps. The Master remarked: +</p> + +<p> +"The test came, and you took it—splendidly." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes," the great surgeon replied,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> smiling happily, "it's all there, +Doctor, the old power. I believe I am about ready to get into harness +again!" After they had walked more of the way without speaking, the +surgeon added, as to himself—"But there are other things to be feared!" +</p> + +<p> +Though the Master looked at him closely he invited no explanation, and +they finished their homeward walk without remark. +</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p> +It soon got about among the inmates of the Inn what a wonderful +operation the surgeon of St. Jerome's had performed, and it was rumored +that at the beginning of autumn he would go back to his old position. +Meantime the great surgeon enjoyed the homage that men always pay to +power, the consideration of his fel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>lows. He had been much liked; but +now that the Brothers knew how soon he was to leave them, they +surrounded him with those attentions that men most love, elevating him +almost to the rank of the Master—and they feared him less. His fame +spread, so that from some mill beyond Stowe they brought to the Inn a +desperate case, and the surgeon operated again successfully, +demonstrating that he was once more master of his art, and master of +himself. So he stayed on merely to enjoy his triumph and escape the dull +season in the city. +</p> + +<p> +It was a wonderful summer, that! The fitful temper of the north played +in all its moods. There were days when the sun shone tropically down +into the valleys, without a breath of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> air, when the earthy, woody +smells were strong—and the nights—perfect stillness and peace, as if +some spirit of the air were listening for love words on the earth. The +great elms along Albany road hung their branches motionless, and when +the moon came over behind the house the great hills began to swim +ghostly, vague—beyond, always beyond!... And then there were the fierce +storms that swept up the valley and hung growling along the hills for +days, and afterward, sky-washed and clear, the westerly breeze would +come tearing down the Intervale, drying the earth before it.... But each +day there was a change in the sound and the smell of the fields and the +woods—in the quick race of the northern summer—a change that the +surgeon,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> fishing up the tiny streams, felt and noted. Each day, so +radiant with its abundant life, sounded some under-note of fulfilment +and change—speaking beforehand of death to come. +</p> + +<p> +Toward the end of August a snap of cold drove us in-doors for the night +meal. Then around the fire there was great talk between the Master and +the surgeon, a sort of battle of the soul, to which we others paid +silent attention. For wherever those nights the talk might rise, in the +little rills of accidental words, it always flowed down to the deep +underlying thoughts of men. And in those depths, as I said, these two +wrestled with each other. The Master, who had grown silent of late +years, woke once more with fire. The light, keen thrusts of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> the +surgeon, who argued like a fencer, roused his whole being; and as day by +day it went on we who watched saw that in a way the talk of these two +men set forth the great conflict of conflicts, that deepest fissure of +life and belief anent the Soul and the Body. And the Master, who had +lived his faiths by his life before our eyes, was being worsted in the +argument! The great surgeon had the better mind, and he had seen all of +life that one may see with eyes.... +</p> + +<p> +They were talking of the day of departure for the distinguished guest, +and arranging for some kind of triumphal procession to escort him to +White River. But he would not set the time, shrinking from this act, as +if all were not yet done. There came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> a warm, glowing day early in +September, and at night after the pipes were lighted the surgeon and the +Master strolled off in the direction of the pool, arm in arm. There had +been no talk that day, the surgeon apparently shrinking from coming to +the last grapple with one whose faiths were so important to him as the +Master's. +</p> + +<p> +"The flowers are dying: they tell me it's time to move on," said the +surgeon. "And yet, my dear host, I go without the Secret, without +understanding All!" +</p> + +<p> +"Perhaps there is no inner Secret," the Master smiled. "It is all here +before you." +</p> + +<p> +"I know that—you have been very good to me, shared everything. If I +have not learned the Secret, it is my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> fault, my incapacity. But—" and +the gay tone dropped quickly and a flash of bitterness succeeded—"I at +least know that there <i>is</i> a Secret!" +</p> + +<p> +They sat down on the marble bench and looked into the water, each +thinking his thoughts. Suddenly the surgeon began to speak, hesitantly, +as if there had long been something in his mind that he was compelled to +say. +</p> + +<p> +"My friend," he said, "I too have something to tell—the cause within +the cause, the reason of the reason—at least, sometimes I think it is! +The root reason for all—unhappiness, defeat, for the shaking hand and +the jesting voice. And I want you to hear it—if you will." +</p> + +<p> +The Master raised his face from the pool but said never a word. The +surgeon continued, his voice trembling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> at times, though he spoke +slowly, evidently trying to banish all feeling. +</p> + +<p> +"It is a common enough story at the start, at least among men of our +kind. You know that I was trained largely in Europe. My father had the +means to give me the best, and time to take it in. So I was over there, +before I came back to St. Jerome's, three, four years at Paris, Munich, +Vienna, all about.... While I was away I lived as the others, for the +most part—you know our profession—and youth. The rascals are pretty +much the same to-day, I judge from what my friends say of their sons! +Well, at least I worked like the devil, and was decent.... Oh, it isn't +for that I'm telling the tale! I was ambitious, then. And the time came +to go back, as it does in the end, and I took a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> few weeks' run through +Italy as a final taste of the lovely European thing, and came down to +Naples to get the boat for New York. I've never been back to Naples +since, and that was twenty-six years ago this autumn. But I can see the +city always as it was then! The seething human hive—the fellows piling +in the freight to the music of their songs—the fiery mouth of Vesuvius +up above. And the soft, dark night with just a plash of waves on the +quay!" +</p> + +<p> +The Master listened, his eyes again buried in the water at their feet. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, <i>she</i> was there on board, of course—looking out also into that +warm dark night and sighing for all that was to be lost so soon. There +were few passengers in those days.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>... She was my countrywoman, and +beautiful, and there was something—at least so I thought then—of +especial sweetness in her eyes, something strong in her heart. She was +engaged to a man living somewhere in the States, and she was going back +to marry him. Why she was over there then I forget, and it is of no +importance. I think that the man was a doctor, too—in some small +city.... I loved her!" +</p> + +<p> +The Master raised his eyes from the pool and leaning on his folded arms +looked into the surgeon's face. +</p> + +<p> +"I am afraid I never thought much about that other fellow—never have to +this day! That was part of the brute I am—to see only what is before my +eyes. And I knew by the time we had swung into the Atlantic that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> I +wanted that woman as I had never wanted things before. She stirred me, +mind and all. Of course it might have been some one else—any one you +will say—and if she had been an ordinary young girl, it might have gone +differently? It is one of the things we can't tell in this life. There +was something in that woman that was big all through and roused the +spirit in me. I never knew man or woman who thirsted more for greatness, +for accomplishment. Perhaps the man she was to marry gave her little to +hope for—probably it was some raw boy-and-girl affair such as we have +in America.... The days went by, and it was clearer to both of us what +must be. But we didn't speak of it. She found in me, I suppose, the +power, the sort of thing she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> had missed in the other. I was to do all +those grand things she was so hot after. I have done some of them too. +But that was when she had gone and I no longer needed her.... I needed +her then, and I took her—that is all. +</p> + +<p> +"The detail is old and dim—and what do you care to hear of a young +man's loves! Before we reached port it was understood between us. I told +her I wanted her to leave the other chap—he was never altogether clear +to me—and to marry me as soon as she could. We did not stumble or slide +into it, not in the least: we looked it through and through—that was +her kind and mine. How she loved to look life in the face! I have found +few women who like that.... In the end she asked me not to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> come near +her the last day. She would write me the day after we had landed, either +yes or no. So she kissed me, and we parted still out at sea." +</p> + +<p> +All the Brothers had left the court and the arcades, where they had been +strolling, and old Sam was putting out the Inn lights. But the two men +beside the pool made no movement. The west wind still drew in down the +valley with summer warmth and ruffled the water at their feet. +</p> + +<p> +"My father met me at the dock—you know he was the first surgeon at St. +Jerome's before me. My mother was with him.... But as she kissed me I +was thinking of that letter.... I knew it would come. Some things must! +Well, it came." +</p> + +<p> +The silent listener bent his head,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> and the surgeon mused on his +passionate memory. At last the Master whispered in a low voice that +hardly reached into the night: +</p> + +<p> +"Did you make her happy?" +</p> + +<p> +The surgeon did not answer the question at once. +</p> + +<p> +"Did you make her happy?" the old man demanded again, and his voice +trembled this time with such intensity that his companion looked at him +wonderingly. And in those dark eyes of the Master's he read something +that made him shrink away. Then for the third time the old man demanded +sternly: +</p> + +<p> +"Tell me—did you make her happy?" +</p> + +<p> +It was the voice of one who had a right to know, and the surgeon +whispered back slowly:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> +</p> + +<p> +"Happy? No, my God! Perhaps at first, in the struggle, a little. But +afterward there was too much—too many things. It went, the inspiration +and the love. I broke her heart—she left me! That—that is <i>my</i> +Reason!" +</p> + +<p> +"It <i>is</i> the Reason! For you took all, all—you let her give all, and +you gave her—what?" +</p> + +<p> +"Nothing—she died." +</p> + +<p> +"I know—she died." +</p> + +<p> +The Master had risen, and with folded arms faced his guest, a pitying +look in his eyes. The surgeon covered his face with his hands, and after +a long time said: +</p> + +<p> +"So you knew this?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, I knew!" +</p> + +<p> +"And knowing you let me come here. You took me into your house,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> you +healed me, you gave me back my life!" +</p> + +<p> +And the Master replied with a firm voice: +</p> + +<p> +"I knew, and I gave you back your life." In a little while he explained +more softly: "You and I are no longer young men who feel hotly and +settle such a matter with hate. We cannot quarrel now for the possession +of a woman.... She chose: remember that!... It was twenty-six years this +September. We have lived our lives, you and I; we have lived out our +lives, the good and the evil. Why should we now for the second time add +passion to sorrow?" +</p> + +<p> +"And yet knowing all you took me in!" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes!" the old man cried almost proudly. "And I have made you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> again +what you once were.... What <i>she</i> loved as you," he added to himself, "a +man full of Power." +</p> + +<p> +Then they were speechless in face of the fact: the one had taken all and +the sweet love turned to acid in his heart, and the other had lost and +the bitter turned to sweet! When a long time had passed the surgeon +spoke timidly: +</p> + +<p> +"It might have been so different for her with you! You loved her—more." +</p> + +<p> +There was the light of a compassionate smile on the Master's lips as he +replied: +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, I loved her, too." +</p> + +<p> +"And it changed things—for you!" +</p> + +<p> +"It changed things. There might have been my St. Jerome's—my fame also. +Instead, I came here with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> my boys. And here I shall die, please God." +</p> + +<p> +The old Master then became silent, his face set in a dream of life, as +it was, as it would have been; while the great surgeon of St. Jerome's +thought such thoughts as had never passed before into his mind. The +night wind had died at this late hour, and in its place there was a +coldness of the turning season. The stars shone near the earth and all +was silent with the peace of mysteries. The Master looked at the man +beside him and said calmly: +</p> + +<p> +"It is well as it is—all well!" +</p> + +<p> +At last the surgeon rose and stood before the Master. +</p> + +<p> +"I have learned the Secret," he said, "and now it is time for me to +go."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> +</p> + +<p> +He went up to the house through the little court and disappeared within +the Inn, while the Master sat by the pool, his face graven like the face +of an old man, who has seen the circle of life and understands.... The +next morning there was much talk about Dr. Norton's disappearance, until +some one explained that the surgeon had been suddenly called back to the +city. +</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p> +The news spread through the Brotherhood one winter that the old Inn had +been burned to the ground, a bitter December night when all the +water-taps were frozen. And the Master, who had grown deaf of late, had +been caught in his remote chamber, and burned or rather suffocated. +There were few men in the Inn at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> the time, it being the holiday season, +and when they had fought their way to the old man's room, they found him +lying on the lounge by the window, the lids fallen over the dark eyes +and his face placid with sleep or contemplation.... They sought in vain +for the reason of the fire—but why search for causes? +</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p> +All those beautiful hills that we loved to watch as the evening haze +gathered, the Master left in trust for the people of the State—many +acres of waving forests. And the School continued in its old place, the +Brothers looking after its wants and supplying it with means to continue +its work. But the Inn was never rebuilt. The blackened ruins of +buildings were removed and the garden<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> in the court extended so that it +covered the whole space where the Inn had stood. This was enclosed with +a thick plantation of firs on all sides but that one which looked +westward across the Intervale. The spot can be seen for miles around on +the Albany hill side. +</p> + +<p> +And when it was ready—all fragrant and radiant with flowers—they +placed the Master there beside the pool, where he had loved to sit, +surrounded by men. On the sunken slab his title was engraved— +</p> + +<h4> +THE MASTER OF THE INN +</h4> + + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<p><b>Transcriber's Note:</b> Both eyebrows and eye-brows are used in this text.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Master of the Inn, by Robert Herrick + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MASTER OF THE INN *** + +***** This file should be named 35388-h.htm or 35388-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/3/8/35388/ + +Produced by Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Master of the Inn + +Author: Robert Herrick + +Release Date: February 24, 2011 [EBook #35388] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MASTER OF THE INN *** + + + + +Produced by Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + THE MASTER OF THE INN + + + THE + MASTER OF THE INN + + BY + Robert Herrick + + * * * * * + + NEW YORK + Charles Scribner's Sons + 1910 + + + + _Copyright, 1908, by Charles Scribner's Sons_ + + _Published April, 1908_ + _Second Impression, July, 1908_ + _Third Impression, September, 1908_ + _Fourth Impression, December, 1908_ + _Fifth Impression, December, 1908_ + _Sixth Impression, July, 1909_ + _Seventh Impression, October, 1909_ + _Eighth Impression, January, 1910_ + _Ninth Impression, July, 1910_ + + [Illustration] + + + + + _The author of "The Master of the Inn" having received many + inquiries as to what foundation in fact this tale has wishes + to state explicitly that both incidents and persons are purely + imaginary, and that so far as he is aware there is neither + Master nor Inn in existence._ + + _Chicago, Ills., + 12 May, 1909._ + + + + + THE MASTER OF THE INN + + + + THE + + MASTER OF THE INN + + + + + I + + +It was a plain brick house, three full stories, with four broad +chimneys, and overhanging eaves. The tradition was that it had been a +colonial tavern--a dot among the fir-covered northern hills on the +climbing post-road into Canada. The village scattered along the road +below the inn was called Albany--and soon forgotten when the railroad +sought an opening through a valley less rugged, eight miles to the west. + +Rather more than thirty years ago the Doctor had arrived, one summer +day, and opened all the doors and windows of the neglected old house, +which he had bought from scattered heirs. He was a quiet man, the +Doctor, in middle life then or nearly so; and he sank almost without +remark into the world of Albany, where they raise hay and potatoes and +still cut good white pine off the hills. Gradually the old brick tavern +resumed the functions of life: many buildings were added to it as well +as many acres of farm and forest to the Doctor's original purchase of +intervale land. The new Master did not open his house to the public, yet +he, too, kept a sort of Inn, where men came and stayed a long time. +Although no sign now hung from the old elm tree in front of the house, +nevertheless an ever-widening stream of humanity mounted the winding +road from White River and passed through the doors of the Inn, seeking +life.... + +That first summer the Doctor brought with him Sam, the Chinaman, whom we +all came to know and love, and also a young man, who loafed much while +the Doctor worked, and occasionally fished. This was John Herring--now a +famous architect--and it was from his designs, sketched those first idle +summer days, that were built all the additions to the simple old +house--the two low wings in the rear for the "cells," with the Italian +garden between them; the marble seat curving around the pool that joined +the wings on the west; also the substantial wall that hid the Inn, its +terraced gardens and orchards, from Albanian curiosity. Herring found a +store of red brick in some crumbling buildings in the neighborhood, and +he discovered the quarry whence came those thick slabs of purple slate. +The blue-veined marble was had from a fissure in the hills, and the +Doctor's School made the tiles. + +I think Herring never did better work than in the making over of this +old tavern: he divined that subtle affinity which exists between north +Italy, with all its art, and our bare New England; and he dared to graft +boldly one to the other, having the rear of the Inn altogether Italian +with its portico, its dainty colonnades, the garden and the fountain and +the pool. From all this one looked down on the waving grass of the +Intervale, which fell away gently to the turbulent White River, then +rose again to the wooded hills that folded one upon another, with ever +deepening blue, always upward and beyond. + +Not all this building at once, to be sure, as the millionaire builds; +but a gradual growth over a couple of decades; and all built lovingly by +the "Brothers," stone on stone, brick and beam and tile--many a hand +taking part in it that came weak to the task and left it sturdy. There +was also the terraced arrangement of gardens and orchards on either side +of the Inn, reaching to the farm buildings on the one side and to the +village on the other. For a time Herring respected the quaint old tavern +with its small rooms and pine wainscot; then he made a stately +two-storied hall out of one half where we dined in bad weather, and a +pleasant study for the Doctor from the rest. The doors east and west +always stood open in the summer, giving the rare passer-by a glimpse of +that radiant blue heaven among the hills, with the silver flash of the +river in the middle distance, and a little square of peaceful garden +close at hand.... The tough northern grasses rustled in the breezes that +always played about Albany; and the scent of spruce drawn by the hot +sun--the strong resinous breath of the north--was borne from the woods. + +Thus it started, that household of men in the old Inn at the far end of +Albany village among the northern hills, with the Doctor and Sam and +Herring, who had been flung aside after his first skirmish with life and +was picked up in pure kindness by the Doctor, as a bit of the broken +waste of our modern world, and carried off with him out of the city. The +young architect returning in due time to the fight--singing--naturally +venerated the Doctor as a father; and when a dear friend stumbled and +fell in the _via dura_ of this life, he whispered to him word of the Inn +and its Master--of the life up there among the hills where Man is little +and God looks down on his earth.... "Oh, you'll understand when you put +your eyes on White Face some morning! The Doctor? He heals both body and +soul." And this one having heeded spoke the word in turn to others in +need--"to the right sort, who would understand." Thus the custom grew +like a faith, and a kind of brotherhood was formed, of those who had +found more than health at the Inn--who had found themselves. The Doctor, +ever busy about his farms and his woods, his building, and above all his +School, soon had on his hands a dozen or more patients or guests, as you +might call them, and he set them to work speedily. There was little +medicine to be found in the Inn: the sick labored as they could and thus +grew strong.... + +And so, as one was added to another, they began to call themselves in +joke "Brothers," and the Doctor, "Father." The older "Brothers" would +return to the Inn from all parts of the land, for a few days or a few +weeks, to grasp the Doctor's hand, to have a dip in the pool, to try the +little brooks among the hills. Young men and middle-aged, and even the +old, they came from the cities where the heat of living had scorched +them, where they had faltered and doubted the goodness of life. In some +way word of the Master had reached them, with this compelling +advice--"Go! And tell him I sent you." So from the clinic or the +lecture-room, from the office or the mill--wherever men labor with +tightening nerves--the needy one started on his long journey. Toward +evening he was set down before the plain red face of the Inn. And as the +Stranger entered the old hall, a voice was sure to greet him from within +somewhere, the deep voice of a hearty man, and presently the Master +appeared to welcome the newcomer, resting one hand on his guest's +shoulder perhaps, with a yearning affection that ran before knowledge. + +"So you've come, my boy," he said. "Herring [or some one] wrote me to +look for you." + +And after a few more words of greeting, the Doctor beckoned to Sam, and +gave the guest over to his hands. Thereupon the Chinaman slippered +through tiled passageways to the court, where the Stranger, caught by +the beauty and peace so well hidden, lingered a while. The little space +within the wings was filled with flowers as far as the yellow water of +the pool and the marble bench. In the centre of the court was an old +gray fountain--sent from Verona by a Brother--from which the water +dropped and ran away among the flower beds to the pool. A stately elm +tree shaded this place, flecking the water below. The sun shot long rays +beneath its branches into the court, and over all there was an odor of +blossoming flowers and the murmur of bees. + +"Bath!" Sam explained, grinning toward the pool. + +With the trickle of the fountain in his ears the Stranger looked out +across the ripening fields of the Intervale to the noble sky-line of the +Stowe hills. Those little mountains of the north! Mere hills to all who +know the giants of the earth--not mountains in the brotherhood of ice +and snow and rock! But in form and color, in the lesser things that +create the love of men for places, they rise nobly toward heaven, those +little hills! On a summer day like this their broad breasts flutter with +waving tree-tops, and at evening depth on depth of purple mist gathers +over them, dropping into those soft curves where the little brooks flow, +and mounting even to the sky-line. When the sun has fallen, there rests +a band of pure saffron, and in the calm and perfect peace of evening +there is a hint of coming moonlight. Ah, they are of the fellowship of +mountains, those little hills of Stowe! And when in winter their flanks +are jewelled with ice and snow, then they raise their heads proudly to +the stars, calling across the frozen valleys to their greater brethren +in the midriff of the continent--"Behold, we also are hills, in the +sight of the Lord!"... + +Meantime Sam, with Oriental ease, goes slipping along the arcade until +he comes to a certain oak door, where he drops your bag, and disappears, +having saluted. It is an ample and lofty room, and on the outer side of +it hangs a little balcony above the orchard, from which there is a view +of the valley and the woods beyond, and from somewhere in the fields the +note of the thrush rises. The room itself is cool, of a gray tone, with +a broad fireplace, a heavy table, and many books. Otherwise there are +bed and chairs and dressing-table, the necessities of life austerely +provided. And Peace! God, what Peace to him who has escaped from the +furnace men make! It is as if he had come all the way to the end of the +world, and found there a great still room of peace. + +Soon a bell sounds--with a strange vibration as though in distant lands +it had summoned many a body of men together--and the household assembles +under the arcade. If it is fair and not cold, Sam and his helpers bring +out the long narrow table and place it, as Veronese places his feasters, +lengthwise beneath the colonnade, and thus the evening meal is served. A +fresh, coarse napkin is laid on the bare board before each man, no more +than enough for all those present, and the Doctor sits in the middle, +serving all. There are few dishes, and for the most part such as may be +got at home there in the hills. There is a pitcher of cider at one end +and a pitcher of mild white wine at the other, and the men eat and +drink, with jokes and talk--the laughter of the day. (The novice might +feel only the harmony of it all, but later he will learn how many +considered elements go to the making of Peace.) Afterward, when Sam has +brought pipes and tobacco, the Master leads the way to the sweeping +semicircle of marble seat around the pool with the leafy tree overhead; +and there they sit into the soft night, talking of all things, with the +glow of pipes, until one after another slips away to sleep. For as the +Master said, "Talk among men in common softens the muscles of the mind +and quickens the heart." Yet he loved most to hear the talk of others. + +Thus insensibly for the Novice there begins the life of the place, +opening in a gentle and persistent routine that takes him in its flow +and carries him on with it. He finds Tradition and Habit all about him, +in the ordered, unconscious life of the Inn, to which he yields without +question.... Shortly after dawn the bell sounds, and then the men meet +at the pool, where the Doctor is always first. A plunge into the yellow +water which is flecked with the fallen leaves, and afterward to each +man's room there is brought a large bowl of coffee and hot milk, with +bread and eggs and fruit. What more he craves may be found in the hall. + +Soon there is a tap on the newcomer's door, and a neighborly voice calls +out--"We all go into the fields every morning, you know. You must earn +your dinner, the Doctor says, or borrow it!" So the Novice goes forth to +earn his first dinner with his hands. Beyond the gardens and the +orchards are the barns and sheds, and a vista of level acres of hay and +potatoes and rye, the bearing acres of the farm, and beyond these the +woods on the hills. "Nearly a thousand acres, fields and woods," the +neighbor explains. "Oh, there's plenty to do all times!" Meantime the +Doctor strides ahead through the wet grass, his eyes roaming here and +there, inquiring the state of his land. And watching him the newcomer +believes that there is always much to be done wherever the Doctor leads. + +It may be July and hay time--all the intervale grass land is mowed by +hand--there is a sweat-breaking task! Or it may be potatoes to hoe. Or +later in the season the apples have to be gathered--a pleasant pungent +job, filling the baskets and pouring them into the fat-bellied barrels. +But whatever the work may be the Doctor keeps the Novice in his mind, +and as the sun climbs high over the Stowe hills, he taps the new one on +the shoulder--"Better stop here to-day, my boy! You'll find a good tree +over there by the brook for a nap...." + +Under that particular tree in the tall timothy, there is the coolest +spot, and the Novice drowses, thinking of those wonderful mowers in +_Anna_, as he gazes at the marching files eating their way through the +meadow until his eyelids fall and he sleeps, the ripple of waving +timothy in his ears. At noon the bell sounds again from the Inn, and the +men come striding homeward wiping the sweat from their faces. They +gather at the swimming pool, and still panting from their labor strip +off their wet garments, then plunge one after another, like happy boys. +From bath to room, and a few minutes for fresh clothes, and all troop +into the hall, which is dark and cool. The old brick walls of the tavern +never held a gayer lot of guests. + +From this time on each one is his own master; there is no common toil. +The farmer and his men take up the care of the farm, and the Master +usually goes down to his School, in company with some of the Brothers. +Each one finds his own way of spending the hours till sunset--some +fishing or shooting, according to the season; others, in tennis or games +with the boys of the School; and some reading or loafing--until the +shadows begin to fall across the pool into the court, and Sam brings out +the long table for dinner. + +The seasons shading imperceptibly into one another vary the course of +the day. Early in September the men begin to sit long about the +hall-fire of an evening, and when the snow packs hard on the hills there +is wood-cutting to be done, and in early spring it is the carpenter's +shop. So the form alters, but the substance remains--work and play and +rest.... + +To each one a time will come when the Doctor speaks to him alone. At +some hour, before many days have passed, the Novice will find himself +with those large eyes resting on his face, searchingly. It may be in the +study after the others have scattered, or at the pool where the Master +loved to sit beneath the great tree and hear his "confessions," as the +men called these talks. At such times, when the man came to remember it +afterward, the Doctor asked few questions, said little, but listened. He +had the confessing ear! And as if by chance his hand would rest on the +man's arm or shoulder. For he said--"Touch speaks: soul flows through +flesh into soul." + +Thus he sat and confessed his patients one after another, and his dark +eyes seemed familiar with all man's woes, as if he had listened always. +Men said to him what they had never before let pass their lips to man +or woman, what they themselves scarce looked at in the gloom of their +souls. Unawares it slipped from them, the reason within the reason for +their ill, the ultimate cause of sorrow. From the moment they had +revealed to him this hidden thing--had slipped the leash on their +tongues--it seemed no longer to be feared. "Trouble evaporates, being +properly aired," said the Doctor. And already in the troubled one's mind +the sense of the confused snarl of life began to lessen and veils began +to descend between him and it.... "For you must learn to forget," +counselled the Doctor, "forget day by day until the recording soul +beneath your mind is clean. Therefore--work, forget, be new!"... + +A self-important young man, much concerned with himself, once asked the +Master: + +"Doctor, what is the regimen that you would recommend to me?" + +And we all heard him say in reply-- + +"The potatoes need hilling, and then you'll feel like having a dip in +the pool." + +The young man, it seems, wrote back to the friend in the city who had +sent him--"This Doctor cannot understand my case: he tells me to dig +potatoes and bathe in a swimming pool. That is all! All!" But the +friend, who was an old member of the Brotherhood, telegraphed back--"Dig +and swim, you fool!" Sam took the message at the telephone while we were +dining, and repeated it faithfully to the young man within the hearing +of all. A laugh rose that was hard in dying, and I think the Doctor's +lips wreathed in smile.... In the old days they say the Master gave +medicine like other doctors. That was when he spent part of the year in +the city and had an office there and believed in drugs. But as he gave +up going to the city, the stock of drugs in the cabinet at the end of +the study became exhausted, and was never renewed. All who needed +medicine were sent to an old Brother, who had settled down the valley at +Stowe. "He knows more about pills than I do," the Doctor said. "At least +he can give you the stuff with confidence." Few of the inmates of the +Inn ever went to Stowe, though Dr. Williams was an excellent physician. +And it was from about this time that we began to drop the title of +doctor, calling him instead the Master; and the younger men sometimes, +Father. He seemed to like these new terms, as denoting affection and +respect for his authority. + +By the time that we called him Master, the Inn had come to its maturity. +Altogether it could hold eighteen guests, and if more came, as in +midsummer or autumn, they lived in tents in the orchard or in the hill +camps. The Master was still adding to the forest land--fish and game +preserve the village people called it; for the Master was a hunter and a +fisherman. But up among those curving hills, when he looked out through +the waving trees, measuring by eye a fir or a pine, he would say, +nodding his head--"Boys, behold my heirs--from generation to +generation!" + +He was now fifty and had ceased altogether to go to the city. There were +ripe men in the great hospitals that still remembered him as a young man +in the medical school; but he had dropped out, they said--why? He might +have answered that, instead of following the beaten path, he had spoken +his word to the world through men--and spoken widely. For there was no +break in the stream of life that flowed upward to the old Inn. The +"cells" were always full, winter and summer. Now there were coming +children of the older Brothers, and these, having learned the ways of +the place from their fathers, were already house-broken, as we said, +when they came. They knew that no door was locked about the Inn, but +that if they returned after ten it behooved them to come in by the pool +and make no noise. They knew that when the first ice formed on the pool, +then they were not expected to get out of bed for the morning plunge. +They knew that there was an old custom which no one ever forgot, and +that was to put money in the house-box behind the hall door on leaving, +at least something for each day of the time spent, and as much more as +one cared to give. For, as everyone knew, all in the box beyond the +daily expense went to maintain the School on the road below the village. +So the books of the Inn were easy to keep--there was never a word about +money in the place--but I know that many a large sum of money was found +in this box, and the School never wanted means. + +That I might tell more of what took place in the Inn, and what the +Master said, and the sort of men one found there, and the talk we all +had summer evenings beside the pool and winter nights in the hall! +Winter, I think, was the best time of all the year, the greatest beauty +and the greatest joy, from the first fall of the snow to the yellow +brook water and the floating ice in White River. Then the broad velvety +shadows lay on the hills between the stiff spruces, then came rosy +mornings out of darkness when you knew that some good thing was waiting +for you in the world. After you had drunk your bowl of coffee, you got +your axe and followed the procession of choppers, who were carefully +foresting the Doctor's woods. In the spring, when the little brooks had +begun to run down the slopes, there was road making and mending; for the +Master kept in repair most of the roads about Albany, grinding the rock +in his pit, saying that--"a good road is one sure blessing." + +And the dusks I shall never forget--those gold and violet moments with +the light of immortal heavens behind the rampart of hills; and the +nights, so still, so still like everlasting death, each star set +jewel-wise in a black sky above a white earth. How splendid it was to +turn out of the warm hall where we had been reading and talking in to +the frosty court, with the thermometer at twenty below and still +falling, and look down across the broad white valley, marked by the +streak of bushy alders where the dumb river flowed, up to the little +frozen water courses among the hills, up above where the stars +glittered! You took your way to your room in the silence, rejoicing that +it was all so, that somewhere in this tumultuous world of ours there was +hidden all this beauty and the secret of living; and that you were of +the brotherhood of those who had found it.... + +Thus was the Inn and its Master in the year when he touched sixty, and +his hair and beard were more white than gray. + + + + + II + + +Then there came to the Inn one day in the early part of the summer a new +guest--a man about fifty, with an aging, worldly face. Bill, the Albany +stage man, had brought him from Island Junction, and on the way had +answered all his questions, discreetly, reckoning in his wisdom that his +passenger was "one of those queer folks that went up to the old Doctor's +place." For there was something smart and fashionable about the +stranger's appearance that made Bill uncomfortable. + +"There," he said, as he pulled up outside the red brick house and +pointed over the wall into the garden, "mos' likely you'll find the old +man fussin' 'round somewheres inside there, if he hain't down to the +School," and he drove off with the people's mail. + +The stranger looked back through the village street, which was as silent +as a village street should be at four o'clock on a summer day. Then he +muttered to himself, whimsically, "Mos' likely you'll find the old man +fussin' 'round somewheres inside!" Well, _what next_? And he glanced at +the homely red brick building with the cold eye of one who has made many +goings out and comings in, and to whom novelty offers little +entertainment. As he stood there (thinking possibly of that early train +from the junction on the morrow) the hall door opened wide, and an +oldish man with white eye-brows and black eyes appeared. He was dressed +in a linen suit that deepened the dark tan of his face and hands. He +said: + +"You are Dr. Augustus Norton?" + +"And you," the Stranger replied with a graceful smile, "are the +Master--and this is the Inn!" + +He had forgotten what Percival called the old boy--forgot everything +these days--had tried to remember the name all the way up--nevertheless, +he had turned it off well! So the two looked at each other--one a little +younger as years go, but with lined face and shaking fingers; the other +solid and self-contained, with less of that ready language which comes +from always jostling with nimble wits. But as they stood there, each saw +a Man and an Equal. + +"The great surgeon of St. Jerome's," said our Master in further welcome. + +"Honored by praise from your lips!" Thus the man of the city lightly +turned the compliment, and extended his hand, which the Master took +slowly, gazing meanwhile steadily at his guest. + +"Pray come into my house," said the Master of the Inn, with more +stateliness of manner than he usually had with a new Brother. But, it +may be said, Dr. Augustus Norton had the most distinguished name of that +day in his profession. He followed the Master to his study, with +uncertain steps, and sinking into a deep chair before the smouldering +ashes looked at his host with a sad grin--"Perhaps you'll give me +something--the journey, you know?..." + +Two years before the head surgeon of St. Jerome's had come to the +hospital of a morning to perform some operation--one of those affairs +for which he was known from coast to coast. As he entered the officers' +room that day, with the arrogant eye of the commander-in-chief, one of +his aides looked at him suspiciously, then glanced again--and the great +surgeon felt those eyes upon him when he turned his back. And he knew +why! Something was wrong with him. Nevertheless in glum silence he made +ready to operate. But when the moment came, and he was about to take the +part of God toward the piece of flesh lying in the ether sleep before +him, he hesitated. Then, in the terrible recoil of Fear, he turned +back. + +"Macroe!" he cried to his assistant, "you will have to operate. I +cannot--I am not well!" + +There was almost panic, but Macroe was a man, too, and proceeded to do +his work without a word. The great surgeon, his hands now trembling +beyond disguise, went back to the officers' room, took off his white +robes, and returned to his home. There he wrote his resignation to the +directors of St. Jerome's, and his resignation from other offices of +honor and responsibility. Then he sent for a medical man, an old friend, +and held out his shaking hand to him: + +"The damn thing won't go," he said, pointing also to his head. + +"Too much work," the doctor replied, of course. + +But the great surgeon, who was a man of clear views, added impersonally, +"Too much everything, I guess!" + +There followed the usual prescription, making the sick man a wanderer +and pariah--first to Europe, "to get rid of me," the surgeon growled; +then to Georgia for golf, to Montana for elk, to Canada for salmon, and +so forth. Each time the sick man returned with a thin coat of tan that +peeled off in a few days, and with those shaking hands that suggested +immediately another journey to another climate. Until it happened +finally that the men of St. Jerome's who had first talked of the date of +their chief's return merely raised their eyebrows at the mention of his +name. + +"Done for, poor old boy!" and the great surgeon read it with his lynx +eyes, in the faces of the men he met at his clubs. His mouth drew +together sourly and his back sloped. "Fifty-two," he muttered. "God, +that is too early--something ought to pull me together." So he went on +trying this and that, while his friends said he was "resting," until he +had slipped from men's thoughts. + +One day Percival of St. Jerome's, one of those boys he had growled at +and cursed in former times, met him crawling down the avenue to his +quietest club, and the old surgeon took him by the arm--he was gray in +face and his neck was wasting away--and told the story of his +troubles--as he would to anyone these days. The young man listened +respectfully. Then he spoke of the old Inn, of the Brotherhood, of the +Master and what he had done for miserable men, who had despaired. The +famous surgeon, shaking his head as one who has heard of these miracles +many times and found them naught, was drinking it all in, nevertheless. + +"He takes a man," said the young surgeon, "who doesn't want to live and +makes him fall in love with life." + +Dr. Augustus Norton sniffed. + +"In love with life! That's good! If your Wonder of the Ages can make a +man of fifty fall in love with anything, I must try him." He laughed a +sneering laugh, the feeble merriment of doubt. + +"Ah, Doctor!" cried the young man, "you must go and live with the +Master. And then come back to us at St. Jerome's: for we need you!" + +And the great surgeon, touched to the heart by these last words, said: + +"Well, what's the name of your miracle-worker, and where is he to be +found?... I might as well try all the cures--write a book on 'em one of +these days!"... + +So he came by the stage to the gate of the old Inn, and the Master, who +had been warned by a telegram from the young doctor only that morning, +stood at his door to welcome his celebrated guest. + +He put him in the room of state above the study, a great square room at +the southwest, overlooking the wings and the flower-scented garden, the +pool, and the waving grass fields beyond, dotted with tall elms--all +freshly green. + +"Not a bad sort of place," murmured the weary man, "and there must be +trout in those brooks up yonder. Well, it will do for a week or two, if +there's fishing."... Then the bell sounded for dinner which was served +for the first time that season out of doors in the soft twilight. The +Brothers had gathered in the court beside the fountain, young men and +middle-aged--all having bent under some burden, which they were now +learning to carry easily. They stood about the hall door until the +distinguished Stranger appeared, and he walked between them to the place +of honor at the Master's side. Everyone at the long table was named to +the great surgeon, and then with the coming of the soup he was promptly +forgotten, while the talk of the day's work and the morrow's rose +vigorously from all sides. It was a question of the old mill, which had +given way. An engineer among the company described what would have to be +done to get at the foundations. And a young man who happened to sit next +to the surgeon explained that the Master had reopened an old mill above +the Inn in the Intervale, where he ground corn and wheat and rye with +the old water-wheel; for the country people, who had always got their +grain ground there, complained when the mill had been closed. It seemed +to the Stranger that the dark coarse bread which was served was +extraordinarily good, and he wondered if the ancient process had +anything to do with it and he resolved to see the old mill. Then the +young man said something about bass: there was a cool lake up the +valley, which had been stocked. The surgeon's eye gleamed. Did he know +how to fish for bass! Why, before this boy--yes, he would go at five in +the morning, sharp.... After the meal, while the blue wreaths of smoke +floated across the flowers and the talk rose and fell in the court, the +Master and his new guest were seated alone beneath the great elm. The +surgeon could trace the Master's face in the still waters of the pool at +their feet, and it seemed to him like a finely cut cameo, with gentle +lines about the mouth and eyes that relieved the thick nose. +Nevertheless he knew by certain instinct that they were not of the same +kind. The Master was very silent this night, and his guest felt that +some mystery, some vacuum existed between them, as he gazed on the face +in the water. It was as if the old man were holding him off at arm's +length while he looked into him. But the great surgeon, who was used to +the amenities of city life, resolved to make his host talk: + +"Extraordinary sort of place you have here! I don't know that I have +ever seen anything just like it. And what is your System?" + +"What is my System?" repeated the Master wonderingly. + +"Yes! Your method of building these fellows up--electricity, diet, +massage, baths--what is your line?" An urbane smile removed the offence +of the banter. + +"I have no System!" the Master replied thoughtfully. "I live my life +here with my work, and those you see come and live with me as my +friends." + +"Ah, but you have ideas ... extraordinary success ... so many cases," +the great man muttered, confused by the Master's steady gaze. + +"You will learn more about us after you have been here a little time. +You will see, and the others will help you to understand. To-morrow we +work at the mill, and the next day we shall be in the gardens--but you +may be too tired to join us. And we bathe here, morning and noon. Harvey +will tell you all our customs." + +The celebrated surgeon of St. Jerome's wrote that night to an old +friend: "And the learned doctor's prescription seems to be to dig in the +garden and bathe in a great pool! A daffy sort of place--but I am going +bass fishing to-morrow at five with a young man, who is just the right +age for a son! So to bed, but I suspect that I shall see you +soon--novelties wear out quickly at my years." + +Just here there entered that lovely night wind, rising far away beyond +the low lakes to the south--it soughed through the room, swaying the +draperies, sighing, sighing, and it blew out the candle. The sick man +looked down on the court below, white in the moonlight, and his eyes +roved farther to the dark orchard, and the great barns and the huddled +cattle. + +"Quite a bit of country here!" the surgeon murmured. As he stood there +looking into the misty light which covered the Intervale, up to the +great hills above which floated luminous cloud banks, the chorus of an +old song rose from below where the pipes gleamed in the dark about the +pool. He leaned out into the air, filled with all the wild scent of +green fields, and added under a sort of compulsion--"And a good place, +enough!" + +He went to bed to a deep sleep, and over his tired, worldly face the +night wind passed gently, stripping leaf by leaf from his weary mind +that heavy coating of care which he had wrapped about him in the course +of many years. + + * * * * * + +Dr. Augustus Norton did not return at the end of one week, nor of two. +The city saw him, indeed, no more that year. It was said that a frisky, +rosy ghost of the great surgeon had slipped into St. Jerome's near +Christmas--had skipped through a club or two and shaken hands about +pretty generally--and disappeared. Sometimes letters came from him with +an out-of-the-way postmark on them, saying in a jesting tone that he was +studying the methods of an extraordinary country doctor, who seemed to +cure men by touch. "He lives up here among the hills in forty degrees of +frost, and if I am not mistaken he is nearer the Secret than all of you +pill slingers"--(for he was writing a mere doctor of medicine!). "Anyhow +I shall stay on until I learn the Secret--or my host turns me out; for +life up here seems as good to me as ice-cream and kisses to a girl of +sixteen.... Why should I go back mucking about with you fellows--just +yet? I caught a five-pounder yesterday, and _ate_ him!" + +There are many stories of the great surgeon that have come to me from +those days. He was much liked, especially by the younger men, after the +first gloom had worn off, and he began to feel the blood run once more. +He had a joking way with him that made him a good table companion, and +the Brothers pretending that he would become the historian of the order +taught him all the traditions of the place. "But the Secret, the Secret! +Where is it?" he would demand jestingly. One night--it was at table and +all were there--Harvey asked him: + +"Has the Master confessed you?" + +"'Confessed me'?" repeated the surgeon. "What's that?" + +A sudden silence fell on all, because this was the one thing never +spoken of, at least in public. Then the Master, who had been silent all +that evening, turned the talk to other matters. + +The Master, to be sure, gave this distinguished guest all liberties, and +they often talked together as men of the same profession. And the +surgeon witnessed all--the mending of the mill, the planting and the +hoeing and the harvesting, the preparations for the long winter, the +chopping and the road-making--all, and he tested it with his hands. "Not +bad sport," he would say, "with so many sick-well young men about to +help!" + +But meanwhile the "secret" escaped the keen mind, though he sought for +it daily. + +"You give no drugs, Doctor," he complained. "You're a scab on the +profession!" + +"The drugs gave out," the Master explained, "and I neglected to order +more.... There's always Bert Williams at Stowe, who can give you +anything you might want--shall I send for him, Doctor?" + +There was laughter all about, and when it died down the great surgeon +returned to the attack. + +"Well, come, tell us now what you do believe in? Magic, the laying on of +hands? Come, there are four doctors here, and we have the right to +know--or we'll report you!" + +"I believe," said the Master solemnly, in reply to the banter, "I +believe in Man and in God." And there followed such talk as had never +been in the old hall; for the surgeon was, after his kind, a +materialist and pushed the Master for definition. The Master believed, +as I recall it, that Disease could not be cured, for the most part. No +chemistry would ever solve the mystery of pain! But Disease could be +ignored, and the best way to forget pain was through labor. Not labor +merely for oneself; but also something for others. Wherefore the School, +around which the Inn and the farm and all had grown. For he told us then +that he had bought the Inn as a home for his boys, the waste product of +the city. Finding the old tavern too small for his purpose and seeing +how he should need helpers, he had encouraged ailing men to come to live +with him and to cure themselves by curing others. Without that School +below in the valley, with its workshops and cottages, there would have +been no Inn! + +As for God--that night he would go no further, and the surgeon said +rather flippantly, we all thought, that the Master had left little room +in his world for God, anyhow--he had made man so large. It was a stormy +August evening, I remember, when we had been forced to dine within on +account of the gusty rain that had come after a still, hot day. The +valley seemed filled with murk, which was momentarily torn by fire, +revealing the trembling leaves upon the trees. When we passed through +the arcade to reach our rooms, the surgeon pointed out into this sea of +fire and darkness, and muttered with a touch of irony-- + +"HE seems to be talking for himself this evening!" + +Just then a bolt shot downward, revealing with large exaggeration the +hills, the folded valleys--the descents. + +"It's like standing on a thin plank in a turbulent sea!" the surgeon +remarked wryly. "Ah, my boy, Life's like that!" and he disappeared into +his room. + +Nevertheless, it was that night he wrote to his friend: "I am getting +nearer this Mystery, which I take to be, the inner heart of it, a +mixture of the Holy Ghost and Sweat--with a good bath afterward! But the +old boy is the mixer of the Pills, mind you, and he _is_ a Master! Most +likely I shall never get hold of the heart of it; for somehow, yet with +all courtesy, he keeps me at a distance. I have never been 'confessed,' +whatever that may be--an experience that comes to the youngest boy among +them! Perhaps the Doctor thinks that old fellows like you and me have +only dead sins to confess, which would crumble to dust if exposed. But +there is a sting in very old sins, I think--for instance--oh! if you +were here tonight, I should be as foolish as a woman...." + +The storm that night struck one of the school buildings and killed a +lad. In the morning the Master and the surgeon set out for the School +Village, which was lower in the valley beyond Albany. It was warm and +clear at the Inn; but thick mist wreaths still lay heavily over the +Intervale. The hills all about glittered as in October, and there was +in the air that laughing peace, that breath of sweet plenty which comes +the morning after a storm. The two men followed the foot-path, which +wound downward from the Inn across the Intervale. The sun filled the +windless air, sucking up the spicy odors of the tangled path--fern and +balsam and the mother scent of earth and rain and sun. The new green +rioted over the dead leaves.... The Master closely observing his guest, +remarked: + +"You seem quite well, Doctor. I suppose you will be leaving us soon?" + +"Leaving?" the surgeon questioned slowly, as if a secret dread had risen +at the Master's hint of departure. "Yes," he admitted, after a time, "I +suppose I am what you would call well--well enough. But something still +clogs within me. It may be the memory of Fear. I am afraid of myself!" + +"Afraid? You need some test, perhaps. That will come sooner or later; we +need not hurry it!" + +"No, we need not hurry!" + +Yet he knew well enough that the Inn never sheltered drones, and that +many special indulgences had been granted him: he had borrowed freely +from the younger Brothers--of their time and strength. He thought +complacently of the large cheque which he should drop into the house-box +on his departure. With it the Master would be able to build a new +cottage or a small hospital for the School. + +"Some of them," mused the Master, "never go back to the machine that +once broke them. They stay about here and help me--buy a farm and +revert! But for the most part they are keen to get back to the fight, as +is right and best. Sometimes when they loiter too long, I shove them out +of the nest!" + +"And I am near the shoving point?" his companion retorted quickly. "So I +must leave all your dear boys and Peace and Fishing and _you_! Suppose +so, suppose so!... Doctor, you've saved my life--oh, hang it, that +doesn't tell the story. But even _I_ can feel what it is to live at the +Inn!" + +Instinctively he grasped his host by the arm--he was an impulsive man. +But the Master's arm did not respond to the clasp; indeed, a slight +shiver seemed to shake it, so that the surgeon's hand fell away while +the Master said: + +"I am glad to have been of service--to you--yes, especially to +_you_...." + +They came into the school village, a tiny place of old white houses, +very clean and trim, with a number of sweeping elms along the narrow +road. A mountain brook turned an old water-wheel, supplying power for +the workshops where the boys were trained. The great surgeon had visited +the place many times in company with the Master, and though he admired +the order and economy of the institution, and respected its +purpose--that is, to create men out of the refuse of society--to tell +the truth, the place bored him a trifle. This morning they went directly +to the little cottage that served as infirmary, where the dead boy had +been brought. He was a black-haired Italian, and his lips curved upward +pleasantly. The Master putting his hand on the dead boy's brow as he +might have done in life stood looking at the face. + +"I've got a case in the next room, I'd like to have your opinion on, +Doctor," the young physician said in a low tone to the surgeon, and the +two crossed the passage into the neighboring room. The surgeon fastened +his eyes on the sick lad's body: here was a case he understood, a +problem with a solution. The old Master coming in from the dead stood +behind the two. + +"Williams," the surgeon said, "it's so, sure enough--you must +operate--at once!" + +"I was afraid it was that," the younger man replied. "But how can I +operate here?" + +The surgeon shrugged his shoulders--"He would never reach the city!" + +"Then I must, you think----" + +The shrewd surgeon recognized Fear in the young man's voice. Quick the +thrill shot through his nerves, and he cried, "I will operate, _now_." + +In half an hour it was over, and the Master and the surgeon were leaving +the village, climbing up by the steep path under the blazing noon sun. +The Master glanced at the man by his side, who strode along confidently, +a trifle of a swagger in his buoyant steps. The Master remarked: + +"The test came, and you took it--splendidly." + +"Yes," the great surgeon replied, smiling happily, "it's all there, +Doctor, the old power. I believe I am about ready to get into harness +again!" After they had walked more of the way without speaking, the +surgeon added, as to himself--"But there are other things to be feared!" + +Though the Master looked at him closely he invited no explanation, and +they finished their homeward walk without remark. + + * * * * * + +It soon got about among the inmates of the Inn what a wonderful +operation the surgeon of St. Jerome's had performed, and it was rumored +that at the beginning of autumn he would go back to his old position. +Meantime the great surgeon enjoyed the homage that men always pay to +power, the consideration of his fellows. He had been much liked; but +now that the Brothers knew how soon he was to leave them, they +surrounded him with those attentions that men most love, elevating him +almost to the rank of the Master--and they feared him less. His fame +spread, so that from some mill beyond Stowe they brought to the Inn a +desperate case, and the surgeon operated again successfully, +demonstrating that he was once more master of his art, and master of +himself. So he stayed on merely to enjoy his triumph and escape the dull +season in the city. + +It was a wonderful summer, that! The fitful temper of the north played +in all its moods. There were days when the sun shone tropically down +into the valleys, without a breath of air, when the earthy, woody +smells were strong--and the nights--perfect stillness and peace, as if +some spirit of the air were listening for love words on the earth. The +great elms along Albany road hung their branches motionless, and when +the moon came over behind the house the great hills began to swim +ghostly, vague--beyond, always beyond!... And then there were the fierce +storms that swept up the valley and hung growling along the hills for +days, and afterward, sky-washed and clear, the westerly breeze would +come tearing down the Intervale, drying the earth before it.... But each +day there was a change in the sound and the smell of the fields and the +woods--in the quick race of the northern summer--a change that the +surgeon, fishing up the tiny streams, felt and noted. Each day, so +radiant with its abundant life, sounded some under-note of fulfilment +and change--speaking beforehand of death to come. + +Toward the end of August a snap of cold drove us in-doors for the night +meal. Then around the fire there was great talk between the Master and +the surgeon, a sort of battle of the soul, to which we others paid +silent attention. For wherever those nights the talk might rise, in the +little rills of accidental words, it always flowed down to the deep +underlying thoughts of men. And in those depths, as I said, these two +wrestled with each other. The Master, who had grown silent of late +years, woke once more with fire. The light, keen thrusts of the +surgeon, who argued like a fencer, roused his whole being; and as day by +day it went on we who watched saw that in a way the talk of these two +men set forth the great conflict of conflicts, that deepest fissure of +life and belief anent the Soul and the Body. And the Master, who had +lived his faiths by his life before our eyes, was being worsted in the +argument! The great surgeon had the better mind, and he had seen all of +life that one may see with eyes.... + +They were talking of the day of departure for the distinguished guest, +and arranging for some kind of triumphal procession to escort him to +White River. But he would not set the time, shrinking from this act, as +if all were not yet done. There came a warm, glowing day early in +September, and at night after the pipes were lighted the surgeon and the +Master strolled off in the direction of the pool, arm in arm. There had +been no talk that day, the surgeon apparently shrinking from coming to +the last grapple with one whose faiths were so important to him as the +Master's. + +"The flowers are dying: they tell me it's time to move on," said the +surgeon. "And yet, my dear host, I go without the Secret, without +understanding All!" + +"Perhaps there is no inner Secret," the Master smiled. "It is all here +before you." + +"I know that--you have been very good to me, shared everything. If I +have not learned the Secret, it is my fault, my incapacity. But--" and +the gay tone dropped quickly and a flash of bitterness succeeded--"I at +least know that there _is_ a Secret!" + +They sat down on the marble bench and looked into the water, each +thinking his thoughts. Suddenly the surgeon began to speak, hesitantly, +as if there had long been something in his mind that he was compelled to +say. + +"My friend," he said, "I too have something to tell--the cause within +the cause, the reason of the reason--at least, sometimes I think it is! +The root reason for all--unhappiness, defeat, for the shaking hand and +the jesting voice. And I want you to hear it--if you will." + +The Master raised his face from the pool but said never a word. The +surgeon continued, his voice trembling at times, though he spoke +slowly, evidently trying to banish all feeling. + +"It is a common enough story at the start, at least among men of our +kind. You know that I was trained largely in Europe. My father had the +means to give me the best, and time to take it in. So I was over there, +before I came back to St. Jerome's, three, four years at Paris, Munich, +Vienna, all about.... While I was away I lived as the others, for the +most part--you know our profession--and youth. The rascals are pretty +much the same to-day, I judge from what my friends say of their sons! +Well, at least I worked like the devil, and was decent.... Oh, it isn't +for that I'm telling the tale! I was ambitious, then. And the time came +to go back, as it does in the end, and I took a few weeks' run through +Italy as a final taste of the lovely European thing, and came down to +Naples to get the boat for New York. I've never been back to Naples +since, and that was twenty-six years ago this autumn. But I can see the +city always as it was then! The seething human hive--the fellows piling +in the freight to the music of their songs--the fiery mouth of Vesuvius +up above. And the soft, dark night with just a plash of waves on the +quay!" + +The Master listened, his eyes again buried in the water at their feet. + +"Well, _she_ was there on board, of course--looking out also into that +warm dark night and sighing for all that was to be lost so soon. There +were few passengers in those days.... She was my countrywoman, and +beautiful, and there was something--at least so I thought then--of +especial sweetness in her eyes, something strong in her heart. She was +engaged to a man living somewhere in the States, and she was going back +to marry him. Why she was over there then I forget, and it is of no +importance. I think that the man was a doctor, too--in some small +city.... I loved her!" + +The Master raised his eyes from the pool and leaning on his folded arms +looked into the surgeon's face. + +"I am afraid I never thought much about that other fellow--never have to +this day! That was part of the brute I am--to see only what is before my +eyes. And I knew by the time we had swung into the Atlantic that I +wanted that woman as I had never wanted things before. She stirred me, +mind and all. Of course it might have been some one else--any one you +will say--and if she had been an ordinary young girl, it might have gone +differently? It is one of the things we can't tell in this life. There +was something in that woman that was big all through and roused the +spirit in me. I never knew man or woman who thirsted more for greatness, +for accomplishment. Perhaps the man she was to marry gave her little to +hope for--probably it was some raw boy-and-girl affair such as we have +in America.... The days went by, and it was clearer to both of us what +must be. But we didn't speak of it. She found in me, I suppose, the +power, the sort of thing she had missed in the other. I was to do all +those grand things she was so hot after. I have done some of them too. +But that was when she had gone and I no longer needed her.... I needed +her then, and I took her--that is all. + +"The detail is old and dim--and what do you care to hear of a young +man's loves! Before we reached port it was understood between us. I told +her I wanted her to leave the other chap--he was never altogether clear +to me--and to marry me as soon as she could. We did not stumble or slide +into it, not in the least: we looked it through and through--that was +her kind and mine. How she loved to look life in the face! I have found +few women who like that.... In the end she asked me not to come near +her the last day. She would write me the day after we had landed, either +yes or no. So she kissed me, and we parted still out at sea." + +All the Brothers had left the court and the arcades, where they had been +strolling, and old Sam was putting out the Inn lights. But the two men +beside the pool made no movement. The west wind still drew in down the +valley with summer warmth and ruffled the water at their feet. + +"My father met me at the dock--you know he was the first surgeon at St. +Jerome's before me. My mother was with him.... But as she kissed me I +was thinking of that letter.... I knew it would come. Some things must! +Well, it came." + +The silent listener bent his head, and the surgeon mused on his +passionate memory. At last the Master whispered in a low voice that +hardly reached into the night: + +"Did you make her happy?" + +The surgeon did not answer the question at once. + +"Did you make her happy?" the old man demanded again, and his voice +trembled this time with such intensity that his companion looked at him +wonderingly. And in those dark eyes of the Master's he read something +that made him shrink away. Then for the third time the old man demanded +sternly: + +"Tell me--did you make her happy?" + +It was the voice of one who had a right to know, and the surgeon +whispered back slowly: + +"Happy? No, my God! Perhaps at first, in the struggle, a little. But +afterward there was too much--too many things. It went, the inspiration +and the love. I broke her heart--she left me! That--that is _my_ +Reason!" + +"It _is_ the Reason! For you took all, all--you let her give all, and +you gave her--what?" + +"Nothing--she died." + +"I know--she died." + +The Master had risen, and with folded arms faced his guest, a pitying +look in his eyes. The surgeon covered his face with his hands, and after +a long time said: + +"So you knew this?" + +"Yes, I knew!" + +"And knowing you let me come here. You took me into your house, you +healed me, you gave me back my life!" + +And the Master replied with a firm voice: + +"I knew, and I gave you back your life." In a little while he explained +more softly: "You and I are no longer young men who feel hotly and +settle such a matter with hate. We cannot quarrel now for the possession +of a woman.... She chose: remember that!... It was twenty-six years this +September. We have lived our lives, you and I; we have lived out our +lives, the good and the evil. Why should we now for the second time add +passion to sorrow?" + +"And yet knowing all you took me in!" + +"Yes!" the old man cried almost proudly. "And I have made you again +what you once were.... What _she_ loved as you," he added to himself, "a +man full of Power." + +Then they were speechless in face of the fact: the one had taken all and +the sweet love turned to acid in his heart, and the other had lost and +the bitter turned to sweet! When a long time had passed the surgeon +spoke timidly: + +"It might have been so different for her with you! You loved her--more." + +There was the light of a compassionate smile on the Master's lips as he +replied: + +"Yes, I loved her, too." + +"And it changed things--for you!" + +"It changed things. There might have been my St. Jerome's--my fame also. +Instead, I came here with my boys. And here I shall die, please God." + +The old Master then became silent, his face set in a dream of life, as +it was, as it would have been; while the great surgeon of St. Jerome's +thought such thoughts as had never passed before into his mind. The +night wind had died at this late hour, and in its place there was a +coldness of the turning season. The stars shone near the earth and all +was silent with the peace of mysteries. The Master looked at the man +beside him and said calmly: + +"It is well as it is--all well!" + +At last the surgeon rose and stood before the Master. + +"I have learned the Secret," he said, "and now it is time for me to +go." + +He went up to the house through the little court and disappeared within +the Inn, while the Master sat by the pool, his face graven like the face +of an old man, who has seen the circle of life and understands.... The +next morning there was much talk about Dr. Norton's disappearance, until +some one explained that the surgeon had been suddenly called back to the +city. + + * * * * * + +The news spread through the Brotherhood one winter that the old Inn had +been burned to the ground, a bitter December night when all the +water-taps were frozen. And the Master, who had grown deaf of late, had +been caught in his remote chamber, and burned or rather suffocated. +There were few men in the Inn at the time, it being the holiday season, +and when they had fought their way to the old man's room, they found him +lying on the lounge by the window, the lids fallen over the dark eyes +and his face placid with sleep or contemplation.... They sought in vain +for the reason of the fire--but why search for causes? + + * * * * * + +All those beautiful hills that we loved to watch as the evening haze +gathered, the Master left in trust for the people of the State--many +acres of waving forests. And the School continued in its old place, the +Brothers looking after its wants and supplying it with means to continue +its work. But the Inn was never rebuilt. The blackened ruins of +buildings were removed and the garden in the court extended so that it +covered the whole space where the Inn had stood. This was enclosed with +a thick plantation of firs on all sides but that one which looked +westward across the Intervale. The spot can be seen for miles around on +the Albany hill side. + +And when it was ready--all fragrant and radiant with flowers--they +placed the Master there beside the pool, where he had loved to sit, +surrounded by men. On the sunken slab his title was engraved-- + + THE MASTER OF THE INN + + + + +Transcriber's Note: Both eyebrows and eye-brows are used in this text. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Master of the Inn, by Robert Herrick + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MASTER OF THE INN *** + +***** This file should be named 35388.txt or 35388.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/3/8/35388/ + +Produced by Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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